must be that they were printed, Russell? printed,-printed in the pages of the London Magazine. Never again, I entreat you, permit a lady-friend to copy or to peruse a letter of mine; I am not desirous of making a confidant of the public. | Oh! Russell, since I last wrote to you, what changes have taken place, in all that was dear and interesting to us!--and in these changes, how much is there at once to depress and to cheer. Great spirits have passed away, but others, that have been "standing on the forehead of the age to come," have advanced with the age; and life seems renewed, with life,-out of death-proving that the Mind's Temple will ever be peopled, and its sublime service be ever going on. Do you still, after your sojourn in other climes, and "with other guess sort of people,"-do you still remember our old chat, in the old brown-panelled library, on Chaucer, Shakspeare, Spenser, Milton, and the after-trailing poetical lights; on Raphael and Titian, (the Spenser and Milton of painters); on Rey- | nolds and Gainsborough, those early moderns; and on the Turner and the Stothard of our own day? And do you yet think of Handel, Mozart, and Haydn-those immortal masters of the learned and awful science of music? and can you forget Siddons and John Kemble? Never shall I, until this greyish head is put to rest for ever, forget the ardour, the partizanship, the affection, with which we agreed or differed on the mighty masters of poetry, painting, music, and the drama; and I cannot resist, in this letter, briefly touching on the losses and gains which the Arts, or rather the Natures, have suffered, since we last wrote to or conversed with each other. I, as you know, am now an active partner in the great bustling firm of the world; but, never to me will these divine topics, and the recollections of them, be other than the soul's comfort: Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, a-weary of this life!" and he should not hazard his vast wealth by speculations, in times when his energies must, perforce, be not what they have been. As an author, he should use to the baby-writers about him, the last words of the old dying schoolmaster-"It grows dark! shut the book! boys, go and play!" You will naturally ask me, in what way have our great vacancies been filled up; and I wish I could give you a satisfactory explanation. We have had accessions to our force of authorship; but then we have had no Wellingtons-no Marlboroughs-none above corporals or serjeants. L. E. L., a young lady of letters, has been for some years amorous and botanical; but she clearly proves the truth of what one of her rosepredecessors has said, that "not even Love can live on flowers!"-Passion smothered in lilies, is passion smothered to all intents and purposes: I wish we could have a leek and onion poet by way of a change. L.E.L. may be very amiable, but she looks upon all her readers as Children in the Wood, and hastens as quickly as possible, tenderly to "cover them with leaves !" There has been a sad waste of paper in new novels after the last fashion,-and, as Penruddock says, "Heaven send it may be the last!" Since you left England, an enterprising publisher, of the name of Colburn, has issued sheets to the gluttonous world amply sufficient to paper the walls of the temple in which Martin has so splendidly depicted Belshazzar's feast, or make a carpet for Salisbury plain. Fashion, or the apeing of fashion, has been the fashion in Literature; and no novel or poem would pass muster, unless completely furnished with titles, French phrases, silver forks, and bad English. I believe, Russell, that this mode of writing had its origin in the success of Lord Byron, who, setting the example of a Peer intertwining the laurel with the coronet, induced Debrett's great staring flock to consider that Literature was essential to the dignity of the Peerage. Indeed, "the nobility and gentry" have of late patronized the publishers very extensively; and Mr. Colburn has now scarcely an author whose name is not to be found in the 'Court Guide.' Since I wrote to you, Byron-the daring, glaring, scaring Byron, the pathetic, the unbelieving, the believing Byron,—the melodious, the moody, the pointed, the severe Mr. Bulwer, M.P., is perhaps the most poet and Lord (for the nobility of the aris- popular novelist of the last ten years, and tocrat struggled with the divinity of the poet, will, I verily believe, enjoy the immortality like Jacob with the Angel,) Byron, the splen- of another ten years. But, oh! Russell, how did bard, the haught peer, the kindliest of very much has fame fallen in the market, men, has, since last we met, given Moore an since the time of our early intercourse. This, opportunity of creating a