hereth y melodyous armony of fowles; he what strange figure can this be, stalking seeth the yonge swanne, heerons, duckes, solemnly towards us?-d'ye see him?cotes, and many other fowlys, wyth their there-the mighty man in armor, with brodes; whych me seemyth better than greaves on his legs, and a high-plumed helm, alle y noyse of houndys, y blastes of and sword, and shield, and eagle-standard? hornys, and y' scrie of foulis, that hunters Probably'my horror-stricken friends thought and fawkeners, and foulers can make." Ac-me gone stark mad of a coup de soleil; cordingly, knowing well my country, and for I looked and acted much after the fashthat it is well worth your knowing, too, we will not, ungraciously, forget our "holsom walke," but take you roundabouts as pretty a ramble as any in broad Britain.

Match me where you can this rustic lane, its flooring of cleanest gravel, its wall of wildest verdure now it gets deeper and darker, with rocky sides painted wantonly by various lichens. How gracefully should we think these wavy ferns, how gorgeous those flaunting foxgloves, how elegant the harebell, how delicate the ragged cornflower, had Nature been more chary of her most abounding beauties. O men, when shall your hard hearts learn that good and loveliness are broadcast bounteously: when will your folly cease to think the commonest things least worthy?

And here, down in this oak-wood hollow, a flashing trout-stream glides across the road: yes, that's a fine fish, and spotted like the pard; but, don't put your rod together yet, for we've three miles more to go, and yonder sly old trout has seen too much of us; there, taking advantage of an escort of the smaller fry, he's off while we speak ; and one flap of his lissom tail has carried him ten yards away: moreover, all the hereabouts belongs to sour Squire Mountain, and . one wouldn't be beholden to the churl for the value of a fish-scale.

ion of Mr. Charles Kean, when he plays Hamlet and Macbeath, soliloquizing to the empty airs of Banquo and "my royal father." It was, however, but a pleasant variation of telling them the hackneyed story, that we were now standing on an ancient Roman camp, whence my idling antiquarianism had dug up many coins, and which the playfulness of glad imagination, overleaping eighteen centuries of time, had peopled with trampling legions, not seldom having held long converse there with more than one ghost of a gay Centurion.

But all this is sadly episodical, and has taken us out of the direct line of march, both as to subject and geography; so, granting safe arrival at our still distant watercourse, let us struggle through the, underwood, put up the taper rods, and, with a gentle breeze at our backs, drop a distant Ay gentle on the middle of that swingeing current :

Look, like a village queen of May, the stream

Dances her best before the holiday sun,
And still with musical laugh goes tripping on
Over these golden sands, which brighter gleam

To watch her pale-green kirtle flashing fleet
Above them, and her tinkling silver feet,
That ripple melodies: quick-yon circling rise
In the calm refluence of this gay cascade
Marked an old trout, who shuns the sunny skies,
And, nightly prowler, loves the hazel shade:
Well thrown!-you hold him bravely, off he
speeds,

Now up, now down,-now madly darts about! Mind, mind your line among those flowering reeds,How the rod bends!—and hail, thou noble trout.

But we've got upon the broad and sunny moor, whose beautiful varieties of heath and moss might make the very peat-cutter a botanist; where the cunning plover, in days lang syne, has often led me, with her A fine fellow, truly, black and yellow, cowering wing and plaintive cries, far away with little head, symmetrical hog's back, from her humble nest, and where my wand- and gills of vermilion. How he flings himering footsteps have before now been start- self about among the soft grass, iridescent lingly arrested by the close and noisy rising as a peacock's tail! But it is impossible to of fork-tailed black-cock;-where, more be prosy on the subject:than once, in crispy winter walks, tracking from holly to holly the tame pigeon-fieldfares, I have found myself suddenly, as by magic, in the midst of a rabble of dogs, and men, and horses, to wit, none other than the far-famed O. P. Q. hunt, and remembered having seen a fox running, two miles off, at least half an honr before; and then, giv. ing that eager crowd all possible intelligence, the noisy rout has left me, better pleased than ever with a solitary, peaceful ramble; where also-but I grow dull,

O, thou hast robbed the Nereids, gentle brother,
Of some swift fairy messenger; behold
Shows him their favorite page: just such another
His dappled livery prankt with red and gold

Sad Galatea to her Acis sent

To teach the new-born fountain how to flow,

And track, with loving haste, the way she went Down the rough rocks, and through the flowery

plain,

E'en to her home where coral branches grow, And where the sea-nymph clasps her love again. We, the while, terrible as Polypheme, Brandish the lissom rod, and featly try

Once more to throw the tempting, treacherous fly,

And win a brace of trophies from the stream.

