those of Landor and Lamb, but a certain fresh- | among the Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life ness and spirit such as is exhaled from a pleasant morning or an enjoyable comrade. These are the very qualities essential to the kind of literature in which he excelled, and with the pathos for which he is equally remarkable, afford the "consummation most devoutly to be wished" by the caterer for immediate literary taste. We ascribe their coincidence in him to an unusual endowment of two sources of effect seldom united in the same characters-animal spirits and morals ensibility; the one giving vitality and the other tenderness. His broad shoulders and muscular frame, his once profuse and golden hair, his tall figure, and eye that sparkles with joy and melts with unshed tears, and his solemnly earnest or playfully accented voice, make the man Wilson fitly represent the healthful side of authorship, so often lost in "a pale cast of thought," or that derangement of the animal economy that induces morbid sensitiveness or acrid misanthropy. With Christopher North, literature seems a natural and most pleasing exercise of the faculties, as instinctively pursued as talking or singing, a ramble or a reverie. It differs with him from its more artificial development, as do the waters of a canal and those of a natural spring-the one serviceably bounded and the other gushing at their own sweet will. A dash of the impetuous, indeed, is characteristic of his temperament. He seems to write all his good things in a glow; he makes one lucky spring and has not the patience nor the fastidiousness to polish and modify. His pen, like his feet, moves with alacrity; his chirography being rough and careless. There is a manly directness and a buoyant self-confidence in his style as well as his gait and air, which, though repulsive when against, is delightful when with us. This gives a peculiar sting to his sarcasm and a unity to his sentiment; it is rather the egotism of feeling than judgment, and makes his expression vigorous and touching. Accordingly we often, even when indignant at the fervidity of the author, feel that the heart of the man is noble; and the candid intensity of his appreciation of beauty and truth softens our resentment at the bigotry of his anathemas.

-as the sympathetic recorder of Margaret Lyndsay's trials, or the "Foresters"-in his earlier poetic effusions, and in the most kindly vein of his criticism-that we meet Christopher North with unalloyed pleasure. Here, away from the din of sectarian warfare, amid the tranquil scenes of domestic life, or the picturesque beauty of nature, his better feelings awaken, and utter themselves in rare melody. Seldom has the "low sad music of humanity" found a more sweet interpreter. By a kind of psychological sympathy he seems to enter into the very tone of feeling—the spirit of a landscape or the atmosphere of a household-and reproduce them not only to our perceptions but almost to our sensations. In his near, gentle, and serious dealing with grief and love, with piety and sentiment, he touches the same chord which our own Dana and Hawthorne have caused to vibrate. A national tint, lasting as the heather of her mountains, characterizes his pictures of humble life in Scotland; and the glow of a healthy enthusiasm keeps fresh his loving comments on the passing literature and contemporary poets.

The opinions of such an author, however, are always to be reconsidered, and to be taken with allowance. It is, therefore, in the more peaceful and happy fields of literary art-it is

Few writers are more indebted to convivial tastes for their success; not even Moore or Dickens, both of whom, in quite different ways, know how to impart the flavour of a banquet so as to tickle the very palate of the reader. Wilson undertook to introduce into print the spirit of table-talk; viands are mixed up with metaphors, poetical quotations with the odour of mountain dew; Bacchus and Minerva confabulate amicably, and the waters of Helicon blend with the juices of nectar. This double zest, physical and intellectual, this combined feast of material and etherial good things, gave to the Noctes Ambrosiane their exceeding popularity. Their alternate thoughtfulness and joviality, the vivid scintillations of wit and fancy, the curious simplicity, goodfellowship, and wisdom they unfold, and the contrasted attraction of poetic shepherd and genial scholar, tended, in a great degree, to infuse into periodical literature a frank, personal, and therefore social tone. These conversations, however, are quite unequal, as their consecutive perusal in a book form will convince the most skeptical; but in passages these may be confidently quoted as among the most pleasing realities of literature.

A CHRISTMAS BALLAD,

OF PROVIDENCE AND THE EMPEROR.

BY THE REV. ROBERT DAVIDSON, D. D.

ESTELLA TO HER LOVER.

