The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction | Page 8

legislature has granted a large sum for the purpose of aiding parochial committees, to build new churches or enlarge their old ones.
The _New Post Office_, in St. Martin's-le-Grand, is fast approaching conclusion, and will constitute one of the most imposing public buildings of the city. Preparatory to the re-erection of the whole of the _Blue Coat School_, or _Christ's Hospital_, in Newgate Street, a spacious and handsome Hall has been erected, from the designs of Mr. Shaw.
A _new Chapel_, of novel design, being of an amphitheatrical form, has been recently completed, from the designs of _W. Brooks_, architect. It is seated near the Catholic Chapel, in Finsbury Circus.
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THE SKETCH-BOOK.
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THE FIRST AND LAST CRIME.
[_Blackwood's Magazine_ for the current month contains a sketchy article under this title, which displays much of the breadth and vigour of one of Maga's contributors. Our extract is in the form of the confession of a reckless, daring spirit, who being imprisoned for murder, commits suicide. The early developement of his bad passions is admirably drawn, and altogether this is one of the most powerfully written papers that we have lately met with.]
I was the youngest child of three; but before I had attained my tenth year, I was an only one. I had always been the favourite of both my parents, and now I was their idol. They hung upon my existence, as a shipwrecked mariner clings to the last floating fragment of the gallant bark that bore him; they lived, but while they held by me, in the rough tossings of the ocean of life. I was not slow to discover my value in their estimation, or to exercise, in its fullest extent, the capricious tyranny of conscious power. Almost the earliest impression which my ripening mind received, was a regal immunity from error--I could do no wrong.
My education was not neglected. Alas! the only use I have ever made of what I acquired, has been to gild my vices when acted, or refine upon the manner of acting them while in contemplation. I look back, at this moment, to the period of my life I am describing, as prosperous men recall the day-spring of their fortunes. _They_, from the proud eminence on which they stand, trace, step by step, in retrospective view, the paths by which they ascended; and _I_, looking through the dark vista of my by-gone years, behold the fatal series of crimes and follies that stained their progress, stretching to my boyhood. The gay and frolic _irregularities_, as they were gently termed, of that untamed age, were the turbid source of the waters of misery in which I am now engulphed, I was a lawless planet, running at will; and the orbit I described laid waste more than one fair region of peace and happiness.
My father had a brother, his elder by many years; a man of stern and rigid character, as I then considered him; but, as I would now call him, of upright, firm, and honourable principle. He loved my father, but did not love his weakness; and the display of it, in his indulgence towards me, was the cause of many a serious, if not sometimes angry, debate between them. Well do I remember (for it rankled like poison in my swelling heart) a declaration he once made in my presence. It was a fine autumnal evening, and he was seated with my father and mother in a balcony, which opened from the library-window upon a spacious lawn. I entered the room, and advanced towards them, unconscious, of course, that their conversation had been about me; but my uncle looking at me with a severe expression of countenance, and at the same time addressing his brother, exclaimed, "Well, James, neither you nor I may live to see it; but if the grace of God, or his own better reflection, as he grows older, do not work a change in this young squire, a duel, Jack Ketch, or a razor, will work his exit some day or other."
My father smiled--I saw my mother wipe away a tear--at that moment I could have struck my uncle dead. I muttered a few words--I knew not what, and left the room. Boy as I was, (for I had barely completed my seventeenth year,) I felt all the vindictive passions of manhood kindling within me. It seemed as if a sentence had been passed upon me, the more terrible, because a secret voice whispered to me, it was prophetic! _That impression never forsook me!_
I questioned my father haughtily, a few days afterwards, as to the reasons of his brother for thus speaking of me; and I even dared to insinuate, that, had he felt what a father should, he would have resented the indignity. He