pride and ornament of the village, became the inmate of a lunatic asylum! On a high-pointed pinnacle of inaccessible rock near the summit of the Jung Frau, one of the loftiest Alps, there were long to be seen fluttering in the breeze the tattered remains of the clothing of an infant which had been carried thither and leisurely devoured by a læmmergeyer.

It is pleasant, however, to find that in some instances these fierce marauders are punished for their temerity; of which a striking example occurred in the parish of St. Ambrose, near New-York. Two boys, aged respectively seven and five, were amusing themselves by trying to reap while their parents were at dinner. A large eagle soon came sailing over them, and with a sudden swoop, attempted to seize the eldest, but missed his aim: the bird, not at all dismayed, alighted at a short distance, and in a few moments repeated the attack; the bold little fellow, however, gallantly defended himself with the sickle, and when the bird rushed at him, resolutely struck at it; the sickle entered under the wing, went through the ribs, and laid the bird dead. On opening its stomach, it was found entirely empty; which may explain such an unusually bold attack.

A gamekeeper was on the moors in Scotland, when he observed an eagle rise from the ground with something he had seized as his prey; for a time he flew steadily, but suddenly became agitated, fluttered for a time, spired upwards in a straight line to a vast height, then, ceasing to flap his wings, he fell headlong to the ground. Struck with so unaccountable an occurrence, the man hastened to the spot, and found the eagle quite dead, with a wounded stoat struggling by his side: the stoat, when in the air, had fixed himself on his assailant's throat, and completely turned the tables on him.

Eagles, if they can take a fine fish at a disadvantage, will not hesitate to vary their diet; but unexpected difficulties sometimes arise, and prevent their enjoyment of the little treat, of which a pleasant story is told by Brand, as having happened off the Orkney Islands.

"About six years since, an eagle fell down on a turbot sleeping on the surface of the water, on the east side of Brassa; and having fastened his claws in her, he attempted to fly up; but the turbot awakening, and being too heavy for him to fly up with, endeavoured to draw him down beneath the water. Thus they struggled for some time, the eagle labouring to go up, and the turbot to go down, till a boat that was near to them, and beheld the sport, took them both, selling the eagle to the Hollanders then in the country."

An instance of the boldness of eagles is mentioned by Mr. Lear, in his very interesting "Journal of a Landscape Painter." When sketching the formidable fortress of Khimára, in Albania, there came two old women, with the hope of selling some fowls, which they incautiously left on a ledge of rocks just above their heads, whilst they discussed the terms of the purchase with Anastásio, Mr. Lear's dragoman. When, behold! two superb eagles suddenly floated over the abyss, and-pounce-carried off each his hen; the unlucky gallinacea screaming vainly as they were transported by unwelcome wings to the inaccessible crags on the far side of the ravine, where young eagles and destiny awaited them. Zoological Notes and Anecdotes.

LONDON UNDER CHARLES II.

DURING the sixty or seventy years which immediately followed the Restoration, London seems to have been the head-quarters of a fashionable crowd which, in numbers, in wealth, in idleness, in dissoluteness, in everything, in short, except education and refinement, rivalled the grand monde of Paris. Of course we cannot now dwell on the causes of this phenomenon. The increased wealth of the unemployed class was probably connected with the abolition of the feudal tenures, and the facilities thereby given to mortgages and sales, the increased occupation of land by tenants instead of by proprietors, the enormous augmentation of trade, and the large incomes, indeed, the large for

tunes, that could be made in the public service, or squeezed from the royal bounty. Its dissoluteness was partly a reaction against the austerities of Puritanism, and partly a coarse imitation of the polished dissipation of France; but it would probably have shown itself, even if there had been no Puritans, and no French: in fact, it was the necessary result of wealth wanting occupation and literature. There were, of course, literary circles as brilliant as those of any other period, the circles in which the great writers of that age were formed; but everything shows that the mass of the fashionable world was then deplorably ignorant. The women knew nothing, and professed to know nothing. The men passed many of their mornings, and almost all their evenings, in clubs, and at the theatres; smoking, drinking and playing at cards, or listening to stilted tragedies or indecent comedies.

