Enoch thinks perhaps for a moment of the escape he made from Alice's clutches a few weeks ago—but his fine finger— nor shall poetry ever blind it-travels over a very different memorial- -more pathetic than any that was ever writ in

Greek.

"A broken mast, a bursting wave, a child

Weeping, a woman frantic on the shore;
Rude stone! Thou tell'st a story sad and wild.
'Pain, want, unkindness, all afflictions sore,
Disease, suspense, with constancy I bore;
My heart was broken-Letty lies with me;
And now we know that Matthew died at sea.'

The churchyard belongs to the church in which Enoch Wray was married-married to Mary Gould-and doubtless she was buried here—yet Enoch is busying himself with other matters, and has forgotten where she lies. For had he remembered Mary Gould, would he not have gone, first of all, up to her grave, and nowhere else have knelt? Not so thought Ebenezer Elliott, and he knew Enoch Wray far better than either you or I-he had known him all his-that is all Eben's -life, and in the poem you will find it writ.

"But to one grave the blind man's eyes are turn'd,
Move where he may-and yet he seeks it not.

He communes with the poor, the lost, the mourn'd,
The buried long, by all, but him, forgot:
The hated? No; his bosom never burn'd
With fire so base: the dreaded? No, he spurn'd
Fear, as unworthy of the human breast.
Why does he pause on his dark pilgrimage?
Hath he forgot what love remembers best?
Oh, stoop and find, in this familiar page,
The mournful story, dearest to his age!
'Here Lucy rests, who in this vale of tears

Dwelt thirty weeks:-Here waits the judgment-day
Her brother James, who died, aged fifty years:
Here slumbers sinless Anne, who lived a day:
Children of Mary, and of Enoch Wray.'
His finger pauses, like a trembling wand,
Held o'er desponding hope by mercy. Lo!
Another line, cut by another hand,

On the cold stone, from which he riseth slow
But it is written on his heart of woe;
'Mary! thou art not lost, but gone before.'

'Oh, no!-not lost. The hour that shall restore Thy faithful husband, Mary, is at hand;

Ye soon shall meet again, to part no more;

By angels welcomed to their blissful land,

And wander there, like children, hand in hand,

To pluck the daisy of eternal May."

Enoch leaves the churchyard in trouble, to be brought back in a few days in peace; for now

"It is the evening of an April day.

Lo, for the last time, in the cheerful sun
Our father sits, stooping his tresses grey,
To hear the stream, his ancient neighbour, run,
Young as if time had yesterday begun.

Heaven's gates are like an Angel's wing, with plumes
Of glorious green, and purply gold, on fire:

Through rifts of mountainous clouds, the light illumes
Hill-tops, and woods, that pilgrim-like retire;
And, like a giant's torch, burns Morthern spire.
Primrosy odours, violet-mingled, float
O'er blue-bells and ground ivy, on their wings
Bearing the music of the blackbird's note;
Beneath the dewy cloud the woodlark sings,
But on our father's heart no gladness flings.
Mary bends o'er him, mute. Her youngest lad
Grasps, with small hand, his grandsire's finger fast;
Well knows the old man that the boy is sad;
And the third Mary, as she hurries past,
Trembles, and looks towards the town aghast.
Enoch hears footsteps of unwelcome sound,
While at his feet the sightless mastiff lies;

And, lo, the blind dog, growling, spurns the ground!
'Two strangers are approaching,' Enoch cries;
But Mary's throbbing heart alone replies.

A stern Good-day, sir!' smites his cheek more pale;
A rude collision shakes him in his chair;
The Bible of his sires is mark'd for sale!
But degradation is to him despair;

The hour is come which Enoch cannot bear !
But he can die!-and in his humble grave,
Sweet shall his long rest be, by Mary's side;
And o'er his coffin uninscribed shall wave
The willow-tree, beneath the dark tower's pride
Set by his own sad hand, when Mary died."

