A SCOTCH HOLIDAY.

ARE'S fardel flung away-how sweet

CA

To climb once more a slate-jagged mount,

Mistwrapped, and muffled at its feet

In ruddy firs, to track the fount

Of some torn river from the moor

That plunges tow'rds a quiet shore!

The sense of liberty, the breath

From wind-swept peak and dew-dashed flowr'sThese animate that living death

Which holds in bondage our best hours,
Where fashion, use, and wont combine,
Enslaving man to Mammon's shrine.

And then the gleaming thread which flings
Its life adown the stern rock-wall,
The mighty pine which heav'nward springs,
Where most the silver spray-show'rs fall,
The turf-heaped shieling, old grey farm,
Lone sheepfold-these ne'er cease to charm!
Here long cool eves and larger stars,

More lustrous moons, withdraw the gaze
From meaner things; the prison bars
Which caged the soul in evil days

Snap, as good influences shed
Their blessings on the soul instead.

He was not wrong, that Attic sage,

Who bade men search for Beauty's self,
For she would ope true wisdom's page
To save from sordid lusts of pelf;

My father! on this ruder shore

Thy scholar thanks thee for the lore!

The poet with his eyes unsealed

Feasts where a common mind finds nought,

And mountain mysteries revealed

To him creative wealth have brought;
Strong colours glow, the sun's swift glints
Illume his verse with changeful tints.

Nature for him grave knowledge keeps,
Meanings undreamt by meaner men,
Where the moon's shadowy vastness sleeps,
Where lake and corrie strike his ken;
Each peak a wizard's sceptre wields,
Rivers transport to Fancy's fields.

E'en we more humble wooers joy-
Sworn subjects we of Beauty's reign-
At her delights; here never cloy

The smiles her wilfulness may deign;
At opening morn from soft grey skies,
From pink-flushed clouds as daylight dies.

At eve by Tummel's roar to stray,

To watch Schehallion's mist-wreathed crown, Or greater giants in shadowy grey,

That o'er their sleeping brethren frown ;
To hear the curlew's scream, the reed
Shiver—were happiness indeed !

An old renown broods o'er this land;
Here shattered castle, abbeys pale,
And quaint historic palace stand,

Mute guardians of the gallant tale
How men here hunted, gay dames smiled,
And none their liberty beguiled.

Here Peace has fixed her stable throne
On rocks as firm, and discontent
May chafe afar-no jarring tone

With Scotland's kindly voices blent ;
The dark sea sparkling into white,
With silver girds her ancient might.
Still, like their thistles, quick to tear
A proud aggressor, Scotia's sons
With thrift a hardy offspring rear

Where heath-tufts blaze or trout-stream runs ;

And bare-legged lads, and lassies shy,
In home-love with their fathers vie.

For friendly deed and welcome word

A stranger oft must thank this land;
The gentle accents here once heard,
Burnt in his heart will life-long stand;
And memory turns with wistful gaze
To Caledonia's long bright days.
Adieu! From Berwick winding slow,
With Tweed's fair valley overpast,
Steam speeds me; but one look I throw-
A lingering look-not then the last--
To Scotland; nor can words now tell
My thankful heart; kind land, farewell!

Adieu ! my holiday is dead!

Its wild-flowers will not bloom anew ; Fancy and poetry have fled,

The loved hills fade in tender blue; But close at hand are wife, babes, home, And English working days have come.

M. G. WATKINS.

TABLE TALK.

F

'OR many reasons-among which be counted the fact that a different course would convert into a mere obituary the pages now assigned to Table Talk-I do not ordinarily chronicle the death of men of eminence. So closely connected, however, during a long and honourable life, with the kind of studies it has been a special object of the Gentleman's Magazine to foster, with the magazine itself and with those responsible for its management, was the late James Robinson Planché, that some allusion to his life and labours is demanded. Foremost among modern antiquaries, not only in research and in that exactitude which it is the special province of antiquarianism to inculcate, but in the power of co-ordinating details and in the quality of quickening into vitality what in other hands is mere archæological lumber, Mr. Planché did much to fix the bases of modern research, and supplied materials out of which, with little or no acknowledgment, more than one high-class reputation has been established. To the knowledge of heraldry which he acquired in early years, he owed his successive appointments in the Herald's Office, the final dignity awarded him in that mysterious branch of the public service being Somerset Herald. To the public generally he was best known as a dramatist, the list of his plays approaching in length that of Heywood or some other writer of the Shakespearean epoch. During many consecutive years he supplied the stage with a series of extravaganzas which, in elegance of diction, happiness of treatment, and quaintness and pleasantness of humour, have never been surpassed. Besides these works, which constitute a class in themselves, he wrote, adapted, or translated comedies without number, and he even succeeded in the remarkable feat of rendering acceptable to the English play-goer a drama of "Aristophanes."

