pregnated with the smell of burning: at last he sprung upon deck, exclaiming, "Cochrane, the flames have burst out at the paddle-box!" John calmly inquired, "then, shall I put about?" From what cause I do not distinctly know, Turner's order was to "proceed." Cochrane struck one hand upon his heart, as he flung the other above his head, and with uplifted eyes uttered, "Oh, God Almighty, enable me to do my duty! and, oh God, provide for my wife, my mo ther, and my child!" and instantly taking the helm, fixed himself on the spot.

A HERO IN HUMBLE LIFE. WHAT is a hero? seems a needless question in a land where so many heroes have been born and bred: yet I am not sure that our usual ideas of heroism are very correct. The multitude, seeing that the heroic deeds we applaud are most generally those performed by our brave men-our sailors and soldiers-consider them, and them only, as our heroes. The correctness of this conclusion I cannot at present pause to consider, but I am inclined to extend the title of hero to some whom it has not hitherto reached. Flowing from a high principle, which has its basis in pure moral feeling, there is a self-denying, self-devoting power-a power of sacrificing self and all its wishes, all its prospects, all its dearest earthly hopes, at the call of duty; which is many, many a time practised amid the obscurest scenes of life, amidst the noiseless and unknown fulfilment of daily and hourly toils, of which few of the many who have been clamorously hailed as heroes, would be found capable-heroism which can battle down the aspirings of a lofty spirit; the bounding thoughts and purposes of genius-of talent; the joyous anticipations of a young and mirthful heart; and at the call of duty or affection be content to smother all its cherished hopes and wishes, and to wear away dreary days and sleepless nights in cheerfully performing lowly household tasks; in watching over sick.beds; training up wayward children of the dead-or, it may be, the unworthy; in attending to petty, spirit-killing, mind-gallery, where the self-devoted pilot stood like a martyr extinguishing cares and services, till youth and bloom, with all their gay hopes and sweet affections, have perished-and for ever!

Whether it was the thoughts of the dreadful nature of the Galloway coast, girdled as it is with perpendicular masses of rock, which influenced the master in his decision to press forward, I cannot tell; but as there was only the wide ocean before and around them, the pilot did not long persist in this hopeless course. He put the boat about, sternly subduing every expression of emotion, and standing with his eyes fixed on the point for which he wished to steer. The fire, which the exertions of all the men could not keep under, soon raged with ungovernable fury, and, keeping the engine in violent action, the vessel, at the time one of the fleetest that had ever been built, flew through the water with incredible speed. All the passengers were gathered to the bow, the rapid flight of the vessel keeping that part clear of the flames, while it carried the fire, flames, and smoke, backward to the quarter

at the stake. Every thing possible was done by the master and crew to keep the place on which he stood deluged with water; but this became every moment more difficult and more hopeless, for, in spite of all that could be done, the devouring fire seized the cabin under him, and the spot on which he stood immove. able became intensely heated. Still, still the hero never flinched! At intervals the motion of the wind threw aside the intervening mass of flame and smoke for a moment, and then might be heard exclamations of hope and gratitude as the multitude on the prow got a glimpse of the brave man standing calm and fixed on his dreadful watch!

Of this species of heroism, the greater number of examples will certainly be found among women; though among men the instances of most noble selfdevotion, without even a hope or thought of attaining the smallest portion of the bubble honour, are, I am persuaded, both numerous and striking. Thoughts of this kind never occur to me without conjuring up to my mind's eye the tall, handsome, but now most attenuated form of John Cochrane, whose sacrifice of self has seldom been surpassed. He is of a family of brave men-natives of Stirlingshire. Having a num- The blazing vessel, glaring through the darkness ber of years ago wished to emigrate to Canada, they of night, had been observed by the people on shore, removed westward, intending to sail from Clyde, and they had assembled on the heights adjoining an which, however, they were prevented from doing. opening in the rocks about twelve yards wide; and The person entrusted with the money raised for the there, by waving torches and other signals, did their expenses of the voyage and subsequent settlement, best to direct the crew to the spot. The signals were acted unfairly, and I believe absconded; so that they not misunderstood by Cochrane. By that time his were compelled for want of funds to remain in Port-feet were roasted on the deck! The fierce fire still Glasgow, where three or four of the lads became sailors. They are all first-rate men, and are at present employed as masters or pilots of different steam-vessels either at home or abroad. John, the individual of whom I write, was pilot of a very fine steam-vessel called the Clydesdale, of which the master was a clever worthy young man, named Turner.

About the year 1827, this vessel was appointed to sail between Clyde and the west coast of Ireland; and

one evening, after setting out on the voyage with between seventy and eighty passengers, Cochrane observed at intervals a slight smell of fire, and went about anxiously endeavouring to discover whence it originated. On communicating with the master, he found that he, too, had perceived it; but neither of them could form the least conjecture as to where it A gentleman passenger, also, observed this alarming vapour, which alternately rose and passed away, leaving them in doubt of its being a reality. About eleven at night, this gentleman went to bed, confident of safety; but while Cochrane was at the helm, the master ceased not an instant to search from place to place, as the air became more and more im

arose.

