dull meeting-house on Sunday evenings, listening to the chiming bells from the parish churches, must he have desired a wider, or at least a more intellectual, circle of hearers: he must have seemed like some isolated dweller in a country the language of which he knew not: and the illustration holds good in Foster's case especially, for, with all his deep insight into the mind, he was unable to find his way into understandings widely differing from his own. Foster, therefore, wanted that highest peculiarity of genius, the power of speaking to the hearts and intellects of all men. Finding himself thus isolated in populous Newcastle, he sought to find in the visible forms of nature that matter for his musing mind which his fellow-men were not able to afford, and often betook himself in quiet evenings, or the stillness of moonlight nights, to the quay between the ancient walls and the deep Tyne, where he pondered on the sights presented by the starlit heavens, or the varying aspects of the earth. But Newcastle was no place for Foster, and in about three months he left the place, returning to his native home in Yorkshire. We next find him in Dublin, whither he had gone at the invitation of a small congregation, who perhaps expected great things from one of whose abilities they had heard, without inquiring minutely into the peculiarities of those powers they sought to gain. To Dublin he went, but the only result was, that his unfitness for a preacher's work became more manifest, a deficiency proved by the small audience becoming so much reduced, that to remain there was impossible. The place in which he preached in Dublin was situated in Swift's Alley, but this local name was the only thing pertaining to intellect connected with the spot, so that Foster was again a wanderer, and returned to England dispirited, and really grieved, that the sanguine expectations of his friends should be disappointed in him. Remedy there was none; as he could not alter the modes of thinking popular among his sect, nor materially modify the cast of his own intellect. In 1797 we find him at Chichester, officiating as preacher to a congregation for whose benefit he appears to have exerted all his efforts; but, as he could not preach popularly, disappointment again ensued. The hearers dwindled away until the mere shadow of a congregation remained to listen to beautiful sentiments and profound thoughts-with which they could not sympathise. Something of this general unacceptability must be attributed to Foster's ECCENTRICITIES, which reached such a reprehensible point, that he even laid aside the dress generally worn by those who profess anything approaching to the character of religious teachers; and, if Foster had doubts respecting his right to exercise such an office, an instant resignation of the work would have been more suitable to his character as a Christian, than the adoption of practices which necessarily brought ridicule upon religion. He appeared in the pulpit attired in the common lay garb, having his hair bound up in a tie, and wearing a red waistcoat, which though not so startling then as it would be now, was sufficiently so to excite severe condemnation. (To be concluded in next Number.) THE LEGEND OF THE HOUSE OF THE DWARF, IN THE ANCIENT MEXICAN CITY OF UXMAL.1 "THIS is called the Casa del Enano, or House of the Dwarf, and it is consecrated by a wild legend, which, as I sat in the doorway, I received from the lips of an Indian, as follows:" There was an old woman who lived in a hut on the very spot now occupied by the structure on which this building is perched, and opposite the Casa del Gober (1) From Stephen's Central America. nador (which will be mentioned hereafter), who went mourning that she had no children. In her distress she took an egg, covered it with a cloth, and laid it away carefully in one corner of the hut. Every day she went to look at it, until one morning she found the e hatched, and a criatura, or creature, or baby born. The old woman was delighted, and called it her son, provided it with a nurse, took good care of it, so that in one year it walked and talked like a man, and then it stopped growing. The old woman was more delighted than ever, and said he would be a great lord, or king. One day she told him to go to the house of the grobe nador, and challenge him to a trial of strength. The dwarf tried to beg off, but the old woman insisted, and he went. The guard admitted him, and he flung his challenge at the gobernador. The latter smiled, and told him to lift a stone of three arrobas, or sevenfive pounds, at which the little fellow cried, and re turned to his mother, who sent him back to say, that if the gobernador lifted it first, he would afterward The gobernador lifted it, and the dwarf immediate did the same. The gobernador