ancient discipline of their tribe among the Scythians, and sincerely wish they would return to it. Herodotus tells us, that when the king died, the undertakers who attended him (I will use the words of the historian), "cut off part of one ear, shave their heads, wound themselves on the arms, forehead and nose, and pierce the left hand with an arrow. Having done this, they accompany the chariot to another district, and this manner is observed in every province, till, having carried the dead body of the king through all his dominions, they bury him in the country of the Garrhians." There is scarcely an undertaker's array, provided he be of any note, and has been long in the trade, that would not furnish the following list to be strangled-"a concubine to be strangled, with a cupbearer, a cook, a groom, a waiter, a messenger, certain horses." A royal funeral in those days was something worth seeing-for, not satisfied with the above, "they took the king's ministers, fifty in number, and strangled them; and with them the king's stud, fifty beautiful horses, and after they have emptied and cleansed their bellies (the king's ministers, they having been supposed to have filled them extraordinarily,) they fill them with straw, and sew them up again. Then they lay two planks of a semicircular form upon four pieces of timber, placed at a convenient distance, with the half circle upwards; and when they have erected a sufficient number of these machines, they set the horses upon them, spitted with a strong pole, quite through the body to the neck; and thus one semicircle supports the shoulders of the horse, the other his flank, and his legs are suspended in the air. After this they bridle the horses, and, hanging the reins at full length upon posts erected to that end, mount one of the fifty they have strangled, upon each horse, and fix him in the seat by driving a straight stick upwards from the end of the back-bone to his head, and fastening the the lowest part of that stick in an aperture of the beam that spits the horses. Then, placing these horsemen quite round the monument, they all depart; and this is the manner of the king's funeral." The Scythians were a sensible people.

When Dr. Prideaux offered to the publisher his connexion of the Old and New Testament, the bookseller remarked that it was a dry subject, and he could not safely print it, unless he could enliven it with a little humour. Perhaps, my dear Eusebius, you will charge me with making such an attempt upon a grave subject. Be that as it may, I know very well that if I do not make you laugh, you will laugh without me. Ever yours,

Z.

A PASSAGE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

IN A LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1838.)

I SUPPOSE the "mens sana in corpore sano," the sound mind in a sound constitution, would be proof at least against weather, and elastic through all the wear and tear of life. The spirits of some are ever alert, and guard every avenue through which care may enter. With others the five senses are all traitors, and ready to let the enemy into the citadel of the heart at the shortest notice. Some grow demented under the charm of music-a gentle touch will thrill over the whole frame of youth. My danger and my delight are both in the sense of seeing. The eye is the most sensitive organ. There are certain moments every day that a feeling of uncomfortableness comes over me-frequently positive melancholy; and it is from that which many people love, so that I am left to wonder at our different natures. The effect of twilight distresses me-the light of departing day. It is not. because the light is small in quantity; it is in its quality. Not the quantity; for exclude, in ever so great a degree, the light of day, reduce it by shutters and blinds as much as may be, I am rather pleased, certainly unaffected by any touch of melancholy. But in a moment, when I may be engaged busily, and my understanding unconscious of the hour, as the declining sun has reached a certain point, a sense of misery comes over me. I frequently shut my eyes at the instant of the sensation, but that is not enough; there is an impression through the eyelids— and, what is strange, it is not dissipated by candles, until the light of day, if it may so be called, is completely ex

cluded. I know not but that the artificial and natural lights combatting each other, provoke a greater pain. Memnon's head roared at the rising, my groans are at the setting sun. I am, too, more affected within doors than in the fields. I am persuaded there must be something in the quality of light at this time of day, that has escaped the notice of philosophers. Nor is the effect the same at all times of the year—the most distressing feeling is towards the end of autumn-then, indeed, in a certain measure it affects all, and has become notorious. But there is not a day in the year in which I do not feel it in some degree. There is a quarter of an hour worse than that which took its name from Rabelais. I am not suf fering from it now; but a little more than half an hour ago, this fourth day of December, the evil influence was strong upon me. I was in a lane, returning home from visiting a cheerful friend. I had walked a mile or two only, when the cold moment broke upon the sight: cold and comfortless did all appear to me; the rutty, damp, yet half frozen lane; the melancholy leafless boughs shooting up into the dull gray sky; the lower branches and leafage of hedges huddled together, without order, without beauty, as if hurrying from, if they could do so, and cowering under the melancholy light; the broad gray band of cloud, not unaccompanied by lighter vapour coming in, and gradually overspreading and making less the warmer light, every instant becoming more luridthis cloud, or this night rather, coming in upon nature, like an evil genius, to drive her from her patrimony, and to hold a wide and surly dominion in her stead. was of the foul fiend. The fiend of fen and quagmire, and the fiend of the heart-care-first cousins, showing their affinity by sympathies of howl and groan, from the utmost verge of the horizon to the innermost core of human life, and even sometimes by a stillness of electric horror.

All

And yet was there a blithe country girl that drove her melancholy cows to or from milking, and heeded not the evil hour, or the foul fiend, though his leaden finger had passed over her perhaps fair, or nut-brown forehead, and given it a hue that utterly belied the song she was singing,

if song it could be; for to my sense the damp earth and air were dividing it between them, and flinging it back upon the ear mutteringly and in mutilation. And now night is over all-ruts, leafage, cattle, earth and sky, are obliterated like a feeble outline under a deep wash of Indian ink. I feel not the miseries without; I am beyond their power. I am within-in the shelter of home. I am lighted by the real magician's lamp. No magic circle. ever bid defiance to demon more effectually than this blessed inclosure of four bright walls, rich in simple patterns, from which shine out partially, and with enticing looks of delight, well-varnished pictures in their gilt frames. Their very surfaces look sleek, and happy, sensative, companionable, as they are, and communicative of ideas and here I sit among them,

"Monarch of all I survey."

And oh! how unlike the miserable Selkirk, when the cold hour came upon his brow in his lonely island, and his heart was filled with despair. A cheerful warm fire, a few gentle home-sunny faces that bring spring in contact with winter; objects of taste fascinating, yet unobtruding; voices that are always music, and music proper when you will; and sometimes silence, contemplative or excursive in fancy, the quiet thankfulness for blessings felt and twice enjoyed in that thankfulness; the consciousness of freedom from tyrant self or tyrant custom; no storm beating at your windows or at your heartwhat a contrast are they all to that "darkness visible," that evil hour of external day that makes up the aßirov Biov, the life that cannot be lived, and that they must feel the misery of, who rush for shelter from this present misery to the melancholy pond, or the garret gallows!

How striking are the contrasts of life!-And as I thought thus, I retraced my life step by step; and as the cheerfulness of all around me would not let the mind dwell upon the gloomy, I determined to steal a passage from my autobiography, which rather whimsically shows some of the contrasts of things, of life, and manners. And you perceive, my dear Eusebius, what nonsense I