where got they it, gudewife?" demanded my friend | who, long before the lark was abroad this morntriumphantly. ing, was on her way to Edinburgh, with her "Deed, gudeman, ye have overly mony ques-butter and eggs, in that same basket, made by tions for a simple body like me. I wish ye binna the blind old soldier, in which she now carries back like our Rob there's ower mony of your kind some trios of Imitation Finnans, as good as the real, in the warld, at this same time. Where should and three yards of bobbin net, which she wonders the auld Buccleuchs get their heritage and their the weaver could work at låd., or rather her wise prey, but as Jacob did,-wi' their sword, and wi' mother, a political economist, wonders; for Phemie their bow!" only guesses how it will look in Borthwick Kirk on This ingenious Scriptural parrying of the ques- Sabbath, under the bit of pink twopenny ribbon, tion amused my botanical neighbour and me not a garlanding her face-fair though freckled-the little; though it evidently excited the contempt nearest landmark I can give you to the homestead of our honest man of meal, who took a persevering of Phemie, is the Shank, on before us, about two pinch of "The Chancellor," and looked rather at miles, on that gradually rising ground, and almost fault. I diverted the discourse into the different the centre object,-the old howlet-haunted biggin channels of the rich flat valley through which we of the "bloody Mackenzie" of persecuted Scotland now rolled, veined with rail-ways, branching off, the true high-priest of tyrany-conscienceless, right and left, to the several coal-works-to remorseless; but a man of fine taste withalEdmonstone, Newton, "Sir John's," &c. &c. The full of graceful amenities!—in the refinements of hay harvest was in full luxuriance around us, a life much in advance of his age, of which he was richer mining harvest below; and sometimes the the thorough-bred Tory Attorney-General and apparition of a "bonny bruckit lassie" crossed Chief Justice. The lime-tree avenues, bowlingour line of vision-till we obtained a glimpse of green, and desolation of the ancient garden, the neat, clean, pretty town of Dalkeith, where a surrounding these ruins of a "blood-cemented popular canvass was going forward on this day- house," are worth going to see some day that the first in the memory of man!-and that you make a waggon excursion,-but not to-day. too with the odds of burgher against Duke! But When you do go, do not fail to have pointed out we have no taste for politics.-At the crossing to you the ruined cottage that was once that of of the Dalkeith road we dropped a quantity of Grahame's Kilgour. Contrast the peasant's repuour live lumber, besides matron and meal-monger, | tation, as it survives in the honest page of the and in a few minutes had reached the lofty bridge which crosses the North Esk and the valley at Elgin Haugh. Let the Waggoneer look round now. The view here is superb. The high, undulating, and finely-wooded slopes of the Esk, "Melville's beechy groves," and, in the distance, a splendid sweep of the Pentlands, which, whatever be their private reason, certainly turn their most lumpish side to Edinburgh. Here they spread out, light, aerial at once and magnificent. Dalkeith is seen rising to the left again; its churchspire over and among banks, trees, and the garden slopes of suburban villas-if the whole town be not suburban-which will be just so much the better. But now a wider, wilder range of country opens before the fast-whirling Waggon. From the Pentlands on the south-west, our glance may sweep round and along the browner and more distant ridge of the Moorfoot Hills; and over hills, and holts, and ridges, enclosing a vast and wavy expanse of country, from the rich, umbrageous foreground of Newbattle Abbey, stretching on to Dalhousie, with its handsome church-tower, up and onwards to the misty sources of the Esk and the Gala. A beautiful near prospect, indeed, here opens to us; for the Waggon has stopped at the magnificent viaduct the Marquis of Lothian has lately thrown over the vale of Newbattle. At Dalhousie Mains we get out, and all part company, save those who voluntarily tarry the guidance of the Schoolmaster's deputy, Ourself. Let us follow them. Yon blithe, bonny lass, poet, with that of the man thus apostrophized :- You, Waggon-ashamed young companion of the youth of the botanic japanned case! you, whom the black gown has just blest with visions-fair though distant-of Depute-advocateships, Sheriff. ships, or the Deanship itself, look on this other picture: Time has set his seal on both. Better far Truth loves to paint yon house Of humbler wall, half stone, half turf, with roof They will not have made an idle or profitless