his spirit: but were he permitted to reappear counter with a piece of flat wood, till they visibly, in propriú personá, mortifying indeed would be his welcome! are relieved. The Nobelist. NORA BOYLE. (Concluded from page 191.) W.D.L. SMITH" are not without A MORAL.- -New MOUNT-MORTON HOUSE was built on the Monthly Magazine. Manners and Customs. THE JEWS' NEW YEAR. precipitous bank of a torrent that poured the collected waters of its course into the Shannon, sometimes in a tiny cascade that was hardly visible, trickling down the face of its steep channel, and sometimes, as on this the trees upon its sides, and drove the beaten occasion, in a thundering waterfall that shook flood in a tumultuous repulse far over its level banks beyond. The rear walls of the building rose almost from the verge of the rock; and any ledge that their regular foundation had left, was inaccessible except from below. THE following account of the Jews' new year, is given in Purchas's Pilgrimage, published in 1613:-"The Jews believe that God created the world in September, or Tisrithat at the revolution of the same time yearly, he sitteth in judgment, and taketh reckoning of every man's life, and pronounces sentence accordingly. The morning of the new year Morton descended the steep and wooded is proclaimed by the sound of trumpet of a ram's horn, to warn them that they may think bank till he arrived at the water's edge, which of their sins. The day before, they rise there was barely footing between it and the was now risen so high, that in some places sooner in the morning and pray. When they overhanging precipice. have done in the synagogue, they go to the confused masses of rock that usually obstructThe jagged and graves, testifying that if God does not pardoned the course of the howling brook were now them, they are like to the dead; and praying, covered by a deep river that poured its silent that for the good works of the saints he will pity them; and there they give large sums in weight of waters from bank to bank, uninalms. After noon they shave, adorn, and terrupted, save here and there where a sullen bathe themselves, that they may be pure the gurgle told that some overhanging branch or next day, and in the water they make contwisted root was struggling ineffectually with fession of their sins. The feast begins with from the spot where he stood to the window its swift oppressor.-Every stock and stone, a cup of wine and new year salutations; and of Nora Boyle, was known-alas! too well on their tables there is a ram's head, in reknown-to Richard Morton; yet he paused membrance of that ram which was offered and shuddered when he looked at the driftin Isaac's stead; and for this cause are the ing tempest and black precipice above him, trumpets of ram's horns. Fish they eat to signify the multiplication of their good works; Bound upon whatever errand of sin, he might and at the swelling inundation at his feet. they eat sweet fruits of all sorts, and make have clambered up the ragged pathway bethemselves merry, as assured of forgiveness fore, yet his hand had never trembled as it of their sins; and after meat they resort to grasped branch or tendril, and his knee had some bridge to hurl their sins into the water; as it is written: 'He shall cast all our sins but whether it was the increased danger of ever been firm above the narrowest footing; into the bottom of the sea.' From this day the ascent on such a night, or the tremento the tenth day is a time of penance or dous consciousness of what that perilous Lent." W. G. C. ascent was undertaken for, that now unmanned him, he stood in nerveless trepidation, his hand laid upon the first hold he had to take, and his foot placed in its first step up the sheer face of the crag, motionless, till suddenly a strong light flashed successively from the three loopholes of the hall, and after disappearing for a moment, streamed again with a strong and steady lustre from the well-known window of his paramour. He started from his trance, and flung himself to the next ledge at a bound; thence toiling upward, now swinging from branch to branch, now clambering from crag to crag, sometimes hanging from the one hand, sometimes from the other, panting and exhausted he at length gained the projection beneath Nora's window. CHINESE BEGGARS. THE streets of Canton swarm with beggars, old and young, blind and lame. They do not remain in the streets, but enter the shops, and make a noise by ringing and striking cymbals or gongs, till they receive alms, when they retire. Custom will not allow of their being turned out violently, and they generally persevere till they receive the small copper coin of the Chinese, called