Biography, and I presume, is owing to the free-trade system; destroying an Autobiography. Moore's Life for since every person, even a Peer, may wag is not the life. The true work is not ye a pen for pay, a name is bought and sold in achieved; and I fear, much as I like the Irish a week. Mr. Bulwer is considered the great Melodist, that he will be rather remembered polished Newgate novelist of the day-his (as far as Byron-biography goes) for his de- slang is so satin-ny in its texture, that it may struction than for his creation. The destroyer be worn by the most delicate and fashionable of the Ephesian dome is remembered when of the softer sex; he can introduce Bob the builder is forgotten. Our poetical losses Booty, in all the glory of oaths and side curls, have been severe. Scott, "the Ariosto of to the Duchess of Bedford, without damagthe North," has sought the South-not to ing the character of either great personage; create poetry, but to seek health in a fame- and his Shock-Jem can visit the Jersey, and crowned old age, and, perchance, to add not be out of place. There is hardly a proone more long last novel to the rare catalogue duction from the pen of Mr. Bulwer, that is of his romantic tales; wrung from him by not redolent of the back slums; and his pic"wearisome petition" of interested friends, tures, I assure you, are dark, glossy, coarse or disinterested publishers. There should--everything but true. I quite long for his I say it in the sincerity of my heart-there should be no more! He has made Fame rich-he has left to her large and immortal possessions; in Literature, he "'gins to be stories on Jerry Abershaw, and on the murderer of the Marrs;-Patch, too, would make a pretty pattern. Mr. Bulwer is now Editor of the New Monthly Magazine-avowedly so. You will grieve to hear that both Charles the Tenth and Campbell have been dethroned since last I wrote to you. I did intend to take a very learned review of all that has been done and undone in Literature during the last ten years; and then to have gone very laboriously and minutely through the history of the achievements and disgraces in the Fine Arts, in Music, and in the Drama;-but I must not teaze you with a long letter at the commencement of our re-correspondence. After a long fast, the appetite must be tenderly dealt with. In my next letter I will discourse with you on these great matters; and, I promise you, "much remaineth for a second fytte!" The Ladies, I should tell you, have been dealing largely and profitably at the shop of the Muses. And the Hon. Mrs. Norton, a descendant from the great sire of Tom Sheridan and the School for Scandal,' has been proving that she has some of the true ink in her veins, and has taken down several big boys in Mr. Colburn's Great Burlington School. Mrs. Hemans, too, has been kindly noticed by Mr. Murray, and has accomplished the difficult feat of a second edition. Apollo is beginning to discharge his retinue of sprawling men-servants, and to have handmaids about his immortal person, to dust his rays and polish his bow and fireirons. If the great He-Creatures intend to get into place again, they must take Mrs. Bramble's advice, and "have an eye to the maids. How are our old friends the Mortons? I intend calling upon them shortly-only I shall look about me as despondingly and reflectingly in that long-deserted mansion of theirs, as did Penruddock, when he stood in the splendid hall of his ancestor, and thought of his solitude, his cot, and his old familiar cobwebs. Write to me soon, if I have not out-wearied you, and I will undertake that my prose, like papers in a periodical, shall "be continued in my next." Ever yours, my dear Russell, P.S. Newspapers, or rather Literary Papers, are falling in price. I hear there is a Journal published somewhere in London for Fourpence! KING DAVID'S STRAIT. Than man-the cruel worm. Deep must our sufferings be, Though wielded by a son; 'Twas said, and PESTILENCE went forth To reap for Death and Hell To make a garner of the earth Where'er his sickle fell. No step was heard-he spake no word- Like a labourer grim, till the twilight dim, He strode along-a conqueror, Than thrice ten thousand warriors E'er slew 'mid battle's roar; Yet not a banner round him wreathed, He strode along, the breadth and length Its myriad hopes, its gathered strength, And captives weary of the light, And babes unused to sigh, And old mailed warriors in their might- Two days, two nights, and then a voice Bade the avenger cease: He heard the word-he sheathed his sword And Israel slept in peace! O Lord our God! how wonderful That thy dread wrath should be Thou, in thy strength more merciful carriage, which, with prancing horses and a pains-taking and my purposes, and even, I