e her noble
heart, overcame her physical frame, and on the day succeeding that woful
night she was seized with a heavy fever, and through the interference
of some respectable inhabitants of the town, was conveyed to the fever
hospital, where she now lies in a state of delirium.

And Frank Maguire--the firm, the industrious, and independent--where is
he? Unable to bear the shame of his brother's degradation, he gave up
his partnership, and went to America, where he now is; but not without
having left in the hands of a friend something for his unfortunate
brother to remember him by; and it was this timely aid which for the
last three quarters of a year has been the sole means of keeping life in
his brother's family.

Thus have we followed Art Maguire from his youth up to the present stage
of his life, attempting, as well as we could, to lay open to our readers
his good principles and his bad, together with the errors and ignorances
of those who had the first formation of his character--we mean his
parents and family. We have endeavored to trace, with as strict an
adherence to truth and nature as possible, the first struggles of a
heart naturally generous and good, with the evil habit which beset him,
as well as with the weaknesses by which that habit was set to work upon
his temperament. Whether we have done this so clearly and naturally
as to bring home conviction of its truth to such of our readers as may
resemble him in the materials which formed his moral constitution, and
consequently, to hold him up as an example to be avoided, it is not for
ourselves to say. If our readers think so, or rather feel so, then we
shall rest satisfied of having performed our task as we ought.

Our task, however, is not accomplished. It is true, we have accompanied
him with pain and pity to penury, rags, and beggary--unreformed,
unrepenting, hardened, shameless, desperate. Do our readers now suppose
that there is anything in the man, or any principle external to him,
capable of regenerating and elevating a heart so utterly lost as his?

But hush! what is this? How dark the moral clouds that have been hanging
over the country for a period far beyond the memory of man! how black
that dismal canopy which is only lit by fires that carry and shed around
them disease, famine, crime, madness, bloodshed, and death. How hot,
sultry, and enervating to the whole constitution of man, physically and
mentally, is the atmosphere we have been breathi