men and women of fashion, whom they may see by daylight any day in the week.

Yet hence the poor are clothed, the mean are fed; and the philosophy of the ball-room compels us to acknowledge, that of the persons thus occupied, very few are capable of employing themselves to better purpose.

ON MUSIC.

THE first traces of music are to be found in Egypt, where musical instruments, capable of much variety and expression, existed, at a time when other nations were in an uncivilized state. The invention of the lyre is ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, the Mercury of the Egyptians, which is a proof of its antiquity; but a still greater proof of the existence of musical instruments amongst them at a very early period, is drawn from the figure of an instrument said to be represented on an obelisk, erected, as is supposed, by Sesostris, at Heliopolis. This instrument, by means of its neck, was capable with only two strings, if tuned fourths, of furnishing that series of sounds, called by the ancients a heptachord; and if tuned fifths, of producing an octave.

As Moses was skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, it is probable that the Israelites, who interwove music in all their religious ceremonies, borrowed much from that people. That the Greeks took their first ideas of music from the Egyptians is clear from this, that they ascribed the inyention of the lyre to Mercury, although they made Apollo to be the god of music, and gave him that instrument to play upon. In no country was music so much cultivated as in Greece. The muses, as well as Apollo, Bacchus, and other gods and demi-gods, practised or promoted it in some way or other. Their poets are supposed to have been like the Celtic and German bards, and the Scalds of Iceland and Scandinavia, who went about singing their poems in the streets and the palaces of princes.

In this manner did Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, Sappho and others, recite their verses; and, in after times, on the institution of the games, Simonides, Pindar, and other poets, celebrated in public the exploits of the victors. The instruments known in the time of Homer, were the lyre, flute, syrinx, and trumpet. The invention of notation and musical characters is ascribed to Terpander, a poet and musician, who flourished 671 years before Christ. We afterwards find philosophers, as well as poets, among the number of those who admired and cultivated music, theoretically as well as practically, as Pythogoras, Plato, Aristotle, Aristozenus, Euclid and many others. Pythagoras is celebrated for his discoveries in this science, namely, for that of musical ratios, and the addition of an eighth string to the lyre. The former of these he is supposed to have derived from the Egyptians. He also explained the theory of sounds, and reduced it to a science. Aristozenus is the most ancient writer on music, of whose works there are any remains. Euclid followed up the idea of Pythagoras' ratios,

which he reduced to a mathematical demonstration. To this list of Greek writers, may be added Nichomachus, Gerasenus, Alypius, Gaudentius, Bacchius, senior, Ptolemy the astronomer, and Aristides Quintillian, whose works are still extant. These wrote under the Roman Emperors, many of whom cultivated music, and followed the theory of the Greeks. Among the Roman writers may be reckoned Vitruvius, who in his architecture touches lightly on this subject; also Martianus Capella, and Boethius, who wrote in the decline of the empire. After them, some centuries elapsed before the science of music met with any particular attention. Its introduction into the church service prevented it from falling, like other arts, into total neglect. Instrumental music was introduced into the public service of the church under Constantine the Great. The practice of chanting the psalms was begun in the western churches, by St. Ambrose, about 350 years after Christ: 300 years after the method of chanting was improved by St. Gregory the Great. It was probably introduced into England by St. Augustine, and greatly improved by St. Dunstan. The use of the organ probably commenced in the Greek church, where it was called hydraulicon, or the water organ. The first organ known in Europe, was sent as a present to King Pepin, from the Emperor Constantine Compronymus. It came into general use in France, Germany, and England, in the tenth century. Soon after this, music began to be cultivated as a science, particularly in Italy, where Guido, a monk of Arezzo, first conceived the idea of counter-point, or the division of music into parts, by points set opposite to each other, and formed the scale afterwards known by the name of the gamut. This was followed by the invention of the time table, and afterwards by. regular compositions of music. But the exercise of the art was for a long time confined to sacred music, during which period secular music was followed by itinerant poets and musicians, after the manner of the ancients. Of this description were the troubadours in France, the Welsh bards or harpers in England, and the Scotch minstrels.

