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independent of, your humanity, vigilance, and providence ; and you have sent adown the wind, in poignant and clamorous lamentation, these lately happy parents, who, in nursing and rearing their progeny, were obeying a wise and a benevolent arrangement of God. The flatroofed turf-house, which you have erected for the accommodation of your more vigorous pet, is accidentally converted into a seat, and the helpless inmate is crushed to death in the ruins; or it may be, that he chokes himself upon the wing of a frog, or gasps himself to death, in attempts to bolt large morsels of tough and waxy dough; or, upon the almost incredible supposition of his surviving for a few months, he retains only a mutilated existence, being generally deprived of a wing, lame of a leg, and blind of an eye, all at the same time. His whole aspect is the most abject and pitiable possible. His plumage is torn, and besmeared with every variety of batter; and the wicks of his bill appear as if fastened together with glue; till at last, having happily fluttered, and screamed, and torn, and lived himself out of your good graces, he is either starved to death by neglect, or suffers the martyrdom, some Saturday afternoon, of St Stephen. Suppose, however, that a young black-bird, or linnet, is the favourite, and that out of a nest of five raw-throated gorlings, one, by some unusual chance, has survived the first three days of captivity; still, under what inauspicious circumstances does the little downy, half-naked deformity exist! All, indeed, is soft and comparatively comfortable around, above, and beneath him: like a Russian furred up against the winter, he is sunk to the chin in sheep's wool; but in admitting his food, in gobbling his worms and his doughy lumps, an unfortunate communication is established betwixt his stomach and the materials of his abode; the wool sticks and tangles in his gizzard, and he expires in convulsions. Or, grant that he survives to take possession of his newly-constructed cage, seeded drawers, and suspended glass of water, the cat thrusts in her claw betwixt the cage-bars, extracts, and devours him!

'The season, however, advances, and

"Gentle spring and larab-time' bring

The sweets of summer back again."

In

The lambs, which have long, with every demonstration of vivid enjoyment, pounced and tugged at their mothers' teats, are now to be speaned, and thus deprived, for the future, of that rich and nutritious supply which nature has so bountifully and wisely provided for their use. The step-dame providence of some frugal, managing gudewife interposes her cheese-and-butter claims betwixt them and their birthright. In the upper recess of a withdrawing glen, the weaned mourners are stationed, in perfect bewilderment of grief, passing this way and that, across and athwart, and listening to every variety of bleat from afar, and chasing and coursing each other in the fruitless hope of a maternal recognisance. In the meanwhile, the old ewes are collected from the height; they line, and stream from the hill, like tears coursing, in rapid and separate descent, the weather-beaten cheeks of age. They are impelled and driven from heath to spret, and thence to the green and freshening sward. one of the sinuosities of a pure mountain stream, a stone enclosure, resembling, in intricacy and bewilderment of construction, the fabled walls of Troy, rises into view. This is the "pen," or fold, and stands now precisely where, and under what aspect and construction, it has stood for ages past. Behind the advancing flock, all is clamour, and motion, and exertion; the shepherd, waving his plaid from his arm, projecting, in a lateral direction, his staff, and ejecting, from time to time, jets and jerks of arousing, sheep-compelling voice. The herd-callan and Ill Tam skipping and glancing from side to side, as if playing betwixt alternating and opposite attractions. The gudeman himself "wouffing" and wearing, hurling out large fragments of inflated wrath and indistinct command, whilst tail after tail escapes, in bobbing and swirling speed, betwixt his legs, or immediately under his nose, to the hill. The shepherd curs walking up behind,

talking incessantly on the top of their tongues, swinging, about their shaggy tails, or necking, with the utmost precision and ease, some stirring and bounding runaway. The milkmaids, with their petticoats carefully gathered down upon and strapped around their ankles, cogs in their hands, and the coronet hassock on their heads, laughing, and walloping, and flaughtering on, making bad worse, and good no better, by premature mirth and illtimed garrulity. So, so! now they are bughted; now the horny heads bristle all along through the wattlings; a sea of goggle, green, meaningless eyes, black faces and erect noses, extends from end to end, from side to side. The milkmaids, with the cogs jammed betwixt their knees, as if they were fixed in a smiddy vice, make a rearward advance upon the prisoners. The milky deluge pours audible and long.