by Europeans a cash. A new class of beggars, or spouters, has lately arisen: they commit to memory descriptive stories; and, on entering a shop, instead of singing, they recite their tales in a loud voice, with gesticulations, and slap the He caught the sill, and raising himself slowly, looked into the apartment. A light burned on the high mantel-piece, and a low fire was gathering into flame below. On the floor knelt Nora Boyle, and before her, wrapped in blankets, lay the discoloured body of the frozen child. "Nora,” cried Morton, in a strong whisper, "what are you doing? You will ruin all! Put him in his cradle, and get to bed." She raised her head with a strong shudder. "Villain, I defy you!" she cried, and bent down again-it was to chafe the little limbs with both hands. "Villain! villain!" repeated Mortonare you mad? do you know what you say? open the window, and I will show you what to do myself." Her long hair, glistening with rain, had fallen down dishevelled over her hands; she threw back her head to part it on her brow, and bind up the wet locks behind; and, as with unconscious violence, she drew the dark and glossy bands till the water streamed from their hard knot, cast one glance of exulting abhorrence at the window, and cried again, "Villain, I defy you! The baby is not dead!" "It is a lie!" cried Morton, furiously, but his heart misgave him as he uttered the words; and the chance of losing all by that unforeseen possibility, smote upon his soul with sickening suddenness. "No, no, Nora," he cried, " you are deceived. It cannot be. The body is as cold as a stone. You will be hanged for his murder if you go on.-Nora!" for she did not seem to hear him, bending with her face to the infant's, and constantly chafing with both her hands,-" Nora! give it up and save yourself. Put him in the cradle. I will marry you-I will, by all that is sacred, if you do! I will make you Lady Morton, by Heaven I will, before to-morrow morning if you give it up.-Nora! wretch! hear me, I will not be trifled with. Open the window or I will break it in," and he shook the stauncheons furiously, but she heard him not. 66 "Oh, blessed mother, if ever I prayed to you with a pure heart, make my hands warm now," she cried, for the livid purple was already changing upon the little limbs. Baby, dear baby!" she sobbed with bursting tears of joy, "are you coming at last to save me? Oh, open your blue eyes! smile upon me :- bless me for ever with one breath! Oh, gracious God, I bless thee! his eyes are opening!" and she fell by the re-animated infant's side, swooning again; but from the excess of feelings, oh, how different from those which had stricken her down, a conscious and despairing sinner at the foot of the cold stone on Dirramahon Moor! Nora Boyle returned slowly and painfully to consciousness. The images of life's bright dawning in the eyes of the little one, and of the savage scowl that had glared upon her through the window, as the baffled villain saw his last dark hope dispelled, still floated before her confused senses, but she remembered nothing distinctly. Something was moving, twining, warm, among the long tresses on her neck.-Oh, blessed touch! it was the little hand with its soft busy fingers playing with her curls! She would have clasped the recovered treasure to her heart, but returning recollection of the wrong she had done him detered her, and she could only sit and gaze with an awful and reverential wonder upon the miracle of heaven's kindness that lay, moving and smiling in the now genial glow of the bright hearth before her. She gazed till the fulness of her heart had almost overcome her once more, but tears at last came struggling up with the imprisoned passion, and poured it forth in long and relieving weeping. But her unburthened heart had hardly expanded again within her bosom, when the thoughts of her own inju ries, degradation, and abandonment, and the dreadful reflection that all had been endured for the sake of such a man as Morton, came crowding on her soul, and choked the relieving tears at their source. She covered her face with her hands, as if to hide herself from the innocent being before her, and it was not till she had knelt in long and fervent prayer that she dared at length to look upon or touch him. At last she arose, and, giving him one timid caress, lifted her sweet burden again, and bore him with steps that seemed, unsteady as they were, to tread on air, to his own empty cradle by the bedside of the still sleeping nurse. She placed him softly in his little nest, and stole to the door,-returned— kissed him- he laughed, and stretching out his tiny arms, wound them round her neck. "Oh, blessed