toe, from head to foot, in a panoply of mud. I withdrew into the next friendly door-way, as well, indeed, to escape the public admiration, as to get rid of my superfluous envelope, to cast my slough, as, without a figure, I might truly say. By the volumes of fragrant smoke which mounted through the area and as saulted their proper sense, I quickly perceived that it was a house of entertainment which I had gotten into; wherefore, as you are aware how exact I am in proportioning all my acts to existing circumstances,-in return for the complaisance of the landlady who had generously accommodated me with a napkin of about the same complexion and condition with my own "sad-coloured" suit, I ordered a draught of her best home-brewed (which, to do her justice, she had. fervently recommended to my patronage), and retired into an inner apartment to finish my toilet. Now, I must give you a little insight into the topography of this apartment. It was a corner, about the size of a moderate modern triangular cravat, cut off from the principal and oblong room of entertain ment. Could Monsieur d'Anville describe it better? No: though that infallible geographer, who may be said to have taken off the face of Mother Earth with a silhouette, had told you the latitude and longitude of its three angles, to the breadth of one of your own golden hairs. Well. This little apartment, most probably designed as a kind of spyhole or observatory, from whence the mistress of the house might see, and hear (for the partition was of wood), all that was going on in the larger room, was obscurely lighted by a small window looking into the said room. Peeping through this window, which was cautiously provided with a thin gauzy blind so as to permit and yet prevent sight, I surveyed the outer apartment, where I could discern but two solitary guests. Imagine my surprise, when, in one of these, I recognized no less a personage than Domine Diogenes himself, who was seated at a small table in the darkest and most unsocial corner of the room, in fact, just under the window through which I was gaping. There was a cloth, knife and fork, with the remaining apparatus indica tive of dinner, upon the table. The 3 misanthrope himself, as he presented me a side-view of his incomparable phyz, sat much less like Patience on a monument, than Impatience in an elbow-chair; by the quick and ceaseless tapping (commonly called the Devil's Minuet), which his toe kept upon the floor, one would have thought he expected a giant or a dwarf to rise out of the cellar with an enchanted beefsteak on his head. He neither called, nor pulled, however, nor stampt, nor swore,-but continued looking straight and steadfastly into the bright-red fire, which by its neighbourhood had already visibly improved the rubicundity of his nose, and lent his eyes a still fiercer lustre, as he sat chewing the cud of bitterness and gall in silence before it. On the opposite side of the hearth, stood a woman about thirty years of age, who had apparently suffered by the inclemency of the morning. She was clad in decent remnants,. but looked pale, sorrowstricken, and completely worn with fatigue or misery. The deep lines of a countenance, which had once been a fine one of the Magdalene cast, told that the weighty chisel of Care, or of Sorrow, had long been employed in defacing the handy-work of Nature. It was a countenance, which, though far from what might be called severe, had been apparently so fixed in habitual gloom by Disappointment, that Hope could never again light it up into a smile. At least, so I conjectured. When the Cynic's dinner came in, a substantial beefsteak (borne however by a mere, mortal, snail-paced serving-man), of considerable surface and dimensions, I thought I could see in the poor Wanderer's face that she had breakfasted with the birds, that day at least,-perhaps had not broken her fast for a much longer time. You will, no doubt, my dear Mary, give me credit for intentional charity upon this occasion, and I was just considering how I should put it in practice with the greatest delicacy to her feelings (for I saw, she had feelings), when the Misanthrope, who had as. yet sedulously avoided taking notice of his companion, looking up at her with a visage all radiant and enflamed, as she decently averted her eyes from his table, said in a voice of inexpressible tenderness and compassion,-Come-hither, child! and share with me: here is no one to disturb you, and there is enough for both of us." Come," said he, perceiving her unwillingness (some remains of pride, perhaps, which poverty had not quite extinguished), “Come, come, I have ere this felt sorrow such as yours, and have my self been beholden to a stranger." He got up from his seat, and gently drew her to his table. Had he poured out the whole vial of his acrimonious spirit upon me, I should have forgiven him from that moment. I will not go on with the rest of this story. Suffice it to say that the Wanderer was relieved, and