There came a change, a sudden change, even on his childhood's race, Friends died, and fortune's withering frown fell o'er home's sacred place, Strange looks and cold, strange words and harsh, assail'd him day by day, As with a wondering, wilder'd look he pass'd along his way. No feeling of resistance came upon the boy's young soul, One wildly-timid sense of fear, of pain, there held control, A tender mingling of the past with all the present ill Yet kept his glowing sympathies from every threat'ning chill. The child was gentle, loving thoughts around each sense had grown, Pride, hate, revenge, those human guests, to him were all unknown; In sad surprise he wander'd on as life more sterile grew, Till from his face had pass'd the light, and from his heart the dew. And sterner grown from sense of wrong throughout the dark past borne, He proudly yielded hate for hate, and hurl'd back scorn for scorn; The deep'ning shadows of the earth across his heart were spread, Shutting out all the lights of old, the influence of the dead. Vain, sterile, brief, is the career of men who walk in strife; The mortal struggle is not strength, its passions are not life; And when the snows of winter fell upon that once bright head, A low, deep voice came back to him, and thus it sternly said: "One other change, one other change, the hardest and the best, Must pass o'er thee, tired spirit, yet, ere thou canst hope for rest: Amid the grovelling dust of earth what didst thou deem to find? Plume thy soil'd wings yet once again, and cast it all behind. Where is God's fairest gift and first, the heart for love design'd? Thou hast it not, thy breast is arm'd with wrath against thy kind; Where is the meek unshaken faith in truth and beauty's reign That once was thine; where is it now? seek, grasp that faith again. Go 'mid the homes of living men, let love disarm thy pride, Search the throng'd graves, and yield thy hatethere all are close allied; But dare not ask for self alone the treasures of the just, Stand with thy brethren and be strong, heirs of one hope and trust." And harder was the struggle now than it had been before, Hard to regain the gentle rule his spirit own'd of yore; Yet back it came-the dark strife ceas'd-one holy | Why leave him to languish and struggle with dream of heaven anguish ? Had fitted for its purer realm the guilty but for- The deed that relieved him from all that aggiven. THE MURDERER'S CONFESSION. BY HORACE SMITH. I PAUSED not to question the Devil's suggestion, But o'er the cliff, headlong, the living was thrown, A scream and a plashing, a foam and a flashing, And the smothering water accomplished his slaughter, All was silent, and I was alone. With heart-thrilling spasm, I glanced down the chasm ; There was blood on the wave that closed over his head, And in bubbles his breath, as he struggled with death, Rose up to the surface. I shudder'd and fled. With footsteps that stagger'd and countenance haggard, I stole to my dwelling, bewilder'd, dismay'd, Till whisperings stealthy said-" Psha! he was wealthy Thou'rt his heir-no one saw thee-then be not afraid." I summon'd the neighbors, I joined in their labors, We sought for the missing by day and by night; We ransack'd each single height, hollow, and dingle, Till shoreward we wended, when starkly extended, His corpse lay before us-O God, what a sight! And yet there was nothing for terror or loathing; The blood had been wash'd from his face and his clothing, But by no language, no pen, his life-like, wide open Eyes can be painted I felt murder-attainted; grieved him Was kindly, not cruel. Some with impunity snatch opportunity, To scape the ideal let me dwell on the real. In abundance possessing life's every blessing, Life's blessings?-Oh, liar! all are curses most dire In the midst of my revels, His eyes ever stare at me, flare at me, glare at me. Yet my guilty commotion seem'd ruth and devo- Before me, when treading my manors outspread ing, My daughters, their mother, contend with each | Shall sadden and darken-God help me!-hist! other -hearken! Who shall show most affection, best soothe my 'Tis the shriek, soul-appalling, he uttered when dejection. Revolting endearments! their garments seem falling! SCIENCE AND ART. island,--and are there to be no more Cannibals ? Mont Blanc, as Miss Landon has sung, is growing familiar ground; and Ararat has been stormed, if travellers' tales be true. What Hannibal did with so much pain, growing one of the marvels of history because he did it, we can do at our plea Cockaigne. We correspond familiarly with Bag dad, walk about China, and negotiate with the Great Mogul. France is in Algiers-and our old Romance friends of that ilk have not a flag upon the seas. The Camel is a mere beast of burthen now, with a hump upon its back, that was once the "Ship of the Desert." We sail in the wind's eye, and build on the Goodwins,-careless of tide and reckless of Tenterden steeple. We are watering the Desert, and draining the Zuyder Zee, and, for a climax to