to that unexpected proceeding by the firmness with which she bore a salute to the lord-lieutenant which threw half the ladies on board into hysterics. Mrs. Floyd was indeed as gallant a woman as ever stood fire. Her first husband had been an officer in the army, and she had followed the camp during two campaigns; had been in one battle and several skirmishes, and had been taken and retaken with the carriages and baggage without betraying the slightest symptom of fear. Her naval career did not shame her military reputation. She lived chiefly on board, adopted sea-phrases and sea-customs, and but for the petticoat might have passed for a sailor herself. And of all the sailors that ever lived she was the merriest, the most generous, the most unselfish; the very kindest of that kindest race! There was no getting away from her hearty hospitality, no escaping her prodigality of presents. It was dangerous to praise or even to approve of anything belonging to herself in her hearing; if it had been the carpet under her feet or the shawl on her shoulders, either would instantly have been stripped off to offer. Then her exquisite good humour! Coarse and boisterous she certainly was, and terribly Irish; but the severest stickler for female decorum, the nicest critic of female manners, would have been disarmed by the contagion of Mrs. Floyd's good humour. My chief friend and favourite of the family was however one who hardly seemed to belong to it-Anne, the eldest daughter. I liked her even better than I did her father and mother, although for very different qualities. She was "inland bred," and combined in her self sufficient self-possession and knowledge of the world, of literature, and of society, to have set up the whole house, provided it had been possible to supply their deficiency from her superabundance; she was three or four-andtwenty, too, past the age of mere young ladyism, and entirely unaccomplished, if she could be called so, who joined to the most elegant manners a highly cultivated understanding and a remarkable talent for conversation. Nothing could exceed the fascination of her delicate and poignant raillery, her voice and smile were so sweet, and her wit so light and glancing. She had the still rarer merit of being either entirely free from vanity, or of keeping it in such good order, that it never appeared in look or word. Conversation, much as she excelled in it, was not necessary to her, as it is to most eminent talkers. I think she enjoyed quiet observation full as much, if not more; and at such times there was something of good-humoured malice in her bright hazel eye, that spoke more than she ever allowed her tongue to utter. Her father's odd ways, for instance, and her mother's odd speeches, and her sister's lack-a-daisicalness, amused her rather more than they ought to have done; but she had never lived with them, having been brought up by an aunt who had recently died leaving her a splendid fortune; and even now that she had come to reside at home, was treated by her parents, although very kindly, rather as an honoured guest than a cherished daughter. Anne Floyd was a sweet creature in spite of a little over-acuteness. I used to think she wanted nothing but falling in love to soften her proud spirit and tame her bright eye; but falling in love was quite out of her way--she had the unfortunate distrust of an heiress, satiated with professions of attachment, and suspecting every man of wooing her fortune rather than herself. By dint of hearing exaggerated praise of her beauty, she had even come to think herself plain; perhaps another circumstance a little contributed to this persuasionshe was said to be, and undoubtedly was, remarkably like her father. There is no accounting for the strange freaks that nature plays in the matter of family likeness. The admiral was certainly as ugly a little man as one should see in a summer day, and Anne was as certainly a very pretty young woman: yet it was quite impossible to see them together, and not be struck with the extreme and even absurd resemblance between his old battered face and her bright and sparkling countenance. To have been so like my good friend the admiral might have cured a lighter spirit of vanity. Julia, the younger and favourite daughter, was a fine tall handsome girl of nineteen, just what her mother must have been at the same age; she had been entirely brought up by Mrs. Floyd, except when deposited from time to time in various country boarding - schools, whilst that good lady enjoyed the pleasure of a cruise. Miss Julia exhibited the not uncommon phenomenon of having imbibed the opposite faults to those of her instructress, and was soft, mincing, languid, affected, and full of airs and graces of the very worst sort; but I don't know that she was much more ignorant and silly than a girl of nineteen, with a neglected education, must needs be; and she had the farther excuse of being a spoiled child. Her father doated upon her, and thought her the most accomplished young to be made love to; and Captain Claremont, who had never seen either sister before, pleased with Julia's beauty and a little alarmed at his heart in the proper quarter. In short, the flirtation seemed going on very prosperously; and the admiral, in high glee, vented divers sea-jokes on the supposed lovers, and chuckled over the matter to Bill Jones, who winked and grinned and nodded responsively. After a few weeks that sagacious adherent began to demur. woman of the age; for certain, she could play a little, and sing a little, and paint a little, and talk a little very bad French, and