baby, let me away," she unconsciously whispered, as she strove gently to disengage herself, but he wreathed the playful embrace still closer and closer. She heard a door open suddenly, and a footstep on the lobby; then her own name called at the door of her chamber in a voice of fearfu. alarm-the voice of Lady Morton roused from her sick bed by some new calamity. Nora's first impulse was to go, to cast herself at her feet, confess all, and to implore her pardon; but the shame of that confession seemed so dreadful that she stood trembling in irresolute confusion till her kinswoman entered. Lady Morton was ghastly pale, as well from recent illness as from agitation. "Oh, Nora, are you here? has the baby been unwell?-No, no, you need not lift him now, but call the servants, dear Nora, for I can go no farther," she said, as she sank exhausted on a seat. Nora gazed at her in wild confusion. "Leave the infant with me, Nora," continued Lady Morton, "and go rouse the servants, for I am terrified almost to death. There is some one drowning in the river:" Nora uttered one piercing scream and rushed towards the window. "You cannot hear it here, Nora," said the lady, "the cry comes from under the black crag. Oh, God protect me from ever hearing such a sound again!" Nora clasped her hands tight over her breast to suppress the agony of rising despair, and rushed from the room. Her cries soon raised the household; and in a short time servants were thronging from the front with ropes and lanterns, and scrambling down the steep bank to the water's edge. Nora was the first at the river's brink. All was the moaning of the wind, and the sullen rush of waters." Lights, lights!" she cried, "bring hither lights, for it is here that the pathway crosses the crag; but I cannot find it." While Felix Daly listened to these words: which came fitfully on his shuddering ears from above, he also heard a low voice by his side say, "God have mercy on my soul!" and at the same instant beheld Nora Boyle plunge forward into the stream. He seized her dress and shouted for assistance. The river struggled hard to hold its prey, and drew him after till he stood to his knees in the flood. Another step would have precipitated both into an irresistible weight of water beyond, for they stood upon an overhanging bank covered by the stream; but timely help arrived, and both were dragged from the reluctant torrent. They drew them out upon the bank, the old man weak as an infant, the wretched girl quite insensible. They bore her to the house; they laid her in warm blankets-they chafed, and at length revived her, even as she had revived the murdered infant an hour before; but when at length she opened her eyes, alas! there was no dawning of intelligence there. She raved all night in utter delirium. Lady Morton sat by her bedside, listening in horror and amazeSuddenly Lady Morton's voice was heard ment to the revelations of her madness. First, from her window above, and there was some- she gathered that her child had been carried thing wildly earnest in the tones as they out, she could not find for what purpose: swept over their heads upon the wind-"Hold then she heard that he had been (as the out your lantern farther over the water. I miserable being expressed it) dead; and had, see something in the bend of the river." she not held him even then breathing and moving in her own arms, she would have run to his cradle to satisfy herself that it was not a changeling. But her fear and amazement turned to horror almost insupportable, when at length, Nora's involuntary confession disclosed her seducer's motive in making that theft the condition of their promised marriage, and that horror was again lost in gratitude and wonder, when she heard the exclamations of wild delight with which Nora acted over again the scene of her child's resuscitation; and, finally, she left her bedside at daybreak, worn out with mingled emotions of joy and sorrow. "Ah, miss," cried old Felix Daly, the butler, as he gained her side with the dull light of his lantern; "the pathway is six feet under water by this; the man is not in Ireland that dare attempt it." The old man bent over the torrent with his arm extended. "Farther yet," was all they could hear of the lady's next cry; "I cannot reach farther, my lady," said Daly. "Give me the light," cried Nora. She took the lantern from his hand, and, as a mass of loose rubbish, long straws, grass, and briers, gathered in some upland eddy, came sailing down the river, she cast it with a firm hand on the rude raft it offered. The lantern sunk through the yielding brambles till the light was almost level with the water, but some stronger branch, or