periphery of the first at the greatest possible distance from the common centre, and gradually narrowing his revolutions, until he arrives at a point where it is just barely possible to draw a discernible line of circumference about the object of his attraction. This animal is neither very dangerous nor violent, but it is next to impossible to escape him. I do not pretend to have enumerated here all the species, nor particularised all the habits of this tribe of animals; to do so would be to exceed the limits I have prescribed for this paper. It will be sufficient if, by this hasty sketch, I shall be able to awaken the attention of profounder naturalists to a branch of zoological science most undeservedly neglected. A DUN-HATER. EPITHALAMIUM OF CUPID AND PSYCHE. BY MRS. HENRY ROLLS. I. Twine, thou blushing rose-tree, twine With the luscious purple vine! Round the blooming myrtle rove, Form the bridal bower of Love! II. O'er the fresh and verdant ground III. Whilst his nectar Bacchus pours O'er the cups in sparkling showers, Light attendant Cupids move: Deck the bridal feast of love! IV. Bright Apollo's lyre around Breathes its softest, sweetest sound! V. Long had Psyche wandering strayed, VI. See, from Hymen's sacred fane Come the happy bridal train! Round the god his torch's rays Spread the brightest purest blaze! VII. Hymen, friend of Love! 'tis thine Now thy choicest influence shed! VIII. Fondly twined their snowy arms, IX. Zephyr, playful by her side, Shews her eyes celestial blue, Shews her ringlets golden hue, Half her graceful form displays, XI. All his darts now laid aside, Cupid moves in beauty's pride; Envious roses droop your head! XII. Bright his glittering ringlets flow, XIII. Now Venus o'er the nuptial bower, THE MISTAKE. I. That frown on your brow is alarming; Because I have sung of a beauty With whom you have nothing to do Miss! Your glass, (how it swerved from its duty) Has taught you to think I meant you, Miss! III. But banish that frown so alarming Your beau (if you've one) to befriend Miss ! I said that my Mary was charming And there all your doubtings should end, Miss! B. THE DEATH-WRESTLE. A deadly feud subsisted, almost from time immemorial, between the families of M'Pherson, of Bendearg, and Grant, of Cairn, and was handed down unimpaired' even to the close of the last century. In earlier times the warlike chiefs of these names found frequent opportunities of testifying their mutual animosity; and few inheritors of the fatal quarrel left the world without having moistened it with the blood of their hereditary enemies. But in our own day the progress of civilization, which had reached even these wild countries—the heart of the North Highlands-although it could not extinguish entirely the transmitted spirit of revenge, at least kept it within safe bounds, and the feuds of M'Pherson and Grant threatened, in the course of another generation, to die entirely away; or at least to exist only in some vexatious law-suit, fostered by the petty jealousies of two men of hostile tempers and contiguous property. It was not, however, without some ebullitions of ancient fierceness that the flame which had burned for so many centuries seemed about to expire. Once, at a meeting of the country gentlemen, a question of privilege arising, Bendearg took occasion to throw out some taunts aimed at his hereditary foe, which the fiery Grant immediately received as the signal of defiance, and a challenge was the consequence. The sheriff of the county, however, having received intimation of the affair put both parties under arrest; till at length by the persuasions of their friends-not friends by bloodand the representations of the magistrates, they shook hands, and each pledged his honour to forget-at least never again to remember in speech or action, the ancient feud of his family. This occurrence at the time was the object of much interest in the country-side ;' the rather that it seemed to give the lie to the prophecies, of which many an highland family has an ample stock in its traditionary chronicles, and which expressly predicted that the enmity of Cairn and Bendearg should only be quenched in blood and on this seemingly cross-grained circumstance some of the young men who had begun to be tainted with the heresies of the lowlands, were seen to shake their heads as they reflected on the tales and the faith of their ancestors; but the grey-haired seers shook theirs still more wisely, and answered with the motto of a noble house-' I bide my time.' There is a narrow pass between two mountains in the neighbourhood of Bendearg, well known to the traveller who adventures into these wilds in quest of the savage sublimities of nature. At a little distance it has the appearance of an immense artificial bridge thrown over a wide chasm; but on a nearer approach, is seen to be a wall of nature's own masonry, formed of vast and rugged bodies of solid rock piled on each other, as if in the giant sport of the architect. Its sides are in some places covered with trees of considerable size; and the passenger who has a head steady enough to look down the precipice, may see the eyries of birds of prey beneath his feet. The path across it is so narrow, that it will not admit of two persons passing along-side; and indeed none but natives, accustomed to the scene from infancy, would attempt the dangerous route at all, though it saves a circuit of three miles. Yet it sometimes happens that two travellers meet in the middle, owing to the curve formed by the pass preventing a view across from either side; and when this is the case, one is obliged to lie down while the other crawls over his body. One day, shortly after the incident above mentioned, a highlander was walking fearlessly down the pass, sometimes bending over to watch the flight of the wild birds that built below, and sometimes detaching a fragment from the top, to see it dashed against the uneven sides, and bounding from rock to rock, its sound echoing the while like a human voice, and dying in faint and hollow murmurs at the bottom. When the highlander had gained the loftiest part of the arch, he observed another person coming leisurely from the opposite side, and being himself of the patrician order, called out to him to lie down; the individual, however, disregarded the command, and the highlanders met face to face on the summit. They were Cairn and Bendearg; the two hereditary enemies, who would have gloried to have met in mortal strife on a hill side, turned deadly pale at this fatal rencontre. I was first at the top,' said Bendearg, 'and called out first; lie down that I may pass over in peace.' When the Grant prostrates himself before M'Pherson,' answered the other it must be with a sword driven through his body.' Turn back then,' said Bendearg,' and repass as you came. 