hoisted, the cannon thundered a salutation, and every one took off his hat. Just then the boatswain took from the bucket a plain glass bottle.

There was nothing surprising in such an incident. It is a common thing with sailors to commit these bottles to the waves, containing information of some unknown danger which they have discovered in their route, or a prayer to the charitable that they will make known to their friends the disaster which has overtaken the unfortunate writers. Still at sea the slightest occurrence creates an interest; and it was singular enough that the bottle should have got into the bucket.

I am afraid that our curiosity made us somewhat inattentive to the ceremony that followed, during which the bottle was laid aside. Scarcely had the service concluded, than we gathered round the captain; who, de ivering the bottle to me, begged me to unseal it. I rapidly cut away the packthread, canvass, and tar which secured the cork, then, drawing the latter, and reversing the bottle, a small roll of paper fell into my hand. The captain, his lady, and all the officers surrounded me closely; while the crew, eager to know the result, had climbed into the rattlings of the mizzenmast. The contents of the paper, written in a fine though tremulous hand, were as follow:

'I, Margaret Floreff, perish by shipwreck. I entreat the person who by divine permission picks up this bottle, and reads the note therein enclosed, to cause prayers to be said for the repose of my soul. I die in the true faith. Farewell, my mother!'

A few hours later, I was alone upon the deck. The calmness of the night still continued, and nothing prevented me from giving way to my imagination. Somehow or other (there is no accounting for these things, they seem like a destiny), the contents of the bottle had made a deep impression upon me. I pictured to myself the features, age, and character of the hapless Margaret Floreff; who, I felt certain, had been young and beautiful. I had preserved the paper, and I now re-opened it, and minutely examined the handwriting. Evidently written by a young and delicate hand, it was quite in the modern style, as was also the paper, which, from its smooth and even texture, was certainly of European fabrication. All this I could distinctly see by the splendid moonlight of the tropics.

I leaned over the gunwale, and, giving the rein to my present hobby, was lost, I know not how long, in a fantastic reverie. From this I was suddenly roused by a huge swell of the sea, as if a submarine volcano had exploded beneath the vessel. Looking up, I saw that the aspect of the heavens likewise betokened a strange commotion. The moon was veiled as if by an eclipse, and the stars, after gleaming with a sanguine lustre, paled and disappeared. The water became black, the sky of a dull yellow; the slackening sails flapped against the masts, a sign that the wind was sinking--which it did so rapidly, that we soon felt stifled for want of air. A frightened sailor, who rushed past on his way to the poop to rouse the captain, muttered to himself, The monsoon !' I daresay you know, my dear boy, that the monsoon is the name given to a certain wind which prevails at regular periods upon the Indian and Chinese seas. During these periods, tempests are frequent and devastating.

Scarcely a second elapsed, when the Galathea was assailed by a dozen blasts at once. Every one crowded upon deck. The first onset of the storm tore away our sails; the resistance of the remainder, which no human effort could furl, caused the vessel to rear like a vicious horse. Ten of the crew disappeared, to re-appear no more. We could not even hear their cries. The others, clinging by their horny hands to the ropes, which snapped, one after the other, like the strings of a violin, awaited the captain's orders.

"We have sprung a leak!' cried a sailor, who had discovered that the hold was filling.

Man, the pumps!' shouted the captain. Some of you cut down the mainmast.'

The pumps were manned, and the mast fell; but this! last operation, instead of contributing to the safety of the vessel, only served to render her position more critical. Retained by the numerous ropes, to which it served as pivot, and hurled against us with immense fury by the waves, the mainmast was transformed into a huge battering-ram, which threatened to split the side of the ship by its incessant attacks. As for the pumps, they were of no service whatever; for one bucket of water that they got rid of, twenty entered by the large breach in the hold.

Suddenly one-half of the moon's disc re-appeared, and at the same time we were assailed by a terrific shower of hailstones, which fell diagonally upon us, bruising and cutting us like so many knives and pestles. The vessel! filled rapidly. Every one crowded upon the poop, the only part of the ship that was not submerged. The captain's wife, with her newly baptised child in her arms, ran, half-dressed as she was, to her husband, and frantically implored his protection. He hurriedly embraced ¦ her, placed her at his feet, where the wind would have less power over her, and continued to give all his attention to the vessel and crew.

