cases, animals are found to be placed in situations | where their peculiar qualities may be highly useful and necessary to man: the camel, for instance, exists in sandy and desert countries, over which it is calculated, by the nature of its feet, and some extraordinary peculiarities of the digestive organs, to travel with large burdens, and where no other means of communication could be rendered available. The animals to be found over the greater part of the earth are generally those which are universally useful, such as the dog and the horse. Some others, apparently of a very unimportant kind, as the crow, and a certain common kind of butterfly, are nearly universal; and this, we would be inclined to say, is a kind of proof that there is a utility in such creatures which we are not able to trace. Many of the animals found at a certain latitude in Africa are not common to the same latitude, or any other, in Asia, and many of those in Asia are not found in Africa. Many, again, of those found in certain climates of the Old World, as it is called, are not found any where in America; which in its turn possesses many not found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The lion exists in Asia and Africa, and was formerly a denizen of Europe also; the tiger exists in Asia alone: neither of these creatures is found in America, which, however, has an animal somewhat akin to the tiger, named the jaguar, which does not inhabit any part of the eastern hemisphere. America also has the condor, the Washington eagle, the llama, and other great birds and beasts of prey, peculiar to itself. North America, naturalists reckon a hundred and eight quadrupeds, of which only twenty-one species, or fifteen distinct animals, are common to the elder continent the sheep, the deer, the squirrel, the waterrat, the fieldmouse, the beaver, the weasel, the seal, the fox, the wolf, the otter, the glutton, the bear, the shrew, and the mole. In the department of birds, there is perhaps even a larger proportion peculiar to America. Many of those creatures which are confined to particular continents, or to still narrower spaces of the earth's surface, seem to have been so voluntarily, or through the influence of some inscrutable constraint, for there are many other and by no means distant places, where, as far as we can judge, they could have lived equally well, and to which they must have in many instances been accidentally or designedly transported, or to which they might have easily transported themselves, if they had been inclined. rest. In Of some irriguous valley,' nor shed their refreshing influence over any possible 'Dark, sultry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, 'Their sports together in the solar beam, Or in the gloom of twilight hum their joy.' Nor could he have been in any manner accessory to the peopling of the lakes and pools with those peculiar species of fresh-water fish, cray-fish, and aquatic insects, which the scientific zeal of naturalists has there discovered. Finally, that monstrous and extraordi. nary bird, the dodo, indigenous to the island under consideration, and which so greatly astonished the early settlers, could not have been carried from any other quarter of the world, because it was neither known previously, nor has it ever since been seen or heard of elsewhere. It appears then inadmissible to suppose that all or any of these organised beings have been transported from the more ancient continents to the insulated positions which they now inhabit, either by the power of winds, the prevalence of currents, the agency of birds, or the influence of the human race. and by what means, then, may it be asked, were they there conveyed? This is the problem which many thoughtful inquirers have long sought, and probably will for ever seek, in vain to solve. When, earthquakes rent in pieces, and on the heated surface | therefore, however in themselves fitted or ordained Whether all living creatures emanated from a cen- An ingenious French writer, M. Bory de St Vincent, selects, as an illustration of his sentiments on this subject, Mascareigne, or the Isle of Bourbon, situated a hundred and fifty leagues from the nearest point of Madagascar, from which it might, on a casual survey, be supposed to have derived its plants and animals. This remarkable island does not contain a particle of earth or stone which has not been originally submitted to the violent action of submarine volcanic fire. All its characters indicate a much more recent origin than that of the ancient continent. It bears about it an aspect of youth and novelty which recalls what the poets have felt or feigned of a nascent world, and which is only observable in certain other islands, also admitted among the formations of later ages. Mascareigne was at first one of those soupiraux brulans' on the bosom of the ocean, similar to such as have since been seen to arise, almost in our own times, at Santorin and the Azores. Repeated irruptions of this submarine and fiery furnace, heaping up bed upon bed of burning lava, formed at last a mountain, or rocky island, which the shocks of It has been observed that, for the most part, those animals which are found in islands, or greatly insu lated continents, rarely inhabit other countries; for example, the species of New Holland and of South America do not occur in any of the ancient conti. nents; and this has been adduced as a proof that the surface of the earth, and the relative positions of sea and land, have undergone several signal changes since the period at which animals became generally distri buted over that surface, according to those peculiar laws of geographical allotment by which the particular localities of species and genera are now established and maintained. As, however, a difference in respect to longitude is much less influential in the modification of climate, and the consequent production of a diversity of species, than an equal difference in respect to latitude, we find that the northern parts of North America exhibit a zoological aspect more allied to that of Norway, Lap. land, and some of the corresponding parallels of Asia, than to the southern parts of the New World. For example, the wolf, the rein-deer, and the elk, are common alike to the northern parts of either continent; but with the exception of one or two species, chiefly feline, such as the puma, the animals of North and South America do scarcely in any respect cor. respond. Under more southern parallels, however, where the masses of land are separated by greater extent of intervening ocean, such countries as lie under the same latitude present a difference in the character of their zoological productions, apparently regulated in a great measure by their longitudinal distances. The equatorial regions of Asia, Africa, and America, possess no quadruped which is common to more than two of those regions; and were it not for the occurrence of the lion, the jackall, and one or two others, in each of the two first-named continents, it might be said that none of the three possessed a single mammiferous animal in common. Though New Holland produces a few birds which seem identical with the species of Europe, its quadrupeds differ, without exception, not only from those with which we are familiar in Europe, but from those with which we are acquainted in any other quarter of the globe. They belong almost entirely to that anomalous group, named pouched or marsupial animals, of which we have likewise examples (though both specifically and generically distinct) in one of the American tribes." We may observe, in conclusion, though at the risk of being accused of a love of hypothesis, that the absolutely necessary re-creation of the vegetable world after its last submersion, throwing aside all consideration of recently formed islands, leads analogically to the conclusion, that a similarly diffusive re-creation of animals might have taken place on the same occasion. THE TWO KATES." [By the author of "The Buccaneer," &c.] "I CANNOT help observing, Mr Seymour, that I think it exceedingly strange in you to interfere with the marriage of my daughter. Marry your sons, sir, as you please; but my daughter! that is quite another matter. And Mrs Seymour, a stately sedate matron of the high-heeled and hoop school, drew herself up to her full height, which (without the heels) was five foot seven; and fanning herself with a huge green fan more rapidly than she had done for many months, looked askance upon her husband, a pale delicate man, who seemed in the last stage of a consumption. "A little time, Mary!" (good lack! could such a person as Mrs Seymour bear so sweet a name?) little time, Mary, and our sons may marry as they list for me; but I have yet to learn why you should have more control over our Kate than I. Before I quit this painful world, I should like the sweet child to be placed under a suitable protector." 