crowned with an immense plume of black feathers, which bending before him, gave him very much the aspect of a mourning coach horse. Barret had some vanity and some judgment; he was fond of applause, and determined (to use his own phrase) to have a belly-full. He accordingly came on left hand upper entrance, and cutting the boards at a right angle, paced down to the stage-door right hand, then wheeled sharp upon his heel, and marched over to the opposite side; his arms stuck a-kimbo, his robe flying, and his feathers nodding, in pretty accurate burlesque of the manner of Mossop. His friends composing a major portion of the audience, the clapping of hands, waving of handkerchiefs, and yelling of lips that greeted him, I, having no powers of expression to describe, must leave to my reader's powers of conception." When the tumult had a little subsided, Barret began to act; but some of his more intimate anquaintance, taking a dislike to his costume, interrupted him with exclamations of "Paddy Barret, Paddy Barret!" Barret, however, was conscious of the proprieties of his station, and, turning a dignified deaf ear to such addresses, proceeded. His friends now resorted to a species of notice to obtain his, which is beautifully peculiar to an Irish audience-"a groan for Mr. BarThat happened, however, not to be the first time he had heard it; and as we pay little respect to things we are familar with, Barret proceeded. The "darlings" were now stimulated to a decisive measure, by aiming an Irish apricot at his nodding plume, and shouting out, "Divil burn ye, Paddy Barret! will ye lave off spaking to that lady, and listen?" The potato triumphed; and the actor, walking forward to the lamps, desired to be acquainted with his patrons' wishes."Put some powder in your jasey, you black-looking coal haver!"-"Oh! is that all you want, my jewel? why didn't you say so before? Put some powder in my wig! surely I'll do that thing; but I have ounly to tell you, my darlings, that I'm a Scotch jontleman to-night, and not Mr. Benjamin Barret; and so"Get out wid your dirtiness, Paddy-you chimneyswaper-you tragedy crow! ret." Do you think to bother us wid your black looks? Go and powder your jasey, you divil's own body-box-maker.""Oh, to be sure, I'll do that thing." Saying which, he made a low bow, and retreated to the green-room, leaving the audience and Lord and Lady Randolph to amuse i. e. Undertaker. themselves ad interim as they pleased. Barret on this occasion wore a stifflystarched lady's ruff; and the waggish barber powdered him so sufficiently as to lodge a ridge round his throat, and give him the face of the ghost of Hamlet's father. When he returned to the stage, he was received with a shout of laughter that threatened to rend the roof. Paddy bowed full low for the honour conferred on him, and was about to proceed, when the "Norman Quay" critics were at him again. "Arrah! the boy's been in a snow storm. By the powers! he has put his head in a flour-sack! Paddy, Paddy Barret!" Glenalvon disregarded them sometime with a very laudable spirit of contempt, till the yells, groans, epithets, and exclamations, swelled the diabolic chorus to a negation of the sense of hearing. He then came forward a second time to inquire their wishes. "Leedies and Jontlemen, what may it plase ye to want now?" Put some paint on your nose,' was the reply.— What!""Put some paint on your nose, you ghost alive!"-"Paint_my nose to play tragedy! Oh, bad luck to your taste! I tell you what, Terence M Mulligun, and you, Larry Casey, with your two ugly mugs up in the boxes yonder, I see how it is: the Divil himself wouldn't plase ye to-night; so you may just come down and play the karakter yourselves for the ghost of another line will I never spake to-night."Saying which, he took off his wig, and shaking its powder at them contemptuously, walked off the stage in a truly tragical strut. The prompter was consequently obliged to come on and read the remainder of the part. THE SIX-BOTTLE MEN." I VISITED a "six-bottle club" but once, and from the headach it cost me, was wise enough ever afterwards to decline. an encore: but I remember very well being invited to one which held its orgies at a sea-side hamlet, and was very generally attended, with the following highly cheerful inducements: "Will you come over to us, Mr. Bur-nard, for a wake? You'll be mightily plased with the fillows you'll mate there, and plinty of variety: for one Sunday night you'll see as merry a set of divils round the table as your heart could desire; and the nixt, more than half will be under the sod, and a set of frish faces will pop into their places. Will you come, Mr. Bur-nard? "" THE WRONG LEG. AMYAS GRIFFITHS was deformed both in his back and legs, which procured him from many the title of the modern Æsop. One evening he was rattling and "sparkling away, with the least crooked leg of the two thrown over the other (a piece of pardonable policy), when the conversation happened to turn upon dancing. A wag in company, who knew his good humour, asked him "if he was fond of the amusement?". "Yes," he replied, "and mean to subscribe to the winter-balls.". "What! with that leg?"