of sound I could occasionally hear a detached sentence on politics on the theatres-on agriculture-on the late rainy weather-the price of stocks-soft goods—and the petitions of the Roman Catholics. A knot in one corner were discussing supper; others, lounging beside the hearth, toasted their toes; while a third, and more numerous party, half concealed amid puffy exhalations, washed down the flavour of their Havannahs with steaming savoury rum-punch. Being somewhat fatigued, and the assemblage not exactly quite to my taste, I tossed off a sneaker, and rang for Boots,-that indispensable actor of all drudgery work at your public establishments for board and lodging.

Mr Melville were shortly after thrown into disorder by unsuccessful speculations; and matters at length grew so bad as to involve bankruptcy and ruin. The old man was received into the country residence of a relation; but, brought up in habits of activity and business, his mind could not withstand the dread reverse; and, after a few listless months, one shock of palsy following an. other, hurried him off to a not unwelcome grave.

"The penniless and imprudent Henry soon found that he had wedded not only himself, but another, to misery, as the dark night of ruin closed around them. They were both young, and capable of exertion, but, living on the faith of future prospects, and a speedy reconcilement, they had contracted debts, from which they saw no possible way of extricating themselves. Matters grew worse and worse, and at length the poor fellow was afraid to

"In bustled a tall, thin, squalid, miserable-looking creature, his curly black hair seemingly long unkempt, hanging about his ears in most admired disorder.' His dress corresponded with his looks; his jacket and waist-leave his home from fear of bailiffs. coat were of dark fustian, and his trowsers, shabby and shrivelled, bore some traces of having been originally nankeen. Around his neck was twisted a blue cotton handkerchief, and the little of his linen seen, was not only ragged, but dirty. In one hand he carried a bootjack, and in the other a pair of slippers, while from under his arm depended a dingy towel, perhaps as a badge of office. I could not help thinking, as he crossed the room at my summons, here is a most lugubrious specimen of mortality; one of those night-hawks of society, whom it would scarcely be comfortable to meet with, unarmed, on a solitary road, towards the twilight.'

"With down-looking face, the fellow made a hurried approach to me, as if he had the feeling of his task being a disagreeable one, and the sooner got over the better. As he laid the slippers on the carpet, placed the bootjack at my foot, and was stooping his shoulder as a fulcrum for assistance in my operations, I caught a distinct glimpse of his faded features. I could not be mistaken. Good Heavens!' said I to myself half aloud, can it possibly be Harry Melville!'

"After the poor creature had shuffled out of the room in an agitation which did not wholly escape the remark, and provoke the idle laugh of some of the loungers, I hastily rang the bell, and was shown to my sleepingroom by the waiter, whom I requested to bid the person come up who had brought me my slippers.

"I was allowed to pace about for some time in a perplexed and downcast mood, haunted by many a recollection of departed pleasures-by many delightful associations of other years, which contrasted themselves with present dejection, when at length I heard a step timidly approaching the door, and a slight tap was given. I opened it eagerly, and there stood before me the same doleful apparition. I took hold of the poor fellow's hand, and led him to a chair; but no sooner was he seated, and the door shut upon us, than he put his hands over his face, and burst into a flood of tears. When he had become a little more tranquil, I soothed him in the best way I could, and ventured to open my mind to him.

"Oh! let me alone let me alone,' he said, sobbing bitterly. 'I have deserved my fate. My own imprudence, more than misfortune, has reduced me to the state Be not sorry for me; I am beneath your regard. I have deserved it all.'

you see.

"Having consoled him in the best manner I could, he voluntarily gave me the particulars of his history, which, as far as memory serves me, were nearly to the following effect:

"At length he fell into their hands, and was dragged to jail; and, on the news being incautiously carried to his young wife, she was seized with convulsions, and perished in giving birth to a child, not unfortunately dead. The heart of the miserable man was rent asunder on learning his domestic calamities; scorned and despised, friendless and unpitied, he beheld from the ironbound windows of his prison, the coffin that contained the remains of his wife and child, carried through the streets by strangers to the place of interment, while, yearning with the feelings of the husband and father, he was denied the mournful solace of shedding a tear into their grave.

"Condemned to the social contamination of the base and vile, he endured the wretchedness and the disgrace of confinement for two months, when he was set at liberty by the benefit of the act which so provides, on making oath of surrendering up every thing. Into the world, therefore, was he cast forth, branded and stigmatized, destitute, and beggared in every thing but the generous pride which withheld him from soliciting charity. Bred to no profession, he knew not whereanto to turn his hand; and misery pressed so hardly upon him, that unhallowed thoughts of suicide began to suggest themselves to his troubled mind. From town to town he wandered, soliciting the situation of clerk in any countinghouse; but, alas! he had no references to make as to character, no certificates of former engagements faithfully fulfilled. For days and days together, he had not even a morsel of bread to satisfy the pangs of hunger. To add to his wretchedness, his clothes had become so shabby, from exposure to wind and rain, and sunshine, that he was ashamed to be seen in public, or during daylight,—so lay about the fields and wastes till sunset, when he ventured nearer to human dwellings.

