sheriff to preach the assize sermon before the judges, and his request was granted. It was in the month of March, and the weather was intensely cold. The sermon was immensely long, and the Chief Baron most annoyingly chilled. When the service was over, the preacher descended from the pulpit, seemingly highly satisfied with his own performance, came to the judge rubbing his hands, full of the joyful expectation of thanks for his discourse, and gratulation for the excellence of its matter and delivery. “Well, my lord," says he, "how do you like the sermon ?" “Wonderfully, my dear friend," replied Yelverton; "it was like the peace of God-it passed all understanding; and, like his mercy, I thought it would have endured for ever." This jocular narrative was chilled by hearing Lord Kenyon, in an under-tone, pronounce the words "Very immoral."-From an Article in Fraser's Magazino, entitled “My Contemporaries."

to the crew, they feasted till the sport grew tiresome, and then Satan sunk the vessel and all on board.

Fian, or Cunningham, another of the conspirators, was also visited by the sharpest tortures, ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn from his fingers with smiths' pincers; pins were driven into the places which the nails usually defended; his knees were crushed in the boots, his finger bones were splintered in the pilniewinks. At length, his constancy, hitherto sustained, as the bystanders supposed, by the help of the devil, was fairly overcome, and he gave an account of a great witch-meeting at North Berwick, where they paced round the church withershinns, that is, in reverse of the motion of the sun. Fian then blew into the lock of the church door, whereupon the bolts gave way, the unhallowed crew entered, and their master the devil appeared to his servants in the shape of a black man occupying the pulpit. He was saluted with an "Hail, Master !" but the company were dissatisfied with his not having brought a KING JAMES AND THE WITCHES. picture of the king, repeatedly promised, which was to place his majesty at the mercy of this infernal crew. Satan conTHE general spite of Satan and his adherents was sup- cluded the evening with a divertisement and a dance after posed to be especially directed against James, on account of his own manner. The former consisted in disinterring a his match with Anne of Denmark—the union of a Protes-new-buried corpse, and dividing it into fragments among the tant princess with a Protestant prince, the King of Scotland, company, and the ball was maintained by well-nigh two and heir of England, being, it could not be doubted, an hundred persons, who danced a ring dance, singing this event which struck the whole kingdom of darkness with chantalarm. James was self-gratified by the unusual spirit which he had displayed on his voyage in quest of his bride, and well disposed to fancy that he had performed it in positive opposition, not only to the indirect policy of Elizabeth, but to the malevolent purpose of hell itself. His fleet had been tempest-tost, and he very naturally believed that the Prince of the Powers of the Air had been personally active on the

occasion.

The principal person implicated in these heretical and treasonable undertakings, was one Agnes Simpson, or Samson, called the Wise Wife of Keith, and described by Archbishop Spottiswood, not as one of the base or ignorant class of ordinary witches, but a grave matron, composed and deliberate in her answers, which were all to some purpose. This grave dame, from the terms of her indictment, seems to have been a kind of white witch, affecting to cure dis eases by words and charms, a dangerous profession, considering the times in which she lived. She was said to be principally engaged in an extensive conspiracy to destroy the fleet of the queen by raising a tempest; and to take the king's life by anointing his linen with poisonous materials, and by constructing figures of clay, to be wasted and tormented after the usual fashion of necromancy.

"Cummer, gang ye before; Cummer, gang ye, Gif ye will not gang before, Cummers, let me," After this choral exhibition, the music seems to have been rather imperfect, the number of dancers considered. Geillis Duncan was the only instrumental performer, and she played on a Jew's harp, called in Scotland a trump. Fian, muffled, led the ring, and was highly honoured, generally acting as clerk or recorder.

Dr.

King James was deeply interested in those mysterious meetings, and took great delight to be present at the examinations of the accused. He sent for Geillis Duncan, and caused her to play before him the same tune to which Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick churchyard. His ears were gratified in another way, for at this meeting it was said the witches demanded of the devil why he did bear such enmity against the king? who returned the flattering answer, that the king was the greatest enemy whom he had in the world.

Almost all these poor wretches were executed, nor did Euphane MacCalzean's station in life save her from the common doom, which was strangling to death, and burning to ashes thereafter. The majority of the jury which tried Barbara Napier, having acquitted her of attendance at the North Berwick meeting, were themselves threatened with a trial for wilful error upon an assize, and could only escape from severe censure and punishment by pleading guilty, and sub. mitting themselves to the king's pleasure. This rigorous and iniquitous conduct shows a sufficient reason why there should be so few acquittals from a charge of witchcraft, where the juries were so much at the mercy of the crown.