Yes, and it's my turn now for luck, brother; but the breeze has lulled, and, for want of a Lapland witch to sell me one, it will be necessary to commence with invocation. Will this serve our purpose?—

Come, then, coy Zephyr, waft my feather'd bait
Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave
To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave
Some Triton's ambush,-where he lies in wait

To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly.
A rise,-by Glaucus! but he miss'd the hook-
Another!-safe; the monarch of the brook,
With broadside, like a salmon's, gleaming brightly:
Off let him race, and waste his prowess there;
The dread of Damocles, a single hair
Will tax my skill to take this fine old trout.

So-lead him gently; quick-the net, the net!
Now gladly lift the glittering beauty out,
Hued like a dolphin, sweet as violet.

PUNCH'S POLITICAL ECONOMY.
From the London Charivari.

CONSUMPTION.

EVERY product is put to some purpose after it is created-for instance, when sloe leaves are grown, they are used for adulterating tea, and the destruction of values in this way is called consumption. When a joke is spoiled in the telling, the destruction of the value amounts to cousumption. And when an insolvent person puts his hand to a bill he may be said to consume a stamp, for he destroys its value. Political economists have, however, omitted to mention that consumption sometimes bestows value instead of destroying it, for when a

CAPITAL.

CHANGES OF CAPITAL.

That must do to-day, at least for sonnet-person goes into a consumption he becomes eering; at yet, candid reader, credit me, invested with value-as a patient-to the much of your pleasure in such contempla- medical practitioner. tive sports is due to a secret soul gladdening their dull material. Verily it is the poetry of fishing that flings such a charm We have already touched on capital, but over the naked craft: therefore look for it is a subject which we are unwilling to favor on my well-meant improvising. The let go, and it may be profitable to return to tingling sensation of pleasant excitement it. That is, strictly speaking, capital, when a lively fish, hooked to your neat which is used by men in their different octackle, begins faintly to show his broadside cupations. Thus a man who writes a to the sun, the triumphant lifting of the farce, though it be very bad, still, when land-net, your bending-rod's welcome aid, finished, he generally thinks he has a right the beauteous, many-colored captive,-the to call it capital. An author who publishes calm, sun-steeped, smiling country, the a novel may consider it capital; though cagurgling music of running waters, and your pital of this kind very often carries with it own elastic health, uncareful heart, and bo- no interest. som full of hopes so innocent as these,oh, friend and fellow mine, how much of dormant poetry is here! Go with some and political economy of this kind is daily Capital is incessantly undergoing change, course-grained common fisherman,-poach-illustrated at the foot of Waterloo Bridge, er, or otherwise,-one who, like those emaciated tribes on the Colombia, fishes for his daily sustenance, and see what a dull, stale affair it is, of worms and brambles, bad humor, and wet feet. Sport itself scarcely mends the matter, viewed in the mammonizing aspect of tenpence a-pound. And, in fact, it is just because angling demands a poetical soul to enjoy its highest pleasures that such a phalanx of prosy people see no fun in it. Nevertheless, many a holiday clerk, long prisoned up in London ledgers, but even there feeding upon Walton and Wordsworth, will acknowledge that the pleasure of his day's fly-fishing is mainly due to the Poetry of Nature.

where, if you tender a penny, change will be given you. Some persons carry their der bad silver, and the change is capital for love of political economy so far as to tenCa. them, but not for the parties giving it. changes that it is wholly lost sight of, as pital may sometimes be subjected to such when it is invested in theatrical speculations or joint stock companies.

MONEY.

