nion of evil spirits be to her? I know window of the bridal chamber, the Jenny Primrose puts rowan - tree time the bridegroom was groping his above the door-head when she sees way to the chamber door; and ye old Mary coming; I know the good have heard-but why need I multiply wife of Kittlenaket wears rowan- cases? such things in the ancient days berry leaves in the headband of her were as common as candle-light. So blue kirtle, and all for the sake of ye'll no hinder certain water elves and averting the unsonsie glance of sea fairies, who sometimes keep fesMary's right ee; and I know that the tival and summer mirth in these old auld laird of Burntroutwater drives haunted hulks, from falling in love his seven cows to their pasture with with the weel-faured wife of Laird a wand of witchtree, to keep Mary Macharg; and to their plots and confrom milking them. But what has trivances they went how they might all that to do with haunted shallops, accomplish to sunder man and wife; visionary mariners, and bottomless and sundering such a man and such a boats? I have heard myself as plea- wife was like sundering the green sant a tale about the Haunted Ships leaf from the summer, or the fragrance and their unworldly crews as any from the flower. So it fell on a time one would wish to hear in a winter that Laird Macharg took his halveevening. It was told to me by young net on his back, and his steel spear in Benjie Macharg, one summer night, his hand, and down to Blawhooly bay sitting on Arbigland bank: the lad gade he, and into the water he went intended a sort of love meeting; right between the two haunted hulks, but all that he could talk of was and placing his net awaited the comabout smearing sheep and shear- ing of the tide. The night, ye maun ing sheep, and of the wife which ken, was mirk, and the wind lowne, the Norway elves of the Haunt- and the singing of the increasing ed Ships made for his uncle Sandie waters among the shells and the Macharg. And I shall tell ye the peebles was heard for sundry miles. tale as the honest lad told it to me. All at once lights began to glance Alexander Macharg, besides being and twinkle on board the two Hauntthe laird of three acres of peatmoss, ed Ships from every hole and seam, two kale gardens, and the owner of and presently the sound as of a seven good milch cows, a pair of hatchet employed in squaring timber horses, and six pet sheep, was the echoed far and wide. But if the toil husband of one of the handsomest of these unearthly workmen amazed women in seven parishes. Many a the Laird, how much more lad sighed the day he was brided; his amazement increased when a and a Nithsdale laird and two An- sharp shrill voice called out, Ho! nandale moorland farmers drank brother, what are you doing now?' themselves to their last linen, as well A voice still shriller responded from as their last shilling, through sorrow the other haunted ship, • I'm for her loss. But married was the making a wife to Sandie Macharg!' dame; and home she was carried, to and a loud quavering laugh running bear rule over her home and her hus- from ship to ship, and from bank to band, as an honest woman should. bank, told the joy they expected from Now ye maun ken that though the their labour. Now the laird, besides flesh and blood lovers of Alexander's being a devout and a God-fearing bonnie wife all ceased to love and to man, was shrewd and bold; and in sue her after she became another's, plot, and contrivance, and skill in there were certain admirers who did conducting his designs, was fairly an not consider their claim at all abated, overmatch for any dozen land elves: or their hopes lessened by the kirk's but the water elves are far more subfamous obstacle of matrimony. Ye tle; besides, their haunts and their have heard how the devout minister dwellings being in the great deep, of Tinwald had a fair son carried pursuit and detection is hopeless if away, and bedded against his liking they succeed in carrying their prey to an unchristened bride, whom the to the waves. But ye shall hear. elves and the fairies provided: ye Home flew the laird, collected his have heard how the bonnie bride of family around the hearth,-spoke of the drunken laird of Soukitup was the signs and the sins of the times, and stolen by the fairies out at the back- talked of mortification and prayer for was averting calamity; and finally taking his father's Bible, brass clasps, black print, and covered with calf-skin, from the shelf, he proceeded without let or stint to perform domestic worship. I should have told ye that he bolted and locked the door, shut up all inlet to the house, threw