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Or gleaming on the blue Ionian sea

From some rich wooded height, of which we dream
In northern climes amidst a city's smoke,

And wish that we had wings that we might flee,
Or more than mortal strength to break the yoke
That binds us to life's painful drudgery :-
A poet's home upon the breezy hill!

With all that breathes of poetry around,
And hearts within which earth can never chill,-
Pure limpid streams with glad enduring sound
Sparkling unceasingly!--Flow on! flow on!
Where shall we find your like when ye are gone?

IX. MEN OF genius.

Know ye the signs that mark a master mind?—

Oft ye may read them struggling through the clay, For oft the soul within that clay enshrined,

Seems half material in the lofty play

Of noble features. Look into the eye,

And quail before its glance of fire, or feel The softer influence of the thoughts that lie

Far in its dreamy depths. Behold the seal

· Of genius stamp'd upon the high-arch'd brow. Note well the energy of action. Hear

The voice's various cadences, which now

Are deep and thrilling, now full-toned and clear These were to Byron as a sacred sign,

And more than all thy compeers, Wilson! these are thine.

X. A REGATTA.

I wish, dear Bessy, thou hadst been with me
At Keswick on the day of the Regatta ;
The royal lake shone like an inland sea

All lighted up with sails, and heaven knows what a
Countless collection of small boats and wherries,

Dancing in gladness o'er the little billows, While each a gallant crew exultant carries, Bending upon their rapid oars like willows. And then the races with the Cambridge men, Who boldly down the gage of challenge flung ! And then our dinner in the island glen!

And then the music of the English tongue!0 Bessy! hadst thou that day been on KeswickThou wouldst have seen a Cockney who was sea-sick!

XI. THE SEVEN SINGERS.

I heard them all upon that fairy lake

The seven singers! and they sang together!
The music such, it would have power to make
The gayest sunshine of the wintriest weather.
And ne'er were sounds in such sweet unison

With the bright loveliness of those who sang;
Gazing I heard, and hearing still gazed on,—
My eye was dazzled, and my charm'd ear rang!
Yet one there was, whose melody to me

Rose well distinguish'd from the sister notes,———
Clear, rich, and glorious though these strains might be,
As golden birds were warbling in their throats,-
That thrilling voice-that heart-awakening lay-
Whose could it be but thine, Margaret of Elleray!

XII. THE RETURN.

At home again!—the glad familiar faces !—
My dog, my cat, my slippers, and my study!—
My books and papers all in their old places,

And my own cheek more juvenile and ruddy!
It needs no poetry to feel the charm

Sweetening, as dew does flowers, the name of home, And clasping with affection's twining arm

All that the heart recurs to when we roam.

Friends of my soul! not mine the studied phrase
That blazons forth what should be felt, not spoken;
Yet trust me, chance, and change, and length of days,
Shall ever find the golden link unbroken,
That long has bound my summer years to you,
Whence all my cares I hush'd whence all' my jóys I
drew.
H. G. B.

TO MY HEART.

THOU art no captive in chains to pine,
Mine own art thou still, and hast ever been mine;
And here in my breast shalt thou aye dwell free,
Till I find thee a home that is worthy of thee!

The bird that springs from his tufted nest,
Will return from his wanderings in peace to rest;
But ah! my heart, I feel when we sever

Thou wilt never return-I shall lose thee for ever!

And whenever I think of the proud control
Another may hold o'er a free-born soul,—
On the power of deep love, só fearful—so fair,
O'er thy fortunes, I ponder in fear and in prayer.

Thou art proud, young heart! but thou art not cold,
And I'll watch thee as miser would watch his gold;
All my wealth is in thee-all my world thou art→→
And deep will the spell be that e'er bids us part!

Nor gold shall allure thee, nor flattery shall win,
Not splendour without-but true value within;
The treasure thou lov'st is the wealth of the mind-
Thy riches, the smiles of the good and the kind.

O! show me the breast, like the deep hidden mine,
Where the gems of pure truth and simplicity shine;
Where honour, high worth, and sincerity dwell,
Which the world can ne'er dim, nor its fashions dispel ;

There there would I shrine thee, thou faithful heart,
In chains, and a captive all proud as thou art;
But here in my breast shalt thou aye dwell free,
Till I find thee a home so worthy of thee!

