price." This temptation of unlimited credit seduces to extravagance, and after the purchase of a dozen articles, which must be dear, because not required, the box-wallah is dismissed, the barouche ordered, and “mem" drives to Pittar and Latty's, to purchase bijouterie, of which she has no need, or to Madame Chervot, to order dresses at prices unapproached by the most extravagant milliner who ever gave three years' credit in the vicinage of Cavendish

square.

The carriage rolls home with its half-heat-vanquished mistress. It is two by the dial, and the best restorative will be tiffin, with its accompanying iced and foaming ale. "Let me see-curried prawns and boiled fowls-very good khansamoh;" and, as two lady-friends call and partake of this ante-past, the khitmutgers at its conclusion have to add three more to the amount of "empties," and, reader, you will be wrong if you conclude that they are pints.

It is now the hottest period of the day, and all Calcutta "mems" retire to enjoy the luxury of a deshabille siesta, under a flowing punkah. This nap extends until the hour of five brings back the gentlemen from their occupations, and, after an invigorating bath, the carriage is again ordered out, and refreshment is sought from the evening breeze during a drive on "the course," by the river's brink.

The same horses are not employed that drew forth the lady in the morning, for it is impossible for them to endure, for many successive days, an exposure twice in the twenty-four hours to sunshine and labour, in such a temperature; ergo, the stable establishment comprises two riding-horses, four carriagehorses, and "sahib's buggy-horse," seven in all, with as many syces and a coachman!

Home to dinner at eight; and this is something like a repast, now that French cookery is generally patronized, and the beef and mutton oppressions of ten years since are exploded. In those days, nearly every limb of an ox and sheep were crowded at once upon the table, and the only refuge for the appetite was either from boiled mutton to roast beef, or, at best, to some stewed portion of the same quadrupeds.

Dinners in India now resemble those of the best regulated establishments of England, with the sole exception that a turkey is always a member of one of the courses, and for no other reason than that it is a costly dish. Plate is displayed profusely; the services are beautiful, and the glass costly.-Every beverage is served in ice, and among them are unlimited supplies of madeira, claret, champagne, and the Rhine wines.

Coffee is handed round at ten, but very rarely do the day's labours close thus. It is either "Government House night," or one of the Ré-union" balls at the town-hall; and the party adjourn thither to dance on marble floors for some two or three hours, leaving but a brief space for sleep, before "gun-fire" again summons them from their beds, to pass through the same diurnal round, and to wonder that India does not agree with their health! Why, such a round of extravagance would ruin a Rothschild, and disorder the liver of a Hercules.

Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare,
To the dead leaves dancing here and there—

In short if the truth were spoken,

It's an ugly night for anywhere,

But an awful one for the Brocken!

For oh! to stop

On that mountain top,

After the dews of evening drop,

Is always a dreary frolic

Then what must it be when nature groans,

And the very mountain murmurs and moans,
As if it writhed with the cholic-

July.-VOL. LXVIII. NO. CCLXXI.

With other strange supernatural tones,
From wood, and water, and echoing stones,
Not to forget unburied bones-

In a region so diabolic!

A place where He whom we call old Scratch,
By help of his Witches-a precious batch-
Gives midnight concerts and sermons,
In a Pulpit and Orchestra built to match,
A plot right worthy of him to hatch,
And well adapted, he knows, to catch
The musical, mystical Germans!

However it's quite
As wild a night

As ever was known on that sinister height
Since the Demon-Dance was morriced-

The earth is dark, and the sky is scowling,

And the blast through the pines is howling and growling, As if a thousand wolves were prowling

About in the old BLACK FOREST!

Madly, sadly, the Tempest raves,

Through the narrow gullies and hollow caves,

And bursts on the rocks in windy waves,

Like the billows that roar

On a gusty shore

Mourning over the mariner's graves-
Nay, more like a frantic lamentation
From a howling set

Of demons met

To wake a dead relation.

Badly, madly, the vapours fly

Over the dark distracted sky,

At a pace that no pen can paint
Black and vague like the shadows of dreams,

Scudding over the moon that seems

Shorn of half her usual beams,

As pale as if she would faint!

The lightning flashes,

The thunder crashes,

The trees encounter with horrible clashes,

While rolling up from marish and bog,
Rank and rich,

As from Stygian ditch,

Rises a foul sulphureous fog,

Hinting that Satan himself is agog,—
But leaving at once this heroical pitch,
The night is a very bad night in which
You wouldn't turn out a dog.

Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm,
And whenever by chance

The moon gets a glance,

She spies the Traveller's lonely form,
Walking, leaping, striding along,

As none can do but the super-strong;
And flapping his arms to keep him warm,
For the breeze from the North is a regular starver;
And to tell the truth,

More keen in sooth,

And cutting than any German carver !

However, no time it is to lag,

And on he scrambles from crag to crag,
Like one determined never to flag-
Now weathers a block

Of jutting rock,

With hardly room for a toe to wag;
But holding on by a timber snag,

That looks like the arm of a friendly hag;
Then stooping under a drooping bough,
Or leaping over some horrid chasm,
Enough to give any heart a spasm!
And skipping down a precipice now,
Keeping his feet the Deuce knows how,
In spots whence all creatures would keep aloof,
Except the Goat, with his cloven hoof,
Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if

He

grew like the weed on the face of the cliff!

So down, still down, the Traveller goes,
Safe as the Chamois amid his snows,

Though fiercer than ever the hurricane blows,
And round him eddy with whirl and whizz,

Tornadoes of hail, and sleet, and rain,
Enough to bewilder a weaker brain,

Or blanch any other visage than his,
Which spite of lightning, thunder, and hail,
The blinding sleet and the freezing gale,
And the horrid abyss,

If his foot should miss,

Instead of tending at all to pale,

Like cheeks that feel the chill of affright-
Remains the very reverse of white!

His heart is granite-his iron nerve
Feels no convulsive twitches;

And as to his foot, it does not swerve,

Tho' the Screech-Owls are flitting about him, that serve For parrots to Brocken Witches!

Nay, full in his very path he spies

The gleam of the Were Wolf's horrid eyes;

But if his members quiver

It is not that no, it is not that

Nor rat,

Nor cat,

As black as your hat,

Nor the snake that hiss'd, nor the toad that spat,
Nor glimmering candles of dead men's fat,

Nor even the flap of the Vampyre Bat,

No anserine skin would rise thereat,

It's the cold that makes Him shiver!

So down, still down, through gully and glen,
Never trodden by foot of men,

Past the Eagle's nest, and the She-Wolf's den,
Never caring a jot how steep,

Or how narrow the track he has to keep,
Or how wide and deep

An abyss to leap,

Or what may fly, or walk, or creep,

Down he hurries through darkness and storm,
Flapping his arms to keep him warm-
Till threading many a pass abhorrent,
At last he reaches the mountain gorge,
And takes a path along by a torrent-
The very identical path, by St. George!