exquisite blending of the lily and rose Here the old man wept. hold out her hand, press mine, and Young man, if you had seen my Margaret, you would forgive this tear, or rather you would blame me, if I could have spoken of her without weeping. She was lovely, but it was not her loveliness I so much admired. It was her pure spiritual heart-her benevolence her love of every thing virtuous, religious, and holy, that drew my heart irresistibly towards her. I taught her young lips to lisp the name of her Maker. I taught her to fall down morning and evening before him, and pray, that through the blood of the Redeemer, he would wipe away her sins. that I hoped I would deliver her up the sweet orphan, if possible, better the child of my adoption to God than ever, and she was the only beam as a pure spirit. And she would lis- to the bainful and insupportable meten with trembling awe to these dread-lancholy that perpetually clouded me ful mysteries, and she would weep, over. I had taught her the lessons but her tears were those of hope and of religion, and these she now poured joy-not of bitterness. out to me as if she had been my instructress, and I received at her hands that consolation which I had been the means of instilling into her heart. Do not think that my child was unhappy. Religion-true religion leads to pleasant fields, and not to woe. Let the scoffer talk of the gloom and melancholy which shrowds the spirit of the religious, and say, that it is dark as the shadow of death. It is not so it is bright as yonder golden sun, that lately shone upon us, and all its ways are pleasantness and peace. So Margaret found them. There was not a happier heart than her's in the country side. Though her demeanour was shaded with a native and beautiful contemplation, she laughed with the blythest she romped about with her playmates, and sung, and danced, and tripped the dew, with a step as graceful and joyful, as elegance and happiness could give. My eldest son, who had been intended for the ministry, was deadso was the next; but Henry, my beautiful Henry, still survived, and got a commission in the army. He was my pride and the stay of my grey hairs. I never thought of him but with joy; and indeed every one who knew him can tell how dearly he was respected. Well, he loved Margaret, and I was highly pleased. He had loved her from the moment his young eyes saw her first; and every day of her existence she wove the mysterious web of feeling deeper and deeper around his heart. And what wonder, for this beautiful being had been his early and Years passed over the head of my constant playmate. They had crossed Margaret, and she became a beauti- the moors a thousand times together. ful young woman. There was not He had as often pulled the wild apthe like of her for leagues around; ple, and the blaeberry, and the rasp, and indeed, without undue partiality, and given them to Margaret. He had I never saw her equal. She was al-no pleasure in any amusement in which together, so blooming, so sweet, so she was not a sharer, and happily could polished, and affectionate, that she he have lived in the most desert parts seemed a being from another sphere. of the earth, if his eyes had been blesTo me, she was all in all. Although sed by that lovely phantom. I was old, I loved her with such affection, I could have died for her, and the worst of human calamities that could befal me would have been to lose this sweet flower from my arms. [To be continued.] MR. KNIGHT. The printed accounts of Mr. Knight's Years after adopting Margaret, biography, give no information respectI lost my wife-an event which plung- ing the place or date of his nativity; ed me into deep affliction. I laid her but it appears that, very early in life, in the grave beside the rest of my fa-he forsook his studies as an artist, in mily who were all now departed from which he probably never very warmly me, except an only son. I never rais- endeavoured to succeed, and com my head, after this bereavement, menced actor. The first flame of so lightly as before; but I loved theatrical enthusiasm was lighted in ed t his bosom, we are told, while a boy, at the representation of Hob in the Well, by some stroller company in the North of England, in consequence of which, he some years after, offered his yet untried services to the manager of a similar concern, who visited the town of Newcastle under Line; and, equally to his joy and surprise, his Mr. Nunns, the manager of the offer was accepted. The part of Hob, Stafford company, saw and admired which had originally kindled his de- the young actor in this obscurity, and sire to be an actor, was selected for offered him an engagement at twelve the trial of his powers, which, it seems, shillings per week: this was a proso completely failed him, that he could posal the magnificence of which transnot utter one syllable, and in spite ported him. He was introduced to of the pitying encouragement of the his new situation as Frank Oatlands, audience, and the intreaties of his in The Cure for the Heart Ache,' companions, he fairly took to his heels, and succeeded. His prospect now and made his escape from the scene of terror and confusion. were affixed to accommodate the ladies with an easier access. The profits of the company appear to have been improved by this ingenious contrivance of Mr. Knight, who, at the same time, added to his own private resources by the occasional exercise of his original employment as an artist. 