to the arm of the silver-haired chaplain, might reckon on a link of his master's chain of gold for every word he uttered. But the powerful and the wealthy sighed at her feet in vain-she did not scorn them, for so harsh a feeling was unknown to the gentle Etelina. Nay she even wept over the blighted hopes of some, whose fervent passion deserved a better fate: but her heart was no longer her's to give. She had fixed her affections on the poor but noble Rudolph, and the lovers awaited impatiently some turn of fortune which would enable them to proclaim their attachment without fear of the anger and opposition of Sir Reinhard, who was considerably annoyed by Etelina's rejection of many of the richest counts and barons of Germany. Business of importance summoned the old knight to the court of the emperor. His absence, prolonged from month to month, afforded frequent opportunities of meeting to the lovers; and the venerable monk, on whom the entire charge of the castle and its inhabitants had devolved at Sir Reinhard's departure, was one evening struck dumb

with terror at the confession which circumstances at length extorted from the lips of Etelina! Recovered from the first shock, however, his affection for his darling pupil seemed only increased by the peril into which passion had plunged her. In the chapel of the castle he secretly bestowed the nuptial benediction upon the imprudent pair, and counselled their immediate flight and concealment, till his prayers and tears should wring forgiveness and consent from Sir Reinhard, who was now on his return home, accompanied by a wealthy nobleman, on whom he had determined to bestow the hand of his daughter. Scarcely had Rudolph and Etelina reached the cavern in the neighbouring wilderness, selected for their retreat by the devoted old man, who had furnished them with provisions, a lamp and some oil, promising to supply them from time to time with the means of existence, as occasions should present themselves, when the rocks of the Danube rang with the well known blast of Sir Reinhard's trumpet, and a broad banner lazily unfolding itself to the morning

breeze, displayed to the sight of the wakeful warden the two red griffins rampant in a field vert, the blazon of the far-feared lords of Greifenstein. In a few moments the old knight was galloping over the draw-bridge, followed by his intended son-in-law. The clatter of their horses' hoofs struck upon the heart of the conscious chaplain as though the animals themselves were trampling on his bosom but he summoned up his resolution; and relying on his sacred character, met his master with a firm step and a calm eye in the hall of the castle, evading a direct answer to the first inquiry for Etelina, he gradually and cautiously informed Sir Reinhard of her love, her marriage, and her flight. Astonishment for a short space held the old warrior spell-bound; but when his gathered fury at last found vent, the wrath of the whirlwind was less terrible. He seized the poor old monk by the throat, and upon his firm refusal to reveal the retreat of the culprits, dashed him to the earth, had him bound hand and foot, and flung into a pit beneath an iron grating in the floor of the donjon or keep of the castle. Tearing, like an infuriated pasha, his very beard for ire,' he called down curses on Etelina and her husband, and prayed that if ever he forgave them, a dreadful and sudden death might overtake him on the spot where he should revoke the malediction he now uttered! Upwards of a year had elapsed, when one winter day the knight of Greifenstein pursuing the chase, lost his in the maze of a wilderness on the banks of the Danube. A savage-looking being, half cloathed in skins, conducted him to a cavern, in which a woman, similarly attired, was seated on the ground, with an infant on her knees, and greedily knawing the bones of a wolf,-Sir Reinhard recognised in the squalid form before him his once beautiful Etelina. Shocked to the soul at the sight of the misery to which his severity had reduced her, he silently motioned to the huntsmen, who came straggling in upon his track, to remove the wretched pair and their poor little offspring to the castle. Moved by the smiles of his innocent and unconscious grandchild, he clasped his repentant daughter to his bosom, as she re-crossed the threshold, bore her up into the banquet-hall, and consigning her to the arms of her faithful Rudolph, hastened down again to release the true-hearted monk, who still languished in captivity. In des cending the steep staircase, his foot slipped, and he was precipitated to the bottom-his fall was unseen-his cry was unheard-dying, he dragged himself a

way

few paces along the pavement, and expired upon the very spot where he had just embraced and forgiven his daughter. Rudolph, now lord of Greifenstein, restored the chaplain to liberty, and lived long and happily with his beloved Etelina: but the spirit of Sir Reinhard to this day wanders about the ruins of his ancestral castle, and will continue so to do till the stone whereon he expired shall be worn in twain. Alas poor ghost!? the very slight hollow which is at present perceivable in it, affords you little hope of its division by fair means, previously to the general crack of doom.'Descent of the Danube.

REMARKS ON EDUCATION.

