ef a truth I had. Not that I exceeded the second stoup, a practice which I hold to be contra bonos mores-but ye'll no understand Latin? ye'll be from the south? Aweel-but there was something

mair, ye ken, quite as necessary for a Christian traveller and a wearied man; and at last, with a great gaunt, I speered at the serving hizzie for my bed-room. 'Bed-room,' quo' she, 'ye'll no be ganging to sleep here the night?' 'Atweel,' said the mistress, 'I am unco wae, but every room in the house is fu. Hout! it's but

a step to the town, no abune twal miles and a bittock-and ye ken every inch of the way as weel as the brass nails on your ell-wand.' I wish may be forgi'en for the passion they put me intill! To think of sending me out such a gait my lane, and near the sma' hours! O ye jaud!' cried I, 'if the gudeman was no in the yird the night, ye would craw till a different tune!' and with that such a hullibulloo was raised among us, that at last the folks began to put in their shouthers at the door in their sarks to speer what was the matter. 'Aweel, aweel,' said the landlady, in the hinder end quite forfaughten, 'a willfu' man maun hae his way. There is but ae room in the house where there is no a living soul, and it's naething but an anld lumber-room. However, if you can pass the time with another half mutchin while Jenny and me rig up the bed, it will be as much at your service as a decenter place.' And so, having gotten the battle, I sat myself down again, and Jenny brought in the other stoup-ye'll be saying that was the third; but there's nae rule without an exception, and moreover ye ken, 'three's aye canny.'

"At last and at length I got into my bed-room, and it was no that ill-looking at all. It was a good sizeable room, with a few sticks of old furniture, forbye a large old-fashioned bed. I laid my pack down, as is my custom, by the bed-side, and after saying my prayers put out the candle and tumbled in.

"Aweel, Sir, whether it was owing to my being over fatigued, or to the third stoup in defiance of the proverb being no canny, I know not, but for the life of me I could not sleep. The bed was not a bad bed, it was roomy and convenient, and there was not a whish in the house, and not a stime of light in the room. I counted over my bargains for the day, and half wished I had not made the mistake with the miller's wife; I put my hand out at the stock of the bed and felt my pack, amusing myself by thinking what was this lump and that; but still I could not sleep. Then by degrees my other senses, as well as the touch, wearied of being awake and doing nothing-fiend tak them-(God forgive me!) sought employment. I listened, as if in spite of myself, to hear whether there was any thing stirring in the house, and looked out of the curtains to see if any light came through the window chinks. Not a whish

-not a stime! Then I said my prayers over again, and began to wish grievously that the creature had her half ell of ribbon. Then my nose must needs be in the hobble, and I thought I felt a smell. It was not that bad a smell, but it was a smell I did not know, and therefore did not like. The air seemed close-and feverish; I threw off the bed-clothes, and began to puff and pant. Oh, I did wish then that I had never seen the physiog of the miller's wife! I began to be afraid. The entire silence seemed strange, the utter darkness more strange, and the strange smell stranger than all. I at first grasped at the bed-clothes, and pulled them over my head; but I had bottled in the smell with me, and rendered intolerable by the heat, it seemed like the very essence of typhus. I threw off the clothes again in a fright, and felt persuaded that I was just in the act of taking some awful fever. I would have given the world to have been able to rise and open the window, but the world would have been offered me in vain to do such a thing. I contented myself with flapping the sheet like a fan, and throwing my arms abroad to catch the wind.

"My right hand, which was towards the stock of the bed, constantly lighted upon my pack, but my left could feel naething at all save that there was a space between the bed and the wall. At last, leaning more over in that direction than heretofore, my hand encountered something a little lower than the surface of the bed, and 1 snatched it back with a smothered cry. I knew no more than the man in the moon what the something was, but it sent a tingle through my frame, and I felt the sweat begin to break over my brow. I would have turned to the other side, but I felt as heavy, to my own muscles, as if I had been made of lead; and besides a fearful curiosity nailed me to the spot. I persuaded myself that it was from this part of the bed that the smell arose. Soon, however, with a sudden desperation, I plunged my hand again into the terrible abyss, and it rested upon a cauld, stiff, clammy face!

