sweetest naïveté, if this very rose-tree was not intended FROST. JANUARY, 23d.-At noon to-day, I and my white greyhound, May-flower, set out for a walk into a very beauti ful world,-a sort of silent fairy-land, a creation of that matchless magician the hoar-frost. There had been just snow enough to cover the earth and all its colours with one sheet of pure and uniform white, and just time enough since the snow had fallen to allow the hedges to be freed of their fleecy load, and clothed with a delicate coating of rime. The atmosphere was deliciously calm; soft, even mild, in spite of the thermometer; no perceptible air, but a stills that might almost be felt the sky, rather grey than blue. throwing out in bold relief the snow-covered roofs of ent village, and the rimy trees that rise above them, and the sun shining dimly as through a veil, giving a pale fair light, like the moon, only brighter. There was a silen too, that might become the moon, as we stood at our little gate looking up the quiet street; a sabbath-like pause of work and play, rare on a work-day; nothing was au but the pleasant hum of frost, that low monotonous saad which is perhaps the nearest approach that life and a can make to absolute silence. The very waggons, as th come down the hill along the beaten track of crisp yellow ish frost-dust, glide along like shadows; even May's bou ing footsteps, at her height of glee and of speed, fall Là snow upon snow. But we shall have noise enough presently; May stopped at Lizzy's door: and Lizzy, as she sat on the w dow-sill, with her bright rosy face laughing through the casement, has seen her and disappeared. She is comi No! The key is turning in the door, and sounds of e omen issue through the key-hole-sturdy "Let me outs and "I will gos," mixed with shrill cries on May and ou me from Lizzy, piercing through a low continuous harango of which the prominent parts are apologies, chillas, sliding, broken bones, lollypops, rods, and ginger-breas from Lizzy's careful mother. "Don't scratch the door, May! Don't roar so, my Lizzy! We'll call for you a we come back.""I'll go now! Let me out! I wi go!" are the last words of Miss Lizzy. Mem. Not to spoil that child-if I can help it. But I do think her m ther might have let the poor soul walk with us today. Nothing worse for children than coddling. Nothing her. ter for chilbains than exercise. Besides, I don't believe se has any; and, as to breaking her bones in sliding, I don' suppose there's a slide on the common. cogitations have brought us up the hill, and half-way acro the light and airy common, with its bright expanse of and its cluster of cottages, whose turf fires send such wreat of smoke sailing up the air, and diffuse such aromatic r grance around. And now comes the delightful sound childish voices, ringing with glee and merriment also fra beneath our feet. Ah, Lizzy, your mother was right They are shouting from that deep irregular pool, all now, where, on two long, smooth, liny slides, half-a-does ragged urchins are slipping along in tottering triump Half-a-dozen steps brings us to the bank right a them. May can hardly resist the temptation of joining ba her, the grave romp with her; does any thing she pleases; friends; for most of the varlets are of her acquaintance, exceeding power of loving, and her firm reliance on the less hat, whose bronzed complexion and white flaxen le love and indulgence of others. How impossible it would reversing the usual lights and shadows of the human tour A WINTER SKETCH. THE CARPENTER'S DAUGHTER. BY MISS MITFORD. I NEXT door lives a carpenter "famed ten miles round, and worthy all his fame," few cabinet-makers surpass him, with his excellent wife, and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and queen of the village, a child three years old according to the register, but six in size, strength, and intellect, in power and in self-will. She manages every body in the place, her schoolmistress included; turns the wheeler's children out of their own little cart, and makes them draw her; seduces cakes and lollipops from the very shop window; makes the lazy carry her, the silent talk to tenance, give so strange and foreign These murmuring the h a look to his flat and be to disappoint the dear little girl when she runs to meet your face, and says, "Come !"