there-but simply its vulgar, local peculiarities, would, we confess, surprise us-if any new proof We of human imbecility could surprise us. trust, the heads of the Church will take into their serious consideration, whether it will not be well to insist that every candidate for orders should bring certificates of having been at least one twelve month absent from the University, before he is permitted to enter upon his clerical duties. In that time he might acquire at least enough of that experience which is so abundantly necessary in a clergyman, to teach him that the University, though a type of the universe, is not the universe itself.

We could pardon this author more easily if he had exhibited this propensity only in his own person. But in a miserable attempt at a sketch of the greatest man whom the English Church has produced for many a long year, we are insulted by the following passage, which seems written with no other purpose than to degrade him in our estimation. Speaking of the Palestine,' he says,

666

Barely twenty."

"Leave me, then, for I have much to do."

with me to the grave. I have loved you but too fondly. I have provided for your interests at the hazard of my soul. I repeat it, as a dying woman, you are notraise me-raise me."

She became convulsed; and, before I could ring for assistance, expired.

'I do not attempt to portray the misery this closing interview occasioned me. It is indescribable. It embittered every moment of my life. I was then an impostor. Those whom my mother had always pictured as the offending, were in reality the injured, party. Or was her declaration altogether the effect of delirium? I endeavoured to think so, but was wretched.

'Meanwhile, other sources of uneasiness were opened to me. Since the death of his patroness, Mr. Satterthwaite's conduct had been profligate in the extreme. He had always had a taste for low company, and a tendency towards intemperance. These my mother's presence and censures had repressed. Now he indulged both without restraint. I remonstrated. His refuge and support were his Antinomian principles. "A little sin won't hurt me," he began. "I'm secure. I'm in a 'covenant state;' and the fluctuation of frames and feelings, of sins and frailties, however great, cannot counteract decrees which were settled from all eternity! It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, if they shall fall away, to renew themselves unto repentance.' You have no insight into these matters at present. I much doubt whether you ever will. The doctrine of election is my comfort. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.' Sins! I rather rejoice in them. The best men of old were distinguished for their sins. The sinner is a sacred character! These are the right sentiments. Those who do not hold them belong to the children of Esau, against whom the Almighty hath said, 'I will have indignation for ever!" 'I turned away from the blasphemer with dis

Meanwhile, complaints of him poured in from all quarters. To the servants he was at one time a tyrant, at another a spy. There was no end to the disagreeable interviews which his immoral and unreone evening upon the melancholy depravation of his gulated conduct entailed upon me. I was ruminating principles, and the proper methods to be pursued for the village in a state of the most disgusting intoxication.

in the book, though by no means remarkably good. We need not remark that Mr. Satterthwaite's character is the invention of an exceed ingly ignorant and vulgar fancy:

They tell me that I am better,' said he, but my own feelings assure me I shall be gone before midnight. I cannot bring myself to leave the world without disclosing what has long hung insupportably heavy on my conscience. Consent then to be the depositary of my secret; and, if after hearing the sad recital, you do not disdain such an office, my friend, my comforter !

You have heard, perhaps, my mother's history: the degradation to which, after her husband's death, his family would fain have reduced her; their efforts to blast her character, and leave her to beggary; how she met their machinations, and baffled them.

'My mother! oh, my mother! thou shouldst have survived thy son! The guilt and wretchedness which now overwhelm me would then, perhaps, have been averted! I should then have had no cause but to reverence and love thy memory; for how faulty soever thy conduct to others, to me thou wast ever the kindest, the tenderest, the most affectionate of parents!

It was not perhaps extraordinary, under the circumstances, that from my earliest youth the deepest and most undying hatred was instilled into my bosom towards all the Llanberris family. "Thou art not my son, boy," was my mother's oft-repeated exclamation, "if thou hast not an implacable aversion to all who bear the name Des Vismes." I well remember, (it was the only instance of anger towards me exhibited in her whole life,) when I ventured to urge in reply that they were all, without exception, in misfortune, had suffered, and were still suffering, deeply from their unprincipled line of conduct; she exclaimed-" Leave me, boy, or thy mother will curse the pangs which brought thee into the world!"'

By none was this unchristian feeling more carefully cherished than by him who, from my earliest years, was entrusted with the care of my education the Rev. Silas Satterthwaite. He professed what are termed high principles. They appeared to me to be the maximum of religious profession with the minimum

'I could not forbear expressing my distress at seeing a man of his religious professions so situated; and my surprise that he, who avowed he maintained principles far stricter and more scriptural than those held by the Establishment, should thus shame them by his private life.

"We cannot fall from grace :"-it was extraordinary that he always spoke on religious topics with the greatest fluency, and quoted scripture with the most singular perversion when thus unhappily situated: -"cataracts of sin cannot wash away MY certainty of ""Mother, mother, I promise!"-was the assent her heaven. I will mention a text which shall tingle in frenzy and her circumstances wrung from me. your ears- In thy book are all my members written.' "Swear it!" she added, with increasing vehe- This clearly proves the choice which God has made of his church from all eternity. You still cling to the rubbish of ordinances. Listen to the truths of Calvinism."

mence.

"I do."

""And now, Horace, one word more-Mr Satterthwaite. I am unable, as you are aware, to make any provision for him. Promise me that you will do soliberally-speedily. Pledge your word to me on this point; assure me, likewise, that his claim on Ashbrook as a home shall at all times be recognised, and I die content."