"Tell me not of the hilarity which obtains at routs, balls, plays, or assemblies; give me a brace of stout, ruddyvisaged lads on the outside, and double that allowance of springy, gleesome milkmaids, on the inside of a sheepbught at milking-time, and then we shall talk of real fun and convulsive merriment-of that attack and retort, which are made and returned, in perfect good-nature, yet in all the boisterous seeming of contested victory. This was an amusement in which I took great interest. To pin the maids' petticoats together, from behind, or to invest some of the most remote ewes with thistle or bur heads under the skirt, were everyday tricks. But to accomplish, by means of a plashy descent, rendered still more slippery by being frequently slid upon, the downfall of one of the cog - cárriers, as she pursued her way, in unsuspecting glee and careless speed, homewards, was an achievement which not only required address in the execution, but implied some degree of danger in the aftercome.

'Summer, too, was a glorious season for bumbee-binks and wasp nests, and butterfly pursuits. Nor did the earth only afford interest and amusement during this sunny season. I have stretched myself out supine, upon

a green and sloping bank, and continued for hours of mid-day heat, looking at the clouds which floated by, and wondering, from time to time, as I saw them advance rapidly towards the sun, and then gradually melt and disappear, what could have become of them. The chirp of the grasshopper, the buzz of the fly, and the hum of the bee, would not unfrequently lull me into that delightful stupor, amidst which the feelings, borne on the wings of fancy, repair to flowery bowers and Arcadian streams - dwell in viewless intimacy with things unknown, and convert the scattered fragments of half-perceived realitics into fairer and more fascinating forms than ever did modern kaleidoscope present to view.'

BORROW'S ADVENTURES IN SPAIN.

MR BORROW, the author of a well-known work on the Gipsies of Spain, has also published, under the somewhat quaint title quoted below,* a very remarkable work, abounding in the most vivid and picturesque descriptions of scenery, and sketches of strange and wild adventure. Of his personal history, he tells us little; but the hints and allusions scattered throughout this and the former work, shew that, in various respects, it has been a very strange one- fuller of adventure than anything we are at all familiar with even in modern romance.' It was in the character of an agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society that Mr Borrow visited Spain towards the close of the year 1835. He spent the greater part of five years in this service, partly in superintending the printing of a Spanish Bible at Madrid, partly in personally distributing copies of the sacred Scriptures in the provinces. His work does not assume the form of a regular narrative,

*The Bible in Spain. By George Borrow. 3 vols. Murray: London.

but is rather a series of sketches descriptive of the scenes through which he passed, and of the persons and adventures encountered by him in the course of his missionary enterprises. We purpose giving, as far as the fragmentary character of the work will permit us, a connected view of his efforts to circulate the Bible in the Peninsula, and of the success which has attended his labours.

Mr Borrow landed at Lisbon about the middle of November 1835, and proceeded without delay to take measures for the circulation of the stock of Portuguese Bibles and Testaments which had been placed at his disposal. A part of his stock was put into the hands of the booksellers of Lisbon, and at the same time colporteurs were employed to hawk the books about the streets, receiving a certain profit on every copy they sold. As Mr Borrow's stay in Portugal was limited, he determined, before leaving the country, to establish depôts of Bibles in one or two of the provincial towns. With this view, he set out for Evora, the principal city of the province beyond the Tagus, and one of the most ancient in Portugal, and formerly the seat of a branch of the Inquisition. After a dangerous passage across the Tagus, in which he narrowly escaped drowning, he reached Aldea Gallega about seven o'clock in the evening, shivering with cold, and in a most deplorable plight; and having engaged with a person for mules to carry him to Evora, started next morning in company with the proprietor of the mules and his nephew. When we started, the moon was shining brightly, and the morning was piercingly cold. We soon entered on a sandy hollow way, emerging from which we passed by a strange - looking and large edifice, standing on a high, bleak sand - hill on our left. We were speedily overtaken by five or six men on horseback, riding at a rapid pace, each with a long gun slung at his saddle, the muzzle depending about two feet below the horse's belly. I inquired of the old man what was the reason of this warlike array. He answered, that the roads were very bad-meaning that they abounded with robbers-and that they went armed in this manner

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