Nay, the devil help you to the latitude," said the Captain, extricating his button from the gripe of the unmerciful bard's finger and thumb, "for I have no time to make an observation." So saying, he bolted from the room.

"A silly ill-bred conceited fool," said Halcro, looking after him ; "with as little manners as wit in his empty coxcomb. I wonder what Magnus and these silly wenches can see in him-he tells such damnable long-winded stories, too, about his adventures and sea-fights--every second word a lie, I doubt not. Mordaunt, my dear boy, take example by that man—that is, take warning by him—never tell long stories about yourself. You are sometimes given to talk too much about your own exploits on craigs and skerries, and the like, which only breaks conversation, and prevents other folks from being heard. Now I see you are impatient to hear out what I was saying-Stop, where about was I ?"

"I fear we must put it off, Mr. Halcro, until after dinner," said Mordaunt, who also meditated his escape, though desirous of effecting it with more delicacy towards his old acquaintance than Captain Cleveland had thought it necessary to use.

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Nay, my dear boy," said Halcro, seeing himself about to be utterly deserted; "do not you leave me too--never take so bad an example as to set light by old acquaintance, Mordaunt. I have wandered many a weary step in my day; but they were always lightened when I could get hold of the arm of an old friend like yourself."

So saying, he quitted the youth's coat, and, sliding his hand gently under his arm, grappled him more effectually, to which Mordaunt submitted, a little moved by the poet's observation upon the unkindness of old acquaintances, under which he himself was an immediate sufferer. But when Halcro renewed his formidable question, "Whereabouts was I?" Mordaunt, preferring his poetry to his prose, reminded him of the song which he said he had written upon his first leaving Zetland,--a song to which, indeed, the inquirer was no stranger, but which, as it must be new to the reader, we shall here insert as a favourable specimen of the poetical powers of this tuneful descendant of Haco the Golden-mouthed; for, in the opinion of many tolerable judges, he held a respectable rank among the inditers of madrigals of the period, and was as well qualified to give immortality to his Nancies of the hills or dales, as

many a gentle sonnetteer of wit and pleasure about town. He was something of a musician also, and on the present occasion seized upon a sort of lute, and, quitting his victim, prepared the instrument for an accompaniment, speaking all the while that he might lose no time.

"I learned the lute," he said, "from the same man who taught honest Shadwell-plump Tom, as they used to call him somewhat roughly treated by the glorious John, you remember-Mordaunt, you remember

Methinks I see the new Arion sail,

The lute still trembling underneath thy nail;
At thy well sharpen'd thumb, from shore to shore,
The trebles squeak for fear, the basses roar."

Come, I am indifferently in tune now-what was it to be? -ay, I remember-nay, The Lass of Northmaven is the ditty-poor Bet Stimbister! I have called her Mary in the verses. Betsy does well for an English song; but Mary is more natural here." So saying, after a short prelude, he sung, with a tolerable voice and some taste, the following

versee

Mary.

"Farewell to Northmaven,
Gray Hilleswicke, farewell!
To the calms of thy haven,
The storms on thy fell-
To each breeze that can vary
The mood of thy main,
And to thee, bonny Mary!
We meet not again.

"Farewell the wild ferry,

Which Hacon could brave,
When the peaks of the Skerry
Were white in the wave.
There's a maid may look over

These wild waves in vain,
For the skiff of her lover-
He comes not again.

"The vows thou hast broke,

On the wild currents fling them;

On the quicksand and rock,

Let the mermaiden sing them.
New sweetness they'll give her
Bewildering strain;

But there's one who will never
Believe them again.

"O were there an island, -
Though ever so wild,

Where woman could smile, and
No man be beguiled-
Too tempting a snare

To poor mortals were given,
And the hope would fix there,

That should anchor on heaven."

"I see you are softened," my young friend," said Halcro, when he had finished his song; so are most who hear that same ditty. Words and music both mine own; and, without saying much of the wit of it, there is a sort of

-eh-eh-simplicity and truth about it, which gets its way to most folk's heart. Even your father cannot resist it-and he has a heart as impenetrable to poetry and song as Apollo himself could draw an arrow against. But then he has had some ill luck in his time with the woman folks, as is plain from his owing them such a grudge-Ay, ay, there the charm lies--none of us but has felt the same sore in our day. But come, my dear boy, they are mustering in the hall, men and women both--plagues as they are, we should get on ill without them--but before we go, only mark the last turn

And the hope would fix there ;'—

that is, in the supposed island—a place which neither was nor will be

That should anchor on heaven.'

