alarm plunge înto the hot-bed with a smash, as if all the glass in the island had been broken-and rushing out at the gate at the critical instant little Tommy is tottering in, they leave the heir-apparent, scarcely deserving that name, half hidden in the border. There is no sale for such outlandish animals in the home-market, and it is not Martinmas, so you must make a present of them to the president or five silver-cupman of an agricultural society, and receive, in return, a sorry red-round, desperately salt-petred, at Christmas.

What is a Cottage in the country, unless " your banks are all furnished with bees, whose murmurs invite one to sleep?" There the hives stand, like four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row. Not a more harmless insect in all this world than a bee. Wasps are devils incarnate, but bees are fleshly sprites, as amiable as industrious. You are strolling along, in delightful mental vacuity, looking at a poem of Barry Cornwall's, when smack comes an infuriated honey-maker against your eye-lid, and plunges into you the fortieth part of an inch of sting saturated in venom. The wretch clings to your lid like a burr, and it feels as if he had a million claws to hold him on while he is darting his weapon into your eye-ball. Your banks are indeed well furnished with bees, but their murmurs do not invite you to sleep; on the contrary, away you fly, like a madman, bolt into your wife's room, and roar out for the recipe. The whole of one side of your face is most absurdly swollen, while the other is in statu quo. One eye is dwindled away to almost nothing, and is peering forth from its rainbow-coloured envelope, while the other is open as day to melting charity, and shining over a cheek of the purest crimson. Infatuated man! Why could you not purchase your honey? Jemmy Thomson, the poet, would have let you have it, from Habbie's-Howe, the true Pent land elixir, for five shillings the pint; for during this season both the heather and the clover were prolific of the honey-dew, and the Skeps rejoiced over all Scotland on a thousand hills.

We could tell many stories about bees, but that would be leading us away from the main argument. We remember reading in an American newspaper, some years ago, that the United States lost one of their most

upright and erudite judges by bees, which stung him to death in a wood, while he was going the circuit. About a year afterwards, we read in the same newspaper," We are afraid we have lost another judge by bees ;" and then followed a somewhat affrightful description of the assassination of another American Blackstone by the same insects. We could not fail to sympathise with both sufferers, for in the summer of 1811 (that of the famous comet) we ourselves had nearly shared the same fate. Our Newfoundlander upset a hive in his vagaries-and the whole swarm unjustly attacked us. The buzz was an absolute roar-and for the first time in our lives we were under a cloud. Such bizzing in our hair! and of what avail were fiftytimes-washed nankeen breeches against the Polish Lancers? With our trusty crutch we made thousands bite the dust-but the wounded and dying crawled up our legs, and stung us cruelly over the lower regions. At last we took to flight, and found shelter in the ice-house. But it seemed as if a new hive had been disturbed in that cool grotto. Again we sallied out, stripping off garment after garment, till, in puris naturalibus, we leaped into a window, which happened to be that of the drawing-room, where a large party of ladies and gentlemen were awaiting the dinnerbell-but fancy must dream the rest.

We now offer a Set of the Magazine to any scientific character who will answer this seemingly simple question -what is Damp? Quicksilver is a joke to it, for getting into or out of any place. Capricious as damp is, it is faithful in its affection to all Cottages ornées. What more pleasant than a bow-window? You had better, however, not sit with your back against the wall, for it is as blue and ropey as that of a charnel-house. Probably the wall is tastily papered-a vine-leaf pattern perhaps or something spriggy -or in the aviary line-or, mayhap, hay-makers, or shepherds piping in the dale. But all distinctions are levelled in the mould-Phyllis has a black patch over her eye, and Strephon seems to be playing on a pair of bellows. Damp delights to descend chimneys, and is one of smoke's most powerful auxiliaries. It is a thousand pities you hung up—just in that unlucky spot-Grecian Williams's Thebes

and high spirits. Chat away as long as need be, after muffins and muttonham, in small groups on sofas and settees and then slip you away to your library, to add a chapter to your novel, or your history, or to any other task that is to make you immortal. Let gigs and curricles draw up in the circle, and the wooing and betrothed wheel away across a few parishes. Let the pedestrians saunter off into the woods or to the hill-side-the anglers be off to loch or river. No great harm even in a game or two at billiards-if such be of any the cue-sagacious spinsters of a certain age, staid dowagers, and bachelors of sedentary habits, may have recourse, without blame, to the chess or back-gammon board. At two the lunch-and at six the dinnergong will bring the whole flock together, all dressed-mind that-all dressed, for slovenliness is an abomination. Let no elderly gentleman, however bilious and rich, seek to monopolize a young lady-but study the nature of things. Champaigne, of course, and if not all the delicacies, at least all the substantialities, of the season. Join the ladies in about two hours-a little elevated or so-almost imperceptibly -but still a little elevated or so then music-whispering in corners-if moonlight and stars, then an hour's outof-door study of astronomy-no very regular supper-but an appearance of plates and tumblers, and to bed, to happy dreams and slumbers light, at the witching hour. Let no gentleman or lady snore, if it can be avoided, lest they annoy the crickets; and if you hear any extraordinary noise round and round about the mansion, be not alarmed, for why should not the owls choose their own hour of revelry?

