tues. The Bombay Gazette, in speaking of him, says, "As a public character, we are not aware of his parallel in the annals of British India. During a most active service of forty-seven years, in the double capacity of statesman and soldier, his unremitted exertions, and unerring judgment, contributed largely to the stability of government, and prosperity of the country." 28. At Bombay, Colonel Cowper, Commandant of Engineers. Sept. 20. At Kirthick, James Wood, M.D. Esq. of Kirthick, aged 78. Oct. At Tobago, Captain Robert Macalister of Irvine. 25. At Halifax, Nova Scotia, Lady Mitchell, widow of Sir Andrew Mitchell. Nov. 21. At Pau-bas, Pyrenees, Mary Rannie Mansfield, third daughter of John Mansfield, Esq. of Midmar. -At Vienna, his Serene Highness Duke Charles Eugene of Lorraine, of an apoplectic fit. His Highness was the last male branch of the illustrious House of Lorraine. 23. At Kelso, aged 81, Dr. Andrew Wilson, physician there. -At Tobermory, Mrs Sinclair of Lochalan. -At Geneva, in the prime of life, Henry William Lambton, Esq. third son of William Henry Lambton, Esq. of Lambton, in Durham. 25. At Harrow, of typhus fever, William, eldest son of Major-General Douglas of Timpendean. 26. At Edinburgh, Janet, only surviving daughter of the late Mr Thomas George, merchant, Cupar Fife. 27. At Edinburgh, John Keir, Esq. of the island of Madeira, and Ledgers, Surry. -At George's Square, Mrs Isabella Kerr, spouse of the Rev. Dr Simpson, one of the Ministers of Edinburgh. At Glenary, Argyllshire, Mrs Hislop, wife of D. Hislop, Esq. Inverary. 28. At Edinburgh, aged 95, Mrs Marianne Sidelje Van Hoogwerff, widow of William Stewart, Esq. late of St Catherines. At Edinburgh, Miss Willielmina Hathorn, eldest daughter of the deceased Hugh Hathorn of Castlewigg, Esq. -At Fasnacloich, Miss Stewart, daughter of the late James Stewart, Esq. of Fasnacloich. 29. At London, William Ogilvie, Esq. of Westhall. At Middleton, the Lady of E. W. H. Schenley, Esq. Mrs Agnes Gibson, relict of John Archibald, Esq. merchant. -At Edinburgh, Mrs Wynne, wife of the Rev. Richard Wynne. 30. Drowned at sea, from on board the ship Charles Forbes, Thomas, third son of Mr W. Allan, Leith. At Limekilns, Mr William Millar, shipbuilder, aged 71. -At Stornoway, Mr Evander M. Reid, third son of the deceased John Reid, Esq. late Collector of his Majesty's Customs there. At Wellington Place, Leith, Miss Cecil C. Aire, youngest daughter of the late Lieut. John Aire, Royal Navy. Dec. 1. At Taganroc, a small town on the shore of the sea of Asof, of an inflammatory fever, Alexander, Emperor of all the Russias. The last words which he pronounced were expressive of his profound resignation to the decrees of Providence. His last moments were very calm. Alexander was born the 22d December 1777, began to reign in March 1801, and consequently had approached the close of the 48th year of his age, and 25th of his reign. -At Finlarig, Mr Robert Robertson, land surveyor. At Linlithgow, Thomas Baird, Esq. of Parkly. -At London, General Archibald Campbell. At Castlemilk, Captain William Stirling, late of the 1st regiment of Dragoon Guards. 2. At Dunfermline, Mrs Margaret Fisher, relict of Mr Alexander Hunt, merchant. At Wallingwells, in the county of Nottingham, the lady of Sir Thomas Woollaston White of Wallingwells, Bart. and youngest daughter of the late George Ramsay of Barnton, Esq. 3. At her house, Portobello, in the 80th year of her age, Mrs Margaret Grant, daughter of Roderick Macleod, Esq. writer to the signet, and relict of John Grant of Gilgraston, Esq. At James Place, Leith, Mrs Janet Aire, wife of Mr James Hardie. At Edinburgh, Mr Thomas Neilson, KirkTreasurer to the city of Edinburgh. At Hope Park, Mrs Wright, aged 82. 4. At Kennet Pans, John Stein, Esq. At Selkirk, Mr James Douglas Oliver, late rector of the Grammar School of Selkirk. - At his sister's, the Countess Dowager of Caithness's house, George Street, Edinburgh, Captain Patrick Campbell of Barcaldine. 5. At Edinburgh, William Skirving, Esq. late of Plewland Hill, Haddingtonshire. -At Aberdeen, Robert Harvey, Esq. of Braco. William, fourth son of Hugh Mossman, Esq. of Achtyfardle. 8. At Manse of Peterculter, Janet, daughter of the late Mr Patrick Stirling, writer in Dunblane. -At Nelson Street, Thomas, infant son of Mr J. Weir, writer to the signet. 9. At Corsephairn, the Rev. Mr Currie, minister of the parish. He died of apoplexy in the inn immediately after the performance of a marriage ceremony. At Glasgow, James, second son of Mr William Reid, bookseller. 