It would be disgusting to follow the numerous cases in which the same uniform credulity, the same extorted confessions, the same prejudiced and exaggerated evidence, con. cluded in the same tragedy at the stake and the pile. The alterations and trenching which lately took place for the purpose of improving the Castlehill of Edinburgh, displayed the ashes of the numbers who had perished in this manner, of whom a large proportion must have been executed between 1590, when the great discovery was made concerning Euphane MacCalzean, and the Wise Wife of Keith, and their accomplices, and the union of the crowns.-Sir W.

There was, besides, one Barbara Napier, alias Douglas, a person of some rank; Geillis Duncan, a very active witch, and about thirty other poor creatures of the lowest condition, -among the rest, and doorkeeper to the conclave, a silly old ploughman, called as his nickname Graymeal, who was cuffed by the devil for saying simply, "God bless the King!" When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey of his favourite game, they afforded the Privy Council and him sport for the greatest part of the remaining winter. He attended on the examinations himself, and by one means or other, they were indifferently well dressed to his palate. Agnes Samson, the grave matron before mentioned, after being an hour tortured by the twisting of a cord around her head, according to the custom of the Buccaneers, confessed that she had consulted with one Richard Grahame concerning the probable length of the king's life, and the means of shortening it. But Satan, to whom they at length resorted for advice, told them in French, respecting King James, Il est un homme de Dieu. The poor woman also Scott. acknowledged that she had held a meeting with those of her sisterhood, who had charmed a cat by certain spells, having four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the sea to excite a tempest. Another frolic they had, when, like the weird sisters in Macbeth, they embarked in sieves with much mirth and jollity, the Fiend rolling himself before them upon the waves, dimly seen, and resembling a huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of a foreign ship richly laded with wines, where, invisible

The music of this witch tune is unhappily lost. But that of an
other, believed to have been popular on such occasions, is preserved,
The silly bit chicken, gar cast her a pickle,
And she will grow mickle,
And she will do good.

Entryin ne parish register of Glammis, Scotland, June 16, 1676" Nae preaching here this Lord's day, the minister being at Gortachy burning a witch!"

JOHN CLY THE MILLER.

John Cly, the meal-miller of Tomore, a sturdy, hale, independent-minded old man of 75, has been singularly persecuted by floods, having suffered by that of 1768, and by three or four inundations since, but especially by that of 1783, when his house and mill were carried away, and he was left penniless. He was not a little affected by that cala. mity which fell upon him, and on no one else; but his indomitable spirit got the better of everything. About seven years ago, he undertook to improve a piece of absolute beach of two acres, entirely covered with enormous stones and gravel. But John knew that a deep rich soil lay below, buried there by the flood of 1768. He removed the stones with immense labour, formed them into a bulwark and enclosure round the field, trenched down the gravel to the depth of four or five feet, and brought up the soil, which afterwards produced most luxuriant crops. His neighbours ridiculed his operations while they were in progress, saying that he would never have a crop there. "Do ye see these ashen-trees?" said John, pointing to some vigorous saplings growing near, "are they no thriving " It was impossible to deny that they were. "Well," continued John, "if it wunna produce corn, I'll plant it wi' ash-trees, and the laird, at least, will hae the benefit." The fruits of all John's labours were swept away by the direful flood of the 3d of August. But pride of his heart, as this improve ment had been, the flood was not able to sweep away his equanimity and philosophy together with his acres. When some one condoled with him on his loss, "I took it frae the Awen," said he, with emphasis, "and let the Awen hae her ain again." And, when a gossiping tailor halted at his door one day, charitably to bewail his loss, he cut him short, by pithily remarking, "Well! if I have lost my croft, I have got a fish-pond in its place, where I can fish independent of any one." After the year 1783, he built his house on a rock, that shewed itself from under the soil at the base of the bank, bounding the glen of the burn. During the late flood, the water was dashing up at his door, and his sister, who is older than he, having expressed great terror, and proposed they should both fly for it; "What's the woman afeard o'?" cried John, impatiently, "hae we not baith the rock o' nature and the Rock of Ages to trust till?

