theless, are overwhelming, and ever renewed, and could ing to rejoin his regiment, perceive from afar the glimnot be sustained, had kind nature not endowed thee with mering forge, and hasten with joyous step to the rena constitution of iron. There are professions which dezvous. All stop at the farrier's, to hear the news and anybody may embrace without culture or vocation, how-light their pipes: he knows the character of every houseever notoriously deficient in body or mind. A man may of-call in the neighbourhood, and can recommend them set up a joint-stock company or a toyshop, no matter to good fare at a moderate price, while he presents a which, without brains or sinews-but not a farrier's live coal from his furnace to the bowl of the traveller's forge. To weld the iron upon the anvil, he must have pipe. solid muscle, lofty stature, and nervous arms. The man whose imperfect form would have disgusted a Spartan mother, cannot pretend to wield the hammer of the maréchal ferrant.

The activity of the farrier is the bane of his immediate neighbours: at the earliest dawn they are roughly roused from sleep by his sounding strokes on the anvil; he rises thus early to rough-shape a sufficient number The aspirant to this trade commences his career as of shoes for the demands of the day. His labours are assistant journeyman, without any definite term of en- only interrupted at nine o'clock for breakfast, and at gagement. So soon as he has acquired some knowledge two in the afternoon for dinner. By an ordinance of the of the business, he quits his first master, and travels police, dated 26th June 1778, and implicitly confirmed from town to town, working where he can find employ- by the 484th article of the penal code, all noisy hammerment, at wages varying from eighteen to thirty francs wielding professions are forbidden to be exercised at any a-month, besides his maintenance and free lodging, if he other hours than those included between five in the choose to take it, by the forge chimney. Thanks to the morning and eight in the evening; consequently, the beneficent regulations of the trade companionship, he is farrier can work no later. He is not restricted, howsure of an asylum while waiting for employment. A ever, from shoeing a horse that casts a shoe in the projourneyman farrier enters Paris; one would imagine hibited hours; but he must fit, not forge the shoe, even him to be swallowed up and lost amid the immense then, under a penalty of fifty francs, imposed by the population. No such thing. He asks the first passer-by | above-mentioned ordinance. that he meets the way to the Rue Vielle-du-Temple; arrived in front of No. 97, he beholds in the centre of the façade of the house a long huge board painted black, stuck about with gilt horse-shoes, and ornamented with the statue of his patron saint. Above is written, in letters something the worse for weather

MERE DES MARECHAUX FERRANTS.

Hotel du Grand Saint-Eloi.

Or in humble English, House-of-call for Farriers; St This illustrious general, while travelling incognito in

Eloi Hotel.'

The person of the maréchal is broad, full-set, and somewhat imposing; the severity of his labours, and the atmosphere that he continually inhales, seem to have amplified his muscular proportions, and increased his natural vigour; and he generally enjoys a well-merited celebrity in his immediate neighbourhood for strength and manliness. The annals of the profession record that one of them came off triumphantly in a trial of strength with the celebrated Maurice, Count of Saxony. Flanders during the year 1744, stopped, says the chroThe journeyman enters; he finds his future fellow-nicle, at the door of a maréchal ferrant, and requested workmen seated at table in a kind of taproom on the the master to show him an assortment of horse-shoes, ground-floor; he makes himself known, and produces that he might make a selection for the use of his steed. his credentials and attestations of service; they grant The farrier presented a number of various descriptions him food, lodging, and unlimited credit. The very next and qualities. day, if there is any demand for his labour, he is despatched to the workshop, and assumes his occupation, without the employer to whom he is adjudicated having the right to refuse him. The workman thus learns how effectually combination gives force to the feeble, wealth to the poor, greatness to the little, and consolation to the unfortunate.*