waggon-jaunt who contemplate with feelings like these the dismantled walls of the prosperous, base man of worldly ambition, contrasted with the dwelling of "the poor man." Within a short distance is sweet Kirkhill, and the favourite residence of this most amiable of the poets:-but it shall not tempt us to-day, for, have we not promised to act as guide to the travelling pupils of the Schoolmaster? The mavis and blackbird, and all the woodland choir will be in full bravura : they don't take their siesta till about eleven. Plants here are so many and various, that were you a Nebuchadnezzar, they would satisfy your appetite. You will probably already have admired the taste of the "My Lord Marquis" of the Viaduct and the Terni. There is every where a good deal of what is rough, and shaggy, and untidy about him; but it is like the flowing untrimmed mane of the Arab courser, snuffing the gale, and tossing abroad his wavy un| docked tail. about the keeping of these two noblemen's grounds, either up or down the river-no tremendous walls, nor jealous fastenings. You are now in the Earl of Dalhousie's park. Keep the castle on your right, follow the path for some time-then wheel back and pass under the arch of the bridge. We leave you in one of the loveliest scenes in nature. If you be not a goose you need no further guidance, The Waggon stops at "the Mains," but suppose we walk a few hundred yards along that magnificent viaduct, and view how the land lies. The At the end of this open path you come upon the first sight of this work of art alone, viewed from wrong side of the walls of Dalhousie gardens, and beneath, and especially from the eastern, or New- a warning board: but it can have no reference to battle side, is worth ten times the journey we you; pass on through the nettles quietly. You have made this morning. Look up from a re-emerge in a short time on the highway; cross it, spectful distance to those lofty but light arches, and enter freely by the first green gate you find : the masses of wood and umbrage hanging on-there is nothing of the cold spirit of aristocracy the slopes beyond, and filling up their graceful circumference. Look up and down the valley of the Esk, by " copse-wood steep, or dingle deep," and say which is the more beautiful! The groves of Newbattle more rich beyond a doubt. But now many fathoms above that slender river, and perched upon the central arch of the viaduct, we look about us.-Yonder, five miles off, lies Temple, up the water:-but the best of the fishing-if you be, we can do little more for you:season is past, and the near woods of Dalhousie wander and worship, or straddle and gape. You promise a banquet to the botanist, and his friend the will assuredly find your way across a rustic bridge, black-robed sketcher. They leave us, and, guided and up the steep path which leads to all that is by our finger, steal down to the high-way. There left of "the good and the great" Laird of Cockthey are no bigger each than a crow-" choughs pen. The house was lately levelled, but a few stones that wing the midway air." We positively forbid still indicate its site. The Dalhousie grounds, any divergence to the smith's. A caulker of un- lying on both sides of the Esk, abound in natural mingled Esk, may do the feat with their young beauty, to which the hand of Art has done her spirits ;-besides, they have, ready concocted, the part, and nothing more. In the haugh or holm are basis, the sherbet of Glasgow Punch: ten waters, some stately limes, coeval, apparently, with those we counsel. They advance a few paces on the Dal- of the Shank. There is also a romantic narrow housie road, and plunge down a winding high-bank-Pass blasted through the living rock, rich in plants ed lane on the left, which leads to certain stepping-its sides a thick enwoven tracery of leaf, leaflet, stones of a burn that falls into the Esk, below the stem, and tendril. If, haply, after spending your little Paper-mill. It is a lovely rural spot alto-day in the woods, you cut the waggon, Lasswade gether; like all fords, the small as well as the great. lies before you, and the outside of the stage; and One may now begin to herbalize, the other to sketch forthwith. If they push over, a few steps place them beside a clover field, running along a high bank of the Esk, skirted by an old oak coppice, mingled | with hazel, and white-thorn, and black-thorn, and tangled with wild plants and creepers innumerable; an aviary of warblers, with the hares and leverets scudding across the open track every other minute. The opposite banks of the river, equally well wooded, rise yet higher; and across its entire breadth the Marquis of Lothian has lately constructed a dam-head,' which, after a spate, when