Wi' joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers;

The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet:

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view.

The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's an' their mistress's command,

The younkers a' are warned to obey;

"An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand,

An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play;

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found!

O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!

I've paced much this weary, mortal round,

And sage experience bids me this

declare

"If Heaven a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare,

One cordial in this melancholy vale, "Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,

way!

the ev'ning gale.

Is there, in human form, that bears a

heart

A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!

That can, with studied, sly, and en

snaring art,

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:

Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heart-felt rapture raise;

youth?

good;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, How 'twas a tawmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,

The big Ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride;

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearin thin an'
bare!

Those strains that once did sweet in
Zion glide,

He wales a portion with judicious

many a land;

How he, who lone in Patmos banish'd, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to heaven's eternal king,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays:

Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wings,"

That thus they all shall meet in
future days:

There, ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter

tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compar'd with this, how poor Reli

gion's pride,

In all the pomp of method and of [wide,

art,

When men display to congregations

mies, by a young man, upon his entering the place of public assembly: "Sir," said the youth, retaining his seat, "you must not expect that honour from me, though young, which cannot be returned to me by a child of your's when I am old."

To these we may add the Athenian law, whereby all that were commanders, orators, or entrusted with any public office, were to be married, and have children and estates in land, which were considered as so many guarantees of their good behaviour, and without which domestic engagements, it was thought dangerous to confide the management of public affairs.

Polygamy was not commonly tolerated in Greece: when Herodotus reports that Anaxandridas, the Spartan, had two wives, he remarks, that it was contrary to the custom of Sparta. The other Grecian cities, so far agreed with the Lacedæmonians, only upon extraordinary occasions, such as mortality amongst the men, by reason of war or other calamity, when the marrying of more than one wife was permitted.

The stated time of marriage was not the same in all places; the Spartans were not permitted to marry until they had arrived at their full strength, though we are not informed what was the exact number of years they were confined to; yet it appears, from one of Lycurgus's sayings, that both men and women were limited in this particular, that the children might be robust and vigorous. The Athenian laws are said to have ordered that men should not marry under thirtyfive years of age; but this, a good deal, depended upon the disposition of every lawgiver. Aristotle thought thirty-seven a good age, Plato and Hesiod thirty. Some of the old Athenian laws permitted women to marry at twenty-six. Aristotle at eighteen, Hesiod at fifteen, &c. So much for ancient institutions:-proceed we now to modern ones.

The liberty of the fair sex at Athens is almost equally abridged by the Turks and the Greeks. Their houses are secured with high walls, and the windows turned from the streets, and latticed, or boarded up, so as to preclude all intercourse, even of the eyes.

The dress of the Grecian matrons is a garment of red or blue cloth, the waist very short, the long petticoat falling in folds to the ground; a thin flowing veil of muslin, with a golden rim or border, is thrown over the head and shoulders. The attire of the virgins is a long red vest, with a square cape of yellow sattin hanging down behind. They walk with

their hands concealed in the pocketholes at the sides, and their faces are muffled. Sometimes they assume the Turkish garb. Neither prudence nor modesty suffers a maiden to be seen before she is married. Her beauty might inflame the Turk, who can take her legally by force, on a sentence of the cadi or judge; and the Greek, if she exposed her face to him, even unwillingly, would reject her with disdain.

The Albanian women in Athens are inured early to hard living, labour, and the sun. Their features are injured by penury, and their complexions by the air. Their dress is course and simple; a shift reaching to the ancle, a thick sash about the waist, and a short loose woollen vest. Their hair is platted in two divisions, and the ends fastened to a red silken string, which, with a tassel, is pendant to their heels, and frequently laden with pieces of silver coin, of various sizes, diminishing gradually to the bottom. Their legs and feet are generally bare, and their heads hooded, as it were, with a long towel, which encircles the neck; one extremity hanging down before, and the other behind. The girls wear a red scull-cap, plated with peraus, or Turkish pennies of silver, perforated and ranged like the scales of fish.

