THE RESTITUTION. (A TRUE STORY.) Where Dover's awful heights command And Cæsar's tower doth ever stand Across the Downs, o'er hill and dale, A labourer sped his way To reach, ere twilight's aid should fail, 'His lovely native bay. More grateful to his jaded sense Each thymy breeze that blows, Than all the perfumes that dispense The jasmine or the rose. As round he cast his eyes, nor view'd He mused, "Sure this is solitude, Oh! dire mistake! as now he treads With cudgels flourish'd o'er their heads, Burst from his heavy heart; "Poor Mary! how thou'lt grieve, when I These tidings sad impart !" A sudden hope his bosom fired; The locker bread doth lack; Oh! give a trifle back!" And Nature, howsoe'er debas'd, Still dwells in that abode. But far he had not trudged, when, hark! The thieves are following near. And many a mutter'd oath they swear, Tir'd with the fruitless search and vain, Where parting cliffs a bay disclose, His suffering spouse, in tones of pain, Then from his pouch the pieces drew, Uttering a groan as deep as though That groan was answered by a scream -- The unexpected prize? Ah, no! far different thoughts than these That virtuous pair throughout the night Cried he, "I'll to the Vicar straight, Then up the Down, besprent with des, Three kingdoms vainly strove; Or Heaven's bright realm above. Admitted to the presence now, "You, when that plea you did advance, "Were this disclosure public made, X. Y. Z. In our last we had the pleasure of recording a very satisfactory meeting of the Metropolitan Drapers' Association; and during the past month its members have not been idle. Our readers must be well aware of the strong interest we have always taken in this "good cause;" and we make no apology for again referring to the subject: as well might we apologize for the performance of any other peremptory duty. We need scarcely refer to the frightful evils of the Late-hour System: they are sufficiently apparent to all who take the trouble to think. Let those whose lot it is or has been to work with head or hand decide if it be not a wrong and a cruelty unworthy the darkest ages of bar barism to permit the excessive toil which, in the great towns of the kingdom, is sending our youth by tens of thousands to a premature grave. But it is the mighty engine of public feeling and public opinion which must bring about a revolution. If there be none to buy in the evening, there will be none to sell; and, instead of a system which keeps assistants toiling on till those unseemly hours when lecturerooms are closed, and private friends are retiring to rest, so that the social circle becomes a thing unknown-till those hours, in fact, when only the tavern is open-we fondly hope to see the day when this oppressed class shall enjoy the rights of humanity: they ask no more. How worthy they are to enjoy such rights, the manner in which the present movement has been conducted most forcibly proves. They have used only the moral instruments of argument and investigation; no violent outbreak, no rebellion to authority. On the 12th December a meeting was held at the Cadogan Institute, at which the chair was taken by Mr. S. C. Hall, who delivered an earnest, clever, and concise speech. In fact, they could not easily have found so sincere and enthusiastic an advocate. We believe it was his suggestion that every lady should endeavour in her own circle to form a band who pledge themselves to abstain from late shopping. He was followed by the Rev. Mr. Burgess and the Rev. Dr. Morrison, each of whom gave a very clear view of the benefits which would necessarily follow the adoption of a different system; a change of such vital importance to an immense body in society, soon to be masters and the heads of families, and who necessarily must give a tone to the circle in which they movewhether good or bad must entirely arise from the advantages they may enjoy, or the continuation of the present cruel custom, to the entire prevention of mental and moral improvement. A Surgeon spoke next, treating the subject in a medical point of view; when he was succeeded by Mr. Lilwall, who addressed the meeting in a speech of no great length, but of powerful substance, A yet more numerous assembly were gathered together on Thursday, the 18th, at a soirée given at the Hanover-square Rooms, Mr. Wakley, M.P., taking the chair. So late in the month we have not time or space to dwell on his eloquent and impressive speech. He remarked the importance of the class