'My horror at the idea of having this man for a companion overcame every other consideration, and dictated a gentle but firm refusal. Again did my mother repeat her request, and again did I entreat her to abandon it.

room,

"I will not discuss with you uow, or at any future time, Calvinism. I have long been persuaded that its tenets are hostile to morality; and I have a melancholy proof before me, how completely the highest professions can be reconciled with a most depraved course of life. But to-morrow, when you are able to talk rationally, I shall lay before you reasons which will require an entire reformation in your conduct, or an immediate change of residence." ""When they persecute you in one city," I heard him mutter as I left the "flee to another." 'Before, however, I had an opportunity of seeing him the next morning-for he generally rose late, and after one of these excesses always after twelve-Bradhe told me that Mr. Satterthwaite, under pretence of I scarcely knew whether I heard aright. I fixed ley; my land-steward, desired an audience; at which my eyes steadfastly on her flushed and agitated coun-converting his wife (to better principles, had been tenance, and endeavoured to persuade myself these endeavouring to corrupt his daughter; that her lover were the ravings of delirium. My purpose, however, had heard of it, and vowed vengeance against him remained unchanged. I told my mother she herself that he felt it his duty to apprise me of all the circumshould name the sum she wished to be settled on Mr. snces, and to beg I would recommend Mr. Satterthwaite for the present at all events to quit Ashbrook. My resolution was taken. He was walking, I understood, in the park. I sought him; repeated the facts alleged against him, and inquired if they were true.

"Don't exasperate me, Horace, don't exasperate me. From you I merit nothing but tenderness. You little know through what an ocean of guilt I have waded to place you where you are."

Satterthwaite, but entreated her to dispense with my consent to have him as my companion,

“Hear me, then, boy. YOU ARE NOT LORD LLANBERRIS. Your obstinacy has wrung from me this horrid secret, which I is tended should have gone

""Even so. what of that?

Satan had the advantage of me. David, you know ·

But

'I interrupted him at once. "Under these circumstances, the Hall can no longer be an asylum for you. I beg you will quit it without delay."

""Never. I have as great a right as you have to reside here; and I leave it not. Lord Llanberris, beware: you are at my mercy. I have nothing to fear from your resentment: you have every thing to dread from mine. Think you my paltry annuity of five hundred a year will impose on me perpetual silence? By no means. The moment I choose to open my mouth, I can prove your mother to have been an adulteress yourself to be a——.”

'I could contain myself no longer. Passion obtained the mastery. I struck him fiercely. He fell. These were his dying words-" Monster, you have murdered your FATHER!"

'I rushed from the spot in an agony of feeling which defies description. Hours I wandered I know not whither. All was true, then? My very worst fears were confirmed. My mother was an adulteressmyself an impostor: nay more, a parricide. O what would I have given to recall that one short hour! Labour-poverty-privation-all would have been warmly welcomed, could I have freed myself from that load of guilt and wretchedness which seemed to weigh down my soul. I prayed earnestly, fervently, that the boon of life might be at once withdrawn; or that I might have help and strength given me to face the future. 'It was nearly sunset when I heard my name called. My faithful Bradley accosted me. and slowly-his very manner seemed to inspire me with He came up calmly self-possession and said, “My Lord, I beg to prepare you for a very painful occurrence: Mr. Satterthwaite has been found dead in the park of apoplexy." My . conscience suggested to me he laid peculiar emphasis on the last two words; and I have often thought he rightly guessed how the deceased had met his end. But his manner then and always was that of an attached and affectionate servant towards a master whom he had nursed in infancy; and I owe him much. He continued, “I have undertaken, my Lord, the whole management of the matter. The coroner has been sent for, and an inquest will be held to-morrow. Your Lordship looks much shocked aud distressed. I supposed you would. Perhaps, you will prefer returning to the house by the private path, and retiring to your own

room."

'I followed his directions mechanically. His word had roused me to a sense of my danger. Yet I thought, but the reflection brought me no comfort, Satterthwaite and myself were alone. No one had witnessed the encounter, or seen the blow. But the agony, the wretchedness, the duration of that night, I thought it would never end!

'Morning came-bright sunny morning-the birds carolled sweetly; every breeze seemed fraught with perfume. I looked to heaven, it was calm and unclouded; on the sea it lay still as the repose of infancy before me; all seemed at peace without; 'twas only the tempest of remorse that raged impetuously within. I fell into an uneasy and feverish slumber; was awakened by the preparations for the inquest.

Bradley was as good as his word. The coroner came, and the jury sat. Their deliberations were short for dinner awaited their decision. The habits of the deceased were detailed; his state on the preceding evening was minutely described: a surgeon was present, who gave it as his opinion that the deceased's death was caused by apoplexy; and the jury returned a verdict, Died by the visitation of God.

Bradley communicated the result to me in the fewest words: "I will not intrude farther on your lordship's privacy. You do not yet seem to have recovered the shock, and will do well to retire early to rest."

'Rest! I never knew it from that moment. Rest! it seemed to have fled my couch for ever. Rest! none ever came either to body or mind. The consciousness of secret guilt crushed me to the dust; and in the perpetual goadings of remorse, from which no effort could free me, I seemed to feel the first gnawings of

that worm that never dies.

