Our purpose has been, to insist on the capital patriotic uses to which so splendid an aristocracy as ours has been applied, and will be applied, so long as it is suffered to exist undisturbed by the growing democracy (and, worse than that, by the anarchy) of the times. These uses are principally four, which we shall but indicate in a few words.

First, it is in the nobility of Great Britain that the Conservative principle—which cannot but be a momentous agency wheresoever there is any thing good to protect from violence, or any thing venerable to uphold in sanctity—is chiefly lodged. Primogeniture and the church are the two corner-stones upon which our civil constitution ultimately reposes; and neither of these, from the monumental character of our noble houses, held together through centuries by the peculiar settlements of their landed properties, has any power to survive the destruction of a distinct patrician order.

Secondly, though not per se, or, in a professional sense, military as a body, (Heaven forbid that they should be so!) yet, as always furnishing a disproportionate number from their order to the martial service of the country, they diffuse a standard of high honour through our army and navy, which would languish in a degree not suspected whenever a democratic influence should thoroughly pervade either. It is less for what they do in this way, than for what they prevent, that our gratitude is due to the nobility. However, even the positive services of the nobility are greater in this field than a democrat is aware of. Are not all our satirical novels, &c., daily describing it as the infirmity of English society, that so much stress is laid upon aristocratic connexions? Be it so: but do not run away from your own doctrine, O democrat! as soon as the consequences become startling. One of these consequences, which cannot be refused, is the depth of influence and the extent of influence which waits upon the example of our nobles. Were the present number of our professional nobles decimated, they would still retain a most salutary influence. We have spoken sufficiently of the ruin which follows where a nation has no natural and authentic leaders for her armies. And we venture to add our suspicion—that even France, at this moment, owes much of the courage which marks her gentry, though a mere wreck from her old aristocracy, to the chivalrous feeling inherited from her ancestral remembrances. Good officers are not made such by simple constitutional courage; honour, and something of a pure gentlemanly temper, must be added.

Thirdly, for all populous and highly civilized nations, it is an indirect necessity made known in a thousand ways, that some adequate control should preside over their spirit of manners. This can be effected only through a court and a body of nobles. And thence it arises, that, in our English public intercourse, through every class, (even the lowest of the commercial,) so much of respectful gravity and mutual consideration is found. Now, therefore, as the means of maintaining in strength this aristocratic influence, we request every thoughtful man to meditate upon the following proposition. The class even of our gentry breeds a body of high and chivalrous feeling; and very much so by unconscious sympathy with an order above themselves. But why is it that the amenity and perfect polish of the nobility are rarely found in strength amongst the mass of ordinary gentlemen? It is because, in order to qualify a man for the higher functions of courtesy, he ought to be separated from the strife of the world. The fretful collision with rivalship and angry tempers, insensibly modifies the demeanour of every man. But the British nobleman, intrenched in wealth, enjoys an immunity from this irritating discipline. He is able to act by proxy: and all services of unpleasant contest he devolves upon agents. To have a class in both sexes who toil not, neither do they spin—is the one conditio sine qua non for a real nobility.

Fourthly as the leaders in a high morality of honour, and a jealous sense of the obligation attached to public engagements, our nobility has tightened the bonds of national sensibility beyond what is always perceived. "This is high matter," as Burke says in a parallel case; and we barely touch it. We shall content ourselves with asking—Could the American frauds in the naval war, calling sixty-four-gun ships by the name of frigates, have been suffered in England? Could the American doctrine of repudiation have prospered with us? Yet are the Americans Englishmen, wanting only a nobility.

The times are full of change: it is through the Conservative body itself that certain perils are now approaching patrician order: if that perishes, England passes into a new moral condition, wanting all the protections of the present.

* * * * *



JACK STUART'S BET ON THE DERBY, AND HOW HE PAID HIS LOSSES.

Cotherstone came in amid great applause, and was the winner of the poorest Derby ever known. Whilst acclamation shook the spheres, and the corners of mouths were pulled down, and betting-books mechanically pulled out—while success made some people so benevolent that they did not believe in the existence of poverty any where, and certainly not in the distress of the wretched-looking beggar entreating a penny—whilst all these things were going on, champagne corks flying, the sun shining, toasts resounding, and a perfect hubbub in full activity on all sides, Jack Stuart drew me aside towards the carriage, and said, "'Pon my word, it must be a cross. How the deuce could one horse beat the whole field?"

"Oh, you backed the field, did you?"

"To be sure. I always go with the strongest side."

"And you have lost?"

"A hundred and fifty."

No wonder Jack Stuart looked blue. A fifth part of his yearly income gone at one smash—and in such a foolish way, too.

"If the excitement could last three or four days, it would almost be worth the money," he said; "but no sooner do you hear the bell—see the crush of horses at the starting-post—bang—bang—off they go!—and in a minute or two all is over, and your money gone. I will have a race of snails between London and York. It would be occupation for a year. But come, let us leave the abominable place." He hurried me into the stanhope, gave the rein to his active grey mare, and making a detour towards Kingston, we soon left the crowd behind us.

"I will never bet on a horse again," said Jack, ruminating on his loss. "Why should I? I know nothing about racing, and never could understand odds in my life; and just at this moment, too, I can't spare the coin."

At the same time he did not spare the whip; for you will always observe, that a meditative gentleman in a gig is peculiarly impressive on his horse's shoulder. The grey trotted along, or burst into an occasional canter.

"I'll back this grey against Cotherstone for fifty pounds."

"To stand flogging? I think you would win."

"No, to jump. See how she springs."

Hereupon Jack touched the mare in a very scientific manner, just under the fore-arm, and the animal, indignant at this disrespectful manner of proceeding, gave a prodigious rush forward, and then reared.

"You'll break the shafts," I said.

"I think she is going to run away, but there seems no wall near us—and I don't think any coaches travel this road. Sit still, for she's off."

The mare, in good truth, resented her master's conduct in a high degree, and took the bit in her teeth.

"If she doesn't kick, it's all right," said Jack.

"She has no time to kick if she goes at this pace," I answered; "keep her straight."

The speed continued unabated for some time, and we were both silent. I watched the road as far in advance as I could see, in dread of some waggon, or coach, or sudden turn, or even a turnpike gate, for the chances would have been greatly against an agreeable termination.

"I'll tell you what," cried Jack, turning round to me, "I think I've found out a way of paying my losses."

"Indeed! but can't you manage in the mean time to stop the mare?"

"Poh! let her go. I think rapid motion is a great help to the intellect. I feel quite sure I can pay my bets without putting my hand into my pocket."

"How? Pull the near check. She'll be in the ditch."

"Why, I think I shall publish a novel."

I could scarcely keep from laughing, though a gardener's cart was two hundred yards in advance.

"You write a novel! Wouldn't you like to build a pyramid at the same time?"

"We've given that old fellow a fright on the top of the cabbage," said Jack, going within an inch of the wheels of the cart. "He'll think we've got Cotherstone in harness. But what do you mean about a pyramid?"

"Why, who ever heard of your writing a novel?"

"I did not say write a novel—I said publish a novel."

"Well, who is to write it?" I enquired.

"That's the secret," he answered; "and if that isn't one of Pickford's vans, I'll tell you"——

The mare kept up her speed; and, looming before us, apparently filling up the whole road, was one of the moving castles, drawn by eight horses, that, compared to other vehicles, are like elephants moving about among a herd of deer.

"Is there room to pass?" asked Jack, pulling the right rein with all his might.

"Scarcely," I said, "the post is at the side of the road."

"Take the whip," said Jack, "and just when we get up, give her a cut over the left ear."

In dread silence we sat watching the tremendous gallop. Nearer and nearer we drew to the waggon, and precisely at the right time Jack pulled the mare's bridle, and I cut her over the ear. Within a hairbreadth of the post on one side, and the van on the other, we cut our bright way through.

"This is rather pleasant than otherwise," said Jack, breathing freely; "don't you think so?"

"I can't say it altogether suits my taste," I answered.

"Do you think she begins to tire?"

"Oh, she never tires; don't be the least afraid of that!"

"It's the very thing I wish; but there's a hill coming."

"She likes hills; and at the other side, when we begin to descend, you'll see her pace. I'm very proud of the mare's speed."

"It seems better than her temper; but about the novel?" I enquired.

"I shall publish in a fortnight," answered Jack.

"A whole novel? Three volumes?"

"Six, if you like—or a dozen. I'm not at all particular."

"But on what subject?"

"Why, what a simpleton you must be! There is but one subject for a novel—historical, philosophical, fashionable, antiquarian, or whatever it calls itself. The whole story, after all, is about a young man and a young woman—he all that is noble, and she all that is good. Every circulating library consists of nothing whatever but Love and Glory—and that shall be the name of my novel."

"But if you don't write it, how are you to publish it?"

"Do you think any living man or any living woman ever wrote a novel?"

"Certainly."

"Stuff, my dear fellow; they never did any thing of the kind. They published—that's all. Is that a heap of stones?"

"I think it is."

"Well, that's better than a gravel-pit. Cut her right ear. There, we're past it. Amazing bottom, has't she?"