-You must go; you cannot May's great crony; and she stands on the brink of the help it. Another part of her charm is her singular beauty. steep irregular descent, her black eyes fixed full upon hir ance. She has the imperial attitudes too, and loves to on his es she has something of his square, sturdy, upright form, with She does; she is down, and upon him: but Jack Rapi the finest limbs in the world, a complexion purely English, not easily to be knocked off his feet. He saw her coming a round laughing face, sunburnt and rosy, large merry blue and in the moment of her leap sprang dexterously off the eyes, curling brown hair, and a wonderful play of counten- slide on the rough ice, steadying himself by the shoulder of the next in the file, which unlucky follower, thus expectedly stand with her hands behind her, or folded over her bosom; checked in his career, fell plump backwards, knocking and sometimes, when she has a little touch of shyness, she down the rest of the line like a nest of card-houses. There clasps them together on the top of her head, pressing down is no harm done; but there they lie roaring, kicking her shining curls, and looking so exquisitely pretty! Yes, sprawling, in every attitude of comic distress, whilst Ja Rapley and Mayflower, sole authors of this calamity, stand Lizzy is queen of the village! apart from the throng, fondling and coquetting, and complimenting each other, and very visibly laughing, May in her black eyes, Jack in his wide close-shut mouth, and his whole monkey-face, at their comrades' mischances. I think, Miss May, you may as well come up again, and leave Master Rapley to fight your battles. He'll get out of the scrape. He is a rustic wit-a sort of Robin Goodfellowthe sauciest, idlest, cleverest, best-natured boy in the parish; always foremost in mischief, and always ready to do a good turn. The sages of our village predict sad things of Jack Rapley, so that I am sometimes a little ashamed to confess, before wise people, that I have a lurking predilection for him, (in common with other naughty ones,) and that I like to hear him talk to May almost as well as she does. "Come May!" and up she springs, as light as a bird. The road is gay now; carts and post-chaises, and girls in redcloaks, and, afar off, looking almost like a toy, the coach. It meets us fast and soon. How much happier the walkers look than the riders-especially the frost-bitten gentleman, and the shivering lady with the invisible face, sole passengers of that commodious machine! Hooded, veiled, and bonneted, as she is, one sees from her attitude how miserable she would look uncovered. Another pond, and another noise of children. More sliding? Oh no. This is a sport of higher pretension. Our good neighbour, the lieutenant, skaiting, and his own pretty little boys, and two or three other four-year-old elve, standing on the brink in an ecstacy of joy and wonder! Oh, what happy spectators! And what a happy performer! They admiring, he admired, with an ardour and sincerity never excited by all the quadrilles and the spread-eagles of the Seine and the Serpentine. He really skaits well, though, and I am glad I came this way; for, with all the father's feelings sitting gaily at his heart,, it must still gratify the pride of skill to have one spectator at that solitary pond who has seen skaiting before. Now we have reached the trees,the beautiful trees never so beautiful as to-day. Imagine the effect of a straight and regular double avenue of oaks, nearly a mile long, arching over head, and closing into perspective like the roof and columns of a cathedral, every tree and branch encrusted with the bright and delicate congelation of hoar frost, white and pure as snow, delicate and defined as carved ivory. How beautiful it is, how uniform, how various, how filling, how satiating to the eye and to the mind-above all, how melancholy! There is a thrilling awfulness, an intense feeling of simple power in that naked and colourless beauty, which falls on the heart like the thought of death -death pure, and glorious, and smiling, but still death. Sculpture has always the same effect on my imagination, and painting never: Colour is life. We are now at the end of this magnificent avenue, and at the top of a steep eminence commanding a wide view over four counties a landscape of snow. A deep lane leads abruptly down the hill; a mere narrow cart-track, sinking between high banks, clothed with fern, and furze, and low broom, crowned with luxuriant hedgerows, and famous for their summer smell of thyme. How lovely these banks are now !-the tall weeds and the gorse fixed and stiffened in the hoar frost, which fringes round the bright prickly holly, the pendant foliage of the bramble, and the deep orange leaves of the pollard oaks! Ob, this is rime in its loveliest form! And there is still a berry here and there on the holly, "blushing in la natural coral" through the delicate tracery; still a stray bip or haw for the birds, who abound here always. The poor birds, how tame they are, how sadly tame! There the beautiful and rare crested wren, "that shadow of a bird, as White of Selbourne calls it, perched in the middle of the hedge, nestling as it were amongst the cold bare boughs, eeking, poor pretty thing, for the warmth it will not find. And there, farther on, just under the bank, by the slender unles, which still trickles between its transparent fantastic margin of thin ice, as if it were a thing of life,-there, with a swift scudding motion, flits, in short low flights, the