I have envied the meanest hind on my estate. As I watched the villager in my walks, returning worn and weary after his hard day's toil to his rugged pallet and scanty fare, and witnessed the welcome which affection gave him, and saw the glow of honest satisfaction lighting up his sun-burnt face, I would have given worlds to exchange my lot for his. And at times,

when the recollections of my childhood rose before me -when I thought of those bygone days when mirth bubbled up free and joyous from the heart, and melody flowed unbidden from the voice-when the one was was never fevered, and the other never sad-the contrast would almost deprive me of intellect. With a cry I would rush into the woods, endeavour to escape from myself.

branch of art, we are so far from regretting that We are not insensible to the charms of fictitious we rejoice to perceive it thus encouraged among us. composition, whether the painter's imagination fills his canvas with ideal but well-conceived scenes drawn from history or mythology, or whether, selecting from the various beauties of inanimate nature, he re-combines them more happily, and presents us with landscapes of Arcadian loveliness, Alpine grandeur, or sequestered rusticity. In order to please, however, such productions must possess superior merit; for mediocrity is here quite as intolerable as in poetry. Portraiture, on the contrary, has, like history, a positive value; it is a record of something that local portraiture the least interesting and ineither has existed, or does actually exist; nor is structive of this branch of pictorial description.

'Nor was this my only punishment. My-my fa-, the word will choke me, I cannot utter it, incessantly followed me. At home or abroad, go where I would, my victim stood beside me! That leaden eye, that lowering visage, that discoloured temple, I could never divest myself of his presence. My every action was marked by a witness from the grave. HE, into whose presence another hour will bring me, knows with what bitter contrition I have bewailed the past! He knows what days of inexpressible agony and heartfelt humiliaagain have I meditated to avow the infamy of my birth tion that single act of my life has cost me! Again and to Des Vismes, and then to resign myself to punish-It is not all who possess the opportunities of trament. But my mother's fame, the disgrace, the dis- velling, and of visiting spots celebrated for their honour that such a proceeding would entail upon our beauty, or interesting on account of the historiname, deterred me. The suffering it would occasion cal associations connected with them. influenced me not. I have again and again endured in one hour torture, to which the mere agony of dying milies of this and our sister island have long been The mansions of the nobility and opulent fawould be transport! Oh! "there is no killing like acknowledged to constitute no small portion of their beauties. Although bearing less ostentatious titles, many of them are far superior to continental palaces, combining, with every charm of luxury, and refinement within; while many exterior prospect, the highest degree of splendour, of those which can lay no claim to such attractions, are, nevertheless, highly interesting, either as specimens of our ancient domestic architecsonages whose names are more or less distinture, or as having been the residences of perguished in our annals.

that which kills the heart!" 'One resolution I made and kept-I would never marry. My inheritance would then revert to its protold me I should not long usurp it. This was the per owner; and my feelings plainly and cheeringly is true, I endeavoured to render my wretched existence only act of justice I could with security perform. It rally among the needy and oppressed that wealth which beneficial to others, and to diffuse promptly and libewas a curse to myself. But after all

NEALE'S VIEWS.

With regard to the present work, we consider it decidedly more valuable than any preceding collection of this kind; not only as comprising a far greater number of subjects, but as furnishing to the families to whom the respective resi a great many very interesting particulars relative dences belong. The insertion of the catalogues of the various collections of paintings, likewise renders the work both an appropriate guide to the tourist, and a useful manual for reference to the amateur; particularly to those who want to ascertain where the portrait of any particular individual is to be found. To all collectors of works tion indispensable, since, independently of the on English topography, we consider this publicaviews themselves, the letter-press contains much information not to be met with elsewhere. Being executed by different engravers, the plates do not possess uniform merit; yet all are very creditably done, and there are many of superior delicacy of finish and great brilliancy. the subjects in the present volume are two views of Among Kinfauns Castle; the first exhibiting the building and the truly magnificent scenery by which it is surrounded, the other a view of the gallery;Sidneys; Battle Abbey, Charlton House, HolPenshont Place, the celebrated residence of the land House, and Arundel Castle, and the elegant modern structure, Holwood, which was erected in 1825, by Mr. Decimus Burton.

and appoint Samuel Prout, Esq., to be painter in The King has been graciously pleased to nominate water colours in ordinary to his Majesty.

He who is imbued with superstition can neither have a pleasing remembrance of the past, enjoy the present in peace, nor look forward with pleasure to the future. Cicero de Finibus.

THE ATHENÆUM AND LITERARY CHRONICLE OF
THIS DAY CONTAINS
PAGE.

Al

volution. Caswallon. American Register The Opening of the Sixth Seal

PAGE. Professor Muhlenfels' Lectures. Governesses

81

90

82

.

91

84

Hum Chi Bung

92

British Institution

85

Miscellaneous Notices

86

The Drama

86

List of Books published

during the week

Antiquities of N. America
The Living and the Dead
Neale's Gentlemen's Seats 88

Sporting Reminiscences

• 89 Meteorological Table

95

SPORTING REMNISCENCES.

No. III. MY FIRST GROUSE.

(Concluded from page 28.) FAIR reader, or rather readers,—for so engaging an old fellow as I have described myself must doubtless have many,-what a pity it is for thee that my day of poetry and romance has long since set in the night of sober reality. Forty years ago, my brain was as full of 'Cobwebs fit for scull

That's empty when the moon is full,
Such as take lodgings in a head
That's to be let unfurnished,'

as I make no doubt thine is now-but alas! 'ces beaux jours sont passés!' My heart is now dead to passion, and mine eye to the picturesque. I prefer firesides to fountains-muffins to moonbeams and would rather (proh pudor!) see one supper than ten sunsets; nay, still worse, change (in thine opinion) has come o'er the spirit of my dream;' for I have learned to like cards and loathe quadrilles.

