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rid ourselves of before we proceed farther. But, in the first place, we must honestly premise that we, and not this journal, are alone and individually responsible for the opinions we shall utter. In the second place, we must remark that we have had the good fortune to be acquainted with Mr.

he describes. But a lad at school and a man in advanced life are different beings; and no one will persuade us that his angling, his bathing, his sheep-shearing, and other such pictures, were not originally studies from nature, or scenes early impressed upon his memory, which, when worked upon by a matured mind, produced those beauti-Cowan, the new member of Parliament for the ful passages in his "Seasons" on these subjects, with which we are all so well acquainted. And, again, the intellectual leisure of his lazy life in London, when three-fourths of his time was spent in bed, very easily explains the creation of those charming, dreamy pictures, of a different description, with which that delightful poem, the "Castle of Indolence," everywhere abounds. That his mind must have been filled with Scottish pictures is sufficiently evident from the following beautiful passage in his "Autumn ":

"And here a while the Muse, High hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene, Sees Caledonia in romantic view: Her airy mountains, from the waving main Invested with a keen diffusive sky, Breathing the soul acute; her forests huge, Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand Planted of old; her azure lakes between Poured out extensive, and of watery wealth Full; winding deep, and green, her fertile vales; With many a cool, translucent, brimming flood, Washed lovely from the Tweed, (pure parent-stream, Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed, With sylvan Jed! thy tributary brook,) To where the north inflated tempest foams O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak!" Immediately below Jedburgh, on the right bank of the stream, is the property of Hartrigge, lately purchased by our much-valued friend, Lord Campbell. The family which possessed it previous to him had called it Stewartfield, and we must say, that the practice of doing away with old names deserves nearly as much reprobation as the doing away with old places. Lord Campbell has very properly restored the ancient name, which so well associates itself with the ancient Caledonian forest, of which it formed a part. This estate, which runs along the right bank of the river, is beautifully timbered in many parts, especially in a charming retired glen to the east of the house, called the Tower Glen, where some of the trees are very large. This is a delightful retreat for a man to whom its possession is sweetened by the conviction that he owes it to his own intellectual exertions; and whilst his rank and his wealth are rendered all the more graceful and enjoyable by the conviction that they have been the rewards of upright, straightforward conduct, which always had the good of his country honestly at heart, the few weeks of rural enjoyment in which he indulges here have their happiness increased by the circumstance that they follow months of laborious attention to our national affairs.

And here the name of Lord Campbell, and its connexion with Edinburgh, awakens in us a train of thought on recent events, which we earnestly entreat not only our gentle and courteous readers, but all our readers, gentle or ungentle, courteous or uncourteous, to permit us to

city, for above a dozen of years, and that we have always entertained the highest respect for that gentleman and his opinions, having had the honour to fight with him in the same ranks in the great cause of reform; and there is no man whose return to Parliament, provided it had been freed from the consequences concomitant on his present election, we should have hailed with greater satisfaction. In the third place, we must confess that, since the intense occupation of official duties has precluded the possibility of our any longer occupying a place in the political arena, so very strange a macadamization of parties has taken place, that any such Rip-van-winkle as ourselves would be presumptuous in pretending to offer anything like decided political opinions where so many local causes of division may have arisen in the Scottish capital. Our remarks, therefore, have solely to do with the intellectual view of the question; and we earnestly entreat that they may be permitted to give pain or offence to no party or individual whatsoever or whomsoever, seeing that, on our part, they are in every respect most innocently intended; and we may safely say, that they have nothing to do with Mr. Cowan's suc cess, but entirely refer to what we hold to be the sad and irreparable loss of Mr. Macaulay. Has not Edinburgh long rejoiced in the proud name of "Modern Athens," which was willingly ac corded to her by every stranger, of whatsoever country, who was acquainted with her natural features, or the intellectual characteristics of her inhabitants? And how came this last cause to operate? Not merely because for some generations she possessed a set of men of whom those who were scientific gave impetus by their discoveries to the whole sciences of Europe; whilst our poets and fiction writers were delighting every part of the habitable earth with their productions; and our critics were keeping both the science and the literature of the whole world under wholesome subjection. was not merely from these causes that this most honourable title came to be applied to our northern capital, but because science and literature were so generally diffused in her very streets, that they were breathed, as it were, in her very air. They were the merchandise, so to speak, in which her inhabitants dealt; and they were daily pursued, more or less, by every individual, of all ranks, each being more anxious than another to secure a due share of them before night. Then, indeed, such a city, with such inhabitants, was well and fitly represented in Parliament, on gaining freedom of election, by such names as those of Abercromby, Jeffrey, Campbell, and Macaulay, from the choice of whom the very universality of intellectual pursuit among the inhabitants seemed