6 began to open more clearly upon his view by dint of unwearied industry, attention, and propriety, he gradually rose into notice and esteem, and shortly afterwards married the daughter of a wine merchant, in Stafford. A year elapsed before he ventured to renew his attempt, when the love of the stage prevailing, he again joined an obscure and petty company of strollers, at Raither, in North Wales, During his continuance in this cirtherein following, as he informs us, the cuit, his first communication with Tate advice of some London theatrical Wilkinson of York, took place, in a friend, who had counselled him to be- manner unpromising enough to the gin by placing his foot upon the low-actor, but highly characteristic of that est stone he could find.' In such a celebrated humorist and manager. situation fear was out of the question, While the Stafford company were perand Mr. Knight succeeded in his fa- forming at Uttoxeter, a sort of practivourite part of Hob so triumphantly cal jocker, inclined to laugh at poor that his performance was announced Knight's expense, sent for him after for a second representation. the play to an inn adjoining the theatre, In this wretched concern, were six and after complimenting him highly candles stuck into the bare earth which on his performance, said, with a grave formed the stage, were all that illumi- and earnest face of friendship nated the barn, Mr. Knight remained my name is Philips, I am intimately about a twelvemonth, not however with-acquainted with Mr. Tate Wilkinson, out several attempts natural to a su- the manager of the York theatre. perior and ambitious mind, to amend Now, Sir, you have only to make use the means and aggrandize the charac-of my name, which I fully authorize ter of the establishment. Under his you to do, and you may rely on being directions, his companions were exalted well received. Say that I have seen from the ground to th eappropriate dig- you on the stage and declared my nity of a wooden stage, formed by plac-satisfaction at your performance. ing a taylor's shopboard crossway upon Mr. Knight, flattered with this notice, bedstead, to the sides of which, steps and delighted at the promised advance Sir, D9 After remaining seven years at York, in his condition, wrote accordingly to Tate, making the most of the name of he received proposals from Mr. Philips, whose influence was to be so Wroughton, manager at Drury Lane, powerful in his favour. He received which he eagerly accepted, and made the following answer: his first appearance, with the Drurylane company, at the Lyceum, as Robin Roughead, in 'Fortune's Frolic,' on the 14th of October, 1809. “SIR, "I am not acquainted with any Mr. "Philips except a rigid quaker, and he is the last man in the world to recommend "an actor to my theatre. I don't want "you. ལ།། "TATE WILKINSON." Disappointed and mortified, Mr. Knight replied with similar quaintness and brevity: SIR, Mr. Knight has profited by every opportunity which has been afforded him of establishing himself in the favour of the London audience. His principle department is the representation of country boys, in which, his manner is peculiar and original. His person is very small; his countenance handsome, expressive and arch; his voice sharp, but well adapted by him to comic effects; and his action is a curious compound of quietude and This reply met the humour of Tate, restlessness. He is alternately exwho treasured it in his remembrance; pressively still or ludicrously in mofor, more than a year after, Mr Knight tion. There is always oddity, and was agreeably surprised by the follow-sometimes pathos in his acting; though ing specimen of the wandering paten- the utterance of a sentiment the critics tee's oddity and kindness: have remarked, is now and then apt to betray him out of the general truth to "I should as soon think of applying to "a methodist parson to preach for my be"nefit, as to a quaker to recommend me to "Mr. Wilkinson. I don't want to come. "E. KNIGHT." "forth? 