'Cut down the mizzenmast,' he shouted, in an agitated voice; throw overboard all that you can, and hold in readiness the long-boat and the barge.'

The water already poured in by the portholes; the chaplain knelt upon the poop, murmuring the prayers for the dying. A sudden thought struck me like an inspiration. It was strange that I should have it at such a moment, and stranger still that I should have the coolness to carry it into execution; but, as I said before, there is a destiny in these things. I accordingly rushed into my cabin, already two-thirds submerged. Taking a sheet of paper, I wrote some words in pencil, and rolled the paper round that on which Margaret Floreff had traced her last request. Then putting the two together into a bottle, and enclosing with them £50 in bank-notes, I scaled up the bottle with as much care as the urgency of the time permitted.

I hastened upon deck, to throw the bottle into the sea, but the vessel saved me that trouble. With a shuddering groan, she disappeared beneath my feet, sinking plump down, like a stone; and I found myself battling with the waves, amid the thousand relics of our disaster. At a short distance, the long-boat, crowded with men, made useless efforts to escape being engulfed; and the barge, in which I could distinguish the captain and his wife, capsized a few fathoms farther on. Arms, heads, tresses, sailors' caps, hats, dogs, chests, were for an instant scattered upon the foam of the turbulent billows. One wild, simultaneous shriek, and all had disappeared. Drenched, suffocated, dragged down by the weight of my wet clothing, I found myself, I knew not how, hurled upon a large piece of wood that floated near me. I grappled with it, slid off, caught it again, slid off again. My strength was failing, and I should certainly have been drowned, had not a strong hand seized me by the collar, and pulled me on to the plank. It was Buxton.

...

Day dawned, and with its first beams vanished the last traces of the tempest. The sun rose majestically out of the ocean, which shone like a silver mirror. Buxton and I still remained seated upon the large piece of wood, where we had so miraculously found safety. It measured twenty feet by four, and had been destined to repair the keel of the unfortunate Galathea. Night

We passed the long day in a species of stupor. came, and we were still nearly in the same place. The following day, a light breeze ruffled the sea, but no sail appeared upon the surface of the waters.

Buxton happened to find a biscuit in the pocket of his jacket. All crumbled and soaked as it was, we divided it between us, and then we resigned ourselves to our fate.

strangers who so speedily pay their tribute to death, in that delightful, but murderous climate.

Having examined the more striking monuments, I came where a catalpa, with its drooping branches, barred my further passage. Lifting one of these, I perceived a small marble tombstone. This sccluded monument excited my interest and curiosity. I stooped to decipher the epitaph, engraved in golden characters. Thus it ran :'Here sleeps eternally, in the arms of her Saviour, Margaret Floreff, 27th August, 18- Weep not for her.'

You may imagine, my dear boy, how mortified I was by this discovery. She, then, whose fate and last request had so excited my youthful imagination, was not at the bottom of the sea at all, but had quietly reposed for ten years in the cemetery at Madras. Her body had doubtless been tossed from wave to wave, in one of the terrible storms incidental to those seas, until, flung on the shore

Oh, Buxton!' I said, 'look again. Is it not on fire ?'

'I fear so,' he replied, God grant that we be not deprived of this timely refuge. See with what rapidity the wind drives it toward us. Be of good courage, my friend. What a strange and mysterious-looking craft! It has not a single sail.'

'It is, perhaps,' said I,' a steam-packet. How quickly it comes! I shall not have time

'Here it is! One effort! Grapple with it for dear life!' cried Buxton.

I had swooned. When I recovered, I found myself lying upon the deck of a bark, similar to several that I had met with during a previous voyage to the Maldive Islands. It was not on fire as we had feared; but in the centre, upon a species of altar, a pyramid of aloes and sandal-wood was slowly burning. The ends of the bark were pretty high, but as the sides descended in the middle, to only about three feet above the surface of the water, Buxton had managed to jump upon the deck, and lift me after him.

This strange vessel, without sails or crew, was one of those which the inhabitants of the Maldive Islands launch upon the waves to appease the God of tempests, after loading them with perfumes and spices, which they set on fire, and provisions destined for the invisible priests of the hidden, though powerful deity. The tempest in which we had been wrecked was doubtless the occasion of this new sacrifice of the Maldivians, who were far from suspecting who would profit by their devotion. The sacred bark was full of fresh water, cocoa-nut milk, enclosed in vases, fruits and meats dried in the sun. Our lives were saved! When our strength returned to us, we availed ourselves of the oars with which the vessel was provided-for they always make it as complete a thing as possible and directed our course according to the wind.

