been seated before we discovered the major in the adjoining box. He was standing up, his arms folded in the manner of Napoleon, and like him he wore a green coat buttoned up close to the neck, and decorated with two or three orders, which he had won in the Italian wars, and above all, the never-to-be-forgotten little cocked hat. Soon after the empress entered her box, accompanied by a brilliant suite; but presently the audience were thrown into amazement by some confusion in the royal box. Maria Louisa had caught a glimpse of the counterfeit presentment of her deceased husband, and her confusion and astonishment were exhibited in the most palpable manner. The king of Sardinia was forced to order him on duty, ten leagues from Genoa, as his person kept the soldiers in constant excitement, who never failed to present arms in passing him. I understood previous to my leaving Genoa, that Maria Louisa had sent for the officer and presented him with a gold snuff-box, with the emperor's likeness set in brilliants.

An English East-India captain was also remarkable for his resemblance to Napoleon.

MISCELLANIES.

f 1

CURIOUS MODE OF CATCHING CROWS IN

ITALY.

2

A recent traveller give the following remarkable_account of crow-shooting in Italy. Being called up (says the author) early in the morning, a few days after Christmas, we proceeded with two servants about a mile from the city of Milan, and entered a large meadow covered with hoar froast, when my friends conducted me to a cottage, a little on one side of the meadow, where we found five or six peasants, with a good fire, several fowling-pieces, and abundance of ammunition in readiness. Being told that every thing was prepared, we drank coffee till the peasants, who had left us about an hour, returned and informed us that we might proceed as soon as we pleased. We, however, advanced no further than the porch of the house, where, as we waited some time without the appearance of any crows, I was eager to fire at them, but my friend checked my ardour. 'Stay,' said he, they will descend presently, and approach so near to us, that we may shoot them without trouble.' And soon after, to my utter astonishment, I observed them stop their course all at

once, take several circuits round the meadow, and afterwards descend, a few at a time, upon the ground upon which we were waiting for their appearance. Not knowing the secret, my curiosity still increased, especially as I observed that the whole of them not only descended, but that they seemed to have stationed themselves, as it were, in various parts of the field. But this was not all; for upon a closer inspection, I found their heads were absolutely fixed in the ground, from whence, after a struggle of some duration, I saw them successively rising, and apparently with a white cap on their heads, which I soon perceived to be made of strong cartridge paper. It was now that this comedy commenced, and began to take a tragical turn; for the crows, to liberate themselves, putting themselves in a number of laughable attitudes, brought forward the peasants, who, clapping their hands and setting up a loud cry, tion of the crows became the most confused imaginable. Flight, if such an awkward movement deserve the name, was in all direcions; striking against each other with such force, as frequently to bring them to the ground.

the mo

It should be observed, that the noise of their talons scratching upon the thick paper caps that inclosed their heads, had no small effect; till in the end, taking to our fire-arms, we were employed near an hour in shooting them: at the termination of which, I was informed by my friends, that holes being purposely dug in the ground, and filled with paper of a conical form, the narrow extremities of the latter containing each a piece of raw meat, it was the smell of the meat that brought the crows to the spot. It is further to be observed, that the inside of this paper cap was copiously larded with bird-lime, attached so much the closer by the pressure of the crows' heads after the meat, that it was impossible for them to disengage themselves. J. H.

CHANGES OF THE MIND.

The mind is always undergoing fine changes. Impressions fade, and their distinct new edge is worn off. As an example: observe a portrait of some friend during his presence, and again during his absence. In the first case, the likeness will lose much of its resemblance and power to strike. You compare it with the original, and a thousand points of difference appear. But when the original is away, the picture grows upon you, and attains at last almost the force of reality. M. N.

"Though what ailed me, I might not, well as
they,
Rake up some foreworn tales that smothered lay
In chimney corners, smoked with winter fires,
To read and rock asleep our drowsy sires?
No man his threshold better knows than I;
Brute's first arrival and first victory,
Saint George's Sorrell, or his Cross of Blood,
Arthur's Round Board, or Caledonian Wood;
Or holy battles of bold Charlemagne,
What knights of his did Salem's siege maintain;

How the mad rival of fair Angelice
Was physicked from the new-found Paradise.
High stories they!'
Bishop Hall's Satires.