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

As might have been expected, his constitution, though very powerful, has never recovered the effects of that dreadful burning. Indeed, it required all the skill and enthusiasm of an eminent physician under whose care he placed himself, to save his life. Though the flames had not actually closed round him as he stood on his awful watch, yet such was the heat under him and around him, that not only, as I have said, were his feet severely burnt, but his hair, a large hair.cap, and huge dreadnought watch-coat, which he wore, were all in such a state from the intense heat, that they crumbled into powder on the least touch. His handsome athletic form was reduced to the extremest emaciation; his young face became ten years older during that appalling night; and his hair changed to grey. From that time he has met with many and severe accidents in the course of his perilous occupations, some of which were probably owing to the disabled state of his body, and particularly his feet, a weakness in which has been the most conspicuous result of his gallantry.

A subscription was set on foot among the gentlemen of Glasgow some time after the burning. On this occasion the sum of a hundred pounds was raised, of which sixty pounds were divided between the master and pilot, and the remainder given to the sailors. Had it then been known that this brave man's health was so grievously and permanently injured, there can be little doubt that a sum much more adequate to his sufferings and his merit would have been subscribed; and perhaps even now it may not be too late. He has eight little children, of whom the oldest is but ten years; and, superadded to his bodily sufferings and shattered health since that night of horror, he has now the anguish of a father in seeing grow up around him so many young claimants on the industry it is but too probable he may never be able to exert.

POETS.LAUREAT.

IT is generally known that the court of Great Britain retains an officer under the title of poet-laureat, whose duty it was, at no distant date, to produce annual odes on the new year and the king's birth-day, for which there was assigned a salary of one hundred and twenty-seven pounds a-year, the odd twenty-seven being a composition for a tierce of Canary wine which he formerly got from the royal cellars. We have been historical sketch of this singular office, in the hope that at some pains in bringing together the materials of a it may afford some entertainment to our readers.

A custom of crowning poets with wreaths of laurel cient and modern Rome. In the fourteenth century, originated in Greece, and was transmitted to both anPetrarch was the subject of a pompous public ceremony of this kind, and it was repeated at a later period in honour of Tasso. A similar custom obtained among the universities, on giving the degrees of doctor and bachelor. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Emperors of Germany had a court poet who called Gekronte dichter, or, in Italian phrase, Il poeta

received the honour of a laurel coronation, and was

Cesareo: the illustrious Metastasio at one time held

the office. The French never have had a poet-lau

In England, the court, almost from time immemorial, had a miserable dependent called the King's Poet, a History of Rhodes to Edward IV., terms himself his or the King's Versificator. JOHN KAY, who dedicated humble poet-laureat; and this individual is supposed by Warton to have been the first who took that supe

• D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature. Conversations Lexicon.

rior title. From a charter of Henry VII. pro poeta laureato [for the poet-laureat], it would appear that this monarch had also such a retainer. It is known that his own son Henry VIII. conferred the dignity on SKELTON, so celebrated for his profuse and easy rhymes; but it is not possible to trace a regular series of officials till the beginning of the seventeenth cen. tury. SPENSER, being rewarded in 1591, by Queen Elizabeth, with a pension of fifty pounds, for the dedication of his Faery Queen, was usually called her laureat, but without any definite appointment.+ Notwithstanding his pension, Spenser died broken-hearted and in want of bread, in King Street, Westminster, after refusing a present from the Earl of Essex, of twenty pieces of gold, which he mournfully said he could not live to spend. His successor as laureat seems to have been SAMUEL DANIEL, a poet of no great general power, and who is accordingly now lit tle known, but who could sometimes rise into a noble meditative strain, and was not without some pathos and feeling.

It does not very clearly appear that Daniel, if he really had the title of laureat, received any salary in that capacity, though he enjoyed some other posts at court. It is usually stated, that, at his death in 1619, BEN JONSON, who for some years had performed the duties, acceded to the title. But this is hardly consistent with the fact, which appears from King Charles's subsequent patent, that Ben was favoured by King James, in February 1616, with the gift of an annual pension of a hundred merks, out of his mere good will to letters. If the receipt of this royal favour was unconnected, as it appears to have been, with any arrangement in which Daniel was concerned, we must doubt the fact of Jonson having succeeded that poet as laureat. Indeed, we are inclined to think that the commencement of the pension in 1616, is the first clear commencement of the post of laureat, as now understood.

Long before 1616, Ben Jonson had been fully engaged in the service of the court, which was indebted to him for some of the most beautiful masques in the English language. He had also shown his peculiar qualifications for the duty of a laureat, by flattering James as the best of both poets and kings. In 1629, when he was in distress from sickness, King Charles sent him a present of one hundred pounds, which, Sir Walter Scott justly says, would be no trifling gift for a poor bard, even in the present day. § Jonson acknowledged the royal generosity in a grateful epigram, which turns upon a declaration that Charles was possessed of both the gift of curing the king's evil, and the poet's evil-poverty; but his gratitude seems to have been much of that kind which consists in a lively anticipation of future favours, for, in the very next year, we have him petitioning that his pension of a hundred merks may be made a hundred pounds.

