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And there on his back, sits Exciseman Gill,

Crying Yield: thee! now yield thee, thon Smuggler Bill!»

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Smuggler Bill, from his holster drew

A large horse pistol, of which he had two,
Made by Nock;

He pull'd back the cock;

As far as he could to the back of the lock;
The trigger he touch'd, and the welkin rang

To the sound of the weapon, it made such a bang;
Smuggler Bill ne'er miss'd his aim,

The shot told true on the dun-but there came
From the hole where it enter'd, not blood, but flame!
So he changed his plan,

And fired at the man;

But his second horse-pistol flash'd in the pan!
And Exciseman Gill, with a hearty good will,
Made a grab at the collar of Smuggler Bill.

The dapple-grey mare made a desperate bound
When that queer dun horse on her flank she found,
Alack! and alas: on what dangerous ground!

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It is enough to make one's flesh to creep
To stand on that fearful verge, and peep
Down the rugged sides so dreadfully steep,
Where the chalk-hole yawns full sixty feet deep,
O'er which that steed took that desperate leap!

It was so dark then under the trees,

No horse in the world could tell chalk from cheese-
Down they went-o'er that terrible fall,
Horses, Exciseman, Smuggler, and all!!

Below were found

Next day on the ground,

T

By an elderly Gentleman walking his round,
(I wouldn't have seen such a sight for a pound,)
All smash'd and dash d, three mangled corses,
Two of them human, the third was a horse's,
That good dapple-grey, and Exciseman Gill
Yet grasping the collar of Smuggler Rill!

But where was the Dun? that terrible Dun ?-
From that terrible night he was seen by none! →
There are some people think, though I am not one,
That part of the story all nonsense and fun,

But the country-folks there

One and all declare,

When the Crowner's 'Quest » came to sit on the pair,
They heard a loud horse-laugh up in the air!

If in one of the trips

Of the steam-boat Eclipse,

You should go down to Margate to look at the ships,
Or to take what the bathing-room people call Dips, »
You may hear old folks talk

Of that quarry of chalk;

Or go over-it's rather too far for a walk,
But a three shilling drive will give you a peep

At the fearful chalk-pit so awfully deep,

Which is called to this moment «The Smuggler's Leap!"
Nay more, I am told, on a moonshiny night,

If you're plucky,» and not over subject to fright,
And go and look over that chalk-pit white,
You may see, if you will,

The Ghost of old Gill

Grappling the Ghost of Smuggler Bill,

And the Ghost of the dapple-grey lying between 'em. -
I'm told so I can't say I know one who's seen 'em!

MORAL.

And now, gentle Reader, one word ere we part,

Just take a friend's counsel, and lay it to heart.

Imprimis, don't smuggle!-if, bent to please Beauty,

You must buy French lace, purchase what has paid duty!'

Don't use naughty words, in the next place,-and ne'er in
Your language adopt a bad habit of swearing!
Never say «Devil take me»-

Or, «shake me!»-or, «bake me!»

Or such-like expressions. Remember, Old Nick
To take folks at their word is remarkably quick!

Another sound maxim I'd wish you to keep,

Is Mind what you are after, and-Look ere you Leap!

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Above all, to my last gravest caution attend

NEVER BORROW A HORSE YOU DON'T KNOW OF A FRIEND!!

VOL. I.

(BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.)

44

THE WOMEN OF ITALY.

If it were always permitted to draw an obvious inference from the most irrefutable precedents, without incurring the sneers of scepticism, we might almost venture to affirm that the days of man upon earth are drawing to a close, and that the long-dreaded millennium is at hand.

Yet a few more efforts of mechanical ingenuity, and the plough will ride unguided over the field like a railway train, steamers will glide like ducks over the waters, without noise or smoke, and balloons will be curbed and bridled like Ariosto's hippogriffs.