Money is a part of capital, but only a small part, though Sir E. L. Bulwer's Money was said to be capital by some, while others considered it to be little better than waste paper. If you get change for a sovereign, you may probably have a bad shilling among the lot; and, as it is admitLECTURES OF M. DANOU.-We are glad to see announced by Firmin Didot, Freres, a complete edited that what is true of a part must be true tion of the discourses of M. Danou, from 1819 to of the whole, the whole of the change will 10, of which only fragments have as yet found be bad-a position which the political ecor way to the public. His researches into annomists have got themselves into, and which nt histories have ever been held in the highest imation by scholars of all countries. we leave them to get out of.

3

OF FIXED AND CIRCULATING CAPITAL. is also entitled to be called a natural agent; On this head we have little to say. and a parliamentary agent falls under this There is an example of fixed capital in the description. Inanimate agents are better capital fixed at the top of the Duke of than living agents; for instance, a steamYork's column, which, by the by, is the engine is better than a lawyer-for while only capital that the Duke ever was able to the former generates steam, the latter genkeep for any time about him. Of circula-erates hot water, and is pretty sure to ting capital we can give no better idea than plunge us into it. Punch, which every body allows to be capital, and which circulated amazingly.

OF INDUSTRY.

Industry is human exertion of any kind employed for the creation of value; but when Sir Peter Laurie exerts himself to the utmost nothing valuable results from

it.

Some sort of industry is used to make property, while other sorts of industry have the effect of destroying property. Of the latter kind is the industry of lawyers, which is employed in the destruction of property to a very large extent.

Tools and machines are instruments for the production of value; and political tools are of various kinds, being invested with a greater or less degree of sharpness.

Wind is a stationary agent, and in turning a mill it is of great value. Wind is also an agent for the umbrella and hat makers, giving an impetus to trade by the destruc tion of value-blowing umbrellas to tatters, and carrying off the heads sometimes into the river. The value which political economists attribute to wind may perhaps account for the zeal they sometimes display in attempting to raise it.

OF NATURAL AGENTS.

A natural agent is, as its name imports, an agent of nature; and all our country agents are in the nature of natural agents, for they are naturally desirous of such a respectable agency. The wind is a natural agent, and in some cases may be said to help circulation, which it may be truly said to do when violent puffing is resorted to. Water is an agent of very great power, very often turning-a mill; and when mixed with brandy it frequently gives a rotary motion to every object-at least as far as the persons are concerned who have resorted to the very powerful agency alluded to. Water is a very natural agent, for all the metropolitan milk-men; and in conformity with the truth that it always finds its level, it generally causes a very perceptible rising in all the milk-cans. Such is the power of water, that, when held in solution with ordinary chalk, a pound weight of it has been capable of raising a penny. Humbug

It is said by political economists that inanimate agents are capable of much more rapid action than those that are alive; but the political economists seem to have forgotten that no action can be so rapid as that commenced by an attorney on a bill of exchange when his object is to create value-in the shape of costs, which he runs up with a rapidity of action that is truly astonishing. The East-India Tea Company professes to be very particular in the appointment of its agents; but every tea-kettle is in some degree an agent, if the Company's teas are used in the family where the kettle is located.

Frost is an agent for the plumbers, by putting the pipes out of repair; and when one of the Syncretics publishes a tragedy, he becomes at once an agent for the buttershops.

HOMERIC ILIUM.-One of the late numbers of the "Rhine Museum" contains an interesting article by Dr. Gustavus von Eckenbrecher upon the site of the Homeric lium. It seems carefully written, and well deserving the attention of all who take an interest in the question. The number of travellers who visit the plains of Troy is yearly increasing; and the sanguine hope soon to see a map of Ilium accompanying the Iliad, equally clear and certain with that of Ithaca for the explanation of the Odyssey. Dr. Eckenbrecher seems to differ from his predecessors in this investigation, in removeing Troy from the heights of Bunorbaschi, (on which since the times of Le Chevalier it has been supposed to be situated,) two miles lower on the plain, on the spot which, up to the present time, has been known by the name of New Ilium. A residence of several years in the Levant has afforded the author his research and accuracy, give value to his testiample means of observation, which, coupled with mony.-Athenæum.

