could see in others. We observe, nevertheless, that he was not a slave to it. Going upon some business to the Caliph a little before his downfall, he thought fit to consult the stars, in order to see if the hour was favourable. His house was on the banks of the Tigris; and as he consulted his ephemerides, he heard a boatman reciting some verses to the following purport:-

"He consults the stars forsooth:
Pleasant youth! pleasant youth!
He consults the servants' hall,
When the master settles all!"

Giafar had no sooner heard these words, than he threw aside his ephemerides and his astrolabe, mounted his horse to go to the palace, and a little while after was put to death.

It is a pity that D'Herbelot forgot his promise respecting the other sons of Yahia, for, besides what historians would say of them, and the notices of miscellaneous authors, he makes mention of a distinct history of the Barmecides. We are not aware that he says any thing of the forty Barmecides, who are stated by some writers to have completed the number of those who suffered. Perhaps they are confounded with the forty Barmecides, who were to have been put to death in one of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, had not Giafar succeeded in finding out the slave who stole the apple. The only account we have met with of any descendant of the family is what is related by the same great orientalist of a son of Fadhel. It is in high keeping with the family history, and very touching. "A celebrated poet," says he, "called Mohammed of Damascus, informs us, that conversing one day with Fadhel at a time when quantities of verses had been written on the birth of his son, and none of the verses pleasing him, he asked me if I would not try my hand upon the same subject. I did so, and pleased him so well, that he made me a present of ten thousand crowns. After the misfortunes of him and his family, I happened to be one day at a bath, where the master gave me a nice-looking youth for my attendant. I know not how I came to think of them, but the verses I had written on the birth of the son of Fadhel, ran so in my head, that I must needs be singing them; when all of a sudden, the lad who waited on me, fell to the ground, and on his recovery left me to myself.

"I was very much surprised at this circumstance, and on quitting the bath, complained to the master that he had given me an attendant afflicted with epilepsy. The man protested that he was not aware of it, and sent for the poor boy, who no sooner beheld me again, than he asked who was the author of the verses I had recited. I told him, myself. He enquired for whom I had written them; and upon my replying For the son of Fadhel,' he asked if I knew what had become of this son of Fadhel. I said, no; upon which he told me, that he that was then speaking to me was the very person; and that, on hearing my verses, the contrast between his past and present condition came with such anguish on his mind, that he had fallen to the earth. Struck with compassion for the son of a personage to whom I owed all that I pos

*Literally, according to D'Herbelot, he governs himself by the stars, never dreaming that the stars themselves have a master, who will assuredly take his own

course.

6

sessed, I told him, that I was growing old; that I had none to inherit after me; and that if he would come with me before the cadi, I would make him my heir. He replied, with tears in his eyes, God forbid, that I should take back what my father gave away!' nor could I prevail on him, then or afterwards, by all the arguments I was master of, to allow me to show him any acknowledgment for the benefits I had received, or to take the least tittle out of my purse."

But nothing which is related of this noble-minded family surpasses in interest the daring and devoted enthusiasm which they excited in the bosom of an old man of the name of Mondir, who had partaken of their benefactions. It is the more pleasant to repeat, because Haroun himself retrieves a little of his reputation in it. On the downfal of the minister and his kinsmen, Haroun had prohibited their names from being mentioned, on pain of death. In spite of this order, the people of Bagdad every day beheld an old man, who took his stand before one of their palaces, and, ascending a mound of earth for a pulpit, harangued the passengers on the noble actions of the deceased. The Caliph, informed of this daring behaviour, sent for the man, and condemned him to death. Mondir heard the sentence with great good-will, demanding only the favour of being allowed to speak to the Caliph before it was executed. Permission being granted, it turned out that what he had to say was nothing less than a long discourse, in which he enlarged with all his might on the favours he had received from the Barmecides. The Caliph, who listened without impatience, was so touched with the man's words, that he not only recalled the sentence, but gave him a plate of gold that happened to be near him. But the cream of the man's gratitude is still to come; for, on receiving the plate, and prostrating himself according to custom at the Caliph's feet, he cried out, "Behold another benefit which I have received from the Barmecides." Never was obstinacy so delicious. Mondir that day was lord of the East, for he had the Caliph at a disadvantage, and Haroun had wit and spirit enough to feel it.