whose interests they had met to advocate-a class from which so many of our country's rulers have sprung. And are these-at all events, future parents and masters-to be deprived of all opportunity for religious, moral, and intellectual improvement, in an age, too, when we fancy that ignorance is melting away like ice in the sunshine? Other speakers, including Dr. Lancaster and Mr. Payne, the barrister, alluded to the physical evils which are sure to result from excessive toil; and it was a most gratifying circumstance to behold several most esteemed and influential employers advocating with purse and time and thought the purposes of the association; and expressing their conviction that it was for their interests that a system of earlier closing should be adopted. We cannot do better than conclude this hurried notice by some lines written by a gifted friend who was present. LINES. Suggested by a Sentiment delivered at a Meeting of the Metropolitan Drapers' Association, held in the Hanover-square Rooms, Dec. 18th, 1845. BY MISS M. H. ACTON. A thrilling cry, a mighty cry, Is rushing through the land; From a firm and earnest band. They ask her if the palid cheek, The dim and sunken eye, Ah, no! be hers, in sympathy, 'Neath many a trial bend, And with a firm and noble zeal, Their truthful cause befriend. Be hers the spirit prompt to aid This long-enduring band, And rings throughout the land; Their prayer, their wrongs, withstand? 54 LITERATURE. BURNS' FIRESIDE LIBRARY. We have often had occasion to notice this delightful series of amusing and instructive works; and now that some half dozen fresh numbers demand from us an introduction and commendation, we will no longer delay the performance of our duty, especially as some of them belong to the class of marvellous stories which are said to be most appropriately read and told in the long winter evenings. Of the more solid school we must mention the volume, "Lives of Celebrated Greeks," including eight biographies, written in a pleasant and familiar style, but one which shows that numerous authorities have been consulted and collated. It will be a most acceptable work to students of ancient history, and youthful readers of all denominations. Household Tales and Traditions," and "Twelve Nights' Entertainments," form a rare budget of varieties; including exciting narratives and wonderful fairy tales, the greater number of them, we suspect, entirely new to the English reader. "Tales by the Baroness Fouqué," and "The Sheik of Alexandria," from the German of Hauff, contain a full share of German horrors, impossibilities, and yet fantastic and alluring incidents; all of these works, let us remark, being illustrated in a style of high art. In our last number we had to commend a "Ghost Story," in the "Book of Beauty," from the pen of one of our own most gifted authors, and perhaps our readers will think we have taken a sudden predilection for this sort of writing. We cannot help it-nay, we plead guilty to a lingering love of the marvellous, provided it be dealt with in a masterly manner, and shroud some beautiful truth. This is especially the case with "The White Lady," translated from the German of Woltmann, and forming a number of "The Fireside Library." The spectre, bearing the bodily shape of an ancestress of a noble family, has haunted the castle for centuries, appearing to her descendants generally on the most solemn and important occasions of their lives. Let us extract part of the confession of the poor ghost, when at last she is permitted to reveal the circumstances of her unnatural fate. The following refers to her death-the death of an adoring and adored wife and mother : "But vain was that hope! A few days only intervened, when I awoke one morning in my bed, without the power to move, and my throbbing heart and brain tortured with the thought as if of some dark prophecy-' No more shalt thou see the absent !' and my anguish became indescribable. My women, soon after entering, were shocked at my looks, and hastened away. My daughters came: they knelt beside my bed, and my holy daughter alone it was who conquered her tears and her grief. I wept with the rest; I wept more bitterly than they. I could not bear to die. I caused my grandchildren to be brought and my servants to be summoned. All came round my bed. I clung to life: they all linked me to it! And the holy priest now approached, and pronounced over me his blessing, and warned me that my hour was near, when I