inhaled in that awful subterranean prison. And as they stopped I knew them, a girl and a boy-but oh, how sadly disfigured! In years and size so young, in face so carefully old, like pain-ridden dwarfs! They were Mann's children! But the father looked not at his children; the children glanced not at their father! there was no time for love, conjugal, paternal, or filial, in that terrible place!

The ways of Providence are inscrutable! It is not for us to pry into the secrets of Heaven, and yet I could not help asking in my soul, by what awful guilt Mann, his wife, and his poor children, could have incurred so stupendous a punishment, such an appalling infliction of the Divine wrath? Above ground, on the living earth, they had seemed amongst the better examples of human nature; generous, charitable in word and deed, honest, industrious, tenderly affectionate to each other. I had known them under various phases, in sickness, in poverty, and oppressed, and yet how unrepining they were, how patient, how forbearing! Above all, in their days of want, how munificent, bestowing the half of their little on those who had less! As I thought of it, a crushing sense of my own unworthiness, compared with their worth, completely overwhelmed me. There was no juggling there, no self-deceit in that pitch-black prison, the Condemned Cell of the Soul! Weighed, even in my own balance, against poor Mann, conscience declared me deficient,—that I ought rather to have been condemned to pick, pick, pick, picking at that sable roof, to gain a glimpse, if I could, of the blessed face of Nature! "Mann," I cried, "Mann!"

"Well."

"Let me work for you a bit. You must be cramped in that narrow cell-and worn out with labour."

"Yes-my back 's a'most broke-and my neck aches as if it had been twisted."

"Give me the pick."

He put the tool into my hand-how heavy it was! And I crept into the black niche; but it was so like getting into the narrow home, that I lay paralysed with cold and dread, unable to lift my arm. In the mean time a faint light appeared as before, but from the opposite direction: it might be that Mann's wife and children were on their return-but no! a secret whisper told me that they were my own partner and our little ones, and I involuntarily closed my eyes against a spectacle, painted beforehand, on the blank black air. I dared not look at my wife or children-it was agony, unutterable agony, only to think of them in those depths of desolation.

But I was not to be spared that infliction. Through my eyelids, supernaturally transparent, I beheld a sight that filled my soul with bitterness. Oh, those dear young faces, so prematurely old, hunger-pinched, and puckered with cares -precociously informed of the woes of the world-children, without childhood. And, oh! that sad, forlorn matron's face, once the sunniest on earth; now, with hair so gray, eyes so dull, lips so thin-misery, misery! The sight was unbearable, and I shrieked out, "I am, I am in

But before I could pronounce the unmentionable word, my eyes suddenly opened, and I saw before me my winter fire, with that great black block of the mineral fuel on the top, which, by its intense contrast with the glowing mass beneath, had led me into such a dream of the DARK and BRIGHT of the world, and that transition from the Coal Hole to the Coal Mine.

THE MAR Y.

A SEA-SIDE SKETCH.

Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the early tide
To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast,
And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide,—
Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast
His net into the deep, which doth provide
Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast
Bosom like Charity's, for all who seek

And take its gracious boon thankful and meek?

The sea is bright with morning,—but the dark
Seems still to linger on his broad black sail,
For it is early hoisted, like a mark

For the low sun to shoot at with his pale
And level beams: All round the shadowy bark
The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale
Swells in her canvas, till the waters show
The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow.

Then look abaft-(for thou canst understand
That phrase) and there he sitteth at the stern,
Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand.
The hardy Fisherman. Thou may'st discern
Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd
And honest countenance that he will turn
To look upon us, with a quiet gaze—
As we are passing on our several ways.

So, some ten days ago, on such a morn,
The Mary, like a seamew, sought her spoil
Amongst the finny race: 'twas when the corn
Woo'd the sharp sickle, and the golden toi!
Summon'd all rustic hands to fill the horn
Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil
Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap
His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep.

His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard,
His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams
Of morning, for the wind. Ben's eye was stored
With fishes-fishes swam in all his dreams,
And all the goodly east seem'd but a hoard
Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams
Groped into the deep dusk that fill'd the sky,
For him to catch in meshes of his eye.

For Ben had the true sailor's sanguine heart,
And saw the future with a boy's brave thought,
No doubts, nor faint misgivings had a part
In his bright visions-ay, before he caught
His fish, he sold them in the scaly mart,

And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have brought Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd,

But though one crop was marr'd, again he toil'd

And sow'd his seed afresh.-Many foul blights
Perish'd his hard won gains-yet he had plann'd
No schemes of too extravagant delights-
No goodly houses on the Goodwin sand—
But a small humble home, and loving nights,
Such as his honest heart and earnest hand

Might fairly purchase. Were these hopes too airy? Such as they were, they rested on thee, Mary.

She was the prize of many a toilsome year,
And hardwon wages, on the perilous sea—
Of savings ever since the shipboy's tear
Was shed for home, that lay beyond the lee ;—
She was purveyor for his other dear

Mary, and for the infant yet to be

Fruit of their married loves. These made him dote

Upon the homely beauties of his boat,

Whose pitch black hull roll'd darkly on the wave,

No gayer than one single stripe of blue

Could make her swarthy sides. She seem'd a slave,

A negro among boats-that only knew

Hardship and rugged toil-no pennons brave
Flaunted upon the mast-but oft a few
Dark dripping jackets flutter'd to the air,
Ensigns of hardihood and toilsome care.

And when she ventured for the deep, she spread
A tawny sail against the sunbright sky,
Dark as a cloud that journeys overhead—
But then those tawny wings were stretch'd to fly
Across the wide sea desert for the bread
Of babes and mothers-many an anxious eye
Dwelt on her course, and many a fervent pray'r
Lavoked the Heavens to protect and spare.

Where is she now? The secrets of the deep
Are dark and hidden from the human ken ;