gorreaus kingfisher, its magnificent plumage of scarlet and blue Bashing in the sun, like the glories of some tropical bird. He is come for water to this little spring by the hill side,-water which even his long bill and slender head can hardly reach, so nearly do the fantastic forms of those garland-like icy margins meet over the tiny stream beneath. It is rarely that one sees the shy beauty so close or so long; and it is pleasant to see him in the grace and beauty of his natural liberty, the only way to look at a bird. We used, before we lived in a street, to fix a little board outside the parlour-window, and cover it with bread-crumbs in the hard weather. It was quite delightful to see the pretty things come and feed, to conquer their shyness, and do away their mistrust. First came the more social tribes, "the robin red-breast and the wren," cautiously, suspiciously, picking up a crumb on the wing, with the little keen bright eye fixed on the window; then they would stop for two pecks: then stay till they were satisfied. The shyer birds, tamed by their example, came next; and at last one saucy fellow of a blackbird-a sad glutton, he would clear the board in two minutes-used to tap his yellow bill against the window for more. How we loved the fearless confidence of that fine, frank-hearted creature! And surely he loved us. I wonder the practice is not more general."May! May! naughty May!" She has frightened away the kingfisher; and now, in her coaxing penitence, she is covering me with snow. A SINGULAR STORY. A chieftain, whose large estates were forfeited in the re. bellion of 1715, received at St. Germains, from the confi dential agent of a powerful nobleman, intelligence that his grace had obtained a grant of the lands from government, and would make them over to the young heir, on condition of paying an annual feu-duty, and a sum in ready cash, much less than the value of the domains. To restore his hereditary estate to the heir, and to ensure a respectable provision for his lady and ten younger children, the chieftain would have laid down his life with alacrity. He made every possible exertion; all his friends, and even the exiled Prince, contributed in raising the amount demanded. He was known to be a man of scrupulous honour; and when the family regained this estate, they relied upon the lady making remittances to pay the loan by instalments. Securely to convey the ransom of his late property, the chieftain resolved to hazard liberty and life, by venturing to the kingdom from whence he was expatriated. He found means to appoint at Edinburgh a meeting with his lady, directing her to lodge at the house of a clansman, in the Luckenbooths. On arriving there, she would easily comprehend why he recommended a retreat so peor. The lady set out on horseback unattended, leaving her children to the care of her mother-in-law. In those times such a journey was more formidable than now appears an overland progress to India. To the lady it would have cost many fears, even if her palfrey was surrounded by running footmen, as formerly, when feudal state pertained to her husband; but she would not place in competition with her safety, an exemption from danger and discomfort to herself. He had by two days preceded her at Edinburgh, and bore the disguise of an aged mendicant, deaf and dumb. His stature, above the common height, and majestic mien, were humbled to the semblance of bending under a load of years and infirmity; his raven locks, and even his eyebrows, were shaven ; his head was enveloped by an old grisly wig and tattered night-cap; the remnant of a handkerchief over his chin hid the sable beard, which, to elude detection, was further covered by a plaster. His garments corresponded to his squalid head-gear. O how unlike the martial leader of devoted bands, from whom she parted in agonies of anxiety, not unrelieved by hope. A daughter of this affectionate pair attempted to give the writer some idea of their meeting, as related by her mother after she became a widow; but language vainly labours to describe transporting joy, soon chastened by sorrow and alarm. We leave to imagination and feeling, a scene exquisitely agitating and pathetic. The chieftain explained his motive for asking the lady to make her abode in a chairman's house. Besides his tried fidelity, the old tenement contained a secret passage for escape, in case of need; and he showed her, behind a screen, hung with wet linens, a door in the pannelling, the hinges of which were so oiled, that he could glide away with noiseless movement. If it was his misfortune to be under such necessity, the lady must seem to faint, and throw the screen against the pannels, while he secured the bolt on which depended his evasion, and the chairman had exhausted his skill without being able to cure the creaking it occasioned. The chieftain gave his cash to the lady, urging her not to delay paying the