He began with trying experiments on his own farm, with ploughs of 'smaller sizes and of different forms, proving, by a steelyard with a stronger spring than usual, which of them performed the best work with the least force of draught. In devising the improvements which afterwards obtained such celebrity, he seems to have had the old Scotch plough, as respects general shape, chiefly in view; and the merit of his invention consisted in making an instrument which combined the qualities of strength, lightness, and easiness of draught. His exertions were crowned with remarkable success. A plough was constructed and brought into use which astonished all who had formerly used the heavy and clumsy ploughs of the country. With respect to the precise merits of Mr Small's plough, they arise from this, that the sock and the mouldboard are formed according to strict mechanical principles; and that those parts which enter the earth, and cut up the furrow, have that equal tapering, or sharpened wedge-like form, which occasions the least resistance in raising the furrow-slice. The mouldboard, in particular, has that regular curve or twist, which not only lessens friction, in elevating and turning over the furrow-slice, but it also places and leaves that slice in the most proper position for the beneficial effects of the atmosphere and the operations of the harrow. Small has also the sole merit of inventing and modelling the mouldboard, and other parts of the plough, in cast metal, which contributed so much to the speedy extension of that valuable

instrument.

It is a striking proof of the excellence of his plough, that many ploughmen in Berwickshire, for their own ease and satisfaction, offered to be at the sole expense of the wood-work, if their masters would supply them with Small's plough, and would defray the other charges of the implement.

Having established his plough in Berwickshire, Small wished to introduce it into Mid-Lothian, where it had met with much opposition; but being confident of the superiority of his invention, he offered to make a comparative trial. In consequence of that challenge, a competition of ploughs took place in a field near Dalkeith, in presence of many gentlemen and farmers from Berwickshire, Mid-Lothian, East-Lothian, &c. A number of ploughs were brought forward; as, the old Scotch plough, several English ploughs, a plough by Mr Hutchison, with an iron wheel, &c.; but Small's was successful-the judges having decided that it did the best work, and was considerably lighter in the draught than any of the others. In consequence of the success of his plough at this public trial, it spread rapidly over all the different counties in Scotland, and has since been adopted in many parts of England, Wales, and Ireland, and in many foreign countries. It was a rule with James Small, that whatever piece of work he undertook, whether the making of a cart or plough, or any other implement, it should be made complete; and so anxious was he that his implements should give perfect satisfaction, that rather than suffer any insufficient work to be sent from his manufactory, he would break it to pieces, whatever loss he might thereby sustain.

There was nothing, however, by which he was more distinguished than by his zeal to promote useful improvements in the department of agriculture; and for this, it has been stated, "he sacrificed his ease, his health, his strength, and his substance." This enterprising and ingenious man died in the year 1793, about the fifty-third year of his age.

Since the era of Small's improvements, many additional alterations have been made in the construction of ploughs to suit the tillage of particular soils, and also of mossy lands, and of these none are more deserving of commendation than the rid or self-cleansing plough of the Finlaysons-farmers in Ayrshire, who encountered innumerable difficulties in bringing their plough into general operation.

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding all these improvements, ploughs of an old clumsy construction continue in use in many parts of England, greatly to the loss of power. Independently of the injury from this cause, the plan usually followed of yoking horses to ploughs in England is highly objectionable. It is, for instance, customary to yoke four or six horses in a line, one before the other, the line of draught being by a rope or chain, which passes along the sides of the animals to the muzzle of the plough. In passing along, the rope is upheld to a certain extent by each horse, so that the front horses exert a power of draught on those behind them, or, in plain terms, a certain quantity of power is lost. It is proper to state what is the true principle of draught. According to a well-known law in mechanics, power is always most advantageously exerted in a straight line. Let the drawing power always proceed in a direct line from the shoulders of the animal to the object of resistance. If there be the slightest misdirection of the line, power is fruitlessly destroyed. With respect to ploughs, the power of each horse should go at once in an even line, sloping from its shoulders to the muzzle of the instrument. When power from several horses requires to be united, yoke a pair abreast, and, if need be, a pair in front; but let the power of each pair go individually to the seat of resistance, or the intervening swingle trees. If the draught of the front horses in any form touches the hind pair in its passage to the plough, power is lost. Attention to these simple principles of mechanical science might save many thousands of pounds annually in England.

