for objects to occupy my attention; and as I am will-way of trade is likely ere long to affect the home market; ing to find satisfaction in very humble occupations, I may be seen at one time, perhaps, leading my horse or my daughters' ponies to the pasture, or to drink at the stream; at another, sauntering carelessly along with a Dutch hoe in my hand, and perhaps rooting from my gravel-walks a thistle or bindweed, or giving to the bordering turf a sharper and a neater edge. At other times, I may be seen thrusting a bush into a broken fence, or angling for small trout to be used as pike baits on the morrow; or, it may be, that my bees have cast, and the whole household are assembled beneath some lofty elm or ash upon which they have settled; then I may be seen swelling the rude clanging chorus which is to lure them from their height. In short, if my occupations are innocent, I by no means allow myself to be staggered by their seeming vulgarity or insignificance; the pure and sparkling water which springs from an obscure fountain is still grateful and delicious to my taste.

Thus does my life steal softly away, like a stream whose smooth waters glide imperceptibly by; and the sports and avocations which delighted my youth still cheer and solace my age. Most of my friends have long since departed, some of them after tempestuous and disastrous struggles; yet the going down of my sun is glowing, yet peaceful and tranquil, and I perceive the shadows slowly deepening without emotion or disquiet. I shall yield up life amidst those dear and tender accompaniments for which thousands, in the abiding passion of their nature, have fondly languished and sighed in vain. I shall drop this mortal career where first I took it up -amidst those delicious scenes which knew my early infancy; I shall die in the very arms, so to speak, which nurtured me; and my last gentle struggles shall be hushed and composed by those who have spread a hallowed and serene joy around my sequestered life, and who-shall I speak the last fond wish of humanity?-shall long associate me with the wildly-beautiful scenes among which I now wander, and drop a tender and pious tear to my memory.

ABOUT PICTURES AND PAINTERS.

THE “Art-Union," a London monthly journal of the fine arts, to which we have not referred for some time, continues to be managed with the same activity as at the outset, and every number offers a pleasing variety of notices on subjects of taste. The paper, as may be supposed, is a zealous advocate for the encouragement of the home trade in picture-painting, in preference to importing indiscriminate supplies from continental countries. In the number for October, the editor presents us with the following statistics of the import system:

"In the Art-Union' for July 1839, we published a statement of the number of pictures imported into Great Britain during the years from 1833 to 1838, both inclusive. They were received from Italy, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, and averaged about 8000 annually in number. We have now procured an account of the number of pictures imported into the United Kingdom, and the amount of duty paid thereon, during the four years ending 5th January 1842. It is as follows:

It will thus be seen that the increase has been enormous : only think of 13,108 veritable' Titians, Berghems, Rembrandts, &c. &c., being put into circulation throughout Great Britain within the past year, eight of which are probably of value, but 13,100 of which are, no doubt, miserable and trashy copies. It is really wonderful how and where these things are disposed of; and it is not a little humiliating to find the evil anything but diminishing. To these 13,108 old masters' (for very few of them profess to be modern), we must add the number of genuine pictures manufactured in this country and sold to foolish buyers. We have heard a variety of illustrative anecdotes of the modes in which such works are produced; and some artists' have been named to us who ought to be ashamed of lending themselves to such base and scandalous impositions. This evil, under the existing law, has no remedy; but really the makers of forgeries should be known and exposed-the profession should cast them out utterly. To copy old pictures, knowing they are to be passed off as genuine, is bad, very bad; but to make copies of modern works for a like purpose, is infinitely worse. Yet every day this is done, and there is no sort of punishment either for the forger or the vender."

Nothing, as the editor appears to imagine, is so well calculated to encourage native painters, as the support of associations to purchase pictures by lot, but he, at the same time, is not blind to the practices now common among a certain class of painters, of charging sums for their works far beyond their fair value. This is a growing evil. On a late occasion, as we are told, L.3700 was subscribed to buy pictures at an exhibition in Dublin; and, says the editor, "Mr Blacker (the secretary) could easily point out pictures valued at L.50, for which no person in his senses would give L.5; and he knows, also, that in many cases the sums asked were not the sums given. Mr Blacker asserts that the exhibition was the best that has been opened in Dublin: our only answer need be, bad is the best.' The Art-Union (of Dublin) did-we say it without the fear of contradiction-purchase many wretched productions, because they were compelled to expend a large proportion of their funds in the gallery, and had previously bought all the pictures

that were good."

If the evil of extravagant prices be growing, so is the cure. The import of pictures from the continent in the

but a more effectual check will be found in the gradual demission of members, who are already beginning to tire of venturing money on articles in very many instances double or triple the price they would bring at open sale, if they sold at all for anything, and thus improperly fostering a class of mediocre painters, whom the public can never have the means to support. Another way in which things will be brought to their level, is the growing encouragement of foreign associations, for which there are now regular agencies in this country. We consider this to be a pleasing trait of international union-a step in universal civilisation. The editor of the paper before us has some judicious remarks on this topic:"The project for drawing closer the connexion between the lovers of art in this country and in Germany, progresses more favourably than our most sanguine hopes could have anticipated. Already, a very large number of subscribers have entered their names on the lists of the societies of Dusseldorf, Berlin, and Dresden: those lists are rapidly augmenting. The experiment has been completely successful, and the result cannot be otherwise than satisfactory and serviceable to the artists and amateurs of the arts in Great Britain. First, it will increase the intimacy between the kingdoms, that must be pregnant with good to all; next, it will familiarise us with those higher qualities of art in which the Germans are universally admitted to excel, and which are perhaps best exhibited by their engravings; and next, it will inevitably lead to an acquaintance with the 'style' of the German school, by introducing collections of its best productions into England. The time is auspicious for the attempt; the British artist has been at length called upon by the nation to aim at loftier objects than those with which he has been hitherto generally content; our beneficial intercourse with Germany is becoming daily more frequent and useful; and we have learned to know and appreciate the vast sources of enjoyment and information they possess, with the most ready means of rendering thein available. We have examined the prints that have been already issued by the several societies, and those that are in progress for the members of 1842. They are all of them of rare excellence and value; each is fully worth the amount of the subscription, setting aside the chances of prizes; there is not one that is not calculated to improve the taste and elevate the mind, for the selections have been made exclusively from pictures not only painted by the best artists, but painted with the grand and lofty purpose of conveying a high moral lesson by the arts. As we have said, great good must follow the introduction among us of the works of the master-minds of Germany; and sure we are, there are thousands in this country who only require a knowledge of the advantage within their reach to avail themselves of it."