INCIPIENT disorders of the teeth are too generally neglected. Every parent should, as an imperative duty, submit his child's mouth to the inspection of a judicious dentist at least twice a year. The amount of trouble and agony suffered from this species of negligence would, doubtless, startle and appal any one who could behold it in the aggregate. Yet what shameful cowards most men are in this respect. Day after day, month after month slips away, after they discover the inroads of decay, before they can muster resolution to set themselves in the dentist's chair; and too many procrastinate, till driven by intense anguish to the crisis; and then, instead of the slight operation that would have been originally necessary, are edified with the extraction of two or three, which earlier attention might have preserved.

"This desert soil

A WILD tract of country is that which lies round about, and, in fact, forms the Wrekin; and well did the little dreary, desolate, and isolated hamlet of Wrekinswold merit its appellation. The few scattered cottages of which it consisted, stood on ground whose gradual swell assumed in some places the appearance of hills, but which are absurdly misnamed, when magnified, in school "geography-books,” into “ mountains." These hills, like many others, were, as well as the country for miles around them, at the period of which we write, a vast expanse of sterile, treeless heath, generally uncultivated; but were attempted to be turned into arable land, ill repaying the labours of the agriculturist, and far too arid to be converted into pasturage. The inhabitants of Wrekinswold were, consequently, a poor and idle race; and, hand in hand with their poverty and idleness, went ignorance and superstition.

Amongst the proprietors and cultivators of land, residing in the vicinity of Wrekinswold, was a man named Howison, who had, it was supposed, amassed a considerable fortune, by successful experiments upon the unpromising district in which stood his habitation. But Howison possessed another treasure-a lovely and beloved daughter, for whom he had toiled incessantly, and who, it was well known, was destined to inherit the fruits of his labours. This motive had undoubtedly, at first, stimulated the fortunate farmer to those bold agricultural speculations, in which the risk was exceedingly great, but the success, if achieved, splendid; yet, after awhile, losing sight of his original incentive to exertion, the love of lucre, for itself only, took complete possession of his soul, and he became a hardhearted, selfish, and penurious man. The poor have generally, except where they happen to be personally concerned, a great idea that divine retribution will almost immediately overtake the evil-doer; and the neighbours of Howison, who had readily attributed his uncommon prosperity to the peculiar favour of heaven, upon this lamentable change in his disposition, expected nothing less than to witness some terrible manifestation of its wrath; shall we add that their "wish was father to the thought." At length their evil anticipations were destined to be gratified; and not one, but many successive bad seasons caused the farmer's crops to fail, and his cattle to be seized with an infectious disease. Howison was impoverished, but not ruined; and, whilst his avaricious heart was filled with grief, to find that he had lost the fruits of many years'

L

toil, a sudden and happy thought struck him, that his daughter should, at any rate, become the rich lady he had always designed her to be; the only difficulty was how to effect it.

At Wrekinswold resided a young fellow, styled Tony Ryecroft, of whom nobody knew any thing but that he was a very disorderly personage, considered himself a gentleman, dressed like a lounging, slatternly country squire-suffered his neighbours to understand that he was as wealthy as idle; (and far from ordinary was his idleness) but whence came he and his money, or the means whereby he made it, was a mystery-for that make it he must, seemed evident to the boors of Wrekinswold, who could not believe that upon vice and idleness heaven showered blessings hardly obtained by the frugal, virtuous, and industrious. So some fancied that he must be engaged in the smuggling trade; others, more wisely, considering the inland situation of Shropshire, imagined him a shareholder in a mine, or generalissimo of a company of highwaymen; some, again, pronounced him to be "a limb of the law," and others " a limb of Satan," a distinction, be it however observed, without a difference in the apprehension of wiser people than the inhabitants of Wrekinswold.