"Too much," I said; "but go on with your novel."

"Well, my plan is simply this—but make a bet, will you? I give odds. I bet you five to one in fives, that I produce, in a week from this time, a novel called 'Love and Glory,' not of my own composition or any body else's—a good readable novel—better than any of James's—and a great deal more original."

"And yet not written by any one?"

"Exactly—bet, will you?"

"Done," I said; "and now explain."

"I will, if we get round this corner; but it is very sharp. Bravo, mare! And now we've a mile of level Macadam. I go to a circulating library and order home forty novels—any novels that are sleeping on the shelf. That is a hundred and twenty volumes—or perhaps, making allowance for the five-volume tales of former days, a hundred and fifty volumes altogether. From each of these novels I select one chapter and a half, that makes sixty chapters, which, at twenty chapters to each volume, makes a very good-sized novel."

"But there will be no connexion."

"Not much," replied Jack, "but an amazing degree of variety."

"But the names?"

"Must all be altered—the only trouble I take. There must be a countess and two daughters, let them be the Countess of Lorrington and the Ladies Alice and Matilda—a hero, Lord Berville, originally Mr Lawleigh—and every thing else in the same manner. All castles are to be Lorrington Castle—all the villains are to be Sir Stratford Manvers'—all the flirts Lady Emily Trecothicks'—and all the benevolent Christians, recluses, uncles, guardians, and benefactors—Mr Percy Wyndford, the younger son of an earl's younger son, very rich, and getting on for sixty-five."

"But nobody will print such wholesale plagiarisms."

"Won't they? See what Colburn publishes, and Bentley, and all of them. Why, they're all made up things—extracts from old newspapers, or histories of processions or lord-mayor's shows. What's that coming down the hill?"

"Two coaches abreast"—I exclaimed—"racing by Jupiter!—and not an inch left for us to pass!"

"We've a minute yet," said Jack, and looked round. On the left was a park paling; on the right a stout hedge, and beyond it a grass field. "If it weren't for the ditch she could take the hedge," he said. "Shall we try?"

"We had better"—I answered—"rather be floored in a ditch than dashed to pieces against a coach."

"Lay on, then—here goes!"

I applied the whip to the left ear of the mare; Jack pulled at the right cheek. She turned suddenly out of the road and made a dash at the hedge. Away she went, harness, shafts, and all, leaving the stanhope in the ditch, and sending Jack and me flying, like experimental fifty-sixes in the marshes at Woolwich, halfway across the meadow. The whole incident was so sudden that I could scarcely comprehend what had happened. I looked round, and, in a furrow at a little distance, I saw my friend Jack. We looked for some time at each other, afraid to enquire into the extent of the damage; but at last Jack said, "She's a capital jumper, isn't she? It was as good a flying leap as I ever saw. She's worth two hundred guineas for a heavy weight."

"A flying leap!"—I said; "it was a leap to be sure, but the flying, I think, was performed by ourselves."

"Are you hurt?" enquired Jack.

"Not that I know of," I replied; "you're all right?"

"Oh! as for me, I enjoy a quiet drive, like this, very much. I'm certain it gives a filip to the ideas, that you never receive in a family coach at seven miles an hour. I believe I owe the mare a great sum of money, not to mention all the fame I expect to make by my invention. But let us get on to the next inn, and send people after the stanhope and the mare. We shall get into a car, and go comfortably home."

We did not go to the Oaks on Friday. We were both too stiff: for though a gentleman may escape without breaking his bones, still an ejectment so vigorously executed as the one we had sustained, always leaves its mark. In the mean time Jack was busy. Piles of volumes lay round him, scraps of paper were on the table, marks were put in the pages. He might have stood for the portrait of an industrious author. And yet a more unliterary, not to say illiterate, man than he had been before the runaway, did not exist in the Albany. "Curriculo collegisse juvat"—are there any individuals to whom their curricle has been a college, and who have done without a university in the strength of a fast-trotting horse? Jack was one of these. He had never listened to Big Tom of Christchurch, nor punned his way to the bachelor's table of St John's, and yet he was about to assume his place among the illustrious of the land, and have his health proposed by a duke at the literary fund dinner, as "Jack Stuart, and the authors of England;" and perhaps he would deserve the honour as well as some of his predecessors; for who is more qualified to return thanks for the authors of England than a person whose works contain specimens of so many? Your plagiarist is the true representative.

Jack's room is rather dark, and the weather, on the day of the Oaks, was rather dingy. We had the shutters closed at half-past seven, and sat down to dinner; soused salmon, perigord pie, iced champagne, and mareschino. Some almonds and raisins, hard biscuit, and a bottle of cool claret, made their appearance when the cloth was removed, and Jack began—"I don't believe there was ever such a jumper as the grey mare since the siege of Troy, when the horse got over the wall."

"Is she hurt?"

"Lord bless you," said Jack, "she's dead. When she got over the hedge she grew too proud of herself, and personal vanity was the ruin of her. She took a tremendous spiked gate, and caught it with her hind legs; the spikes kept her fast, the gate swung open, and the poor mare was so disgusted that she broke her heart. She was worth two hundred guineas; so that the Derby this year has cost me a fortune. The stanhope is all to atoms, and the farmer claims compensation for the gate. It's a very lucky thing I thought of the book."

"Oh, you still go on with the novel?"

"It's done, man, finished—perfect."

"All written out?"

"Not a word of it. That isn't the way people write books now; no, I have clipped out half of it with a pair of scissors, and the half is all marked with pencil."

"But the authors will find you out."

"Not a bit of it. No author reads any body's writings but his own; or if they do, I'll deny it—that's all; and the public will only think the poor fellow prodigiously vain, to believe that any one would quote his book. And, besides, here are the reviews?"

"Of the book that isn't published?"

"To be sure. Here are two or three sentences from Macauley's 'Milton,' half a page from Wilson's 'Wordsworth,' and a good lump from Jeffrey's 'Walter Scott.' Between them, they made out my book to be a very fine thing, I assure you. I sha'n't sell it under five hundred pounds."

"Do you give your name?"

"Certainly not—unless I were a lord. No. I think I shall pass for a woman: a young girl, perhaps; daughter of a bishop; or the divorced wife of a member of parliament."

"I should like to hear some of your work. I am interested."

"I know you are. We have a bet, you know; but I have found out a strange thing in correcting my novel—that you can make a whole story out of any five chapters."

"No, no. You're quizzing."

"Not I. I tell you, out of any five chapters, of any five novels, you make a very good short tale; and the odd thing is, it doesn't the least matter which chapters you choose. With a very little sagacity, the reader sees the whole; and, let me tell you, the great fault of story-writing is telling too much, and leaving too little for the reader to supply to himself. Recollect what I told you about altering the names of all the characters, and, with that single proviso, read chapter fifteen of the first volume of this——"

Jack handed me a volume, turned down at the two-hundredth page, and I read what he told me to call the first chapter of "Love and Glory."

THE WILDERNESS.

"A tangled thicket is a holy place For contemplation lifting to the stars Its passionate eyes, and breathing paradise Within a sanctified solemnity."

Old Play

["That's my own," said Jack. "When people see that I don't even quote a motto, they'll think me a real original. Go on."]

The sun's western rays were gilding the windows of the blue velvet drawing-room of Lorrington Castle, and the three ladies sat in silence, as if admiring the glorious light which now sank gradually behind the forest at the extremity of the park. The lady Alice leant her cheek upon her hand, and before her rose a vision the agitating occurrences of yesterday. The first declaration a girl receives alters her whole character for life. No longer a solitary being, she feels that with her fate the happiness of another is indissolubly united; for, even if she rejects the offer, the fact of its having been made, is a bond of union from which neither party gets free—Sir Stratford Manvers had proposed: had she accepted him? did she love him? ay, did she love him?—a question apparently easy to answer, but to an ingenuous spirit which knows not how to analyze its feelings, impossible. Sir Stratford was young, handsome, clever—but there was a certain something, a je ne scais quoi about him, which marred the effect of all these qualities. A look, a tome that jarred with the rest of his behaviour, and suggested a thought to the very persons who were enchanted with his wit, and openness, and generosity—Is this real? is he not an actor? a consummate actor, if you will—but merely a great performer assuming a part. By the side of the bright and dashing Manvers, rose to the visionary eyes of the beautiful girl the pale and thoughtful features of Mr Lawleigh. She heard the music of his voice, and saw the deep eyes fixed on her with the same tender expression of interest and admiration as she had noticed during his visit at the Castle. She almost heard the sigh with which he turned away, when she had appeared to listen with pleasure to the sparkling conversation of Sir Stratford. She had not accepted Sir Stratford, and she did not love him. When a girl hesitates between two men, or when the memory of one is mixed up with the recollection of another, it is certain that she loves neither. And strange to say, now that her thoughts reverted to Mr Lawleigh, she forgot Sir Stratford altogether. She wondered that she had said so little to Mr Lawleigh, and was sorry she had not been kinder—she recalled every word and every glance—and could not explain why she was pleased when she recollected how sad he had looked when he had taken leave one little week before. How differently he had appeared the happy night of the county assembly, and at the still happier masked ball at the Duke of Rosley's! Blind, foolish girl, she thought, to have failed to observe these things before, and now!——

"I have written to Lorrington, my dear Alice," said the Countess, "as head of the family, and your eldest brother, it is a compliment we must pay him—but it is mere compliment, remember."