66 a "You may well call her child, indeed; little more than sixteen. Forcing the troubles of the world upon her, so young. I have had my share of them, heaven knows, although I had nearly arrived at an age of discretion before I united my destiny to yours." "So you had, my dear; you were, I think, close upon forty!" Think, Mr Seymour, if you had married a gadabout, who would have watched over my children ?" (she never by any chance said our children). "I have never been outside the doors (except to church) these four years! If you had married a termagant, how she would have flown at, and abused all your little did I say little? I might with truth say, your great peculiarities. I never interfere, never; I only notice -for your own good-that habit, for instance, of always giving Kate sugar with her strawberries, and placing the tongs to the left instead of the right of the poker-it is very sad!" "My dear," Mr Seymour would interrupt, "what does it signify whether the tongs be to the right or left ?" "Bless me, dear sir, you need not fly out so; I was only saying that there are some women in the world who would make that a bone of contention. I never do, much as it annoys me-much as it leads the servants into careless habits-much as it and other things grieve and worry my health and spirits-I never complain! never. Some men are strangely insensible to their domestic blessings, and do not know how to value earth's greatest treasure-a good wife! But I am dumb; I am content to suffer, to melt away in tears it is no matter." Then, after a pause to recruit her breath and complainings, she would rush upon another grievance with the abominable whine of an aggrieved and much-injured person-a sort of mental and monotonous wailing, which, though nobody minded, annoyed every body within her sphere. Her husband was fast sinking into his grave; her sons had gone from Eton to Cambridge; and when they were at home, took good care to be continually out of earshot of their mother's lamentations-the servants changed places so continually, that the door was never twice opened by the same footman-and the only fixture at Seymour Hall, where servants and centuries, at one time, might be almost termed synonymous, was the old deaf housekeeper, who, luckily for herself, could not hear her mistress's voice. To whom, then, had Mrs Seymour to look forward, as the future source of her comforts?-i. e. of her tormenting; even her daughter Kate-the bonny Kate-the merry Katethe thing of smiles and tears-who danced under the shadow of the old trees-who sang with the birds who learned industry from the bees, and cheerfulness from the grasshopper-whose voice told in its rich full melody of young Joy and his laughing train-whose step was as light on the turf as the dew or the sun. beam whose shadow was blessed as it passed the window of the poor and lowly cottager, heralding the coming of her who comforted her own soul by comforting her fellow-creatures. Kate's father well knew that his days were numbered; and he looked forward with no very pleasurable feeling to his daughter's health and happiness being sacrificed at the shrine whereon he had offered up his own. Kate, it is true, as yet had nothing suffered: she managed to hear and laugh at her mother's repinings, without being rendered gloomy thereby, or giving offence to her mournful and discontented pa rent. She would, in her own natural and unsophisticated manner, lead her forth into the sunshine, sing her the gayest songs, read to her the most cheerful • Abridged from Friendship's Offering for 1835. books, and gather for her the freshest flowers; and the truth was, she had started a fresh subject; her sometimes even Mrs Seymour would smile, and be husband's loss-her husband's virtues-nay, her hus amused, though her heart quickly returned to its bit- band's faults-were all new themes; and she was poterness, and her soul to its discontent. But Mr Sey-sitively charmed in her own way at having a fresh mour knew that this buoyant spirit could not endure cargo of misfortunes freighted for her own especial for ever, and he sought to save the rose of his existence use. She became animated and eloquent under her from the canker that had destroyed him. She was troubles; and mingled with her regrets for her "poor earnestly beloved by a brave and intelligent officer, dear departed," were innumerable wailings for her who had already distinguished himself, and who hoped daughter's absence. to win fresh laurels whenever his country needed his exertions. It would be difficult to define the sort of feeling with which Kate received his attentions. Like all young, very young girls, she thought that affection ought to be kept secret from the world, and that it was a very shocking thing to fall in love; she consequently vowed and declared to every body, that "she had no idea of thinking of Major Cavendish-that she was too young, much too young, to marry-that her mamma said so." I must observe, that Kate's extreme want of resemblance to either her mournful mother or her pale and gentle father, was not more extraordinary than that Major Cavendish, as we have said the calm and dig. nified Major Cavendish at six-and-twenty-should evince so great an affection for the animated and girlish creature, whom, four years before his "declaration," he had lectured to, and romped with-but no, not romped-Major Cavendish was too dignified to romp, or to flirt either-what shall I call it then ?-laughed ? yes, he certainly did laugh, generally after the most approved English fashion-his lips separated with a manifest desire to unite again as soon as possible, and his teeth, white and even, appeared to great advantage during the exertion. Nobody thought, that, though young and handsome, he would think of marriage, "he was so grave;" but on the same principle, I suppose, that the harsh and terrible thunder is the companion of the gay and brilliant lightning, majestic and sober husbands often most desire to have gay and laughing wives. Now, for the episode. Mrs Seymour had fretted herself to sleep, Mr Seymour had sunk into his afternoon nap, and Kate stole into her own particular room, to coax something like melody out of a Spanish guitar, the last gift of Major Cavendish. into full relief by the background, being a curtain of There she sat on a low ottoman, her profile thrown heavy crimson velvet that fell in well-defined folds from a golden arrow in the centre of the architrave, while summer drapery of white muslin shaded the other side her features hardly defined, yet exhibiting the tracery of beauty-her lips rich, full, and separated, as ever and anon they gave forth a low melodious accompaniment to her thrilling chords. There she sat, practising like a very good girl, perfectly unconscious that Major Cavendish was standing outside the window listening to his favourite airs played over and over again; and he would have listened much longer, but suddenly she paused, and looking carefully round, drew from her bosom a small case, containing a little group of flowers painted on ivory, which he had given her, and which, poor fellow, he imagined she cared not for, because, I suppose, she did not exhibit it in public! How little does mighty and magnificent man know of the workings of a young girl's heart! Well, she looked at the flowers, and a smile, bright and beautiful, spread over her face, and a blush rose to her cheek, and