-We'll no stir one fit !" John's first exertions after the

watch, and his fiddle, on the strings of which hung many a
tender recollection. That fiddle, the dulcet strains of which
had come over her "like the sweet south breathing upon a
bed of violets," stealing the tender affections of her virgin
heart, till they all centred on her Orpheus, Mr. James
Shanks; that fiddle, to the sprightly notes of which she
had so often jerked out her youthful limbs, and whirled. -
round in the wild pirouette of the Highland fling, to the
animating tune of Bogan-Lochan; that fiddle, infine,
which had been the fiddle of her fancy, from the heyday of
her youth upwards, "was gone with the water, and was
now, for aught she knew to the contrair, in Norrawa or
Denmark?" The grief of Mrs. Shanks for the loss of this
valued violin was more than I shall attempt 40 paint
Great artists often envelope the heads of their chief mourners
in drapery, from a conscious inability to do justice to tha
passion, and so must I hide the lachrymose head of Mrsk
Shanks. And how indeed shall I describe her joy, some days -
afterwards, when an idle loon, who had been wandering
about the banks of the river "findin' things," as he said
himself, appeared before her astonished and delighted eyes,
The yell of Mrs.
with the identical fiddle in his hands?
Shanks was said, by those who heard it, to resemble the
wild shriek with which her husband was wont to inspire
additional fury into the heels of the dancers, already excited
by the power of his wonderful bow hand. She kissed and
hugged the fiddle, and, as if its very contact had music in it,
she laid hands on the astonished loon, and went a full round
of the floor with him, ending with a fling that surprised
The fiddle had been found in the neighbourhood
every one.
of Arndilly, whither it had merrily floated on the bosom of
the waves. But what was yet infinitely more extraordi-
nary, the watch, which had hung in a small bag, suspended
by a nail to the post of her bed, was found,-watch, bag,
post, and all,— -near Fochabers, eight or ten miles below,
and was safely restored to its overjoyed owner.-Sir Thomas
Dick Lauder's Moray Floods.

SCENE IN THE BATHS OF LEUK, AMONG THE ALPS Bearing in mind the advice of Hippocrates. "Bathe no, before eating, and cat not before bathing," about an hour after dinner we went to "do at Rome as Rome does," namely, to immerse ourselves in the warm baths. Equipped in the ample folds of a linen dress, we made our appearance flood, was to go down to Ballindalloch, to assist the Laird in public that is to say, in the watery lounge. The scene in his distress. There he worked hard for three days, bewas as novel as it was, to our unaccustomed eyes, grotesfore Mr. Grant discovered that he had left his own haystack que. Without the slightest blush of indecorum; it was ir buried to the top in sand, and insisted on his going home resistibly ludicrous; and we were constrained to indulge - to disinter it. When Mr. Grant talked to him of his cala- in laughter for some moments before we could calmly scan mity, "Odd, sir," said he, "I dinna regard this matter the individual features of the picture which caused our hauf sae muckle as I did that slap i' the aughty-three, for mirth; we, in our turn, furnished some good-natured then I was, in a manner, a marked man. Noo we're a' amusement to those around us. In the floor of a large sufferin' thegither, an' I'm but neighbour-like." Mr. Grant furnished apartment were four baths, each about twelva says that the people of this district bear misfortunes with feet square, and three or four feet deep. In these baths rea wonderful degree of philosophy, arising from the circum-clined groups of ladies and gentlemen, attired in similar stance of their being deeply tinged with the doctrine of pre- dresses to those in which we were habited. Little Avooden destination. I was much gratified by my interview with trays, bearing reticules, work-baskets, &c., and readinghonest John Cly. Whilst I was sketching him unperceived, desks, were floating about on the surface of the water. Mr. Grant was doing his best to occupy his attention. Some of the parties were chatting or telling stories; others "Well, now, John," said Mr. Grant to him, pointing to an singing; and many of the ladies were prettily occupied in apparently impracticable beach of stones a little way up some little article of female employment, or wreathing the glen, if you had improved that piece, as I advised you, chaplets of half faded Alpine flowers, the waters rekindling it would have been safe still, for you see the burn hasn't their hues to freshness; but the colours, though bright, touched it at all."-" Na, fegs!" replied John, with a most were far outshone by the rosy complexions of the fair em significant shake of his head, "gin I had gruppit her in ployées, which the effect of the bath heightened into une wi' the stanes that cam oot o't whaur wad she hae been wonted beauty. On the floor were a few persons conversing noo, think ye ?-Odd, I kent her ower lang." with their friends below, and one or two attendants swinging pans of charcoal, to keep the air of the same temperature as the water; while on a platform, above, was a pump, by which fresh water was occasionally supplied to the baths. A few inches from the bottom a ledge runs round the bath, which enables the bather either to be recumbent on the water up to his chin, or to sit upright, in which latter posi tion it reaches only to his neck. There are also moveable seats in the baths Two passages, into which the water flows, leads from each compartment, and it is the custom for ladies and gentlemen, in proceeding to their respective dressing-rooms, to glide or sail through the door, into this **=

There are several tragic scenes of death and danger, and "moving accidents by flood and field," which we should gladly transcribe did our limits permit, but we must content ourselves with one more quotation-a ludicrous aecount of

WIDOW SHANKS'S ADVENTURES.

