Of each rash frolic what the source and end, "Some squires, to Gallia's cooks devoted dupes, Whole manors melt in sauce, or drown in soups: Another doats on fiddlers, till he sees His hills no longer crown'd with tow'ring trees; O greatly dare to tread Olympic ground! "What dreams of conquest flush'd Hilario's breast, Where all the charms of chance with order meet There the full stream thro' intermingling glades Whose rafter'd hall the crowding tenants fed, Where crested knights with peerless damsels join'd, We feel our article has nearly reached its limits. Another extract will do the business-and the final page of a number should be candid towards its close. PROLOGUE ON THE OLD WINCHESTER PLAYHOUSE OVER THE BUTCHER'S SHAMBLES. "Whoe'er our stage examines, must excuse The monarch swaggers, and the butcher swears! Old women scold, and dealers d-n your eyes! With weeping lovers, dying calves complain, Hark! the Bell ringing "dress for dinner." We have nothing to do but -to shave. Sorry to feel that we are not hungry-for we love to sit down voracious-then our wIT fires a volley between courses -our dry humour flavours the weeping Parmesan-our wit refreshes the Dessert. And how happens it that we are not hungry, pray? We were betrayed into Lunch. Why, really we have passed a pleasant day. Frequent peals of laughter, soft in themselves, and softer through that door, ever and anon excited us gently at our task to wish to know what was the harmless scandal-but we shall be let into the secret on the sofa after tea, when the old people are at cards. Will this Rain continue to Doomsday? We begin to have serious fears of the Harvest. They are groundless "WE PROPHESY A FALL IN THE PRICE OF BREAD." Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCLXXVII. NOVEMBER, 1838. VOL. XLIV. OUR POCKET COMPANIONS. WHAT a day it has been, and what a night it is, and what a hurley-burley yet in heaven! The winds must be mad to keep howling in that way so long after sunset; and we fear to think-faroff as it is of the sea-God spare the ships. In this glen there is nothing with life the tempest can well destroy. The cattle may be eerie, but they are all lying in the lee of the hills-and so are the sheep-or in the hollows of those green waves that undulate along the glen, but are for ever at rest. Hours ago the shepherds left the mountains; and all its inmates are by the fireside of every household. As for this hut, it is as still within as a bit of moonlight, and seems to have nothing to do with the storm. shower-shrouded-and rushes bleakly rustling as we plashed across the moors. There was no grandeur in the gloom -no hope of thunder. Clouds could not create themselves out of such a barren sky-the atmosphere was rain -as it was getting blacker and blacker the rivers rose-and coming to a stand-still, we naturally asked ourselves, "to-night where shall we sleep?" Providentially, at this juncture, a storm, which, unknown to us blind mortals, had been brewing in a sma' still in cloudland, began to muster strength for a burst, and though we cannot say that "far off its coming shone," yet we heard it in the distance, like a concerto 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?" We cannot tell. We know where we were yesterday-among the braes of Balwhidder. But to-day-a nightlike day-there was no sun of any sort -without mist there would have been darkness-and such a mist there was, that the crags, side by side, could not see one another's faces. Yet at some times it was gloomier than at othersand we kept walking out of one dungeon into another, like a prisoner vainly attempting to escape in his sleep. We passed along the edges of lochs-and heard them dashing as if they were wide; and often all at once saw a cataract. But no mountain tops-only black breasts of heather VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVII. to break up-we had almost said beautifully-into a regular storm. We were delighted to behold huge masses of clouds rolling along, some with brown, some with black, and some with bloody edges, far above the region of mist; and would you believe it! there, rushed out the great full moon at the rate of a Locomotive, and absolutely blazed along a line of sky as blue as the day it was born! We had a glimpse-for miles down-of a glen which we saw must be inhabited and keeping a respectful distance from the river," on the swelling instep of the mountain's foot"-like an old stag in search of provender-we erelong entered an enclosure,—and 20 has said its prayers and gone to bed. heard a house laughing in a loun place, not as if in defiance, but in ig norance of the storm. Like a drowned rat we never can be so we stooped into the hut, unruffled as an eagle or a swan. No man ever saw a "drookit" eagle or a "drippin'" swan, even in a driving deluge; and no man ever saw Christopher North discomposed by the elements. The rain brings the roses into his cheeks, and the blast brightens them; through mist his eyes kindle like angry stars. The house is small, and we have called it a hut; but not small the household. What a dowgs! a decoction of bark! But they soon saw we were no tatterdemallion, and leapt whining up to our breast. One colley, with a cross of the Newfoundlander-a devil, no doubt, at the ducks —we recognised, and he us, as an old acquaintance, and it was manifest he called to mind our having shaken paws with him in Prince's Street as he was on his way through Edinburgh, on a visit with his master to some friends in Fife. Men-women-children, of course-uprose at our entrance; and a better feeling, we hope, than pride expanded our breast when, on doffing our bonnet "An eagle plume his simple cap adorns". and bowing like a chief-as we arewe heard a voice by name hail CHRISTOPHER NORTH. Рooh, pooh, for your fashionable assemblages-in London and Edinburgh, and Paris and Vienna, and Berlin and St Petersburgh, with all their literary lions-wheree'er we go we are welcomed in the wilderness, and there is brightness of joy in the obscurity of our fame. Who are they? Shepherds and