way. I chose my husband out of two or three eligible young men who, believing, perhaps, that I should make & pretty amiable sort of wife, and possibly tempted by my father's position, and the nice little fortune he had it in his power to bestow upon me, made persevering love to me. Everybody wondered why I should choose the poorest and plainest of my admirers. There was certainly no disinterestedness in the case. The truth was, Charles had been so very humble and assiduous as a lover, that I expected my love of power to be fully gratified in my new position as a wife.

However, I very soon found out my mistake. Charles rather disappointed me, even during the honeymoon. He was not always willing to attend me in my promenades at all hours of the day. Sometimes he wanted to go one way, when I had signified my intention of going another; or he wished to spend an evening at home, when I was tempted by the programme of a public bail or concert. The wretch even carried his independence so far as to fall asleep once or twice after dinner; and, though I had not yet acquired boldness to be openly angry, I testified my displeasure by coquetting with him the whole of the day after.

However, when at length we arrived in our snug little home, and I assumed all the dignity of a bride, I determined to make a firm stand against the spirit of independence and authority that I saw growing upon my husband, and to settle the matter once for all, whether Charles was to be pleased or I. An opportunity was soon afforded

me.

'My love,' said my husband, coming in one evening in a great fuss, Taglioni will make her farewell appearance at our theatre to-night, and I have secured tickets for you and me. There will be an awful crush. I might not have been able to procure the tickets, for I was so full of thought as I went to the office this morning, that I never observed the placards, so I knew nothing about it until noon. But Tom Taylor had two to dispose of, because they had just heard of the death of his wife's father, so I bought them at once. And now let us have tea; and make haste and dress yourself, for the cab will be here in an hour.'

Bless me, Charles!' I exclaimed, what a fuss! And how excited you are just about a dancer! Even if I approved of such an exhibition, I don't think I could go, for I faithfully promised to spend an hour or two this evening with that dear creature, Elien Haigh.'

'Not go!' cried my husband. What nonsense, Louisa. You must go, after the hurry I have made to come home for you. What new fit of propriety is this?'

"You might have sent me a note from the office,' I said, 'to know whether I should like your scheme or not. I would rather not hazard the crush, even for Taglioni, if it's all the same to you.'

'Pooh! I never knew you afraid of a crush before. It is all mere perversity. Come, just give me a cup of teathere's a good girl-and mind you are in your best looks to-night,' he added, smiling.

There was no making the creature believe that I really disapproved of the exhibition, or preferred spending the evening with my friend. He pooh-poohed! all my protestations and all my arguments. I waxed positive, then angry, and at length we had a regular quarrel. In the midst of this the cab drove up to the door, and my husband ran hastily up stairs to smooth his ruffled countenance, and put some finishing touches to his apparel.

And did the monster really go alone?' asks some young wife among my readers, jealous of her pre-eminence.

Indeed he did, my sympathising sister; and the worst of it all was, that, though I pouted, and sulked, and endeavoured to render his life miserable for a whole week, I had to give in, and make the first advances after all. However, though I have not space to record the whole transaction, it cured me of my ambition for unlimited power; and yet I have in reality lost nothing by this unlooked-for result; for, at this moment-by endeavouring to oblige my husband, and yieiding my will to his in immaterial matters-1 can at any time secure his compliance

with any reasonable desire or conscientious scruple of mine. Found-That when one of the gentler sex yields up herself and her actions to the guidance and protection of her natural lord and master, Man, it is equally vain and unwise to stand out about trifles; and that the only way to make her opinions and wishes respected is, by the acquirement of that potent influence which is based upon a graceful and loving spirit of submission.

Original Poetry.

VERSES WRITTEN ON VISITING RULLION-GREEN.
While lone through the greenwood my path I pursue,
et scarce stirs the boughs o'er the night's deeper dew,
Where the soft breeze of morning unceasingly sighs,
So long in the forest's recesses that lies;

Ob, shall not the thought to high Heaven belong,
Where now live the faithful, the great, and the good,
Who here, when the tide of oppression ran strong,
For faith and for freedom the spoiler withstood?
The sunshine glows bright on the heath of the hill,
There's music and joy in the voice of the rill,
And beauty and bliss marks the scenery of day;

And the wild rose in loveliness waves by the way.
But would there be joy in the sound of the stream,
And beauty on earth from the heavens above,
All blended in light, like a bliss-bringing dream,
If our land were no land of true freedom and love?
More rich is the flower, and the sunshine more bright,
In isles lying far o'er the ocean's wide wave;
But when shall the lawn and its flower bring delight
That is trod by the steps of the tyrant and slave?'
On the breast of yon steep, lo! the warrior's grey cairn,
Who bled for his country, still rising is seen;
And far on the moorlands, the heath and the fern
Wave round where the grave of the martyr grows green.
And there were the mighty, the morally brave,
That died an inheritance thus to convey,
Which is more than the wealth that is won by the slave,
And all that is found 'neath the chambers of day.
'Twas the light of high Heaven that fix'd, though so frail,
The heart of humanity still to withstand