"To write to William?" mamma.

"I presume you know to what subject I allude," continued the Countess. "He will give his consent of course."

"Oh, mamma!" cried Alice, while tears sprang into her eyes, "I was in hopes you would have spared me this. Don't write to William; or let me tell him—let me add in a postscript—let me"——

"You will do what I wish you, I conclude—and I have told Sir Stratford"——

"Oh, what? what have you told him?"

"That he is accepted. I trust I shall hear no more on the subject. The marriage will take place in two months."

"But I don't love him, mamma—indeed."

"I am glad to hear it," said the mother, coldly. "I rejoice that my daughters are too well brought up to love any one—that is—of course—till they are engaged; during that short interval, it is right enough—in moderation; though, even then, it is much more comfortable to continue perfectly indifferent. Persons of feeling are always vulgar, and only fit for clergymen's wives."

"But Sir Stratford, mamma"——

"Has twenty thousand a-year, and is in very good society. He almost lives with the Rosleys. The Duke has been trying to get him for his son-in-law for a whole year."

"And Lady Mary so beautiful, too?"

"I believe, my dear, Lady Mary's affections, as they are called, are engaged."

"Indeed?" enquired the daughter, for curiosity in such subjects exists even in the midst of one's own distresses.

"May I ask who has gained Lady Mary's heart?"

"I believe it is that young Mr Lawleigh, a cousin of the Duchess—old Lord Berville's nephew; you've seen him here—a quiet, reserved young man. I saw nothing in him, and I understand he is very poor."

"And does—does Mr Lawleigh—like—love—Lady Mary?" enquired Alice with difficulty.

"He never honoured me with his confidence," replied the Countess—"but I suppose he does—of course he does—Sir Stratford, indeed, told me so—and he ought to know, for he is his confidant."

"He keeps the secret well," said Lady Alice with a slight tone of bitterness; "and Mr Lawleigh could scarcely be obliged to him if he knew the use he makes of his confidence—and Lady Mary still less"—she added.

"Why, if girls will be such fools as to think they have hearts, and then throw them away, they must make up their minds to be laughed at. Lady Mary is throwing herself away—her inamorato is still at Rosley House."

It was lucky the Countess did not perceive the state of surprise with which her communication was received.

Lady Alice again placed her cheek upon her hand, and sank into a deeper reverie than ever.

"Sir Stratford also is at Rosley, and if he rides over this evening, I have given orders for him to be admitted. You will conduct yourself as I wish. Come, Matilda, let us leave your sister to her happy thoughts."

Her happy thoughts! the Lady Alice was not one of those indifferent beings panegyrized by the Countess; she had given her whole heart to Henry Lawleigh—and now to hear that he loved another! She gazed along the magnificent park, and longed for the solitude and silence of the wilderness beyond. There, any where but in that sickening room, where the communication had been made to her, she would breath freer. She wrapt her mantilla over her head, and walked down the flight of steps into the park. Deeply immersed in her own sad contemplation, she pursued her way under the avenue trees, and, opening the wicket gate, found herself on the little terrace of the wood—the terrace so lonely, so quiet—where she had listened, where she had smiled. And now to know that he was false! She sat down on the bench at the foot of the oak, and covered her face with her hands, and wept.

A low voice was at her ear. "Alice!"

She looked up, and saw bending over her, with eyes full of admiration and surprise, Harry Lawleigh. Gradually as she looked, his features assumed a different expression, his voice also altered its tone.

"You are weeping, Lady Alice," he said—"I scarcely expected to find you in so melancholy a mood, after the joyous intelligence I heard to-day."

"Joyous!" repeated Alice, without seeming to comprehend the meaning of the word. "What intelligence do you allude to?"

"Intelligence which I only shared with the whole party at Rosley Castle. There was no secret made of the happy event."

"I really can't understand you. What is it you mean? who communicated the news?"

"The fortunate victor announced his conquest himself. Sir Stratford received the congratulations of every one from the duke down to—to—myself."

"I will not pretend to misunderstand you," said Lady Alice—"my mother, but a few minutes ago, conveyed to me the purport of Sir Stratford's visit." She paused and sighed.

"And you replied?" enquired Lawleigh.

"I gave no reply. I was never consulted on the subject. I know not in what words my mother conveyed her answer."

"The words are of no great importance," said Lawleigh; "the fact seems sufficiently clear; and as I gave Sir Stratford my congratulations on his happiness, I must now offer them to you, on the brightness of your prospects, and the shortness of your memory."

"Few can appreciate the value of the latter quality so well as yourself—your congratulations on the other subject are as uncalled for as your taunts—I must return home." She rose to depart, and her face and figure had resumed all the grace and dignity which had formerly characterized her beauty.

"One word, Lady Alice!" said Lawleigh; "look round—it was here—one little year ago, that I believed myself the happiest, and felt myself the most fortunate, of men. This spot was the witness of vows—sincerer on one side than any ever registered in heaven—on another, of vows more fleeting than the shadows of the leaves that danced on the greensward that calm evening in June, when first I told you that I loved you: the leaves have fallen—the vows are broken. Alice!—may you be happy—farewell!"

"If you desire it, be it so—but before we part, it is right you should know all. Whatever answer my mother may have given to Sir Stratford Manvers, to that answer I am no party. I do not love him: and shall never marry him. Your congratulations, therefore, to both of us, were premature, and I trust the same description will not apply to those I now offer to Mr Lawleigh and Lady Mary Rosley."

"To me?—to Lady Mary?—what does this mean?"

"It means that your confidential friend, Sir Stratford, has betrayed your secret—that I know your duplicity, and admire the art with which you conceal your unfaithfulness by an attempt to cast the blame of it on me."

"As I live——Alice! Alice! hear me," cried Lawleigh, stepping after the retreating girl; "I will explain—you are imposed on."

A hand was laid on his arm——

"He!—fairly caught, by Jupiter! whither away?" said Sir Stratford Manvers. "Thou'st sprung fair game i' the forest, 'faith—I watched her retreat—a step like a roebuck—a form like a Venus"——

"Unhand me, villain, or in an instant my sword shall drink the blood of thy cowardly heart."

"Fair words! thou'st been studying the rantipoles of Will Shakspeare, Hal. What is't, man? Is thy bile at boiling heat because I have lit upon thee billing and cooing with the forester's fair niece—poh! man—there be brighter eyes than hers, however bright they be."

"Now then, we have met," said Lawleigh, in a voice of condensed passion—"met where none shall hear us—met where none shall see us—met where none shall part us—Ha! dost thou look on me without a blush—the man you have injured—the friend who trusted—the enemy who will slay?—draw!"

"This is sheer midsummer madness—put up thy toasting-fork, Hal. This is no time nor place for imitations of Ben Jonson's Bobadil. Zounds! man, you'll startle all the game with your roaring—and wherefore is all the disturbance?"

"'Tis that you have traduced me, and injured me in the eyes of one, for a smile of whose lip thou well knowest I would lay down my life—for a touch of whose hand thou well knowest I would sell me to the Evil One—thou hast blackened me, and I will be avenged—ho! chicken-hearted boaster before women, and black-hearted traitor among men, will nothing rouse thee? Hear this, then—thou hast lied."

"Thou mean'st it?" said Sir Stratford, and drew back a step or two.

"I do—art thou man enough to cross points on that provocation?"

"Oh, on far less, as thou well knowest, in the way of accommodating a young gentleman anxious to essay a feat of arms. Thou hast said the word, and we fight—but let me ask to what particular achievement of mine thou hast attached so ugly an epithet. I would fain know to what I am indebted for your good opinion so gallantly expressed."

"I will but name two names—and between them thou wilt find how dastardly thy conduct has been."

"Make it three—'twere pity to balk the Graces of their numbers; add the young lady who so lately left thee. The forester's fair daughter deserves a niche as well as a duke's daughter."

"The names I mention," said Lawleigh, "are Lady Alice Lorrington, and Lady Mary Rosley."

Sir Stratford lifted his cap. "Fair ladies," he said, "I greet you well; that I have sunned me in the bright blue eyes of one, and the dark lustrous glances of the other, is true—yet, 'tis but acting in love as people are justified in doing in other things. When health begins to fail, physicians recommend a change of climate—when admiration begins to decay, I always adopt a different style of beauty; when the cold climate is too severe, I fly to the sunny plains of Italy—when Lady Alice frowns, I go to bask in the smiles of Lady Mary."

"And are a villain, a calumniator, and boaster in all—defend thyself."

"As best I may," replied Sir Stratford, and drew his sword. It was easy for him to parry the rapid thrusts of his enraged adversary—and warily and slowly he was beginning the offensive in his turn, when a sudden flash was seen, a loud report took place, and the baronet was stretched upon the ground, weltering in his blood. Rapid steps ere heard retreating in the direction of the thicket in the park, and Lawleigh hurried to the paling, and saw the form of a tall man, in a dark velvet coat, disappear over the hedge."