THE following dialogue we extract from Sir Humphry Davy's " Salmonia, conversation is the Fall of the Traun, or Days of Fly Fishing.' The place of Upper Austria; the interlocutors are Poietes, a tyro in the art of fly fishing, and a lover of nature, and Physicus, a person fond of inquiries in natural history and philosophy, but uninitiated in the angling art.

"Poiet.-I admire in this country not only the mode of preserving, carrying, and dressing fish, but I am delighted, generally, with the habits of life of the peasants, and with their manners. It is a country in which I should like to live; amiable and good-natured, and their atthe scenery is so beautiful, the people so tention to strangers so marked by courtesy and disinterestedness.

amiable and good; but all classes seem Phys.-They appear to me very

little instructed.

"Poiet.-There are few philosophers amongst them, certainly; but they appear very happy, and

'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.'

We have neither seen nor heard of any instances of crime since we have been here. They fear their god, love their sovereign, are obedient to the laws, and seem perfectly contented. I know you would contrast them with the active and educated peasantry of the manufacturing districts of England; but I believe they are much happier, and I am sure they are generally better.

"Phys.-I doubt this. the sphere of enjoyment, as well as of benevolence, is enlarged by education.

think

"Poiet.-I am sorry to say the system carried too far in England. God forbid that any useful light should be extinguished! Let persons who wish for education receive it; but it appears to me that, in the great cities in England, it is, as it were, forced upon the population; and that sciences, which the lower classes can only very superficially acquire, are presented to them; in consequence of which they often become idle and conceited, and above their usual laborious occupations. The unripe fruit of the tree of knowledge is, I believe, always bitter or sour; and scepticism and discontent-sickness of the mind-are often the results of devouring it.

"Hal.-Surely you cannot have a more religious, moral, or more improved population than that of Scotland?

66

"Poiet.-Precisely so. In Scotland, education is not forced upon the people, -it is sought for, and it is connected with their forms of faith, acquired in the bosoms of their families, and generally pursued with a distinct object of prudence or interest; nor is that kind of education wanting in this country.

“ Phys.—Where a book is rarely seen -a newspaper never.

"Poiet.-Pardon me-there is not a cottage without a Prayer-book, and I am not sorry that these innocent and happy men are not made active and tumultuous subjects of King Press, whom I consider as the most capricious, depraved, and unprincipled tyrant that ever existed in England. Depraved-for it is to be bought by great wealth; capricious-because it sometimes follows, and sometimes forms, the voice of the lowest mob; and unprincipled-because, when its interests are concerned, it sets at defiance private feeling and private character, and neither regards their virtue, dignity, or purity.

"Hal.-My friends, you are growing warm. I know you differ essentially on this subject; but surely you will allow that the full liberty of the press, even though it sometimes degenerates into licentiousness, and though it may sometimes be improperly used by the influence of wealth, power, or private favour, is yet highly advantageous, and even essential to the existence of a free country; and, useful as it may be to the population, it is still more useful to the government, to whom, as expressing the voice of the people, though not always vox Dei, it may be regarded as oracular or prophetic. But let us change our conversation, which is neither in time nor place."

LONDON LYRICS, TABLE TALK.

Rather than that, mix on my plate With men I like the meat I hateColman with pig and treacle; Luttrell with ven son pasty join, Lord Normandy with orange wine, And rabbit-pie with Jekyll.

Add to George Lambe a sable snipe,
Conjoin with Captain Morris tripe,
Mix Mackintosh with mack'rel, with
Calves-head and bacon Sydney Smith,
And mutton-broth with Spencer.

By parsley-roots made denser;

Shun sitting next the wight whose drone
Bores sotto voce, you alone,

With flat colloquial pressure:
Debarr'd from general talk, you droop
Beneath his buzz, from orient soup
To accidental Cheshire.

He who can only talk with one,
Should stay at home and talk with none,-
At all events to strangers,

Like village epitaphs of yore,
He ought to cry, "Long time I bore,"
To warn them of their dangers.

There are whose kind inquiries scan,
Your total kindred, man by man,
Son, brother, cousin, joining.
They ask about your wife, who's dead,
And eulogize your uncle Ned,

Who died last week for coining.

When join'd to such a son of prate, His queries I anticipate,

And thus my lee-way fetch up"Sir, all my relatives, I vow, Are perfectly in health-and now I'd thank you for the ketchup !"

