howled like a maniac; at length he grew so feeble, that he could only bellow after the Spanish manner-Miseracordia, miseracordia !"'* Calvin relates that, a short time before the execution, Servetus expressed a wish to see him, and that he accordingly went to the prison, accompanied by two of the magistrates. At this interview, according to his representation, Servetus begged his pardon; when Calvin replied that he had never sought to revenge himself for private injuries; that he had for sixteen years endeavoured, at the risk of his life, to reclaim him from his errors, and treated him with great mildness; and then exhorted him to ask pardon of God for having attempted to blot out three hypostases from his essence. But finding his admonitions of no effect, he left him in anger, as a heretic condemned by his own conscience. The reader will be at no loss to estimate the friendly feelings and the Christian mildness with which Calvin had acted towards Servetus for sixteen years, in order to reclaim him-first denouncing him to the Inquisitor of Vienne; then consigning him to a loathsome prison at Geneva; harassing him with a vexatious prosecution; and, when he had procured his condemnation and failed to shake his faith, delivering him over to Satan! Here we gladly take our leave of " the Reformer," and close the dark review of his "share" in these nefarious transactions. It was judged proper that, in this Protestant auto-da-fé, the example of the "holy office" should be followed, as well in the attendant of the victim as in the mode of his immolation. By Calvin's appointment, the office of Protestant confessor on this occasion was assigned to Farel, the man who had pleaded for his death, and whose zeal for orthodoxy was in no danger of being repressed by any emotions of pity or compassion. During the melancholy procession from the prison to the fatal Champ de Bourreau and the hill of Champel, he again and again importuned the prisoner to confess his crime. But when Servetus asserted his innocence, Farel, greatly incensed, threatened to withdraw, and leave him to the Divine judgment. Servetus received the heartless threat in silence. Shortly after, this minister of mercy exclaimed to the multitude-" Behold the power of Satan when he has seized his victim! This man is eminently learned, and perhaps thinks that he has done right; but now he has become the prey of the devil!" Servetus displayed in this trying scene the deep emotion and solemn air which a strong sense of the injustice of his fate, and the immediate prospect of a painful death, were adapted to produce. He calmly ascended the pile, unwavering in the faith he had professed, and praying for the mercy and the acceptance of his Saviour and his God. The fires soon blazed around him, and after half an hour of intense suffering, he ceased to live. Since the sun had gone down upon this appalling scene of public injustice and private vengeance, three centuries had nearly completed their revolutions when we trod the ground with which had mingled the ashes of Servetus. As our eyes rested on the little knoll of CHAMPEL, the Calvini Defensio Orthodoxæ Fidei, ut supra, p. 61. The writer of the answer to this book, Contra Calvini Librum, &c., has made some admirable remarks on this disgraceful passage. See No. 143, &c. + Calvini Defensio, p. 6. See the animadversions on this statement, Contra Libellum Calvini, No. 11, &c. air became, to our imagination, vocal with the groans and prayers of the dying martyr; while from the not far distant towers of St. Peter, borne upon the passing breeze, seemed to come, in ominous murmurs, Calvin's dread denunciation-IF HITHER SERVETUS COME, AND MY AUTHORITY AVAIL, LIVING HE SHALL NEVER DEPART! R. S. SONNETS WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. I. So ends the volume of another year! The history of its chequer'd days is past ;- I seem to part with friends I held most dear: The tears o'er many a page are falling fast, Shall bring sweet memories, and serve to chase II. CLOSE, close the book-the book of the Old Year, In dismal characters my eye engage; Bright names now carved on monumental stone- Here as my lov'd associates are shewn! And thou, Old Year, hast seen these treasures fade; If penitence, submission, hope, I find On the same page with sin, care, death combined, J. R. W. FREDERICK DOUGLASS.* HAVING in our numbers for September and October brought prominently forward the subject of American Slavery, with some notice of the Abolition movement, we think it may not be uninteresting to our readers if we now present to them the personal experience of an American Slave, in an abridgment of the Narrative of Frederick Douglass. Though this work has had considerable circulation, we believe that it has been principally read by those who have been watching, or participating in, the sort of Anti-Slavery revival which has lately occurred in this country. The book, however, is entitled to more general consideration, and cannot fail to enlist a warm sympathy in behalf of the writer, and of the unhappy class of his countrymen whom he has left in hopeless bondage. On commencing the perusal of such a history as F. Douglass's, and especially after reading some chapters, the inquiry naturally suggests itself to the mind of the reader-" Are the statements true ?" In our view, the Narrative carries with it an air of truthfulness, and the reader is not impressed with there being any desire on the part of the author to exaggerate the hardships of his former lot. Indeed, he continually refers to events of his life, in which he was more favourably circumstanced than his fellow-bondsmen, and often speaks of kindnesses he had received from those with whom he lived. Every statement contained in Douglass's appalling recital of the iniquities of Slavery, (and galling indeed must have been the exposure,) has been presented to the eyes of the individuals in the Slave States who have had the unenviable notoriety which he has given them in the estimation of the British public; and yet, though much pains have been taken to impeach his veracity, they have proved quite unsuccessful. These attempts, indeed, to destroy his reputation, have in a remarkable manner tended to confirm his truthfulness. In an 66 Appendix" at the end of the 2nd Dublin edition of the Narrative, is a letter from the Slave States, headed "Falsehood Refuted," in which the writer, a Mr. A. C. C. Thompson, maintains, as one proof of the spuriousness of the work, the impossibility that any Slave, so uneducated as Douglass was, could have written it. The thousands in this country who have listened to Frederick Douglass's powerful, we may say eloquent speeches, will treat with contempt such an argument as this. In his further reasons for charging Douglass with falsehood, Mr. Thompson is not more fortunate, and most inadvertently does him an immense service; for, in the earnest desire to vindicate from the charges of cruelty those masters to whom Douglass belonged, and others in whose service he was placed, Mr. Thompson admits that he knew all the individuals mentioned in the Narrative, thus affording the very evidence required by the public, that Douglass was the person he represented himself to be, and that all the parties he speaks of were not only well-known persons, but are at this time living in Maryland. Douglass's letter of thanks to Mr. Thompson for the unintended kindness he had shewn him, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. 