["How good that is!" said Jack Stuart, as I came to the end of the chapter, and laid down the volume. "How good that is! Did you perceive where the joining took place?"

"No—I saw no joining."

"Why, you stupid fellow, didn't you see that the first part was from a novel of the present day, and the other from a story of the rebellion—who the deuce do you think talks of thees and thous except the Quaker?"

"I didn't notice it, I confess."

"Glad to hear it; nobody else will; and in the next chapter, which is the seventeenth of the second volume of this romance, you will see how closely the story fits. Recollect to change the names as I have marked them in pencil, and go on.]

CHAPTER II.

"Hope springs eternal in the human mind, I would be cruel only to be kind; 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, Survey mankind from Indus to Peru; How long by sinners shall thy courts be trod? An honest man's the noblest work of God."

MS. Poem—(original.)

Night, thick, heavy, deep night!—No star visible amid the sulphureous blackness of the overcharged clouds; and silence, dreadful as if distilled from the voicelessness of the graves of a buried world! Night and silence, the twins that keep watch over the destinies of the slumbering earth, which booms round in ceaseless revolution, grand, mystic, sublime, but yearns in the dim vastness of its sunless course, for the bright morning-hour which shall again invest it with a radiance fresh from heaven! Darkness, and night, and silence! and suddenly rushing down, on whirlwind wings, the storm burst fearfully upon their domain—wind and rain, and the hollow sound of the swaying branches! And Lawleigh pressed onward. His horse, which for several miles had shown symptoms of fatigue now yielded to the difficulties it could no longer encounter; and after a few heavy struggles, fell forward, and did not attempt to rise. Thirteen hours had elapsed from the time the chase on that day commenced, and unless for a short minute, he had seen nothing of the fugitive. Yet he had dashed onward, feeling occasionally his holsters, and satisfied that his pistols were in serviceable condition. He was now nearly as much exhausted as his horse; but determining to yield to no obstruction, he seized the pistols, and proceeded through the wood, leaving his gallant charger to its fate. Lawleigh was strong and active beyond most men of his day; and, when excited, more vigorous and determined than could have been supposed from the ordinary equanimity of his character. But here a great murder had been committed!—before his very eyes!—accusations had been hazarded!—and one soft voice dwelt for ever on his ear—"Find out the murderer, or see me no more." Had Lady Alice, indeed, allowed a suspicion to invade her mind, that he had been accessory to the death of Sir Stratford Manvers? But no!—he would pursue the dreadful thought no further. Sufficient that, after many efforts, he had regained a clue to the discovery of the tall man he had seen escape into the thicket. He had tracked him unweariedly from place to place—had nearly overtaken him in the cave of Nottingham Hill—caught glimpses of him in the gipsy camp at Hatton Grange—and now felt assured he was close upon his track in the savage ranges of Barnley Wold. Barnley Wold was a wild, uncultivated district, interspersed at irregular intervals with the remains of an ancient forest, and famous, at the period of our narrative, as the resort of many lawless and dangerous characters. Emerging from one of the patches of wood, which, we have said, studded the immense expanse of the wold, Lawleigh was rejoiced to perceive a faint brightening of the sky, which foretold the near approach of the morning. He looked all around, and, in the slowly increasing light, he thought he perceived, at the top of a rising ground at some distance, a shepherd's hut, or one of the rough sheds put up for the accommodation of the woodmen. He strove to hurry towards it, but his gigantic strength failed at length; and, on reaching the humble cottage, he sank exhausted at the door. When he recovered consciousness, he perceived he was laid on a rough bed, in a very small chamber, illuminated feebly by the still slanting beams of the eastern sun. He slowly regained his full recollection; but, on hearing voices in the room, he shut his eyes again, and affected the same insensibility as before.

"What could I do?" said a voice, in a deprecating tone.

"Leave him to die, to be sure," was the rough-toned answer. "I thought thee had had enough of gentlefolks, without bringing another fair-feathered bird to the nest." There was something in the expression with which this was said, that seemed to have a powerful effect on the first speaker.

"After the years of grief I've suffered, you might have spared your taunt, George. The gentleman lay almost dead at the door, and you yourself helped me to bring him in."

"'Twould have been better, perhaps, for him if we had led him somewhere else; for your father seems bitter now against all the fine folks together."

"Because he fancies he has cause of hatred to me—but he never had," answered the girl.

"And the gentleman had pistols, too," said the man. "You had better hide them, or your father will maybe use them against the owner."

"I did not move them from the gentleman's breast. We must wake him, and hurry him off before my father's return—but, hark! I hear his whistle. Oh, George, what shall we do?"

Lawleigh, who lost not a syllable of the conversation, imperceptibly moved his hand to his breast, and grasped the pistol. The man and the girl, in the mean time, went to the door, and, in a minute or two, returned with a third party—an old man dressed like a gamekeeper, and carrying a short, stout fowling-piece in his hand. His eyes were wild and cruel, and his haggard features wore the impress of years of dissipation and recklessness. "Does he carry a purse, George?" said the new-comer, in a low whisper, as he looked towards the bed.

"Don't know—never looked," said George. "Where have you been all the week? We expected you home three days ago."

"All over the world, boy—and now you'll see me rest quiet and happy—oh, very! Don't you think I looks as gleesome, Janet, as if I was a gentleman?"

The tone in which he spoke was at variance with the words; and it is likely that his face belied the expression he attributed to it; for his daughter, looking at him for the first time, exclaimed—

"Oh, father! what has happened? I never saw you look so wild."

"Lots has happened, Janet—sich a lot o' deaths I've been in at, to be sure—all great folks, too, none o' your paltry little fellows of poachers or gamekeepers, but real quality. What do you think of a lord, my girl?"

"I know nothing about them, father."

"You used, though, when you lived at the big house. Well, I was a-passing, two nights since, rather in a hurry, for I was a little pressed for time, near the house of that old fellow that keeps his game as close as if he was a Turk, and they was his wives—old Berville—Lord Berville, you remember, as got Bill Hunkers transported for making love to a hen pheasant. Well, thinks I, I'll just make bold to ask if there's any more of them in his lordship's covers, when, bing, bang goes a great bell at the Castle, and all the village folks went up to see what it was. I went with them, and there we seed all the servants a rummaging and scrummaging through the whole house, as if they was the French; and, as I seed them all making free with snuff-boxes, and spoons, and such like, I thought I'd be neighbourly, and just carried off this gold watch as a keepsake of my old friend."

"Oh, father! What will his lordship do?"

"He'll rot, Janet, without thinking either about me or his watch; for he's dead. He was found in his bed that very morning when he was going to sign away all the estate from his nephew. So that it's lucky for that 'ere covy that the old boy slipt when he did. People were sent off in all directions to find him; for it seems the old jackdaw and the young jackdaw wasn't on good terms, and nobody knows where he's gone to."

"They would have known at Rosley Castle," said the girl, but checked herself, when her father burst out—

"To the foul fiend with Rosley Castle, girl! Will you never get such fancies out of your head. If you name that cursed house to me again, you die! But, ha! ha! you may name it now," he added, with a wild laugh. "We've done it."

"Who? Who have done it?"

"She and I," said the ruffian, and nodded towards the fowling-piece, which he had laid upon the table; "and now we're safe, I think; so give me some breakfast, girl, and ask no more foolish questions. You, George, get ready to see if the snares have caught us anything, and I'll go to bed in the loft. I'll speak to this springald when I get up."

"Done what, father?" said the girl, laying her hand on the old man's arm. "For mercy's sake, tell ne what it is you have done—your looks frighten me."

"Why, lodged a slug in the breast of a golden pheasant, that's all—a favourite bird of yours—but be off, and get me breakfast."

While waiting for his meal, he sat in an arm-chair, with his eyes fixed on the bed where Lawleigh, or, as we must now call him, Lord Berville, lay apparently asleep. What the ruffian's thoughts were we cannot say, but those of his involuntary guest were strange enough. His uncle dead, and the fortune not alienated, as, with the exception of a very small portion, he had always understood his predecessor had already done—his life at this moment in jeopardy; for a cursory glance at the tall figure of the marauder, as he had entered, had sufficed to show that the object of his search was before him—and too well he knew the unscrupulous villany of the man to doubt for a moment what his conduct would be if he found his pursuer in his power. If he could slip from the bed unobserved, and master the weapon on the table, he might effect his escape, and even secure the murderer; for he made light of the resistance that could be offered by the young woman, or by George. But he felt, without opening his eyes, that the glance of the old man was fixed on him; and, with the determination to use his pistol on the first demonstration of violence, he resolved to wait the course of events. The breakfast in the mean time was brought in, and Janet was about to remove the fowling-piece from the table, when she was startled by the rough voice of her father, ordering her to leave it alone, as it might have work to do before long.

The girl's looks must have conveyed an enquiry; he answered them with a shake of his head towards the bed. "I may have business to settle with him," he said, in a hoarse whisper; and the girl pursued her task in silence. The old man, after cautioning her not to touch the gun, turned to the dark press at one end of the room, and in about half a minute had filled his pipe with tobacco, and re-seated himself in the chair. But Janet had seized the opportunity of his back being turned, and poured the hot water from the teapot into the touch-hole, and was again busy in arranging the cups and saucers.

