by name; they know many of them, their good | affectionate epistles to his cousin, Lady Hes- keth, or acknowledging the bounty of the "I must again ask, had the lord high-chancellor ever gained to his heart any one intelligent and affectionate woman, to whom he could thus unbend his mind-pour forth his heart of hearts-in the unchilled confidence of a never failing sympathy? this I shall consider the possession of this friend-an immense weight in Cowper's scale, when we come to adjust the balance," said Mr. Dodsley. "I must now read you the fruits of my morning's study, ma'am,' says our poet after a pause; I had well nigh forgot that.' And he reads his sublime requiem on the loss of the Royal George. "I am mistaken if this be not wonderfully grand, Mr. Cowper,' says his ancient critic. But hark! our cuckoo clock. It must be regulated-you forget your duties, sir-Tiney must be put up, and' "You must just allow me, Mary, to give one puff of the bellows to the greenhouse embers. The air feels chilly to-night-my precious orange-tree.' And Mrs. Unwin smiles over his fond care, as the gentleman walks off with the bellows under his arm. "And now is the stated hour of family worship. Sam and Hannah march forward in decent order. But I shall not attempt to describe the pious household rites, where the author of the Task is priest and worshipper. Affectionate goodnights' close the scene. And this is the order of the evenings at Olney. "Cowper regulates the cuckoo clock; for though he has no alarum watch, or impending audience of Majesty, he lays many duties on himself, lowly, yet not ignoble; so about the same hour that the chancellor rolls off for Windsor, Cowper, also alert in duty, is penning his fair copy of the lace-workers' petition to parliament, or despatching one of his playful, "Why pursue the theme farther," continued the curate, “you all know the simple tenor of his life:- Thus did he travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness.' And The visitations to which his delicately-organ- us 'This single volume paramount?'" And Mr. Dodsley lifted Sophia's small and elegant copy of Cowper's works, and gave it into the hand of the youth next him. An animated discussion now arose; and when Miss Harding collected the votes, she found the young gentlemen were equally divided between Hastings and Thurlow. The young ladies were, however, unanimous for Cowper; and the curate gave his suffrage with theirs, repeating, "Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. [Sir Henry Wotton, born at Boughton Hall, Kent, 1568; died December, 1639. Poet and politician. He spent a number of years abroad on important embassies for the court of James I.] You meaner beauties of the night, What are you when the moon shall rise? You curious chanters of the wood, That warble forth Dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what's your praise, When Philomel her voice shall raise? You violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known Like the proud virgins of the year, As if the spring were all your own; What are you when the rose is blown? So, when my mistress shall be seen In form and beauty of her mind, By virtue first, then choice, a Queen, Tell me if she were not designed The eclipse and glory of her kind? NEHUSHTA'S BOWER. [Edwin Atherstone, born at Nottingham, 17th April, 1788; died 14th February, 1872. Author of The Last Days of Herculaneum; A Midsummer Day's Dream; The Fall of Nineveh (from which we quote); and Israel ia Egypt, poems; The Sea Kings, an historical romance; and The Handwriting on the Wall, a tale. Vigour, splendid diction, and truly poetic feeling."-Literary Gazette.] 'Twas a spot Herself had chosen, from the palace walls That from the deep shades all around it breathed, With a soft whisper. To a graceful arch, Or, with rich scent, the smell,-or that fine sense Of beauty that in forms and colours rare Doth take delight. With fragrant moss the floor Or, for the languid limbs, a downy couch, Of heroes of old days: the harp, sometimes, The distant and unceasing hum could hear A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. BY CHARLES LAMB. Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, tickling pleasure which he experienced in his dog's tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know not whatwhat have you got there, I say?" "O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats." He The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste-O Lord,”—with suchlike barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more import-have burned me down three houses with your ance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?-not from the burned cottagehe had smelt that smell before-indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted--secret escape, for the neighbours would cercrackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The | Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all that remained of the litter. Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the tainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burned down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsider At able assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given, to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision; and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burned, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind. Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in ROAST PIG. Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain it to be the most delicate-princeps obsoniorum. hereditary failing of the first parent, yet manifest-his voice, as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble the mild forerunner, or præludium, of a grunt. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed or boiledbut what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument! There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted crackling, as it is well called -the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance with the adhesive oleaginous-O call it not fat-but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it-the tender blossoming of fat-fat cropped in the budtaken in the shoot-in the first innocencethe cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food-the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna-or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance. Behold him, while he is doing it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string! Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyesradiant jellies-shooting stars See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!-wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal-wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation-from these sins he is happily snatched away Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, his memory is odoriferous-no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon-no coal-heaver bolteth him in reeking sausages-he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicureand for such a tomb might be content to die. He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost too transcendent -a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would I speak not of your grown porkers-things do well to pause-too ravishing for mortal between pig and pork-those hobbledehoys- taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips but a young and tender suckling-under a that approach her-like lovers' kisses, she moon old-guiltless as yet of the sty-with no biteth-she is a pleasure bordering on pain original speck of the amor immunditiæ, the | from the fierceness and insanity of her relish -but she stoppeth at the palate--she meddleth not with the appetite-and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop. Pig-let me speak his praise-is no less provocative of the appetite than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he is good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare. THE WARLOCK OF AIKWOOD.1 [Walter Graham Blackie, Ph.D., F.R.G.S., born in Glasgow, 1816. Educated privately, and at the univer sity of his native city. Whilst studying in Germany he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Jena. He has written several songs and translations of poetry and prose; but his principal work is the Imperial Gazetteer, a Dictionary of General Geography, on which he was engaged about ten years. For the purpose of consulting original authorities for the latter work, he acquired eight European languages.] Ae gloamin, as the sinking sun Auld Michael sat his leafu' lane Down by the streamlet's side, Wi' mennons wee, that loup'd for joy, And cross the stream, frae stane to stane, I am one of those who freely and ungrudg ingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"), capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, "give everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly (undered is thus narrated by Sir Walter Scott in the notes to pretext of friendship, or I know not what), a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate.-It argues an insensibility. MEMORIES. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, SHAKSPEARE. The sportive maukin frae his form Cam' dancing o'er the lea, 1 The tradition upon which the present ballad is found the Lay of the Last Minstrel:-Sir Michael Scott "was from the King of France satisfaction for certain piracies |