Perth, after an interval of 200 years, a great number of perfect teeth were fouud; and a majority of the skulls examined, which must have been those of persons of various ages, were observed to possess their proper complimrnt of teeth.

THE WALNUT TREE.

"A brave tree that, master! How much in the span, now? Sound at the heart, no doubt. Indeed-(and the speaker glanced at the tree from top to stem)—a pretty piece of timber!"

The owner of the tree, an old, hale man, was leaning over the quickset hedge that fenced his garden: his rugged, ruddy face seemed kindling up in the sunset of a July evening; and as he watched the declining light, burning through a row of distant elms, there was a cheerful composure in his look-a thoughtfulness becoming the features of a patriarch. He heard the speaker, and, with a slight movement of the head, acknowledged the praises of the walnut-tree, which grew at the side of a little white-walled cottage, and flung out its giant arms above the roof.

"Shocking times, these, my master,", observed the stranger, at length making the old man an attentive listener; "bad times!"

'Yes, Sir. Wheat has gone up two shillings a quarter. Last harvest was the worst within my memory; and my sickle has glittered amongst the corn for the last sixty years."

"Aye, I believe the harvest wasn't so good-but I meant the war, though to be sure, the last accounts were more favourable. Five thousand Frenchmen were killed by our veterans!"

Poor souls!-God help them! But what, Sir, is all this war about-what is it for?"

"For! Why, for the king's honour and glory, and-and all that! So it stands to reason, that every loyal subject should assist his his gracious majesty. Now the army wants stores. You wouldn't like to sell that tree, would you? If 'twere sound all the way up, I don't know that, as an honest contractor, I might not offer fifty guineas.' "Fifty guineas!"

"Aye, and, in my poor judgment, I think they'd sound better to your ears clinking in your pockets, than do those boughs creaking in the wind. Come, is it a bargain? But first tell me how old

the tree is."

"Seventy years ago, next February, that tree-and he'd have long arms that could clip it about-was no thicker than my little finger. I was just five years old when 'twas put into the ground.”

That's some time back to remember."

Remember!-why, it's in my mind as though it were but yesterday. My old grandmother—I see her now-turned up the mould, just there, with the spade, and giving me the tree to steady straight; I held it in the hole whilst she heaped the earth about its root. When she had finished, she told me that, when she was dead, that tree would always keep her in my mind;-and so it has. 'Twas the last piece of work she did, for the next day she sickened, and the next,—for I don't know how it is, but your poor folks are never so long dying as your rich ones,—she died. Well the tree grew and grew; and it's a foolish thing to say, but there seemed to me a something of the old woman in it. Even now, in the dusk sometimes, in a sort of day-dream, d'ye mind, as I lean on my back against this hedge,-I see there a little child in petticoats holding a twig, and an old dame shovelling up the earth. But this, as I say, is in the evening, when work's done, and we think of a thousand things we never heed at labour. I am seventy-five, Sir; and though it is a good age, I often wonder, when I look on that tree, how soon I have grown old."

"I dare say," replied the contractor, who, during the speech of the old man, had continued to observe the tree with a smug, professional look, as though, in his day-book-and-ledger eye, he was parcelling out its beautiful trunk into lots; “I dare say—all this is so like nature; but fifty guineas, you see, are a good round sum;—and then, you know, to serve your king, and to help to beat those rascally French, who live upon live frogs, and wear lignum vitæ shoes; -well, shall I count out the money?" And the contractor drew from his huge coat pocked a leathern bag, and, untying it, suffered some of its glittering contents to meet the eye of the old cottager. 'But, as to serving the king, how can my walnut-tree do good to his Majesty?"

"Don't I tell you, the army want stores."

'Stores ?

"Yes. I've contracted to supply some. I've already bought five hundred pieces of live timber, and I want, among the rest, your grandmother's walnut-tree, to cut for our brave troops into musket stocks."

The old man left the hedge, and closed the wicket gate. He did not answer a syllable;-but, had Demosthenes made an oration on the old man's disgust, he could not have spoken with more significance, or with greater emphasis, than, struck by the fingers of the cottager, did the wooden latch.

TO MY PEN.

I've often wished to know the reason why
You scribble so much nonsense, and I never

Can find it out, although I often try,

For, hitherto, I've tried in vain; however,

I think I've found it out at last, so I

Will just attempt (that is to say, endeavour)

To shew you (what I should have found out long since)
The reason why you scribble so much nonsense.
Now it's as clear as mud-for how, the deuce,
Could you write any thing but nonsense, when
'Tis plain that you're the offspring of a goose,
Put in the hands of other geese, called men,
To scribble nonsense with; so what's the use

Of keeping you, you rascally old pen?
I'll cut you up, (as you have oft done others,)
And so you'll share the fate of all your brothers.
It grieves me much-oh! that it does, my pen!
Thus, after all your service, to discard you-
I'll never get so good a one again;

No! that I sha'nt :-I do not like a parting-last adieu !
You've written many a hundred lines, but then-

The whole was nonsense; and I think it's hard, you
Could never write a line of sense; however,
I think you're (as a goose quill) vastly clever.
Farewell, my Pen! your course is nearly run;
'Twould be in vain for me to try and mend you.
You would not mend at all-you're too far gone;
And, so out of the window I must send you.
You've served me faithfully, and always done
Your duty, ever since at Norden's vendue,
I bought you with some more; but you and I
Must part good company; and so- -Good bye.

