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They have been in the fields all day,
Where the vetch and the orchis grow,
Yet these children do not play,
Nor the dandelion blow
Seed after seed away,

The hour of the clock to show;

Yet often the children ask to know
What is the time of day.

Some things perhaps they may miss,
That other children see,
The evening chat, and the kiss,
And the ride on daddy's knee;
To be tucked in their little beds

By a mother's loving care,

For at night they lay down their heads
And sleep-just anywhere.*

Perhaps they have never heard

Of Christ or of God, nor could tell Who made them; not a word

Can the children read nor spell; Yet they are not dull nor slow

Though they've gone to no village school, There's many a thing they know That is not learnt by rule.

They play at no little games,

But they've learnt the wicked song,

been talked on this subject. Some gentlemen said that when a poor girl went to field-work she was Contaminated and spoiled, but he contended that, in all probability, she was contaminated and spoiled before she got there. He thought a girl of eleven or trelce was as strong as a boy of about that age, and be contended that there was no good farming without this juvenile and female labour. There were certain fiddling operations on a farm for which the nimble fingers of children were particularly adapted. With regard to the educational part of the question, he knew that some thought it desirable that children should not be employed in work before nine years of age. He was sure, however, that unless a boy went to work when he was nine or ten years of age, he would not make a good labourer. It was important to remember that all restrictions as to the employment of children would fall heavily on their parents; the farmers would hardly feel them. The farmers were not opposed to education; on the contrary, they wished their labourers to be educated for, all other things being equal, the educated labourer was certainly the best. He did not think the guardians of Norfolk could be charged

with having neglected the education of pauper children. The charge of 1d. per week was so trifling it did not enter into their calculations. With regard to school attendance on alternate days or weeks, such system for children employed in agriculture would be useless to the farmer; it must be something like so many hours in the years. We must still look to the Sunday-Schools and night-schools for perfecting and keeping up education among our rural popula

tion."

It is occasionally the practice of private gangs, organized and superintended by the farmers, to pass the night on the farms where they work; they then sleep in a barn or stable. One farmer used to turn in fifty boys and girls together, like so many sheep into a pen, and lock the door upon them for the night. But then," observes Mr. C. S. Read, M. P. in the speech already quoted from, "you cannot go into any village street at nine or ten pel ck at night without seeing great boys and girls larking about, and in all probability some of these great girls and boys slept in the same room when they got home."

And with each of earth's nameless shames

They've been acquainted long. They've heard no sweet story told By the fire as the shadows fell, But of evil -new and old

They can give you the chronicle; For they've learnt, and more quickly too, For oaths, and for jeers, and for blows, All that the pagan knew,

And all that the savage knows.

What matter! the world grows old,

To toil, to sin, and to die,

Is a story so often told

It never need make us sigh. What is it? a girl and a boy

They are poor-they were never meant To be the light and the joy

Of the homes to which they were sent. In our nation's mighty schemes,

In the world's great working plan,
There was no room left, it seems,
For a woman, or for a man;
Blighted before they are blown,

Let them sink to the earth like weeds,
So long as our crops are grown,
So long as the sea recedes.

"What shall it profit a man,"
Is a saying widely known,
"Let him win and gain all he can,
If he lose his soul-his own?"
But speed to the giant plough,

And the harrow that grinds and rolls
O'er the broad smooth levels, now
Over other people's souls.

Oh! cruel lords of the soil,

No wonder your harvests glow
With ruddy and golden spoil,

When the earth is so fat below;
When you joy in your harvest won,
Do you think of your harvest lost,
And hid from the ripening sun?
Have you counted up the cost
Of the precious seeds forgot,

Flung in with heedless scorn,
In your furrows deep to rot,
That will not come up with the corn?
Girlhood, wifehood, youth,

And love, and all that was lent
Or given to make heaven a truth,
And life a sweet content.
Manhood and strength and joy,
The image divine of God;
It is but a girl and a boy

Ye have trampled back to the clod!

Then look o'er your lordly plains,

And go to your crowded mart, And when ye tell o'er your gains, And blighted life, with the aches Fling in many a broken heart And pangs of a childish frame, With the waste and the loss that makes The tale of a woman's shame; With another cry in the streets,

And another ruffian jeer,
And the laugh one so often meets,

Far sadder than is the tear.
Go! count up the cost of all

That fell with the stones that fell, When ye shook down the cottage wall To build up the felon's cell! Go number the weary feet

That roam on an aimless track Of ruin and wrong, nor meet

With aught that can lure them back; Because they have never known

What comfort meant since the day That left them naught for their ownWhen ye took their homes away. When the little daisy died

That the cottage garden grew, Withered a nation's pride,

With the rosemary, thrift, and rue. Hollow the harvest joy

Of the land where the reapers mourn; Where the poor man's girl and his boy Count for less than the rich man's corn. DORA GREEN WELL.