1

The haugh above the bridge of Lower Craigellachie was very much cut up; and the house and nursery at the south end of the arch are, gone. The widow of James Shanks, amidst the loss of her furniture, house, and her son's gardenground, lamented nothing so much as her deceased husband's

passage, before rising from the water. The dressing-rooms are heated by stoves, and are tolerably comfortable. With regard to the period of time passed in the bath, on their first arrival, half an hour is deemed sufficient; next day, perhaps, an hour; and, in the course of a short time, they are able to bear immersion for nine or ten hours per diem, not only with impunity, but, as they assured me, with signal advantage. The extreme relaxation of the skin which it produces has a marked effect in relieving the complaints that are subjected to its influence. These are principally cutaneous disorders and chronic affections. In England, where warm bathing is not so much a part of domestic luxury as it is in some other countries-I may be allowed to say not so much as, for the good of society, it ough to beif a physician were to propose to a patient to spend from eight to ten hours a day for three, or it may be six weeks in a bath, at 100 degrees, he would probably find his practice less benefited than his patient by the advice It may indeed be doubted whether an English constitution could bear so exhausting a system, in its full extent, in this climate.Aurora Borealis.

THE DRAMA.

In the forthcoming number of the Westminster Review, there is an excellent paper on Dramatic Literature, in which the causes of its decline in this country are traced to the system of monopoly and censureship, which has long shed its baleful influence over our Drama. The wonder is, not that under the shackles with which it is loaded, our Dramatic Literature is in a declining state, but that it has not been altogether extinguished. The Reviewer remarks, that

chalked on a board, served to indicate the capital of France, and a blanket was a sufficient drop-scene. Some personation there doubtless was, and also some elocution, but probably in no very high degree of perfection. The grand object of the audience was the genius of the writer. In a small cabin, crowded liberately uttered, the play stood or fell by the ideas announced. with noted persons, where every word was heard as it was deNow, on the contrary, ideas are sought in books, by the fireside, or on the sofa, through the medium of the convenient duodecimo. Be it fair or foul, be the reader near or distant from the theatre, be his horses sick or lame, or be he too poor, or too rich, or too great to go to a theatre, the ideas of our moderu men of genius are always at his command. In this manner, poetry, and imagination generally, have become surplusage in the drama: and they are consequently oftener left out than recited. Half the legitimate drama' is omitted in performance, has never been patenteed; and in consequence, we possess our and only that retained which concerns action. Poetry, luckily, Miltons, our Popes, our Scotts, and Byrons. The drama, like the peerage, has been handed down in particular lines, till the House of Peers, and the House of Players, have come to be in a similar state of decrepitude.

"One striking abomination in all monopoly is, that it destroys the natural elasticity of social institutions. To establish a monopoly is to put an infant's foot into a small iron boot :as the flesh grows the boot pinches. When the evil increases to the magnitude that demands attention, therre is a consultation had, how the pain is to be diminished and the iron still kept on. Some say a little hole should be bored about the region of the great toe, others recommend that the iron be ribbed, and others that joints be constructed in the sole, so that the foot shall have a beautiful quasi-natural play. But flinging the iron to the bottom of the sex, and either walking with a free and naked step, or protecting the limb with a covering of pliant leather,—is far too rash and dangerous a measure for safe and prudent charac-standing, appeal might be made to the minutes of examination

ters.

“This iron-binding quality of monopoly has been the grand cause of the complaint and confusion. Had the legitimate drama been left to itself, at this moment we should have abounded both in good plays and good actors. We might possibly have had a Shakespeare in every reign since that of the virgin queen. At any rate, there would have been men who could please their age, and who were as much qualified to satisfy the public taste as any other professors of fine arts or literature.