Tony Ryecroft was an old and ardent admirer of Kate Howison; but the poor girl, by no means captivated with his ruffianly demeanour, slovenly attire, lax principles, and the mystery attached to his birth, connexions, and mode of life, had not only received his addresses with the contumely they merited, but had obtained her father's sanction to a union with her long and well-beloved Walter Burton-that is, as soon as gold should be added to the good and gentle gifts which nature had lavished on him. Howison, with his affairs in an unprosperous condition, now only became anxious to get his daughter off hand as quickly as possible, and recollecting that Tony Ryecroft was a husband for her at any time, (and, as he had always protested, at any price,) he scrupled not to declare null and void all stipulations and promises between himself, his daughter, and poor Walter; vowing that he would disinherit her if she did not immediately consent to accept the hand of Ryecroft. In vain Kate wept, pleaded, reasoned, and remonstrated; her father (as fathers frequently are) was inexorable. Poor Kate! to her such severity was new; and sad was the lesson she had now to learn, that adversity could steel the heart of a hitherto fond parent, though an irreligious man, against a faithful and loving child.

It was a blustering evening in autumn: the winds moaned fearfully about the Wrekin, and dark, heavy clouds scudded across the sky. Tony Ryecroft was seated beside a roaring coalfire, in the ancient dilapidated mansion which he called his own, and which had formerly belonged to the Lord of the Wrekin, whose family had let it to Tony Ryecroft, upon his first appearance in the hamlet, at a rent little superior to that by which, from time immemorial, bats, birds, vermin, and reptiles, had tenanted the ruined edifice. Tony, we say, was sitting beside a large pit-coal fire-not dreaming, like the poet who listens in ecstacy to the fierce, wild music of the rushing blast, whilst he conjures up an Arcadia in the glowing carbone-but busily engaged in watching a large nondescript vessel upon it, in which, apparently, a metallic composition of saffron hue was bubbling and steaming. At no great distance from him stood a table, strewed with lumps of various metals, and a strange assortment of moulds, sand, screws, gimlets, files, gravers, instruments, and combinations of the mechanical powers, for which it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to have found a name or use. Tony, however, was Rosicrucian enough to know very well what he was about; his door was bolted and doubly locked, and he expected no interruption to his pursuits on such a forbidding evening. But a violent ringing at the great gate of his fortalice announced a visitor, and though he had given a strict charge to the old woman, who officiated for him in every male and female capacity, to admit no one, and though he heard her pertinaciously protesting that he was not at home," yet, to his extreme dismay, he also heard the intruder exclaim, as with heavy strides he approached the door of his sanctum, "Don't tell me about' not at home;' I know that he is, and I must and will see him."

The intruder now reached Ryecroft's apartment, on the door of which he bestowed many a hearty knock, exclaiming, at intervals, "Why, Tony-Tony Kyecroft-let me in, I say." At last Ryecroft, from within, replied, in a solemn tone, "Bubasticon itheologysticus! which, being interpreted, good neighbour, means-Demon avaunt!" "I say, Tony," cried the stranger, "please to be putting no tricks upon me. I am neither a demon nor a good neighbour;* but, as you may know by my voice, if you have an ear left, your old friend Howison."

"Passpara

rconatham, dentemasticon!" answered Ryecroft, "which is, being interpreted, Welcome, for I know thee! and here thou shalt enter, an thou fearest not."

Tony then said, in his usual manner, unfastening the door," As you have spoiled all my philosophical work for to-night, and I fear, too, for many succeeding nights, I cannot bid you so cordially welcome as- "Aye, but you will though, when you know what I've come to say. Faugh! what an odour of burnt tin, or copper, or brimstone, mayhap. Why, Tony, what have

* Good neighbour-a respectful term for the fairies.

you there, simmering on the fire? And what do you mean by these queer instruments? and, above all, what is come to your tongue that you talk so outlandish ?”

Ryecroft replied only with a most mysterious look, and re-fastening the door, stole again on tip-toe to his seat. Howison took the chair opposite, and as he held his large, tanned hands within an inch of the fire, whilst his grey curious eye roved stealthily over the apartment and the person of its owner-whose linen trowsers, waistcoat opened at the breast, and uncovered arms, excited on so cold an evening no small surprise -he ventured to ask him, whether the warm work in which he seemed to be engaged were magic?