suffused her brow and then it paled away, and her eyes filled with tears. What were her heart's imaginings, Cavendish could not say; but they had called forth a blush-a smile -a tear-love's sweetest tokens; and forgetting his concealment, he was seated by her side, just as she thrust the little case under the cushion of her ottoman! How prettily that blush returned when Cavendish asked her to sing one of his favourite ballads! the modest, half-coquettish, half-natural air, with which she said, "I cannot sing, sir, I am so very hoarse." "Indeed, Kate! you were not hoarse just now." "How do you know?" "I have been outside the window for more than half an hour." The blush deepened into crimson-bright glowing crimson-and her eye unconsciously rested on the spot where her treasure was concealed; and after more, far more than the usual repetition of sighs, and smiles, and protestations, and illustrations, little Kate did say, or perhaps (for there is ever great uncertainty in these matters) Cavendish said, "that, if papa or mamma had no objection she believed she thought she even hoped;" and so the matter terminated. And that very evening she sang to her lover his favourite songs; and her father that night blessed her with so deep, so heartfelt, so tearful a blessing, that little Kate Seymour saw the moon to bed before her eyes were dry. How heavily upon some do the shadows of life rest! Those who are born and sheltered on the sunny side of the wall know nothing of them. They live on sunshine they wake i' the sunshine-nay, they even sleep in sunshine. Poor Mr Seymour, having gained his great object, married, in open defiance of his wife's judgment, his pretty Kate to her devoted Cavendish, laid his head upon his pillow one night about a month after, with the sound of his lady's complaining voice ringing its changes from bad to worse in his aching ears-and awoke, before that night was past, in another world. Mrs Seymour had never professed the least possible degree of affection for her husband-she had never seemed to do so-never affected it until then. But Kate Cavendish had accompanied her husband, during the short deceitful peace of Amiens, to Paris; and there the beautiful Mrs Cavendish was distinguished as a wonder-"si amiable"-"si gentille"-"si naïve" "si mignone." The most accomplished of the French court could not be like her, for they had forgotten to be natural; and the novelty and diffidence of the beautiful English woman rendered her an object of universal interest. Petted and fêted she certainly was, but not spoiled. She was not insensible to admiration, and yet it was evident to all that she preferred the affectionate attention of her husband to the homage of the whole world; nor was she ever happy but by his side. Suddenly the loud warwhoop echoed throughout Europe. Major Cavendish had only time to convey his beloved wife to her native country, when he was called upon to join his regiment. Kate Cavendish was no heroine. She loved her husband with so entire an affection-a love of so yielding, so relying a kind-she leaned her life, her hopes, her very soul, upon him, with so perfect a confidence, that to part from him was almost a moral death. Youth little knows what hearts can endure; they little think what they must of necessity go through in this work-a-day world; they are ill prepared for the trials and turmoils that await the golden as well as the humbler pageant of existence. Kate Cavendish returned to her mother's house; her very thoughts seemed steeped in sorrow; and it was happy for her that a new excitement to exertion occurred, when, about five months after her husband's departure, she became a mother. Despite Mrs Seymour's prognostications, the baby lived and prospered; and by its papa's express command was called Kate." How full of the true and beautiful manifestations of to her husband! Little Kate was so very like him maternal affection were the letters of Mrs Cavendish her lip, her eye, her smile ;" and then, as years passed on, and Major Cavendish had gained a regiment by his bravery, the young mother chronicled her child's wisdom, her wit, her voice the very tone of her voice was so like her father's her early love of study; and during the night watches, in the interval of his long and harassing marches, and his still more desperate engagements, Colonel Cavendish found happiness and consolation in the perusal of the outpourings of his own Kate's heart and soul. In due time, his second Kate could and did write those misshapen characters of affection, pot-hooks and hangers, wherein parents, but only parents, see the promise of perfection. Then came the fair round hand, so en-bon-point, with its hair and broad strokes; then an epistle in French; and at last a letter in very neat text, bearing the stamp of authenticity in its diction, and realising the hopes so raised by his wife's declaration, that "their Kate was all her heart could desire, so like him in all things." The life of Colonel Cavendish continued for some years at full gallop; days and hours are composed of the same number of seconds, whether passed in the solitude of a cottage or the excitement of a camp; yet how differently are they numbered! how very, very different is the retrospect! Had Colonel Cavendish seen his wife, still in her early beauty, with their daughter half-sitting halfkneeling by her side, the one looking younger, the other older than each really was, he would not have believed it possible that the lovely and intelligent girl could be indeed his child, the child of his young Kate. A series of most provoking, most distressing occurrences, had prevented his returning, even on leave, to England; he had been ordered, during a long and painful war, from place to place, and from country to country, until at last he almost began to despair of ever seeing home again. At last, one of the desolating battles that filled England with widows, and caused multitudes of orphans to weep in our highways, sent agony to the heart of the patient and enduring Kate: the fatal return at the head of the column, "Colonel Cavendish missing," was enough; he had escaped so many perils, not merely victorious, but unhurt, that she had in her fondness believed he bore a charmed life; and were her patience, her watchings, her hopes, to be so rewarded? was her child fatherless? and was her heart desolate ? Violent was indeed her grief, and fearful her distraction; but it had, like all violent emotion, its reaction; she hoped on, in the very teeth of her despair; she was sure he was not dead-how could he be dead? he that had so often escaped-could it be possible, that at the last he had fallen? Providence, she persisted, was too merciful to permit such a sorrow to rest upon her and her innocent child; and she resolutely resolved not to put on mourning, or display any of the usual tokens of affection, although every one else believed him dead. One of the serjeants of his own regiment had seen him struck to the earth by a French sabre, and immediately after a troop of cavalry rode over the ground, thus leaving no hopes of his escape; the field of battle in that spot presented the next day a most lamentable spectacle: crushed were those so lately full of life, its hopes and expecta tions; they had saturated the field with their life's blood; the torn standard of England mingled its colours with the standard of France; no trace of the body of Colonel Cavendish was found; but his sword, his rifled purse, and portions of his dress, were picked up by a young officer, Sir Edmund Russell, who had ever evinced towards him the greatest affection and friendship. Russell wrote every particular to Mrs Cavendish, and said, that as he was about to return to England in a few weeks, having obtained sick leave, he would bring the purse and sword of his departed friend with him. Poor Mrs Cavendish murmured over the word "departed;" paled, shook her head, and then looked up into the face of her own Kate, with a smile beaming with a hope, which certainly her daughter did not feel" He is not dead," she repeated; and in the watches of the night, when in her slumbers she had steeped her pillow with tears, she