DIALOGUES.

LOCHIEL'S WARNING.

Certain persons in Scotland are believed to have the power of "second sight' —that is, of seeing what is to happen in the future. Lochiel, a Highland chieftain, and one of the leaders of Prince Charles's party, goes to a wizard, who possesses the power of second sight, and is warned by him not to engage with the English forces, who had been sent, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, to put down the rising" of 1745.-Albin is the Celtic name for Scotland.

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LOCHIEL and WIZARD.

Wiz. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day
When the lowlands shall meet thee in battle array !
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in flight.
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown;
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
"Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there:
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!

O weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead;
For a merciless sword o'er Culloden shall wave,
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

Loch. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer!
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

Wiz. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn !

Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth,

From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foeman outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh!
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of heaven.
O crested Lochiel, the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

Loch. False wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan;
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array-

Wiz. Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day:
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal;
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king.
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!

Now in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight;
Rise, rise, ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!

"Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors: Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?

For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,

Like a limb from his country, cast bleeding and torn?

Ah, no! for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death-bell is tolling; oh! mercy, dispel

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE.

Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,

Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale-

Loch. Down, toothless insulter! I trust not the tale:
For never shall Albin a destiny meet,

So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat.

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Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore,
Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,

Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his face to the foe!
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame.

CAMPBELL.

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE.*

MUCH about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow, for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing or taking water.2

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked awhile also about, seeing the houses all shut up; at last I fell into some talk at a distance with this poor man. First I asked him how people did thereabouts.

"Alas! sir," says he, "almost desolate; all dead or sick. Here are very few families in this part, or in that village ”—pointing_at Poplar "where half of them are not dead already, and the rest sick." Then he pointed to one house: "There they are all dead," said he, "and the house stands open; nobody dares go into it. A poor thief," says he, "ventured in to steal something, but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too, last night." Then he pointed to several other houses. "There," says he, "they are all dead-the man and his wife and five children. There," says he,

*This may be read as a dialogue, the teacher reading the introduction, and two pupils the other parts.

"they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door; and so of other houses."

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Why," says I, "what do you here all alone?"

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Why," says he, "I am a poor desolate man: it hath pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, and one of my children dead."

"How do you mean then," said I, "that you are not visited ? "

"Why," says he," that is my house "-pointing to a very little lowboarded house-" and there my poor wife and two children live," said he, "if they may be said to live; for my wife and one of the children are visited, but I do not come at them.5 And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

"But," said I, "why do you not come at them? How can you abandon your own flesh and blood?

"O sir," said he, "the Lord forbid. I do not abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able; and blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want." And with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven with a countenance that presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not want.

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Well," says I," honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?"

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Why, sir," says he, "I am a waterman, and there is my boat," says he; "and the boat serves me for a house: I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night; and what I get I lay it down upon that stone," says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; "and then," says he,“ I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and fetch it."

"Well, friend," says I, "but how can you get money as a waterman? Does anybody go by water these times ? "

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Yes, sir," says he, "in the way I am employed, there does. Do you see there," says he, "five ships lie at anchor ?"-pointing down the river a good way below the town-" and do you see," says he," "eight or ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor yonder?" pointing above the town. "All those ships have families on board, of their merchants and owners, and such like, who have locked themselves up, and live on board, close shut in, for fear of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat on board one of the ship's boats, and there I sleep by myself; and blessed be God, I am preserved hitherto."

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE.

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'Well," said I, "friend, but will they let you come on board after you have been on shore here, when this has been such a terrible place, and so infected as it is ?

دو

"Why, as to that," said he, "I very seldom go up the ship-side, but deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the side, and they hoist it on board. If I did, I think they are in no danger from me, for I never go into any house on shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own family; but I fetch provisions for them.”

"Nay," says I, "but that may be worse, for you must have those provisions of somebody or other; and since all this part of the town is so infected, it is dangerous so much as to speak with anybody; for the village," said I, "is, as it were, the beginning of London, though it be at some distance from it."

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That is true," added he, "but you do not understand me right. I do not buy provisions for them here; I row up to Greenwich and buy fresh meat there, and sometimes I row down the river to Woolwich, and buy there: then I go to single farmhouses on the Kentish side, where I am known, and buy fowls and eggs and butter, and bring to the ships, as they direct me, sometimes one, sometimes the other. I seldom come on shore here; and I came only now to call my wife, and hear how my little family do, and give them a little money which I received last night."

"Poor man!" said I," and how much hast thou gotten for them?” "I have gotten four shillings," said he, " which is a great sum, as things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of bread too, and a salt fish, and some flesh; so all helps out."

"Well," said I, "and have you given it them yet?

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"No," said he, "but I have called, and my wife has answered that she cannot come out yet; but in half an hour she hopes to come, and I am waiting for her. Poor woman!" says he, "she is brought sadly down; she has had a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover, but I fear the child will die; but it is the Lord!" Here he stopped, and wept very much.

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'Well, honest friend," said I, "thou hast a sure comforter, if thou hast brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God: He is dealing with us all in judgment."

"O sir," says he, "it is infinite mercy if any of us are spared; and who am I to repine ?"

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Sayest thou so," said I; "and how much less is my faith than thine!"

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the door, and called "Robert, Robert; " he answered, and bid her stay a few moments and he would come; so he ran down the common stairs to his boat, and fetched up a sack in which was the provisions he had brought from the ships; and when he returned, he hallooed again; then he went to the great stone which he showed me, and emptied the sack, and laid all out, everything by themselves, and then