"Even so," replied Ryecroft, with all the gravity he could command; "but, my excellent friend, start not-the branch of magic in which you now behold me occupied, belongs not to the black art, but is natural magic-the white, or the golden one, which has no kind of connection with the others. Golden, indeed, may I well term it, since it teaches, by the science of divine sublimations and transmutations, how to compound-that is, how to make-Gold !"

"Wheugh!" whistled the astonished and delighted lover of wealth, starting up and seizing our alchymist's hand, which he almost wrung off in the fervour of his transport-" there's some sense in that kind of magic! Ah! Master Ryecroft! I once fancied that I too had made, though in a different way, and with huge toil and trouble, a little of that same gold; but—”

Here poor Howison bent his head over the molten metal until his nose almost touched it; and whether its deleterious fumes, or the overwhelming consideration of Tony's extraordinary power for the accumulation of wealth, deprived him of articulation, is uncertain; but decidedly he found himself unable to conclude his observation. Tony was kind enough partially to relieve him from his embarrassment:

My good friend, you mean to say that you find gold of late neither so easy to obtain, nor, when once lost, to recover." Howison sighed deeply, and looked perplexed. Tony continued: -"A man can't help bad seasons; even with me, all is not fair weather; for instance, your visit this evening renders vain all the long labours of an entire day. The contents of that vessel are useless to me now."

Consternation and horror were depicted on Howison's countenance at this avowal; he managed to stammer out a few apologies for his unlucky intrusion, and tremulously to inquire the cause of so strange a fatality.

Why, you see, my dear sir," said Ryecroft, drawing his chair close to Howison's, and assuming one of his best aspects of mystery-"hist! what was that?" looking cautiously round the room, "I hope that no one is present but ourselves." I hope-1 believe so, too," replied his terrified listener, not daring to look behind him, lest his eyes should encounter the apparition of a wicked Lord of the Wrekin, who was particular

ly believed to trouble the deserted mansionhouse, "I fancy, Master Ryecroft, it was only the wind which shrieks to-night.”

"Well, sir, it might have been; but, as I was about to remark-when engaged in this little business, I am obliged to be particularly careful, since the White Art has determined enemies in those wicked spirits who are sole agents in the Black Art, and who are sure to trouble me whenever they discover that I am employed in the transmutation of metals. Nay, such is their boldness, that they sometimes intrude upon me, in the form of my most familiar friend; and had you, sir, happened to have been other than you seemed by your voice, you could not have withstood bubasticon itheologysticus. But it is not interruption only from the spiritual world which I have to fear when at my profitable studies, but as there is as much magic in the art of making gold as there is in the shining metal when made, I can only undertake this business under certain conjunctions and influences of the planets; and should mortal shadow cross the heavenly houses, the dominant spirits are offended, and my power lost for the space of seventy hours."

This absurd jargon, which was relished by Howison in exact proportion to its unintelligibility, so exalted Tony in his credulous hearer's estimation, that, after gazing at him for some minutes in silent awe, he ventured to inquire whether so wise a man could not teach him some secret whereby to ensure good crops and sound cattle in future.

"To say the truth, sir," replied Ryecroft, "I have long been thinking of you in this very matter; for, admiring Kate Howison as I do, I cannot unmoved behold adversity overtake her sire; and if I have hitherto, when I knew the means of assisting you laid in my power, held my peace, attribute such conduct to any motives but indifference and unkindness. Perhaps I might dread the charge of impertinent interference in family affairs, which concerned not myself; or, perhaps, I might be aware of certain conditions which, of necessity, I must impose upon him whose fallen fortunes I desired to raise, and which would unhappily seem, in his eyes, to compromise the disinterestedness of my heart."

"Conditions! you mean my daughter's hand! By all that's holy, she shall be yours," exclaimed Howison, in ecstacy; "and, to say the truth, Tony, it was this very matter which brought me here to-night."