Fond as we are of the country, we would not, had we our option, live there all the year round. We should just wish to linger into the winter about as far as the middle of December-then to a city-say at once Edinburgh. There is as good skating ground, and as good curling-ground, at Lochend and Duddingstone, as anywhere in all Scotland-nor is there anywhere else better beef and greens. There is no perfection anywhere, but Edinburgh society is excellent. We are certainly agreeable citizens; with just a sufficient spice of party spirit to season the feast of reason and the flow of soul, and to prevent society from

becoming drowsily unanimous. Without the fillup of a little scandal, honest people would fall asleep; and surely it is far preferable to that to abuse one's friends with moderation. Even Literature and the Belles Let-, tres are not entirely useless; and our human life would be as dull as that of Mr Rogers, without a few occasional Noctes Ambrosianæ.

But the title of our article recalls our wandering thoughts, and our talk must be of Cottages. Now, think not, beloved reader, that we care not for Cottages, for that would indeed be a gross mistake. But our very affections are philosophical; our sympathies have all their source in reason; and our admiration is always built on the foundation of truth. Taste, and feeling, and thought, and experience, and knowledge of this life's concerns, are all indispensable to the true delights the imagination experiences in beholding a beautiful bona fide Cottage. It must be the dwelling of the poor; and it is that which gives it its whole character. By the poor, we mean not paupers, beggars; but families who, to eat, must work, and who, by working, may still be able to eat. Plain, coarse, not scanty, but unsuperfluous fare is theirs from year's-end to year'send, excepting some decent and grateful change on chance holidays of nature's own appointment, a wedding, or a christening, or a funeral. Yes, a funeral; for when this mortal coil has been shuffled off, why should the hundreds of people that come trooping over muirs and mosses to see the body deposited, walk so many miles, and lose a whole day's work, without a dinner? And, if there be a dinner, should it not be a good one? And if a good one, will the company not be social? But this is a subject for a future article, nor need such article be of other than of a cheerful character. Poverty then is the builder and beautifier of all huts and cottages. But the views of honest poverty are always hopeful and prospective. Strength of muscle and strength of mind form a truly Holy Alliance; and the future brightens before the stedfast eyes of contentment. Therefore, when a house is built in the valley, or on the hillside, -be it that of the poorest cottar,there is some little room, or nook, or spare place, which hope consecrates to the future. Better times may come,

-a shilling or two may be added to the week's wages,-parsimony may accumulate a small capital in the savings bank sufficient to purchase an old eight-day clock, a chest of drawers for the wife, a curtained bed for the lumber-place, which a little labour will convert into a bed-room. It is not to be thought that the pasture-fields become every year greener, and the cornfields every harvest more yellow,that the hedgerows grow to thicker fragrance, and the birch tree waves its tresses higher in the air, and expands its white-rinded stem almost to the bulk of a tree of the forest,-and yet that there shall be no visible progress from good to better in the dwelling of those whose hands and hearts thus cultivate the soil into rejoicing beauty. As the whole land prospers, so does each individual dwelling. Every ten years, the observing eye sees a new expression on the face of the silent earth; the law of labour is no melancholy lot; for to industry the yoke is easy, and content is its own exceeding great reward.

Therefore, it does our heart good to look on a Cottage. Here the objections to straw-roofs have no application. A few sparrows chirping and fluttering in the eaves can do no great harm, and they serve to amuse the children. The very baby in the cradle, when all the family are in the fields, mother and all, hears the cheerful twitter, and is reconciled to solitude. The quantity of corn that a few sparrows can eat, greedy creatures as they are,-cannot be very deadly; and it is chiefly in the winter time that they attack the stacks, when there is much excuse to be made on the plea of hunger. As to the destruction of a little thatch, why, there is not a boy about the house, above ten years, who is not a thatcher, and there is no expense in such repairs. Let the honey-suckle too steal up the wall, and even blind unchecked a corner of the kitchen-window. Its fragrance will often cheer unconscious ly the labourer's heart, as, in the midday-hour of rest, he sits dandling his child on his knee, or converses with the passing pedlar. Let the mossrose-tree flourish, that its bright blushballs may dazzle in the kirk the eyes of the lover of fair Helen Irwin, as they rise and fall with every move ment of a bosom yet happy in its virgin innocence. Nature does not spread

in vain her flowers in flush and fragrance over every obscure nook of earth. Simple and pure is the delight they inspire. Not to the poet's eye alone is the language of flowers addressed. Those beautiful symbols are understood by lowliest minds; and while the philosophical Wordsworth speaks of the meanest flower that blows giving a joy too deep for tears, so do all mankind feel the exquisite truth of Burns's more simple address to the mountain- daisy, which his ploughshare had upturned. The one touches sympathies too profound to be general

the other speaks as a son of the soil affected by the fate of the very senseless flowers that spring from the bosom of our common dust.

