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The Ten of hearts-No Friendship in Trade-Ostler-Effects of Music on the Sentes.

The Ten of Hearts.-A witty divine received an invitation to dinner, written on the Ten of Hearts, by a young lady of great beauty, merit, and fortune. This the gentleman thought a good opportunity to give the lady a distant hint of his hopes;-he therefore wrote the following lines on the same card, and returned it by her own servant;

Your compliment, lady, I pray now forbear,

For old English service is much more sincere;

You've senthine Ten Hearts, but the tythe's only mine,
So give me One Heart, and take back t'other nine.

No Friendship in Trade. A shopkeeper, selling some goods to one who said, that," he asked too much for them, and that he should not buy so dear of him as another because he was his friend:" replied, "Sir, we must gain something by our friends for our enimies will never come to the shop.

Ostler. The word ostler, which now signifies an attendant on horses, is derived from the French hosteller, a person who kept a house of entertainment; which houses were denominated hostels, and by us at this day hotels. Though some persons maintained the word ostler is purely English, and only an a bridgement of Oat-stealer; a name given to those gentry from their great propensity to defraud those useful quadrupeds, horses, of their fair allowance.

Effect of Music on the Senses.-A Tailor had a great number of black suits to make, which were to be finished in a very short space of time.-Among his workmen there was a fellow who was always singing Rule Britannia, and the rest of the journeymen jomed in chorus.-The Tailor made his observations, and found that the slow time of the tune retarded the work; in consequence he engaged a blind fiddler-and placing him near the workshop, made him play constantly the lively tune of Nan sy Dawson. The design had the proper effect-the tailors' elbows moved obedient to the melody, and the clothes, were sent home within the prescribed period.

Distinction A Clergyman having refused to preach from a tent owing to its resemblance to a Coggie-a back was affixed to it, which gave cause to a wag to remark, that however un wiling to preach from a Coggie, he contrived to do so from a Luggie.

The Land of my Birth.

Poetry.

THE LAND OF MY BIRTH.

O! land of my fathers, and land of my birth,
Thy heather clad mountains romantic and wild!
O! oft I have wandered, mid gladness and mirth,
And the long sunny days of summer beguiled;
Ere yet the cold blast of destruction had spoiled
My hopes and my joys, and my dreams of delight;
For then fickle fortune looked on me and smiled,
And all my young prospects were pleasant and bright;
But now they are gone like the visions of night.

Ah, dear are thy mountains and dear are thy vales
With murmuring riv❜lets, and thick forests spread,
And sweet were the odours, refreshing the gales
That wafted their fragrance around my young head;
Blessed days of my youth that forever are fled,
To me no soft echo responds from the hill,
No melody comes now to cheer, and to glad;
For hushed is the music where murmured the rill,
And the friends of my youth are all silent and still.

For O! how I lov'd when the ev'ning was calm,
By the streams flow'ry margin all lonely to steal;
All nature was silent, the breezes were balm,
That caused my light bosom sweet raptures to feel,
As I looked on the heavens, where the bright orbits reel,
And admired the expanse that stretch'd far above,
Where worlds on worlds fresh wonders reveal,
As silent and slow in their courses they move;
I gazed and I felt more than raptures of love.

And oft I have wandered mid darkness and storm,
And listen'd to the cataract's loud sounding roar,
Where cliffs rise majestic, and rocks of dread form
Hang terribly grand, and the wild eagles soar,

The Land of my Birth.

While waves rise tremendous, and break on the shore,
And thunders roll awful and lightnings illume
The brow of the mountains, all aged and hoar,
Where the flowrets of spring have lost all their bloom,
And clouds of thick darkness envelope in gloom.

And how would my bosom with extasies thrill,
When the summer was come and the flowrets of spring
In beauty and fragrance, would bloom on the hill,
And woodlands and valleys with music would ring;
Ah, joys long departed, that leave no rank sting
To eat and to fester the dark troubled mind,
Ye fond recollections, no sorrows that bring;
Ah, whence have they fled, and thus left me behind
Exposed to the fury of tempests unkind.

