There runs a limping hare from the hedge;
An angler stands by the river sedge;
The milkmaid, too, in the meadow sweet,
Hurries along with her naked feet;
The thirsting bee, in its scented bower,
Breasts the leaves of the sweetest flower;
And insects blithe o'er the glassy stream
Bask their silken wings i' the sunny beam.
A maiden, apart, in garments white,
Sings to herself with young delight;
While a shepherd, his heathy path forsook,
Listening, leans on his idle crook,
And his Highland dog, in freedom fleet,
Bounds along with his snowy feet,
Train'd in his earliest years to guide
The shaggy flocks down the mountain side.
The bounden sheafs of the yellow corn,
Over the rugged fields are borne,

And are piled in tufts on the shelter'd ground,
Where aged and young have assembled round.
And the autumn is breathing gently forth
A mellow change o'er the fruitful earth,
Hanging the trees with the golden leaves
Which her fairy fancy at midnight weaves;
The enchantress sweet of each wooded glen,
Resuming ber airy throne again.

If a forest-branch or flower be stirr'd,
Her voice in the whisp'ring wind is heard;
If a leaf be sever'd, or blossom die,
Her unseen form is hov'ring nigh;
Of with'ring flowers her couch is made,
Sleeps she, and dreams she, alone i' the shade.
The harvest-moon will appear to-night,
Blessing ye with its hallow'd light;
The harvest home will to-morrow claim
The heart-felt joy of its rustic fame;
Join ye gaily the jocund ring,
Merrily dance, and merrily sing!

SWEET Lady! thy beloved and gentle form
Visits my soul in slumber: 'tis in vain
That tarkness rolls its chaos on my brain,-
Still art thou with me,-in all calm or storm
The angel of my fate! In every shade
Of glen or forest, hath my fancy made
A temple for our love. The mountain stream,
Murmuring soft music by its violet-banks,
Where the bee revels in the sunny beam;
The joyous birds, breathing melodious thanks
To the great Parent of the world, invite
The presence of thy beauty; hasten, dear!
Do thou in all thy loveliness appear!
Swift as a sunbeam from its throne of light!

II.

She comes! the siren of my love-rapt song!
Her golden tresses, loosely disentwined,
Like sunbeams floating on the amorous wind;
Her gentle step, the honied flowers among,
Hurts not a blossom of the lily throng.
How beautiful she looks! her own delight,
Like a young bridesmaid on the bridal night,
Leads her in conscious loveliness along ;
And thus I hail thee in my trembling arms,
Thou beauty and thou wonder! thus I bless,
Though 'twere my dying kiss, thy voiceless charms :
Yet hide thine eyes!-in passionate excess,
Thy touch surrounds me with a dream of fire,—
Breathless I sink, and trembling I expire!

ALASTOR.

LITERARY CHIT-CHAT AND VARIETIES.

ALASTOR.

MISS LANDON has nearly finished a novel in three volumes, which will appear about the end of the year.

A devotional work on the Eucharist, by Bishop Jolly, is ready for the press.

Sir William Ouseley is preparing, for private circulation, a catslogue of his manuscripts, in the Persian, Arabic, and other Eastern languages; the number of articles amounting nearly to six hundred.

The second volume of Moore's Byron is announced positively for this month, with a whole-length portrait of his Lordship, at the age of nineteen, never before engraved.

Mr Hope, the author of " Anastasius," has announced a work on the Origin and Prospects of Man.

Mr Cyrus Redding, who has been succeeded by Mr S. C. Hall as co-editor of Mr Campbell in the New Monthly, is about to commence a daily paper, to be called the Albion, and to be devoted to the inte rests of the Wellington and Peel administration.

Mr W. Bankes has announced the Adventures of Finati, his guide in the course of his Eastern adventures and discoveries.

Popular Specimens of the Greek Dramatists, from the best translations, and illustrated by a series of engravings, from the designs of Flaxman, are forthcoming.

