were now and then made, and I have received sixpence in an evening. To one who had long lived in the absolute want of money, such a resource seemed a Peruvian mine: I furnished myself by degrees with paper, &c., and, what was of more importance, with books of geometry, and of the higher branches of algebra, which I cautiously concealed... Versifying, even at this time, was no amusement of mine: it was subservient to other purposes; and I only had recourse to it when I wanted money for my mathematical pursuits.

But the clouds were gathering fast: my master's anger was raised to a terrible pitch by my indifference to his concerns, and still more by the reports which were daily brought to him of my presumptuous attempts at versification. I was required to give up my papers, and when I refused, my garret was searched, and my little hoard of books discovered and removed, and all future repetitions prohibited in the strictest manner.

I look back on that part of my life which immediately followed this event with little satisfaction; it was a period of gloom and savage unsociability: by degrees I sank into a kind of corporeal torpor; or, if roused into activity by the spirit of youth, wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexatious tricks, which alienated the few acquaintances which compassion had yet left me. So I crept on in silent discontent, unfriended and unpitied, indignant at the present, careless of the future, an object at once of apprehension and dislike.

From this state of abjectness I was raised by a young woman of my own class. She was a neighbor; and whenever I took my solitary walk, with my "Wolfius" in my pocket, she usually came to the door, and by a smile, or a short question put in the friendliest manner, endeavored to solicit my attention. My heart had been long shut to kindness, but the sentiment was not dead in me: it revived at the first encouraging word; and the gratitude I felt for it was the first pleasing sensation which I had ventured to entertain for many dreary months... Together with gratitude, hope, and other passions still more enlivening, took the place of that uncomfortable gloominess which so lately possessed me: I returned to my companions, and by every winning art in my power strove to make them forget my former repulsive ways. In this I was not unsuccessful; I recovered their good-will, and by degrees grew to be somewhat of a favorite ... My master still murmured, for the business of the shop went on no better than before: I comforted myself, however, with the reflection that my ap

prenticeship was drawing to a conclusion, when I determined to renounce the employment for ever, and to open a private school.

In this humble and obscure state, poor beyond the common lot, yet flattering my ambition with day-dreams which perhaps would never have been realised, I was found in the 20th year of my age by Mr. William Cookesley, a name never to be pronounced by me without veneration. The lamentable doggerel which I have already mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to mouth among people of my own degree, had by some accident or other reached his ear, and given him a curiosity to inquire after the author... It was my good fortune to interest his benevolence. My little history was not untinctured with melancholy, and I laid it fairly before him: his first care was to console; his second, which he cherished to the last moment of his existence, was to relieve and support me.

On examining into the nature of my literary attainments, he found them absolutely nothing: he heard, however, with equal surprise and pleasure, that, amidst the grossest ignorance of books, I had made a very considerable progress in the mathematics. He engaged me to enter into the details of this affair; and, when he learned that I had made it in circumstances of peculiar discouragement, he became more warmly interested in my favor.

The plan that occurred to him was naturally that which had so often suggested itself to me. There were indeed several obstacles to be overcome: I had eighteen months yet to serve, my handwriting was bad, and my language very incorrect; but nothing could slacken the zeal of this excellent man; he procured a few of my poor attempts at rhyme, dispersed them amongst his friends and acquaintance, and, when my name had become somewhat familiar to them, set on foot a subscription for my relief... I still preserve the original paper; its title was not very magnificent, though it exceeded the most sanguine wishes of my heart; it ran thus, "A subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in writing and English grammar."

At the expiration of this period, it was found that my progress (for I will speak the truth in modesty) had been more considerable than my patrons expected: I had also written in the interim several little pieces of poetry, less rugged, I suppose, my former ones, and certainly with fewer anomalies of language. My preceptor, too, spoke favorably of me; and my benefactor, who had now become my father and my friend, had little difficulty in persuading my patrons to continue me at

than

school for another year. Such liberality was not lost upon me; I grew anxious to make the best return in my power, and I redoubled my diligence.

Now that I am sunk into easy indolence, I look back with some degree of scepticism to my early struggles.

GRACE DARLING; THE HEROINE OF THE SEA.

THE fame which St. Cuthbert gave, of old, to the Farn Islands, has been in our days transferred to a simple but heroic girl, Grace Darling.

On the 7th of September, 1838, the Forfarshire, proceeding from Hull to Dundee, was wrecked on those crags. The wreck, at early dawn, was descried by the Darlings from the lighthouse, lying a little to the right, with a long ridge of sharp and destructive rocks intervening. The sea was running mountains high, rearing up into tremendous breakers. Nine survivors of that terrible catastrophe had scrambled out of the temporary reach of the waves; but the returning tide would have probably swept them off, should they, drenched and exhausted, have held out till then.