dance and dress a great deal. She had also culti-Anne's wit, appeared in a fair way of losing vated her mind by reading all the love-stories and small poetry that came in her way; corresponded largely with half-a-dozen bosom friends picked up at her different seminaries; and even aspired to the character of authoress, having actually perpetrated a sonnet to the moon, which sonnet, contrary to the wellknown recipe of Boileau and the ordinary practice of all nations, contained eighteen lines, four quatrains, and a couplet; a prodigality of words which the fair poetess endeavoured to counterbalance by a corresponding sparingness of idea. There was no harm in Julia, poor thing, with all her affectation. She was really warm-hearted and well-tempered, and might have improved under her sister's kind and judicious management, but for a small accident which interrupted the family harmony, and eventually occasioned their removal from Hannonby. The admiral, always addicted to favouritism, had had under his protection, from boyhood to manhood, one youth of remarkable promise. He had been his first lieutenant on board the Mermaiden, and was now, at threeand-twenty, a master and commander; which promotion, although it ejected him from that paragon of frigates, the young captain did not seem to think so great an evil as the admiral had found his advancement. He was invited to the White House forthwith; and the gallant veteran, who seldom took the trouble to conceal any of his purposes, soon announced that Captain Claremont was his intended son-in-law, and that Miss Julia was the destined bride. The gentleman arrived, and did as much honour to the admiral's taste as his other favourite Bill Jones. Captain Claremont was really a very fine young man, with the best part of beauty, figure and countenance, and a delightful mixture of frankness and feeling, of spirit and gaiety, in his open and gentlemanly manners; he was, at a word, just the image that one conjures up when thinking of a naval officer. His presence added greatly to the enjoyment of the family; the admiral "fought his battles over again," and so did his lady, who talked and laughed all day long: Anne watched the proceedings with evident amusement, and looked even archer than usual; whilst Julia, the heroine of the scene, behaved as is customary in such cases, walked about, exquisitely dressed, with a book in her hand, or reclined in a picturesque attitude, expecting Things seemed," as he observed, "rather at a stand-still-the courtship was a deal slacker, and his honour, the captain, had talked of heaving anchor and sailing off for Lincolnshire." To this the admiral answered nothing but "Tush!" and "pshaw!" and as the captain actually relinquished, with very little pressing, his design of leaving Hannonby, Bill Jones' suspicions did seem a little super-subtle. Bill, however, at the end of ten days, retained his opinion. "For certain," he said, "Miss Julia had all the signs of liking upon her, and moped and hung her head and talked to herself like the negro who drowned himself for love on board the Mermaiden; and the captain, he could not say but he might be in love—he was very much fallen away since he had been in that latitude had lost his spunk, and was become extraordinarily forgetsome-he might be in love, likely enough, but not with Miss Julia-he was sure to sheer away from her; never spoke to her at breakfast or dinner, and would tack a hundred ways not to meet her, whilst he was always following in the wake of Miss Anne; and she (Miss Julia) had taken to writing long letters again, and to walking the terrace between the watches, and did not seem to care for the captain. He could not make the matter out. Miss Anne, indeed!" Here the admiral, to whom the possibility of a failure in his favourite scheme had never occurred, interrupted his confidant by a thousand exclamations of "Ass! blockhead! lubber!" to which tender appellations that faithful satellite made no other reply than a shake of the head as comprehensive as Lord Burleigh's. The next morning vindicated Bill's sagacity. Anne, who, for obvious reasons, had taken the task upon herself, communicated to her father that Captain Claremont had proposed to her and that she had accepted his offer. The admiral was furious, but Anne, though very mild, was very firm; she would not give up her lover, nor would her lover relinquish her; and Julia, when appealed to, asserted her female privilege of white-lying, and declared that if there was not another man in the world she would never have married Captain Claremont. The admiral, thwarted by everybody, and compelled to submit for the first time in his life (except in the affair of his promotion and that of the ducked sailor), stormed, and swore, and scolded all round, and refused to be pacified; Mrs. Floyd, to whom his fiat had seemed like fate, was frightened at the general temerity, and vented her unusual discomfort in scolding too; Anne took refuge in the house of a friend; and poor Julia, rejected by one party and lectured by the other, comforted herself by running away, one fine night, with a young officer of dragoons, with whom she had had an off-and-on correspondence for a twelvemonth. This elopement was the copestone of the admiral's misfortunes; he took a hatred to Hannonby, and left it forthwith; and it seemed as if he had left his anger behind him, for the next tidings we heard of the Floyds, Julia and her spouse were forgiven in spite of his soldiership, and the match had turned out far better than might have been expected; and Anne and her captain were in high favour, and