10. Rear-Admiral Bingham. This respectable and worthy officer had just completed his arrangements in London, prior to his departure for Ports mouth, where he was to have hoisted his flag on board the Warspite, when, in consequence of getting wet through, he was seized on the 2d instant with a sudden attack of Erysipelas, which, notwithstanding his previous state of perfect health, baffled the skill of his physician. He was on the point of proceeding to the East Indies, as Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's ships on that station. At Peebles, Mrs Elizabeth Williamson, widow of John Murray Robertson, Esq. commissary sheriff-clerk of Peebles-shire. -At Peasebanks, Hamilton, William, youngest son of Dr Whitehead, Hamilton. 11. At his house, Hillside Crescent, Alexander Allan, Esq. of Hillside. -At Edinburgh, Mr John Steele, late saddler. -At London, James J. Davidson, second son of Dr Davidson, Marischal College, Aberdeen. -At Fort Street, North Leith, Alice Burnet, 5th daughter of Mr Thomas Brown, of the Customs. -At Avignon, the Hon. Mrs Long. At Tain, Mr Patrick Calder, late supervisor of Excise. 12. At her house in Lower Grosvenor Street, London, in the 92d year of her age, the Dowager Marchioness of Bath. 14. At Millhill, Musselburgh, Alex. Campbell, Esq. late of the island of Jamaica. 15. Mrs Margaret Elphingston Crawford, wife of Alexander Spiers Crawford, residing at Morningside. 16. Mr James Watt, the original publisher of the Montrose Review. On his passage to London, in the Eagle of Montrose, he fell overboard in Yarmouth Roads, and was drowned. At Quarryholes, in the 70th year of his age, Mr John Bryden. - Mr Alex. Cuthbertson, tinsmith, North Hanover Street, Edinburgh. At Larbert, the Rev. Dr Knox, minister of that parish. 17. At her house, in Abercromby Place, Mrs Anderson, of Kingask. -At Clatto, in the county of Fife, Robert Low, Esq. of Clatto. 19. At Louisfield, near Duddingstone, Louis Cauvin, Esq. for many years a teacher of French in Edinburgh. -At 69, Canongate, Mrs Catherine Charles. -At Montrose, Mrs Gairdyne, widow of Alex. Gairdyne, Esq. late of Bridgeton. -At Mid-Calder, at the advanced age of 96, Helen Anderson, relict of Mr James Kirkland, late surgeon at Mid-Calder, and sister of Dr James Anderson, the well-known author of "The Bee." Jan. 5, 1826.-At Glasgow, Henry Erskine, youngest son of Mr Walter Wardlaw, Richmond Street. HAVE you any intention, dear reader, of building a house in the country? If you have, pray, for your own sake and ours, let it not be a Cottage. We presume that you are obliged to live, one half of the year at least, in a town. Then why change altogether the character of your domicile and your establishment? You are an inhabitant of Edinburgh, and have a house in the Circus, or Heriot-Row, or Abercromby Place, or Queen Street. The said house has five or six stories, and is such a palace as one might expect in the City of Palaces. Your drawing-rooms can, at a pinch, hold some ten score of modern Athenians-your dining room might feast one-half of the contributors to this Magazine your "placens Uxor" has her boudoir-your eldest daughter, now verging on womanhood, her music-room-your boys their own studio-the governess her retreat-and the tutor his den-the housekeeper sits like an over-grown spider in her own sanctum-the butler bargains for his dim apartment and the four maids must have their front-area window. In short, from cellarage to garret, all is complete, and Number Forty-two is really a splendid Mansion. Now, dear reader, far be it from us to question the propriety or prudence of such an establishment. Your house was not built for nothing-it was no easy thing to get the painters outthe furnishing thereof was no triflethe feu-duty is really unreasonable, VOL. XIX. and taxes are taxes still, notwithstanding the principles of free trade, and the universal prosperity of the country. Servants are wasteful, and their wages absurd-and the whole style of living, with long-necked bottles, most extravagant. But still we do not object to your establishment,-far from it, we admire it much-nor is there a single house in town where we make ourselves more agreeable to a late hour, or that we leave with a greater quantity of wine of a good quality under our girdle. Few things would give us more temporary uneasiness, than to hear of any embarrassment in your moneyconcerns. We are not people to forget good fare, we assure you; and long and far may all shapes of sorrow keep aloof from the hospitable board, whether illuminated by gas, oil-lamp, or candle. But what we were going to say was this-that the head of such a house ought not to live, when ruralizing, in a Cottage. He ought to