We understand that Mr James, the author of "Richelieu" and "Darnley," is preparing a "History of Chivalry and the different Orders of Knighthood," for the National Library. Our Edinburgh friends will be glad to learn, that Mr James is about to take up his residence in this city. Our literary circles will also receive an interesting addition, in the course of a few months, in the person of Mr Carne, the Eastern traveller.

THE JUVENILE LIBRARY, VOL. III. AFRICA.-This new volume, we understand, will comprise a general outline of the history, geography, and principal features of Africa, presenting to youth a valuable epitome of its annals from the earliest records to the present period, comprehending its past revolutions as well as its actual condition. The engravings are to consist of a view of the palm-covered village of Mit-Rahynèh, all that now remains of the once-glorious city of Memphis Messaborah, the Necropolis of the Ammonians, the burial-place of the descendants of Ham-the interior of one of the celebrated catacombs of Memphis-and a specimen of the costume of the modern inhabitants of Egypt, besides several beautiful wood-cuts.

THE COMIC OFFERING, OR LADY'S MELANGE OF LITERARY MIRTH. We were somewhat startled by the announcement of a

Comic Annual, to be edited by a Lady. A sight of the prospectus and specimen plates has, however, re-assured us. The fair editor (we would thank some word-coiner for a feminine to this too masculine appellative) professes to confine herself to the walks of " genteel comedy," but assures us that no clown shall be admitted to the drawing-room, no pantaloon to the boudoir-"no, not even under a Hood." The very "morocco cover," she tells us, is to be richly embossed, in a style of art and oddity such as perhaps has never been seen before." This is a tremendous annunciation, and heralds a determination to be most desperately droll-we have begun to hold our sides already. The best of the engravings which we have yet seen is "Starting for the Ladies' Plate," a congregation of famished pussies darting upon a plate of cat's meat. The benevolent smile of the spectacled benefactress and her attitude are admirable. "Now, sir, please take off my head," is good, but scarcely original, "An offer in black and white" is admirable, and shows that, sleeping or waking, sewing or writing, ladies' heads will run upon matrimony.

CHIT-CHAT FROM LONDON.-Moore has condemned Galt to an "amber immortalization" in some of his pithy lines.-Hood, in his announcement of his Comic Annual, maintains, that in regard to last year's volume he is in the best of literary positions, " haying a copy-right and not a copy left." The volume of this year" binds itself to appear as soon as it is bound."-Another new annual is to take the field under the title of the "Humourist.”—Alaric A. Watts promises, among other good things, one engraving from Lawrence, and another from Correggio.

