an apprehension of what his wife might be thinking at the time; for he saw there was but one natural way in which she could interpret this exposure made by the inadvertent boy, and yet he had not heart to give a true explanation,

The child, as he had been ordered, came up stairs as he could win, which was not very fast, leading Forbes by the hand. He called at the door several times for admission; his father and grandmother hesitated, but Daniel could stand the child's modest request no longer, as he came on command, so he rose and let him in. Colin went straight up to M'Ion at the window, leading Forbes by the hand."No be angy at poo Colin, papa-ittle Yobbit no hut, and Colin vedy soddy."

Gatty never so much as opened her mouth, nor did she caress the boy, although he came to her very knee, and gave two or three wistful looks in her face. She gave M'Ion a momentary glance, but withdrew her eyes again instantaneously. Daniel was sniffing, as if labouring under the nightmare, and Mrs. Johnson's eloquence consisted all in looks, but these were expressive of the deepest interest. M'Ion gave each of the boys sixpence to buy toys, and desired Colin to kiss Robert, and shake hands with him, which he did; and then Mrs. Johnson led them out. As they went, Colin kept looking behind him, and said, "Who 'at bonny lady, gand-mamma? She be angy at Colin too. No peak one wod to poo Colin.”

'Gatty's ear caught the appellation grand-mamma at once, and all doubts that the boy was her husband's son vanished from her fancy. Strange unbalanced ideas, at war with one another, began to haunt her teeming imagination; and, in the mean time, her complexion changed from ruddy to pale, and from pale again to red, successively. She thought the mystery of the grand house, of which she had never heard before, was now about to be explained; and that it had been furnished with such splendour to be the residence of some favorite mistress. But then how did this sort with her husband's character and principles ? And how came her father and mother, and all, to be living in that house, without taking any offence? How fain would she have put the question, "Who in the world is this boy?" but she had not the face to do it; and so the conversation stood still. It stood long still; and Daniel was the first who endeavoured to set it once more agoing, with what effect the reader will judge.

"Why, daughter, ye hae neither taen the little dear bairn on your knee, nor kissed him, after a' the fraze ye made. That's unco stepmother-like wark, an' I dinna like to see't. There never was a finer callant i' this yirth, an' the sooner ye acknowledge him the better, for ye hae it aye to do.”

6

Gatty looked at her apron, and picked some small diminutive ends of threads from it, and M'lon cleared the haze from a pane of the window, and looked out. He found that it was a subject, the management of which required a delicacy that he was not master of. He could not shock the sensibility of his dear wife, so lately and so wonderfully rescued from the most dreadful of all temporal calamities, by telling her at once, that she had lain three years in a state of utter un

consciousness; and he was just thinking to himself, whether he had not better suffer her to remain in her present state of uncertainty, regarding the latitude of his own morality, than come out with the naked truth, when he was released from his dilemma by an incident that threatened to plunge him still into a deeper one.

'A young gentleman entered the room, with his plumed bonnet in his hand; and this gallant was no other than little Colin M'Ion-vichDiarmid again, who came straight up to his mother's knee; and, kneeling down, he held up his rosy chubby face toward hers, and lisped out the following words:"Poo Colin come back to beg a kiss fom his own dea mamma,"

Gatty's heart clove to the child; it yearned over him, so that she could resist the infantine request no longer. She burst into a flood of tears, pressed the boy to her bosom, kissed him, and pressed her moist burning cheek to his; then again held him from her to gaze on him. Daniel went to a corner of the room, in which he fixed his elbow firm, and leaned his brow upon his arm. Colin, who was as sharp as a brier, and had been getting his lesson from Mrs. Johnson in another apartment, now added, "But Colin beg you blessing too, fo you his

"Yes, may the God of Heaven shower his blessings on your guiltless head, lovely boy !" said she, emphatically. "And though I am not so happy as to be your mamma".

"But I say you are!" shouted Daniel, as he advanced from his corner, holding his face and both his hands straight upward, and at every step lifting his foot as high as the other knee. You are his

mother, dame; an' I winna hear ye deny your ain flesh an' blood ony langer. I canna do it, whatever the upshot may be. O, bless ye baith!-Bless ye! bless ye! bless ye!" and Daniel kneeled on the floor, folding the mother and son in his arms. "I tell you ye are his mother, Gatty, as sure as my wife was yours."

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'Mrs. Johnson, hearing the noise that Daniel made, came in; and on her Gatty fixed her bewildered eyes for an explanation. 'My father raves," said she; and man never witnessed such a countenance of pale amazement.

