very ill placed for aiming at others, and defending ourselves. I looked all round in order, if possible, to discover our assailants, but after surveying the whole circuit of the lake and surrounding heights, from the Caballones to the Boca Grande, there was nothing to be seen but the everlasting foliage of a vegetation so beautiful, rich, and magnificent, that while gazing upon it, one felt inclined to wish at last that, by way of relief, there might be some dryness, and cold, and gloom, intermingled with the landscape.

It would seem that our enemies, whoever they were, thought of nothing more than interdicting us from approaching their abode, and politely giving us to know that as they did not receive company, they would rather not be disturbed. On the anchor being weighed, and the boat under sail, no one molested us; only O'Neil, according to his unhappy custom, having taken it into his head to recal danger, when danger was no longer thinking of him, thought he would give a slight turn to the helm and steer towards the Naiad's grotto. No sooner was this perceived than the unknown inhabitants saluted us with another shot, which passed through one of our sails and very nearly struck my head.

"It blows fresh,' said O'Neil, apparently to prevent my reproaching him for his folly; the wind is from the south, we shall get on.'-' You must see, you incorrigible fool,' said I, 'that we do not draw enough of water; the least whiff will upset us and be our death.'-'Let us keep the cape to the north of us,' said O'Neil; 'the island has as many bays, creeks, coves, and inlets, as a piece of lace has holes in it; we shall land at night and ballast the boat with a supply of water without difficulty. But if you think yourself a better steersman than I am, pray take the tiller.' I did so, but no sooner had O'Neil ceased to steer, than as if fortune were resolved to favour the senseless, the navigation quite changed its character and became extremely difficult. Currents and counter-currents drove about our tiny craft in the most opposite directions, and the wind blew from all points of the compass, within a quarter of an hour. We were driven far from the coast, which was soon out of sight, and a heavy rain set in with the night. The sea became more boisterous than ever, and the Irish O'Neil, who was ordinarily far from devout, began to say his prayers, which I thought a very bad sign. It seemed a hundred chances to one that our frail bark, now dancing on the sharp crests of the waves, now poised between them, would be swallowed up in a moment. Nevertheless I continued to steer as I best could, and after two days and two nights of extreme anxiety and fatigue, we descried the land. The swell bad by this time so far subsided; O'Neil began to sing, and again took the tiller.

THE OLD NEWSPAPER.

BY RICHARD OLDMAKENEW

SHERIDAN.

Sheridan had not the comprehensive grasp of mind, the methodical arrangement, nor the uninterrupted flow of correct and harmonious rhetoric which characterised all the speeches of Pitt; but he excelled him in his bursts of unstudied pathos, in his appeals to the heart, in cutting sarcasm, and overwhelming repartee. Indeed, no one ever felt the force of these qualities so severely as the man who then wielded the destinies of the British empire. I was once informed, through a source on which I could place some reliance, that his servants in Downing Street, on the morning after a great debate, and before the newspapers made their appearance, could ascertain, from the temper their master was in, whether Sheridan had spoken on the preceding night, and what sort of a speech he made. Although the business of a parliamentary speaker was almost the only species of industry to which Sheridan could ever bring himself to devote any lengthened attention, even here an habitual carelessness was always more or less observable. Important as were most of the pro

positions which he brought forward at different times, as well as the debates in which he took part, and great as was the impression which he never failed to make on the House of Commons, he seldom appeared to have made any preparation such as others were accustomed to make. His opinions being once formed on the subject he intended to discuss, he trusted to his own creative genius for the style and language in which they were to be delivered. This was always my impression respecting his indolent habits; although Mr Moore now tells us in his 'Life of Sheridan,' that he used to devote several hours of the day, when people supposed him to be asleep in his bed, to a laborious preparation of the speeches he intended to make the same evening. To me he always appeared to have derived less from study than from his accurate recollection of what had previously fallen from others; especially when I consider that he was much happier in his replies than when the business originated in a speech from himself. Pitt was often heard to say in the private circle of his friends, that Sheridan's best speeches might have been better, had he devoted a moderate portion of time in preparing them.