Generally speaking, there has been a spirit of improvement at work, during these last twenty years, upon all the Cottages in Scotland. The villages are certainly much neater and cleaner than formerly, and in very few respects, if any, positively offensive. Perhaps none of them have,-nor ever will have, the exquisite trimness, the long habitual and hereditary rustic elegance, of the best villages of England. There, even the idle and worthless have an instinctive love of what is decent, and orderly, and pretty in their habitations. The very drunkard must have a well-sanded floor, a cleanswept hearth, clear-polished furniture, and uncobwebbed walls to the room in which he quaffs, guzzles, and smokes himself into stupidity. His wife may be a scold, but seldom a slattern,-his children ill taught, but well apparelled. Much of this is observable even among the worst of the class; and, no doubt, such things must also have their effect in tempering and restraining excesses. Whereas, on the other hand, the house of a well-behaved, well-doing English villager is a perfect model of comfort and propriety. In Scotland, the houses of the dissolute are always dens of dirt, and disorder, and distraction. All ordinary goings-on are inextricably confused,-meals eaten in different nooks, and at no regular hour,-nothing in its right place or time, the whole abode as if on the eve of a flitting; while, with few exceptions, even in the dwellings of the best families in the village, one may detect occasional forgetfulness of trifling matters, that, if remembered, would be found greatly

conducive to comfort,-occasional insensibilities to what would be graceful to their condition, and might be secured at little expense and less trouble, -occasional blindness to minute deformities that mar the aspect of the household, and which an awakened eye would sweep away as absolute nuisances. Perhaps the very depth of their affections, the solemnity of their religious thoughts,-and the reflective spirit in which they carry on the warfare of life, hide from them the perception of what, after all, is of such very inferior moment, and even create a sort of austerity of character which makes them disregard, too much, trifles that appear to have no influence or connexion with the essence of weal or woe. But if there be any truth in this, it affords an explanation rather than a justification.

Our business at present, however, is rather with single Cottages than with villages, which of course will be the subject of a future leading article. We Scotch people have, for some years past, been doing all we could to make ourselves ridiculous, by claiming for our capital the name of Modern Athens, and talking all manner of nonsense about a city which stands nobly on its own proper foundation, while we have kept our mouths shut about the beauty of our hills and vales, and the rational happiness that everywhere overflows our native land. Our character is to be found in the country; and, therefore, gentle reader, behold along with us a small Scottish glen. It is not above a mile, or a mile and a half long, its breadth somewhere about a fourth of its length; a fair oblong, sheltered and secluded by a line of varied eminences, on some of which lies the power of cultivation, and over others the vivid verdure peculiar to a pastoral region; while, telling of disturbed times past for ever, stand yonder the ruins of an old fortalice, or keep, picturesque in its deserted decay. The plough has stopt at the edge of the profitable and beautiful coppice-woods, or encircled the tall elm-grove. The rocky pasturage, with its clovery and daisied turf, is alive with sheep and cattle,-its briary knolls with birds,-its broom and whins with bees,-and its wimpling burn with trouts and minnows glancing through the shallows, or leaping among the cloud of insects that glitter

over its pools. Here and there a cottage,-not above half-a-dozen in all,one low down in the holm, another on a cliff beside the waterfall,—that is the mill,-another breaking the horizon in its more ambitious station,and another far up at the hill-foot, where there is not a single tree, only shrubs and brackens. On a bleak day, there is but little beauty in such a glen; but when the sun is cloudless, and all the light serene, it is a place where poet or painter may see visions, and dream dreams, of the very age of gold. At such seasons, there is a homefelt feeling of humble reality, blending with the emotions of imagination. In such places, the low-born, high-souled poets of old breathed forth their songs, and hymns, and elegies,the undying lyrical poetry of the heart of Scotland.

Take the remotest Cottage first in order, HILL-FOOT, and hear who are its inmates-the Schoolmaster and his spouse. The school-house stands on a little unappropriated piece of groundat least it seems to be so-quite at the head of the glen-for there the hills sink down, on each side, and afford an easy access to the seat of learning from two neighbouring vales, both in the same parish. Perhaps thirty scholars are there taught and with their small fees, and his small salary, Allan Easton is contented. Allan was originally intended for the Church, but some peccadilloes obstructed his progress with the Presbytery, and he never was a preacher. That disappointment of all his hopes was for many years grievously felt, and somewhat soured his mind with the world. It is often impossible to recover one single false step in the slippery road of life-and Allan Easton, year after year, saw himself falling farther and farther into the rear of almost all his contemporaries. One became a minister, and got a manse, with a stipend of thirty chalders; another grew into an East India Nabob; one married the laird's widow, and kept a pack of hounds-another expanded into a colonel-one cleared a plum by a cotton-mill-another became the Croesus of a bank-while Allan, who had beat them all hollow at all the classes, wore second-hand clothes, and lived on the same fare with the poorest hind in the parish. He had married, rather too late, the partner of his frailties-and after many