"Where's George?" enquired the father; "but poh, he's a chicken-hearted fellow, and would be of no use in case of a row"—— So saying, he went on with his breakfast.

"He's awake!" he said suddenly. "I seed his eye."

"Oh no, father! he's too weak to open his eyes—indeed he is."

"I seed his eye, I tell ye; and more than that, I've seed the eye afore. Ha! am I betrayed?"

He started up, and seized the fowling-piece. His step sounded across the floor, and Berville threw down the clothes in a moment, and sprang to his feet.

"You here?" cried the ruffian, and levelled the gun, drew the trigger, and recoiled in blank dismay when he missed fire, and saw the athletic figure of Berville distended to its full size with rage, and a pistol pointed with deadly aim within a yard of his heart. He raised the but-end of his gun; but his daughter, rushing forward, clung to his arm.

"Fire not—but fly!" she cried to Berville. "Others are within call, and you are lost."

"Villain!" said Berville, "miscreant! murderer! you have but a moment to live"—and cocked the pistol.

"Let go my arm, girl," cried the old man, struggling.

"I have saved your life—I hindered the gun from going off—all I ask you in return is to spare my father." She still retained her hold on the old man's arm, who, however, no longer struggled to get it free.

"What! you turned against me?" he said, looking ferociously at the beautiful imploring face of his daughter. "You, to revenge whom I did it all! Do you know what I did? I watched your silken wooer till I saw him in the presence of this youth—I killed Sir Stratford Manvers"——

"And shall die for your crime," cried Berville; "but the death of a felon is what you deserve, and you shall have none other at my hands. In the mean time, as I think you are no fit companion for the young woman to whom I am indebted for my life, I shall offer her the protection of my mother, and take her from your house. If you consent to let us go in peace, I spare your life for the present; and will even for three days abstain from setting the emissaries of the law in search of you. After that, I will hunt you to the death. Young woman, do you accept my terms? If you refuse, your father dies before your face."

"Shall I accept, father?"

"If you stay, I lodge a bullet in your brain," said the old savage, and drew himself up.

"Come, then," said Berville, leading Janet to the door. She turned round ere she quitted the cottage, but met a glance of such anger and threatening, that she hurried forward with Berville, who pursued his way rapidly through the wood."

["That fits in very nicely," said Jack Stuart; "and you may be getting ready the five pound note, for I feel sure you know you back the losing horse. Can any thing be more like a genuine, bona fide novel, the work of one man, and a devilish clever man too? Confess now, that if you didn't know the trick of it, you would have thought it a splendid original work? But perhaps you're throat's dry with so much reading? Here's another bottle of Lafitte; and we can miss over a volume and a half of foreign scenes, which you can imagine; for they are to be found in every one of the forty novels I sent for. Just imagine that the Countess takes her daughters abroad—that Berville encounters them in the Colosseum by moonlight—quarrels—doubts—suspicions—and a reconciliation; finally, they all come home, and you will find the last chapter of the last volume in this."

Jack handed me a volume, evidently popular among circulating library students, for it was very dirty; and I was just going to commence when Jack interrupted me.

"Stay," he said; "you must have a motto. Do you know Italian?"

"Not a word."

"Or Spanish, or German?"

"No."

"Well, you surely can recollect some Greek—for next to manuscript quotations and old plays, you can't do better than have some foreign lines at the beginning of the chapter. What Greek do you remember?—for, 'pon my honour; I've forgotten all mine."

"My dear Jack, I only know a line here and there."

"Out with them. Put them all in a row, and never mind the meaning."

Thus urged, I indited the following as a headpiece.]

"Deine de clange genet' argurioio bioio, Be d'akeion para thina poluphlosboio thalasses, Thelo legein Atreidas, thelo de Cadmon adein, Ton d'apomeibomenos prosephe podas-ocus Achilleus." HOMER, Iliad, 1. I.

["Excellent! bravo!" said Jack; "they'll see at once the author is a gentleman and a scholar; and now go on."]

The crimson and gold drawing-room of Lorrington Caste was filled with company, the court-yard crowded with carriages, and the coachmen and footmen in gorgeous liveries, with a splendid white satin favour at the side of their hats. The view from the window——

["Stop," said Jack Stuart, "here's a better description. I cut it out of the Times"——]

The view from the window involved a spacious assemblage of all the numerous beauties and illustrations that cast a magnificent air of grandeur over one of

ENGLAND'S NOBLEST MANSIONS.

The extensive shrubberies clothed the verdant meads, and threw a shade of deep green tints over an

EXTENSIVE ARTIFICIAL LAKE,

on which floated, like a nymph or naiad, a beautiful

SAILING BOAT,

painted bright green, and fit for instant use. Further off, in one of those indistinct distances immortalized by the pencil of Turner—now softened into sober beauty by "the autumnal hue, the sear and yellow leaf," as an immortal bard expresses it, in language which the present writer does not imitate, and could not, without great difficulty, excel, was an

IMMENSE DAIRY FARM,

fit for the accommodation of

THIRTY MILK COWS,

of a peculiar breed, highly approved of by the

RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF SPENCER.

In other portions of the landscape rose statues which might have raised the envy of

PRAXITELES, THE GRECIAN SCULPTOR,

or attracted the love of the beautiful "Maid of France," who "sighed her soul away" in presence of

THE APOLLO BELVIDERE,

a figure, in the words of a living author,

"Too fair to worship, too divine to love."

The drawing-room of the mansion was of the amplest size, and contained some of the finest specimens of the taste and workmanship of

JACKSON AND GRAHAM,

enumerating Or-molu tables—escritoires—rosewood chairs richly inlaid—richly coloured

AXMINSTER CARPET,

and sofas covered with figured satin.

["That will do," said Jack. "Now go on with the book."]

But while the company were engaged in detached groups, waiting the signal for proceeding into the great hall, where the ceremony was to be performed by special license, Lord Berville sent a message to the Countess, that he wished to say a few words to Lady Alice, in the library, before the commencement of the ceremony that was to make him the happiest of men. He waited impatiently, and in a few minutes the bride appeared, radiant in joy and beauty. She started, when she saw seated beside him a beautiful young woman, plainly, but richly drest. They rose when Lady Alice appeared.

"Dearest Alice," said Berville, "I have told you that there was a person in this neighbourhood to whom my gratitude was unbounded, and who, I hope, has now an equal claim on yours, for she is the saviour of my life."

"Indeed?"

"Let it be a secret between us three," continued Berville; "but you agree with me, my friend," he said, turning to the stranger, "that there should be no reserve between a man and his wife. I told you, Alice, when we were at Rome, the story of an adventure I had on Barnley Wold, and of the heroic conduct of a young girl. In this lady you see her. She is now the wife of the vicar of my parish, and I trust will be a friend of both of us."

Lady Alice threw her arms round Janet's neck, and said, "I know it all; we shall be friends; and nothing makes one so happy as to know we shall be so near each other."

"Ah, madam, you know not how deeply I am indebted to his lordship's mother, for all her kindness, or how overpaid all my services are by the happiness of this moment."

"And now, having made you thus acquainted, I must ask you, my kind friend, to hurry Lady Alice to the great hall, where your husband, I trust, is waiting to tie the indissoluble band."

A joyous shout from the tenants assembled in the outer court, who became impatient for the appearance of the happy pair, gave evidence of the near approach of the happy moment, and Janet and Lady Alice hurried from the room. Lord Berville rang the bell. His servant appeared, being no other than our old acquaintance George, now softened by a year's sojourn in a foreign land.

"George," said Lord Berville, "no one in the earth knows your position; from this hour, therefore, you cease to be my servant, and are the steward of my Lincolnshire estate. Your uncle's fate is unknown?"

"His fate is known, my lord, that he died by his own hand in the hut on Barnley Wold; but his crimes are undiscovered."

"Be it so; let them be alluded to between us no more. Your cousin Janet is the happy wife of my friend and chaplain; and I am delighted to show my appreciation of her nobleness and purity, by all the kindness I can bestow on her relations. Go down to Lincolnshire, Mr Andrews," said his lordship, shaking hands with George, "and when you are installed in the mansion-house, write to me; and now, farewell."

It is difficult to say whose heart was most filled with joy on this eventful day. Lady Matilda, now happily married to Lord Merilands of the Guards, and the lovely Lady Mary Rosely, (shortly to be united to the young Earl of Gallowdale,) were pleased at the happiness of their friends; and certainly no prayer seemed to be more likely to receive its accomplishment than that which was poured forth, amidst the ringing of bells and the pealing of cannon, for the health and prosperity of Lord and Lady Berville.

Jack Stuart sat, with his eyes turned up to the ceiling, as if he were listening to the music of the spheres.

"The best novel I have ever read!" he exclaimed; "and now, all I have got to do is to get it copied fairly out, dedicate it to Lord William Lennox or Mr Henry Bulwer, and get my five or six hundred guineas. It is a capital thing to lose on the Derby; for unless I had been drawn for the hundred and fifty, I don't think the dovetail novel would ever have come into my head."

