carry under his apron. One day, the boy forgot the pre-caution, and carried the infamous crystal quite exposed in his hand across the open and crowded street. Mr. ――― was surveying his progress, bath in going and returning; and when he observed him coming towards the shop, with so damnatory a proof of his malpractices holden forth to the gaze of the world, he leaped and danced within his shop-window like an infuriated madman. The poor boy came in quite innocently, little wotting of the crime he had committed, or the reception he was to meet with, when, just as he had deposited the glass upon the counter, a blow from the hand of his master stretched him insensible in a remote corner of the shop, among a parcel of seed-bags. As no qualities will succeed in bu siness unless perfectly good conduct be among the number, and, above all things, an abstinence from tippling,

soon became a victim. After he first took to the bent, to use Rob Roy's phrase, I lost sight of him for two or three years. At length, I one day met him on a road a little way out of town. He wore a coat buttoned to the chin, and which, being also very long in the breast, according to a fashion which obtained about the year 1813, seemed to enclose his whole trunk from neck to groin. With the usual cataract of cravat, he wore a hat the most woe-begone, the most dejected, the most melancholy I had ever seen. His face was inflamed and agitated, and as he walked, he swung out his arms with a strange emphatic expression, as if he were saying, " I am d-d ill,used, but I'll tell it to the world." Misery had evidently given him a slight craze, as it almost always does when it overtakes a man accustomed in early life to better things. Some time afterwards I saw him a little revivified through the influence of a new second-hand coat, and he seemed, from a small leathern parcel which he bore under his arm, to be engaged in some small agency. Bat this was a mere flash before utter expiration. relapsed to the Cowgate-to rags-to wretchedness-to madness—immediately after. When I next saw him, it was in that street, the time midnight. He lay in the bottom of a stair, more like a heap of mud than a man. A maniac curse, uttered as I stumbled over him, was the means of my recognising it to be Heavenly powers!

He

I thought, is this what you dispense in your supreme wisdom as the punishment of venial irregularities, and as the means of preventing others from their indulgence

THE UNBLESSIT BAIRN'S STANE.

A LEGEND OF LAMMERMUIR.

By the Author of" The Chronicles of London Bridge," &c.

* *

THAT Word's owre true, whilk a' maun ken, "Great clerks are no the wisest men;"

Sin' loons o' little grace or lair

Gae blunderin' on and start the hare,

When aft lang-headit chiels will founder,
An' only beat the bushes round her :
This truth an old wife's Scottish story,
Baith sad an' strange, shall place before ye;
An', if I've no its power diminish'd,
Ye'll greet an' laugh before 'tis finish'd.
The southern countrie doth not see,

Gifford, a fairer spot than thee;

67 Wi' vales an' burnies intersectit,

An' Lammermuir's auld hills protectit;
Where travellers aft delighted come

b to To view the place where Blair an' Home
Their solemn strains sequester'd made,
In Ravensdale's lone hauntit glade.
There flashes to the summer night
Presmennan lake like siller bright,
-oqgAn', with a calm an' ceaseless stray-

Like this warld's siller-glides away; Jiriq But when the morn is up on hie, And lustie May is in the skie,

When bracken, fresh, an' gowans sheen, mot i
Hae clad its banks an' braes with green,
ཏི་ ཉིད། * ་
Ye'd think, sae pure's the caller air,ď!
The verra breath o' health was there;
That stifling Death had never wrote !
His name upon that halesome spot;

But that a birkie young an' clever

Keep doctors aff-might live for ever!

Yet man, where'er his lot is cast,
Aye finds the kirkyard mools at last;
An' even Scotland's healthfu' breast
Hath felt the poison of the Pest,
When men,
frae tower an' town exiled,
Fled to the glens and mountains wild.
"Twas in that unforgotten day-
Though many a lang year's pass'd away-
That ane, who had been fair an' pure,,,
Her sorrows bore to Lammermuir,
An' made in Wattie's Howe her hame,
Sick wi' the Pest, an' sad wi' shame!
She lo'ed that spot, for it had been i
Baith o' her joy an' woe the scene,
Wi' him whom she might ne'er forget-O THE
There last they parted, first they met
An' ilka tree in that fair grove
Witness'd some passage o' their love.
'Twas there their first kind looks had past,
And the deep oath they swore at last,
By a clear burnie's side recited,
Wi' less o' form than feeling plighted;
Yet they'd hearts fu' o' hopes and fears,
An' bendit knees, and floods o' tears:
Whiles ilk, with mair than speakin' look, et
Atween them held the Psalter-book,», d'aqu