may say, of the wishes of my heart-albeit, that I ne'er had a child of my own. It did not fall in my way to learn aught authentically of Henry Fairly for some considerable time. At length I journeyed to the city where he had gone to live, but the house to which I had been directed was all shut up and altered. I could hear nothing regarding him such as I wanted to know, and, just as I was stepping into the coach to leave the town, a broken-down-looking man, in deep mourn same sombre dress, the former of whom I scarcely recognized as the gentleman, who, with a beautiful young wife by his side, had visited me in his own carriage not five years before. What had happened to cut off so young and so light-hearted a creature, I knew not; but she was now above a year dead everything had gone wrong—yet, in the meantime, Henry Fairly, from the abilities he had shown, had been sent out a midshipman in a king's ship to bring home a fortune for his father and sisters. The preliminaries were settled between the parents and myself in five minutes after we had been all convened in my best apartment. But, with the mere pounds and parti-ing, passed me, leading two pale girls, in the culars, my business was not quite ended; and I began to look in the face of the pupil and of those who accompanied him. I was not so ignorant of this world's vanity as not to know that there must have been some other reason besides the fame of my character and qualifications that should bring such grand people to my country domicile. My surmise was justified by further appearances. There is something painful to the eye in all incongruities. The lady was not yet more than five and twenty, and I scarce ever had seen a prettier woman. The gentleman bordered on fifty, but his look indicated a mixture of sensuality, Scottish greed, good-nature, and imbecility. Yet, though the lady was pretty, even to fascination, I could not say that she commended herself wholly to my approval. I knew not then whether it were natural MY LAST PUPIL.—A TALE OF THE DOMINIE. levity, or a sort of broken-hearted reckless BY ANDREW PICKEN, AUTHOR OF THE 'DOMINIE'S LEGACY.' Ir was before I became a real gentleman and independent portioner of Balgownie Brae, in the west of Scotland, and when I was nothing but an obscure Dominie (although a licensed minister of the kirk of Scotland), and earning my bit of bread by communicating the rudiments of that learning, which never was the making of my own fortune, to young men for the making of theirs, that the first part of my experience was obtained in the ways of this wicked world. ness, that influenced her, as if from the At that time, the obtaining of a good and Well-one long afternoon, when my head was quite moidered with the weary din of the school, I was so confused and stupified, that I never so much as heard the noise of a and that all my counsels were to be put to Time still passed on, and nought was heard of Henry or his ship, nor did the world take any notice of the sorrows of his eldest sister Eliza, who silently bore the weight of her father's afflictions and her own, as she mourned the absence of the hope and prop of the family at their desolate fireside. But the truth soon came out; for, it being then war-time, while men were slaughtering each other abroad and rejoicing for it at home, Henry Fairly's ship had been taken on the high seas, and he was then lying in a French prison. I now heard something more of the history of this unfortunate family. Henry's mother was the daughter of a man of good family, and, when she first came to this part of the country, was counted one of the prettiest women that had ever stepped on Scottish ground. Being instructed, as most daughters are, that to obtain a rich husband is to obtain everything, she consented to become the wife of Mr. Fairly; and he, with corresponding folly, imagining that the sweet notes of love may, at any time, be sung by a golden bird, and that congenial happiness may be bargained for, and bought, by the mammon of unrighteousness, threw his longsaved gains into the lap of beauty, and dissipated his fortune without a day's satisfaction. Domestic dispeace, evil report, and jealousy, complete the tale-family ruin, broken-down feelings, and premature death, complete the tragedy. But the family were to be renovated and raised up by the energy and abilities of young Henry. At least, so said many-and I said it too, in the simplicity of my heart, until I began to bethink me of what materials the world was made-although I could not deny, but that blocks may be cut with razors, by that long perseverance which blunts away the instrument, until its original character is lost and gone. And so I heard with joy that Henry had come home, and was already, with his orphan sisters, in the old fashioned borough of Netherton. With haste and pleasure I arose, and went forth to see him after all his adventures; for the message I had received was mysterious and unsatisfactory.