-" Ay, with this leg; and, notwithstanding your sneering, I'll bet you a rump and dozen, there's a worse leg in the room. "Done, done!" cried a dozen voices. Amyas shook the hands of each. "Now," said his antagonist, with a smile of confidence, "come forward, gentlemen, and let Mr. Griffiths point out such another limb as that.""Here it is," he re plied; and throwing off his left leg, raised his right in the air, immeasurably more hideous that the other. A general laugh was the result, and the society decided he had fairly won his wager. ON A BRUTAL MANAGER, NAMED SHEP- and Wat Tyler?" the audience laughed loudly, and turned their eyes upon Captain Wat Tyler in the boxes. Cherry was known to be in the habit of introducing jokes of his own; and the gallant officer concluding this to be such a one, left his seat when the act was over, and went behind the scenes, where he desired Dick Row, our prompter, to let him look at the book. He was greatly agitated, and Row in an instant surmised the cause. "Sir," said he, as the captain turned over the leaves hurriedly, his face burning, and throat choking with indignation, "Mr. Cherry spoke the author." -"Indeed, sir!" replied the son of Mars; "I'm afraid not, sir-I'm afraid not; and by St. Patrick and the seven holy stars! if he dared to-I-eh-" At this moment he had found the right place, and the words met his eye: his features instantly relaxed into a comical smile, and, looking at Row, he exclaimed, “ By the powers! there's two of us, sure enough! Mr. Cherry, sir, was correct, this intrusion:" saying which he reand I beg you ten thousand pardins for turned the book, made an elegant bow, and retreated. The Naturalist. THE SHIP-WORM. I here MR. CARPENTER (in Gill's Repository,) relates the following very curious particulars of these destructive little creatures:--Alarming as the depredations finitely short of the dangerous ravages of white ants appear, yet they fall inmade on the timbers of ships, &c., by various species of sea-worms. with send several portions of ship timber, which has been perforated by one particular species, teredo navalis ; ber of pieces that every part of the inyou will observe among the whole numterior has been excavated by these animals. I wish to direct your attention to one of the pieces in particular, it being part of the false keel of a ship. The whole of the keel was perforated throughout in a similar manner to this piece. You will observe numerous minute openings on the under side, which were made by the animals whilst in their young state, in order to work their way into the interior; and, as they increased in size, they enlarged or scooped out their dwellings; the wood which they thus scooped out, serving them as food. They are also provided with two singular organs, by one of which they draw through the holes they made at the entrance into the timber, the seawater, in which they find animalculæ which serve as their nourishment; the other organ is used by the animal to convey away the waste fluid through their intestinal canal, and which fluid carries off with it the portions of the wood, after the animals have extracted those virtues from it which are necessary for their sustenance. This destructive animal is in general, when full grown, from four to six inches in length, of a grey colour, and about the thickness of the middle finger. It is covered with a very thin cylindrical and smooth shell, and has two calcareous hemispherical jaws, flat before, and angular behind. Great numbers of these worms, which are supposed to have been introduced from India into Europe, are, as before observed, found in the sides and bottoms of ships, so much so, indeed, as often to endanger them! It is said that our vessels never suffered from these enemies till within the last century, and that we imported them from the sea about the Antilles. In the year 1730, the inhabitants of the United Provinces were under serious alarm concerning these worms, which had made dreadful depredations in the piles that support the banks of many parts of those coasts. One of the persons who had the care of the Dutch coasts at that time, observed, to his astonishment, that some of the timbers were, in the course only of a few months, made so full of holes, that they could be beaten in pieces with the least force. The perforations, when the mud was scraped off, did not appear much larger than to admit a pin's head to be thrust into them. A very thin piece of whalebone being put into one of these, would enter straight forward for three or four lines, and the holes then generally for some distance farther proceeded upwards. One of the piles being split lengthwise with a hatchet or wedge, was found full of passages, or hollow cylindrical ducts, each of which contained a worm, enclosed in a kind of testaceous tube or covering, of a white colour, which it exactly filled, but in such a manner as to be able to move with freedom. This tube was found straight or bent, according to the form of that part of the hole where the animal was employed. The holes at the outer surface were very narrow, but increased in width within, evidently as the worm increased in size. They were never found to run into each other, but all to proceed separately. It was happily discovered, a few years afterwards, that these creatures had totally abandoned these coasts. Thus a contemptible worm, multiplying beyond its usual limits, is capable of destroying the most boasted efforts of human industry! No contrivance has yet been suggested by human ingenuity that has been found fully sufficient to prevent the formidable ravages of these animals. When Professor Thunberg was in Japan, he observed the manner in which the Japanese contrived to preserve their vessels against the ravages of this destructive worm. This was, simply to drag them on the strand, and burn the sides of them as high as the water usually reached, till they were well covered with a coat of charcoal. The head of this creature is well prepared for the office of boring, being