scribed by Bruce as an amphibious animal, somewhat like the crocodile, lurking in marshes for human prey, and seizing upon the natives when they resort thither to gather the blue berries and draw reeds. Lord Valentia, and Salter, both confirm his account, and say that many of the natives are destroyed in summer by these creatures, to whom they give the name of 'dragon,' and hold sacred, in the same manner that the alligators are reverenced by the natives of Hindostan, and adored at the moment they are devouring their children.

Credulity and false superstition flourish on the hills of Gondar, the banks of the Thames, and marshy islands of the Ganges, with equal force; nor can any human arguments drive this ideal insanity from men's bosoms.]

J. M.

A NIGHT-COACH SCENE.

He who has travelled by night, need not be told of the comforts of the mail coach, from the setting to the rising of the sun; and even some while after this grand event, the jaded wayfarer does not acknowledge much benefit from the return of his beams.

There is a wonderful display of cheerfulness among the passengers on taking place; such a bustle with comforters for the neck; such a perking up of unstatuary looking heads, while they are adjusted, and such sagacity of remark when the affair is accomplished; and the jerking his noddle backwards and forwards to find how it works within its woollen trenches, seems at length to say 'all's well.'

'Devilish sharp evening,' is likely enough to be the first observation, if it comes from one under thirty years of age; but the senators of the coach, the plump round-bellied

sexagenarians, hint the chances of a severe winter, with laconic sagacity, which would imply that they were in the secret; but above all, because it is so much cleverer to predict things to come, than to dilate on things present. Any body could do the latter; but excepting Joanna Southcote, and Prince Hohenlohe, who, in these days, have we had worth speaking of in the trade of prophesying?

To talk of cold in a coach operates as certainly on the inmates in producing a general chilling, as if a chemist had begun to mingle the ingredients of a freezing mixture. Such a stir in the anthills-such a puffing and blowing to collect the caloric; a new arrangement of the neck-cloth, and an additional button in the body-coat; the upper benjamin, which had perhaps strayed across the limbs of a more thinly clad neighbour, is iustantly recalled, and tightly fastened above and under, to prevent any more desertions; the window glasses are sharply examined, and some unquestioned truisms are discharged against the negligence of the proprietors. Each one dovetails his knees between those of his fellow traveller, and carefully arranges his well-stuffed pockets on his lap, to save his sandwiches from the percussion of his neighbour, which he dreads as much as Captain Parry did an iceberg; and having thus arranged every thing, and provided against incidents, ten to one but they throw themselves back, and burying their heads up to their nose in their trotcozey, like red-breast under their wing, put on a resigned look, and wait for what may next betide them.

A TRIFLE.-AN EPIGRAM.
Phillis! you rosy little rake,
That heart of yours I long to rifle;
Come, give it me, and do not make

So much ado about a trifle.

LADY ARABELLA STEWART.

In the year 1610, there stood upon the brow of Highgate Hill a noble mansion, belonging to the Countess of Shrewsbury, of which not a vestige now remains.

On an afternoon in the month of May, in the year which has been mentioned, two ladies were walking in the gardens of this mansion. One was a staid matronly looking person, long past the middle age-the other was one in whose face the marks of deep sorrow had not obliterated, and hardly impaired, the beauty which triumphed there, as on a throne. From their dress and demeanour it was evident that they were persons of the higher class of society.

A lame old man, who had been long gazing through the gate, and whose appearance indicated that poverty and old age had dealt hardly with him, now approached them. His tattered clothes were, as might be guessed through the numerous and party-coloured patches which covered them, the remnants of an old military uniform. A long and broad rapier bung at his side; and he leaned upon an old matchlock, which he used by way of staff. His head was covered with loose grey locks, and exhibited many scars, which told, more plainly than even the black patch which covered the place where one of his eyes should have been, that his life had heen spent in danger, and that fighting had been his trade. In his right hand he held a rusty and battered morion, which he extended to the ladies as he implored their charity. A large wallet was strapped on his shoulders.

For the love of heaven, sweet ladies,' he cried, 'bestow some of your pity upon a disabled soldier.'