be consistent. Nothing so beautiful as consistency. What then is so absurd as to cram yourself, your wife, your numerous progeny, and your scarcely less numerous menials, into a concern called a Cottage? The ordinary heat of a baker's oven is very few degrees above that of a brown study, during the month of July, in a substantial, low-roofed Cottage. Then the smell of the kitchen! How it aggravates the sultry closeness! A strange, compounded, in2 H explicable smell of animal, vegetable, and mineral matter! It is at the worst during the latter part of the forenoon, when everything has been got into preparation for cookery. There is then nothing savoury about the smell, -it is dull, dead,-almost catacombish. A small back kitchen has it in its power to destroy the sweetness of any Cottage. Add a scullery, and the three are omnipotent. Of the eternal clashing of pots, pans, plates, trenchers, and general crockery, we now say nothing; indeed, the sound somewhat relieves the smell, and the ear comes occasionally in to the aid of the nose. Such noises are Godsends; but not so the scolding of cook and butler,-at first low and tetchy, with pauses,— then sharp, but still interrupted,-by and by loud and ready in reply,-finally a discordant gabble of vulgar fury, like maniacs quarrelling in bedlam. Hear it you must,-you and all the strangers. To explain it away is impossible; and your fear is, that Alecto, Tisiphone, or Megæra, will come flying into the parlour with a bloody cleaver, dripping with the butler's brains. During the time of the quarrel, the spit has been standing still, and a jigot of the five-year-old blackface burnt on one side to a cinder."To dinner with what appetite you may." It would be quite unpardonable to forget one especial smell which irretrievably ruined our happiness during a whole summer,—the smell of a dead rat. The accursed vermin died, somewhere in the Cottage; but whether beneath a floor, within lath and plaster, or in roof, baffled the conjectures of the most sagacious. The whole family used to walk about the Cottage for hours every day, snuffing on a travel of discovery; and we distinctly remember the face of one elderly maiden-lady at the moment she thought she had traced the source of the fumée to the wall behind a window-shutter. But even at the very same instant we ourselves had proclaimed it with open nostril from a press in an opposite corner. Terriers were procured,—but the dog Billy himself would have been at fault. To pull down the whole Cottage would have been difficult,-at least to build it up again would have been so; so we had to submit. Custom, they say, is second nature, but not when a dead rat is in the house. No, none can ever be accustomed to that; yet good springs out of evil, for the live rats could not endure it, and emigrated to a friend's house, about a mile off, who has never had a sound night's rest from that day. We have not re-visited our Cottage for several years; but time does wonders, and we were lately told by a person of some veracity, that the smell was then nearly gone, but our informant is a gentleman of blunted olfactory nerves, having been engaged from seventeen to seventy in a soap-work. Smoke too! More especially that mysterious and infernal sort, called back-smoke! The old proverb, "No smoke without fire," is a base lie. We have seen smoke without fire in every room in a most delightful Cottage we once inhabited during the dog-days. The moment you rushed for refuge even into a closet, you were blinded and stifled; nor shall we ever forget our horror on being within an ace of smotheration in the cellar. At last, we groped our way into the kitchen. Neither cook nor jack was visible. We heard, indeed, a whirring and revolving noise and then suddenly Girzie swearing through the mist. Yet all this while people were admiring our Cottage from a distance, and especially this self-same accursed back-smoke, some portions of which had made an excursion up the chimneys, and was wavering away in a spiral form to the sky, in a style captivating to Mr Price on the Picturesque. No doubt, there are many things very romantic about a Cottage. Creepers, for example. Why, sir, these creepers are the most mischievous nuisance that can afflict a family. There is no occasion for mentioning names, but-devil take all parasites. Some of the rogues will actually grow a couple of inches upon you in one day's time; and when all other honest plants are asleep, the creepers are hard at it all night long, stretching out their toes and their fingers, and catching an inextricable hold of every wall they can reach, till, finally, you