We say that it

of itself to be proved and established! How can
we, awaking from our period of slumber, and
ignorant of the various small reticulations and
decussations which seem now to have meshed all
parties-how can we reason on the, to us, most
unaccountable apathy with which the citizens of
Edinburgh have cast away, like a worthless
weed, Macaulay-perhaps, at this moment, the
noblest and most powerful intellect that our
country can boast of-except by supposing that
the intellectual merchandise of which we spoke
has been, for some time, so sunk in value as to be
no longer marketable, and that the brains of the
citizens have been clouded and their vision
dimmed by a dense Beotian fog, which has enve-
loped the intellectual city, obscuring the very
summits of her rock-cradled towers, and hiding
everything but the graceful snout of the tall uti-
litarian gas chimney, to add to the opacity by its
smoke. We believe that, if Punch might at any
time have the desire to be peculiarly severe on
Colonel Sibthorpe, he would, for the nonce, be-
stow upon him the name of Solon, or Lycurgus;
and thus, we fear, have the citizens of Edinburgh,
by their late rejection of Macaulay, wilfully con-
verted that proud title of the "Modern Athens" |
into an appellation of reproach, so cruel, that,
"Nemo me impune lacesset," let all strangers be-
ware how they may use it in future, lest, by so
doing, they may compromise their personal safety.
On the opposite side of the Jed, above a beau-
tiful wooded bank that rises over the haughs be-
low, is the charming retreat of Bonjedward. We
regret that we cannot trace the origin of this
ancient name.
It is now the property of the
Hon. John Talbot. As we proceed downwards,
the stream, as it approaches the Teviot, becomes
more placid, making its way gently through
rich arable fields, bordered here and there with
trees, and joining the Teviot opposite to Mount

Teviot.

A very interesting relic of antiquity appears on Lord Campbell's eastern march, in the old Roman road, which here traverses the country. Here the artist might be, at all times, sure of studies of picturesque groups of figures, from the vacant spaces at the sides of it being much frequented by the gipsies, who are seldom molested for encamping here. Farther to the eastward are the woods and place of Crailing House, situated on the Oxnam water, which, running through the haughs of Crailing, joins the Teviot at some distance below the kirk. On the opposite or left bank of the Teviot is the village of Nisbet.

The Kale water, already mentioned by us, joins the Teviot at some distance below Eckford. This river, after leaving the hills, waters, and sometimes overflows, a great part of a spacious and valuable plain of 1200 acres. Below this there is little to occupy us till we reach the ancient site of Roxburghe Castle, where a wooded knoll and some fragments of ruin are all that mark that it ever existed. This is, indeed, a point on which much might be said; and, although it may now be said to be gone as effectually as if it had

never existed, it was long one of the great stronghold defences of Scotland, and many important passages of Scottish history are connected with it. It was often taken and retaken alternately by the English and the Scots. The historical fact of James II. laying siege to it in 1458, and, in his eagerness to recover it, superintending the operations in person, and losing his life by the bursting of one of his ill-constructed cannon, requires no notice, except we may mention that a thorn tree, in the Duke of Roxburghe's park at Fleurs, marks the spot where he died, We find it much more interesting to dwell upon the times which are recorded in the ancient chronicles, and we much prefer giving the account of the surprise of the castle and its recocovery from the English by the Black Douglas. As we find this nowhere told so simply or so well as by Sir Walter Scott in his "Tales of a Grandfather," we shall quote this most romantic story verbatim from that work. We must acknowledge that we do not consider these tales as the least meritorious of the great author's works; and we confess that, knowing as we did both the parties, now no more, we have recently been deeply affected by a reperusal of the "Dedication to Hugh Littlejohn, Esq.," which, conceived at the time in a tone of grave humour, has now received a melancholy pathos from the sad concatenation of events which have occurred since 1828, when it was written :—

"You must know Roxburghe was then a very large castle, situated near where two fine rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, join each other. Being within five or six miles of England, the English were extremely desirous of retaining it, and the Scots equally eager to obtain possession of it. I will tell you how it was taken.

