or float down its stone-encumbered in the morning; walks, wades, climbs, channel, would be found drowned and stumbles, till drizzle and darksome morning on the bank of her ness close in the day, after all which own river, with her lovely body wearisome and laborious exertion he bruised and disfigured by bumping finds he has slaughtered sundry head against the roots of trees, her eyes of game, besides shooting his favourknocked out by the stakes of a fish- ite Ponto, and slightly wounding the ing-net, and her nose entirely bitten gamekeeper. He then gets home to off by the previous winter's frost. dinner, relates the wonders of his And yet people persist, beneath such aim, and in the third bottle, and foura climate as ours, in giving the same teenth edition of how he shot the praises to gentle waters and spring- pheasant, he suddenly stops short in ing fountains which were applicable his story, loses his memory and his enough to the Peneus or Blandusia, seat together, and awakens next but have certainly no connexion with morning on the outside of his bed, the rumbling, roaring, dashing tor- with his shoes still on his feet, and a rents we hear of, carrying away flavour in his mouth, with regard to bridges, and drowning men, women, which the tenth commandment is in and children; while hay, corn, and no danger of being broken. The furniture, pigs, chests of drawers, day's exploits of a boisterous redand crockery-ware, float on its de- faced Nimrod bear a great resemstructive billows in undistinguish- blance to those of brother Ramrod. áble confusion. There is something Instead of disabling, a gamekeeper, to me utterly detestable in the cha- he only dislocates his collar in perracter of a river. When it seems forming an involuntary somerset over smooth and quiet, it is only acting a hedge; but if he escapes this danthe hypocrite, and gains our confi- ger, his fatigue, conversation, and dence and esteem by an appearance finale, are pretty nearly the same. of peaceableness and good order, Last winter who does not rethat it may overwhelm us the more member it, with all its concomitants easily whenever it gets the power. of snow and storms ?-solitude and In summer, it seems to be labour- the country oppressed me, till the ing under disabilities; the faint gur- nightmare, which regularly carried gle in its throat, which gets dry from me over precipices and pits, or shook so constantly crying out for water, me into a blazing furnace, was a sort moves us with compassion, and we of relief from the dreamless ennui of can surely dread no danger from one my waking thoughts. Various plans so humbled and exhausted. But be- occurred to me to get quit of the horhold! the moment his prayer is rors of my situation. Marriage, strangranted, and his restrictions with- gulation, and a razor, all presented drawn, off rushes the Jesuitical themselves in turn, but I found I had scoundrel in every direction, empty- not sufficient firmness of nerve to ing the farm-yard, entering and de- avail myself of any of these expedistroying the peaceful cottage, spread- ents. The Slough of Despond spread ing fear and desolation all over the its world of waters in front of my country, and even sapping the foun- door, the window was afflicted with dation of the grey turreted church, a sweating sickness of rain and hail which has been the pride and admi- in all its panes. Night came on beration of the village for centuries be- fore I was well aware that daylight fore. All social intercourse is cut had commenced ; and crows cawing, off; the banks are totally destroyed; rain splashing, and wind howling, and who is to reduce this violent and formed a most agreeable concert, to lawless agitator, now grown strong which I sat and listened in loneliness, and formidable, within his ancient wondering all the time what the deand legitimate bounds ?

vil tempted me to remain a single At ail seasons of the year the coun- week in the country after June. try is dull and uninteresting, but Away, away! the coach and I upon about the dreary month of Decem- the pinions of the wind and ber, to every one but a regular sports- Bath, with its unnumbered lamps, man, it becomes altogether intoler- glowing like a single file of stars in able. To him time passes pleasantly the high blue firmament of Lansenough. He begins his labours early down, presented itself to my longing eyes. Ten minutes after I had left tits soupers of the Castle and Ball ! my seat upon the box, I found my Thomas's brown wig and the bald self as comfortable as if winter had pate of Bob shall be equally dear to been banished to the Pole, and the my heart; and whisky punch shall word Rus expunged from the Dic- be to me a blank in the creation ere tionary of Nature.