salt into the fire, and proceeded in every way like a man skilful in guarding against the plots of fairies and fiends. His wife looked on all this with wonder; but she saw something in her husband's looks that hindered her from intruding either question or advice, and a wise woman was she. Near the mid hour of the night the rush of a horse's feet was heard, and the sound of a rider leaping from its back, and a heavy knock came to the door accompanied by a voice, saying, The cummer drink's hot, and the knave bairn is expected at Laird Laurie's to-night; sae mount, goodwife, and come.' Preserve me! said the wife of Sandie Macharg; that's news indeed; who could have thought it? the laird has been heirless for seventeen years! Now Sandie, my man, fetch me my skirt and hood.' But he laid his arm round his wife's neck, and said, If all the lairds in Galloway go heirless, over this door threshold shall you not stir to-night; and I have said, and I have sworn it: seek not to know why nor wherefore-but, Lord, send us thy blessed morn-light.' The wife looked for a moment in her husband's eyes, and desisted from further entreaty. But let us send a civil message to the gossips, Sandy; and hadnae ye better say I am sair laid with a sudden sickness; though its sinful-like to send the poor messenger a mile agate with a lie in his mouth without a glass of brandy.' To such a messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,' said the austere laird, so let him depart. And the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider on the churl ish treatment he had experienced. Now Sandie, my lad,' said his wife, laying an arm particularly white and round about his neck as she spoke, are you not a queer man and a stern? I have been your wedded wife now these three years; and, beside my dower, have brought you three as bonnie bairns as ever smiled O man, you aneath a summer sun. a douce man, and fitter to be an elder than even Willie Greer himself, I have the minister's ain word for't, to put on these hard-hearted looks, and gang waving your arms that way, as if ye said, I winna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you,' your ain leal wife; I will and I maun have an explanation.' To all this Sandie Macharg replied, It is written"wives, obey your husbands;" but we have been stayed in our devotion, so let us pray;' and down he knelt: his wife knelt also, for she was as devout as bonnie; and beside them knelt their household, and all lights were extinguished. Now this beats a',' muttered his wife to herself; however, I shall be obedient for a time; but if I dinna ken what all this is for before the morn by sunket-time, my tongue is nae langer a tongue, nor my hands worth wearing.' The voice of her husband in prayer interrupted this mental soliloquy; and ardently did he beseech to be preserved from the wiles of the fiends and the snares of Satan; from witches, ghosts, goblins, elves, fairies, spunkies, and waterkelpies; from the spectre shallop of Solway; from spirits visible and invisible; from the Haunted Ships and their unearthly tenants; from maritime spirits that plotted against godly men, and fell in love with their wives-'Nay, but his presence be near us!' said his wife in a low tone of dismay. God guide my gudeman's wits: I never heard such a prayer from human lips before. But Sandie, my man, lordsake rise: what fearful light is this-barn, and byre, and stable, maun be in a blaze; and Hawkie and Hurley,Doddie,and Cherrie, and Damson-plum, will be smoored with reek, and scorched with flame.' And a flood of light, but not so gross as a common fire, which ascended to heaven and filled all the court before the house, amply justified the good wife's suspicions. But to the terrors of fire Sandie was as immoveable as he was to the imaginary groans of the barren wife of Laird Laurie; and he held his wife, and threatened the weight of his righthand-and it was a heavy one-to all who ventured abroad, or even unbolted the door. The neighing and prancing of horses, and the bellowing of cows, augmented the horrors of the night; and to any one who only heard the din it seemed that the whole onstead was in a blaze, and horses and cattle perishing in the flame. All wiles, common or extraordinary, were put in practice to entice or force the honest farmer and his wife to open the door; and when the like success attended every new stratagem, silence for a little while ensued, and a long, loud, and shrilling laugh wound up the dramatic efforts of the night. In the morning, when Laird Macharg went to the door, he found standing against one of the pilasters a piece of black ship