"It was upon the night of what is called Shrovetide, a holiday which Roman Catholics paid great respect to, and solemnised with much gaiety and feasting. Most of the garrison of Roxburghe Castle were drinking and carousing, but still they had set watches on the battlements of the castle, in case of any sudden attack; for, as the Scots had succeeded in so many enterprises of the kind, they conceived themselves obliged to keep a very strict and as Douglas was known to be in the neighbourhood, guard.

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"An Englishwoman, the wife of one of the officers, was sitting on the battlements with her child in her arms, and looking out on the fields below, she saw some black objects, like a herd of cattle, straggling near the foot of the wall, and approaching the ditch or moat of the castle. She pointed them out to the sentinel, and asked him what they were. 'Pooh, pooh!' said the soldier, it is farmer such-a-one's cattle' (naming a man whose farm lay near to the castle); the goodman is keeping a jolly Shrovetide, and has forgot to shut up his bullocks in their yard; but if the Douglas come across them before morning, he is likely to rue his negligence.' Now these creeping objects which they saw from the castle wall were no real cattle, but Douglas himself and his soldiers, who had put black cloaks above their armour, and were creeping about on hands and feet, in order, without being observed, to get so near to the foot of the castle wall as to be able to set ladders to it. The poor woman, who knew nothing of this, sat quietly on the wall, and began to sing to her child. You must know that the name of Douglas had become so terrible to the English that the women used to frighten their children with it, and say to Black Douglas take them.' And this soldier's wife was them, when they behaved ill, that they would make the singing to her child,

"Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye, Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye, The Black Douglas shall not get ye? "You are not so sure of that,' said a voice close beside her. She felt at the same time a heavy hand, with an iron glove, laid on her shoulder, and when she looked round, she saw the very Black Douglas she had been singing about standing close beside her, a tall, swarthy, strong man. At the same time, another Scotsman was seen ascending the walls, near to the sentinel. The soldier gave the alarm, and rushed at the Scotsman, whose name was Simon Ledehouse, with his lance; but Simon parried the stroke, and, closing with the sentinel, struck him a deadly blow with his dagger. The rest of the Scots followed up to assist Douglas and Ledehouse, and the castle was taken. Many of the soldiers were put to death, but Douglas protected the woman and the child. I dare say she made no more songs about the Black Douglas."

Again we return to Kelso and its lovely envi rons, to which much beauty is contributed by the woods of the fine place of Springwood Park, where the Teviot joins the Tweed; and we shall finish this part of our subject by those beautiful lines from Teviot's own poet, Leyden, in his "Scenes of Infancy" :

"Bosomed in woods where mighty rivers run,
Kelso's fair vale expands before the sun;
Its rising downs in vernal beauty swell,
And, fringed with hazel, winds each flowery dell;
Green spangled plains to dimpling lawns succeed,
And Tempe rises on the banks of Tweed.
Blue o'er the river Kelso's shadow lies,
And copse-clad isles amid the waters rise,"

FÜRSTENRUHE.

BY JOHN WILMER.

As the hurricane, even whilst it blights and blasts, exhibiting those private virtues that command respect at the same time purifies, so Napoleon passed over Ger- whenever and wherever they are met with; but this was many, mowing down antiquated prejudices and forms in a piece of good taste which the eighteenth century too which whole nations seemed petrifying, like so many fos- seldom exhibits in its annals. It is to a small court of sil remains of ancient days. Thus the merging of so this kind I would introduce my readers; and, though many small principalities into large monarchies pre- not historical as to names or dates, or, perhaps, even ab pared the way for a happy, though, as yet, only a par- solute facts, this tale will be found as faithful a delineatial change, which time, however, will surely complete. tion of the objects intended to be brought before his For if we cannot in candour but admit that the manifold view as if none of these were wanting. It is, therefore, resident towns of these petty sovereigns caused civiliza- a matter of no moment whether we call the high and tion to glitter and break, as it were, into more points mighty lord we are about to mention, Gaugraf, Landand surfaces, and thus to irradiate a larger space-the graf, Wildgraf, Raugraf, Pfalzgraf, Markgraf, or Burgundeniable advantage of the system-the distractions graf, or by any other title; be it sufficient to say, that, which these divisions and subdivisions caused weakened though not of the highest, he certainly did not rank the whole body of the empire, and laid it ever open to among the least of the sovereigns subject to the empire; foreign invasion-as was made but too evident in the so we will at once style him Duke, and pass to the deeasy victories the French obtained on their first cam-scription of himself and his belongings. paign in Germany; and the disadvantages resulting Of his possessions, if size alone be considered, there from the system were no less evident in the maladminis- | tration of the laws and finances of those several petty states, and the utter want of public security, both in the highways and byeways of life. When very small lords had very large fortresses, but very few men to man them —had very great need of money, and very small means of procuring any-energetic measures of any kind were scarce to be expected of them; and it is but fair to the Germans to state, that many strong places, like Hohen-ing autumnal sun, were rendered perilous to the poor aspern in Wirtimberg, and Konigstein, now in the duchy pedestrian by hordes of vagrants, of every denomination of Nassau, then belonging to the electorate of Mayence, and description, who infested the country, and met with were garrisoned but by a handful of invalids when seized no check adequate to their numbers and daring. The upon by Vendamme and Custines, who spent more solitary wanderer was bold indeed who should have venpowder in blowing up these strongholds than in tak-tured to climb the summits of the verdant hills, whence ing them.