* * * * *



INSCRIPTION ON THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE NEW DINING-HALL, &c., NOW ERECTING FOR THE HON. SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S INN.

Stet lapis arboribus nudo defixus in horto Fundamen pulchrae tempus in omne domus. Aula vetus lites legumque aenigmata servet, Ipsa nova exorior nobilitanda coquo.

FREE TRANSLATION.

No more look For shady nook, Poor perspiring stranger! Trees for bricks Cut their sticks, Lo! our salle-a-manager!

Yon old hall, For suit and brawl, Still be famed in story; This must look To the cook For its only glory!

O.O.

* * * * *



SCROPE ON SALMON FISHING.

Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed. By WILLIAM SCROPE, Esq., F.L.S. 1 vol. royal 8vo. London, 1843.

We have here a work of great beauty in a pictorial and typographical point of view, and one which abounds with practical information regarding the bolder branches of the "gentle art." Mr Scrope conveys to us, in an agreeable and lively manner, the results of his more than twenty years' experience as an angler in our great border river; and having now successfully illustrated, both with pen and pencil, two of the most exciting of all sporting recreations—deer-stalking and salmon-fishing—he may henceforward repose himself upon the mountain-side, or by the murmuring waters, with the happy consciousness of having not only followed the bent of his own inclinations, but contributed to the amusement and instruction of a numerous class of his fellow creatures. The present volume consists of no dry didactic dissertations on an art unteachable by written rules, and in which, without long and often dear-bought experience, neither precept nor example will avail; but it contains a sufficiency of sagacious practical advice, and is enlivened by the narration of numerous angling adventures, which bring out, with force and spirit, the essential character of the sport in question.

Great advances have been recently made in our knowledge of the sea-going Salmonidae. Indeed, all the leading facts of primary importance in the history of their first development and final growth are now distinctly known, and have lately been laid before the public in the form both of original memoirs in our scientific journals, and the transactions of learned societies, and of more popular abstracts in various literary works. We ourselves discussed the subject in this Magazine, with our accustomed clearness, a couple of months ago; and we shall therefore not here enter into the now no longer vexed question of the nature of parr and smolts,—all doubt and disputation regarding the actual origin and family alliance of these fry, their descent from and eventual conversion into grilse and salmon, being finally set at rest to the satisfaction of every reasonable and properly instructed mind. We consider it, however, as a good proof of the natural sagacity and observant disposition of our present author, that he should have come to the same conclusion several years ago, regarding the habits and history of salmon-fry, as that so successfully demonstrated by Mr Shaw. Mr Scrope dwells with no unbecoming pertinacity on this point; but he shows historically, while fully admitting the importance and originality of that ingenious observer's experimental proceedings, that he had, in the course of his own private correspondence and conversation, called the attention of Mr Kennedy of Dunure as a legislator, and of Sir David Brewster as a skilled interpreter of natural phenomena, to various facts corresponding to those which have been since so skilfully detailed by Mr Shaw.

Our author, though well acquainted with the sporting capabilities of all parts of Scotland, here confines himself to the lower portions of the Tweed, more than twelve miles of which he has rented at different times. We in some measure regret that one so able to inform us, from his extensive experiences regarding the nature and localities of the first-rate though rather precarious angling for salmon which may be obtained in the northern parts of Scotland, should not have contrived to include an account of the more uproarious Highland streams and placid lakes frequented by this princely species. With all our admiration for the flowing Tweed, of which we have fondly traced the early feeble voice—

"a fitful sound Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound, Unfruitful solitudes, that seem'd t' upbraid The sun in heaven!"—

until, through many an intermediate scene of infinitely varied beauty, the expanded waters—

"Gliding in silence with unfetter'd sweep, Beneath an ampler sky, a region wide Is open'd round them:—hamlets, towers, and towns, And blue-topp'd hills, behold them from afar:"—

we should still have rejoiced to find a twin volume devoted to those wilder and more desolate scenes by which the northern angler is encompassed. Meanwhile we accept with pleasure our author's "Days and Nights" upon the Tweed.

Salmon ascend from the sea, and enter this fine river, in greater or less abundance, during every period of the year, becoming more plentiful as the summer advances, provided there is a sufficiency of rain both to enlarge and discolour the waters, and thus enable the fish to pass more securely over those rippling shallows which so frequently occur between the deeper streams.

"The salmon," says Mr Scrope "travels rapidly, so that those which leave the sea, and go up the Tweed on the Saturday night at twelve o'clock, after which time no nets are worked till the Sabbath is past, are found and taken on the following Monday near St Boswell's—a distance, as the river winds, of about forty miles. This I have frequently ascertained by experience. When the strength of the current in a spate is considered, and also the sinuous course a salmon must take in order to avoid the strong rapids, their power of swimming must be considered as extraordinary."—P. 10.

We do not clearly see, and should have been glad had the author stated, in what manner he ascertained that his St Boswell's fish had not escaped the sweeping semicircles of the lower nets some days previous. We admit that there is a great deal of Sabbath desecration committed by salmon, but we also know that they travel upwards, though in smaller number and with greater risk, during all the other days of the week; and we are curious to understand how any angler, however accomplished, can carry his skill in physiognomy to such perfection, as to be able to look a fish in the face on Monday morning, and decide that it had not left the sea till the clock struck twelve on the Saturday night preceding.

"As salmon" our author continues, "are supposed to enter a river merely for the purposes of spawning, and as that process does not take place till September, one cannot well account for their appearing in the Tweed and elsewhere so early as February and March, seeing that they lose in weight and condition during their continuance in fresh water. Some think it is to get rid of the sea-louse; but this supposition must be set aside, when it is known that this insect adheres only to a portion of the newly-run fish which are in best condition. I think it more probable that they are driven from the coasts near the river by the numerous enemies they encounter there, such as porpoises and seals, which devour them in great quantities. However this may be, they remain in the fresh water till the spawning months commence."—P. 10.

We cannot think that a great instinctive movement which seems, although with a widely extended range in respect to tine, to pervade the entire mass of salmon along our universal shores, should in any way depend upon so casual an occurrence as an onslaught by seals and porpoises, or that fear rather than love should force them to seek the "pastoral melancholy" of the upper streams and tributaries. That seals are destructive to salmon, and all other fishes which frequent our shores or enter our estuaries, is undoubted; but we have no proof beyond the general allegation, that porpoises pursue a corresponding prey. Our own researches certainly lead to an opposite conclusion. The ordinary food of the cetacea, notwithstanding their enormous bulk, is minute in size; and we have never been informed, on good authority—that is, on direct testimony—that even herrings have ever been detected in the stomach of a porpoise. Yet we have careful notes of the dissection of these creatures, taken from specimens slaughtered in the midst of millions of herrings; and these notes show that the minute food with which the sea was swarming, and which formed the sustenance for the time of the smaller fishes, also constituted the food of the cetacea, which were merely gamboling through the herring shoals.

It is certainly, however, difficult to explain the motives by which the early spring salmon are actuated in ascending rivers, seeing that they never spawn till autumn at the soonest. We must remember, at the same time, that they are fresh-water fishes, born and bred in our own translucent streams, and that they have an undoubted right to endeavour to return there when it suits their own inclination. It may be, that although the ocean forms their favourite feeding-ground, and their increase of size and continuance in high condition depend upon certain marine attributes, which, of course, they can find only in the sea, yet the healthy development of the spawn requires a long-continued residence in running waters. We have ascertained, by experiment, that the ova of salmon, after being deposited, will make no progress in still water; and we cannot illustrate this portion of the subject better than by transcribing a paragraph from a letter, addressed to us in spring, (11th April 1843,) by Mr Andrew Young of Invershin, the manager of the Duke of Sutherland's extensive salmon fisheries in the north of Scotland:—"You are aware that it has been asserted by some of our wisest doctors, that salmon spawn in the sea and in lochs, as well as in rivers. However, as doctors are proverbially allowed to differ, I have this winter been trying to test the fact in the following manner: At the same time that I deposited the spawn from which I made my other experiments, I also placed a basket of the same spawn, with equal care, in a pool of pure still water from the river Shin; and I soon found that, while that which was placed in the running pools was regularly progressing, every particle put into the still water was as visibly degenerating, so that, by the time the spawn in the running pools was alive, that in the still water was a rotten mass. I must therefore say, from the above experiment, that rivers and running streams are the places fixed by nature for salmon to hatch their young." "I would also," says our correspondent in a subsequent portion of his letter, "mention an additional experiment on another point. It has been very generally asserted that intense frost injured the spawn of salmon; and in this opinion I was myself, in some measure, a believer. But as nothing but truth will stand a proper test, I turned my attention to this subject also. During the time of our severest frost, I took a basket of spawn, and placed it in a stream, where for three days it continued a frozen mass among the ice. I then placed the basket again in the running pond from whence it had been taken, and carefully watched the effect. I found that, although exposure to extreme cold had somewhat retarded the progressive growth, it had not in the slightest degree destroyed vitality. I am therefore satisfied, that unless frost goes the length of drying up the spawning beds altogether, it does not harm the spawn, further than by retarding its growth during the actual continuance of excessive cold. Thus fry are longer of hatching in a severe winter, than during an open one with little frost."

