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twenty-seven miles distant from the establishment. Finding him excellently lodged in a well-furnished, handsome, and very convenient house, 'I wish,' said he, 'I could have such a building erected for me at Lugan.' His host replied-'If you admire my house, it is at your service, exactly as you see it; and I engage to place it for you at Lugan in the course of the week.' A bargain was concluded between them; the house was moved, and Sir Charles, who informed us of the fact, resided in it when we were in the country."

A Russian cottage, of the common sort, is generally of a form nearly square, consisting only of a ground floor, with a steep roof covered with thatch or with shingles. The gable end is towards the street, and the roof projects greatly over the house. The light is admitted through two or three apertures in the walls, which may be closed occasionally with shutters; sometimes, however, there is a small window of glass or of bladder, oiled linen or paper, There are no chimneys, but the smoke finds it way through the apertures in the walls in the best manner it can. Onefourth of the single room which composes the interior is occupied by an oven, which not only serves to warm the house and to cook victuals, but the top serves as a sleeping-place.

If the family be too large to find sleeping accommodation on the top of the oven, a number of boards are joined together, so as to form a great shelf, which is fixed on a level with this top to accommodate the remainder.

The furniture of these rooms consists of benches placed against the walls, a table, dishes of pottery and wood, and some iron utensils. The cottages, which will come under a stranger's observation in travelling between Petersburgh and Moscow, will be found in many villages to correspond with this description. The cottages in this line are of a superior order; they are larger and higher, have more than one room in the interior, are neater externally, and more convenient within. A good cottage of this description is certainly a picturesque object, particularly while When old they are rather unsightly, as the wood is never plastered or painted, and it acquires a dingy an cheerless appearance from age.

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On advancing towards the south of European Russia, wood becomes comparatively scarce. The walls of the cottages are there built with mud and faced with boards, or, as more frequently happens, the sides are of wickerwork plastered over.-Anon.

THE RIVULET.

THIS little rill, that from the springs
Of yonder grove its current brings,
Plays on the slope.a while, and then
Goes prattling into groves again,
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new;
When woods in early green were drest,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,

With blooming cheek and open brow,
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.

And when the days of boyhood came,
And I had grown in love with fame,
Duly I sought thy banks and tried
My first rude numbers by thy side.
Words cannot tell how bright and gay
The scenes of life before me lay.
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak
Would bring the blood into my cheek,
Passed o'er me, and I wrote on high
A name I deemed should never die.

hill

Years changed thee not; upon yon
The tall old maples, verdant still,
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay,
How swift the years have passed away,
Since first, a child, and half afraid,
I wandered in the forest shade.
Thou, ever joyous rivulet,

Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet;

And sporting with the sands that pave
The windings of the silver wave,
And dancing to thy old wild chime,
Thou laughest at the lapse of time.
The same sweet sounds are in my ear,
My early childhood loved to hear:
As pure thy limpid waters run,
As bright they sparkle to the sun;
As fresh and thick the bending ranks
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks;
The violet there, in soft May dew,
Comes up as modest and as blue;
As green, amid thy current's stress,
Floats the scarce-rooted water-cress;
And the brown ground-bird in thy glen
Still chirps as merrily as then.

Thou changest not; but I am changed,
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past—
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I've tried the world-it wears no more
The colouring of romance it wore.
Yet well has nature kept the truth
She promised to my earliest youth:
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly to my sobered eye
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away,
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood's favourite brook,
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream,

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And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current's merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright,
As when thou met'st my infant sight.

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And I shall die-and on thy side,
ages after ages glide,

Children their early sports shall try,

And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged, from year to year,
Gaily shalt play and glitter here;

Amid young

flowers and tender grass,

Thy endless infancy shall pass,

And singing down thy narrow glen,

Shalt mock the fading race of men.-Bryant.

ON TIDINESS.

THERE are few things which would add more to the comfort of the poor than tidiness. I speak chiefly of the women. Some are slatterns from laziness; they wish to save themselves all possible trouble, and will, therefore, do nothing more than what is absolutely necessary. They cannot live without food, and, therefore, food must be procured; but a dirty and ragged gown they are not ashamed to wear, and they care not whether the clothes of themselves, of their husband and children are in holes, as long as they can escape the trouble of mending them. They care as little whether their cottages are clean or dirty, in good order, or in a constant litter. There are other women so busy and bustling, that they do not allow themselves time to look to their clothes. Not considering that tidiness helps to save clothes, and makes them last longer, they can think of nothing but how to turn the penny in a more direct, but not in a surer way of profit. If they did but know how much persons accustomed to neatness are disgusted with the sight of a cottage full of litter, and of clothes dirty and ready to fall to pieces from raggedness, one might hope that they would be shamed into a little more regard for appearances. Tidiness, I have no doubt, not only produces much comfort, but, in course of time,

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-causes a considerable saving. "A stitch in time, says the proverb, "saves nine." No poor man or woman needs to be ashamed of patched clothes. Every patch is, on the contrary, creditable, for it bespeaks industry. But that any woman should go about day after day, and week after week, in torn clothes, is a reproach, which, one would think, no woman of true spirit, who knows the use of a needle, would endure. If it is disgraceful to a farmer that his fields should be overrun with weeds, how much more disgraceful is it for a woman to wear day after day, gowns, or other clothes, full of holes.

I wish the poor would feel, that slatterns not only bring shame upon themselves, but stand also in their own light, are their own enemies, and turn away from them many who wish to serve them; but none can be served to any purpose, by others, who do not take pains to serve themselves. Cottage Visiter.

USES OF SALT.

As a necessary of life salt probably ranks next to the bread we eat, or the water we drink. Like the air we breathe, or the sunbeams that warm us, it is obviously the medium through which a long train of other blessings are enjoyed, and is scarcely less essential to the preservation of health than the gratification of the palate. In the interior of Africa, salt, from its scarcity, is husbanded with a degree of care of which Europeans can have no idea-and the ill-fated Park gives a vivid picture of the high estimation in which it is held by the natives, who make long journeys to the coast in search of their favourite luxury, and appear to be perfectly transported when they can acquire a few grains to qualify a mess of rice or garlic. There, a man's wealth is less measured by the number of servants he keeps than by the quantity of salt he can afford to consume. But great as are its nutritive and domestic uses, its preservative properties are still greater. But for salt the ocean would actually lavish on us its treasures in vain. The mighty deep might, indeed, be dragged, and the nuts enclose almost miraculous draughts. of fishes; but to what purpose would be all this labour, unless we had the means of preserving them? Even in

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