CHIT-CHAT FROM GLASGOW.-We are absolutely threatened with another public dinner, if the Marquis of Lansdowne's time permits him to remain a day beyond his somewhat tardy appearance to assume the toga of Lord Rector, which was got bran new for Mr Thomas Campbell. He has not altogether appeared so thankful for the honour as his young constituents think he might have been; and this may probably remind them, that although it is very well in them to procure us a sight of some of the big wigs by electing aliens occasionally, yet that should be the exception rather than the rule, while we have at our own doors such able men as Mr Ewing, Mr Smith, Mr Kennedy, and Sir M. S. Stewart. The dinner, it is proposed, shall be rather one of the West of Scotland, than of Glasgow-Mr Kennedy of Dunure being contemplated as chairman. It is to be hoped he, as a young man himself, will gently hint to our worthy fathers, that, in keeping all the speech-making to themselves, and in the Whig aristocracy, they made the French meeting a very leaden affair, and very unlike your one. The same thing rendered Hume's dinner-in all but Hume→a so-so display.-Dr Macnish's book on Sleep is keeping us all awake here, unless, indeed, part of our present liveliness is to be attributed to a hot controversy now carried on in twopenny pamphlets, occasioned by a certain respectable, but, it would appear, marvellously scrupulous old minister of the Relief body declining to meet our able but fiery Unitarian clergyman at a funeral to which both had been invited.-At my suggestion, Mr Mackay Wilson is dramatising Professor Wilson's splendid story in last Blackwood. His last lecture on poetry was well attended. His next will be more so, for he threatens to show up the whole of the Glasgow versifiers-a numerous swarm now,-Renfrewshire, particularly the Paisley portion of it, is all agog about the new editions of Wilson's Ornithology. Constable and Co. have already been furnished with some curious particulars for a new Life of Wilson; and Sir William Jardine has been here, to glean the already well harvested field. In the lack of amusements, as we have none but Grimaldi's clownishness here at present, we have had a renewal of that amusement, dear to old wives, and under the ban of the statute-book, called a Little Goe, or Rafflewhere, oddly enough, the gainers of the prizes were the most discontented, as it turned out they had to pay largely for their unex. pected good luck. I forgot, we have had one other source of fun-a Jaboured eulogium on every periodical, the mere title of which could be laid hands on, even if defunct, that has been issued-from the Dandy's Magazine, upwards, and which gives equal and impartial praise to all-a Constable's Miscellany, and a quack Juvenile Library. According to it, it is impossible a periodical work can contain any thing but "absolute wisdom," and we trust they be the wisest race that ever peopled the earth. It is needless to point out how indiscriminate praise is injurious to what really has merit, and is indeed but "censure in disguise."

CHIT-CHAT FROM ABERDEEN.-We have experienced a severe storm here, which, amongst other ravages, has torn up two fine old trees in St Nicholas' Church Yard, which are said to have weathered the gales of nearly an hundred years, local tradition reporting them to have been planted about the memorable era of Culloden.-The far-famed Ducrow is about to visit Aberdeen, with his stud of horses; a commodious temporary amphitheatre is erecting for him in Crown Street. Mr Green, the celebrated aeronaut, has postponed his balloon ascent, from this city, until next summer.-The first number of a new weekly periodical, entitled the Portfolio, is to be published in Aberdeen on the 15th inst.

CHIT-CHAT FROM OLD ABERDEEN.-The Rev. Mr Smith, formerly of Dreghorn, Ayrshire, and late of Yester, Haddingtonshire, was on the 22d ult. admitted to the first parochial charge of the parish of Old Machar. The annual competition for Bursaries takes place at

King's College on the last Monday of October, after which the students and their red gowns will enliven the auld town during the months of "gloomy winter."-The new bridge of Don will at length be completed about a month hence. An ample surplus of the old bridge of Don fund remains for supporting that ancient fabric, celebrated by Thomas the Rhymer as the brig o' Balgownie, and indissolubly linked to the fame of Byron. Old Aberdeen now, like Ayr, has its auld and new brigs. She only wants a Robert Burns to immortalize their merits.

CHIT-CHAT FROM SKYE. - Splendid Scenery (!) Close by the house of Talasker, there are no less than four waterfalls, one of which Dr Johnson takes notice of, I think. The fall is considerable— just the place for a poet, or for reading Byron or Shakspeare. At present nothing is going on here but rain-hopes for better weather; however, chess, and the Literary Journal keep me alive. A great gun of a minister is here kicking up a greater noise than even the Row heresy did: it is with difficulty a person can obtain baptism for his child, owing to his want of regeneration. During the last sacrament, not one-fiftieth part of his parishioners were allowed to sit at the communion-table, they were not regenerated enough.-Theatricals are in a flourishing state at Portree. Ryder is the enterprising manager, I believe; for having merely got a glance of a tattered playbill, from which I saw "Rob Roy" was the piece of entertainment for the evening, and as he generally takes a rusticating visit to this quarter of the globe, I conclude it must be he.-There is some talk of a communication being opened between this and the Liverpool market, by means of those useful conveyances called steamboats; Lord Macdonald is the projector.-Farmers here will be ruined, between bad weather and worse markets; crops are yet in many places perfectly green.