When salmon first ascend the Tweed, they are brown upon the back, fat, and in high condition. During the prevalence of cold weather they lie in deep and easy water, but as the season advances, they draw into the great rough streams, taking up their stations where they are likely to be least observed. But there the wily wand of the practiced angler casts its gaudy lure, and "Kinmont Willie," "Michael Scott," or "The Lady of Mertoun," (three killing flies,) darting deceitfully within their view, a sudden lounge is made—sometimes scarcely visible by outward signs—as often accompanied by a watery heave, and a flash like that of an aurora borealis,—and downwards, upwards, onwards, a twenty-pounder darts away with lightning speed, while the rapid reel gives out that heart-stirring sound so musical to an angler's ear, and than which none accords so well with the hoarser murmur of the brawling stream; till at last, after many an alternate hope and fear, the glittering prize turns up his silvery unresisting broadside, in meek submission to the merciless gaff.

Many otherwise well-principled persons believe that little more is required in angling than the exercise of patience. Place a merely patient man, acquainted only with pedestrian movements, upon a strong-headed horse determined to win, and give him the start at a steeple-chase, with Lord Waterford not far behind, and it will be seen before he has crossed much country, where patience is always as useful as it is praiseworthy. Place the same patient man, if he happens to have been picked up alive, and eventually recovers, in the midst of a roaring rock-bound river, and suppose him (a thing we confess, in his case, not quite conceivable) to have hooked a twenty-pound salmon at the tail of the stream, just where it subsides into some vast, almost fathomless, and far-extended pool, and that the said salmon, being rather of a restless disposition, and moreover somewhat disquieted by feeling an unaccustomed barb in his cheek or tongue, takes his 300 yards down the deep water at a single run, and then goes helter-skelter over a cataract, which had occupied him most of the preceding Sunday to ascend, after many a sinewy but unsuccessful spring! Will patience avail a man any thing in such a predicament, when he ought rather to run like an Arab, or dive like a dolphin, "splash, splash, towards the sea," notwithstanding the chance of his breaking his neck among the rocks, or being drowned while trying to round a crag which he cannot clamber over? Let us hear Mr Scrope's account of his third cast, one fine morning, when he came to Kingswell Lees.

"Now every one knows that Kingswell Lees, in fishermen's phrase, fishes off land; so there I stood on terra dura, amongst the rocks that dip down to the water's edge. Having executed one or two throws, there comes me a voracious fish, and makes a startling dash at 'Meg with the muckle mouth.'[10] Sharply did I strike the caitiff; whereat he rolled round disdainful, making a whirl in the water of prodigious circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis, or the Maelstrom, but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being hooked, and having by this time set his nose peremptorily down the stream, he flashed and whizzed away like a rocket. My situation partook of the nature of a surprise. Being on a rocky shore, and having had a bad start, I lost ground at first considerably; but the reel sang out joyously, and yielded a liberal length of line, that saved me from the disgrace of being broke. I got on the best pace I was able, and was on good ground just as my line was nearly all run out. As the powerful animal darted through Meg's Hole, I was just able to step back and wind up a few yards of line; but he still went at a killing pace, and when he came near to Melrose bridge, he evinced a distressing preference for passing through the further arch, in which case my line would have been cut by the pier. My heart sunk with apprehension, for he was near the opposite bank. Purdie, seeing this, with great presence of mind, took up some stones from the channel, and through them one by one between the fish and the said opposite bank. This naturally brought Master Salmo somewhat nearer, but still, for a few moments, we had a doubtful struggle for it. At length, by lowering the head of the rod, and thus not having so much of the ponderous weight of the fish to encounter, I towed him a little sideways; and so, advancing towards me with propitious fin, he shot through the arch nearest me.

"Deeply immersed, I dashed after him as best I might; and arriving on the other side of the bridge, I floundered out upon dry land, and continued the chase. The salmon, 'right orgillous and presumptive,' still kept the strength of the stream, and abating nothing of its vigour, went swiftly down the whirls; then through the Boat shiel, and over the shallows, till he came to the throat of the Elm Wheel, down which he darted amain. Owing to the bad ground, the pace here became exceedingly distressing. I contrived to keep company with my fish, still doubtful of the result, till I came to the bottom of the long cast in question, when he still showed fight, and sought the shallow below. Unhappily the alders prevented my following by land, and I was compelled to take water again, which slackened my speed. But the stream soon expanding, and the current diminishing, my fish likewise travelled more slowly; so I gave a few sobs and recovered my wind a little, gathered up my line, and tried to bring him to terms. But he derided my efforts, and dashed off for another burst, triumphant. Not far below lay the rapids of the Slaughterford: he would soon gain them at the pace he was going: that was certain—see, he is there already! But I back out again upon dry land, nothing loth, and have a fair race with him. Sore work it is. I am a pretty fair runner, as has often been testified; but his velocity is surprising. On, on, still he goes, ploughing up the water like a steamer. 'Away with you, Charlie! quick, quick, man—quick for your life! Loosen the boat at the Cauld Pool, where we shall soon be,' and so indeed we were, when I jumped into the said craft, still having good hold of my fish.

"The Tweed is here broad and deep, and the salmon at length had become somewhat exhausted; he still kept in the strength of the stream, however, with his nose seawards, and hung, heavily. At last he comes near the surface of the water. See how he shakes his tail and digs downwards, seeking the deep profound that he will never gain. His motions become more short and feeble: he is evidently doomed, and his race wellnigh finished. Drawn into the bare water, and not approving of the extended cleek, he makes another swift rush, and repeats this effort each time that he is towed to the shallows. At length he is cleeked in earnest, and hauled to shore; he proves one of the grey-skull newly run, and weighs somewhat above twenty pounds. The hook is not in his mouth, but in the outside of it: in which case a fish being able to respire freely, always shows extraordinary vigour, and generally sets his head down the stream.

"During the whole period of my experience in fishing, though I have had some sharp encounters, yet I never knew any sport equal to this. I am out of breath even now, whenever I think of it. I will trouble any surveyor to measure the distance from the Kingswell Lees, the starting spot, above Melrose bridge, to the end of the Cauld Pool, the death place, by Melrose church, and tell me how much less it is than a mile and three quarters,—I say, I will trouble him to do so; and let him be a lover of the angle, that he may rather increase than diminish the distance, as in good feeling and respect for the craft it behoves him to do."—P. 174.

[Footnote 10: A successful salmon-fly so named.]

On the subject of salmon leaps, most of us have both heard and seen much that was neither new nor true. Mr Yarrell, a cautious unimaginative man, accustomed to quote Shakspeare as if the bard of Avon had been some quiet country clergyman who had taken his share in compiling the statistical account of Scotland, confines their saltatorial powers only within ten or twelve perpendicular feet. We hold, with Mr Scrope, that even this is probably much beyond the mark. He thinks he never saw a salmon spring out of the water above five feet perpendicular.

"There is a cauld at the mouth of the Leader water where it falls into the Tweed, which salmon never could spring over; this cauld I have lately had measured by a mason most carefully, and its height varies from five and a half to six feet from the level above to the level below it, according as the Tweed, into which the Leader falls, is more or less affected by the rains. Hundreds of salmon formerly attempted to spring over this low cauld, but none could ever achieve the leap; so that a salmon in the Leader water was formerly a thing unheard of. The proprietors of the upper water have made an opening in this cauld of late years, giving the owner of the mill some recompense, so that salmon now ascend freely. Large fish can spring much higher than small ones; but their powers are limited or augmented according to the depth of water they spring from. They rise rapidly from the very bottom to the surface of the water, by rowing and sculling as it were with fins and tail, and this powerful impetus bears them upwards in the air. It is probably owing to a want of sufficient depth in the pool below the Leader water cauld, that prevented the fish from clearing it; because I know an instance where salmon have cleared a cauld of six feet belonging to Lord Sudely, who lately caused it to be measured for my satisfaction, though they were but few out of the numerous fish that attempted it that were able to do so. I conceive, however, that very large fish could leap much higher."—P. 12.

