contain vast quantities of unredeemed metal, waiting for improved processes of separation.

So it is in all things: another contrast of past and present strikes us in reading a recent letter from Mr Twaits, Director of the Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, to his entomological friend, William Spence-he says: 'It is delightful to find that entomology is so "looking up." There surely cannot be a better field for studying the plan of creation than it presents; and it is lamentable to think our ancestors were so unwise as to throw ridicule on the study; but better times have arrived, and if we are only blessed with peace for another quarter of a century, what a change we shall see with rising generations!-men and things in their right places, and far more real enjoyment of life.'

Entomology itself does not stand apart from geological or geographical considerations, for insects, as we are told, follow particular stratifications of rocks; and we all know that different genera exist according to the distribution of land and water.

The enthusiasm with which the writer of the above letter regards the study of science, and its ameliorating influence on the future, is a hopeful witness of our age, which, most assuredly, does wrestle bravely with all difficulties, whether political or physical-whether it be the enfranchisement of a sect, or the linking together of continents by electric chains. Our philosophers and explorers are indeed undaunted by physical difficulties, as the investigations of those resolute, patient, and daring men, Drs Barth and Livingstone, do testify. Of the other noble qualities of those travellers -Livingstone, more especially-we need not speak, as the public mind has been full of the subject only very recently. We have another instance of the subjugation of impediments in the case of Professor Piazzi Smyth, who established upon the Peak of Teneriffe, 'amid the old trachytic lavas of the volcano, 10,710 feet above the sea,' a station for his telescope. It had been found that the lower atmosphere of the earth impeded the powers of the telescope. The advantage gained by this altitude for purposes of astronomical observation, 'may be inferred,' says Dr Lloyd, from the fact, that the heat radiated from the moon, and so often sought for in a lower region, was distinctly perceptible.'

It is gratifying to learn from Sir Roderick, that all the principal states of Europe are rivalling the English in their efforts to increase our knowledge of the surface of the earth. The exertions of France, of Spain, of the German powers, and of Russia in this walk, are all detailed by him, and allowed their due share of praise.

LITTLE NID-NODDY.

THE town had grown immensely since I saw it in boyhood: so had I, for that matter. I found myself a tall, stout, middle-aged (or worse) individual, instead of a little slim boy; and the place had waxed in proportion, till it now presented something quite metropolitan in aspect. I found it necessary to see some of the higher officials of the Post-office, on the subject of a letter of value that appeared to have miscarried, and the person I spoke to was a pleasant, gentlemanlike man, who entered with interest and kindness into the business. On learning my name, he turned his eyes on my face, with a look that gradually brightened into a smile.

'Hold-I deny that! Ill-tempered, I confess, but not ill-natured.'

'What, then you are Brown!'

'As sure as you are Smith!' and the two boyacquaintances-mere acquaintances, with nothing in common between them-meeting after the lapse of a quarter of a century, grasped each other's hands as if they had been lifelong friends. After the usual questions and answers, that mean nothing but an expression of interest and sympathy-

6

Well,' said I, after all, you are not so much changed so far as the features go: it is the pleasant expression that disguised you; and then your hair— why, it is positively gray! What have you been doing to yourself?'

'Doing! Look at your own hair-you are as gray as a badger.'

'Meaning me? Fy, fy! Gray? Oh fy!' 'Well, come and dine with me at six, and you shall have a history of my expression. I assure you it has often puzzled myself.'

I did dine with him at six. And a very nice little dinner we had, well-dressed, warm, and comfortable; with a very nice little wife at the top of the table; and afterwards, a very nice bottle of old port-no claret, and no nonsense of any kind-to throw its genial glow over our conversation. Mrs Brown was not what you would call pretty. Her features were moulded, not cut; she had a round nose, a round chin, and a pair of round cheeks, and with the hue of health spread over them, they passed very well. But then there was such a look about the little woman! Such gleams of good-humour played incessantly over her face! Her eyes appeared as if they were always laughing; and her ripe lips, as if they would let out the sound of it only for modesty. Her conversation was not what is called intellectual, which is all a sham when used as the common staple of talk: her thoughts came straight from the heart, without waiting to be distilled in the brain, and her voice, while soft and kindly, was as clear as a bell.