the Esk, like a salmon taking the leap with its tail in its mouth, launches over its whole impetuous volume, makes to untravelled folks no contempti-ling brushwood. Let Edinburgh folks who would ble Terni. There are many fine points of view around you, though they are somewhat confined; and the magnificent viaduct becomes the more imPosing the farther you recede from it. we warrant you know something of Muir's. Having thus comfortably bestowed you, we return to our small family party-still standing exalted on the viaduct. No wonder that they turn longing eyes eastward to sweet, sequestered, silvan Newbattle, nestling in its pomp of groves-fitting haunt of Pan and the Dryads. We descend, and passing under the arches on which we lately stood, follow that rural, kirk-going path down the river's bank, and then skirt the meadow we call Robin Hood's meadow, for want of a better name. The turf stretches out on one side; on the other are wood and water blending, of which we hear the liquid murmurs, but cannot perceive the flow for the tang know how glorious a thing a tree may be, now enter a swing gate at the end of this meadow, surrounded on two sides by the greenwood. Dotting its bosom, are many fine trees, under which the cattle now pant away their lazy noon; but none equal to those of here a flourishing rookery; and the sign of the Sun the avenue we bid you enter. Immediately inside flamed opposite that fine baronial gate-way, with its the gate is a Druid grove-dark, mysterious-a sil- turrets and postern doors, and the jougs frowning van entanglement of all sorts of cultivated timber, in terror by its side. These things are all vanished, -stately horse-chestnuts, and the tallest hollies we every third house is a ruin, the church exteriorly ever beheld, conspicuous among the sycamores and not much better-garden patches, and dismantled ashes. In the avenue, which leads straight down to gables alternate all along the street. The Park, the street of the village, and opens exactly opposite properly so called, is in the finest style of English the old massive stone-work and truly baronial monastic places,—the river gliding serenely and gateway of the Abbey, there are some of the most peacefully through the freshest verdure,-steep beautiful beeches in the world. No! the round wooded banks rising on the right side, and the globe with all that beautifies it of woodland or prim-level ground stretching away in far perspective,― eval forest, cannot hold finer trees than those, there glades and vistas opening to the left, formed by those where they stand, side by side, erect, majestic ; like old "patrician trees." The mansion is an object Indian warriors, with their stately naked stems, and of inferior consideration. It stands apart, finely plumed heads, making tree-worship a not incre- enough, and does not interfere to mar the prospects dible thing.-Back to the Robin-Hood meadow of the park,-to the sweet, soothing serenity of again:-the oak copse on one hand, the game- which, nothing seems wanting but the figures of the keeper's cottage in a corner, snug but not pictur- old monks stealing across the intersecting paths, esque: groups of reposing cattle, and single trees or musing, as they must often have done, under the break its surface. They are chiefly oaks, with over-arching melancholy boughs, by that placid and one in eminence above the rest," bow-houghed, gentle river. How delicious this retreat-which we knarled, and tough, breaking into two strong stems could pity the lazy friars for being forced to abandon! at less than two feet from the ground. Such is the Gow CHROM of a hamadryad of our acquaintance, who in other days might often be found kneeling about its sturdy trunk, and old fantastic roots, a believer in tree-worship. Gow CHROM is now very properly paled in, to prevent the too near approaches of the cattle. In the neighbouring grounds of Newbattle and Dalhousie, a tree-fancier may see many fair specimens of the various sorts once fashionable. At Dalhousie, yew and arbor-vitæ, and near Newbattle house one slender, graceful, yellow-haired acacia, rare in this country of such growth. The same park abounds in fine timber-trees of immense growth, ashes, beeches, chestnuts, horse-chestnuts, and that beautiful tree, the walnut, in its full perfection. We now resume the path from which we deviated when we left the meadow. It leads by the mill-dam, overhung with elder and bordered by copse and gardens on one hand, and strawberry beds on the other,-down to the old dilapidated village, which of itself, spite of all its silvan beauty of glade and grove, and luxuriance of orchard bloom, is as fully qualified to form part of the dower of the Owl's daughter in the Vizier's tale, as any inhabited spot we know. The tumble-down dwellings cannot have been touched since the Reformation laid its destructive hands upon the fair Abbacy. The people stick to their old sheds like barnacles, and the proprietor lets them have their own way. Very pretty stories could be told about this, but we won't give to Fame what was never intended for her trumpet. The village is a long narrow street, to which from both approaches, one descends by a steep path. We, as you know, struck down into its centre by the by-path. On one side of the street is the abbey wall, high and gloomy, overhung with old syca. mores, pear-trees and elder bushes, probably coeval with the monks. Since we remember, there was But we have another duty on hand. Our family group is on the grass in the Robin-Hood meadow, through which we passed; and Peggy, having with some difficulty kept the boys out of the mill-dam, when poking up the eels from under the roots and stumps, and pelting the water-rats, spreads the contents of her basket for a joyous repast, young and old mingled round the same roomy board. It is not yet one o'clock, and I have still to guide the strong-limbed of the party, four in number, to the Roman Camp, whence a new world, bounded by its own horizon, will open to them. But the events of that excursion must be deferred till another week. Now we leave the children with their mother, and the whole under the protection of Gow CHROM: there they are, wild with the delights of this new and beautiful world of birds and flowers, wood and water-exhaustless in novelty and wonder-no fear of want of amusement till papa returns:➡ the river is singing its first-heard madrigals. Robin and little Jenny wren, The Queen of the Fairies' cock and hen, are fluttering about. Some of the prettier of the wild flowers are past—the hyacinth and primrose with which these banks are yearly covered,—the chestnut flower, the white bird-cherry, the elder bloom, and the May, are all faded,—the butter-cups have vanished from the meadow; but the gowan and the meadow-queen are still found, and the little forget-me-not, the speedwell, and the eyebright, are scarce gone yet. Then Jack can have a tumble on the yellow ladies' bed-straw, and Jane decorate her bonnet with the blue-bells dear to Scotland. From the deepwooded glades the woodpigeon is croodling; and the cuckoo is heard for the first time; for he seldom comes near the King's Park, nor yet Newhaven. In the avenue one may see a squirrel, and a pheasant or two for certain; and in the oak belt bounding the meadow, and dividing it from the dam and the river, there are innumerable song-birds. It will go hard if Peggy does not strip off her "woman's blacks," and give the youngest children a cooling dip up near the bridge; while the elder boys tuck their trousers, and wade down the dam in the wake of Admiral Drake, who has just left the Paper-mill, or thereabouts, at the head of a small fleet, on a voyage of discovery, which he finds it necessary to bring to a close by a homeward journey overland. By the time that we rejoin the still untired groups, a whole basketful of green acorns, manufactured into cups and ladles, and of wild flowers, peebles, and forleited nests, have been collected; and all are stowed into the waggon, which is now waiting us, at six precisely. Again from the Roman grandeur of our elevation on the viaduct we look fondly back on the woods and meadows; and with a sweeping farewell glance at the expanse of charming country we are about to leave, hurry on to where we pick up our matron of the morning and her little grandchild; both looking healthier and happier for their day of pleasure; both, too, loaded with dairy and garden produce; armfuls of roses and sweet-williams in the maiden's close embrace; and butter and eggs tenderly handled by the old lady; who assures us, besides its being a penny a pound dearer, town's butter never has the flavour of country butter. It was her son, that at his breakfast-hour, had put them into the waggon; but now every domestic duty sped, the daughter-in-law, rede up, and with a merry bevy of children, her own and her neighbour's, has wandered out as far as the Wells-o'-Weary, "to see grandmother and Mary sitting in the waggon." A joyful shout of recognition greeted our appearance from these urchins, posted on the rocks above, as we hurried on below, and vanished in the tunnel, leaving them to run back through the park and overtake us as they could. Next week shall find us posted at the ROMAN CAMP, which we uphold as the first station for a coup d'œil in the three Lothians. Till then,- Vale! ELEMENTS OF THOUGHT. HINTS TO THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. BY GEORGE COMBE, ESQ. IN Manchester