An', in the words o' David, baith
Thus made their vows for life an' death;

Believe it, they whose flatterin' art First wins, then wounds, a lassie's heart, Pass not throughout their span o' time Without some memory o' their crime, Howe'er they slaister up their sin, And keep a' douce their breasts within; Yet Conscience kens fu' weel the hour When man maist fears an' feels his power, And shows in a' that meets the view Something o' her whom guile o'erthrew. Thus, even in a distant land, Young. Jeanie's spoiler felt his hand, An' heard his mighty voice upbraid The slighted love, an' vow unpaid ;

Since there it chanced the false one knew

O' Scotland's kirk a faithfu' few,
Wha did their fathers' God address
In that far distant wilderness,
An' raised their songs o' Zion high
Wi' auld an' simple melody,
In whilk unlook'd-for solemn strain,
He heard his broken vow again ;—

"Oh, God! give ear unto my cry,
Unto my prayer attend;
From the utmost corner of the land
My cry to thee I'll send.

"And so will I perpetually

Sing praise unto thy name, That, having made my vows, I may Each day perform the same."

He started like the awaken'd deer,
When bugle-blast sounds loud an' near;
An' as that stag throws out amain
His limbs o'er heather, wood, an' plain,
Sae did young Jeanie's spoiler now,
An' hasted him to Wattie's Howe;
An' there, regardless o' the pest,
Strain'd her to his repentant breast.

But that pure Power, whilk baith had dared,
For baith the same kind weapon bared,
And ere their penitence was dry,
Received them to eternity!

Whilst the sad issue of their shame
Sank to the grave without a name.

That this is false, there's none will hold,
Sic tales have been too aften told;
An' 'tis but what ilk age must prove,
While men deceive, or lassies love.
It might be true:-the rest maun be,
Nae doubt, a bletherin' village lee,
Yet 'tis but what was tauld to me;
Yere auld-warld folks believe it well,
But deil a bit I know't mysell.

When the next winter nights were darkest,
An' chill November's storms were starkest;
When neebors met where yill was strongest,
An' drank the maist, an' sat the longest ;
When hameward roads seem'd warst and drearest,
An' aye the sight was no the clearest,→→→
'Twas tauld-wi' mony a stare and vow-
That ghaists were seen in Wattie's Howe;
A wean in whité, tvha skirl'd an' greeted,
Upon an auld grey knaggie seated,
Or wildly glided frae the stane
To the kirkyard, an' back again!›

Fu' soon was brought to mind, I wot,
The waesome tale o' that lone spot,-
For when a place is evil kenn'd, it
Would pose Auld Hornie's self to mend it;
So a' believed, baith high an' low, '
The Skreighing Bairn o' Wattie's Howe
And wi' a' speed a scheme was made,

To hae the skirlin' spirit laid.
First sent the kirk her sons to look,
Wha blatterit Latin without book,
But the young bogle didna mind them,
An' they took aff their tails behind them.
Then came a stour an' true-blue Whig,
Wi' sword an' word frae Bothwell Brig,
An' gave the ghaist a lecture on't,
He must hae gane, had preaching done't;
But still the imp right firmly sat him,
An' only graned an' greeted at him.
A Mass-priest, an' a grave auld Jew,
Tried next, and gat nae better through:

Had ne'er yet heard sic learned speaking;
In gude braid Scotch if they'd address'd him,
My life on't, they'd hae dispossess'd him.

At length there cam a chield o' game,
Patie the Packman ca'd by name;

ཏི

› A randy lad whom nought could daunt,
No just a deil, an' yet no saunt;
For pedlars aft are gipsy scouts,
Like tinklers an' sic rintherouts,
An', wi' black-fishers, aften be
But sticks of that same crooked tree
O' whilk Auld Hornie's self's the root,
While skytes an' hempies are the fruit.
Patie he took his darkling way
Through Wattie's Howe at close o' day,
But night frae noon not then he knew,
Amaist blin' drunk, far mair than fou;
Wi' staggering strides he reel'd alang,
And caroll'd sic a skirling sang,
That ghaist or deil it had alarm'd,
Had he a lug for musie charm'd.
Thus merrily, though by his lane, *ar
The Packman reach'd the Hauntit Stane,
Where the sad sprite his wonted cry An
Was pouring to the midnight sky za tuk
The fearless Patie made a stand,
Then stretch'd abroad ane groping hand,
And cried, as though some mate he knew,
"Hech, Wallydraigle! is that you?
How's a' wi' ye the day, my birkie ? .......
Did e'er ye see a morn sae markie ?".