"UNDER

TRUSTEES."

TUNE.-The Jolly Young Waterman.

O HAVE you ne'er heard of a worthy Scotch gentleman,
Laird of that ilk, and the chief of his name,
Who not many years since, attaining majority,
Heir to some thousands of acres became ?
He lived so well, and he spent so merrily,
The people all came to his house so readily,
And he made all things in it so much as you please,
And he made all things in it so much as you please,
That this gentleman soon was put under trustees.
O never till then had our worthy Scotch gentleman
Lived for a day as his taste did incline,
There never were wanting some plaguy good fellows
To rattle his pheasants and tipple his wine.
He kept a pack, which the county delighted in,
He gave charming balls, and the ladies invited in;
O he never knew what was a moment of ease,
O he never knew what was a moment of ease,
Till snug he had placed himself under trustees.
Being now in plain truth a Distressed Agriculturist,
No one expects him to play the great man;
He is sure of whatever he needs in this world,
For creditors wish him to live while he can.
Rents may fall, but that doesn't trouble him;
Banks may break, but that cannot hobble him;
At the cares of this sad life he coolly may sneeze,
At the cares of this sad life he coolly may sneeze,
Who only will put himself under trustees!
Subscriptions come round for election-committees,
New churches, infirmaries, soup for the poor,
Our worthy Scotch gentleman gives his best wishes,
But of course the collectors ne'er darken his door.
He never is called to look a páper in,

To get up a cup to huntsman or whipper-in;

O who would be fashing with matters like these,
O who would be fashing with matters like these,

A gentleman known to be under trustees?

When any good neighbour, hard up for the wherewithal, Looks for some friend who is likely to lend, Our worthy Scotch gentleman never need care at allHe's not the man who the matter can mend. In short, all others have something crossing them, On beds of trouble are always tossing them; But only the Income-Tax truly can tease, But only the Income-Tax truly can tease, A gentleman snugly put under trustees. July 1842.

CLEANSING THE SKIN.

R. C.

In order to enjoy good health, it is as necessary to cleanse the skin of every part of the body as the hands and face. If you once begin to make a rule to wash the whole body at least once a-week, either by bathing or otherwise, in cold water, the vigour and hilarity of feeling you will experience will amply repay you for the labour. Try it a few weeks-it will cost next to nothing.-Newspaper paragraph.

QUICK POSTAGE!

THE ridiculous manner in which the postage of letters is conducted is daily becoming more manifest. Take the following:--On a late occasion, we arrived at a seaport on the west coast of Scotland at 5 o'clock in the evening, and, desirous of letting friends in Edinburgh know of our arrival, we asked when the post would leave the town in that direction. "Not till to-morrow forenoon," was the answer. "When would a letter reach Edinburgh ?" we asked. "Your letter would reach Glasgow in about two hours after posting; it would lie in the post-office there till half-past 9 at night; it would arrive in Edinburgh at 2 or 3 in the morning; and it would be delivered at S in the morning." "Is there any other means of for"Oh, yes, there are warding a letter?" I inquired. plenty railway trains; you can send it by one of them." I followed the hint; made up a small parcel with an old newspaper, and thus despatched my letter on its travels. The packet reached Edinburgh next day at 2 o'clock afternoon, or 18 hours earlier than it

would have been delivered if it had been intrusted to the post. Cases of this kind are universal. From being the quickest, the post has become in very many instances the slowest organ of transmission. But this The post-office intolerable grievance cannot last. authorities must either make an effort to increase the number of transmissions between large seats of population favoured by railways, or the monopoly of the post be abandoned to private enterprise. We again express a hope that the newspaper press will agitate this important question.

A PLEASANT STORY.

SCOTLAND furnishes many instances of persons, by care and attention, rising from comparative obscurity to stations of high rank and consideration. The following interesting narrative details one of these instances of successful merit, and is calculated to promote good conduct in all :

