The Sun.
London, England, 1826-08-30 00:00:00

any marriage, but within the Levitical degrees, the
furthest of which is that between uncle and-niece.—
The prohibited degrees are now, however, understood
to be all which are under the fourth degree of the civil
law, except in the lineal ascent or descent; but between
collaterals, all who are in the 4th degree are permitted to
marry, as first cousins are in the 4th degree, and there-
fore may marry; and though a man may not marry his
grandmother, it is undoubtedly true he may marry her
sister. In computing the' 'degrees of relation a diffe-
rence exists between the civilians and the canonists,
the effect of which is that the fourth degree of the
latter would be the eighth of the former, and hence,
together with the prohibition of the canon law against
all marriages between first and second cousins, has
arisen the vulgar paradox that first cousins may marry
and second cousins may not. The degrees of collate-
ral relationship here spoken of are those of consangui-
nity or relationship by blood, but there are also degrees
of affinity or relationship by marriage by which a man
or woman's consanguinity become related to one ano-
ther, and a man or woman cannot marry the consan-
guinity of his wife or her husband any more than he
or she can his or her own.

HINTS FOR THE HOLIDAYS."

(Front Blachwood's Magazine for Sept. 1826.)

An exquisite series of descriptive Papers, published in
Blarkwood's Magazine' and erroneously attributed to Mr.
lianim. We happen, however, to know, on the beat pri-
mte authority, that they are the productions of. Wilson,
author of the " City of the Plague," and Professor of
Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh. That gentleman is at
present residing on the banks of Windermere, near his
filen& Spathe), .and De Quincy, and hence arises that
minute local knowledge, which gives such vivid interest
to the essays before us. We give one of their choicest
episodes. En voiei.

THE WIDOW AND HER SON.

Not a more beautiful vale ever inspired pastoral poet
in Arcadia, nor (lid Sicilian shepherds of old ever pipe to
each other for prize of oaten reed, in a lovelier nook, than
where yonder cottage stands, shaded, but scarcely shel-
tered, by a few birch-trees. It is in truth not a cottage—
bet :a Shieling of turf, part of the knoll adhering to the
side of the mountain. Not another .dwelling-,--even as
small as itself—within a mile in any direction. Those
goats, that seem to walk where there is no footing, along
the side of the cliff, go of themselves to be milked at
evening, to a house beyond the hill, without any barking
dc(g to set them home. There are many foot-paths, but
all of sheep, except one leading through the' coppice-wood
to the distant kirk. The angler seldom, disturbs those
shallows, and -the heron has them to himself, watching
often with motionless neck all day long. Yet the shieling
is inhabited, and has been So by the same person for a good
tummy years. You might look at it for hours, and yet see
no one so much as moving to the door. But a little smoke
hovers over it—faint as mist—and nothing else tells that
within is life.

It is inhabited by a widow, who once was the happiest
of wives, and lived far down the glen, where it is richly
cultivated, in a house astir with many children. It so
happened, that in the course, of nature, without any ex-

treordnutry bereavements, she outlived all the household,
except one, on whom fell the saddest affliction that can
befal a human being--the utter loss of reasm For some
years after the death of her husband, and all her other
children, this son was her support ; and there was no
occasion to pity them in their poverty, , where all were
poor.
,Her natural cheerfulness never forsook her ; and
although fallen back •in the world, and obliged in her
age to live without many comforts she once had known,
yet all the past gradually, was softened into peace, and
the widow and he'r Sole were in that abiding an happy
any family in the parish. lie worked at all kinds
of work without, and she sat spinning from morning to
night within—a constant occupation, soothing to one be-
fore whose mind past times might otherwise have come
too often, and that creates contentment by its undis-
turbed sameness and visible progression. If not always
at meals, the widow saw her son for an hour or two every
night, and throughout the whole Sabbath-day. They
slept too under one,roof; and she liked the stormy wea-
ther when the rains were on----for then he found some in-
genious employment within the sideling, or cheered her.
with some book lent by a friend, or with the lively or
plaintive music of his native hills. Sometime, in her gra-
titude, she said that she was happier now than when she
had so many Other causes to he so; and when occasionally
MI acquaintance dropped in upon her solitude, her face wel•
corned every one with a smile that spoke of more than
resignation ; nor was she averse to partake the sociality of
the other huts, and sat-sedate among youthful merriment,
when summer or winter festival crime round, and poverty
rejoiced in the richei of content, and innocence.
.13ut her trials, great as they had been, were not yet
over; for this, her only son, was laid prostrate by fever ;
and when it left his body, he survived hopelessly stricken
in Mind. His eyes,• so • clear and intelligent, were now
fixed in idiotcy, or rolled about unobiervant of akobjects
living or dead. To him all weather seemed the same—
and if suffered, he would have lain down like a creature
void of understanding, in rain or on Snow, nor been able,
to find his way back for many paces from the hut. Await
thought and feeling had left him, so had speech—all but
a moaning as of pain or woe, which none but a mother 1
mould bear to hear without shuddering—but she heard it
during night as well as day, and only sometimes' lifted
up her eyes as in prayer to God. An offer was made to
send him to a place where the afflicted werirtaken care of,
but she beseeched charity for the first time—such alms as
would enable her, alon%with the earnings of her wheel,
to keep her son in the s ;Ong; and the means were given
her from many quarters to do so decently, anti with all
the comforts that other eyes observed, but of which
the poor object himself was insensible and uncon-
scious. Thenceforth, it may almost be said, she never more

saw the sun, nor heard the torrents roar. She went not
to the kirk, but kept her Sabbath where the paralytic lay
—and there she sung the lonely psalm, and elid the lonely
prayer, unheard in Heaven, as many, despniling spirits
would have thought—but it was not so—for in two years
there came a meaning to his eyes, and he found a few
words of imperfect speech, among which was that of
" Mother." Oh I how her heart burned within her, to
know that her face was at last recognized To feel that
her kiss was returned, and to see the first tear that trick-
led from eyes that so long had ceased to weep ! Day af-
ter day, the darkness that covered his brain grew less and
less deep—to her, that bewilderment gave the blessed-
"f "Pe; for her son now knew that he had an im-
mortal soul, and one evening joined faintly and feebly,
and erringly in prayer, For weeks afterwards he remem-
bered only
events and scenes long past and distant—and
believed that his father, and all his brothers and sisters,
were yet alive, We called upon them by their names to
yams and knit* him—on them, who had all along been
t.
:parted in the dust. But his soul struggled itself into rea-
tnileand remembranee—and he at last *aid, " Mother I did
so
•leri,,aoeitlent liefal me yesterday at my work down the
weak and about. to die !" The shadows of
e~uth were oeu around lum—but he lived to be told
much of what had
unclouded spirit it►t
buPpened—and rendered up a perfectly
ther felt that all he' the
merry
1.11'6
Saviour.
Its
ni°-
spielingboon-ra,nsdh t7rie'enrila rs bv!aidthlateefrni
egorda,ntaehtsluirtet
(tihtatitatonizei
was borne away from the
this world there math' fenroietr,t.)teittno more grief. Anti there
in that same abieling,
still lingers, visited as ,341:14. /rot have gone by, alts
still
iplgo7or
I who, by turns,
her, and cheer a life that cannot he litnlter4 tn at"' w4ll
when it may, will be laid down without one impious mis-
g, I)tt, that, end
lifiving, and in the humility of a Clulatian's faith,