The ruthless and proud who with death would assail
The wise and the faithful who lived in the land;
Defying that God, in their merciless strife,

Who erst sent, to save them, his own only Son;
They lavish'd in madness the powers of their life

In the soul-searing service of hell's hideous one. Oh, pause by the cairn, and still more by the grave, That the worn and oppress'd in the moorland have dug, And ask if 'twas more life's best freedom to save,

Or gain what the proud to his heart loved to hug? The king in yon halls drank his deep draughts of wine, While flatterers around sent the ruthless abroad, The progress to mar of the radiance divine,

And murder the peaceful, and browbeat their God. They hemm'd in the valley, and hunted the moor And pilfer'd whatever the fugitive left, And mock'd the frail mother and children now poor, Of father, and home, and of hauding bereft. Thus press did the power that would teach them to bear, Till wild desperation arose from despair, Yet ope for the suff 'rer no path of appeal,

To ward off the blows that oppression would deal. Here, hoary and hot, came the wild fiend of Binns, Whose cheek ne'er the tear-drop of pity bedew'd— Ah! the vict'ry is poor inhumanity wins

O'er those it to want and to wo has pursued.

except by looks, to make known her wants. She first tried to recognise, among the younger of the party, some who might have been her foster-children; but they were all grown out of knowledge-at all events, seemed to have no knowledge of her. From the juveniles she then turned to one who, judging by appearance, might have been 'le Fere de la Famille; brown coated, round, sleek, and shining, he had been busiest of the busy with his pipe, which, by the way, was much longer, and, as his petitioner soon found, much more pliaut than himself. Fairly tired out with the use, he had laid his curious instrument of repletion, not aside, but out of the way, and now, depending from his chin, and bent over his portly stomach, it passed between his legs, and turned up like a tail behind.'

We must not, however, follow our lively narrator further. Suffice it that the hungry Ant, after some sore rebuffs, gets the food which she so much requires. But the most curious circumstance, with regard to the connection existing between Ants and Aphides is, that, in some colonies of the former, numbers of the latter insects are actually kept and carefully tended, as flocks and herds are by man, for the sake of the nourishment which they secrete, and are ever ready to yield up at the bidding of their more powerful keepers. Nothing more extraordinary, we apprehend, is to be found in the whole range of insect history, full of wonders as that history undoubtedly is.

We will now turn our attention, for a brief space, to those minute devastators of the hop-garden, the cherry and apple orchard, the nursery-ground, and the turnip and potato-field, so well known and dreaded by the agriculturist and the gardener—the APHIDES. Of these, the species appear to be very numerous-a separate one, quite distinct from all others in size and general conformation, having been found in almost every plant subjected to the blighting attacks of these insects, although one particular species, well named the Aphis vastator, extends its ravages to many plants. Mr Smee, who considers this insect the cause of the mysterious blight which has fallen on the potato for a succession of years, enumerates upwards of fifty plants, wild and cultivated, which it destroys or injures, including wheat, cabbages, and others of great importance to man. It is in the later summer and autumn months that the Aphides are in their perfect or winged state; they are then exceedingly active, although not perhaps so voracious as when in the larvae form, when they are like very minute Beetles, varying greatly in shape and colour, but having all six legs, a pair of jointed antennæ, and, projecting from the hinder part of the body, two little spikelets, which look somewhat like the commencement of another pair of legs not fully developed. They are all likewise provided with a very long flexible sucking tube, with which they abstract the juices of the plants, and thus cause what is popularly termed blight-the leaves turn black, and shrivel up as if scorched by fire, and the whole plant has a sickly, drooping appearance, occasioned by the loss of that vital energy so necessary to its growth and fructification. The wonderful fecundity of these insects baffles all calculation; it is said, that one Aphis on a leaf will, in about ten days, propagate 10,000, and, in ten days more, 1,000,000. It need not, therefore, be a matter of surprise to the gardener that his favourite rose-tree, on which he yesterday could not detect a single insect, should to-morrow present unsightly blotches on its leaves, and in a few days be literally covered with a hungry army revelling in, and destroying, all its beauty and freshness. True it may be, that there is a dreary, sighing east wind abroad, and a blue or leaden-coloured mist enwraps the landscape, and he knows by this that a blight is about to fall on some of his most cherished plants; but he is mistaken in supposing that the blighters are borne upon the wings of that wind, or are enshrouded in the folds of that all-enveloping mist. Months and months ago, the eggs were deposited in the embryo buds at the footstalks of the leaves, whose growth enveloped them, and upon whose inner tissues the larvae which issued from those clusters of invisible nodules have been silently feeding; and now, at a signal which he hears not, although no pealing war

trumpet ever called into activity such a host of destructive influences, they

Rise like giants after slumber, In unvanquishable number.'