MENDICITY IN IRELAND.

As we drove into Drogheda, we entered a crowd, which I can only describe as suggesting the idea of a miraculous advent of rags. It was market day, and the streets were so thronged that you could scarce see the pavement, except under the feet of the horses; and the public square was a sea of tatters. Here, and all over Ireland, could not but wonder where and how these rent and frittered habiliments had gone through the preThere were no deparatory stages of tear and wear. grees-nothing above rags to be seen in coat or petticoat, waistcoat or breeches, cloak or shirt. Even the hats and shoes were in rags; not a whole covering, even of the coarsest material, was to be detected on the thousand backs about us; nothing shabby, nothing threadbare, nothing mended, except here and there a hole in a beggar's coat stuffed with straw. Who can give me the genealogy of Irish rags? Who took the gloss from these coats, once broadcloth? Who wore them? Who tore them? Who sold them to the Jews? (for, by the way, Irish rags are fine rags, seldom frieze or fustian.) How came the tatters of the entire world, in short, to assemble in Ireland ?—for if, as it would seem, they have all descended from the backs of gentlemen, the entire world must contribute to maintain the supply. I had been rather surprised at the scarcity of beggars in Belfast; but the beggary of Drogheda came up to the traveller's description. They were of every possible variety. At the first turn the coach made in the town, we were very near running over a blind man, who knelt in the liquid mud in the gutter (the calves of his legs quite covered by the pool, and only his heels appearing above), and held up in his hands the naked and footless stumps of a boy's legs. The child sat in a wooden box, with his back against the man's breast, and ate away, very unconcernedly, at a loaf of bread; while the blind exhibitor turned his face up to the sky, and, waving the stumps slightly from side to side, kept up a vociferation for charity, that was heard above all the turmoil of the market-place. When we stopped to change horses, the entire population, as deep heard-held out their hands, and, in every conceivable as they could stand-at least with any chance of being charity. The sight was awful: old age in shapes so tone and mode of arresting the attention, implored hideous, I should think the most horrible nightmare never had conceived. The rain poured down upon their tangled and uncovered heads, seaming, with its cleansing torrents, faces so hollow, so degraded in expression, and withal so clotted with filth and neglect, that they seemed like features of which the very owners had long lost not only care, but consciousness and remembrance; as if, in the horrors of want and idiotcy, they had anticipated the corrupting apathy of the grave, and abandoned every thing except the hunger which gnawed them into the memory of existence. I thought I should be able to recall many quick witticisms I had heard at Drogheda and elsewhere; but it is a kind of memory that floats away in the cloud of unimportant events occurring in so busy a life as travel: and I remember but one, and that more from the hideousness of the speaker than the excellence of her wit. I thought I had given away all my pence, when this woman, quite the weakest looking and sickliest I had observed, caught my eye. Another dive into my pocket brought forth a sovereign, a shilling, and a penny. "I won't trouble you for the gold," said she, watching me as I turned over the pieces in my hand; "I don't like the colour of it." I laid my finger on the penny: "Och! that's too black there's a dilikit white shillin', the colour o' your honour's entirely," ," she cried again; "something betwane; now white hand, plases me more!" I was amused with their efforts, often successful, to penetrate and remove, by some apposite suggestion, any hesitation in the giver's generosity. "I'll change it for your honour, and divide it among 'em," said a cripple to a young man beside me, who had drawn sixpence from his pocket, and held it doubtfully in his hand. The sixpence was thrown into the beggar's hat, who had well foreseen that the giver would not have the courage to falsify a creditable reputation before strangers. I am sorry to add that the "division" was but a figure of speech; and the sixpence which promised to show fight for the lion's share. was clutched with a flourish of the cripple's crutch,

Willis's Ireland Illustrated.

THE PEEL FAMILY.

with his uncle, Mr Haworth, and his future father-inlaw, Mr William Yates, at Bury, where the cotton-spinning and printing trades were carried on for many years with pre-eminent success, and on a most extensive scale, and are, indeed, continued, though in other hands, to the present day. Mr Peel, the father, with his other sons, and another Mr Yates, established the print-works at Church, and had also large works at Burnley, Salley Abbey, and Foxhillbank, and spinning-mills at Altham, and afterwards at Burton-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire. So widely did these concerns branch out, and so liberally and skilfully were they conducted, that they not only brought immense wealth to the proprietors, but set an example to the whole cotton trade, and trained up many of the most successful printers and manufacturers in Lancashire.-Baines' History of the Cotton Manufacture.

