"Ay, mine goot sare-yesh!"

"He set sail for Calcutta yesterday. He commands the Royal Sally. He must evidently have sworn this debt against you for the purpose of getting rid of your claim, and silencing your mouth till you could catch him no longer. He's a clever fellow is Gregory Jones."

"De teufel! but, sare, ish dere no remedy for de poor merchant?"

"Remedy! oh, yes-indictment for perjury."

"But vat use is dat? You say he be gone-ten thousand miles off-to Calcutta!"

"That's certainly against your indictment."

"And cannot I get my monish?" "Not as I see."

"And I have been arreshted instead of him!"

"You have."

"Sare, I have only von vord to sayis dat justice?"

"That I can't say, Mynheer Meyer, but it is certainly the law of arrest,' answered the magistrate; and he bowed the merchant out of the room.

LOVE.

THEY sin who tell us love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the depths of hell.
Earthly these passions, as of earth,
They perish where they have their birth.
But love is indestructible;

Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven re-
turneth ;

Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
It here is tried and purified,
And hath in heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the anxious night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight!

MY TWO AUNTS.

PHILOSOPHERS tell us that we know nothing but from its opposite;—then I

fectly, for greater opposites were never made since the formation of light and darkness: but they were both good creatures,-so are light and darkness both good things in their place. My two aunts, however, were not so appropriately to be compared to light and darkness as to crum and crust-the crum and crust of a new loaf: the crum of which is marvellously soft, and the crust of which is exceedingly crisp, dry, and snappish. The one was my father's sister, and the other was my mother's: and very curiously it happened that they were both named Bridget. To distinguish between them, we young folks used to call the quiet and easy one Aunt Bridget, and the bustling, worrying one Aunt Fidget. You never in the whole course of your life saw such a quiet, easy, comfortable creature as Aunt Bridget-she was not immensely large, but prodigiously fat. Her weight did not exceed twenty stone, or two-and-twenty at the utmost-hot weather made some little difference: but she might be called prodigiously fat, because she was all fat: I don't think there was an ounce of lean in her whole composition. She was so imperturbably good natured, that I really do not believe that she ever was in a passion in the whole course of her life. Í have no doubt that she had her troubles; we all have troubles more or less, but Aunt Bridget did not like to trouble herself to complain. The greatest trouble that she endured was the alternation of day and night-it was a trouble to her to go up stairs to bed, and it was a trouble to her to come down stairs to breakfast; but, when she was once in bed, she could sleep ten hours without dreaming, and when she was once up and seated in her comfortable arm-chair, by the fire-side, with her knitting apparatus in order, and a nice, fat, flat, comfortable quarto volume on a small table at her side, the leaves of which volume she could turn over with her knitting needle, she was happy for the day-the grief of getting up was forgotten, and the trouble of going to bed was not anticipated. Knowing her aversion to moving, I was once saucy enough to recommend her to make two days into one, that she might not have the trouble of going up and down stairs so often. Any body but Aunt Bridget would have boxed my ears for my impertinence, and would, in so doing, have served me rightly; but she, good creature, took it all in good part, and

said, "Yes, my dear, it would save trouble, but I am afraid it would not be good for my health: I should not have exercise enough." Aunt Bridget loved quiet, and she lived in the quietest place in the world. There is not a spot in the deserts of Arabia, or in the Frozen Ocean, to be for a moment compared for quietness with Ann's Place

"The very houses seem asleep ;" and when the bawlers of milk, mackerel, dabs, and flounders enter the placid precincts of that place, they scream with a subdued violence, like the hautboy play ed with a piece of cotton in the bell. You might almost fancy that oval of building to be some mysterious egg on which the genius of silence had sat brooding ever since the creation of the world, or even before Chaos had combed its head and washed its face. There is in that place a silence that might be heard, a delicious stillness which the ear drinks in as greedily as the late Mr. Dando used to gulp oysters. It is said that when the inhabitants are all asleep, they can hear one another snore. Here dwelt my Aunt Bridget, kindest of the kind, and quietest of the quiet. But good nature is terribly imposed upon in this wicked world of ours; and so it was with Aunt Bridget. Her poulterer, I am sure, used to charge her at least ten per cent. more than any of the rest of his customers, because she never found fault. She was particularly fond of ducks, very likely from a sympathy with her quiet style of locomotion; but she disliked haggling about the price, and she abhorred the trouble of choosing them : : so she left it to the man's conscience to send what he pleased, and to charge what he pleased. I declare that I have seen upon her table such withered, wizened, toad-like villains of halfstarved ducks, that they looked as if they had died of the hooping-cough. And if ever I happened to say any thing approaching to reproach of the poulterer, aunt would always make the same reply "I don't like to be always finding fault." It was the same with her wine as it was with her poultry-she used to fancy that she had port and sherry, but she never had any thing better than Pontac and Cape Madeira. There was one luxury of female life which my aunt never enjoyed-she never had the pleasure of scolding the maids. She once made the attempt, but it did not succeed. She had a splendid set of Sunday crockery, done in blue and gold, and by the