When the journeyman has succeeded in accumulating the necessary funds, he immediately seeks to establish himself in business. His workshop is seldom more than a black and smoky shed. The forge rises in one corner, and at its side hangs the enormous bellows that excite the flame; the anvil is the table in the centre of the smoky apartinent; the hammers and files lie scattered | here and there upon the floor. A few years ago, near the entrance of every farrier's shed, might be seen a large wooden enclosure, or cage, called a travail-a prison destined for kicking horses; but it would seem that the animals have lately become more docile, or that the farriers are better able to master them, for the repressive machine is now become almost totally extinct. A decree of the Court of Cassation, of the 30th Frimaire, anno xiii. (21st December 1804), has also put an end to the encroachments which the farriers were in the habit of making upon the public way. By it they are confined to their hired tenements, and to certain courts; and the establishment of new workshops in the streets is forbidden, much to the convenience of the public, who grew tired, and complained of gratuitous kickings from restive horses.

If the farrier's shop stands by the wayside, it shines like a lighthouse at night in the eyes of the wanderer weary and footsore. The artist in search of the picturesque, the workman on circuit, the belated soldier seek

*To the gifts of combination may be added occasionally that of a bungling workman to an employer in need of a good one.

'What do you call these?' said the marshal of France: these were made to sell, and not to use, I reckon!' And taking them by the extremities between the forefinger and thumb, he broke several of them successively.

The farrier suffered him to proceed, in silent admiration at his astonishing vigour. When the Count of Saxony was tired of his amusement, he ordered four of a more solid construction; the artisan set himself to work, and having accomplished the operation, received a six-franc piece.

What do you call this?' said he. Do you offer me base metal?' And doubling the piece between his fingers, as in a vice, broke it in two parts.

Pest!' cried the count, it seems I have caught a Tartar. Let us see how long you will play that game!' Five or six pieces met the same fate between the farrier's fingers as the first.

'I should soon ruin myself at this sport,' said Manrice, remounting his horse. I acknowledge_myself beaten, vanquished like the Hungarians at Prague. Stop, here are a couple of louis-d'ors; drink the health of the Count of Saxony.'

These athletic performances remind us of that of a major of cavalry named Barsabas, mentioned in the miscellanea of the eighteenth century. It was his comical custom, whenever he took his horse to be shod, to watch when the farrier's back was turned, and walk off with the anvil concealed beneath his cloak.

The farriers of the present day are not a whit behind their predecessors. The sleeves of their ample gray shirts turned up as far as the elbows, display their enormous arms, of which the right, constantly exercised, is always far more muscular than the left.

When the farrier proceeds to work, he is provided with pockets of leather in double compartments, fastened round his middle by a girdle. These pockets

contain the implements of his profession:-A pair of cutting nippers, to clip off the points of any nails that project through the hoof; a punch, to drive out the old nails; a hammer; a paring instrument, generally | manufactured from the blade of an old sword.

The more pretentious professors, in great towns, have substituted a mahogany box in lieu of the pockets -a palpable sacrifice of convenience to ostentation.

In the country districts of France, the maréchal does not confine himself to the shoeing of horses; he forges all kinds of agricultural implements-ploughshares, chains, staples, iron rings, axle-trees, &c. &c. It is the custom among the farmers to contract annually for the shoeing, at the rate of twenty francs per horse, paying his additional services of course by the piece. What would they do without their never-failing coadjutors? -how lay bare the bosom of the stubborn earth, if he were not at hand to subdue the rebellious metal to their will; to shape, to sharpen, to weld, to ply, and to toil with unceasing devotion as the faithful unwearying ally of the farmer?

The farrier, as might be supposed, pretty generally pretends to a thorough knowledge of horses, and is not slow to criticise those which are the subjects of his professional skill; and as it would hardly be good policy to balk his inquiries, he has grown habitually inquisitive, subjecting all who bring him work to a rather close questioning. What did you give for this colt? Is he a Normandy breed, or from Ardennes? Has he any vice? Will he go in harness? Is he well on his feet? Is he an overreacher,' &c. &c.

destruction of the building; to which he may add the condemnation to a penalty of four hundred francs, a sum often exceeding the entire fortune of the delinquent.

