Her anxious gaze was resting
On a proud and stately boy,
With a mingled sweet expression
Half mournfulness, half joy;
The Widow's look confessing,
Though sharp life, trial-pains,
All is not Desolation

While Mother-hood remains!

Fair was the face she gazed on,
Not only unto her

(For love's bright wand of magic
Can unreal gifts confer),

But even to the stranger

A mien more bright and bold
Ne'er struck the dull and careless,
Or warmed and won the cold.

Courage and thought were blended
On his forehead proud and fair,
Around it careless waving

The locks of raven hair;

While from his brow's dark shadow,

The light of those young eyes

Gleamed like a lake whose waters

Reflect the midnight skies.

Still gazed they on each other,
That Mother and her son,
In his look that resolution
Which spoke of childhood gone
But silence was between them,
The silence of a spell;
Alas, she dared not question,
She knew her fate too well;
And he-how should he comfort
That fond foreboding heart?
How soften that sharp sentence
Yet warn her they must part?

Most of the poems interwoven into the narrative are too long for insertion in our pages in full; but we must give the closing verses of Mrs. Norton's affecting contribution. These follow a sketch of the noble sufferer's life to the hour when she is called to surrender the stay of her heart, to the miseries of war :

It might not be! his spirit
Was all too rash and bold,
His heart too young and fervent
For vows so calm and cold:

Yet think not that the Widow

Her offering made in vain,
Heaven's unregarded blessings
Come down on us like rain;
And he may brave life's dangers
In hope and not in dread

Whose mother's prayers are lighting
A halo round his head;

In wheresoe'er he wanders

Through the cold world dark and wild,
There white-winged angels follow
To guard earth's erring child.
Go! let the scoffer call it
A shadow and a dream,
Those meek subservient spirits
Are nearer than we deem ;
Think not they visit only
The bright enraptured eye
Of some pure sainted martyr
Prepared and glad to die;
Or that the Poet's fancy
Or Painter's coloured skill
Creates a dream of beauty
And moulds a world at will;
They live! they wander round us,
Soft resting on the cloud;
Altho' to human vision

The sight be disallowed;
They are to the Almighty
What the rays are to the sun,
An emanating essence
From the great supernal One;
They bend for prayer to listen,
They weep to witness crimes,
They watch for holy moments-
Good thoughts, repentant times—
They cheer the meek and humble,
They heal the broken heart,
They teach the wav'ring spirit
From earthly ties to part;
Unseen they dwell among us

As when they watched below

In spiritual anguish

The sepulchre of Woe;

And when we pray, though feeble

Our orisons may be,

They then are our companions

Who pray eternally!

When the youthful hero armed him
For the fierce unequal fight,
His only strength, conviction
That his cause was true and right,
When his comrades round lay slaughtered
On the soaked and bloodstained mould,
Each cheek so fresh and blooming
They scarce seemed dead and cold;
What saved him? not the courage
Of a brave and reckless child,
Nor skill to guide the battle,
Nor efforts vain and wild;

But the meek and silent hour
When the Breton Mother prayed

To the Power that still sustained her
When faint and sore dismayed;

he Father and Befriender

Who in that hour of strife
Pitied the Widow's weeping

And spared the Orphan's life!

We conclude with Mr. Milnes's powerful and poetical prayer for the "two fair sisters of civility," and their endearing friendship; to which all good and wise men will cordially say, Amen!

For honest men of every blood and creed
Let green la Vendée rest a sacred spot!
Be all the guilt of Quiberon forgot

In the bright memory of its martyr-deed!
And let this little book be one more seed,
Whence sympathies may spring, encumbered not
By circumstance of birth or mortal lot,

But claiming virtue's universal meed!

And as those two great languages, whose sound
Has echoed through the realms of modern time,
Feeding with thought and sentiments sublime
Each other and the listening world around,
Meet in these pages, as on neutral ground,

So may their nations' hearts in sweet accord be found!

No! by our common hope and being, no!
By the expanding might and bliss of Peace,
By the revealed futurity of war,

England and France shall not be foe to foe;

For how can earth her store of good increase,

If what God loves to make, man's passions still will mar!

ART. XIII.-Protection of the Queen's Person Bill.

