tions may be properly said to commence, and their qualifications to be most strikingly and usefully developed. Their pleasure lies in home, and they set in good earnest about making it delightful. They draw around them, with inoredible pains, comforts and conveniences of every kind, and their ingenuity is exerted in a thousand ways to accomplish objects which to most people would appear trifling in the extreme, but which are to them of the highest importance. Abroad, our heroes are a good deal laughed at for what are called their fiddle-faddling propensities. They employ as much pains to demonstrate to you the propriety and possibility of saving twopence in some matter of household expense once a-year, as another would do to elucidate and enforce a scheme of retrenchment which was to lessen the burdens of the nation by as many millions. They grudge no part of the price of an article except the halfpenny which goes to complete the sum; but they grudge it grievously; and what other people pay a shilling for, it is the study and business of their lives to procure equally good for elevenpence-halfpenny. Infinite is the labour they bestow to carry their point; and as they are indefatigable, so they are in the end generally successful. This habit of being solicitous about trifles lowers them, as has been said, not a little in the estimation of many. But it is surprising what an impression is produced upon one who has made them the subject of ridicule, if he pay a visit to the house of a wife-carle, and become a witness of the effects of a judicious economy. He is compelled to acknowledge the superior tact of his friend, when he observes the regularity of his household arrangements : there is nothing wanting, and nothing where it should not be; every thing is good of its kind, and adjusted with the nicest skill. Every article around him has its history. Not one of them but was procured by the intervention of a number of trusty agents, and by a series of skilful negotiations. He is not one of those witless persons, who, when a thing can no longer be wanted, have no other resource

but to go straight into the market and buy it; he sees a long way before him, by which means he has time not only to look about and make a choice, but to be cautious in closing a bargain, and to obtain the best terms by appearing not to care whether he get the goods or not. Then he has numerous friends, through whose interest with tradesmen he procures things both better and cheaper than customary. Thus his cellar is stocked, not by a general order to a spirit merchant; but he knows a person who has a near relation connected with a brewery, and through this medium he is supplied with superior porter and ales; he has a fifth, sixth, or seventh cousin, who in a voyage to the Low Countries contracted a friendship with a Dutch captain-so he is secure of the best Hollands; he possesses channels of communication even with the Highland smugglers, and would scorn to offer a guest any thing but the genuine peat-reek. Every thing comes to him from authentic sources in the same manner, and the secret history of all his various transactions furnishes him with neverfailing subjects of conversation. It is in this sphere that the owner feels the triumph of his genius, and he sets himself down in the midst of the comforts he has accumulated -a happy man.

We shall only specify one particular in which the talents of the wife-carle shine pre-eminent. Reader, were you ever in Edinburgh after a fall of snow which had continued for three days without intermission? Bands of labourers issue forth, armed with shovels, to clear the pavements, in doing which they throw up an entrenchment of snow on each side of the street, so high that the few passengers cannot discern more than the hats of those on the opposite footpath. The voice of the fishwives is silent, and not a cart attempts a passage through the streets. A physician's carriage may be observed here and there dragged slowly along by four horses, and a hackney coach making its way still more slowly, the additional horses yoked with traces manifestly got up for the occasion, being formed of ropes