When Mr Grigor Grant first entered the excise, he was stationed in Grantown of Strathspey. He, being then unmarried, took private lodgings for himself, and engaged a young boy, named John Grant, in order to attend him in the capacity of servant. Mr Grant got very fond of young John, and used him more like a child of his own than a servant. Mr Grant being derived from a respectable family, got a liberal education; and being of an affable and kind disposition, he began to teach his favourite the first branches of education. The boy having a quick capacity to learn, soon became a tolerably good scholar. He one day informed his benefactor that he never expected to get such a kind and indulgent master; but having arrived near the years of maturity (being at the time seventeen years of age), said that he was anxious to go to Edinburgh, and that if he got a situation there, good and well, but if not, that he intended to enter his majesty's service. At parting, Mr Grant acted towards the lad in a liberal manner. Upon his arrival in Edinburgh, he implemented what he intended, as he enlisted in an English regiment. A short time thereafter, the German war commenced, when the said regiment was ordered to the seat of war. John Grant being an active young soldier, and well disciplined, was the first of his regiment, while the British were engaged in the taking of a garrison, to mount one of the scaling-ladders. In consequence of his being so valiant and active, his colonel appointed him sergeant; and having conducted himself so well in the discharge of his duty, his good conduct afterwards procured for him promotion to the rank of ensign. Mr Grant, about sixteen years thereafter, had occasion to go to Aberdeen, where there happened to be an English regiment stationed at the time; and as the duties of his situation at Strathspey, &c., had not led him to see a military band, he was anxious to see a regiment at drill, and he therefore attended for that purpose, along with a good many other spectators. When the regiment formed line, the colonel took his post, and looking at the great number of spectators, he stepped forward with his sword in his hand, and tipping Mr Grant on the shoulder, and beckoning him aside from the crowd, asked if he was not Mr Grant, officer of excise? He replied that he was the very person. The colonel then asked him if he knew who he was? Mr Grant said that he did not. The colonel then said he was happy to inform him that he was John Grant, his old servant, but now colonel of the regiment before them; and that if he had not been kind to him when in his service, he would not have made so free with him. After mutual interchanges of affection and esteem, the colonel invited Mr Grant to dine at mess in the evening with him and the other officers of the regiment. "Roast Beef" shortly afterwards having beat, a good many of the officers entered the mess-room and took their seats; but Mr Grant waited the arrival of the colonel, who took hold of him by the arm and led him into the mess-room, the whole of the officers standing at the time, when the colonel took the chair, placing his old preceptor on his right hand. Mr Grant used to state that it was one of the happiest days he ever enjoyed. But all rank and honour are uncertain; Colonel Grant and his regiment were ordered soon after to foreign service, when, alas! in a short time thereafter he was killed fighting for his king and country, to the great sorrow of his early benefactor, and the loss of his highly honoured country.-Elgin Courant.

LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W. S. ORR, Paternoster Row.

Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. Complete sets of the Journal are always to be had from the

publishers or their agents; also, any odd numbers to complete

sets. Persons requiring their volumes bound along with titlebookseller, with orders to that effect.

pages and contents, have only to give them into the hands of any

NUMBER 563.

BOOK-STALLS.

BOOK-STALLS were the cheap literature of a former age. Their business was with a humble kind of new publications, and the worn-out of the old. Ben Jonson-who was probably a haunter of them, since it is told of him that, when a working bricklayer, he used to be seen with a trowel in one hand and a book in the other says, in his Underwoods

"It is a rhyming age, and verses swarme
At every stall."

Ballads and other poems, in single sheets, or half-sheets, together with a great variety of homely prose productions of similar form, were then hung up at stalls to attract the attention of passers by; and many compositions thus introduced to the world have been gathered by our literary antiquaries, our Percies, Evanses, and Ritsons, and transfused into grave-looking volumes for the admiration of learned and polite readers. Time out of mind, these humble marts of literature have been the resort of the curious youth, the struggling scholar, and the pains-taking book-collector. Lackington, who, from a poor shoemaker, rose to be a wealthy bookseller, tells in his whimsical memoirs of the following adventure :-While residing in a suburb of London, he had been sent by his wife with a few shillings which formed their all, to buy a leg of mutton for the next day's dinner. On his way to the butcher's shop, some book, presenting very attractive food for the mind, caught his attention at a book-stall, and so won his admiration, that, before he could reason on the contrary charms of the mutton, he had made a purchase of it. Reaching home, he encountered his wife's disappointment with the assurance that, if he had bought the mutton it must soon have vanished, while here was a book which would for many a day cheer their winter evenings. Charles Lamb tells a somewhat similar story of his purchase of a folio Beaumont and Fletcher at a book-stall. He had marked it longingly, but was delayed by want of funds. While these were gathering, he almost daily passed the place to see if the book was still there, fearful lest it should be gone. At length, late one Saturday night, having mustered the sum wanted-thirteen shillings-off he set to the shop, never dreaming that it had any chance of being shut. Finding the shutters closed, and the man gone to bed, he was not to be baulked of his prey, but presently commenced a rattling at the door sufficient to have wakened the seven sleepers. The bookseller came in the greatest alarm half-dressed, and grumblingly took thirteen white shillings in exchange for the twin dramatists, whom Charles immediately carried home in the highest rapture.

shire, being very poor, and at the same time athirst for reading, she used to peruse the open pages of books in the windows of a book-shop, which she visited daily in the hope of finding another page turned over. Probably not a few of those who shine in the world of letters could tell a similar tale. And, doubtless, even in these days of cheap literature, there are many thoughtful self-educating youths who are more or less indebted every day of their lives to the bits of broken intellectual meat, which they snatch with a a fearful joy, and with what they think a sufficient respect for the eighth commandment, at the tables of the old bookseller. When we think of this, a beautiful remark of a recent writer is recalled to us"The love of knowledge," he says, "is in itself the attainment of knowledge. Poverty or toil discourages it in vain. It supplies the scarcity of time by the concentration of attention, and replaces comfort by self-denial."

An early habit of frequenting book-stalls is never quite overcome, even after one has long become a purchaser in higher fields of literature. Leigh Hunt pleasantly confesses to this weakness, if such it be "We still find ourselves halting," says he, "at the humblest book-stall, as we used to do when fresh from school. In vain have we got cold feet at it, shivering, wind-beaten sides, and black-fingered gloves. The dusty old siren still delays us, charming with immortal beauty inside her homely attire, and singing songs of old poets. We still find ourselves diving into the sixpenny or threepenny box in spite of eternal disappointment, and running over whole windows of books, which we saw but three days before, for the twentieth time, and of which we could repeat by heart a good third of the titles. Nothing disconcerts us but absolute dirt, or an ill-tempered looking woman. What delights us is to see a plentiful sprinkle of old poetry, little Elzevir classics, Ariostos full of loving comment, and a woman getting gradually better and better dressed, her afternoon ribbons matching with her pleasant face, and a chubby urchin in her arms.”