"Had the legitimate drama been more strictly preserved,' the state of things would have been much worse than it is; but monopolies never do all the mischief possible. The very guardians of legitimacy have built houses in which illegitimacy alone could flourish; and the minor theatres being legally excluded from the classical drama, took to what they could get up in compliance with the public taste. The result is, a great deal of splendour in our theatres, fine scene-painting, fine exhibition of all kinds, even to good personal exhibition, that is, personation, play of countenance, action, costume, and all that serves to keep efforts; for this reason, that they were aiming at the nominal up illusion. The authors have not, however, seconded these object of admiration, the legitimate drama, that is, the drama full of poetry, full of that which told at the Globe and the Bull. The proof of this is in the fact that no tragedy of the legitimate drama, ancient or modern, is ever acted as it is written; half or more is obliged to be left out, because the authors were not thinking of the stage as it is, but as it was. The author of a good play is quite a different person from the author of a good poem; yet it is always expected that a great poet should produce a good play. Acting under this persuasion, Scott, Byron, Moore, and perhaps Campbell, have tried and failed. Whereas, such a writer, or rather doer, as Mr. Jerrold, has carried the whole town before him. If evidence were wanting to prove that the really successful dramatists of the day, are an order of men not characterised by what is ordinarily considered as underbefore the committee. In a direct proportion to their celebrity, are they absurd, illogical, and ridiculous. The players beat the authors in every point of view. The player has been less ironshod than the author; emancipate the drama, and we shall soon see men who understand their business. There have been good actors under every disadvantage; under obloquy, under monopoly, under the fact of its being an unrequiting profession; a fortiori, there will be good actors under a state of things relieved from all these trammels. The very contrary, however, is feared by the greater part of the dramatic witnesses here examined; as in so many other matters it is supposed the cottage cannot stand if the ivy be taken away, though it is proved the parasite entertains moisture, encourages vermin, and in fact is eating into the very elements of strength. Let the profession become remunerative and steady in its demand, and there will be a rush of students towards it; their conduct will be ruled by the regularity of their gains, and the respectability of the class will rise with its responsibility. Actors will no more decrease because of the number of theatres, than corn because of an increase of corn-markets. They might at first, perhaps, be somewhat dispersed; but the corps would be quickly filled up with able volunteers, when placed on a proper footing. It is impudently alleged, that the public will spoil the taste of the actors, if admitted to view them in un-ruined and un-patented abodes. The public, however, has always been a fair judge of merit, and the patentee people have never done more than follow the public's lead, and not always that.

"When the legitimate drama arose, there was a closer union between poetry and personation than there is now or ever will be again. At that time a drama stood for much more than it does at present; it was novel, poem, and play. Besides, there were few other sources of intellectual entertainment. The play was not merely poem and novel, but it was also review, magazine, voyage and travel. Theology alone divided attention with it in the way of literature. And theology is now-a-days amply represented by seriousness,' called in the report sectarianism." So that the drama no longer reigns over a wide domain, but has been, by modern changes, like the German princes, virtually med afized. Had there been no monopoly, the department of the drama which remains with all its force, viz. personation and exhibition, would have taken more complete possession of the stage than it has done, and in fact been much more developed. Authors and actors having been hampered by their superstitious veneration for the legitimate,' have gone upon the old model till they have wearied the public to the uttermost stretch of ennai; while personation and exhibition, taken up as a despised succedaneum for some great unknown, have had to strug-muneration, and relieve them from the idea of perpetually aimgle with all kinds of discountenance and discouragement. Thus the drama, like many other things, has fallen between two stools the old excellence and the new.

"The case of authors is not less plain. Give them proper re

ing at the legitimate drama, and there will be a conflux of good dramatists in every reign. Give them a law of copyright as in France; so that an author and all his posterity, shall enjoy a small advantage from every representation of his play for an extensive period. Then dramatic authors would be not only men of dramatic genius, but approved citizens of un educated and esteemed class.

THE WAITS.

If there ever be a time in which the floating visions that lie about us, of some dim, pre-existing, happier and purer state of being, seem something more than a dream, it is when one is slowly awakened from a sound, healthful sleep, and languishes, as it were, into blissful life, under the melodies of those relics of the wandering minstrels, and of old manners and pastimes, the Waits. But the Waits do not restrict their music to the sleeping hours. They are, in most small towns, the voluntary attendants on strangerspresumed bountiful-and on newly-married couples. Christmas, and the New Year is, however, their high-tide. For a few weeks before they humbly request to be "remembered," they parade the streets towards morning; and also for a short time afterwards; thus ushering in, and taking a lingering farewell of the annual season of festivity. No one has looked deeper, and more wisely, into the heart of our old hallowed customs and usages than the poet Wordsworth. The verses addressed to his brother on the Waits, are poetry, philosophy, and kindliness combined.