The failure of Sheridan at the Stafford election completed his ruin. He was now excluded both from the theatre and from parliament; the two anchors by which he held in life were gone, and he was left a lonely and helpless wreck upon the waters. The Prince Regent offered to bring him into parliament; but the thought of returning to that scene of his triumphs and his freedom with the royal owner's mark, as it were, upon him, was more than he could bear; and he declined the offer. Indeed, miserable and insecure as his life now was, when we consider the public humiliations to which he would have been exposed, between his ancient pledge to whiggism and his attachment and gratitude to royalty, it is not wonderful that he should have preferred even the alternative of arrests and imprisonments to the risk of bringing upon his political uame any further tarnish in such a struggle. Neither could his talents have much longer continued to do themselves justice, amid the pressure of such cares, and the increased indulgence of habits which, as is usual, gained upon him, as all other indulgences vanish. The same charm that once had served to give flow to thought, was now employed to muddy the stream. By his exclusion from parliament he was therefore saved from affording the spectacle of a great mind not only surviving itself, but continuing the combat after life is gone. In private society, however, he could even now-before the rubicon of the cup was passed-fully justify his high reputation for agreeableness and wit.

The distresses of Sheridan now grew upon him every day, and through the short remainder of his life it is a melancholy task to follow him. The sum arising from the sale of his theatrical property was soon exhausted by the various claims upon it, and he was driven to part with all he most valued, to satisfy farther demands and provide for the necessities of the day. Those books which were presented to him by various friends now stood, in their splendid bindings, on the shelves of the pawnbroker. The handsome cup given him by the electors of Stafford shared the same fate. Three or four fine pictures by Gainsborough, and one by Morland, were sold for little more than £500; and even the precious portrait of his first wife, by Reynolds, though not actually sold during his life, vanished away from his eyes into other hands. One of the most humiliating trials of his life was yet to come-he was arrested, and carried to a sponging-housea sad contrast to those princely halls, of which he had so lately been the most brilliant and favoured guest, and which were probably, at that very moment, lighted up and crowded with gay company.

He had for some months had a feeling that his life was near its close; and I find (says Moore) the following touching passage in a letter from him to Mrs Sheridan, after one of these differences which will sometimes occur between the most affectionate companions, and which, possibly, a remonstrance on his irregularities and want of

the dark outline of the bush which clustered on the plains and covered the faces of the gently undulating slopes, he seemed to have been formed for such a scene. The halfsavage landscape, where the long kangaroo grass grew up amongst the box and myrtle-trees, and amidst which the fat lazy steers were luxuriating in nature's profusion; the huge white dog, with its long, rough, hard, shaggy coat, its powerful limbs, and thoughtful, sagacious eye; and the brawny, coarsely-dressed labouring man, formed a tout ensemble of half-savage life and its accessories that was admirably in keeping in all its parts.

The lumberer wore a cap of kangaroo-skin, not like those nondescript articles of fashionable wear called hats, but formed to fit the head; from under this cap his long, yellow, sunburned hair fell in ringlets, clinging to his hirsute cheeks and round his brown muscular neck. He wore a shirt of yellow check, with an ample collar laid over so as to expose his tawned throat; and his neck was loosely encircled with a silk kerchief of a bright red colour. Over his cotton under-dress was a frock of dark blue flannel, open at the breast, and profusely ornamented with roses, thistles, and shamrocks, wrought in green and red worsted -memorials of that triune nation far over the deep, of which Tom often thought, and to which he again and again went back in his dreams. Wide moleskin trousers covered his nether parts, and these were belted over his upper clothes with a broad stripe of kangaroo-skin fastened in front with three steel buckles. Add to this short, broadpointed, brown boots, that had oftener been wet with dew than Warren's or any other body's blacking, and you have Cranky Tom, as complete and excellent a specimen of the Australian pioneer as ever drank water from the Torrance, dined on kangaroo-flesh, held a plough, drove a bullockteam, hunted stray steers, blazed the old growth of grass, and prayed for rain.