Others there are who but retail

Their breakfast journal, now grown stale,
In print ere day was dawning:
When folks like these sit next to me,
They send me dinner-less to tea;

One cannot chew while yawning.
Seat not good talkers one next one,
As Jacquier beards the Clarendon;

Thus shrouded you undo 'em;

Rather confront them, face to face,
Like Holles Street and Harewood place,
And let the town run through 'em.

Poets are dangerous to sit nigh,
You waft their praises to the sky,

And when you think you're stirring Their gratitude, they bite you.-(That's The reason I object to cats;

They scratch amid their purring.)

Who" beg your pardon for the salt, And ape our upper grandees,

By wondering folks can touch port wine:
That, reader, 's your affair, not mine;
I never mess with dandies.

Relations mix not kindly; shun
Inviting brothers; sire and son
Is not a wise selection:
Too intimate, they either jar
In converse, or the evening mar
By mutual circumspection.

Lawyers are apt to think the view

That interests them must interest you :
Hence they appear at table,

Or super-eloquent or dumb,
Fluent as nightingales, or mum
As horses in a stable.

When men amuse their fellow guests
With Crank and Jones, or Justice Best's
Harangue in Dobbs and Ryal;
The host, beneath whose roof they sit,
Must be a puny judge of wit,

Who grants them a new trial.

Such technicals in each extreme :
Exclusive talk, whate'er the theme,
The
proper boundary passes:
Nobles as much offend, whose clack's
For ever running on Almack's,

As brokers on molasses.

I knew a man, from glass to delf,
Who talk'd of nothing but himself,
Till check'd by a vertigo:
The party who beheld him "floor'd,"
Bent o'er the liberated board,

And cried, "Hic jacet ego.'

Some aim to tell a thing that hit,
Where last they dined; what there was wit
Here meets rebuffs and crosses;
Jokes are like trees; their place of birth
Best suits them, stuck in foreign earth,
They perish in the process.

Think, reader, of the few who groan
For any ailments save their own,

The world, from peer to peasant,
Is heedless of your cough or gout;
Then pr'ythee, when you next dine out,
Go arm'd with something pleasant.
Nay, even the very soil that nurs'd
The plant, will sometimes kill what erst
It nurtured in full glory.

Like causes will not always move
To similar effects: to prove

The fact, I'll tell a story.

Close to that spot where Stuart turns
His back upon the clubs, and spurns

The earth, a marble fixture,

We dined: well matched, for pleasure met, Wits, poets, peers, a jovial set

In miscellaneous mixture.

Each card turn'd up a trump, the glee,
The catch went round, from eight to three,
Decorum scorn'd to own us;

We joked, we banter'd, laugh'd, and roar'd,
Till high above the welkin soar'd
The helpmate of Tithonus.

Care kept aloof, each social soul
A brother hail'd, joy fill'd the bowl,
And humour crown'd the medley,
Till Royal Charles, roused by the fun,
Look'd towards Whitehall, and thought his

son

Was rioting with Sedley.

"Gad, John, this is a glorious joke, "
(Thus to our host his highness spoke)
"The Vicar with his nappy

Would give an eye for this night's freak-
Suppose we meet again next week,❞—
John bow'd, and was "too happy."
The day arrived-'twas seven-we met:
Wits, poets, peers, the self-same set,
Each hail'd a joyous brother.

But in the blithe and debonnaire,
Saying, alas! is one affair,

And doing is another.

Nature unkind, we turn'd to Art: Heavens how we labour'd to be smart: Zug sang a song in German :

We might as well have play'd at chess:
All dropp'd, as dead-born from the press
As last year's Spital sermon.

Ah! Merriment! when men entrap
Thy bells, and women steal thy cap,

They think they have trepann'd thee.
Delusive thought! aloof and dumb,
Thou wilt not at a bidding come,

Though Royalty command thee.

The rich who sigh for thee, the great,
Who court thy smiles with gilded plate,
But clasp thy cloudy follies:

I've known thee turn in Portman-square,
From Burgundy and Hock, to share
A pint of Port at Dolly's.

Races at Ascot, tours in Wales,
White bait at Greenwich, ofttimes fail
To wake thee from thy slumbers,
Ev'n now, so prone art thou to fly,
Ungrateful nymph! thou'rt fighting shy
Of these narcotic numbers.
New Monthly.

THE EVILS OF ABSENTEEISM.