Like soft melting music it was to my soul

The loud howling winds, when the tempest would rave;
And pleased I would hark, when the thunders would roll,
And look with delight on the dash of the wave,
When echoes resounded from glen and from cave,
'Twas joy to my heart, when the bright sunny beam
Shone radiance and glory, O then I would lave
My fresh youthful limbs, in the clear fountain-stream,
And gazed on the waters that passed like a dream.

And O with what joy, with what frolic and glee,
I roamed o'er thy mountains all hoary and grey,
Where, emblem of Scotia's sons valiant and free,
The strong prickly thistle blooms stately and gay
On fields, where our sires fought in far distant day
For bold independance, for freedom, and right;
They sought for the battle, they joined in the fray,
They rose in their vengeance, they came in their might,
And put the invaders to slaughter or flight.

The war-horn is silent, by thicket and wood;
No more thy brave warrior the hot claymore wields,
For hushed is the conflict of carnage and blood
That dyed all thy rivers, and drenched all thy fields;

The Land of my Birth.

But now every valley luxuriantly yields

The rich waving vintage, all yellow and green,

Where oft thy bold heroes with broad sword and shields Rushed on to the combat, with ardour most keen

I burned, when I stood where their battles had been.

Fit theme for thy Bards so prolific in song,
For well they can manage the bold sounding lyre,
Pour forth martial music terrific and strong,

And kindle to vengeance the warriors' ire,

As they sweep o'er the chords to the strains that inspire . The souls of the brave to atchievments of fame;

Aye too, they can set the young bosom on fire
With a gentle and pure, nor less noble flame,
But of a far softer and tenderer name.

O though I should wander to lands o'er the sea,
Where flowers ever bloom and the tall cedar grows,
Ev'n then my dear country I'll not forget thee,
Though rapt in thy mantle of mist and of snows,
So long as my bosom exultingly glows,

I'll think with fond pleasure on days that are past,
Alternately shaded with joys and with woes;
For what are our sorrows, a bleakness that's cast
O'er the soul, when touch'd by adversity's blast.

O land of my fathers and land of my birth,
Thy heather clad mountains romantic and wild!
O oft I have wandered, mid gladness and mirth,
And the long sunny days of summer beguiled,
E'er yet the cold blast of destruction had spoiled
My hopes and my joys and my dreams of delight;
For then fickle fortune looked on me and smiled,
And all my young prospects were pleasant and bright,
But now they are gone like the visions of night.

JANUARY, 1819,

MACALBIN,

Poor Flora Macneil.

POOR FLORA MACNEIL.

Have ye seen the sweet flowret, in summer's gay morning
Unfolding its soft little leaves to the day;

And blooming expose all its sweets to the sun-beam,
And, fearless of ill, basking bright in his ray?

And have ye seen, sudden, the dark cloud approaching,
And the black robe of night o'er the blue welkin borne,
And the hoarse-roaring blast and the torrent descending,
And crushing in ruin the flower of the morn?

Oh such was the fate of poor Flora Macniel!

In the morn of her days none so happy as she;

All was joy-all was gaiety, sun-shine and brightness-
And her hours were all mirth and all revelry.

No thick cloud of blackness was seen in the distance-
Forboding the wild wasting pitiless blast;

In splendour her sun rose, and fondly she hoped,

That the hours that were coming would shine like the past.

But soon lowered the heaven with gathering tempest,
And soon o'er her head howled the storm of the sky;
And the star of her fate is for aye hid in darkness,

And dark-dark and drear is her destiny.

Poor and friendless she roams through a cold-hearted world,
That knows not for others distresses to feel;

Unaided, and shunn'd by the base crouching minions,
That basked in the sunshine of Flora Macniel.

And scorn and base insult have wounded her spirit,
And famine and sickness have wasted her form,
And lonely, and drooping, and withering, she wanders,
Unpitied, unsheltered, the child of the storm.
Poor Flora! God pity thee! soon shall thy woes cease;
One friend still remains-the last sought-but the best;
The grave still remains-there the world cannot harrass,
And sweetly the weary and wandering rest.

February, 1819.

CONFIDO.

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