The next day, at sunrise, we awoke to find ourselves surrounded by nearly a thousand barks, that respectfully hovered about ours, which they recognised as sacred. We were before Colombo, the capital of Ceylon. They towed us in in triumph, when they learned how we had met with the expiatory ship, evidently believing that we were under the especial protection of the God of tempests.

Our sojourn at Colombo was but short. We remained only long enough to recover the shock which we had received from our fearful adventures. Buxton sold a magnificent diamond ring, which he had happened to wear at the time of our disaster, and thus realised more than sufficient to carry us to Madras, where he had friends. Once in that city, it would be easy to wait until we could make known our position to our relations, and my employers.

While awaiting the answers to our letters despatched from thence, I occupied myself in exploring the city and its environs. In the course of these explorations, chance or destiny one day conducted me to the vast cemetery, where repose the mortal remains of the English and other

hand, and interred where I now found it, beneath a marble monument, surrounded by verdure and shade; its guardians the azure birds, with their crimson beaks, that fluttered quietly away at the sound of my footsteps.

A few days after this discovery, our expected letters arrived. Buxton was ordered to Batavia, where his regiment then was; and I was requested by my employers to proceed thither at once, to arrange the business upon which I had left England. Furnished with these orders, and with the needful funds, we bade our friends farewell, and prepared for our expedition, in high spirits at the idea of not being separated; for it is needless to say, that the constant association of two characters, not unpleasantly contrasted, and the dangers we had escaped together, had by this time produced a fast friendship between us.

'Buxton,' said I, when all our arrangements were completed, 'will you not go with me before we leave, to see the tomb of poor Margaret Floreff?'

"My dear fellow, what nonsense! It is a tomb like all others, I presume.'

Buxton had become more pliable and less sarcastic since our perilous adventures. This, as may be supposed, rendered him infinitely more agreeable. We visited the tomb of her whom he called my dead sweetheart. The next day we sailed for Batavia.

Nothing particular occurred during our voyage, which was long and tedious. On our arrival at our destination, I was initiated by Buxton into all the gaieties of garrison life, which in the colonies is luxurious and dissipated in the extreme. The business which had brought me to Batavia was a delicate one, and promised to be some months in settling. I had therefore plenty of leisure to attend the numerous dinners, balls, and fetes that followed each other in rapid succession, and were to me attended with but one drawback-the incessant and enormous consumption of wine, rum, and tobacco.

Three months had quickly sped in this gay and thoughtless life, and my business was drawing to a close, when a grand religious service was celebrated one Sunday in the most beautiful temple in the island. Buxton, his comrades, and myself, repaired thither, in full dress, and we all took our places beneath the pulpit. The service was performed in the usual manner amid the most profound silence; the orator favouring us young men with an eloquent morsel prepared expressly for our edification. All at length being over, we were preparing to return to our dwellings, when the preacher requested us to reseat ourselves.

'Brethren and sisters,' he said, 'this morning a French captain deposited in my hands the sum of £50 sterling, for the purpose of erecting a handsome tomb to the memory of two persons whose names I am about to give you. Providence charged my friend with this mission, to which his avocations will not permit him to attend, and which he has therefore transferred to me. These are the facts. My friend, on his last voyage, fished up a bottle containing the £50 sterling in bank notes, and this paper (the priest held it up for all to see), which I am now about to

read to you: The undersigned, being about to perish by shipwreck in the open sea, bequeaths the sum of £50 sterling in bank-notes, contained in this bottle, to him or her who shall cause prayers to be said for the deceased Margaret Floreff, according to her request in the paper, likewise herein contained, and who shall cause a monument to be erected to the joint memories of the said Margaret Floreff and the undersigned

'Stop!' cried I, hastily making my way up to the pulpit, I am the person who wrote these lines, and assuredly I am not dead.'

'And I,' said a woman, coming up from the other side, 'am Margaret Floreff!'

To describe the sensation caused by this denouement, would be impossible. The whole congregation stood up, while those furthest off leaned and strained over their neighbours, to catch a glimpse of the two resuscitated ones who met thus strangely before the same pulpit. I glanced at Buxton, who was with difficulty restraining his laughter.