amount to his grace's confidential agent. She complied, but checked all inquiry how the money came to her hands. The rights of the estate were restored to her, and three gentlemen of high respectability affixed their signatures to a bond, promising for the young chief, that whenever he came of age, he would bind himself and his heirs to pay the feu-duty. The records were duly deposited in a public office, and the lady hastened back to her lodgings. The chieftain soon issued from behind the screen, and the lady was minutely detailing how her business had been settled, when stealthy steps in the passage warned the proscribed to disappear; and the lady, sinking to the ground, dashed the screen against the pannelling. common door was locked; but it soon was burst open by a party of soldiers, led by an officer. The lady's swoon was now no counterfeit. A surgeon was called. She revived, and being interrogated, replied no human being was with her. The officer assured her, that he and several of the soldiers saw, through a chink in the door, an old man in close conversation with her. She then confessed that an apparition had endeavoured to persuade her he was commissioned to impart tidings of her husband, but the soldiers interrupted them before the spirit could deliver the subject of his mission. Every part of the house had been searched while the lady lay insensible, and as no discovery ensued, the tale she related passed current at Edinburgh, and spread over the lowlands and highlands. It was not until the lady had a certainty of her husband's decease in a foreign land, that she told her daughters how successfully she had imposed on their enemies; and surely no story of an apparition has been seemingly better attested. THE FRIENDLESS ONE. My mother sleeps i' the cauld, cauld grave; I saw her to the kirkyard borne My father is streekit by her side, An' I am left my lane to mourn! The B. G. My brither was drowned i' the deep saut sea- O wae is me! but my heart is lane! I'll gang an' I'll seek my father's grave; An I'll sing me asleep among the lave. An' bear me awa' frae this world o' care! O bear me awa' through yon bonny blue sky, For my kind mother tauld me, afore she dee'd, O ance was I happy, an' bricht an' blythe, As the linty that sang on the flowery lea, I'm left i' the world, my lane to mourn. W. D. TO THE POLE-STAR. BY MRS. JOHNSTONE. No gleam is on the roaring wave, No Star is in the midnight skies; And thou shalt be my worshipp'd star Have rock'd thy bark at summer's e'en ; And wish'd that pale light would appear, In all thy northern hemisphere. First seen 'mid ALBYN's mountains blue; And love and thou his only guide, As loud and shrill the night-winds blew, Where nothing but the heart is cold,- When sunk the POLE-STAR down on earth, But cheerly, cheerly, gallant heart! Scotland and bliss await thee still : Rise! visions of his father's hill, And sooth him with the scenes afar; Rise on his soul, thou NORTHERN STAR ! From toil, and strife, and grandeur far, Then sleep beneath their NORTHERN STAR! SAVINGS BANKS. From a statistical table of the Sarings Banks in England, Wales, and Ireland, compiled from the latest official returns, by Mr. Tidd Pratt, it appear that in England and Wales there has taken place, since 1830, a small decrease in the amount (but not in the num ber) of investments: viz. L.3,597 in England; L-4,047 in Wales, but in Ireland, there has been an increase to th. amount of L.122,642.-The total amount of investments is. in England, L.12,916,028;-in Wales, L.349,794 ;—in Ireland, L.1,046,825. Total, L.14,311,647.-The total number of depositors, exclusive of Friendly and Charitable Societies, is, in England, 374,169; (of whom 297,571 are depositors under L.50)-in Wales, 10,374;-in Ireland, 37,898. Total, 432,441 depositors; being an increase of 13,754. The average amount of each depositor's investment is thirty pounds. COLUMN FOR THE LADIES. FRENCH AND ENGLISH WOMEN. The national portraits we are about to present are atributed to Mirabeau, and internal evidence bears out the gatement. THE FRENCH WOMAN.-When a French lady comes sto a room the first thing that strikes you is, that she valks better, has her head and feet better dressed her lothes better fancied and better put on, than any woman on have ever seen. When she talks, she is the art of leasing personified. Her eyes, her lips, her words, her estures, are all prepossessing. Her language is the lanunge of amiableness her accents are the accents of grace he embellishes a trifle-interests upon nothing-she tens a contradiction-she takes off the insipidness of a supliment by turning it elegantly-and when she has a und she sharpens and polishes the point of an epigram etter than all the women in the world. Her eyes sparkle ith spirit-the most delightful sallies flash from her fan-in telling a story she is inimitable-the motions of her dy, and the accents of her tongue, are equally