We may

possible. A most mischievous mistake. depend upon it, that no culture is or can be perfectly wholesome which is not partly acquired in the open air. Give the citizen such opportunities, and he will return to his work with a stronger heart and a clearer brain; but if, through the routine of toil, you admit no dash of sunshine, no sweep of the sea-breeze, no glimpse of the hills, then your broad-shouldered Saxon will become a weak, crazy, and conceited creature, a correspondent of the Vegetarian Association, and an Associate. of the Peace Society.

It is quite true, my dear Lancelot, that we have seen in our time a very pretty variety of sport. A man who has shot teal on the Venetian lagoons, and quail on the sea-shore by classic Capua, and woodcock in winter among the covers on the skirts of Eta, may thank his stars. But it is also undeniable that he who has long roamed over the world with a hungry heart, and, with the wise Ulysses,

Touched the happy isles,

And seen the great Achilles, whom we knew,

cannot readily accept the stale restraints of an artificial society. Society, indeed, is very well, in a right way. Ninette's charming suppers, solutis Gratia zonis, and Vivian's short whist and still champagne, are epochs upon which we may always look back with affectionate regret; but one, latterly, tires of the orthodox proprieties which cannot be disregarded without angry recrimination and loud invective. Is it not better, then, to leave it alone? Of course, the Horatian can easily prove to you,

with his charming common-places, and in his proverbially good-natured way, the utter futility of such a proceeding. Patria quis exsul se quoque fugit? The disease is upon you, and you carry it with you as you go: et post equitem sedet atra Cura. And then he will blandly suggest his golden meanauream mediocritatem; which consists mainly, as it appears, in a decorous belief in the divinity of Bacchus. Dissipat Evius curas edaces. For my own part, I am quite sure that every man has a much better chance of passing through life profitably and comfortably, who, by the blessing of Providence, can quit a city for a country life; as a nation which depopulates its rural districts to overpopulate its commercial, will some day learn to its cost. There are duties, no doubt, which chain a man to the crowd; and if he puts his hand to his work bravely and honestly, he will not want his reward; but as mine and yours, Lancelot, lie in quite a different direction, shall we not say with Falstaff, "Hal, I prithee, trouble me no more with vanity?"

The Capital is a pleasant city, especially during this autumnal season, when it is shunned by the natives as though it harboured the plague. And, for any direct proof to the contrary, the plague may have swept it-which assuredly for many days the stricken scavengers have not. The city is a desert, a Sahara. These pleasant gardens, that lie so lovingly within the rude embrace of the rocks, are as empty as the benches of the Opposition. The royal flag droops languidly against the staff, and a bugle call comes down through the sultry air like an intimation from the next world.

The brushwood, creeping up the face of the steep ascent with a show of graceful timidity, has already sickened under the fierce August heat, and the fresh and delicate flush of its joyous spring-time is even now departing. She, too, has gone-the fair and gracious presence that haunts your dreams can you ever forget those glorious eyes that looked into your inmost soul, and the proudlywreathed and rounded lip that might strike you with its queenly disdain, were it not for the sweet womanly pity that will rather pardon your presumption, and pray that you be forgiven?-nay, even that noblest of women-"the greatest of voluntary martyrs, a mother with a daughter to marry" has fled from the desolate arena. Not a nurserymaid is stirring. Two aged chairmen who are dozing calmly at the corner of Castle Street, have no doubt been "hired to stand and represent population." Across the hills of Perthshire, in imagination at least, we can see the blue smoke. rising from many a bothie, where the good sportsman prepares to grasp his breech-loader, and a pleasant noise of guns and dogs comes cheerily upon us with the wind. The Bedouin impulse cannot be restrained. One casts away that intense and oppressive respectability which is characteristic of the metropolitan mind in its well-regulated Princes Street ceases to be a prisonhouse. A gallop over Arthur's Seat does not necessarily imply, among your professional brethren, that the descent to Avernus is rapid. The fair, false, violet-haired Evadne,

moments.

is ducking her little sisters among the breakers at Dunoon; and, inspired by the association, we take the afternoon train for the Chain Pier, revel among the salt water, and explore "the moist ways of the sea," as Chapman translates his Homer. While away to the south'ard, backed by green hills and bronzed with golden mist, the historic city clings to its rocky ridge.

When sunset bathes thee in his gold,

In wreaths of bronze thy sides are rolled,
Thy smoke is dusky fire;

And from the glory round thee poured,
A sunbeam like an angel's sword
Shivers upon a spire.

But Here, my dear Lancelot, our emancipation

is still more complete.

the white tie, is unloosed.

That badge of servitude,
Your razor grows rusty.

We

There are no "exhibitions." My lady is never "at home." We are never stifled in ball-rooms. have no municipal representatives-even Lord John has not thought of sending us a constitution yet. You know the look of the country. Barren moorlands and gray sterile beaches, with flinty sands; troops of forlorn pines along the sky-line, where the red-deer keeps his ward; rents of blue sea, sprinkled with green desolate islands; a "Godforgotten land," as Sydney Smith might say. Yet to the student, the lover of nature, and the naturalist, the place has its own bleak charm and sullen beauty. Let me try, Lancelot, to make this plain to you; to shew you the kind of life that is led on one of the wildest sea-boards beaten by the Arctic Sea.

Even in the temperate zone, a man must have some kind of Christian shelter during the winter. months, a snuggery where he can comfortably philosophize, collect his specimens, and arrange his notes. How shall I describe to you the rambling old-fashioned place where we have set up our household gods?

It was once a defensive position of some consequence, and I daresay did duty in the days of the sea-kings; but the moat is now overgrown with sweet briar and the white Scotch rose, and the old walls are gaily sprinkled with jessamine, and the culverin no longer looks out watchfully over the hostile main. If the Russians or John Bright-which heaven forbid—should make a descent upon us, the degenerate descendants of the Scotch thane could encounter the enemy with no heavier metal than a double-barrelled duck gun. The state apartments are upon the ground floor, and connected with each other; but there is a queer little corner in one of the old turrets to which I climb sometimes of a winter afternoon, and, through the fragrant latakia, watch the snowclouds drifting across the sea, or the battling of the waves upon the beach. The walls of the larger rooms are panelled with oak, and the cornice is of the same material, and carved curiously into thickets of lilies and vine leaves, out of which peer, with malicious intelligence on the spectator, the quaint physiognomies of Faun and Satyr. The old entrance-hall-a sombre apartment, conceived in a large and gloomy spirit-lies, instead of a court-yard, in the midway of the mansion, and