then tried him wit other feats of strength, and the dwarf regularly di whatever was done by the gobernador. At lengi indignant at being matched by a dwarf, the goberna. told him that, unless he made a house, in one nigh higher than any in the place, he would kill him. T poor dwarf again returned crying to his mother, wh bade him not to be disheartened, and the next morning he awoke, and found himself in this lofty building The gobernador, seeing it from the door of his palac was astonished, and sent for the dwarf, and told him to collect two bundles of cogviol, a wood of a very har species, with one of which he, the gobernador, werkd beat the dwarf over the head, and afterward the dwar should beat him with the other. The dwarf agai returned crying to his mother; but the latter told hi not to be afraid, and put on the crown of his head i tortillata de trigo, a small thin cake of wheat flower. The trial was made in the presence of all the great me in the city. The gobernador broke the whole of his bundle over the dwarf's head, without hurting the little fellow in the least. He then tried to avoid the trial ca his own head, but he had given his word in the pr sence of his officers, and was obliged to submit. The second blow of the dwarf broke his skull in pieces. and all the spectators hailed the victor as their new gobernador. The old woman then died; but at the Indian village of Mani, seventeen leagues distant, the is a deep well, from which opens a cave that leads under ground an immense distance to Merida. In this cave on the bank of a stream, under the shade of a lar tree, sits an old woman with a serpent by her side, wh sells water in small quantities, not for money, but en for a criatura, or baby, to give the serpent to cat; and this old woman is the mother of the dwarf. THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE. "O Douglas, Douglas, tender and true!"-Old Ballad. Ir is the Percy's pennon that strangely waves on high, St. Clare and many a Drummond, with Moray and Dunbar,1 Oh! glory to the "Bloody Heart" that gleams upon his shield! And glory to the stalwart arm that bids the foeman yield! * And now the moon is waning; nor friend nor foe descries The blood-stained spot where, faint and low, the wounded Douglas lies; Go, shout on high the stirring cry that bids our comrades close, THE MAIDEN AUNT.-No. III. CHAP. VI. I FOUND Owen, as I expected, in great wrath. He was | I said, "and I am very sorry that I have misled walking rapidly up and down the room, while Kinnaird, unintentionally." Here I stopped, for I was afraid i whose levity was unconquerable, stood on the hearth- attack his opinions, and unwilling to acquiesce in the rug, coolly regarding him, and looking ready to laugh- so I resolved to stand on the defensive. an inclination which good breeding scarcely restrained. My brother stopped in his angry walk as I entered, and, coming close up to me, said, with great vehemence, "Peggy, this is the most incredible piece of absurdity that I ever met with in my life. Of course, it cannot be permitted to go on for a moment, and I oily wonder that you-but you have evidently been duped in the matter." I saw Frank's colour rise at the offensive word, and hastened to interpose. "I have been mistaken, certainly," (1) See Froissart-(Johnes's Edit. Vol. II. 362) who adds, "Of all the battles that have been described in this history, great and small, this of which I am now speaking was the best fought and the most severe; for there was not a man, knight, or squire, that did not acquit himself gallantly, hand to hand with his enemy." (2) The Bloodye Harte' was the well-known cognizance of the House of Douglas, assumed from the time of the good Lord i "Misled me!" replied my indignant brother. Ye but I have my own folly to thank for it, in not pattin Miss Kinnaird under the charge of a person who ke something of the world-Mrs. Alvanley for instance (oh, could Mrs. Alvanley have heard him!)-"Yet, eve allowing you the simplicity of a pinafored girl of th teen, I can't understand how you should have so pletely lost your wits. The insanity of allowing t Captain Everard's perpetual visits is to me pertly inexplicable." James, to whose care Robert Bruce committed his heart carried to the ioly Land."