This levity was made hideous by the intermixture of ferocity not more savage, indeed, perhaps less so, than that of the previous century, but horrible in itself, and still more horrible as the cruelty of careless voluptuaries. A sanguinary penal code was enforced with unrelenting severity. Temple-Bar and London-bridge were fringed with human heads. With not one-fourth of the present population, there were probably fifty times as many executions every year as there are now. The whippings of females, as well as of males, were perpetual, and were paraded up and down the most public thoroughfares; and yet these punishments were as inefficacious as they were cruel. The roads around London were beset with highwaymen; the streets were infested by footpads; amateurs in crime, who have been immortalised in "The Spectator" under the name of Mohocks, insulted and injured passengers by way of amusement. No one seems to have engaged in politics who was not, sooner or later, and generally more than once, guilty of treason; the basest and the most unscrupulous traitors being those whom their crowns placed above the law. Duels were frequent and ferocious; the seconds fought as well as the principals, and victory was often obtained by treachery. Other aristocracies may have been more contemptible, but

none can have been less attractive or amiable, than that of the English Court from the return of Charles II. down to the death of Queen Anne.-Edinburgh Review.

AN AMERICAN ERRATUM.

HE would be a bold man who would undertake to answer for the literary accuracy of American facts. Our brothers on the further side of the Atlantic are proverbial for an exaggeration which becomes humorous, fantastic, or sublime, according to the form it may chance to take, or the fancy from which it proceeds. In a land that, by its own definition, is "bounded by the southern pole and the Aurora Borealis," magnificent figures of speech may be expected; but it will sometimes happen that in copying New-York papers the English journalist, used to the statements of his own unimaginative news-purveyors, may be so off his guard as to allow the favourite figure of the American rhetoricians to escape. Thus, a paragraph has been copied into several papers, our own included, from a New-York source, to the effect that" for the last few years the Messrs. Harpurs have published, on the average, 25,000 volumes a minute for ten hours a day." We presume that in this case the three ciphers represent the poetical excitement of the reporters; and that 25 volumes per minute is the fact-a very great and striking one-meant to be put on the records. Athenæum.

POETRY.

HOME OF THE LOVED ONE.

ERE yet the grey pale cheek of dawn
Was blushing with the first faint rose,
Through herds of startled fawns and does,

I cross'd the dewy upland lawn :

I climb'd the rugged mountain-side
Slowly and painfully; my eyes
Were fill'd with tears; and memories
Of him who had but lately died

Drown'd all my heart. The tinkling rills
Glanced gaily through the ferns and heath;
And lingeringly each misty wreath

Melted; till o'er the eastern hills

The sun arose. He smote the heights,
And every rock and jagged spire
Burn'd like a pinnacle of fire,
And flash'd a thousand glittering lights.

Noon led me downward to the aisle
Of the cool woodland, where, across
The paths of daisy-chequer'd moss,
The violet and the camomile

Breathed sweetness: and the forest-bells
Rang out a gladsome peal; and through
The arch'd recesses bright birds flew;
And squirrels sported in the dells.

At eve I sought the quiet shore,

Where, far across the ocean's breast,
And deep into the golden west,
With bars and blocks of molten ore,

The sun had paved a sloping way;

And hollow voices, as from caves
Where mermaids chant beneath the waves,
Murmur'd to soothe the dying day.

Night came; and from her dewy hair
She shook the stars, that are the dew
Of heaven. Then, in that hour, I knew
That God was round me everywhere;

And o'er my heart this comfort stole:

"If in this world such beauties dwell, Cursed though it be; what tongue shall tell

How bright the home of that dear soul?

"And what though life to youth seem fair; Though mists may hang about the tomb, And darkness; faith can pierce the gloom, And see the loved, the lost one,-there." St. John's, Cambridge.