room of my respected pedagogue, Diogenes Thwackwell is forsaken, the coach is at the door to bear me homeward; in a word the taps of the cane are to be exchanged for the kisses of my aunts, and the dittos and half-crowns of my grandmother. Excellent woman! How well I remember her! Years have glided by since she has passed "to that bourne from whence no traveller returns," But still she is before me, I fancy as I lounge in the old arm-chair, where it was her wont to recline, I see her waist, (a prodigy for its length and slender proportions,) the high-cauled cap, green spectacles, and never to be forgotten bunch of keys, which dangled majestically at her side.

How frequently have I shrunk before the stiff formality of her manner, her dignified, though condescending glance, and crouched beside the snarling and consequential little pug dog, as he stretched his rotund body under the table. I do not know how to account for it, but I always entertained a vast dislike for that pugnacious little brute; even his nomen was above his station; Neptune! what a name for a creature that quailed at the very sight of a duck pond! Still he was a pensioner in the old lady's service, had lost a leg according to some family legend in pursuit of a hare, a circumstance viewed by my grandmother, as by no means detrimental to his beauty, but on the contrary, as imparting to his otherwise ungraceful person, the firm and compact appearance of a tripod.

But my worthy relative was, I grieve to admit it, an oddity. One who could not think of permitting any member of her household, however insignificant, to retain their ordinary names. No Lizzy or Patty answered to the magic tap of her high heeled shoe, (she never rung a bell-not barronial,) but her shrill, treble cry of "ho! retainers!" brought forth either a limping Timotheus, or the more romantic personages of a Cornelia or Virginia. Such appellations could not fail to awaken historical recollections, and to arouse the dormant muse in her classic bosom. For do not for an instant imagine that my grandmother resembled the tasteless fair ones of the present day, who, whatever they may know of Ovid's art of love, are still in utter ignorance of Virgil's bucolics.

No, no, she could relate an amatory incident, invariably with a tragic wind up; could sing Bacchus draining the goblet to the graces, and has literally been known at the age of fourscore to have sprinkled Hector's ashes with a tear. Still, reader, independently of those traits, I had reason to love her, for in truth my grandmother was kind. I ever looked upon her, with a fondness mixed with awe, which was increased by

the divers annecdotes she had always in readiness to wile away the monotony of a winter's evening; and oft as the blazing fire reflected its cheering light on the ancient furniture and grotesque pictures which adorned the room, have I taken my seat on the low stool beside the old lady's chair, and listened with unabated relish to the goblin tales of some haunted mansion. The name in itself possesses magic powers over childhood, and well I remember shuddering at the recital as the roaring winds sung a wild requiem around our dwelling, and the thick and pattering rain beat against the windows. Those are times I love to look back upon, they crowd upon the mind as happy visions of the past, lights of other days. The bandit for a moment appears in all his former terrors, the graves give up their dead, and the crackling faggot of the gipsy bivouac glows so vividly in the furnace of imagination, as to reflect even the swarthy visages of the wanderers who surround its flame.

The fairy dance has already commenced; its members attired in divers colours, the most conspicuous of which, by the way, are red caps and green jackets, are easily recognised by me as the heroes of fading exploits. The gentleman playing on the violin is quite an old acquaintance; only a short time seems to have elapsed since I have viewed him making a precarious exit from a bottle, or capering round a daisy-covered hilloc. That malicious visaged little fellow on his right, has on more than one occasion aided me in rescuing some luckless fair one from the ruthless grasp of a fancy-wrought Polyphemus. Another pigmy friend has presented me with a pair of white ponies and a brass cannon as a memento; and the old fiddler, now entering the arena has in a moment of kindness or admiration offered me my choice of two wishes, neither of which I could decide on, as I prematurely awoke from my ambitious dreams of future greatness.

Can such thoughts as these fail to remind one of their grandmother? No, certainly not. The train of ideas is agreeable, why not pursue it? Because it is contrary to rules and regulations!!! Yes, such is the refined feeling of modern days, that we cannot devote a moment to the times when we partook of sweet cake or sugar plums!! A medical gentleman some years ago wrote a book, in which he not only cautions us against unwholesome diet, but even against certain peculiarities at table. He warns his readers especially against eating any thing very hot. 'A steaming turnip," he says, "or a smoking potato if swallowed too fast produces so great an ebul

lition of feeling as actually to make the eyes water, and afford the company sufficient grounds for believing that your departed relative is unbecomingly sketched and eaten in some dish or tureen before you.' Well, perpaps his advice may be judicious, but yet I cannot, with any degree of consistency, alter my long cherished opinions. I still consider grandmothers as a sacred class of beings, neither possessing the particularity and penetration of aunts, nor the old bachelor-like acidity of uncles. Pooh! what are uncles? Why any man in his common senses cannot define them better, than large nosed, testy old creatures, either given to grimly conning over newspapers, or expressing their good humour by making vain passes at one with their walking sticks. Grandmothers are perfectly exempt from such feelings. Their heads are constantly employed in some castlebuilding scheme for passing a merry Easter, and their hands are never better occupied than in stroking the back of my unmarried aunt's tabby, or the head of her more fortunate sister's laughing urchin, who is earnestly entreating for a seat upon her knee. A grandmother is one of that lingering species of the "rara avis in terris," who, like good wine, improves every year. A mortal who from three score and ten upwards can severally appreciate the pleasures of prolonging vacations, concealing broken windows, or giving various little sums to be judiciously laid out in dog-collars, mince pies, and apples. In a word, one in life beloved, and in death lamented.

JUVENIS.

1001

THE DESERTED BRIDE.*

"LOVE me!-No-he never loved me!"

Else he'd sooner die than stain

One so fond as he has proved me

With the hollow world's disdain.

False one, go-my doom is spoken,
And the spell that bound me broken!

Wed him!-Never.-He has lost me!

Tears!-Well, let them flow!-His brid ?—

No. The struggle life may cost me !
But he'll find that I have pride

* See plate so entitled,