THE fire-place in the old Parsonage parlour at Elston is worthy of volumes., It is a huge arched recess or alcove, about five feet deep, ten wide, and six high; so that to sit around this parlour

fire is literally assembling on the hearth. You are completely screened off from the rest of the apartment, and seem to be in a regular cabinet.

Unfortunately, I saw it in the dogdays, and the intense heat of the weather left me no alternative but to admire the groups of gay flowers and cool green boughs that adorned, but certainly usurped, the hospitable grate. Mean. while imagination was not idle;-how could she with such a provocative before her?

And oh thought I, what a grand asylum for Caius Marcius to have dignified with his muffled majesty! What a hearth for Milton's Goblin to have

basked his hairy length! What a shrine for the little Olympus of domestic deities to stand ranged around its sacred penetralia!

But, better than all, what a glorious retreat, what a nook, what a nest of comfort, when the night falls, and the curtains are drawn, and the snow hisses against the casement, and the wind swoofs round the chimneys, and the

court-gates slam, and the weathercocks whine, and the mighty Fire, that master magician of the hour, shakes with a roaring laugh his lambent crest, and scatters liveliness and lustre through the room!--Oh at that time, within the verge of this fire-side, to listen and relate, among old and dear associates, the legend and the lay,-enchanted glasses ringing their crystal chimes between every pause of conversation's pleasurable din, with no light but the fire that now kindles the animated eye of a narrator, now plays on the anxious cheek of a listener, and ever and anon emblazes the crimson grape-juice, as it flows in moderate, yet exhilarating course—

"Giving a gentle kiss to every' lip'

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage." this would be indeed enjoyment, oftener talked of, alas! than experienced.

Or, if alone, how delightfully could I ensconce myself in the remotest corner of this fire-side, poring over some exciting or absorbing volume. Then, while without the indignant night groaned, as the tempest violated her solemn and melancholy reign, I would look around

on

the cheerfulness and tranquillity within, uninvaded by the storm, and unmolested by the gloom, exclaiming with Mulla's Bard :

"Let no lamenting cries, nor doleful tears, Be heard all night within, nor yet without; Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt; Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden, sad affrights;

Ne let house-fires, nor lightnings, helpless

harms,

Ne let the Ponk, nor other evil sprights;

Ne let mischievous witches, with their charms,

Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,

Fray us with things that be not.

Let not the skriech-owl nor the stork be heard,
Nor the night-raven, that still deadly yells,
Nor damned ghosts, called up with mighty
spells,

Nor griesly vultures, make us once affeard:
Let none of these their dreary accents ring,
Ne let the woods them answer!"*

Undoubtedly the fire-side is the Magnus Apollo of romance, the cradle at once, and the nurse of legendary lore. Look at the superiority of our northern tales over the voluptuous lucubrations of softer and sunnier realms, and you may trace it to the influence of the long winter nights, the heartsome homes, and the hearth-flame ;-the talkative, the amusing, the ethereal hearth - flame, which at once inspires our fancies, and suggests our recreation.

* Spenser's Epithalamium.

The soft purple sky, jewelled with stars, the paradisal perfumes from groves of orange and palm, the silver sparkles of the marble fountain soothing the still and tepid air, the gushing cadences of the nightingale, the tall, pillared pavilion, wooing the spirit-like breezes to wander and whisper round its painted galleries, or flit through the gilt lattice of its balconies ;-all these appliances had much in themselves to divide and distract attention from the story-teller of Italian gardens.

But when the dark night, early swooping down on the woods and towers of English homes, drove within their gates, and gathered round their firesides, both young and old, high and low, from the stirring excitement of out-door toil or sport; when rain, and sleet, and wind, stalked by door and window, grim warders as they were, and forbade all egress; when the well-spread board had exhausted its gratifications, and the very wine-cup had ceased to charm, then did that domestic fane, the chimney vault, manifest its glories unveiled; then did the feudal focus vindicate philosophy for appropriating its Roman title to express the centre of attraction!

Alone and paramount, the monarch of flame convened his court around him, and in his honour did men receive that enchanting tissue of record, fable, story, ballad, jest,-that, crusted with tradi tion's tarnished gold, hangs, from age to age, like some antique regal canopy, over his dusky and time-honoured throne.

The intense interest these tales in

spired transported the auditory into the very scenes and actions they heard related; and the tapestried walls of the baron's hall, as well as the smoky rafters of the vassal's cottage, fleeted away, to disclose the pomp of palaces, the gathering of warriors, the knightly tournament, the bowers of ladies, the miracles of saints, the bloody combat, the radiant bridal, with all the feats of Crusaders and Saracens, sorcerers and assassins, flaming dragons, red-plumed paladins, and distressed damsels.

In days of yore,-those stormy days that we call dark (and a magnificent darkness it was!) the amusement of story-telling was at its height of popu larity. Speaking of fire-side romances, an old writer says, "They have been the revivers of drowsy age at midnight. Old and young have, with such tales, chimed matins till the cock crew in the morning. Bachelors and maidens have compassed the Christmas fire-block till

the curfew bell rang candle out. The old shepherd and the young plough boy, after their day's labour, have carolled out the same to make them merry withal; and who but they have made long nights seem short, and heavy toils easy?"

This good old fashion is now rapidly disappearing; or rather, has completely sunk below the horizon. But I am not going to snivel and howl over modern degeneracy; neither will I spit upon those insipidities it has substituted for the ancient, the red-lettered, the illuminated chronicles of the fire-side. I would only hazard one little assertion :There are no grandmothers now adays, neither are there any children!— we are all full-grown, well-informed young gentlemen, and young ladies; sunning ourselves in the very meridian of intellect, wearing round our brows the aureola of perfection! But

"My pensive public, wherefore look you sad? I had a grandmother;"

and some of the fruits resulting from that inestimable advantage you may gather, if you like;-the alternative is obvious.

THE

LADY OF WOLFHAMSCOTE.

ROMANCE THE FIRST. "Now, when as all the world in silence deepe Yshrowded was, and every mortal wight Was drowned in the depths of deadly sleepe, Fair Malecasta, whose engrieved spright Could find no rest in such perplexed plight, Lightly arose out of her weary bed, And under the black vele of guilty night, Her with a scarlott mantle covered, That was with gold and ermines faire enveloped." FAERY QUEENE. B. III, C. I. WOLFHAMSCOTE Hall was one of those fantastic variegated old houses, which are now so fast vanishing from earth, either demolished by the onslaught of pitiless improvement, or abandoned to the more respectful, if not less fatal advances of decay. In the first instance, a smart modern tenement generally starts up in all the comfortable impertinences of bright red-brick, smug-faced stucco, white sash, 'green door, and brass knocker.' But in the latter case, time goes lazily, as if reluctantly, to work; here tumbling down a battlement, there mumbling up a pillar,-undermining a turret or two, by way of change, and, for a freak, flinging three tiers of chambers into one, by eating away the mainbeams of floors and ceilings. And sometimes he flouts the inquisitive wan⚫

derer by knocking down a staircase, so that all access to the upper rooms is denied. But nature follows in his track, and heals or hides the wounds which he inflicts. Where the rent masonry gapes in jagged fissures, she spreads a scarf of silken moss, and covers up the scar; where moulded arch, and flowery capital lie at loggerheads, tumbling, and choaking up the court, she bids the fragrant gill spread a carpet, and the eglantine hang its rose-broidered bannerols;and, in short, with such a patient affection doth she brood over the relics of her rival sister, that ere long, she builds for the poor downfallen pile, a beautiful mausoleum of branching shrubs, glossy turf, and sweet and coloured flowers. You forget the gorgeous majesty of the fabric, in contemplating the veiled loveliness of the ruin.

But the old mansion of Wolfhamscote, though of some pretension in its day, was always a gloomy, melancholy-looking pile. It was large enough in conscience, and no builder's brain, in that ture, the reigns of the Tudors,—could most romantic epoch of English architechave rioted in a more lavish exuberance of style than Wolfhamscote displayed. Decoration actually seemed to have wantoned, ay run wild, in the carvework, and stripework, and pendants, and finials, and little pillared balconies, of the capricious old building.

In the first place, you were especially struck with the irregular size and mould of the different portions of the house. Now a tall slender tower, challenging the very skies;-then a beetle-browed crouching wing, whose single row of windows seemed stooping to kiss the moat. The tiers of gables were all at odds-some smiled complacently side by side;-some shouldered each other gruffly,-and even turned their backs ;some had broad jolly faces; others looked narrow, and stiff, and sour; here a bold well-proportioned square advanced from the building, emblazed with a sunbroad oriel; and, close by,-the house shrunk, as if it had got the stitch, into a contracted recess, disclosing its one grim ill-conditioned window.