oak, rudely fashioned into something like human form, and which skilful people declared would have been clothed with seeming flesh and blood, and palmed upon him by elfin adroitness for his wife, had he admitted his visitants. A synod of wise men and women sat upon the woman of timber, and she was finally ordered to be devoured by fire, and that in the open air. A fire was soon made, and into it the elfin sculpture was tossed from the prongs of two pair of pitchforks. And the blaze that arose was awful to behold; and hissings, and burstings, and loud cracklings, and strange noises, were heard in the midst of the flame; and when the whole sunk into ashes a drinking cup of some precious metal was found; and this cup, fashioned no doubt by elfin skill, but rendered harmless by the purification with fire, the sons and daughters of Sandie Macharg and his wife drink out of to this very day." Lammerlea, Cumberland. VERSES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. THE blessings that to earth are sent, The spell dissolves, the tie is rent, And thou, the darling of the muse, Thy flower has bloom'd, thy light has shone ; I feel thy grasp, and thou art gone. I trace in joys that passing fly, In hopes that chase the hour-glass sand, The watchings of a Father's eye, The beckonings of a Father's hand. Not here our home; and grief and care, The waving mantle faintly seen, Of him, whom we no more may see, There is a shore, whence never keel The soul shall spurn its perish'd clay. And they, whose hearts despondence wrings, Shall stoop their interclasping wings, Met at Heaven's gate, and met for ever. OLEN. A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, FROM ISLINGTON TO WATERLOO BRIDGE, IN MARCH, 1821. The son of Cornelius shall make his own legs his compasses: with those he shall measure continents, islands, capes, bays, streights, and isthmusses.-Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. "I SHOULD like very much to travel," said a young cockney, with his feet on the fender. "London is a vast place; but the world is ten times bigger, and, no doubt, a many strange things are to be seen in it." "And pray, young man," said an old gentleman, whom he called the philosopher, " pray are you so familiar with the features of your own country; are you so well acquainted with its men and manners, that you must go out of it for matter of investigation and speculation ?" "As for men," replied the cockney, we may see them any where. I've seen Cribb, and Spring, and the best good ones that ever peel'd;-and, as for manners, I learned them at the dancing school. I have not been all over England, to be sure, like my father's riders; but I've been to Margate, Brighton, and Moulsey Hurst; so that what I have not seen by sack I have seen by sample. Besides, London is the very focus of England, and sure I am, that I know it from Wapping to Hyde Park corner, and have seen all that is instructive in it. I've been up the Monument, and down St. Paul's, over the bridges, and under the tunnel. I've seen the king and court--Mrs. Salmon's royal waxwork too, and the wild beasts at Exeter 'Change-I've seen Drury Lane and Covent Garden play-houses, besides the houses of Lords and Commons-the Soho Bazaar,—and both Bartlemy Fair, and the Brighton pavilion. I never missed a Lord Mayor's show, nor any thing that is worth seeing; and I know, by sight, Lord Castlereagh, Jack Ketch, Sir William Curtis, Billy Waters, and many other public and distinguished characters." "If you have seen no more than you say," said the philosopher, "you have seen a great deal more than is English; and if you only wish to study mankind, it is at least a reason against your leaving the country. England has, to be sure, its national character; but it gives birth to many mongrels, who belong rather to the Spanish, Dutch, or other breeds :there are foreigners born here, as well as others who visit us, and why should we go abroad to study them, when we have them all in epitome at home? Different nations, like different men, are only compounds of the same ingredients, but in varied proportions. We shall find knaves and honest men in every state, and a large proportion of fools and dunces in them all. We shall find every where the same passions, the same virtues and vices, but altered in their proportions, by the influences of education, laws, and religion; which in some parts tend to improve, and, in others, to pervert the common nature of mankind. It is in their civil and religious institutions that we are to look for the grand causes effecting those distinctions which constitute national character,—but before we go to