CHIT-CHAT FROM MACDUFF-A labourer in this vicinity, while cutting down a field of oats, discovered a common hen sitting upon a nest of partridge's eggs: the faithful bird could scarcely be forced from her adopted charge. This circumstance presents a curious fact in natural history, the hatching season being so long past.-A committee of gentlemen have lately been engaged in arranging plans for establishing in Banff an hospital for the sick of the town, and county: Such an institution will be of great benefit to Banff and Macduff, as well as to a large district of the surrounding country.

The

CHIT-CHAT FROM ELGIN.-The Morayshire rivers have lately been much swollen, and in some places done considerable damage. inhabitants of Rothes were again visited with an inundation, on the 22d Sept., not, however, by the waters of the fast-rolling Spey, but by the burn flowing through the town, which broke down one arch of the bridge on the toll road, and filled up the other with sand and established for the use of the students attending that flourishing se gravel.-A library connected with the Elgin Academy has lately been minary.-A second edition of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's" Account

of the Floods in the Province of Moray, and adjoining Districts," is in the press, and will very soon be published.-The streets of Elgin are soon to be lighted with gas, the pipes are at present laying along the streets; this will be a great improvement to the metropolis of Morayland, although the stranger, as well as the citizen, will still, as in days of yore, prefer viewing the magnificent ruins of the far-famed Cathedral of Elgin by " the pale moonlight."

Theatrical Gossip.-The two large winter theatres are again open. Dowton has returned to the stage. Vestris, Braham, and Miss Pa ton, are all anxious to attach themselves to one of them, but the reduced salaries are sad stumbling-blocks in the way of their high mightinesses.-The English Opera company closed their season at the Adelphi on Saturday last-the season has been any thing but profitable. Within an hour after the close of the house a scaffolding was raised throughout it, and a hundred workmen are now working away there. The Haymarket continues open for a week longer.— Young Kean has made a most successful debut at New York.-A drama has been manufactured at Paris, out of Mr James's novel of De L'Orme.-The improvements in our own Theatre are progress ing-particulars in our next.-Mr Roberts, we may mention, in the meanwhile, has returned to the stage, but continues to give lessons in Elocution, at such hours as are not occupied by his theatrical duties.

TO OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

OUR next Number will be graced with a Poem from the pen of Mrs Hemans.-Several reviews must lie over for want of room. "T. D." is not equal to himself this time.-We are debating with ourselves about the fate of Lora de Huercha.-We thank our Haddington friend, and will attend to his request.-" A. D. D." scarcely comes up to our standard." R. G." may wake to life when our Slippers return-they are at present in Renfrewshire shooting pheasants. "Lambda," do. do.-L." won't do.-"S." is under consideration. -The lines to Sir Walter Scott have come to hand, but too late for us to form an opinion of them.-The same excuse must serve soIDE of our most valued Correspondents.

LITERARY CRITICISM.

ANNUALS FOR 1831.

The Keepsake for 1831. Edited by Frederic Mansel Reynolds. London. Published for the Proprietor by Hurst, Chance, and Co. (Unpublished.)

THIS Annual continues to maintain its pre-eminence in elegance. In external form, in typographical execution, in pictorial embellishment, and in literary merit, the Keepsake for 1831 is worthy of its predecessors. We speak first of the illustrative engravings, which, exclusive of the presentation plate, are seventeen in number.

