That horror vanish'd when my infant wail'd;
For though myself too worthy hell I knew,
Yet knew I also-by no fear assail'd—

Hell could not be where it was present too!
In distant roost the cock untimely crew,

Sleep-heavy, yet impatient for the dawn: Sharp round the baffled corners harshly blew Th' abrupt, inconstant, gasping wind forlorn. And flying hail shot down the chimney's vent,

And on the hearthstone rattled hard and cold:
That contrast wretched, e'en some solace lent,
And turn'd my chaff-bed to a downy fold!

I hugg'd my baby more than miser's gold-
Cast off the demons of the drowsy time;
And, in a sense of comfort heart-inroll'd,

Lay still, and waited for the morning prime.
Yet anxious thought-that never-dying worm
And fear-the quenchless fire that ever burns,
Eating one's very life out at the germ-

Gnaw'd and consum'd my doubting soul by turns.

The coming day no promise brought of bread,
Because I trusted man in my distress:
Where prophets dwell not, ravens are not led;
And most unholy grows our wilderness.

Already had I tried to beg:-I'd tried.

Just Heaven! what language harder is to speak? It chok'd me rising, and, ere spoken, died,

Because my failing heart was nigh to break.

How more than base and prostrate felt I then!
"Twas worse than e'en the worst of other woes.

It seems an easy trade to selfish men,

But he alone who's tried it truly knows.

Nor was this all that I had done to live,

My beggar'd heart abject felt nought too poor.

Yet to the pauper they had not to give

The very workhouse on me shut its door.

O Christ! thy mild, benignant Godhead, then,

A double crucifixion must have borne,

To see Thy practice so belied by men,

Whom Thou to darkness would have cast in scorn.

How felt I when this lowest refuge fail'd?
That human laws and boasted charity-

(Where laws and charity had most avail'd-)
Were but a solemn farce and living lie.

With human kind was snapp'd my last weak tie:
The parish crust had grown too rare a gift.
Unfit to herd with tramps and outcasts, I
Was turn'd-a scrap of human wreck-adrift.

Rejected quite, and from the social sphere
Thus banish'd, I was lost as in a cloud:
The world turn'd black; and I, in heart-despair,
For very desolation wept aloud.

Then dropp'd the final horror in my cup,
With none to help, to pity, or to save.
Th' affrighted fountains of my love dried up,
And then I wish'd my child was in its grave.

Oh Lord! forgive who much forgiveness need!
THEM whose harsh judgments, cruel, merciless,
And unrelenting drove me to that deed,

Born of the agonies of my distress.

Once, sympathy and pity would have saved,
As hate and scorn consign'd me lower still:

Alas! the world no hand of Mercy waved,

But push'd me, slipping, faster down the hill!

V.

Bonnabel takes the Road to her Parent's Hut, and does Murder by the Way.
Since worse could come not, I resolv'd, once more,

To face, in shame, my father as he lay-
Work-bent and crippled—at the darksome door
Of Death, awaiting to pass out away.

Dim is my memory of that sad day;

I know we perish'd out, and inly pined:
Our lives were winter when they should be May,
Nor flash'd one hope athwart the darken'd mind.
"Twas sunset when I went. I wanted night
To hide me ere I reach'd my father's cot;
I had not heart to meet him in the light,
And less he'd hate me if he saw me not.

"Twas sunset: and a strangled glory fleck'd
The neutral region of the western air
That lay 'tween day and night, and redly deck'd
The vivid landscape, tinted here and there.
There is a melancholy-temper'd brook

Runs voicelessly and dull beneath our hill:
Its banks, black-shadow'd, have a villain look
Above their mirror, treacherous and still.
Temptation seiz'd me; and a minute's space

Suffic'd. But first I kiss'd it thrice, for sin,
And love, and sorrow. Then I hid its face-
Its eyes appall'd me so-and dropp'd it in.
I dropp'd it in. "Twas I, in honest truth-
No other. And I heard the sickly sound:
It went down heavy, dead, yet loud, forsooth,

As though a thunderbolt had struck the ground.
How came it 'twas so loud? It shook the earth
Beneath me, like a leaping sea. The trees,
As if possess'd by devils, danc'd in mirth,
And Something laugh'd and groan'd upon the breeze.