investigate them, we should, at least, understand a little of our own." "Pshaw!" said the cockney, who began to grow tired of this harangue," there are sights to be seen abroad which can't be brought over here; and as for men being the same all the world over, it's all my eye,an't there the Hottentots that have noses like your Pug's, and heads as black and woolly as my poodle's? An't the Frenchmen all skinny, and have'nt the Spaniards large whiskers? There are the Patagonians too, that are all as big as the Irish giant, and Laplanders no bigger than Miss What's-her-name, the dwarf?” "Pshaw!" said the philosopher, in his turn; "all these are minor distinctions, and shrink as it were to nothing, when compared with the immeasurable distances between the minds of men:-whether I be Englishman or Hottentot, a Laplander, or a Patagonian, If I could stretch from pole to pole, The mind's the standard of the man.' Here the cockney was quite out of patience; he did not care, he said, about mind and matter; and as to the difference of men's minds, why men would differ, but he meant to be of his own mind, and the philosopher might be of his, and so they parted. As I was present at this conversation, it occurred to me that if men were so much alike every where, or rather, if every soil produced the same varieties, I could see as much of them in a walk through the populous streets of London as in a hasty journey all over the Continent. O! I will not travel, said I, for in the first place, it's unnecessary; and, secondly, I do not feel equal to its fatigues and dangers, and, lastly, said I, (for we always get to the true reason at last) I can't afford it. Besides, I had not seen Waterloo Bridge, and we ought to see our own bridges, before we go to see the bridges of others. A traveller, said I, should have all his wits about him, and so will I. He should let nothing escape him, no more will I he should extract reflections out of a cabbage stump, like sun-beams squeezed out of cucumbers; so will I, if I can-and he should converse with every and any one, even a fish-woman. Perhaps I will, and perhaps I will not, said 1. Who knows but I may make a sentimental journey, as good as Sterne's; but, at any rate, I can write it, and send it to the LONDON MAGAZINE. I had hardly left the threshold of my door, ere I met, as I thought, with an adventure. I had just reached that ancient and grotesque house which is said to have been a summer seat of Queen Elizabeth, though now in the centre of the village, or rather town of Islington, when I observed that the steps which led down to the door, had become the seat, or rather the couch, of an unfortunate female. She had, like Sterne's Maria, her dog, and her pipe, and like her too, she was evidently beside herself. "Poor unfortunate and interesting Maria," said I," as she came into my mind, exactly as Sterne had drawn her. I had touched a string— at the name of Maria, the female for the first time raised her head, and I caught a glance of her uncommon countenance. The rose had not fled from it, nor the bloom, for this was damson, and that was damask; there was a fixedness in her gaze, and although she quickly turn'd her head away, she could not hide from me that she had a drop in her eye. "It won't do," said I, shaking my head, "Maria found Sterne's handkerchief, and washed it with tears, and dried it in her bosom; but if I lose mine here, it's ten to one if I see it again; and if this Maria should wet it with her eyes, methinks it would dry best again at her nose. There is nothing to sympathize with in her bewilderment-she's rather bewitched than bewitching-she's a dry subject," and so I left her. My eyes, however, were full charg ed with the tears, and my bosom with the sighs, which I had expected to mingle with those of the supposed unfortunate. Some sentimentalists would have vented them upon the first dead dog, or lame chicken, they might meet with, but I held them too valuable to be wasted upon such objects. I hate the weeping-willow set, who will cry over their pug dogs, and canaries, till they have no tears to spare for the real children of misfortune and misery,-but sensibility is too scarce, and too valuable, not to be often imitated, and these therefore are the ways in which they advertise their counterfeit drops. They should be punished like any other impostors, and they might be made of some use to society at the same time; for as other convicts are set to beat hemp, and pick oakum, so I would set these to perform funerals, and to chop onions. These reflections, and the incidents which gave rise to them, I resolved to treasure up, for they |