We know not what became of this glorious family in after-times. If we are to believe the Arabian Nights, they existed to a late period, and had recovered much of their grandeur; for the personage who makes so pleasant a figure in the story of the Barber's sixth Brother is a Barmecide; and that story is laid in the time of the Caliph Mostanser Billah, who was thirty-sixth Caliph of the race of Abbas, and flourished upwards of four hundred years after Haroun. From the same authority it would appear, that this Barmecide was the last of his race; but it must be owned, that the author seems to have killed him, purely to confiscate his property to the Caliph, and dislodge the unfortunate Shacabac. It is possible, however, that he founded his fiction on a known circumstance, and very probable that the family had recovered themselves. That they retained their character for generosity, is equally probable; the national and family-manners alike conspiring to preserve it. At all events, they were destined to charm and be beloved by the Their history, without the aid of fiction, is a whole civilized world. romance; and united to it in those delightful tales, it helps to complete the charm of a work of imagination by giving it a heart with its wings, and uniting the best realities of life with the most playful idealism.

THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

YES! thou hast met the sun's last smile
From the haunted hills of Rome;
By many a bright Egean isle

Thou hast seen the billows foam:

From the silence of the Pyramid

Thou hast watch'd the solemn flow
Of the Nile, that with his mantle hid
The ancient realm below :

Thy heart hath burn'd as shepherds sang
Some wild and warlike strain,
Where the Moorish horn once proudly rang
Through the pealing hills of Spain:

And o'er the lonely Grecian streams
Thou hast heard the laurels moan,
With a sound yet murmuring in thy dreams
Of the glory that is gone.

But go thou to the hamlet-vales
Of the Alpine mountains old,
If thou wouldst hear immortal tales,
By the wind's deep whispers told!

Go, if thou lov'st the soil to tread
Where man hath bravely striven,
And life like incense hath been shed,
An offering unto Heaven!

For o'er the snows and round the pines
Hath swept a noble flood,

The nurture of the peasant's vines
Hath been the martyr's blood.

A spirit, stronger than the sword,
And loftier than Despair,
Through all th' heroic region pour'd,
Breathes in the generous air.

A memory clings to every steep

Of long-enduring Faith,

And the sounding streams glad record keep

Of courage unto death!

Ask of the peasant where his sires

For Truth and Freedom bled,

Ask, where were lit the torturing fires

Where lay the holy dead?

And he will tell thee all around,

On fount, and turf, and stone,

Far as the chamois' foot can bound,
Their ashes have been sown.

Go, when the sabbath-bell is heard
Up through the wilds to float,

When the dark old woods and caves are stirr'd
To gladness by the note;

When forth, along their thousand rills,
The mountain people come,
Join thou their worship on those hills
Of glorious Martyrdom!*

And while the song of praise ascends,
And while the torrent's voice

Like the swell of many an organ blends,
Then let thy soul rejoice!

Rejoice, that human hearts, through scorn,
Through grief, through death, made strong,
Before the rocks and heavens have borne
Witness of God so long.

F. H.

KIT-CAT SKETCHES.-NO. II.

Old Heads on yɔung Shoulders.

UPON one of my days of infant innocence I lined my cousin Proby's hat with birdlime, out of revenge, because he had broken the central ornament in a string of birds' eggs, which, at that happy epoch of puerile simplicity, I had purloined from certain nests in Hadley grove. The poor lad found his beaver as immoveable as the plumed cap of the son of Maia; and much hot water and many screams were expended before it could bè disjointed from his head. My mother was seriously angry; but my poor aunt Proby, mother to the victim aforesaid, as gentle a being as ever suffered a family to run wild upon the common of their own inclinations, exclaimed, "Well, well, never mind! he meant no harm: there is no putting old heads on young shoulders!"