see them thrusting their impudent heads through the very slates. Then, like other lowbred creatures, they are covered with vermin. All manner of moths-the most grievous grubs-slimy slugsspiders spinning toils to ensnare the caterpillar-earwigs and slaters, that would raise the gorge of a country cu rate-wood-lice-the slaver of gowk's spittle-midges-jocks-with-the-manylegs-in short, the whole plague of insects infest that-Virgin's bower. Open the lattice for half-an-hour, and you find yourself in an entymological museum. Then, there are no pins fixing down the specimens. All these beetles are alive, more especially the enormous blackguard crawling behind your ear. A moth plumps into your tumbler of cold negus, and goes whirling round in meal, till he makes absolute porritch. As you open your mouth in amazement, the large blue-bottle-fly, having made his escape from the spiders, and seeing that not a moment is to be lost, precipitates himself headforemost down your throat, and is felt, after a few ineffectual struggles, settling in despair at the very bottom of your stomach. Still, no person will be so unreasonable as to deny that creepers on a Cottage are most beautiful. For the sake of their beauty, some little sacrifices must be made of one's comforts, especially as it is only for one half of the year, and last really was a most delightful summer. How truly romantic is a thatch roof! The eaves how commodious for sparrows! What a paradise for rats and mice! What a comfortable colony of vermin! They all bore their own tunnels in every direction, and the whole interior becomes a Cretan labyrinth. Frush, frush becomes the whole cover in a few seasons; and not a bird can open his wing, not a rat switch his tail, without scattering the straw like chaff. Eternal repairs! Look when you will, and half-a-dozen thatchers are riding on the rigging of all operatives they are most inoperative. Then there is always one of the number descending the ladder for a horn of ale! Without warning, the straw is all used up; and no more fit for the purpose can be got within twenty miles. They hint heather-and you sigh for slate-the beautiful sky-blue, sea-green, Ballahulish slate! But the summer is nearly over and gone, and you must be flitting back to the city -so you let the job stand over to spring, and the soaking rains and snows of a long winter search the cottage to its heart's-core, and every floor is ere long laden with a crop of fungi the bedposts are ornamented curiously with lichens, and mosses bathe the walls with their various and inimitable lustre. Everything is romantic that is pastoral-and what more pastoral than sheep? Accordingly, living in a Cottage, you kill your own mutton. Great lubberly Leicesters or South-Downs are not worth the mastication, so you keep the small black-face. Stone-walls are ugly things, you think, near a Cottage, so you have rails or hurdles. Day and night are the small blackface, out of pure spite, bouncing through or over all impediments, after an adventurous leader, and despising the daisied turf, keep nibbling away at all your rare flowering shrubs, till your avenue is a desolation. Every twig has its little ball of wool, and it is a rare time for the nest-makers. You purchase a colley, but he compromises the affair with the fleecy nation, and contents himself with barking all night long at the moon, if there happen to be one, if not, at the firmament of his kennel. You are too humane to hang or drown Luath, so you give him to a friend. But Luath is in love with the cook, and pays her nightly visits. Afraid of being entrapped, should he step into the kennel, he takes up his station, after supper, on a knoll within ear-range, and pointing his snout to the stars, joins the music of the spheres, and is himself a perfect Sirius. The gardener at last gets orders to shoot him—and the gun being somewhat rusty, bursts and blows off his left hand-so that Andrew Fairservice retires on a pension. Of all breeds of cattle we most admire the Alderney. They are slim, delicate, wild-deer looking creatures, that give an air to a Cottage. But they are most capricious milkers. Of course you make your own butter; that is to say, with the addition of seven or eight purchased pounds weekly, you are not very often out of that commodity. Then, once or twice in a summer, they suddenly lose their temper, and chase the governess and your daughters over the edge of gravel-pit. Nothing they like so much as the tender sprouts of cauliflower, nor do they abhor green pease. The garden-hedge is of privet, a pretty fence, and fast growing, but not formidable to a