PRICE 13d

growth, the threepenny box, the old tea-boards, and the knife-boards, which did duty as book-shelves, all vanish mysteriously, and Jack Shepherd and Dick Turpin are no longer seen hanging by cords over the doorway. The tarnished and broken bindings have been repaired, there is less paste and fewer labels visible, and the printed catalogues are given gratis to every bookish-looking person that approaches within two yards of the counter, which is now no longer a plain windowshutter covered with green baize, but a spruce genuine bona fide counter of solid deal, ingeniously painted so as to resemble the finest mahogany. The catalogues soon prove more attractive than the blotted manuscript list of books which Dick, the four shillings a-week assistant, used to write out in the less flourishing days of the book-stall. We have known some few unpretending book-stalls to sport catalogues, but these rarely exceeded two or three pages, and (by way of launching for once an unnecessary remark) in no instance ever attained a size equal to that published last year by Mr H. G. Bohn, which consisted of two thousand one hundred pages, was five inches thick, and contained the titles of above three hundred thousand volumes. It has been said, that a bookseller is nothing without his catalogue. It is his individual being; it is that which distinguishes him from others of his fraternity; it is therein that his taste and learning are displayed; it is therein that he writes down "his fancies chaste and noble;" it is his literary confession of faith, and he will be honoured accordingly. The publication of his catalogue is a great event in his life; he then plays the Mæcenas, the patron not indeed of living, but of dead men; he opens to us a new world of pleasant thoughts, and introduces to us choice spirits of departed ages, who have been "to dumb forgetfulness a prey"-and he knows it-he feels that he does so. Young aspirants after knowledge are apt to envy the bookseller, and not unfrequently are heard to declare that, if they were he, they would read from morning till night. They never reflect that the books are not the bookseller's library, but We have ourselves precisely the same habits. No- simply the wares of his trade, and which he seldom thing delights us more than to overhaul the four- cares about further than as to what sums of money penny box, reading a chapter gratuitously in this they will fetch in the market. Like pastry-cooks, book and a chapter in that, and anon slyly glanc-booksellers rarely taste their own goods. We have ing over the shoulders of the poor scholars at our elbow to see what class of books most interest them. Occasionally, when we have opened some very attractive old book, we have stood reading for hours at the stall, lost in a brown study and worldly forgetfulness, and should probably have read on to the end of the last chapter, had not the vender of published wisdom offered, in a satirically polite way, to bring us out a chair. "Take a chair, sir; you must be tired." We protest, however, that we never study thus gratuitously except through sheer thoughtlessness about buying-a perfect inadvertence to the business of trade and profit. On some pressing occasions, to be sure, we have gone instinctively to the book-stall to settle, perhaps, a question in geography, orthography, or etymology, or to endeavour to recover the lost line of a song by a free consultation with the books so conveniently reposing there. We often have to lament that these repositories are hardly ever furnished with the Court Guide and Street Directory, two very handy books of reference.

known it happen, that the poor lads engaged to mind the bookseller's stall would, when tired with too much watching, and soured by slackness of trade, take up a book to pass away the monotonous hour, but the boy's master would inveigh against this as a treasonable dereliction of duty, and give him distinctly to understand, that he was never to read beyond the title-page; and that, if ever caught writing sonnets instead of labels, woe betide him and his four shillings a-week.

The grand recommendation of the book-stall is the cheapness of the goods. It must, indeed, be a very dashing book-stall that dares to require more than half-a-guinea for any book, however valuable. Hence, by little and little, threepence to-day and threepence to-morrow, a poor scholar may pick up at these places some excellent old books; so that by the end of the year he shall see with pleasure a nice comfortable library in one corner of his room, the whole the result of a judicious and praiseworthy mode of expending the little sum he could spare out of his small means. Even when he has read all his little library through, and may be unable to add more to its contents, he may console himself with the words of John Kenyon

"Oh! sweet 'twill be, or hope would so believe,
When close round life its fading tints of eve,

To turn again our earlier volumes o'er,
And love them then, because we've loved before

And inly bless the waning hour that brings A will to lean once more on simple things. If this be weakness, welcome life's decline; If this be second childhood, be it mine."

It is to be remarked, however, that when a desirable book is lighted upon at a book-stall, its purchase ought never to be delayed, not even for a single minute. Mutton and beef may be bought any day while sheep and oxen continue; but the old book may be scarce, and hundreds of professed book-collectors are continually prowling about, ready to pounce upon and bear off every rare old book they can find, whether in the fourpenny box or on the half-crown shelf. They will almost seize it out of your hand, and it is in vain that you offer them a shilling more for the coveted article your offer only makes them hug the prize all the closer. If you would secure the book that takes your fancy, you must imitate the example of Tristram Shandy's father, when he saw at the book-stall the rare work by Bruscambille, entitled, Pensées Facecieuses et les Bon Mots. "There are not three Bruscambilles in Christendom,' said the stall-man, except what are chained up in the libraries of the curious.' My father flung down the money as quick as lightning, took Bruscambille into his bosom, hied home from Piccadilly to Coleman Street with it as he would have hied home with a treasure, and never once took his hand off Bruscambille all the way."

Oldbuck, it must be confessed, took a different plan. "These little Elzevirs," said he to Lovel, " are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St Mary's Wynd-wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things rare and curious. How often have I stood haggling upon a halfpenny, lest, by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price, he should be led to suspect the value I set upon the article !-how have I trembled, lest some passing stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall, as a rival amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!" This caution, we humbly opine, was needless, and must be set down to the penurious character of the laird of Monkbarns. We much more admire the practice of his hero of book-collectors, "thrice happy Snuffy Davy," who, he says, "had the scent of a sleuth-hound, and the snap of a bull-dog." The remainder of the antiquary's speech is, however, what every book-hunter must sympathise in-" And then, Mr Lovel, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration and pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is trembling with pleasure! Then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier and emulous rivals by showing them such a treasure as this-(displaying a little black-smoked book about the size of a primer) to enjoy their surprise and envy, shrouding, meanwhile, under a veil of mysterious consciousness, our own superior knowledge and dexterity-these, my young friend, these are the white moments of life that repay the toils, the pains, and sedulous attention, which our profession, above all others, so peculiarly demands !"

|

But we should be extremely loath
Not to be found expert in both."

