local attachments. that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the

nation.

It is a pleasing sight on a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I cannot close these desultory remarks better, than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity:

Through each gradation, from the castled hall,
The city dome, the villa crowned with shade,
But chief from modest mansions numberless,
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life,

Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof'd shed,
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes
Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place:
Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove,
(Honour and sweet endearment keeping guard,)
Can centre in a little quiet nest

All that desire would fly for through the earth;
That can, the world eluding, be itself
A world enjoy'd; that wants no witnesses
But its own sharers, and approving Heaven:
That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft,
Smiles though 'tis looking only at the sky.

119.-THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

HEBER.

[REGINALD HEBER, Bishop of Calcutta, was born in 1783, at Malpas, in Cheshire. In 1800 he was entered at Brazenose College, Oxford. His university career was one series of successes. His prize poem of Palestine,' written in 1803, unlike the majority of academical compositions, has taken its rank among our best English poems. In 1807 he took orders, and entered upon the discharge of his duties of parish priest in the family living of Hodnet. Never were the high duties of his sacred office fulfilled with greater zeal than by this most amiable and gifted scholar. His eminence as a preacher, his reputation for the highest talent, must have led to the first preferments in the Church. The Bishopric of Calcutta was offered to him: he twice refused it; but eventually he saw in that appointment a wide career of usefulness, and he sacrificed every other consideration to the prospects which this apostolical mission opened to his view. He embarked for India on the 15th of June, 1823. On the 3rd of April, 1826, he suddenly died at Trichinopoli, having spent the short period of his sojourn in the East in labour such as few men have undergone. Dying thus at the early age of forty-three, his memory is hallowed in India by European and native; and his example will continue to animate many a man with the conviction that the talents which God has entrusted to us find their best and their happiest employment in an unremitting course of endeavour to leave the world better than we found it. Bishop Heber's 'Journey through India' is one of our most interesting books of travels. There are three volumes of his Sermons; and his Poems, from which we extract the 'Passage of the Red Sea,' form a volume of themselves.]

With heat o'erlabour'd, and the length of way,
On Ethan's beach the bands of Israel lay.
"Twas silence all, the sparkling sands along;
Save where the locust trill'd her feeble song,

Or blended soft in drowsy cadence fell
The wave's low whisper or the camel's bell.
'Twas silence all!-The flocks for shelter fly
Where, waving light, the acacia shadows lie
Or where, from far, the flattering vapours make
The noon-tide semblance of a misty lake:
While the mute swain, in careless safety spread,
With arms enfolded, and dejected head,
Dreams o'er his wond'rous call, his lineage high,
And, late reveal'd, his children's destiny.
For, not in vain, in thraldom's darkest hour,
Had sped from Amram's sons the word of power;
Nor failed the dreadful wand, whose god-like sway
Could lure the locust from her airy way;
With reptile war assail their proud abodes,
And mar the giant pomp of Egypt's gods.
Oh helpless gods! who nought availed to shield
From fiery rain your Zoan's favour'd field!
Oh helpless gods! who saw the curdled blood
Taint the pure lotus of your ancient flood,
And fourfold night the wandering earth enchain,
While Memnon's orient harp was heard in vain!
Such musings held the tribes, till now the west
With milder influence on their temples prest;
And that portentous cloud which, all the day,
Hung its dark curtain o'er their weary way,
(A cloud by day, a friendly flame by night,)
Rolled back its misty veil, and kindled into light!
Soft fell the eve:-but, ere the day was down,
Tall waving banners streak'd the level sun;
And wide and dark along the horizon red,
In sandy surge the rising desert spread.

"Mark, Israel, mark!"-On that strange sight intent, In breathless terror, every eye was bent;

And busy faction's fast increasing hum,

And female voices, shriek, "They come, they come!"
They come, they come! In scintillating show,

O'er the dark mass the brazen lances glow;
And sandy clouds in countless shapes combine,
As deepens or extends the long tumultuous line;
And fancy's keener glance e'en now can trace
The threatening aspects of each mingled race:
For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear,
The hireling guards of Misraim's throne, were there.
From distant Cush they troop'd, a warrior train,
Sinah's green isle, and Sennaar's marly plain:
On either wing their fiery coursers check

The parched and sinewy sons of Amalek

While close behind, inured to feast on blood,

Deck'd in Behemoth's-spoils, the tall Shangalla strode. 'Mid blazing helms, and bucklers rough with gold, how swift the sythed chariots roll'd?

Saw

ye

Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,

Old Thebes hath pour'd through all her hundred gates,
Mother of armies!-How the emeralds glow'd,

Where, flush'd with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode!
And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,
Aziris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;

And still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmur'd-Victory!

Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?
Whom come ye forth to combat?-Warriors, whom?
These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train—
Red from the scourge and recent from the chain?
God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!
Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave!-
North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.

On earth's last margin throng the weeping train:

Their cloudy guide moves on:-"And must we swim the main?" 'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,

Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood.

He comes their leader comes!-The man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,

And onward treads. The circling waves retreat,
In hoarse deep murmurs from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard, wet sand, and coral hills below.

-

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,
Down, down they pass a steep and slippery dell.-
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl d,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sca-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are seen.
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;

The beetling waters storm above their head;
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,

Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night.

Still in their van, along that dreadful road,

Blazed broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of God.

Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave

On the long mirror of the rosy wave:

While its blest beams a sun-like heat supply,
Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye-

To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain :
Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight confine,
A tenfold darkness broods above their line.

Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led,
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed:
Till midway now-that strange and fiery form

Show'd his dread visage lightening through the storm;

With withering splendour blasted all their might,

And brake their chariot-wheels, and marr'd their courser's flight.
"Fly, Misraim, fly !"-The ravenous floods they see,
And fiercer than the floods, the Deity.

"Fly, Misraim, fly !"-From Edom's coral strand
Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand :—
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep-
Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swell'd the mighty blast:
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

Oh! welcome came the morn, when Israel stood
In trustless wonder by th' avenging flood!
Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below;
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car-
A few sad relics of a nation's war.

Alas, how few!-Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose harden'd heart alike had borne
The house of bondage and th' oppressor's scorn,
The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude—
Till, kindling into warmer zeal, around

The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound ;

And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,

The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam's breast.

She, with bare armis, and fixing on the sky

The dark transparence of her lucid eye,

Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony,
"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear?

On's warlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where?
Above their ranks the whelming waters spread.
Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !"
And every pause between, as Miriam sang,
From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang;
And loud and far their stormy chorus spread,-
"Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !"

120.-ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

PERLIN. [DESCRIPTIONS of our own country by foreigners have always something of instruction in them. They generally mortify our vanity, which is good; they sometimes show us in what our real merit consists, which is equally good. They are seldom unprejudiced, they are occasionally ridiculous; and these circumstances ought to show us the difficulty of judging correctly of foreign habits and manners.

One of the earliest of these descriptions of England is that of Master Stephen Perlin, a French physician, who was in Great Britain in the last two years of King Edward VI., and saw some of the remarkable events that marked the commencement of the reign of Queen Mary. His 'Description of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland' was published at Paris in 1558. The original tract is of great rarity; but it was reprinted with another Frenchman's account of England, by Gough, the antiquary, in 1775. There are few more odd books in any language; but there can be little doubt of the fidelity of his notices of what he saw. His hatred of the English seems to have been a genuine sentiment of revenge for the hatred which he saw bestowed by our people upon his own countrymen. The French reality, or affectation, of dislike to us at the present day has no such excuse.

We translate a few passages:-]

THE PERFIDIOUS ENGLISH.-Young France uses no novel terms when she calls us "Les Perfides Anglais." The wars of the Edwards and Henries earned us this. But they might have saved us from the reproach of cowardice. Master Perlin starts with this general summary of our national character:-" It may be said of the English, neither in war are they brave, nor in peace are they faithful; and, as the Spaniard says, England is a good land with bad people."

NATIONAL HATREDS.-Master Stephen Perlin interlards his book with English phrases, which are not very easy to interpret. We might hope that his acquaintance with our manners was as limited as his knowledge of our language, if we had not other evidence that our excellent forefathers of the sixteenth century had some tolerably strong antipathies. "The people of this nation mortally hate the French, as their old enemies, and always call us France chenesve, France dogue, and, besides, they call us or son." We should scarcely guess, without an interpretation, that chenesve meant knaves. Again:

"The people are proud and seditious, with bad consciences, and are faithless to their word, as experience has taught. These villains hate all sorts of foreigners; and although they have a good land and a good country, they are all constantly wicked and moved by every wind; for now they will love a prince; turn your hand, they will wish him killed and crucified."

ENGLISH LOVE OF LETTERS.-"In this kingdom of England there are two universities, viz. Cambruches and Auxonne, called in Latin Auxonia, Cambruche, in Latin Cambrusium. The people of the country do not frequent them at all or very little, and do not give themselves up much to letters, but only to vanity and ambition, and merchandise." ***"The people are reprobates, and all enemies to good manners and letters."

THE AXE AND THE GIBBET.-Master Perlin describes, with some curious circum2ND QUARTER.

F