all, blowing up Shakspeare's Cliff. Then the new world is found to be the old-and where is El Dorado? Peru is a borrower, and Mexico offers scrip. DIAMOND MINE OF SINCURA. We live in the age and the meridian of the Positive. Ours is the region and the period of what, in the jargon of the day, is called great facts. Dreamland is overshadowed by the vapors of Steam-land, and railways have ridden down Romance. The truths of our world are strange-stranger than the fic-sure, and be nobody on that account even in tions of our fathers. Turn aside as Imagination would from the beaten path of Fact, her "enemy has found her out;"-build where she might her fairy fabrics, Fact has followed her, and reared up a solid structure by their side, overtopping them all. Alas, for the Genius of Romance! Where, on this earth of ours, is there any visible resting-place left for the sole of that bright spirit's foot? Where went it ever, on its many-colored wings, that we go not now with the trowel and the spade? Under the beds of rivers, and right through the hearts of hills-away along the fields of air, and down in the deeps of the sea,-Science has been in all the chambers, and travelled on all Amid this universal translation into prose cf the pathways of Romance. And what were the ministers that waited on the latter's will, to those the old Romance poetry, it is somewhat exciting who wait on ours? The great fire-spirit of the to catch a far echo of the enchanted song which mine Sir Humphrey Davy has subdued to his made the music of our childhood; and a real, live "Genius of the Lamp." What a sluggish spirit diamond mine, caught wild in the nineteenth cenwas Ariel, to some that do our bidding! Forty tury, has a sound that conjures up pleasant memlong minutes did it take that dilatory servant of ories. Visions of Aladdin's jewel-garden come Prospero to "put a girdle round about the earth," floating to the heart as we read of this virgin field -while we can send the message of man around of wealth so profuse that El Dorado itself would the world in one. We paint with the sunbeam, and have sent forth her sons, even in her golden days, gild with the imprisoned spirit of the lightning to gather it. The reapers at this diamond harvest The fairies that played of yore through the plea- will not stoop to lift the gold that lies on all the sant fields of England are all bound down by our hills and glistens through all the streams. Gold iron bands-the Titans of old Superst tion van-is left for the gleaners. Pactolus is restored, quished by the Jupiter of Science. The Demon of the Hartz is a shadow, and the sea-serpent" very like a whale." We have read characters on the moon which Pythagoras never saw through his glass; and are finding out the gross impositions practised on the old world by the poets in their astrography of the Milky Way.-Then, the old pleasant haunts of the Romance-Spirit, where are they? What would De Foe now do for a desert but has no worship in this eager scene. And if tidings of a mine the richest which the world has yet seen, have a strange and real sound in these latter days, it is still more singular, in the ears of one accustomed to the old crowded European states, where the spirit of appropriation closely covers every inch of space and atom of value, to hear of a government that actually leaves a vast treasure-fountain like this to the common enjoy ment of all who flock thither to draw off its dia- | formation. Those of Lancoës are white, or light mond streams. We have already given our read-green, and nearly transparent as they come from ers some particulars of this singular discovery and the mine. They are octoedrical, and the most of the settlement which has grown up around it: prized of any. It is often necessary to penetrate but the interest of the matter deepens with the to the depth of three or four yards ere coming at details and the certainty that they are authentic; the diamond stratum. Diamonds are gathered, and we think it worth while, at once, in a view of too, in the stony ravines at the bottom of the Parthe historical and picturesque, to put them in pos- aguassu itself, and of its tributary streams. session of the full particulars which have been furnished to the Journal des Débats. The narrative, they will see, belongs, for a host of lucky adventurers, to the category of the actual,-though for our readers, and for us, alas! it seems but another glimpse back, out of our world of realities, up one of the old-remembered avenues of Romance-land. "The price of the diamonds of this mine varies, at Bahia, from 250 to 500 milreis (670 to 1,340 francs) the octave, according to their size or water. The octave is 17 1-2 carats; but the carat of Brazil is 7 1-2 per cent below the French carat which makes the Brazilian carat fr m 67 to 134 francs. The actual course of exchange at Bahia is 365 reis for a franc. "For some months past," says the correspond- "The two English packets for May and June ent of the paper in question, "the communications