"Indeed!" answered the wily Ryecroft, "why, to be candid with you in return, I am not now so anxious about Kate, after her decided rejection of me. But come-my conditions are simply these: that you make over all your property to her whom I once loved; or rather, draw up an instrument which shall cause the revenue of your farm to revert, upon your decease, to him who shall then be her husband."

"It shall be done," cried Howison, in raptures; "what next?"

"If you can certainly assure me of the performance of this condition

"I can-l do.”

"Then hearken to what I am going to communicate:--You are aware," he continued, "that Satan, (bubasticon itheologysticus!) as Prince of the Air, is entrusted with the sole command of all tempests, winds, frosts, blights, &c., which, falling upon the earth, injure its fruits and cattle. This power then, ought, as far as is allowable, to be conciliated; and, if he be not, fearful is his vengeance upon the presumptuous mortal who insults him by disregarding his supremacy. In Scotland, therefore, it has been, from time immemorial, a sensible custom, to set apart a small portion, as a rood or two, or half an acre of arable ground, as an offering to the evil spirit, whom, for fear of offending, they designate by some friendly title, as good man, good fellow, &c.; this portion, which is left uncultivated, and, with certain ceremonies in which I am competent to instruct you, consecrated to the demon, is termed the 'Goodman's Croft,' in plain English, Fiend's Field.' Now, Master Howison, it has struck me that the late extraordinary losses of a man hitherto so thriving as yourself, can only be referred to your want of respect towards the dark power, who, perceiving you adding acre to acre, purchasing this field, and enclosing that portion of stony, sterile, waste land, without setting apart so much as half an inch for himself, has resented the neglect, you best know how."

"Nothing more likely," answered Howison.

The advice consequent upon this communication was, that Howison should enclose a fresh portion of common, not the old worn ground, and that there should be an annual sacrifice of a black cock and a sheep's heart stuck with pins, in the croft at midnight. The ceremonies of the consecration, Master Ryecroft was, at his leisure, to arrange. Howison then took his leave, sincerely thankful and marvellously enlightened; repeating incessantly, during his dreary homeward walk, (as far as he could count the syllables,) the mysterious exclamation to which the alchymist had attached so magical a meaning.

Kate Howison and Walter now saw with despair, that their hopes were to be frustrated by avarice on one side, and craftiness on the other; and whilst they felt themselves the victims of Ryecroft, they knew that Howison was his dupe. Kate, however, who still retained, in spite of her father's sordid feelings, some little influence over his hard heart, gained, by tears, entreaties, and other all-prevailing female arguments, the respite of one entire year ere her dreaded union with Ryecroft; for, as Howison could not help acknowledging, there was some reason in her observation, that she would then be of age, and he himself would have had an opportunity of proving whether Tony had actually ensured to him the promised prosperity.

It was the evening of the 31st of October, the celebrated vigil of All Saint's Day-more familiarly known, perhaps, as the Scottish and Irish Hallowe'en-when Howison, after frequent conferences with Tony Ryecroft, proceeded to act

for, and by himself, according to the adept's instructions. He had lately enclosed a considerable portion of the Wrekinwolds, lying at a distance of about three miles from his home, and behind some of the highest of the hills. The Fiend's Field, a full and fair acre of this acquisition, was situated at its extremity, and was upon this auspicious evening to be consecrated. Howison, who had invited a party of his daughter's young friend's, Walter and Ryecroft among them, to burn nuts and try charms with her, drank deep potations of strong ale; and, at a signal given by Ryecroft, soon after the clock had struck eleven, wrapped himself in his great frieze coat, took down his massy oaken cudgel, and sallied forth-joked, of course, by his juvenile guests, who asserted that he was going to dip his shirt-sleeves in the fairy spring beyond the hills. Heedless of their jests, Howison went on his way, but with an exceedingly heavy heart, thus to quit a warm fire-side, blythe company, and excellent cheer, for a long, dreary, and cold walk over the Wrekinwolds-the wind howling, the rain falling in sullen, heavy drops, the night dark as death, and such a night, too! the witching one of all the year, and its witching hour so nigh! And what was he going to do? unto whom to offer sacrifice? To be sure he did it but as a mere piece of foolish formality, to please Ryecroft; there could be nothing sinful in such a frolic, more than in those simple charms in which he knew, at twelve o'clock, all the gay youths and maidens at the Grange would be engaged.