"

THE CHRISTMAS WAITS.

The Minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling Laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.
And who but listened?-till was paid
Respect to every inmate's claim;
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And merry Christmas" wished to all!

O Brother! I revere the choice
That took thee from thy native hills;
And it is given thee to rejoice:
Though public care full often tills
(Heaven only witness of the toil),
A barren and ungrateful soil.

Yet, would that Thou, with me and mine,
Hadst heard this never-failing rite;
And seen on other faces shine

A true revival of the light;

Which Nature, and these rustic Powers,

In simple childhood, spread through ours!
For pleasure hath not ceased to wait
On these expected annual rounds,
Whether the rich man's sumptuous gate
Call forth the unelaborate sounds,
Or they are offered at the door
That guards the lowliest of the poor..
How touching, when at midnight, sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear-and sink again to sleep!
Or at an earlier call, to mark,
By blazing fire, the still suspense

Of self-complacent innocence;

The mutual nod,the grave disguise

Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er;
And some unbidden tears that rise.

For names once heard, and heard no more;
Tears brightened by the serenade
For infant in the cradle laid!

Ah! not for emerald fields alone, 117
With ambient streams more pure and bright
Than fabled Cytherea's zone

Glittering before the Thunderer's sight,
Is to my heart of hearts endeared,
The ground where we were born and reared!

Hail, ancient Manners! sure defence,
Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
Remnants of love, whose modest sense
Thus into narrow room withdraws;
Hail, Usages of pristine mould,
And ye, that guard them, Mountains old!
Bear with me, Brother! quench the thought,
That slights this passion, or condemns;
If thee fond fancy ever brought
From the proud margin of the Thames,..
And Lambeth's venerable towers,

To humbler streams, and greener bowers.
Yes, they can make, who fail to find,
Short leisure even in busiest days;
Moments to cast a look behind,
And profit by those kindly rays

That through the clouds do sometimes steal,
And all the far-off Past reveal.

Hence, while the Imperial City's din
Beats frequent on thy satiate ear,

A pleased attention I may win
To agitations less severe,
That neither overwhelm nor cloy,
But fill the hollow vale with joy!

SUPERSTITIONS OF THE WELSH.-The Welsh, speaking generally, are highly superstitious, and, amidst scenery wild and imposing, rigidly tenacious moreover of the traditionary lore inherited from their ancestors so that their very being is incorporated with divers strange fantasies handed down from father to son, preserved with religious veneration, and influencing their imaginations more or less according to the caprice, the temperament, or the locality of the individual. Like all secluded mountaineers, whose intercourse with the world is limited to a narrow commu nication necessary for mere existence, they impate natural effects to more than natural causes, and the sunshine and the storm, the whirlwind and the flood, are often attributed to the kind or baneful influence of the good or evil spiritof the mischievous elf or the good natured fairy. Thus, in the pastoral counties of Carnarvon and Merioneth (and these are now the most secluded districts in the principa lity,) there is scarcely a glen or a wood, a mountain, or a dingle, a rock or a ravine, that has not its due quantity of fairies and spirits; and every nook of this rude upland dis trict, which has hitherto been but little accessible to the innovating approaches of civilization, can boast of wo scanty number of supernatural inhabitants.-Westminster Review. Article "Cambrian Superstition."

HIGH-EARED RACE OF MEN,-M. Dureaude Lamalle has made out the strongest evidence in proof of the exist ence of a distinct variety of the human race, characterized by the position of their ears. Not only, as they are repres sented in the Memnonium, and other Egyptian statues and coins, were the old Egypto-Caucasians remarkable for their or high ears, but in more than forty mummies which were unrolled and examined by M. de Lamalle, at Turin, the auricular foramen, which, drawing a horizontal line, is placed in us on a level with the inferior part of the nose, was in these examples found to be on a level with the middle of the eye. The elevation, as measured, amounted to a full inch and a half. The facial angle was at the same time found equal to that of Europeans, but the temporal region much more depressed than in our variety. Nor does it appear that the high-eared race is extinct: there are instances of it among the people of Upper Egypt at this day; and indeed there is in Paris at present a teacher of Arabic, a Copt of Upper Egypt, who is possessed of this conforma tion in a most decided degree.-Medical Gazette,