coated with a strong armour, and furnished with two sharp instruments, by means of which it scoops out the wood. The neck is provided also with muscles of great strength. It is very minute when it first issues from the egg; but, as before observed, grows to the length of near six inches. This tribe of animals generally act gregariously, and take especial care not to interfere with each other's cells or habitations; externally, the opening is scarcely visible; but when they have committed their depredations, on taking off a layer of the plank, the whole of the interior exhibits a honey-comb appearance, and is generally entirely destroyed. some sense, this tribe may be said to co-operate at sea with the labours of the termites fatales, or white ants, on land. While, however, it commits enormous mischief on the labours of the shipwright, it also effectually removes those obstructions in rivers, and even in many parts of the ocean itself, which would otherwise ensue from such immense quantities of trees as are often washed down by rapid torrents from the mountains, and which would otherwise remain in a state of perfect preservation under water for centuries. THE GNAT. In THE wings you will find ornamented with a fringe of feathers or scales, as are also the ribs of the wings. The wings, when viewed as transparent objects, present a most interesting spectacle; but when viewed under the opaque speculum, and placing a black ground behind them, they present to the eye of the observer the most splendid colours, equalling some of the most brilliant specimens of minerals! The horns are also fine objects, so also are the head, eyes, and legs; in short there is no part of this insect but is highly interesting in the examination! Every part of it is profusely ornamented with scales or feathers, varying in their characters from each other, according to the part from whence they are taken. Each of these deserves minute inspection under the microscope, in order to discover the beauties with which this insect is adorned.-Gill's Repository. The Selector; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. THERE is so much attractive reading both new and old, in this volume of the Family Library, that we would rather take an evening or two before we fully introduce it to the reader. In the meantime we extract two narratives related by Sir Walter : Of the friend by whom the facts were attested, I can only say, that if I found myself at liberty to name him, the rank which he holds in his profession, as well as his attainments in science and philosophy, form an undisputed claim to the most implicit credit. It was the fortune of this gentleman to be called in to attend the illness of a person now long deceased, who in his life-time stood, as I understand, high in a particular department of the law, which often placed the property of others at his discretion and control, and whose conduct, therefore, being open to public observation, he had for many years borne the character of a man of unusual steadiness, good sense, and integrity. He was, at the time of my friend's visits, confined principally to his sickroom, sometimes to bed, yet occasionally attending to business, and exerting his mind, apparently with all its usual strength and energy, to the conduct of important affairs intrusted to him; nor did there, to a superficial observer, appear any thing in his conduct, while so engaged, that could argue vacillation of intellect, or depression of mind. His outward symptoms of malady argued no acute or alarming disease. But slowness of pulse, absence of appetite, difficulty of digestion, and constant depression of spirits, seemed to draw their origin from some hidden cause, which the patient was determined to conceal. The deep gloom of the unfortunate gentleman-the embarrassment, which he could not conceal from his friendly physician- the briefness and obvious constraint with which he answered the interrogations of his medical adviser,' induced my friend to take other methods for prosecuting his inquiries. He applied to the sufferer's family, to learn, if possible, the source of that secret grief which was gnawing the heart and suck. ing the life-blood of his unfortunate patient. The persons applied to, after conversing together previously, denied all knowledge of any cause for the burden which obviously affected their relative. So far as they knew-and they thought they could hardly be deceivedhis worldly affairs were prosperous; no family loss had occurred which could be followed with such persevering distress; no entanglements of affection could be supposed to apply to his age, and no sensation of severe remorse could be consistent with his character. The medical gentleman had finally recourse to serious argument with the invalid himself, and urged to him the folly of devoting himself to a lingering and melancholy death, rather than tell the subject of affliction which was thus wasting him. He specially pressed upon him the injury which he was doing to his own character, by suffering it to be inferred that the secret cause of his dejection and its consequences, was something too scandalous or flagitious to be made known, bequeathing in this manner to his family a suspected and dishonoured name, and leaving a memory with which might be associated the idea of guilt, which the criminal had died without confessing. The patient, more moved by this species of appeal than by any which had yet been urged, expressed his desire to speak out frankly to Dr. Every one else was removed, and the door of the sick-room made secure, when he began his