at present is about the Queen. The able resort, where price alone is the Argents, who are our main instruc- obstacle. Hence the institution of tors in the proprieties of London life, these select Aristocratic assemblies. say that it would be very vulgar in me The Philharmonic concerts, however, to go to look at her, which I am sorry are rather professional than fashionfor, as I wish above all things to see a able entertainments; but everybody personage so illustrious by birth, and is fond of music, and therefore, everyrenowned by misfortune. The Doc- body, that can be called anybody, is tor and my mother, who are less scru- anxious to get tickets to them, and pulous, and who, in consequence, this anxiety has given them a degree somehow, by themselves, contrive to of eclat, which I am persuaded the see, and to get into places that are in- performance would never have excited accessible to all gentility, have had a had the tickets been purchasable at full view of her Majesty. My father any price. The great thing here is has since become her declared parti- either to be somebody, or to be patro and my mother too has acquired nized by a person that is a somebody; a leaning likewise towards her side of without this, though you were as rich the question; but neither of them as Croesus, your golden chariots, like will permit the subject to be spoken the comets of a season blazing and of before me, as they consider it detri- amazing, would speedily roll away mental to good morals: I, however, into the obscurity from which they read the newspapers. came, and be remembered no more.

zan,

What my brother thinks of her Majesty's case is not easy to divine, but Sabre is convinced of the Queen's guilt, upon some private and authentic information which a friend of his, who has returned from Italy, heard when travelling in that country. This information he has not, however, repeated to me, so that it must be something very bad-we shall know all when the trial comes on. In the meantime, his Majesty, who has lived in dignified retirement since he came to the throne, has taken up his abode with rural felicity in a cottage in Windsor Forest; where he now, contemning all the pomp and follies of his youth, and this metropolis, passes his days amidst his cabbages, like Dioclesian, with innocence and tranquillity, far from the intrigues of courtiers, and insensible to the murmuring waves of the fluctuating populace, that set in with so strong a current towards "the mob-led queen," as the divine Shakspeare has so beautifully expressed it.

You ask me about Vauxhall Gardens;-I have not seen them.They are no longer in fashion-the theatres are quite vulgar-even the opera-house has sunk into a secondrate place of resort. Almacks balls, the Argyle rooms, and the Philharmonic concerts, are the only public entertainments frequented by people of fashion -and this high superiority they owe entirely to the difficulty of gaining admission. London, as my brother says,' is too rich, and grown too luxurious, to have any exclusive place of fashionVOL. VIII.

At first when we came here, and when the amount of our legacy was first promulgated, we were in a terrible flutter. Andrew became a man of fashion, with all the haste that tailors, and horses, and drivers, could make him. My father, honest man, was equally inspired with lofty ideas, and began a career that promised a liberal benefaction of good things to the poor-and my mother was almost distracted with calculations about laying out the money to the best advantage, and the sum she would allow to be spent. I alone preserved my natural equanimity-and foreseeing the necessity of new accomplishments to suit my altered circumstances, applied myself to the instructions of my masters with an assiduity that won their applause. The advantages of this I now experience-my brother is sobered from his champaign fumes-my father has found out that charity begins at home

and my mother, though her establishment is enlarged, finds her happiness, notwithstanding the legacy, still lies within the little circle of her household cares. Thus, my dear Bell, have I proved the sweets of a true philosophy; and, unseduced by the blandishments of rank, rejected Sir Marmaduke Towler, and accepted the humbler but more disinterested swain, Captain Sabre, who requests me to send you his compliments, not altogether content that you should occupy so much of the bosom of your affectionate,

RACHEL PRINGLE. 2 L

"Rachel had ay a gude roose of hersel'," said Becky Glibbans, as Miss Isabella concluded. In the same moment Mr Snodgrass took his leave, saying to Mr Micklewham that he had something particular to mention to him. "What can it be about?" inquired Mrs Glibbans at Mr Craig, as soon as the helper and schoolmaster had left the room; "do you think it can be concerning the Doctor's resignation of the parish in his favour?" "I'm sure," interposed Mrs Craig, before her husband could reply, "it winna be wi' my gude will that he shall come in upon us-a pridefu' wight, whose saft words, and a' his politess, are but lip-deep; na, na, Mrs Glibbans, we maun hae another on the leet forbye him." "And wha would ye put on the leet noo, Mrs Craig, you that's sic a judge?" said Mrs Glibbans with the most ineffable consequentiality. "I'll be for young Mr Dirlton, who is baith a sappy preacher of the word, and a substantial hand at every kind of civility." "Young Dirlton !-young Deevilton!" cried the orthodox Deborah of Irvine; "a fallow that knows no more of a gospel dispensation than I do of the Arian heresy, which I hold in utter abomination. No, Mrs Craig, you have a godly man for your husband-a sound and true follower; tread ye in his footsteps, and no try to set up yoursel' on points of doctrine. But it's time, Miss Mally, that we were taking the road; Becky and Miss Isabella, make yourselves ready. Noo, Mrs Craig, ye'll no be a stranger; you see I have no been lang of coming to give you my countenance: but, my leddy, ca canny, it's no easy to carry a fu' cup; ye hae gotten a great gift in your gudeman. Mr Craig, I wish you a gude night; I would fain have stopped for your evening exercise, but Miss Mally was beginning, I saw, to weary-so gude night; and, Mrs Craig, ye'll take tent of what I have saidit's for your good." So exeunt Mrs Glibbans, Miss Mally, and the two young ladies. "Her bark's war than her bite,” said Mrs Craig, as she returned to her husband, who felt already some of the ourie symptoms of a henpecked destiny.