Some men call their wives Mamma, some Meg, if they were christened Margaret, and some a pet name that has neither rhyme nor reason. My friend Brown called his wife, several times, Little Nid-noddy. It seemed to me a comical fancy, but he let it slip out without feeling it, and she accepted it as something that belonged to her.

'Well, good-bye, Little Nid-noddy,' said he, as she was leaving the room; 'let us know when you are wearying for tea.' She held up her finger with an arch smile, and complimenting us with a couple of quick nods, vanished.

'What an odd name, Brown,' said I, 'to call that very charming little wife of yours! How came you to think of anything so nonsensical?'

'Why, that is a part of the story I am going to tell disposition; and now, that we are alone, let us fill our you about what you are pleased to think my evil glasses, and I shall begin. Story, did I say? Well, I can't say there is any story in it: it has no incident

Upon my word, I feel as if I ought to do so; but the fellow I am thinking of rarely smiled, and never laughed. He was, in fact, a sort of sullen dog-an ill-natured'—

except the wedding; no characters except my own, and one I imagined; and no dialogue, for, in point of fact, I hardly ever spoke to her till a very short time before she became my wife.'

'Well, if there is no story, you can't tell it, that's all-so begin.'

Very well. I was a sullen, ill-tempered young dog. can't think how this came about: perhaps my grandmother'

'Never mind your grandmother. You were a horrid young cub, that's the long and short of it.'

'It is quite true; and when I was stuck up officially at the wicket to give out the letters applied for, I do believe I thought less of the wealth and honour of the post than of the opportunities it afforded me of ladling

about my disagreeable feelings to the community. I took a pride in irritating or humiliating my customers, pretending to think all the while to myself that I was the aggrieved party. When a farmer, as green as his own turnip-tops, came to ask whether I had a letter for "one Simpson," I replied gruffly, affecting to examine the packet-"No such name as One Simpson;" or perhaps "Which Simpson? Abraham Simpson?" and it was a favourite dodge of mine, after fencing cleverly for some time with a categorist, to shut the wicket suddenly in his face, leaving him in a state of profound mystification.'

Upon my word! I wish I had caught you at these tricks with me.'

'One day a little girl came tripping into the vestibule, and after asking some question at other wickets, presented herself at mine. She was so short, I was obliged to stretch over my neck to see her, which I took as a trouble; and on hearing her inquiry, which was about a colonial letter, I was just going to answer "Not here," when I was struck by something peculiar in her look. It was so gay, so familiar, so trusting, that I thought for a moment she must surely be some acquaintance whose features I had forgotten. "You must go elsewhere, little girl," said I; "it is not my business. This is inland." "Why sure!-don't shut! It's Tom's letterTom all the way in Australia! I knew you wouldn't shut"-and she gave a little merry laugh. "Now, do tell me where I am to go." Well, I don't know how it came about; but for some minutes after that I was stretching my long neck through the wicket, explaining to the little girl what she was to do; and at length I beckoned one of the carriers, and desired him to take her to the proper place. I remember I tried very hard to persuade myself that she was a troublesome little mouse, and I a very ill-used, overworked individual; till, when I was still thinking the matter over, I saw her on her way out threading the crowd that now began to throng the vestibule. She stopped two or three times to look towards my wicket, but I turned away my head as if I wasn't thinking of such trash; till at length she caught my eye in spite of me, and raising herself on tiptoe-her face aglow with a merry smile of recognition, thanks, and triumphshe gave me a couple of quick nods-nid-nod-like a postman's knock, and vanished away into the street.

'It made me smile, and I was not much accustomed then to smiling. For some time after, I noticed her in the vestibule every now and then, although not near me, and never without receiving from her the same recognition at length I came to expect her; and when, one day, I saw the same little girl-she had been posting a letter-looking round and up into my wicket, as if she was playing at bo-peep, and with her merry acquaintance-claiming smile, popping her double nod at me, I declare to you I felt a sensation of actual pleasure.

"Well?" said I, "what 's to do now ?" "There it is," she replied, placing before me a little packet, about the fourth part of a business letter in size, only thicker.

"What is this? It has no address."

"No; they were married this morning, and that's a bit of the cake. It's for dreaming. You put it under your pillow, you know, when you go to bed."

