evelation from above in favour of one of the faithful?
Perhaps an angel from heaven appeared to this mirror of modern virtue,
and informed her, that if she eat more than one piece of bread a day,
her small pittance would not last her till the time she was to make
her escape. Her mother, we know, is a very enthusiastical woman--a
consulter of conjurors, a dreamer of dreams; perhaps the daughter
dreamed also what was to happen, and so, in obedience to her vision,
would not eat when she was hungry, nor drink when she was thirsty.
However that was, I would risk the event of the prosecution on this
single circumstance, that, without the interposition of some
preternatural cause, this conduct of the prisoner's must appear to
exceed all bounds of human probability.'

Notwithstanding the conclusive exposure of her criminality, Elizabeth
Canning was not entirely deserted by her partisans to the last. Two of
the jury had difficulty in reconciling themselves to the verdict of
guilty, suggesting that her story might be substantially correct,
though undoubtedly she had made a mistake about the persons by whom
she was injured. There was a technical imperfection in the verdict,
and her friends strove to the utmost to take advantage of it. When it
was overruled, and a verdict of guilty was recorded, she pleaded for
mercy, saying that she was more unfortunate than wicked; that
self-preservation had been her sole object; and that she did not wish
to take the gipsy's life. The punishment to be inflicted on her was a
matter of serious deliberation, as many of the common people were
still so unconvinced of her wickedness, that an attempt to break the
jail in which she was imprisoned might be feared, and as at that time
the transportation system had not been established. It was not,
however, unusual to send criminals, by their own consent, to the
plantations, and the court gladly acceded to a desire by her
relations, that she should be banished to New England.

THE ISLAND OF ISLAY.

There is, perhaps, no country in Europe which possesses so great a
variety of territory and social condition as our own. Between the
plains of Cambridgeshire and the wilds of Sutherland--between the
toiling, densely-packed multitudes of Lancashire and the idle,
scattered cotters of the Hebrides, how vast a difference! The Land we
Live in, as Charles Knight has called it, in a very delightful
descriptive book, is a much more interesting study to its own