genteel nd easy-an equable flow of sprightliness keeps her conantly good-humoured and cheerful, and the only objects her life are to please and be pleased. Her vivacity may metimes approach to folly-but perhaps it is not in her oments of folly that she is at least interesting and agreede. English women have many points of superiority er the French-the French are superior to them in many bers. Here I shall only say, there is a particular idea which no woman in the world can compare with a tench woman-it is in the power intellectual irritation. je will draw wit out of a fool. She strikes with such adess the chords of self-love, that she gives unexpected viur and agility to fancy, and electrifies a body that apars non-electric, ENGLISH WOMEN. I have mentioned here the women ¡England, and I have done wrong. I did not intend it hen I began the letter. They came into my mind as the My women in the world worthy of being compared with 4-ose of France. I shall not presume to determine whether i the important article of beauty, form and colour are to e preferred to expression and grace, or whether grace and pression are to be considered preferable to complexion and ape. I shall not examine whether the piquant of France to be thought superior to the touchant of England; or hether deep sensibility deserves to be preferred to animaon and wit. So important a subject requires a volume. hall only venture to give a trait. If a goddess could be pposed to be formed, compounded of Juno and Minerva, at goddess would be the emblem of the women of this untry [England.] Venus, as she is, with all her amialeness and imperfections, may stand justly enough for an ablem of French women. I have decided the question ithout intending it, for I have given the perfections to je women of England. One point I had forgotten, and it ia material one. It is not to be disputed on-for what I going to write is the opinion and sentiment of the unirse. The English women are the best wives under Heaand shame be on the men who make them bad husands. the chest, and thus lay the foundation of many pectoral diseases. The female form, at least in youth, requires no artificial aid to improve it. Who would think of putting stays on the Venus de Medicis ?-Beale's Observations on the Spine. WINTER FASHIONS. Plain merinos and washing silks are fashionable in home dress. We observe, however, that merino, even of the very finest kind, is seldom worn but for dishabille. We must except the printed ones, which are sometimes adopted in half dress. The favourite form for plain merino dresses is a body made like that of a habit, with a velvet collar and facings, either black, or to correspond, and sometimes a narrow velvet cuff. The sleeves vagant fulness at top is divided in the middle, so as to form two are tight to the lower part of the arm, but in general the extravery large puffs. Washing silk dresses have the body made high in the back of the neck, but rather open on the bosom. The prettiest are those trimmed in the shawl style with velvet; it forms a straight-falling collar behind, slopes down almost to a point on each side of the breast, and, if cut, as is sometimes the case, to resemble frogs, or, as they are fashionably styled Brandelburgs, has a very dressy look. Caps are very fashionable in home dress; the prettiest are of plain tulle, with the trimming of the front turning back as usual at the sides, but partiby a bandeau of ribbon, which terminates in a full knot behind ally descending in the centre of the forehead, where it is crossed the trimming on one side. A very light knot composed principally of ends is placed on the trimming in front. Satin is now the material most in favour for matrons in evening dress. A good many gowns have the skirt bordered with a band or rouleau of sable, real or mock, for we perceive that the latter is once more in favour. We have seen, in a few instances that half high bodies crossing in drapery folds before, were bordered with smaller rouleaus, as were also the bottom of sleeves, but velvet is more generally employed. Some dresses that have no trimming round the border have the body decorated with a lappel of the shawl kind, cut round in points, which fall low upon the shoulder, and pass in front under the ceinture; they are of the material of the dress, and trimmed with blond lace. This is an elegant style of body, but it displays the bosom so much that a chemisette (our mammas called it a tucker) ought to be always worn with it. There is quite a rage for blond lace caps in evening dress. Berets are fashionable, but not so much so. We do not forget that our pretty young readers will want The materials for these ball dresses for this festive season. are crape and different kinds of figured gauze. The most eleare those that have the bodies cut square and low, disposed in full folds across the front, and trimmed with a double fall of blond lace round the back and