* When I arrived at the door of the solitary house in which his father now dwelt, my admission within was not less invested with a silent and ominous mystery. At length I was permitted entrance into a dark back apartment, where sat Henry's father, having a small stoup of liquor before him, and apparently tippling by himself, with the maudlin enjoyment of that imbecile sort of misery, which, too far gone for common energy, seeks with infantile eagerness this wretched relief from its own thoughts. The smile of pleasure-as if insensible to his own degradation -with which this ruin of a man recognized mc, was to me more shocking than the most intense expression of despair; as I contrasted it with the wan look of frigid melancholy which sat upon the countenance of the tallest of the growing girls, who cowered by them selves in a corner near the window. "Where is Henry?" I inquired, in anxious disappointment. No answer was given me for a moment; and the father looked at the daughter, as if each wished the other to answer the question-while I now heard distinctly a foot go tramp tramp on the floor over our heads. "Take a glass with me," said Mr. Fairlypushing, with a silly expression, a glass towards me; "and we will talk of Henry afterwards." “Is he not here? Where is he?"—said I, refusing the liquor. "My father does not like to speak of poor Henry" said the eldest girl--and silence again allowed the same tramp tramp to sound with painful monotony over our heads. "No-there are many things that your father does not like to speak of, my poor child," said the old man, his look of joyous excitement subsiding into pathetic sadness, as he looked his daughter and was re upon minded of his wife. "For God's sake, inform me," said I, "who that is, that keeps walking about above us in this strange manner." The eldest girl now arose, and, with a look of heart-broken melancholy, led the way up stairs. Heavens! what I felt, when the door was opened, and Henry Fairly, my clever and handsome former pupil stood before me. He fixed his hollow death-like eyes upon me for a moment, and, without uttering a word, threw himself into my arms. “What is this—Henry?" said I. “ Why that changed, that ominous look? Why remain by yourself in this solitary apartment? Why this appearance of affecting desolation?" Desolation, indeed! my dear, my more than father," said the youth. "Little did I think, when I went a hopeful boy to sea, that my career was so soon to terminate. But yet I am resigned-I am almost happy-if I could only hope that when I was gone, God would provide a protector for my poor, my orphan sisters." I soon learned the whole truth-that, in the cold damps of the French prison, where my spirited Henry had lain a whole winter, he had caught a terrible inward disease, that had been slowly eating into his frame; that the only relief he had from his pain was by constantly keeping on his feet, as long as his strength sustained him; and that, in short, in a desolate home, and with all his early hopes blasted, the poor youth was fast walking to his death. I do not remember ever meeting with a severer trial to my feelings, than what was presented to me at this painful moment. The very sense and manliness with which the youth spoke of the unfortunate end of all his hopes for the renovating of his family, of the state in which he should be forced to leave his beloved sisters, and of his sad, sad feelings, on his return home, on finding his father, not only reduced to poverty, but his mind so perfectly broken up, as to be unable to protect his own children-while I looked upon it with pride, as evidencing, that the good seed I had sown in his mind was not sown to the winds, affected me the more deeply for his melancholy situation. "And why do you not go below, Henry," I said, "instead of wearying out your solitary hours in this naked apartment?" My father cannot bear to see me, sir!" he said, "for I remind him so much of my mother that's gone; and I would not vex my unhappy parent, for the few days I have to live-and so I just walk here in this lonely room-and sometimes I almost think that my own sisters neglect me. But grief, you know, sir, is indolent, and I will bear up as I can-for the girls will have enough to suffer when I am dead." There was something awful in the manliness of this resignation, as well as in the terrible expression of mortality contending with warm-blooded youth, that appeared in the sunken face of my dying pupil; and as he ever and anon pressed my hand, and thanked me for my former instruction, which, as he said, placed earth and heaven in its true light before him. But when I came to say something of his deceased mother, he grasped my arm almost to pain, and said"My friend! my more than father!