Enoch Wray is dead; and we are left to think on the Village

Patriarch, his character, his life, and his death. Do not we always do so kindly or cruelly-whenever we chance to hear that any Christian man or woman of our acquaintance has died? "Ah! is he dead ?" "Can it be that she is cut off?" And a hundred characters of the deceased are drawn extempore, which, it is as well to know, find no lasting record that obituary being all traced in letters of air. But we are not disposed to write Enoch Wray's epitaph, on the very day of his death-nor yet on the very day of his burial. Some time, shorter or longer, elapses after the disappearance of the deceased-before you see a man like a schoolmaster earnestly engaged with suitable tools in engraving an imperishable record of filial, or parental, or conjugal affection, on a new handsome burial-stone, that looks as if there were none other besides itself in the churchyard-though the uprights are absolutely jostling one another till they are in danger of being upset on the flats-slabs once horizontal, but now sunk, with one side invisible, into a soil which, if not originally rich, has been excellently well manured, yet is suffered to produce but dockens, nettles, and worse than weeds (can it be fiorin?) the rank grass of wretchedness, that never fades, because it never flourishes, thatching the narrow house, but unable-though the inmates never utter a complainteven in the driest weather, to keep out damp. That is rather a disagreeable image—and of the earth earthy; but here are some delightful images-of the heavens heavenly; and, in the midst of them, for a while let us part.

"He hears, in heaven, his swooning daughter shriek.
And when the woodbine's cluster'd trumpet blows;
And when the pink's melodious hues shall speak,
In unison of sweetness with the rose,
Joining the song of every bird, that knows
How sweet it is of wedded love to sing;
And when the fells, fresh bathed in azure air,
Wide as the summer day's all golden wing,
Shall blush to heaven, that Nature is so fair,
And man condemn'd to labour in despair;-
Then, the gay gnat, that sports its little hour;
The falcon, wheeling from the ancient wood;
The red-breast, fluttering o'er its fragrant bower;
The yellow-bellied lizard of the flood;

And dewy morn, and evening-in her hood
Of crimson, fringed with lucid shadows grand-

Shall miss the Patriarch; at his cottage door
The bee shall seek to settle on his hand,
But from the vacant bench haste to the moor,
Mourning the last of England's high-soul'd poor,
And bid the mountains weep for Enoch Wray!
And for themselves!-albeit of things that last
Uhalter'd most; for they shall pass away
Like Enoch, though their iron roof seem fast
Bound to the eternal future, as the past!
The Patriarch died; and they shall be no more.
Yes, and the sail-less worlds, which navigate
Th' unutterable deep that hath no shore,
Will lose their starry splendour, soon or late,
Like tapers, quench'd by Him whose will is fate!
Yes, and the Angel of Eternity,

Who numbers worlds, and writes their names in light,

Ere long, oh earth, will look in vain for thee,
And start, and stop, in his unerring flight,
And, with his wings of sorrow and affright-
Veil his impassion'd brow, and heavenly tears!"

ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

[JUNE 1830.]

PUNISHMENT in human government may be referred originally to two sources: the vengeance of offended Power; and the satisfaction of Justice—that is, retribution measured to transgression. Either of these feelings suggests the idea of punishment, and satisfies the minds of those who impose it. To these is soon added the use to which punishment may be employed, for deterring others from the same crime. The progress of moral civilisation adds a fourth purpose—that of moral restoration to the criminal. The illustration of these Four Principles would go through the whole history of Penal Legislation.

The character of those feelings which have given origin to punishment among men, must explain the sanguinary and ferocious character it has borne. For either of them provokes strong passion in the hearts of rude men. Offended power and indignant justice crush the offender. In those early states of mankind in which laws and government have their origin, there is nothing for men to refer to, when occasions arise, but the sentiments they find in their own hearts, whencesoever they are produced; and when any of those great violations occur which call for severer chastisement, the passionate feeling with which they consider the acted offence gives birth to the law.

If we were to look into the history of human institutions to understand how it has happened that those corporeal inflictions which seem to us so terrible-mutilations, torments, death with all possible aggravations—have entered into the scheme of government, we should have to examine the effect among men in the pristine states of life, of crimes perpetrated before their eyes, which provoke vehement indignation. When the punishment is once allowed, its continuance is accounted