་་

He spak, the ghaist for ever fled, But parting, seem'd to say, or said, "It's weel for baith ye spak sae stout, My time o' wanderin' now is out; Sin' Wallydraigle is my name, I'll sleep at last in my lang hame!" Sae ends my story, Wattie's Howe Has neither ghaist nor warlock now The Unblessit Bairnie's Stane is gone,› An' Time has Patie trampled on. But he grew rich, an' thus wad teach, "Gie ilk his name, use ceevil speech; For gude braid Scotch will speed you weel, Wi' saunt or sinner, ghaist or deil !"

WHACK, AND THE WHACK SYSTEM.

Whack! rowdy-dow !—Old Ballad.

THE introduction of the expressive vocable whack into the critical columns of the Literary Journal, cannot have escaped the observation of its judicious readers. To adopt the language of the nursery reviewers,-" This ingenious and admirable phrase has supplied a desideratum in our literature." A sheet of the forthcoming edition of Webster's Dictionary has been cancelled to provide for its insertion. The most erudite philologists of Northern Germany are engaged in hot discussion touching its origia and primitive signification. Good, easy men to the Sphynx herself they must turn for the solution of the riddle. In these unassuming pages they will discover the presiding power of a spirit of tongues far more potential than that which inspired Adelung,

The word whack has been traced by sundry learned personages to the Pali; by others not less gifted, to the Pelhavi. Our friend Dr Bowring inclines in favour of a Magyar origin. Another friend adduces plausible reasons in behalf of Haut-Allemand-Ancien A Silesian divine avers that he has seen it in the Speeda PhysicoMathematico-Historica of the Father Premonstratensis John Zahn. A Spanish wit, famed for the gravity and celsitude of his genius, triumphantly refers to the Rebbinical Bibliotheque of Bartoloccius, as the virgin depositary of the verbal treasure. To these illustrious, authe

Philosophy deduces a lesson of wisdom from such disputations. Here we have a question that admits of the simplest elucidation, puzzling some of the longest heads in Europe.

A

Whack is the child of a British printing-office. compositor, we believe of Milesian parentage, gave birth to it. The sons of green lerne are familiar with Paddy Whack, who, it cannot be doubted, was a broad-shouldered, harum-scarum, never-care-a-curse sort of monstrosity. By an easy association, Patricio's cognomen was transferred to the cumbrous mass of metal piled together by a hard bout at the composing-stick. ·

From the printing-office, whack was transferred by some stenographical compositor to the gallery of the House of Commons. The Parliamentarian reporter who wendeth his way from St Stephen's to the Strand, or Printing-house-square, burdened with the massive oratory of the " Collective Wisdom," exulteth in the magnitude of his whack, when, on the ensuing day, he points to a brace of columns in the Morning Chronicle or Times, as the product of notes taken in the short period of three quarters of an hour. In a literary point of view, the title of whacker, or writer of whacks, does credit to the Parliamentary reporters. To attain it, is the condition of their bond-the stamp of their utility. But they must beware of perpetuating it in their after-avocations. They must not talk whack, like Horace Twiss or Poulett Thom

son, nor publish it, like divers of their quondam associates, whom it were invidious to particularize.

We now arrive at the system which "whack" has enabled us so fully to characterize. The matured productions of the mind are waxing rather scanty of late; and literature, pretending to permanency, is travelling down a plane of very abrupt inclination. Opinions vary as to the cause; we place the saddle nowhere. Sufficient to us is the fact.

The bulkier periodicals are vast depots of whack. In a first-rate magazine, ten masterly pages, like the articles by Kit o' the North, will float a whole whack-berg. The Quarterly Reviews, having an unrestricted privilege of coping with the entire range of solemn stupidity, perform their revolutions by the sheer dint of the vis inertia. Their readers are much to be pitied; their editors more. The Libraries and Annuals must also be quoted as imposing registers of whackiana.