'But, uncle,' said I at this point of the narrative, how could it be? Did you not find the tomb of Margaret Floreff in the cemetery at Madras? How, then, could she'

'The explanation will come all in good time,' replied my uncle.

And was she young, pretty-just what you had imagined her ?'

'She was frightful,' answered my uncle, frightful! And this was the cause of the mischievous hilarity of that abominable Buxton.'

My uncle resumed his tale:

'It is very right and just,' said Buxton to me the next day, that those who, like you, pursue the ideal, should invariably meet with discomfiture. You will know better in future. Here is your Margaret Floreff, whom your fancy had exalted into a deceased angel; and what does she turn out to be? A toothless old woman, with a very bad complexion.' I did not reply. Take my advice,' he continued. Marry some rich Creole, who will bring you plenty of pepper and cinnamon for dowry, and make you the proud father of half a dozen piccaninnies. Leave in peace your brain, which is, after all, but a soft, whitish substance, and your heart, which is nothing more than a big muscle.'

This time I answered, 'Come with me; we will go and see this woman.'

'What! you are not convinced?'

'No more than the priest was, before I brought my proofs. There is too much improbability."

'But this public avowal. Why did she make it?' 'No doubt she had some interested motive. She is poor, and

'Well, let us go. Do you know where she lives?' 'I have inquired.'

'Come along, then.'

We went, accordingly, and found the object of our visit in a miserable lodging, where everything around testified to an extreme degree of penury.

'My good lady,' said I, after the first salutations, 'I am Mr Thomas Jones, whose name has been so strangely mixed up with yours. I daresay you thought it very odd that I should take the liberty, in a moment of peril and confusion of mind, of requesting that our names should be inscribed on one and the same monument.' 'Indeed, sir - stammered she.

danger, I added my request to yours. Now, may I ask what followed your throwing the bottle into the sea?' It was picked up by you, and then by a French captain, who'

Excuse me, there was another circumstance,' said I, with an ironical smile. Your corpse was thrown ashore.' The lady being dead,' said Buxton, slyly, was probably unaware of the circumstance.'

'She is then likewise ignorant,' said I, more and more convinced that we had to do with an impostor,' that she was interred —————

The woman finished my sentence for me.

'Yes,' said she, 'interred in the cemetery at Madras.' Our mirth came to an abrupt termination. The unima ginative Buxton shivered to the last hair of his moustache. What had we to deal with?

'Well, my good woman,' said I at length, striving to resume my calmness, if you have been dead

'I never said that,' replied our tormentor, with a smile, 'you held me so closely to the funereal style, that I was compelled to follow your lead. However, to be serious, the Margaret Floreff, whose tomb you have met with, did not perish by shipwreck. She was the daughter of a Dutch merchant, and died tranquilly upon her bed.'

And you, who bear the same name, who are you?' 'Her niece and god-daughter.'

All was explained. Buxton's looks told me that he was equally satisfied with myself. It was indisputably Margaret Floreff who stood before me. But how different from the being of my imagination! Still the handwrit ing. I would yet have another proof. The woman herself paved the way.

6

As you were willing to give so much to erect a tomb to my memory, you would, perhaps, at any rate, allow me, being alive, half the sum, in consideration of my miserable poverty.'

'I am quite willing,' I said, 'to do so much for charity. Get pen, ink, and paper, and give me a receipt for £25. I have the money about me.'

The woman began to write, in obedience to my request, which, nevertheless, she must have wondered at, for one does not usually demand a receipt for a gift. At the second line I stopped her.

"This is your own handwriting?' I said. "This is your usual style?'

To be sure, sir.'

Then this and I took from my pocket-book the paper which had been in the bottle, and which had been returned to me along with the bottle and the rest of its contents— this writing is not yours?'

The deception was discovered. The eyes of the unhappy woman filled with tears; she hung her head, and uttered not a word. She was in reality named Floreff, but she was a distant relation, and not the god-daughter, of the lady who had died at Madras. Upon hearing the proclamation of the minister, she had said to herself, with the greedy instinct of poverty, If they bestow so large a sum upon the memory of the dead Margaret Floreff, they will certainly not grudge some of it to the same person living. I will personate the young girl who suffered the perils of shipwreck. I do not fear her returning to give│ me the lie; for she is, doubtless, long ere this, a prey to the fishes.'