Such is my state! and being, besides, as I have already (with the usual conceit and impertinence of contrite philosophers) hinted to thee, sour and crabbed, I feel the virtuous indignation of an old coquette against those follies in others which I have myself outlived.

Nought now pleases me but truth, plain and

unvarnished-' naked and austere :'

To me no principle like practice

No poetry like matter of fact is. This is to inform thee of what-if thou hast sufficient experience to know that whosoever talks about truth, is plotting deceit thou hast already guessed that I mean to disappoint, not to say cheat, thee of a certain glowing description, which I half promised in my last, and which I dare say thou hast been impatiently looking forward to ever since,,

All that I choose to say is, that, on arriving at the top of the mountain, we found that the landscape on the other side was clear and sunshiny, whilst that we were leaving was cloudy and rainy; though, had I been able to embody my recollections of that scene in fitting language, thou shouldst have been treated to a description, at the sight of which all the poets in the universe would have burnt their pens and cut their throats: Thou shouldst have heard, as Gruinio says, (vide Taming the Shrew,') how that the contrast of light and shade, which I have just mentioned, was as the brightness of a gas-light, on the one side, to the blackness of a wolf's mouth on the other, how that,' the vale of Clyde, which lay beneath us, was stretched in the sunshine, sleeping in its loveliness, whilst the river itself (then dwindled to an insignificant streamlet, which, as it was perfectly unfit for either fly or minnow, deserved nought save silent contempt,) meandered through the verdant mead like a spangled silver thread through a green velvet garment.'

Thou shouldst have heard, I say, 'how that' the celebrated mountain which formed the foreground of the landscape, rose before us in all his sublimity of sweeping outline, standing apart in sullen majesty, and disdaining communion with the lesser hills,' by which the distance (which was, in fact, no way remarkable) should have been forthwith filled up, under the title of 'interminable ranges of mountains whose purple heads (not noses), high up-reared, vied with each other in offering a couch to the thunder-cloud.'

Then for the moral.-Thou shouldst have heard how that' the hereinbefore-twice alreadymentioned contrast of the vivid light before, with the murky darkness behind us, formed a sad yet apt illustration of the prospect and retrospect of human hopes and happiness;' or, if I did not chance to be morally inclined, (as, indeed, seldom that I am,) I might rather have likened it to the flight of a demon from the face of a spirit of light, in furtherance of which a running bass

accompaniment of distant thunder which I should have composed expressly for the occasion, (appropriate sounds, such as distant bells, cattle lowing, shepherds' pipes, and the like, being, as I am told, indispensably requisite in the manufacture of improved landscapes,) might have been called either the swearing of the sulky fiend, or the snoring of the sleepy valley aforesaid, whichever might seem the more improbable.

All this thou shouldst have heard with many more things of worthy memory which (for the before-mentioned reasons, shall now die in oblivion, and thou return inexperienced to thy grave.'

I am sorry for thy disappointment, reader; which, nevertheless, I assure thee, is no way owing to my laziness, or indisposition to please thee on my part; for I protest unto thee, that, had I the pen of a Coleridge, or the pencil of a Martin, thou shouldst have the whole portrayed in a way none the less sublime, because perfectly unintelligible in the one case, and perfectly unnatural

in both.

havers; I'm looking to see whether the tap o'yon hill is gaun to clear itsell o' the mist, for the auld wives hereabouts have a saying, that amaist aye comes true, that

"When the cairn *on auld

doth put on his cowl,

and, praise be blest! yonder is the cairn; sae I think we may get to wark without fear. Here, Port,' added he, calling to the dog so designated; hie awa', my bonny man.'

Ye may ken that the weather that day will be foul;"

• What the devil is that bird, whistling away like a boatswain's pipe?' asked my uncle.

Eh!' answered Will, it's ane o' they d-d whaups. Now, Sir, ye maun try and shute it if possible, or it'll fash the dugs, may be, for the next hour or twa; sae get your gun ready while I whustle them in, and may be it'll come near aneuch to let ye get a shot at it.'

My uncle followed his advice, and fired at the bird, which had the good effect of driving it away, though too far to kill.

'Now,' said he, while reloading his piece, 'let's hold a council of war. Where should this wild covey of ours be, Will? Is it worth while following them?'

such purely natural causes.

In the former,+ I cannot promise thee so easy an infliction. It is, indeed, possible that, as no expletives would be made use of to fill up (sense or show meaning, the whole description might be comprised in

'Fourteen short lines not over good,' in the shape of a sonnet; but, unfortunately, the gentleman in question is not much in the habit of writing sonnets; so it is more likely that thou wouldst be visited with a long, straggling, unfinished batch of verses, of which the plot and the poetry, the beginning, middle, and end, would be all equally and utterly incomprehensible, and in which thou shouldst hear-mind, I do not say understand, for, as thine information would be conveyed in

'Mystical meanings that puzzle still,
Read as often as you will,'

I should be sorry to pledge myself so far,-but thou shouldst hear the heads of my tale, (then, alas! neither head nor tail,) so mixed, mauled, and chopped up, into a heterogeneous mass, with odds and ends of meaning sticking out here and there, like stepping-stones in a bog, or leeks in a Welchman's pottage, (leaving thee to guess at the component parts of the remainder,) that I warrant thee thy regret would be less that the poem was never finished, than that it was ever begun; and that thou wouldst learn by comparison to regret the loss of the simple and unaffected, though, perhaps, somewhat dry style, of thine old friend Christopher. But enough of episode; which, as it has become rather tiresome to me, may also, I begin to suspect, be both tiresome and impertinent from me.

