And lo! the tide was over his feet,

Oh! his heart began to freeze,
And slowly to pulse :-in another beat
The wave was up to his knees!

He was deafen'd amidst the mountain tops,
And the salt-spray blinded his eyes,
And wash'd away the other salt drops
That grief had caused to arise.

But just as his body was all afloat,

And the surges above him broke,

He was saved from the hungry deep by a boat,
Of Deal-(but builded of oak).

The skipper gave him a dram, as he lay,
And chafed his shivering skin;

And the angel return'd, that was flying away

With the spirit of Peter Fin!

Norwegian mountain scene, engraved by Romney, from an original painting by Danby, is not without its good points; but with the composition, as a whole, we are by no means satisfied. Danby's delightful genius has not here been employed with all its accustomed effect.-4. Alpine Scenery, from a drawing by W. Harding, engraved by E. Finden, may in some respects be termed beautiful; but its distinguishing characteristics are coldness and tameness.-5. Fading Flowers, from a picture by W. M. Wright, engraved by E. Finden. The design is pretty and pleasing, almost sweet; the engraving is flat and spiritless.-6. The Lyrist, engraved by J. W. Cook, from a picture by W. Haines, is, on the contrary, very firm, bold, and spirited, as well in the engraving as the design: the former, however, is somewhat deficient in mellowness and tone.-7. The Meeting of Alexander and Diogenes, engraved by E. Finden, after a painting by Martin, is the same subject as one that we noticed in "The Souvenir." It is beautiful, but far inferior.-8. The

We wish that some of our bookselling friends would be a little more attentive to their own interests, if not to our's-for which, in point of fact, we know they do not care a rush, though we very often subject ourselves to much inconvenience for the sake of obliging them. This was the case, in November, with "Friendship's || Offering, a Literary Album, edited by | Contadina, dictating a love-letter to a Thomas K. Hervey:" had it been sent to us in proper time, it would have been noticed at length in our December No., as was Mr. Watts's "Literary Souvenir;" and as were, in the November No., "The Forget-me-not," and "The Amulet."

Now, however, we proced. The embellishments, this year, ten in number, exclusively of the title-page, are certainly superior to those of last; though, in this department, much, very much yet remains to be done to elevate "Friendship's Offering" to the rank which it ought to sustain amongst our literary annuals. We must be allowed to remark, too, en passant, that, in point of improvement, the literature of the volume has not kept pace with its embellishments: though many excellent pieces appear, the mass of contributions, both in prose and verse, are obviously inferior to those of the preceding volume.

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wandering scribe in the streets of Rome; by Davis, engraved by W. Humphrys. This is one of the most charming productions in the volume: it is indeed a picture-a picture of great merit.-9. A view of the Castle of Monaco, on the shore of the Mediterranean; painted by W. Harding, engraved by E. Finden. This, though of a character similar to that of the Alpine Scene by the same artists, is, in merit, greatly superior.-10. Coquetry between Gaiety and Gravity, from a picture by W. M. Wright, engraved by C. Heath, is a clumsy piece of Dutch uniformity; usurping, if we mistake not, the place of a composition infinitely its superior.

The list of literary contributors to this year's Friendship's Offering" boasts many respectable names and signatures. Amongst others-L. E. L., the author of Gilbert Earle, T. K. Hervey, Mrs. Hemans, First, of the embellishments. 1. The the author of Sir John Chiverton, the Bower Scene, is a pretty, moonlight, lacka- Rev. T. Dale, J. Bird, H. Neele, J. Montdaisical sketch, drawn by J. M.Wright, and gomery, B. Barton, T. Hood, J. Bowring, engraved by C. Heath.-2. The Brigand Miss Roberts, Horatio Smith, Miss M. G. Chief and his Wife, is admirably engraved Lewis, Lord Porchester, Miss Mitford, the by W. Humphrys, from Eastlake's well-author of the Subaltern, Mrs. C. B. Wilknown charming picture: the execution son, H. S. Van Dyk, the Rev. R. Polis altogether fine.-3. The Precipice, a whele, D. L. Richardson, T. Gent, the

Rev. G. Croly, J. Galt, the author of the
Chronicles of London Bridge, the Rev.
W. L. Bowles, J. Clare, &c.

We shall not waste either our own time, or that of our readers, in analyzing, or in criticizing, the respective productions of these writers; but, in proof that, as we said before, many of them are excellent, we shall offer three or four extracts. executing this portion of our task, we are not aware that we can commence better than by introducing Mrs. Hemans's illustration of Eastlake's picture of the Brigand Leader and his Wife:

Dark chieftain of the heath and height!
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
Seest thou the stormy sunset's glow,
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track'd thee to thy lair.

Thou, against whom the voice of blood,
Hath risen from rock and lonely wood,
And in whose dreams a moan should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply, thine own last hour is nigh,
Yet shalt thou not forsaken die.

There's one, that pale beside thee stands,
More true than all thy mountain bands!
She will not shrink in doubt and dread,
When the balls whistle round thy head;
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye
No longer may to her's reply.