WITCHES AND THEIR CRAFT.- Considering how fearfully and inevitably witches were punished, it does seem astonishing that any, much less such myriads, should have professed them of the craft. But, on the other hand, it must be borne in mind that the acquisition of power to inflict storm and devastation, disease and death-in short, to wield all the weapons of destruction at will- - was an irresistible temptation to the savage nature that then predominated in the lower classes, but not in the lower classes only, especially as the credit of that power was fraught, for a time at least, with very substantial results. For everybody sought the fraternity. Those who suffered, or who apprehended suffering, bought their services equally with those who desired to have suffering inflicted. The latter, however, were by far the more numerous, and the witches had very singular means of gratifying them. One of the strangest was to fashion an image of the hated individual during the celebration of certain infernal rites. The simulacrum was usually of virgin wax; but when it was meant to make the work of vengeance thoroughly sure, the clay taken from the depth of a well-used grave was generally preferred. The image being moulded according to rule, and baptised by a properly qualified priest, whatever injury was inflicted on the model, was believed to have a similar effect on the original. Did they tie up a member of the effigy, paralysis attacked the corresponding limb of the person represented, and continued to fetter it so long as the ligature retained its place. Intense pain and fearful mutilation were thus assumed to be produced. Nor was even death itself beyond the wizard's reach. To secure this fatal result there were many approved recipes. Some pierced the heart of the statuette with a new needle; others melted it slowly before a fire; a third set interred it at dead of night in consecrated ground with horrible burlesque of the burial service; and a fourth gathered the hair into the stomach of the model, and concealed it in the chamber-if possible under the pillow of the intended victim. Such images

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were prepared by Robert of Artois for the destruction of his principal enemies. In this way Euguerrand de Marigny was said to have slain Philip the Fair. Thus, too, Eleanor Cobham, wife of Duke Humphrey, was held to have attempted the life of Henry VI., and was supposed by a good many to have enfeebled his intellect. So also certain seminary priests were accused of working against Queen Elizabeth in Lincoln's Inn. And thus one of that monarch's courtiers, Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, was generally believed to have been murdered. "He died thinking himself bewitched," says our authority, “an opinion in which very many, and some of them very learned men, concurred. During his last sickness a homely wise woman was found mumbling in a corner in his chamber, but what, God knoweth. About midnight was found by Mr. Hallsall an image of wax, with hair like unto the hair of his honour's head, twisted through the belly thereof. And he fell twice into a trance. not able to move hand or foot, when he would have taken physic to do him good. In the end he cried out often against all witches and witchcraft." Of course the witches had counter-spells for this, as for every other contrivance; and these were as precise, disgusting, and blasphemous, too, as anything they were intended to neutralize. But the image was not always shaped to work destruction: it was accounted equally infallible in exciting love. Indeed, the licentious freaks of every high-born dame that way given, were invariably set down to the credit of these contrivances, and the sinner herself was excused and pitied as the unfortunate victim of some malignant hag or unprinciple i lover; a theory which was marvellously convenient to the demi-rep, but by no means so to her admirers and confidants. Leicester is said to have wrought thus on Queen Elizabeth, Bothwell on Mary Stuart, half a score of her lovers on Margaret of Navarre, a long line of Spanish favourites on a succession of Peninsular queens, &c., &c. Cornhill Magazine.

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"THOU WILT ORDAIN PEACE FOR US," . 450 HIDE AND SEEK,

509

MEMORIES,

TO A WHIPPOORWILL,

JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE:

OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE, by EDWARD GARRETT. Price 50 cents.
LINDA TRESSEL, by the Author of Nina Balatka. Price 38 cts.

ALL FOR GREED, by the BARONESS BLAZE DE BURY. Price 38 cts.

PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION AT THIS OFFICE:

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. These very interesting and valuable sketches of Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, The Young Chevalier, Pope, John Wesley, and other celebrated characters of the time of George II., several of which have already appeared in the LIVING AGE, reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, will be issued from this office, in book form, as soon as completed. A HOUSE OF CARDS.

LETTICE LISLE.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

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FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money.

Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars.

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20 66
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50 66

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Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers.

PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS.

For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in nambers price $10.

MEMORIES.

BUT a line in a daily paper

Thousands of eyes would see,
And carelessly pass the record by
That gives such a pang to me.

Yet our lives had drifted far apart-
Mine at my ingle side;

And his, who, I read in the Post to-day,
"On the 4th of October died."

And ours was a quiet liking,

A simple, friendly bond;

It was pleasant to meet, and light to part, And never a thought beyond.

Yet as I read those words to-day,

Through a sudden mist of tears,

The fair, frank face and the bright blue eyes
Gleamed out through the cloud of years.

I heard the murmur of the tide
On the southern shore again,
And the echo of the pony's feet
In the sandy Hampshire lane.

I saw the sheen of the willow bough,
And the flashing of the weir,
Just as we watched them long ago

In the spring of the life and the year.

Ah, well! it had passed away from mine,
The life that is closed at noon;

And I, who forgot to watch its course,
Will forget its setting soon.

Never known, in the forest green

Thy mournful tale is told, Far from the spot where life has beenBy stream and ruin old

I sometimes thought strange harmonies Were lurking in each bough,

And listened for them on the breeze-
Familiar then as now.

Yes, yes, though many years have fled
Since boyhood's happy time,
And I have wandered since they sped
In many a foreign clime,

I still recall those moments past,
When, strolling forth alone,
As evening dews were falling fast,
I heard that plaintive tone.