KING GUSTAVUS'S PAPERS.-The Postampt Gazette' of Frankfort, mentions that " Professor Geyer, who was charged with the examination of the papers contained in the mysterious cases deposited at the University of Upsal by King Gustavus, has made 1. The memoirs of Gustavus, written by himself, his report of their contents. The chief papers are-and commenced in 1765, when he was only nineteen years of age. They contain important observations on the revolution of 1772 and on the two preceding reigns. 2. The history of the house of Vasa. 3. The plan of the form of government of 1772, and a plan for the regulation of the Diet of 1778."

From the Edinburgh Review-Feb'y.

RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH. | public. So Cervantes borrows the playful shafts of his kindly satire from the quiver The Recreations of Christopher North. Three launches his more envenomed arrows from of the sage Cid Hamet Benengeli; Swift vols. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1842. behind the broad back of Captain Lemuel THESE are in every way remarkable vol- Gulliver; and Sir Walter Scott often lingers umes, whether regarded as illustrative of over the Clutterbucks, Dryasdusts, Tintos, the character of the writer, or of the ten- and Pattisons, who were intended to be the dencies of the criticism of the time, to which mere heralds and pursuivants of his main his influence and example have given so gen. pageant, till they became leading personaeral and decided a direction. It is not in-ges in the procession;-making the prodeed easy to say, whether the interest which logue not unfrequently threaten to banish their perusal excites is chiefly to be referred the piece itself into a corner. to the very singular combination of moral and mental powers implied in their composition-where qualities which are generally deemed incompatible are found to be united in harmony-or to the strong feeling of the influence which this combination, expressing itself in forms of such originality and power as to arrest the attention of literary men, and at the same time, to appeal to the ordinary tastes and sympathies of the public, by the use of instruments at once familiar and powerful, must have exercised upon the taste of the time, and the whole tone and spirit of our criticism, as well as its form.

These fantastic creations, in a case like the present, serve a double purpose. They give a unity to detached thoughts and scattered views, and awaken a kind of personal interest on the part of the reader; who, although he may have little difficulty in detecting the incongruity of some of the traits introduced, and easily perceives that the portrait is not intended to be received as a daguerreotype likeness, for the fidelity of which the Sun himself is answerable, yet is satisfied that the features of the imaginary being whom he contemplates are drawn from an original existing in nature; and represent, though in a playful spirit of intention. The Essays which are collected in these al caricature, much of the real mind and volumes, and which originally appeared in a peculiar character of the writer: while the scattered form in Blackwood's Magazine, author himself thus obtains the means of are now united by a slender tie. They are giving expression to many things which he announced as "The Recreations of Christo- might have otherwise hesitated to utter withpher North." We need say little, we pre-out such a mouthpiece. Nor need the mask sume, of the imaginary personage who for this purpose be a very close one. As Aris. claims their authorship, except that, not- tophanes could venture, in the wildest days withstanding the palpably incongruous as- of Athenian democracy, to personate and ridsemblage of qualities with which he is in-icule upon the stage the demagogue of the vested, such are the vivacity and pictur- day, with merely the thin disguise of a paintesque truth with which his sayings and do-ed face, so a few whimsical and grotesque ings have been here depicted, that few creatures of the imagination have succeeded in impressing their image on the public with more distinctness of portraiture, or a stronger sense of reality. Few indeed find any difficulty in calling up before the mind's eye, with nearly the same vividness as that of an ordinary acquaintance, the image of this venerable eidolon-who unites the fire of youth with the wisdom of age, retains an equal in-querade. With these convenient phantasms, terest in poetry, philosophy, pugilism, and political economy-in short, in all the ongoings of the world around him, in which either matter or spirit have a part; andwho passes from a fit of the gout to a feat of gymnastics, and carries his crutch obviously less or purposes of use than of intimidation. Most writers who felt that they possessed the power of imaginary portrait painting, have been fond of interposing such imaginary personages between themselves and the

exaggerations superinduced upon the true features of the character, are, by a kind of tacit understanding between the author and the public, held sufficient to perplex the question of identity- to take from the imaginary representative all inconvenient resemblance to his prototype; and to entitle his caprices to that immunity which is conventionally accorded to the sallies of a mas

too, the writer can play as he pleases; bringing them prominently forward, or banishing them into the background, as occasion requires. In the present case, where some startling transition from grave to gay is in contemplation-some outburst of a wild humor that haply might frighten the groves of Academe from their propriety; some feat to be described, more congenial to the wild gaiety of youth than to the gravity of Budge Doctors of the Stoic fur, "attired in black

sage wisdom's hue"-forth steps, insolent | flicker of a sunbeam on the surface, hiding with animal spirits, and attired in the garb of the depth of some perennial well.