SKETCHES OF VILLAGE CHARACTER.

No III.

Helmorran.

WHILST vice parades her front in open day,
Nor finds contempt companion of her way;
Whilst darkness veils the nightly-prowling thief,
And skulking malice baffles all belief;
Whilst children lisp in oaths of dreadful name,
And steal, and stare, beyond the reach of shame ;
Whilst radical confusion rules the hour,
Which speaks Queen Caroline's degrading power,
And men are maddened to the last extreme,
Nor reckon blasphemy nor treason shame;
If nature fails in such provoking times,
Even indignation must have vent in rhymes!
Helmorran, great in every deed of ill,
In inclination only greater still,

Be thou my theme! in all thy motley show
Of ragged crime and variegated woe;
Stand forth supreme of every sister band,

The scorn, contempt, and bye-word of the land.
Long have thy sins for vengeance sued aloud,
And long has slept the lightning in the cloud;
Now let the guilty tremble-in his ire
Heaven speeds a tempest of vindictive fire.

On watchful day has crept the coward night,
And screened her deeds of darkness from the sight;
Forth issuing now, with noiseless step and breath,
The sons of Belial track their fearful path.`
This to the barn-yard feels his miscreant way,
And this the hen-roost destines as his prey;

This wanders far in quest of plunder store,
Whilst this steals boldly from his neighbour's door.
Hast thou with care adorned thy pleasure-ground,
And made an Eden of thy fields around?
Cut into clumps and waving swells thy lawn,
And graced thy paddock with the fearful fawn?
Canst thou set watch for those who shun the light,
Or bind in bonds the Demons of the night?
Avert the weapon, whose accursed use
Is mangling devastation and abuse?

Thy poultry own thy unremitted care,
And geese and turkeys fatten on their fare;
Thy ducks and chickens crowd thy kitchen door,
And noisy gabblings speak thy feathered store.
With lock and bar thy peopled roost protect,
Thou canst not stem that bleeding turkey's neck,
Restore the wing by well-aimed malice broke,
Nor speak protection to thy limping flock!
One favourite dog, by age and worth endeared,
Recalls the memory of a name revered―
A father's kindly unremitted love—
A tender mother's now in heaven above;
Around his every motion time has cast
Deep-rooted recollections of the past;

The well known cough, and head of silver hair—
The chapter folded down, and conned with care-
The time, the place, the incidents that were.
Upon thy hearth he takes his daily bed
Of matted fleece, by thy own fingers spread;
In circling movement folds his shaggy paws,
And yawns his languor with distended jaws.
Around his couch thy menials move with care,
All thy affection share, or seem to share;
The very housemaid plies a cautious broom,
And treads more softly through the dusted room.
Though, all unapt for motion, forth he creep,
To stretch a tedious interval, and sleep;
Though visionless he eat his wonted meal,
Without or recognisance or appeal,

Refuse the "bit" bestowed in action bland,
And scarcely deign to lick the giver's hand;
The time has been, when with thy changing eye,
His own had gleamed or sorrowed in reply;
From forth thy opened door he'd shot away,
In antic gambol and unceasing play,
Made all thy lawn re-echo to his tale,
And chased in very sport his circling tail!
His sports are numbered, all his meals are past,
Doomed to receive a poisoned meal at last!

Around thee blooms the purple heather-bell,
And daisies spread their cups along the dell ;
The fox-glove reddens on thy scented banks,
And blue-bells hang their heads in graceful ranks;
The starry-headed clover sprinkles o'er

Thy green-sward pasture-ground with snowy shower:
Amidst these sweets, and o'er that honeyed lea,
Through gayest noontide summer hums the bee;
From flower to flower, with note of tiny swell,
He culls provision for his winter cell,
With loaded thigh ascends the sunny day,
And homeward speeds his heaven-conducted way;

Ill-fated wanderer of thy cherished hive,
What means can care pursue, can art contrive!
What engine set, the spoiler's steps to stay,
Which bears at noon of night thy store away!