four-year-old. On going to eat a few gooseberries by sunrise, you start a covey of cows, that in their alarm plunge into the hot-bed with a smash, as if all the glass in the island had been broken—and rushing out at the gate at the critical instant little Tommy is tottering in, they leave the heir apparent scarcely deserving that name, half hidden in the border. There is no sale for such outlandish animals in the home-market, and it is not Martinmas, so you must make a present of them to the president or five silver-cupman of an agricultural society, and receive, in return, a sorry red-round, desperately salt-petred, at Christmas. What is a Cottage in the country, unless "your banks are all furnished with bees, whose murmurs invite one to sleep?" There the hives stand, like four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row. Not a more harmless insect in all this world than a bee. Wasps are devils incarnate, but bees are fleshly sprites, as amiable as industrious. You are strolling along, in delightful mental vacuity, looking at a poem of Barry Cornwall's, when smack comes an infuriated honey-maker against your eye-lid, and plunges into you the fortieth part of an inch of sting saturated in venom. The wretch clings to your lid like a burr, and it feels as if he had a million claws to hold him on while he is darting his weapon into your eye-ball. Your banks are indeed well furnished with bees, but their murmurs do not invite you to sleep; on the contrary, away you fly, like a madman, bolt into your wife's room, and roar out for the recipe. The whole of one side of your face is most absurdly swollen, while the other is in statu quo. One eye is dwindled away to almost nothing, and is peering forth from its rainbow-coloured envelope, while the other is open as day to melting charity, and shining over a cheek of the purest crimson. Infatuated man! Why could you not purchase your honey? Jemmy Thomson, the poet, would have let you have it, from Habbie's-Howe, the true Pentland elixir, for five shillings the pint ; for during this season both the heather and the clover were prolific of the honey-dew, and the Skeps rejoiced over all Scotland on a thousand hills. We could tell many stories about bees, but that would be leading us away from the main argument. We remember reading in an American newspaper, some years ago, that the United States lost one of their most upright and erudite judges by bees, which stung him to death in a wood, while he was going the circuit. About a year afterwards, we read in the same newspaper, "We are afraid we have lost another judge by bees ;" and then followed a somewhat affrightful description of the assassination of another American Blackstone by the same insects. We could not fail to sympathise with both sufferers, for in the summer of 1811 (that of the famous comet) we ourselves had nearly shared the same fate. Our Newfoundlander upset a hive in his vagaries—and the whole swarm unjustly attacked us. The buzz was an absolute roar-and for the first time in our lives we were under a cloud. Such bizzing in our hair! and of what avail were fiftytimes-washed nankeen breeches against the Polish Lancers? With our trusty crutch we made thousands bite the dust-but the wounded and dying crawled up our legs, and stung us cruelly over the lower regions. At last we took to flight, and found shelter in the ice-house. But it seemed as if a new hive had been disturbed in that cool grotto. Again we sallied out, stripping off garment after garment, till, in puris naturalibus, we leaped into a window, which happened to be that of the drawing-room, where a large party of ladies and gentlemen were awaiting the dinnerbell-but fancy must dream the rest. We now offer a Set of the Magazine to any scientific character who will answer this seemingly simple question -what is Damp? Quicksilver is a joke to it, for getting into or out of any place. Capricious as damp is, it is faithful in its affection to all Cottages ornées. What more pleasant than a bow-window? You had better, however, not sit with your back against the wall, for it is as blue and ropey as that of a charnel house. Probably the wall is tastily papered—a vine-leaf pattern perhaps or something spriggy -or in the aviary line-or, mayhap, hay-makers, or shepherds piping in the dale. But all distinctions are levelled in the mould-Phyllis has a black patch over her eye, and Strephon seems to be playing on a pair of bellows. Damp delights to descend chimneys, and is one of smoke's most powerful auxiliaries. It is a thousand pities you hung up-just in that unlucky spot-Grecian Williams's Thebes |