From this perpetual interchange of humor and earnestness, playful trifling and sound philosophy, these volumes stimulate the feeling of curiosity in a high degree. We soon feel that we have resigned ourselves into the hands of a companion and guide, the eccentricities of whose course it is impossible to calculate. The

a reality, the joyous apparition. When, on the contrary, the writer is to give utterance to the lessons of wisdom, to the strains of pensive reflection on the mixed nature of man, to the eloquence inspired by strong sympathy with all created things-to any of those ennobling thoughts, in short, with which a good man would fain in life associate his name, and in death his memory-line of curves by which Sterne illustrates then the poet and moralist comes forward to speak in his own character-the obedient spirit hies to his confine, and Christopher subsides into a shadow.

the no-progress of Tristram Shandy is its only parallel. Start with him from what latitude you may, no one can foresee in what zone the excursion is to terminate, or through what strange scenes or devious wanderings we shall be led. The title of the essay, or the nature of the subject, throws but the feeblest light upon the probabilities of its treatment. It is soon perceived to be not in the least unlikely that a criticism on Wordsworth may merge in a riotous description of a Highland Still; or that a dinner with Dr. Kitchener may produce discourse that would have more fitly graced a banquet with Socrates. Indeed, in the perusal of the "Recreations," we can scarcely say we are reasonably assured of any one thing beforehand; except that in all probability every mood of mind in which the subject can be viewed will be

Considerable changes, we perceive, have taken place on these Essays since they first appeared in a periodical form. Large retrenchments are here and there perceptible; considerable additions have been made in other parts; greater rounding and compactness are generally discernible;-yet in all, essentially-and wisely we think they retain their original character. For, unquestionably, not a little of their peculiar charm was derived from the contrast between the occasional nature of their origin, and the depth and permanent importance of the views which many of them embodied ;from observing how frequently it happened that slight hints, caught up as if by accident, and handled in a spirit of sportive dal-run through, and in quick succession; the liance, were made by some secret and cunning alchymy to change thier nature and to expand into speculations of deep and wide significance, connected with human nature, or the principles of poetry and art; and how, from a foundation that seemed at first slender and unsubstantial, if not mean and misplaced, a stately fabric of philosophc truth, studded with imagery and stored with wisdom, rose before us like a bright and noiseless exhalation. Thus the sight of a solitary starling, among the decaying remains of an old castle, is found to lead to a majestic passage on Ruins, their deep hold on the imaginative mind, and the sources of that influence. The note of the cushat, during a walk in the depths of a dark and primeval Caledonian forest, is the prelude to reflections not less striking on the terrors of con- Or Laughter holding both his sides." science, and the longing after immortality. There are some classes of minds to which Under the playful guise of a eulogy on illi- these rapid changes of scale, and this blendcit distillation, are insinuated views equally ing of different elements within the same kindly, just, and practical, on the character composition, may appear illegitimate and and condition of our Highland population; barbarous; particularly the department of -while in the "Soliloquy on the Seasons," literary criticism. Many seem to think, like what a world of solemn and touching asso- the French critics and dramatists of another ciation lies beneath that covering of wit day, that humor and pathos cannot dwell and humor which invests the strain and together in unity, and consequently insist disguises its deeper meaning-like the on a separate maintenance for those whom

note of mirth suddenly passing into the mournful, and again, by delicate resolution, modulating back into the key of cheerfulness. Experience soon teaches us that the presiding influence under which these volumes were composed is Mutability; and "that nothing here long standeth in one sway." Often, when we have fixed our eyes upon what appears to be the veritable form of Tragedy, the outlines of the figure begin to tremble and waver, till, when they settle themselves into shape, we find that, by some mysterious occular deception, we are contemplating the features of her comic sister; or while we have been listening to the strains of Contemplation, suddenly enters, with blithe step and changeful vesture, Sport, that wrinkled care derides,