I asked the gamekeeper, who was gazing earnestly at the huge mountain I have hypothetically mentioned above, whether he was admiring the prospect.

'Ña, na,' said he, 'I'm no minding ony sic

* Vide Catalogue to 'Destruction of Nineveh.' + It is a weakness in our venerable friend that he holds all poetry in contempt, except Pope's Homer' and Somerville's Chace.'-ED.

I use the word 'mountain' as being more consonant with southern ears and associations. In Scotland, as an unlimited number of little children is called a'small family,' so every eminence, from five feet to nounced, 'hell:' (perhaps, in allusion to the torment five thousand, is called a hill,' or rather, as it is proof climbing it:) I have forborne, however, to spell it in this way, as, however correct it might be, it could not fail to have an ugly look.

''Deed, Sir,' answered Will, I aye think it best to follow up the game ye ken o', till ye fa' wi' mair: they canna be far aff; they just gied a swirl round the tap o' the know, and I'm thinking we sall find them in yon bit o' benty heather. 'Well then,' said my uncle, we'll let the dogs run before the wind" till they're past the place, and then whistle them up, and so get the birds

between them and us.'

This counsel being approved by all parties, was forthwith carried into effect. The dogs had hardly turned their noses towards us, before they began first to snuff in the air, then to draw on, and finally stopped dead. My uncle called to me to make haste up, as the birds might probably get up wild. I followed, panting and palpitating, not with fatigue but with fright. At last we got within a few yards of the dogs' heads, and were certain that the birds must be between us and them.

Look out!' cried my uncle; and he had no sooner uttered the words than-whirr! up got her old ladyship and family with a noise that so startled me, as to put all offensive measures quite out of the question. The only way I can at all describe my feelings is by comparing them to those of a hapless and unsuspecting little innocent suddenly and treacherously unhouseled, disappointed, unaneld,' (i. e. with eyes, mouth, and nose open,) submersed, (backwards,) for the first time, by the barbarous hands of a blue-coated bathing woman.

On recovering somewhat, I found that my uncle had killed a brace, and I was obliged to undergo his derision for what he termed my

lubberly' conduct : 'he supposed,' he said, that I had been accustomed to put salt on the birds' tails in England; but that in Scotland it was necessary to fire at them in order to stop them.'

The gamekeeper was more compassionate: he told my uncle that he was very wrong in putting me out of conceit with myself, and then, turnin to me, he added, 'Never you mind, sir, what your uncle says: a' young shots that try at birds on th wing, (and it's no mony o' them that do,) begin either by letting them flee awa' a' thegither without firing as you ha'e dune, or else by bleezing at them amaist before they're aff the grund; and they that begin like you, aye turn out the best shots at last-tak my word for't.'

* On the top of almost every Scotch mountain of any note, there is a heap of stones, called a 'cairn,' some of them of an enormous size their origin and use is unknown; some supposing them to mark the graves of ancient warriors, whilst others believe them to be the nett proceeds of a few centuries of monkish penance.

+ Curlews,-which sometimes follow dogs for a length of time, to the great detriment of their travel and their master's temper.

What the devil are you "spinning a yarn" about there, Will? interrupted my uncle, instead of minding your business: there's Starboard's been busy challenging these ten minutes.' It'll just be the auld scent,' answered Will, 'there'll be naething there.'

'Nothing!' exclaimed my uncle, you never saw the dog behave that way for nothing; why his tail's a regular dogvane: you may tell the strength of the scent by the degree of its stiffness, and look at it now.' Faith!' replied Will, I shouldna muckle wonder if it's the auld cock that got up first, as we were coming up the hill yonder. Noo, sir,' addressing me, haud your gun ready, and let's see ye wun back your character. I'se warrant he'll ha'e rin doun the side of the brae, into yon bit moss hay.' I cocked my gun accordingly, and kept up with the dog, who was now roading' steadily down the side of the hill, as well as my footing and feelings would allow, and, as Will had predicted, had no sooner shown my face over the top of the little gulley, or hag as he called it; than up banged the old cock right under my nose, and away he flew cackling across the glen to the opposite hill, and wabbling,' as my uncle afterwards expressed it, like a jolly-boat in a stiff breeze.'

Away he flew; but he flew not far. I raised my gun, scarce knowing what I was about, and fired, when I found, to my astonishment and delight, that I had actually-killed. The force with which the bird was going had sufficed to carry him clear off the side of the hill, which was nearly precipitous, and down he fell, twisting and twirling, a height of about twelve hundred feet, till at last he lighted plump in the bed of a little burn or streamlet in the glen below.

I threw down my gun, and, regardless of the remonstrances of the gamekeeper who called after me that we should-pass by the place when we crossed to the opposite hill, I commenced the descent at a rate not much slower than that of the bird. However, between running, rolling and scrambling, (in the course of which I raised three coveys,) I at last reached the bottom in safety, and commenced a search after the object of my pursuit, which I soon found lying on his back in the water, from whence I as soon snatched him, and, all dripping as he was, gazed on him with an ecstacy of which that of a mother at the sight of her first-born would be but a feeble type; and immediately, like that mother, I decided that he was by far the largest, fattest, handsomest, and in every way finest grouse that ever was seen.

