can only say for myself that I never groan under the pressure of the manifold solicitudes which Heaven has imposed upon me, without being grateful that I have not to deplore, instead, the waste of faculties and feelings unemployed. And as I may not again have an occasion of admonishing the reader, I will now take leave to warn him against suffering any innovating, or I will call them heretic, theories to usurp possession of his mind; and conclude by recommending to his adoption the maxim "vitæ naturam sequeri ducem."

The reader has probably heard of the solitary oration which procured for the speaker the name of single-speech Hamilton: it was a most brilliant effort, but the only effort ever made by that gentleman, though he long before and after sat in the British House of Commons. The stranger seems to have been of Mr. Hamilton's mind, and to have chosen to confine all his exertions to the delivery of a single speech.

ST. ÆLIAN'S WELL.

SOMETIME within the last two years, there still existed in Denbighshire a well, called St. Elian's, and supernamed, the Cursing Well. This well affords, perhaps, as strong an example as can be adduced of the force and inveteracy with which a popular superstition is capable of influencing the human mind, even in our enlightened and incredulous age. It was, together with a few fields, the property of a woman who held it by inheritance, and who, thanks to man's weakness and wickedness, found her patrimony, so small in appearance, an estate of no inconsiderable value. "The well of St. Elian lies in a dingle, near the high road, leading from Llan Ælian to Groes in Irias: it was surrounded by a wall six feet high, and embosomed in

a grove; the trees have been felled, and the wall thrown down."-" The ceremony was performed by an old woman, in the following manner: After having received her fee, the name of the victim was marked on a piece of lead, this she dropped into the water, and muttered her imprecations, whilst taking from, and returning into, the well a certain portion of the water." Mr. Pennant says, that he was threatened by a person whom he had offended, with a journey to this well, to curse him with effect. It seems, the patron of this fatal fount was one Ælian Geîmiad, who lived about the close of the fifth century, to whom there is a church dedicated in Arvon, and another in Mona.

Time out of mind has this well been celebrated for its very baneful and malignant property of securing the effect of a curse; that it possessed such a power, is not only as implicitly credited among the vulgar of our days as it would have been by all ranks in more barbarous ages, but what is far more to be lamented, and scarcely to be believed, hundreds of pilgrims annually visited it for the horrible purpose of fixing its withering influence on some neighbour who had excited their revengeful feelings. The man whose heart is set on cursing his fellow-creature, thinks a walk of twenty, thirty, or even forty miles, a trifling exertion, compared to the gratification of seeing a hated neighbour pine gradually away, till he expires under the effect of his deliberate malediction. It is difficult to believe that so fiend-like a spirit can inhabit a human bosom, or pollute a Christian land; but it is a fact, that numbers of ill-tempered, implacable Welshmen walk many miles every year, for the purpose of cursing him whom Christ commanded us to forgive, though he should offend us, not seven times only, but seventy times seven. Let the following recent and well-authenticated instance, serve as illustration :

There were two farmers living in Flintshire, whom we will call, if you please, Jones and Lloyd. Jones was a surly, gloomy, envious fellow, who spent his time in grumbling, and contrasting his lot with that of his more prosperous neighbour, instead of emulating his active, industrious habits; envy soon becomes hatred, and Lloyd happening to be the fortunate competitor in some little purchase of cattle or land, which each was desirous to make, the wicked and malignant spirit of Jones was exasperated to the height, and he vowed revenge on his unconscious neighbour, who was employing his hours in cheerful labour, and had no time to waste in brooding over schemes of hatred, or even for caring, or perceiving, what was going on in the unquiet mind of Jones. The latter, meanwhile, felt his own wretchedness, in some degree, appeased, by the soothing thought that he might, by a few words, bring death and ruin into the family of his neighbour, nor was he slow in executing his project. He set off one morning, with as much secrecy as his exultation would permit, to St. Elian's well, a journey of thirty-four miles, but the anticipation of his beloved revenge shortened the way, and put fatigue out of the question. He made his application to the proprietress, or Cursing Hag of the well," a denomination which her severance in this abominable traffic well merited. Having received the customary offering, without which the curse would have been powerless, she led him to the well, where he uttered his malediction in the terms she prescribed; wishing, with some accompanying imprecations, that his neighbour Lloyd, might be seized by a consuming malady, which should, ere long, terminate in death, and that he might die standing. Having lightened himself of this curse, which had been, for some time, sticking at his heart, he returned home: I never heard how he slept that night. He had now one subject of anxiety remaining, which was,

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that Lloyd might not discover what had happened, till he was within grasp of the charm; because, if a man discovered that some adversary had "put him into the well," within a given period, he might, by means of a counter offering, buy himself out. Jones, however, was too full of diabolical exultation, always to restrain it: especially when any one remarked the thriving fortunes of Lloyd, he could not forbear muttering some hint, that it would not last long, till a suspicion of the fact became prevalent, and some good-natured, foolish friend, thought he could not do better than warn the victim of his situation. Poor Lloyd shared, in common with his neighbours, an implicit faith in the baneful properties of the well; and, extremely terrified, he made all possible despatch to counteract the curse; but, on arriving at St. Elian's fountain, he found the period was expired; his offering was positively rejected, and he must needs summon whatever of fortitude and resignation he could command, and wait the slow operation of the curse. He returned dejectedly home, convinced that his doom was irreversibly sealed; and so potently did this superstitious belief work on his imagination, that his spirits sank totally beneath the shock, hope entirely forsook him, his appetite and rest were gone, and he wasted rapidly and visibly. Towards the close of this melancholy scene, he became subject to long fits of delirium; during his last short interval, he inquired earnestly after his revengeful neighbour, expressed a hope that his wrath against him was appeased, and declared that he forgave, from his heart, the man who had persecuted him unto death. Having thus, by the last effort of his reason, proved himself a Christian, he relapsed into derangement, and shortly after died, leaving a wife and family to deplore the loss of so good a man.

How fared it, meanwhile, with the human fiend who wrought this mischief? Every creature regarded him with

mistrust and abhorrence; and, in proportion as his victim had been beloved and pitied, he was execrated. There is something intolerable, even to the most unsocial being, in the consciousness of being universally odious, and Jones walked about among men with Cain's mark on his forehead; he was looked on as a visible demon; and if any one ininistered to him, it was the effect of fear, and not of good will; these manifestations of dislike, combining with the whispers of his own dark conscience, were, as the first murderer expresses himself with regard to his own punishment, more than he could bear. He, in his turn, drooped and sickened, and was left to his feverish, miserable bed, and to his own embittered, remorseful feelings, for no man had any pity for him-no one prayed for his recovery. Were I inventing a tale, its catastrophe would probably be the death of Jones; but as I am relating a fact which has positively happened, I must not warp or modify, according to my own fancy, the circumstances attending it. Jones recovered his health, and is, I believe, now living. This story is true; the names of Jones and Lloyd are fictitious. This example is selected, in preference to many others, from my own knowledge of its authenticity, and that I am well acquainted with the minute particulars attending it.

From Brand, and other writers on popular superstitions, we gather that wells and fountains were objects of dread or reverence in the times of paganism, according as the nature of the nymph or demon who inhabited them was benign or malignant. It is well known that many of these absurdities were adopted and avowed in the darker ages of Christianity; nay, St. Winifred's fountain at Holy-well is, at this hour, an existing proof that this superstition is yet alive, even amongst enlightened, or at least well educated, Catholics, and maintained and encouraged by their bishops and ecclesiastics. Happily St. Winifred's influence is as