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LITERARY CHIT-CHAT AND VARIETIES.

THE LITERARY SOUVENIR FOR 1830.-We are glad to understand that this our favourite Annual is likely, in all respects, to support the high character it has already attained when it re-appears next November. We are enabled to state the subjects of the embellishments, many of which will be exquisitely beautiful:-1st, A Fancy Head, by Leslie, R.A. 2d, Oberon squeezing the juice of the flower into Titania's eyes, by H. Howard, R.A. 3d, The Sale of the Pet Lamb, by W. Collins, R.A. 4th, Jacob's Dream—a magnificent picture-by W. Alston, A.R.A. 5th, La Fille bien Gardée, by A. Chalon, R.A. 6th, A group of Trojan Women looking on the burning of Troy, by G. Jones, R.A. 7th, The Passage of Arms at Ashby de la Zouch, by John Martin. 8th, Mrs Siddons, in the character of Lady Macbeth, by H. Harlowe. 9th, The Discovery, by Stephanoff. 10th, The Greek Sisters, by Phalippin-a French artist. 11th, Carthage, by W. Linton. 12th, The Lady and the Wasp, by A. E. Chalon. 13th, Childe Harold and Ianthe, by R. Westall, R.A. 14th, The Bandit's Bride, by T. Uwins.-The literary department of the Souvenir will also, we understand, be highly interesting.

THE KEEPSAKE FOR 1830.—The Keepsake is in a state of great forwardness. Among the contributors' names are the following:Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Lord Holland, Lord Normanby, Lord Morpeth, Lord Porchester, Lord Nugent, Hon. George Agar Ellis, Hon. Charles Phipps, Hon. Henry Liddel, R. Bernall, M.P., Theodore Hook, S. T. Coleridge, Archdeacon Spencer, J. R. Gower, William Roscoe, W. Jerdan, Lady Caroline Lamb, Miss Landon, Thomas Haynes Bayly, Charles Brinsley Sheridan, the Authors of "Anastasius," "Granby," "O'Hara Tales," "Frankenstein," "Hungarian Tales," and "Hajji Baba." Sir Walter Scott's contribution is a dramatic romance or tragedy, in five acts, written in imitation of the German, and founded on the Free Knights; and Lord Byron's are ten letters of an interesting nature, written between

Windermere, each of whom sings delightfully.
There are at present seven young ladies living on the banks of the period of his settlement at Pisa in 1821, and his death at Misso

longhi in April 1821.

THE FORGET-ME-NOT FOR 1830.--Lord Byron's first known attempt | playing at Hull and other towns in the neighbourhood. The Engat poetry will form, we understand, one of the articles in the forthcom-lish company at Paris have felt her absence much, and having met ming volume of the Forget-me-Not. It is copied from the auto- with a very unfavourable reception, are on their way home.—Argraph of the noble poet, and certified by the lady to whom it was ad- rangements are said to have been made for the performance of Ita. dressed-the "Mary" who was the object of his earliest attachment, lian operas at the Argyll-rooms during the ensuing winter.-The apand whom he has celebrated in several of his poems. It was written proaching Musical Festivals at Birmingham and Chester are expect on his leaving Annesley, the residence of her family. ed to be unusually attractive. The German company is engaged for them, and Malibran, Sontag, and Paton, are to assist.-Pasta, who has just purchased a villa on the Lake of Como, has been perform. ing Tancredt at her native town of Como, for the benefit of the poor of the place. She is exceedingly popular in Italy.-We observe that Mr Bass, the manager of the Caledonian Theatre, has announ ced his benefit for the 2d of September, and we conclude that he intends to close the house shortly afterwards. This is wise. The au thor of "The Gowrie Conspiracy" and "Margaret of Anjou" is to have a night towards the end of next week, when both these pieces will be performed, and an address will be delivered, and several songs will be sung, written by himself, for the occasion. His acti vity and talents entitle him to the public patronage.-Stanley, who has been performing in the Stirling Theatre, of which he has taken a lease, with a considerable number of the Edinburgh company, has been well supported, and is not likely, we believe, to regret the speculation.--Mr Roberts, the Elocutionist, has been giving Readings in Berwick. We understand that it is his intention to give a series of Lectures and Readings in the Hopetoun Rooms during the ensuing winter, on a more extended scale than he has yet attempted in Edinburgh.-" Several causes," says a French periodical, " combine to render the management of theatres more difficult at the present period than formerly. These are-1. The scarcity of good authors, arising from the circumstance that minds of a high order have turned their attention to moral and political science. 2. The equal scarcity of good actors. 3. The fastidiousness of the public, which is more difficult to please the more civilised it becomes. 4. The influence of the Congregations upon society; which is so widely extended, that most of the public functionaries scarcely dare show themselves at the theatre, and many females are turned away from it by the religious terror excited in their minds.”