"You odd little girl, I don't want your cake." "No!" and she opened her eyes upon me with wonder: "you don't like a dreaming-piece? But that must be a mistake; for mamma allowed me to bring it, and said that all good pleasant people liked everything of the kind." What could I say to this? Was I a good pleasant fellow? I gave a sort of sheepish smile, and put the gift into my waistcoat pocket; whereupon the delighted little girl, with a comical look of mirth and triumph, popped off at me her little

double nod, and springing away, was out of sight in an instant. After this '

Stay, I want to know whether you put the dreaming-piece under your pillow.' 'Pooh, nonsense: don't interrupt me.' 'Come, yes or no?'

'Well, I did: fill your glass, and don't interfere with history. This sort of acquaintance, if acquaintance it can be called, went on for a long time, till I waited with a kind of impatience for the appearance of the pleasant little face. No wonder; I knew nobody else, except in the way of business. I was not the fellow to make acquaintances, and reading was out of the question while at the wicket. My thoughts, therefore, acquired the habit of busying themselves about her. I wondered who it was that was married, coming tardily to the decision that it was her eldest sister, and that the happy man was an old companion of Australian Tom. Then as time passed on, I amused myself with criticising her looks, which always bore traces of some changing emotion, although with the old good-humour over all. And then there came at last a time when days, weeks, months passed away without my seeing her; and although the little face still kept pace with me in my life's monotonous journey, it grew fainter and fainter, till it would probably have vanished altogether. But just before that consummation, she turned up. She was in deep mourning. Her pace was slower, graver; her face, though as good-humoured as ever, was pale, thoughtful, sad: she looked older-I had never suspected till then that she was growing on like other girls, with womanhood itself at the end of the vista. Having posted her letter, she came to my wicket, and turning up the same bright face, looked at me for a moment, till her kind, confiding eyes filled with tears.

"He is dead,” said she in a whisper: "I thought I would let you know;" and turning round as on a pivot, walked slowly away. Who was dead?-that was a new text for my reflections. Her father? Was the poor girl now unprotected in the world? In what circumstances had he died? I say, Smith, this habit of thinking about other people does a large stroke of business in the way of humanising! I had been getting less and less selfish ever since I began the practice-that is, ever since I knew Little Nid-noddy; and to say less selfish, includes less sullen, less fretful, less ill-tempered. My success in business was probably owing to the change. People began to take some interest in me, and prospects opened of advancement when vacancies should occur. Besides, the goodhumoured expression of the little girl was of use to me

That is just what I was thinking. Anything else might have made you more amiable, but it would also have made you more lackadaisical. When you thought of her, your face reflected the brightness of hers, and the habit gave a certain sunniness to your whole being. But, my dear fellow, I wish, when you were about it, you had got hold of another characteristic of hers.'

'What is that?'

'Her quickness of motion. Your prosy way gives one the idea that years must have elapsed between the time you first saw her at your wicket and her father's death.'

'And so they did: that shews I know how to relate history. At the latter period, she was not so prodigiously young as you imagine. When I first saw her, she was ten, and I twenty; and, little girl as she was, she was now not exactly a child, though with the simplicity of one. Well, time went on as before: her sadness gradually vanished-and then she vanished too. At first, I was impatient; then fretful; then, as ideas of the uncertainty of health and life crowded into my mind, was sorry for poor Little Nid-noddy.

pithy moralising as are generally contained in national proverbs, than to book-learning. It is different with us now. And yet, what has helped so much as the practical appreciation of this common-sense philosophy to raise so high the character of the Scottish people? Only look to a neighbouring country which shall be nameless, but where indolence and improvident marriages are the very chief causes of the people's misery, and where a national floating capital of oral wisdom is as thinly spread as any other species of riches, and tell me of what avail, as a panacea for such evils, would be the dissemination amongst such a people of knowledge for which the poor man has no direct use, and which has only a technical, or remote, or pedantic reference to the pursuit he is engaged in, in comparison with the extensive circulation of a code of homely maxims such as these:

Who weds ere he is wise will die ere he thrive.
Ne'er seek a wife till ye hae a house and a fire burning.
A light heart keeps nae house;

for, as another Scotch proverb says:

A wee house hath a muckle mouth.

and last, though not least, that quaint rhyme of Chaucer's, which has long since passed into use as an English adage:

He that hath more smocks than shirts in a bucking,
Had need of a good forelooking.

