no,' answered the shepherd, I think not. To be sure, they take a lamb or two sometimes; but, then, they do look so noble! My other case," concluded Mr. Paulett, "is comprised in a very humble anecdote, which I give upon my own authority, and which refers to classes of poor of whom we still less frequently entertain any romantic opinions, than of shepherds or other country-people. I was walking, not long since, through one of the suburbs on the western side of London, when two young men, in company with each other, and going my way, continued to precede me, for some little time, by a distance of eight or ten paces. The younger was a servant in livery, and the elder a journeyman baker, with an empty basket, slung, by means of its handle, upon his shoulder. They were talking together at every step they went; and what do you think they were talking of? It was of the comparative beauty of the houses and gardens which they successively passed; of the taste of the architect, in the church lately erected, and which followed next; and of the choice of pleasantness, pretty gardens and handsome houses, between the suburb in which they were, and some of the other suburbs of London! Lords and ladies, princes and princesses, then, could not have talked more innocently, nor more upon subjects of an agreeable virtù, than did this livery-servant and this journeyman baker; and so true it is, that 66 'There's no such difference 'twixt man and man As haughty wits suppose. The beggar treads Well!" said Mr. Hartley, "I have no doubt but * The Village Curate; a poem, by Bishop Hurdis. you are right; and yet I hardly expected such sentiments from you." 66 My dear friend," returned Mr. Paulett," you labour under the ordinary mistake; but believe me, that if we put out of sight a few fools (such as are to be found of every condition and persuasion), there are none who admit more freely or more practically the natural equality of mankind, than those who approve and would maintain the artificial distinctions of society!" "And is it really true," interrupted Emily," and not something like fable, that eagles carry away lambs? Are they large and strong enough, and how far do they carry them ?" "They certainly carry away lambs," answered Mr. Hartley, to Emily; "and such accidents have happened as their carrying away babies; and it sometimes also happens (generally, I suppose, through their being frightened) that they drop the things upon which they seize; events which may even have contributed to the dispersion of breeds of animals from one place and another. There is, or lately was, upon the Isle of Arran, close to the western coast of Ireland, a single sheep, of a breed not cultivated upon the island, which I have often seen feeding among the flocks of a different figure, in the grass which surrounds its ruined religious edifices. That sheep has lived unmolested, while hundreds of its temporary companions have surrendered their lives, because the few inhabitants either reverence, or at least respect, the peculiar circumstances of its introduction among them. While it was yet a tender lamb, an eagle had pounced upon it with his talons, as it fed upon the border of the adjacent coast, from which the island is separated by no more than a very narrow arm of the sea. Being in possession of his prey, he flew with it to the island, in some part of which he had probably his nest. Either because the flight was long, or the lamb heavy, he flew slower and nearer to the ground than usual; so that an islander, who saw him as he flew, and perceived what plunder he was carrying, was able to strike him with the stone which he lost no time in throwing; and, upon this, the eagle, more thoughtful of his escape than of his supper, dropped the lamb upon the foreign turf, and soared away. The lamb was in no respect so hurt or injured by its seizure, flight, or fall, but that it lived to crop the grass in the strange country; and the owner of the soil, and all the little population of the Isle of Arran, moved by its narrow escape, respecting the rites of hospitality, and be lieving, perhaps, that its arrival was a destiny, and the token of some promised good to their small territory and community, would neither part with it nor kill it; but preserved it, as I have before told you, a solitary stranger by birth and appearance, among the small native flocks. It is, or it was, a sight for visitors, and a story for the children, and a date for the later history of their island; to show how, and when, and where, the fleecy stranger came among them, borne over an arm of the tempestuous Atlantic, and dropped from the talons of an eagle!" "Oh!" cried Emily, at this juncture, and disturbed even from the anxious regard with which she had been listening to the story of the Irish eagle and the lamb; "Oh! I do think I see Robin-red-breast again, under the leaves of his old tree;" and in truth, I certainly had let myself be seen, in the course of the joyous movements of my head and tail, to which I was inspired by all the pleasant things which I had heard about myself, and about Robins, and about singing-birds in general. I confess that the idea of leaving eagles to take lambs at their pleasure had not charmed me quite so much, because it made me think of hawks and cats and Robin-red-breasts, all together; nor had I so well understood what passed about servants and bakers, and houses and church steeples; but I had hopped and picked the time away, trusting that I should either see some crumbs, or hear of myself once more; and so, as I have said, it happened! "Where, where?" cried Richard; and Emily pointed to the tree; but, now, I was no longer visible. "Oh! I hope you saw him," said Richard. I hope so, too," said Mrs. Paulett. the kind wishes of my friends, I "And So, charmed with sung one of my blithest songs, at which every face smiled, and in which I bade them, at once good-morrow, and farewell for the day. CHAP. IX. He travels and expatiates :-as the bee Pay tribute to the stores he gleans: He seeks intelligence in every clime, And spreads the honey of his deep research He travels, and I too. I tread his deck, Ascend his topmast; through his peering eyes, COWPER. AT my next day's visit to the cottage, I heard little beside the voice of Mr. Hartley. That gentleman, as I soon found, had for many years been a voyager and traveller, and the chief scene of his adventures had been Central Africa, or that part of the African continent which is crossed by the Equinoctial or Equatorial Line, and is properly Nigritia or Negroland, and the region of the Quorra, or Quarra, or the river Niger: "To the north of this," said Mr. Hartley, "we have the countries of Abyssinia, Egypt, Barbary, Morocco, and the rest; and to the south, the Hottentots and Caffres, and various nations which are not Negro; and, again, the English colony of the Cape of Good Hope. To the north also, we have Mohammedan populations, ordinarily versed in all those arts, and educated in all those habits, which are generally understood by the term civilization, and resembling what is European; and to the south, pastoral nations, such as the |