-if ever you would do that good in your generation which I shall never live to do-raise your voice wherever you can, concerning the miseries that are caused by unequal marriages for filthy lucre's sake. My mother was fitted to adorn the world-my father was a wise and a worthy man with his class. You know what has happened-yet, you know but in part, for the world will never know, as it ought, what miseries the folly of parents entail upon their children!" Why need I tell what followed between myself and Henry-or with what distress we parted, never to meet in life--or how I prayed over his still-beautiful remains, when, on coming next to Netherton, I found him a stretched corpse or how his father was hardly able to attend him to the grave?— What shall I add more? the old man is dead, and the orphans, beautiful as their mother, are little minded by any, except myself--for it is not the way of the world to care for the unfortunate. SONNET TO RETIREMENT. I once had thought to have embalm'd my name With poesy-to have served the gentle Muses With high sincerity;-but life refuses ;And I am now become most strangely tame, And careless what becomes of glory's game Who plays-who wins the wond'rous prizewho loses: Not that the jarring world my spirit bruisesBut fate denies the Paradise of Fame! Magnificent and lustrous images Have visited me often-times, and given My mind to proud delights-But now it sees Those visions fading like the lights of Even'; All intellectual glory dimly flees, And I am silent as the stars of Heaven! J. H. REYNOLDS. A SCOTTISH BALLAD. BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. THAT grumbly postman o' the night, An' labours at his uncouth strain; An' strain my een outower the lea?- Or stand in water to the chin. The heathcock's bay comes down the gate, The gloaming stern creeps o'er the hill; Ilk sangster cowers beside his mate, And has o' dear delight his fill; While I may sit an' glower till morn, Nor hear a sound from tower or tree, Except yon craik's amang the corn, An' he has tint his love like me. Poor bird, he's lonely in the dell, And harps a note o' black despair, And though forsaken like mysel', I only laugh at him the mair. His loss is but a motely quean, Of cutty tail an' tawney hue; For love ne'er brush'd the e'ening dew. I downa bide to gang away. The sweetest sound on earth to me. Has rowed you in his plaid ere now." "What's that to you? But I thought right, To come an' tell you to gang hame; I canna come to court the night, Sae ye may gang the gate ye came." "Provoking elf! come o'er the dike, An' woo till day-light open her ee." "Na, thank ye, lad-befa' what like, The wa' shall stand 'twixt you an' me; An' closely press'd unto my side. Muckle to hope an' sma' to have; Beyond what angels can enjoy- That makes man's happiness supreme It winna sing-it winna say, But lasts like an Elysian dream. [We wish we were permitted to give the name of the Author of the following beautiful little poem: but we do not doubt that most of our readers will know "that fine Roman hand." One might swear to a style of writing as one swears to a hand-writing; and no real poetic reader, put in a witness' box, could help stating, that the following lines were written by-B. .C]:TO THE SNOW-DROP. Pretty firstling of the year! Herald of the host of flowers! Hast thou left thy cavern drear In the hope of summer hours? Back unto thine earthen bowers! Back to thy warm mould below, Till the strength of suns and showers Quell the now relentless snow. -Art still here ?-Alive? and blythe? B. C. DANCING GIRL, REPOSING. After one of Canova's three Statues of Dancing Girls. BY T. K. HERVEY. THERE is a shadow in her eye, The first of these statues, representing the Dancing Girl, in action, has been engraved in the first number of The Gems of Modern Sculpture,' where it is illustrated by some lines-the idea of which is intended to be here continued. + Persons accustomed to vocal harmony need not be told how difficult it is, during the whole of a piece, to keep the voice up to the pitch at which it was begun. If the pitch be regulated, at the commencement of the That darken from the light they fling, THE FULFILMENT OF A DREAM. FROM THE IRISH OF TOM FINNARTY, THE CAB-DRIVER. I can never forget the last of those memorable days of July, when the sun, as if to make amends for his cold treatment of us at other times, poured down on the metropolis, all at once, a flood of unindurable heat. The streets were as silent as the