the admiral gaily anticipating a flag-ship and a war, and the delight of bringing up his grandsons to be the future ornaments of the British navy. THE WORLD.1 Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, The wonderful air is over me, And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree, You friendly earth! how far do you go, With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles, Ah, you are so great, and I am so small, "You are more than the earth, though you are such a dot: You can love and think, and the earth can not!" From Lilliput Lectures, by the author of Lilliput Levee (Mathew Browne). London: Strahan & Co. THE DORTY BAIRN. [David Wingate, born at Cowglen, Renfrewshire, 1829. At the age of nine years he began work in a coal-mine; he subsequently studied at the Glasgow School of Mines, and qualified himself for the responsible position of manager of extensive collieries in Lanarkshire. In 1862 appeared his first volume, Poems and Songs, and in 1866 another volume, Anne Weir and other Poems, both published by Blackwood and Sons. Mr. Wingate at once obtained general recognition as one of the foremost of modern Scottish poets. Healthy pathos. honest humour, and a spirit of sturdy independence, are the most prominent characteristics of his verse.] Preserve me! Lizzie Allan, Hae ye no your breakfast taen? Sic a face ye hae wi' greetin'! What's the matter wi' ye, wean? Aye! "A flee ran owre your parritch?" "Fanny snowkit at your bread?" My certie! Leddy Lizzie! Ye're a dainty dame indeed! But the parritch can be keepit, And the bread can be laid bye, And if hunger proves nae kitchen, Then the tawse we'll hae to try. Aye! a bairn may weel be saucy Whare there's plenty and to spare; But there's mony a better lassie Would be blythe to see sic fare. Oh! waes me! but it's vexin', Yet it's needless to misca'See, there's the glass. What think ye? D'ye ken yoursel ava? There's the een I praised this mornin', Baith as blear't's the cludit moon. There's the pina" that an hour sin' And your hauns that were like lilies, Oh Lizzie, Lizzie Allan! Ye maun mend, or ye shall learn That it's mair o' cuffs than cuddlin' That awaits a dorty bairn. 1 "Pina'," i.e. pinafore. "You've a kiss to gie me," hae ye? "You've a kiss as weel as him?” Oh thae een! There's nae resistin' When it's sorrow makes them dim. Ay, you'll get anither pina', And I'll kame your curls sae broon, And you'll be my ain wee Lizzie, And the best in a' the toun. THE MORTAL IMMORTAL. [Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born 1798; died in London, 1st February, 1851. She was the daughter of William Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams, &c., and became the second wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. During their residence on the banks of the Lake of Geneva in 1816, Byron, Shelley, and Mrs. Shelley agreed to beguile a rainy season by writing something in imitation of the weird German legends they had been reading. Mrs. Shelley produced Frankenstein, a romance, which, by its wildness and daring originality, obtained popularity at the date of its publication. She subsequently wrote: Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca; Lodore; The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck; The Last Man; Falkner-novels which are now little known. She also contributed to the annuals, &c., and published an edition of the works of Shelley with biographical preface and notes. The following is a specimen of Mrs. Shelley's eerie powers of imagination.] July 16, 1833.-This is a memorable anniversary for me; on it I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year! The Wandering Jew?-certainly not. More than eighteen centuries have passed over his head. In comparison with him, I am a very young Immortal. Am I, then, immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself, by day and night, for now three hundred and three years, and yet cannot answer it. I detected a gray hair amidst my brown locks this very day-that surely signifies decay. Yet it may have remained concealed there for three hundred years -for some persons have become entirely whiteheaded before twenty years of age. I will tell my story, and my reader shall judge for me. I will tell my story, and so contrive to pass some few hours of a long eternity, become so wearisome to me. For ever! Can it be? to live for ever! I have heard of enchantments, in which the victims were plunged into a deep sleep, to wake, after a hundred years, as fresh as ever: I have heard of the Seven Sleepers-thus to be immortal would not be so burdensome: but, oh! the weight of never-ending time-the tedious passage of the still-succeeding hours! How happy VOL. III. All the world has heard of Cornelius Agrippa. His memory is as immortal as his arts have made me. All the world has also heard of his scholar, who, unawares, raised the foul fiend during his master's absence, and was destroyed by him. The report, true or false, of this accident, was attended with many inconveniences to the renowned philosopher. All his scholars at once deserted him-his servants disappeared. He had no one near him to put coals on his ever-burning fires while he slept, or to attend to the changeful colours of his medicines while he studied. Experiment after experiment failed, because one pair of hands was insufficient to complete them: the dark spirits laughed at him for not being able to retain a single mortal in his service. On I was then very young-very poor-and very much in love. I had been for about a year the pupil of Cornelius, though I was absent when this