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carelessness of one of her maids the whole service was smashed at one fell swoop. "Now that is too bad," said my aunt; "I really will tell her of it." So I was in hopes of seeing my Aunt Bridget in a passion, which would have been as rare a sight as an American aloe in blossom. She rang the bell with most heroic vigour, and with an expression of almost a determination to say something very severe to Betty when she should make her appearance. Indeed if the bell pull had been Betty, she might have heard half the first sentence of a terrible scolding; but before Betty could answer the summons of the bell, my aunt was as cool as a turbot at a tavern dinner. "Betty," said she, are they all broke?". "Yes, ma'am," said Betty." How came you to break them?" said my aunt. "They slipped off the tray, ma'am," replied Betty." Well, then, be more careful another time," said my aunt." Yes, ma'am," said Betty. Next morning another set was ordered. This was not the first, second, or third time that my aunt's crockery had come to an untimely end. My aunt's maids had a rare place in her service. They had high life below stairs in perfection: people used to wonder that she did not see how she was imposed upon; bless her old heart! she never liked to see what she did not like to see, and so long as she could be quiet she was happy. She was a living emblem of the Pacific Ocean.

But my Aunt Fidget was quite another thing. She only resembled my Aunt Bridget in one particular, that is, she had not an ounce of lean about her, but then she had no fat neither-she was all skin and bone; I cannot say for a certainty, but I really believe that she had no marrow in her bones-she was as light as a feather, as dry as a stick, and, had it not been for her pattens, she must have been blown away in windy weather. As for quiet, she knew not the meaning of the word; she was flying about from morn.. ing till night, like a faggot in fits, and finding fault with every body and every thing. Her tongue and her toes had no sinecures. Had she weighed as many pounds as my Aunt Bridget weighed stones, she would have worn out half a dozen pair of shoes in a week. I don't believe that Aunt Bridget ever saw the inside of her kitchen, or that she knew exactly where it was; but Aunt Fidget was in all parts of the house at onceshe saw every thing, heard every thing,

remembered every thing, and scolded about every thing. She was not to be imposed upon, either by servants or tradespeople. She kept a sharp lookout upon them all-she knew when and where to go to market. Keen was her eye for the turn of the scale, and she took pretty good care that the butcher should not dab his mutton-chops too hastily in the scale, making momentum tell for weight. I cannot think what she wanted with meat, for she looked as if she ate nothing but raspings, and drank nothing but vinegar. Her love of justice in the matter of purchasing was so great, that when her fishmonger sent her home a pennyworth of sprats, she sent one back to be changed, because it had but one eye. She had such a strict inventory of all her goods and chattels, that if any one plundered her of a pin, she was sure to find it out. She would miss a pea out of a peck, and she once kept her establishment up half the night to hunt for a bit of cheese that was lost-it was at last found in the mouse trap. "You extravagant minx," said she to the maid, "here is cheese enough to bait three mouse traps ;" and she nearly had her fingers snapt off in her haste to rescue the cheese from its prison. I used not to dine with my Aunt Fidget so often as with my Aunt Bridget, for my Aunt Fidget worried my very life out with the history of every article that was brought to table. She made me undergo the narration of all that she had said, and all that the butcher or the poulterer had said concerning the purchase of the provision; and she used always to tell me what was the price of mutton when her mother was a girl-twopence a pound for the common pieces, and twopencehalfpenny for the prime pieces. Moreover, she always entertained me with an account of all her troubles, and with the sins and iniquities of all her abominable servants, whom she generally changed once a-month. Indeed, had I been inclined to indulge her with more of my company, I could not always manage to find her residence, for she was moving about from place to place, so that it was like playing a game at hunt the slipper to endeavour to find her. She once actually threatened to leave London altogether, if she could not find some more agreeable residence than hitherto it had been her lot to meet with. But there was one evil in my Aunt Fidget's be haviour which disturbed me more than any thing else; she was always expecting

that I should join her in abusing my placid Aunt Bridget. Aunt Bridget's style of housekeeping was not, perhaps, quite the pink of perfection, but it was not for me to find fault with it; and if she did sit still all day, she never found fault with those who did not; she never said any thing evil of any of her neighbours. Aunt Fidget might be flying about all day like a witch upon a broomstick; but Aunt Bridget made no remarks on it, she let her fly. The very sight of Aunt Fidget was enough to put one out of breath-she whisked about from place to place at such a rapid rate, always talking at the rate of nineteen to the dozen. We boys used to say of her that she never sat long enough in a chair to warm the cover. But she is gonerequiescat in pace; and that is more than ever she did in her lifetime.