would start, repeat "he is not dead," then sleep again. There was something beautiful and affecting in the warm and earnest love, the perfect friendship existing between this youthful mother and her daughter; it was so unlike the usual tie between parent and child; and yet it was so well cemented, so devoted, so respectful: the second Kate, at fifteen, was more womanly, more resolute, more calm, more capable of thought, than her mother had been at seven-and-twenty; and it was curious to those who note closely the shades of human character, to observe how, at two-and-thirty, Mrs Cavendish turned for advice and consolation to her high-minded daughter, and leaned upon her for support. The beauty of Miss Cavendish was like her mind, of a lofty bearing-lofty, not proud. She looked and moved like a young queen; she was a noble girl; and when Sir Edmund Russell saw her first, he thought alas! I cannot tell all he thought-but he certainly "fell," as it is termed, "in love," and nearly forgot the wounds inflicted in the battle-field, when he acknowledged to himself the deep and ever-living passion he felt for the daughter of his dearest friend. "It is indeed most happy for your mother," he said to her some days after his arrival at Sydney Hall, "it is indeed most happy for your mother that she does not believe what I know to be so true; I think, if she were convinced of your father's death, she would sink into despair." "Falsehood or false impressions," replied Kate, "sooner or later produce a sort of moral fever, which leaves the patient weakened in body and in mind; I would rather she knew the worst at once; despair by its own violence works its own cure." "Were it you, Miss Cavendish, I should not fear the consequences; but your mother is so soft and gentle in her nature.' "Sir Edmund, she knew my father-lived with him-worshipped him; the knowledge of his exist. ence was the staff of her's; he was the soul of her fair frame. Behold her now-how beautiful she looks— those sunbeams resting on her head, and her chiselled features upturned towards heaven, tracing my father's portrait in those fleecy clouds, or amid yonder trees; and do you mark the hectic on her cheek ?-could she believe it, I know she would be better; there's not a stroke upon the bell, there's not an echo of a footfall in the great avenue, but she thinks it his; at night she starts, if but a mouse do creep along the wainscot, or a soft breeze disturb the blossoms of the woodbine that press against our window; and then exclaims, 'I thought it was your father!'" With such converse, and amid the rich and various beauties of a picturesque, rambling old country house, with its attendant green meadows, pure trout stream, and sylvan grottos-sometimes with Mrs Cavendish, sometimes without her, did Kate and Sir Edmund wander, and philosophise, and fall in love. One autumn evening, Mrs Seymour, fixing her eyes upon the old tent-stitch screen, said to her daughter, who as usual had been thinking of her husband, "Has it ever occurred to you, my dear Kate, that there is likely to be another fool in the family? I say nothing; thanks to, your father's will, I have had this old rambling place left upon my hands for my life, which was a sad drawback: better he had left it to your brother." he returned with Kate, pale, but almost as dignified as ever. Mrs Cavendish clasped her to her bosom. "You would not leave me, child-would not thrust your mother from your heart, and place a stranger there ?" "No, no," she replied; Kate's heart is large enough for both." "And do you love him?" The maiden hid her face upon her mother's bosom; yet though she blushed, she did not equivocate; but replied in a low firm voice, "mother, I do." "Sir Edmund," said the mother, still holding her child to her heart, "I have suffered too much-too much, to give her to a soldier." Mother," ," whispered Catharine, "yet, for all that you have suffered, for all that you may yet endure, you would not have aught but that soldier husband, were you to wed again!" No other word passed the lips of the young widow: again, again, and again, did she press her child to her bosom; then placing her fair hand within Sir Edmund's palm, rushed in an agony of tears to the solitude of her own chamber. "Hark! how the bells are ringing," said Anne Leafy to Jenny Fleming, as they were placing white roses in their stomachers, and snooding their hair with fair satin ribands. “And saw you ever a brighter morning? Kate Cavendish will have a blithesome bridal; though I hear that Madam Seymour is very angry, and says no luck will attend this, no more than the last wedding!" The words had hardly passed the young maid's lips when a bronzed countenance pressed itself amid the roses of the little summer-house in which they sat arranging their little finery, and a rough and travel-soiled man inquired, "Of whom speak ye?" "Save us!" exclaimed Jenny Fleming, who was a trifle pert. "Save us, master! why, at the wedding at the Hall, to be sure-Kate Cavendish's wedding, to be sure; she was moped long enough, for certain, and now is going to marry a brave gentleman, Sir Edmund Russell!" The stranger turned from the village girls, who, fearful of being late at the church, set away across the garden of the little inn, leaving the wayfarer in quiet possession, but with no one in the dwelling to attend the guests, except a deaf waiter, who could not hear "the strange gentleman's" ques tions. The youthful bride and the young bridegroom stood together at the altar; and a beautiful sight it was, to see them on the threshold of a new existence. Mrs Cavendish might be pardoned for that she wept abundantly-partly tears of memory, partly of hope; and the ceremony proceeded to the words, "if either of you know any impediment," when there was a rush, a whirl, a commotion outside the porch, and the stranger of the inn rushed forward, exclaiming, "I know an impediment-she is mine!" A blessing upon hoping, trusting, enduring woman! A thousand blessings upon those who draw consolation from the deepness of despair! The wife was right-her husband was not dead; and as Colone! Cavendish pressed his own Kate to his bosom, and gazed upon her face, he said, "I am bewildered! they told me false-they said Kate Cavendish was to be married! and "And so she is," interrupted Sir Edmund Russell; "but from your hand only will I receive her: are there not TWO KATES, my old friend ?" What the noble soldier's feelings were, heaven knows no human voice could express them-no pen write them: they burst from, and yet were treasured in his heart. 'My child !-that my daughter!-two Kates !— wife and child!" he murmured. Time had galloped with him, and it was long ere he believed that his daughter could be old enough to marry. The vil lagers from without crowded into the sweet village church; and moved by the noise, Mrs Seymour put on her new green spectacles, and stepped forward to where Colonel Cavendish stood trembling between his wife and child; then looking him earnestly in the face, she said, "After all, it is really you! Bless me, how ill you look! I never could bear to make people uncomfortable; but if you do not take great care, you will not live a month !" "I said he was not dead," repeated his gentle wife: "and I said:" but what does it matter what was said Kate the second was married; and that evening, after Colonel Cavendish had related his hairbreadth 'scapes, and a sad story of imprisonment, again did his wife repeat, “I said he was not dead!" THE IVY. "You might have given it up to Alfred, if you had chosen, long ago,' ," said Mrs Cavendish, who knew well that, despite of her grumbling, her mother loved Sydney Hall as the apple of her eye. "What, and give the world cause to say that I doubted my hus. band's judgment! No, no: I am content to suffer in silence; but do you not perceive that your Kate is making a fool of herself, just as you did, my dearfalling in love with a soldier, marrying misery, and working disappointment." More, a great deal more, did the old lady say; but fortunately nobody heard her, for when her daughter perceived that her eyes were safely fixed on the tent-stitch