A gathering cloud already casts its shadow upon the fortunes of the farrier, and prophecies not altogether unfounded have proclaimed his coming declension and decay. By iron he lived, and by iron he shall die,' says the oracular voice. Who shall say that the denunciation is vain? Yet twenty years, and we may see the maréchal ferrant, once favoured by royal favourites, exiled to the by-places of the land, and doomed to a lingering, listless, and profitless existence among the tillers of the soil. And what will be the cause of his ruin? What but the rejection of the horse, and all existing modes of communication, and the substitution of roads made of the very material by which he now gains his bread.

The military maréchal ferrant is a very different personage from those above described, and has nothing to apprehend from any of the coming mutations. He is attached in the cavalry, the artillery, or the baggagetrain, or other department of army service, invariably to the squadron of non-combatants-a squadron exempt from service in the field, composed entirely of workmen of various callings. Being drawn in the conscription, and having arrived at his regiment, his first care is to obtain permission to exercise his trade: if he can produce certificates of his ability, or has been a student at the colleges of Saumur or Alfort, this is readily granted. Having joined his corps, and been approved by the veterinary-in-chief, he is installed at the forge, while his wife, authorised by the colonel of the regiment, establishes a modest canteen. Behold him now in the uniform of a brigadier, bearing, as the insignia of his office, a horse-shoe on the sleeve: he is proud of his rank, and associates familiarly with the maréchaux des logis (quarter-masters). Ha! ha!' says he, we marshals understand one another well!'

He has, moreover, a good opinion of his talent as veterinary surgeon, and performs operations upon cattle of all kinds with various success. The villagers believe that he cures the gripes in cows by means of prayers and invocations; but his experience has taught him a more effectual remedy. He knows when a horse wants purging with sirup of buckthorn, with calomel, with aloes, with jalap, or with sweet almonds; he detects the presence of worms in the flank by a horse's rolling, yawning, foaming, restlessness, and biting his sides. The maréchal ferrant is paid by the treasurer, upon Your steed is wounded in the foot; wide fissures are an estimate delivered by the captain - commandant, visible in the hoof; the horny substance is diseased: founded upon reports of certain officers and subalterns, go and consult the maréchal ferrant; he will prepare who are commissioned to inspect his operations from you an amalgam of old cart grease, deer's fat, laurel time to time. The forge is under the surveillance of oil, populeum ointment, turpentine, and juice of onions. the captain-instructor, who looks to the proper quality He can apply a seton, or use the lancet, according to and temper of the horse-shoes, and their careful and circumstances, in the case of a foundered horse. He scientific attachment to the hoof of the animal; it is cauterises those attacked by paraplegy with two trains his duty also to see that the workshops are well proof gunpowder laid along the course of the vertebral vided with all the necessary materials. spine. The most dangerous maladies-the farey, the catarrh, the strangles, the vertigo, even the glanders, cannot resist his prescriptions; at least so he says. The better class of farriers in France are styled maréchaux experts. These have been students at the college of Alfort, or at the school of Saumur, and possess for the most part a profound knowledge of their profession, together with that of the anatomical structare and maladies of the horse.

The trade of a farrier is sometimes, especially in country places, united with that of a joiner or a cartwright. These double practitioners are styled maréchaux grossiers, a term sufficiently indicative of their doubtful ability. They will shoe your horse well, if it please Providence; and, as might be supposed, are rarely to be found in the neighbourhood of a regular hand. As they work both in wood and iron, the law, with a careful regard to the probable contact of sparks with shavings, compels them to maintain two different workshops, separated by a wall of solid stonework of sufficient height, against which the forge must not be placed; and the position of the doors must be such that the sparks from the anvil cannot enter the adjoining room. Before one of this class can commence business, the theatre of his future operations is subjected to the scrutiny of a commissioner of police, who is empowered by law, if the required precautions have not been adopted, to order the demolition of the forge, and the

|

When the regiment is on the march, the colonel is bound to provide for the accommodation of the farrier's stock and materials; and he commands the captains, at the head of their companies, to cause each mounted man to carry a brace of horse-shoes, with the necessary | nails. On arriving at the end of their journey, each soldier is responsible for the delivery of his charge at the depot.

The military farrier is a soldier-workman, brave at need, but habitually gentle and peaceable. Devoid of ambition, he has not entered the army with the idea that the baton of a marshal of France was shut up in his cartridge-box. He is no martinet, nor devotee of military discipline, and seldom practises the use of arms. Isolated from the army, to which, however, he is so indispensable, his sole ambition is to acquire the reputation of a skilful and scientific maréchal ferrant.

THE FISHER'S WIDOW. In the early part of November 184-, during one of those short but violent gales of such frequent occurrence on the north-east coast of Scotland, an event took place which is unhappily so common on our stormy shores as to create but a passing sensation, unless circumstances arise to bring it more immediately under our view. The facts were these:

Early in the morning, a boat manned by five of the

but its deadly folds had encircled him too firmly, and the choking waters did the rest.

I heard a lamentable account of the despair of the poor young widow, thus deprived of the companion of her life, and the sole means of support for herself and her three infants, and I was anxious to visit her; but my trusty Jean, whom I had despatched with offers of service to the bereaved family, dissuaded me from it.

Eh, mem,' she said, 'dinna gang, dinna gang, She kens maistly naebody, puir thing, and it's awfu to see her greet; and she's whiles no sensible forby, and canna thole ony body near her.'

'fisher folk' of, a father and four sons, went two boat, a corpse was found, wrapped in the sail as in a or three miles out to sea, in pursuance of their constant winding - sheet. He had evidently made a gallant occupation after the close of the herring season-fishing struggle for life; for a clasp-knife was found clenched for haddock, whiting, &c. There was a stiff breeze blow-in his dying grasp, and the sail was partly ripped open; ing from the north-west-but such as these hardy men have so frequently to encounter, as to be rendered often too careless of its danger-and nothing appeared to threaten a storm. However, with the sun, as is frequently the case, rose the wind; and with the wind, in a space of time incredibly short to those who have not witnessed it, rose the wild waves, rolling in with a deafening sound upon the iron-bound coast, which speedily became encircled by a belt of white surf, reaching many yards out from the shore, and amid which it was impossible for a boat to live. The fishers perceived the change in the weather, and differed in opinion as to the course they should adopt. Some were for remaining on the open sea, where, unless the storm became very severe, they were in comparative safety; but the old father and his youngest and favourite son urged their immediate return, as the season was too far advanced to permit of any certain reliance on the various prognostics, so well known to the fishers of the coast, which seemed to announce that the gale would have but a short duration. Their counsel carried the day, for all loved and respected their father; and the young George, the only one of the brothers who had a wife and children, represented that it was due to the helpless ones dependent on him to run no avoidable risk. So the boat's head was turned to land, and the furious gale urged her onwards with fearful speed. Yet to this the hardy men were well accustomed; and they guided her safely, so as to avoid the breaking waters, till they reached the entrance of the bay in which the town of is situated, and which by this time presented an appalling spectacle indeed to those who knew their only chance of life lay through those furious and foaming waters.

Still they held on their course, and the little vessel rode gallantly; five minutes more of their swift and perilous career, and the harbour would have been gained. But it was not so to be. Rapidly they neared a dark and dangerous reef of rocks in the middle of the bay. Vainly were strength, and skill, and energy exerted to turn the little vessel from the fearful barrier ahead; the whole force of the Northern Ocean, in its wildest mood, was opposed to their efforts; a mighty wave carried them almost on to the reef; and as the bark heeled over on the returning surge, another and another swept into her; one smothered shriek—and she is gone!