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge are about to publish a series of Maps, of an intermediate size between the large and expensive maps fit only for libraries, and that smaller sort usually adopted in Schools. They are to be of unexampled cheapness, yet finished in the best manner. Two of them are to be delivered in a wrapper for one shilling; or with the outlines coloured, for one shilling and sixpence. The series will consist of about fifty plates, and a number will appear at intervals of at most two months.

SCOTTISH ANTIQUITIES.-Dr Lappenberg, of Hamburg, in some recent researches amongst the ancient records of that city, has discovered a letter of the date of 1287, addressed by Robert Wallace and Andrew Murray to Hamburg and Lubeck. Some English records were also amongst his discoveries. They are all to be embodied in his erudite work on the origin of the Hanseatic League.

CONTINENTAL REVIEWS.-Some of these works are now before us. Had they contained any thing of interest, we should have taken care to communicate it to our readers. One of their practices might be advantageously adopted in this country. When any good article appears in the English periodicals, it is immediately translated, and appears in a German or French miscellany, with a note, acknowledging the source from which it is taken.

The Americans are said to possess upwards of 1600 newspapers. Pennsylvania alone has 150.

FRENCH NEWSPAPERS.—Of the proprietors of seventeen political journals, published in Paris, at least one-third are noblemen, or persons of great distinction in the scientific or literary world. The proprietors of one paper, who are three in number, are said to be a Duke, a Count, and a Baron. To be a known writer in a respectable periodical, is said to be the best passport to good society in Paris.

MR BUCKINGHAM.-After a very successful tour through Scotland, Mr Buckingham is to return to Edinburgh, for the purpose of giving one more lecture on the question-" What is to be done with India ?" It is to be delivered on the evening of the 7th September, in the Waterloo Hotel.

MINIATURE STEAM-ENGINE.-A high-pressure engine, forming a complete working model, has been constructed by an iron and brassfounder, at Bradford, the cylinder of which is only 1-16th part of an inch in diameter, and the whole weight of the engine is only one ounce! This very diminutive, but very ingenious, piece of mechanism, though the smallest steam-engine ever made, is perfect in all its parts, and works with as much precision as any engine of ten-horse power.

THE DRAMA IN FRANCE.-A report was in circulation in Paris, in the beginning of the present month, that a company had been formed with a view of uniting into one establishment the four theatres set apart for the performance of Vaudevilles. The proprietors of the "Salle du Vaudeville" have published a denial, in which they maintain, that any such enterprize would be an infringement on their vested rights. It is, however, still probable that some such plan is contemplated by lovers of the drama, in the hopes of rendering the dramatic talent of the capital more efficient by concentrating it under one management.-A new opera, "Guillaume Tell," has been produced at the " Academie Royale de Musique." The music is by Rossini, The public is already aware of the enthusiastic reception this celebrated composer met with at Paris, but it may perhaps be as little prepared as we were to hear him called by the French critics-" Le rival, le vainqueur de Mozart et Cimarelli." But the secret reason for sacrificing the memory of the mighty dead before their new idol, peeps out unconsciously in the naive parenthesis"un compositeur qu'on peut desormais appeller français." The same learned critic, in speaking of Mlle. Zaglioni, gives us the following account of the principles according to which he criticises dancing:-"Nous ne savons si elle danse mieux que les autres; elle danse autrement; et en toutes choses, il nous faut du nouveau, surtout dans les arts futiles et secondaires."-The "Theatre des Varietés" has brought a dog-fight on the stage,' in a kind of Tom and Jerry piece. A tragedy, founded on the story of the false Czar Demetrius, has been successful. The author is a M. Leon Halery. Theatrical Gossip.-A three-act drama, by Mr Peake, called "The Spring Lock," has been successful at the English Opera House.Liston is delighting the Londoners at the Haymarket.-Miss Paton has been playing to brilliant houses at Norwich.-Kean has been performing his favourite characters at Manchester, with but little apparent diminution of his usual vigour. Elliston has offered him £700 for a month's performances at the Surrey.-Sontag and her sister gave some concerts at Manchester last week: on Saturday, the night of her benefit, there was a very thin audience.-Miss Smithson is