Gentlemen who exchange authorship for whackership are not without their plea. The former is a pedestrian, the latter a cab-driving trade. The magicians of the Row, or of New Burlington Street, order a work from a corrscientious slave of the lamp. They demand, within the space of six weeks, the biography of a sage, a textbook of science, an historical guide. The slave demurs as to time; is cashiered, and a whacker substituted, who works the work, and bears away the glory.

The age calls itself enquiring, and countenances the traffic in printed paper. The voracity of a reading public" is gratified, as the undiscriminating maw of the hog is appeased by the swineherd. In the estimation of those who cater for it, its taste is like that of the Irishman, who was indifferent whether his whisky were good or bad, provided it made him drunk." Give as more whack!" they cried bontes! YUKA **

"It will be all one an hour hence."

toLiterature in England is as poorly remunerated as science♫i» Its endeavours meet with few grateful distinctions or seasonable aids. The intellect of the country is seldom invited to join the national councils, or to preside at official bureaux. It is treated either as an alien, or as a beggurșit is either neglected or pensioned. For a solitary Wordsworth, enabled humbly to walk in the verdant shades of independent privacy, how many thickskulled dragoons are coronetted into legislators! The

is impelled by a resistless vocation to letters, and would fain bequeath to posterity a lofty memorial of the mindmust e'en content himself with the pristine privations of Grub Street, or lower his aspirations, and perpetrate whack.

FRAGMENTS-AN INDIAN BATTLE.

By S. C. Hall, Editor of the " Amulet,” &c.

FROM THE DESCRIPTIONS OF AN EYE-WITNESS.

THEY call'd me from my restless bed,

Over a human victim, dead,
And bade me rise and follow, where,

An old man knelt, and call'd it prayer.
I shudder'd when he bade them go-
He was so old-and seek the foe.

But first he summon'd them around
The sacrifice, that bleeding lay;
And, as they bent upon the ground,

They turn'd towards their gods to pray.
His eye was red, his lips were pale,
He flung his white locks to the gale,
His voice was like the dying moan
Of one who hath not strength to groan:→→→
There was not one of them all could brook
Calmly that old man's withering look,
When it turn'd from the starry skies,
To read who the next day lives or dies.

'Twas night-the ambush'd warriors lay
Crouch'd near a path their foes must pass
The light broke slowly o'er them, day

Summon'd the mists from the morass;
And, waving through the murky air,
I saw the eagle plumage there
Already dipt in blood—and then,
Through the mist, shadowy forms of men.
They paused-with morn the blow to strike,
They paused-and then, hyena-like,
As twilight changed its garb of grey—

They laugh'd, and they rush'd on their prey.

They met like the wave when the ocean winds roar,
With the torrent that whirls from the hill to the shore;
As they mingle in rage when the tempest is high,
And the crush sends the splash and the foam to the sky.

*

I saw an old man fighting there,
And, although time had blanch'd his hair,
His arm had done its duty well,
From very feebleness he fell

The clotted blood his hand had spilt,
Had glued it to the weapon's hilt.
His foes came to him, and they tore

The white scalp from the old man's head;
He shriek'd not, but unshrinking bore,

And laugh'd at all they did or said.
And when they stretch'd him on the plain,
Which the blood slowly oozed to stain,
He kept the stoic virtue still,
In his extremity of ill.

But once he shrunk, when the hot sun
Gleam'd fiercely, ere the day was done,

And came o'er his skull where the wound was fresh,
And dried the blood and scorch'd the flesh :-
And then he raised his hand to tear
His locks, as if they still were there;
But the nails of his fingers pierced the wound,
And his head sunk dying to the ground.
The pang o'ercame the warrior's pride—
The old man gnash'd his teeth, and died.

There was a chief among the dead,
Whose spirit had not tamely fled

For he had been a noble foe,

And those who cursed him, deem'd him so.
Through his deep wounds pour'd many a flood
From the full stream that flow'd within,
Till I beheld the warm red blood

Ooze gently o'er his sable skin.
One bended knee was on the ground,
Still trembling from its recent wound.
One arm hung by the flesh alone,
And he gazed on it but not to groan;
His armed foes stood laughing by

To watch him-still they fear'd him-die.
He had no weapon, and he tore
The arm that, dripping in its gore,
Hung cold and useless by his side-
And even then their rage defied.
A weapon'd warrior aim'd a blow-
From the earth sprung the dying foe;
He saw revenge, and smiled at death,
As he drew in his parting breath,
To rush, ere it should pass away,
And die at least beside his prey.

