a blaze of ruddy light that illuminated the wide sheet of water at its feet with streaming splendour. Loud and high from the broad campanile roared the heavy death-bell, and as I paused to listen every stroke of the knell was an swered by a clear echo from the western end of the vale.

The church was lighted up, and the arcades and escutcheons had a very picturesque effect. Candles were borne before the coffin and round the grave, distributing those broad masses of light and shade which the gifted Joanna is so fond of introducing into her dramatic pictures. And indeed the corpse, whose interment took place at this unusual hour, and with these romantic circumstances, was mangled enough to have rivalled the bloody bier of Rezen velt himself he had been crushed by the wheels of a stage-coach, and the body had decomposed so rapidly that this unseasonable hour was necessarily select

ed for his burial. The warm matted vestry, with its blazing fire, formed a cheerful contrast to this melancholy scene, and I sat some time well pleased to listen to the wind booming on the great west window, and the flame bickering the chimney. up

VAMPIRES.

IN 1732, in the papers of the day, it was given as an article of news from Medreyga in Hungary, that certain dead bodies, called vampires, had killed several persons by sucking out all their blood. The commander-in-chief and magistrates of the place were severally examined, and unanimously declared, that about five years before, a certain duke, named Arnold Paul, in his life time was heard to say he had been tormented by a vampire, and that for a remedy he had eaten some of the earth of the vampires' graves, and rubbed himself with their blood. That twenty or thirty days after the death of the said Arnold Paul several persons complained they were tormented; and that he had taken away the lives of four persons. To put a stop to such a calamity, the inhabitants having consulted their hadnagi, took up his body forty days after he had been found dead, and found it fresh, and free from corruption; and he bled at the nose, mouth, and ears, pure and florid blood; that his shroud and winding-sheet were all over blood; and that his finger and toe nails were fallen off and new ones grown in their

room. By these circumstances they were persuaded he was a vampire, and according to custom drove a stake through his heart, at which he gave a horrid groan. They burnt his body to ashes and threw them into his grave. It was added, that those who have been tormented or killed by vampires become vampires when they die. Upon which account they served several other dead bodies in the same manner.

The Naturalist.

THE LARCH TREE.-It was a laird of Lee that first introduced the larch into Scotland. General Lockhart, an active and brave officer, in the service of parliament, and afterwards the friend of Cromwell, whose niece he married, was, at the death of that extraordinary man, governor of Dunkirk, which situation he held during the short protectorate of the amiable and unambitious Richard. At the restoration, and when the commissioners of Charles arrived fortress for Charles, the general was at at Dunkirk to take possession of the Paris, and his deputy, holding light the royal mandate, refused admittance to the commissioners, and sent express for his superior. The general approved of what he had done, and held out for a time, but finding that Charles was likely to keep his seat, and conscious of having offended past forgiveness, withdrew privately from Dunkirk, and with his deputy, a faithful and tried servant, retired to Italy, where for years he lived in exile. Returning at length to Scotland, he brought the seeds of the larch, which he raised in the hot-house, thinking our climate too cold for them. They, in this situation, were unthriving plants; but, after the laird's death, the gardener took the tiny trees, and planted them out on a warm sandy bank betwixt the bottom of the garden and a burn, where they grew and flourished; and not many years ago, some few were still to be seen, and perhaps the one lately measured is of the number.

Table Talk.

DRAMATIC AUTHORSHIP.-Scribe, the French dramatist, has realized by his writings a revenue of 50,000 francs (2,0001., a-year. This capital he has funded. He keeps a handsome establishment, and his expense is very great. Scribe appeared first as an author about

the year 1816, so that he has amassed wealth to the amount of 50,000l. in the space of fifteen years; and this, merely counting the money which he has funded; in addition to what he has invested, in either modes, not less probably than 10,000l. It is not to Scribe's skill, but to the French law, that the accumulation of this wealth is to be attributed. The dramatic author in France has a share in the profits of every night's representation of his piece in every theatre in France during his life, and his heir for a certain period after. A successful play thus procures an income at once. In England, an author writes a legitimate comedy (The School for Scandal, for instance), and the blankets on his death-bed are seized by bailiffs.