Come on, Sneezer-come on, old boy,' cried Tom, snapping his fingers, and bending down to stroke his dog. 'You'll miss the bush and the plain mayhap, and the city folks may call you a rough customer, but the girl that loves me will love you too, boy. Rough dog and rough master are going home; and we'll rough it out through life together. Ah, what a trio we shall be-you, my little Bet, and I'—and as the dog wagged his tail, bounded before his master, and barked in his face, as if he had comprehended every word, and was answering him back right cheerily, the lumberer, in the fullness of his heart, struck up that soul-inspiring ditty of Scotland and of love,

"Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly lo'e the west,

For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lass that I lo'e best.'

Home! holy, happy home! that ever rises before us like a dream of the better-land, when love and joy are stirring up the deepest fountains of our hearts! Poetry! sweet and magic poetry! that, like the finger of the Creator, embodies our best aspirations, and writes, with renewed brightness, upon our memories the joys of the past, the beatitudes of the present, the hopes of the future! Home dwelt in the spirit of that rough child of nature, like the fabled treasure in the head of the humble toad; and poetry came over his soul, like incense from flowers, to soften and refine him.

Hillo, Cranky Tom!' cried a group of men just from the labour fields, as, with merry shouts and wavings of the hand they welcomed the lumberer, who, apparently as strong as when he started on his journey in the morning, approached Gardener's station as the sun was throwing his setting beams over the broad plains. Where for now, Tom?' cried they, as they gathered round him with outstretched hands and smiling faces. Hillo, Sneezer, where

for now?'

·

Why, I'm going no farther to-night than father Gardener's kitchen-fire,' said Tom, as he shook hands with the frontier-men all round, with hearty good-will; and as for Sneezer, good fellow, he'll not leave me. But I must see if they kill as good mutton here as they did two years ago, and I must taste mother Gardener's tea.'

'A cup of whisky would suit your Scotch stomach as well, Tom,' said one joker, as he slapped the pedestrian familiarly on the back.

'Or a flagon of old Johnie Dodge's rum,' cried another. Ay! who knows how much blunt Cranky Tom has in his shagreen purse just now!' shouted one of those equivocal characters who are known in Australia as freemen; what does he say to standing treat at Johnie Dodge's?' 'Two years in the bush are worth a hundred guineas, clear cash, to a Scotchman,' said a Welsh shepherd, who, being arrayed in garments of sheep-skin, looked Robinson Crusoe to the life.

'Och, boys,' cried a little Irishman, who followed the profession of bullock-driver, and who looked as poor as if he were still in county Roscommon, lave Tom alone; he has the bawbees, depind upon it: but they're where Patrick Rooney the carpenter's grinding-stone was-that's in a shark's mouth; and, as Teddy Mullins said to the gauger who came into his botheen when he was making a dthrop of the crathur, nobody will see them come out again. It's a Scotchman for houlding a grup of the money.'

Tom looked around on the careless, free-and-easy band of colonists, who laughed at this sally with a heartiness that quite displeased him. As an individual, jokes and quizzes had no effect upon Tom. His person, his habits, his qualifications, and even the objects of his love, might be joked about and caricatured with perfect impunity; but when his pride was touched, the bounds of legitimate ridicule were passed: you had pierced the armour of goodnature that defended the lumberer's bosom-you had touched his heart. If there was one thing he was more proud of being than another, it was that he was a Scotchman; if there was one stigma above another that he hated to hear attached to the character of his country, it was that of greedy, mean parsimony. It was therefore with no dove-like eye that Tom glanced round on the grinning men that environed him, and it was with no gentle voice that he said, 'Hark ye, neighbours, I am a Scotchman, and at this hour I would not exchange my country for that of the best man I see. I am from the bush, and, if it will be any satisfaction to you to know so, I don't mean to go back again. I have some hard cash, which, I daresay, is more than any of you can say; and I do not mean to drink, nor to treat you, which, I believe, is not agreeable news.'

Och, Tom, the news is just like Biddy Malone's twins -the very things expected,' cried the bullock-driver; and this repartee was followed by another roar of laughter.