This was the sum of the impostor's confession.

"Take the money, nevertheless,' said I, when she had concluded; but tell me truly, did the Margaret Floreff whose hands traced these lines perish on the ocean?'

'I do not know what may have happened to her. I have not heard anything of her since she was here with her father, eighteen months ago."

Here?'

'Since you seem so interested in her, sir, I will show you some letters that I once received from her, and her portrait. You can compare her writing with the paper in your pocket-book, and see if it be really the same."

The writing agreed perfectly with that which I possessed. "The portrait!' I cried; the portrait !'

6

'When they left here, were they going to Europe ?' 'No, sir, to Surinam.'

'Your romance is ended,' said Buxton, taking me by the arm, and drawing me out of the house. You have pushed it far enough, in all conscience.'

Are not these things pre-arranged for us? or how can you account, my dear boy, for the fact, that the lovely face I had beheld in the portrait from this time took close possession of my heart, and that to such an extent, that it was impossible for me to enjoy our usual gaieties? The thought that she might have been preserved from the perils which menaced her, and might now be dwelling, in all her loveliness, safe and unharmed, at Surinam, her heart still free; but no-on that I dared not think: this idea completely haunted me. Tired at length of dragging about a listless, absent companion-a body without a soul -Buxton bethought himself of a desperate remedy. One day he took me to the Marine Office, and addressed himself to one of the clerks, with whom he had some acquaintance.

Can you tell me,' said he, whether a vessel that left this place for Surinam about eighteen months ago, met with some disaster during the voyage?'

The clerk turned over one of the Atlantic registers. "The Nicobar, Captain Van Kessel, left about that time for Surinam. Here it is. Here is a cross upon the folio. Yes, she perished.'

Buxton pressed my hand. inquired he.

And how did she perish?'

correspondence, and immediately go to Surinam, to look after their interests, prior to my return to England.

'I wish you joy,' said Buxton. I only hope you may not find your Margaret Floreff already snapped up for her guineas and her pretty face.'

The rest is easily told. I found out the country-house where the father of my Margaret-for, with the presumption of youth and hope, I had already called her so a hundred times-lived, they said, in retirement. It was situated at the entrance of a village similar to those of my adopted country. I was directed to an alley of citrontrees; at the end of which was seated a young girl. Allow me to introduce her to you,' said my uncle, approaching his wife, who rose with a smile and a blush, and leading her forward.

'You! my aunt! Margaret Floreff!' exclaimed I, in

amazement.

'Even so,' concluded my good uncle, laughing heartily at the effect of his coup de theatre. After this, never say, my dear boy, that there is not a destiny (may we not humbly say a providence ?) in marriages."

AN ELEVENTH BUNDLE OF BOOKS.
BY GEORGE GILFILLAN.

We returned the other day from a trip to England. It
was a short, but very delightful excursion.
We saw
Nottingham-the town of Kirke White, Mary Howitt, and
P. J. Bailey-and enjoyed exceedingly its frank, intelli-
gent, and kind-hearted inhabitants. We met-besides
many other noteworthy persons, lay and clerical-with
Bailey himself-surely one of the most unassuming, gentle,
and genial of men; apparently all unconscious of having
written the most wonderful poem of the age; and ever
ready to bestow praise on his contemporaries in the sky
of song. Truly a most loveable man-bent, but not broken,
below the tremendous blast of Festus.' He presented
us with a copy of the fifth edition of his poem, the two
chief peculiarities of which are, that it is now printed, as
at first, in a duodecimo form, and in a larger and very
beautiful type, and that it includes the whole of the

·

No, sir, that was not the case,' said another, and older clerk. I think I can give you the desired information. Here is our colonial correspondence. If I mistake not, we shall find it here.' He read over several names. The Albatross, Captain Boxwell; no, that is not it. The Arrow, Captain Verhagen; no. Here it is -the Sumatra, Captain Suyers.'

He pointed out a report, which I read aloud for Buxton's benefit. This report certified, that on a certain day, at sunset, the captain and crew of the Sumatra had perceived through the mist, at about five leagues' distance (being then off the archipelago of the Maldives), an intense light, which turned out to be a ship on fire. That the Sumatra immediately tacked about, and hastening to the relief of the burning vessel, succeeded in saving the lives of all on board save two-the boatswain and a young female passenger-who fell back into the flames. The rest were received on board the Sumatra, and conveyed to their destination.

