532 



THE MALEDICTED. 



IT is truly a fearful thing to look backward through the chequered 

 vista of our by-gone years, and find no green spot whereon the memory 

 can dwell with pleasure nothing in the glowing dreams of youth which 

 can compensate for the thickly-coming infirmities of age nothing over 

 which we can linger with a sigh of regret, and exclaim with the gifted 

 poetess of the Passions * " Would 'twere to do again !" If, however, 

 we bear with us an inward monitor, who, ever and anon, erects the solemn 

 finger of reproof, and says, in terms too emphatical to admit of mistake, 

 " The crime was thine be thine the punishment!'* we have no plea of 

 justification to enter upon the record ; we must wear the remainder of 

 our days in repentant sadness, and go down in very sorrow to the grave. 

 But if we enter upon the world with a graceful confidence, with a bosom 

 overflowing with love for every human tie, to which the common air, 

 the generous earth, and all the mighty adjuncts of the visible world are 

 but so many holy links, connecting this sphere of existence with another 

 infinitely more exalted ; and meet a blight in the very outset of our 

 career, a mark which brands us as the children of an unhappy destiny; 

 then, indeed, may we veil our eyelids in the waters of fruitless regret, 

 and weep with unfeigned sorrow over the barrenness of the past, and 

 the almost hopelessness of the future. 



In the days of my early manhood, while the world was but as a 

 shower of sunshine, I had a friend who was as dear to me as name or 

 reputation : and from the first hour of our intercourse, to the gloomy 

 period of its close, Clement Kennedy shewed himself worthy of my 

 idolatrous regard. There are many ordinary ties which link hearts 

 together in happy unison, and I may say, that we added to these every 

 thing which could stimulate or cement reciprocal affection. With a 

 similarity of professions in view, our studies were the same ; and we 

 advanced to our respective degrees of attainment like brothers, not com- 

 petitors ; an honour gained by Clement Kennedy would have set pain- 

 fully on his brow, if not shared by Robert Blandford, and if Robert 

 was ripe for examination on the morrow, he would have declined the 

 opportunity, if Clement might not tread with him the path to distinc- 

 tion. Thus inseparable in our studies, it will not be supposed that we 

 were divided in our sports ; as we proceeded hand in hand in the field 

 of mental cultivation, we did not relax our hold when we sbught the 

 recreations of civil society. 



Clement Kennedy was blessed with a mother and two ange\ic sisters. 

 It is perhaps well for me that I had neither ; but the home of my friend 

 was frequently mine. Mrs. Kennedy was a fine and high-spirited 

 woman, who existed in the welfare of her children. Catharine, her 

 eldest daughter, was deeply impressed with a lofty, and almost chival- 

 rous sense of honour, imbibed, it was said, from her father, who fell a 

 willing sacrifice in the service of his devoted country. Marian, the 

 youngest daughter, was of a timid, gentle nature, and was more beau- 

 tiful than her sister, at least she always appeared so to me. She had 

 none of the imaginative enthusiasm of the former, but she was full of 



* Joanna Baillie. 