The humble petition of poor Ben,
To the best of monarchs, masters, and men,
KING CHARLES:

Doth humbly show it,

To your Majesty, your poet:
That, whereas your royal father,
James the Blessed, pleased the rather,
Of his special grace to letters,

To make all the muses debtors

To his bounty, by extension
Of a free poetic pension,

A large hundred merks annuity,

To be given me in gratuity,
For done service, and to come;

And that this so accepted sum,
Or dispensed in books or bread,
(For with both the muse was fed),
Hath drawn on me from the times
All the envy of the rhymes,
And the rattling pit-pat noise
Of the less poetic boys,
When their pot-guns aim to hit
With their pellets of small wit
Parts of me (they judged) decayed,
But we last out still unlayed.

Please your Majesty to make,

Of your grace, for goodness' sake,
Those your father's marks your pounds:
Let their spite, which now abounds,

Then go on and do its worst;

This would all their envy burst: And so warm the poet's tongue, You'd read a snake in his next song. The king accordingly having received a surrender of the patent for the former annuity, was pleased to grant a new one for a hundred pounds and "one terce of Spanish wine yearly, out of our store of wines remaining in our cellars within the palace of Whitehall;" and this "in consideration of the acceptable service done unto us and our said father, by the said Benjamin Jonson, and especially to encourage him to proceed in those services of his wit and pen, which we have enjoined unto him, and which we expect from him." The date of this patent is the 26th of March, and its efficacy was shown in little more than two months by an Epigram on the Queen then Lying in (a subject which we fear Mr Southey might have some difficulty in handling discreetly, though he has given us something of the sort in his Tale of Paraguay), and an Epigram on the Birth of the Prince [afterwards Charles II.]; poems altogether over and above the

usual allowance. In the same year, however, we find Ben, whose fondness for a cup of wine at the Devil Tavern near Temple-Bar is well known, complaining of a delay in what would probably appear to him the most important part of his majesty's bounty.

An Epigram to the Household

What can the cause be, when the king hath given
His poet sack, the household will not pay?
Are they so scanted in their store, or driven

For want of knowing the poet to say him nay?
Well they should know him, would the king but grant
His poet leave to sing his household true;
He'd frame such ditties of their store and want,
Would make the very green-cloth to look blue;
And rather wish in their expense of sack,

To the allowance from the king to use,
As the old bard should no Canary lack,
'Twere better spare a butt than spill his muse.
For in the genius of a poet's verse,

The king's fame lives. Go now deny his tierce. Ben probably got his tierce; but if the power of the king to cure the disorder usually submitted to his touch was no more effectual than his power of curing the poet's evil, his legitimacy might have in those days become liable to some doubt. Jonson is found in the very next year sending a mendicant petition to the Lord Treasurer; and it would appear that another was in time dispatched to the king, as a story is related of the monarch sending him ten pieces when he was on his deathbed. In reference to this latter gift, Ben remarked, "He sends me this trifle because I am poor and live in an alley; but go back and tell him that his soul lives in an alley." The poet expired in August 1637.

shelter by extreme poverty. His successor was NICOLAS ROWE, a poet not much superior to his two predecessors, though he has retained a better reputation. At the death of this bard in December 1718, the laurel was given to the Reverend LAWRENCE EUSDEN, an obscure versifier, who contributed to the Guardian, but whose poetical works are not now, any more than those of Shadwell or Tate, admitted into the collective editions of the British Poets. It is said that he owed the preferment to the Duke of Newcastle, as a reward for an epithalamium on his grace's marriage to Lady Henrietta Godolphin. He was succeeded in 1730 by Mr COLLEY CIBBER, a good comic dramatist, but a wretched poet. This was the fifth appointment in which party politics had directed the royal choice, to the neglect of real merit. Shadwell and Tate had been appointed during the life of Dryden, and Rowe, Eus den, and Gibber, during the lives of Pope and Swift. But the Whig party seem to have been at this time poorer in poetical genius than at almost any other. In consequence of the place being so frequently given without reference to merit, it had now become a regular butt for the superior as well as the inferior deni. zens of Parnassus for Twickenham as well as Grub Street. Among the innumerable pasquinades which Cibber elicited, one may be given as at once brief and pungent :

In merry old England it once was a rule,

That the king had his poet and also his fool; But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it, That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet. Colley, however, who had at least a sufficient stock of good nature and power of enduring sarcasm, sung on amidst the thick-flying hail of wit with which he was assailed, probably consoling himself with the reflection, that, in the pension and Canary, he had the bet ter part of the joke to himself. A single specimen of the doggrel with which he annually insulted the majesty of England may be given from the ode for 1731:

From a heart which abhors the abuse of high pow'r,
Are our liberties duly defended;
From a courage inflamed by the terrors of war,

With his fame is our commerce extended.f Perhaps, if a butt filled from the sewers, instead of one filled by the sewers, had been given to Colley, the appropriateness of the reward would not have been less appropriate.