ANECDOTE OF A DOUBLE-BEDDED ROOM.

On

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Chance and the stage-coach put me lately in the town of Stirling at nightfall A few shops were still open, but the streets, in general, were dark and dull, and such as to impress a stranger with a feeling of loneliness. proceeding to the inn, I learned that I could only obtain a share of a double-bedded room, the Falkirk Tryst baying caused an unusual influx of strangers. This was far from pleasant, but, as there was no alternative, I at length stole with as little noise as possible to my moiety of a chamber. Scarcely had I entered, when a sepulchral voice from the other bed said, " Bolt the door!" I did so, but, at the same time, thought the circumstance rather suspicious. Why this precaution? What was to be done that interruption should be dreaded? creeping underneath the blankets, I in vain attempted to sleep. Sometimes a heavy sonorous snore resounded through the apartment; anon, the heaving of a pair of Then there was a huge lungs startled my slumbers. tossing from one side of the bed to the other-a noise as if the pillows and bolsters had risen in insurrection-and then a yawning and stretching, or low, half-stifled, gurgling sound, as of a person in the last stage of drowning. In sooth, he was a tempestuous sleeper. I listened, and began to reflect on my situation. I was here shut in with an entire stranger-a person whom I had not even seen, and who, for aught I knew, might only be waiting till I had resigned myself to sleep, to get up and empty my pockets, or commit some desperate outrage. All the terrific stories I had ever read of double-bedded rooms, crowded upon my brain. Weariness, however, is seldom long wakeful even in the midst of danger, and my mind at length settled into repose amid visions of midnight robberies and Ludlow assassinations. What length of time elapsed I know not, but I seemed hardly to have fallen asleep when I was awakened by a rustling noise. It was still dark, and I instinctively drew the bed-clothes closer about my head. The noise continued, and edging one eye over the blankets, I saw distinctly a figure of gigantic proportions striding stealthily across the room, and relieved against the uncertain light of the window opposite. It passed, and became invisible in the darkness. 1 then heard a rummaging among clothes, and anon the creaking of some small instrument upon its hinges. A clasp-knife perhaps! I shuddered. At this moment, however, the stranger having regaled his nostrils with an enormous pinch of snuff, stole back to bed! It would be hard to say which of us enjoyed that pinch of snuff most.-Scotsman newspaper.

LITERARY RELIC.

St James's Place, London, is the original agreement beIn the library of Mr Rogers, the poet, at his house in tween Milton and his publisher, Samuel Symons, in 1666, for the copyright of "Paradise Lost." It is written on one page of foolscap, signed by the contracting parties, and witnessed by "John Fisher" and "Benjamin Greene, notwithstanding his blindness, is remarkably regular and servant to Mr Milton." The autograph of the great poet, distinct. This interesting relic, we need hardly say, is carefully preserved by its distinguished owner: it is framed and glazed, and occupies a prominent place on the walls of the classical and hospitable mansion of the Poet of Memory. Mr Rogers, we believe, gave seventy ceived ten pounds, five being paid in advance, and other guineas for this relic! For the poem itself Milton rebeen sold. For each edition, not exceeding 1500 copies, five at the expiration of two years, when 1300 copies had five pounds were to be paid; but in seven years the poet died, and the widow disposed of all her "right, title, and interest" in the work for an additional sum of seven brought to the author and his family seventeen pounds, pounds. Thus the whole copyright of " Paradise Lost" and the bit of paper on which the agreement was written Milton was more than fifty years of age, blind, infirm, was sold and eagerly purchased for seventy guineas! and solitary, when he began the composition of his great epic. At a similar advanced period of life, Sir Walter Scott, struck with misfortune, entered into an engagement to liquidate, by his literary exertions, a debt of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Milton rested his late begun; Scott staked his character and reputation long-cherished hopes of lasting fame upon the work thus upon the fulfilment of his vast engagement. Both entered the pressure of increasing age and infirmity, never lost with characteristic ardour upon their tasks, and amidst sight of their anticipated reward. In seven years Milton had completed his divine poem, and held in his hand his passport to immortality. In seven years Scott had paid all but one-sixth of his enormous load of debt. The prize was within view, independence seemed almost in his grasp, but he had overtasked his strength, and disease, soon to be followed by death, came like an armed man, and closed the super iman struggle. When will heroic determination, under such adverse circumstances, the annals of literature record again two such instances of united to the highest creative genius, and crowned with such marvellous results ?-Inverness Courier.

LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W. S. ORR, Paternoster Row.

Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars.

I NUMBER 466.

A FEW WEEKS FROM HOME.
LONDON CEMETERIES.

WHEREVER one goes in England, he finds the most amusingly absurd old usages, forms, and institutions. In an old baronial castle near Canterbury, the curfew bell has been rung nightly since the reign of William the Conqueror, and the practice is kept up with the most reverential care. In a certain borough, every candidate for the honour of citizenship must dress himself in a white sheet and wade through a dirty horse-pond. In London, one has only to go into the inns of court, or the endowed schools, in order to see a sufficiency of examples of ancient and now aimless and useless practices. The yellow hue of slavery comes down to us from the middle ages on the legs of the children of King Edward's School; and because a small cap unfit for the head was the fashion of the year 1550, these young persons have had to walk bareheaded for three centuries, and will probably do so for three centuries to come. We have already adverted to the square platters of the Winchester boys, so conservative of endowment rules, but so destructive of gravy. We have been told that, at a similar collegiate school, potatoes were recognised as canonical only about twenty years ago, and not even then without great hesitation and many deep and anxious consultations. These things may be considered as results of the rigidly literal character of English law. In Scotland, where law is less exact in her behests, most such matters have been modified according to the spirit of advancing ages. We have accordingly, in our northern region, few things which bring the very form and pressure of long-past centuries before us. The past is seen only in its wrecks-ruined castles, ruined abbeys, ruined every thing. It is scarcely possible for an Englishman, reared in familiarity with so many antiquated institutions and usages, to conceive the impression which these make upon the mind of a stranger, coming, as we do, from a land where there is a greater conformity between the things which are and the things which common sense points out to be needful and proper.

In my late sojourn in the south, these considerations were forcibly brought before me, when, after an excursion into Kent, I took a ramble amongst the metropolitan cemeteries. A churchyard in London is a very different thing from a churchyard in the country, where breezes blow, cowslips and daisies bloom, grass grows green, and where even the mournful graves have a pleasant summer look about them, that gives you the idea that the poor inhabitant below lies snug and comfortable, and is cheered in his solitude by the singing of the birds and the shining of the sun all day long. How different one of the London churchyards! Conceive a Sir-ChristopherWren church, in the centre of a small quadrangular opening, in the midst of hosts of dingy brick houses, which seem crushing in upon the little court, as if desirous to overrun it with buildings, and leaving only a narrow waggon way around. As for the ground, or place of tombs, ten to one it is garnished with one or two trees, which find great difficulty in growing up through the smoky atmosphere, and perhaps loll a branch over the rusty iron railing beneath. The graves, except when flagged over with flat stones, are so many rows of oblong mud heaps-masses of dark mould, saturated with t. decaying elements of humanity, and revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety. In Tooley Street, there is a bloated churchyard of this description; and wending our way through the city by Aldgate, Great St Thomas the Apostle, Holborn, and Oxford Street, we see

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

miles on the road to Harrow, passing on our left the station of the Great Western Railway at Paddington, and wending our way by a country road environed with green fields and hedgerows. We, in short, get out of town-no easy matter to a pedestrian in London

and the last bit of street is left behind. Having attained the summit of a broad swelling eminence, we find on the left a façade and gateway, of elegant architectural proportions, fronting the burying-ground we are in quest of, and from which, on casting our eyes back, we are presented with a most extensive prospect across the country as far as the hills of Surrey, and also of the western environs of the metropolis. We are now within this beautifully laid out Père la Chaise, as I may call it a gently sloping field with a southern exposure, measuring forty-six acres, and calaccommodation for interments. As yet, the ground is rather bare of trees, but this is in the course of remedy, and in a few years it will exhibit a variety of shady recesses. Several walks, laid with yellow gravel, and broad enough to allow the driving of carriages, are spread in different directions through the cemetery, permitting the visiter to observe the long rows of graves and monumental erections which line their sides and exterior boundaries. A cloister or species of arcade of Grecian architecture, which crowns the highest part of the ground on the north, affords a covering to the family vaults, in which is accommodation for 5000 bodies, and along the face of the inner wall there is room for monumental tablets of

