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if the Reverend Dr James Gambier carried the quarter-deck into the church when a parson, just as he used to carry the pulpit on board ship when an Admiral. Then, it would be advantageous to the state to have a Bishop in the Upper House well versed in naval affairs. Into orders then must he go-and we expect he will send us his cocked-hat and uniform to keep for his sake.

Should there ever be another warwhich God forbid-may Captain Glascock get a ship-and take an American frigate of equal force. Should he be taken himself-we are sure there will be no dishonour in defeat-but that "He will fight till not a stick would. stand On board the Arethusa!”

Printed by James Ballantyne and Company, Edinburgh.

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THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE AND THE MARGRAVINE OF ANSPACH, 478

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WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, NO. 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH;

AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON;

To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed.

SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO. EDINBURGH.

IN THE PRESS, AND SPEEDILY WILL BE PUBLISHED,

BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH; AND

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T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON.

I.

ELEGANTLY PRINTED IN FOOLSCAP 8vo,
SOLITARY HOURS;

BY THE AUTHORESS OF

""
ELLEN FITZARTHUR;" AND THE WIDOW'S TALE."

II.

THE LAST OF THE LAIRDS,

OR,

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS

OF

MALACHI MAILINGS, ESQUIRE,

OF AULDBIGGINGS.

"What's the Laird doing, Jock ?"

Doing! what should he be doing! but sitting on his ain louping-on stane and glowring frae him?"-Sage Sayings of Jock the Laird's Man.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

" ANNALS OF THE PARISH," "THE ENTAIL," ETC.

Want of room obliges us to omit our usual Lists of Publications, Promotions, &c.

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How delightful, even to elders like us, to feel Spring breathing once more over air and earth! We have been quite happy and contented with Winter, however severe; nor have we ever felt the slightest inclination to be satirical on that hoary personage. On the contrary, there is not a Season of them all whom we love better than hale, honest, old Winter. But when he has migrated from the lengthening days, we think cheerfully on the last time we shook hands with him; and knowing that he is as regular as clockwork, have no doubts of his return as soon as he hears that we have again laid in our November stock of coals and corned-beef. Indeed, his son, Spring, has so strong a family resemblance to his father, that were it not for the difference of their complexion, and a totally dissimilar style of dress, we should frequently mistake the one for the other. The likeness, however, wears off as we become better acquainted with the young heir-apparent, and find that with most of his father's virtues, he possesses many peculiar to himself; while in every point of manners or lesser morals, he bears away both the bell and the palm from his sire. Like the old gentleman, he is occasionally cold to strangers-biting in his remarks or wrapt up within himself; but his icyness soon thaws -his face becomes animated in the extreme his language is even flowery -and putting his arm kindly within VOL. XIX.

yours, there is nothing he likes so well as to propose a walk among the pleasant banks and braes, now alive with the new-born lambs, through whose bleating you can but faintly hear the lark returning from heaven.

We seldom are exposed to any very strong temptation to leave town till about the second week in April. Up to that time the dinners have complete power over us, and we could not tear ourselves away without acute anguish. Lamb (see last paragraph) has been exquisite for weeks; and when enjoyed at the table of a friend, not expensive. Garden stuffs, too, have purified our blood, and, if that be possible, increased our appetite. Spring has agreeably affected our animal being, without having as yet made any very forcible appeal to our intellectual or moral system. To leave town during such a crisis of private affairs, would obviously be inconsistent with our judicious character. Take them on the whole, and the best dinners of a cycle of seven years will be found to fall in the months of March and April. We have verified this fact by tables of observation kept for eight-and-twenty years, now in the temporary possession of Dr Kitchener, who has been anxiously collating them with his own private Gastronomical Journal.

Yet in spite of such tender ties, by which we are bound to the urbane board well on into April, our poetical

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imagination is frequently tempting us away into the country. All such temptations we manfully resist; and to strengthen us in the struggle, we never refuse a dinner invitation, except when we have reason to know that we shall be asked to eat patés. Mr Coleridge, meaning to be very severe on Mr Jeffrey for having laughed at some verses of Mr Wordsworth's, about "the child being father of the man," declares somewhere or other, that not willingly would he gaze on a setting sun with a man capable of the enormity of such a criticism. On the same principles precisely, not willingly would we gaze on the setting sun with any man who, in his own house, had ever asked us to begin dinner with a paté. Such a request shows a littleness of soul and stomach, that could comprehend the glory neither of a setting sun nor a round of beef-two of the very best things, in their own way, in heaven or on earth.

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But about the " very middle and waist of April, we order a search through our wardrobe for trowsers, striped and spotted waistcoats, jackets, foraging-caps, and thick-soled shoes, called by our housekeeper, Clampers. Then we venture to open our eyes and look a little abroad over the suburban gardens and nurseries. We had doggedly determined, indeed, not to take any notice of Spring symptoms before that time, for fear of pining away for the green fields. Accordingly, we wore our great-coat as faithfully as if it were part of ourselves, even during the soft days that now and then came balmy over the city gardens during the somewhat surly month of March. We rather kept our eyes on the ground in passing by rows of poplars, which we knew from the sweet scent were more than budding in the sunshine. When a bee hummed past us about the suburbs, we pretended not to hear her; and as to thes parrows, why, they twitter all the year through, almost as heartily as if they were inditing valentines, and their chatter never disturbs us. In short, we wish to enjoy the first gentleem brace of Spring in some solitary spot, where nothing will impede the mutual flow of our spirits, but where," the world forgetting, by the world forgot," we may wander away together into the ideal lands of the Imagination, nor care if we ever more return to this weary and distracted life.

Perhaps you may be a little surprised at first, when we tell you that we do not like, on our first vernal visit to the country, to go to Buchanan Lodge. We hate having anything to do with a Flitting. These lazy, lubberly porters, pretending that their backs bend under half a load for an ordinary Girzie, try all patience; and there is no standing a whole forenoon's sight of a great blue-railed waggon, with a horse seventeen hands high in the shafts, sound asleep. A Flitting "is a thing to dream of, not to see." The servants engaged in one have a strange, wild, hurried, flustered, raised look, very alarming to a Sexagenarian. More especially, the cook, armed with spit and gridiron, as with spear and shield, like Britomart. The natural impetuosity of the culinary character is exasperated into effervescence; and if she meet us hobbling down or up the front steps, she thinks no more than "Jenny dang the weaver" of upsetting, or at least sorely jostling, her unoffending master. The chambermaids have on Flitting-day an incomprehensible giggle, through which they seem to be communicating to one another thick-coming secrets-heaven only knows about what-and " my Butler" assumes a more portly and pompous air, in the consciousness of being about to act round about the Lodge as a summer land-agent. Then all within what a dusty desolation! Only one chair, and that in the lobby, for so many wearied bottoms-" Cupboards vast, and presses idle!" Tomorrow will be a fast-day to the mice

and before the week-end, dozens will have paid the forfeit of their lives to the offended laws of their country; for, next door, there is a maiden lady curious in traps, and inexorably cruel in the executive. You ring the bell by way of a dreary experiment, and a ghostlike echo answers from cellar and garret. For six months, and that is a long time for such an organ, that tongue will be mute. One dead plant is left behind in the lobby-window, close to the front door, for all the other windows in the house are closed up with shutters. No fear of the poor unhappy embers on the kitchenhearth setting fire to the tenement. Bang goes the street-door, like one of those melancholy peals of thunder followed by no other on some unsettled day that wants spirit for a stormelunk plays the bolt to the strong

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