My aunt's asseveration has, according to my subsequent experience, been qualified by two exceptions; the one corporeal, and the other mental. The Countess of A- has a pair of very juvenile-looking shoulders, with a very wrinkled head screwed upon their apex. If you walk behind her, she seems twenty-two: accost her, vis a vis, and she mounts to sixty. In that respect she is like the law-very well to follow, but very ill to confront. The mental exception is one Smedley Jones, lately an articled clerk to an attorney-I beg his pardon, a solicitor-in Furnival's Inn, Holborn; but recently out of his time, and therefore qualified to kill game upon his own account. He wears black half-gaiters, and is a member of the Philonomic Society; exhibits much wisdom, little whisker, and no shirt collar; simpers; makes a gentle bow at the close of every sentence, with his chin touching his left collar-bone; criticises the new law courts; wears lead-coloured gloves; affects a beaver with a broad brim; nods at the close of every sentence when the Court of Exchequer pronounces a judgment, by way of encouraging the three puisne barons; and carries his pantaloons to his tailor's in a blue bag that they may pass for briefs. There is a lame clerk in the Three Per Cent. Consol Office at the Bank, with whom Smedley Jones appears to be on terms of considerable intimacy. I rather suspect that the motive of this conjunction is that the latter may

See the description of a sabbath upon the Vaudois mountains, in Gilly's Researches in Piedmont.

obtain private information with respect to certain funded property, appertaining to certain widows and maidens, his attention to whom rises and falls accordingly. It is an unquestionable fact, that whenever a young man rises, like Smedley Jones, upon his toes in walking; waltzes with every thick-ankled girl, that would otherwise be a wall-flower for the whole evening; looks benevolently downward upon his own cheeks, sings a second at church, and boasts of belonging to no club, he may, to a certainty, be set down as one who means to let fly an arrow at Plutus through the Temple of Hymen.

It is quite edifying to meet Smedley Jones at a dinner-party. The first thing he does, on entering the drawing-room, is to take up a book with an air of no common sagacity. If it happen to be Woodstock, he smiles with an aspect of compassionate disdain, and informs the bystander that he objects to historical novels, and that he prefers going to the fountain-head in Lord Clarendon and Bishop Burnet. Upon the appearance of the mistress of the mansion, he takes a seat by her on the sofa; but so near to its edge, that the slightest backward movement of that article of furniture would seat him where he ought to be. He smooths down the sand-coloured hair of the matron's accompanying offspring with an air of ineffable interest; inquires after dear Charles hopes to see sweet little Emma: and ejaculates, "Oh, pray now," when mamma expresses a doubt as to her appearance. He then talks of the sea as beneficial to children, and recommends Worthing, because it has no cliff. When dinner is announced, he looks sharply round for some female whose spine rather swerves from the perpendicular, aware that heiresses are seldom strait-backed; tucks her lean arm under his, and manoeuvres to sit next to her at table. Whilst in the act of descending the stairs, our proprietor of an old head upon young shoulders, takes due care that the tongue which vibrates in the mouth of it shall ejaculate, "What a capital house this is!" in accents sufficiently loud to be overheard by the master or mistress of the mansion. He dilutes his wine with water, to adapt it to his conversation; and enlarges upon the folly of the maxim, "a reformed rake makes the best husband." I have heard him tell, nineteen times over, the anecdote of his uncle Major Flush, who thirty years back, at a dinner with Sir Phelim O'Four-bottle, poured his claret into his boots, aware that they would stand a soaking better than the coats of his stomach. This gives Mr. Smedley Jones an opportunity of observing how different things are at present; with an addition, that one glass of wine at dinner, and two after it, should never be exceeded by any man who wishes to render himself acceptable to the ladies. He belongs to a society for converting Captain Parry's Esquimaux, at the North Pole, from the errors of their ways. I have this fact from his own mouth, having had the misfortune to sit next but one to him at dinner, at old Spinsuit's, the Chancery barrister. The intervening individual was Miss Creek, of Upper Clapton, a white-visaged personage, whom the abovementioned lame clerk, in the Three-per-cent. Office, has introduced to his acquaintance. I rather think Spinsuit has been instructed to peruse and settle their marriage articles. Miss Creek having retired with the rest of the ladies, my left flank was cruelly exposed. The old headsman accordingly brought his juvenile left shoulder forward, and occupied the vacant seat. He asked me if I did not think