-Scott's Notes to the Lay of the ke Minstrel, (3) William of North Berwick, who was Chaplain to the De (4) See the Ballad of the "Battle of Otterbourne" in S Border Minstrelsy. (3) Continued from page 363. "This Captain Everard," remarked Kinnaird, "is one of the most distinguished officers in the service-a man as superior to Lord Vaughan, in mind and manners, as Lord Vaughan is to a chimney-sweep-and, moreover, my most intimate friend." "So be it," returned Owen, more calmly, but with intense obstinacy of tone, "nevertheless, his pretensions to the hand of Miss Kinnaird are simply ludicrous, and I do not intend that he shall have the opportunity of arging them again. Perhaps you will have the goodmess to notify this to him." "No, Mr. Forde," retorted Frank, "I must request you to be the bearer of your own messages-I cannot undertake the office." "My dear Frank," said I, putting my hand on his rm, "it is not by irritating my brother that we have ay hope of changing his resolution. You are naturally eted; now, do go away, and leave me to do the best I can with him. Go to Edith," added I in a whisper, rging him gently towards the door, "I think she ught to hear the truth at once." He seemed, at first, disposed to resist my suggestion but at that moment a step was heard in the hall, and rith a half-laugh and a significant look to me, he juitted the room, leaving me with the consolatory imression that he had gone out to join his friend, and, tot improbably, to conduct him to Edith ! By this time Owen had quite recovered his coolness, which, indeed, rarely forsook him, and turning to me e said, with a deliberation which left no room for hope, There is no use in discussing the subject. The young ady will, I dare say, shed a few natural tears; and pout little, as in duty bound-but in a fortnight she will e ready for another lover, and by the year's end she ill congratulate herself on having some one to act for er, who has the good luck to possess a little common ense. Only let this be distinctly understood, that I llow no interview, no engagement, no correspondence. won't have an under-current of mystery to keep up entimental nonsense in a silly girl's brain. Let it all e at an end, and, if she behaves well, I promise to say lothing to her about it. Tell her this, Peggy, and now et me get my luncheon." "Owen, you are positively cruel. I do assure you his is no new girlish fancy that will pass away. It is infortunate, I admit, but she is really and thoroughly attached to him.” My brother began to laugh. "I admire the real and thorough attachment of a girl of eighteen," said he. A pack of nonsense! I beg your pardon, Peggy, but I certainly never made a greater mistake than in selecting you for a duenna-your manner of viewing things is so inimitably youthful. Take her to choose a new bonnet, or talk to her about her court-dress for the spring!" The tone in which he spoke was inexpressibly provoking, and I felt my temper beginning to give way. "As you say," I replied, "it is useless to discuss the sabject-our views are so utterly opposite, that each speaks to the other as if in a foreign language. I consider you at least as much in the wrong as you consider me. Only, if you fancy it will be an easy task to induce Edith to give up her engagement, I can tell you you are completely mistaken.' You are angry," he answered, "yet you can scarcely be surprised that I don't feel any very profound confidence in your judgment just at present. I know your intentions are the best in the world--but I can't forget that it is scarcely a week since you wrote me word that Miss Kinnaird was in a fair way to become Lady Vaughan. My dear Peggy, if you will walk through the world with your eyes shut, and resist every effort to open them, you must at least suffer yourself to be led by the hand." I bit my lips and was silent, and Owen withdrew to his bedroom. I went slowly up stairs to Edith's boudoir, where, as I had anticipated, I found both Kinnaird and "Miss Forde, before I go-and I feel that I must not remain--I am anxious that you should do me justice Till this morning I was not aware of Mr. Forde's existence, much less of Edith's"-(he pronounced the word with a lingering hesitation of tone very unusual with him, and a most eloquent glance at the drooping figure on the sofa)-"much less of Edith's dependence on his will. I imagined that Frank and yourself were her sole guardians, and you know that, even when I thus thought, I was not guilty of the presumption of supposing myself an acceptable suitor." 66 'No, no-not presumption-don't use the word!" murmured Edith." He looked at her for a moment in silence, and then proceeded, though in a less steady tone of voice, "I am as conscious as Mr. Forde himself can be, that a poor man, and a man of no family, is, as the world judges, without a right-” But here Edith interrupted him. Suddenly clasping his hand between her own, and lifting her beautiful face, all burning with blushes and suffused with tears, she exclaimed, Oh, hollow nonsense! it is yourself that I love. One unset diamond is more valuable than a tiara of glittering paste! What could family or fortune have to do with you, except to receive honour from you?" Recovering himself with an effort, a still keeping Edith's hand in his, Everard continue in a low restrained voice, the calmness of which