I felt my blood stop, as about to freeze;

Arrested, and struck solid by those groans.
And as my heart heav'd sudden with disease,
My flesh crept up like spiders on my bones.

Away, away! I dared not stay, but flew

I cared not whither, so I was not there.
But why did Something still my flight pursue?
Some dark companion of the peopled air?

I wanted none of those with me, who walk
Beside us without feet, or wingless fly:
Who have no lips nor tongues; yet, voiceless, talk
Into the soul, with keenest orat❜ry.

Let loosen'd spirits with like spirits keep,
Nor mortal company thrust in at night:
For when an infant dead invades our sleep,
"Tis greater than a giant in its might.

VI.

Bonnabel has an Interview with her Father-Returns on the next Morning to seek her
Child-The Water-cress Woman-The Prison-And a Prayer for Mercy.

His words were sullen, though his tone was mild.
Said he, "You are not dead yet, Bonnabel?

Where have you put your-well, I mean your child?"
My tongue grew stiffen'd, and I could not tell!

"Go back and fetch it: bring it here to me.
I would not touch the living, vile disgrace;
But, unpolluted, with mine eyes I'd see

Thy father's likeness lives not in its face!”
That night I spent in horrors and alarms,

Starting abrupt amid some frightful dream;
Yet doubly stricken when my vacant arms
Instinctive strain'd for what was in the stream.
I rose, unrested, ere the first faint gleam

Of healthy red and white on morning's cheek
Flush'd up; nor shone one solitary beam,

When forth I went my little Death to seek.
Lord, in Thy mercy now make strong the weak!
I saw my child upon the shallow sand;
While two black rats, with eager, filthy squeak,
Were gnawing off its innocent right hand.

This, e'en my murderer's heart could not withstand;
I rush'd upon the furies with a shriek

That echo answer'd from the hollow land,

But vengeance was not for mine hands to wreak.

A crone that gather'd cresses hobbled by.

Ah, had I known!" said she, "I ne'er had took
My cresses where so sweet a corpse doth lie,
Or pick'd a meal from such a cursed brook!"
Then cast she on me such a killing look

As much belied her inexpressive age:

"Young girl," said she.-"I fear from out thy book
Is ripp'd the story written on this page!"

She pointed downwards, more in grief than rage,
And lifted up my soiled picture fair.

Then could I not a mother's cries assuage,

For though I'd kill'd it, still my heart was there.
They took me to a dungeon, where I learn'd
Though guilty now, I was denied not bread:
While, in my helpless innocence they turn'd
Their hearts away, and thus to murder led.

If people be not drunk with self-conceit,

And blind as moles, and feelingless as stone,
They'll see 'tween them and me this crime doth meet,
Nor reprobation falls on me alone.

They tried, and found me guilty:-not insane,

But took some count of pity in my case;

Reck'd of my breaking heart and burning brain,

And ask'd for mercy from earth's highest place.

And, Oh, ye human of my own frail race!
Who've hearts not dead, and thoughts considerate,

O, aid me to avoid the scaffold, base,

And show me mercy once, though mercy late!

PROSPECTUS OF AN ASYLUM

FOR THE RECEPTION OF DECAYED DANDIES, MEMBERS OF THE

AMONGST the many noble institutions consecrated to charity which adorn our metropolis, there is actually none to which the above-mentioned class of unfortunates can fly, when age, sickness, ill-temper, or railway speculation have disqualified them from mixing any longer in the society which they have been wont to frequent, with satisfaction to themselves and toleration from their younger and more fortunate accomplices.

Time will dull the keenest wit, play will undermine the broadest estate, good living will paralyse the most active mind, the slimmest and most agile frame will either expand into corpulence or wither into mummyism, the most hyacinthine locks will grizzle and fall off, and it is indeed melancholy to reflect that when the popular, well-dressed, wealthy, insolent young man about town has lapsed into the obese, discontented, dyspeptic bore, to whose obsolete stories no man will listen, for whom nobody will back a bill, and whom none will invite to dinner, there should be no harbour of refuge open to the wretched victim of selfishness, extravagance, and sensuality, no asylum where his weaknesses may be ministered unto, his wants relieved, his infirmities cared for.