These courts, or semblances of courts, according to the virtues or vices, wisdom, or folly, or humour, of their several shadows of potentates, thus often presented the not incurious spectacle of a model or a satire; more frequently that of a parody of the thing they aimed at representing; at any rate, the pride and pomp, sometimes even the vices of the mighty princes whom they aped, when transferred within such narrow limits, mostly took a tinge of the ludicrous, which lesser princes could only have avoided by adopting a simple mode of life, and by

would, indeed, be but little to say; but, though not large, they contained a world of traditional and historical associations that made the grey towers and ruins—that, time-hallowed, loomed through the waving forests which crowned the heights-a fund for the recorder of past lore, and an object of deep interest to the romantic or artistic mind. True, the deep, tangled woods, that glowed in such bright and varied tints under the cheer

he may have longed to gaze on the blue ocean of distance. The felon knight was, indeed, departed, but the vagabond still infested the crumbling walls of the ruined castle, as ready to spring thence on his prey as ever were their first possessors. Germany, then, especially in these small, weak states, presented strange and startling contrasts. Dark, frowning fortresses, enclosed some choice spirits the poet, the thinker, and the soldierwho expiated behind bolt and bar some trifling offence, often the mere victims of caprice or of court intrigue; whilst the gipsy and the robber were doing and

daring their worst with impunity in God's free air, in the face of his bright heaven, and of the laws. Every spot was marked by tradition or a legend, sacred to history or to fable. Such the land I would speak of lovely, yet full of faults-so dear to romance for these very faults-Germany, such as it has long ceased to be, and never will be again.

ceptible, had been one originally of great promise; but, for want of proper guidance, his abilities and qualities became obscured by obstinacy, which would hardly yield to necessity, and rendered him utterly deaf to counsel,

The residence as the town where the sovereign resides is invariably denominated in Germany-was very small, inasmuch as there was a fair view of the country beyond at either end of the principal street, that, namely, in which the palace stood. And a huge palace it was— grand in its proportions, severe in its architecture, mag

The reigning Duke and Duchess of Imminghausen Birkenburg Erlenstadt were no longer young; and neither, could the almost yearly records of their appearance which the palace furnished be relied upon, had ever been goodlooking; still, the air and self-possession of one accus-nificent in its details-but utterly out of keeping with tomed to homage spread over features and a presence that otherwise would have been insignificant, an air and a grace which seldom failed of effect, until the Duke spoke, when no look, however benign, could veil the hopeless shallowness of Serenissimo, as the town and the court were wont to style him.

The Duchess, though short and stout, was erect like a Maypole, and stately as a swan. Let not this be thought preposterous. A very little observation will show that dignity of mien is less dependent on natural than acquired forms; inasmuch as we seldom see beauty alone confer it, but constantly may behold how its harshest contrast cannot rob birth and station of this their undeniable privilege.

Thus the Duchess had a lofty bearing, despite all the hindrances Nature had put in her way. Her step was slow and stately as a Spaniard's, and the frigid look of her pale blue eyes was enough to freeze the thought on the lip, and cause the conscious blush to rise to the most innocent temples. Under this awful look the heart of its object misgave him, and memory involuntarily set to work in order to tax him with some possible dereliction from propriety, some want of respect due to time or place, some crime of lèze étiquette-such misdemeanours being the most severely viewed at the court of Imminghausen.