must quit this world and and that it was now my duty to turn my thoughts te all it contained so dear to me, at God's command. Him who had ordained this affliction-if it shou befall me and mine-in mercy, and for my salvation "I would not hear the pious man to the end. I wept; I bade him be silent, and not call that a merry which would snatch me away in the fulness of z life from so many objects of my love, without eve a parting from the dear companion of my youth a age. "Then my eldest daughter threw herself on her knees beside my bed, and, with folded hands, spok so sweetly and so solemnly of the darkness of morta vision; she assured me I should soon bless even this my fate, and with smiles more blissful than DOW look down on her father, on her, on her brothes and sisters, and on my home, if I would now be turn my heart to God, and devote all my thoughs to, and rest all my hopes on Him alone. "I heard only the sweet sound of her voice; I felt nothing but the joy of her holiness. Pray, pray to God,' I cried, that I may live! But, alas m my unspeakable anguish, I felt myself growing weaker and weaker every moment, in the struggle I maintained against death. The priest then knelt again, and prayed beside me, as he presented the sacred symbols of religion; but I pushed them aside, and bade him cease, a not invoke my death. I renounced in my heart all happiness save that of seeing once more my lord and husband, of remaining with my children, and all those so dear to my heart in that home in which I had dwelt so long in peace, on this beauteous earth: and my thoughts recoiled from ever other object with abhorrence. strained myself by force to sustain it, and I strove "But weaker and weaker grew my breath; I conwith all my sinking powers to inhale air and life with. exhausted, agonized lungs. The priest prayed aloud for my salvation. I cursed his prayer; it seemed to me as if it only hastened the coming of death. I ordered him to be taken from my sight. I invokedI besought heaven, with the utmost effort of gasping passion, to grant me life-life-life! "This prayer was my last thought, and then a deep slumber irresistibly took possession of my en able delight; a state no longer of breathing, yet er tire consciousness. It was a long repose of unspeak isting; of floating, as if without effort, on the wings of thought; no longer feeling or thinking, yet of observing all things in infinite clearness. I beheld, as it were, the earth with her day and night, her light and shade, her starry firmament, her beauteous verdure, so fresh and green, the busy rounds of life, the ever-varying connection of nature and innocence with God-contemplations teeming with peace from hea ven, like a revelation from on high, freed from all association with bodily pain, pleasure, or anxiety I had no desire to return to the past state of trial and infliction. "And now there arose before me a form resembling man, but far more lofty and noble, of such infinite "Here my vision of death dissolved into a slumber of life, and I lost the close of the sentence. The apparition faded from my sight, the power of breathing returned, and I felt the burden of earthly existence again rising and sinking within my bosom; I heard hollow, earthly sounds from time to time, dark and gloomy shades surrounded me, and a red light glimmered above my head. "I opened my eyes; I recognised the lamp in our family vault burning over me. I lay in my coffin, wrapped in my shroud, whilst the funeral bell tolled in the tower above, and the knell pealed for me! I was once more alive! The feeling of life weighed heavily upon me after the recollection of the new existence which had just passed away. My first thought was of my husband-my children-all that was mine, and, full of joy, I quickly arose, and only wished to quit the vault to meet them. "The gates of the vault and the folding doors of the church stood wide open, an unknown impulse drew me through, and I found myself in the open air. Wide around me lay the landscape in the misty light of the moon; the knell tolled on; I beheld a dark funeral procession surrounded by torches-it slowly approached. Trembling with inward horror I longed to ascertain what it meant, to discover who lay on the bier, and at once I stood beside it. In sudden haste the bearers put it down, and fled; the attendants threw away their torches, and like the rest, fled with gestures of terror. The whole procession was scattered in a moment on my appearance-I stood alone beside the coffin-I pulled away the pall that covered it, and by the light of the moon, and the torches still burning on the ground, I recognised my lord and husband, beheld him dead before me, his wife, so newly called to life again! I threw myself prostrate on the coffin; I pressed my warm and breathing lips, my painfully breaking heart, on his calm and death-closed mouth, on his silent, unmoved breast. O! life-life-life!" PAWSEY'S LADIES' FASHIONABLE REPOSITORY for 1846 (Longman).