BY MRS. SARAH T. BOLTON.

A YEAR AT AMBLESIDE.

DECEMBER.

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

has its own interest. In such weather, all is clear below the cloud-canopy, which seems indeed shut down like a firmament. There is no mist upon the meadows, nor wet in the roads; and if it were light enough to see the mountains, they would be seen with a clear outline. The smoke from the nearest chimney goes straight up. The dead leaf on the spray, suspended by a single dry fibre, hangs as still as if it were in a vacuum. But if there is no motion, there are more sounds than usual,— every one being reverberated as in a vault. The rooks, flying from their nests to feed in the meadows, make a prodigious noise. The robin in the path seems desperately in earnest, from the loudness of his twitter; and so does the far-off cock, crowing to rouse his little world. Most wonderful then is the church clock, or the passing bell, the solemn tone, so seldom heard thus far, coming clear and full through the still air. Such weather is the time for extending one's walk to the heaths, which may soon become too boggy for winter walking. The furze still scatters its golden blossoms over the most dreary spots; the

"THE lakes in winter!" exclaim our southern, is neither star nor storm, but still cloudinessrelations and friends, with a shrug or shudder which conveys compassion, and a sort of contempt. They do not understand us when we say that the winter is the season that we best love. We should not perhaps say that the month of December is our favourite month; and we admit that the quietude of our valley in winter has as much to do with our pleasure as the beauty but, take everything together, it is the dearest time of year to us. As for me, I stand up for the beauty of the season here, in comparison with the midland counties. My early walk is now charming. It is a bright thought to me when, waking in the morning, I know what o'clock it is before striking the lucifer match by my bedside. It is six, or a few minutes after. Sometimes, I will not let myself look what the weather is till I am dressed, and must decide how much to wrap up. If it is gusty and rainy, it tells its own story upon the window-panes. If all is still, I draw back the window-curtains in a sort of suspense, generally, however, having some notion of the state of the weather from the feel of my cold bath. If the stars are bright, one's heart dances. Perhaps there is a frag-plover whistles in the dry places, and in the ment of moon hanging over Wansfell,-the last gibbous symbol of the month: and if so, I cross the meadow to have the golden spectacle before me from the other side of the valley. As I cross the little bridge, I cannot but stand a minute to see how the morning star looks in the water below,-whether still as a duplicate planet, or shivered into silvery fragments by ripple or gush, according as there has lately been rain or drought. Sometimes I almost think I like the stormy mornings as well. To struggle on against wind and splashing rain, in a thoroughly waterproof dress, is really pleasurable when it happens in the morning, when one has no fear of being benighted, when one is unfatigued, and is going home to breakfast by a bright fireside. How cheerful looks the breakfast-table by firelight, the daylight strengthening every minute, and one's whole frame in a glow from exercise, and one's mind all awake for the work of the day! The third case in regard to weather-that in which there

marshy ones the snipe may be seen balancing
itself upon a bulrush. Every village has its
sportsman; and here one may be sure of meet-
ing one's armed neighbours, as eager now for
snipe as they were, and will be again, for trout
in June. In passing the copse, on my way
home, I may catch a note, here and there,
somewhat sad, of the thrush.
In more open
countries, the larks may now be heard, not
singing, but in confabulation: but we have no
larks. Those who have the privilege of living
in valleys with rock boundaries, fit to contain
eyries, must be content to forego something
that is enjoyed in less beautiful places; and
what we have to forego is the presence and
song of the lark, and of some other small
singing birds. What we have instead is the
spectacle, seen from a mountain-peak, of the
dun hawk, sailing or wheeling a little way
below, about to swoop, perhaps, upon the
chickens in one's own fowl-yard. A few miles
away, where the ridges subside into open plains,