screen, she made her escape, and, as fate would have it, encountered Sir Edmund at the door. In a few minutes he had told her of his love for her beloved Kate; but though Mrs Cavendish had freely given her own hand to a soldier, the remembrance of what she had suffered—of her widowed years, the uncertainty of her present state, anxiety for her child's happiness, a desire, a fear of her future well-being-all rushed upon her with such confusion, that she became too agitated to reply to his entreaties: and he rushed from the cham-surrounds, assume a great variety of aspect; and, inber, to give her time to compose herself, and to bring deed, it is a most important agent in forming the another whose entreaties would be added to his own: beauty and variety of rural landscape. It is also as Why is it that every one is pleased with the common ivy? There is a charm about that plant which all feel, but none can tell why. Observe it hanging from the arch of some old bridge, and consider the degree of interest it gives to that object. The bridge itself may be beautifully situated; the stream passing through its arches clear and copious; but still it is the ivy which gives the finish and picturesque effect. Mouldering towers, and castles, and ruined cloisters, interest our feelings in a degree more or less by the circumstance of their being covered or not by the ivy. Precipices, which else would exhibit only their naked, barren walls, are clothed by it in a rich and beautiful vesture. Old trees, whose trunks it useful as it is beautiful; and among its uses I would include the very thing of which I am now speaking, for I have no idea that the forms and colours in na ture please the eye by a sort of chance. If I admire the ivy clinging to and surmounting some time-worn tower, and the various tints that diversify the parts of the ruin not hidden by it, I can only refer the pleasure I experience to the natural construction of the human mind, which the Almighty has formed to feel a pleasure in contemplating the external world around it. Who is insensible to the beauties of nature at the rising and setting of the summer's sun? Who can behold the moonbeams reflected from some silent river, lake, or sea, and not feel happy in the sight? None, I be lieve, in early life. When hardened in the ways of men-when the chief good pursued is the accumula. tion of wealth, the acquisition of power, or the pur. suit of pleasure, so called-then mankind lose a sense of the beauties of nature; but never, perhaps, till then. A love for them is inherent in the mind, and almost always shows itself in youth; and if cherished at that period, by education, would seldom be destroyed or become dormant in after-life, as it now so generally is. The ivy is of vast advantage to the smaller birds, as it affords them shelter in winter, and a retreat for building their nests in spring and sum. mer. It is in fructification in October and November, and the sweet juice which its flowers exude, supports an infinity of insects in autumn, while its berries are a store of nutriment for many birds in early spring. Drummond. SIR MICHAEL SCOTT. LIKE Thomas the Rhymer, of whom we lately pre. sented a brief memoir, Sir Michael Scott is the hero of numberless traditionary anecdotes, which continue to this day to be related in all parts of Scotland, from the border to the remotest of the sea-encircled Hebrides. He is also an eminent personage in the national history, partly on account of his political ser. vices, and partly on account of his learning, of which he possessed no small share. We shall here present both the traditionary and the historical accounts of this noted gentleman, so that the reader may have an opportunity of comparing the one with the other, and thus observing the strange liberties which ignorance in the first place, and finally popular report, are apt to take, through a series of unenlightened ages, with those whose pursuits are at once above the comprehension of the public mind, and patent to its observation. TRADITIONARY ACCOUNT. Michael Scott was a great wizard, who lived long ago, and was the laird of Balwearie, in Fife, and also of Aikwood Castle, in Ettrick. He studied the black art for seven years at Oxford, and at last became so great a proficient, that there was hardly any thing which he could not do. He had always a set of brownies attending upon him, who used to torment him for work; and many are the wonderful things which these creatures did at his bidding. There is a deep road between Raith and Kirkaldy, in Fife, which the brownies hollowed out in one night for him; and near Dolphinton, in Lanarkshire, there is a cut in a hilly ridge, through which the Edinburgh road passes, such as no mortal power could have attempted long ago, but which Michael's brownies made in the same way, carrying away the earth to a little distance, where they riddled it all most carefully into the exact shape of a sugar-loaf, not leaving a stone in it so big as a pigeon's egg. There was one of his servants that gave him a great deal of trouble, constantly calling upon him for something to do. He first set him to build a cauld [dam-head] across the Tweed at Kelso, which was only work to him for one night. Michael then ordered him to cleave the Eildon hill in three, and this was also done in a single night.+ The distressed enchanter at last put him to twisting ropes out of sea-sand, which fairly settled him. brownie is still in vain attempting to accomplish this work, as you may see at the going back of every tide. The Michael was chosen to go as ambassador to the king of France, to remonstrate against some piracies which his ships had committed upon mariners belonging to Scotland. Instead of preparing an equipage and retinue, the wise laird of Balwearie retired to his closet, opened his book of magic, and called up a black horse, which was nothing more nor less than the evil one himself. Having got upon his back, he set out for France, and was flying very much at his ease through the air, when the devil asked him what it was that the old women of Scotland muttered at bed-time. A less experienced wizard might have answered that it was the Paternoster; but Michael was too cunning to do that, knowing that it would have enabled the diabolic steed to throw him from his back into the sea. The works here alluded to are of so extraordinary a kind, that to any one who sees them, it cannot appear wonderful that the common people should ascribe them to the agency of necromancy. The conical hill, in particular, if a primordial work of nature, is certainly one of a most uncommon character. + This, it must be owned, is woefully at variance with history: for the triple top of this hill attracted the attention of the Romans a thousand years before the days of the wizard, and was described by them under the title of Trimontium. One of its tops also bears a camp of the Romans. So he evaded the question, and soon after arrived at Maister Michael Scott's man With mazled legs and birsled skin. By and bye, the goodman and his shearers came home from the field for their dinner, and becoming liable to the same enchantment, joined in the dance, and also in the cry, so that it was like a house of bedJamites. At last, when he thought he had punished the wife sufficiently for her want of hospitality, he took up his bonnet, and relieved them, but not till they were all like to drop down with fatigue. Notwithstanding all the power which Michael enjoyed through his art, his books, and his ministering spirits, he was at last outwitted by a woman, who, having wiled him into a confession that he could defy every thing except broth made from the flesh of a breme sow, gave him a mess of that kind, of which he died, but not before he had put to death his treacher. ous confidante. There are different accounts as to the place of his burial, some saying that it was at Holm Cultram, in Cumberland, and others at Melrose Abbey. There are also different accounts of the fate of his magical books, which some allege to have been interred in his grave, while others represent them as existing at no remote time, but defying all attempts to read them