TO OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

NOTWITHSTANDING the additional space of which we have this week availed ourselves, to the exclusion of our advertisements, a number of interesting articles still stand over. Among these are communications, both in prose and verse, from the Ettrick Shepherd, from Professor Gillespie, from the Author of the "Traditions of Editi burgh," and others, all of which shall appear as soon as possible.

"The Editor in his Slippers, No. IV." in an early number.-We shall endeavour to comply with the wish of "J. H." of Glasgow next week.-The letter on the Hebrew Language is in types.

In the volume of manuscript Poetry sent us from Callendar, there are several piece of very considerable merit." The Speech of the Blasted Tree," and "The Student," by "S. S." of Glasgow shall have a place.-We do not know what pleasure "B. D." can have in sending, as an original, a Poem by Pekin, which appeared in print months ago. There is a good deal of merit in the verses by "D." of Leith; but they hardly come up to our standard.—“ Julius” will

not suit us.

always keep copies, as we can, in no case of this kind, undertake to We must request that they who favour us with short Poems will return the manuscript.

ERRATA IN OUR LAST.-In the article entitled "The importance of the German Language," &c. for Burchen read Burschen, passim. The quotation from Schiller, in the same article, ought to be

Nimmer lud sie

Das joch sich auf dem ich mich unterwarf.
Könnt ich doch auch Ansprüche machen Können.

In the article entitled "Some account of my own Life," p. 168, col
1. 1. 56, for Lavalette read Lafayette.

Edinburgh: Published for the Proprietors, every Saturday Morning,
by CONSTABLE & CO. WATERLOO PLACE;
Sold also by ROBERTSON & ATKINSON, Glasgow; W. CURRY, jun
& Co. Dublin; HURST, CHANCE, & Co. London; and by all
Newsmen, Postmasters, and Clerks of the Road, throughout the
United Kingdom.

Price 6d., or Stamped, and sent free by post, 10d.
Printed by BALLANTYNE and Co., Paul's Work, Canongate.

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LITERARY CRITICISM.

PRICE 6d.

Seeing, therefore, that it is beyond all matter of dispute that one must be off to the country, and business left to ITINERARIES, GUIDE AND ROAD BOOKS.-Reichard's De- shift for itself, and the affairs of the world to proceed as scriptive Road Book of France. London. Samuel best they may, (for who cares about the civil or political Leigh. 1829.-The Englishman's Guide to Calais state of Europe in summer?) the only remaining quesand Paris. By James Albany, Esq. London. Hurst, tion is where is one to go? If you are a married man, Chance, and Co. 1829.-Ebel's Traveller's Guide with a large small family, and limited income, c'en est You must take a cotthrough Switzerland.- Vasi's Picture of Rome.- Vasi's fait-there need be no hesitation. Picture of Naples.-Leigh's Road Book of England tage of three rooms and a kitchen in some sea-bathing and Wales.-Paterson's Roads in England and Wales. village, into which, upon some high-pressure principle, you -Leigh's Road Book of Scotland. The Traveller's must squeeze your whole community, together with seveGuide through Scotland. Ninth Edition. Edinburgh. ral cart-loads of furniture; and for six weeks or so you John Thomson. 1830. The Scottish Tourist and must duly plunge the small fry into that part of the ocean Itinerary. Edinburgh. Stirling and Kenney.-Plea- which breaks into muddy foam upon the shore, and consure Tours in Scotland. Edinburgh. John Thom-tains a proper mixture of sand and sea-weed,-whilst you son.-Stark's Picture of Edinburgh. Edinburgh.

John Anderson. 1829.