accident took place. my return, my friends implored me not to return to the alchemist's abode. I trembled as I listened to the dire tale they told; I required no second warning; and when Cornelius came and offered me a purse of gold if I would remain under his roof, I felt as if Satan himself tempted me. My teeth chattered-my hair stood on end:-I ran off as fast as my trembling knees would permit. In an My failing steps were directed whither for two years they had every evening been attracted, -a gently bubbling spring of pure living waters, beside which lingered a dark-haired girl, whose beaming eyes were fixed on the path I was accustomed each night to tread. I cannot remember the hour when I did not love Bertha; we had been neighbours and playmates from infancy-her parents, like mine, were of humble life, yet respectable-our attachment had been a source of pleasure to them. evil hour a malignant fever carried off both her father and mother, and Bertha became an orphan. She would have found a home beneath my paternal roof, but unfortunately, the old lady of the near castle, rich, childless, and solitary, declared her intention to adopt her. Henceforth Bertha was clad in silk-inhabited a marble palace—and was looked on as being highly favoured by fortune. But in her new situation among her new associates, Bertha remained true to the friend of her humbler days; she often visited the cottage of my father, and when forbidden to go thither, she would stray towards the neighbouring wood, and meet me beside its shady fountain. 72 when at last I stole out during the few short minutes allotted to me for slumber, and hoped to be consoled by her, she received me with disdain, dismissed me in scorn, and vowed that any man should possess her hand rather than he who could not be in two places at once for her sake. She would be revenged! And truly she was. In my dingy retreat I heard that she had been hunting, attended by Albert Hoffer. Albert Hoffer was favoured by her protectress, and the three passed in cavalcade "I am honest, if I am poor!-were I not, I before my smoky window. Methought that might soon become rich!" This exclamation produced a thousand questions. I feared to shock her by owning the truth, but she drew it from me; and then, casting a look of disdain on me, she said"You pretend to love, and you fear to face the Devil for my sake!" I protested that I had only dreaded to offend her; while she dwelt on the magnitude of the reward that I should receive. Thus encouraged shamed by her-led on by love and hope, laughing at my late fears, with quick steps and a light heart I returned to accept the offers of the alchemist, and was instantly installed in my office. they mentioned my name-it was followed by a laugh of derision, as her dark eyes glanced contemptuously towards my abode. Jealousy, with all its venom and all its misery, entered my breast. Now I shed a torrent of tears, to think that I should never call her mine; and, anon, I imprecated a thousand curses on her inconstancy. Yet still I must stir the fires of the alchemist, still attend on the changes of his unintelligible medicines. He eyes Cornelius had watched for three days and nights, nor closed his eyes. The progress of his alembics was slower than he expected: in spite of his anxiety, sleep weighed upon his A year passed away. I became possessed of eyelids. Again and again he threw off drowno insignificant sum of money. Custom had siness with more than human energy; again banished my fears. In spite of the most pain and again it stole away his senses. ful vigilance, I had never detected the trace of his crucibles wistfully. "Not ready yet," he a cloven foot; nor was the studious silence of murmured; "will another night pass before our abode ever disturbed by demoniac howls. the work is accomplished? Winzy, you are I still continued my stolen interviews with vigilant-you are faithful-you have slept, Bertha, and hope dawned on me-hope-but my boy-you slept last night. Look at that not perfect joy; for Bertha fancied that love glass vessel. The liquid it contains is of a soft and security were enemies, and her pleasure rose-colour: the moment it begins to change was to divide them in my bosom. Though its hue, awaken me-till then I may close my true of heart, she was somewhat of a coquette eyes. First, it will turn white, and then emit in manner; and I was jealous as a Turk. She golden flashes; but wait not till then; wher slighted me in a thousand ways, yet would the rose-colour fades, rouse me." I scarcely never acknowledge herself to be in the wrong. heard the last words, muttered as they wer She would drive me mad with anger, and then in sleep. Even then he did not quite yield to force me to beg her pardon. Sometimes she nature. "Winzy, my boy," he again said, fancied that I was not sufficiently submissive, "do not touch the vessel-do not put it to and then she had some story of a rival, favoured your lips; it is a philter-a philter to cure love; by her protectress. She was surrounded by you would not cease to love your Bertha-besilk-clad youths-the rich and gay- -What ware to drink!" chance had the sad-robed scholar of Cornelius compared with these? And he slept. His venerable head sunk on his breast, and I scarce heard his regular breathing. For a few minutes I watched the vessel the rosy hue of the liquid remained unchanged. Then my thoughts wandered-they visited the fountain, and dwelt on a thousand charming scenes never to be renewed -never! Serpents and adders were in my heart as the word "Never!" half formed itself on my lips. False girl-false and cruel! |