On the death of Jonson, the king, who was a competent judge of poetry, wished to confer the vacant wreath on Thomas May, afterwards the historian of the Long Parliament; but the queen obtained it for her favourite bard WILLIAM DAVENANT, author of Gondibert, a heroic poem, and of a great number of plays. The office and pension were given to Davenant in December 1638, sixteen months after the death of Jonson; the delay having probably been occasioned by the disputes which had broken out in the interval, between the king and his Scottish subjects. This laureat fought in the civil war, and was knighted by the king for his services: he was afterwards taken prisoner by the parliamentary forces, and with great difficulty escaped being put to death. During the interregnum or commonwealth, Davenant After a degradation of twenty-seven years, the was still considered as the laureat by his own party, laureatship was conferred, at the death of Cibber in and he accordingly resumed the duties and emoluments 1757, upon WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, a gentleman of of the office at the Restoration. Cromwell, we pre- good education, and whose poetry at least displayed sume, never thought of appointing an officer of this kind literary correctness and taste, if it rose to no higher himself, though, in Milton, he probably employed qualities. From the days of Rowe, if not from an the greatest poet that ever performed state service in earlier period, the regular duty had been to produce England. Davenant died in 1668, and, in August an ode for the new year and one for the king's birth1670, the office of poet-laureat, with that of royal his- day, both of which, being set to music by the master toriographer, was conferred upon DRYDEN, a salary of of the king's band, were sung before the court, and L.200 being appointed, in addition to the butt of wine, likewise published in the newspapers. Throughout for the united offices. The patent bore a retrospect the whole term of the eighteenth century, when there to the term after Davenant's demise, and is declared: was little genuine poetry of any kind, the productions to be to "John Dryden, master of arts, in considera- of the laureat were generally a mere tissue of tame tion of his many acceptable services theretofore done and senseless verses; but some allowance ought in to his present majesty [Charles II.], and from an ob- fairness to be made for the difficulty which a man of servation of his learning and eminent abilities, and his even superior genius must have experienced, in, year great skill and elegant style, both in verse and prose." after year, forcing from his brain ideas at all approachIt is allowed, however, that the salary was very ir-ing a poetical character, respecting subjects which in regularly paid during the reign of this prodigal mo

narch.

In 1689, being unable from both religious and political prepossessions to take the oaths to the government of William and Mary, this illustrious poet was compelled with an anguished heart to resign his offices. They were conferred, with a salary increased to three hundred pounds, upon THOMAS SHADWELL, a person now only known to British literature through the immortal satire of Macflecnoe, in which Dryden had pilloried him as the prince of dullness.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray.

Indeed it reality have nothing poetical about them. must be acknowledged, that the absurdity does not lie so much in the odes, as in the custom of exacting them. In this point of view, Whitehead himself seems to have regarded the office, for in a Pathetic Apology for all Laureats, past, present, and to come, which appeared in the edition of his works published after his death, he almost redeems the serious nonsense of eight-andtwenty years, by the humour with which he ridicules the envious poetasters who were in the habit of publishing rival odes.

His muse, obliged by sack and pension,
Without a subject or invention,
Must certain words in order set,
As innocent as a gazette;

Must some half-meaning half disguise,
And utter neither truth nor lies.
But why will you, ye volunteers,
In nonsense tease us with your jeers,
Who might with dulness and her crew
Securely slumber? Why will you
Sport your dim orbs amidst her fogs?

A modern critic, reviewing the comedies of this author, gives a judgment, which will be startling to those who have been content to take him upon the opinion of his great rival and antagonist. According to this writer, he was an accomplished observer of human nature, had a ready power of seizing the ridiculous in the manners of the times, was a man of sense and inYou're not obliged-ye silly dogs! formation, and displayed in his writings a very conWhitehead was succeeded in 1785 by the Reverend siderable fund of humour." Whatever truth there may THOMAS WARTON, author of the History of English be in this decision, it seems reasonable to conclude Poetry, whose lyrical genius might have been expected, with Sir Walter Scott, that, in his whiggery, and the if such had been at all possible, to lend a grace to sufferings he had endured under the old government, even this dreary task. His odes, however, were found as a "non-conforming poet," he probably possessed in no respect superior to those of at least his immemerits with King William, which were deemed by diate predecessor, and an attempt seems to have been that prince as of more importance than all the genius made in his reign to remit a portion of the duty. In of Shakspeare, Milton, and Dryden, if it could have a volume of the history of the Decline and Fall of the been combined in one individual."+ Roman Empire, published about this period, Gibbon On the death of Shadwell in 1692, the office of made the remark that "from Augustus to Louis the laureat was bestowed upon NAHUM TATE, a drama-muse has been too often venal; yet I doubt much tist and miscellaneous writer, who is now known only whether any age or court can produce a similar estafor his joint labours with Nicolas Brady in a metrical blishment of a stipendiary poet, who, in every reign version of the Psalms. Tate retained the laurel dur. and at all events, is bound to furnish, twice a-year, a ing this and the succeeding reign, and even wrote the measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in first birth-day ode for George I., but is said to have the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence of the died in 1715, in the Mint, where he was forced to seek sovereign. I speak the more freely," added the his† Life of Dryden.