firmer texture of the sods and rushes, arrested its farther descent, and, flickering up from the very verge of the stream, it floated away, casting a pale, yellow light around, that showed the naked rocks with their waving crown of woods on either hand, and the brown twisted torrent between, like the back of a great serpent, writhing and rushing down the glen. It disappeared behind the black crag, and in breathless suspense they listened for the next cry from above. First came a scream sounding shrilly over all, and then they could distinguish the exclamations,— "I see it now! alas! It is a man. He is caught upon a branch, and the water breaks over him. His hands and feet are swept out in the current. The light is sinking-it flickers on his face. Merciful Heaven! it is my cousin Richard !" His With the earliest light of dawn, the domestics were again by the river side. Its shrunken waters now yielded them a pathway to the spot where the body of Morton had been seen at night. Body there was none; but on the branch that had arrested it there still remained a ragged piece of cloth fluttering over the turbid stream, which now flowed many feet below that last and only remnant ever discovered of the miserable man. horse was found dead, laired in a morass, near the pillar, girths and bridle broken. He had burst from his confinement, and foundered in the storm. Reason returned to Nora Boyle, but life was fast departing. Her kinswoman had given her her full forgiveness, and the last rites of her church had been administered. "Wilt thou too forgive me, dear child?" she said to the baby on his mother's breast. The boy stretched out his arms, she clasped him with a feeble embrace, and breathed her last in a blessing on his lips.-Blackwood's Magazine. The Gatherer. Wax and Wafers.-When Lord Nelson gained the great victory at Copenhagen, he silenced the land-batteries by his broadsides; but he found out that 'one or more of his ships were in rather shallow water; it was, therefore, deemed expedient to send a letter to the Crown Prince of Denmark, to demand a cessation of hostilities, in order to spare further effusion of human blood. The letter being written and neatly folded, Lord Nelson sent for a stick of sealing wax. It so happened that he who was sent on this commission, had his head taken off by a cannon ball. This was reported to Nelson: "Send another messenger for the wax," said he. It was observed to him that there were wafers on the table; "Send for the sealing wax," he repeated. It was done, and the letter was sealed. Some one said, " May I take the liberty of asking why, under so hot a fire, and after such an accident, you have attached so much importance to a circumstance apparently trifling?" He replied, " If I had made use of a wafer, it would have been still wet when the letter was presented to the Crown Prince: he would have infered that the letter was sent off in a hurry, and that we had some very pressing occasion for it. The wax told no tales." FERNANDO. Guilds. In the eleventh century, AngloSaxon merchant ships traded from Britain to Rome, and such vessels sometimes went out together armed for their mutual protection. This was effected by associations called Guilds, which were instituted in some mercantile towns and sea-ports, for carrying on more successful commercial enterprises, having sometimes a guild-hall for assembling in. Generally speaking, however, the AngloSaxon guilds were established on the principle of the modern clubs and benefit societies; their name being derived from the word guildan, to pay. The subscription was one penny at Easter from every hearth or family, and one penny at every member's death. Their intention was to generate mutual good faith, to support the members under the numerous pecuniary penalties of the laws, and principally to provide for the burial and religious rites of the dead. Aristippus.-One day Aristippus requested Dionysius the Tyrant (at whose court he was a great favourite) to give him a talent. "How is this," asked Dionysius, you once told me that wise men never wanted money." "Give me the talent first,” replied Aristippus, "and" we will discuss the matter afterwards." Dio "Well," nysius accordingly gave him one. said Aristippus, " you see I do not want money." Dionysius once made a present of money to Aristippus, and of books to Plato. Some of the bystanders wished, from this distinc tion, to draw an inference to the disadvantage of Aristippus. He replied, "I stand in need of money, and Plato stands in need of books." A man brought his son to Aristippus to be instructed by him, and begged that he would take particular care of him. For this care Aristippus demanded 50 drachmas. "How," replied the father, "why, with that I could buy a slave." "Do so then," retorted Aristippus," and you will have a pair." Another time, seeing that his slave, who was following him, could not keep up with him on account of a load of money which he said Aristippus, "and only keep what you "Throw some of it away," was carrying, can carry with ease." Use of the Toes.