squares-the Strand was, comparatively, a desert. For five hours there was the stillness of desola tion around me; if I except a few unprofitables, hurrying to the recesses of Somerset House, or the rookeries of the Temple. The last of these days threatened to be the last of mine. Fresh from old Ireland, and scant of money, without a plat of green grass or a drink of clean water within miles of me, a feverish despondency came over me. It was just three o'clock, p.m. on the 31st,—I am positive as to the day and hour, having committed a memorandum thereof to the safe keeping of my mother's Bible, which has been treasured for years at the bottom of her oaken chest, and never molested by any one but myself, and for the purpose just mentioned; well, on the day and date aforesaid, I, Tom Finnarty, was seated on the dicky of my cab, as patient as a saint, opposite the soda-water warehouse, facing Catherine Street; I had not had a fare all that day, and but one on the day preceding-a fine fat crown-piece given by a member of Parliament, for such I judged him to be, from the gentility of his behaviour, and the nate grammar of his conversation. After braving the heat for hours, I was fairly worsted, and compelled to take shelter under the hood of my cab. Three had just tolled on St. Clement's, when it was my accursed fate to descry, at a considerable distance, a stout little man carrying a large blue bag, containing something more ponderous than is usually entrusted to the keeping of frail gambroon or worsted. This bag he kept swinging from one hand to the other, clanking it, as if by accident, against the shins of all who were not aware of his approach; and, after this grievous fashion, he threaded his way towards me. I could not but wonder at the bold daring of the queer little fellow: he was a strange ungain brute-his broad shoulders out of all proportion to his wizen body-he looked as if he had been put together of illassorted members, and, like the droll formations of a Christmas pantomime. But what amazed me most was, that the little ugly creature appeared, from the first moment I saw him, to be hailing my cab. It was verily so. As he drew near, he fixed his black eye intently upon me. I shuddered by the Virgin, I, Tom Finnarty, did shudder at the thought of polluting my cab with such a strange-looking animal. I took no notice of him; though eager and panting for a fare, I would rather have carried a living shark, turtle, or sea monster, or a man diseased performance, by an instrument, and the key-note be again struck at its close, it will be almost always found that the voices have fallen, more or less, during its progress. with the cholera, than this odious creature. I feigned sleep-I pretended to be drunk; but all to no purpose. He roared out in the silent street, "Halloo, Tom Finnarty, no tricks upon travellers. You are neither sleeping nor drunk. I know you, man-I know your mother, and I know your oaken chest, and your Bible, wherein you keep your memorandums." Burning with shame at this remarkable disclosure, and devoutly crossing myself, I hurried to receive his detested body within my vehicle. Whereupon, summoning my resolution, I asked, with a subdued voice, Where to, Sir? "Straight forward," was the answer. The malicious devil, seeing my confusion and shame, dashed down the hood of my cab, and cast a proud glare of defiance at the bright and burning sun. He then commenced a series of extravagancies, the most remarkable in the records of cab-driving. He took a sort of canister out of his gambroon bag, and amused himself like a juggler, with tossing it on high, and catching it in its descent, to the amusement of every spectator, but to my extreme terror and astonishment. The clang it made, every time it fell into his iron fist, was indescribable. The noise and the laughter of the people only added to his outrageous mirth. At Charing Cross, though mortally perplexed and terrified, I ventured to repeat the question, Where to, Sir? "Straight forward," he cried, with a horrid chuckle; and, thereupon, pulled out of the blue bag a massy silver divider, and, holding the canister by a little handle, he would one time twirl it aloft like a tamborine, then rattle it with as much ease as if it were a dice-box; at another, he would make it ring louder than a Chinese gong, by banging it with the divider, which he would then flourish about his head after the manner of a bass-drummer. On passing the Opera House-I know not whether the sight of it suggested the idea of music, but he broke out into a song or yell in some savage tongue, not a whit daunted by the respectability of the West End. He sang vociferously, often cracking his voice into a howl; the burthen I remember well, from