Pride the mere pride of birth and station-was the leading feature, or, more properly speaking, the engulphing, all-absorbing quality of the Duchess' mind; for it had most literally engulphed all the other qualities, good or bad, with which it had pleased nature originally to endow her, and completely neutralised the impulses of a heart at once kind and sincere, and warped a spirit that would otherwise have been just. Thus a fund of virtues that might have made life pleasant to herself, and endeared her to others, was swallowed up in that one mighty prejudice, which, though she was excellent in many ways, caused her to be more feared than loved in the limited circle which to her was a universe.

To this description it need scarce be added, that high mental acquirements were without the range of either. This deficiency was, in the Duchess, rather betrayed by the absence than the presence of any particular form of wit; but in the Duke it became very conspicuous, from his perpetual attempts at display. The Duke and Duchess had always lived in harmony, which the profound respect each entertained for the dignity of the house had maintained through every trial, and in this, as in many other respects, pride had greatly assisted, if not mainly incited, to a moral end. The only fruit of this calm union had been a son, who, strange to say, seemed gifted by Nature with all the fire which she had denied the parents. His nature, warm, impulsive, sus

the size and style of all around it, except, perhaps, the splendour of the mountain scenery which its windows so freely commanded. The contrast with the small, ill-built, worse kept, mean-looking houses of the town, was as painful to the eye as the absence of heavy, splendid pieces of architecture is in great and populated cities. In this town there were but three objects the eye could rest upon the huge palace, which looked alone and desolate in its glory—the barracks-and the town gates, two of which were built in the Doric style, and might have been the prelude to an Athens, and one, recently constructed, in the modern Gothic, which unfortunately came down the very first time that a high, heavily-laden cart attempted to pass it. As it had been achieved from a design by the prince's own hand, the court hushed up the affair with all haste, and it was an understood thing at the palace to consider the event as connected with some revolutionary principle, and the carter as an emissary of the Jacobins in disguise. How far this hypothesis would bear the test of a closer investigation, was a question not likely to arise at the palace, where it was considered the very highest breach of decorum to investigate or question anything whatever; and if any flitting notion seemed more particularly to need elucidation, this the Duke settled, finally and for ever, by a bon-mot, from which there was no appeal, in matters great or small.

Yet pleasant withal to this day are the large, shady parks of such residences, ever open to the public, and where, within sound of the trickling fountains, or the tiny waterfalls, the German student dreams his first dream of love-the future poet indites his first linesthe young artist ventures his first sketch-and the idler, whose glance roves from height to height, from ruined tower to tower, first gets attracted towards history's grave page. The gravel is smoothly kept-the flowers sweetly scent the air-the friendly bench is invitingly placed on a rising knoll, whence the eye can scan the extensive views around, and all for the use of the most ragged old woman, the wooden-legged soldier, the weary and heated artisan, as well as for the highest. There anxious mothers need scarcely dread the nursery-maid's carelessness-their darlings are safe as they play around the bench where she sits knitting; and the old man may smoke his afternoon's pipe, or take his nap, without fear of interruption. Here, too, fond vows have been,. and will yet be exchanged; but, perhaps, to be more conscientiously kept, more truly spoken, than in more crowded purlieus.

On a certain 12th of May, 17-, the Duke and Duchess were taking their customary walk in the picture-gallery, whose length was well calculated to afford the comfort of a promenade, whenever the weather pre

vented the court from stirring out; it served often, too,
as a reception-room, though not officially styled such,
and was habitually the scene of all the ducal domestic
cogitations. Though the hour was yet early, the
Duchess was already stately in her hoops and high
red heels, already very highly rouged, and her head-
gear preternaturally elevated, her air serious and col-
lected as ever. The Duke's hair, just fresh from the
hands of the court friseur, spread like the fluttering
wings of some huge bird on either side his head, and
sent volumes of scented powder around him at his every
movement, and ever and anon he shook it gracefully,
as, from his snuff-box, whose lid exhibited her portrait
surrounded with diamonds, he offered his consort a
pinch, with amiable condescension. They had thus
taken a few silent turns up and down the gallery, when
the Duke observed, with his peculiar abruptness of
manner, which was apt to startle the uninitiated-
"Do you know who was presented to me this morn-
ing, my dear?"

"How should I?" the Duchess gravely remarked. "I never permit myself to inquire into your movements, my good lord: I am quite content to wait for what it may be your will and pleasure to communicate."