"To have offered himself for any situation in such a squalid condition, would have been certain exposure to contumely, refusal, and suspicion; and at length the lingering rays of pride which had hitherto sustained him, sank amid the darkness of his destiny.

66

Necessity is a stern teacher. Even the face of man, which he had sought to shun in his misfortunes, became to him at length a sufferance necessary to be borne; so, as he was at first thrust from, so was he at length drawn back to the dominion of society. From the moorland wastes, where he could pick a few wild berries, and from the seashore, which afforded some shellfish, he came, by degrees imperceptible but sure, to be a spectator at the corner of streets, and a hanger-on about stableyards, where he casually earned a few pence by assisting the grooms to carry water, or lead gentlemen's horses. Low is the lowest situation which admits not of promotion, and through course of time, my old schoolfellow came to be promoted to the office in which I found him."

"Poor fellow! did you ever hear what became of him afterwards?"

"Yes I did, and a miserable end he had, though redeemed by the spirit of humanity which prompted it.

the people to a state of privation and suffering quite unexampled. The earlier of the winters of those years were so intensely cold, that the unhouseled children of nature died in the fields, the birds dropped from the trees, and the smaller insects, such as flies, were nearly

He was killed in rescuing a child, which had fallen before the wheels of the mail-coach; and the grateful parents not only gave him a decent funeral, but erected a simple tablet over him, recording his fate, and their gratitude. "It is dreadful to think on the abyss into which a single erring step from the paths of prudence may pre-exterminated. The meagre crops of those years had to cipitate us," said I.

"Yes," answered my friend; "and there are a thousand ways of going wrong; while I defy you to go right save by one."

AN ORISON.

By Thomas Tod Stoddart.

Lost are the living stars

On yon blue welkin bright,

Far through the soundless vault of heaven
Folded in light!

For the cloud-breathing sun

Unbinds his amber tresses,

And the mountain brows are blushing blood
In his earliest caresses.

The dews, which twilight shed

Through earth's great censer, wing
Their golden flight from a thousand flowers,
The flowers of a fairy spring!

And the mossy-nested birds
Are marshall'd in the sky,

Striking the strings of Nature's lyre
In mirthful melody!

The sea is foaming gold

From his vases, far below,

In blossoms of pale coral wreathed-
Foliage of snow!

Beautiful, beautiful!

- Is the goodly sun uprisen,

Like a captive monarch to his throne,
From some far fortress-prison!

Wonderful, wonderful,

As heaven's great host, in night Stirring creation's pulses, through The awful infinite!

The heart of the Eternal throbs

Through thy immortal blaze,

Sun! that hath flooded back the stars

In the ocean of thy gaze!

And the night that shone with dreamy worlds
On its robe of grief-like hue,
Burst from thy golden bayonets, back
To the chaos where it grew!

THE DEAR YEARS.

By Robert Chambers.

IN former times, when Scotland was a poor, "halffed, half-clad, half-sarkit" country at the very best, and ere the maxims of political economy, and the wealth introduced by commerce, had as yet provided men with the means of obviating the effects of bad seasons, our population was subject to the most awful miseries, in the shape of famine, which sometimes lasted with more or less virulence for a course of years. The most severe calamity of this kind on record occurred at the meeting of the 17th and 18th centuries, when a series of bad crops, commencing in 1697, and not ending till 1704, reduced

be rescued from the snows of November and December
a species of labour which deprived many of the poor
working people of the use of their hands and feet. At
length the scarcity reached a height in 1700. The meal
was then sold at two shillings a-peck, a price which
placed it almost beyond the reach of the common people.
And not only was this great cardinal necessary of Scottish
domestic life elevated to such an exorbitant price, but it
was sometimes difficult to procure it at all. It is recorded,
that when women sometimes came to market, and found
that the whole disposable grain of the place had been
already disposed of, they would be seen clapping their
hands and tearing off their head-dresses, with the most
heart-rending exclamations of despair, knowing that they
would have nothing to put into the mouths of their
children for a number of days, unless succoured by the
charity of their neighbours.