through. The doggrel poet, Scott of Satchells, who wrote in the seventeenth century, says that, in 1629, happening to be at Burgh, near Bowness, in Cumberland, he was shown a volume which was said by the person possessing it to be the works of Michael Scott. He said the book which he gave me, Young scholars have picked out something From the contents, but dare not read within. He carried me along the castle then, And showed his written book hanging on an iron pin. Of hardened metal, like steel, or accumie ; Then in the church he let me see A stone where Mr Michael Scott did lie. The name of the wizard was transmitted to a progeny, who long after possessed the estate of Balwearie, and in one instance at least was supposed to retain also some portion of the magical power of their great ancestor. It is said that King James VI. once paid a visit to Sir James Scott of Balwearie, and that, after he had entered the courtyard of the castle, the jocular baron called out hastily to shut the gates, by way of giving the king a fright. James, recollecting the Raid of Ruthven and similar circumstances in his early days, did not relish such jests, and, calling out treason, ordered his host into custody. Sir James was confined in Edinburgh Castle, in anticipation of about to unite himself to her in marriage, he wrote the following highly characteristic letter:-" Ah, Johnie, Johnie, your weel days are dune, gif ye marry the Dancing Dochter o' Balwearie." She proved nevertheless a good wife; but the country people have still a notion that she verified the royal prediction, by causing large portions of her husband's estate to be detached for the benefit of her younger sons, and thus impairing the consequence of the principal house. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT." Michael Scott was born about the year 1214. The precise locality of his birthplace is unknown, although that honour has been awarded to Balwearie, in Fife, but on insufficient authority. Neither is there any thing known of his parents, nor of their rank in life; but, judging of the education he received, one of the most liberal and expensive of the times, it may be presumed that they were of some note. Scott early betook himself to the study of the sciences; but soon exhausting all the information which his native country afforded in those unlettered times, he repaired to the university of Oxford, then enjoying a very high reputation, and devoted himself, with great eagerness and assiduity, to philosophical pursuits, particularly astronomy and chemistry; in both of which, and in the acquisition of the Latin and Arabic languages, he attained a singular proficiency. At this period, astronomy, if it did not assume entirely the shape of judicial astrology, was yet largely and ́intimately blended with that fantastic but not unimpres sive science; and chemistry was similarly affected by the not less absurd and illusive mysteries of alchymy: and hence arose the imaginary skill and real reputation of Scott as a wizard, or foreteller of events; as in proportion to his knowledge of the true sciences, was his imputed acquaintance with the false. On completing his studies at Oxford, he repaired, agreeably to the practice of the times, to the university of Paris. Here he applied himself with such diligence and success to the study of mathematics, that he acquired the academic surname of Michael the Mathematician; but neither his attention nor reputation were confined to this science alone. He made equal progress, and attained equal distinction in sacred let ters and divinity; his acquirements in the latter studies being acknowledged, by his having the degree of doctor in theology conferred upon him. While in Paris, he resumed, in the midst of his other academical avocations, the study of that science on which his popular fame now rests, namely judicial astrology, and devoted also a farther portion of his time to chemistry and medicine. Having possessed himself of all that he could acquire in his particular pursuits in the French capital, he determined to continue bis travels, with the view at once of instructing and of being instructed. In the execution of this project, he visited several foreign countries and learned universities; and amongst the latter, that of the celebrated college at Padua, where he eminently distinguished himself by his essays on judicial astrology. From this period, his fame gradually spread abroad, and the reverence with which his name now began to be associated, was not a little increased by his predictions, which he, for the first time, now began to publish, and which were as firmly believed in, and contemplated with as much awe in Italy, where they were first promulgated, as they were ever at any after period in Scotland. From Italy he proceeded to Spain, taking up his residence in Toledo, whose university was celebrated for its cultivation of the occult sciences. Here, besides taking an active part, and making a conspicuous figure in the discussions on these sciences, he began and concluded a translation, from the Arabic into Latin, of Aristotle's nineteen books on the History of Animals. This work procured him the notice, and subsequently the patronage, of Frederick II., who invited him to his court, and bestowed on him the he translated, at the emperor's desire, the greater office of royal astrologer. While filling this situation, part of the works of Aristotle. He wrote, also, at the royal request, an original work, entitled "Liber Introductorius sive Indicia Quæstionum," for the use of young students; and a treatise on physiognomy, entitled "Physiognomia et de Hominis Procreatione;" dering it necessary to send ambassadors to Norway, to bring over the young queen Margaret, or, as she is more poetically called, the Maid of Norway, grandaughter of the deceased monarch, Michael Scott, now styled Sir Michael, although we have no account either of the time or occasion of his being elevated to this dignity, was appointed, with Sir David Weems, to proceed on this important mission, a proof that his reputation as a wizard had not affected his moral respectability. With this last circumstance, the veritable history of Sir Michael terminates; for his name does not again appear in connection with any public He died in the year 1292, at an advanced age. event, nor is there any thing known of his subsequent life. ENGLISH SONGS. SECOND ARTICLE. As already mentioned, the poets of the eighteenth century were in general indifferent song-writers. A song, to be successful, must be the expression of some very lively, almost irrepressible, and decidedly natural and unaffected train of ideas. The versifiers of those days were too tame and studious of rule, either to understand this necessity, or, if they had compre. hended it, to be successful in obeying it. The great mass of the compositions which they present as songs, are short dull poems, conceived in a strain of vicious affectation, and which nothing but fashion could have tolerated. Out of the whole number, no doubt, a few have been floated by their merit down to our own day, and must still be esteemed for almost every good quality which a song ought to possess. But these, we must recollect, are only exceptions-happy hits-things conceived under the favour of some ardent sentiment, overpowering the habitual mannerism of the muse. We can only estimate the general character of this species of poetry during the last century, by inspecting the collections of "favourite songs," which were pub lished from time to time throughout that period; in many of which, it would be found that there is not one song which is now so much as remembered-the whole a waste of the most miserable trash, disgracing the music of Handel, Arne, Lampe, and Chilcot, to which too many of them were set. One of these vocal volumes, published in 1746, is entitled "Amaryllis, a collection of such songs as are most in vogue, in best esteem, and particularly sung at the public theatres and gardens, regularly fitted for voice, violin, hautboy, flute, and German flute, with a figured base for the harpsichord." The title gives a vignette, in which Melibœus is represented