"You are, indeed, a model of a -;" the Duke was, in his jovial humour, about to say "wife;" but he checked himself in time, and added, gracefully bowing, "of a princess. However, it is no state secret, so I may let you into it. It was Von Adlersklau. He wishes to become an officer in my guards—a likely lad ―wants air, and so forth; but we'll take care of that. However, what do you think I told him?" The Duke intently gazed into the Duchess' faint blue eyes in the very justifiable hope she would not anticipate too clearly the bon-mot with which he meant to astonish her.

you have bonnet powder; it is a new fashion you will introduce to the world.' Bonnet powder-new, this, my dear, there's no denying it, is very new and very rich. Everybody laughed extremely. I am afraid you don't laugh, my dear.”

“Oh yes,” said the Duchess, forcing a faint giggle from the innermost regions of her throat; “very funny. Eh! eh! very droll."

"Then, my dear, allow me," offering a pinch of snuff to his obliging spouse. "It was no later than yesterday I said to the master of the ceremonies, ‘If you were a dentist, what would you do?' He was perplexed-distressed. Well,' said I, would you nʊt draw Time's tooth, that does so much evil?' Ha ha! ha! but you don't laugh, Duchess."

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"Ah! ah!" feebly echoed the lady ; “very strange; but you are sometimes a little hard upon one."

“Hard! I should hope so!" and here the Duke drew himself up to his full height, which was considerable, and looked down on his tiny Duchess with all the conscious superiority which his exalted notion of his own abilities so often gave him.

Here the conversation flagged; for having informed the Duchess of his latest bons-mots, he had nothing more to say, and they walked side by side, absorbed, as it in reality vainly striving to catch at any. might have seemed to casual observers, in thought, but At last the Duke said, as his eye chanced to light on one of the pictures that adorned the gallery—

"Do you remember, my dear, the remark I once made about that portrait ? I know it caused much merriment at the time, but I cannot, for the life of me, recollect what it was.”

"It is that of a princess who married an hereditary

"Your Liebden is so very witty, I cannot presume to prince of your house, but whose son, not husband, suc guess," replied his consort. ceeded. But for that posthumous prince-that child which she holds in her arms-your house would have been extinct."

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"You give it up; you cannot find it out. Well, I said to him, Are you a hand at riddles? Who is the fairest reckoner in the whole world?' He looked posed -mortally posed. I was generous. 'Death,' said I; 'for he makes all people pay the same debt, and lets no one off.' Eh eh eh! I can't help laughing even now."

The Duchess dutifully chimed in; but her cachinnation sat so strangely on her grave, solemn face, any other but the Duke would have suspected its sincerity; in fact, the Duchess would have been tempted to think Serenissimo's jokes both stale and stupid in any other but a ducal mouth; but her besetting sin here turned to a virtue; for it blinded her to her husband's absurdity as completely as Cupid's bandage has ever done.

"True; very true," said the Duke, with a vacant expression of countenance; then it suddenly lighted up with renewed animation, as he exclaimed, "I have it— I have it; some one or other was prosing about his journey to Italy, and the arts, and the pictures, and galleries there, and telling us long stories about madonas in a chair, and madonas in straw hats, and madonas with pearls. It was in this gallery. I stopped short before this very picture, and said, pointing up at the same time, And this, sir, is the lady, child, and cherry; for, observe, my dear, that huge bunch of cherries which my infant ancestor holds in his hand. Would you believe it, my dear; though every one else laughed, the stranger did not, but stared at me like a wild Indian.”

and, after a short pause of courtesy, perceiving her lord had nothing more to add for the time being, she remarked, with some emphasis, " Only sons should marry early.”

"Very good; was it not?" said the Duke, still laughing, though he had been in the habit of repeating this joke for the last twenty years. The Duchess bent The Duchess again complacently simpered; but the her head in silent assent, and the Duke continued-portrait had awakened other thoughts in her mind; “but not, withal, quite so fresh as what I said at our last reception to Countess Dassel's niece, who is on a visit to her, you know. She was complaining that her bonnets and caps were ruined by the journey, and had | arrived a perfect jam, because her husband had insisted on their being sent by the wain instead of taking them in their own travelling carriage, as she wished. Seeing her so pathetic on the subject, I said, by way of consolation, ⚫ Madam, be not distressed; instead of bonnets,

"Yes; young men are skittish things," answered the Duke; "may I," presenting his snuff-box, from which the pinch, whether wanted or not, never was refused. "The first thing they do is-but I am afraid to shock you, my dear" The Duchess drew her

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