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR.

DURING the rage of the last continental war in Europe, occasion -no matter what-called an honest Yorkshire squire to take a journey to Warsaw. Untravelled and unknowing, he provided himself no passport: his business concerned himself alone, and what had foreign nations to do with him? His route lay through the states of neutral and con. tending powers. He landed in Holland

passed the usual examination; but, insisting that the affairs which brought him there were of a private nature, he was imprisoned-questioned-sifted ;and appearing to be incapable of design, was at length permitted to pursue his journey.

To the officer of the guard who conducted him to the frontiers he made frequent complaints of the loss he should sustain by the delay. He swore it was uncivil, and unfriendly, and ungenerous; five hundred Dutchmen might have travelled through Great Britain without a question,-they never questioned any stranger in Great Britain, nor stopped, nor imprisoned, nor guarded him.

Roused from his native phlegm by these reflections on the police of his country, the officer slowly drew the pipe from his mouth, and emitting the smoke, "Mynheer," said he, "when you first set your foot on the land of the Seven United Provinces, you should have declared you came hither on affairs of commerce;" and replacing his pipe, relapsed into immoveable taciturnity.

Released from this unsocial companion, he soon arrived at a French post, where the sentinel of the advanced guard requested the honour of his permission to ask for his passports. On his failing to produce any, he was entreated to pardon the liberty he took of conducting him to the commandant-but it was his duty, and he must, however reluctantly, perform it.

Monsieur le Commandant received him with cold and pompous politeness. He made the usual inquiries; and our traveller, determined to avoid the error which had produced such inconvenience, replied that commercial concerns drew him to the Continent. "Ma foi," said the commandant, "c'est un negotiant, un bourgeois"-take him away to the citadel, we will examine him to-morrow, at present we must dress for the comedie" Allons."

"Monsieur," said the sentinel, as he conducted him to the guard-room, "you should not have mentioned commerce to Monsieur le Commandant; no gentleman in France disgraces himself with trade-we despise traffic; you should have informed Monsieur le Commandant, that you entered the dominions of the Grand Monarque to improve in dancing, or in singing, or in dressing: arms are the profession of a man of fashion, and glory and accomplishments his pursuits-Vive le Roi."

He had the honour of passing the night with a French guard, and the next day was dismissed. Proceeding on his journey, he fell in with a detachment of German Chasseurs. They demanded his name, quality, and business. He came, he said, to dance, and to sing, and to dress. "He is a Frenchman, ," said the corporal-" A spy!" cries the sergeant. He was directed to mount behind a dragoon, and carried to

the camp.

There he was soon discharged; but not without a word of advice. "We Germans," said the officer, "eat, drink, and smoke: these are our favourite employments; and had you informed the dragoons you followed no other business, you would have saved them, me, and yourself, infinite trouble."

He soon approached the Prussian dominions, where his examination was still more strict; and on answering that his only designs were to eat, and to drink, and to smoke-"To eat! and to drink! and to smoke!" exclaimed the officer with astonishment. "Sir, you must be

forwarded to Potsdam-war is the only business of mankind." The acute and penetrating Frederick soon comprehended the character of our traveller, and gave him a passport under his own hand. "It is an ignorant, an innocent Englishman," says the veteran; "the English are unacquainted with military duties; when they want a general they borrow him of me."

At the barriers of Saxony he was again interrogated. "I am a soldier," said our traveller, "behold the passport of the first warrior of the age."-" You are a pupil of the destroyer of millions," replied the sentinel, "we must send you to Dresden; and, hark'ee, sir, conceal your passport, as you would avoid being torn to pieces by those whose husbands, sons, and relations have been wantonly sacrificed at the shrine of Prussian ambition." A second examination at Dresden cleared him of suspicion.

Arrived at the frontiers of Poland, he flattered himself his troubles were at an end; but he reckoned without his host. "Your business in Poland ?" interrogated the officer.

"I really don't know, sir."

"Not know your own business, sir!" resumed the officer; "I must conduct you to the Starost."

"For the love of God," said the wearied traveller, "take pity on me. I have been imprisoned in Holland for being desirous to keep my own affairs to myself;-I have been confined all night in a French guard-house, for declaring myself a merchant ;-I have been compelled to ride seven miles behind a German dragoon, for professing myself a man of pleasure;-I have been carried fifty miles a prisoner in Prussia, for acknowledging my attachment to ease and good living;-I have been threatened with assassination in Saxony, for avowing myself a warrior. If you will have the goodness to let me know how I may render such an account of myself as not to give offence, I shall ever consider you as my friend and protector."

NOTES OF A READER.

THE POETRY OF LOVE.

LOVE is a passion with which all, in some degree, have been affected, and is doubtless universally interesting. In the following extracts from "The Poetry of Life," by Miss Stickney, Love is treated poetically-as the "connecting link be