I forget one smile of the loveliest Is there a happier hour in the re- bar-maid and best maker of toddy in collection of a human being than that the King's wide dominions. On one in which, after a cold seat on the out- occasion, and one only, I established side of the mail, with the wind whiste myself at a boarding-house; but great ling round the enormous hat of the and manifold are the dangers and coachman, jutting past the promon- discomforts of that situation. For tory of his shoulder, and doubling the first two days I sat at dinner next the cape so as to come with full to a young lady, who paid me the force on your unprotected visage, most marvellous attentions. Smiles you at last arrive in the coffee-room, followed my commonest remarks; with fires blazing, gas shining, clean and, such is the force of good-nature, sanded floors, and a couple of grilled I almost began to fancy, in spite of fowls smoking in a quiet box for your a squint, and an unusual prolongaown peculiar entertainment, flanked tion of the nasal feature, that she with a huge birlas of Meux's own, was interesting and pretty. A friend and succeeded by toasted cheese, and of mine, who had received a call to an ad libitum of cogniac and water ? repentance just before marrying a Moments such as these never depart lady of great piety and fortune, was from the memory. Old men of eighty very desirous of effecting a similar years of age remember (after their conversion upon me; and, on my sainted wives are quietly forgotten) dining with him, he reasoned very the hot suppers which enchanted deeply on the ugliness of vice and them after cold and travelling sixty the beauty of virtue, magnifying at years before. The eye of one of the same time the charms of temthese, which is dimly fixed on the perance, till, in the middle of a senwhite head of his youngest grand- tence about matrimony and hell, his daughter, and scareely distinguishes eyes grew glazed, his mouth opened the flaxen ringlets on which his to a superhuman width, and, about palsied hand is laid, sees quite dis- the same moment, a confusion came tinctly the beef-steaks which cheer- on my own thoughts, for which I ed him that dreadfully cold night have never been able to account. I in November when he returned recollect, however, that I left him from London in the year 1769. With with tears running down his cheeks, preternatural vision he beholds the muttering something which soundfoam of the tankard, and recollects ed very like a song. On arriving even the individual features of the at my temporary domicile, I hurfowl, the breast melting in loveli- ried as rapidly and unostentatiousness and gravy, the parson's nose ly as possible up stairs, but unluck. lying half hid beneath the odorife- ily encountered some one in my rous ocean, and the mushrooms scat- progress-rank, name, and denomitered over its surface, as the Isles of nation to me unknown. Oblivion Greece repose on the bosom of the rests on what I said on that occasion, blue Ægean. All these memories and all my efforts to remember only come vividly back upon his heart;and, involve me in greater uncertainty in the gradual failing of nature-in the and forgetfulness. Next morning, decay of his fancy, and blunting of what deep silence brooded over the his feelings—the suppers of his youth breakfast table-what awful dignity are the only ties which still bind him gloomed upon every brow !-alas! to his fellows. Yes! till the last even my smiling friend smiled and pulse of pain in my gouty toe, before was attentive to me no more. She, it follows my other foot into the it appeared, had been my fair intergrave—till Memory comes to the locutor in my hurried ascent to my last page of her day-book, and Death couch; and from what I gathered from writes Finis to all the accounts of life the hints of the disconsolate damsel -shall I remember, with a pensive herself, and the hostess's guarded and melancholy satisfaction, the pe- enquiries, I began to discover that I

had been somewhat too polite and If you once dine together in the same complimentary, and even raved a box, before you have demolished the great deal about post-horses and last limb of the turkey, and sipt the Gretna Green. I was now asked by last glass of the Madeira, his face is a fat old lady, who turned out to be as familiar to you as your glove,-my Dulcinea's aunt, whether I was and at the end of the evening, amidst serious in my proposals, and if so, the wreck of devilled bones, and the (which she could not permit herself remnants of what once was

“ fruit to doubt) what I was disposed to and flower,” opposite to you in a settle on her amiable, injured, too dim, mystic indistinctness, awful, susceptible, but unportioned niece. and yet wonderfully beloved, you I professed a total ignorance of the see sitting the chosen friend of your whole transaction, hinted that I was soul, whose name (which you never liable to fits of madness, in corrobo- heard) you wonder you have forgotration of which, 1 gnashed my teeth, ten, whose friends, home, parentage, and looked as horrible as I could, and and education, are to you mere obnext day removed into the delights jects of conjecture,—but who, in the and freedom of an inn. It is a me

absence of all collateral ties, as you lancholy circumstance, that in a swallow the last bumper to his health, Christian land there should be places is “ dear as the ruddy drops which in which it is impossible to walk up

warm your heart.” stairs without a candle after a quiet Such friendships as these are ge. dinner with a friend, without a ma- nerally lasting. You take a personal nifest risk of stumbling into a mar- pride in finding you have not been riage. Luckily, in a hotel there is no deceived in your choice, and he is such danger as this. Boots and the endeared to you by being a friend head waiter, who convey any incapa- entirely of your own acquisition citated gentleman to his room, rarely Far different this from the feelings translate his compliments and praises you entertain towards the friend of into a declaration of attachment; 80 your friend. In this case his kind. that, after an agreeable night of çi- ness appears to you to be scarcely gars and conversation, I can comfort- voluntary, and you fancy it is less ably lay myself down to sleep, in the bestowed on you, quasi yourself, assurance of waking next morning than as the representative of the perto the enjoyment of celibacy and so- son who introduced you. You are da-water.