His long life enabled him, in a period which most men assign to repose, to see through the press the three works by which he is likely to be best remembered, the " Recollections," for the production of which he was specially fitted by his social popularity, no less than by his curious experiences and his fine memory; the collection of his Ex

travaganzas, the chief trouble of which was taken off his hands by his friends Mr. Stephen Tucker, Rouge Croix, and Mr. Dillon Croker; and his "Cyclopædia of Costume." The work last named, which is at once a dictionary and a general history of costume in Europe, is his magnum opus, a book which no other writer could have written. Its value is attested, not only by the verdicts pronounced in the organs of critical opinion, but by its incessant employment by the student, and by the fact that to its pages, in the case of theatrical revivals and other like matters, constant reference is made. A mere chronicle of his contributions to general literature would fill more pages than are at my disposal, and I abstain from the attempt to supply particulars which will be found in all subsequent works of biographical reference. To his French descent, for he came of Huguenot parentage, Planché owed probably his vivacity and the animal spirits that kept him in a green old age a cherished companion of youth. In literary and social circles the spare form, which only in very late years became bowed, and the white venerable head were familiar, and his stories and jokes and memories were welcome in all companies. For him proverbial lore seemned reversed. None found tedious the "old man fallen into the tales of his youth," and none in his presence was disposed to enquire, "What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?" During the last year or two Mr. Planché withdrew from his familiar haunts, and last autumn he entirely disappeared from society. At the time of his death he was in his eighty-fifth year.

A

POINT with which science might well concern itself is the use of small birds in farm and garden. In spite of all that is said by scientists, and in spite of the proof which is afforded that in countries in which, as in France, small birds are all but destroyed, new and mysterious forms of insect plagues develop themselves; farmers and gardeners persist in regarding the ordinary species of birds as enemies. If you live in the country and possess a gardener who takes an interest in his garden, he will treat as sickly sentimentality all you say about small birds, and when you forbid him to use a gun, he will find less evident but not less effective means of destruction. Take him to task, and he will point to trees and vegetables out of which the birds fly in swarms, and will show you the insects untouched upon leaf and twig, while the pod or the shell is ransacked. There are, of course, thousands of us to whom the robbery of a little fruit is wholly inconsiderable, and who find in the song of the bird a payment far more than

commensurate with its depredations. Such of us will doubtless say with Burns:

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss 't.

This, however, is not sufficient if we wish to preserve the few remaining species of small birds which human industry of destruction has left us. What is necessary is to furnish an unanswerable proof that birds do more good than harm. Gardeners are not seldom Scotchmen, and as such are as accessible to the logic of facts as they are inaccessible to the appeals of sentiment.

A

MONGST the new material in the lately published volume of State Papers for 1653-54 (Domestic Series) I find some curious and interesting details of the troubles of those who had served the Commonwealth faithfully, but had great difficulty in procuring even the necessaries of life immediately before and after the assumption of power by Cromwell as Lord Protector. Early in July 1653, the bailiffs of Ipswich, Southwold, and other places, where sick and wounded seamen were quartered, complained bitterly of non-payment for the quarters of the men, so that the inhabitants "begin to weary of them." The Prize Commissioners would do nothing, and General Monk, who was riding near Southwold, being appealed to, was obliged to pledge his personal credit for payment of the money due for looking after the sick in that town, the bailiffs having spent £200 of their own money, and being unable to advance more. From Harwich, Major Bourne wrote on July 6 that, having taken up £400 or £500 on bills of exchange which remained unpaid, he could not carry on affairs without money. On the 31st, he renewed his request, having had to take up £200 from the Assessment Commissioners on his own engagement; and he begged that money might be raised on the sale of prize goods, some of which were perishing. The case of a navy officer, thrown into prison in the Poultry Compter for debts which he was unable to discharge for want of pay, was a pitiable one. He declared that he had only had one bit of victuals in three weeks, and that his friends mocked him by saying, "What have you gotten by serving the State ?" Col. Simon Rugeley pleaded that he lost an estate of £800, and his mansion worth £3,500, by the Royalists; and that, though he had been compelled to sell land worth £500 a year (a considerable sum in those days), his discontented family was still "within the jaws of ruin." The State owed him an immense sum, viz., £11,280. 125., for which he had vainly petitioned Parliament, and £4,454. 175. 11d.