The general evil of crowded churchyards and church vaults has been repeatedly pointed out by medical men; and there is perhaps some vague notion in the public mind that it is not right. Nevertheless, the obstacles against its reformation have hitherto been too much for a people, who may literally be said to be too busy in attending to the affairs of the living, to have much time to devote to those of the dead. The main obstacle lies in the connexion which has been established between sepulture and church rites. The working clergy look for an important part of their incomes to the fees exigible on account of burials. The people might no doubt have themselves buried where they choose; but religious feeling makes most of them regard the consecration of the ground and the performance of the burial service as indispensable; and these advantages are not to be obtained in new cemeteries, unless the clergy shall have been compensated for the unavoidable diminution of the burial fees at the old churchyards. The error here is in making the incomes of the clergy depend on such paltry particulars. If provision were made for them by other means, it might be expected that burial-grounds would then only be found in proper situations.

Even under all the difficulties arising from this cause, several new cemeteries have of late years been established apart from churches and the crowded parts of the city. In 1833, an act was obtained for one at Kensal Green, under the proprietorship and regulation of a joint-stock company. Within a few years afterwards, other companies were able to procure acts, for the establishment of cemeteries at Norwood, Highgate, and Kensington. More lately, a company has opened a cemetery on a similar scale at Abney Park, Stoke Newington. A visit to some of these occupied a couple of days during my stay in London. Let me first speak of that at Kensal Green. The situation of this ornamental and airy burying-ground has been remarkably well chosen. Leaving Oxford Street in a north-west direction, we proceed a distance of three

marble in different devices. In the middle of the ground, a short way from this, stands a chapel with environing porticoes, the whole built of stone, and in excellent taste. Along the broad path leading down the centre of the ground, we find the greatest number of the more elegant, and, as we should call them, sentimental cenotaphs and monuments. The most conspicuous in the series is a covered building, embellished with exterior railing, vases, and flower-borders, forming, as we learn from the inscription, what is to be the burial place of Mr Ducrow, the famed equestrian.

All that portion of the ground which we have described, lying towards the right of the entrance, and forming perhaps three-fourths of the entire cemetery, has been consecrated, and is devoted exclusively to the sepulture of members of the Established Church, or at least to burials at which the church service is used. A considerably smaller portion, separated from the other by an artificial ditch and railing, and situated on the left of the gateway, has been reserved unconsecrated, for the interment of all who belong to other denominations of religionists. This portion has also its chapel, and, on perambulating the walks, I observed that the tombstones are generally commemorative of foreigners, members of the Roman Catholic body, Presbyterians, and others out of the pale of the church. On thus finding religious distinctions carried beyond, or, I may say, into the grave, and the different feelings of mankind on a point of ritual presented in so tangible a form, the mind of an individual whose country's faith overlooks all such matters, and whose feelings accordingly have never run in such channels, is impressed in a way which serves much to spoil, as far as he is concerned, the effect of what is otherwise a solemn and tastefully disposed scene.

Norwood Cemetery, belonging to the South Metropolitan Cemetery Company, and situated at the distance of six miles from town, in the county of Surrey and diocese of Winchester, ranks next in point of size to that at Kensal Green. It consists of about forty acres, occupying the top and two sloping sides of a beautiful hill-properly a knoll-and 18 laid out with