The Greek will sometimes admit a traveller into his gynecæum, or the apartment of his women. These within doors are, as it were, uncased, and each a contrast of the figure she made when abroad. There the girl, like Thetis, treading on a soft carpet, has her white and delicate feet naked, the nails tinged with red. Her trowsers, which in winter are of red cloth, and in summer of fine calico, or thin gauze, descend from the hip to the ancle, hanging loosely about her limbs; the lower portion embroidered with flowers, and appearing beneath the shift, which has the sleeves wide open, and the seams and edges curiously adorned with needle-work. Her vest is of silk, exactly fitted to the form of the bosom and the shape of the body, which it rather covers than conceals, and is shorter than the shift. A rich zone encompasses her waist, and is fastened before by clasps of silver gilded, or of gold set with precious stones. The head dress is a skull-cap, red or green, with pearls; she has bracelets of gold on her wrists, and, like Aurora, is rosy fingered, the tips being stained. At her cheeks is a lock of hair, made to curl towards the face; and down her back falls a profusion of tresses, spreading over her shoulders. [To be continued.

OF FRANCE.

FROM FRENCH AUTHORITIES OF 1610. The night before this unhappy day his majesty could take no rest, and was in continual uneasiness. In the morning he told those about him, that he had not slept, and that he was very much disordered. Thereupon M. de Vendôme entreated his majesty to take care of himself, and not to go out, for that day was fatal to him. "I see," answered the king, "that you have consulted the almanack, and have heard of the prediction of La Brosse, from my cousin the Count of Soissons: he is an old fool, and you, who are young, have still less wisdom." The Duke de Vendôme then went to the queen, who likewise begged the king not to go out of the Louvre that day; but he made her the

same answer.

The coachman turned from the street St. Honoré into that part called Féronnerie, which was then very narrow, and made more so by the little shops erected against the wall of the church-yard of St. Innocent. A little embarrassment was occasioned by the meeting of two carts, one loaded with wine, the other with hay, so that the coach was obliged to stop in a corner of the street, over against the study of a certain notary, whose name was Poutrain. The foot. men took a nearer way, that they might, with less difficulty, come up with the coach at the end of the street; so that there were only two, which followed; and one of these went to make way for the carriage to go on, while the other in the meantime took that opportunity to fasten his garter. Ravillac, who had followed the coach from the Louvre, perceiving that it stopped, and that there was no person near it, advanced to that side where he observed the king sat. His cloak being wrapped round his left arm served to conceal the knife, which he held in his hand; and sliding between the shops and coach, as if he was attempting to pass by, like others, he supported one foot upon one of the spokes of the wheel, and the other upon a stone, and drawing a knife edged on both sides, gave the king a wound a little above the heart, between the third and fourth rib. His majesty had just turned towards the Duke of Epernon, and was reading a letter, or, as others say, leaning towards the Marechal Lavardin, to whom he was whispering. Henry, feeling himself struck, cried out, "I am wounded;"

perceiving that the point of his knife had been stopped by a rib, he repeated the blow with such quickness, that not one of those who were in the coach had time to oppose, nor even to perceive it. Henry, by raising his arm, afforded a fairer aim for the second blow, which, according to Péréfixe and L'Etoile, went directly to his heart; and, according to Rigault and the French Mercury, near the auricle of the heart; a gush of blood occasioning the almost instantaneous death of the unhappy prince, as Mattheiu asserts, pronouncing, with a faint and dying voice, these words," it is nothing." The murderer aimed a third blow at him, which the Duke of Epernon received in his sleeve.

A

EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLIERS.

FROM CAREW'S POEMS, Ed. Lon. 1640. ̧ The Lady Mary Villiers lies Under this stone; with weeping eyes The parents that first gave her birth, And their sad friends, lay'd her in earth; If any of them, reader, were Known unto thee, shed a tear; Or if thyself possess a gem, As dear to thee as this to them; Though a stranger to this place, Bewail in theirs thine own hard case; For thou, perhaps, at thy return, May'st find thy darling in an urn.

INSTINCT AND SAGACITY OF A HORSE.

The following anecdote, related in a French paper, proves that the instinct of the horse is sometimes as surprising as that of the dog, and that it is equally intelligent and susceptible of as warm an attachment to its master:-A young gentleman went on horseback from Paris to the Fauxbourg St. Antoine to receive some money, and on his return, wishing to let his horse drink, by some accident fell into the water and was drowned. The horse immediately returned to the house where his master had been to receive the money, and by its neighings and the noise of its feet, attracted the attention of the people of the house, who were no less astonished than alarmed at its re-appearance without its rider. One of them mounted the horse, and allowed it to go its own course. The animal set off at full trot in the direction of the