* Retrospective Review, xvi. 56.

• Conversations Lexicon. † Gentleman's Magazine, 1731.

torian, "as the best time for abolishing this ridicu lous custom is while the prince is a man of virtue, and the poet a man of genius." Apparently in consequence of these observations, the New Year's Ode was discontinued in 1790. The non-performance of the accustomed folly occasioned much talk, and was adverted to by Peter Pindar in what he called an Ode

on No Ode :

What! not a sprig of annual metre,
Neither from Thomas nor from Peter!

Who has shut up the laureat's shop?
Alas, poor Tom's a-cold, I fear;

For sack poor Tom must drink small beer, And, lo-of that a scanty drop!

Loud roar of Helicon the floods,
Parnassus shakes through all his woods,

To think immortal verse should thus be slighted.

I see, I see the god of lyric fire
Drop suddenly his jaw and lyre-

I hear, I hear the Muses scream affrighted.

Perchance (his powers for future actions hoarding) George thinks the year boasts nothing worth recording Yet what of that! Though nought has been effected, Tom might have told us what might be expected; Have said that civil list should sigh no more, And Charlotte give-a sixpence to the poor! In May this year, Warton died, and was succeeded (Cowper being alive) by JAMES HENRY PYE, who, as the jest-books have it, was much cut up for his presumption in aspiring to such an honour, and of whom the least that can be said is, that he has no place in English literature. Pye seems to have resumed the practice of writing a new-year ode; but after 1796, neither new-year nor birth-day odes appear in the periodical publications which we have examined, and we are therefore inclined to suppose that the serious events of the war put a final stop to this tom-foolery. If Pye possessed no great genius, he was not deficient in the patriotic spirit of the time. He translated the war verses of Tyrtæus the Spartan, for the purpose of animating the British militia against the French; and a board of general officers, much impressed by their weight and importance, agreed to give all the effect in their power to his intentions. The verses were accordingly read aloud at Warley Common and Barham Downs by the adjutants, at the head of five different regiments, at each camp; and much was expected. But before they were half finished, all the front ranks, and as many as were within hearing or verse-shot, dropped their arms suddenly, and were all found fast asleep. Marquis Townsend, who never approved of the scheme, wittily remarked on this occasion, that the first of all poets had observed that Sleep is the brother of Death. This laureat, who

consented to the commutation of his butt of wine for

time in his life, he had succeeded in entrapping a redbreast. Antoine was ten years old, and he was the thandsomest of the children of misery; he was an only son, but he was not the richer for that. His mother, a poor infirm widow, had much difficulty in gaining their subsistence with her spinning-wheel. When she was well, she could, by labouring incessantly, manage this; but her miserable habitation, covered with straw, and scarcely protecting her from the weather, was damp; and the poor Jeanne, though still young, had a general rheumatism, which often hindered her from raising her foot to turn her wheel. It was then that the little Antoine, seating himself on the ground, turned the wheel while his mother span, till, fearing for his health, she ordered him to go and run and jump on the outside of the hut. Whilst the wheel turned, his mother taught him all she knew of prayers, psalms, and even songs, which he sung with a melodious voice. During the summer, Jeanne was in excellent health, and all was then pleasure and hap. piness. Antoine found a thousand ways to gain a little money, and he was quite overjoyed when he to beg, and he obeyed her; he loved better to gather brought a sous to his mother. She had forbid him the lily of the valley, strawberries, and mulberries, and to run and sell them in the town. When these failed him, there yet remained another resource, and this was his handsome figure and his beautiful voice; every peasant who met him gave him a kiss or a pat on his rosy cheek, and some fruit or vegetables, saying to him, "God bless thee, my child." Certainly the lit tle Antoine was charming in his patched clothes, through which, in spite of the cares of his mother, his beautiful white skin was seen; while from under his little hat, once black, and which scarcely covered his head, his fair curls escaped and hung round his face. As to shoes and stockings, he did not know there were such things in the world: but he was not the less happy for that; his blue eyes sparkled not the less with pleasure and gaiety, and his red lips were not and full of hope the path in the wood, trilling a new the less ready to laugh and sing. He trod then gaily song which his mother had taught him, consisting of five verses, and in which he described himself as more gay and happy than the thoughtless bird springing in the morning from its nest.

"Antoine ?" called an old woman who was gathering apples in the orchard. "What do you want with me, Dame Marguerite ?" "Come and sing me your song, and I will give you an apple." "Willingly," said Antoine, lightly leaping the hedge; and running up to her he immediately began his song. "That will do for the present," said Marguerite at the third verse; "I am very busy just now, but you shall sing me the rest some other day."

LITTLE ANTOINE AND THE REDBREASTS. (From the French.)

