merely lighting a cigar; the place and time of night were against me. I could not have paid; for it was past paying hours. I had climbed in, and having, moreover, thrown my cigars, pouch and all, into the sea, had lost the witnesses to corroborate my assertions. So here I was, twice in custody in one night, and had exchanged my character of house-breaker for that of a smuggler. Money I had none, nor would it have served me if I had, for to bribes they seemed impenetrable. "Well," thought I, " if I am a smuggler I must have a smuggler's heart, and make some bold attempt;" so I suffered myself to be led up the steps on my way to the guard-house. As soon as I came opposite to a turning, I slipped off my box-coat, which I had been unbuttoning by degrees, tripped up my friend with the pistol, and fairly ran for it. I effected this manœuvre so quickly that I believe my friends were aghast; I never, however, looked behind me to see; suffice it to say, I escaped, and after prowling about, like a fox, for an hour, fearful of being retaken every minute, I made my entrance to my inn, and retired to bed with the loss of five sovereigns and a new box-coat.

By nine o'clock on the following morning I was shivering on the top of the Brighton coach on my return home. Coachee did not recognise me, as I felt it prudent to keep my handkerchief to my face, until we were at least some miles from Brighton. As fresh passengers got up I felt an indescribable desire still to keep my veil to my face, and did so until I had fairly arrived at home. My housekeeper was astounded at my sudden re-appearance: my trusty Geta merely glanced at my eye, which I now for the first time discovered, was rather of a dingy hue from a blow, in my first capture as a house-breaker; said he supposed I had lent my box-coat, smothered a giggle for which I could have kicked him down stairs, and retired to

replace my things in my drawers, from which they had been so suddenly snatched, just to scent the sea breeze. Once more seated in my own chair, and "monarch of all I surveyed,”—“ Adieu, ye idle fancies,” said I, "thus may every trifler in the paths of gallantry be served; and may a still greater severity be reserved for those who go full swing”—The last word closed my mouth. I rose next morning, "home, sweet home" and security had resettled my nerves. I shot the hen-pheasant at the first shot, gave the cow-boy half a crown, and made up my mind that I was never intended for a man of intrigue-I still, however, love the sex; so much so, that if any of my fair readers (not having roguish black eyes) can consent to abandon an autumn at Brighton, can pickle and preserve, is in possession of a good edition of Glasse's cookery, some well approved family receipts, is neat and tidy in her dress, genteel in her deportment, and can dispense with her husband's company nine hours out of twenty-four, the writer can offer her a comfortable home, an adequate proportion of pin-money, and a person-But let them come and judge for themselves. Any lady who feels sick from swinging would be preferred.

ADDRESS OF HOFER,
THE TYROLESE PATRIOT,

TO THE FRENCH COURT-MARTIAL.

-You ask what I can say in my defence,-youwho glory in the name of France,-who wander through the world to enrich and exalt the land of your birth,you demand how I could dare to arm myself against the invaders of my native rocks?

Do you confine the love of home to yourselves,-do you

punish in others the actions which you dignify and reward amongst yourselves? Those stars which glitter on your breasts, do they hang there as a recompense for patient servitude?

I see the smile of contempt which curls your lips. You say-This brute; he is a ruffian, a beggar: that patched jacket, that ragged cap, that rusty belt. . . . shall barbarians such as he close the pass against us, shower rocks on our heads, and single out our leaders with unfailing aim these grovelling mountaineers, who know not the joys and brilliance of life, creeping amidst eternal snows, and snatching with greedy hand their stinted ear of corn? Yet, poor as we are, we never envied in our neighbours their smiling sun, their gilded palaces; we never strayed from our peaceful huts to blast the happiness of those who had not injured us; the traveller who visited our valleys met every hand outstretched to welcome him; for him every hearth blazed; with delight we listened to his tale of distant lands. Too happy for ambition, we were not jealous of his wealth; we have even refused to partake of it.

Frenchmen! you have wives and children; when you return to your beautiful cities, amidst the roar of trumpets, amidst the smiles of the lovely, amidst the multitudes shouting with triumph; they will ask, where have you roamed? what have you achieved? what have you brought back to us? Those laughing babes who climb upon your knees . . . . . and shall you have the heart to tell them. ... we have pierced the barren crags; we have entered the naked cottage to level it to the ground we found no treasures, but honest hearts, and those we have broken, because they throbbed with love for the wilderness around them

Clasp

this old firelock in your little hands; it was snatched from a peasant of Tyrol, who died in the vain effort to stem our

torrent. Seated by your fire-side, will you boast to your generous and blooming wives, that you have extinguished the last ember which lightened our gloom?

you more. In those

Happy scenes; I shall never see cold and stern eyes I read my fate. Think not your sentence can be terrible to me; but I have sons, daughters, a wife who has shared all my labours; she has shared too my little pleasures; such pleasures as that humble roof can yield; pleasures that you cannot understand. My little ones! should you live to bask in the sun of manhood. you are sporting by the brook that washes our door, you dream not of your father's doom. should you live to kuow it, know too that the man who has served his God and country with all his heart can smile at the musket levelled to pierce it. What is death to me? I have not revelled in pleasures wrung from innocence or want; rough and discoloured as are these hands, they are pure. My death is nothing. Oh, that my country could live; oh, that ten thousand such deaths could make her immortal! Do I despair, then? No; we have rushed to the sacrifice, and the offering has been vain for us; but our children shall burst these fetters; the blood of virtue was never shed in vain. Freedom can never die.

I have heard that you killed your king once, because he enslaved you; yet now again you crouch before a single man; you, a million of soldiers, you follow a single man, who bids you trample on all who abjure his yoke, and shoots you if you have courage to disobey.

Do you think that, when I am buried, there shall breathe no other Hofers? Dream you that, if to-day you prostrate Hofer to the dust, to-morrow Hofer is no

more?

In the distance I see the liberty which I shall not taste: VOL. IV. PART I.

K

behind I look on my slaughtered countrymen, on my orphans, on my desolate fields; but a star rises before my aching sight, which points to justice . . and it shall come. For a moment only shall I sleep. Before the sun has sunk below yon mountains, I shall awake in a paradise which you perhaps may never reach.

ON THE CHARACTER AND HABITS OF BRITISH SEAMEN.

Or all the classes of society to which this mighty empire is indebted for its political existence, none appear to me to be so imperfectly understood, or (in this piping time of peace) so little appreciated, as the British seaman. I do not in this term mean to include that promiscuous horde of ruffians, the scum of society, who, driven or dragged by the civil power, fly from justice, or compound with it by "going on board a man of war." These are scarcely men, much less seamen; they possess not the feeling, the sense of honour, the artless candour and generosity, the careless, thoughtless, dauntless intrepidity, and disregard of life and gold, the true characteristic of the genuine

tar.

Having, in the course of a life devoted to mercantile pursuits, passed much of my time in making voyages across the Atlantic, I have had frequent opportunities of being acquainted with, and, of course, have become an enthusiastic admirer, of, what is called a thorough-bred seaman, whether he be an admiral with his union at the main, or the cook at the coppers, who, shoared up with a wooden leg, serves out the daily allowance of pease soup and burgoo.