6 "MR. METHODIST PARSON, "TATE WILKINSON." "I have a living that produces twenty-nature which he observes. Pleasant, "five shillings per week, will you hold lively, and ever attentive to the business of the scene, minutely exact ta the proprieties of costume, anxious, ardent, and industrious in his profession, Mr. Knight, in his best efforts, ranks, among the favourites of the day, It was to supply the place of Mr. Matthews, then on the eve of quitting York for the little theatre in the Haymarket, that Mr. Knight had been thus remembered, and invited by Mr. Wilkinson. He accepted the invitation, and succeeded in establishing himself in the favour, both of the manager and the audience of York. V. This was in the year 1803; shortly afterwards he lost his wife, and being left with the care of a small family, he, about a twelvemonth after, married again. His second wife was Miss Smith, then the heroine of the York stage, and daughter of an actress formerly of some celebrity in the Bath Theatre. as a clever little actor. COUNTRY LIFE. 'Far from the busy scenes where commerce dwells, Every one pants for the country. The statesman toils; the merchant risks his all, in the expectation that he may, one day or other, amass a sufficiency to allow him to retire from the smoky town, and dirty street, tą the silent, the retired, and the peaceful villa. The bubbling stream; the thundering cascade; the towering mountain, and the extensive forest, are objects of the most intense interest to every lover of rural life; he studies them, loves them, and enjoys them; they are to him the greatest of all earthly pleasures; they are enough to make him imagine himself transported into the fairy regions. With what infinite satisfaction and delight does he take a walk into the country, and there enjoy himself for a few hours after toiling the whole day in the busy town; it is to him an intrim end of all his toils and pains. In the country we are charmed with the finest views, lulled with the softest sounds, and treated with the richest odours in nature: what can be wanting to complete our delight? Here is every entertainment for the eye; the most refined gratification for the ear; and a perpetual banquet for the smell, without any insidious decay for the integrity of our conduct, or even for the purity of our fancy. 6 Scenery is not the only attraction which the country possesses. To a person who has long resided in town, and who has had no other society but the interested sycophant, his heart must bound with joy at the thought of retiring to the neighbourhood of a people whose brow is the real index of the temple, and whose speech is the genuine interpreter of the heart.' It is to him, as if he were about to enter into the society of superior beings, there are few fawning for power; there, few inducements to sue, that he might almost exclaim, with a certain hermit, the rye, white and hoary, as it were, with age, waves its bearded billows, and gives a dry busky rustle before the breeze. The wheat, laden with plenty, and beautifully brown, hangs its heavy head, and invites, by its bending posture, the reaper's hand. Fields of barley and acres of oats, stand whitening in the sun, upright, and perfectly even, as though the gardener's shears had clipped them at the top; they gratify the spectator's eye, and gladden the farmer's heart. Some of the grain lies flat, in regular rows, on the new made stubble. Some are erected in graceful shocks, along the bristly ridges. Some is carrying homeward on the loaded waggon, nodding over the growing circle. This is the most joyful period of the countryman's life; the long-expected season of all his labours; for this he broke the stubborn glebe, and manured the impoverished soil; for this he bore the sultry beams of summer, and shrunk not from the pinching blast of winter; for this, he toiled away the year in a round of ceaseless, but willing activity. Spring, summer, and winter, also bring along with them their own peculiar pleasures. How often have patriots and heroes laid aside the burden of power, and stole away from the glare of grandeur, to enjoy themselves among the composed retreats of the blooming walks and flowery lawns, surrounded with dewy landscapes. On the mossy couches, and fragrant bowers, skirted: with cooling cascades, how many illustrious personages, after all their glorious toil for public good has come to an end, have sought an honourable An autumn spent in the country and welcome repose on their downy is, of all the seasons of the year, the laps. Who can number the sages and one most fraught with objects for the saints who have devoted the day to exercise of the philosophiceye and con- study, and resigned the vacant hour templative mind. During this season, to healthy exercise, beneath the sulvan Free from all vices, free from care, |