-A very nice pocketbook, containing the usual attributes of the same, and displaying more than the usual taste and merit of their illustrations and literature. Agnes Strickland and Miss Hamilton are among the contributors of original verses; and the book contains a beautiful poem in allusion to the melancholy career of Gerald Griffin, and which, but for the reasons we have given above, we should be tempted to transfer to our own pages. It is entitled, "The Unanswered Call," and was suggested by the loud calls of the audience for the "author," on the successful representation of his play of "Gysippus." Alas! he was beyond the reach of mortal voices he had died broken-hearted, life-wearied, despairing of success. He had vainly attempted to procure the acceptance of that very play during his lifetime; and now the laurels came they could but crown his memory! THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF LIFE (White, 350, Oxford-street).—An epitome of "wise saws and modern instances," some of which we may occasionally borrow to fill up a vacant corner. A catalogue of musical works is, strangely enough, added to it. Is one intended to sell the other? THE CRITIC: a Weekly Journal of British and Foreign Literature and the Arts. London, 29, Essex-street.-To all those who are not already acquainted with the merits of this work, we urgently recommend their attention to it. On all points connected with the arts it is inAnd her doom-her punishment for her re- deed invaluable. Its notices of books, &c., are bellious clinging to life, is a sort of life in death characterized with judgment and impartiality until-but we must not reveal the conditions. (indeed we never before saw a work of the kind For ages she watches her posterity, her strong that leant so little to the "aristocracy of fame," affections impelling her to their presence on the tempered always with a kindly feeling towards the most solemn or blissful occasions of their lives- young and but newly-tried author); and as such alas! to be unto them only a terror and a could it fail of gaining friends? We trust that the horror. Is there not scope for exquisitely touch-present success of this weekly record has amply ing incidents and poetical treatment in such a story? a story carried out in a manner worthy the conception.* SPRING GATHERINGS : a collection of Poems; by George Linnæus Banks, author of * We have just received a magnificent volume, "Poems and Pictures," brought out by the publisher of the "Fireside Library." We regret that, having already a long review with poetical extracts in our pages, we must delay the ample notice we intend to give of it until next number. repaid the editor for all his exertions: he may rest assured that he has raised it to a standard of excellence, to maintain which now only rests with himself. "LA REINE MARGOT," PAR MONSIEUR ALEXANDRE DUMAS.-The versatile talent of Monsieur Dumas shines with astonishing brilliancy in the historical novel. In the work before us, he has chosen the reign of Charles the Ninth, or rather that of Catherine de Medecis, which, though so repeatedly treated by numerous other writers, acquires in his hands a dramatic force of fearful novelty. We followed him with palpitating dread amongst the horrors of the massacre of St. Barthlemy, and seemed by his magic talent to become one of the awestricken spectators of the tragic death of the Admiral de Coligny :— "En ce moment on put distinguer l'objet que Besme attirait à lui d'un si puissant effort. C'était le cadavre d'un vieillard. Il le souleva au-dessus du "Tout-à-coup, par une porte cachée dans la muraille s'élança un jeune homme de seize à dix-sept ans, vêtu de noir, pâle et les cheveux en désordre. 