I once heard a gentleman state that, on seeing a bird fall which he had fired at, so far from participating in the feelings of exultation which I have just described, he felt nothing but grief and remorse for what he had done. This might be true, though, as he was a German philosopher, and was talking to a lady, it is by no means likely; and, if it was so, I can only pity the man for such mawkish sensibility. As for myself, I have no hesitation in saying that I can look back to few such moments of exquisite enjoyment in a long life as that which I experienced on killing MY FIRST

of the two preliminary lectures, (and it is the lecturer who would have most right to complain of the unfairness of such a criterion,) we should make no scruple of assuring our readers that there are few places which they could frequent with greater certainty of instruction and entertainment than the German class-room of the London University. We do no not say this, because there is any striking coincidence between the views of Professor Muhlenfels and ourselves-on the contrary, from many of the opinions broached in his opening lecture, we dissent widely-but because we discover in him great acuteness of mind, a high appreciation of the importance of the subject he has undertaken to discuss, accompanied with an anxiety to illustrate it from every collateral source, which destroys the danger of his making the one study too exclusively a favourite with his audience, and a disposition the reverse of what we fear is the prevalent one in our day-to regard the width of the foundation as of more importance than the height of the edifice. As we think the labours of Professor Mühlenfels-besides that they may be the means of counteracting some of the worst tendencies of the institution to which he belongs are, in themselves, exceedingly valuable, we shall make no apology for presenting our readers with a sketch of his first lecture.

After a very modest preface respecting his own qualifications, Professor Mühlenfels proceeded to define the objects which he proposed to himself in the present course. Literature, he observed, in its most general acceptation, comprehends all the productions of the human intellect, imagination, fancy, and reason: in a more restricted sense, it embraces all these productions except the sciences. He did not propose, in his present course, to take a complete view of German literature even in this narrower sense. He proposed simply to trace the growth of German poetry.

Literature is the repository of the ideas of people. A history of the growth of a literature is, therefore, in some sort, the history of the people to which it belongs. In tracing its infancy, youth, manhood, maturity, and decay, you are tracing the most perfect outline that can be drawn of the same stages in the national mind.

But the history of any one people, especially where the word is used in this high sense, as conversant, not merely with outward events, but with the development of mind and character, is part of a much larger history; and we cannot understand the fragment aright without understanding its relation to the whole. We must see what is the position of any nation in the general history of mankind, before we can satisfactorily determine the position of the different parts of its own history with respect to one another. We must find its age in the world's register, before we look into its own register for the age of the different individuals whose names are inscribed there. To find the principle of any literature, we must see which part the people whose mind it expounds, fulfil in the great social harmony; and we must then safely trace the development of this principle through the different periods of that people's existence. For this reason, Professor Mühlenfels has thought it necessary to introduce his course with five preliminary lectures, in which Or all the introductory lectures which were he will give a rapid view of the different periods read at the opening of the first session of the Lon-of history as they rise out of each other, and of don University, there was none which appeared to us to hold out a better promise for the future than that of Professor Mühlenfels. It was characterised by extensive and original views, learning, and, the most important of all in a lecture, an earnest and vivacious style. Professor Mühlenfels has hitherto been employed in lecturing on the language of his country to two classes,-the junior class, consisting of those commencing the study, and the senior, of those who have made some proficiency in it; and last week he commenced a third course of lectures on German Literature. If we may form any judgment of the interest which this course is likely to possess, from the merit

GROUSE.

PROFESSOR MUHLENFELS' LECTURES.

the literature of the different nations which ex

pressed the character of their periods respectively. Professor Muhlenfels thinks with Müller, that the use of the phrases, childhood, boyhood, manhood, old age, in application to society, is not merely metaphorical, but, indicates real analogy between the life of individual man and the life of the organic whole we call mankind. A forest, he remarked, or a mass of trees, is subjected to the same influences as the single tree, and in like manner, it is no wild hypothesis, but rather, would be a departure from the general law, if it were not true-that each man may be taken as a summary and representative of the race-that there is

a strict correspondence between the different periods of their history-and that, as the end of the individual and of the society is the same-viz. perfection, so the processes by which divine Providence acts upon them to bring about the accomplishment of that end are strictly and literally analogous. Even the resistance of various nations to this benevolent agency-their neglect of the mild and correctional discipline by which God has vouchsafed to tutor thein, and their consequent failure of the great purpose of their existence, is paralleled, he observes, and the argument which has been drawn from it against the tendency of mankind to perfection got rid of, by instances of similar perversity in individuals living in the midst of the obviously progressive communities.*

Acting upon this analogy, Professor Mühlenfels proceeded to distinguish the eastern nations as exhibiting the marks of the world's childhood. These marks he discovers especially among the Hindoos, who, he finely remarks, have existed for centuries in a sort of petrified infancy. As a child loves most to play with flowers,' he remarked, the poetry of the Hindoos is entirely the poetry of outward nature; the life of nature being the centre to which all their thoughts are turned.' In the images of this poetry, remarkable, as Mr. Southey has observed, for confounding bigness with sublimity, he traces the rudiments of an infantine fancy which strains after what is gigantic, but has no perception of harmony and proportion. The mild gentle character of these people is, also, he thinks a part of the analogy. Still in infancy, but at a more advanced stage of it, he ranks the Egyptian. The change which has taken place is in the greater definiteness of his contemplations, which in some degree approaches to reflection, and in the practical tendenciesof his social life. The first difference is indicated by the need he feels of allegories as a medium of studying the Deity, whom the Hindoo had been content merely to fancy, without striving after any conception of his nature. The second difference is seen in the more formal as well as more useful style of their buildings, in the adaptation of castes to practical purposes, and in the application of stars to astrology. In their emblematic representations, he discovers a likeness to that delight which the rude fancy of a growing child takes in animal forms.