It was autumn. Nature verged towards her decline; but she was still brilliant-still beautiful. Great numbers of cows, with their large bells, fed in the meadows; sheep wandered in flocks on the hills, the heaths, and stubble-fields; the trees dropt around them their withered leaves; but those they still retained, variegated with the most beautiful colours from bright yellow to deep purple, gave a degree of brilliancy to the country which a more uniform verdure would have failed to impart. In the orchards, the trees bent beneath the weight of their beautiful fruits, with which the ground was strewed; the robust peasant, climbing up the boughs, his double sack upon his back, sang gaily as he filled it and the apron of his companion, who held it extended at the foot of the tree, and threw the fruit into the baskets. Rural and joyous sounds, bursts of laughter repeated from tree to tree, were heard on all sides, and announced the approach of the vintage. The hedges were full of birds, which skipped from branch to branch, gathering their little harvest, and singing the last pleasures of the year.

It was these charming birds that drew the pretty little Antoine into a path which led into the copse; he had set there the preceding evening a line of little nets of horse-hair with running knots, and his heart palpitated with emotion as he went to see if, for the first

Pursuits of Literature, 6th edit. 80.

Whilst she spoke, he lifted the apples and put them into her basket. "Well," said she, "you shall have three in place of one, for your good help and your three couplets" and she selected three of the largest. AnWith Marguerite's assistance, he crammed into the pockets of his vest the two largest, which gave a most grotesque appearance to his figure; and biting the third with his beautiful teeth, and thanking Dame Marguerite, he sprung over the hedge, and took the way to the little wood. "What a happy meeting!" said he, striking his two apples; "the morning has begun well; I have it in my mind that I will be happy the whole day. If I find a bird, I shall carry to my mother two apples and something besides." He entered the wood, and saw near his nets two beautiful redbreasts, which did not fly away. He approached softly; the redbreasts were taken by their little feet, and every effort they made to fly only served to tighten the knot. The mind of Antoine was divided between joy at the success of his attempt, and pity for his little first with pride; "poor dear little ones!" added he prisoners. "Two beautiful redbreasts!" said he at compassionately, "if you have broken your legs, how sorry I shall be! Wait, darling little creatures; I will disengage you without hurting you: and then and then-I will caress you so much; you will be so happy both be happy, I promise you." that you will never regret your liberty; yes, you will

He cut the horse-hair with his teeth, disengaged them carefully, covering one with his hat while he loosened the others. He saw with great pleasure that they were not hurt: he breathed on their little legs, rubbed them, kissed them; then holding a bird in each hand, he carried them in triumph, and took the road to the city, with as much delight and pride as a soldier who has taken two enemies captive.

you, little one, who will give her a dinner. Ah, how happy she will be, and I also, when I shall carry her six beautiful sous in one hand, and in the other a pretty redbreast; for I wish to keep you, my little friend," said he to the second; "you will amuse me all the winter. I will save all the crumbs of my bread for you. I will go to the hedges to seek the berries you love. Come, you will want for nothing; we will be good companions. What a pleasure to see you jump about me, to hear you sing, to warm you in my hand! My mother, also, will be amused; she will love you dearly. Ah, if you knew how good she is how happy we three will be together!" And he kissed it with more tenderness than the other, for it was his own property. In his joy he went very fast, and sang his song from beginning to end. He had scarcely finished, when, turning a hedge, he found himself in front of a group of gentlemen in green hunting-dresses, covered with lace and gold. At the head of the cavalcade was the prince of the country, whom he recognised by his embroidered star and his beautiful hat, rather than by his features, for he had never seen him but at a distance.

The poor little Antoine remained stupified. He would have been still more confounded if he had known that it was he who had drawn the prince to that side of the wood. After having been at the chase for some time, he was returning to his palace, when he was struck with Antoine's beautiful voice, which made the wood resound. The prince stopped. "What a charming voice!" said he to the noblemen who accompanied him. "It is a young girl," replied the chamberlain, deceived by the silvery tones. "I believe, your highness, it is a little boy," said one of the huntsmen. The prince wished to know the truth; he rode towards the place from which the sound proceeded, and soon saw Antoine, whose cheeks became as red as the two apples which peeped out of his pockets when the prince himself addressed him. "Was it you who sung, little one?" asked he. When a prince speaks, one may be permitted to forget a red breast; Antoine thought no more of his than if they were still in the woods, and he hastened to take off his hat before answering. Whirr!-away flew one of the birds: he saw it, and, giving a loud cry, extended his hands to catch it, when, whirr! away flew the other after its companion. Antoine looked up and saw them flying away; large tears filled his eyes, and he cried with all his might, "Oh, my redbreasts, my redbreasts, my poor mother!" and his tears flowed. Every thing has its turn in this world; a moment before, the prince had made the redbreasts be forgotten, and now the red breasts obliterated all remembrance of the prince. Antoine thought no more of him than if he had been in his court, and his lamentations followed their flight, when a burst of laughter from the prince and his attendants reminded him that he was not alone, and recalled the cause of his misfortune; and as he thought he was much to be pitied, he was very indignant at their mirth. "Yes, yes," said he, looking at the prince and shaking his head, "it is well for you to laugh, when you are the cause of my birds flying away." "Little clown," said one of the huntsmen, giving him a stroke with the handle of his whip, "is that a way to speak to the prince?" Antoine already felt that he had committed a fault, and with downcast eyes and clasped hands he fell on his knees and stammered out, "Pardon, pardon! my lord prince; do not kill the little Antoine." "Rise," said he gently; "I pardon you, but it is on condition that you sing me immediately the song which you sung in the wood." Antoine, too happy to get off so easily, wished to obey. He rose, rubbed his eyes with his sleeve, sighed profoundly, and tried to begin, but could not bring out a single note; his voice seemed to have flown away with his redbreasts; it shook, and in spite of all his efforts he could not articulate a single word. He was seized with terror; he believed himself lost, and, bathed in tears, he fell on his knees, crying "Pardon, my lord prince; I cannot sing; do not kill me, I beseech you."