Under such distressing circumstances, the affections of domestic life were very apt to disappear in the selfishness of individual misery. Honest Patrick Walker, the pious pamphleteer so much quoted in the "Heart of MidLothian," relates, that some declared they "could mind nothing but food, and were utterly unconcerned about their souls, whether they went to heaven or hell." Yet there were, no doubt, many instances, also, of mothers tearing the bite from their own disinterested mouths, to give it to their offspring,-of good hearts which could succour the deeper distress of friends, at the risk of their own destruction,-and of Christians who, regarding every evil in life as the infliction of an all-wise and unchallengeable Deity, would bear their pains with unbroken minds, and fulfil, till the very last, all the duties of a good life.

There lived in those days a certain bailie, in the town of Coldstream, whose descendant, in 1826, related to me the following anecdotes, which have been handed down by family tradition.

At one particular crisis of the famine, this goodman, though one of the wealthiest in the place, found it quite impossible to produce a meal for his children. The day had been spent entirely without food, and towards night the little creatures were getting so clamorous, that the parents despaired of seeing them fall asleep without something in the shape of supper. In this emergency, the bailie bethought him of a barrel of ale which had long lain in his cellar. But in the first place he called in the town-piper with his bagpipes. Having set this official to play a few merry tunes, the children all fell a-dancing, and he then supplied them each with a little of the ale, the piper included. Under this double influence of music and drink, the poor things danced still more energetically, till at length they became so overpowered by fatigue and the fumes of the liquor, as to fall into a profound sleep, from which they only awoke next morning to a meal which had in the meantime been provided.

During the famine, four bolls of oatmeal were sent to Coldstream market to be sold, and were consigned to the care of the bailie. His wife took him aside, and, directed by the feelings of a mother, counselled him to secure one of the bolls for the use of his own family. But he kindly rebuked her for her selfishness, and said he would per form what he considered his duty, by dealing out the meal to the poor people, in portions corresponding to the extent of their families, ranking himself among the rest. He did so most scrupulously, and it was remarked, as a token of the favour of Heaven for such correct principle, that the little quota he thus reserved for his own use, served to sustain his family exactly till another supply was procured.

The mortality occasioned by this famine was very great. The people, by way of making their little occasional supplies of meal go as far as possible, used to grind it up with a vast proportion of way-side herbs and seeds of an unhealthy character, which were almost as fatal as absolute want. Patrick Walker tells us, that deaths and burials at length grew so frequent, that the living were wearied with taking care of the dead; it was found difficult to raise a sufficient company to inter a neighbour decently; and many corpses got neither coffin nor winding-sheet, but were drawn to the grave upon sledges, as is done upon occasions of pestilence abroad. It was quite a customary sight in Ayrshire, according to a traditionary source of intelligence, to see the bodies of people who had died of starvation, lying under the high thorn hedges, which then formed the only boundaries of roads and fields throughout the country. Many of these were never buried, but, after lying above ground till the return of better times re-awakened natural feelings in the breasts of the people, were put out of sight by a covering of earth.

she was alone known either for good or evil. Previous to the unfortunate exposure which drove her from Ayrshire, she had been a decent-looking, neatly dressed woman, with a trace of the gentility of better days; but now misery had pinched her hard; her clothes were the most wretched that could be conceived, and, to use the expressive phrase in which her tale was related, it was possible to trace her path by the vermin which she dropped in her progress. The last circumstance was a sufficient cause, if no other had existed, for denying a lodging to the poor wretch, while the famine of the time afforded an equally good reason for refusing to extend to her the means of supporting life. Thus circumstanced-an outcast, starved, diseased, overrun with vermin—this miserable creature dragged her living corpse to the banks of the water of Annick, (a rivulet which runs through the parish of Stewarton, and discharges itself into the sea at Irvine,) and there upon a little hillock lay down to die. Through the kindness of a neighbouring farmer, the great-grandfather of my informant, who every day came out to the place where she was lying, and threw her a bannock and It is said, that the famine was fatal, to a remarkable a piece of cheese, she survived nine days, but died upon degree, in the northern province of Moray; in so much, the tenth, as striking a picture of human misery as ever that in the parish of Kininvie, only three smoking cot- cumbered the earth. The time was one of horrible tages were left, all the inhabitants of the others having sights, and accordingly no one stirred to offer her wretchdied during that heavy visitation. "From poverty and ed, dilapidated corpse the rites of burial, or even to fling the awful prevalence of mortality," says a provincial a stone or a handful of earth upon it, for many months chronicler, (the ingenious Mr Carruthers of the Inver-after. ness Courier,) "the ordinary rites of Christian burial were denied to the poor, and large holes were dug in many places, into which their bodies were consigned. One maiden lady in Garmouth, whose memory is still gratefully embalmed in the recollections of the peasantry, provided shrouds and coffins for such as wandered to her door to die; and, so anxious were the poor to avail themselves of this last privilege, that they would husband their little stock and journey far and near, that they might close their eyes secure of decent interment !" In the Highlands, hunger pinched the people as hard as anywhere else. There used long to be a traditionary recollection at Inverness, of a vision of poor famished wretches, who came out like spectres from the glens and woods, and set up a wail of misery before the town, that pierced the very hearts of the honest burghers, themselves very nearly as necessitous and as miserable.