Oh! many a soft and quiet grace
Hath faded from her soul and face;
And many a thought, the fitting guest
Of woman's meek, religious breast,
Hath perished, in her wanderings wide,
Through the deep forests, by thy side.

Yet, mournfully surviving all,
A flower upon a ruin's wall,

A friendless thing, whose lot is cast,
Of lovely ones to be the last;
Sad, but unchanged through good and ill,
Thine is her lone devotion still.

And, oh! not wholly lost the heart,
Where that undying love hath part;
Not worthless all, though far and long
From home estranged, and guided wrong:
Yet, may its depths by Heaven be stirr'd,
Its prayer for thee, be pour'd and heard!

In

Our next quotation, of a much lighter character, shall be a Serenade, by Mr. Bird:

Changing from verse to prose, we shall select a portion of the piece which illustrates Danby's picture of the precipice: it is by the author of Gilbert Earle. It was in a Norwegian village, situated amongst the wild and desolate mountains of the country, that, on a winter's night, a party of goatherds and hunters was assembled round the fire of the little inn— whiling away the hours with tale, and song, and jest, to give a zest to their liquor. After several of the young men present had related their exploits and adventures of danger amongst the mountains, a veteran hunter, having finished his pipe and knocked the ashes out, addressed the circle, and gave the following account of an accident which had occurred to him in early life:

It is now about twenty years ago that I I had got was one day out hunting, as usual. sight of a chamois, and was advancing upon him, when, having almost got within shot, I sprang across a chasm a few yards wide, upon a ledge of snow opposite. The outer part of this was, alas! only of snow-it was frozen hard;-but, as I came upon it with considerable force, I felt it giving way beneath me. The man, who says that he never felt fear, never was in a situation such as this. The agony of terror-and what agony is greater?

rushed throughout my frame. My first im- looked up to the pinnacle from which I had falpulse was to spring forward to reach the firm ||len, I could scarcely believe that to be possible. ground; but the very effort I made to save myself, accelerated my fate,-the mass broke short off-and I fell!

I have since been to view that spot, and, standing in safety on its brink, my nerves have shivered as I have looked down the awful precipice. How I escaped being dashed into as many atoms as there are pebbles at its base, it is impossible to divine. The height is upwards of seventy feet-there was no projecting rock, no jutting tree, to break my fall. Perhaps the snow, which fell along with me in vast quantities, and which crumbled as it fell, served to protect me. When I perceived my footing yield, the earth, as it were, to sink from under me, I felt the common hyperbole, "that my heart, sprang to my throat," almost ceased to be one; one gasp of mortal agony, as it burst from my lungs, gave me the sensation of choking, which the phrase I have mentioned strives to express. The feelings of my mind may be all summed in the exclamation which, I believe, escaped me"Oh, God! I am gone!" My next thought was one momentary appeal to that God's mercy, and then I thought no more.

The spot where I lay was in a narrow cleft between two cliffs, which diverged from each other, as they advanced, leaving a sort of triangular platform open between them and a third. A torrent threw itself, like a wild horse's mane, from the rock above me; but, in the numberless eddies which whirled in the hollow, it was dispered into air before it reached the place distant-through its depths -where I lay.

Night now began to thicken fast-the faster on account of the deep den in which I was. The wind blew as though all the quarters of the heaven sent forth their blasts at once, and that they all met and battled there. I had escaped one dreadful death, and I now began to fear another more dreadful still, because more slow and more felt-I feared that I should die through cold and hunger, and untended hurts. The cold, too, I now felt more severely, for, shortly after I had given up, in despair, all attempts to extricate myself from my situation, my dog, after whining and 'yelping piteously for some time, went off: as he turned the corner of the rock, which hid him from my sight, I felt as if my last hold of life had gone from me-as though the friend of my bosom had left me to die-He, too, abandons me! I exclaimed, and, I blush to confess it, I burst into tears. Being forsaken by that which I thought faithful, cut me to the heart. Who, indeed, can bear that!

When I recovered my senses, day was beginning to close. lay enveloped in snow. My hunting spear was beside me, broken; and stretched upon my bosom lay my faithful dog,-spread out, as it were, to protect me from the cold, and breathing upon my face, as if to communicate his life to bring back mine. "Poor fellow," the old man continued, and the tear glistened in his eye as he spoke poor fellow, he is dead, long since; and his son," stooping and fondling the dog at his feet," is old now;-but, if I had but one crust of bread, and one cup of water in the world, old Thor should share them with me for his father's sake." The dog looked up, as though he under-rather for the well known step of Thor prestood his master's meaning; for he smiled in his face, with that expression of thankful fondness which the countenance of his race alone shares with that of the human species.