Already the influence of climate has been utterly neutralized. Our coal has been made to answer all the purposes of an Italian sun. It has all its warmth, its light, its life. England has become the metropolis of the vegetable kingdom, and the horticultural gardens at Chiswick are the flora of both continents. A shop in Regent Street has been turned into nature's own workshop, exhibiting within its genial temperature all the mysteries of an artificial maternity. Mr. Espy of Philadelphia has thrown his spell over the storms, and offers to sell rain by the bucket to the highest bidder. In short, it will go hard with us if, ere we are many years older, we do not see the

isthmuses of Suez and Panama cut through, a rail-road tunnel driven through the bowels of the Alps, and a suspensionbridge launched across the Atlantic.

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Then will there be rest for man and beast. Then will men grow weary of watching with folded arms the progress of their self-acting tailoring apparatus, and, impatient of a state of inactivity inconsistent with their nature, they will, like Alexander, complain that their fathers left nothing for them to do, and look out for another world, the earth being much too narrow for them.

Nor do we hesitate to affirm that the moral improvement of the human race has kept pace with physical discovery. The teetotallers strive boldly to undo the work of Noah. Wilberforce has razed the patriarch's curse from the heads of the devoted children of Canaan; the peace-societies hope to rivet the sword of war to its scabbard, and to turn all the nations of the earth into a vast Quaker community. Reason and justice are soon to obtain an undisputed ascendancy over force. The French are raising a Chinese wall round Paris, to save them the trouble of fighting for their country. All ancient grievances will be amicably settled. All nations will vie with each other in forgetting old grudges, and redressing time-sanctioned injustices. But the most natural as well as the most glorious result of this voluntary abnegation of the right of the strongest will be the cessation of an abuse of, power as ancient as Eden, a revolution to be operated by the suppression of a single word in the marriage ceremony, the rehabilitation of a much-injured being into its natural rights the emancipation of woman.

Already the champions of the trampled sex, the Chapmans and Martineaus, have unfolded the standard of independence. Having at first trained themselves to public controversy in the cause of abolitionism, they soon learned to stand up, like Cicero, pro domo sua, in vindication of their inalienable right of sitting in senates and parliaments, and being elbowed, and squeezed on the hustings. Another more formidable combattant, the fair authoress of Woman and her Master," after searching in the treasures of the past with unwearied

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diligence, has fully demonstrated that woman in all ages and countries (not excepting even such characters as Aspasia and Messalina) has been and is a middle creature between a lamb and an angel, perverted, fettered, and tortured, by another selfish being, half-demon, half-brute.

With all our heart do we congratulate these lovely emancipators on the favourable prospect that everything is taking before them, and wish them a speedy success in an enterprise which, as it would most powerfully contribute to bring about that new order of things, that golden age of peace' aud justice which has been hitherto considered incompatible with the frailty of human nature, would be the most infallible sign of the forth-coming close of time.

Female writers in England, France, and America, are pretty nearly a match for their male opponents, and if the sword is to be definitely laid aside, and the field open for a fair and impartial discussion, we have no doubt but women will in the end talk men out of countenance. But to whatever extent these ladies may carry their female radicalism, they will easily perceive that their social reforms will not be immediately applicable to all countries alike; and as we hear every day of nations being unripe for the blessing of liberal institutions, as we see statesmen insisting on the necessity of fitting a people for better destinies by the gradual influence of civilization and culture, so it will be likewise understood that the fair sex cannot be everywhere equally ready for an immediate enfranchisement, and that, for instance, the Georgian slave of an eastern harem conld not be as easily trained to take her share in the weighty deliberations of the sublime Porte, as a Yankee girl might be called to sit among the members of Congress.

These reflections were awakened in our mind at the sight of the work of which the title stands at the head of the present article, and we were curious to ascertain what notions concerning woman's mission might be entertained by a lady born and bred up in a country in which the persons of her sex are kept in something like a middle station between oriental seclusion and what would strike every other traveller but

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