the larks live in the furrows, as in the south; but in proportion as we approach the great rocky centre of the district, with its deep ravines and small alluvial basins, the smaller birds give place to the hawk, the buzzard, and the raven; and, within this century, the eagle. The romance of the ancient eyries has passed away. The shepherds are no longer driven desperate by the loss of their lambs, so as to risk life and limb in scaling the crags, as they used to do in Borrowdale and Eskdale. No heroic dalesman now stands out from among his fellows, in the yearly enterprise of robbing the eyrie, as long as the old birds cannot be reached. Such a hero was a great man in his day; and all the people of the dale would come to hear his story of what the eyry was like; and what a strewing of bones (bones of lambs and fowls) he found there; and how fierce were the young, so that he had to kill them, instead of bringing them down alive for a show, as he had intended. If he made the attack somewhat earlier, so as to bring away the eggs, he had, from every neighbouring shepherd, five shillings for every egg: a price which, considering the value of money in those days, proves how mischievous a foe was the eagle. No more than two eggs, however, were found at one time. Nobody undertakes positively to declare that no one pair of eagles is left in the district, but I imagine such is the fact.

the traditions of the place. He can show the spot where the remains of a buried village were seen at the beginning of the last century; and others where it is conjectured that several villages stood which are named in Domesday Book, but of which no vestige remains. As the guide leads the way on a clear day, winding among shifting sands and changing channels, showing how safe all is made by the poles which are erected here, and the furze bushes stuck in there, it is all very pleasant, amidst the freshness of the sea-breeze, and the spectacle of the lights and shadows on the screen of mountains round. The sense of insecurity no doubt heightens the charm. But very different is it when the wind changes suddenly to the southwest, hastening in the tide,-even heaping up the waters below; or when a firm bank is discovered to have become a quicksand; or when the poles have disappeared; or, worst of all, when a fog comes on. Then it occurs to the traveller what dead are about him, and, perhaps, under his feet. He remembers the story told by Gray, the poet, in his letters from his lake tour:-how an old fisherman in his cart, with two grown-up daughters, and the old wife on a horse, set off to cross the sands, which they knew as well as any of us know our own neighbourhood: how a fog came on, and the water rose under their horses' feet: how the old man would go a little Mr. Wordsworth's last view of one was way to see, and did not come back: how the prior to 1813. There are rumours every year wife would not be persuaded to leave the spot, of one having been seen here or there; but the but wandered about bewildered: how, when at romance of that kind of warfare is as com- last they turned back, and trusted to their pletely over as that of the Border wars. An- horses, it was too late, and the old woman was other romance is dissolving from year to year, washed away, and the girls saved only by the and will soon be heard of only as matter of horse actually swimming with the cart, in the history, like the buried villages in Morecambe strong instinct of self-preservation: and how Bay: the passage of that same bay by the the poor daughters were found, quite wild, sands. The two brisk rivers, the Ken and clinging to the cart, unable to tell their story the Lune, carry down soil, with which they for days afterwards: and how the ebb-tide told meet the seatide in the estuaries, so that the the story by leaving on the sands the bodies of area between Lancaster and Farness is in the old people. There are others to be recourse of being filled up; and a wide space is membered, too;-the three men who sank at left by the retiring tide, across which travel- one moment, in a soft part of the sands, where lers take their way, to save space and time. they had always found good footing before; They are finding, however, that the railway and the traveller who went down erect upon saves their time, without exposing them to the his horse, and who is buried somewhat like the dangers belonging to the Oversands Road, as it Indian chief in his mound on the Missouri;— is called. But the country-people cling to old only that the one is under the margin of the ways; and there are enough who still go by sea, and the other above the brink of the great the sands to turn our attention that way when river. It was only the other day that a counthe strong southwest winds of December blow tryman had a narrow escape, sinking up to the up the Channel, and drive the sea into the Bay. neck in a quicksand just before dusk. As it I believe there is still a coach which goes over happened, somebody saw his head, and saved seven miles of the sands at the safest hour:- him. Within an hour, the head would not an hour, of course, varying daily. But the have been remarked in the closing twilight. way to enjoy the transit most is by going with The guide used to be paid £10 a-year by the the guide, whose experience is greater than Prior of Cartmel: a large sum in ancient anybody's, and who can tell, by the way, all times, and much increased by presents from