I felt, continued the hunter, I felt numbed and stiffened, and in considerable pain all over; so much so, that I could not distinguish any one particular hurt, as being more severe than the rest. I endeavoured to rise, and that soon shewed to me where my chief injury lay; I fell back again instantly; my thigh was broken. In addition to this, two fingers of my right hand, and one of my left, were broken also; and I was bruised in almost every part. But I was alive! As I

The world now seemed to have closed upon my sight for ever;-my wife, my children, my dear home,-I should see them no more. I figured to myself all the delights and charities of that home, and I felt how bitter it is to be torn from life while life is yet strong-all its ties firmly knit,-all its affections glowing. As darkness settled around me, I thought of my wife anxiously listening for my step,-or

ceding me, and the bright fire gleaming upon smiling children's faces,-the fairest ornament and the dearest comfort of a fire-side,-and the rosy lips held up for a father's kiss;-and the little hands clinging round the knees, to attract a father's notice, and their mother's gladsome smile of welcome home, and unchiding reproof to them ;-such was the picture I drew mentally,-such was the group which I knew was awaiting me. I looked around me, and the contrast of the reality flashed upon me, in all its horrors. The wind raged and howled, through the darkness, and, in the lull, the spray of the torrent bedewed my face, and froze there. I was en

compassed by awful precipices, here and there || death, the hope of life would flash across me

visible only by being covered with snow. Snow, also, was the bed on which I lay, the bed on which I was to die. And to die, oh God! to die thus !—Alone, through pain and famine, through cold and the exhaustion of suffering nature! The terrors of tempest and of night were the precursors of the terrors of death. From hence I was never to stir more; this was to be my end!

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again, and interpose between me and my prayer. If a sound caught my ear, I raised my head to listen; if the variation of a shadow passed over the surface of the rock, I strained my sight to look; but the sound would cease, and the sight would pass away-and I sank again upon the snow, and again I prepared myself to die.

At length,-(to my dying-day I shall recol

We often forge for ourselves causes of un-lect that moment)-at length, a gust of wind happiness, and allow slight things to mar our bore to me a sound, which I thought I recogquiet. But he who has undergone-not what nized-I raised myself with an anxiety which I underwent that night, for who has done so? || almost choked me—I listened—all was stillbut-circumstances of peril and of despair, in the wind rose and made me doubtful whether kind, if not in degree, like unto these,-he I heard it a second time or not;—a third-all only can know the agony which a few short doubt was over!-It was the honest voice of hours can crowd upon the human spirit ;- faithful Thor, coming at speed, and barking he, only, can know to what extent our nature as he came, to shew, doubtless, the path to can suffer! the spot where I lay. Again his deep-mouthed bay seemed loud and distinct, as it approached the top of the precipice. There he paused, and continued barking, till, at length, several lights flashed upon the path, along which he had come, and advanced rapidly towards him. A halloo came upon the wind: I strove to answer it as loudly as I could: this time, it mattered little whether my voice reached the summit or not, for as soon as the lights seemed at the spot where the dog stood, he dashed down the cliff, clinging to the irregular surface as he came, now holding by a stone, now sliding down with the rolling earth and snow, till he sprang into my bosom,—and, almost smothering me with his caresses, made the echoes of the cliffs ring again with his loud and ceaseless baying.

I lay, in pain of body and anguish, for a space of time, which, from these causes, seemed endless. At length hope dawned upon me : along the top of the cliff, to which I had leaped, and from which I had fallen, passed, as I knew, a path which led from the village in which I lived, to another about two leagues off. This had not appeared to me as a chance of escape, for, by night, it was but very rarely traversed, and morning I never expected to see again. On a sudden, however, I saw a light gliding along this path, as though borne by some one, and I conjectured it to be, as in fact it was, the lanthorn of a villager returning homewards. I shall be saved yet!-was the idea which thrilled through my heart, and I shouted with the whole strength of my voice, to realize the hope which had arisen. At that My companions now perceived where I was. moment, a furious gust of wind swept through- They made a circuit of some little extent, and out the chasm, and hurled back my cry against descended to me by a less precipitous, but me, like the smoke of Cain's rejected sacrifice. || still a difficult path. My young friends, unless I could feel that my voice did not ascend twenty you have experienced the transition from despair feet above my head; the light glided onwards. to safety-from abandonment to kind friendAgain I shouted with that desperate strength || ship-from death to life-you can form to yourwhich none but the despairing own. The selves no idea of the flood of feelings, both light did not stop-no answering shout glad-rapturous and gentle, which then poured upon dened my ears-the light disappeared!

The agony of that moment who can conceive? The drowning man, as he struggles his last effort, and feels the waters closing round him-the criminal, as he mounts the scaffold, and sees his last hope melt from his grasp-such persons may have experienced what I felt then, and such persons only.

My despair now became fixed and total. I felt that my last hour was come; I endeavoured to turn my thoughts from this world, and fix them on the next; but the effort was dreadful. As I strove to prepare myself for Supplement to Vol. IV.

my soul. The chosen of my heart was now no widow!-my children were now not fatherless!-I was restored to life, to the world, to hope, to happiness-and I owed all this to the loyalty and love of a poor hound! When your hand is next raised to strike your beast, in anger, pause-and think upon the service which old Thor rendered to his master. That master had been a kind one.

Two more scraps of poetry, and we have done. The first is entitled "A Father's Grief," by the Rev. T. Dale.

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A SUMMARY OF THE FASHIONS FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS.