with a detachment against one of the country powers who had just revolted. Captain Ramble, as we shall now call him, behaved with abundant resolution, success crowned the endeavours of his country, and he was now rapidly rising in his new profession, when he once more became dissatisfied and disgusted with it, because he was confined to a garrison, while the range of the whole peninsula of India would scarcely have gratified his roving ambition.

As he had behaved with bravery, and evinced a fertility of resources on every emergency, he was allowed to sell out, though with concern for his loss; and the very next day he entered on board of a ship bound to China, with no other view than to ascertain whether the Chinese women have smaller feet than the Europeans, from nature or from art, and to drink tea, as he termed it, at the fountain head.

He had no sooner arrived in China, than he wished to survey the country; but he had nearly forfeited his life by the attempt. A country not to be seen, had no charms for Captain Ramble, and he returned in an India ship which was sailing for Europe, as wise as he went; but with a very unfavourable opinion of Chinese hospitality, though he ought to have done justice to its policy. On reaching the Cape of Good Hope, he determined to proceed no further till he had visited the Hottentots, and ascertained some facts in their formation aud natural history.

It would be endless to enumerate all his adventures in this quarter of the globe. Sometimes he was reduced to the greatest distress and danger; but his ingenuity always brought him off. At last he landed in England, found his father was no more, and, in consequence, took possession of his patrimony.

It might have been supposed that his adventures would now have terminated, and that he would have been happy in the enjoyment of that quiet which fortune allowed him to possess. No such thing: he had never made the tour of Europe; and he was determined not to sit down as a country gentleman, till he had visited the continent He soon reached Paris; here he began to display his usual activity; he could neither be idle, nor usefully employed. He began with uttering some speculative opinions, by the adoption of which, he conceived that the French government might be vastly improved,

and the country made one of the most desirable in the world. For these, he was speedily rewarded with a lodging in a French prison. After a close confinement of two years, he was liberated; but the hardships he had undergone ruined his health, and he died at Paris, in a few weeks after he had recovered his liberty.

The heedless career of Will Ramble will, it is hoped, caution others against giving way to a roving and unsettled turn of mind. He might have been happy-he might have been honored in any situation, had he stuck to it; but he rendered himself miserable by a romantic search after he did not know what.

Never, on slight grounds, relinquish the station in which you are first placed. If you once deviate from the track intended for you, it is no easy matter to recover it. It is, therefore, wise to oppose the first irregular sallies of the mind. The road of life will be easy, when once you have obtained mastery over yourself.

THE SILENT NIGHT.

BY J. A. SHEA.

'Tis night! extends the moonlight sky
Her silver wings from east to west,
And the bright rays of stars on high.
Like glances of the wondering blest,
Look downward from their land of light
Upon the calm-the silent night.
The silent night! oh, time of bliss!

How sighs the soul, and throbs the heart,
Through sunshine for an hour like this,
When thoughts of earthly cares depart!
And bosoms, warm with love's delight,
Mingle beneath the silent night.
For me, who have no lip of smiles,

Nor breast of love to meet or press,
Enough to watch the starry isles,

And walk in moonlight loveliness:
To wing my soul beyond their flight,
And commune with the silent night.

HOME HARVEST.

And Tom and Dick, and Bill and Joe,
And Humphrey with his flail,
And Tom kissed Betty

Glee of Dame Durdon.

I will not swear but that I may be sometimes very much abused at merry meetings--especially homely ones; but I am entirely positive that, at such, there would be no fun at all without me. The good-natured gibe, the innocent jest, would fail to drop glibly from the unmoistened lips; there would be no "excellent music," no "flashes of merriment" ripping up the " ravelled sleeve of care," no personifications of " laughter holding both his sides," nothing that cures sorrow and kills grief, if Sir John Barleycorn did not hold his place at the feast-board, the worshipped tutelary saint of the holiday. It would, indeed, be a dry-saw-dust kind of make-believe without me.

It is not one of the least important improvements of our times, that I am again becoming popular and of exceeding estimation in the houses of the great. Under one of my aliases, or alii, if I may make for myself a plural, that of "Old October," I am again petted in the steward's room, and sent round in chrystal at the table of my lord." This is indeed as it should be, and the revolution thus effected in my favour is of more vital importance to the common-weal of Britain, than if all our boroughs were made pure, all our senators disinterested, all our lawyers honest, our poor-laws free from hardship, and our game-code free from objection. There is not a man that takes me by the hand but contributes his mite to the wealth of the nation, and the best commentary that a monarch can make upon his address to his parliament, when he pledges himself to support the trade and commerce of his country, is to grant me a presentation, and to imbibe my arguments, be they never so potent.

But it is at the unsophisticated board of our country's pride"- a "bold" and happy "peasantry," that I am, perhaps, in my tip-top" glory; and, even there, at no other time so glorious as at that jubilee of accomplished hopes and ardent labours, the "merry harvest home." It is then that I embrace, overpower, almost kill my enthusiastic votaries

with kindness-it is then that I am the be-all and the end-all there--it is then that I move around without a parallel-then that I become Sir Oracle, and, dazzling with my clearness my enraptured votaries, it is then that I almost, nay often quite, induce them to double in idea the delights by which they are captivated and caught.

It was but a moon since I believe they connect in idea these meetings with moons-that I, to use a plain but serviceable phrase, played first fiddle" at a jolly harvest-home. It was held in a regular olden-style mansion, and what is as good, with the olden-style customs too. There was the master-" the founder of the feast," as goes the cue ballad of the celebration; and there was the "mistress," and there were their family, the " young farmer" being at the head of them, and the " bettermost" people of the parish. And thither, too, came "the halt and lame," who once could shake a foot, and sport a toe-and the blithe and active, who would do so now -and thither flocked the bailiff, not he of writs and bonds, but he of ricks and herds--and the shepherd and the dairyand their wives and their children, all came, even down to the little carter-boys and the pig-keepers-all came,

men,

"For it was the peasant's holiday,
And made for to be merry."

I was deemed of too much importance to become common during the demolition of veal-pies and rounds of beef, my younger brother, Mr. Single X, being more thought of just at that period so I made myself useful in the metamorphosis a carver," and laid the foundations of my train by feeding the bumpkins with something more substantial than flattery-secure in the knowledge (as was Nelson, when he broke the line at the Nile), that my time would come.

of "

Need I now describe the feats of arms and appetite here displayed? Need I dilate of hopes no longer deferred, of expectations realized, of manoeuvreings of the knife and fork, and they were the sabre and the pike, and the baron of beef the enemy to be annihilated; in short, dare I attempt the transfer of the whole lively eager scene, its clatter, and its clamours; the Auvǹ dè xλayyǹ of its exertions, to this record! My friends, I dare not, the thing is impossible; I must leave it

to your imaginations, with this special piece of gratuitous admonition. You that have heard and seen harvest-home merriments, go and see and hear them as oft as they occur again; and ye that have not, embrace the first opportunity of doing so, and dwell in ignorance no longer.

But the keen demands of appetite are allayed-the beef has yielded, the plum-puddings are not. The brown oaken clean-rubbed table is cleared of the broken-down salt-sellers. and the wounded platters; the fragments are gathered up, and polished horns and clear drinking-cups are arranged around, like the satellites and tributary stars round one bright and glorious planet, whilst I in the midst, showing my crowned head above a portly throne, reign omnipotent, and in the hearts of my people, fearing no rebellion against my decrees, no treason against my authority. He of Plantagenet may boase his peculiarities, but it is I that "have no brother, am like no brother;" I only that am "myself alone."

Then soon came also the evidences of my potency-the pleasant proofs of my winning ways: I mean the cheerful tale, and the hearty chaunt, and sly kissings, and squeezings of hands, and outpourings of honest protestations. Then came too the health of the "squire" and " madam," and the rest of the "noble family," till, at last, grown emboldened by the kind participation we lent to their merriment, they called upon the second son of our host, who was to be the future manager of the estate, for a song, after wishing him " good crops and fair seasons." This young gentleman, for so he is every inch of him, had seen and mingled in good society, and, till recently, had been educated with little idea to an agricultural life; but he was a sportsman, and one that could drink his wine with Sir Harry, and his ale once or twice a year with his father's labourers, and so he had the tact to suit his musical discourse to the temperament of its company, whilst its quality tickled their predilections. This is it :Come, fill high your glasses! There should not be one That would shrink from his post till our revels be done; In the morn over stubble and heather we'll roam, But to-night, my companions, this, this is our home. Then fill the bright pewter, and crown the clean horn, And we'll quaff to the health of old John Barleycorn.

G