We are able to state, upon the most indubitable authority, that the only literary works which sell at this season of the year are the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL, and the books for tourists, whose titles we have copied above. It is right that it should be so; for, in the merry months of June, and the three which follow, external nature is an unbought book, opened at its brightest and most illuminated page, which they who run may read, and which none can read without imbibing deep draughts of health and happiness. The summer of the visible world communicates, by some invisible process, its sunshine to the soul of man; and, passing as it were into a new state of existence, who does not earnestly long for a "beaker full of the warm south,”—

66

Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth ?" In more homely phrase, the town becomes too hot to hold us, and away we dash into the breezy fields in old family chariots, in stage-coaches, on the tops of mails, in gigs, in curricles, in stanhopes, in dennets, in waggons, and in carts. All congregations of houses are left silent and deserted,―nuts without their kernels, cages without their birds,-shells without their fish. From the time the sun enters Cancer, until he leaves Scorpio, it is in vain to look for human beings in cities. You may find them on the tops of hills,-you may find them in the depths of woods, you may find them up to the middle in running streams,-you may find them buried among clover, you may catch them floating upon lakes, you may start them amidst the Righi solitudes, or see them passing in shoals through the Trosachs; but hope not to encounter them in their accustomed walk "on the Rialto." There is a principle in human nature which loathes the dust and the heat, the fever and the fret, of a metropolis, whilst the merry birds are abroad in the blue or dappled sky, whilst the mountain bee is wending his devious way with an unceasing hum of joy over the heath and heather, whilst "the mower whets his scythe, and the milk-maid singeth blythe," and visions for ever haunt our sleep of

66 some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless."

yourself may find some favourite pool among the rocks, covered with limpets, tangle, and young crabs, and dabble in it for half an hour every morning and evening, to the great refreshment of your corporeal frame. But if the fates have allowed you twelve, instead of three hundred a-year, and if they have either kept you out of the treacherous Corrievreckan of matrimony altogether, or blessed you with a fair and gentle being, who has hapPily not yet begun to show any symptoms of having overprolific tendencies, then you are a freer and a much more to be envied man; and a far wider range is within your choice.

Perhaps you may wish to visit France? Then take Reichard's Descriptive Road Book, and Albany's Guide to Calais, in your pocket, and you cannot go wrong. Sunny France! we know thee thoroughly; and now that Bonaparte is dead, and his flat-bottomed boats are no longer in the harbour of Boulogne, and that England is thy sister—not thy foe-we care not though we tell thee that we love thee passing well. It was in the early part of the year 1816 that we first sailed from Ramsgate to Ostend, to visit thee. We took a short peep into the Netherlands and Holland, and then came back to thee by the way of Rouen. On a delightful morning in May we crossed the floating bridge at that city, and gained the heights on the left banks of the Seine. We shall be dead to every feeling of the beautiful in nature, when we forget the view which then burst upon us, a catalogue of whose leading features would convey no idea of the picture as a whole, nor enable the reader to understand how finely the majestic river, flowing through an expansive valley, whose woods and fields smiled in the luxuriance of early summer, contrasted with the sombre and halfmelancholy city,-its venerable cathedral, its long narrow streets, and its high antique houses. Then on to Paris. And from Paris, in our voiture, to Orleans, Nevers, and Moulins, till we joined the "arrowy Rhone" at Lyons, where it is no more "arrowy" than the Tweed is at Peebles, or the Clyde at Glasgow. Down the Rhone we went to Avignon, then away south by Montpelier to Toulouse, and then into the Hautes Pyrenees, where we saw, from the summit of the Pic du Midi, the far-off ocean, the shining and winding Garonne, and that noble amphitheatrical chain of mountains which stretch away towards the frontiers of Spain. Our road homewarde

whole, we envy the fate of Master Augustus Fitzbubble. It was at all events preferable to that of a young and ambitious poet who had already distinguished himself in many a lady's Album, and who, as he walked along the Jungfrau, was in the very act of composing something delightful, when he stepped over a precipice, and had just time to wonder what he had done with himself, before he was dashed into fragments, like the wave of a descending cataract. The consequence was, that he never wrote another line in a lady's Album.