Grace Darling did not stop to weigh these chances. The moment she caught sight of them, she determined to save them if possible. To her experienced father it appeared the most desperate and hopeless of adventures. No dissuasions had, however, any effect. She declared, if he declined to accompany her, she would go alone. At last he yielded. The boat was got out, and they had at first to let it drift with the wind southward to some distance, and then bring up under the lee of the rocks aimed at ... Glad as they were at the prospect of deliverance, the survivors could not restrain their astonishment on observing an old man and a slight young woman coming to the rescue ... They succeeded. And the applause which followed the gallant exploit was enthusiastic and universal. Even from Russia visitors have come to see her, sending home accounts of her and pieces of the rock on which she lived. The lighthouse is filled with costly gifts the tokens of admiration. None of these things have altered her character in the least. The action she performed was so natural and so necessary to her, that it would be the most impossible of things to convince her that she did anything extraordinary.

She is timid in the presence of the inquisitive stranger; but, after soliciting her father, I succeeded in seeing the heroine. Í

found her sewing, dressed very neatly, but very simply, in a plain striped print, with her hair neatly braided. At that time she was about five and twenty. Her figure is by no means striking, but her face is full of sense, modesty, and genuine goodness; and that just corresponds to her inward character. Her prudence and simplicity are enchanting, and the sweetest smile plays on her lips that I ever saw in a person of her rank. Daring is not so much a quality of her nature, as the most perfect sympathy with suffering, which swallows and annihilates everything like fear or self-consideration, extinguishes in fact every sentiment but itself.

Yet a few years, and the envious grave has possessed her a victim to consumption. Howitt.

AUDUBON; THE NATURALIST

"I WAS born in Louisiana, United States, about the year 1782. When I had hardly learned to walk, and to articulate those first words always so endearing to parents, the productions of nature that lay spread all around were constantly pointed out to me. They soon became my playmates; and before my ideas were sufficiently formed to enable me to estimate the difference between the azure tints of the sky and the emerald hue of the bright foliage, I felt that an intimacy with them, not of friendship merely, but bordering on frenzy, must accompany my steps through life. And now, more than ever, am I persuaded of the power of those early impressions. They laid such hold of me, that when removed from the woods, the prairies, and the brooks, or shut up from the view of the wide Atlantic, I experienced none of those pleasures most congenial to my mind.

"My father generally accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me, and pointed out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty and softness of their plumage, the manifestations of their pleasure or their sense of danger, and the always perfect forms and splendid attire of the latter. He would speak of the departure and return of birds with the season, describe their haunts, and, more wonderful than all, their change of livery; thus exciting me to study them, and to raise mind toward their great Creator.

my

"A vivid pleasure shone upon those days of my early youth, attended with a calmness of feeling that seldom failed to rivet my attention for hours, while I gazed with ecstasy upon the pearly and shining eggs, as they lay embedded in the softest down, or among dried leaves and twigs, or were exposed upon

the burning sand, or weather-beaten rock of our Atlantic shore. I was taught to look upon them as flowers yet in the bud. "I grew up, and my wishes grew with my form. I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with nature. I wished to possess all the productions of nature, but I wished life with them. This was impossible. Then, what was to be done? I turned to my father, and made known to him my disappointment and anxiety. He produced a book of 'Illustrations.' A new life ran in my veins. I turned over the leaves with avidity, and, although what I saw was not what I longed for, it gave me a desire to copy nature. To nature I went, and tried to imitate her.

"How sorely disappointed did I feel, for many years, when I saw that my productions were worse than those which I ventured to regard as bad in the book given me by my father. My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples. So maimed were most of them, that they more nearly resembled the mangled corpses on a field of battle, than the objects which I had intended them to represent.

"These difficulties and disappointments irritated me, but never for a moment destroyed the desire of obtaining perfect representations of nature. The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did I see the originals. To have been torn from the study, would have been as death to me. My time was entirely occupied with it. I produced hundreds of these rude sketches annually, and for a long time, at my request, they made bonfires on the anniversary of my birth-day.'

In his sixteenth year, young Audubon was sent to France to pursue his education. While there, he attended schools of natural history and the arts, and took lessons in drawing from the celebrated David. Although he prosecuted his studies zealously, his heart still panted for the sparkling streams of his "native land of groves"... He returned in his eighteenth year, with an ardor for the woods, and soon commenced a collection of drawings, which have since swelled into a series of magnificent volumes - "The Birds of America." These designs were begun on the farm given him by his father, situated near Philadelphia, on the banks of the Schuylkill... There, amid its fine woodlands, its extensive fields, its hills crowned with evergreens, he meditated upon his simple and agreeable objects, and pursued his rambles, from the first faint streaks of day until late in the evening, when, wet with dew, and laden with feathered captives, he returned to the quiet enjoyment of the fireside. There, too, he was married, and was fortunate in choosing one who animated his courage amid vicissitudes,