The windows themselves looked as if they had been slapped at random into the edifice, countless in multitude, incalculable in situation, and in general appearance so little germane to each other, that they seemed to be specimens of every window that had ever been invented, from the Temple of Solomon, to the hut of a Lapland witch. The chimneys! a

wilderness of columns-a very Palmyra of the housetop,-high and low, thick and thin, twisted and fluted, connected in arches, or corniced imposts-they spoke to you, as plainly as brick and mortar could articulate, "I am the great hall chimney; and I warm the lady's bowers, and I climb up from the kitchen, &c. &c."

But oh! the clatter and glitter, and fuss and flutter, and parade and pomposity of the weathercocks; generally at mortal feud with each other, and displaying their banners in the most antagonistic quarters; unanimous only, when a general fit of the sullens seized them, and then they all pointed wrong.

Within the mansion there were such multitudes of chambers, and galleries, and stairs fronting all the cardinal points, that you might have adopted the Roman luxury of a summer and winter house under one roof. Nay, the very master of the mansion himself might chance to stumble on some apartment, the stories of whose tapestry were unknown to him, and the prospect from its windows entirely new.

Yet was Wolfhamscote Manor-house of a dreary dismal complexion, which not all its freakish magnificence could dissipate; and though far from lonely-for the highway to L-traversed the great gateway at the end of the avenue, yet it had that forbidding, I had almost said that menacing air-that 'touch me not solemnity about it, which strangely belied its charity to the poor, its hospitality to the stranger, and its magnificence to the guest. Even the broad blue Trent, that rolled his gallant tide below the garden walls, failed to impart a charm on the apprehensive dismality of Wolfhamscote Hall.

This quaint piece of antiquity is but faintly impictured on my youthful tablets of memory: yet what I retain of it is most deliciously dreamy and bright.

My uncle had the curacy of the parish; and, on occasions, my little sister and myself used to be jingled over in a postchaise (a high luxury in my younger days) to the church.

Well do I remember that pleasant smell of honeysuckles, and the heavy moist flagrance of the freshly-stacked hay; and the clang and jangle of the old lovery, that served as a campanile to the lowly Saxon church; and that grandæval mulberry tree, in the manor-hall garden, that Mammoth of fruit trees, overshadowing many a rood with its matted piles of broad leaves; its venerable trunk

bowing and splitting beneath the bulk of its branches, and the branches themselves demanding supporters;-while, like the fabulous carbuncle of eastern lore, the bursting fruit shone in dark red colours through the massy foliage.

Nothing now remains of Wolfhamscote Hall but the tall desolate banquet-house, forming an angle in the garden wall by the river bank, its stone coigns furred with moss, its scaly bricks sheathed with the silvery gray and mouldering gold of lichens-the old and idle turf mantling at its foundations, and filling up its unlatticed window-frames with sable curtain,-one melancholy solitary yew. I still haunt the spot and feel

"In the gray eve, by moss-grown boughs confined, How grand the wordless language of the wind, When twilight deepens, and the king of day Without one painted banner steals away: 'Neath the decayed leaves of the spicy wood, Near the white weltering of the autumnal flood; By the peaked summer-house, the gabled grange, The creaking gates, the barn's enormous range, Oft have I (listening to his doleful voice) Felt my blood tingle, and my soul rejoice, Interpreting the tones, that wailing through, Thrilled the black hollows of the shuddering yew.'

Very different was this scene in the close of autumn 16-, during the early part of the great rebellion, when a young officer of the royal army rode at full speed up the avenue that led from the highway to the principal porch of Wolfhamscote Hall.

It was Allhallow's-eve, and the November moon sailed above the gardens and orchards of the venerable mansion, which seemed to stand forth bold and bare, exulting in the ghastly glimmer of the night.

White gleaming through the trunks of the elm avenue, the river ran swirling and gurgling by; and when the horseman, having reached the centre of the avenue, reined in his steed, and slackened his pace, the deep low moaning of the night-wind could only be heard at intervals, as it lulled through the black boughs and rustled among the bulrushes, while the owl hissed and hooted from the sequestered granaries behind the shelter of their clustering pines.

The horseman drew a deep breath as he halted in front of the great porch, and, looking up at the house, whose wildly garnished frontispiece seemed to dilate in shadowy grandeur, as he approached, thus soliloquised :

"So! I am safe at last! whew! I had well nigh fallen into the hands of the Philistines! A plague on my hot tem