If this young passenger were she ! 'Buxton,' I said, a few days afterwards, hastening to him with an open letter in my hand, congratulate me. Such a singular coincidence!'

poor poems which were tagged to its tail. His father is at present engaged on a history of Nottingham, for which he is understood to be eminently qualified. Success to it, and to the purposes and prospects of his gifted son.

We visited Newstead Abbey with a well-concocted and cooked little party (there's more skill required in cooking well a party of pleasure than in the most delicate hachis or ragout in the world, in arranging its materials, and in distributing its spice), and had a day of quiet and unmixed enjoyment. Along with us, there was a young poet, without vanity, three Baptist ministers, without a particle of bigotry or cant amongst them, and a political agitator, without virulence or venom. The day was dry, but dark; the scenery between Nottingham and Newstead not particularly interesting, till we reached the woods encompassing the far-famed ' Hut,' an antique-looking inn within a mile or two of the abbey. Here we paused; drank, in bitter beer, the memory of Childe Harold; ordered a dinner of rabbits (hundreds of which are running among the woods) to be ready in three hours; and away we sped to Newstead. We enjoyed the advantage of having, in one of our party, the very ideal of a guide and cicerone, who has visited the spot a hundred times, and yet who, while acquainted with every inch of the ground, describes the scene with as much enthusiasm of feeling and eloquence of language as if it were his second or third visit. We walked as if in a day-dream through all the notabilities of the place. The weather was in severe harmony with the scene. The clouds, hung down in dark and drooping tapestries, seemed too lazy to rain, but ever and anon spat out, as if in the very spirit of Byronic disdain, a thin drizzle, which, but for the country, might have been called a Scotch mist. We noted, first of all, the little lake, and the waterfall on the lake; we saw a small yacht, in which Byron was wont to sail; also

the tower from which he used to plunge into the waters to bathe. We then repaired to the shrubberies and the garden. In the former we enjoyed some glimpses of the lake and the distant hills, which needed only summer to have made them enchanting. We made acquaintance with the old gardener and the gardener's wife-both shrewd and kindly persons-the latter of whom had borne Byron on her back a thousand times, when he was a boy, living with his aunt in Nottingham. She had a lively impression of his frankness, and, as we say in Scotland, 'roydness,' and remembered his mother as bearing the character of a cross between a maniac and a fiend. She insisted on us all going into her cottage, and partaking of her delicious currant-wine. We then repaired to the neighbourhood of the house. We saw the ruin of the old abbey, stern and silent in its age, and covered with the richest ivy. We paused long at the monument erected by Byron to his dog Boatswain, and one of our companions read in thrilling tones the withering epitaph inscribed upon it. We paced a walk shaded by yew-trees planted by the side of a sullen section of the lake, where moonlight, doubtless, often played upon the pale cheek of the prematurely haggard poet, as he walked in it alone with the night. On the gate of the ruin we noticed certain specimens of the terrible punctuation of Cromwell-he having battered it from the neighbouring eminences with his cannon, and there the marks still remain. Within the mansion, we found metal even more attractive. There was the old dining-room where Byron and Matthews so often revelled. There was the skull-cup, rimmed with silver, whence he and his 'merry monks' were wont to drink. There was the long, narrow library, looking out upon the garden, where he studied-swathed, when we saw it, in a solemn hue as of twilight, and surrounded with a large and select company of antique and modern tomes. In the drawing-room was his famous original picture by Phillips, which so admirably represents the beauty, the hauteur, the pride, and the misery of the sated young eagle which Byron was when it was drawn. We saw, too, the veritable bed where he slept or held his tormented vigils. We descended to the cloisters, where his midnights were sometimes spent, now in unhallowed pleasure, and now in remorse for it-attended

By that deep and shuddering chill
Which follows fast the deeds of ill.'

Nor least interesting was the view from the leads down into the court of the castle clad in grass, with the fountain playing in the midst, and with the shadow of the walls casting a deep gloom over it all, or out among the trees of the neighbouring woods. Ere leaving, we took a peep into the large old kitchen, where the interest of the scene was increased by the sight of some hundred or two of dead hares, rabbits, and pheasants, which had rewarded that day's sport on the part of the present proprietor and his friends. He (Colonel Wildman) bought Newstead Abbey from Byron, was in the habit of sending to Byron in Italy minute accounts of all the goings on, alterations, &c., at the abbey, and takes a pride in having left untouched as many of the landmarks and traces of the poet -both within and without the house-as he possibly could. This is generous and noble conduct. He admits the public, too, with the utmost freedom to see the edifice and the grounds; nor do they ever abuse the privilege.