6

It is not because I am afraid of the expense,' said Tom, his eye lighting, and his face becoming red with anger. 'Sure thin, it's becase yer turning proud, Tom dear,' responded Mick, and he winked his eye provokingly in the sturdy lumberer's face. A Scotchman's always touched with one of four things, you know,' he continued, in a taunting tone-the itch, greed, poverty, or pride; of the first three you seem to be free-so it's pride that's the matter with you. You'll be going to buy a farm on the Grampian hills now, since you've made your fortune! and again the laughter of the rude border-men rose at Tom's expense.

Tom gazed at Mick with the stern, severe look of a man who feels himself insulted, but who, having admirable command over his temper, disdains to expose his wrath to an unworthy object; yet, in his eye, as he looked around, a close observer could have traced an expression of vexation. He was in that state in which a man will either do something very violent or something very foolish, in order to wipe away a bad impression. He could have either spilt his blood or thrown his purse and all his hardearned gold into the sea, to have convinced those men that the love of money was no essential attribute of a Scottish nature. He was vibrating on the point where resolution and inclination meet, and maintain a precarious equipoise. The advices of his good friend, Mr Cameron-his hopes, his love, his prospects of domestic felicity-his resolve that he should lead a life of truth and soberness-came flashing on his reason and his recollection; but the pride of coun

try-a dangerous and a foolish pride, even at the best was tugging at his heart-strings, and pointing him to the rude drinking-shop which, like the cholera-morbus on its desolating track, follows in the wake of so-called civilisation, displacing nature's liquid fountain in the haunts of nature, and desolating primitive life with a plague more direful and dehumanising than any of those which changed the land of Egypt into a charnel-house.

Tom stood upon the great colonial road, on each side of which were built the few rude, primitive-looking huts which constituted the settlement. The cows were being driven home for the night by mounted herds, and the sheep were trotting before their roughly dressed shepherds, and pouring into the yard of Squire Gardener. Round this square was a high and close fence, in order to keep the flocks and herds in and the wild animals out; and several barns and outhouses stood in confused disorder within its ample area. Wigwams of various sizes and forms constituted the homes of the herdsmen and other labourers whom Squire Gardener, a man of extensive possessions and great wealth, had gathered round him. These were generally parallelograms, whose walls were of upright stakes plastered with river mud, and whose roofs were covered with straw thatch. There might be ten or twelve of them in all; for Gardener's, although not exactly in the bush, was quite a frontier location; and yet, conspicuous amongst these few huts, was the rum-shop, with the high, upright post at the door, and the large barrel placed transversely upon it as a sign.

Ah! I see that Tom is not going to be so stingy after all,' said the freeman who had been transported for forgery, and was consequently a knowing fellow. Come, Tom,' he continued, placing his arm in that of the too compliant lumberer, Johnie Dodge has just got a new supply! Come along, comrades, Tom's a trump after all!'

Alas! poor Tom! the fatal step was taken the rubicon of safety was passed-and the generous, hard-handed, cheerful son of toil was within the dread circle of perdition's Maelstrom. He felt dissatisfied with himself as he sat at the rude bench where the maddening liquor sparkled before him, and the beams of prophecy danced in the bubbles that brimmed the peace-destroying cup. His conscience whispered, in terrified accents, monitions and reprehensions, and the wreck of all his hopes seemed to pass like a panorama before him, as the rays of the setting sun shone sorrowfully through the panes of the little lattice, and seemed to lighten as with a beacon of warning the fell destroyer which poor Tom was bearing to his lips. But the song and the joke, and that debasement of pride called nationality, together with the inherent weakness incidental to a false love of approbation, chained him to his seat; and when the sun rose next morning, Tom's treasure was less by a guinea, and he was sleeping in the hut of Johnie Dodge, with Sneezer whining sorrowfully as he lay and watched his snoring master. Tom rose at last, and shook himself into something like sensibility. His first impulse was to examine his money; his next was to seize his staff and bundle, and, throwing them over his shoulder, to walk hurriedly and sulkily past the smiling rum-seller as he stood at his door, and to take the road with an irritated temper and a less elastic step than had been his on the previous day. Sneezer bounded before him, and barked, as if glad to see his master right again, and the bells of the oxen were ringing merrily, but Tom was cross, and bent his eyes to the ground as if ashamed to look at the clear blue sky and the smiling sun. He was debased in his own mind since yesterday-he was on the mountain's brow of degradation, and the tendency was downward. There was no hand to warn him of his danger, for he had turned his eyes from heaven, and had fixed them like flint upon the ground; there was no voice to whisper the words to-day- Beware of rum;' he dared not think of Mr Cameron now; he scarcely dared think of that young girl to whom he had vowed to be constant: why, yesterday he had divorced her love, and had married that household curse instead-the widow-making rum. His dreams and hopes were dimmer now; there was no