And there they are, alive-not fifty, like Wordsworth's sheep, but fifty millions, feeding as one;' and how ravenously feeding, full soon the denuded, withered, and blackened plants will show.

Late they stood in green array,
Proudly in the eye of day,

With their blossoms fair to see; Wither'd now is leaf and stem, Smitten is each bonnie gem

With the plague of Aphide.'

Dwelling in the midst of hop plantations, we have some reason to know of the ravages committed by the Hopfly, as one species of the Aphides is called. Many an acre of blackened bines and leaves have we seen; and seen, too, how vain are all human efforts to stay the progress of these minute destroyers. There are some seasons in which the plantations are nearly or altogether free from them, and some in which they are confined to certain localities, no doubt by the action of some atmospheric influence with which we are unacqainted. Many curious notions prevail as to the origin of the Dolphin, as the different species of Aphides are often indiscriminately called. Some think that they spring out of the earth; others, that they are rained from the sky; but there can be little doubt that they are the produce of eggs previously deposited, called into activity by some favourable state of the atmosphere, and no doubt for a wise purpose, although their ravages appear to shortsighted man an unmitigated evil.

Many of these Plant-lice, in the winged state, are really very beautiful insects. One which infests the rose-bush has a plump little body of a bright green colour, spotted at the sides with black; its long slender legs are of a reddish tint, jointed like a bamboo, and marked at every joint with black or dark brown; the head, shoulders, and long flexible antennæ, are also generally black, as are the spikelets which proceed from the back; over all rises, in nearly an erect position, a pair of gauzy wings, on which (more fortunate than its wingless congeners) it may escape from its great enemy, the scarlet-coated Lady-bird, which comes in flocks to feed upon the feeders, and considerably reduces their incredible numbers. Nor is this the only insect enemy they have; many others, too numerous to mention, devour them by myriads, and thus serve in some measure to keep them in check. Respecting that sweet clammy substance found on the branches and leaves of trees, as well as on the ground, and which is called honey-dew, much curious speculation has been indulged in, especially by the elder naturalists. Pliny, it seems, doubted whether to call it 'sweat of the heavens,' 'saliva of the stars,' or 'a liquid produced by purgation of the air. It is now, however, pretty clearly ascertained to be of vegetable origin, being the more saccharine portion of the sap which the Aphides suck from the plants, rejected by them when it has fulfilled its destined purpose. It is supposed that they have the power of retaining or throw. ing it out at pleasure; and that the Ants have a peculiar way of inducing them to yield up their sweet store whenever they require it for food. And this is all that we can now say, although much more that is interesting might be said of

'The swarming myriads that destroy

The farmer's hope, the gardener's joy;
With bodies black, and red, and green,
So small as scarcely to be seen;

That come in clouds, no one knows whence,
As dreaded as a pestilence.'

While we are on the subject of insect depredators, it will not be amiss, perhaps, to speak of a few of those most obnoxious to man on this account; and, in doing so, we must include members of all tribes and families, and insects in various stages of development. At all seasons, and at all places, there is ever a hungry host round about us, ready to destroy and devour our food, our clothing, our furniture, indeed, nearly every thing which ministers

to our comforts and necessities. The larvae of the various species of the Clothes-moth feed upon our furs and woollen garments, and weave for themselves coverings out of the costliest materials which we possess. Those little silverwinged Moths look so pretty and innocent, that we like to see them fluttering about in the drawers and cupboards. But then there comes a vision of silks, and satins, and glossy sables, and fine broadcloths, and other such pomps and vanities of this wicked world,' irretrievably ruined by them; and so we wage a war of extermination against them, and protect our treasures from their attacks as best we can, with pepper, and camphor, and the like pungencies. In our cabinets and museums of natural history, we have the Dermestes and Anthreni, the skin-eating Moths, picking holes in the coats of our richest specimens, making even our favourite stuffed tabby look as if she had died of a cutaneous disease, and the old grey parrot as if it were moulting as it used to do in its loquacious nutcracking days. The former of the said cabinets, and all kinds of furniture, are subject to the attack of the Boringbeetles and Death-watches (Anobium), which not only excavate galleries in our chairs, and tables, and pictureframes, but frighten us out of our senses, if we happen to have any, by tick, tick, ticking away in the crevices of the wainscot, when, amid the solemn hush of night, or the silence of a great bereavement, every sound seems to the listening heart like the footfall of time stepping onward to the grave and to eternity. These Death-watches, around which so many superstitions are woven, are, naturalists tell us, small Beetles of the timber-boring genus; there are several species of them, and the ticking noise which they make, and which so much alarms the ignorant and superstitious, is their mode of communicating one with the other: it may be a love call, to be translated somewhat thus

He-Tick, tick, tick! I'm waiting for thee
In the crevice the bookcase behind.
She-Tick, tick, tick! I'm coming my love,
Though not on the wings of the wind.

