Crimson'd with shame, with terror mute,
Dreading alike, escape, pursuit;
Till love, victorious o'er alarms,
Hid fears and blushes in his arms?
Such is the first picture; what is the second?
Alas! thought he, how changed that mien,
How changed those timid looks have been!
Since years of guilt and of disguise
Have arm'd the terrors of her eyes.
No more of virgin terror speaks
The blood that mantled in her cheeks:
Fierce and unfeminine are there,
Frenzy for joy, for grief despair."
It is the strangest problem of humanity—one too, for which the closest investigation can never quite account—to trace the progress by which innocence becomes guilt, and how those who formerly trembled to think of crime, are led on to commit that at which they once shuddered. The man the most steeped in wickedness, must have had his innocent and his happy moments—a child, he must have played in the sunshine with spirits as light as the golden curls that toss on the wind. His little hands must have been clasped in prayer at his mother's knee; he must, during some moment of youth's generous warmth, have pitied human suffering, and wondered how man's blood could ever be shed by man: and if this holds good of man—how much more so of woman! But that it is one of those stern truths which experience forces us to know—we never could believe in murder as a feminine crime; yet, from the days of Clytemnestra, down to those of Mrs. Johnson, who took her trial for murder, "looking very respectable in a black silk cloak and straw bonnet," woman has been urged on to that last and most desperate wickedness. But the causes of masculine sin are more various than those which act upon the gentler sex. A woman's crime has almost always its origin in that which was given to be the sweetest and best part of her nature—her affections: a man's influence is much greater over a woman than hers over him—almost unconsciously she models her sentiments upon his—she adopts his opinions, she acquires the greater portion of her information through his means. As to her character—by character, I would wish to express that mental bent, which, once taken, always influences, more or less, that character—"Love gave it energy, as love gave it birth." An attachment is a woman's great step in life; for the first time she is called up to decide; and on that decision how much of the future will rest! There are, of course, many exceptions to this rule—there are instances in which the wife has been the redeeming angel—but, in nine cases out of ten, the man raises or depresses his companion to his own moral level. I remember once staying with a lady who was robbed of a valuable gold chain. The policeman was sent for, and his first inquiry was, as to who "the maid kept company with? for the London thieves have a regular set of lovers—and that is how half the robberies are committed." Constance is worked out in darker colours than Scott often uses for his feminine portraits. Our sex, at least, ought to be grateful to him, for how divine is the faith he holds in all that is good in us! Even with
