I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary expectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf; but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly disregarded. The victim was held fast by some; while others, binding a large heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck; and others again eagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. Half naked, and thus manacled, they hurried him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep, drowning his last death-shriek with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph; over which, however, the yell of mortal agony was distinctly heard. The heavy burden splashed in the dark-blue waters of the lake; and the Highlanders, with their pole-axes and swords, watched an instant, to guard, lest, extricating himself from the load to which he was attached, he might have struggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound; the victim sunk without effort; the waters, which his fall had disturbed, settled calmly over him; and the unit of that life, for which he had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of human existence.

W. Scott.

GRACE DARLING; THE HEROINE OF THE SEA.

The fame which St. Cuthbert gave, of old, to the Farn Islands, has been in our days transferred to a simple but heroic girl, Grace Darling.

On the 7th of September, 1838, the Forfarshire, proceeding from Hull to Dundee, was wrecked on those crags. The wreck, at early dawn, was descried by the Darlings from the lighthouse, lying a little to the right, with a long ridge of sharp and destructive rocks intervening. The sea was running mountains high, rearing up into tremendous breakers. Nine survivors of that terrible catastrophe had scrambled out of the temporary reach of the waves; but the returning tide would have probably swept them off, should they,

drenched and exhausted, have been able to have held out till then.

Grace Darling did not stop to weigh these chances. The moment she caught sight of them, she determined to save them if possible. To her experienced father it appeared the most desperate and hopeless of adventures. No dissuasions had, however, any effect. She declared, if he declined to accompany her, she would go alone. At last he yielded. The boat was got out, and they had at first to let it drift with the wind southward to some distance, and then bring up under the lee of the rocks aimed at. Glad as they were at the prospect of deliverance, the survivors could not restrain their astonishment on observing an old man and a slight young woman coming to the rescue. They succeeded. And the applause which followed the gallant exploit was enthusiastic and universal. Even from Russia visitors have come to see her, sending home accounts of her and pieces of the rock on which she lived. The lighthouse is filled with costly gifts-the tokens of admiration. None of these things have altered her character in the least. The action she performed was so natural and so necessary to her, that it would be the most impossible of things to convince her that she did anything extraordinary.

She is timid in the presence of the inquisitive stranger; but, after soliciting her father, I succeeded in seeing the heroine. I found her sewing, dressed very neatly, but very simply, in a plain striped print, with her hair neatly braided. At that time she was about five-and-twenty. Her figure is by no means striking, but her face is full of sense, modesty, and genuine goodness; and that just corresponds to her inward character. Her prudence and simplicity are enchanting, and the sweetest smile plays on her lips that I ever saw in a person of her rank. Daring is not so much a quality of her nature, as the most perfect sympathy with suffering, which swallows and annihilates everything like fear or self-consideration, extinguishes in fact every sentiment but itself.

Yet a few years, and the envious grave has possessed her a victim of consumption.

Howitt.

LORD BACON.

In these prescient views by which the genius of Lord Bacon has often anticipated the institutions and the discoveries of succeeding times, there was one important object which even his foresight does not appear to have contemplated. Lord Bacon did not foresee that the English language would one day be capable of embalming all that philosophy can discover, or poetry can invent; that his country would at length possess a national literature of its own, and that it would exult in classical compositions, which might be appreciated with the finest models of antiquity. His taste was far unequal to his invention. So little did he esteem the language of his country, that his favourite works were composed in Latin; and he was anxious to have what he had written in English preserved in that "universal language which may last as long as books last."

It would have surprised Bacon to have been told that the most learned men in Europe have studied English authors to learn to think and to write. Our philosopher was surely somewhat mortified, when, in his dedication of the Essays, he observed, that, "Of all my other works, my Essays have been most current; for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms." It is too much to hope to find in a vast and profound inventor, a writer also who bestows immortality on his language. The English language is the only object, in his great survey of art and nature, which owes nothing of its excellence to the genius of Bacon.

He had reason, indeed, to be mortified at the reception of his philosophical works; and Dr. Rowley, even, some years after the death of his illustrious master, had occasion to observe, "His fame is greater, and sounds louder in foreign parts abroad than at

home in his own nation; thereby verifying that divine sentence, 'A Prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house.""

Even the men of genius, who ought to have comprehended this new source of knowledge thus opened to them, reluctantly entered into it: so repugnant are we to give up ancient errors, which time and habit have made a part of ourselves. Isaac D'Israeli.

NELSON AND HARDY.

The life of Nelson abounds with illustrations of naval daring, but all are so well known that great difficulty has been experienced in presenting any to the reader with a feature of novelty. One, however, narrated by Colonel Drinkwater Bethune, the historian of "The Siege of Gibraltar," and an eye-witness of what follows, is as well worthy of general fame as some of Nelson's more splendid achievements; and the more so as, on this occasion, that personal affection to his more immediate followers, which in every case secured their devoted attachment to himself, was the inciting cause to a display of that gallantry which, a day or two after, was more conspicuously called forth in the cause of his country, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent,after which "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding firstrates" (he having boarded one enemy's first-rate from the deck of another) became a boasting byword of the English sailor.

Commodore Nelson, whose broad pendant at that time was hoisted in the Minerve, Captain Cockburn, got under weigh from Gibraltar on the 11th of February 1797, in order to join Sir John Jervis's fleet. The frigate had scarcely cast round from her anchorage, when two of the three Spanish line-of-battle ships in the upper part of Gibraltar Bay were observed also to be in motion. The headmost of the Spanish ships gaining on the frigate, the latter prepared for action, and the Minerve's situation every instant becoming more hazardous, Colonel Drinkwater asked Nelson his opinion as to the

probability of an engagement. The hero said he thought it was very possible, as the headmost ship appeared to be a good sailer; "but," continued he, looking up at the broad pendant, "before the Dons get hold of that bit of bunting I will have a struggle with them; and sooner than give up the frigate I will run her ashore."

Captain Cockburn, who had been taking a view of the chasing enemy, now joined the Commodore, and observed that there was no doubt of the headmost ship gaining on the frigate. At this moment dinner was announced; but before Nelson and his guests left the deck, orders were given to set the studding sails. Seated at dinner, Colonel Drinkwater was congratulating Lieutenant Hardy, who had been just exchanged, on his being no longer a prisoner of war, when the sudden cry of "a man overboard" threw the dinner into disorder. There is, perhaps, no passage in naval history of deeper interest than the following account of what then occurred:

"The officers of the ship ran on deck; I, with others, ran to the stern windows to see if anything could be observed of the unfortunate man. We had scarcely reached them, before we noticed the lowering of the jolly-boat, in which was my late neighbour, Hardy, with a party of sailors; and before many seconds had elapsed the current of the Straits (which runs strongly to the eastward) had carried the jolly-boat far astern of the frigate, towards the Spanish ships. Of course the first object was to recover, if possible, the fallen man; but he was never seen again. Hardy soon made a signal to that effect, and the man was given up as lost.

"The attention of every person was now turned to the safety of Hardy and his boat's crew. Their situation was extremely perilous, and their danger was every instant increasing from the fast sailing of the headmost ship of the chase-the Terrible,—which by this time had approached nearly within gunshot of the Minerve. The jolly-boat's crew pulled 'might and main' to regain the frigate, but apparently made little progress against the current of the Straits. At this crisis, Nelson,