Perhaps you may wish to visit Italy? By all means! Off with you instantly! Take Vasi's Pictures of the principal cities with you; but, for heaven's sake, do not go to Italy simply to see sights, to go through all the hackneyed routine of wonder and admiration, and, like the sybarite who was smothered in roses, to kill yourself with the fatigue of pleasurable emotions,—afterwards to be dragged an inanimate corpse at the tail of a parrottongued cicerone. Enter Italy with your own wellstored mind, your own free thoughts, your guide-book, and your map. The most glorious land in all the world lies before you, bending, like a fruit-tree in autumn, under a load of golden associations, which you may shake at will into your own lap, and of which you can never diminish the number, for, " uno avulso, non deficit alter." Neither tie yourself down to any slavish system, nor make it a rule to be delighted because others are delighted. The great mob of persons who visit Italy have about as much soul as their portmanteaus. Their impudence in going thither, where they have no more right to be than in the garden of the Hesperides, is rank and glaring. There are scenes which lose some of their hallowing influence, when we know that stock-brokers and common-councilmen have cast their evil eyes upon them. To travel worthily through Italy is no slight task, and implies a mind of no mean intellectual powers and attainments. All animals who affix an aspirate to words beginning with a vowel, should be whipped out of it, and hung in chains on the frontiers, in terrorem. All animals who affect to admire what they do not understand, who know nothing of the ancient Roman tongue, who take no interest in the fine arts, to whom poetry is a dead letter, and music an annoyance, who think all rivers very much alike, and the Appian way greatly inferior to Fleet Street, should be treated after a similar fashion, with this difference, that their bodies should be

lay through Bourdeaux, Poitiers, Tours, Alençon, Caen, and Havre-de-Grace. This was our first Continental summer, and we shall never spend such a summer again in this unsatisfactory world. It was all one gleam of sunshine, for it was at a period when our heart was easily touched, and our feelings quickly awakened. No wonder we love the ancestral woods and chateaux of the Saone and Loire, of Vaucluse and Dordogne! No wonder that the lovely scenes of Guienne, and Anjou, and pastoral Normandy, still come back to us through the vista of years! We could at this moment take the longest quill in our writing-desk, make it into a pen, and write straight on with it till it became a stump, pouring forth from it all the time the most glowing descriptions of five hundred individual scenes, all bright in our memory. But we must check our enthusiasm, and change the theme. Perhaps you may wish to visit Switzerland? Your soul may dong with a deep longing for the Alps, the Simplon, and the Glaciers,-for one intense gaze on the Rhine, Geneva, and Lucerne, - -one glorious ramble through Clarens and Lausanne. Then take with you Wall's new edition of Ebel's Guide through Switzerland, and you may safely plunge away into the abysses of the Julian, Noric, Carnic, Rhetian, and Helvetic Alps. If you are lost in the Canton of Zug, or frozen to death, on the 22d of July, on St Gothard, or get yourself jammed in, as we once did for three hours, in the entrance to the Grotto of Balme, or slip through a cleft of the Glaciers, or tumble over the Devil's Bridge,-it must be your own fault. Besides, your death will be a picturesque one, and ten to one whether you will ever be missed. The number of tourists who are swallowed up by avalanches, or who fall over icy precipices every year in Switzerland, is immense; and, on the whole, it is an easy and desirable mode of death. Look at that pic-nic party, for example, -consisting of one or two chatty elderly ladies, with their well-fed, goodnatured-looking husbands-old baronets, perhaps, and shareholders in a respectable banking establishment in London, fat and comfortable, their daughters, and their daughters' friends, their sons, and their sons' friends, the young ladies all very gay in white satin bonnets, pelerins, and parasols, and the young gentlemen exceedingly smart, each in a fashionable summer costume ;—well, this pic-nic party, having selected a delightful spot to spread their table-cloth in the valley of Grindelwald, and having produced their cold fowls and their Johannisberg, are quite enraptured with the sur-given for dissection, to prevent the anatomical lecturers rounding scene, and prodigiously hungry, and all very witty; and Master Augustus Fitzbubble is in the very act of pulling a merry-thought with Miss Celestina Amelia Tims, when a queer sort of noise is heard above on the Shreckhorn. Every body looks up; but, just as they look up, down comes an avalanche or a bit of a glacier! and in one moment the chatty elderly ladies are no more, and the worthy baronets, rather inclining to be roundbellied, are as flat as pancakes, and not a whit liker baronets than they are like beer-barrels, and the young ladies in the white satin bonnets, and the young gentleeach in a fashionable summer costume, are all as completely dead, and as thoroughly ground to powder, as if they had lain in the earth a hundred years, and Master Augustus Fitzbubble and Miss Celestina Amelia Tims are, in every human probability, still grasping the chicken's merrythought twenty fathoms down under the mountainous mass of ice; and of all the pic-nic party nothing now is visible but a single blue plate containing a small slice of cold tongue, which, by some unaccountable mystery, has escaped untouched. Yet there is the Shreckhorn, and the Wetterhorn, and the Mettenberg, still lifting calmly their sunny peaks far into the blue sky, and looking perfectly innocent and unconscious of the catastrophe which has taken place. And why should they not? Is it not as well that our pic-nic party has died in the valley of the Grindelwald, as of a set of painful and lingering diseases in their respective beds? On the

men,

from complaining any longer of a dearth of subjects.