The following little tale of human ignominy and wretchedness, connected with the famine of 1700, is from the recollection of an aged gentleman, to whom it was related by his grandmother, the date of whose birth was 1704. For many years before the famine, a poor old woman, belonging to the tribe of gentle beggars, as they are called in Scotland-that is, persons originally of good condition, but who have been reduced to beggary-used to wander about Ayrshire, living chiefly in the houses of the farmers, to whom her company was acceptable, on account of her having "a wonderful gift of prayer.' About the year 1695, this sanctimonious person, though she had partaken of the family supper, was detected one night, at a farm-house where she lodged, licking the cream off one of the best boynes in the dairy. Such a failing in "a professor" was very shocking to the religious feelings of the community, and, accordingly, the poor woman was now so much despised and reviled, that she found it necessary to disappear from that district of the country, and try her fortune in a scene where she was less known. In time, the people almost forgot the very existence of such a person; the waves of society closed over her, and she was the same to Ayrshire as if she had never lived. But it would appear that the unhappy wretch did not find it possible to obtain a proper settlement anywhere else, owing, perhaps, to her not being anywhere else" the accustomed beggar." Thus, when the famine began, like a dejected bark driven back by storms to its little haven, she found it necessary to seek a shelter and sustenance, everywhere else denied, in the circle of country where

AT SEA IN A FOG.

WERE you ever at sea in a fog,
When the ship lies as still as a log,

And all round her edge

The haze like a hedge
Keeps you close in a charming incog?

There is never a sound to be heard,
Save the horn of the man upon guard,
That all vessels near

May know to keep clear,
For before them they can't see a yard.

Hands in pocket, and quid in cheek, Jack
Keeps pensively pacing the deck,

Or splices a rope,-
Having whistled till hope
Of a breeze has become quite a wreck.

Upon every thing in the ship

For days hangs the same cheerless drip;
Says the captain,
"If we
Must be wet, let it be

In a gale that will make our sails dip!"

A man is sent up to the mast,
In hopes he'll spy something at last :
"Ho! what do you see?"
You sing out; and sings he,
"Thick blankets of fog driving past!"

"Ay, blankets for Ocean to wrap
Himself in for a very long nap!

Oh, for a cat's paw,

To give him a claw,
And toussle the old boy's nightcap!"

THE RED MANTLE.*
From the German.

journey, never to believe more than one-half of what he heard, and experience had taught him to disbelieve the other.

Following the landlord's directions, he mounted a spiral MANY years before the beginning of the thirty-years' staircase, and reached a door which he opened with the war, a young artisan of Bremen, travelling to perfect key. A long sombre gallery, which echoed again to his himself in his trade, entered a little market-town, not far sounding steps, brought him to a stately hall, out of which distant from the frontiers of the Netherlands, one evenhe passed by a side-door into a suite of apartments, furing after a long day's journey. Every corner of the inn nished with the utmost luxury and elegance. He selectwas already taken possession of by a caravan of waggon-ed for his bedroom the most cheerful, from the windows ers: and the landlord, who thought, perhaps, he disco- of which he looked down upon the inn, and could hear vered something of the landlouper in his frank, care-defy-every word that was spoken there. He lighted his wax ing countenance, advised him, without much circumlo- candles, set himself to supper, and ate with the relish cution, to walk on to the next village. Our weary traveller and composure of a nobleman of Otaheite. The bighad nothing for it but to take his bundle on his back bellied bottle guaranteed him against thirst. As long as again, muttering all the while curses on this hard-hearted his teeth were busied, he never once thought of the ghost. publican between his teeth. If at some distant noise timidity would cry "there it comes," courage instantly answered, "nonsense! it's the cats and rats battling." But, during the half hour of digestion, terror whispered three anxious suggestions in his ear, for one answer that courage was able to frame.

All of a sudden the host seemed to be seized with a fit of compassion. "Hark ye, my lad," he cried, “ upon second thoughts, I think I can stow ye away for the night. There is room enough in the castle there, it is not inhabited, and I have the key." In this offer, which Frank (that was our hero's name) gladly accepted, there was however more of the show than the substance of kindness. The knavish host had suspected the nature of the stranger's complimentary expressions, and resolved to revenge himself by the agency of a roistering spirit which

haunted the castle.