-It is remarkable to what excellent use the toes are applied in India. In England it is difficult to say whether they are of any use at all; but in India they are second fingers; and, in Bengalee, are indeed called the "feet fingers." In his own house a Hindoo makes use of them to fasten the clog to his feet, by means of a button, which he slips between the two middle toes. The tailor, if he does not thread his needle with his toes, twists the thread with them; the cook holds his knife with his toes, while he cuts fish, vegetables, &c.; the joiner, the weaver, and several other mechanics, all them for a variety of purposes, which an European would never think of employing them." use FERNANDO. for An English Hint.-An Italian Prince, remarkable for pride and ill-humour, once walking on the balcony of his presence chamber with an English ambassador, who had greatly thwarted him in his violent outbreakings of temper, said to him, "Do you know, sir, that one of my ancestors forced a person of your description from this balcony into the street ?" "It might be so," coolly replied the Englishman, "but perhaps it was not the fashion then as it is now to wear swords." If the dull Antiquarian who is "employed in collecting curiosities for the British Museum," succeed no better in that "important business" than in ridiculing Miss Kemble's "boiling snow," he has little "quicksilver" in his composition. Is this his best mode of passing the Museum vacation? Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House, London; sold by G. G. BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; CHARLES JUGEL, Francfort; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers. NATURE and art have combined to render Gibraltar one of the most interesting places in the world. Its rocky promontory rises from 1,200 to 1,400 feet above the level of the sea; its form is oblong, extending from north to south about two miles and three quarters, and the average width may be stated at 1,600 yards, or nearly a mile. The mountain may be said to be divided into two distinct portions, by the narrow, serrated ridge of rock which marks its greatest elevation. The western face, towards the Bay of Gibraltar, is the broadest; the eastern face, fronting the Mediterranean, is narrower, and, like the northern front, is characterized by rugged, inaccessible, and in places, perpendicular, cliffs of bare limestone. The western, being the broader side, has a more gradual slope and is accessible in many places. Viewed from the isthmus, which connects it with the main land of Spain, the whole of the northern face is seen; and from the Mediterranean shore or sea, it stands alone, rising in awful grandeur, like a huge spectre, above the azure waves which nearly encircle it. "Around the whole of this extraordinary, rocky fortress, not a single point is left undefended. Nature has done much to make an approach difficult anywhere, but art has rendered it one of the wonders of the world. It bristles with VOL. XXII. P cannon; even the solid rock has been burrowed, and long subterranean galleries hewn out, from whence, at a height of several hundred feet above the level of the isthmus, cannon are pointed against all directions of approach." These galleries terminate in two large halls, hewn out of the solid rock, and called St. George's Hall, and Cornwallis's Hall. These are but a few of the excavations of art: those of nature, with which the rock abounds, are of great extent and beauty. The principal of them, called St. Michael's Grotto, is in the southern part of the mountain. Its entrance is 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, and is formed by a rapid slope of earth, which has fallen in at various periods: it leads to a spacious hall incrusted with spar, and apparently supported by a large stalactitical pillar. To this succeeds a long series of caves, of difficult access; the communicating passages of which are over precipices, which cannot be passed without the aid of ropes and scaling ladders. Several of these caves are 300 feet beneath the upper one. In these cavernous recesses, stalactitesmay be seen in every stage of formation; from the flimsy, quilt-like cone, suspended from the roof, to the robust trunk of a pillar, three feet in diameter, which rises from the 626 |