Turner, Eastlake, and the lamented veteran Flaxman, "bear the bell." The vignette title-page presents us with a beautiful and classical design of the last-mentioned artist-Mercury bearing up a female figure—Eurydice, we suppose. Turner has one view of Saumur, and another of Nantes, such as no living artist but himself could conceive. The broken clouds, through which broken sunbursts flash down upon the magnificent buildings and "sapping" waters, speak of drifting showers, but of those warm thunderous showers of the south, productive of a rapidity and luxuriance of vegetation unknown to northern climes. In gazing upon them, we feel as if swathed in a life-creating vapour. The light points of these pictures are absolutely glowing; the shadow is downy soft. The engravers, Wallis and Wilmore, have worked in the spirit of the artist. We must pass on to another subject, lest we utter what colder minds may call extravagance, if, indeed, we have not already done so. Eastlake's Haidee -we know not whether we most admire the woman or the painting. Raven tresses hang around a face of perfect symmetry; the large dark eyes are full of meaning; the expression of the whole countenance is boundless love. No warm quivering passion is there; it is an absorbing sentiment, still, quiet, and deep as the waveless ocean; while the haze of morning is yet slumbering on its breast. The darkness of the earth and sky which form the background to the figure, broken in upon by one severing streak of light at the horizon, has a pleasing effect, and harmonizes with the sentiment of the figure. Bonnington's "Sea-shore" comes next to these in merit; then Smirke's" Secret." The rest are all well enough, but Stephanoff gets more mannered, and Howard more meretricious, every day. Prout's "Milan Cathedral" is one of the most effective interiors we have seen for some time.

Among the literary contributions are, Mrs Shelley's "Transformation," a tale of diablerie, and the "Swiss Peasant," a legend of the effects of the French Revolution among the Alps. Both of these pieces are marked by that lofty, sometimes verbose eloquence, which we find in all that lady's writings. Like her father, her materials are supplied principally by the suggestions of her own feelings. She does not so much detect the motives of others, as account for their actions by attributing to them her own. Still there is a warmth of heart and an elevation of sentiment in all her writings, that cannot

PRICE 6d.

fail to charm. Mr Banim contributes " Twice Lost, but Saved," a powerful and ingenious composition, but, like most of this able writer's works, harrowing alike in its subject and its management. We fear that the moral dissector predominates in Mr Banim's composition over the poet. Theodore Hook gives us "Chacun a son gout" of which it is no great praise to say that it is better than Stephanoff's illustration of it; and the " Brighton Coach," a story so well told, and true to nature, that it would charm us, but for that cold Mephistophiles-like view of society, which in this, as in all Theodore's writings, stamps it for the author's own. But it would take up more room than we can well spare to particularise all that is clever in this volume. At the risk, therefore, of offending some contributor, whose merits we thus leave unnoticed, we wind up our remarks with an extract from a well-told tale, by the author of Letters from the East, entitled "The Dead and the Living Husband;"

THE MINER'S FATE.

"More than once Nicholas felt a strange reluctance where his wife, whom he tenderly loved, was expecting him. to stop, and again mounted the ladder to go to his home, But curiosity prevailed, and he turned aside towards the spot, which he soon after entered, where the two miners were now eating their repast, and conversing; he stuck his candle against the wall, and sat down beside the old man. He bade the other go above ground. He was a young man, the son of Pascoe; and he said afterwards, that as he was leaving the spot at his captain's bidding, Nicholas turned to him with a singular smile, and observed, he did not know what was come over him, but believed that his dream the night before had brought a gloom upon his mind; that he thought he was buried in a vast tomb in the middle of the earth, and the waves were rushing all around him, and his lonely candle, which he held in his hand, never went out. The miners are a superstitious people, and often have omens ried but one year to a young and handsome woman, and and warnings of their fatal mischances. He had been marwas himself in the prime of life, being much esteemed for the gentleness and kindness of his manners, and his skill in the conduct of the mine. His dwelling was on the side of the hill, that fell abruptly into this wide valley. In spite of the sea-winds and the soil, he had raised a sweet little garden in front, and from his windows could overlook every part of the busy scene beneath. Here she was often seated, watching for his coming-for the moment when he rose out of the shaft, with his candle flickering in his hand at the sudden gleam of day, his large flannel garments dripping with water, and the face pallid with the damps of the region below.