LAWRENCE MERTOUN;

OR,

A SUMMER IN WALES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ROB THE RED-HAND."

It is well to be merry and wise;
It is well to be honest and true;
It is well to be off with the old love,
Before you are on with the new.

re

CHAPTER I.

"To be, or not to be

That is the question."-HAMLET.

Have you made up your mind, my dear, about going to Abermaw this summer?" asked Mrs. Crosby of her husband, as they sat

together after supper.

It will make no difference to me where you go; but Catherine and Ellen would prefer Wales."

"I think Catherine and Ellen might, at least, suspend their preference till they knew my sentiments on the subject," responded the morose father, a proud Salopian manufacturer: "really, these girls rule every thing now."

་་

"I am sorry you should misconceive their motives, Mr. Crosby. They fixed upon Wales, because they thought, you would not like to go further from home; and because the excursion would be less expensive."

"I don't know that!" sharply replied Mr. Crosby-"I dare say it is all a planned thing between you women; and, as to the expense, it is a d- -d hard thing if I cannot raise two or three hundred pounds upon occasion. My credit is good enough for that, at any rate."

We do not intend to be any expense at all to you, my dear," said Mrs. Crosby, in her usual sweet and mild manner. My own half-years' dividend will be quite sufficient for our purpose, if we go into Wales; and it was, chiefly, with a view to render any assistance from you unnecessary, that we wished to go to Abermaw, instead of to Cheltenham, or the Lakes, as we once intended."

'I said so,-I knew it was so !" exclaimed the manufacturer;-this allusion to his circumstances not being calculated to soothe a disposition, always remarkable for the very reverse of placidity-"Why do you tease me about plans already made, and which you are determined to effect? If you wish to go into Wales, why not say so, at once, and have done with it ?”

Will you say, then, when it will be convenient for you to go with us ?"

"I shall not go at all."

"I am sorry for that-perhaps you will change your mind?" "I am not in the habit of changing my mind, Mrs. Crosby, upon

such trivial occasions."

Mrs. Crosby said no more; but, sighing, prepared to retire for the night; not, altogether to sleep-nor, altogether, to keep awake. So accustomed had she become to her husband's morose and surly temper, that, now, his fits of ill humour-frequent and fractious as they were-were almost harmless, except, indeed, in those cases, as in the present instance, in which they interfered materially with her comfort, or that of her children, the girls already alluded to.

In the union of Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, there was no one qualification calculated to render that union happy. She was the victim of one of those heartless, unmeaning, ill-assorted marriages, where the female is considered in no other light, than as an object of mere merchandize; and where the holy rite is solemnized-we beg pardon -where the holy rite is ratified,-just with as much solemnity, and as much interest, as a deed of common partnership is "signed, sealed, and delivered," by which A. B., in consideration of the sum of

£, admits C. D. to a certain share of his trade, business, or profession.

Shakspeare says, that

"Marriage is a matter of more worth,
Than to be dealt with by Attorneyship.”

But Shakspeare knew nothing of modern excellence; neither could his prophetic eye penetrate so deeply into futurity as to "scan" the benefits of refinement. In modern parlance, marriage is nothing more nor less than a deed of attorneyship, in which the wife is made to pay-and sometimes very dearly too-for the high honour and renown of being rescued from the horrors of single blessedness.

Yet a bridal, even under such chilling circumstances as these, is an awful and an interesting affair. Who, that has witnessed one, can doubt it? Consider the bride, all over white muslin, gauze and blushes! She, poor thing, cannot help feeling the delicacy of her situation, with all its tremulous and alarming fears-and she, poor thing, has no thought beyond the ecstacy of the thing-beyond its doubts and fears-its tremblings and its tears. But those tears are ever tears of joy-mingled, it may be, with fearful apprehensions of the future, but still tears of joy. Oh! there is no sight so sweet as that of a timid, bashful, blushing bride; as she stands meekly veiled at the altar, confiding, in the fulness of her love, in him, whom her heart delighteth to honour-and her soul to worship.

In the instance now before us, love was no party to the compact. Mr. Crosby, then a young man of very excellent prospects, his father being one of the most wealthy and respectable of the Salopian manufacturers, "proposed" to Miss Kate Bowen, the second daughter of the rich banker. Mr. Emanuel Crosby-for so was our embryo manufacturer baptized, had been constantly in the habit of meeting the said Kate at the balls and parties of the Salopian ton; and had paid her more attentions than he paid any one else: so that when the proposal came, enough had preceded it in the way of etiquette to render a speedy answer not altogether indecorous-certainly not unexpected. A speedy answer, however, was not vouchsafed, because the "old people" (and this includes father and mother on both sides, with, occasionally, an old aunt or two) wished first of all to ascertain how matters stood with regard to that old Mammon-money. Both parties had the reputation of being "passing rich;" but old Bowen, "the Banker," was too "cute" a man, to throw up his daughter, or rather the pounds, shillings, and pence, which he meant to give with her, without a careful inspection of the debtor and creditor account of Crosby, Son, and Coppinger. The result of the scrutiny, however, being perfectly satisfactory, the lady was allowed to accept the proposal,-a day was fixed for the bridal,-five hundred a-year was settled upon the bride, and five thousand pounds given to the bridegroom, ostensibly to furnish a house-but really as a sort of premium for the bargain.

In ordinary cases, such a premium would not have been exorbitant.