confession in the following manner:-"You cannot, my dear friend, be more conscious than I, that I am in the course of dying under the oppression of the fatal disease which consumes my vital powers; but neither can you understand the nature of my complaint, and manner in which it acts upon me, nor, if you did, I fear, could your zeal and skill avail to rid me of it." "It is possible," said the physician," that my skill may not equal my wish of serving you; yet medical science has many resources, of which those unacquainted with its powers never can form an estimate. But until you plainly tell me your symptoms of complaint, it is impossible for either of us to say what may or may not be in my power, or within that of medicine." "I may answer you," replied the patient, "that my case is not a singular one, since we read of it in the famous novel of Le Sage. You remember, doubtless, the disease of which the Duke d'Olivarez is there stated to have died ?" "Of the idea," answered the medical gentleman, "that he was haunted by an apparition, to the actual existence of which he gave no credit, but died, nevertheless, because he was overcome and heart-broken by its imaginary presence." "I, my dearest doctor," said the sick man," am in that very case; and so painful and abhorrent is the presence of the persecuting vision that my reason is totally inadequate to combat the effects of my morbid imagination, and I am sensible I am dying, a wasted victim to an imaginary disease." The medical gentleman listened with anxiety to his patient's statement, and for the present judiciously avoiding any contradiction of the sick man's preconceived fancy, contented himself with more minute inquiry into the nature of the apparition with which he conceived himself haunted, and into the history of the mode by which so singular a disease had made itself master of his imagination, secured, as it seemed, by strong powers of the understanding, against an attack so irregular. The sick person replied by stating that its advances were gradual, and at first not of a terrible or even disagreeable character. To illustrate this, he gave the following account of the progress of his disease :-"My visions," he said, " commenced two or three years since, when I found myself from time to time embarrassed by the presence of a large cat, which came and disappeared I could not exactly tell how, till the truth was finally forced upon me, and I was compelled to regard it as no domestic household cat, but as a bubble of the elements, which had no existence, save in my deranged visual organs, or depraved imagination. Still I had not that positive objection to the animal entertained by a late gallant Highland chieftain, who has been seen to change to all the colours of his own plaid, if a cat, by accident happened to be in the room with him, even though he did not see it. On the contrary, I am rather a friend to cats, and endured with so much equanimity the presence of my imaginary attendant, that it had become almost indifferent to me; when within the course of a few months it gave place to, or was succeeded by, a spectre of a more important sort, or which at least had a more imposing appearance. This was no other than the apparition of a gentleman-usher, dressed as if to wait upon a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a Lord High Commissioner of the Kirk, or any other who bears on his brow the rank and stamp of delegated sovereignty. This personage, arrayed in a court dress, with bag and sword, tamboured waistcoat, and chapeau-bras, glided beside me like the ghost of Beau Nash; and whether in my own house or in another, ascended the stairs before me, as if to announce me in the drawing-room; and at some times appeared to mingle with the company, though it was sufficiently evident that they were not aware of his presence, and that I alone was sensible of the visionary honours which this imaginary being seemed desirous to render me. This freak of the fancy did not produce much impression on me, though it led me to entertain doubts on the nature of my disorder, and alarm for the effect it might produce upon my intellects. But that modification of my disease also had its appointed duration. After a few months, the phantom of the gentleman.usher was seen no more, but was succeeded by one horrible to the sight, and distressing to the imagination, being no other than the image of death itself-the apparition of a skeleton. Alone, or in company," said the unfortunate invalid, "the presence of this last phantom never quits me. I in vain tell myself a hundred times over that it is no reality, but merely an image summoned up by the morbid acuteness of my own excited imagination, and deranged organs of sight. But what avail such reflections, while the emblem at once and presage of mortality is before my eyes, and while I feel myself, though in fancy only, the companion of a phantom representing a ghastly inhabitant of the grave, even while I yet breathe on the earth? Science, philosophy, even religion, has no cure for such a disorder; and I feel too surely that I shall die the victim to so melancholy a disease, although I have no belief whatever in the reality of the phantom which it places before me." The physician was distressed to perceive, from these details how strongly this visionary apparition was fixed in the imagination of his patient. He ingeniously urged the sick man, who was then in bed, with questions concerning the circumstances of the phantom's appearance, trusting he might lead him, as a sensible man, into such contradictions and inconsistencies |