betrayed the intensity of the agitation which he was repressing, "I should despise myself for ever were I capable of taking advantage of these feelings to involve her in a clandestine engagement; at her age-under her circumstances-it were unmanly and dishonourable. No! I must go for three years we part, and she is as free as if she had never known me.' "She is free!" repeated Edith. "Ah! say it of me if you will; but you do not dare say it to me. You cannot mock me by telling me that I am free, at the very moment when you are riveting my chains. But oh! such a happy prisoner!" she added, relapsing into tears, and speaking in a broken, faltering voice; "we have not time for all this conventionalism-this acting -oh! speak really to me !-this once more- this last time-speak as you are, and as you feel !" His stoicism was fairly conquered. "My own Edith !" said he, in a voice tender as a mother's to her first-born-reverent as a devotee's to his saint-"I will not wound you any more by false phrases. It is true; you are my own; and were we to part for ten years, instead of three, I should esteem it sin to suffer one doubt of you to trouble my peace. My faith in you comes next to my faith in God; God grant it be not the stronger of the two! Bear these three years, for my sake; knowing that I am with you the whole time, though the wide world be between us, and that, when we meet, we shall meet as though we had never parted!" She subdued her emotion to listen to him; raising her head, and holding her breath, as though she feared to lose a word. What evil spirit brought to my mind at such a moment her vain and girlish love of general admiration and attention, and suggested to me that she would fail in the refined and impassioned constancy which he demanded of her? "And, remember this, my beloved," he continued more hurriedly, "that I go from you, a changed man, and that the change is your work. My misanthropy is gone from me. I feel that I have sinned against the world, and the race to which I belong. I feel and confess the folly and self-sufficiency of my distrust of others. Even at this moment, this thought makes me happy; for my faith and love are restored, or rather created And so ends the history of the first period of my acquaintance with Edith Kinnaird. A nervous fever was the natural result of that day of agitation; but it was neither long nor severe; and Owen classed it with the hysterics and fainting-fits which he believed that all young ladies were capable of summoning to their assistance at pleasure. When I resigned her to the charge of Lady Frances Moore, she had recovered her health, and, in some measure, her spirits; for she was of an elastic and energetic nature, and was now possessed by the one sole purpose of cherishing secretly the recollection of her lover, and endeavouring to employ the three years of separation in rendering herself more worthy of him. I knew how soon this enthusiasm would flag; how wearily the slow hours would struggle onward; but in very pity I would not disturb it. Like the eagerness of a young horse at the foot of a long steep ascent, though transient, it was real, and would carry her forward unconsciously over a portion of the way. But the toil must begin; and, alas! how would she bear it? With her tacit engagement Owen could not interfere -about the state of her feelings he did not trouble himself; and the next thing I heard was that she had been presented at Court in white satin and diamonds, and all London was raving of her matchless beauty. ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES OF GERMANY AND THE GERMANS.1 WHATEVER the future fortune of Germany may be, it is to be hoped that its children will never lose their present moral character. They are the most engaging people possible, meaning not sprightly and amusing, but people with whom you rapidly and easily feel your self at home. The first point in their character which strikes one, is the honest simplicity which distinguishes almost every one you meet; there is none of the vainglorious vapouring of the French, or the loquacious impudence of the Yankee, or the morose self sufficiency of the English, but a good-humoured and affectionate single-mindedness and probity of thought and action, which at once sets one at ease even in a company of perfect strangers. From the fat old fellows, with scarce any necks and enormous paunches, whose whole life seems devoted to smoking long pipes and drinking coffee, to the chubby cheeked, yellow haired, round sterned little damsels whose existence is divided between reading romances and knitting stockings, this charming simplicity is universally apparent. And, united to this, is a good humour and kindliness of disposition which renders it still more agreeable: one seldom sees a German in a passion; this