Whence have these cows their food, that seem so sleek,
And by the highway-side a pittance seek?
These horses, can they labour thus on nought,
For whose support no provender is bought?

The neighbouring farmer-for he knows full well-
Could solve the problem, if he dared to tell.

Such are thy deeds, Helmorran! such thy shame
Befitting well thy far-detested name!

The actors next we sing in order due,
And from perplexing numbers cull a few.

The Village Cobbler.

BEHIND that door, by every filth defiled,
Where live in common, parent, sow, and child,
The Cobbler sits, in cap of greasy hue,

And plies, with frequent rap, the bungled shoe;
His snuffy nose a sniv'ling cadence lends,
And still at every rap the drop descends,
O'er hand and seam a blackening plaster throws
Which owns the origin of Parent Nose.
And here his sulky mate, on tripod stool,
O'er noisy wight exerts Pythonic rule-
Of infant Brat the glowing bottom plies,
With skelp responsive to its ceaseless cries,
Bans, scolds, and capers, till her husband's strap
Around her shoulders walks, with sobering slap!
The veriest Imp, which scarce can mark its feet,
Will curse its fellow, or its mother cheat,
Deny the truth with shame-untroubled eye,
And, though convicted, give the truth the lie,
Scream o'er the Screamer, at its topmost pitch,
And scatter filth about, and spread the itch!

The Village Magdalene.

URGED by that word, which hell might not gainsay,
Seven devils passed from Magdalene away;
But yonder village hut contains a dame,
Of whose default eight human devils came.
On weekly market nights, as Farmers pass,
Beneath the movings of the stirrup glass,
Their path she crosses, on their woodland way,
And deeds are done, for which the simple pay.
All now are fathers, impotent or strong,

Or those who did, or those who meant her wrong.
A childless husband pays the silence smart,
Deep cursing barrenness within his heart.
A father bribes, with pious care, the dame,
And from an injured spouse conceals the shame,
Such proofs of early manhood proud to see,
The son admits the wily wanton's plea,
Whilst Bell is paid for all her labours past,
And chouses son and father at the last.

Holy Jamie.

COME, holy Jamie, come, with all thy store
Of canting phrase and hypocritic lore!
Thy voice in favour of thyself be raised,
The saint, the father, and the man be praised.
Thou canst not covet, till the psalm be sung;
Thou canst not jest, the Scripture on thy tongue;
Thou canst not meditate, in fervent prayer,
To cheat the needy of his scanty fare! ·

Yes! thou mayst slyly covet, scheme, and cheat,
Each impious jest and slanderous tale repeat.
Thy fate is fixed, thy destiny secure,

"For to the pure in heart, all things are pure!"
And lives there 'neath a garb of heavenly show,
One reptile hypocrite of earth below,
Who dare betray his master's sacred name,
And bring e'en holiness itself to shame!
The Infidel, the veriest Debauchee,

Stands higher in the scale of "Man" than he!

Father Sycophant.

OLD Father Sycophant, stand out to light,
And self-condemned in injured virtue's sight;
Hast thou not whispered in a certain ear,
What cost the houseless widow many a tear?
Laughed at thy patron's jests, though trite and stale,
And "excellent" exclaimed at every tale?
His trees, his lawns, his breed of cattle lauded?
And up to heaven his " politics" applauded?

Oh! I have marked thee bend, and scrape, and stand,
Thy hat low dangling from thy better hand,
Yes-ing and No-ing to the great man's will,
And with his changed opinion veering still.
Have I not seen thee in a "Priest's" attire,
Mixing with holy flame unholy fire?

"His Lordship was at church, you marked, to-day;
"And how, my dearest, did I preach and pray?
"Her Grace was most attentive, I could see-
"She scarcely turned her lovely eyes from me ;
"And Lady Ann an angel tear-drop shed,
"I'll get a Gown when Lady Ann is wed;
"But I must dress for dinner at the hall-
"I'm not at home,' should any neighbour call;
"The poor are always sickening-can't they die?
"Reserve for supper-time the pigeon-pie."

As crows the cock, so chirps the chicken brood:"Were ever gentle folks so very good? "And, dear Papa, my Lady called to-day, "And ask'd my sister Suky to a play; "Such real attentive folks I never saw"They are so very kind, my dear Papa. "And, dear Papa, how very much we need "Society, Papa-we do indeed,

Except the Russels,' nobody have we "Worth pinning down a ribbon end to see, "A set of low-bred country farmer folks"Big-bosom'd Jennies, bullet-headed Jocks"With now and then the Laird o' Spittal Miln, "Whose face is ever reeking like a kiln.