assured that any one with the same On first arriving in a town, I know recommendation, would be received nothing so detestable as letters of in. with the same attention; and even troduction; but luckily, though it is the smiles of the ladies, though in impossible to refuse them from your the first instance falling on yourself, friends, there is not the least neces- you fear may have been intended to sity for presenting them. I have at “ cannon” on your friend. You enthis moment, I suppose, some scores act the miserable part of the hat of unknown acquaintances at the bot- stuck on a pole, to which as much tom of my trunk, whose fate I often deference is paid as to the distant inpity in having no opportunity of se- dividual who hung it there; but, in curing the friendship of an individual spite of all the kindness and hospiso wonderfully recommended. A tality of those around you, you can't man ought always to form his own help feeling all the time that if Gesfriends, and assuredly there is no ler is deposed, the hat will sink from such field for a crop of them as the its high estate, and become a very coffee-room of an inn. There you ordinary, and by no means a favoumay. speak for half an hour to your rite, beaver. To a man, who, like neighbour on any subject you please: myself, trusts to his own taste in the if you find him a violent whig, aliberal, selection of his friends, Bath is an a profane swearer, or a hypocrite, or inexhaustible store shop, where he any thing of that sort, treat him in fu- may find them of all sorts and sizes, ture with the silent contempt he de- almost ready made. An universal serves. But if you discover him to be philanthropy seems spread over all one of the right kind, how easy it is to its inhabitants, and every county in convert the distance of unintrodu. England, Scotland, and the Emerald ced acquaintance into the cordiality Isle, seems to send a deputation of of old and well-cemented friendship. the most warm-hearted and access

of con

ible of its sons and daughters to the and romance! Sad reality steps in, city of King Bladud. The ladies and overturns your“ noble theories," are winning beyond any ill-favoured --and the being that you painted as Benedict's belief. The high cheek- the inhabitant of some fairy bower, bones of Aberdeenawa, the delicate the creature who had been the object brogue of Munster, and the pure red of your far-off wonder and veneraand white of Lancashire or Surrey, tion,—“ Too fair to worship, too are all there-equally profuse of their divine to love," you are forced to smiles and kindness, and equally confess resides on the second floor of ready to form a friendship to be a boarding

house in Pulteney Street, ended only with their lives. Alas! is solicitous about the colour of a that, it is impossible to retain for ribbon, and above all things else in any length of time the vantage ground the world is anxious to get married. of non-acquaintance! Few faces can But, alas ! even in a town, Time's stand the test of intimacy. Some progress scarcely deserves the name tooth absent without leave is disco- of flight. No contrivances can provered to the watchful observer in the tract breakfast beyondtwelve o'clock. negligence of the laugh, or some Anewspaper-puffs, advertisements, trait of temper contracts the marble and all-is but a brief enjoyment to brow, where to the unacquainted those whom the schoolmaster and beholder good-humour " or solemn the march of intellect have taught to contemplation love to dwell.” And read without stopping very often to besides this advantage, unless you spell. For my own part, I was grateconverse with the object of your ful to the Russian Campaign ; the admiration, you run no risk of ha

very names of the heroes on either ving that admiration diminished by side were a tower of strength, and an exhibition of her colloquial de- prolonged the perusal by at least fects. At night, in the pauses

twenty minutes. But after a while versation among the beaux esprits I felt tempted to skip over those of the Divan, you can whiff your çi- prodigious combinations of consogar, and raise a lovely dream of the

nants, and was contented to believe pure and delicate maiden you ad- in the capture and demolition of unmired in the morning in the circus. nameable towns by gallant and unNo rude reality comes in the sem- pronounceable generals. The Heblance of a silly question to destroy rald, talented and well-edited paper the magic of those rosy lips, no va- as it is, comes by degrees to a concant stare dims the celestial loveli- clusion; street and square, bustling ness of those deep blue eyes; but and beautiful though they be, grow there she smiles upon you through silent and deserted; the pump-room, the thin baze issuing from your gently where every fiddlestick seems less imbreathing Havannah, clothed in all bued with rosin than Rossini, closes earthly beauty, like a goddess of the its charmed doors, or exchanges days of old, revealing herself to some the

