*

without

the same bridge. Poached, sir,' replied the man, a moment's hesitation. I always used to think this a mere fiction, but now I saw that such an incident might be quite real. There is nothing, sir, on earth like the perseverance of a regular twaddler in the line of his vocation. You may break him off if you will, or if you can; but till you have fairly heard him out, he will never think himself quits with you-he still holds himself in readiness, at whatever part of the world or whatever period of future life he meets you again, to resume the thread of his discourse.

I listened, sir, for half an hour to the leaden narrative, which still seemed as far from the conclusion as ever. Many an effort I made to give the affair a turn-to throw in a jest, and escape under its cover-but no: every struggle I made served but to fix his finger the more nervously in my cloth. I had no consolation but the apathy of despair, and that I could not resign myself to. However, as good luck would have it, a procession came suddenly upon us, preceded by a band of music, and followed by a sweeping crowd of boys. We were for half a minute drifted along together, he still clinging furiously to the breast of my coat; but at length he parted from me, and, to my infinite satisfaction, I saw him borne away in a contrary direction from myself-still turning, however, towards me an eager and anxious look, as if he were like to burst with suppressed information respecting the efficacy of Morrison's universal medicines.

"Sir, I met my tormentor once more; but it was on the tops of different stage-coaches, which were passing each other upon the road. He recognised me just as we shot athwart each other: his dull eye kindled, he threw forward his heavy head as if to speak, and instinctively put forth his finger to catch hold of my button. I was safe, however, for this time. We were rapidly taken out of each other's sight. I could only guess, by his look, as he loomed away into the distance, how distressed he was at being still obliged to postpone what he had to say about

the medical preparations which he was beginning to discuss in New York. Since then, I have not once met him till this day; and you may conceive, from what I have told you, how much reason I had to be alarmed at his approach, how much reason to be delighted at my good fortune in eluding him. This pleasure, however, is only temporary. I am destined, I see, to hear out his story: go where I like, it will come upon me somewhere. All I can do is to

put off the evil day as long as I can."

If there be any spark of humane feeling in the twaddlers, they will surely be impressed by this striking anecdote of the misery inflicted by one of their fraternity, and will exert themselves as much as possible to correct their fault. Just let every man make a resolution never to speak above fifteen seconds at a time about himself, or any thing that is his, and he will never be otherwise than an agreeable member of the community. There is a respectability in suffering, which disposes every man to listen for a while, with decent attention, to the narratives which sick people are always so ready to give to their friends. But this good and kind feeling should not be abused: there is a limit to our sympathies, beyond which all is hypocrisy; and it would be well if the afflicted would join a just calculation of this extent of general compassion, with their own sense of the importance of their distresses, when they begin to talk upon the subject. If there be this limit to our interest in the sick, how much narrower are the bounds of that which we are naturally inclined to take in the personal affairs and little vanities of able-bodied men! We should, if we really esteem ourselves, be far above all miserable attempts to set ourselves off before a neighbour, by boring him, as he will call it, with our concerns, when he has enough to attend to of his own.

POLLY PARTAN,

A BALLAD.

Oh, pretty Polly Partan she was a damsel gay,

And, with a creel upon her back, she every night would stray
To the market-cross of Edinburgh, where singing she would stand,
While the gayest lords in Edinburgh ate oysters from her hand.

Oh, such a beauty Polly was, she dang the fish-wives a'—
Her cheek was like the partan's back, her nose was like its claw!
Oh, how divinely did she look, when to her face there cam
The blushes that accompany the taking of a dram!

Her love he was a sailor, a sailor on the sea,

And of a Greenland whaler the second mate was he;
But the Northern Sea now covers him beneath its icy wave,
And the ice-berg is the monument that lies upon his grave.