While many works are peculiar to this or that bookstall, it is noticeable that some hundred similar works are common to all book-stalls. A vast number of odd volumes are also sure to be met with at these places; and we have known more than one person who has obtained his living by going about the town in search of odd volumes to complete imperfect sets of valuable works. Volumes that have strayed away from their brethren always sell very cheap; and he who wants a good and long-lasting treat of nice quiet reading, at the lowest terms, cannot do better than purchase, for the nonce, a bulky odd volume of some oldfashioned periodical, such as the Gentleman's Magazine, the European Magazine, the Macaroni Magazine, or of the one which was quaintly entitled the Magazine of Magazines. One of these, of fifty years old or thereabout, carries us pleasantly back to the youthful days of our fathers, and gives us a glimpse of the world as they saw it. In the life of William Hutton, we read that the first books he ever purchased were three volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine. Deeply as we feel interested in the instruction of the people, by means of new publications written aecording to the intellectual wants, the moral tone, and social feeling of the day, we cannot but wish well to the old book-stalls that so effectually adapt themselves to the pockets of the people. The celebrated Boerhaave used to take off his hat whenever he approached an elder-tree, in reverence to its medicinal virtues; we feel inclined to imitate him whenever we approach an old book-stall, sanctified by the presence of the glorious works of Milton, Shakspeare, Bunyan, Burton, Newton, Franklin, and of many other men whose minds are left among us, though their bodies are dead and gone

SKETCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY. ANIMALS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE DIFFERENT QUARTERS OF THE GLOBE. WHEN we think of the multitude of living creatures scattered over the earth, we are apt, in the first instance, to come to the conclusion, that they are distributed promiscuously and at random, or, at most, that they are influenced only by the degree of temperature, and the natural productions depending on that temperature, as being more or less fitted to afford a supply of suitable food. But further reflection immediately shows us that such an opinion is altogether untenable. We perceive animals, and groups of animals, confined to particular localities, from which they never wander, although numerous other places might, to all appearance, afford them precisely the same physical conditions under which they exist. Examples of this nature so constantly force themselves on our attention, that we soon find it impossible to escape the conviction, that the geographical distribution of animals must have been regulated by certain laws, and made to depend on certain conditions, of which, in most cases, it is impossible for us to form any adequate conception.

The good fortune of Snuffy Davy, who secured at The most influential agent effecting this distribution, a book-stall for twopence a copy of Caxton's Boke of and the one whose operation we can best understand, Chess, for which royalty itself ultimately gave a hun- is that already alluded to, namely, temperature. Where dred and seventy pounds, is perhaps a remarkable this attains its maximum, animals occur in the greatest case; but it is of a class of incidents by no means rare. profusion, and of the largest size; and from thence, A person conversant with the rarity and pecuniary through the sub-tropical, temperate, and colder zones, value of books, may often make lucky purchases at they undergo a progressive degradation, both in rethe book-stalls. When the library of Mr Bindley, gard to numbers and dimensions, till they approach chairman of the Board of Stamps, was brought to the the regions in the vicinity of the poles, where life hammer, several rare books, which he had picked up ceases to exist. A certain degree of heat, and the at the stalls for a few shillings, were sold for more conditions of various kinds which accompany it, are than the same number of pounds. Thus, Herbert's necessary to the well-being of certain animals, and "Dick and Robin, with songs and other old tracts these animals, as might be expected, only occur where (1641)," which cost him only two shillings, was bought these are to be found. We thus, in a general way, by Mr.Heber for ten pounds; a volume, containing find the proximate cause of animals of a particular Patrick Hannay's "Nightingale, and other poems, organisation and constitution being distributed in difwith portraits of the author, and of Anne of Denmark, ferent latitudes, never exchanging their relative posiby Crispin de Pass (1622)," bought by Mr Bindley tion, nor in any remarkable degree becoming interfor six shillings, was sold for thirty-five pounds four-mingled with each other. But no such explanation teen shillings. Five of Robert Greene's productions, will, in general, apply to their distribution along a given which altogether cost Mr Bindley only seven shillings zone of longitude. In different parts of such a zone, and ninepence, were sold for forty-one pounds four- and in circumstances to all appearance similar, we teen shillings. A friend informs us that he has fre- find groups of different animals having the limits of quently made excellent bargains at the book-stalls, their range eastward and westward, as distinctly deand after reading them through, resold them at a fined as it is to the north and south. We can readily good profit to first-rate booksellers and collectors. perceive why this should be the case, when particular One of the most remarkable of these purchases was a focalities, from their special nature, character of the copy, in its perfectly original state, stitched and un- surface, productions, &c., are only adapted to the main bound, of George Chapman's rare comedy, entitled tenance of animals of a particular kind; in such in"Monsieur d'Olive," and published in London in 1606. stances, in order to exist at all, or at least with comWhen read through and done with, it was disposed of fort, animals must be local. The subterranean lakes to an eminent bookseller in Piccadilly for sixty times of Carniola, for example, present a very peculiar locathe sum it had cost its last possessor; and, from the lity, and it is not surprising that their remarkable inremarkable state it was in, there can be little doubt habitant, the Proteus, should be confined to them. that it would have obtained two hundred times its The vegetation of saline marshes is fitted for the supstall price of threepence had it been sent to a first-port only of particular tribes; such is likewise the class book auction. At the sale of the library of Isaac case with certain volcanic countries; and it is easy to Reed, the Shakspearian commentator, a copy of this imagine many other circumstances which necessarily comedy sold for thirty-six shillings; and Mr Thorpe prescribe definite limits to numerous kinds of animals. has known it sell for sixty shillings. But others are found to be very local where no such causes can be supposed to operate; while not a few, on the other hand, are so widely extended, that they may almost be said to make the circuit of the globe. The occurrence of high mountain ranges, of seas, lakes, and rivers, of sandy deserts, marshes, &c., has necessarily great influence on the distribution of animals; but even when due allowance has been made for the

Though the very old books are the game most followed by the professed stall-hunter, anxious to rescue rarities from perdition, the second-hand modern books are the chief attraction of the multitude who tarry about the stall. For ourselves, we declare with Prior

"Some folks in ancient books delight,
Though most prefer what moderns write;

modifying agency of all these great physical features of the globe, much will still remain for which we shall in vain endeavour to find an explanation.

