longer called upon to advance, but being left entirely to their own notions, I became exceedingly anxious attentively to observe them.

No wonder, poor reflecting creatures! that they had come unwillingly to such a spot, for there appeared literally to be nothing for them to eat but hot stones and dust; however, making the best of the bargain, they all very vigorously set themselves to work. Looking up the hill, they dexterously began to lift up with their snouts the largest of the loose stones, and then grubbing their noses into the cool ground, I watched their proceedings for a very long time. Their tough, wet snouts seemed to be sensible of the quality of every thing they touched; and thus out of the apparently barren ground they managed to get fibres of roots, to say nothing of worms, beetles, or any other travelling insects they met with. As they slowly advanced working up the hill, their ears most philosophically shading their eyes from the hot sun, I could not help feeling how little we appreciate the delicacy of several of their senses, and the extreme acuteness of their instinct.

There exists perhaps in creation no animal which has less justice and more injustice done to him by man than the pig. Gifted with every faculty of supplying himself, and of providing even against the approaching storm, which no creature is better capable of foretelling than a pig, we begin by putting an iron ring through the cartilage of his nose, and having thus barbarously deprived him of the power of searching for and analyzing his food, we generally condemn him for the rest of his life to solitary confinement in a sty.

While his faculties are still his own, only observe how, with a bark or snort, he starts if you approach him, and mark what shrewd intelligence there is in his bright, twinkling little eye; but with pigs, as with mankind, idleness is the root of all evil The poor animal, finding that he has absolutely nothing to de —having no enjoyment—nothing to look forward to but the pail which feeds him, naturally most eagerly, or, as we accuse him, most greedily, greets its arrival. Having no natura!

business or diversion—nothing to occupy his brain—the whole powers of his system are directed to the digestion of a superabundance of food. To encourage this, nature assists him with sleep, which, lulling his better faculties, leads his stomach to become the ruling power of his system—a tyrant that can bear no one's presence but his own. The poor pig, thus treated, gorges himself—sleeps—eats again— sleeps—awakens in a fright screams-struggles against the blue apron-screams fainter and fainter-turns up the whites of his little eyesand dies!

But to return to the Schwein-general, whom, with his horn and whip, I have left on the steep side of a barren mountain.

In this situation do the pigs remain every morning for four hours, enjoying little else than air and exercise. At about nine or ten o'clock they begin their march homeward; and nothing can form a greater contrast than their entry into their native town does to their exit from it.

Their eager anxiety to get to the dinner trough that awaits them is almost ungovernable; and they no sooner reach the first houses of the town, than a general rush takes place; away each then starts towards his home; and it is really curious to stand still and watch how very quickly they canter by, greedily grunting and snuffing, as if they could smell with their stomachs, as well as their noses, the savory food which was awaiting them.

At half past four the same four notes are heard again; the pigs once more assemble--once more tumble over the hot stones on the mountain-once more remain there for four hours—and in the evening once again return to their sties.*

*Upon the publication of the Bubbles, which immediately became very popular, the town of Langen-Schwalbach was visited by swarms of English travellers. The " Schwein-general" rose into great importance, and his head was well nigh turned with the interest he awakened, and the attentions he received. He disposed of his horn to one curiosity collector, and of his whip to another; and at prices much beyond their intrinsic value.

XVIII.-THE CORAL GROVE.

J. G. PERCIVAL.

DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,
Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with the falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain's drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs where the tides and billows flow.
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse* is seen

To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter.
There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean

Are bending, like corn on the upland lea:
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,

And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,

Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,

* The dulse is a species of seaweed of a reddish brown color, found in considerable quantities on the coast of Scotland. It adheres to the rcks, in strips of ten or twelve inches long and about half an inch broad.

When the wind god frowns in the murky skies,

And demons are waiting the wreck on the shore,
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and goldfish rove,

And the waters murmur tranquilly

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

THE Kirk of Auchindown stands, with its burial ground, on a little green hill, surrounded by an irregular and straggling village, or rather about a hundred hamlets clustering around it, with their fields and gardens.

In the quiet of the evening, my venerable friend, the pastor, took me with him into the churchyard. We walked to the eastern corner, where, as we approached, I saw a monument standing almost by itself, and, even at that distance, appeared to be of a somewhat different character from any other over all the burial ground. And now we stood close to and before it.

It was a low monument, of the purest white marble, simple, but perfectly elegant and graceful withal, and upon its unadorned slab lay the sculptured images of two children asleep in each other's arms. All round it was a small piece of greenest ground, without the protection of any rail, but obviously belonging to the monument. It shone, without offending them, among the simpler or ruder burial beds round about it, and although the costliness of the materials, the affecting beauty of the design, and the delicacy of its execution, all showed that there slept the offspring neither of the poor nor low in life; yet so meekly and sadly did it lift up its unstained

*See page 537.

little walls, and so well did its unusual elegance meet and blend with the character of the common tombs, that no heart could see it without sympathy, and without owning that it was a pathetic ornament of a place filled with the ruder memorials of the very humblest dead.

"There lie two of the sweetest children," said the old man, "that ever delighted a mother's soul- two English boysscions of a noble stem. They were of a decayed family of high lineage; and had they died in their own country a hundred years ago, they would have been let down into a vault with all the pomp of religion. Methinks, fair flowers, they are now sleeping as meetly here.

"Six years ago I was an old man, and wished to have silence and stillness in my house, that my communion with Him before whom I expected every day to be called might be undisturbed. Accordingly my manse, that used to ring with boyish glee, was now quiet; when a lady, elegant, graceful, beautiful, young, and a widow, came to my dwelling, and her soft, sweet, silver voice told me that she was from England. She was the relict of an officer slain in war, and having heard a dear friend of her husband's, who had lived in my house, speak of his happy and innocent time here, she earnestly requested me to receive beneath my roof her two sons. She herself lived with the bed-ridden mother of her dear husband; and, anxious for the growing minds of her boys, she sought to commit them for a short time to my care. They and their mother soon won an old man's heart, and I could say nothing in opposition to her request, but that I was upwards of threescore and ten years. But I am living still and that is their monument."

We sat down, at these words, on the sloping headstone of a grave just opposite to this little beautiful structure, and without entreaty, and as if to bring back upon his heart the delight of old, tender remembrances, the venerable man continued fervently thus to speak:

"The lady left them with me in the manse

surely the