Those on shore-oh with what beating hearts!had watched the gallant but unequal struggle; and now a wild scream arose from many voices, and above all was heard the despairing cry of the young wife-so soon to be a widow-as she sank insensible on the shore. But the boat rises! - she has righted! No: she rises indeed, but keel uppermost; and where are they, so lately straining every manly sinew, and flushed with the struggle for dear life? Twice the waves carry under the devoted bark; but she rises again; and oh! this time there are living forms clinging to her keel! and three strong men are seen supporting their helpless and insensible old father. By this time a small boat, manned by two noble-hearted fellows, who have ventured in the face of almost certain death, in the hope of rescuing their comrades, has neared them; the waves, too, seem pausing to contemplate their work of destruction. There is a momentary lull, during which the four men so wonderfully rescued are placed in the little boat by their deliverers, the old man to all appearance a corpse. But where is the fifth-the youngest born-the pride of his father's heart? Alas! in vain do the gallant fellows linger among the foaming breakers till every hope has fled, and their own imminent danger forces them from the spot. He is gone; and when the speedily-subsiding waters (for the storm did not last above four hours) permitted a search to be made for the

So I waited to hear that the first violence of her despair had worn itself out, for I very much doubted my own powers of consolation; and who but One, indeed, could console in such grief as hers? However, || after a time, I heard she had been partly brought to her senses by the illness of her baby, who, deprived of its natural sustenance by the blow that had shaken the very heart-strings of its poor mother, had been at the point of death. However, it was now better; and the young widow, recalled to the consciousness that there existed yet a greater depth of anguish than that in which her reason had almost forsaken her, became calmer and more composed, at least in outward appearance; and hearing this, I set out one day, about three weeks after the fatal accident, to visit her.

It was in the beginning of December; yet the weather in this fitful climate takes no heed of the ancient division of the seasons, and the day was bright and balmy as in early spring. It seems to me as if nature had assigned to these northern regions as many fine days, or nearly so, during the year, as fall to the portion of happier climates; but they are in some mysterious manner so strangely jumbled, that many a wintry day chills us in the midst of summer, while those belonging to a more genial season sometimes make their appearance unexpectedly among the blasts and frosts of autumn or winter. One of these stray children of summer was gilding and beautifying the wild country through which I had to pass, on my way to the little fishing-town of The level beams of a December sun threw a ! rich golden light over a large extent of bare but highlycultivated country: the plough was merrily a-field among the stubble, the lark was singing high in the clear air, and the smoke ascended from many a humble hearth, and scarcely wavered in its upward course, while the scene was bounded by the blue and waveless ocean, dotted here and there with a white sail; and in the far distance, the outline of the hills of Caithness stood out sharp and defined against the cloudless sky. As I neared the sea, and caught a fuller view of the coast, the whole of the Moray Firth opened before me in a panorama scarcely to be surpassed on British shores. But I thought little of these familiar scenes as I drove on; my thoughts were bent on the errand I had undertaken; and as I slowly descended the preci pitous road leading to the picturesque seaport of I tried to arrange in my mind a few consolatory sentences, feeling all the while how ineffectual my own happy experience would render aught I could say to soothe such sorrow as I was about to witness-for heart must speak to heart in grief; and if the corresponding chord have not been awakened in our own bosom, it is in vain we strive to calm the throb of anguish which vibrates to agony in the breast of another. So I resolved to speak only the words that should suggest themselves at the moment, and to attempt nothing more.

The little town of is very remarkably situated; nestling, as it were, under high and beetling crags, which scarcely leave room for the cottages of the fishermen to stand, dotted here and there in picturesque con

'She's quite quiet noo, mem, an' sensible,' said the mother, who I fancied attributed my emotion to fear of the poor creature. She hasna grat ony sin' the bairnie [From his Address at the Opening of the New Building for the took ill: but she's a hantle better noo;' and then I saw that the poor baby was attempting to find the nourishment of which its mother's agony had deprived it. 'She is a healthy-looking little baby,' I said, feeling I must say something; and taking the tiny hand in mine,