Now you see, my good young man, there are here none of your heathenish rants, which Rochester, Etheridge, and these wild fellows, used to string together A parson might sing the song, and his clerk bear the burthen-but there is the confounded bell--we must go now--but never mind ---we'll get into a quiet corner at night, and I'll tell you all about it."

CHAP. XIII.

Full in the midst the polish'd table shines,
And the bright goblets, rich with generous wines;
Now each partakes the feast, the wine prepares,
Portions the food, and each the portion shares;
Nor till the rage of thirst and hunger ceased,
To the high host approached the sagacious guest.
Odyssey.

THE hospitable profusion of Magnus Troil's board, the number of guests who feasted in the hall, the much greater number of retainers, attendants, humble friends, and domestics of every possible description, who revelled without, with the multitude of the still poorer, and less honoured assistants, who came from every hamlet or township within twenty miles round, to share the bounty of the munificent Udaller, were such as altogether astonished Triptolemus Yellowley, and made him internally doubt whether it would be prudent in him at this time, and amid the full glow of his hospitality, to propose to the host who presided over such a splendid banquet, a radical change in the whole customs and usages of his country.

True, the sagacious Triptolemus felt conscious that he possessed in his own person wisdom far superior to that of all the assembled feasters, to say nothing of the landlord, against whose prudence the very extent of his hospitality. formed, in Yellowley's opinion, sufficient evidence. But yet the Amphytrion with whom one dines holds, for the time at least, an influence over the minds of his most distinguished guests; and if the dinner be in good style, and the wines of the right quality, it is humbling to see that neither art nor wisdom, scarce external rank itself, can assume their natural and wonted superiority over the distributor of these good things, until coffee has been brought in. Triptolemus felt the full weight of this temporary superiority, yet he was desirous to do something that might vindicate the vaunts he had made to his sister and his fellow-traveller, and he stole a look at them from time to time, to mark whether he was not sinking in their esteem from VOL. I.

N

postponing his promised lecture upon the enormities of Zetland.

But Mrs. Barbara was busily engaged in noting and registering the waste incurred in such an entertainment as she had probably never before looked upon, and in admiring the host's indifference to, and the guests' absolute negligence of those rules of civility in which her youth had been brought up. The feasters desired to be helped from a dish which was unbroken, and might have figured at supper, with as much freedom as if it had undergone the ravages of half a dozen guests, and no one seemed to carethe landlord himself least of all-whether those dishes only were consumed, which, from their nature, are incapable of re-appearance, or whether the assault was extended to the substantial rounds of beef, pasties, and so forth which, by the rules of good housewifery, were destined to stand two attacks, and which, therefore, according to Mrs. Barbara's ideas of politeness, ought not to have been annihilated by the guests upon the first onset, but spared, like Outis in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured the last. Lost in the meditations to which these breaches of convivial discipline gave rise, and in the contemplation of an ideal larder of cold meat which she could have saved out of the wreck of roast, boiled, and baked, sufficient to have supplied her cupboard for at least a twelvemonth, Mrs. Barbara cared very little whether or not her brother supported in its extent the character which he had calculated upon assuming.

Mordaunt Mertoun also was conversant with far other thoughts than those which regarded the proposed reformer of Zetland enormities. His seat was betwixt two blithe maidens of Thule, who, not taking scorn that he had upon other occasions given preference to the daughters of the Udaller, were glad of the chance which assigned to them the attentions of so distinguished a gallant, who, as being their squire at the feast, might in all probability become their partner in the subsequent dance. But, whilst rendering to his fair neighbours all the usual attentions which society required, Mordaunt kept up a covert, but accurate and close observation upon hi estranged friends, Minna and Brenda. The Udaller himself had a share of his attention; but in him he could remark nothing, except the usual tone of hearty and somewhat boisterous hospitality with which he was accustomed to animate the banquet upon