He-Tick, tick, tick! Why don't you make haste?
I cannot wait here all night.

She-Tick, tick, tick! Well, do as you please,

It's the same to me, sir, quite.

He-Tick, tick tick, tick, tick, tick! Good-by!

I'm off to you know who.

She-She was squeezed in the hinge of the door last night;
Tick, tick, tick, tick! Adieu!

And so ends the colloquy, which has perhaps struck a chill into the heart of some elderly lady, or youngster deeply read in stories of ghosts, and goblins, and graves that yawn by night. The French naturalist. Latreille, seems to have been the first who could say, from personal observation, that this ticking sound was really produced by an insect; the species noticed by him in the act of causing it was the Anobium striatum; but that on which British naturalists have made their observations has been the A. tessallatum, whose operations have been thus described:Raising itself upon its hind-legs, with the body somewhat inclined, it beats its head with great force upon the plane of position; and its strokes are so powerful as to make a considerable impression, if they fall upon any substance softer than wood. The general number of distinct strokes in succession, is from seven to nine or eleven. They follow each other quickly, and are repeated at uncertain intervals. In old houses, where these insects abound, they may be heard in warm weather during the whole day. The noise exactly resembles that produced by tapping moderately with the nail upon the table; and when familiarised, the insect will answer very readily the tap of the nail.' We have thus dwelt at some length upon the Death-watch, because of the popular superstitions attached to it, which we would fain lend a helping-hand to explode; and, as we have nearly exhausted our allotted space, it will be as well to conclude this paper with a few more observations upon that insect, and defer what we have to say on the other minute devastators until next month. Gay, who may be called, par excellence, the poet

That lives in old wood, like a hare in her form,
With teeth and with claws, it will bite or will scratch,
And chambermaids christen the worm a Death-watch;
Because, like a watch, it always cries click;
Then wo be to those in the house who are sick;
For, sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost,

If the maggot cries click, when it scratches a post.' The learned author of Vulgar Errors' includes the Deathwatch in his 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' and compares its noise to that made by the Woodpecker in the spring. He thus concludes his observations:- Few ears have escaped the noise of the Death-watch; and, though this is conceived to be an evil omen, or prediction of some person's death, wherein, notwithstanding, there is nothing of natural presage, or just cause of terror, unto melancholy and meticulous heads; he that could extinguish the terrifying apprehensions hereof might prevent the passions of the heart, and many cold sweats on grandmothers and nurses, who, on the sickness of children, are so startled with these noises.' To this ponderous piece of prolixity, we will add an extract from Baxter's World of Spirits,' who, it seems, also inclines to the worm theory. There are many things which ignorance causeth multitudes to take for prodigies. I have had many discreet friends that have been affrighted with the noise called a Death-watch, whereas I have since, near three years ago, found by trial that it is a noise made upon paper, by a little, nimble, running worm. It is most usually behind a paper pasted to a wall, especially to wainscot, and it is rarely, if ever, found but in the heat of summer.' For the exorcism of such spirits, Swift gives an infallible receipt:

But a kettle of scalding hot water injected,
Infallibly cures the timber infected;
The omen is broken, the danger is over,
The maggot will die, and the sick will recover.'

SINECURES; OR, A COUNTRY MINISTER'S DAY. [From Mrs KIRKLAND'S 'Home Circle."] WHEN my brother E was a little boy, said Miss his health was delicate, and he was sent into the country to school, and there boarded at a great old farmhouseone in the real old New England style, of which few specimens now remain. Here, in the first cold weather of autumn, the family congregated about the kitchen fire, so as not to disturb the flower-pots which still ornamented the hearth of the keeping-room. The young student from Boston was accommodated, on one side of the fire, with a little stand, on which was placed a tall iron candlestick, bearing a dipt candle, with a wick an inch long, for the furtherance of his studies. Not being much inspired by the book under these circumstances, E. was wont to spend at least a part of his time in listening to the talk of an ancient dame who sat, with a perennial fountain of knitting-work, in a high-backed chair on the opposite side of the fire, bestowing various hints and cautions upon a young clergyman lately ordained, and hoping he would bekerried through' all the work that was before him in the ministry of that parish.

The young clergyman, city bred, and only a guest at the farmhouse, listened with deference, and replied very satisfactorily to most of the old lady's remarks; but he could not be made to understand very clearly in what particulars he was likely to find his position more than usually difficult. He did not seem to doubt that he should be 'kerried through,' though he said so very modestly.

Humph!' said the old lady, taking a spare knittingneedle from her work, and passing it gently under her cap with a reflective air, 'did you ever hear about Parson