the frequency of its repetition, and from the furious dashing of the divider against the canister, exactly at every syllable-a precision which, I do believe, drove it through my ears, to take its everlasting seat in my memory:— Janga boonga wanga loo Koomaloo, woomaloo, kom coo coo. To me all this was appalling. To him and to others it appeared rare fun; but I determined to put a speedy conclusion to it at all risks, and to convey the madman, fool, felon, or juggler, no farther than the top of St. James's Street. On arriving there, I run but he no sooner observed my purpose, than, my horse suddenly close to the pavement; with a terrific crash on the accursed canister, accompanied as if with the screams of twenty eagles, or the hallooings of a hundred hungry cannibals, he roared out "Straight forward, Tom Finnarty," and my horse started forward in a fright, which required more steadiness than I was master of to control. Shopkeepers now crowded to their doors and windows-the boys hooted and cheered-the monster twirled and jangled his cannister, and sung with tenfold fury. We scoured past St. James's Church, and to a certainty should have been driven, horse, cab, canister, and ! all, into the shop of Mr. Hamlet, the silver- The reporters stared-they had lost a capi- In this way, turning and returning, we tra- sooner had we passed through Gloucester up To me, who knew the sole cause of this most ludicrous panic, the whole scene became the subject of overwhelming mirth. The creature within my cab was, all this while, dandling his canister on his knee, and chuckling joyously at the effect produced by his inimitable powers, and I was now for the last time ordered "Straight forward" but with a voice far more gainly than on any previous occasion. I began, indeed, to like my gentleman amazingly. The garden scene had touched the key of a faculty which he possessed in perfection, and which he forthwith began to display. One time was heard the barking of a mastiff, with the grunting of a frightened sow and her litter-sounds which brought to my, remembrance the domestic decencies of our old cabin in dear Ireland. At another time one would have sworn that I had behind me a coop of discontented turkeys, indignant peacocks, rebellious geese and ratiocinating drakes-all huddled togetherconversing and wrangling after their accustomed fashion. In a rapture of satisfaction at the amazement of the pedestrians, I would now and then cry out "Encore, encore !" which I judged, from his chuckling laugh, took with him exceedingly. In this manner we progressed through nearly every street in wide Marybone. At length we crossed Oxford Street, and into Grosvenor Square. Here the order was not "Straight forward," but "Round and round." I do not know what kind of spirit or fancy possessed him in this particular place, but he commenced a most miraculous imitation of at least twenty different speakers. He was a portable debating club-and I made it a point of duty, at every fall of his voice, lustily to exclaim "Hear-hear!" The singularity of our progress and exhibition, in process of time, lined the square round and round. Seventyyear-old housekeepers, and sexagenarian rosy-faced gouty porters (footmen were in the country) stood at their respective doors. Some would exclaim, "Mercy on me! that is my master's voice;" and "that is mine's" another would say. It was now dusk. We travelled three and thirty times round the square, by which time he became exhausted, and had, apparently, nothing farther to say either pro or con. My head was becoming giddy with the continual circularity of our course; and my little horse, as if ashamed of this incomprehensible tramping, made a dead halt. Hereupon I again felt the hand of my customer in my pocket. It was to deposit therein another sovereign. He then discharged me in due form, and as becomingly as any Christian, begging at the same time that I would direct him the nearest road to Richmond. Before I could answer, or even wonder at such a question, at such a time of day, and after such a route, I was shaken, as if by the arm of a giant; and a voice came streaming into my ear like the rushing of a mighty cataract, "Ahoy, Finnarty, a fare-a long fare; you have been in the Land of Nod for the last half hour." So I had. But guess what my fare was: Mr.- -the tipsy silversmith, with a beauteous silver tea vase, in a the mimic, promising blue bag, and Mr. a sovereign each, if I drove them expeA. ditiously to Richmond Hill. A THOUGHT FOR THE NEW YEAR. THE Future!-who can tell of thee? For fane or household hearth- That waits upon thy path? The very herds-boy stops his song, And thou wilt come-and some shall know By the gray hair upon their brow, Or the chill at their heart; |