Equally pregnant and energetic are the maxims in which the Scottish paræmiologists protest against the vice of idleness. Paraphrasing, with characteristic humour and unmistakable nationality, the lofty didactics of the Romans-the people of antiquity who spoke most in proverbial language-they tell us--not

that

but that

By doing nothing we learn to do ill, Nihil agendo malè agere discimus

Idle dogs worry sheep;

Naething is got without pains but dirt and lang nails; He that gapes till he be fed, will gape till he be dead. Or, giving the maxim a colloquial turn, they impress upon us the fact, that

all, not so very far out, when, after remarking in the preface to his Apothegms New and Old, that 'Jullius Ceasar did write a collection of apothegmes, as appears in an epistle of Cicero'-he added: I need say no more for the worth of a writing of that nature.' I may proceed, in connection with my argument, to remark that the greatest men of all ages have not disdained to be makers or collectors of proverbs. To say nothing of Solomon, there is reason to believe that Aristotle himself wrote and published a collection; and we have just seen that Julius Cæsar compiled one, which is now unfortunately lost, but which was no doubt executed with excellent choice and judgment. In more recent times, and amongst European nations, Guicciardini, in Italy; Erasmus, in Holland; Cardinal Beatoun, David Ferguson, and Allan Ramsay, in Scotland; Caxton, Camden, Francis Bacon, John Heiwood, James Kelly, Thomas Fuller, Herbert, Dyke, Howell, Ray, and numerous others in England, were all collectors and publishers of adages. even in these last days, when the race of great men seems to have utterly perished from off the earth, have we not seen a Scottish artist* devoting upwards of seven of the best years of his life to the task of compiling and arranging the best versions of the proverbs and moral maxims most in use in Scotland, and an English bookseller doing the same kindly office for the apothegmatical wisdom of the continental nations?

Nay,

Were I disposed to hint a fault in Mr Bohn's performance,† it would be, that he has nowhere sufficiently discriminated between that kind of wisdom which, being suited to the circumstances of a people, passes current amongst them like the ready change, and the dry and stately, though sometimes pithy and profound didactics of the poet and the moralist; a fault which is more especially observable in the Italian portion of his volume. But I for one am too grateful to this gentleman for reminding us by his publication of the original source of much of the common sense which the changed state of things has yet left us, to feel inclined to do anything but give a cordial welcome to his new adventure. No doubt the work will meet with greater acceptance from the philologist than the general reader -a circumstance which would of itself seem to justify me in setting before the readers of this Journal a dish of the wholesome common-sense aliment which it

contains, before the whole is left to be forgotten like an old song. But even for the general reader, the work is not wanting in abiding interest. No Scotch

or a reproachful one:

antly impressed by the truth of an assertion which he has doubtless often heard, and as often indignantly denied, that only a few-probably not one per cent.

indigenous, are, after all, of real Scottish growth. Borrowed from, or rather transmitted through the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the German, and every modern language, a vast majority of the sayings which, in the mouths of our fathers, were familiar as household words, were current proverbs at Rome in the days of Cicero, however much they may have since been leavened with Scottish humour and nationality. But, as one of these transmitted maxims says:

Who companies with the wolf will learn to howl, so to the Greeks, the Jews, the Arabs, and the eastern nations, were the Romans in their turn indebted for their apothegmatic lore, made-who shall say how far back?-when Adam himself perhaps was little more than a boy. Of these transmitted maxims, one will be remembered as occurring in a previous part of this

* Andrew Henderson, author of the best collection extant of the

Scottish proverbs.

An ounce of mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy, is repeated as an English proverb in various forms, and amongst the rest occurs in this

A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.

But it also appears in its more ancient garb in the French portion of Mr Bohn's book:

KIRKE WEBBE,

THE PRIVATEER CAPTAIN.
CHAPTER XV.