The prince was affected; he put his hand under Antoine's chin, and made him look up. "You are a fool, my little friend," said he to him; "come, take courage; I don't wish to hurt you. I have caused you much grief—I am sorry for it; you seem a good child. I ask you in return to do me a pleasure; your song has appeared to me so pretty, I wish to hear it again. Recover yourself, and endeavour to sing it from beginning to end." While he spoke with so much kindness, the countenance of Antoine brightened, smiles re-appeared on his lips, and gaiety in his eyes. "I ask nothing better than to do you a pleasure, Monseigneur; I would as willingly sing my song to you as to old Marguerite, who has given me these apples; but then-but at present" 66 At present! what do you mean to say, my little dear; what hinders you at present? You are not afraid of me, I hope ?" "Oh no, not at all; but see, how can I sing I have lost my two birds? This would be a lie, and that I am a little boy very gay and very happy, when my mother has forbid me to tell lies." "Good little child, sing it for all that, and perhaps happiness will return while singing."

with hay, which his mother ordered to be hung up in that manner; and the knight looks upon it with great satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years old when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal filled with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the knight has made great havoc in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks. His stable-doors are patched with noses that belonged to foxes of the knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them that, for distinction's sake, has a brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, carried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and lost above half his dogs. This the knight looks upon as one of the greatest exploits of his life.

After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir Roger, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in, and which seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe here in a far greater de. gree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits : he has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a season, and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but of a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighbourhood always attended him, on account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes; having destroyed more of those vermin in one year than it was thought the whole county could have produced. Indeed the knight does not scruple to own among his intimate friends, that in order to establish his repu tation this way, he has secretly sent for great numbers of them out of other counties, which he used to turn loose about the country by night, that he might the better signalise himself in their destruction the next day. His hunting horses were the finest and best managed in all these parts; his tenants are still full of the praises of a grey horse that unhappily staked himself several years since, and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard.

Sir Roger being at present too old for fox-hunting to keep himself in action, has disposed of his beagles, and got a pack of stop-hounds. What these want in speed, he endeavours to make amends for by the deepness of their mouths and the variety of their notes, which are suited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry makes up a complete concert. He is so nice in this particular, that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the knight returned it by the servant with a great many expressions of civility; but desired him to tell his master, that the dog he had sent was indeed a most excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted a

counter-tenor.

Sir Roger is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every day since I came down; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely pleased, as we rode along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neigh. bourhood towards my friend. The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old knight as he passed by, which he generally requited with a nod or smile, and a kind of inquiry after their fathers and uncles.

After we had rode about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. They had done so for some time, when, as I was at a little distance from the rest of the company, I saw a hare pop out from a small furze-brake, almost under my horse's feet. I marked the way she took, which I endeavoured to make the company sensible of by extending my arm, but to no purpose, until Sir Roger, who knows that none of my extraordinary motions are insignificant, rode up to me, and asked me if puss was gone that way? Upon my answering 'yes,' he immediately called in the dogs, and put them upon the scent. As they were going off, I heard one of the country fellows muttering to his companion, that it was a wonder they had not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's crying stole away.' This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made me withdraw to a rising ground, from whence I could have the pleasure of the whole chase without the fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. The hare immediately threw them above a mile behind her; but I was pleased to find, that instead of running straight forward, or in hunter's language flying the country,' as I was afraid she might have done, she wheeled about, and described a sort of circle round the hill where I had taken my station, in such a manner as gave me a very distinct view of the sport. I could see her first pass by, and the dogs some time afterwards unravelling the whole track she had made, and following her through all her doubles. I was at the same time delighted in observing that deference which the rest of the pack paid to each particular hound, according to the character he had acquired amongst them. If they were at fault, and an old hound of reputation opened but once, he was immediately followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who was a noted liar, might have yelped his heart out, without being taken notice of.

The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and been put up again as often, came still nearer to where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly knight, who

much diversion.