WHAT is the condition of the countryThe seat of the absentee proprietor? mansion-house deserted and closed; the approaches to it ragged and grass-grown; the chimneys, "those windpipes of good hospitality," as an old English poet calls them, giving no token of the cheerful fire within; the gardens running to waste, or, perchance made a source of menial profit; the old family servants dismissed, and some rude bailiff or country attorney, ruling paramount in the place. The surrounding cottagers, who have derived their support from the vicinage, deprived of this, pass into destitution and wretchedness; either abandoning their homes, throwing themselves upon parish relief, or seeking provision by means yet more desperate. The farming tenantry, though less immediately dependant, yet all partake, more or less, in the evil. The charities and hospitalities which belong to such a mansion, lie dormant ; the clergyman is no longer supported and aided in his important duties; the family pew in the church is closed; and the village churchyard ceases to be a place of plea

sant meeting, where the peasant's heart is gladdened by the kindly notice of his landlord.

We must not be accused of overcharging this picture, for we have ourselves seen all that we describe. We remember too, with painful exactness, the expressions and tone of some of those remaining behind in these deserted places: the mixture of sorrow and bitterness with which they told, in answer to our inquiries," that the family were gone to live somewhere in France, had sent away the servants, and shut up the house." Is it to be wondered at that distress and crime should follow close upon all this? And if it be so, are those altogether innocent who can consent to forfeit the fair condition in which Providence has placed them as the protectors of the happiness and virtues of others.-Quar. Rev.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE BAR.

SERJEANT SHEPHERD was a good man, and a profound lawyer; but, unhappily, with a trumpet ever at his ear, so that his otherwise well-justified expectations of legal promotion were long necessarily delayed. Nothing but the vocal gradations of a Common Council, or Park in a passion, could reach his organ of hearing. In England he could not be preferred; but it was found he would do for Scotland, as the Caledonian faculty of readily gain ing the ear is well known, whatever the obstacles it is necessary to encounter; and there, at times, he must find the defect less a privation than a blessing.

Serjeant Lens was a very superior man. He was an accomplished general scholar, of vast research as a lawyer, of honourable principle, and of most mild and gentlemanly manners. He had eloquence far greater than is now met with at the bar; it was rarely, however, that he exerted it: when he did, one might be sure that the cause he advocated justified warmth of feeling, for he never identified himself with that which was not pure and honest in itself. He had early taken up his ground in politics on the constitutional side of the question (there is scarcely a name which we have been taught to repeat with reverence at the Bar, but was once the friend of liberty,) and he held to it with the firmness of a Roman. Yet, as his opposition to the Tory party was unmarked by acrimony or gall, his espousal of Whig principles was most disinterested; for, when the Whigs came into office in 1806, he absolutely refused employment, in the fear that he might be judged as ac

tuated by less worthy motives than those which freely iufluenced him in the line of conduct he had so long and steadfastly pursued. Even during the Middlesex Election, when party fury was at its height, he patronised the cause most conbut in genial to his feelings as a man; doing all that his clients could demand, hope, or desire, in their favour, his whole conduct was marked by so much forbearance towards the one, and candour to the other side, that he failed not to secure the applauses of those to whom he was more directly opposed. By the way, is it not a pity that, in the enumeration of the vast blessings we so unworthily enjoyed under the Pitt system, those who delight in the detail of its advantages over a bottle at the annual dinner of the Club, do not dwell somewhat more at length on the economy of those halcyon days, and the purer administration of the finances of the nation? If ever the hour should arrive when the true appropriation of much of the vast sums drawn from the pockets of the people be demonstrated, what a wasteful expenditure of the public money will be probably discovered in the article of elections alone; to secure the unbiassed votes of ministerial members, or even the return of one individual to Parliament contrary to the wishes of the people! When will the accounts of the County Treasurer be liquidated? Yet, prejudiced as he must have been in the sight of the disposer of place and profit by the line of conduct he pursued, there is little doubt that offers of promotion, no less honourable to Lord Eldon than to their object, were freely tendered to Serjeant Lens; and on terms equally grateful to his proper feelings, as creditable to the Chancellor: they were, however, declined; and his profession, with the country in general, have to deplore that he shrank from that advancement where his learning and abilities as a lawyer, his patriotism, and his many other virtues, would surely have been displayed no less to his own honour and fame, than to the advantage and satisfaction of the king and people. Perhaps no man was ever more generally regretted than Lens. Modest and unassuming in his dealings with the world, there was that mild dignity in his manner that enforced respect; and he might verily be remembered with somewhat of beneficial effect by his surviving brethren of the coif.

Rough, after having attained the honours of Serjeant, abandoned the Bar of the Common Pleas, to seek in a distant island that fame or wealth he had vainly struggled for at home; but had he possessed somewhat more of worldly wisdom -had he but travelled out of the record