"Their attachment was of many years' duration, and was hopeless till he received this appointment; and then stranger's feet seldom came. A chance relative, or a friend, they repaired joyful to their lonely dwelling, to which the at long intervals, would call and taste of their hospitality, and look wistfully on the waste scene around: he did not envy them. The vale had few exciting sights or sounds, save that, in the dead of winter-for it was a dangerous shore-the signal-gun was fired, and the alarm-lights hoist ed, of some vessel driving on the cliffs; and they could hear from their walls. But for the excitement of his profession, the shrieks of despair, and see the wreck drifting not far and its strong contrasts, the mind of Nicholas might have wearied also of the scene; but no Arab of the desert ever felt keener joy, as the lonely palm and fountain met his eye

afar off, than Nicholas did, in the midst of his gloomy toils, as the hour of ascent to his loved home approached. And when he sat there beside the fire, and his wife was nigh, and bent over him with warm kisses and endearing words, and evening was closing on the bleak cliffs, and on the reckless deep, that fell with a hollow sound on the beach-he felt that he was happy. Such a moment was never more to come to the doomed man.

"He was still seated far beneath, by the side of Pascoe, conversing earnestly, when they suddenly heard a rumbling noise, as if the ground was giving way near them. There was an instant pause in the old man's talk,-they looked wildly round for a moment on the gloomy sides of the cavern that enclosed them, and then on each other. The noise was like distant thunder, or the moan of the rising tempest; it lasted but a few moments, and then died utterly away. It is only the men working on the opposite side of the shaft,' said the old man, after listening intensely; his companion seemed of the same opinion, and they resumed their discourse with the same ardour. The mine in the centre of which they were seated is one of the oldest in Cornwall, and was worked some hundred years since. It happened that the noise they heard, instead of arising from the men working opposite, was occasioned by the ground beginning to run in at a level ten fathoms under them; there was a shaft of the ancient mine, unknown to any one, that yawned like a gulf to receive them. The sound now rose suddenly again, with a quick trembling of the earth on which they were seated: strongly alarmed, they sprang to their feet, but all too late. The noise was now incessant and awful; they saw the roof and sides of the cavern tremble on every side, as if by an earthquake. In all the horror which men feel for the last few moments which precede inevitable death, they ran to and fro, calling wildly for aid -no human power could save them in that hour. The earth that had given way slowly on every side now sank at once, and the whole extent of ten fathoms deep, between the mouth of the ancient shaft and the spot where they had sat, glided down with the swiftness of an avalanche, bearing the unhappy men with it, while their candles, stuck in the wall above, still gave their light, as if in mockery. The abyss into which they fell was fifty fathoms deep, and half full of water; there was a faint struggle for life-a dying cry; the old man's voice rose louder than that of his companion-and then all was silent.

"The son of the former, who was bade go above ground by his captain, lingered in the ascent; it was by his means the event was first known: he was, at the moment of his parent's engulfment, climbing slowly, and turning aside from time to time in search of discoveries, about fifty feet above the place where he had left his father and Nicholas seated. After the noise, the cause of which he could not divine, had subsided, he called out loudly to know if all was right; but was rather offended that he could not get them to answer him, as he could see their candles sticking fast to the walls underneath, and thought that his father and Williams were still seated beside them. He continued to pass over the brink of a tremendous precipice, not aware at first of his danger; but still receiving no answer to his calls, he scrambled nearer, and the dim horror of the scene was then opened to him. The two solitary lights cast their glare on that sudden grave; he could see but a small part of its depth: all below was the blackness of darkness,' up which came at sudden intervals a sullen splash, caused by the falling of fragments of rock or stones into the water. Once he thought he heard a voice calling for mercy, and that it was his father's; he stayed not long to look there, but ascended to the summit, and shouted for succour.