"He tells you nothing but the truth, my dear," said Mrs. Johnson-" he tells you nothing but the truth. Your life, as you truly said the other day, has been a mystery to yourself; it has been a mystery hid with God. But be assured that is your son-the son of your own body; for I was present at his birth, and have nursed him on my knee, and in my bosom, since that hour. May he be a blessing and a stay to you, my dear daughter; for he is indeed your own child!"

'Gatty was paralysed with a confusion of perplexed ideas; but she involuntarily clasped the child to her bosom; and, in the mean while, Daniel had his arms round them both.

'Matters were now like to be carried too far for Colin, who, though the beginner of the fray, began to dislike it exceedingly; and, kicking furiously, he made his escape, saying, as he fled across the room, "Colin not know 'bout tis."

Daniel could not contain himself; he wept for joy, and absolutely

raved, till Mrs. Bell entering the room from looking after the household affairs, rebuked him; but he snapped his fingers at her, and said, "He cared not a fig if he died the morn."

The second story is one of little interest indeed. Mr. Hogg is fond of collecting Jacobite tales; if he had lived in the year 1745 he would have been killed at Culloden, or hanged afterwards. We have seen a farce, the subject of which is a man's falling in love with the picture of a lady who lived three generations before him. Mr. Hogg is like that man; he is a violent Jacobite after the Stuarts have ceased to exist. The man in the farce, however, has this advantage—the picture is one of a beautiful woman; the Jacobite cause was one of the most odious to free men and lovers of their country that can well be imagined. The tale itself (for the two Perils, Leasing and Jealousy, make up only one story) is dull enough, and totally impossible. We really think our ingenious author would be well advised to try some other subject. The injustice of the pretensions upon which the Stuart family's claim to the crown of England was founded is notorious ; it can only be equalled by the base and contemptible character of the persons in whose favour so much brave blood was spilled. is worse than idle to be making silly novels, at this time of day, the means of spreading absurd falsehoods about the sanguinary cruelty of English soldiers, whom Mr. Hogg pretends to have butchered women and children for sport. Let him be content to tell such stories in the winter to his shepherds and their dogs, and the old women about his own ingle-nook: they may, perhaps, believe as he does, that a smith and twelve men routed one thousand five hundred men of Lord Loudon's troop with his lordship at their head. For ourselves we do not believe the relation as it stands, and as we have heard and read it a thousand times, any more than we do the exploits of Baron Munchausen.

THE HERMIT ABROAD.

It

THE ingenious gentleman who has adopted the title of the Hermit has been so long before the public, and has been so universally agreeable, that he is looked upon as an old acquaintance. The volumes which he has recently published present a continuation of his speculations abroad. It would be superfluous to criticise at length a work, the style and merit of which are so well known: we shall therefore content ourselves with saying that the third and fourth volumes are neither inferior nor different from those which have preceded them. There is the same agreeable lightness and garrulity, the same kind and charitable scanning of foibles and follies, the same desire which the author has always manifested of being thought to belong to the higher ranks of society (and this harmless vanity we would not quarrel with), which are already identified with the character of the amiable Hermit.

In a work, the subjects of which are so miscellaneous, it cannot be expected that each essay should please to the same degree or in the same manner. That upon John Bull is at once true and amusing: the fidelity of the sketch will be recognised by all those who, having visited Paris, have alternately had occasion to be proud and ashamed

of their countrymen; and even those who have not (if, in this age of travelling, such there be) cannot fail to be amused at the portrait:

6 JOHN BULL.

66

'Untravelled John Bull is certainly a rough homespun article: his prejudices are many, and his pride, which consists not in conceit, af. fectation, fine clothes, or arrogance, is excessive; yet this vice borders on a virtue, for his nationality is closely interwoven with patriotism : he scorns to be an imitator, he is independent, and glories in his freedom, little seeking to please, and unsuccessful if he attempts the minor yet fascinating arts of amiability; distant, and almost repulsive, silent, circumspect, and considering, seemingly cold (for he is not so in reality), and calculating, it is not easy to get acquainted with him, much less to win his regard: but once obtained, it is a rock to which the possessor may cling in all storms and changes, in all circumstances and times. With such a character, and a novice abroad, poor John cuts a sorry figure amidst foreign levities, and contrasted by the light and easy manner of the French. The travelled Englishman is quite another being: the polish of the diamond is always the same, whether it be given at the court of the Tuileries or at that of Carlton Palace; but I shall stick to honest, rugged John Bull. Hard as it is to form an opinion of him at first sight, dry and shy as his manner is, yet how very seldom is the true unsophisticated, pure, and genuine character of this same honest John met with in the streets of Paris, Brussels, or elsewhere! This being, so much laughed at by the undiscriminating and unthinking, this object for scenic misrepresentation, for calumny and caricature, is still a rare animal, a rara avis in terris," and whilst various strange bipeds and nondescripts overrun the continent, the real Jack Roast-Beef (as he is contemptuously termed) is not every where to be found; the reason is, that so many play the character merely, and so few foreigners give themselves either the time or the trouble to examine, or to analyze the object which they cut up inconsiderately. Every thing that appears grotesque, antigallican, awkward, fat, and heavy, is immediately set down by a Frenchman for John Bull; for instance, if a man with a rubicund complexion, purple nose, protuberant paunch, filmy eye, and exotic appearance, with long skirts to his coat, loose roomy gaiters, and his hat stuck on the back of his head, waddles up la rue de la Paix, it must indubitably be John Bull; if a thin carcase, with his clothes hung on him as if on a peg, with an umbrella under his arm, and a greyhound at his heels, saunters, whistling, through the Palais-Royal, it can be no other than John Bull; if a fellow with a hunting frock, brown top'd-boots, mail-coach style, and an appearance of easy cir cumstances, runs after a frail fair one, or gapes in at a jeweller's win. dow, with his bull-dog or faithful terrier by his side, this must be Milord John Bull, or my Lord Gueule, or, at all events, Milord Anglais (how unlike!); finally, if an idle graceless fellow yawns at a play, he must be English; and when ill-dressed women and vulgar men make their appearance on the Boulevards, at the theatres, at the restaurans, public places, or public walks, the cry is, "here are the English!"

Now, the question is, first, are they really English? and next, what English are they? of what cast, class, and description? Are they the noblemen of the British court? certainly not; are they the patriots and orators of the senate? no; the naval heroes who embellish the pages of their national history, or rival the military brave? no; the closeted author and moralist? no; the merchant, whose ample coffers contribute in time of war to subsidize half Europe, and in that of peace to aid extensively all benevolent institutions, to build up a future title and a name, to bear a huge proportion of the public burdens, and whose "white sails" glide over the seas in all directions; and, finally, whose name and credit stand high in every quarter of the globe? not often, or long, is he found from home; but the idler, the rake, the ruined man, and gamester, the splendid pauper, or needy speculator, the adventurer, and bankrupt, are everywhere to be met with abroad; and the proportion of nobility and gentry travelling on the continent is not more than as one in twenty, so that the odds are nineteen to one as to who the John Bull is, who disfigures his appearance by some bad style of dress, misrepresents the national character by his extravagances, awkwardness, and vulgarities, or dishonours his country by his errors and misconduct.

"But, in order to prove this statement more clearly and satisfactorily, I shall give a few examples of the travelling and migrating English to be met with in Paris, and I hope that the hint will be useful to both nations; to that from which they are the useless, or obnoxious exports, and to that to which their importation can neither be agreeable or advantageous, save only as far as the drawing of their pursestrings, which sometimes fail. Let me see, one pinch of snuff, and then-it is more than some of them are worth. I remarked one day a very fat man and his wife, issuing from Beauvillier's; a job carriage stood at the door, and a French servant hired by the day; the man was dressed for dinner, and had a massy ring on every finger, a heavy gold chain round his neck, a dozen valuable seals dangling to his watchpocket; his wife was overdressed in the extreme, but all à la mode de Paris; he had just paid a bill, and was a going to the hopera; his glittering purse shone with double Napoleons, but he was vulgar in the superlative degree, whilst madam was comparatively better bred, but positively of under breeding and of the plebeian class. Waiters, servants, &c. flattered and extolled them: the man was Milord Anglais, and the woman was a Milady pour rire. I inquired his name, and, upon referring to my Directory, I found that he was a tallowchandler by trade; his travels had hitherto been confined to greasé (not to Greece); but he was now come to see France, or rather a small part of it, and counted on his superiority over his neighbours on his return.

Lounging along the Champs-Elysées, a man porpoise met my eye, dressed like a rich country squire, with an affectation of the negligent, and a sort of hunting style about him; the disguise of spectacles set in gold finished his costume, and he murdered a French air as he went along, hitting carelessly his jockey books, to which the spur of the occasion was added. I examined him minutely, and recognised a Lon