It is not to be expected that we shall ever be able to solve the question which has sometimes exercised the ingenuity of naturalists, whether animals were originally dispersed over the earth from a single point, or from numerous and widely-distant centres of creation; the last supposition seems best to accord with actual appearances. But without any reference to the causes of their distribution, or the modes in which it has been effected, it is a matter of great interest to observe the facts as they are now presented to us, to notice what localities are occupied by particular species, and what diversities in this respect prevail in different countries. An extensive and accurate record of facts of this nature would afford materials wherewith to construct a zoological map of the earth's surface. Every extensive tract is found to be characterised by the prevalence of particular animal forms; and these, considered collectively, constitute its zoological aspect or character. It is not, of course, to be expected that zoological regions should in general correspond to the artificial divisions into which the earth's surface has been partitioned; but it at times happens that the physical features which have determined the one determine also the other, and thus they occasionally become coincident, or nearly so. But however this may be, taking the great divisions of the globe as they are at present established, we shall find that each possesses numerous animals peculiar to itself; in other words, that it has a zoological character distinct from all the rest. This we shall now endeavour to point out as briefly as possible, taking the great divisions in question in the following order: Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America; to which may be added what has been called (by a kind of Hibernicism) the fifth quarter of the globe, New Holland. The great islands of the Indian Archipelago and Madagascar are likewise of sufficient importance, in the light we are now to consider them, to require respectively a brief notice.

Of all the great divisions of the globe, Africa is among the best characterised by its animal productions. This we might in some measure expect beforehand, from the peculiar nature of the country in many other respects. Owing to its great width, and the almost unbroken regularity of its sea-coast, the influence of the surrounding ocean is comparatively little felt. It is pervaded by very few large rivers, and almost, as a necessary consequence, there is an equal paucity of inland lakes; while the mountain ranges are comparatively few, and seldom of sufficient elevation to disturb the prevailing character of the climate. From this there result a degree of dryness in the atmosphere, and a boundless extent of waste and torrid sand, of which we find no similar examples elsewhere. In many parts of this continent it can never be said to rain, and the only refreshment which the thirsty earth receives is from the dews of heaven. This excessive dryness constitutes the most marked peculiarity of the climate of Africa, and it necessarily exercises a notable influence on its natural productions, whether vegetable or animal. But in a continent of such vast extent, great diversity of climate, surface, and vegetation, cannot fail to occur; and while, on the one hand, we find far extending tracts, incapable of affording sustenance from their parched and burning surface to other forms of animal life than scorpions, lizards, serpents, and other cold-blooded reptiles, almost capable, as has been fabled of their associate the salamander, of enduring the heat of a fire; there occur, on the other, luxuriant oases, so grateful to the eye, as contrasted with the surrounding sterility, that it is scarcely to be wondered at that the ancients regarded them as the site of the garden of the Hesperides extensive forests, umbrageous and well-watered valleys, affording fit haunts for the elephant, buffalo, and rhinoceros.

By far the most remarkable of African animals, and in some respects the most remarkable in exist ence, are the giraffe, hippopotamus, and ostrich. The two former are altogether peculiar to this continent, and the last may almost be said to be so, the only other place where it occurs being the adjoining deserts of Arabia. Although arranged in our zoological systems near the deer and antelopes, the giraffe has but little affinity to either, standing out conspicuously and alone as one of the most extraordinary animals in existence. Although gradually retiring before the advance of colonization, there is reason to believe that it is by no means rare in the interior, troops of thirty or forty being occasionally met with by the adventurous sportsmen who approach its haunts. Some recent naturalists are disposed to believe in the existence of two species, one in the north, the other in the more southern regions of Africa; but there seems little to countenance this notion. The huge and unwieldy hippopotamus, which has no counterpart in any other quarter of the globe, frequents the rivers of the central and southern parts of the continent. The ostrich is pretty generally distributed over Africa, whence, no doubt, straggling individuals have found their way into Arabia.

Although elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and crocodiles, are common to Africa with other quarters of the globe, it must be understood that the African animals are specifically distinct from all others; that is, they differ from those of other countries, nearly in the same degree as the horse does from the ass; they

ployed both by land and sea. On the memorable 27th
of July, Sir Walter joined the squadron of England in
a ship of his own, and was forward in conducting the
victorious attack of that day. Elizabeth rewarded
him with an augmentation of his patent on wines.
Soon afterwards, the active knight joined in the at-
tempt to re-seat the expelled king of Portugal on his
throne. For his share in this enterprise, Raleigh once
more gained the thanks of his sovereign. He paid a
visit at this time to Ireland, and there saw Edmund
Spenser, the great favourite of those muses whose smiles
Raleigh himself had already courted with no mean suc-
cess. By the banks of the romantic Mulla, these two
men of genius met and united sympathies. Both have
left records of their meeting, and of their high admi-
ration for one another. Raleigh's sonnet on Spenser
is among the finest in our language, and may be given
here as a specimen of his poetical powers :-
"Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn, and passing by that way
To see this buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept,
All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen;
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept,

And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen;
For they this queen attended, in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse;
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,
And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce;
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for griefe,
And curst th' access of that celestial thiefe."

Spenser, on the other hand, remembering Raleigh's passion for maritime adventure, calls him "The Shepherd of the Ocean," and, in memory of his powers of verse, gives him the title of "The Summer's Nightingale."