her a dislike to matches, where the age was unequal. She had, in truth, suffered too much in her former wedded state, from the disparity of tastes caused by disparity of years, not to feel strongly on the subject. Thus it chanced that, when she had listened long to the attractive converse of the baron, she used to cast a glance at his grey locks, and think to herself, "What a pity that he is fifty!" Widows are famed for telling their mind with freedom, and the baron was not long in catching up some expressions from her lips, which revealed the state of her thoughts. "Then you will only wed with one of your own age, lady?" said the baron. "I confess to that weakness," returned Madame de Nercy with a smile. "You are in error," said the baron; "men of mature years”"Oh, pray do not trouble yourself to praise them," interrupted the lady; "my poor dead husband was of your years, and though he was as good a soul as ever lived, I learnt from him that age and youth cannot assort together." "Then why not marry your admirer Blavaux ?" said the baron. "Pshaw, Blavaux," replied the lady; "he is young, to be sure, but I will never wed a man who would hide in a closet or a tub to avoid the conscription. No, no,” continued Madame de Nercy, "I am in no hurry; I will wait for the peace. And, in the mean time, baron, do you try with all your might to grow young again. If you were twenty years younger-we should see, we should see, baron!"

M. de Valville was silent for some time. He then said, "Madame de Nercy, you encourage me to give utterance to a secret. I am a man of fifty, and young again I shall never be; but I have a son, the very image of myself in person, and fully twenty years younger. In him I see my very self, as I was at his age. Madame, my son loves you. He saw you but once, at a ball in Paris, during your last visit. He learnt who you were; but, alas! he is so unfortunately circumstanced as to be unable to appear and own his love. Our family have ever been royalists, and my ill-fated son was mad enough to join in a conspiracy against those in power. The plot was discovered, and he became a proscribed fugitive. For some time he has been concealed in my own house, not in this town, but at the little country villa which I purchased near to yours. From that concealment he would ere now have burst to throw himself at your feet, but for my entreaties. I promised to plead his cause with you, that he might not risk his life by exposing himself to the chance of seizure by the police. You have now given me an opportunity to fulfil my word. Ah! madame, take pity upon him-take pity upon me! Consent to see him, and hear him plead his own

cause !"

This strange revelation made a strong impression on the fair widow. A beautiful young man, deeply in love, and a proscribed fugitive, presented a most charmingly romantic picture to her fancy. "I go to the country to-morrow," said she, after some moments of blushing yet not unpleasing confusion, "and you may come to me at eight in the morning. We will go together." "Ah, madame,” replied M. de Valville, "that is a pleasure which prudence forbids me to enjoy. Beyond a doubt, my movements are secretly watched. My son will be left to greater freedom and safety by my remaining here. In truth, it would be well for me to avert suspicion by going to some other place." The widow was somewhat averse to go alone, but the difficulty was got over by her resolving to take a confidential friend with her. To the country, accordingly, she went on the following day. Soon after her arrival, she received a visit from a young man, whom she could not look upon without surprise. He was the very image of his father. It was the same figure twenty years younger; eyes, look, and tone of voice, being the same. The step of the son was more elastic, and, in place of the grey locks of the baron, short and beautiful chestnut tresses adorned the head of the son. As to the rest, the son proved to have the very spirit of the father-intelligent, polished, and tender. The poor widow's heart was soon in chains. At the end of a fortnight or so, she returned to town, and was soon after waited on by the baron, who, she understood, had fulfilled his intention of averting suspicion by a short tour.

"Ah, well!" said he, taking the hand of Madame de Nercy respectfully, "what have you made of my poor boy? Does he consent to take care of his safety? Is he gone?"

The widow looked down and blushed. "No, he is not gone yet. Before he goes, we wish to go through a little ceremony, and I now have to ask your consent to it." "You have it," replied the baron with emotion, "and no one can pray more sincerely for your happiness. But the marriage !-it must be so far public, and I see in it new perils for my son !" "Oh, fear nothing," exclaimed the lady; "we have arranged all that. The mayor, in whose presence it shall take place, is devoted to me, and will be silent, particularly as I mean to give him a piece of ground of mine, which he has long coveted. Then the publication will seem to be in your name, Adrien de Valville, which is the same as your son's. It will be believed that I espouse you, and this we will countenance. Fear nothing, dear baron. All will be done safely, though prudence may require you to be absent."