as congratulating Tityrus on his being permitted to sing the praises of the fair nymph whose name is adopted for the book. Song first is one in honour of the Duke of Cumberland for his victory over the Scottish insurgents vance; From scourging Rebellion, and baffling proud France, That the youthful can insnare ; Then she leaves him to despair. The initiatory lines of a few others may be quoted, as sufficient to give an idea of the general style of the poetry. "Stella and Flavia every hour, Do various hearts surprise," "Guardian angels now protect me, Send to me the man I love; Cupid with thy bow de fend me, Help me all ye powers of love,"-" One summer's eve, as Strephon roved, Involved in thought profound," 'When mighty Sol at noon of day, With a very rigorous and probably fatal trial, when his besides several other works, of which one was on the sultry beams began to play, I wandered through a daughter, Dame Janet, appeared in the guise of a 'Opinions of Astrologers.' After a residence of some years at the court of This so which the king could present no further obstacle to her wish. He did not fail, however, to remember her descent from Auld Michael, and thus to account for the singular dexterity which she had displayed. He even seemed to retain a kind of grudge against the Dancing Dochter of Balwearie, as he designated her; and accordingly, on learning some years after that his trusty counsellor and friend Boswell of Balmuto was being retained for some time at his court, was permitted to pass to Scotland, where he arrived shortly after the death of Alexander III. That event ren From Chambers's Scottish Biographical Dictionary; Blackie and Son, Glasgow. An elaborate and minute life of Scott has been introduced by Mr Tytler into his "Lives of Scottish Worthies," Murray's Family Library. verdant glade, Seeking the most obliging shade,""While I fondly view the charmer, Thus the God of Love I sue, Gentle Cupid pray disarm her, Cupid, if you love me, do,"-" As Damon on a summer day, Beside a brook began his lay, The cooling waters passed along, Well pleased at Damon's happy song." prints, most of which contain very curious memorials. The songs are surmounted by small illustrative of the dresses and manners of a past day. In one a damsel in a voluminous hoop, with a tall crooked stick in her hand, and a few "smiling plains" around her, will represent a shepherdess. In another, presenting an old regularly laid out garden, a formal lady in hoop, fan, and pinners, is seen in the act of curtseying to an equally formal gentleman in the long swinging coat of the period, and a flowing periwig. A convivial ditty is headed with a set of gentlemen in cocked hats sitting round a table covered with bowl and glasses the scene an esplanade in front of an elegant country seat. Another gives a gentleman in a dining-room, in the act of addressing a tender ditty to a billet-doux which he had just finished an old-fashioned apartment, well hung with pictures, and the chairs of which have those long backs and formal curved baluster legs which to a fanciful eye seem so ludicrously appropriate to the corresponding portions of the human body as dressed at that time. The appropriateness, indeed, of the songs to the embellishments, and of the various parts of the embellishments to each other, are alike striking; and the general effect is, we need hardly say, extremely anti-poetical. he laid violent hands on himself; and, when found Charles Dibdin, the great ornament of modern English song before the days of Moore, was another of this class of writers. He was born about the year 1748, at Southampton, where his father was a silversmith. He commenced life as a chorister in the cathedral of Winchester, and at a very early age was an unsuccessful candidate for the situation of organist at Bishop's Waltham, in Hampshire. Excepting a few The exceptions, however, are in many cases ad- lessons from the Winchester organist, he was entirely mirable. How truly beautiful the "Black-eyed Su- his own instructor in the art which he was destined san" of Gay, and how sprightly many of the little to adorn, much of his early knowledge being obtained ditties of the Beggars' Opera! Even where the cast from scoring the concertos of Corelli. At fifteen he of the poetry may almost be too formal for a success-proceeded to London, and became a subordinate singer ful song, we cannot help admiring the lyric. Thus, in Covent Garden Theatre, where, next year, he was Ambrose Philips, in general the most namby-pamby permitted to bring out a musical pastoral of his own of poets, immortalised himself by the fine liquid mea- writing and composing, entitled the Shepherd's Artisures of fice. For some years he continued to perform and to supply music at this and afterwards at Drury Lane Theatre, without much distinction, till, in 1768, his performance of Mungo in The Padlock, and the music which he composed for that piece, gave him ce"Aman-lebrity in both capacities. Of the music ten thousand copies were sold in the first thirteen years, and yet the author only profited by it to the extent of fortyfive pounds. He was now engaged as a regular composer for Drury Lane, then under the management of Garrick; and among the pieces which he contributed (of some of which the literary department was also his) may be mentioned The Waterman, The Jubilee, The Deserter, and Liberty Hall. Several of the songs in these dramas, particularly those in Liberty Hall of "the High-mettled Racer," "Jack Rattlin," and "the Bells of Aberdovey," attained high popularity, and were among the earliest successful specimens of his abilities as a song-writer. Blest as the immortal gods is he, For ever, fortune, wilt thou prove And, when we meet a mutual heart, The pitiable truth of this song must ever recommend in 1740. The possibility of being successful as a song-writer does not seem to depend on success in general poetry; and it is sometimes found that a comparatively obscure and less educated class of poets are the most happy in this department, in consequence probably of their giving more immediate attention to popular taste, and freer vent to natural sentiment. Thus, few have produced better songs than Henry Carey, one of those authors who are despised in their own time for the want of status in life and of pretensions to learning, and hardly allowed their due meed of praise, even after the memory of all external circumstances has been buried with them in the tomb. Carey was the author of both the words and music of "God save the King," which has been ascribed to so many earlier names; and he is well known to have written the amusing burlesque of "Chrononhotonthologos." His "Sally in our Alley," as perhaps the most unaffected effusion of simple plebeian sentiment in the language, might almost be placed at the very head of the national anthology Of all the girls that are so smart, His own account of the origin of this song presents a delightful picture. "A shoemaker's apprentice, mak. ing holiday with his sweetheart, treated her with a sight of Bedlam, the puppet-shows, the flying chairs, and all the elegance of Moorfields; from whence, proceeding to the Farthing Pye-house, he gave her a collection of buns, cheesecakes, gammon of bacon, stuffed beef, and bottled ale; through all which scenes the author dodged them (charmed with the simplicity of their courtship), from whence he drew this little sketch of nature; but being then young and obscure, he was very much ridiculed for this performance; which, nevertheless, made its way into the polite world, and amply recompensed him by the applause of the divine Addison, who was pleased more than once to mention it with approbation." "Poor Carey," says D'Israeli, "the delight of the Muses, and delighting with the Muses, experienced all their trials and all their treacheries. At the time that this poet could neither walk the streets, nor be seated at the convivial board, without listening to his own songs and his own music-for in truth the whole nation was echoing his verse, and crowded theatres were clapping to his wit and humour-while this man himself, urged by his strong humanity, had founded a