THE three treasonable attempts upon the queen's person, the bill to provide for her security, and the effective punishment, are subjects which have been agitating the public mind as well as the legislature, and continue to admit of speculation, suggestion, and remark.

It would really seem that our criminal jurisprudence, in regard to the graver offences, and especially some of the very deepest dye, had come to a dead stand, to a nugatory condition; and that the latest improvements of the age, both in feeling and legislation, had brought the law to such a state, that, practically, the safest thing that a miscreant or vagabond could think of doing, in obedience to his atrocious nature, was to shoot at the queen. Think not only of the repeated attacks on her majesty, but of the careless way in which these have been treated, as well as the omission of necessary precautionary measures. Mr. C. Dassett, the principal witness of Bean's attempt, evinced very clearly by certain of his expressions, what was his feeling of the affair. He thus delivered himself: "I was standing in the Mall, St. James's Park, about halfway between Buckingham Palace and the milkhouse gate, when a hump-backed youth, about 16 years of age, dressed in a long brown surtout coat, elbowed his way to the front. There was at the time a great number of persons collected, and the line of spectators was two or three deep. The second royal carriage had passed, and the third, which contained her majesty, was coming up, when I saw him pull a pistol from the breast pocket of his coat. I saw him present it at the carriage-I should say at the back of the carriage, because it was passing quickly at the time. I distinctly heard the click,' and saw the hammer go down. There was no flash in the pan and no explosion. I immediately seized him by the wrist of the hand which held the pistol. I at the time made the remark to my brother Frederick, who was standing near me, 'Here's a young gentleman going to have a pop at the queen.' Seeing two policemen walking along on the opposite side of the Mall, I took the youth with me over to them. I showed them the pistol, and said to them, 'This lad has been attempting to shoot the queen.' They laughed at me, and Hearn, 56 A, said it did not amount to a charge. The greatest portion of the populace sided with the hump-backed youth, and cried out, 'Give the pistol VOL. II. (1842) NO. IV.

R R

back to the boy;' others said, 'Give it to the policeman; and some said to the lad, Put it into your pocket and run away with it.' I still continued my hold of the hump-backed youth, and had proceeded some distance down the Mall, when the pressure from the crowd became so great that I was obliged to let him go, otherwise my arm would have been broken. Soon after this Partridge, 136 A, seeing me with a pistol in my hand, took me into custody. Just before this I saw the youth go into the Green Park, and I believe he went through that gate by Stafford house, which leads into Cleveland row. The policeman took me to the station-house, and told the inspector on duty that he had found me in the park with a pistol in my hand, and trying to excite the mob. I then said to the inspector that I had taken the pistol from a deformed boy, who had attempted to shoot the Queen. I afterwards gave a description of him."

But there is much more of striking indication in this portion of the evidence than relates to Dassett's individual sentiments: there is much to show that the public feeling had come to what has been called a dead lock with regard to mere attempts; and either that the general heart had grown callous, or that there was a total mystification about the law, and uncertainty whether to shoot at the Queen, provided no palpable and bodily harm had been sustained, was an offence-a misdemeanour, or not. "The greatest portion of the populace sided with the hump-backed youth," and so on. But the indications by no means stop 'here; the policemen could not have had proper instructions, even after two distinct warnings, how to act in the event of renewed attempts, or signs of attempts; thus proving how lightly or falsely such dangerous pastimes were regarded at head-quarters. But we must rise higher still, and mark something even more strange than the apathy or levity which must have prevailed among the populace, and also the police authorities, when the affair was that of having a pop at the Queen.

One of the witnesses in Bean's case was an officer attached to the recruiting department, who proved "that he had attended at the sta tion-house and examined the pistol, which had an old flint lock, with screw and rifle barrel. Upon detaching the barrel, which was done with some difficulty, from the screw having become exceedingly rusty, owing to its long disuse, he found in it a portion of very coarse powder, a piece of tobacco-pipe, and some paper wadding. The pistol was decidedly in such a state that it could have been discharged."

There is room for severe remark, we think, relative to the oversight, the negligence, the callousness, call it what you like,evinced by the Council, in leaving the important point of the exami nation of the pistol to an officer of the recruiting department, or of any other department that can be named. We are but following in our observations the mode and kind of criticism which has been re