ty, to communicate to his fellowdomestics, the females, his suspicions of the character of the guest. Their conversation was, however, soon interrupted by the violent ringing of the bell; and it was some time before Geoffry could summon courage to answer it. "Your pleasure, sir?" said he, re-entering the dining parlor. "Some dinner!" responded the other. The butler paused, but, at length, said, "Very sorry, sir, but we have not got anything in the house.” "Then look in the poultry yard," was the reply, and let me have a broiled chicken in half an hour." The other started, but the stranger's eyes happening to fall upon the pistols, Geoffry seemed to understand the appeal, and, being anxious to go off first, hurried out to counsel the sacrifice of a chicken to their common safety. In the course of the half hour, the dish was smoking before the guest, who, having no notion of glasses being placed on the table for the mere purpose of ornament, pronounced the monosyllable "Wine." "If you please, sir," said Geoffry, "we can't get at any, for mistress has got the key to the wine-cellar in her pocket." "Nonsense!" exclaimed the other, "who ever heard of a wine-cellar with only one key?-why, keys in a great man's house are like pistols, there are always two of a pattern. The allusion had its effect; Geoffry vanished in an instant, and shortly reappeared as Ganymede. In a few minutes afterwards, the noise of wheels announced the return of Lady Denyers, who, on being informed of the stranger's arrival, like a woman of spirit, went straight into the dining-room to demand an explanation. On the next instant, the servants heard a loud scream from their mistress, and, concluding that she was murdered, they, very dutifully, ran out of the house, and set off, at full speed, each in a different direction, for the doctor. It seemed that no sooner had the lady cast her eyes upon the visiter, than she uttered a piercing shriek, and sank upon the carpet. Now, when a man faints away, the approved method of treatment is to kick and cuff him till he recover; but with a woman the case is somewhat dif ferent. The stranger raised her in his arms, threw half a glass of water in her face, and poured the remainder down her throat, and, at last, succeeded in restoring the patient. "And is it really you, Sir John?" exclaimed the lady, when she became somewhat tranquil. "Ay, in very deed, Caroline," was the reply; "ghosts do not drink Madeira and devour chickens." "Then you were not killed and eaten by those frightful Ashantees?" "You greatly wrong that very respectable and much-slandered people," said Sir John; "they have better tastes, and preferred my society to my flesh, insomuch that I had some difficulty in escaping from their hospitalities." "I hope, my dear," said the lady, "you were duly sensible of their attentions?" "I was very nearly being insensible to them and everything else, for the worthy gentleman who did me the honor to engross my society, seeing me determined on quitting him, followed me as far as he could, and then fired a parting salute from his musket, into which he had, inadvertently, put a bullet, and left me with half an ounce of lead in my shoulder." "O dear," exclaimed the lady, "how very horrid ! and did you walk all the way in that state?" "I did not walk two hundred yards, my love, for I fell into a bush, exhausted from loss of blood, when I was picked up by an Ashantee damsel of sixty, whose charms would have made your ladyship jealous, and who extracted the ball, put a plaster of herbs to my wound, and smuggled me down to Cape Coast Castle, where I found the report of my death so well authenticated, that I was challenged by an Hibernian brother officer for presuming to doubt it." “And were you so rash as to fight with him?” "No, for I had not time, being anxious to embark for England, to relieve your anxieties and to save my executors as much trouble as possible. But how is my nephew?" "O, in high health and spirits, and inconceivably vain of the title." "I am sorry for that, because I have not quite done with it." At this moment a noise was heard in the passage, occasioned by the return of the domestics, bringing with them the posse comitatus and fourteen of the lady's lovers, who, taking it for granted that the ferocious ruffian would have escaped before their arrival, valiantly rushed to her rescue. When, however, they heard the voice of the intruder in the parlor, it became a point of precedence among them which should enter first. At length a clown, in the back ground, pressing forward to get a glimpse of what was going on, inadvertently applied the stimulus of a pitchfork to the rear of the man before him, who communicating the impetus to the next, it passed on to the van, and they all blundered into the room, where, to their utter astonishment, they beheld the living Sir John tête-à-tête with his lady. Doubtless, you will conclude the baronet enacted Ulysses on the occasion, and drove out his rivals at point of sword. Credit me, reader, he did no such thing. He was a man of the world, and knew better than to make enemies of fourteen blockheads; so he ordered up a dozen of claret, and they made a night of it. NOTES FROM THE NOCTES. Shepherd.-WHICH O' us, I wonner, looks best at the settin' in o' another wunter? I suspeck it's me-for you're getting mair and mair spinnleshankit, sir-ilka year. As for your hauns, ane may see through them-and a'thegither you're an interesting atomy o' the old school. -I fear we're gaun to lose you, sir, during the season. But dinna mind, sir-ye sall hae a moniment erected to you by a grateful nation on the Calton-hill-and ships comin' up the Firth-steamers, smacks, and ithers-amang them now and then a man o' war-will never notice the Parthenon, a' glowerin' through telescopes at the mausoleum o' Christopher North. North.-I desire no other monument, James, than a bound set of the Magazine in the library of every subscriber. Yes-my immortal ambition is to live in the libraries and liberties of my native land. Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North.-James, I KNOW MYSELF. I am neither a great nor a smallbut a middle-sized man Shepherd. What the deevil! dinna ye belong to the Sax Feet Club? North.-No. The Fine Fellows invite me to their Feasts and Festivals-and I am proud to be their guest. But my stature is deficient the eighth part of an inch; and I could not submit to sit at any board below either the Standard or the Salt. Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North.-I am not a curious creature, James, but a commonplace Christian. As to my intellectual stature-and it was of that I spoke when I said that I am but a middlesized man-it is, I am satisfied, the stature best adapted for the enjoyment of tranquil happiness in this world. I look along the many levels of life-and lo! they seem to form one immense amphitheatre. Below me are rows, and rows, and rows of well-apparelled people-remember I speak figuratively of the mindwho sometimes look up ungrudgingly and unenvyingly-to where I am sitting-smiling on me as on one be longing to their own order, though placed by Providence-august Master of these august Ceremonies-a little loftier in the range of seats in a half-moon circling the horizon, and crowded to overflowing with the whole human race. Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North. I beg your pardon-but I did not hear you, James-will you repeat that again? Shepherd.-Na. I make a pint o' never sayin' the same thing twice owre for ony man-except a deaf ane-and only to him gin he uses a lug-trumpet. North. Then looking right and Jeft, James, I behold an immense multitude sitting seemingly on the same altitude with myself-somewhat more richly robed than our brethren beneath-till, lifting up my eyes, lo! the Magnates, and Potentates, and Princes, and Kings of all the shadowy worlds of mind, magnificently arrayed, and belonging rather to the heavens than to the earth! Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! (Aside.) I micht din thae words intil his lug fifty times without his catchin' their meanin'-for when the auld doited body begins haverin' about himsell, he's deaf to a' things else in the creawtion. North.-Monuments! Some men have been so glorious, James, that to build up something in stone to perpetuate that glory, seems of all futile attempts the most futile, and either to betray a sinful distrust of their immortality, or a wretched ignorance of the "Power divine of sacred memories," which will reign on earth, in eternal youth, ages and ages and ages after the elements have dissolved the brass or marble, on which were vainly engraven the consecrated and undying names ! Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, beau North.-A monument to Newton! a monument to Shakspeare! Look up to Heaven-look into the Human Heart. Till the planets and the passions-the affections and the fixed stars are extinguished-their names cannot die. Shepherd (starting up).-A moniment to Sir William Wallace! A moniment to William Tell! Look at the mountains of Scotland and Switzerland-listen to their cataracts look to the light on the foreheads-listen to the music on the lips of the Free "Kings of the Desart, men whose stately tread Brings from the dust the sound of Liberty!" North. - A noble sentiment, James, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! Shepherd.-What! You've been sookin' in my flattery a' the time, ye auld sinner-and noo turn intil a banter on mysell the compliment I paid you from the bottom o' my heart? You're a queer deevil.— Hoo hae ye stood the weather this season, sir? North.-Weather! It never deserved the name of weather, James, even during that muddy and mizzly misnomer-Summer; while the Au tumn Shepherd.-Weel, do ye ken, sir, that I never saw in a' my born days, what I cou'd wi' a safe conscience hae ca'd-bad weather? The warst has aye had some redeemin' quality about it that enabled me to thole it without yawmerin.' Though we mayna be able to see, we can aye think o' the clear blue lift. North.-I am rather disposed to believe that whatever may have been the case once-now there is no such thing as good weather. Why, James, you might as well seek to prove by a definition that there is no such thing in nature as an ugly woman. Shepherd.-Neither there is, sir. There are different degrees o' beau sae mony hunder thoosan' degrees doon, till you meet that o' the tinkler-randy, whose looks gar you ratherly incline to the ither side o' the road-but nae ugliness. Sometimes I've kent mysell likely to fa' until a sair mistak-na, a sair fricht-by stumblin' a' at once on a lassie gaen far doon in the degrees, and wha really did seem at first sicht unco fearsome ;-but then, sir, the mistak arose frae the suddenness, and frae considerin' the face o' her by its ain individual sell, and no as ane o' many on the mysterious scale o' beauty. But then a man o' ony powers o' memory and reflection, and ony experience amang the better half o' creation, soon corrects that error; and fin's, afore he has walked hardly a mile alongside o' the hizzie, that she's verra weelfaured, and has an expression, mair especially about the een and mouth Shepherd.-Ane seldom remembers what he reads in a maggazin. ty, Mr. North, frae the face that ootshines that o' an angel's seen in a dream-doon-doon-doon-ever North.