'Go back yourself if you like it, I will not be the first to turn before a M'Pherson.' This was their short conference, and the result exactly as each had anticipated. They then threw their bonnets over the precipice, and advanced with a slow and cautious pace towards each other ;they were both unarmed. Stretching their limbs like men preparing for a desperate struggle, they planted their feet firmly on the ground, compressed their lips, knit their dark brows, and fixing fierce and watchful eyes on each other, stood there prepared for the onset. They both grappled at the same moment; but being of equal strength, were unable, for some time, to shift each other's position,-standing, as if fixed to the rock, with suppressed breath and muscles strained to the top of their bent,' like statues carved out of the solid stone. At length M,Pherson suddenly removing his right foot, so as to give him greater purchase, stooped his body and bent his enemy with him by main strength, till they both leaned over the precipice, looking downward into the terrible abyss. The contest was as yet doubtful, for Grant had placed his foot firmly on an elevation, at the brink, and had equal command of his enemy; but at this moment M'Pherson sunk slowly and firmly on his knee, and while Grant suddenly started back, stooping to take the supposed advantage, whirled him over his head into the gulf. M'Pherson himself fell backwards, his body hanging partly over the rock,— a fragment gave way beneath him, and he sank further, till catching with a desperate effort at the solid stone above, he regained his footing. There was a pause of deathlike stillness, and the bold heart of M'Pherson felt sick and faint. At length, as if compelled unwillingly by some mysterious feeling, he looked down over the precipice. Grant had caught with a deathlike gripe by a rugged point of a rock-his enemy was yet almost within his reach! his face was turned upward, and there was in it horror and despair, but he uttered no word or cry. The next moment he loosed his hold; and the next, his brains were dashed out before the eyes of his hereditary foe ;— the mangled body disappeared among the trees, and its last heavy and hollow sound arose from the bottom. M'Pherson returned home an altered man. He purchased a commission in the army, and fell bravely in the wars of the Peninsula. The Gaelic name of the place where this tragedy was acted signifies Hell's Bridge. THE LITERARY BORE. There are many species of this great genus in this best of all possible countries; but the most intolerable, because the one you oftenest encounter, is the Bore Literary,-a gentleman who by lounging all day about booksellers' shops, snd passing his evenings in blue-stocking and other second-rate literary society, conceives himself qualified to talk about books and authors, and privileged to innoculate all his acquaintance with the nonsense with which he abounds. If you have the misfortune to meet with one of these gentlemen who happens to be walking in the same direction with yourself, you may reckon upon being tormented all the way by his pointing out to you people whom you never saw as Mr. Somebody, with a name which you never heard before, and never wish to hear again. The Literary Bore knows all the living authors—their habits and their habitat, though he sometimes makes trifling blunders. The other day one of these worthy persons pointed out to me my own tailor as a celebrated reviewer-(I beg leave here to state par parenthese that my tailor is not Mr. Place of Charing-cross, who is believed to be the only man in the profession equally qualified to cut up and to cut out)—and a respectable dealer in Wigs, as the writer of a long diatribe on the Opposition. Some months ago, I was curious enough to know something about Coleridge, whom I had not, up to that time seen; and I was informed by my Bore that he was a pale and thin gentleman who lived at Highgate, and took great quantities of laudanum and metaphysics. I remember running one day from the end of New Bridge-street, Blackfriars, up to Fleet-street, on the assurance of my Bore that Mr. Wordsworth was passing in that direction. I followed the illustrious Laker with a reverence even greater than that with which he says he regarded his own leech-gatherer; though for some time I could not behold his collarat distance, and far off his skirts adore.' At last near Temple Bar I overtook him; but though my friend was quite positive as to the identity of the person before us (as Reviewers say) with the author of the Excursion and other lively jeux d'esprit, I have always had some doubts on the matter in my own mind, for a little reason which I am going to state. Upon his getting near Temple Bar I observed him very dexterously transfer from the pocket of a stranger to his own a nice new Bandana handkerchief; now as I never heard that Mr. Wordsworth ever stole any thing either from people's pockets or poetry, I am of so charitable a disposition as to be inclined to think that the respectable person, one of whose feats I have just recorded, was not the noticeable man with dark grey eyes' commemorated by his friend Coleridge, but a man noticeable principally by the police. I happened once to be in Messrs. Taylor and Hessey's shop in company with a Bore, when a gentleman who occupies chambers in the Temple just over mine, and who is remarkable principally for being about seven feet high, came in. Do you know that gentleman ?' said my Bore, in a gruff whisper that, Sir, is De Quincy, the famous author of the Confessions of an Opium-eater :-clever book, Sir-vastly eloquent; Taylor and Hessey have sold three editions of it, each of two thousand seven hundred and twenty-three exactly-neither less or more.' I have since been told that De Quincy is a very little fellow, and that there is a trifling error in my friend's statement of the sale of the book-whether to the advantage of the bookseller or the contrary, I shall not stop to inquire. |