This venerable mansion, in Warwickshire, derives some celebrity from its being situated in the park, where the immortal Shakspeare was taken in the act of deer stealing. The estate has been in the present possessor's family for upwards of six hundred years. The mansion, as it now stands, was built by Sir Thomas Lucy, in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and has undergone very little alteration. The building forms the shape of an E, perhaps in compliment to the Virgin Queen," with whose arms it is decorated,

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Here, it is said, our youthful bard followed the "sequestered stag," with feelings very different, from those which pervaded his bosom, when he made the melancholy Jaques moralize so pathetically upon "the poor dappled fools, the native burghers of this desert city." The severity with which Sir Thomas Lucy prosecuted our bard, provoked his resentment so much that he imperishably handed him down to posterity in the character of Justice Shallow."

Charlcote is delightfully situated on the banks of the "sweet flowing Avon," and the park is beautifully shaded with stately oaks. The association of Shakspeare's name with this park, renders it an attractive spot to those who make a pilgrimage to the birth place of our divine bard.

G. 28.

M m

SERENADE,

BY HARRY STOE VAN DYK.

As the stars are to evening,
Or sun to the day,
Or blossoms to April,

Or fragrance to May;
Or dews to the flow'rets,

Or showers to the green-
Art thou to this bosom
My fair Geraldine.

And whilst eve loves the starlight,

Or April it's bloom,
Or day the bright sun rays,
Or May it's perfume;
Whilst dews greet the flow'rets,
Or showers tint the green-
I'll love thee, I'll love thee,
Thou fair Geraldine.

HELVETIAN SONG OF TRIUMPH,

BY J. A. SHEA.

Too long the Helvetian dwelt

In Slavery's bleeding reign

Too long his spirit felt

The tyrant and the chain :
But he felt it not in vain-

And though Morgarten's mountains burst

The wizard name of Walter Furst.*

And the son of Uri rose

And look'd along the land,

And heard the roll of foes,

As of billows to a strand,

And he bore his forward brand

To the ringing hills-the pride-the boast

The saviour of his country's host.

*The names of the three first patriots who planned the Swiss insurrection were, Furst, Erni, and Stauffacher.

This was the glorious dawn,
When Freedom's sunrise broke,
Thro' cloud and storm upon
The Austrian's shatter'd yoke-
When the hero men awoke,

And shewed the world the mountain might,
That long had dreamed in Slavery's night.

And the voice of war went out,

And valley, and mount, and glen;
Sent up the answering shout,

From the hearts of their iron men,
Who gathered by cliff and fen,†
For the might of the hostile thousands roll'd,
It's thundering fury o'er freedom's hold.
Oh! it was a sight of fear,

And it was a sight of pride,
To see the storm of sword and spear
Flash out on the mountain's side,
And brighten the war-field wide,
And the rattling crags in fragments roll'd
On the host of the trembling Leopold.
Nor deem'd the prince till then,
What fiery life remains

In the stormy breasts of men,

Who've burst their circling chains-
Till he saw the purple rains,

That bath'd his thousands' rocky bed,
The men whose fate he palely fled.‡

O thus may all who know,

How glorious 'tis to see
Their children's eye-beams glow,
With the pride of Liberty-
Thus thus may they ever be
Unconquer'd, when they dare to wave

The brand against a sceptred slave.

The army took a position at the foot of Morgarten, near the small lake Algeri, along the marshy borders of which the path of the enemy lay.-Simond's Switzerland.

The Duke Leopold of Austria, extricated with difficulty by his followers, reached Winterthun pale and in despair.-Ibid.

LIFE AT A POLICE OFFICE.

I was awakened a short time back by a note being delivered to me from a young friend of mine, telling me that he was in trouble-i. e. in St. Martin's watch-house-and requesting me to come down to Bow-street to be his bail, if need were; and, at all events, to give him my advice and assistance to get out of the scrape. Accordingly I went, and arrived at Bow-street just in time to see my friend alight from a hackney-coach, with five companions in misfortune. His dim sunken eye, pale cheek, and matted hair, gave sufficient evidence where he had passed the night: neither was his appearance improved by the shame which he very visibly felt for his situation. He had no sort of inclination, I soon perceived, to figure in the Police Report of the Morning Herald. His story was, that he had been foolish enough the night before to go to a gaming-house-usually, and most appropriately, called a Hell; and that after losing fifty pounds, he was bagged, as he phrased it, by an irruption of Bowstreet officers, and had the satisfaction of passing the remainder of the night in the watch-house. He seemed to feel somewhat less than comfortable in his novel situation, and wished me to remain and see him through the business.

This was the first time I had ever been at Bow-street, and the scene was sufficiently striking. The low ill-lighted room, with its dingy walls and barred windows, was a place well adapted to the figures of want, vice, and wretchedness with which it was filled. Some few, like my friend, seemed to be there for some slight offence, and their appearance evinced only the desire to escape from observation in such a place. Others, with looks of shame far greater, and with an air of the deepest depression, seemed to await their turn of hearing with the most anxious fear, rarely and slightly varied by a faint degree of hope. But by far the greatest number had that look of hardened reckless vice, which is perhaps the most degraded and revolting aspect in which humanity ever appears these faces bespoke the total absence of shame, and the callous indifference to consequences, which habitual wickedness gives, and which seem to regard detection and

punishment as but the adverse chances of a game in which they must sometimes necessarily occur. But what was chiefly jarring to my feelings was the matter-of-course air with which the officers, and even the magistrate, looked on a scene from which I shrank with disgust and loathing. See, said I to myself, the hardening effects of habit! That magistrate is, I doubt not, a man of humanity, and once had the feelings natural to one in his station of life; but now, from the constantly witnessing misery and guilt, he has come to look unmoved on these the most degraded appearances of human nature-the very dregs and offal of misfortune and of crime!

The first case that was called was not of a nature calculated to remove the impressions to which the scene before me gave rise. It was that of a young man accused of forgery. Like many of those guilty of this crime, he seemed to be of superior manners and talents. His appearance was very interesting he was not more than three or four and twenty, and his countenance, like that of the fallen Eblis, betokened energies and capabilities which should have led to far different results. This was his second examination; and, since the last, his friends had been informed of his perilious situation. His father had hurried from the country to console and to assist his son. The old man was now present, and I have seldom seen grief more pitiable. He seemed to be between sixty and seventy. His white hair was thinly scattered on his forehead; over which, and his sunken cheek, the most deadly paleness was spread. The furrows of his aged face seemed deepened and contracted with grief. His eye, which was becoming dim with years, had regained for the time a lustrous expression, but it was that of agony. His looks were rivetted on his son, who seemed to shrink from his gaze, as if his father's sufferings added tenfold bitterness to his own. When the young man's name was called, a shudder seemed to pass over his frame, but he stepped forward to the bar with a firm step, and a countenance sufficiently composed. His case proved to be one by no means uncommon, but always most distressing. He had early shewn talents superior to his station, and his parents had pinched themselves to give education to their favorite boy. A few years back they had