last took home about 5 1-2 millions' worth and commercial relations with the province of (£220,000) of diamonds from this mine; and Bahia have assumed extraordinary activity. A since then, during the months of June and July, great number of inhabitants, speculators, adven-it has produced nearly 1,450 carats per day. It tureis, and even proprietors of sugar-houses, have is estimated to have yielded, in the ten months emigrated with their slaves, into that province- during which it has been worked, nearly 400,000 the site of a diamond-mine, the produce of which Portuguese carats (about £732,000 in value),is incredible. It was discovered in October of three-fifths of which have taken the road of Eng last year, by a slave, who, in the space of twenty land, another fifth has gone to France and Hamdays, had picked up 700 carats of diamonds, and burgh, and the remaining fifth waits for purchataken them for sale to a considerable distance.sers at Rio Janeiro and Bahia. Arrested and imprisoned, he still obstinately refused to disclose their source; whereupon his escape was connived at, and some intelligent Indians were put upon his trail. They followed him for several days; and surprised him at last, rooting for diamonds, not far from Caxoiera, the second city of the province of Bahia Researches were then made over a large space, parallel with the chain of mountains called Sincura-which have since given their name to the mines-and along the banks of the river Paraguassu, which falls into the Gulf of Bahia. But as "All the lapidaries in Europe could not cut even one-half the stones produced by the mine of Sincura: a reduction in value is therefore looked for, and the traffic gives rise to very hazardous speculations. "Brazil, whose privilege it is to furnish the diamonds of commerce, produced annually, before the discovery of this mine, no more than 6 or 7 kilogrammes,-which cost more than a million of francs in the working Hitherto, the diamonds found at Sincura are all of small size. It is known that there are but few in the world which weigh more than 20 grammes. The largest is that of Agra-weighing 133;—that of the Rajah of Matan, at Borneo, weighs 78-that of the Emperor of Mogul 63-and that of France, called the Regent, 28 grammes 89 centigrammes; but this latter is of fine form, and in all respects quite perfect. It weighed before cutting, 87 grammes, and took the work of two years. "The first individuals who established themselves at the mine of Sincura, were mostly convicts and murderers; and their presence was marked by burnings and assassinations. The difficulty of procuring sustenance in the country, and the danger incurred by those who came thither to exchange diamonds against the paper money of Brazil, prevented the respectable merchan's from engaging in this commerce. "The mine of Sincura presents the aspect of the population, nevertheless, gradually increased, an independent colony in the heart of the mother police regulations were adopted by the new colo- country. Hitherto, the Government has taken no nists; and the working of the mine began then step for assuming the direction of this trade, which on an extended scale. The population which. promises to be so abundant a source of wealth to in the previous August, numbered only 8,000 the province of Bahia; and they will probably souls, distributed amongst three townships, was, have, now, to sanction the regulations which the at the close of July last, upwards of 30,000, and inhabitants have laid down for their own security is continually increasing. The villages now in- in the working of this vast mine,-that spreads habited and worked are seven in number-Para- already over a superficies of more than thirty guassu, Combucas, Chique-Chique, Causu-Boa, leagues."-Athenæum. Andrahy, Nagé, and Lancoës. The latter of EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITY.-The museum of Belthese, twenty leagues distant from Paraguassu, fast is about to become the depository of an incontains alone 3,000 houses and 20,000 inhabitants. The central point of the diamond-com- teresting relic of the eighteenth dynasty. Sir merce is Paraguassu; which, though populous, Thebes the hand of the colossal statue of AmuJames Emerson Tennent has brought down from has yet only 12 small houses of masonry. Nearly all the miners come thither on Saturday and Sun-noph 11. (born B. c. 1680), which travellers used day, to sell the stones which they have collected to remark at the south-west propylon of the grand during the week-taking back, in exchange, various articles of consumption, arms, and ready-made clothing, which comes from Bahia at great cost. The diamonds found at Paraguassu are for the most part of a dun color and very irregular con temple at Karnuk. The four fingers are 2 feet 5 inches across, which would correspond with a full-length figure of 56 feet. The pasha has permitted its exportation, and it is intended as a present to the town of Belmont by their late rep resentative.-Lit. Gaz, |