happy song, no kindly notice of his dog; a sense of meanness was ever before him and speaking in him, and to drown that sense's poignancy he entered the first low cabaret on his route, and drank again of his enemy-rum. Again and again he drained a fresh libation, and yet he staggered onward. The strong attraction of a purer affection still rose, like the glorious light of Zion, above the lust that was dragging him down into the vortex of its grossness; and still he drank; and still he drew nearer to the home of her who often looked with an anxious, hopeful eye towards the road on which she had often seen the tall manly form of that hearty, fearless youth, whom, for his temerity, and hardihood, and off-hand manners, his comrades had designated Cranky Tom.'

Cranky Tom!-They had never heard him whispering love-tales, nor singing in low soft tones, only meant for the ear of the Australian maiden, the songs of his native land, or they would not have called him by such a name. They could not see with woman's eyes, nor hear with woman's ears, or they would have felt their hearts thrill at the sound of his deep-toned voice, and their cheeks grow warm and red in the glance of his beaming eye: at least Betsy Kane thought so, and maybe she was right. She loved Tom; and when we look through the medium of love everything is bright and beautiful on which we look. He had one fault, however; and that, in the eyes of her severe and rigid father, was of itself a mountain—a mountain, indeed, that her woman's faith in the man of her affection removed, but which the stern old settler regarded as a deadly incubus. Tom loved spirits-he indulged in the inebriating cup; and when the father of the girl whose hand he sought admonished him of the prospective misery that slumbered in every draught of the fell poison, he laughed, and treated his admonitions lightly.

'My daughter shall never, with my consent, wed a man who indulges in alcoholic drinks,' said old Richard Kane, mildly but firmly; and, young man,' said he to Tom, with a sorrowful eye, if you had seen the misery and ruin that I have beheld flow from the withering fountain of its deep pollution, you would tremble to touch it with your lips.'

Impressed with the manner of the serious old man, and really loving Betsy Kane, Tom had pledged to abstain from rum, and had gone into the bush with a sober and industrious countryman, in order to earn the funds for his marriage. Month after month had brought a record of his progress in saving, and a declaration of his adherence to sobriety, to the delighted girl and the hopeful old man, who also loved the manners and generous nature of his intended son-in-law; and now the time of his probation was closed, and, like a trusting, loving Rachel, she looked forth for the form of the youth who was the Jacob of her dreams.

The day of his expected return closed, and Betsy and her father sat silently by their little fire. The maiden hoped, the old man feared, but neither spoke. They were at one in thought yesterday: they both expected Tom, and they chatted and joked about his coming; but now they were silent, and were widening in their reflections.

The second day dawned and closed, and again the old man and his daughter sat gazing into the hearth. There were tears in the maiden's eyes, and grief at her father's heart, but still they spoke not-for she still hoped, but the sun had gone down, and Richard's certainty was fixed that Tom was once more a broken man.

Sweet day of love! so calm, so clear, so bright-the bridal time of hope and happiness-alas! it had now set to Betsy Kane; and now she moved about, a trembling girl, beneath the clouds of a hopeless grief. More than a week had passed, and still no Tom had come; and now she did not look for him.

One night, as she sat with her head upon her hand, and looked sadly at her sorrowing father, a low knocking was heard at the door of her home, and then succeeded the pitiful whine of a starved and feeble dog. In a moment the excited girl had sprung to the door; the latch was lifted with an eager, trembling hand; and then, as she