Perhaps, being a Scotchman, you may wish to visit England? It is a highly proper wish, and cannot be too speedily gratified. The indefatigable Samuel Leigh will supply you with an admirable pocket road-book; or, what do you think of the eighteenth edition of Paterson's Roads, one of the very best itineraries in any language? With regard to your route, if you ask our private and confidential opinion as a friend, we seriously advise you to limit yourself this season to Westmoreland. There you will find yourself in the midst of enchantment and variety enough to last you for months. If you start from Edinburgh, one day takes you to either Penrith or Kendal, and from either of these places, the Lakes and all their beautiful scenery are at your command. Suppose you set out from Penrith ;-you cross the country (and a rich and fertile country it is) to Ulls Water; you sail up Ulls Water, (about nine miles,) and, when you come in sight of Patterdale, and the mountains at the head, with the long glens running up between them, in several instances wild and profound, and in others soft and green, and full of trees and cottages, if you are not smitten with deep delight, not unsanctified with a touch of awe, you may as well come back to Edinburgh with all expedition, drink thirteen bottles of port at a sitting, and be found dead in your bed next morning. the mountains; how splendidly the echoes prolong the peal! Is it not noble thus to stand on the summit of

Hark! there is thunder among

Johnstone, and its excellent letter-press, very carefully and skilfully compiled, is altogether one of the most elegant and meritorious works of the kind with which we are acquainted.

The Natural History of Selborne. By the late Reverend
Gilbert White, A. M., Fellow of Oriel College, Ox-
ford. With Additions, by Sir William Jardine, Bart.
Being Constable's Miscellany, Vol. XLV. Edinburgh.
Constable & Co. 1829.

Dunmallet, among the ruins of what was once a Roman station, and see the storm sailing by? From Patterdale you proceed by Brotherswater, and, passing through the fine mountainous Pass of Kirkstone, you descend on Windermere, the glory of the English lakes! Fix your head-quarters at one of its three villages-Ambleside, Lowood, or Bowness-for our own part, we should prefer Bowness-and thence make excursions to Rydal and Grassmere, where Wordsworth lives,-up Troutbeck,—— away south to Furness Abbey, one of the most interesting old abbeys in England, and rendered now more interesting than ever by Professor Wilson's fine poem con"THE attention that, of late years," says Sir William cerning it in Blackwood's Magazine for this month, Jardine, the Editor of the present volume," has been deaway north by Esthwaite and Hawkeshead (the village voted to the study of Natural History, and its importwith the white church tower) to Coniston Water, thence ance to our commerce, manufactures, and domestic ecothrough Yewdale into Tilberthwaite and Little Lang-nomy, must render every attempt to increase or simplify dale, where we beseech you not to forget to look at Colour knowledge of it at once praiseworthy and desirable; with Waterfall,—and thence to High Skelwith, where you and it is hoped, will be a sufficient apology for the reprint may look from a hill over Elter Water into Great Lang- of a work which has already gone through several edidale, and bless your stars that ever you were born, and tions." We heartily agree with Sir William in thinking, so back to Windermere. Then, after a sojourn of many that the conductors of Constable's Miscellany have done days, and after all the islands, and headlands, and bays, well in presenting the public with a cheap and carefully of that delightful lake are familiar to you, you may pro- revised edition of this ingenious and useful work, which, ceed to Keswick, and feast your not yet satiated eyes with as most of our readers are aware, consists of a series of Derwent Water, Skiddaw, the Borrowdale rocks, Low-letters addressed to several distinguished naturalists, writ

dore, and so on to Bassenthwaite Water and Buttermere.

From such scenery as this you will carry away with you thoughts and recollections that will enrich your future life, but never dream of describing it. It has cast its shadow into the mirror of your soul; but hope not with the breath of words to produce an effect similar to that which the great handiwork of nature can alone accomplish.