The younger lady who had a hand open as day for melting charity,' instantly produced a purse,

and, before her intention was perceived by her companion, had placed a portion of its contents in the beggar's morioh.

Where did you receive your wounds?' asked the young lady in a tone of kindness and sympathy which enhanced her bounty.

In almost every place, gentle madam, where, during the last thirty years, the soldiers of Britain have had to maintain the liberties of their country. Now, God help me, I am old, and unable to fightmy friends are all dead-and I have no dependence but on the bounty of Providence, and of such good Christians as you, lady.'

Poor man!' ejaculated the lady, ' and have you no home?'

The wide world is my home,' said the soldier; I shall never have any other until I creep into my grave.'

Who knows, friend,' said the elder lady, that you are not an arrant imposter?'

Your Ladyship's late brother, my honored master, would know if he were alive,' said the soldier, with an emphasis which almost amounted to a rebuke.

• Did you know the Lord Mountchensy?' asked the old lady, while a slight agitation passed over her face at the mention of her gallant brother.

'I knew him,' replied the veteran, for as brave a soul as ever struck hard blows in a fair causeand by this token, my lady, he knew me also. This ring, which neither prison nor poverty has yet been able to tear from me, was given to me by the gallant Lord after a hard fight in the Low Countries.

The soldier,' as he spoke, gave the Countess a ring; and, as the old lady wiped away the tears which her brother's memory forced into her eyes, he slipped, with great

She knew that this word must have been communicated to him by a person whom she held dearer than her life; and, concealing, as well as she could, the agitation which she felt, she put the letter into her bosom.

'Will you not order the poor man into the buttery?' said she to the Countess he seems tired, and, I dare say, has need of rest and food.'

'Be it so, my love,' replied the Countess; and then calling a servant, and bidding him take charge of the old soldier, she said she would see him again shortly. The old man retired, loading both the ladies with thanks and benedictions. It is, perhaps, expedient, at this part of the narrative, that I should give to my readers some more particular information respecting the younger of the ladies, who has no slight claims upon their interest. She was the Lady Arabella Stuart, the cousin of the reigning monarch, and, as some persons deemed, having a better title to the throne than James I. From her earliest years she had been an object of suspicion to the King, and he resolved that she should never marry, and that her claims, such as they were, should terminate with her existence.

There never was yet a king, how ever absolute his power, who could controul the impulses of hearts. The gallant and accomplished William Seymour, the second son of the Earl of Beauchamp, and the worthy descendant of a long line of heroic ancestors, saw and loved her, She confessed that she returned his love with equal ardour; and, altho' they were compelled to keep their mutual flame a secret, this scarcely abated the felicity of a sentiment

which ever loves the shade, and is never made more delightful by becoming more notorious.

They were privately, and, as they hoped, secretly married; but the numerous spies whom the king kept in his pay soon discovered the union which they had not been able to prevent. The newly-wedded couple were arrested, and carried before the privy council, where, after an angry reprimand from the King, Mr. Seymour was committed to the Tower, there to remain during his Majesty's pleasure: and the Lady Arabella was delivered over to the custody of her aunt, the Countess of Shrewsbury, with a strict injunction that she was not to be permitted to leave her Ladyship's house at Highgate,

The imprisonment to which Mr. Seymour had been doomed was, at that time, little less perilous than a sentence of death; and the Lady Arabella's delight may, therefore, be conceived when, upon opening the letter which the old soldier had delivered to her, she learnt that her husband had escaped from his imprisonment in the Tower.

He wrote, besides, that he had since gained the coast, and had procured a vessel which would carry them to France, where they might live in obscure but happy retirement. He recommended her to place implicit confidence in the bearer of this letter, who would furnish the meanness of his disguise, was a gentleman of good family, and Mr. Seymour's old comrade. His real appellation was Hugh Markham; and, although he had so successfully imitated the weakness of old age and the suffering of poverty, he was, in fact, neither old nor poor, but one who, to serve a friend in time of need, would have affronted the most terrific dangers.

With the ardour of a young and loving girl, the Lady Arabella