who have listened to his breathing lays—what a picture of mutation he could furnish! The wild youngster whom he nightly passed at the Tontine Close, sleeps in an early grave what matters it whether in the island of St. Thomas or the crypt of St. David! The lonely orphan girl who brought her beauties to the Trongate mart, and has wept amid her heartless glee when she saw even the mendicant wend to a home that waited him-for she had none-has festered into dust, corrupted even to a loathsomeness the very worm rejects! That jolly old toper who never exceeds his two tumblers at the Post Office Club, but never misses them, has met Angus every night of this the nineteenth century; and I too have now become so accustomed to his notes, whether I hear them through the calm of a summer night or the fitful breathings of a December storm, whether pacing homewards or seated in my cell, that when they shall echo no more, I cannot choose but deem there has passed away a wanderer and brother anchorite to

THE HERMIT OF THE WEST.

ΤΟ

Long years have sped since on thy face I dared to bend my gaze, For ah! 'tis past, the joyous time, when, rainbow-like, Hope's rays Shone clear amid the murky gloom of penury and scorn,

And I thought a noon of cloudless bliss would follow life's drear morn.
Those clouds lower dark and darker still around my devious way,
Yet one joy is mine—thou'rt happy, and no ills thy steps waylay:
Be it ever thus !—and round thee, oh! may gladness still entwine
Her flowery bands that wither not, though thou shalt ne'er be mine!
Thy form, where grace and beauty vie, is still my musing's theme,
In the hour of pensive silent thought, and stilly midnight's dream;
Thy raven tresses round my heart's far inmost core are wound,
And my mem❜ry hoards thine eyes' dark flash-thy voice's silver
sound.

Ah! when permitted on those charms-then but in infant bloom-
To look my heart for all its bliss had not enough of room,—
-But now, when near I pass to thee, I seek to shun thine eye,
And hide my wan, yet hectic cheek, and stay the coming sigh!
Yet-may I-dare I utter it!—thou'rt unforgotten still,
Though the reverence of timid love curb in the buoyant will.
-How can I, when the rich and gay I see around thee press,
Intrude an humble glance like mine?—yet they may love thee less!

JASPER

MORE MISERIES.

Groan 7th.

Having been deluged with rain during a short pleasure excursion into the country, to perceive every symptom of settled weather exhibit itself, from the "rise of the glass," to the blowing of dust in at your bed-room window-on the morning of your return to business.

Groan 8th.

Having sent a letter, by a private hand, to a friend, from a remote watering-place, stating that you have drawn upon him for £25, which en putting itself into a coat pocket, fifteen days after, discovers your letter very safely deposited there. Your draft is, in the meantime, embellished in a fearful scrawl with what, you are informed, means no effects."

Groan 9th.

Being told that there is an article in a paper which it nearly concerns you to see before departing with the mail, and waiting till the last blast of its horn upon a person in a coffee-room, who has said "In one moment, Sir," for a quarter of an hour.

Groan 10th.

Receiving a favour from a stranger gentleman, such as the loan of a top-coat, as you are about to start on the roof of a stage-coach on a cold morning, when you relied on an inside place, and forgetting to ask his address that you may return it and your thanks together.

Groan 11th.

Discovering that you have carried in your pocket for thirteen miles, the wrong volume of the "Traveller's Guide," and stumbling upon a description of Tweedside, when you want to know in what direction you ought to travel to Tyndrum-and your dinner.

Groan 12th.

Coming in on a Saturday morning to breakfast, and discovering that your "Ant" has been intercepted on the way to the parlour, and that your sister will not be half through its contents before you have finished your tea and muffins.

Groan 13th.

Having reserved no second copy of a sonnet to your mistress, which cost you as many hours' hard work as there are lines in that species of composition-discovering that you have lighted your cigar, instead of your mistress's heart, with the thoughts that burn

in it.

Groan 14th.

Needing another misery to fill up a page of your catalogue of them, and not being able to find one half so bad as that very necessity.

THE SOFA. No. V.

SCENE-Charles Heron's own Parlour.

Himself and HENRY WHITE, Seated.

That will do. But to re

parlour serve as a library, Next to the presence of

H. W.-One nob of sugar more. Your tea is made of a strength that requires sweetness. sume: your plan of making your and vice versa, I highly commend. pleasant friends in an apartment, I like the look of books placed round, that seem to smile benignly upon one from their cozy shelter for I cannot term it imprisonment.

C. H.-Not if to be tossed and tumbled about often enough can be called liberty. But, besides airing themselves in the "court-yard," as it were, of my table, they often take advantage of their "day rule," and take up their quarters where, I suppose, they are less jostled about, or have more room.

H. W.-You mean that some to whom you lend them, find it easier to retain the volume in their possession, than the contents in their memory?

C. H.-Precisely and show their esteem for an author by retaining possession of his works. My presentation copy of "Keith's Evidences of Christianity," has been secured by somebody who had no other chance of becoming a prophet; and "Chalmers' Miscellaneous Discourses," adorn some other Literary Miscellany than mine. But I mean to adopt the late Professor Anderson's method of keeping his books, without denying the use of their contents.

