ster of the poet sobbed aloud.

"Why sorrow for me, sirs?" he said; "why grieve for me? I am well, quite
well, and want for nothing. But 'tis cold; oh, 'tis very cold, and the
blood seems freezing at my heart. Ah, but there is neither pain nor cold
where I am going, and I trust it shall be well with my soul. Dearest,
dearest mother, I always told you it would come to this at last."

The keeper had entered to intimate to us that the hour for locking up
the cells was already past, and we now rose to leave the place. I
stretched out my hand to my unfortunate friend; he took it in silence,
and his thin attenuated fingers felt cold within my grasp, like those of
a corpse. His mother stooped down to embrace him.

"Oh, do not go yet, mother," he said--"do not go yet--do not leave me;
but it must be so, and I only distress you. Pray for me, dearest mother,
and, oh, forgive me; I have been a grief and a burden to you all
life-long; but I ever loved you, mother; and, oh, you have been kind,
kind and forgiving--and now your task is over. May God bless and reward
you! Margaret, dearest Margaret, farewell!"

We parted, and, as it proved, for ever. Robert Ferguson expired during
the night; and when the keeper entered the cell next morning, to prepare
him for quitting the asylum, all that remained of this most hapless of
the children of genius, was a pallid and wasted corpse, that lay
stiffening on the straw. I am now a very old man, and the feelings wear
out; but I find that my heart is even yet susceptible of emotion, and
that the source of tears is not yet dried up.

THE DISASTERS
OF JOHNNY ARMSTRONG.

Johnny Armstrong, the hero of our tale, was, and, for aught we know to
the contrary, still is, an inhabitant of the town of Carlisle. He was a
stout, thickset, little man, with a round, good-humoured, ruddy
countenance, and somewhere about fifty years of age at the period to
which our story refers. Although possessed of a good deal of natural
shrewdness, Johnny was, on the whole, rather a simple sort of person.
His character, in short, was that of an honest, well-meaning,
inoffensive man, but with parts that certainly did not shine with a very
dazzling lustre. Johnny was, to business, an ironmonger, and had, by
patient industry and upright dealing, acquired a small independency. He
had stuck to the counter of his little dingy shop for upwards of twenty
years, and used to boast that, during all that time, he had opened a