When Raleigh returned to England, he introduced Spenser to the queen, as the poet gratefully acknowledges. He also used his influence in other commendable ways; as, for example, in saving the life of Mr John Udall, a poor clergyman, who had incurred the sentence of capital punishment. His scheming and ambitious mind led him to exert himself constantly to further the interests of himself and friends. It is said that Elizabeth somewhat pettishly said to him once, "When, Sir Walter, will you cease to be a beggar?" "When your gracious majesty ceases to be a benefactor," answered he pointedly. The requests could not be very improper ones, in allusion to which Sir Walter dared to make such a reply to Queen Elizabeth.

A new naval enterprise was undertaken in 1592 by the Shepherd of the Ocean; namely, an adventure against Panama. Raleigh was admiral, and he hoped to seize the whole Spanish plate-fleet. By accident, the plate-fleet escaped, but nevertheless large ships were taken, one valued, with its freight, at L.500,000. These were not unworthy rewards; but Sir Walter, when he landed from his cruise, found an unexpected misfortune awaiting him. He had become attached to Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the queen's maids of honour, and her majesty, having discovered the circumstance, cast him, in consequence, into the Tower. There Raleigh thought it necessary to act the part of a despairing lover; and by sundry poetical flatteries of the royal person, he was fortunate in gaining his liberty.

Reinstated in part in the graces of the queen, and again a member of the parliament, Raleigh turned his active mind ere long to a new attempt of colonisation. He had been told wonderful stories of the wealth of Guiana, and he fitted out an expedition for that region, taking the command in person. Excepting that he took possession of it in his sovereign's name, and facilitated the progress of geographical discovery by his account of the river Orinoco, Raleigh gained little by this enterprise, though his courage and conduct were never before more strikingly evinced. Again, in 1596, Raleigh was on the broad seas, being honoured with a command in the expedition against Cadiz under Essex, and a leader of the van in the splendid victory which the English there obtained. In 1597, he was rear-admiral under Essex, in the expedition for the seizure of the Spanish West-India fleet, and, eager for glory, made a successful attack on Fayal, in the absence of his superior. Though Raleigh justified himself fully, this affair widened the already existing breach betwixt him and Essex, who were rivals for royal favour, and also contended, on no unequal terms, for popular applause. Though of lesser rank, Raleigh's personal accomplishments were such as to give him an advantage even over the gallant Essex. At those tournaments of which the queen was so fond, the former had no equal, and, at will, could bear off the tilting prizes given by the sovereign. After his return from the expedition of 1597, till the fall of Essex and death of the queen, Raleigh, in addition to his share in these royal amusements, occupied himself with his duties in parliament, and became also the founder of the Mermaid Club, around the board of which congregated such men as Shakspeare, Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and Carew. Sir Walter, indeed, was perhaps in every way the most generally admired and prominent man in England of that day.

When Elizabeth died in 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh had touched the summit of all his greatness, and his star began to decline. He was left the main competitor for power with Cecil; and that minister, a man of consummate address, gained the favour of James I., while, unluckily, a prejudice was instilled into the royal mind against Raleigh. In the very first year of

the new reign, Sir Walter, after being stripped of several of his offices, was accused of a conspiracy to place Arabella Stewart on the throne. The very existence of such a plot was an entire fiction, invented for the purpose of ruining Raleigh. He was tried, and it was at his trial that a strange scene, often alluded to, passed between the accused and the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, a man of splendid powers, but violent temper and strong prejudices. To all the unjustifiable taunts of this personage Raleigh bore himself most nobly. By a constrained jury, the accused was found guilty, and was confined in the Tower, for the time escaping the scaffold, to which he was condemned and ultimately destined. At first, indeed, he had no hopes of life, and, with the block before his eyes, wrote a most beautiful letter to his wife, from which we take a few sentences :-"You shall now receive, my dear wife, my last words, in these my last lines. My love I send you, that you may keep it when I am dead; and my counsel, that you may remember it when I am no more. I would not, by my will, present you with sorrows, dear Bess-let them go into the grave with me, and be buried in the dust. And, seeing it is not the will of God that ever I shall see you more in this life, bear it patiently, and with a heart like thyself.

First, I send you all the thanks which my heart can conceive, or my words can express, for your many travails and cares taken for me; which, though they have not taken effect as you wished, yet my debt to you is not the less. But pay it I never shall in this world. Secondly, I beseech you, for the love you bear me living, do not hide yourself many days after my death; but by your travail seek to help your miserable fortunes, and the right of your poor child. Thy mournings cannot avail me-I am but dust."

For twelve years Sir Walter Raleigh lay in prison, never certain for one hour that the next would not see him perish by a violent death. But he gave not way to despondent inactivity. He made this period the most famous of his stirring life, composing, during it, his great "History of the World,” a work of wonderful learning, genius, and industry. Other essays upon useful subjects were composed by him; and the mean prince who kept him so unjustly in durance, and in such a species of durance as wasted the prisoner's health, did not scruple to profit the while by his toils and talents. Prince Henry, the promising and shortlived son of James, was the attached friend of Raleigh, and, in allusion to him, is reported to have exclaimed indignantly, "Sure, no prince but my father would keep such a bird in such a cage." James acted still more vilely towards Raleigh, in permitting the favourite, Somerset, to seize the prisoner's estate of Sherborne, upon the ground of a legal quibble. Lady Raleigh, who showed an unmatched constancy to her husband in his misfortunes, went on her knees to the king on this occasion, to petition for the preservation of her children's inheritance, but without avail.

