LAW SONG-FOR THE PORT FOLIO. WHATEVER refinements we may boast of in Pennsylvania within the last thirty or forty years, it is not generally thought that the manners of the people have within that period become more grave and orderly. Yet there are many circumstances which would induce us to think that this was actually the case. If for instance, we compare the proceedings of the legislative and executive departments of government, and their official intercourse with each other in former times, with those of the present day, we shall find in the latter, generally speaking, much more decorum, gravity, and dignity. The police of the towns is infinitely improved within the same period. The proceedings at elections are much less turbulent and disorderly. The habits of deep drinking and frequenting taverns, which prevailed too much formerly, are now exploded among men of character. We have also heard many stories of frolics and pleasant adventures among the first men of the period to which we refer, that would not be tolerated at the present time. What should we think, for instance, of the following circumstance which actually occurred at a county court: A gentleman of the bar of considerable humour, having occasion to cite the law, contained in the ensuing verses, after dinner, when all the bar and the judges were in a merry mood, instead of reading, resolved to sing them, which he did, to a ludicrous tune. The verses are as follow, and are to be found in Burrow's settlement cases. "A woman having a settlement, Married a man with none; If that she had was gone? Quoth sir John Pratt, her settlement Suspended did remain, Living the husband, but since dead, It doth revive again. Chorus of Judges. Living the husband, but since dead, The humour of the scene was irresistible. Before the witty cantor formularum had finished, the court, the jury, and the bystanders all joined in the song, and the chorus was repeated with great glee. He gained his cause. X. SELECTED POETRY. STANZAS FROM CHILDE HAROLD. "Heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!" 1. AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook 2. I will not ask where thou liest low, Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I lov'd and long must love Like common earth can rot; To me there needs no stone to tell 'Tis nothing that I lov'd so well. 3. Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who did❜st not change through all the past, And can'st not alter now. The love where Death has set his seal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. 4. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine: The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep; Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away: 7. As once I wept, if I could weep, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, 8. Yet how much less it were to gain, The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity Returns again to me, And more thy buried love endears Than aught, except its living years. OBITUARY. DIED, at Philadelphia, on the twenty-eighth of January, 1814, in the fifty-third year of her age, Mrs. MARGARET M. CRAIG, widow of the late John Craig, esquire. In recording the death of this accomplished and admirable woman, we know not how to reconcile the expression of our sensibility for her loss, and the enthusiastic veneration which her virtues had inspired, with the sobriety of ordinary eulogium. There is a sanctity around recent sorrow on which the voice of praise is only intrusive, and to which even the consolations of friendship are unwelcome and unavailing. But the tide of grief such is the dispensation of Providence-must ebb with Nature; and the moment has at length arrived, when private affection may mingle its regrets with domestic grief, and when, averting the mind from the gloomy contemplation of the future, it is permitted to look back with a sad and melancholy satisfaction on the qualities of that distinguished being whom we have lost forever. Mrs. Craig was a native of Ireland, and after passing her early years in that country, resided in England with her uncle, whom she afterwards accompanied to the Westindies, where she be came the wife of the late John Craig, esquire, and settled at Philadelphia towards the close of the revolution. There are among us many still living who remember the attention which her first arrival excited among our society, and how much were celebrated and admired, the beauty, the accomplishments, and the captivating manners of this lovely stranger. Of that society she long continued to form the delight and the ornament, till infirmity and sorrow withdrew her at last into retirement. She had been, from her carliest youth, of a most delicate frame, which the progress of time, and the loss of many of those to whom her heart was most firmly united, conspired to enfeeble, till, for many years, she had become an habitual invalid, almost exiled from her friends by constant and painful sickness. Yet, even during this seclusion, in the short intervals which suffering permitted her to devote to society, she exhibited all the elegance and fascination which had given so much lustre to her earlier years. For some time past, indeed, her health seemed gradually improving; and it was in the midst of anticipations of long and happy union, and of schemes of future enjoyment, that it pleased heaven to call her from the bosom of her family. Of the desolation which this sudden calamity has carried to the hearts of that family-of the dreary prostration of all their hopes, and affections, and happiness, they best can judge, who, after watching, with an anxious eye, by the couch of one who was most loved and cherished, retire to a hasty dream of better health and happiness for the morrow, and wake to the cruel annihilation of them all. For never yet did the tomb close upon a more pure and estimable woman. Our personal attachments have, we are persuaded, no share in misguiding our deliberate conviction, that there has been rarely in any age or country, a being who combined so many distinguished excellencies-so consummately endowed with high qualities--whose life was so perfectly pure and beneficent--and |