of a catechist, who concealed it in a clue of yarn. Information being thus obtained at Edinburgh, a ship was sent to bring her off; but intelligence of this being received, she was conveyed to M'Leod's island of Herries, where she died."-BOSWELL. LANE BUCHANAN says, "It was supposed a courier was despatched over land by her enemies, who had arrived at St. Kilda some time before the vessel. When the latter arrived, to their sad disappointment, they found the lady in her grave. Whether she died by the visitation of God, or the wickedness of man, will for ever remain a secret; as their whole address could not prevail on the minister and his wife, though brought to Edinburgh, to declare how it happened, as both were afraid of offending the great men of that country among whom they were forced to reside. "A poor old woman told me," he adds, "that when she served her there, her whole time was devoted to weeping, and wrapping up letters round pieces of cork, bound up with yarn, and throwing them into the sea, to try if any favourable wave would waft them to some Christian, to inform some humane person where she resided, in expectation of carrying tidings to her friends at Edinburgh." Passions of youth, infirmities of age? But no conviction from my reading springs, In chains of darkness wherefore should I stay, And mourn in prison, while I keep the key?" m May-day in the Highlands. "Ir was a custom, till of late years, among the inhabitants of whole districts in the north of Scotland, to extinguish all their fires on the evening of the last day of April. Early on the first day of May, some select persons met in a private place, and by turning with great rapidity an augre in a dry piece of wood, extracted what they called, Tein-Egin, the forced or elementary fire. Some active young men, one from each hamlet in the district, attended at a distance, and as soon as the forced fire was kindled, carried part of it, with great expedition and joy, to their respective villages. The people immediately assembled upon some rock or eminence, lighted the Bel-tein, and spent the day in mirth and festivity. "The ceremonies used upon this occasion were founded upon opinions of which there is now no trace remaining in tradition. It is in vain to enquire why those ignorant persons who are addicted to this superstition, throw into the Bel-tein a portion of those things upon which they regale them selves on the first of May. Neither is there any reason assigned by them for decking branches of mountain ash1 with wreaths of flowers and heath, which they carry with shouts and gestures of joy, in procession three times round the firc. These branches they afterwards deposit above the doors of their respective dwellings, where they remain till they give place to others in the succeeding year. Bel-tein is a composition of Bel, a rock, and Tein, fire. The first day of May is called La Bel Tein, or the day of the fire on the rock. "We kindle, say the ancient Scots, the fire of the rock to welcome the sun after his travels behind the clouds and tempests of the dark2 months; and it would be highly indecent not to honour him with titles of dignity when we meet him with joy on our hills." They call him then, An Lo, the day, and Solus Neav, the light of heaven.—MAC PHERSON. Persans appellent ce Phare, Le Miroir Alexandre. Ils disent que la fortune de la ville y étoit attachée, parceque c'étoit un Talisman."-D'HERBELOT. Genova mia, &c. "GENOVA mia, se con asciutto ciglio Lacero e guasto il tuo bel corpo io miro, Non e poca pieta d'ingrato figlio, Ma ribello mi sembra agni sospiro. Incontro il tuo valor nel tuo periglio. E contro ai fieri alta vendetta fai Pharos of Alexandria. "MENARAT Eskanderiah est le Phare ou Fanal d'Alexandrie. Le Géographe Persien au climat 3o. parlant d'Alexandrie où ce climat commence, dit que dans cette ville qu' Alexandre fit bâtir sur le bord de la mer Mediterranée, ce grand Prince fit construire un Phare qui passe pour être une des merveilles du monde; dont la hauteur étoit de 180 coudées, au plus haut duquel il fit placer un miroir fait par art talismanique, par le moyen duquel la ville d'Alexandrie devoit toujours conserver sa grandeur et sa puissance, tant que cet ouvrage merveilleux subsisteroit. "Quelques-uns ont écrit que les vaisseaux qui arrivoient dans ce port, se voyoient de fort loin dans ce miroir. Quoi qu'il en soit, il est fort célèbre parmi les orientaux. Les 'Clou-än-Beltein, the split branch of the fire on the rock. 2 The Armoricans and the Gael of North Britain, called the winter, and particularly tho month of November, Mis-Du, or the black month."