We believe that a good deal of the contrariety of opinion which prevails on this subject, arises from anglers and other men confounding an inclined plane with a perpendicular height. Salmon will assuredly overcome a prodigious force of descending water,—a roaring turmoil, which presents from below the aspect of a fall, but consists in reality of separate ledges massed together into one, when "floods lift up their voices." We are sorry to say, however, that the entire practice of angling is pervaded by a system of inaccuracy, exaggeration, and self-deceit, which is truly humiliating. There is consequently no period in the life of a young person which ought to be more sedulously superintended by parents and guardians, than that in which he is first allowed to plant himself by the rivers of waters. The most wonderful feature, however, in the leaping of salmon is not so much the height to which they spring, as the ease, elegance, and certainty, with which, while ascending small cataracts, they make their upward movements. For example, near Oykel bridge in Sutherland, there is a rocky interruption to the more ordinary current of the river, where the water is contained, as it were, in stages of pots or little caldrons, over the lower edge of each of which it dances downwards in the form of a short perpendicular fall. From a neighbouring bank by the river side, the movements of the aspiring fish may be distinctly seen. When a grilse has made his way to the foot of one of these falls, (which he never could have ascended before, although he must have descended it in childhood on his seaward way,) without a moment's doubt or hesitation he darts into the air, and throws himself head-foremost into the little basin above, to the bottom of which he instantly descends. Nothing can be more curious than the air of nonchalance with which they drop into these watery chambers, as if they knew their dimensions to an inch, and had been in the habit of sleeping in them every night. Now, from what has been ascertained of the natural history of the species, although the adult salmon of the Oykel must have previously made the leap at least once before, no fresh-run grilse could have ever done so; and yet, during suitable weather in the summer season, they are sometimes seen springing along with all the grace and agility of a troop of voltigeurs. Their object of course is to rest themselves for a short time, before leaping into the second range from the ground floor. But this innocent intention is too often interfered with; for a sharp-sighted Highlander, stationed on the bank above, immediately descends with landing-net in hand, and scoops them out of their natural caldron, with a view to their being speedily transferred to another of more artificial structure—the chief difference, however, consisting in the higher temperature of the water.

"Salmon," says Mr Scrope, "are led by instinct to select such places for depositing their spawn as are the least likely to be affected by the floods. These are the broad parts of the river, where the water runs swift and shallow, and has a free passage over an even bed. There they either select an old spawning place, a sort of trough left in the channel, or form a fresh one. They are not fond of working in new loose channels, which would be liable to be removed by a slight flood, to the destruction of their spawn. The spawning bed is made by the female. Some have fancied that the elongation of the lower jaw in the male, which is somewhat in the form of a crook, is designed by nature to enable him to excavate the spawning trough. Certainly it is difficult to divine what may be the use of this very ugly excrescence; but observation has proved that this idea is a fallacy, and that the male never assists in making the spawning place: and, indeed, if he did so he could not possibly make use of the elongation in question for that purpose, which springs from the lower jaw, and bends inwards towards the throat. When the female commences making her spawning bed, she generally comes after sunset, and goes off in the morning; she works up the gravel with her snout, her head pointing against the stream, as my fisherman has clearly and unequivocally witnessed, and she arranges the position of the loose gravel with her tail. When this is done, the male makes his appearance in the evenings, according to the usage of the female. He then remains close by her, on the side on which the water is deepest."—P. 15.

During this crisis trout collect below to devour such portions of the spawn as float down the river, and parr are frequently seen hovering in and around the trough. All these parr are salmon fry of the male sex, in a state of maturity; and if the old gentleman chances to be killed, or driven away, without having provided an assistant or successor, the "two-year-olds" perform the functions of paternity. This circumstance, though overlooked by modern naturalists till the days of Shaw, (not the old compiling doctor of the British Museum, but the more practical "keeper" of Drumlanrig,) was known and described by Willoughby in the seventeenth century. "To demonstrate the fact," says the more recent observer, "in January 1837, I took a female salmon, weighing fourteen pounds, from the spawning bed, from whence I also took a male parr, weighing one ounce and a half, with the milt of which I impregnated a quantity of her ova, and placed the whole in a private pond, where, to my great astonishment, the process succeeded in every respect as it had done with the ova which had been impregnated by the adult male salmon, and exhibited, from the first visible appearance of the embryo fish, up to their assuming their migratory dress, the utmost health and vigour."

So serious is the destruction of the spawn and fry of salmon, both by sea and fresh-water trout, that the Duke of Sutherland's manager would willingly, were it possible, extirpate the entire breed of these fish. "They commence," he informs us, in a letter of 15th May 1843, "the moment the salmon begin to deposit their spawn, and in the course of the spawning season they devour an immense quantity of ova. Indeed, at all other times of the year, they feed on the fry of salmon, and continue their destruction till the day the smolts leave the rivers. I have often cut up trout, and got smolts in their stomach; and last week a trout was opened in Mr Buist's fish-yard with four full-grown smolts in its belly. From these and other similar occurrences, you may judge to what extent this destruction is carried on, in the course of a single year, in such a river as our Oykel, where I have killed seven hundred trout at a single hawl." We understand that, some years ago, when Mr Trap, (a most appropriate name,) the fishmonger in Perth, had the Dupplin cruives, he got about 400 whitlings (or sea-trout) in one day, all of them gorged to the throat with salmon fry. The sea-trout of Sutherlandshire, like those of the Nith and the Annan, almost all belong to the species named Salmo trutta by naturalists. They scarcely ever exceed, indeed rarely attain to, a weight of five pounds; and such as go beyond that weight, and range upwards from eight to twelve pounds, are generally found to pertain to Salmo eriox, the noted bull-trout of the Tweed. The great grey sea-trout of the river Ness, which sometimes reaches the weight of eighteen pounds, we doubt not, also belongs to the species last named. It is rare in the waters of the Tay.

In regard to the seaward migration of salmon fry, Mr Scrope is of opinion that some are continually going down to the salt water in every month of the year, not with their silver scales on, but in the parr state.

"I say, not with their silver scales, because no clear smolt is ever seen in the Tweed during the summer and autumnal months. As the spawning season in the Tweed extends over a period of six months, some of the fry must be necessarily some months older than the others, a circumstance which favours my supposition that they are constantly descending to the sea, and it is only a supposition, as I have no proof of the fact, and have never heard it suggested by any one. But if I should be right, it will clear up some things that cannot well be accounted for in any other mode. For instance, in the month of March 1841, Mr Yarrell informs me that he found a young salmon in the London market, and which he has preserved in spirits, measuring only fifteen inches long, and weighing only fifteen ounces. And again another, the following April, sixteen and a half inches long, weighing twenty-four ounces. Now, one of these appeared two months, and the other a month, before the usual time when the fry congregate. According to the received doctrine, therefore, these animals were two of the migration of the preceding year; and thus it must necessarily follow that they remained in salt water, one ten, and the other eleven months, with an increase of growth so small as to be irreconcilable with the proof we have of the growth of the grilse and salmon during their residence in salt water."—P. 36.

We are not entirely of Mr Scrope's opinion, that some salmon fry are descending to the sea during every month of the year; at least, we do not conceive that this forms a part of their regular rotation. But the nature of the somewhat anomalous individuals alluded to by Mr Yarrell, may be better understood from the following considerations. Although it is an undoubted fact that the great portion of parr descend together to the sea, as smolts, in May, by which time they have entered into their third year, yet it is also certain that a few, owing to some peculiarity in their natural constitution, do not migrate at that time, but continue in the rivers all summer. As these have not obeyed the normal or ordinary law which regulates the movements of their kind, they make irregular migrations to the sea during the winter floods, and ascend the rivers during the spring months, some time before the descent of the two-year-olds. We have killed parr of this description, measuring eight and nine inches, in the rivers in October, and we doubt not these form eventually the small, thin, rather ill-conditioned grilse which are occasionally taken in our rivers during early spring. But it is midsummer before the regularly migrating smolts reappear as grilse. However, certain points in relation to this branch of our subject may still be regarded as "open questions," on which the Cabinet has not made up its mind, and may agree to differ. Mr Scrope is certainly right in his belief, that, whatever be the range of time occupied by the descent of smolts towards the sea, they are not usually seen descending with their silvery coating on except in spring; although our Sutherland correspondent, to whom we have so frequently referred, is not of that opinion. It may be, that those which do not join the general throng, migrate in a more sneaking sort of way during summer. They are non-intrusionists, who have at first refused to sign the terms of the Convocation; but finding themselves eventually rather out of their element, on the wrong side of the cruive dyke, and not wishing to fall as fry into the cook's hands, have sea-ceded some time after the disruption of their General Assembly.

Even those smolts which descend together in April and May, (the chief periods of migration,) do not agree in size. Many are not half the length of others, although all have assumed the silvery coat. "I had, last April," Mr Young informs us in a letter of 3d June 1843, "upwards of fifty of them in a large bucket of water, for the purpose of careful and minute examination of size, &c., when I found a difference of from three and a half to six inches—the smallest having the same silvery coat as the largest. We cannot at all wonder at this difference, as it is a fact that the spawn even of the same fish exhibits a disparity in its fry as soon as hatched, which continues in all the after stages. Although the throng of our smolts descend in April and May, we have smolts descending in March, and as late in the season as August, which lapse of time agrees with the continuance of our spawning season. But in all these months we have an equal proportion (that is, a corresponding mixture) of large and small smolts. I have earnestly searched for smolts in the winter months, year after year, and I can only say that I have never seen one, although I have certainly tried every possible means to find them. I have seen fish spawning through the course of six months, and I have seen smolts descending through the same length of time. Our return of grilses, too, exactly corresponds with this statement. Thus a few descending March smolts give a few ascending May grilses; while our April and May swarms of smolts yield our hordes of grilse in June and July. After July, grilses decrease in numbers till October, in proportion to the falling off of smolts from May to August. At least these are my observations in our northern streams." They are observations of great value, and it is only by gathering together similar collections of facts from various quarters, that we can ultimately attain to a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the whole subject.