My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not only at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his universal benevolence to mankind, in the returns of affection and good-will which are paid him by every one that lives within his neighbourhood. I lately met with two or three odd instances of that general respect which is shown to the good old knight. He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself with him to the county assizes. As we were upon the road, Will Wimble joined a couple of plain men who rode before us, and conversed with them for some time, during which my friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their characters.

The first of them, says he, that has a spaniel by his side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds a-year, an honest man; he is just within the game act, and qualified to kill a hare or a pheasant; he knocks down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a-week, and by that means lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an estate as himself. He would be a good neighbour if he did not destroy so many partridges; in short, he is a very sensible man, shoots flying, and has been several times foreman of the petty jury.

The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a fellow famous for taking the law of every body. There is not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued at a quarter-sessions. The rogue had once the impudence to go to law with the widow. His head is full of costs, damages, and ejectments; he plagued a couple of honest gentlemen so long, for a trespass in breaking one of his hedges, until he was forced to sell the ground it enclosed to defray the charges of the prosecution; his father left him fourscore pounds a-year; but he has 'cast,' and been cast, so often, that he is not now worth thirty. I suppose he is going upon the old business of the wil. low-tree.

As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, Will Wimble and his two companions stopped short until we came up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between them. Will, it seems, had been giving his fellow-traveller an account of his angling one day in such a hole, when Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, told him that Mr such an one, if he pleased, might take the law of him for fishing in that part of the river. My friend Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round trot; and after having paused some time, told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgment rashly, that much might be said on both sides.' They were neither of them dissatisfied with the knight's determination, because neither of them found himself in the wrong by it;

upon which we made the best of our way to the assizes.

The court was sitting before Sir Roger came; but notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in the country took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear, 'that he was glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit.' I was listening to the proceedings of the court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that grave appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our laws, when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I was in some pain for him, until I found he had acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity.

Upon his first rising, the court was hushed, and a

·

general whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger was up.' The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in the county.

I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the gentlemen of the county gathering about my old friend, and striving who should compliment him most; at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, that was not afraid to speak to the judge.

In our return home we met with a very odd accident, which I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how desirous all who know Sir Roger are of giv ing him marks of their esteem. When we were arrived upon the verge of his estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man of the house had it seems been formerly a servant in the knight's family, and to do honour to his old master, had some time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a signpost before the door, so that the 'knight's head' had hung out upon the road about a week before he himself knew any thing of the matter. soon as Sir Roger was acquainted with it, finding that his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection and good-will, he only told him that he had made him too high a compliment; and when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive look, that it was too great an honour for any man under a duke; but told him at the same time that it might be altered with a very few touches, and that he himself would be at the charge of it. Ac cordingly, they got a painter by the knight's direction to add a pair of whiskers to the face, and by a little aggravation of the features, to change it into the Saracen's-head. I should not have known this story had not the innkeeper, upon Sir Roger's alighting, told him in my hearing that his honour's head was brought back last night with the alterations that he had ordered to be made in it. Upon this my friend, with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into the room. I could not forbear discovering greater expressions of mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this monstrous face, under which, notwithstanding it was made to frown and stare in a most extraordinary manner, I could still discover a distant resemblance of my old friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to know him in that disguise. I at first kept my usual silence; but upon the knight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not still more like himself than a Saracen, I composed my countenance in the best manner I could, and replied, 'that much might be said on both sides.'

These several adventures, with the knight's behaviour in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with in any of my travels."

PHENOMENA IN SEEING COLOURS. IT has long been remarked in ordinary life, that one person has not the same ideas of colour as another; there being frequently something in the vision of individuals which causes them to observe and form opinions of tints in a way different from their neighbours. Thus the late Mr Dugald Stewart was insensible to the less refrangible colours of the spectrum, and could not distinguish a red fruit from the green leaves of the tree. Probably, the facts related in the following extract from Mr Combe's system of Phrenology, taken apart from the phrenological references, will afford some gratification to our readers :

"Although the eyes are affected agreeably or disagreeably by different modifications of the beams of light or by colours, yet they do not conceive the relations of different colours, their harmony or discord, and they have no memory of them. Certain individuals are almost destitute of the power of perceiving colours, who yet have the sense of vision acute, and readily perceive other qualities in external bodies, as their size and form. Observation proves that individuals who have a part of the brain immediately over the eye, below the eyebrow, largely developed, possess in a high degree the power of discriminating colours, and on this account the phrenologist admits this as a fundamental faculty of the mind.

The faculty, when powerful, gives a delight in contemplating colours, and a vivid feeling of their harmony and discord. Those in whom the organ is deficient experience little interest in colouring, and are almost insensible to difference of hues. In the

Phrenological Transactions, Dr Butter reports the case of Mr Robert Tucker, whose eyesight was not deficient, and who was able neither to distinguish nor to recollect many of the primitive colours, even when shown to him. 'Orange, he calls green, and green colours orange; red, he considers as brown, and brown as red; blue silk looks to him like pink, and pink of a light blue colour; indigo is described as purple.