and other towns in the manufacturing districts of England, the operatives have been forming societies for the purpose of preventing a reduction of wages; they are also bent upon accomplishing a restriction of the hours of labour. The restriction of labour, which some of them actually carry into effect, is devoting one day in the week to idleness and drunkenness, in addition to Sunday, which probably they spend in a similar manner. We are strenuous advocates for restricting the hours of labour and ameliorating the condition of the working classes; but we wish to see these ends accomplished according to the principles of reason, and the constitution of human nature. have been conferred on man with the design that he should build houses, plough fields, and fabricate commodities, because his nature requires the aid of the articles produced by these means. But the question is, whether ought his whole life and energies, aided by all his discoveries, be dedicated to these ends, as his proper business, to the neglect of the study of the works and will of the Creator? Has man been permitted to discover the steam-engine and apply it in propelling ships on the ocean and carriages on rail-ways, in spinning, weaving, and forging iron,—and has he been gifted with intellect to discover the astonishing power of physical agents, such as are revealed by chemistry and mechanics, only that he may be enabled to build more houses, weave more webs, and forge more iron utensils, without any direct regard to his moral and intellectual improvement? If an individual, unaided by animal or mechanical power, has wished to travel from Manchester to Liverpool, a distance of thirty miles, he would have required to devote ten or twelve hours of time, and considerable muscular energy, to the task. When roads and carriages were constructed, and horses trained, he could, by their assistance, have accomplished the same end in four hours with little fatigue; and now, when rail-ways and steam-engines have been successfully completed, he may travel that distance, without any bodily exertion whatever, in an hour and a half. We ask for what purpose has Providence bestowed the nine hours which are thus set free as spare time to the individual? We humbly answer for the purpose of cultivating his rational nature. Again, before steam-engines were applied to spinning and weaving, a human being would have required to labour, say for a month, in order to produce linen, woollen, and cotton cloth necessary to cover his own person for a year; in other words, the twelfth part of the time of each individual would have required to be spent in making raiment for himself, or in case of a division of labour, a twelfth part of the population would have required to be constantly engaged in this employment: by the application of steam, the same ends may be gained in a day. We repeat our inquiry, For what purpose has Providence bestowed the twenty-nine days out of the month, set free by the invention of the steam-engine and machinery? These proportions are not stated as statistically correct, but as mere illustrations of our proposition, that every discovery in natural science, and invention in mechanics, has for its direct tendency to increase to man the command of time, and to enable him to provide for his physical wants with less laborious exertion. The grand question constantly recurs, Whether, in thus favouring the human race, the object of Providence be to enable them to cultivate and enjoy their rational faculties, or merely to reap more enjoyment from their propensities, by accumulating wealth, and all that it commands, in greater and more superfluous abundance? We again answer,-That the former is the object of the Creator, because He is wise and good, and because He has bestowed on man intellectual and moral faculties which cannot be contented to grub for ever in the mine of mere wealth. SOCIETY IN BRITAIN. The great question is,-Whether man is intended by the Creator to reap his chief enjoyment on earth from his appetites, or from the faculties which constitute his rational nature? If from the former, then society is essentially constituted at present on a right basis; the lives of the lower and middle classes are dedicated to the production and accumulation of wealth as their proper business, and those of the higher classes to the enjoyment of wealth already acquired. If, however, man is destined to derive happi- SOCIETY in Britain is constituted at present on ness chiefly from his rational nature, a great change re-essentially erroneous principles. If we survey the lives mains to be accomplished in the institutions and practices of men in this country, we shall find that the effect of society; and we entreat of the