BARBADOS.

A DIGRESSION ON LOVE, CAMOENS, AND GUITAR-PLAYING -BURNING SPRING — REMARKABLE TREE WHITE BEGGARS OF BARBADOS-CONDITION OF SLAVES-ADMINISTRATION OF THE ISLAND-ITS ERRORS-GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON WEST INDIAN GOVERNMENT.

EVERY one knows that the commissioned officers of His Majesty's army stand a far better chance with the fair sex than any other class of His Majesty's subjects. Whether they wear scarlet, light blue, or green, whether they ride on horses or walk on foot, whether they carry mustachios or not-c'est égal; they attract women with a charm, infect at sight, and fascinate by a turn of the heel. But nowhere are they so killing as in the colonies; there they are undisputed masters of white and black, fair and foul; they revel in conceded preference, and give no quarter to Creolian susceptibility. A blue or a black coat is always. in the awkward squad of a ball-room, and even first lieutenants of the navy are generally sent into the after-guard. But though the garrison loves, the garrison does not marry; they are

better accommodated, as the man says in the play; and many, many a pale and dark-eyed girl, who has pinned her heart on the merry cheek of England, or the blue glances of the Highlands, has only awakened from her dream when the topsails of the homeward transport have sunk under the ocean.

I dislike the man, swordsman or not, who deliberately trifles with the affections of a woman. I would rather shake hands with a highwayman than with a gentleman who has sacrificed to his own vanity the life-long happiness of an inexperienced girl. I fear this sort of conduct has never yet been sufficiently reprobated, and women too often betray the cause of their sex by accepting with pride the homage of a man, who has become notorious for the conquest and desertion of their sisters;—as if his mercy and love could be depended upon, who has once been cruel to an affection ate woman! The world laughs, and store of lying proverbs and stupid jests on the briefness of woman's love are administered; but you will find, if your heart be not hardened by selfishness, that this will be in vain. Perhaps you had no intention of being serious, you only flirted, tried to be agreeable, and to please for the moment; you had no conception that your behaviour could be misconstrued, and you shudder at the bare thought of earning the icy damnation of a seducer. It may be so, for there is a descent to the hell of seduction,

though that descent is perniciously easy, and

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus ;

but what if, while you were meaning nothing, your trifling created anguish, your sport became death to the poor object of it? When by exclusive attentions you have excited regard, by the development of talent, or by the display and devotion of personal graces you have fascinated the mind and the heart, when by the meeting and the sinking eye, the faltering voice, the fervid tone, the retained hand, you have awakened the passion which you cannot lay; when you have wilfully done this in the cold blood of vanity, and it suits your convenience or your sated coxcombry to finish the scene by an altered mein, a distant courtesy, or an expression of surprise at the unexpected effects of your civility-will you be able to quiet your conscience with a jest? Will you sleep on an adage of fools and a lie of your own? What if the poor being, whose hopes you have changed into despair, whose garden you have blasted with mildew and rust, whose heaven you have darkened for evermore, shall suffer in silence, striving to bear her sorrow, praying for cheerfulness, pardoning without forgetting you, till the worm has eaten through to the life, and the body is emaciate which you have led in the dance, the voice broken on which you have hung, the face wan which you have flattered, and the eyes frightfully bright

with a funereal lustre which used to laugh radi➡ ancy and hope and love when they gazed upon you? What if a prouder temper, a more ardent imagination, and a stronger constitution, should lead to spite and impatience and recklessness of good and ill; if the experience of your falsehood should induce a general scepticism of any truth in any man; if a hasty and loveless marriage should be the rack of her soul, or the provocative of her sin? Is there mandragora could drug you to sleep while this was on your memory, or does there really live a man who could triumph in such bitter woe? But varium et mutabile semper

Fœmina.

O, believe it not ! For the dear sake of our household gods, call it and cause it to be a lie! Be sure that coquettes are the refuse of their sex, and were only ordained to correspond with the coxcombs of ours. Women have their weaknesses and plenty of them, but they are seldom vicious like ours, and as to their levity of heart, who shall compare the worldly skin-deep fondness of a man with the one rich idolatry of a virtuous girl? A thousand thoughts distract, a thousand passions are a substitute, for the devotion of a man ; but to love is the purpose, to be loved the consummation, to be faithful the religion of a woman; it is her all in all, and when she gives her heart away, she gives a jewel which, if it does not make