father cam frae. The Kirkpatricks have had land in Dumfriesshire since the days o' Bruce, whose friend ane o' them was, at the time when he killed the Red Cummin; but Closeburn has lang passed away frae them, and now belangs to Mr Baird, the great ironmaster o' the west o' Scotland. Howsomever, the folk thereaboots hae a queer story aboot a servant-lass that was in the house in the days o' the empress's greatgrandfather like. She married a man o' the name o' Paterson, and gaed to America, and her son cam to be a great merchant, and his daughter again becam Prince Jerome Bonaparte's wife; and sae it happens that a lady come frae the parlour o' Closeburn sits on the throne o' France, while a prince come frae the kitchen o' the same place is its heir-presumptive! I'm no sure that the hale o' this story is quite the thing; but I tell it as it was tauld to me. I'm no ane that taks up my head muckle wi' public singers, playactors, composers o' music, and folk o' that kind; but yet we a' ken that some o' them atteen to a great deal o' distinction, and are muckle ta'en out by the nobility and gentry. Weel, I'm tauld (for I ken naething about him mysel') that there was ane Donizetti, a great composer o' operas, no very lang sin-syne. Now, Donizetti, as we've been tauld i' the public papers, was the son o' a Scotchman. His father was a Highlandman called Donald Izett, wha left his native Perthshire as a soldier-maist likely the Duke o' Atholl pressed him into the service as ane o' his volunteers and Donald, having quitted the army somewhere abroad, set up in some business, wi' DoN. IZETT over his door, whilk the senseless folk thereabouts soon transformed into Donizetti; and thus it cam aboot that his son, wha turned out a braw musician, bore this name frae first to last, and dootless left it to his posterity. I ken weel that Izett is a Perthshire name, and there was ane o' the clan some years sin' in business in the North Brig o' Edinburgh, and a rale guid honest man he was, I can tell ye, and a very sensible man too. Ye'll see his head-stane ony day i' the Grayfriers. And this is guid evidence to me that Donizetti was, properly speaking, a Scotchman. It's a sair pity for himsel' that he wasna born, as he should hae been, on the braes o' Atholl, for then he wad nae doot hae learned the richt music, that is played there sae finely on the fiddle-namely, reels and strathspeys; and I dinna ken but, wi' proper instruction, he micht hae rivalled Neil Gow himsel'. Ye've a' heard o' Jenny Lind, the Swedish nightingale, as they fulishly ca' her, as if there ever were ony nightingales in Sweden. She's a vera fine creature, this Jenny Lind, no greedy o' siller, as sae mony are, but aye willing to exerceese her gift for the guid o' the sick and the puir. She's, in fact, just sic a young woman as we micht expeck Scotland to produce, if it ever produced public singers. Weel, Jenny, I'm tauld, is another o' that great band o' distinguished persons that ought to hae been born in Scotland, for it's said her greatgrandfather (I'm no preceese as to the generation) was a Scotchman that gaed lang syne to spouss his fortune abroad, and chanced to settle in Sweden, where he had sons and daughters born to him. There's a gey wheen Linds about Mid-Calder, honest farmer-folk, to this day; sae I'm thinkin' there's no muckle room for doot as to the fack. Noo, having shewn sic a lang list o' mischances as to the nativity o' Scotch folk o' eminence, I think ye'll alloo that we puir bodies in the north hae some occasion for complent. As we are a' in Providence's hand, we canna of coorse prevent some o' our best countrymen frae coming into the world in wrang places-sic as Sir Isaac Newton in Lincolnshire, whilk I think an uncommon pity-but what's to hinder sic persons frae being reputed and held as Scotchmen notwithstanding? I'm sure I ken o' nae objection, except it maybe that our friends i' the south, feeling what a sma' proportion o' Great Britons are Englishmen, may enterteen some jealousy on the subjeck. If that be the case, the sooner that the Association for Redress o' Scottish Grievances taks up the question the better. LOCAL COLOURING. LOCAL COLOURING-couleur locale—is a modern expression signifying the accordance, or keeping, of the adjuncts in a work of art, whether literary or pictorial, with the principal figure or subject. To ancient novelists and dramatists, local colouring was unknown, chiefly because the limited intercourse between nations precluded an acquaintance with the habits of foreign countries; but still more because the idea of such a necessity had not dawned on the minds of men. Each nation, with that ridiculous pride and egotism some people consider patriotism, thought the world epitomised in itself; it imagined no difference under distance of either place or time. Thus Ariosto's knights in the rude era of Charlemagne have all the polish of the courtiers of the poet's own day, and he attributes smart and witty sayings to personages who lived long before wit could be said to be in fashion. His queen of Cathay, too, journeys about with a freedom unchecked by the habits of seclusion to which she, like her subjects, would in reality have been condemned, and walks with an utter disregard to the incapacity of feet that must have been swaddled and cramped from her baby hood. Shakspeare, who had less education than the more refined Italian, is more excusable in his defalcations; but they are, it must be confessed, plenty as blackberries,' as often as the scene lies in a foreign land. In As You Like It, we find the Forêt des Ardennes stocked with roaring lions, and Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses. Although all the characters ought to have been French, Touchstone and Audrey are regular English villagers, and no explanation is given of the why and wherefore of such inconsistency. In Catherine and Petruchio, the housekeeper of this Italian couple is plain Mrs Curtis. Again, in Much Ado about Nothing, we have a regular English watchman and English magistrate in the heart of Italy-to say nothing of the lower characters refreshing themselves in an ale-house in a country where wine would be the only beverage. We have also jokes about a hot January, as a thing impossible in Southern Italy, where a cold January would be the greater wonder of the two; and a 'February face,' probably meaning showery, in a climate where even February is more kindly than April is with us. Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek-in Twelfth Night-are two downright English worthies, although purporting to be citizens of Illyria. In Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus is Duke of Athens before dukes were known; still more inadmissible are the coats of heraldry which Helena and Hermia have worked on their sampler, and the pagan duke's expression of becoming a nun, applied to Hermia's intention of turning priestess of Diana. Again, in Measure for Measure, we find Italian names, although the scene is in Vienna. Wherefore these offences against taste?-Shakspeare had never heard of local colouring. In Comus, Milton mixes pagan divinities with the more modern mythology of elves and fairies; in Il Penseroso, heathen goddesses jostle Christian nuns ; and the chorus in Samson Agonistes, in a passage justly ridiculed by Johnson, observes that 'evil news rides post,' thereby calling up a host of modern associations, that sadly impugn the great poet's accuracy on the score of local colouring. Addison and Johnson might have described their so-called Eastern fictions in the Spectator and the Rambler, as Gray did his Eastern eclogues when he called them his Irish eclogues. Racine, whose verses are both elegant and tender, has metamorphosed the ladies and gentlemen of Versailles merely by giving them Greek and Roman or Eastern names. You feel no classic atmosphere about his pieces. You might call his characters Messieurs and Mesdames, and they would be far better placed in a salon than in a Roman hall or Grecian city. Neither is his Turk Bajazet one whit more Turkish than Rasselas is Persian. He is merely Monsieur le Marquis of anything, rather embarrassed at carrying on an intrigue with two fair ones at the same time. Racine would have thought he overstepped the proprieties of etiquette, had he given anything like local colouring to his subjects. Voltaire, although so much in advance of his age, has sinned in exactly the same way in his Zaïre, when he makes an ignorant Eastern damsel, such as the charming Zaïre must, after all, have been, argue shrewdly on love and religion, and affirm that she would have been a Christian had she been born in Paris. Neither does he mend the matter in his tales, in most of which he peoples other countries with petits maîtres or beaux esprits of eminently French character, such as could not have existed in the remote times or places referred to. Perhaps, like the Athenians, who knew politeness, but did not practise it, Voltaire might have had an inkling of local colouring, only did not take the trouble to make use of it in days when it was 'caviare to the general.' Schiller, in his Turandot, has upset all our diligently acquired notions of the habits and manners prevailing in the Celestial Empire. Nevertheless, we forgive him in favour of the amusement the piece affords us; but Turandot is no Chinese, and never had her feet compressed into a shoe too small for a baby-of that we feel certain. We miss the local colouring of mandarins, pagodas, drums, lanterns, and all the paraphernalia we have a right to expect in the land belonging to the Brother of the Sun and Moon. Madame Cottin has charmed the youthful days of every one of us with her delightful Malek Adhel. Who has not wept over the fate of that most chivalrous of lovers, and sighed over poor Matilda's misfortunes? But if we open the book a few years later in life, certain misgivings step in to qualify our enjoyment of the book. We are fain to inquire in what language the lovers could address each other, as Matilda knew no Arabic, and Malek no English. Again, is not Malek Adhel himself, with his refined delicacy of sentiment combined with so ardent a passion, a strange anomaly in a country where women are held to be beings of an inferior order, and where a sultan's brother would have naturally thought of either buying Matilda or kidnapping her? Still pass we over this, as love may effect wonders in refining even an Eastern despot; but does not the whole mise en scène, even down to the dress of the Princess Matilda on the day of the ball, betray an utter recklessness of local colouring? Query, did the novice learn to dance in her convent? and how was Malek Adhel able to dance a pas de deux, in a country where royal personages dance only by proxy, thinking it too much trouble to do that which can be paid for? Madame de Staël has committed less excusable blunders in her Corinne, which belongs almost to our own times. The crowning of an improvisatrice at the Capitol is, to say the least of it, an anachronism. Her Italy is a fictitious one, for it lacks local colouring. As to the shortcomings and incorrectnesses on the subject of Italy, chargeable to Anne Ratcliffe and other novelists of the same period, they are too numerous to dwell on. They manufactured a theatrical Italy where every tenth man was a bravo, and every husband hornmad-although the apathy of Italian husbands with regard to the cavaliere servente shews that they carry philosophic indifference in this respect to its extremest limit. In like manner there is a conventional Spain, which the writers of comedy, not excepting Sheridan, have dressed up according to their fancy, where the young ladies are invariably watched over with a degree of strictness at utter variance with Spanish habits; the fact being, that in no country have young ladies so much liberty, being free to walk out, to flirt, to pick up acquaintances as they list, in a manner which would shock the sober ideas of English people. The so-called Spanish comedies have as little of the local colouring of real Spain, as the dress of the songstress who personates Rosina in Rossini's Barbiere generally bears to the genuine Spanish costume. Walter Scott was probably one of the first who introduced local colouring, and his example has been followed by many modern novelists. There is a colour of the times as well as a local colouring, and the learned Scotch novelist was indefatigable in his antiquarian researches, which impart a great value to his writings. Victor Hugo, in his Notre Dame, has shewn the same care in carrying us back to Paris in the olden time. Eugène Sue, too, has almost turned antiquary in his Mystères du Peuple, which, however inferior to his other works in point of misapplied genius, must be respected as a praiseworthy effort to give vitality to remote ages. But how is it that, in spite of these examples, we constantly stumble on the grossest sins against local colouring, committed mutually by the two countries nearest and best known to each other-namely, England and France? When a Frenchman lays the scene in the former, and an Englishman in the latter, it would seem each strove to prove that railways have effected nothing towards approximating the intellects of mankind, though they may have approximated countries. We remember reading, a very few years ago, a novel by a young lady, who places society in France before the great Revolution on exactly the same footing as it is in England at the present day. The heroine rides out daily, although, as an amusement for ladies, riding was scarcely known at that period; and has a lover in time when no high-born maid was suffered to see the husband chosen for her, till every arrangement was concluded by the parents. The fair writer had given French names to her characters, but forgotten that this would not transform them into French personages. But how much more glaring, because committed by a writer of considerable merit, are the grotesque blunders of Paul Féval, in the otherwise interesting and stirring pages of Le Fils du Diable. To say nothing of the absurdity of the three bankers who seek concealment in Germany and France in the year 1840, wearing scarlet mantles as a disguise in the teeth of fashion and paletôts-the author introduces us to a Magyar, who has become a London merchant, exercising his calling in the unromantic purlieus of St Paul's, and daily going to 'Change with pistols and dagger in his belt, greatly to the alarm of the peaceful denizens of Cheapside, and of his fellow-merchants, who, of course, forget that they can apply to the first policeman to rid them of his threats and bravadoes. This same merchant-Magyar lives in a house of Oriental splendour, with an endless suite of gorgeous rooms fitted up in the Levantine style-and what think you, gentle reader, is the locality of this sumptuous habitation? Belgravia-or May Fair? No such thing-but plain Paul's Chain, where this magnificent establishment is connected with his counting-house, and apparently all upon the groundfloor. Paul Féval lacks the organ, if there be one, of local colouring; but the mere general data to be gathered from a journey to London by the excursion train, would have prevented his falling into such egregious absurdities, and we wonder it did not occur to him. Even Eugène Sue, whom we have praised for the pains he took in reproducing a faithful picture of society as it lived, thought, and acted hundreds of years back, has shewn the same slipshod indifference with regard to the local colouring of the country now a theatre a great sin against local colouring. The within a day's distance. We will merely quote, as an same when they make their exit not by the door but instance, the blunders to be met with in his otherwise by the side-scenes, like incorporate beings—a solecism, charming novel-Miss Mary. His gentle heroine is the by the by, never committed on the French stage; but daughter of Sir George Lawson, generally styled Sir so little attended to in this country, that we have Lawson, and occasionally plain Mr, while Sir Lawson's actually seen a celebrated prima donna suddenly go out wife is simply Mistress. Again, in the days of this through the wall of the prison in which she was confined, mythical baronet's opulence, his magnificent residence in a fit of anger at an encore given to her sister vocawas called Lawson Cottage; while his faithful coach-list on the stage, and come on again by the same means, man absolutely paints the lily and gilds refined gold leaving us to wonder why the heroine she repreby styling his master Sir Lawson Esquire! sented remained in prison at all when escape was so easy. Without a strict observance of all such proprieties, no actor can be entitled to the term great, any more than a painter or author can approach perfection if he disregards local colouring. A certain feuilletoniste went even a trifle further in point of absurdity, inasmuch as he dealt with real and not fictitious personages, when he designates the son of the late world-famous Sir Robert Peel, whom he met at Berne, as the young lord, in defiance of Burke's Peerage; also styling him Sir Peel, although his father was then living. Ridiculous as such blunders undoubtedly are on the part of foreigners, they argue a far more inexcusable ignorance when committed by native authors. We have read a tale in which Miss becomes Lady Olivia -, on marrying a baronet; and, astounding to relate, that huge triton among the minnows-the lordly and omnipotent Times-committed quite as laughable a solecism as was ever perpetrated by Sue or Féval, by denominating the youthful scion of an aristocratic family (we change the names to fictitious ones), Lady Fanny Fairlove, who had married Sir Harry Sparkington, Bart., Lady Harry Sparkington-a twofold absurdity, reducing a duke's daughter to plain Miss Fairlove, and converting Sir Harry into Lord Harry. SOME ACCOUNT OF A FRIEND OF MINE. WHEN Juan was intrusted to me, he was about three years old. His height was that of a child of the same age. When I freed him from the bamboo-basket in which he was brought to me, he seized hold of my hand, and tried to drag me away, as a little boy who wanted to escape from some disagreeable object might have done. I took him into my room, in which there was a sort of cell prepared for him. On seeing this new cage, which resembled a Malay house, Juan understood that it was in future to be his lodging: he let go my hand, and set about collecting all the linen he could find. He then carried his booty into his lodging, and covered its walls carefully. These arrangements made, he seized on a table-napkin, and having dressed himself in this as majestically as an Arab in his burnoose, lay down on the bed he had prepared. It would be endless to enumerate the painters, even the eminent ones, who have shewn an utter indifference to local colouring, however great colourists in every Juan was of a very mild disposition; to raise one's other respect. The number of Cleopatras in satin, the voice to him was sufficient; yet he now and then had countless Prodigal Sons in point-lace and Dutch or very diverting fits of anger. One day I took from him Flemish dresses, and Holy Families attired after the a mango he had stolen; at first, he tried to get it back, quaint Italian or German fashion of the days in which but being unable to do so, he uttered plaintive cries, the simple-minded painter lived, are so many monuments thrusting out his lips like a pouting child. Finding of the utter disregard paid by our forefathers to local that this pettishness had not the effect he anticipated, colouring. We should be afraid to affirm that modern he threw himself flat on his face, struck the ground artists never sin on this score, but, at anyrate, there with his fist, screamed, cried, howled for more than is certainly a strong movement in the right direction half an hour. At last, I felt that I was acting contrary among them. As to the stage, which ought to hold to my duty in refusing the fruit he desired; for, in the mirror up' not only to nature but to art, and opposition to God's will, I was seeking to bend to the serve as a patron for artists, its defalcations have, till exigencies of civilisation the independent nature which quite lately, out-heroded all the perpetrations against He had sent into the world amid virgin forests, in local colouring committed by the united depravity order that it should obey all its instincts and satisfy of authors, dramatists, and painters. It would require all its passions. I approached my ward, calling him a whole treatise on costume were we merely to make by the most endearing names, and offered him the a passing mention of all the ridiculous anachronisms mango. As soon as it was within his reach, he clutched that have strutted and fretted' their hour on the it with violence, and threw it at my head. There was stage, from the days when Garrick acted Macbeth in something so human in this action, something so evil a tie-wig and knee-breeches to a Lady Macbeth in in the expression of his rage, that I had no hesitation hoop and powdered hair, down to our own times when, that day in classing Juan among our own species; but a few years ago, ladies on the stage came into he reminded me so much of certain children of my the parlour to breakfast in full ball-costume, while acquaintance. But since then I have learned better; their maids, besides walking in silk attire on week-days, he was only on rare occasions peevish and naughty. wore their necks bare, or ornamented with necklaces! The first day that I let Juan dine at table with These absurdities have, however, so completely disap-me, he adopted a disagreeable mode of pointing out peared, even at the lowest class of minor theatres, that they now belong to past history. The application of local colouring to theatrical costume, which began in Paris at the time the dramas of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas first departed from the stiff conventionalities of the three unities, and substituted real flesh-and-blood personages for the tragic heroes of the elder writers, was subsequently taken up in this country by several actors of sterling merit. One word of advice, however, to actors in general. They must not think all is achieved in the way of local colouring by merely a correct costume. Thus, when they approach the footlights to read a letter, they lead our thoughts away from the garden or the street they are supposed to be standing in, and remind us we are in the objects that were pleasing to him: he stretched out his brown hand, and tried to put upon his plate everything he could lay hold of. I gave him a box on the ear, to make him understand politeness. He then made use of a stratagem: he covered his face with one hand, whilst he stretched the other towards the dish. This scheme answered no better, for I hit the guilty hand with the handle of my knife. From that moment, my intelligent pupil understood that he was to wait to be helped. He very quickly learned to eat his soup with a spoon in this way: a thin soup was placed before him; he got upon the table like a dog lapping, and tried to suck it up slowly. This method appearing inconvenient to him, he sat down again on his chair, and took his CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. plate in both hands; but as he raised it to his lips, he spilled a portion of it over his chest. I then took a spoon, and shewed him how to use it; he immediately imitated me, and ever after made use of that implement. When I brought Juan on board the Cleopatra, he was domiciled at the foot of the main-mast, and left completely free; he went in and out of his habitation when he pleased. The sailors received him as a friend, and undertook to initiate him in the customs of a seafaring life. A little tin basin and spoon were given him, which he shut up carefully in his house; and at meal-times he went to the distribution of food with the crew. It was very funny to see him, especially in the morning, getting his basin filled with coffee, and then sitting comfortably down to take his first meal in with his friends the cabin-boys. company Juan spent part of his days in swinging among the ropes; sometimes he came on to the deck, either to enter into conversation with the persons of the Embassy, whom he knew very well, or to tease a young Manilla negrito, who had been given to M. de Lagrené. This negrito was his dearest friend. Some people pretended that the sympathetic ties which united these two beings were based on consanguinity. However that may be, Juan had a profound contempt for monkeys; he never condescended to notice one, and preferred the society of a dog or a sheep to that of one of these quadrumana. Juan acquired the habits of a gourmet whilst on board: he drank wine, and had even become deeply learned in the art of appreciating that liquor. One day two glasses were offered him, one half full of champagne, the other half full of claret. When he had a glass in each hand, some one tried to deprive him of that containing the champagne. To defend himself, he hastily brought his disengaged hand up to the one which had been seized, and having, by a dexterous effort, succeeded in freeing it, he poured the sparkling liquid into his mouth, and having made sure of the flavour, hastened down to share the beverage with me. When I arrived at Manilla, Juan and I took up our abode in a Tagal house, and we lived in common with the family inhabiting it-consisting of the father, mother, two girls of fourteen and sixteen, and of some little children. Juan was charmed with our residence. He spent his days in play with the little Tagal girls, and robbing the mango-women who were imprudent enough to put their merchandise within his reach. Juan had nothing of those social virtues called abnegation and devotion; he was selfish, and would not have found communistic principles to his taste. He was perfectly conservative in this respect; and only liked communism with regard to the property of others. If an animal invaded his cage, he drove him away unmercifully; one day he even picked the feathers out of a pigeon which had been struck with the unfortunate idea of taking refuge there. Whenever we put into harbour, I brought him clusters of bananas; the fruits were placed with those belonging to the officers of the staff. Juan had leave to enter this sanctuary at his pleasure. Provided he had been once shewn which clusters belonged to him, he respected the others, until such time as he had exhausted his own provision; after that, he no longer went ostensibly and boldly in search of fruit, but by stealth, crawling like a serpent: the larceny committed, he came up again faster than he had gone down. It is untrue that orang-outangs have been taught to smoke: Juan, and all those I have seen, were unable to acquire that habit. Such is the account of an orang-outang given by Dr Yvar, who was physician to the scientific mission sent by France to China, and who resided six months in the Eastern Archipelago. This animal is a native of the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, and the peninsula of Malacca, dwelling in the deepest recesses of forests The orang-outang is grave and gentle in its manners, A HAPPY NEW YEAR. The day had been a glorious time of sunshine-the The sun was sinking fast, transforming, as it did so, A gentle breeze was springing with softest blushes. the lovely azure of the sky to a rich golden hue tinted up, and played, as though in very wantonness, amongst the broad leaves of the green bananas, the feathery foliage of the lofty palms, and the thick groves of orange-trees. Many a wide and cool veranda in Port to the idle gossip of the day; many a wealthy merchant Louis was filled with fair and youthful forms, listening leaned back on downy ottoman, enjoying his pipe, and planter reposed on matted couch with long-necked casting up the profits of the year; many a sun-burned bottles in his company, listening to his neighbours' tales of sugar-canes, slaves, and rum. Within a mile of the Port, on the road leading towards the Pamplemousses, stood, and, for aught I know to the contrary, stands at this moment, a most picturesque-looking villa, delightfully placed amongst palm-trees and mango-groves, with a perfect paradise of a garden and lawn, studded with the richest fruitall tropical dwellings, an ample veranda encircled the bearing trees and flowering shrubs. As is the case with house; and to render the place still more enjoyable, the way to a pretty bridge, over which the passenger a shady avenue of bananas, figs, and rose-apples, led found himself conducted to a miniature island laid out, like the garden, with lawn and flowering-plants, and round which ran a rippling stream, washing its mossy banks. In the vicinity of this abode were clusters of neat thatched cottages, each with its knot of palms and bananas, and a small patch of garden in the rear. These were the dwellings of the slaves, who cultivated the many fields of sugar-canes that stretched for miles along the skirts of the mountain-land in the rear of the road-the property of one of the wealthiest planters of the island, M. Durant. This enchanting spot, seen on such a lovely evening as I have attempted to describe, may well have been deemed the resting-place of happy mortals. It seemed the home of tranquil happy hearts, where nothing sorrowful might find a corner; where men might have been content to end their days on earth. Yet this was not so. The apple of the desert, all beauty to the eye, was not more bitter at the core than this same planter's homestead. Watching the parting sunlight from the front veranda, sat the young wife of the proprietor. Reclining on a couch of ebony, garnished with richest drapery, with the incense of sweetest flowers about her, with a crowd of slaves to obey her every wish, with all that physical life could demand, this wife was unhappy. Alas! the one thing needed to make a joyful home was wanting-domestic sympathy. No man could be more thoughtful for his wife's comfort, no one more liberal in his arrangements for her household; but his heart, though not against her, was not with her. Ambition was his bane, reckless speculation his sole enjoyment. For such he seemed to live, and wondered why his Florence drooped, and pined, and wept, while he was wrapped in giant schemes of wealth. Warmhearted as a woman can truly be, yearning vainly for a return of the love that dwelt in her own breast, Florence Durant cared little for the eastern splendour that encircled her in this little earthly paradise, while she saw her husband giving up his whole heart and soul to business, with but seldom a word or look for herself. The disappointed wife was pondering over all this on the evening in question, casting her eyes alternately from the setting sun to the infant that lay sleeping at her feet, fanned gently by a little slave-girl. The planter had been absent for many days, and as yet had not seen this last addition to his family; but Florence promised no pleasure to herself from their meeting. She knew too well, from past experience, that he would look upon her new-born infant as he would on a piece of furniture just added to their drawing-room. He would shew no unkindness, use no harsh words; but there would