stalks, One day the woods stand in full foliage, changed in nothing from their summer aspect but in their hues; the next, a rushing wind comes from the north, strips them of their leafy glories, and perhaps even changes their summer vesture to the raiment of winter. respects, exceedingly poetical. Nipen, in particular, who, we suspect, resembles very closely the German Number Nip, seems to be a personage of much importance and interest in the supernatural world of Gamlé Norge. The following story illustrates his character: "In England, we are apt to form very exaggerated THE SUPERNATURAL POWERS OF NIPEN. notions of the degree of cold which is experienced in the Northern countries. When there is little or no "A person who acted at the Stor Söen Gaard in the wind, intense cold is scarcely felt to be an inconvenience, capacity of a land baliff, had the reputation of being a provided one be suitably clothed; and during by far well-educated and shrewd man, and to him I one day the greater part of winter, the weather is calm, so that addressed myself for information upon the subject of even when the thermometer stands considerably below Norwegian superstitions. I asked him if he believed zero, one is able to move about comfortably, and even in the existence of Nipen? His answer was, that no one to enjoy the fine weather which so generally attends in- in Norway had better reasons for believing in Nipen tense frost. Many an Englishman who walks abroad than he had, from occurrences that had taken place in on a raw winter's day, dressed nearly in the same man- his own family; and he then related to me the followner as in summer, suffers infinitely more from cold than ing story, which, from his manner and general charache would in Norway, attired in his fur-cloak and eared- ter, I am certain he himself implicitly believed. But cap, and warm foot-gear. For my own part, I can safe- I must premise, by way of information to the reader, ly aver this for myself. I have suffered ten times the that, independently of particular circumstances which degree of cold travelling on a stage-coach in England, render it wise to propitiate Nipen, and which may in the face of a north-east wind, than I ever suffered in happen at any time, it is the custom, at Christmas, for a sledge in Norway, when the thermometer has been every one who has any thing to gain or lose by the state forty-seven degrees below the freezing point, or fifteen of the elements during the ensuing year, to make an degrees below zero. Sometimes, indeed, the frost is ac-annual offering. Now this baliff was the son of a milcompanied by a wind, and then it is scarcely possible to ler, who owned a windmill in Gulbrandsdalen; and in stir out of doors; but in the southern parts of Norway, his father's house, it was the custom to make, on Christthe combination of a very intense frost, and a scarifying mas eve, a cake, of a very superior quality to those wind, is scarcely ever felt. It is true also, that in the made for the family, as a present to Nipen. I ought depth of winter, the shortness of the days does not al- to have mentioned, when speaking of the powers of Nilow many hours of clear bright sunshine; but then the pen, that he is supposed to possess great influence over houses are not built like summer-houses, as many are the winds, if not to have the sole direction of them; for in England; and stoves in the towns, and great wood the effects of wind being unconfined to place, its confires in the country, and sometimes both, effectually op- trol is given to that being, whose dominion includes pose the power of the elements. There is not in fact a every thing that is not directed exclusively by some more comfortable abode than that of a substantial land- other intelligence: and I have since ascertained, that owner, or a thriving merchant, on a winter's day in every proprietor of a windmill propitiates Nipen in the Norway. There are no cross airs blowing through the same manner as the baliff's father. Well, one Christhouse, as in many of the unsubstantial dwellings in mas eve, this Christmas cake was made,-such a cake, England; nor does one know what it is to have one the narrator said, for excellence and richness, as the fa part of the body scorched with the fire, while the other mily would have considered it a sin to eat; and this is suffering under the influence of cold; and I scarcely cake, along with a pot of the strongest beer, was intrustknow any thing which can be compared with the luxury ed to his brother, then a boy about ten years of age, to of sleeping between two eider-down beds. carry to the mill, and set down just under the fanners, where it was the custom to leave it; and this office of taking the cake to Nipen is considered highly honourable, so much so, that the members of a family take it in rotation. The boy, having got Nipen's cake, left the house, which was very near the mill, to carry it there; but as he went, he was seized with an irresistible desire to taste the cake,-it looked so tempting, and smelt so delicious, and such a cake he had never tasted before. He tasted accordingly, and so excellent did he find it, that he tasted again and again, breaking off little pieces, till at length the cake assumed so mutilated an appearance, and was so much reduced in size, that he began to think it would not be treating Nipen with sufficient respect to offer him such a cake, and that it was better to offer him nothing than to make a fool of him; and so he ate all up. He then hesitated for some time whe ther he should set down the beer; but arguing with himself in the same way, and coming to the same conclusion with regard to it as to the cake, he drank it also. Great remorse followed these impious actions; but he had no courage to tell what he had done, but went home, and patiently waited the event. The year passed on, and a most prosperous one it proved to the mill; so that when Christmas again came round, the father said it was but just to make Nipen an offering this year, if possible even surpassing the last; and when the cake was made, the boy, who was at that time the only one in the house, was again intrusted with it. Now, thought he, as he went to the mill, the mill has never prospered more than last year, and yet Nipen got noNorwegian superstitions are peculiar, and, in many thing; why then give him this cake any more than the "But, independently of the in-door winter comforts of Scandinavia, the appearance of the external world, by day and by night, is beautiful and wondrous. Enter a forest when the sun breaks from the mists of the morning upon the snows of the past night. Beautiful as a forest is in spring when the trees unfold their virgin blossoms, beautiful as it is in summer, when the wandering sunbeams, falling through the foliage, chequer the mossy carpet beneath,-beautiful as in autumn, when the painted leaves hang frail; it is more beautiful still, when the tall pines and gnarled oaks stand in the deep stillness of a winter's noon, their long arms and fantastic branches heaped with the feathery burden that has never "caught one stain of earth;' then too, the grey rocks, picturesque even in their nakedness, assume a thousand forms more curious still, dashed with the recent offering. And when night comes, and who ever saw the glories of a night save in a northern clime ?-out burst the stars, countless and burning, studding the deep blue sky. Perhaps the Borealis, with its pale yellow light, streams over half a hemisphere; or, perhaps, the winter moon, full and high, looks down from the brow of night, spangling with ten million stars, the beauteous net-work thrown over the lower world. Something approaching to the appearances presented by a northern clime in summer may be witnessed in other countries, but the splendours of a winter scene belong only to the higher latitudes." other? and he sat down and devoured it, little thinking, that, though Nipen could forgive one offence, he was not to be trifled with a second time. But feeling no fear of Nipen, he drank the beer, and went on to set down the empty vessel under the fanners, as he had done the year before. It was a clear frosty night, and so still, that the tread of a bear might be heard a mile off; but just as he stooped down to lay the vessel on the ground, the fanners flew round and struck him down; but he lived to creep home and tell his story, and then he died." Next in point of consequence to Master Nipen, is the Wood-demon, who very properly still continues to preside over the affairs of the old Norwegian forests. Out of respect to this worthy individual, we give a place to the following LEGEND OF THE WOOD-DEMON. "Peter was a woodman, employed in the forests on the Glommen, one who had the character of never ha ving shown sufficient respect to the Demon, either in his language, or by his offerings; and he was even reputed to have once said, he was a match for the Demon in felling a tree, or in any other piece of forest-work. One day, in the latter end of the year, just about the confines of winter, but before the frost had set in, or any snow had fallen, Peter was in the forest, finishing the labour of rolling a number of felled trees to the brink of the river, and tumbling them in; and it was after sunset, and just beginning to grow dusk, when he laid hold of the only tree that remained. All the woodmen had gone home, and Peter was quite alone; and he toiled and toiled to move the tree, but all in vain. At last, overcome, he sat down upon the tree, and began to wipe his face, and to say to himself, the Demon could not roll this tree to the river's brink. Just as he said this, a man scarcely bigger than Peter, and dressed in a furcloak and red-cap, as if he had been a native of Gulbrandsdalen, stepped from behind a tree, and saluting Peter, said, 'Why, man, cannot you move that tree? To which Peter, who had a shrewd guess who the speaker was, replied,No, nor you neither. Upon this, the stranger stooped down, and taking hold of the tree, lifted it upon his shoulder, and, carrying it to the brink of the river as if it had been a sapling, threw it in. Now, then,' said the Demon, for it was none other who had done the thing, what am I to have for my job?'Perhaps,' said Peter, taking courage at the familiar terms in which the Demon addressed him; perhaps, sir, you will accept a little of this,' taking a skin of tobacco from his pocket. That won't do for me, Peter,' said the Demon. Then perhaps, replied Peter, 'your honour doesn't take tobacco? but the Demon, who can be jocular if he pleases, disliked Peter's free way of speaking; and besides, knowing his character, and having no doubt overheard the slighting things he had said, without farther ceremony, took Peter by the foot, and pitched him upon the top of one of the tallest pines in the forest, and then went his way. That very night winter set in; the wind came howling through the woods, the snow began to fall, and, next morning, the trees were mantled over. Peter is still supposed to sit upon a pine tree, his teeth chattering with cold. Where he is during summer, the woodmen cannot tell; but they will all aver, that at the end of autumn he resumes his seat; and that, during all the winter, and early in the spring, Peter's teeth may be heard chattering, any still night, on the skirts of the forest. This curious tradition I first heard from the mouth of the individual I have mentioned; since then, I met with it in a manuscript book, in the possession of a native of the country; and it is now, for the first time, translated into English." Derwent Conway is a poet, as well as a lively and picturesque prose-writer, and has given us several very happily-executed translations of Norwegian songs. We have already quoted much more largely from his work than is usual with us; but we cannot conclude without adding the three following spirited and characteristic compositions : NORWEGIAN LOVE SONG. Meet me, maid, by the pine-fringed lake, By the dusky lake, I will tell thee more NORWEGIAN DRINKING SONG. To the brim, young men, fill it up, fill again; Your fields they have grown it; * NORWEGIAN WAR SONG. Sons of the mountain, sons of the lake, We sincerely recommend the "Personal Narrative" to the attention of our readers ;-it is one of those books which, if they once commence, we are certain they will go on with. Organs and Presbyterians: Being a few Observa tions intended for the particular benefit of the AstiOrganists; with strictures on some of their recent meetings in Edinburgh. By Clericus. Edinburgh. John Lothian. 1829.* It is now somewhat more than twenty years since an attempt was made, by a popular clergyman of the Esta We think it right to mention, that the review of the above publication is not from the pen of the Editor of the Literary Jour nal, but from that of a learned correspondent, whose sentiments Lit. Jour. upon the subject, however, are more decided than our own.-Ed. I blished Church, to introduce organs into our Presbyterian places of worship. The attempt was at that time unsuccessful; and the discussion which it excited soon died away. The subject has, however, come once more before the public, and from a quarter whence we should have least expected it. Our readers are aware that an organ was introduced lately into the Relief Chapel in Roxburgh Place; and probably they are not ignorant that the innovation has given considerable disgust to other congregations of that respectable communion. The pamphlet now before us professes to have been called forth by the opposition thus manifested toward what the good old Presbyterians used to call the "Kist fu' o' whistles." The author is evidently a man of talent; his pamphlet is forcibly, though not very elegantly written; and, upon the whole, the pro-organists have no reason to complain of their champion. But, though we willingly admit that this pamphlet displays much cleverness, we are by no means prepared to acknowledge that it advocates a good cause. The organ controversy has been carried on by two opposite parties, equally bigoted in their attachment to their own views, and equally violent in denouncing the errors of their opponents. We do not coincide in the views of either party, believing, as we do, that both have gone too far. We certainly agree with the author of the "Observations," that it is absurd to talk of the immediate downfall of Presbytery being involved in the admission of organs into our churches; and that it is no less absurd to talk of their use as idola1 try: but, on the other hand, we do think that the use of instrumental music in our public worship is directly opposed to the spirit of Presbytery; and that, far from being an improvement, it would be an useless incumbrance, and would be apt to destroy rather than aid that spirit of devotion with which the praises of Almighty God ought to be sung. Let us reason upon this matter a little. Of course, no one will be disposed to say that the sound of a well-played organ is of itself more accept able to the Deity than that of the most unmusical voice: -with Him the melody of the heart is every thing. We must, therefore, limit our consideration of the supposed superiority of the organ to its effect upon the worshipper. Now if it be granted, as of necessity it must, that the heart is the true fountain of the melody which pleases the Deity, it follows, we should think, that the most natural and inartificial mode in which a congregation can join together in expressing their Maker's praises, without confusion or discord, (for that would, by distracting the attention, defeat the object we have in view,) is the best. We are aware, indeed, that even our simple manner of singing praise is not purely natural. Neither verse nor psalm tunes are inartificial; but they serve to prevent that harshness and confusion which, without them, must distract our devotional feelings. This apology does not, however, extend to the organ: it is a mere refinement; and as such, it is calculated to produce an effect similar to that which arises from a total want of melody: it is apt to withdraw the attention from the object of praise to the mechanical effort of producing harmony. The author of the present pamphlet employs more ingenuity than is necessary, at least for our conviction, to prove that instrumental music is not unscriptural. The Jews certainly made use of instrumental music in their worship, and that worship was authorized by God himself. This is a triumphant answer to the idle charge of idolatry sometimes pleaded against the pro-organists; but it is not a sufficient answer to prove that we ought to admit that instrument into our Christian churches. The Jewish worship was avowedly one of ceremony; and, if we are to use organs merely because the Jews patronized them, why not adopt the rest of their ritual-why not avail ourselves of brazen seas, and censers, and breastplates set with precious stones? In the sacred records of the strictly Christian church we find no mention made of instrumental music, nor does it appear to have been admitted till some ages after the time of the Apostles. But, even in the first age of Christianity, we have mention made of our own more sublime, because more simple, mode of offering praise. We read of Christ and his disciples singing a hymn; and singing of psalms is recommended by St Paul as an appropriate mode of expressing our gratitude to God. Accordingly, we have indisputable authority for this interesting part of our public Presbyterian worship. We do not, however, blame our less rigid sister, the Church of England, for her use of the organ: it is not, as the author of the "Observations" justly remarks, an essential part of her worship; and yet we may add, its use is in perfect consistency with the general character of a church which has always evinced a willingness to adopt as much of the Romish ceremonial as might be done without incurring the charge of idolatry or superstition. But Presbytery has ever been averse to this system; and, we think, with good reason, when we remember how the innovations which the Church of Rome admitted at first as matters of indifference, or even as helps to devotion, soon degenerated into gross superstition and idolatry. For this reason, we should be sorry to see our Church avail itself of the supposed beauty of the organ, until a stronger case has been made out for its admission than its advocates have yet offered. We can easily imagine the desire of those who are enthusiastic in music to see the organ introduced into our church service; and we believe that such persons have fancied that their feelings of devotion have been excited or exalted by its swelling tones; but these are delusive feelings. The intoxication of spirit thus produced is not indicative of increased devotion-it is more akin to that which prompts the half-impious ravings of the fanatic-and is altogether alien to the rational though ardent gratitude, which we wish our Presbyterian worshippers to feel, and to express in fervent but simple praise. But for our own part, we believe that the most common feeling excited by the organ is one simply of pleasure, totally unconnected with devotion: and we have never been present in places of worship where instrumental music is used, without observing that the congregation generally did not join in the music at all, instead of appearing to be more fervent in their praises than our own decent Presbyterians. We must strongly reprobate the frequent hints thrown out by the author of these Observations about the superiority of the Church to which he belongs, over the Presbyterian. Even if the remark were as true as we believe it to be most erroneous, he must surely see the folly of pressing this as an argument, when his object is to convince Presbyterians that it is not inconsistent with the spirit of their communion to adopt the organ as an aid to their public devotions. The author is more successful when he attempts to show that we have not kept so free of innovations as some would willingly persuade themselves. He instances our bands of hired singers, and our sainting of churches. To the former we ourselves have no objection, upon condition that it be not carried too farthat is, if it be done only to the extent of securing harmony, and not to the extent of excluding the congregation from joining in that most becoming part of public worship their Maker's praise. To the latter we are decidedly hostile. It is an uncalled for and an absurd affectation to have churches dedicated to saints, some of whom most probably never existed, and others having very dubious claims to the title. We dislike this parade of liberality. We are sorry to think that the characteristic of the present age is a marked indifference to the distinctions between different sects and communions. We do not wish to be uncharitable ;—we should have rejoiced in the fact, could we persuade ourselves, that this indifference to minute distinctions arose from a strong sense of the paramount importance of essential religion; but we greatly fear, that it proceeds rather from coldness to the great cause itself. Under these circumstances we ought to be jealous even of slight innovations. Of all the species of liberalism (and they are all bad) which the present age has produced, that which makes religion its subject is the most dangerous;-pure religion has suffered more by a continuance of little trifling alterations than it has even done by open persecution. Those of our readers who feel interested in the cussion about organs, whichever side of the question they may have adopted, will find these "Observations" worthy of a perusal. of popularity, all the unsubstantial nothingness of fame. The volume before us contains twenty-one Discourses, all of which are excellent. Their distinguishing properties are, an intimate knowledge of the human heart, and an admirable aptitude of consolations, warnings, and advices, to the situations and circumstances of the indidis-viduals to whom they are addressed. They are charac terized for the most part by piety, tenderness, and research. The 1st, "On the Holy Ministry," we think among the best. The 7th, " A Christian indeed," is a most captivating picture of a Christian life. It is from the text " He was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith." It was preached on the death of the late Dr Waugh of London, and contains a well-merited eulogium on the memory of that estimable character. It gives us pleasure to understand, that a memoir of Dr Waugh is at present in preparation by Dr Belfrage, and will soon appear. The 8th, "Admonitions to the Tempted," the 9th, "The Backslider's Doom," the 12th," The Shipwreck," and the 13th," The devout Soldier," are also worthy of the highest praise. Weregret that our limits do not permit us to make any ex The Extractor, or Universal Repertorium of Litera. ture, Science, and the Arts; comprehending, under one general arrangement, the whole of the instructive and amusing articles from all the Reviews, Magazines, and Journals. Vol. I. November to February 1828-9. London; Extractor Office, Fleet Street. Pp. 642. THIS volume contains a great quantity of interesting and amusing matter, upon almost all the subjects with which miscellaneous literature and popular science is conversant. We cannot exactly agree with the titlepage, that it contains "the whole of the instructive and amusing articles from all the Reviews, Magazines, and Journals;" but it certainly contains a very fair proportion of them. Considering the importance into which the periodical press of the present day has grown, and the intellectual vigour which distinguishes the better class of publications of this description, a work like the Extractor, if judiciously conducted, is calculated to incorporate much talent, that might otherwise be scattered over too wide a surface, and might ultimately be lost in the crowd by which it was surrounded. The Editor informs us, in his preface, that "the Extractor gives place to those articles only which are stamped with the seal of a sterling and unqualified excellence." We are afraid this is rather too strong but, as we observe in the volume several papers from the Edinburgh Literary Journal, we do not feel ourselves called upon to controvert very positively the truth of the assertion. Counsels for the Sanctuary and for Civil Life; or Discourses to various classes in the Church and in Society. By Henry Belfrage, D.D. Minister of the Gospel, Falkirk. Edinburgh. Oliver and Boyd. 1829. Pp. 449. DR BELFRAGE is one of the few sermon-writers whose productions, in this book-making age, have gone through more than one or two editions. His "Sacramental Addresses," first established his character as a writer of elegance, pathos, and power. Their extensive circulation among every class of Christians, and the many testimonies to their excellence which were spontaneously offered from various sources, were sufficient to insure a favourable reception to his future efforts. Nor have the expectations of his friends and the public been disappointed. His "Practical Discourses to the Young,' his "Monitor to Families," his "Sermons on the duties and consolations of the Aged," and now, his "Counsels for the Sanctuary and for Civil Life," comprise in themselves a library of Christian morality-a compend of Christian doctrine, duty, and worship and a thesaurus of all that is admirable in the Christian life. The author of Rasselas has somewhere declared, that "that instruction is most valuable in youth, which will be most easily reduced to practice in the after business of life." What the moralist observed of juvenile education, may be well applied to the studies of maturer years. The name and honour won by doing good, the applause which redounds to those who have laboured to advance the best interests of society, and to promote the knowledge which has most influence on the immortal destinies of human beings, is worth all the empty breath tracts. A Catalogue of Books, exclusively relating to the Church of Rome; her Doctrines, Worship, Discipline, Controversies, and Annals. On sale by Howell and Co. London. 1829. THIS is a catalogue of a very curious, and, at the present moment, of a very interesting kind. It contains a list of 3347 works, all of which relate to the Roman Catholic Church; and it includes, besides controversial works upon almost every possible topic of theological disputation, Histories of the various Religious Orders of the Church of Rome,-its peculiar Missals and Breviaries, of James II.,-and a complete and unique set of Ca-the Tracts and Pamphlets published during the reign nonizations for the present century, three of which have been pronounced by the last lineal descendant of the House of Stuart, the Cardinal York. The research and industry which it must have cost the collectors to bring together so vast a body of lore upon one subject, can be only duly appreciated by those who are conversant in such matters, though, at the present crisis, it is not likely that the public will allow their labours to go unrewarded. The Catalogue must have been drawn up by an adept in the art, for it is very liberally interspersed with quotations from old bibliographers, who knew every thing that was rare and curious, whether in vel. lum or black letter, or sewed in Roman. There is cer tainly an air of racy antiquity and value given to a book, of which some savant has said that it is rara et pretiosa, or editio valde rara,—or liber rarissimus,—or opus parum obvium,—or opusculum perrarum —or liber perdifficiliter hodie reperiri,-or opus quod multam ¦ estimationem habet,—or opus insigne, non sine volup tate atque utilitate legendum. This Catalogue is thickly studded with these recommendations; and where they are wanting, the intending purchaser will find ample scope for the exercise of his particular predilections, amidst a host of interesting works on all sides of the question. MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. SCOTCH PERIODICAL LITERATURE FORTY YEARS village and seaport of a neighbourhood, by means of hundred years of her Herculean infancy, exhibited. A few fescennian catches, a few ballads and songs of the fratres arvales, with the alliterative carmina of the twelve tables, form the whole, or nearly the whole, of her lore, during that period; and when we contrast this, not only with her Augustan splendours, but even with the earlier stages of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece, we are struck with the apparent anomaly, and are very naturally led to enquire, not only into the cause of this lengthened and struggling dawn, but into the avocations and amusements of a people, without one single Yes, my dear reader, tailors and packmen! Your scrap of written intelligence wherewith to satisfy curio- own father knew them well, and esteemed them highly. sity or to convey instruction. There is no doubt, that, Never a suit of clothes did he wear for many a year of with the coins and the customs of Magna Grecia and his life, which had not been manufactured into coat, Sicily, the literature of Crotona, Servium, Tarentum, waistcoat, and et ceteras, in his own kitchen; nor was he and Syracuse, penetrated to Rome at a period prior to too proud or vain of his L.500 a-year freehold property, any regular currency or literature of her own; but still to purchase from the south-country packman, as he trathe individuals who had access to, or taste for, such lux-velled twice a-year from Manchester to Glasgow, and uries, must have been few indeed in an age when, to be from Glasgow to Manchester, various articles of more exercised or schooled merely meant to be prepared for skilful manufacture. It was not, however, for the sake fighting the battles of one's country. Still, however, in of the clothes-making and the merchandise that he the Campus Martius, with its comitia and varied mili- harboured and encouraged the men of the needle and tary discipline,—in the Forum, with its law-suits, judg-ellwand, but on account of that local and distant inments, and ninth-day marketings, in the holidays, with all their shows, processions, and entertainments, in the ordinary discharge of the duties of a showy, amusing, and engrossing religion,-in the cultivation of the soil, and in the solicitation of offices and preferments, one may venture to find occupation for the greatest and better proportion of the Roman tribes and Curiæ, so as to prevent that mental recoil under which, as Hudibras has it, the sword "cuts into itself, for lack of somebody to hue and hack." But when we contemplate the land of our birth, as it existed not more than forty years back, and consider what was then the literary character and avocations of the great body of the people, and in particular of the inhabitants of the country, the state of Rome, during her five hundred years of darkness visible," appears less interesting and surprising. It is a fact, which any one who has lived fifty years may distinctly remember, that scarcely forty years ago, periodical publications, with the exception of the old Scots Magazine, for which I have still a sneaking kindness on that very account, were unknown, and that you might as well have looked for a copy of Bede or Boëtius, as for a newspaper on the window-sills of our Scotch farmers. The great body of our Scotch peasantry were, indeed, educated as they still are; and well skilled were they in divinity, as it came down to them from the preachings and controversies of covenanted ministers. They had their Worthies, and Witnesses in Clouds ;-their Guthries their Welshes their Rutherfords their Flavels their Bostons their Wellwoods-their Melvilles; but they had neither Review nor Magazine-retrospective, prospective, literary, scientific, popular. All these glorious things of the later times were hid from their eyes; and in regard to what may be called the literature of the day, they dwelt in the most perfect and unawakened ignorance. To read a newspaper of a Sabbath, was to break not one, but all of the commandments at once; and to listen to a profane work of modern history or travels, was a mere apology for laziness and ill-doing. Had then our venerable, and, after all, intellectual ancestors, no means of gratifying that taste or appetite for which the Athenians are censured? Had they no means of obtaining the news of the day; and were they compelled, from the want of Newspapers and Magazines, to submit to a total ignorance of local reports and national transactions? By no means. Their periodicals were, indeed, not limited and restricted to particular and stated days of the week, of the month, of the quarter, or of the year; they did not figure in all the attraction of frontispiece, cover, and engravings, nor were they capable of being conveyed, regularly, to every petty formation with which these two great and popular Ma- Your newspaper, with all appliances of type and paper, is but a poor, and a cold, and an uninteresting substitute, for the glowing eye, the knowing glance, the animated diction, and the ever-varying aspect, of Sandy Goldie of tailor memory. Sandy was the laird's tailor, and the laird's fool; yet, with Burns's Merry Andrew, he might have said with all justice, "The chiel that's a fool for himsell, Gude faith, he's far dafter than I!" Sandy spent the greater proportion of his time in the castle kitchen; and though liable to occasional apogees into the exterior of the parish, amongst farmers and cothe was welcomed by laird and lady-by all and suntars, he constantly gravitated towards the castle, where dry-with the exception, perhaps, of the "gentleman" partment of conversation with the laird. At country who regarded Sandy as a formidable rival in the deweddings, Sandy's foot was heard the first and the last on the sheeling, hall, or barn floor; and amidst a whole harvest-boon of shearers, three-fourths of which was guid," and bother and badinage even old Tibby of the composed of women, Sandy would "keep his ain part clauchan into utter ridicule. Silence was altogether out of the question! Tales of the times that were, as well could originate a narrative of ghost, robber, frailty, or as of the present, were Sandy's property; and no one misfortune, but Sandy would either take a lift of the sand times more awful, mournful, ridiculous, or surstory, or follow up the recital with something a thouprising. If an Irishman twisted a bull by the horns, Sandy would fairly wrench the head from the shoulders, and toss it over a wall;-if a neighbour's property was injured by the floods, Sandy had a year of God at hand, under the shelter of which he would bring down waterspouts, which spared nothing-man, wife, nor child, for miles around. All manner of contracts, agreements, and proposals, in reference to matrimony, were as visible to Sandy, months and years ere they actually took place, as the ship in the clouds which Scoresby saw many leagues off at sea. "'Twas the sunset of life gave him mystical lore, And coming events threw their shadows before." |