-LHUYD. Archæ. Brit. Ruins of Moseley. TAYLOR, if through thy shatter'd fire-swart hall Unbowed thou wanderest, and with tear less eye, "Tis not that thou hast seen unmoved its fall, But that thou feel'st it were a crime to sigh. Remain it so thy trophy, until all Thy virtue in its danger shall descry. To suffer well is more than victory. From such to suffer is the patriot's call. Soon will Desertion's ivy wreaths intrude Where Hospitality's fresh garlands lay, But long shall Freedom's awful form be view'd Amid the mouldering monument to stray, Transported kiss each stone, and proudly say Ruin may come, but never Servitude." WM. TAYLOR, Jun. Vivea contento, &c. VIVEA Contento alla capanna mia In povertade industre, in dolce stento, E perche al canto, ed al lavora intento Qualche fama di me spander s'udia. Vivea contento alla capanna mia. Fatto percio superbo io mi nutria D'un van desio d'abbandonar l'armento: Scorno e dolore, i giorni tristi e rei Translation. I DWELT contented in my little cot, Poor, but with all the peaceful comforts blest That industry can give; my name was known As one who laboured well, and well could sing. I dwelt contented in my little cot. Io grido, e gridero, finche mi senta L'Adria, il Tebro, il Tirren, l'Arno, e'l Tesino, E chi primo udira, scuota il vicino, Ch' e periglio comun quel, che si tenta. Non val, che Italia a' piedi altrui si penta, E obbliando il valor, pianga il destino; Troppo innamora il bel terren Latino, E in disio di regnar pietate e spenta. Invan con occhi molli, e guance smorte Chiedi perdon; che il suo nemico audace Non vuole il suo dolor, ma la sua morte. Piaccia il soffrire a chi 'l pugnar non piace. E stolto orgoglio in cosi debil sorte Non voler guerra, e non soffrir la pace. CARLO MARIA MAGGI. Images. CRY of the bittern, like the lowing of an ox, or as William Taylor says, a cow with a cough, three or four times successively. Sunset, seen through a grove of firs. What is the grass called with a pink blossom? Evening sunshine on a hill field, seen through and over clustered trees. Glitter of the poplar in wind and sunshine. Green light of the evening sky where it last lingers. July 6. In the College Green and at Redland the row of lime trees already begins to shed its leaves. The afternoon was cloudy, the sky was partly clear over the channel, and the clouds in that part, though heavy, were white and brilliant. The water lay below, a sheet of white glory, whose boundary was only made visible by the less radiant line of shore and horizon. July 15. It has been a showery afternoon, over Kingsweston the clouds lie heavy, yet hazy, a faint yellow tinge over their base; their summits like distant snow in sunshine. A heavier mass of dark cloud lies nearer, spreading to the left, and falling in rain at Clevedon. At its nearer verge beams the white glory of the sun, and the sky still nearer is varied with the waviness of clouds dazzling white, and dark spots and the clear sky visible through their openings. A few minutes since, the slant rays shot down, now the sun itself is just seen, and a haziness overspreads the heavier cloud, and the distance of cloud is less distinct. Now all is settled in one deepening cloud, and the distance is melted into a faint yellow spread, the sunbeams sloping down it, and this light is momently diminished by the spreading cloud. Subjects for Idylls. FROM what William Taylor has told me of the Idylls of Gessner and Voss, and the translation he has shown me of one by Goethe, I am tempted to introduce them here. Surely I also can seize the fit objects of common life, and place them in the right point of view. A village wedding. The feelings that I and poor Edmund Seward' experienced in Bedfordshire that evening; even the scenery will excellently suit. A hamlet well embowered in elms amid a flat country: the evening clear: the distant bells. The traveller and a woman, a poor married woman. The visit from Oxford to Godstow. This I will try in hexameters. A ruined mansion-house,2-rather going to ruin. An old man breaking stones on the road (or some such hard labour) must be the other speaker, who remembered its old master. Or would it not be well to make this like the fine old house at Stowey, being modernised by a young heir-the yew trees cut down-the casement windows altered -the porch and its jessamine destroyed? and old hospitality, and old fashions, and old benevolence, all gone together? The funeral of a young man, the last of his family. A fine young man, the victim 1 Southey's early friend. See the beautiful lines to his memory, "The Dead Friend." Poems, in one volume, p. 131. For the "Wedding," see English Eclogues, p. 158.-J. W. W. See English Eclogues, "The Old Mansion House," p. 149. 