The shadow of Byron's dark and mighty spirit seemed to lie upon the whole day and the whole scene. We quoted internally lines of our own relating to a suicide :—

Sadness seem'd

To keep that day as holy, for her shade
Was over all things; and the cataract's voice
Sounded like wail of anguish o'er the dead;

And the mist seem'd thy shroud, and the rain fell
Like tears from heaven o'er thee; and a low voice,
Which whisper'd madness, ran along the trees.'

On our way back to the Hut,' our conversation insensibly turned upon presentiments, wraiths, ghosts, dreams, and death. Shelley's wraith seen before his death at Pisa, Byron's appearing in Bond Street when he was ill of a fever in Greece, were only specimens of the stories

we dilated on as we walked slowly up through the gloomy twilight woods. One of our company stated a remarkable fact which had happened recently in the experience of one of his female friends. She was lying awake in bed, about ten on a calm autumn night, when suddenly the most extraordinary noise-a noise compounded, as it were, of the rattling of hail, the pattering of rain, and the sound of violent flapping-came against her window, and continued for at least five minutes. She rose, and, on looking out, found all perfectly fair, and still, and clear. She alarmed her husband, and they both concluded that it was singularly strange. For two days, although not superstitious, she trembled whenever the postman's knock was heard, lest it should announce a death. On the evening of the second, she was informed that an intimate acquaintance had been killed by a flash of lightning on the very day that the tidings were, as it were, thus telegraphed to her across a distance of 400 miles! Some, we noticed, were inclined to take this story as gospel, till one sceptically inquired whether, possibly, it were only a bat which had alarmed the good lady? The narrator, however, begged leave to retain his original opinion, and quoted the words so apropos on all such occasions:

'There are more things in heaven and earth.
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

The next day we went to Manchester. We had been prepared to like it. Among many others, our worthy and (in his way) wondrous friend, Duncan Macmillan, the ventriloquist, had often told us that the Manchester people would please us, and be found a frank, intelligent, hospitable, and kind-hearted set; and so we found them. To meet with that sturdy old man eloquent,' Dr Vaughan, and his very promising son; with the talented Mr Scott, United Presbyterian minister there; with Charles Swain; with some of the original members of the League, &c., was no small treat. Unfortunately, our time was limited. We had a night and a day, besides, in Liverpool-renewed acquaintance with several old friends there, and had the pleasure of shaking hands with three new ones: the amiable Dr Raffles, the Rev. G. Aspinall, and Albert Mott-the author of that capital, first novel, The First Angel,' and brother-in-law to Sidney Yendys.

On our return, our conscience smote us as we looked at the pile of unnoticed books, which had been collecting before and during our absence, and we resolved on an early Bundle."

And first let us make the amplest acknowledgment of gratitude we have had occasion to make since these 'Bundles began. We have to thank the Rev. A. A. I Lipscomb, of Montgomery, Alabama, United States, for a present of American books and pamphlets, amounting to nearly 100! It is a library in itself; and, better still, it consists principally of books new to us and valuable in themselves, with scarcely a trashy production among them. This gentleman has been for some years a valued correspondent. He is a man of varied talent, of fine taste and accomplishments, and of the most cordial and Christian feelings. Annoyed a little at the depreciation of American literature in our First Gallery,' he determined on this most graceful mode of revenge! He collected, at much pains and expense, a selection of American authors-some of whom are little known in this countryand sent it us, as if in friendly challenge, across the waters.

This bundle, or rather box of books, came only a fortnight ago; we have had no time to do full justice to its contents, and must speak of it rather in the future than in the present tense. But, besides some of our old acquaintances such as Longfellow (where, by the way, were the friends of poor Coventry Patmore, when they permitted him to diversify his hopeless mediocrity, or else drivelling mysticism of manner, by his recent stupid attack upon the author of the Psalm of Life' in the 'North British Review?'-let him remember that many who pardoned the simpering idiocy of his praise of Tennyson, will not endure the snarling idiocy of his attack on Longfellow), Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emerson, Bush, Todd, &c.—we