EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCLXXVII. NOVEMBER, 1838.

Vol. XLIV.

Contents:

PAGE

573 597 612

624

OUR POCKET COMPANIONS,
HISTORICAL COINCIDENCES,
TICK ON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES,
COLONIAL MISGOVERNMENT,
A CRUSTACEOUS TOUR. BY THE IRISH OYSTER-EATER,
THE CORN LAWS,
LEGENDARY LORE—THE ONYX RING,
NEW SOUTH WALES,

637

650

664

690

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET,

EDINBURGH:
AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON.
To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed.

SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND CO, EDINBURGH,

PAGE

573 597

612

OUR POCKET COMPANIONS,
HISTORICAL COINCIDENCES,
TICK ON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES,
COLONIAL MisGOVERNMENT,
A CRUSTACEOUS TOUR. BY THE IRISH OYSTER-EATER,
THE CORN LAWS,
LEGENDARY LORE_THE ONYX RING,
New South WALES,

1

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCLXXVII. NOVEMBER, 1838.

Vol. XLIV.

Jolu Mleon

OUR POCKET COMPANIONS.

What a day it has been, and what shower-shrouded—and rushes bleakly a night it is, and what a hurley.burley rustling as we plashed across the moors. yet in heaven! The winds must be mad There was no grandeur in the gloom to keep howling in that way so long -no hope of thunder. Clouds could after sunset; and we fear to think-far. not create themselves out of such a off as it is of the sea-God spare the barren sky—the atmosphere was rain ships. In this glen there is nothing with -as it was getting blacker and blacklife the tempest can well destroy. The er the rivers rose--and coming to a cattle may be eerie, but they are all stand-still, we naturally asked ourlying in the lee of the hills--and so selves, “ to-night where shall we are the sheep-or in the hollows of sleep?" those green waves that undulate along Providentially, at this juncture, a the glen, but are for ever at rest. storm, which, unknown to us blind morHours ago the shepherds left the tals, had been brewing in a sma' still mountains; and all its inmates are by in cloudland, began to muster strength the fireside of every household. As for a burst, and though we cannot say for this hut, it is as still within as a bit that “ far off its coming shone,” yet of moonlight, and seems to have no- we heard it in the distance, like a conthing to do with the storm.

certo of cracked bag-pipes. The rain “Whare hae you been a' day, my boy and in an hour or less the night began

had no chance with the whirlwind, Kitty?'

to break up—we had almost said beauWe cannot tell. We know where tifully-into a regular storm. We we were yesterday-among the braes were delighted to behold huge masses of Balwhidder. But to-day—a night- of clouds rolling along, some with like day—there was no sun of any sort brown, some with black, and some -without mist there would have been with bloody edges, far above the redarkness—and such a mist there was, gion of mist; and would you believe that the crags, side by side, could not it! there, rushed out the great full see one another's faces. Yet at some moon at the rate of a Locomotive, and times it was gloomier than at others- absolutely blazed along a line of sky and we kept walking out of one dun- as blue as the day it was born! We geon into another, like a prisoner had a glimpse—for miles down-of a vainly attempting to escape in his glen which we saw must be inhabited sleep. We passed along the edges of —and keeping a respectful distance lochs—and heard them dashing as if from the river, “on the swelling they were wide; and often all at once instep of the mountain's foot”-like an saw a cataract. But no mountain old stag in search of provender-we tops-only black breasts of heather erelong entered an enclosure,--and VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVII,

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