into an antient chapel no longer used for devotion, the pulpit was never without a cold chine of beef, venison pasty, gammon of bacon, and a large apple pie with the crust well baked. His table, though good to eat at, cost him but little more than for beef and mutton, as the fieldsporting amply supplied the rest, except indeed on Fridays, when he had the best of sea and other fish; on this day the neighbouring gentry would occasionally dine with Mr. Has tings; he drank a glass or two of wine after his meals, but oftener sack, sweetened with syrup of July flowers; with his dinner, he took a pint of table beer, which he would occasionally stir with a sprig of rosemary. He was naturally cheerful and of a good temper, but unhandiness or inattention soon made him angry, when he would call his servants bastards and cuckoldy knaves, in one of which, and sometimes in both, he spoke truth to his own knowledge. Mr. Hastings was short of stature, but strong, moderately plump, and active; his hair was flaxen, and his clothes always green; in this respect, though neat, he was not extravagant, the whole of his covering from head to foot not costing, when VOL. IV. new, five pounds; he lived to be an hundred years old, and never used spectacles; he mounted his horse to the last without help, and when past fourscore was in at the death of a hare as soon as any. HIGHWAYMAN; addi tion to that article in my second volume. In the hurry of my last publication I omitted mentioning a well authenticated circumstance, which is probably in the recollection of many of my readers. A certain popular minister of the gospel, who was preaching the funeral sermon of his deceased servant, took occasion to exhort the congregation in an earnest and impressive manner against yielding to despair. "However sunk in the depths of wickedness, however polluted by vicious enormity," said the preacher, "no sinner is out of the reach of God's mercy, if properly sought after by repentance, and followed by positive amendment. "Our departed friend, whose death has now brought us together, was once a man of violence, an abandoned profligate, and the circumstance which first led to my acquaintance with him was his presenting a pistol to my breast, as a robber and a highwayman, P "Yet "Yet from his subsequent contrition and melioration, and his reliance on the intercession of a redeemer, I trust he is now in the realms of everlasting bliss." HUMANITY REWARD way. ED, and in a singular A spirited opposer of the slave-trade, whose evils it will be found more politically right to alleviate, than wholly to abolish the traffic,—this energetic writer compares all parties concerned in carrying it on to the worst species of highwaymen, because the marauder only invades the rights of society, but the slave merchant those of nature. This writer makes an exception in favor of a few individuals, and produces an example in the commander of a fort in Africa, who by his humane exertions considerably diminished the horrors of an odious species of commerce, which he was deputed by his employers to superintend. In every instance where the loss of liberty was augmented by the probable separation of a husband from a wife, or children, from their parents, he purchased such prisoners of the dealers, and gave them permission to retire if they were so inclined, for it frequently happened, that in the warmth of grateful trans port to their benefactor, they shewed no desire of returning; this circumstance probably arose from their country being the seat of war, and their dread of falling into the hands of new tyrants. On one occasion, this benevolent man, whose name was SCHILDEROP, a native of Denmark, on one occasion he was eminently fortunate and successful; observing among the captives brought down for sale a female, whose manners and appearance interested him in an extraordinary manner, and observing that she was accompanied by a little boy, whom she occasionally pressed to her arms, while tears, sighs, and distracted looks, decisively marked her as an agonizing mother, dreading every moment to be torn from her beloved child, he instantly purchased them both, and exerted himself so, effectually, that in a few weeks the two liberated Africans were safely conducted to their home and -restored to the arms of a family, which could scarcely believe so glorious an action could be performed by Europeaus, whom they had hitherto considered as the betrayers and tyrants of the world. The female he had thus restored to liberty was the wife of a prince in the interior part of the the country, who had been taken by surprize while her husband and elder sons were engaged in a distant warfare; the acuteness of his distress at finding when he returned his habitation smoking in ruins and his wife and darling son carried into captivity, need not be described; or the transports he felt, when after having considered them as for ever lost and devoted to violence and violation, they were again presented to him uninjured, and rushed into his arms. When the detachment arrived at the appointed place, they found a young woman elaborately adorned in the fashion of the country, and surrounded by attendants laden with treasure and with such articles as he knew would be highly acceptable to Schilderop, his humane benefactor. They were protected to the fort, and after depositing their presents at his feet, one of the female attendants