Perhaps you may wish to visit, not having visited before, or, having often visited before, to visit again, the beauties and the wonders of your native Scotland? There cannot be a more virtuous desire; and, turn thee where thou wilt, Scotland is ready for thee! She is ready for thee from her Tweed to her Spey;-she is ready for thee with all her lochs, her mountains, and her glens ;-her cities, her islands, and her waterfalls;-her rocks, her friths, and her forests;-she is ready for thee with her warm hearts, her bright eyes, and her noble deeds; she is ready for thee with her flood of ancient song, her stately castles, and her grey time-honoured tombs! Do you ask us for a guide-book ?—the best is your own heart; and the next best is the Scottish Tourist and Itinerary, published by Messrs Stirling & Kenney of Edinburgh, with its highly judicious letter-press, excellent maps, and very prettily executed views. Nor do we say this to the slightest disparagement of the Traveller's Guide through Scotland, nor of the Pleasure Tours in Scotland-both excellent works, which have been given to the public under the auspices of Mr John Thomson of Edinburgh,nor of our old friend Samuel Leigh's Pocket Road Book of Scotland, for the accuracy and utility of which we can

vouch.

ten in a clear and elegant style, and containing varied information upon most subjects connected with the Natural History of his age; for the researches made by Mr White in Selborne and the surrounding district embrace a wide range of science. He resided in his native village, following out his favourite pursuits, from the year 1752-by which time he had been admitted one of the senior Proctors of the University of Oxford-to the year 1793, when he closed his peaceful and industrious life. Since that time, modern discoveries have considerably advanced the state of knowledge in the scientific world, and Mr White's work consequently required a commentator. Few persons could have been found more fit to undertake this task than Sir William Jardine, whose acquirements, as a naturalist, are well known and universally appreciated. He certainly has every right to be included among the “observatores pauci," spoken of by Scopoli in the motto affixed to the Introduction, "qui scientia mysteriis initiati, rite colligunt, collecta examinant, discrimina quærunt, naturæ arcana rimantur." Nor has Sir William made a The volume is sinecure of his present office of Editor.

As a

thickly strewed with notes and memoranda, which correct the mistakes and supply the deficiencies of White. specimen, we shall present our readers with the following excellent remarks on the interesting subject of the migra tion of birds, which, in our opinion, condenses into small space a far more satisfactory account of this curious subject than could be collected from all the scattered notices given by the naturalist of Selborne :

THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS.-"The subject of migration appears to have been a very favourite one with our author, occupying the greater part of many of his subsequent letters, and evidently often the subject of his private thoughts. He But the longest summer will come to an end at last, sometimes seems puzzled with regard to the possibility of and, as the French song says-" Nous revenons toujours many of the migrating species being able to undergo the faaux nos premiers amours,"—which means, that ere many tigue of long or continued journeys; and often wishes alweeks elapse, thousands of stragglers will return once most to believe, though contrary to his better judgment, more to "Auld Reekie." Nor will they return unwill- that some of them enter into a regular torpidity. We find ingly, for "Auld Reekie" is the queen of cities; and torpidity occurring among animals, fishes, the amphibia, when the face of the skies is changed, and the November and reptiles, and among insects; but we have never found any authenticated instance of this provision taking place winds begin to blow, and the woods and fields are bare, among birds. Their frames are adapted to a more extenand the mountains belted with mists; and when the Par-sive locomotive power; and the change to climates more conliament House meets for the long session, and Alma Mater collects together her students like a hen collecting her chickens, and the Theatre opens, and concerts commence, and evening parties look brilliant, then do we know the value of our romantic town, and all its jewelcoal and gas-light comforts. Then also may be perused, with delight, the fifth edition of Stark's Picture of Edinburgh, which, with its new set of beautiful and spirited engravings on steel by those very clever artists, the Messrs

genial to their constitutions, preventing the necessity of any actual change in the system, is supplied to those animals deprived of the power for extensive migration, by a temporary suspension of most of the faculties which, in other circumstances, would be entirely destroyed. Birds, it is true, are occasionally found in holes, particularly our summer birds of passage, in what has been called a torpid state, and have revived upon being placed in a warmer temperature; but this, I consider, has always been a suspended anima tion, where all the functions were entirely bound up as in

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