The BOYHOOD of the human race is to be disco

vered, according to Professor Muhlenfels, in the history of the Children of Israel. The first development of conscience, or the law of right and wrong,-the struggles of this law with the growing sensuality of the boy,-his consequent waywardness and obstinacy:-all this is shadowed forth in the history of this ancient people; and to this state of being was the provision adapted of a written law revealed by the voice of God, audible through the thunders of Sinai. The Hebrew poetry, grand, lyrical and passionate, expresses, Professor Muhlenfels thinks, another part of the analogy.

*We have omitted a very beautiful passage at this part of Professor Mühlenfels' lecture, which, even in our humble capacities of reporters, we are afraid to put upon paper. He spoke of those mythological fables which constitute an antehistorical fund in the life of nations as being analogous to the glimpses of an earlier world which hover over the awakening spirit in

childhood. Professor Mühlenfels will not understand does not know that it is here thought a piece of horriour tenor, for he does not yet understand England, He ble arrogance to acknowledge the existence of a feeling which every beef-eater is not conscious of possessing in an equal degree-he does not know that, if a man affirms that, by long course of reflection in his own mind, he has discovered something which those who boast of not having reflected for a single moment affirm they never found in their minds, he is forthwith branded as a fool and a knave, or what comprises both classes, a mystic-he does not know that, merely be

cause it tended to a belief in the doctrine which he has so boldly preferred, the finest ode in our language was denounced by the Editor of the London University Journal, as a mass of senseless drivelling.

The age of dawning youth our professor discovers in Greece. Sensuality, but sensuality inspired and animated by a deep perception and love of the beautiful, and therefore not inconsistent with delicacy and modesty, a disposition to invest all those perceptions in forms, an intellect of extraordinary liveliness, but a spendthrift of its powers,-pure patriotism, patriotism for its own sake, not dictated by a love of power or a sense of duty, but the real unfeigned love of country, a mind unfavourable to religion and its inward exercises, because tending to shrines and idols:these were the characteristics of the Grecian mind, by these was its literature informed (though in poetry many of the coarse qualities of the mind which it represents, are exalted and purified,) and these are also the characteristics of that period in a richly cultivated mind which takes place between the rude shapeless ardency and perverseness of the boy and the systematic hardness of the man,

In ROME we observe the fifth period, the commencement of definite MANHOOD :-the imagination and fancy becoming less vivid and brilliant; the intellect growing into proud and exulting consciousness of its own powers; vanity, under the form of a love of rule, becoming the prevailing passion of the soul; love of one's country, as one's country, changed into a vain delight in the one country, (so that the word Quirites availed in Cæsar's mouth to repress a military insurrection, when Cives would have been insufficient,)-a clear perception of the ends of government, the principles of social organisation, the meaning of law,these great characteristics which are shown forth in the events recorded in the Roman annals, in the cold formality of their poetry, in the wonderful excellence of their histories, in the strength and durability of their monuments: all betoken, likewise, that time of life in which the just-formed man estimates mere manliness of character at a price which lowers, in the comparison, all the other

virtues.

gra

Is it then the overthrow of this great empire, which typifies that new crisis in our lives, when our education ceases when the power of habit ceases, and when habits become principles; in short, when we may be said to have finished girding on the armour with which we are to fight during the rest of our lives? Professor Muhlenfels thinks not. He dates it rather from the introduction of CHRISTIANITY, For he remarks that in individual life, and in its parallel the life of the species, the passage of one period into another does not take place suddenly or at once. It is dual and imperceptible. There is a process of declension, the length of which is marked by the length of the process of perfectionment. Alexander and Napoleon rose to greatness at once, and fell at once. The Roman Empire was seven hundred years in attaining to its highest greatness: it was meet that its fall should be gradual likewise. And thus, therefore, it seems more natural, more rational, according to the order of analogy, to take the turning-point-the moment of passage from one age to another-at the moment when the principal characteristics of that age begin to grow dim and fade away; that is, in the present instance, to fix that grand crisis in the world's history which corresponds to the most remarkable crisis in the history of each of us,—at that point at which our moral feelings, our sense of the all-importance of the events to nations and individuals, would incline us to fix it -the introduction of Christianity. This was the end of the first lecture.

British Tyrants. It was a current proverb in ancient times that Britain was the very hot-bed of tyranny:⚫ Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum.' (Jerome.) We have a notion, that a similar proverb either is or ought to be currently whispered about in Hindoostan; so low and cautiously, however, that not even one of the Company's crickets should hear it, so long at least as their power continues, prankt in a little brief authority.