THE KEEP-HIM-DOWN-ISM OF LITE RATURE. It would astonish many of the innocent, unconscious reading public, if they knew what paltriness of feeling, what jealousies, what a strong disposition to keep-him-down-ism pervades the republic of letters. The man who publishes once in the three months despises the man who publishes every month; the man of a month holds light the man of a week. There is an aristocracy of six shillings scowling at a populus of half-a-crown; and a populus of half a-crown sneering at the plebs of sixpence; even sixpences, we do not doubt, have their own thoughts respecting coppers. There are many most useful and popular kinds of literature, which the quarterly people would sooner die than acknowledge; or, at the utmost, if they do ever allude to such low things, it is with a quizzingglass and kid-glove fastidiousness, similar to an Exquisite's delicacy on the subject of any odious thing he may have occasion to look at or handle. There is a certain man of three months, who, when he cannot avoid speaking of an author as yet unacknowledged by his equals, gets over the dilemma by giving him a different Christian name from his own, or by misquoting the titles of his books. He seems to think that it would ruin him altogether were he to appear quite au fait with the concerns and doings of such a low person.-Tait.

BOOKSELLERS, NOT COMMON TRADESMEN.-"Bookseller" signifies one of a race of men who should never, for a moment, be confined with any other class of shopkeepers, or traffickers :their merchandize is the noblest in the world: the wares to which they invite your attention are not fineries for the back, or luxuries for the belly-the inward man is what they aspire to clothe

and feed, and the food and raiment they offer are tempting things. They have whole shelves loaded with wisdom; and if you want wit, they have drawers full of it at every corner. It is impossible that this noble traffic should not communicate something of its essential nobility to those who are continually engaged in it. Your bookseller, however ignorant he may be in many respects, always smells of the shop; and that which is considered sarcasm when said of any other man, is the highest of compliment when applied to him. What an air of intelligence is breathed upon this man from the surface of the universe in which he moves! It is as impossible for a bookseller to be devoid of taste and knowledge-some flavour, at least as it is for a collier to have a white skin, or a miller to want one.

If

MAKING TREES TO GROW UPSIDE DOWN.-In the course of ascertaining how far a circulation of sap is carried on in trees, some interesting facts have been determined by Mr. Knight and others with regard to the effect of inverting stems, or, in other words, of planting the superior part of the stem, and thus converting it into a root. the stem of a plum or cherry tree which is not too thick, be bent, and the top be put under ground, while the roots are gradually detached, in proportion as the former top of the stem becomes firmly fixed in the soil, the branches of the root will shoot forth leaves and flowers, and in due time will produce fruit.

Varieties.

CASE AND OPINION.-Some time since a young gentleman, Mr. C., well known about town, went to consult a legal gentleman of Lincoln's Inn, about carrying off an heiress. "You cannot do it without danger," said the counsellor; "but let her mount a horse, and hold the bridle and whip, do you then get up behind her, and you are run away with by her, in which case you are safe." Next day the counsellor found his daughter had run away in the aforesaid manner with his client!

ANECDOTE OF GARRICK.-Garrick's health (1774) had continued sufficiently good to enable him to enjoy the society of his friends at Hampton in the fine weather, and in the Adelphi during the winter. He occasionally visited the House of Commons; and one night, during a strong debate, the standing order was enforced to clear the gallery.

Ellustrated Article.

ori See page 437.

THE crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon found, as hot as the black hole in Calcutta. I don't pretend to be braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any man by the beard who called me coward. In my small way I had in my time faced death in various shapes; but it had always been above board, with the open heaven overhead, and generally I had a goodly fellowship in danger, and the eyes of others were upon

me.

No wonder, then, that the sinking of the heart within me, which I now experienced for the first time, was bitter exceedingly, and grievous to be borne. Cooped up in a small suffocating cabin, scarcely eight feet square, and not above four feet high, with the certainty of being murdered, as I conceived, were I to try to force my way on deck; and the knowledge that all my earthly prospects, all my dreams of promotion, were likely to be blasted, and for ever ruined by my sudden spiriting away, not to VOL. IX.

rose to my throat, but could get no farther for a cursed bump that was like to throttle me. Why should I blush to own it-when the gipsy, after all, jinked an old rich goutified coffee-planter at the eleventh hour, and married me, and is now the mother of half a dozen little Cringles or so? However, I made a strong effort to bear my misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat down on a chest to abide my fate, whatever that might be, with as much composure as I could command, when half a dozen cockroaches flew flicker flicker against my face.