Thus, alternately a prey to the smitings of conscience and the sophistries which were to heal them, and frequently whistling, singing, and repeating aloud the efficacious scrap of magical lore taught him by Tony, Howison contrived to find his way across hilly, arable, and waste lands, to his new territory. The walls of an old stone building, of which the country people could give no satisfactory account, stood in the portion fenced off for the Fiend's Field. Some believed it to have been a Catholic chapel, dedicated to St. Hubert, the hunter's patron, and thence termed Hubb's House on the Hill; some thought it an ancient watch-tower, whilst others, referring its origin to the Romans, thought they displayed an extraordinary share of erudition by the conjecture. All, however, agreed that it had been for ages the resort of fairies, apparitions, and witches, who held an annual festival on the Wrekin, though on what night of the year none could positively say, since no person had ever yet been found sufficiently courageous to watch in and about Hubb's House, in order to effect so important a discovery.

The recollection of these traditions, tended by no means to raise the sinking spirits of Howison, whose teeth fairly chattered with affright, and whose limbs almost failed him, as he groped his way into the building, where Ryecroft had assured him he must offer the propitiary sacrifice. The slightest degree of fear was to be deprecated, as liable to incense the being whom he came to conciliate; a circumstance that added to his tre

pidation. Terror and fatigue, occasioned by the pace at which he had walked to reach the ruin cre the stroke of midnight, caused him to sink almost exhausted upon the ground; but, recovering, he took from his pocket a tinder-box and matches, struck a light and set fire to a previously prepared pile of furze, sticks, and fagots, mingled with turf, damp earth, and stones, in order to prevent its immediate combustion. Then, taking from a niche in the ruined wall, the black cock and the heart brought for this sacrifice during the day by Tony and himself, he cast them upon the blazing altar, meaning to utter an invocation taught him for the occasion, when unluckily out slipped by mistake the more familiar phrase, whose signification, according to Ryecroft, was "Demon, avaunt.”

Immediately a burst of wild, deriding laughter, so loud that it shook the walls of the crazy building, and seemed echoed and re-echoed by every stone, saluted the ears of Howison, and this had no sooner subsided, than a voice, whose tone seemed to freeze the very blood at his heart, exclaimed, "Fool! Passpara iconathem dentimasticon, thou would'st say. Wherefore am I summoned?" The white curling smoke, which had, upon the firing of the combustible altar, rolled in gross, suffocating volumes around the narrow area enclosed by the ruined walls, having found a vent through the roofless tower as through an ample chimney, now rose majestically upwards in a dense white column, mingled with bright streams of ascending flame; so that Howison was clearly enabled to discern standing before him a black and gigantic apparition, whose dusky countenance was stern and sorrowful, and whose glittering eyes, illumined by the reflection of the burning materials, glowed like living fires. Howison, at length, in faltering accents, gave utterance to the lesson he had studied.

I, a poor fortune-fallen mortal, have summoned thee, in order to crave for the future fruitful crops and sound cattle; is my sacrifice accepted?"

"Art thou ready," interrupted the power, gloomily," to fulfil the terms agreed upon by our trusty servant, Anthony Ryecroft?"

The mortal bowed his assent, for terror had sealed his tongue.

"Thy sacrifice is accepted then," pronounced the demon; (C see that thou fail not in thy compact, lest when we meet again, for we shall meet again

"I know it!" groaned Howison: " upon this same night next year, shall we—”

At this moment the distant church-clock slowly chimed twelve; the blazing altar became suddenly extinct; a hollow rushing sound echoed through the ruin, and Howison, half frenzied darted from its shade.

Wild, wet, and haggard, at about ten minutes to one, he entered the Grange; his guests were gone, and Kate, beside a cheerful fire, was awaiting her father's return in a mood as cheerful, ready to jest with him upon his secret expedition; but when he rushed in with the wildness of