operatives to consider of all the discoveries that have been made in arts and what these changes must be, in order to produce real and permanent benefit to themselves and society at large. If man shall ever assume the station of a rational being on earth, the business of his life must be to study the works and the will of his Creator, to frame his institutions in conformity with them, and to act in harmony with the designs which these reveal to his understanding. One requisite to enable him to follow pursuits referrible to these principles, is provision for the wants of his animal nature; namely, food, raiment, and comfortable lodging. It is clear that muscular power, intellect, and mechanical skill, BY GEORGE COMBE, ESQ. sciences has been to render the great mass of the people more busy, and more unremittingly occupied in pursuits that hear reference chiefly to the support and gratification of the animal portion of human nature. Instead of every individual in society enjoying more leisure, and devoting more time than formerly to the cultivation of his moral and intellectual powers, and the enjoyment of his rational nature, the great body of the people are greater slaves to toil than formerly; the only effect being an increase in the number of persons who live independently of all labour, and in the wealth and luxury diffused through society at large. The portion who have been rendered independent of labour, do not generally devote themselves to the improvement of the species as a business, but seek gratification to their individual feelings in such a way as best pleases themselves; so that society has not improved in its moral and intellectual aspects in a due proportion to its advance in ingenuity, mechanical skill, and industry. The great change, therefore, that remains to be accomplished, is, that society at large should recognize man's rational nature as a divine institution, and practically allot time for its due cultivation and enjoyment. This can be accomplished only by masters and operatives uniting in abridging the hours of labour every day, and forming social arrangements by which the hours gained may be devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, and the exercise of the moral feelings. This ought to be practicable, if man be really a rational being: and to any one who declares the proposal to be Utopian, enthusiastic, and absurd, we answer, that by maintaining such opinions he really degrades man into a mere labouring animal, and sets at nought his boasted adaptation for an immortal existence in a moral and intellectual sphere. The effects of a limitation of labour of this kind would be to raise wages, to render trade more steady, and above all, to increase the power, and elevate the aspirations, of the moral and intellectual faculties, by which means society would become capable of viewing its real position and estimating fairly and dispassionately the proper value of its different pursuits. The real standard by which to estimate value, is the adaptation of any object to promote human happiness; and if happiness consists in the gratification of our rational powers, then it is clear that society is at present engaged in a blind pursuit of wealth, for its own sake, and that it misses enjoyment in consequence of neglecting moral and intellectual cultivation. FLOGGING IN THE ARMY. Stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, FLOGGING is a punishment of torture which not only degrades the man who suffers it, and makes the chances of moral improvement less than before, but it is often fatal to life: Let us imagine a soldier-whose breast is, perhaps, scarred with honourable wounds-tied up to the halberts for some violation of military law; his back stripped, and that instrument of torture applied by a vigorous arm, every stroke of which cuts into the flesh; let us imagine the surgeon standing by, and occasionally feeling his pulse, to ascertain how much more of this exquisite torture he can to such degrading and inhuman punishment? The most completely organized and powerful army which, perhaps, the world ever saw-that which Napoleon marched into Russia, and which the resistless powers of the elements only vanquished-knew nothing of military torture, by the lash, or in any other shape. If the British soldier be less amenable to moral discipline, and less susceptible of feelings of honour and shame than the French, it can only be attributed to the man-degrading effects of the barbarous cat-o'-ninetails upon the mind and character of the former. Such things cannot go on in England; already they have remained too long. The age is against them, and the state of the world: the frame of society in this land may be unhinged by their