shoulders. Short sleeves, exceedingly wide, confined to the arm by a narrow satin rouleau, edged with blond lace laid flat. Many of those dresses are made without trimming round the border, others have a light flounce, which is laid on so that the upper edge forms a row of points, to each of which is appended a knot of ribbon, or a sprig of flowers, according to the fancy of the wearer. The head dress with flowers; the most fashionable are larkspurs, dahlias, Lonmust be of hair, in the style we have recently described, adorned don pride, pinks, jessamines, and roses. Fashionable colours are fire colour, dark blue, soot colour, cherry colour, orange; various shades of brown and green. Light colours, as rose, straw colour, &c. &c. are worn in evening dress only, but we also see very full colours adopted in evening dress, particularly by matrons. WONDERS OF PHILOSOPHY.-The polypus, like the fabled hydra, receives new life from the knife which is TIGHT LACING.-Tight lacing not only prevents a due lifted to destroy it. The fly-spider lays an egg as large as velopment of the muscles by pressure, but, by fixing into itself. There are four thousand and forty-one muscles in a he immovable mass the ribs and vertebræ of the back, caterpillar. Hook discovered fourteen thousand mirrors in hich, more especially in youth, should have free motion on the eye of a drone; and to effect the respiration of a carp, ch other, makes the whole upper part of the body a dead thirteen thousand three hundred arteries, vessels, veins, and eight on the vertebra of the loins, which, in consequence, bones, &c. are necessary. The body of every spider contains ve way to one or other side, and lateral curvature is pro- four little masses pierced with a multitude of imperceptible uced. Not only does tight lacing act directly in this man-holes, each hole permitting the passage of a single thread; er, but indirectly it operates in diminishing muscular igour by impeding respiration. It is well known that cular power bears a relative proportion to the produce of respiration, animals having the highest development of The respiratory organs, being the most powerful in muscular orce. Tight stays compress the ribs together, and prevent The play of the respiratory muscles; when applied during the growth of the body, they prevent the development of all the threads, to the amount of a thousand to each mass, join together, when they come out and make the single thread with which the spider spins its web; so that what we call a spider's thread consists of more than four thousand united. Lewenhoek, by means of microscopes, observed spiders no larger than a grain of sand, who spun threads so fine that it took four thousand of them to equal in magnitude a single hair. SAPPING AND MINING. THE Siege of Antwerp has made the above terms of more frequent use than as lovers of peace we admire. But as all kinds of knowledge is valuable, and may be useful, we lay before our readers the following military account of the process technically termed SAPPING : nothing, was well cultivated and fruitful; and the town of Wormia, so numerously inhabited with Indians, that they could have handed a fish from hand to hand, till it reached the Incas hand in Peru; but that when the Spaniards laid siege to their city, the Indians, rather than yield to their mercy, dug holes in the sand, and buried themselves alive. The winds had laid bare these self-made graves, and the men lay with their broken bows beside them, and the women with their distaffs and spinning-wheels Wafer brought away one of those desiccated bodies, that of a boy of ters years, but the superstitious sailors would not permit it to be kept on board. There are three or four kinds. That employed by the French has been the plain sap. The sappers are divided into squads of eight. They debouch from the lodgments or approaches, one behind the other, where there is a store of gabions, (cylindrical baskets about three feet high,) and MANY SLIPS BETWEEN THE CUP AND THE LIP, On fascines or long faggots. The first man or leader of the THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S PIE.-Since the elevation of sap, pushes before him a gabion stuffed with wool or cot- Henry Brougham to the Woolsack, a gentleman in Sheton, shot proof; under cover of this, he places an empty field, an ardent admirer of his Lordship, has been in the gabion to his right or left, then fills it with earth, digging habit of gracing the Noble Lord's table at this season of about eighteen inches deep, assisted by No. 2. This being the year with a Yorkshire pie, in size and contents not us done, he rolls on his defence and places a second empty ga-worthy the tables of the Barons of old. This said par, bion, which he fills in like manner. No. 2, deepens the after being prepared in the first style, and with much tasty, eighteen inches to two feet by three wide. No. 3, deepens containing a goose, a turkey, a hare, a couple of rabbits, this to two feet six, and No. 4, to three feet, always throw-brace of patridges, ditto pheasants, ditto grouse, a tongur, ing the earth on the gabions, and over the side nearest the &c., was baked by Mr. Walker, in Fargate, where many defences. Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 8, bring the gabions and fas-had the pleasure of looking at the outside, without enjoying cines from the lodgment, and lay the latter on the top of the what was within. "There's many a slip between the cup former, pegging them down with pickets. Thus, with ga- and the lip," was most grievously verified in this instance, bions three feet high, an excavation three feet deep, and before the removal of the pie for its final destination. Os fascines or sand bags on the top, a parapet of seven to eight Saturday morning a servant girl called for it, previous to feet is obtained. The interstices between the gabions are its being packed for the metropolis; she got it on her hand, filled with earth, short fascines, or sand bags. As the first and whether from the tremendous weight, or the over squad advances they are followed by a second, who improve whelming flavour of the combustibles, we know not, but the work. They again are followed by the working parties, unfortunately the Lord Chancellor's pie was upset before sta who, being entirely sheltered, complete it, and extend the had proceeded many hundred yards, the consequener breadth of the trench to six, ten, or more feet, as may be which was an immense assemblage of unruly dogs, two af necessary. This is not a technical description, but it may which fought most desperately over the wreck, and other. serve to give some idea of the operation, and show its peril wise created such a row, that, but for the active exertions for the sappers, who are, perhaps, working at pistol distance. of the neighbours, the result might have been very serious, The leading man is relieved every half hour, each taking In the meantime one escaped with part of the goose, a s the post of danger in his turn. They are paid an extra sum, cond with the turkey, a third with a hare, and so on, t at so much per toise, and this sum increases in proportion as farther dispute was useless. So ended the pie riot, and, w the sap approaches the crest of the glacis. are happy to say, without any bloodshed. The descent into the ditch is not less perilous, and requiring extraordinary precautions. It is of two kinds-by a covered gallery, when the ditch is extremely deep, and a cielcouvert when it is shallow or filled with water. The latter has been adopted at St. Laurent. At the distance of 70 or 80 yards the sappers commence cutting a trench, which gradually descends at the rate of about one foot in four, but this must be regulated by the depth of the ditch. As the excavation proceeds the top is covered with beams, hurdles, and fascines, and the side supported with planks, until it reaches the revetment of the counterscarp. The whole is then widened, strengthened, and improved. The revetment is then knocked in, fascines and sand bags thrown in great quantities into the ditch, so as to form an artificial bottom, or a covered shot-proof raft lowered down and fixed to the revetment of the scalp or wall of the defence. The miner then crosses over, establishes himself in a hole, and prepares the mine. These operations, however dangerous in appearance, are generally performed with comparatively trifling loss. SCRAPS. ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. CITY OF THE DEAD.-The following striking anecdote is recorded by Lionel Wafer, a surgeon, who sailed with the Buccaneers in the South Sea :-At a solitary place on the Coast of Peru, named Vermejo, the surgeon landed with a party of Buccaneers, and marched, in search of water, four miles up a sandy bay. It was found strewed with the dead bodies of men, women, and children, which, to appearance, seemed as if they had not been a week dead, yet when handled they proved dry, and light as cork or sponge. The Buccaneers were afterwards told by an old Spanish Indian, that in his father's time, the soil here, which now yielded THE BIBLE. A great religious change is said to be taking place in Germany. The Bible is read with avidity by the Roman Catholics; and the clergy of this religion are, in many parts of the country, making strenuous efform for the abolition of celibacy, and for liberty to read the Mass in German. In various instances they have turned Protestants, with a great portion of their flocks. But the most important event is the formation of an Anti-Papal Catholic Community at Dresden, which is likely to become the nucleus of a very numerous sect. If we couple this with a growing desire among the Protestants of that G try to introduce more ceremonies into their religious ver ship, a re-union of the two Churches seems not among ins possible things. |