"THOU WILT ORDAIN PEACE FOR US."

GOD the Omnipotent! Mighty Avenger!
Watching invisible, judging unheard!
Save thou our land in the hour of her danger,
Give to us Peace in thy time, O Lord!
Thunders and lightnings thy judgments have
sounded,

Letters of flame have recorded thy word, "Only on Righteousness true Peace is founded!"

Give us that peace in thy time, O Lord!

For the world goes up and the world goes down, So shall the people, with thankful devotion, And the young succeed the old;

And the April sunshine gilds the buds

That spring from the churchyard mould.

And eyes that of old have answered mine
Will sadden as mine have done,

As they glance some day down the list and read
That my earthly race is run.

Well, I scarce can frame a kindlier wish
Than that every lip will say,

"God rest her soul!" as earnestly
As I breathe it for his to-day.

TO A WHIPPOORWILL.

BY J. MARTIN.

THE stars are shining o'er each bower
In yonder mossy glade;
The dew is gemming every flower
And every leafy blade.

A solemn calm my bosom feels,
The very leaves are still,

Except from where yon hollow steals
The lonely whippoorwill.

Why, oh, why dost thou wander here
Alone in the pale moonlight?
Why is thy echo heard in the air,
Bird of the silent night?

Praise Him who saved them from peril and sword;

Shouting in chorus, from ocean to ocean, Peace to the Nation and praise to the Lord.

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From The Edinburgh Review.

THE PAPACY AND THE FRENCH EMPIRE. L'Eglise Romaine et le Premier Empire, 1800-1814. Avec Notes, Correspondance diplomatique et Pièces justificatives, entièrement inédites. Par M. LE COMTE D'HAUSSONVILLE. 2 vols. Paris: 1868.

THOUGH the contest of Napoleon with the Papacy is thrown into the shade by the glare and splendour of battle-fields and military glory which fill the Histories of the Consulate and Empire,' it merits the special attention which the writer of these volumes has given to the subject; and the more so, since his diligent research has enabled him to elucidate the character of the struggle by the testimony of a great quantity of hitherto unexamined documents. The story of the negotiation of the Napoleonic Concordat forms the prelude to this eventful conflict. M. Thiers, in a note in his History of the Consulate and Empire,' had already observed that no negotiation offered a more worthy subject for political study than that of this Concordat, and he notified to the world the existence of a large body of correspondence in the French archives which might one day reveal details hitherto enveloped in secrecy, even to those best versed in the study of the history of the Empire. M. d'Haussonville has not only incorporated into his text, but has published in an appendix, a large portion of this correspondence, the perusal of which is found to justify the remark of M. Thiers. M. d'Haussonville bestows great praise on the precision and truth of the outline drawn by the author of the history of the Consulate and Empire. Nevertheless, it is impossible for two writers to disagree more in their appreciation of the part played by the leading actor in this important transaction -a part regarded by the one as matter for unqualified praise, and by the other for almost unredeemed censure and suspicion. The truth here, as in most cases, lies probably between the two extremes. M. Thiers certainly overlooked some incidents in his narrative highly discreditable to the Imperial negotiators: whereas M. d'Haussonville, with considerable art and malice, never fails to seize a single point prejudicial to the French negotiators of the Con

cordat, or characteristic of the violence and bad faith of Napoleon. It is true that, on almost every question in dispute, Napoleon brought the Papacy to terms by peremptory ultimatums and by language in the nature of menace.

But the timorous hesitation and interminable scruples of the aged Cardinals of Rome were not to be overcome in any other way. It was not till after the Concordat, and during the subsequent disputes of Napoleon with the Holy See, that the pride and arrogance of the despot became inflated to immeasurable limits by an astounding career of new victories, and dictated a system of usurpation devoid of all respect for justice or principle. Nevertheless, although his design of reducing the Papacy to a mere state of vassalage to his empire was probably only a subsequent conception, yet there can be no doubt that from the first he regarded the re-establishment of the Catholic Church as a political measure, with the view of rendering the religious institutions of France as powerful engines as possible for the subjugation of its people.

The conclave held at Venice in the Isola San Georgio on the death of Pius VI. opened with a strong disposition to choose a Pope whose election should be received with favour by the Cabinet of Vienna. A deceitful intrigue, however, of the Austrian representatives delayed the choice of a Pope for nearly three months, during which time the political state of Europe was completely changed by the unexpected appearance of Napoleon at the head of affairs in France. It ended, as so many conclaves have ended, in electing a Pope utterly unthought of at its commencement; and the Cardinal Chiaramonti was proclaimed Pope on the 14th of March, 1800.

The Pope who was thus elected was one of the most estimable prelates who have ever occupied the chair of St. Peter. If he was not a great Pope, he certainly possessed a combination of spiritual and moral qualities rarer than genius, and certainly more beneficent than ambition; of all the sovereigns of the time, he is perhaps the only one who can be placed face to face with Napoleon, and yet not suffer by the contrast. Pius VII. was an incarnation of benevolence, humility, and Christian virtue

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