pilgrims. The office was virtually hereditary, | storms, which almost blow the breath out of and, I believe, is so still. The payment has their bodies on the steeps, while sending down long been increased to £20 per annum, and it formidable slides of débris into the vales below. is now paid out of the Queen's revenues, she It is because the best slate is found near the being Duchess of Lancaster. In another gene- top, that these dangers are incurred; and the ration the office will probably be a sinecure. consequence is that we have among us a set of Meantime, when we have a strong southwest men capable of feats of strength, and an enwind blowing up from the Furness Fells, we durance of toil now rarely heard of elsewhere. think of the sands, and hope that no one may The most stalwart knight who ever came hither be crossing them. of old, with his full armour and battle-axe, to fight against the Scot, never carried a heavier weight, or did more wonders in a day, than these fine fellows. When two or three of them emigrated a year or two since, among a crowd of passengers from the manufacturing districts, the difference between the two sorts of training showed itself on their coming in sight of the mountain peaks of New Zealand. Not only did the low-country women, but their husbands from the towns and the plain, shed tears at the sight of what looked so terrific to them; they wept and wailed that they had ever been induced to come to places so wild. At the same time, the Westmoreland men were all spirit and joy,-refreshed by the sight of mountain crags after months of flat ocean, and not fearing about getting a living, if once in a mineral region. In this region, some of them live in slate-built hovels, many hundred feet aloft; while others ascend and descend many times between morning and night. Formerly the slate was carried down on hurdles, on men's backs; and the practice is still continued in some remote quarries, where the expense of conveyance by carts would be too great, or the roads do not admit of it. Thirty-two years ago, a man named Joseph Clark, made seventeen journeys, including seventeen miles of climbing and sharp descent, in one day, bringing down 10,880 pounds of slate. In ascending, he carried the hurdle weighing 80 pounds, and in descending, he brought each time 640 pounds of slate. At another time, he carried in three successive journeys, 1280 pounds each time. His greatest day's work was bringing 11,776 pounds. He lived three miles from his place of work, too. His toils did not appear to injure him; and he declared that he suffered only from thirst. It was believed in his day, that there was scarcely another man in the kingdom capable of sustaining such labour for a course of years. It appears, however, that the region has always been celebrated for cases of longevity and of bodily strength. When Kentmere Hall was built, Hugh Hird, a Troutbeck man, lifted a beam which ten of the workmen could not move; and when sent by Lord Dacre on a message to the King (I forget which king), he ate up a whole sheep for his dinner, in the presence of the royal household. They had let him order his own refreshment, and

There is as much romance as ever hanging about our slate-quarries. Here and there on the mountain sides, in every direction, are the black holes where harbour some of the liveliest interests of the region. Below these holes, and on each side, are the heaps and dangerous slopes of debris, which show the extent of the quarrying done within. The quantity required is immense. Not only are the floors of kitchens and cellars throughout the region laid with purple slate, but the whole ground-floor of all dwellings but those of the gentry; and the greenish slate which comes from Tilburthwaite is wanted universally for roofing; and large quantities are sent to a distance. The work goes on, summer and winter; and, fearful as some of it is in all seasons, in winter it is perhaps as perilous as any but seafaring employment. It almost takes one's breath away to look up, on the calmest summer day, at the dark, stupendous, almost perpendicular Honister Crag, where the clouds come to rest, and to see the quarrymen at work among the slate, looking like summer spiders, hanging quivering from the eaves of a house. In winter, what can they do among such blasts as come rushing among the peaks? They are liable to be puffed away as the spiders would be if you took the bellows to them. This last winter a man was blown like a straw, from the heights down to the rocks of the stream in the vale below. In some places where the slate is closely compacted, and presents endways a perpendicular surface, the quarryman sets about his work as if he were going after eagle's eggs. His comrades let him down by a rope from the precipice, and he tries for a footing on some ledge, where he may drive in wedges. The difficulty of this, where much of his strength must be employed in keeping his footing, may be conceived; and a great length of time must be occupied in loosening masses large enough to bear the fall without being dashed into useless pieces. In many places, however, the methods are improved; and the quarries are made accessible by roads admitting of the passage of strong carts. Still, the detaching of the slate, and the loading and conducting the carts, are laborious work enough to require and train a very athletic order of men; and there they are now, in hourly risk of December