her residence there, and excursions into the interior of the country, illustrated with drawings and sketches of the scenes described, are preserved among the family manuscripts. To the family taste, as she called it, of spinning from the brain in the sanctum of the closet, leaving to posterity to value the web or not, as it pleased," Lady Anne owed the chief amusement of a serene, placid, and contented old age, prolonged, like that of several of her family, beyond the threescore-and-ten usually allotted to human life, but enlivened to the close by the proverbial cheerfulness of the “light Lindsays,” and unimpaired vigour of mind and imagination. Her stores of anecdote on all subjects and all persons, her rich fancy, original thought, and ever ready wit, rendered her conversation delightful to the last; while the kindness of her heart—a very fountain of tenderness and love— always overflowing, and her sincere but unostentatious piety, divested that wit of keenness that might have wounded it flashed, but it was summer lightning.' *

:

We have a delightful picture of her latter life from her own pen, with a short prose essay, which, while possessed of independent merits, as illustrating an important truth in the economy of human life, has an additional interest as the composition of one known only for one happy poetical effort. And now,' she says, 'having for the present closed all that it is necessary to say of kings and courts, I return to the haunts of my heart, like the traveller who has been long away, gleaning from other countries what may amuse the dear circle at home; grieving with tenderness over chasms in that circle never to be supplied, but grateful for what remains of friendship and affection still on earth to cheer the evening of life.

'Of my sister's society I have all that I can in reason expect from the avocations which, as a mother and a grandmother to four families, multiply themselves upon her every day. My brothers rally round me with kindness, when business calls them to town; but it is in the

* I here quote from a privately printed book, Lives of the Lindsays. By Lord Lindsay. Wigan. 1840.

even

affection of my two nephews I find the tenderness so unusual in young men! which is ever ready to fly to be my prop and support when I feel a want of it. ... All is liberty and equality here, untaxed by restraint: it is granted by them to me, and by me to them: their wives permit me to steal into my own den (my drawing room of forty feet long, surrounded with papers and drawings), and employ myself all the morning, without thinking themselves ill-used by my absence; but never do I refuse the tête-à-tête, which has a useful purpose in view, to any one: I make no selfish monopoly of my time to Anne Barnard, but lay aside the page, in which perhaps my whole heart is engaged, to listen to the anxiety of some other person, though the idea occupying my pen vanishes with the moment, perhaps never to return; and this, at times, I really feel an act of virtue, anxious as I am to finish the labours of the mind while it possesses a part of its powers, though the strength of the body does not always prop it up.

"Oh! blest retirement, friend to life's decline!"

how little am I disposed to change thee for the bustle of this busy town! how I should be throwing away the little portion of life that remains, to seek abroad for the contentment, which at my time of life is best found at home! My friends press me to go out to amuse myself, but I should go without any interest beyond the charm of getting home again; by the side of my fire, I have got into the habit of living in other days with those I loved, reflecting on the past, hoping in the future, and sometimes looking back with a sorrowful retrospect where I fear I may have erred:-together with these mental employments, I have various sources of amusement; I compile and arrange my memorandums of past observations and events; I retouch some sketches, and form new ones from souvenirs taken on the spot: sometimes I employ an artist to finish these, but all is first traced accurately with my own pencil, so impossible do I find it to get any one to enter exactly into the spirit of my

subject. With such entertainment for my mornings, and a house full of nephews and nieces, together with the near connections of my dear Barnard, all tenderly attached to me, I have great-great reason to bless God, who, in taking much from me, has left me so much!

'Talking of occupation-amongst my "vagrant scraps," where thoughts are marked down in order to introduce them here (which I generally forget to do), I find a page on this subject, which seems addressed to contemporaries, who will, I think, understand it.

Occupation. When living by myself, which I do not a little, I fancy I make discoveries in human nature, which, I daresay, are (to use a vulgar phrase) only mares' nests, but I make hobby-horses of them, on which I gallop off with much alacrity.