YES, the last word audible to mortal ears uttered by

and in the Spanish as

Mas vale punado de natural que almozada de sciencia. There are not many Scotch proverbs which I should at once be inclined to pronounce more characteristic of the people than the following:

If the auld wife had nae been in the oven hersel, she never would hae thocht o' seeking her dochter there; and yet, as we now learn, it is only a Scotchification of a Spanish adage which I will not quote, but which may be found by those who seek it in the book before us. Then, again, is not the Italian

La porta di dietro è quella che guasta la casa,

not unhappily hit off in

A bonnie wife and a back-door

Often make a rich man poor?

The Spanish version of this proverb is too caustic to quote, but its essential features are preserved in the English collections in the saying:

He that marries a widow and three children marries four thieves;

which the Scotch, again, with their wonted liberality, have modified into

He that marries a widow and twa dochters has three

back-doors to his house.

Of that class of foreign proverbs, again, to which a historical interest attaches, several specimens occur in Mr Bohn's pages; although, partly from a wholesome fear of extending this paper to an undue length, but principally from my imperfect acquaintance with the circumstances to which they owe their importance, I prefer passing them by. Of similar sayings amongst ourselves there is assuredly no lack-the best known being that which gave Archibald, Earl of Angus, his sobriquet of Bell-the-Cat;' and that in which the Master of Glammis addressed James VI., when a boy,

6

at the Raid of Ruthven

Better bairns greet than bearded men; which just supplies another reason for deploring the depressed condition, if not utter extinction, of proverbial learning amongst us.

Finally, there is matter enough in the proverbial sayings of all nations to excite serious thought, and there are many of the quaint rhymes and short reflections on human life and things, which have a deeply sombre and instructive meaning conveyed in language that is sometimes almost pathetic. Remarkable above most of these are the bulk of the proverbs which John Maxwell of Southbar, in the west of Scotland, wrote down in 1586, and which William Motherwell printed for the first time in 1827 in the Paisley Magazine.

The finest cloath is soonest eaten with moaths, moralises the old man ;

The fairest silke is soonest soyled;

When hope and hap,

And health and wealth,
Are highest,
Then woe and wrack,
Disease and death,

Are nighest

finally shuffle off its mortal coil till some time afterwards. Father Meudon, whom the loud tones of the privateer officer had brought into the room, persisted in believing, or hoping in his large charity, that the indistinct mutterings of the moribund were spiritpetitions to the throne of mercy-that the expiring seaman recognised repentantly, in the crucifix held before his glazing eyes, the emblem and pledge of his soul's redemption from the second and eternal death; and so believing, Father Meudon recited the prayers and performed the ceremonies appointed by the Roman Catholic Church for dying penitents; that of absolution included-a vain mockery I thought at the time, though not, it may be, deemed so, the rebuking years have since suggested, by Him who blesses pure intentions.

Men bury their dead quickly out of their sight in France, and Dowling was laid in the narrow house scooped out for him in the sandy grave-ground attached to a rude chapel near the beach, dedicated to 'Our Lady, Star of the Sea,' on the evening of the day he died. My respectful acquiescence in the religious ceremonial prescribed by the priestly conscience conciliated the regard of Father Meudon; and his round, fat, good-humoured face shone with so benign an expression as we conversed together after the funeral, that it struck me I could not do a wiser thing, circumstanced as I was, than take him into my confidence. I did so, not unreservedly the reader will readily believe, but sufficiently to enable him to serve me if he willed to do so.

The worthy man listened with surprise and growing interest; and I was delighted to find that my being an Englishman increased instead of diminished his

sympathising friendliness. He had fled from Havre at

the outbreak of the French revolution to England, and retained a lively sense of the kindly hospitality he had received there. He was pleased to add that, apart from their religion and language-the last of which he had not been able to thoroughly master twenty words of-there was in his candid judgment much in the institutions, customs, and character of the English people worthy of approval and esteem.

'It is fortunate for you, my young friend,' said Father Meudon, helping himself to a powerful pinch from a tabatière which was seldom out of his hand, that I was not honoured with your confidence in the first instance, and I am going to tell you why. A commissary of police was here about an hour since, to ascertain the nationality, &c., of the foreign seamen reported to have been cast ashore; and being informed by me that they were all citizens of the United States of America, he, under the circumstances, accepted my assurance of that fact, which I could not, of course, have given had I known what I do now. This will give us time, which shall be wisely used if you, recognising that I am acquainted with the ground,