Alas! we adhere too little to the maxim, that charity begins at home. We are more easily moved by the ills incident to the inhabitants of Timbuctoo than to those of our collieries, the merchant princes of Lombardstreet and the charitable ladies of Clapham sympathise more readily and substantially with the woes of their antipodes than with those of their next-door neighbours, and thus it is that the last generation of men of wit and fashion about town, of whose notice thirty years ago every one felt proud, and whose dicta sufficed to set up and cast down beauties, cooks, tailors, and opera dancers, are now left to perish in miserable neglect in stuffy suburban lodgings, ministered to in their dying moments by venal valets and squalid maids of all-work.

Such a reflection is, indeed, a reproach on our nation, which the writer of this prospectus flatters himself he shall be enabled to remove, if his scheme meets with the approval and co-operation of an intelligent and kind-hearted public.

He has with this view entered into arrangements with the proprietors of the St. James's Club-house, which he conceives will, with a very few unimportant alterations, be admirably calculated, on account of its site, climate, and historical recollections, as a shelter for the old age of those, whose youth, wealth, and health have been squandered in its brilliant saloons.

Liberty is a fine thing, but not for all men. When we witness daily elderly gentlemen-great-grandfathers-dropping into their clubs at midday, and calling huskily for mineral waters to correct the "acidity" engendered by the previous night's debauch; when we see individuals, obviously far beyond the age of puberty, with brief necks and bad digestions, eagerly making up parties for "house dinners," or over-eating

matches; when we hear other poor creatures, late at night, calling for sherry-negus and brandy-cobbler, until the acute groom of the chamber can scarcely comprehend their inarticulate demands, we cannot suppose that to such men freedom is a boon. They would be healthier and happier in the fancy prison at Pentonville, or bone-crushing under Mr. George Lewis, at Andover.

From forlorn wretches of this description the writer anticipates that his asylum will be readily peopled. The committees of the clubs which they infest must at once see the expediency as well as the humanity of placing them under mild and paternal coercion.

Fat, unamusing old dandies, "desidiâ tardos et longo frigore pingues," who do not keep cooks, lumbering up club windows which they have long ceased to adorn, monopolising newspapers which they are too torpid to read, and dozing away their evenings stertorously in arm-chairs, may, with equal propriety, be forwarded to the St. James's Asylum.

Bores of all calibres and species will be taken in and done for, but at a considerably advanced charge, as in justice to the less offensive inmates of the house, it will be necessary that they should be kept in solitary confinement.

Tuft-hunters and toadies will be boarded at a very low rate, and will enjoy peculiar advantages, which could scarcely be conceded to them in any other retreat.

The writer of this prospectus assures the committees of such clubs as may think fit to intrust their morbid and decaying branches to his care, that the feelings, prejudices, and even petty vices of the unfortunates shall be consulted and indulged in every mode at all compatible with their general health and safety.

The same bills of fare which used to be exhibited in the coffee-room when Francatelli was chef, will be continued, but simpler viands, better calculated to suit the impaired viscera of the D. D. will be substituted for the original dishes, and clothed for the especial benefit of the said D.D., with the pompous and varied nomenclature of the Parisian

cuisine.

It may be anticipated that numerous complaints will at first arise from the disappointed gluttony of new comers, but the experience which the writer has had in club management, enables him to assure the public that this source of irritation will be readily met by a few "general answers" and "regrets" from the committee, couched in conciliatory language, such as are invariably forwarded to every habitué of a club, who may have been simple enough to express his dissatisfaction on any point connected with its conduct. Moreover, the D. D. will soon discover that the compulsory substitution of a boiled whiting and barley-water for "Sole à la Provençale" and dry champagne, possesses the great advantage of leaving no acidity to be corrected.

The St. James's Asylum will be conducted on temperance principles. Wine and spirits will only be allowed when ordered by the medical attendant, a general practitioner of great eminence, who has long resided in the parish, and is celebrated for his experience and success in treating the diseases incident to D.D.

Play may be indulged in to any amount. Indeed, all the evening arrangements will be continued as in the late Mr. Crockford's time, ex