For the information of those who have never seen this delicious insect, I take leave to mention here, that, when full grown, it is a large dingy browncoloured beetle, about two inches long, with six legs, and two feelers as long as its body. It has a strong antihysterical flavour, something between rotten cheese and assafoetida, and seldom stirs abroad when the sun is up, but lies concealed in the most obscure and obscene

250

crevices it can creep into; so that, when it is seen, its wings and body are thickly covered with dust and dirt of various shades, which any culprit who chances to fall asleep with his mouth open is sure to reap the benefit of, as it has a great propensity to walk into it, partly for the sake of the crumbs adhering to the masticators, and also, apparently, with a scientific desire to inspect, by accurate admeasurement with the aforesaid antennæ, the state and condition of the whole potato trap.

At the same time I felt something gnawing the toe of my boot, which I inferred to be a rat-another agreeable customer for which I had a special abhorrence; but, as for beetles of all kinds, from my boyhood up, they had been an abomination unto me, and a cockroach is the most abominable of all beetles; so between the, two I was speedily roused from my state of supine, or rather dogged endurance; and, forgetting the geography of my position, I sprung to my feet, whereby I nearly fractured my skull against the low deck above. I first tried the skylight; it was battened down then the companion hatch, it was locked but the ladder leading up to it, being cooler than the noisome vapour bath I had left, I remained standing in it, trying to catch a mouthful of fresh air through the joints of the door. All this while we had been slipping along shore with the land wind abeam of us, at the rate of five or six knots, but so gently and silently, that I could distinctly hear the roar of the surf, as the long smooth swell broke on the beach, which, from the loudness of the noise, could not be above a mile to windward of us. I perceived at the same time that the schooner, although going free, did not keep away as she might have done, so that it was evident he did not intend to beat up, so as to fetch the Crooked Island passage, which would have been his course, had he been bound for the States; but was standing over to the Cuba shore, at that time swarming with pirates.

It was now good daylight, and the Terral gradually died away, and left us rolling gunwale under, as we rose and fell on the long seas, with our sails flapping, bulkheads creaking and screaming, and main-boom jig-jigging, as if it would have torn every thing to pieces. I could hear my friend Obed walking the deck, and whistling manfully for the sea breeze, and exclaiming from time to time in his barbarous lingo, "Souffle, souffle, San Antonio." But

the saint had no bowels, and there we lay roasting until near ten o'clock in the forenoon. During all this period, Obed, who was short-sighted, as I learned afterwards, kept desiring his right arm, Paul Brandywine, to keep a bright look-out for the sea-breeze to windward, or rather to the eastward, for there was no wind-because he knowed it oftentimes tumbled down right sudden and dangerous at this season about the corner of the island hereabouts; and the pride of the morning often brought a shower with it, fit to level a maize plat smooth as his hand."—"No black clouds to windward yet, Paul?"

Paul could see nothing, and the question was repeated three or four times. "There is a small black cloud about the size of my hand to windward, sir, right in the wake of the sun, just now, but it won't come to any thing; I sees no signs of any wind."

"And Elijah said to his servant, Go up now, and look toward the sea, and he went up and looked, and said there is nothing; and he said go again seven times, and it came to pass the seventh time, that he said, behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand."

I knew what this foreboded, which, as I thought, was more than friend Obed did; for he shortened no sail, and kept all his kites abroad, for no use as it struck me, unless he wished to wear them out by flapping against the masts. He was indeed a strange mixture of skill and carelessness; but, when fairly stirred up, one of the most daring and expert, and self-possessed seamen I had ever seen, as I very soon had an ugly opportunity of ascertaining.

The cloud on the horizon continued to rise rapidly, spreading over the whole eastern sky, and the morning began to lower very ominously; but there was no sudden squall, the first of the breeze coming down as usual in cat's paws, and freshening gradually; nor did I expect there would be, although I was certain it would soon blow a merry capful of wind, which might take in some of the schooner's small sails, and pretty considerably bother us, unless we could better our offing speedily, for it blew right on shore, which, by the setting in of the sea breeze, was now close under our lee.

At length the sniffler reached us, and the sharp little vessel began to speak, as the rushing sound through the water is called; while the wind sang like an Eolian harp through the