"The wife of Captain Nicholas was anxiously awaiting his coming; the dinner hour, a very early one in these scenes, was past; she thought some unexpected occurrence or discovery detained him; but, as the time passed on, she stood at the window, whence every object at the mine was distinctly visible; suddenly she saw a man appear at the mouth of the shaft, with gestures of despair, and he cried with a loud and bitter cry; then there was a rushing of people to the spot. And she, too, rushed from her dwelling, and descended the hill without a pause, and mingled with the crowd: their looks were all turned upon her, and she saw there was anguish in them, but no one told her the cause of it. on the contrary, they said a part of the ground had merely fallen in, and obstructed the ascent of her husband, and that they would quickly extricate him. It is easy to command our words, but untutored men cannot shroud the strong emotions of the heart; and in the gloomy

and pitying eyes of the stern miners around her, the widow saw that all was over.

“My father—my father!' said the young man wildly; will you not save him? you loved him in life-will you not rescue the old man?'

"Then a wild shriek passed over the crowd, and the words of the youth were hushed, and the men and even the children turned from him to the wife, for all felt that the love of woman was more commanding than that of a son. She bent over the fatal gulf, and shuddered: My husband! is that your grave? Then a sudden movement rose among the people, and they said one to another that all should be done that men could do for their captain; and, seizing || their heavy tools, they hastened underground by different ways, to the scene of death. And she stood at the mouth listening; each sound of the heavy pick as it struck, and then the rolling away of the earth and stones, came up the gulf faintly, yet horribly.

"O harm him not!' she said; for God's sake, do not let the stones fall upon him! Can you see him-can be move his hand? Take the black earth from his face, that he may breathe!'"

The New Comic Annual, for 1831. By Sir John Falstaff. London. Hurst, Chance, and Co. (Unpub

Jished.)

THE demand for Comic Annuals seems to be increasing. This, which now lies upon our table, is one of three announced, as the venders of Belfast Town and Country Almanacks express it," for the ensuing year to come." We hold this to be a good sign of the times, for there is little mischief brewing, and little danger impending, when men are so bent upon laughing. With respect to the relative merits of Hood, Falstaff, and Sheridan, we shall say, in the words of the negro orator at Boston, when drawing (Plutarch-like) a parallel betwixt our martial premier and the liberator of America—“ Dere is no more 'parison 'twixt General Washington and Admiral Wellinton, den poke bim's finger in de fire and pull him out again." In short, as Mrs Malaprop says, "caparisons are odoriferous," and therefore we don't wish to be one.

Every person may select his own favourite; we maintain a dignified neutrality. This, however, we will say of Hurst and Chance's Comic Annual, that dedication, preface, contents, plates, head-pieces and tail-pieces-all are good; and of one of these classes, the following is a specimen :

"I tell thee I see'd un last noight in the church yeard, stalking about like the ghoast in Hamlett, at play 'us last Wednesday noight,' said the credulous Farmer Hodge, to the incredulous village schoolmaster—' I see'd un as plain as I see thee now.'

"He had been in vain endeavouring to convince this 'man of the birch' of the reality of a ghost he had seen the night before, a fact with which he had frightened the little principality out of their wits, though the parish clerk was the only real wit they possessed.

"The truth was, this same Farmer Hodge was on his way from a neighbouring fair, (it was whispered he had seen more fairs than one,) where both his standing and understanding had been impaired, to the diminishing of his profits, by the 00 free use of the good things of this life; and passing through the village churchyard, late in the evening, with some confused idea of not being very comfortable in his mind as to time and place, he heard a strange sound, turned his eyes in the same direction, and beheld a figure-certainly not a phantom, for his form was any thing but airy, his body was covered with scales, and he was exclaiming aloud, with violent action; and at intervals there resounded a death-like laugh, as if from the vaults beneath. Every observation he made, seemed to the poor farmer's heated imagination, to apply to himself. At other times, this spirit was dejected and appeared quite out of spirits-nothing of the dram-atic in him

"At length this fearful being muttered something about lodge him there,' which poor Hodge interpreted into, 'Hodge, come here,' set off harum-scarum, and at length, after sundry stumblings and tumblings, took refuge in the

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