GOVERNESSES

(From an Unpublished Novel,)

consequence of the difference of their powers; yet, in the circumstance of being absolutely indifferent to the circumstances of the child itself, As the ingenuity of mankind has invented an they are precisely similar. In this point they are immense variety of schemes for effecting the entirely different from that class of which Miss great end of education, the destruction of the Corrie was a member. Her method of dealing character, and the perversion of the intellect, with the faculties of her pupil did not proceed there are numerous diversities in the dispositions upon the principle that the indications of chaand qualifications of the persons who are conse- racter and taste in the child were matters of no crated to this honourable ministry. Of Gover- importance. On the contrary, she piqued herself nesses we may reckon up three classes, all disupon being a very attentive and discriminating tinguished by separate merits, but by no means observer of all that was remarkable in the minds resembling each other in their nature, or equal- of her pupils. She was accustomed to boast, that ling each other in the extent of their endowments. she had no unvarying rules to which she comThe first class consists of those governesses who pelled all the tendencies of the infant mind to are described in the letters of recommendation bend, that she did not endeavour to make the they bring with them into the families to which tree take a different direction from the sapling, they are destined as a visitation, as ladies possess- (except when the growth of the latter was obviing'great decision of character,' extraordinary ously tortuous and unnatural,)-that she, in short, authority over the minds of the children com- founded all she did upon her knowledge of mitted to their charge,' and 'a wonderful power human nature. Was it wonderful that Mr. of moulding their disposition and habits. Of all Mackinnon should imagine a governess so rational hand-writings on the wall to forewarn a parent in her ideas was specially commissioned, by of the future destiny of his child, these phrases Ellen's good genius, to preside over the most are the most decisive and luminous. A governess dangerous and important years of her life? thus described will, in very deed, mould the dis- And yet, if there ever was a time when, to speak position and habits of a child. All the force of according to human ignorance, that good genius her own character will be thrown into the task of was sleeping, it was when this same Miss Corrie counteracting tastes planted in it for its happiness first set foot in the Melcove Parsonage. What of eradicating dispositions which were meant might have been the effect upon Ellen's character, to grow and flourish for the good of its fellow-if it had been subjected to the control of either creatures-of turning awry all the currents of its of the other sets of disciplinarians whom we have feelings of making it into something as nearly spoken of, it is impossible to say. But how nicely as possible the reverse of what its Creator in his and delicately the system of her actual goverwisdom designed it to be. Miraculous must be ness was adapted to produce the corruption of a the interposition which saves a child from the mind of which it could not destroy the subtlety consequences of such a resolute, consistent, in- and the force, it will be no difficult matter to defatigable discipline as this. To come out of show. such a pressing-machine, with all its original life and energy, has never been the lot of any human creature. The happiest are those who, from being fortunately ungifted by nature with any extraordinary vigour and susceptibility of mind, succumb easily and tranquilly to this system, and are reduced by it into a state of quiet fatuity; thereby escaping the more dreadful judgment ables them to struggle long against the grinding appointed for those whose strength of spirit entyranny, and at last crushed by a power to which they would not yield, end, not in unconscious idiotcy, but in derangement and despair.

Far less able and vigilant, and therefore far less mischievous, are the second class of guardians who are appointed to see that the female mind takes no good. These are those ladies who, equally convinced with the one we have just described that it is their duty to force a certain quantity of tasks upon the memory, to make the understanding conversant with words, and to prevent the feelings from exerting themselves at all, nevertheless, either from indolence, or from feebleness, or from kind-heartedness, leave their pupil's mind in a very great degree to its own government. All that they impart is bad, of course; but then, they are not constantly imparting, or are providentially very unskilful in their mode of imparting; and consequently the human mind, in some instances, has elasticity enough to throw off all weights that have been cast upon it, and to recover in a great many a large portion of its native liberty. And, considering the incalculably small portion of the female community who are well educated, in any reasonable sense of that word, it is a totally safe presumption whenever we meet in society with a young lady capable of genuine not artificial liveliness of feeling, thinking, and acting, that she has been blessed with a weak-minded and inefficient governess.

which is generically distinguishable from both the But there is yet a third class of these ladies, former. To make up the child according to some notion which they had formed of what a child should be, was the object of both those whom we have been describing; and their slight success in this endeavour, as we have seen, is different, in

Miss Corrie made it a rule, as we have said, to adapt her rules according to the character of her pupil; and a very admirable rule it was. But to the right application of this rule, there was one little qualification necessary: that small qualification is a power of understanding character. Now, Miss Corrie was, as our readers may have gathered from the last chapter, a very shrewd lier or more pointed observations; no one guesswoman, unusually shrewd. No one made liveed more cleverly, or, as some people would express it, more happily. Is any thing more requisite in order to judge of character? A little more. It is necessary that, in addition to being able to guess, we should have thought; in addition to drawing clever inferences, we should be able to grasp facts-those most important facts, the facts of our own being: that, in addition to fancy, we should have knowledge. Now, unfortunately, Miss Corrie knew nothing. She observed upon the things around her, but she did not observe the things themselves: she talked about the mind within, but what that mind was, what her own thoughts were, what she herself was, she knew not. When, therefore, she attempted to judge of other people, she judged without rule or compass: she could not tell the indications of their feelings, for she had never felt. In this respect, she did not differ from nine-tenths of her sex and of ours. And, if she had only undertaken to teach with a view to learn, she might, by the study of her pupil's mind, have found out many secrets in her own. But, alas! she had no such humble views. She had been always complimented upon her knowledge of human nature: it was just the one part in her character she had always been most proud of; and the idea that she had not sounded the depths of a study when her present notions of it were sufficient foundation for aphorisms and systems, never entered her head. The she had but two methods. She either fancied consequence was, that in dealing with her pupils a character for them, worked herself into a belief that it was their actual character, and then proceeded to adopt the plan she thought most suitable for directing it; or else, she observed what motives, in a few moments' conversation, seemed