'Attends, ma sœur, attends, cria-t-il, me voilà! me voilà !' François! François! à mon secours!' dit Marguerite. "Le duc d'Alençon!' murmura La Hurière, en baissant son arquebuse. "Mordi, un fils de France!' grommela Coconnas en reculant d'un pas. Il vit Marguerite échevelée, plus belle que jamais, "Le duc d'Alençon jetà un regard antour de lui. appuyée à la muraille, entourée d'hommes la fureur dans les yeux, la sueur au front, l'écume à la bouche. "Misérables!' s'ecria-t-il. balcon, le balança un instant dans le vide et le jeta L'amiral!' s'écrierent ensemble vingt voix qui ensemble se turent aussitôt. "Oui, l'amiral; c'est bien lui,' dit le duc en se rapprochant du cadavre pour le contempler avec une joie silencieuse. "L'amiral! l'amiral!' répétèrent à demi-voix tous les témoins de cette terrible scène, se serrant les uns contre les autres, et se rapprochant timidement de ce grand vieillard abattu." We cannot resist the temptation of further transferring the passage of the perilous flight of La Mole, a young Huguenot noble : "Sauvez-moi, mon frère !' dit Marguerite épuisée, "Une flamme passa sur le visage pâle du duc. conscience de son rang, il s'avança, les poings crispés, "Quoiqu'il fût sans armes, soutenu sans doute par la contre Coconnas et ses compagnons, qui reculèrent épouvanté devant les éclairs qui jaillissaient de ses yenx. "Assassinerez-vous aussi un fils de France, voyons!' dit-il. 66 lui: Cà, mon capitaine des gardes, venez ici, et qu'on * * * The combat between the Catholics and Huguenots, before the Hôtel de Guise, is also powerfully described; as also the gallant defence of De Mouy : "Tue, tue.... hurla-t-on de tous côtés.' "Coconnas, la Hurière et dix soldats s'élancèrent à la poursuite de la Mole, qui, couvert de sang et arrive à ce dégré d'exaltation qui est la dernière réserve de la vigueur humaine, bondissait par les rues, sans autre guide que l'instinct. Derrière lui, les pas et les cris de ses ennemis l'éperonnaient et semblaient lui donner des ailes. Parlois une balle sifflant à son oreille et imprimai tout à coup à sa course, près de se ralentir, une nouvelle rapidité. Ce n'etait plus une respira- l'escalier et le vestibule, avait fini par sortir en "De Mouy, après un combat terrible livré dans tion, ce n'était plus une haleine qui sortait de sa veritable héros de sa maison brûlante. * * * * poitrine, mais un râle sourd, mais un rauque hurlement. La sueur et le sang dégouttaient de ses che-qu'il lui imprimait, traçait des cercles blancs ou Son epée flamboyante par le mouvement de rotation veux et coulaient confondus sur son visage. Bientôt son pourpoint devint trop serré pour les battements de son cœur, et il l'arracha. Bientôt son épée divint trop lourde pour sa main, et il la jeta loin de lui." His heaving heart seems indeed ready to burst as he tears his pourpoint, and his hand to fall powerless as he throws down his sword. And then how dramatic the scene in which La Mole rushes into the presence of Marguerite de Valois to implore her royal protection from the blood-thirsty hounds at his heels. "Madame! s'écria-t-il, on tue, on m'égorger mes frères; on veut me tuer, on veut m'égorger aussi. Ah! vous êtes la reine, sauvez-moi;' et il se précipita ૉ. ses pieds, laissant sur le tapis une large trace de sang. En voyant cet homme pâle, défait agenouillé devant elle, la reine de Navarre, se dressa épouvanteé, cachant son visage entre ses mains et criant au secours. Even in the Queen's presence, and at the risk of wounding her-for she generously seeks to shelter him-La Mole's ruthless pursuers fall upon him, when the young Duc d'Alençon hears his sister's agonizing cries, and rouges selon que la lune en argentait la lame ou qu'un résistance des Huguenots avait été telle, que les gens de flambeau en faisait reluire l'humidité sanglante. La l'hôtel de Guise repoussés étaient rentrés et avaient fermé les portes de l'hôtel, dans la crainte d'être assiégés et pris chez eux.” * The struggle between Coconnas and the Huguenot family of Mercandon, is of thrilling interest. A window of the Hôtel de Guise suddenly opens, and at it appears a lady, of transcendent beauty, encouraging Coconnas, and whilst at an opposite window, on the other side throwing at his feet a bouquet of flowers; of the street, is seen the menacing form of the mother of the young Mercandon, who is struggling for life with Coconnas-the boy falls-the instant after, the bereaved mother hurls a block of marble at the head of the murderer of her child, which lays Coconnas prostrate; but succour is now sent him by the lady of the Hôtel de Guise. The description of the fearful state of suffer ing to which the brave and noble-hearted La Mole was reduced by the trial by torture, is |