may be attributed to their phlegmatic temperament; but then, one still more seldom sees one of a sulky sullen demeanour; on the contrary, they seem always to have a smile and a kind word for every one and everything. All those little inconveniences, which would set an Englishman fretting and fuming for a day, are disposed of with a laugh, or at most a long winded but most harmless execration, and an extra whiff; nor, as they grumble less, do they enjoy less; on the contrary, they not only delight in all the beauties, whether rural or urban, of their land, but always take pleasure in pointing out to strangers whatever may be of interest to them. In fact, I do not know how the Germans ever acquired that character for boorish rudeness and bluntness of bearing which, in former (1) Continued from page 393. times at least, was commonly attributed to them. Tə me it seems that the honest kindliness of their disposi tions has led them to exactly the right medium between our own surly reserve, and the chattering showy politeness of the French. The politeness of the French, from the peer to the meanest peasant, as contrasted with the demeanour, especially of our lower orders, has been conmented on with admiration from the days of Addison and Goldsmith to our own, till it has become proverbial; and I do not deny them all the merit which they are entitled to claim on this score; but yet the politeness a the French always seems to me to have too much glos and tinsel about it; the substratum of genuine kind feeling, which is the foundation of all true politeness, I cannot help thinking is generally wanting, or a any rate the outward froth and foam is so superaband ant as entirely to conceal the reality beneath. But with the Germans it is quite the contrary: all their politeness seems to spring from, as it is accompanied by, good i feeling and kindness of heart, so that, though there may be more homeliness and less finish about them thần with their French neighbours, there is a heartiness and be volence mingled with their courtesy, which makes it i more pleasing. Nor are these agreeable manners fined to the upper and middle classes. I remember, one morning rather early, in a somewhat out of the way place not far from the Rhine, being in want of breakfast, going into a small Gasthaus, or, as we should call P. road-side public house; the only provisions which e be produced without delay were brown bread and be and I sat down to discuss this breakfast at a talle ai which a labouring man was making his way through, repast composed of similar materials. He was ba working mason, and evidently very poor; but he make room for us, and proffered various little courtesies with as much politeness as if he had been a noblema Finding we were English, he entered into conversataa about the country, and so forth, and, telling us that several of his relations had emigrated to America, as our advice as to the expediency of his doing so hinsei, as to the best way of doing it, and various other matter, always apologizing for the liberty he was taking, uniting in his conversation a degree of simplicity and politeness which contrasted strangely with war would have been the bearing of a peasant in Suffolk e Yorkshire in similar circumstances. When he finished his breakfast, he rose with an apology and a regret that he was obliged to go, and, with a low b wished us good morning and a pleasant journey. N there was something very striking about all this to Englishman, who is accustomed to connect boorishres of address with lowness of station, especially as there was nothing cringing or servile in the man's demean but, on the contrary, a proper respect for himself, mingle with a sense of what was due to others. Then, upper ranks reciprocate the same politeness of behavi and no one can travel in Germany without seeing every where numerous instances of perfect affability amenst those highest towards those lowest in station. ( meets with very few of the Limkins class, very few d those superb personages who, feeling that "Nature had but little clay Like that of which she moulded them," are always afraid of the least communication with thes of common mould, for fear that the pure china of which they are composed, should suffer from contact with mere earthenware. On the contrary, princes and nobles su to put their patents of nobility into their pockets, an only to take them out with their passports. Our friend the Bavarian general was a capital instance of this of thing. Baron though he was, and knight of I don't know how many orders of merit, from the Black Eagle of Prussia to the Lion and Sun of Persia, he sat at a mailguards, and travelling pedlars, and conversed with common table in an inferior inn, with shopkeepers, them as comfortably as if they had all been titled guests. |