herdsmen. That old man fought in Egypt-and though "curst ophthalmy" killed his eyes, he has long forgot that he is blind. With both hands on his grandchild's head he sees she is fairnor think you that shines not for him on the mountains the morning light. And here we have been for an hour or more-you may imagine not idlethough now we are beginning to take some repose. We are by ourselves now in the Spence-as dry as a whistlehaving dined and supped on bannocks of barley meal, eggs, butter, and honey-while the household-it we had heard laughing, and not the house Where are we? We said we did not know-but we were lying-yet the world shall not be let into the secret-some spots in the Highlands are sacred still from the intrusion of tourists-and this is felt to be as much our own as if it were one of our dreams. Is it selfish to keep to oneself_unnamed in outer air-the knowledge of the local habitations, in the mighty regions of nature, where not in visionary ministrations, but in real offices of humanity, the soul of an old wanderer, conducted by his good genius, who has never yet threatened to desert him, continues yet to find a happiness he had ceased to hope for-and in the midst of trouble unexpected visitings of peace? We are comfortably and classically wrapt up in a blanket, like John Kemble in Coriolanus. Just look at our Library-arranged on the earthen floor before the peat-fire-to dry; for though the oil-skin linings of our Many-Pocketted are water-proof, as if Mackintoshen, some of the vols. were specky, and the damp has now exhaled. Tiny vols. one and all; and we should not be surprised to find in the morning that some of them had been stolen by the Faires. Diamond editions of twenty of our best English writers-in prose and in verse. pick up one with our toes-as prehensile as our fingers-and what is it but-YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS. «Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!" We Why, we are not a whit tired—never were less sleepy in our lives—and, without winking, could outwatch the Bear. He must have rather a rough time of it to-night-" surlier as the storms increase." That must be an old pine groaning-but he has stood many a blast, and, steel to the back. bone, will bend but not break. Well, let us commence with Old Youngfor though he be somewhat gloomyso at times are we, and we hope you for is not "man born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards?" That reminds us that if we do not put on some more peats the fire will be out and should this brief candle" follow its example, we may break our shins against that cutty-stool on the way to our heather-bed. Lo! sudden the illumination as one of our own bright thoughts. They terrify him-he faints-he dies and is himself a ghost. 'Tis a world of Shadows. 66 Among the hills a hundred homes have "Embryos we must be till we burst the we; Our table in the wilderness is spread; In such lone spots one human smile can buy shell, Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life, The life of Gods." Plain fare, warm welcome, and a rushy Yon ambient azure shelli” A hedge bed." Our single small tallow yields an uncertain glimmer in the gloom, and we fear to snuff it with our fingers lest it should leave us where Moses was when his candle went out. Our peat-fire has again subsided- and there is neither moon nor star. Yet with our eyes shut we could read from the book of memory, at any given catchword, the finest passages in the Night Thoughts; and they are in thousands-swarming—murmuringhumming-though the image is not that of bees. Shakspeare alone is fuller of "thick-coming fancies" than Young. Lavish as he is-profuseprodigal of his riches, we feel that his stores of thought, imagery, and sentiment are inexhaustible-his mind as opulent, after all that magnificent outlay, as before-the "treasures of the deep" as wonderful in their undisco vered caves as those that have been thrown up on the surging sea. 66 "My hopes and fears Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down,-on what? a fathomless abyss, A dread eternity." That is indeed Poetry. Recoils the soul from the brink of the abyss? Stands it shuddering there? By horrid temptation is it instigated to leap out of time? Or, calmed by awe, leans it an ear to the mystery moaning far down like some perpetual tide, and learns therefrom to walk at all times guardedly along the paths of life? Thought, busy thought, too busy for my peace, Through the dark postern of Time long elapsed, Led softly by the stillness of the night, And whom is he going to murder? God knows. But his hand is palsied, for he "meets the ghosts Of my departed Joys" sparrow's egg is of the most beautiful blue-for violets are not blue that smiles on earth; but we immortals chip the sky, and, full-fledged at the moment of that birth, fly to heaven. Why? The question is asked, but not answered-for the pathos is in itself-and wretched Thought myst pause till Doomsday for a reply. Yet 'tis not of such a one the Poet says, "here buries all his thoughts, Inters celestial hopes, without one sigh." He inters them not-they seem belooks on with many a sigh-deeper fore his eyes to bury themselves-he 'tis an imaginary funeral, and Fear than any grave-but they cease, for comes at last to know as well as Hope, that 'twas all a delusion of the soul sick unto death. Then, we can think of that great line and be comforted: "How populous! how vital is the grave !” And of that other line, so tender and so true, "He mourns the dead who lives as they desire." Try to say a new good thing about Time. Don't be afraid of failure, for on such a subject commonplaces are the world's delight-and wisdom is at one with the world. Then take Young. "The day is past Like a bird struggling to get loose in going; Scarce now possessed so suddenly 'tis gone." "Where is to-morrow? world." In another "All men think all men mortal but themselves." "How swift the shuttle flie's that weaves thy shroud." "Time wasted is existence-used is life." Or seek ye some more elaborate |