As pretty Polly Partan one night was going home,
And thinking of Tam Hallibuck and happy days to come,
Endeavouring to recollect if she was fou or not,
And counting that night's profits in her kilted petticoat;
She had not gone a mile, a mile down the Newhaven road,
When the spirit of Tam Hallibuck before poor Polly stood;
The hiccup rose unhiccuped through her amazed throat,
And the shilling dropt uncounted into her petticoat;

Oh, cold turned Polly Partan, but colder was the ghost,
Who shiver'd in his shirt as folks are apt to do in frost;
And while from out his cheek he spat the phantom of a quid,
From the ghost of his tobacco-box he lifted off the lid.

"Oh, Polly," cried the spirit," you may weep nae mair for me,
For my body it lies cauld and deep beneath the frozen sea;
Oh, will ye be my bride, and go where sleeps your ain true lover,.
The tangle-weed shall be your bed, the mighty waves its cover?"
"Oh, yes, I'll go !" cried Polly, "for I can lo'e nane but you;"
And she turn'd into a spirit, and away with Tam she flew :
And in her track, far to the north, a ghastly light there shone,
Her coats were like the comet's tail, her fish-creel like the moon.

And some folk about Buckhaven, that were lecturing that night On th' aurora borealis and its beauties all so bright,

Saw the spiritual lovers, with the lightning's quickest motion, Shoot down among the streamers like two stars into the ocean.

R. C.

THE WARDROBE OF THE DEAD.

WHO has not heard of the green hills, the lofty woods, the deep dells, and silver stream of Yarrow; and of its many legends, its melancholy tales, and the numberless ballads and sweet songs they have given rise to; and who ever visited it without being deeply impressed by its magic scenes? This region of fancy, this land of romance, was the place of my birth; and to it the present little narrative is intended to add another feature of interest. I left it in my girlish days, for a distant country, where I remained an exile till the autumn of life began to steal upon me. It had been my fortune to journey in lands far-famed for their beauty, where all that was lovely in picturesque scenery and genial in climate wooed the stay of the traveller ; but no scene I had visited during thirty years could in my mind ever come into comparison with my native Yarrow. No one, I believe, ever felt more deeply the delight of revisiting the hallowed haunts of their childhood, than I did, when returned once more to my native vale. I made my way, on a bright ethereal morning in the beginning of June, through each well-remembered path, to the house of an early and much-valued friend. As I looked around me, I thought I had never seen, since I quitted this earthly paradise of my imagination, trees of such fresh and graceful foliage groves so fitted for the dwelling-place of "heavenly pensive melancholy"—such green pastures-or, above all, a stream, which, as it glided along, seemed so to murmur through its deep recesses of a peace which the bustling

world can never know. I had heard strange tales of the friend I was hastening to see-reports which grieved me to the heart, and which, though I found some comfort in the belief of their being exaggerations, still caused me a great degree of uncertainty and painful anxiety as to their truth. In short, I had heard in the neighbourhood that my old friend Mrs Haldane, who lost her husband and seven children before she had been ten years married, was supposed to be in a state of derangement.

It is not my intention to enter here into a minute history of either my friend's life or my own. I shall therefore only say, that her father and mine were schoolfellows, who retained for each other the strictest friendship through life. She and I each lost our mothers when very young; and on the death of her father, which happened when she was seventeen, being like myself an only child, my father brought her to live with us. At that time I was only ten years old, and it seemed the constant endeavour of the grateful Mary to repay my father's kindness, by restraining in me every perceptible tendency to evil, and by treating me with the most sisterly affection, which, together with the tenderness I experienced from my father, made those early days of my life one continued scene of happiness. No wonder, then, that these associations had kept alive an enthusiastic attachment to the place of my birth and the friend of my childhood, and caused me to return to them as soon as I set my foot on British ground. The peaceful days I had experienced under my parent's roof, were, however, cut short by his death, when I attained my twentieth year; and I went to reside in the south of England with a near relation, where I soon married, and went abroad with my husband. Previous to my father's death, our dear Mary had left us for a house of her own, having married a young man who had a long lease of an extensive farm in the vale of Yarrow. Her husband was said not to be the good character his wife had imagined. That their tastes were widely dissimilar, and that he frequently