group of beauty, and the swell favoured worshipper through the of music, for the tottering steps of shadowing drapery of her ambrosial superannuated invalids. Day after cloud. But short-lived and transi- day you miss some glass of fashion, tory is this blissful state of ignorance or some mould of form, from her acand admiration. By a variety of customed walk. « Star after star. ! meetings, you cannot tell where,- decays,"—gaiety comes imperceptiby seeing her smile so often that at bly to a close-concerts are less frelast you fancy she smiles on you,-by quent, and the silver voice of Mansitting in the same box at the play, ners only at intervals, few and far and bowing to her cousin, with whom between, wraps your senses in Elyshe is generally to be found, you are sium; and in fact, (for there is no surprised to discover, in spite of denying it,) Bath itself becomes as your efforts to remain “ alike un- dull and vapid as a pseudo-religious knowing and unknown," that you poem.

Amidst the most fearful have met, and smiled, and cousined forebodings of the amount of your yourself into an acquaintance. Fare-, bill, you determine on migration ; well after that, to the long protract- you mourn over the changeableness ed and unheeded gaze,- farewell to of pleasure, as you extricate your the turn of admiration after you are name from the ill-omened side of past,-farewell to dream, and reverie the ledger of the classic Tully, in

ferior, perhaps, to his Roman pro- on the whisper in the octagon a totype in eloquence, but immeasura- the rooms-on the bracelet retained bly above even that vain-glorious in memory of your visit to the Sydorator in his puffs; and finally (how ney Gardens,

on the time when that can the most obdurate heart remain bracelet is faithfully to be returned. unmelted ?)-amid the tears of in- “ Hush, hush, my dark spirit.” I consolable waiters—amid the groans shall certainly get every room in my of overburdened Boots, you mount cottage painted, and have three or once more the vehicle which convey- four apartments built during the aued you from your rural home, and tumn,- drawing-room, two bedreturn to muse till the succeeding rooms, a nursery.

« There's a braw winter on all that you saw and heard; time comin'." on the walk by the side of the canal,

An OXONIAN.

—а

BALANCE OF THE FOOD AND NUMBERS OF ANIMATED NATURE.*

Tuis Dissertation is the substance quirements; and of it Mr Sadler was of two Lectures delivered before the certainly by far the most able, eloPhilosophical and Literary Society quent, and learned member. Thouof Leeds, by that eminent person sands knew his powers, and expectwho has lately made such a distin- ed their splendid and triumphant disguished figure in Parliament. Some play in Parliament. But his success years before Mr Sadler appeared in there as an orator and a statesman the House, we lauded his great abi- exceeded their highest hopes; for lities, as they were displayed in seve- though he is in the prime of life, it ral speeches deliveredat public meet- was supposed that, without a long ings in Leeds, and we predicted in probation, no man could ever take his this work that he would, some time or place there in the first order. But Mr other, play a conspicuous part in po- Sadler did so at once; and, in spite litical life. Who is Mr Sadler? was the of the sneers of the seers who

precry of many on his being returned for dicted, after his brilliant maiden Newark. People who take an interest speech, that he would be singlein public affairs ought to keep their speech Sadler, he went on « from eyes and their ears open to what is good to better, daily self-surpassed,” saying and doing by men of talents in and discomfited and dumbfounded our great and considerable towns and all the witlings. It was then said; cities. But gentlemen in Parliament, as the last resource of the dull and it would seem, pride themselves on shallow,-that he was declamatory their ignorance of all that regards -and rhetorical and even poetical; gentlemen out of Parliament, and -and verily he is so-on fit occaread no speeches but their own, sions; but they who have tried to which, certainly, praise and thanks grapple with him, in the House or be to the reporters, are sometimes out of it, have found that in argunot without merit. Mr Sadler was ment he can take good hold, and no obscure person in the north of knows a chip or two in wrestling. England before M.P. was added to as, for example, that amiable and inhis name; and, independently of his telligent member, Mr Wilmot Horhigh reputation as a speaker on the ton, who, on the Emigration Quesoccasions alluded to, he was exten- tion, suddenly challenged Mr Sadler sively known to be possessed, not to try a bout, and though the member only of great knowledge of the facts for Newark was taken by surprise; and laws of commerce, but to be a and without preparation, such anproficient in philosophy and litera- other fair back-fall as he gave his ture. The Literary and Philosophi- challenger never resounded through cal Society of Leeds, like those of St Stephen's. It is all well for those other large towns in England, con- to accuse a speaker of declamation, tains men of no mean talents and ac- who themselves cannot utter six con

* Dissertation appended to the Treatise on the Law of Population, by M, T. Sada ler, M.P. London. Murray. 1830.