The residence of which he spoke stood upon an abrupt hill, which overhung the town, straight before the door of the inn, from which it was only separated by the road, and a small trouting stream. On account of its pleasant situation, it was still kept in repair and well furnished, and employed by its owner as a hunting-box. He used it, however, only in the daytime. As soon as the stars showed themselves, he marched out with all his attendants, to avoid the tricks played upon them at night by the ghost,-for by day it was quiet enough.

The sun had gone down, and a dark night set in, when Frank reached the door of the old building under the guidance of mine host, who carried a good supper and a bottle of wine in a basket. He had also brought along with him two candlesticks and a pair of wax tapers; for as no one dared to await the approach of twilight in the castle, all such movables had been discarded as useless. By the way, Frank cast more than one anxious glance at these costly preparations, for he remembered the low state of his finances. "The light in the lantern is enough to show me to bed, and I am too sleepy to be long of finding my way thither. By the time I awake, the sun will be up." "I will not conceal from you," replied the host," that there is a report of the castle's being haunted. But never fear, you see we are within call if any thing should hapThe household will be astir this whole blessed night; and, after all, I have lived in the place for thirty years, and never seen any thing. I have heard noises to be sure, but they must have come from the cats and mice in the granary. In case of the worst, however, I have brought these lights, for we know that ghosts always

pen.

shun them."

It was no lie that he had never seen a ghost in the castle; for he had taken precious care never to set a foot in it after sunset. Even on this occasion, he kept on the safe side of the door, handing the victuals to his guest, describing the way to the state apartments, and galloping down hill to the eminent hazard of his neck. Frank stepped fearlessly into the deserted abode, firmly convinced that the story of the ghost was mere nonsense. been advised by a wise man, when he set out on his

He had

He took care to shut and bolt the door before fear had

completely mastered him, and sat down upon a seat in the bow-window. He opened the lattice, and, in order to dissipate the thick-coming fancies that were creeping over him, he looked to the skies, examined the physiognomy of the moon, and counted how often the stars were snuffed. The street beneath him was deserted, and, notwithstanding mine host's story of the nightly bustle in his inn, the door was shut, the lights were extinguished, and every thing was quiet as a churchyard. The nightwatch blew his horn, and filled the whole air with his sonorous voice as he announced the hour-so directly under the window, that Frank might have held a conversation with him, for company's sake, if there had been any chance of the dignitary's venturing to abide a challenge from so suspicious a locality.

It may be a pleasing recreation to philosophize on the pleasures of solitude in a populous city, full of bustle as a bee-hive, to represent her as the loveliest playmate of man, exaggerate all her most winning features, and sigh for her embrace. But in her native home, in some deep wood, or old deserted castle, where desolate walls and vaults awaken horror, and nothing breathes the breath of life save the melancholy owl-she is by no means the most agreeable companion for the timid nightwanderer, especially if he is in momentary expectation of a visit from a ghost. In such a situation, a conversation with the watchman from the window may have more attractions than the perusal of the most pathetic eulogy of solitude. Had Mr Zimmerman chanced to find himself in our hero's situation, in Castle Rummelsburg, on the Westphalian frontier, he would have gained excellent hints for a much more interesting treatise on Sociality than that which, in all probability, some tiresome assembly set him to write about Solitude.

Midnight is the name of the hour at which the spiritual world awakes to life and activity, when grosser animal nature lies buried in deep slumber. Frank naturally preferred getting over that anxious period in his sleep; so he shut the window, made once more the round of the apartment, peeped into every nook and corner, snuffed the candles that they might give more light, and stretched himself upon the bed, which felt extremely soft to his He could not, however, fall asleep so soon weary limbs. as he wished. A slight palpitation of the heart, which he attributed to a degree of feverishness caused by the extreme heat of the day, kept him awake for a short time, which he employed in uttering a more earnest prayer than he had said for a long time. This exercise had its usual effect; it was followed by a sweet sleep. An hour

Sir Walter Scott, in the preface to the volume of his poems containing " The Doom of Devorgoil," has these words:" The story of the ghostly Barber is told in many countries; but the best narrative founded on the passage, is the tale called Stumme The meteors called shooting stars are, in the popular mytho Liebe, among the legends of Musaus." The episode in that beau-logy of some districts of Germany, believed to be the snuff of the tiful tale to which Sir Walter refers, is now presented to the bright candles of the firmament, thrown away instead of being put English reader-we believe for the first time. into a pair of snuffers.