not of the freshest kind. seems to be at a stand for the time, and the only thing people can do is to remain at home, and read in the newspapers accounts of roads blocked up in every direction, and of valorous mail-coach guards, who, when their vehicles could be taken no farther, abandoned them, and, through paths knee-deep with snow, and with the drift coming absolutely in shovelfuls into their faces, carried the bags in safety to the next post-town. In this period of desolation the price of coal mounts rapidly. This is a matter which comes home to the toes and fingers of every man, and the panic is consequently great and universal. As is usual in times of alarm, exaggeration flies abroad, and represents the case in its worst colours. Reports are propagated that there is not a ton in store, either at the canal or railway depot. On every side are echoed expressions of dismay and of astonishment that the dealers should have been so exceedingly improvident; and then, again, people check themselves by the reflection, that even although plenty of coals could be bought at the accustomed stations, there is no possibility of getting them conveyed home. Many an anxious and unwonted countenance is intruded, by way of committee of inquiry, into the gloomy regions of the coalhole; and the cave of Trophonius had no such effect in lengthening the features of those who visited it, as is produced by the investigation of these empty, and therefore dismal recesses. Numbers of gentlemen, corpulent and otherwise, return with the appalling intelligence to their families, and abandon themselves to despair by the side of their expiring parlour fires, the wintry wind whistling a dreary chorus to their lamentations. In the midst of this universal consternation, the wife-carle remains undismayed. Harassed by no anticipations of uncooked victuals, and of fingers blue with cold, he lifts his poker, smashes a large piece of coal in the grate, and plants himself for business or relaxation in front of a fire that bids frost and the fear of it avaunt. His winter stock of fuel was laid in long be

All intercourse and business

fore, of the best kind, and at a reasonable rate; and he has now the satisfaction of lending a small quantity to boil the pot of Mr Temporary, who, when he saw the carts unloading their culmy stores at the door of his provident neighbour, thought he had made a hit in twitting him, that "surely he meant to roast an election dinner in his house."

A TALE OF THE PASSIONS.

On the east coast of Scotland, there is a pleasant little village, within a quarter of a mile of the sea, chiefly inhabited by fishermen. Of this place I was, about thirty years ago, an inhabitant; and as I am fond of observing the lights and shades in character among the lower class, where in general concealment of the natural disposition is least practised, I quickly got acquainted with my humble neighbours. It was thus not long before I knew the history, and could estimate the feelings, of many individuals, who, though unknown to fame, passed not away without leaving a moral lesson behind them. In most small communities there is some one who is singled out by their fellows as possessing some advantage over them, which is either real or imaginary. Among the dwellers in this sequestered spot, there was an old woman, named Margaret Dun, who was honoured by a celebrity arising from a cause which will be at once acknowledged to come under the head of the latter. I have said honoured, but it may be doubted whether the term is properly applied, when it is told, that, instead of the name I have mentioned, that of Peg the Witch was more frequently applied to her. How she first acquired her reputation as an emissary of Satan, I could not learn. Probably it was from her sagacity in frequently prophesying about her neighbours' concerns what came to pass, and from her possessing a bold determined spirit, which seldom

failed to carry her through any enterprise in which she engaged, and which caused her to be more prosperous in her domestic concerns than is generally the fate of those in her class who do not possess the same energy of mind. Be this as it may, the light in which she was regarded by the people around her, made her view their ignorance with scorn, not unmixed with resentment, and had the effect of confining her sympathies within the narrow boundary of her own family, where she ruled with an undisputed and despotic sway. But though her authority over her children was imperious, it was in general cheerfully obeyed, for she was neither peevish nor sullen in her intercourse with them, and had always attended so diligently to all their wants, that they both loved and respected her.

At the time I first became acquainted with this woman, she had recently lost some of her children, and her family then consisted only of two sons and her husband. John Dun, the gudeman, was a mason by trade, and considered so clever at his business, that there was hardly a house or onstead erected for many miles round without his aid. Being thus much employed at a distance from home, his wife became the entire manager of the money earned by his industry, and laid it out so judiciously, that his cottage exhibited many little comforts unknown in those of his less fortunate neighbours. This was so apparent to all, that it excited a degree of envy, which continued to account for it in the old way; and many were the rumours that reached her ears of the effect of the supernatural gifts with which she was supposed to be endowed. Indignant at their folly, and wearied by their obstinate adherence to it, she at length determined to use her imputed character as a means of making the whole village subservient to her will; nor was there one individual who had the hardihood to resist it. I have no doubt but much of this strange influence was owing to the peculiar situation of the place, and the occupation of its inhabitants, whose bread was procured on the face of the mighty deep. Sailors in gene