the Cynic and I walked back to the inn together. At this season of the year, travel ling by the stage is not a very interesting occupation. Stiffening pieces of water through which the coachwheels crackle every now and then, a wiry hedge with little birds ruffling their plumage about their necks, and hopping incessantly through the bare branches to keep themselves warm, cottages and houses throwing their wide window-eyes over a bleak expanse of cold n fields or crumbling up-turned furrows, amuse the traveller with a plentiful variety of sameness; or if he surveys his live stock of scenery, he will confess, perhaps, that peasants with heavenlyblue noses and frost-bitten faces, an occasional dog shivering at his master's heels, and a few draggled sheep baaing on the tops of the ditches, make up a piece of picturesque, very natural to these countries, without doubt, but beautiful nowhere. Nature, even undeformed nature, is, therefore not always a test of beauty, as many of our theorists, who contend so zealously for nature in poetry, will have it to be. In my mind, those who write poetry, as I may say, in a smock-frock, and think they never can be too natural, but that a fac-simile of reality, however uninteresting the subject may be, is there fore beautiful because it is true-the Tenierses and Morlands of poetry, in my mind, are as far from attaining beauty in their delineations of nature stark-naked and unsophisticated, as those who write in the "classical taste" of Queen Anne's reign, without any view to nature at all. The truth is, to set this much-misunderJAN. 1824. stood, much-mystified matter in its proper light,-poetical beauty consists in this, videlicet Where upon earth, my dear Richard, are you rambling? What has a simple girl like me, to do with your logical definitions (for I see by your magnificent exordium you are about one)? I know, already, what pleases me in poetry; that I call beautiful, and I want no one to bewilder me with distinctions and definitions, till I am afraid to admire what I can't help liking, lest I should be pleased, perhaps, at the wrong place. The girl is right, I protest!-not a word more about nature or beauty. Besides, indeed, the theory is now pretty well exploded: we begin now to see that for a poetical description to be beautiful, it is not enough that it be merely true to nature; it must also-Again?-I'm dumb! as Calista says, Dumb for ever, silent as the grave, that is, upon paper, and this subject. No: had you the sagacity of Newton, the wisdom of Solomon, the wit of Boileau, the subtilty of Aristotle, the judgment of Bacon, the fancy of Plato, or the imagination of Shakspeare, nay, all these divine faculties accumulated in your head together, you could not possibly tell or conceive-how excessively fatigued I was when I arrived in London. And yet,-where do you think I walked after all? I would grant you the above-mentioned sagacity, wisdom, wit, subtilty, judgment, fancy, imagination, and superadd, moreover, the cunning of Edipus, together with the prophetic spirit of Trophonius or the Pythian priestess; give you three days and three answers; yet you should not tell me where, fatigued as I was, I walked immediately upon alighting at the London caravansera about six o'clock in the evening. To the theatre?-No. To your friend Helvyn's?-No. To-to-to where, in the name of wonder?—Straight to bed. Ah! you foolish fellow! Straight to bed: as fast as two indifferent weary legs, and as straight as about a dozen ins-and-outs, double that complement of zig-zag passages, serpentine staircases and meandering corridores without end or number, through which the chambermaid of the caravansera conducted her credu F lous protegé, permitted him (that's me) to go. Straight to bed, I'll assure you; and there (O that I live to tell it!), fell dead asleep before I well knew what I was about. "Tis a fact, as I'm an honest sinner! Fell fast asleep-a singular coincidence, you will perceive, with what we are told of "little Bo-peep"and slept! Di Immortales, with what energy I did sleep! Slept quite as sound, though not altogether as long, as the Seven Sleepers. Ah! dear Richard, who were the Seven Sleepers? I have often and often heard the phrase, yet I never could find any one who was able to explain to me the origin of it. That, my good girl, was because you never asked me. This is the STORY of the SEVEN SLEEPERS. (By the by, your friends must be all a pretty set of ignoramuses; for any one who chooses to take the trouble of looking into Gregorius Turonensis de Gloria Martyrum, or the Greek Acts of Martyrdom apud Photium, or even the Annals of the patriarch Eutychius, will find the story written down there in black and white, as plain as a parcel of pea-rods.) Ah! go on; don't preach! When the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly secured with a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty. seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice: the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they thought, of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to the city, to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth (if we may still employ that appellation) could no longer recognize the once familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprise was increased by the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal gate of Ephesus. Observe: Paganism had been almost universally supplanted by Christianity, during the interval of this miraculous slumber. His singular dress and obsolete lanoffered an ancient medal of Decius as the guage, confounded the baker, to whom he current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mu tual inquiries produced the amazing discovery, that two centuries were almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, as it is said, the emperor Theodosius himself, hastened who bestowed their benediction, related to visit the cavern of the Seven Sleepers; their story, and at the same instant peaceably expired. Gibbon. Decline and Fall, chap. 33. Mahomet got hold of this ecclesiastical legend, and transplanted it into his Koran, with some alterations and embellishments. He introduced an eighth personage into the sleepy cavern, a dog (Al Rakim, as the Arahis course twice a-day, that he might bian has it). He made the sun alter shine into the cave; which, however, I suspect, was rather above the sun's thumb to accomplish, seeing that the entrance was stopped up,unless, indeed, he had a secret cranny of his own, through which he could shine, in the dark, as it were. prophet of Mecca, also, had but an imperfect idea of secondary causes, when he attributed to Alla himself the care of turning the seven sleeping bodies to the right and left, in order to preserve them from putrefaction. The My paper is out, and, I suppose, so is your patience. So no more at present, but-Remember me to all at home. Their dear shades are now sitting before me, and I sometimes think they speak-yet I am silent and alone. My mother is coming into my eyes.-Adieu ! Yours, &c. (You know I hate protestations and love-lettering), RICHARD CHATTERTON. ANOTHER BODE FOR BODENTON, An alms-fed fool stood by the churchyard wall, Towards the twilight of a fine summer day, two travellers happened to meet at the junction of two roads, which, approaching a river bank, over a large extent of brown moorland, united into one broad and even way, winding southwards along the woody margin of the stream. The travellers seemed, indeed, of an humble condition in life; their clothes were patched and darned; their mantles were of many colours, and fringed and tasselled by time and long service; and wallets of raven ous or modest dimensions hung on all sides equal to the most generous or most limited exercise of charity. They were of that portion of the community who wander from house to hall, soliciting compassion by a tale of pity. By sorrowful looks and with some skill in telling for tunes, and some sleight of hand, when linen lay thick on the hedges, and hens sat quiet on their roosts, they contrived to pick up a modest subsistence. They had, it is true, neither house, nor hall, nor home; and, as they were not of England, they had not the good fortune to have a parish; yet they had pleasures of their own, and joys peculiar to their community. Their mirth was furious, their songs boisterous, and their laughter loud, when they held carousal in their haunts and howffs in the merry little suburb of Dumfries-now performing penance for all its slips of indecorum, under the reputable name of Maxwelltown. denton. The door of Pate Murray my body shall never darken. He never gave, and mickle he took-ye may find junipers on furze bushes, and pearls in a peat-pot, and yet no find a gowpin of grotts, or a handful of husky meal in all the misers ha". I wish I were an elfcandle for his sake, I would make gowden light dance between his rafters." " I think the woman's wude," said her companion; "wot ye not that old Johnnie Grip-the-gear's gane? the haill country-side rung with the din of his dredgie, sax lang months syne. Three nights and three days did the gallant carousal last. We had short graces and long meals-brief prayers and deep drinks-small moan and mickle mirth: and who was blyther than his own niece-heiress now nae less-Mall Moffatt by name. There's lights in every window now, and gold seeing sun and wind that was in darkness for fifty long years, and a fat reek coming out at the chimneyhead, in whilk ane might make dippit candles.. Bodenton's a blythe bit now, lass, for a beggar bodie; and ye mauna say aught ungracious of the auld laird either-he did a good deed at last he died-and left a mortcloth to the kirk, and a crape to the bedral's hat. He never was the same man after the great fall in the price of wool; he had a sore cough from the time he lost so much at the Lockaby Lamb-fair, and a shortness of breath after the Roodsmass; when mugg-wool was nae