2nd Dublin Edition. Webb and Chapman, Dublin. inserted also in the Appendix, is an excellent one. Some of the individuals whom Douglass refers to by name as having treated him with severity, have written letters in the newspapers of the Southern States denying the charge. We are therefore left to judge on whose veracity most to rely,-upon that of Slave-holders whose conduct is being held up to public reprobation, and who would not be very likely to plead guilty to the charges brought against them; or upon that of the man who has escaped from their hands, and can at least shew the marks on his back in proof of his not always having met with the most humane masters. Nothing of the marvellous or romantic occurs in the Narrative, and no facts are stated personally relating to Douglass which are not verified as being of ordinary occurrence in the Slave States by the most authentic works, and especially by "Slavery as it is-Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses." Douglass declares that, so far from exaggerating the horrors and demoralizing influence of the Slave system, he is prevented from bringing forward facts much worse than any he has detailed, from their being too shocking and too disgusting for recital. Of the probable correctness of this assertion none will doubt who know that in some of the States the principal source of wealth is the breeding of Slaves for the market, with its necessary consequences of reckless disregard of the ties of kindred, the claims of affection, and the duties of religion. Though desirous of establishing the faithfulness of the Narrative upon that evidence which is open to the investigation of all, we think it right to add, that the numerous personal friends of Mr. Douglass, both in this country and in the United States, have the most unreserved confidence in his honour and veracity. Frederick Bailey, subsequently named Douglass, was born at Tuckahoe, in Maryland. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was a Negro Slave; his father, a White man, is reported to have been her owner. From hearing his master remark in 1835, that he was then about 17 years old, Douglass calculates that he must have been born in 1818; but he, in common with most Slaves, was kept in ignorance of his age, and strictly forbidden to make inquiries respecting it,-a privation which, as marking a distinction between himself and White children, proved very early a source of unhappiness to him. He was, according to a prevailing custom in Maryland, separated from his mother while an infant; he never remembers seeing her more than four or five times, when she visited him by night, walking twelve miles for the purpose after the performance of her day's work, and returning before daybreak to avoid the whipping, which was the penalty for absence from the field at sunrise. Her son was not allowed to be with her in her last moments, or to attend her to the grave. He describes his master, Captain Anthony, as "a cruel man, hardened by a long life of Slave-holding." "He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a Slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers from his gory victim seemed to move his iron heart. . and not until overcome by fatigue would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I shall never forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. . . . I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I had lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred." Capt. Anthony was superintendent of a large estate belonging to a Colonel Lloyd. It consisted of twenty farms under separate overseers. The largest of these, termed the home plantation, on which Anthony resided, and where Douglass received his first impressions of Slavery, was the seat of government for the rest. This was the place where overseers came for advice and directions, where all the mechanical operations were conducted, and where refractory Slaves were brought for punishment; after a severe whipping, they were often sold to a Slavetrader as a warning to the rest. The Slaves received here their monthly allowance of food, (consisting of 8 lbs. of pork or fish, and one bushel of meal,) and also their yearly clothing, which was composed of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of trousers, stockings and shoes. Children unable to work had merely the two shirts, and many of both sexes might be seen naked at all seasons of the year. A coarse blanket served the Slaves instead of beds, the absence of which, however, Douglass says, "is not considered a very great privation." For "They find less difficulty from the want of beds than from the want of time to sleep; for when their day's work in the field is done, they most of them have their washing, mending and cooking to do, and having very few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing either of these, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day; and when this is done, old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down side by side, on one common bed-the cold damp floor; and here they sleep till they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn, and wo betides them who hear not this morning summons; if they are not awakened by the sense of hearing, they are by the sense of feeling." Colonel Lloyd was possessed of immense riches, and was said to be the owner of a thousand Slaves. He is reported to have asked one of these, to whom he was personally unknown, whether he was well treated; and on receiving a reply in the negative, and to the effect that he was overworked, Colonel L. caused the man to be handcuffed, taken from his family and sold to a Georgian trader. To avoid similar liabilities, experienced Slaves are in the habit of speaking favourably of their condition: this course Douglass himself always adopted. The characteristics of his several overseers are noticed by Douglass, some of whom were more severe and tyrannical than others, but all arbitrary and deaf to entreaties or exculpations. One, a Mr. Gore, who was particularly brutal,-taking every occasion to torture, never using words where the whip would effect his purpose, was savage enough to shoot a Slave in a stream of water, into which he had plunged to escape a scourging which this overseer had commenced inflicting. On being called to account by Col. Lloyd, for having recourse to this extraordinary expedient, Mr. Gore coolly stated, "that if one Slave, refusing to be corrected, escaped with his life, the others would soon |