At length, when all appeals for justice had passed for ten years unheeded, Raleigh obtained his release in 1615, by a bribe to the uncles of the new favourite, Buckingham. Other considerations, and those of a like paltry nature, had partly influenced King James. Sir Walter had renewed his schemes upon Guiana, and promised him the fifth part of the bullion to be imported thence. Upon this undertaking, the active Raleigh set his whole remaining fortunes, as on a die. All the means that he, his wife, and his friends could accumulate, were embarked in this great undertaking; and by the month of March 1617, a fleet of fourteen sail, well equipped, with Raleigh himself as commander, were ready to cross the Atlantic. But heavy impediments stood in the way of the indefatigable adventurer. Though Guiana was an English colony, the jealousy of Spain was roused by the news of this great enterprise. În council and in battle, they had again and again cowered under the master-genius of Raleigh; and Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador in England, made the most urgent remonstrances against the expedition, falsely representing it as a piratical scheme against the colonies of Spain. James had sanctioned it, and did not withdraw his sanction; but, with a degree of baseness almost unexampled, he placed in the hands of the Spaniards the most minute and private details of Raleigh's proposed proceedings, thereby enabling them to baffle them wholly.

Ignorant of these matters, the unfortunate knight set forth, and reached the Orinoco. His own health sunk under fatigue and the climate, but he sent a party to take possession of the spot where he believed a valuable mine to be. Alas! the party found all the passes occupied by watchful Spaniards, and after a severe engagement, in which many of the Spaniards were killed, the adventurers were forced to return. When Raleigh heard of the engagement, knowing what Spain would make of it, he declared himself a "ruined man." Other distresses followed thick upon the first; his son fell in battle, fighting bravely; and, with his force lamentably thinned, Sir Walter was forced to turn his course again to England. Respecting his son, he writes affectingly to his wife-" I was loath to write, because I know not how to comfort you; and God knows I never knew what sorrow meant till now. All that I can say to you is, that you must obey the will and providence of God, and remember that the queen's majesty bare the loss of Prince Henry with a magnanimous heart, and the Lady Harrington of her only son. Comfort your heart, dearest Bess. I shall sorrow for us both. And I shall sorrow the less,

because I have not long to sorrow, because not long to live." On his return to England, the contest with the Spaniards proved, as he had feared, fatal to him, or at least gave a plea for his death. He had never received a formal pardon, believing it to be implied in the new patent granted by the king for his voyage. He was therefore condemned to die, on the score of the former conviction. Manfully he stood forward to vindicate himself, but all in vain. On the 29th of October 1618, in the 66th year of his age, he died by the axe on the scaffold. His demeanour in his last moments was calm and noble. He felt the edge of the axe, and said to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases." To the people he declared his innocence in a short speech, and then, after a fervent prayer, exclaimed, "Now I am going to my God!"

Sir Walter Raleigh certainly possessed one of the greatest intellects of which our nation can boast. His capabilities were almost universal. He was eminent in all things. Scraps only of his poetry have been preserved, but they show his fancy to have been as brilliant as his judgment was sound. His "History of the World," and a collection of miscellaneous essays, form the bulk of his extant writings.

A TRAVELLING REMINISCENCE.
BY MISS PARDOE.

To the reflective and observant traveller, every variation of costume, feeling, and habit, in the different lands through which he passes, is a distinct study; and although many customs to which he has not been previously habituated may at the first glance appear to be both absurd and indefensible, it is more than probable that, on carefully examining the subject, he will discover equal discrepancies in his own former impressions. Nothing is more common than for a stranger, on his advent in a foreign city, to see a smile upon every lip, induced by some detail of his manner or costume, which to its inhabitants conveys singularity, and even ridicule; and it is by no means improbable that, should he remain long among them, he would see reason to adopt their opinion, and to discard prejudices upon which he had previously prided himself.

In almost every relation of life, we find it infinitely more easy to condemn certain things, than either to give a valid reason for our dissent, or to supply a remedy; and this is peculiarly the case as regards foreign countries. Allowances must be made for the conventionalisms of every distinct people and state of society, or existence among them becomes not only irksome, but absolutely painful; nor should the fact ever be forgotten, that what is refined courtesy in one nation may be rank incivility in another. Singular scenes frequently grow out of these local differences of feeling and action; some of them, doubtless, unpleasant enough at the moment, but still so irresistibly ludicrous, that even the sufferer cannot choose but laugh at his own disaster; and perhaps I shall not better illustrate my position, than by narrating a provokingly absurd incident which happened to myself during my residence at Constantinople in 1836.

We had embarked at Marseilles, in the November of the previous year, having taken our passage in a large Austrian merchant-brig, manned by Venetian sailors. Our voyage lasted forty-six days, during which weary period we only twice made land; first at Syra, and subsequently at Troy. On the first night after our embarkation, we were overtaken by a severe gale, which swept our decks of everything save the guns (of which we carried four), the long boat, which was firmly stowed amid-ships, the masts, and the mainsail. It caught us so suddenly, that the crew were totally unprepared, and every moveable object upon deck went overboard within ten minutes after it commenced. Italian sailors are proverbially both slovenly and procrastinating; and thus, satisfied with getting the passengers' luggage and property on board, every article was flung or stowed aside wherever it could be put most out of the way for the moment; while casks of water, and sides of beef, and even coops of poultry, were left almost unsecured, until daylight on the morrow should render their arrangement a matter of greater facility and convenience. Such being the case on deck, it will readily be believed that matters were not much better in the cabin. Such a scene of confusion I assuredly never witnessed; and although my own packages contributed not a little towards the misery, I felt all the horror of being obliged to clamber over boxes, hampers, and portmanteaux, in order to arrive at my little state-room. Had I known how the inconvenience was to have terminated, however, I should have been quite satisfied to put up with things as they were.

About midnight, a heavy sea struck the brig, which split the bulwarks seven feet from the stern, carried away the small boat, and forcing its way through the skylight, poured two feet of water into the cabin; the shock at the same time hurling from the locker to the floor all the multifarious objects which had been piled pyramidically to the roof. Had the adventure been less disagreeable, or the position less dangerous, it would have been impossible not to have felt amusement at the extraordinary and heterogeneous collection which was absorbed by, or floating on, the briny flood by which we were so suddenly overwhelmed.