marketable." They seated themselves on either "What!" exclaimed the other, side of a mile-stone, and ranged their " and is Mall Moffatt lady of Bowallets in order round. With eager denton? Ah! the fortunate quean; looks, and with many shakings of the better be born lucky than lovely. I head, they entered into conversation, never had faith in the proverb till and seemed to be seeking to solve now: nature with her hue of roses some professional problem. "I'll and lilies may be gone; gold and siltell ye, lass," said one, the youngest ver's a sweeter complexion. And and tallest ; "it's waste of time, and Mall Moffatt is heiress of Bodenton wear of shoon, to seek alms at Bo-bonnie Bodenton! Heigh, Sirs, what gowks may be born to, as the cuckoo said to the fowler, who tamed her for a falcon. Her mother was mair than suspected with Gib Gordon, of the Gooseplatt; and monie a day carried clouted kettles and horn spoons to auld Willie Marshall, of Manderton. And her daughter's heiress of Bodenton! what maun come to me, a bailie's daughter of the good town of Lochmaben, when fortune's sae kind to my inferiors." "Aye," said her comrade; "I mind her when she wore a sark sax threads to the pund, and her best gown was of her ain spinning-a kind of a yellow -she'll rustle it now in goodly gear, I'll warrant, with a bunch of keys at her belt, and maidens to beck at her bidding. Let us go to Bodenton, Meg, my wench, and see how the new heiress sets her hood; and, if we dinna get a warm hearth, a cozie supper, and clean sacks o'er a soft bed of ait straw-she shall hear some queer stories." And rising as they came to this resolution, they invested themselves in their professional gear, and set their faces towards Bodenton; which, half seen, half hid among woody knolls, and scattered trees, might be half a mile distant. They had advanced but little on their way, when the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard behind them, and the mingled laughter of many lips. "I'll hold all the grotts in my Little makefen," said the youngest, "against all the meal in thy pouch apron, that here comes a batch of Wooester lads to the heiress of Bodenton;" and stepping out of the road, they awaited the approach of the strangers. Three young men well mounted presently advanced; and jealous of precedence, they rode all abreast, like an outpost of dragoons. Yonder's the bower of Bodenton," said one," and the bonny acres about it; three roods of arable, to seventeen hundred acres of moss and moor; a noble inheritance abounding in peat and ling, and other luxuries. O! for a cannie hour in the twilight; and some soft and sensible words to make a man with a borrowed horse, and unpaid spatter-dashes, laird of bonny Bodenton." "A borrowed horse, man," said the second rider; "if ye had half the number of horses my uncle gives away, ye would not need 66 to borrow while ye breathed. Have ye ever seen the holms of Haughshinnel, man? there ye'll see the fairest horses in the wide earth. This is one of them I ride on. Only see what a sweeping tail, and what a flowing mane-the foam of his lips lies on a silver bit-the mouths of Haughshinnel's horses were never poisoned with rusty iron." "Yes," said the first rider, a smart and a for-* ward youth; " and its mouth has never tasted corn either—a ragged colt caught wild on a wilder hillwith mane unpruned, and tail uncut, the bit lying in chewed grass-its fetlocks full of filth, and its tail straggling among the mud. And so rides the heir of Haughshinnel to woo the bonnie lass of Bodenton." "I would have ye," said the third rider, a brawny well-set youth, with a blue eye, and an aquiline nose, and a heavy-headed whip in his hand; "I would have ye, lad, to speak sparingly of country gear, seeing ye bestride such a singular piece of horseflesh yourself. A cut set tail, and a clipped mane, pruned fetlocks, and cropt ears-is there nae jougg's or hangman's whip in your town, for those who mutilate and maim God's four-footed creatures? May seventeen hack horses ride over me at a heat, if I would expose myself on the outside of such a machine as that. Would ye be wiser than nature? What's so fair as a steed snorting foam-its mane dancing on the breeze its tail streaming behind, and a lad on its back, who sits as if he were born on the bit, and who has a tongue to wile, and the luck to win, sae fair a lass as the heiress of Bodenton?" And setting spurs to his horse as he spoke, away he went, followed by his companions; there was smart whipping, and sharp spurring; and the grassy turf and disturbed pebbles flew out behind. But fortune is not always won by speed of foot. "Have a care of us," said one of the old cummers, as the three companions dashed past; "if one of thae lads has luck in his wooing, the bonnie bowers of Bodenton will soon seek a new master. It's ill Frank-o-Kirktown; he who drinks sax days in the week for the sake of keeping sober on Sunday. His uncle left him siller bound in sicker trust-sax |