3 Ibid. p. 155. of a public school and a university. The old steward to relate it. A woman going to see her son, lying in a hospital after having been wounded by the French stinkpots." A ruined cottage. Its story not to be told in dialogue. A mother and her daughter once dwelling there. The girl a streetwalker now-the mother dying at the workhouse. The vices of the poor should not be kept out of sight when their miseries are exposed. I think an eclogue may be made upon an industrious woman afflicted with a drunken bad husband. The ruined cottage has matter for a best poem. The path overgrown--the holyhock blooming amid weeds. It shall be related to a friend whom I have purposely led there in an evening walk. She may be described as when a girl the May Queen. The idle fellows standing on the bridge in the way to church would look up from the water as she passed, and bid her good to-morrow. Something may be said on the strange want of conscience in the libertine. Ballads. THE murderer made to touch the dead man's face. No blood follows-no miracle to criminate. He is left alone with the body. The dead man then lifts up his head, and looks at him. They find him mad when they return. There dwells a maniac in a castle, its lord. One female dwells with him, young and beautiful. Her he had married; another he had seduced. On his wedding day, a raven, by his repeated flights about the hall window, disturbed the guests. They go to 4 See "The Sailor's Mother," p. 152. "It was no ball, Sir, but some cursed thing Which bursts and burns, that hurt him. Something, Sir, They do not use on board our English ships, 5 Ibid. p. 156. tory. see on what he was fixed, and find the corpse have reposed themselves, and served God of the forsaken one. He drinks and drinks, | with more quiet."-FULLER'S Church Histo drown his agonies, till he enters the bridal chamber; then he thinks he sees her spirit by the bridal bed, and screams, and becomes a madman-a maniac. The wife alone rcmains with him. She does her duty. One of the Welsh superstitions is, that if a murdered person has been secretly buried, his grave may be discovered by a lambent blue flame, which hovers over it till the body is discovered. The Primitive Monks. "Here they in the desarts hoped to find rocks and stocks, yea, beasts themselves, more kind than men had been to them. What would hide and heat, cover and keep warm, served them for cloathes, not placing (as their successors in after ages) any holinesse in their habit, folded up in the affected fashion thereof. As for their food, the grasse was their cloath, the ground their table, herbs and roots their diet wild fruits and berries their dainties, hunger their sauce, their nails their knives, their hands their cups, the next well their wine cellar. But what their bill of fare wanted in cheer, it had in grace, their life being constantly spent in prayer, reading, musing, and such like pious employments. They turned solitarinesse itself into society, and cleaving themselves asunder by the divine art of meditation, did make of one two or more, opposing, answering, moderating in their own bosoms, and busy in themselves with variety of heavenly recreations. It would do one good even but to think of their goodness, and at the rebound and second hand to meditate on their meditations For if ever poverty was to be envied, it was here; and I appeal to the moderate men of these times, whether in the heighth of these wofull warres, they have not sometimes wisht (not out of passionate distemper, but serious recollection of themselves) some such private place to retire unto, where, out of the noise of this clamorous world, they might Bells no effectual Charm against Lightning. "THE frequent firing of abbey churches by lightning confuteth the proud motto commonly written on the bells in their steeples, wherein each bell intituled itself to a six- Men's death I tell On sabbath all The sleepy head I raise from bed. The winds so fierce I doe disperse. Men's cruell rage I doe asswage. Whereas it plainly appears that these abbey steeples, though quilted with bells almost cap-a-pee, were not of proof against the sword of God's lightning. Yea, generally when the heavens in tempests did strike fire, the steeples of abbeys proved often their tynder, whose frequent burning portended their final destruction."-Ibid. Statues in Dhahi. "LA Tradition fabuleuse des Orientaux porte, qu'il y a dans l'isle de Dhahi des statues semblables à celles des Isles fortunées, lesquelles ayant les mains élevées, semblent faire signe aux voyageurs, comme pour leur dire, Retournez sur vos pas; car il n'y a plus d'habitations en allant plus avant."D'HERBELOT. [Californian Paradise.] "SOME of the southern Californians placed their Paradise in the middle of the seas, |