'When people say of others who are advancing in life --namely, growing old and ugly-that they are cross, that nothing pleases them, that they are crabbed, and that they have lost their relish for the world, it is all nearly true, with a little alteration. They are crossed, nobody is pleased with them, they find things go backwards -namely, crabbed-and that the world has lost its relish for them; the young and gay find themselves in no affinity with them, and contemporaries are angry when they look in the face of fifty or sixty-it is a sort of mirror which reflects their own wrinkled visages. While gay and pretty contemporaries involuntarily dress themselves in smiles to meet us, conversation is full of openness, good-will, and confidence; but draw the veil of thirty years over the same person, and the manners of every creature will be changed. Where lies the blame? nowhere; the complaint is cutaneous, belonging to the skin only: but let no one suppose himself in fault for this. I have heard a poor old desponder say: "I am grown quite stupid and good for nothing;" but were it possible to remove the veil I have alluded to, and see the rosebuds and lilies where they were before, the effects they would produce on the beholder would soon reanimate the manner, and, with his new skin, Richard

would be himself again-for minds do not grow old or wear out, except by the effects of the body on them.

'But to be serious. When alone, I am not above fiveand-twenty. I can entertain myself with a succession of inventions, which would be more effective if they were fewer; I forget that I am sixty-eight, and if, by chance, I see myself in the glass looking very abominable-I do

not care.

'What is the moral of this?-That, as far as my poor experience goes-and 'tis said that we must all be fools or physicians at forty-occupation is the best nostrum in the great laboratory of human life for pains, cares, mortifications, and ennui: it amuses in sickness, it lightens the distress of circumstances, it acts as a gentle opiate to ill-requited love, it is a solace to the heart when a fellow-creature can be benefited by our exertions, and even in sorrow-even when the heart is sinking under the load of grief-if we can feel it a duty to bear up, we find it an Atlas to the human mind, giving it strength to support what might otherwise crush it.

'But to treasure up the power of occupying ourselves in a manner to interest us in old age, we must begin, my dear young friends, by occupying ourselves in youth, by cultivating some talent, some taste to which our mind leads us, which may amuse our solitary hours as we advance in life—and, if it has a useful tendency, so much the better-never should the day pass in which a young person ought not to endeavour to make some step forward to improvement; if we do so in youth, the taste will not depart from us in old age, and, instead of giving up the point of happiness, if we make it our aim to keep our minds awake to a sense of our duties, it will serve us in good stead, although Providence may not have gifted us with imagination or ingenuity. The independence of having your amusements within yourselves, my dear friends, will render you beloved and looked up to; the same independence in old age will prevent your ever feeling yourselves a burden on society. Rich in your own resources, you will ask no subscriptions from others, but

gladly afford a share of what little it may be in your power to bestow.'

With this delightful picture of happy old age, I must close my 'Pilgrimage to Balcarres,' from which I only hope the reader may derive one-tenth of the pleasure which it was the means of giving to myself.

REGENERATION OF PARTS IN ANIMALS.

THERE is a power in nature for replacing or reproducing parts which have been injured or lost. It is least conspicuous in the higher animals, and increases as we descend to the lowest. Even in man, however, it exists to a considerable extent. When a bone in our bodies is broken, and the parts separated so as to leave an interval less than an inch, the two broken ends will throw out matter, and fill up the space with new bone. In the case of a dislocation, which is allowed to remain unreduced, a new joint is usually formed, in all respects resembling that put out of use. Even when a whole bone has been destroyed by disease, nature generally contrives to make a new one in its place. The new bony matter is thrown out, sometimes within, and sometimes around the dead shaft; and when the latter has been removed, the new structure gradually assumes the regular form, and all the attachments of muscles, ligaments, &c., become as complete as before. This power of nature is most apt to be shewn in young persons; and it appears that some individuals have it in a much greater degree than others. A very curious example is recorded by Mr White in his work on the Regeneration of Animal and Vegetable Substances, 1785. A child, born a few years ago to a lady of rank, had two thumbs upon one hand, or rather a thumb double from the first joint, the outer one less than the other, each having a perfect nail. When he was about three years old, I was desired to take off the