-If he does not, then one seldom remembers what he reads anywhere else, James. True, that the wit and wisdom of one month succeeding the wit and wisdom of another in endless succession, mankind must often forget when and where, and from what source, they have derived such infinite amusement and instruction. But the amusement and instruction themselves do not perish on that account, but go into a million treasuries. People are manifestly growing wiser and better every day; and I humbly confess that I think myself one of the great instruments, in the hands of Providence, of the amelioration of the human race. I am not dead to the voice of fame,-but believe me that my chief, if not sole object in writing for Maga, is the diffusion of knowledge, virtue, and happiness all over the world. What is it to me if the names of my articles are often forgotten, not by a thankless but a restless generation, too much agog after novelties, and too much enamored of change? The contents of any one of my good articles cannot possibly be forgotten by all the thousands who have told me that they once delighted in them,— some fair or bright image-some tender or pure feeling-some high or solemn thought must survive,and enough for me-James-if in hours of gay or serious memories, some mirthful or melancholy emanation from my mind be restored to being, even though the dreamer knows not that it was mine,-but believes it to have arisen then for the first time in his own imagination. Did I choose to write books, I believe they would find readers. But a book is a formal concern, and to read it one must shut himself up for hours from society, and sit down to what may indeed be a pleasant task, North.-James! James ! Shepherd. The truth is, Mr. North, that you and the likes o' you, that hae been cavied a' your days in toons, like pootry, hae seldom seen ony real weather-and ken but the twa distinctions o' wat and dry. Then, the instant it begins to drap, up wi' the umbrellaand then vanishes the sky. Why, that's aften the verra best time to feel and understaun' the blessed union o' earth and heaven, when the beauty is indeed sae beauteous, that in the perfect joy o' the heart that beats within you, ye wad lauch in an atheist's face, and hae nae mair doubt o' the immortality o' the sowle, than o' the mountain-tap that, far up above the vapors, is waiting in its majestic serenity for the reappearance o' the Sun, seen brichtenin' and brichtenin' himsell during the shower, through behind a cloud that every moment seems mair and mair composed o' radiance, till it has melted quite away,-and then, there indeed is the Sun, rejoicing Jike a giant to run a race. but still it is a task,-and in the most interesting volume that ever was written, alas! there are many yawns. But a good article,-such as many of mine that shall be name less, may be read from beginning to end under the alternate influence of smiles and tears ;-and what if it be laid aside, and perhaps never meets more the fair face that bedewed or illumed it? yet methinks, James, that the maiden who walks along the spring-braes is the better and the happier of the sights scents and sounds she enjoys there, though in a month she remembers not the primrose-bank, on which, cheered by the sky-lark's song, she sat and smiled to see her long disheveled tresses reflected in the Fairy's pool. Shepherd. That's no unbonny. North. I believe that all my words are not wasted, each succeeding month, on the idle air. Some simple melodies, at least, if no solemn harmonies, are sometimes heard, may hap from my lyre, floating along the lonely valleys, and the cheerful villages, and even not undistinguishable amid the din of towns and cities. What if, once heard, they are heard no more? They may have touched a string, a chord, James, in some innocent, simple, but not unthoughtful heart; and that string, that chord, James, as well thou knowest, for thou art one of nature's own poets,-I but a proser-and an old greyhaired proser too-may henceforth of itself "warble melody," while, if untouched by me or you, or other lovers of their kind, it might have lain mute forever! If so, verily I have had my reward. Shepherd. What for do you never try to write verses, sir? Ca' and they'll come. North.-An old poet is an fool, James. old Shepherd.-But then you see, sir, you're sic a fule already in sae mony things, that the world 'll no think ae grain the waur o' you gin you'll play the fule in that too-be a poet, sir, and fling yourself for food to the hungry critics, for they're in a state o starvation, and, for want o' something to devour, will sune a' dee o' hunger and thirst. North.-I could cut with a blunt knife the throat of any man who yawns while I am speaking to him especially if he attempts to conceal his crime, by putting his hand to his mouth; yet, such a bundle of inconsistences is man, that confound me if I could listen for five minutes to the angel Raphael himself—or Gabriel either-without experiencing that sensation about the jaws which precedes and produces that sin. The truth is, that admiration soon makes me yawn-and I fear that Sir Walter, and Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Bowles, and others, may sometimes have felt queer at the frequent, if not incessant, opening and shutting of the folding doors of my mouth, during their most amusing or instructive, reasoning or imaginative harangues. I wish I could find some way of letting them know, that so far from any offence being meant, or weariness experienced by me, I was in fact repaying them for the delight they gave me, by the most sincere, if not the most delicate tribute of applause, which it was in my power to render, or rather out of my power to withhold from genius and wisdom. Shepherd.-I never in a' my born days, and I'm noo just the age o' Sir Walter, and, had he been leevin', o' Bonnypratt, met a perfeckly pleasant-that is a'thegither enchantin' man in a party-and I have lang thocht there's nae sic thing in existence as poors o' conversation. There's Sir Walter wi' his everlastin' anecdotes, nine out o' ten meanin' naethin', and the tenth itsell as auld as the Eildon hills, but not, like them, cleft in three, which would be a great relief to the listener, and aiblins alloo a nap atween-yet hoo the coofs o a' ages, sexes, and ranks, belabor your luggs with their lauchter at every clause-and baser than ony slaves that ever swept the dust with their faces from the floors of Eastern despots, swallow his stalest stories as if they were manna dropping |