fund for decayed musicians-at this moment was poor Carey himself so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts so utterly neglected, that, in despair, not waiting for Nature to relieve him from the burden of existence, A difference with Mr Garrick having induced him, at the end of his engagement, to leave Drury Lane Theatre, he set up a new species of amusement at Exeter 'Change, under the title of the Comic Mirror, in which puppets were made to personate well-known characters. He afterwards became manager and com. poser for a theatre called the Royal Circus, near the Surrey extremity of Blackfriars' Bridge; from which, at the end of two seasons, he retired a loser. Next he set up an entertainment, in which he was himself sole writer, composer, manager, and performer, and which he continued above twenty years, producing in that time a great number and variety of short pieces, bearing such names as the Whim of the Moment, the Quizzes, the General Election, the Frisk, Valentine's Day, and Britons Strike Home. The first-mentioned piece contained his popular sea-song of " Poor Jack," of which 17,000 copies were sold in the course of a few years; while, of another sea-song, "the Greenwich Pensioner," which, he has been heard to say, was written and composed in an hour, 11,000 copies were sold, by which he cleared no less than L.400. These entertainments were successively given in an auction-room in King Street, Covent Garden; at the Lyceum in Exeter 'Change; in premises belonging to the Polygraphic Society; and at a theatre which he built for himself out of his profits, in Leicester Fields, and to which he gave the characteristic name of Sans Souci. During the same period, he published several literary works, among which may be particularised a Musical Tour through England (1787); Hannah Hewitt, a novel; the Younger Brother, a novel; a History of the Stage, in five volumes; and the Professional Life of Mr Dibdin (1802). His grand aim being to take advantage of the public whim of the moment, he applied himself, from the commencement of the French revolutionary war, to the production of pieces in which there was some reference to the military and nautical mania then possessing the national mind; and these he usually illustrated by songs breathing an ardent spirit of patriotism, and entering deeply and minutely into the circumstances of the military and naval life. To this circumstance have we been indebted for the many admirable naval songs of Dibdin, which form a department of English poetry entirely by themselves, alike remarkable for tenderness, humour, and descriptive power. firmity, and to very severe suffering. We can give but one specimen of Dibdin, but it shall be the poem for which, of all others, his name will be held in respect by future times-the touching and imaginative "Tom Bowling :" Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling, No more he'll hear the tempest howling, But now he's gone aloft. His friends were many and true-hearted, Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather, Shall give, to call life's crew together, His soul is gone aloft. In the present age, a return has taken place to the sentimental style of song-writing practised in the seventeenth century; and Moore, Bayley, and Proc. tor, must be considered the great existing masters of the art. With the productions of these writers, how. ever, the public must be so familiar, that it does not seem necessary to extend this little sketch by particu. larly adverting to them. THRILLING INCIDENTS. IN the recently published entertaining work, “A Winter in the Far West," by C. F. Hoffman of New York, in which the author describes the scenery and manners of the western states of the Union, we have the following account of some natural caverns in Western Virginia :-" Since I last wrote to you, I have explored several more of those limestone caverns with which the country abounds; one of which, in. deed, is said to extend, like an enormous cellar, beneath the village of Abingdon, a flourishing county town about twenty miles from this place; but no cave that I have yet seen compares with the Natural Tun nel, in Scott county. It is a vaulted passage-way of two hundred yards, through a mountainous ridge some five or six hundred feet high. The ridge lies like a connecting mound between two parallel hills, of about the same elevation as itself; and a brook, that winds through the wooded gorge between these hills, appears to have worn its way through the limestone rib that binds the two together. The cavernous passage is nearly in the form of an S. The entrance, at the upper side, is through a tangled swamp; where, in following down the stream, you come in front of a rude arch, whose great height, from the irregular face of the cliff being covered with vines and bushes, it is difficult to estimate, until you attempt to throw a stone to the top of the vault. The ceiling drops a few yards from the entrance, till, at the point where, from the peculiar shape of the cavern, the shadows from either end meet in the midst, it is not more than twenty feet high. The vault then suddenly rises, and be comes loftier and more perfect in form as you emerge from the lower end. Finally, it flares upward, so that the edges of the arch lose themselves in the projecting face of the cliff, which here rises from a gravelly soil to the height of four hundred feet; smooth as if chiselled by an artist, and naked as death.-The width of the tunnel varies from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet, the small stream winding through its centre. The sun was in the centre of the heavens as I stood beneath that stupendous arch, watching the swallows wheeling around the airy vault above me, and yet more than half the glen was in deep shadow. I had been told, whether jestingly or not, that the place was a favourite retreat for bears and panthers; and while following down the brook a few yards, I was somewhat startled, upon casting a glance into a recess in the rocky bank above me, to meet a pair of bright eyes glaring from the bushes which sheltered the nook. But the sudden movement of drawing a pistol frightened the wild animal from its covert, and it proved to be only an opossum, that glided along the trunk of a fallen tree, and disappeared in the thickets above. I paused again and again, in retracing my steps through the sinuous vault, to admire its gloomy grandeur; and then mounted my horse, which was tethered in the swamp at its entrance. The dramatic compositions of Dibdin were above seventy in number; his songs, of every kind, above twelve hundred. Notwithstanding all these exertions, the bountifulness of his disposition reduced him in the decline of life to poverty. His poetical services to the state, of which it would be difficult to estimate the real value, were then rewarded by the government with a pension of two hundred pounds. But this being cut off at a change of administration, he was compelled to open a shop for the sale of music and musical instruments in the Strand; an enterprise which terminated in bankruptcy. He on this occasion laid such a simple, candid, and satisfactory statement of his affairs before the commissioners and his creditors, as redounded greatly to his credit, and procured him an early grant of his certificate. He was left, however, quite destitute; when a few gen- My road led immediately over the tunnel; but the tlemen, almost wholly unknown to him, originated a thick forest on either side precluded a view from the subscription for the benefit of the veteran bard, and top of the precipice, unless by approaching its edge. were the means of purchasing for him a small life This it was necessary to do on foot. The glen thus annuity, with a reversion for his widow and daughter. viewed presents the appearance of a mere fissure ia Upon this he subsisted till his death, which took place the mountain side; but the chasm is so sudden and on the 25th of July 1814, after a long illness, during deep that the first glance is startling when your foot which he was reduced to the last stage of bodily in-presses the edge; and your eye swims when it would |