The report accordingly went abroad of the approaching marriage of the baron with Madame de Nercy. One person was, or seemed to be, greatly annoyed thereat. This was M. Florestan Blavaux. He visited

the baron, and spoke of duels and death. The baron only smiled, and begged him in courtesy to allow the ceremony first to pass, to which request M. Florestan, being an anti-conscription man, gave his consent. The ceremony passed over, and Madame Adrien de Valville returned alone from her country seat, shedding many regretful tears, not on account of the cere mony, certainly, but because she had seen her young and handsome husband quit her side to seek a safer retreat, there to wait for more fortunate, days. She came to her house, expecting there to meet, and to receive consolation from, her father-in-law. To her surprise, she saw there not the grey-haired baron, but her own husband.

"You here, Adrien !" exclaimed she, in terror; "what imprudence! yet I embrace you again. Ah! I know what brought you here. You could not depart without seeing your dear father!"

The young husband knelt down before her. "Pardon me !" cried he; "I and my father are one! Beloved wife, forgive me. When you saw me first as a man of fifty years, I was in disguise, and-can you bear to hear it?-on account of the conscription! But not because I would not be a soldier. No, I would have served my country cheerfully. But an eccentric relation bound me by his will to marry under a certain age. I saw you in Paris, and would have addressed you without disguise; but I was just then drawn for the army, and Napoleon himself, knowing our family's former principles, gave me positive orders to serve in person. My fortune and my love were both at stake. I disguised myself, and fled-fled to the spot where you were. This is my whole story. You will forgive me-I trust, you will forgive me-the deception I have practised. Now when we are united, I will, if you permit me, serve my country wherever she has need of me. To you I would have revealed all before now, had not your declaration, that you would never wed one who fled from the conscription, terrified me into silence; and then I thought of the scheme which has been followed. Pardon me, dearest wife!" The lady's pardon was not difficult to obtain. Soon after the disclosure which has been related, M. de Valville went to visit M. Blavaux. He found that gentleman too much absorbed in other matters to think of duelling. The unfortunate Blavaux had just been drawn for the conscription for the ninth time.

SKETCHES OF SUPERSTITIONS.

SECOND-SIGHT.

this will be the case (say the true believers) though even both should then be married. If more than one woman be seen standing at a man's left hand, they will be married to him in rotation, as they stand nearer or farther from his arm. A seer often announces that such and such a guest will arrive at a certain hour, and, though a hundred miles away, the guest, it is said, will appear at the stated time." If a seer observe a vision of trees and crops in some spot or another, though perfectly barren and bare at the moment, wood and grain will, it is believed, there be seen in due time. A visionary house is beheld by the gifted eye, in a place where stone and lime were never laid, or expected to be laid. Yet there will the real house forthwith be seen. To see a seat as if vacant, when one is sitting in it, is a presage of the party's death. The seer may behold crowds of people, or single individuals, and very frequently he meets imaginary funeral parties, and determines the coming decease by the apparent mourners.

These rules of vaticination are said to be unvarying. No ordinary person sees the vision while it is present to the seer, but the same vision often appears to two or more of the gifted, either while they are together or apart. The Highlanders believe that children and the lower animals, such as cows and horses, behold the appearances while they are before the seer. This is made plain, they say, in the case of the animals, by the trembling which seizes them at the moment; and frequently the children will cry, and, if asked the reason, will tell what unusual thing they behold or have beheld. "I was present," says the author previously quoted, "in a house where a child cried out of a sudden; and being asked the reason, he answered that he had seen a great white thing lying on the board which was in the corner: but he was not believed, until a seer, who was present, said that the boy was right, and that the board would be made into a coffin; and, soon after, it was made into one accordingly," says the believing Martin. As for horses, it is averred that they will not move forward when a seer beholds a vision, and that they sometimes run about wildly, without any cause being discovered, till a seer comes forward and explains the matter. "A horse fastened by the common road on the side of Loch Skeriness in Skye, did break his rope at noon-day, and ran up and down without the least visible cause. But two of the neighbourhood that happened to be at a little distance, and in view of the horse, did at the same time see a number of men about a corpse." Somebody, who lived thirteen miles off, died soon after, and, "accordingly, the prophecy was accomplished," says Martin.