H. W.-Was that like the Oxford plan of lending bellows? C. H.-Oh! more original still. When any one asked the loan of a volume, the Dr. replied, that, by all means, he would lend it; 66 but," taking it out of its place, he added, "its real value is marked on the corner, and you must place, in hard cash, the amount on that part of the shelf where it stood, to be lifted when it is restored to its niche."

H. W.-Capital! Few would care to make such a deposite for the loan of the most of "New Works of Great Importance," which have recently appeared.

C. H.-Such as the Travels of Keppell, and De Roos, and the Poetry of Captain Hardman of the Tenth Hussars !

H. W.-It is sickening to see how the first two of these have been be-puffed, because their authors are sprigs of nobility.

C. H.-Truly the aristocracy of letters is no longer a mere rhetorical nonentity. A man must be either wealthy or destitute to succeed as an author. The two extremes alone admit of puffing-the one by buying, and the other by imploring it. A volume of verses from one in humble life, which I have just seen, will need neither method of procuring notice.

Rodger is original and clever, and his comic songs of "Behave yoursel'," and "The Drygate Brig," are worth a million of the trash the Cockneys swallow under that title. His additions to Tannahill, however, are like "The Ant's" Pisa stanzas-so so.

H. W.-Poetry should appear when few other books are coming out. It is just the time for a hit; and Mr. Bell and Mr. Hunter, I see, have kindly smoothed the way for our friend K.'s volume.

C. H.-Yes. With the exception of Meg Dodds' new dish, and M'Culloch's admirable selection of useful instead of merely rhetorical matter for a school collection, nothing has been published for a whole fortnight. Montgomery and Hood are ready, however; and I, of course, exclude Constable's Miscel lany, which appears so regularly as to become a periodical.

H. W.-Its most delightful volume is certainly the tenth. C. H.-Yes. The translator of Manzoni's Ode on Napoleon, has made, in his "Table Talk," by far the best collection of wise and witty sayings, and out-of-the-way facts, that have ever appeared in the same compass; and as for larger collections, even where excellent, they are as tiresome to read through as a Bookseller's Trade Catalogue, and weary one by their very glitter, without delighting by their brilliancy, as much as would counting over a box of detached precious stones, in place of admiring them in their beautiful setting on the neck of a fine woman.

H. W.-But gems, you must admit, look well when judiciously placed in a "CASQUET."

C. H.-Unquestionably! Do you know who edits that capital work, by the bye? I see he and Saveall have simultaneously hit upon Allan Cunningham's inimitable paper on the death of Lord Byron-for Allan is the author, although the former only quotes the "London Magazine;" and it is but right that "The Ant" should let its author have personally the admiration its perusal must excite.

H. W.-The London, by the bye, is now altogether a Review, and should drop the title of Magazine, in as much as that is understood to distinguish a work from those periodicals which only sit in judgment upon others.

C. H. It is a masculine and able periodical, whatever its name may be. Allan Cunningham's brother, a clever Navy Surgeon, has been fortunate enough to please even it,

H. W.-That singular story which Sir Walter introduces in his article in the Foreign Quarterly, "On the Supernatural in Fiction," I observe, is vouched as authentic by Mr. Brown, who showed so intimate a knowledge of the Highlands in his reply to M'Culloch. Gillies should ask some of his German correspondents to found a Romance upon it.

C. H.-Weber could have composed another Frieschutz on the theme. What a pity it is that he did not live to visit the

Highlands !

H. W.-Did you hear Bland, when here, sing his "Scena," as Rodolph ?

C. H.-Yes; and he pleased me as much in it as he offended in "The Young May Moon.” He is a rising, although he will never be a lofty performer; and, I am glad to see, is engaged by Price; but he must take care of Glasgow punch before seven-and a warmer liquor is better after eleven.

H. W.-Our Noel is a favourite here. Her benefit was well attended.

C. H.-Yes; but I beseech you to persuade her never more to try to be impudent in the "White Sergeant." Miss Foote and Madame Vestris one can pardon when indiscreet, but Miss Noel is far too reserved and too unpresuming to succeed in the "dashing." She wants even fire for passionate passages, although I think she has deep feeling.

H. W.-By the bye, are we to take your theatre bills as a specimen of your dramatic literature in Glasgow; and, if so, pray what new glee is the " Choughing craw"?

C. H.-They have of late been wretchedly printed; but you and I know how gently errors of the press should be judged of. There was, in the very last number of "The Ant," immaculate as you must admit that, in the typographical department, it usually is, as well as exquisitely printed, a very provoking error in my letter, which escaped the corrector, although similar to, and yet the reverse of one that occurred in some copies of the first number. "You and me,' we Scotsmen perpetrate often enough in conversation, but the eye detects the error at once, and substitutes another I. "Placed" would have been better than "situated," too, in the first page; and the deuce was, that it was from the early thrownoff and inaccurate copies that the Herald and Chronicle copied the extracts which they made.

H. W.-Poh! The thing was a trifle, and not worth a thought to you or any one who knows that haste in printing is inseparable from a weekly publication, and the chance of an overlook inseparable from haste.

C. H.-It is well you remind me; and can pardon my abstraction for a few minutes. Fill another cup, while I run over the proof of No. XXII. and write a brief

NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

"Arcanam " may have back his MS. It would fill nearly three numbers.

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