prolongation. THE STORY-TELLER. THE FLOGGED SOLDIER. EVERY one acquainted with the two countries, must have remarked a strong resemblance between a certain class of old Irish families, and those families to whom Scotland owes her bravest officers: both are alike poor, gallant, well born, and possessed of the pride of birth. Young Irishmen of this description formerly found honourable employment in the service of foreign princes; but these times were gone, and lamentable prejudices had now fated them to an inactivity as pernicious to themselves, as alarining to their country. While the Highlander entered life with the most inspiring hopes, and directed the energies of youthful ambition to the promotion of his country's welfare, mutual distrust and aversion condemned the unfortunate Írishman to find happiness in carousing with the ragged peasants who acknowledged his imaginary superiority; to employ his talents in cultivating the arts of vulgar popularity; and to place his ambition in heading brawls at fairs and funerals. Nothing but wisdom and conciliation can, for any length of time, be "retentive of the strength of spirit ;" and it is not their prowess in enterprizes even more desperate than very surprising that such persons sometimes displayed beating excisemen and tithe-proctors, and carrying off young women. Roderick Bourke lived in the province of Connaught, in called Castle Bourke. The heir to a barren sceptre, he was a decayed house, which, by the courtesy of Ireland, was accustomed to hear himself addressed by his loving kernes, in a style which the Herald's office decrees to a very different person. The same devoted people had often ventured bear, before the effects of the agony and mutilation insepa-true spirit of an Irish prince, could not, in requital, do less life and limb in his service; and Roderick, who had the rably break in upon the sources of life; let us suppose that than spend his last acre in regaling them with whisky and the scientific calculator upon the capacity of the sufferer to endure the protracted torture, makes a mistake, and esti- but, on the whole, a glorious reign, and was splendidly Roderick died, after a short and tumultuous, mates his powers of endurance a little beyond what they buried by voluntary contribution; and his only son, whose really are ;-let us suppose him sinking exhausted under immediate ancestors had been general officers in the service the repeated infliction, and carried away to linger in the of all the Catholic princes in Europe, was now a private dreadful anguish that closes but in the grave. By imagin-soldier in the regiment of Sir Archibald Gordon. ing such a scene of punishment, and such a result, we only figure to ourselves what has often in reality happened under the existing system of military torture. If it were proposed, that, whether in peace or war, the sleeping sentinel should actually suffer death, there are perhaps few persons capable of reflection, and not of sickly sensibility, who would not accede to an evil so sanctioned by necessity; but then it must not be death by torture. The lash fills the mind of an Englishman with abhorrence; that death should follow its infliction would even render it somewhat less appalling. The scourge is infamy as well as cruelty. It sinks into the soul of a warrior-it breaks down the man-it is extinction of pride, and hope, and honour. The physical agony is but a small part (however dreadful) of what the wretch endures. Shoot him, rather: for mercy, shoot him! How does it happen that the French army can be brought to the highest state of discipline without being subjected The flogometer of our Tale, tobacco. seventeen; in three quarters of the globe he had proved his The young Irishman had entered the army at the age of all the pride and strength of manhood. Gaiety of temper, bravery; he was now in his twenty-seventh year, and in drollery of manner, genuine Irish humour, and an exquisite talent for mimickry, extending to mind as well as manner, rendered him the favourite of the whole camp. The drunken sailor, swaggering officer, strutting martinet, and awkward recruit of Phelim Bourke, were the highest comic treat to the soldiers who gathered round him; and the officers of the different regiments, when over their wine, often sent for the graceful buffoon, delighted with his jovial chanson à boire, and the brilliancy of his repartee. Phelim also played finely on several instruments, and, in manly exercise, excelled all his companions. These fine military comradeship, and set off to the best advantage by qualities were all heightened by a warm and open spirit of a figure uncommonly handsome, even in Ireland; a gay, gallant air, and a countenance so intelligent, in its saucy |