Now, Sir, I would have you to ken, that although I cannot wrestle with the hidden sympathies of nature, I am not easily frightened. If the stoutest robber that ever wore breeks-ay, or ran bare, for there be such in the Hielands, was to lay a finger on my pack, I would haud on like grim death; and it is not to tell, that I can flyte about ae bawbee with the dourest wife in the country-side; but och, and alas! to see me at that moment, on the braid of my back, with my eyes shut, my teeth set, and one hand on the physiog of a corp! The greatest pain I endured was from the trembling of my body, for the motion forced my hand into closer connection with the horrors of its resting place; while I had no more power to withdraw it than if it had been in the thumb-screws.

"And there I lay, Sir, with my eyes steeked, as if with screw-nails, my brain wandering and confused, and whole rivers of sweat spouting down my body, till at times I thought I had got fou, and was lying sleeping in a ditch. To tell you the history of my thoughts at that time is impossible; but the miller's wife, woe be upon her! she rode me like the night-hag. I think I must have been asleep a part of the time, for I imagined that the wearisome half ell of ribbon was tied about my neck, like a halter, and that I was on the eve of being choked. I ken not how long I tholed this torment; but at last I heard voices and sounds, as if the sheriffs' officers of hell were about me, and in a sudden agony of great fear, I opened

my eyes.

"It was broad morning; the sun was shining into the room; and the landlady and her lasses were riving my hand from the face of the corpse. After casting a bewildered glance around, it was on that fearful object my eyes rested, and I recognised the remains of an old serving lass, who it seems died the day before, and was huddled into that room, to be out of the way of the company."

At this moment the landlady entered the room with his score, and while the packman sat wiping his brow, entered upon her defence. "Ye ken, Sir," said she, "that ye wad sleep in the house, and a wilfu' man maun hae his way; but gin ye had lain still, like an honest body, wi' a clean conscience, and no gaen rampauging about wi' your hands where ye had no business, the feint a harm it would hae done ye!" The packman only answered with a glance of ire, as he thundered down the bawbees upon the table, and turning one last look upon the Finnan haddie, groaned deeply, and went forth upon his journey.

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.

Taou still unravish'd bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme :
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What inaidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone :

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

For ever piping songs for ever new,
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands dress'd ?
What little town by river or sea-shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

KEATS.

WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

As I do not affect the possession of powers adequate to a description of either "the sublime or beautiful," I am thankful that the labours of the pencil and burine have done for me and the world, what, had I attempted with the pen, must doubtless have remained undone a faithful and finished likeness of three accomplished beauties,

"In whose benignant eyes are beaming

The rays of purity and truth,
Such as we fancy woman's seeming

In the creation's golden youth."

Allowing, therefore, each portrait to develope to the admiring spectator the various charms of face and feature which the fair originals respectively possessed, I betake me to the humbler task of furnishing the reader with that portion of their history, whence originated the conception and execution of the interesting group which they form. In following up this object, I must request one and all next to picture to themselves in their mind's eye two handsome and accomplished youths, and they have before themHenry Talbot and Edward Morton. They were kindred spirits, and they were dear friends. Talbot, in the twenty-third year of his age, found himself, by the death of his father, the inheritor of a delightfully situated estate with a rent-roll of seven hundred pounds a-year. Enamoured with the innocence of country life, he resolved that the old paternal mansion should be his resting place, and that his remaining days should be spent between books and attention to the improving and ornamenting of his inheritance. He had often read with enthusiasm a description of the Leasowes of Shenstone at Halesowen, and ambitious of imitating the taste of the poet in his rural recreations, he devoted much personal exertion to the beautifying of the grounds contiguous to his dwelling. A fair trial of this mode of life did not disappoint the fondest of his anticipations; and to him who had such a valued friend in the person of Edward Morton, it was of no small consequence that this gentleman could, without prejudice to business, visit him at short intervals, in the quiet scene of his retirement. When these always delightful meetings took place-the parlour fireside in winter, and in summer a highly romantic ivy-clad bower, surmounting a perpen.. dicular elevation of rugged rock, looking fiercely on the stream that murmured on its passage below, and itself overhung by a steep bank of forest trees, were the scenes which entertained the friends with