SECOND-SIGHT, taking the word in its common acceptation of supernatural sight-seeing, is one of the of the exercise of the faculty now described; and in a In Mr Martin's book, we find numerous instances varieties of spectral illusion. Certain mental functions becoming diseased, the sense of sight is imposed lanus," included in the Miscellanea Scotica, we are distinct treatise on the subject by "Theophilus Insu upon by the appearance of things which are purely presented with not less than seventy or eighty cases. imaginary, but nevertheless supposed to be prophetic The greater part of these relate to persons in an infe of future events. Idleness, solitude, insufficient diet, rior rank of life, but some, also, to people in a higher and an imagination led astray by ruminating too in-grade; and all the cases consist of visions seen, and tensely on the causes of human weal and wo, may fulfilled, in accordance, nearly, with the rules already be assigned as the prevailing causes of the disease. stated. We select a few of the most authentic-lookOur Lowland ancestors used occasionally to see wraiths, ing and remarkable. or spectral appearances of persons who were soon to quit this mortal scene; the Irish were also accustomed to the spectacle of fetches; and the Highlanders had their second-sight-the whole, be it observed, being but a variety of the same mental disease and delusion. Second-sight, however, has formed the subject of a more regular profession than any other species of spectral frenzy. There were persons, who, possessing from infancy a defective mental constitution, or having a taste for imposture, gave themselves out as habitual sight-seers, and were reverenced accordingly by their unsophisticated neighbours. Martin, in his account of the Western Islands, a work written upwards of a century ago, when any sort of nonsense met with popular belief, enters pretty largely into a definition of the faculty of second-sight, and we shall take the liberty of offering a few of his explanations. When the seer is visited by a sight, he is deeply affected by it, and, for the time, it absorbs his whole faculties, to the exclusion of all things else. The power of the seer is a natural endowment, and cannot be acquired by communication, or in any other way. It is usually talked of by its possessors as a painful and troublesome gift, ard one which they would gladly be rid of, if they could. Its vaticinations relate only to things to come, and not to past events. Young and old may alike possess the secondsight, and it is common, also, to men and women. The visions are sometimes predicative of good, and sometimes of evil. Occasionally, the vision simply gives indifferent tidings.

These are a few of the most common peculiarities attendant on this faculty. There are likewise numberless rules affecting its exercise, and the interpre tation of its visions. If a vision occur by day, for example, the accomplishment of what it is supposed to predict, will be speedy; if by night, less so. An exact proportion, indeed, is maintained in this respect the morning vision being sooner fulfilled than that of noon; the latter more quickly than that of the afternoon; and so on. If the seer beholds a figure in a shroud, it is considered a sure sign of death to the party represented by the figure; and, according to the extent to which the shroud covers the body, the end will be quicker or slower. If a woman be seen at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, and

The following case is from the communication of a man of unquestionable veracity, Angus Campbell of Eansay, who "related, that, in a fair sun-shining day, he saw a little fleet, consisting of nine vessels, with an easy leading gale, coming under sail to a place called Corminish, opposite to his house, where they dropt their anchors, having their long boats after them, and the crew of each walking the decks; and that his children and several of his domestics took particular notice of a large sloop among them. As the place where they moored in was not a safe harbour, nor that sound a frequented passage to the Western Ocean, he dispatched an express to his servants, who were at a good distance about their labouring, with a view to send a boat to those ships, either to bring them to a safe harbour, or to pilot them out to sea, as they choosed; and, after his servants came up, all of them saw the vessels, as formerly described; but, while they were deliberating what to do, the scene disappeared gradually. In two years thereafter, the same number of ships, the remarkable sloop being among them, came and dropt anchor at Corminish, which was at tended with all the circumstances above related, according as Eansay told the whole to Mr Kenneth Macaulay, present minister of the Harries, from whom I had this relation; and who says there are severals still living witnesses of the above representation and its accomplishment."

"Mr John Maclean," says another case, "late minister in Mull, as he was walking in the fields, saw his daughter (who was then absent at Turloisg) entering his house, her head muffled with linen; he followed at her heels (as he thought), and asking his domestics if they had on a good fire, as he was sure his daughter wanted much to be warmed. They all denied to have seen her; which passed for that time: but, in eight days thereafter, the girl returned muffled, as seen by her father, and in a few days fevered, of which she died."

"A noble peer of this nation being one morning in his bed-chamber, and attended by several persons, when his servant had put a new coat upon his lord, a gentleman standing by presently cried out, "For God's sake, my lord, put off that coat! And being asked the reason, he replied, that he saw a whinger or poniard stick in the breast of it. The noble peer,