be that utter disregard, that abstraction from all but business, which sinks into the heart of a wife of sensitive mind almost as deeply as actual wrong. It was in vain the slave-girl chanted her prettiest Indian love-song; as vainly did the little infant, by its very muteness and helplessness, appear to solicit sympathy and protection. Florence felt that she would gladly have exchanged her wealth and station for the humble lot of any poor slave-girl on their estate, to have enjoyed requited love. The sun had sunk full deep below the many-tinted horizon; the birds had sought their leafy homes; the infant had been laid to rest on downy pillows; the moon had flung its first soft rays upon the distant hill-tops, and on the waving leaves of lofty palms-yet Florence still sat there, gazing in deep thought upon the opening prospect of another year so like the last that her heart fainted within her, and forced out bitter tears. But let us look elsewhere. If we turn our eyes towards the little stream that, fed by gurgling mountain-brooks, speeds merrily past the plantations of M. Durant, towards the Port, we shall see how many cane-fields it refreshes, and how many sugar-works it supplies with water. Along this little river a light canoe was floating, half paddled, half borne upon the stream. Seated in the stern of the little craft was a young planter, who, with folded arms and darkened brow, seemed lost to all that was passing around him. As the last rays of the sun disappeared, the canoe touched the mossy bank of the little island in the rear of the house, and awaking to consciousness, Durantfor it was he-sprang to shore. Instead of hastening to his house, as usual, the planter began to pace the lawn in the island with rapid and unsteady strides. To and fro the gloomy man walked in the deepest excitement, as though uncertain or careless of what his course should be. The speculations he had been so long engaged in, and which had accumulated about him until they had assumed enormous magnitude, had broken down in hopeless ruin; and now, crushed and oppressed beneath this sudden weight, the ambitious man felt maddened with disappointment. What he might have determined upon, or whither he might have bent his steps had he been left to his own meditations, matters not to our present purpose. But the sound of many merry voices came floating down the rose-apple avenue towards the bridge; nearer and nearer the boisterous throng approached; louder and quicker the bursts of laughter fell upon his ear. They were the voices of his own children, whom he could see approaching in company with one or two of the slave-children, and a gray-headed negro in charge of the party. In no mood to encounter all this merrymaking, the planter turned aside from the little lawn, and diving into a mass of evergreen behind a sort of grassy mound, he flung himself upon the ground amongst rushes and lotus-leaves, compelled, however unwilling, to listen to the childish talk of the merry group. Such a happy party they were! There was Rose, a dark-eyed girl of eleven, full of thought and kindliness; Edward, the eldest boy of nine; with Ernest and little Minnie, and old Pierre, a negro of sixty years, who had in his early days nursed their mother; and besides these, there were Peto, and Caspar, and Lugo-young slaves born and bred on the estate. There was also Brutus, the old brown goat with his long silvery hair, and his great hard horns, and his quiet gentle eyes. Why, bless you! he would not have hurt one of those dear little children-though they did climb on his back, and stick all sorts of odd things on his horns-he would not have trodden on one of their dear toes for any quantity of green sugar-cane, and he was remarkably fond of it too! How delighted they were to romp and dance on that nice green lawn, and tumble the old negro amongst the pomegranates, and make the goat quite giddy with dancing a waltz on his hind-legs, whilst little Minnie stuck his horns full of garlands and green boughs! Happy children! The world was as yet all sunshine to them. The New Year that was about to visit them had no cares or griefs for their young hearts. They could see nothing but flowers in their path, and heeded not the thorns. When they had romped to their hearts' content, some one asked what fête they were to have on the morrow, which set them all guessing and thinking. Each one, from the laughing Rose down to black-skinned Peto, opened up some especial source of delight for Newyear's Day; while the good-natured goat strolled from one to the other, rubbed his shaggy coat against them, licked their hands, and looked up in their faces, as though to guess what they were debating. The most favoured idea was that of a grand ball on the island to the whole establishment; and as there was yet a good half-hour till supper-time, they agreed to try a little rehearsal of what they would wish for the morrow. In a moment, every one set to work. Green boughs were torn down; broad leaves were stripped from branches; palm-blossoms and rose-apples were twined into chaplets and garlands; and leaves, and fruit, and flowers, were so transformed by their many skilful little fingers, that in a short time there was a goodly |