somewhat ad vanced in years, approached the commander and gave him to understand that the young woman who accompanied them was the prince's eldest child, a virgin of eighteen, the only daughter of her mother; that deeply impressed with his generous proceeding, so gloriously opposite to that of most Europeans, her parents were anxious so good a man should give them a grandson. I am not enabled to say how the Dane acted on this singular occasion; a refusal of any of the presents would have been construed into ungrateful contempt and a violation of their laws of hospitality, while yielding to the intreaties of the prince would have been a direliction of integrity and nuptial duty, as he was a married man and the father of a family; whether human virtue on this occasion received any help from the colour of the lady's skin is a point I cannot decide; yet a connoisseur in these commodities informs me, that in such latitudes he prefers the sable beauties of Africa to our snow white beauties of the north. threat from a quarter so formidable what can I do but obey? "His head (I mean the horse's not the connoisseur's) should be without flesh, and proportionate in length and size to the body and limbs; his eyes rather prominent, but the lids of them thin and dry. "The ears should be thin, narrow, erect, of middling length, and not distant from each other; the forehead flat, not large and square, but running almost in a straight line to the muzzle, which should be small and fine, yet the nostrils sufficiently dilated. "His mouth should be deep; the tongue not large, nor should he be apt to let it appear as if it were hanging out, which is sometimes the case with old horses; the jaw bones ought to be wide at top, where they join to the neck, which should meet the head, not too abruptly, but taperingly, and with a moderate curve. "The neck should be of a moderate length, not too thick on the upper part, nor too large and deep, but rising from the withers or forehand, and afterwards declining at the extremity form a segment of a circle; underneath the neck should be straight from the chest, and by no means convex out. "The shoulders of a good horse are capacious and of large extent, so as to appear the most conspicuous part of the animal; but they ought not to be fleshy ; they should rise fairly to the top of the withers, which must be well raised; the chest should be full, not coming to an edge, narrow, and pinched. "His body is required to be deep and substantial; his back a plane of good width but handsomely rounded; the back-bone straight or with a slight bend, it ought not to be short; loins wide, and the muscles of the reins or fillets full, and swelling moderately on each side of the back-bone. "There ought to be a suffici ent space between the ribs and hip-bones; the hip-bones should be round; the buttocks deep and oval; the rump level with the heighth of the withers, the croup must have reasonable space and not sink too suddenly; the tail should not be set on too low, but ought to be nearly on a level with the back. "The hind quarters should spread to a greater extent than the fore parts; and the hind feet stand further asunder than those before. "The thighs ought to be or bellying straight, large, long, and mus cular; cular; the hock wide and clean; the shank flat, but not too long, yet of sufficient substance; its sinew large and distinct, and the fetlocks long: the hocks should form an angle of such extent, as to place the feet immediately under the flanks. "The fore arms, like the thighs, should be large, muscular, and long, the elbows not turning outwards; the knees lean and large; the cannonbone flat, strong, but not disproportionately long; the tendon large. "The fore arm and shank ought to form nearly a straight line; the fetlock joints must be large and clean; the pasterns moderately sloping, but not too long, and their largeness proportionate to their length; the coronary rings neither thick nor swelled, but clean, dry, and hairy. "The feet should not be too high nor too flat, but form a base sufficient for the weight they have to sustain; the hoofs dark, shining, and without seams or wrinkles, tough and strong (but not hard) like oak; the foot internally concave; the sole hard but not shrunk; the heels wide and of middling height; a tough and sound frog, but not fleshy, or too large; the feet, equal in size, should stand exactly parallel, so that the front or toe incline neither inward nor point outwards; the fore feet should stand perpendicular to the chest, not too much under it; they should be less wide apart than the fore arms." IMPARTIAL JUSTICE, or the dishonest servant paid as knaves ought always to be paid. "While I was visiting this nobleman," (an Italian marquis) says a modern writer, "he gave an entertainment to the neighbouring gentry; part of the company had already arrived, when an upper servant came into the room evidently embarrassed to inform his lordship, that a fisherman had brought the finest fish he had ever seen, but asked a very extraordinary price. "Give him whatever he asks," replied the marquis, anxious to shew his respect for the company who were to dine with him. "It is not money, my lord, that he demands; the fellow swears that he will not part with his fish, till he has received a hundred strokes hundred strokes on his bare shoulders." This singular demand exciting general curiosity; the whole party |