When to the ground his foe was thrown,
He shriek'd, and thrust into his eye
The remnant of the broken bone,

Then by his side laid down to die.

TO THE AURORA BOREALIS.

By Thomas Atkinson.

BANNER of midnight-vagrant light-
Aurora of the darken'd pole,
Why shoot'st thou here in fitful flight,
Why thus unfurl thy portent-scroll?

Yet, as we gaze on thee to see

The future pictured as of old,

Lo! thou shut'st up our destiny

In many a quick and antic fold!

Say, comest thou rushing with wild wing, To warn us of some pending ill?

For still belief will fondly cling,

When nought remains of prophet-skill!

Yes o'er the peaceful front of heaven Methinks the charging squadrons fly! Look! o'er yon steep battalions driven ! Hark to the missiles hurtling by!

'Tis past the rustling strife is o'er,

But 'thwart the broad expanse of blue, Where madly flicker'd light before,

Now spreads a silent, holy hue.

And, folding like the radiant wings
Of the adoring Cherubim,
Thy more than sapphire lustre flings
On earth the radiance of a dream.

Then let me, as our fathers did,

In thee behold the coming time! The future may not all be hid→

And oracles have spoke in rhyme ! When the brief strife of MIGHT and RIGHT, The last that will be here, is o'er, Then PEACE and TRUTH, like yon calm light, Shall lend to earth one glory more! But thou wilt pale when morning's ray Makes bright yon wide expanse of sky; Shall these, like thee, too fade away,

And all their light and lustre die?

They perish not!Thou melt'st in light,
While they in bliss but merge away,

: Exhaled in all that's pure and bright, As thou by yonder coming day! Glasgow, December 12, 1830.

STANZAS.

By Laurence Macdonald.

I NEVER more on aught will place my heart That 's given to change, or subject to decay; For I have witness'd friendship, love, depart As if they were the trifles of a day, For every breath of air to waft away! A moonshine and a mockery, all a name, Full of fallacious hopes that lead astray, The veriest fiction of distemper'd dream, Mere floating bubbles, bursting on life's checker'd stream. But I will love the mountains and the sky With an unearthly and increasing love, And all those far and fairy lights on high, That look like spirits as they smile above! Oh! that my soul were winged like the dove, Or that my life, bright star! were part of thee, That I might in thy glorious orbit move, A thing of light, unprison'd, pure, and free, Spread like thy rays o'er nature's realm-eternity! Not that the world and I are friends or foesI never sought its love, deserved its hate, Nor have I mingled in its marts and shows; My stars I blame not, nor accuse my fate, Nor triumph has been mine, nor yet defeat; I war with none, but court a quiet repose, And love the Muse's haunts, the bard's retreat, And wander out alone at evening's close, When all of life into intenser feeling grows! And though, at times, my vision doth survey Life's ever-troubled sea and cloudy sky, With mankind's many crimes in dread array, And he himself pursued by hell-hound's cry, ́ Then toss'd away to flames that never die,

I have no trembling fear of aught, of all That in so dark a picture meets the eye; There's yet some lovely spots upon this ball That bave not known the withering blight of man's first fall.

And there be here some stainless beings too,

Gemming the wilds of nature, like yon star,
All lovely, pure, and pale, amid the blue
Deep wilderness of heaven, dwelling afar
In virgin loveliness. Oh! but ye are,
Each in your sphere, divinities of light,

Ruling men's destinies: ye make or mar
Our fortunes; yes! and I have felt your might,
Until my soul half wish'd ye were not all so bright!

THE LONDON DRAMA.

Regent's Park, London, Monday, Dec. 20th, 1830.

As we happen to know that the managers of Covent Garden long considered it an event rather to be wished for than expected, that Miss Paton's place, as the repre sentative of Cinderella, and the singer of Rossini's "La Cenerentola" music, would speedily, if ever, be adequately supplied, the very unqualified success of their fair debutante, Miss Inverarity, in that truly difficult part, is a matter of no slight congratulation, as regards either the interests of the theatre, or the gratification of the public. As the attempt was arduous, however, so the success has been most complete; and with the requisite allowances for the nervous trepidation of a first appearance, certainly