written a short time after I bid him farewell. I was deeply affected with this intelligence, and easily being able to spare a few days, posted down without a minute's hesitation, and on my arrival was just in time to take a yearning look of the rigid but composed features of my old friend, previous to the lid of his oaken coffin being screwed down. As I gazed and gazed, I could almost fancy a smile of pleased recognition played around his mouth, and as the image of the animation of that mouth and the words that issued from it in times so lately past, forced itself on my recollection, a scalding tear-drop fell from my fixed eye on the pallid cheek, and hastily cutting off a dark lock of still raven hair which fell over his forehead, I sprang out to hide my emotion.

Why a closing note prolong?"- We buried him in the minster yard, according to a desire he had expressed, and on subsequently opening the will alluded to, it was found to be this: After naming several unimportant legacies to old comrades -legacies that is, of no intrinsic value, but which perhaps would be treasured by the recipients, far more than silver or gold- he left the whole of his property (consisting of the cottage and a few acres of land) to the orphan daughter of an ancient comrade, who had been his housekeeper and faithful and grateful attendant, ever since he retired from the service. In conclusion, I myself was left a swan-quill pen that he had shown me on one of my visits, hoarded in a leather case lined with cotton, which said pen was, he said, the last, or the last but one, ever used by the lamented Sir John Moore, whose shattered person he had also helped to put " with his martial cloak around him," in the bayonet-dug grave, by "the moonbeam's fitful light, and the lantern dimly burning."

Who was the "old pensioner"—or rather, what had he been? is a question that the reader will perhaps naturally ask before we part.

I cannot tell his few papers gave not the slightest clue to this mystery, and I know nothing more than I have already related in this sketch.

TRYSAIL.

SONNET.

BY CALDER CAMPBELL.

"WHAT are Love's foes?-how many ?" ask me not!
They are as numerous as the motes, that rise
Between us and yon sunshine in the skies,
Which they disturb, but quench not.-Dark the lot
Of such as love not; darker still is theirs
Who love unwisely-other ties forgot

And duties set aside for certain cares!
Pride warreth against Love, but never harm'd
A true and noble feeling-quickly slain
By generous thought: but Jealousy, which springs
To birth, mature-Minerva-like, all arm'd-

Is Love's most direst foe; inflicting pain

By subtle woundings from a thousand stings,
That breed keen frenzy in the startled brain!

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE BOOK OF AN IDLER, OR SKETCHES OF MEN AND THINGS.

LEAF THE FIRST.

Reports of the Day.

THE report of the day is to calumny, what the prick of a pin is to the stab of a poniard; it is as the passing breeze to the raging hurricane, as the insect to the reptile, as the wealth of poverty to the poverty of wealth.

Hearken not, it has no voice; gaze not, it possesses no form. But it glides into the words, into the glance of others; there it penetrates, there it melts; with honey upon its lips, it carries poison at the heart.

It

Base and cowardly as it may be, calumny never cringes. has feet that walk, a body which moves forward, a hideous head which it sometimes rears aloft, a dart which one can at least discern when it strikes, or when it has striken. But the report of the day is an imperceptible hornet floating unnoticed in the air above us; less than it is an atom; still less again an echo, a fluid sound which enters your ear, and mingles with your thoughts, unsuspected, unseen, unfelt.

Calumny bites you, the venom remains; but for this there is a cure, the sting can be extracted. But the report of the day tickles rather than wounds. It is an itching, without pain at first, but which, when you irritate, inflames, and becomes a sore. Calumny is a pain, a grievance; you can despise or conquer it; it is an enemy, you can contend with it. But the report of the day-where are you to find it? Every where when you wish to hear it: no where if you desire to seize upon

it.

The former affirms, the latter always doubts. The first lacerates, the second strangles; impossible is it for you even to utter a cry.

Calumny has its martyrs; the report of the day has but victims. Protean mocker, it defies even your hatred, for should it by chance permit itself to be seen, it is even through a smile. Thus, a man accosts you; should he be an enemy, fear him; if a friend mistrust him.

On dit!

Who then, let me ask, has ever been able to see or meet with on dit? what man is there that has ever been able in his impotent rage, to give himself the satisfaction of saying to it: "You are a coxcomb and a liar?"

On dit 'tis he, 'tis she, 'tis they, 'tis this one, 'tis that one, 'tis everything, 'tis everybody.

Example.

One fine morning, the report goes that you are a ruined man. Who has invented this malicious report? Oh! no one. They say so. Who repeat it? Those who assure every one that it is not to be believed, and who defend you but too well, for they affirm that your luxury, your hospitality, your entertainments, have lost nothing of that distinction which first procured you glory and friends; your cuisine is still perfect, your wines exquisite, you have still got all your horses and equipages. Why then do they speak evil of your fortune? and yet On dit! This report of the day at length reaches your ears; from surprise you pass to rage; you from henceforth experience but one desire, one terrible, one burning desire, that of proving to these envious detractors that they are deceived. Alas! from being merely sumptuous you become prodigal, and you ruin yourself in fact; but then, who would have convinced you?

"He has clearly made one last push," say some.
"He is completely lost," return others.
"What a pity!" ejaculate the more indulgent.
"What a lesson !" I say.

The Inconveniencies of Celebrity.

After the life of the negro slave of some modern philanthropist, I know not in the world an existence more sad, more disagreeable, more slavish, in a word, than that of the celebrated

man.

Do you love repose and liberty? Is it your ambition to live at your own free will, to journey whithersoever your inclination may lead you, and in the manner most pleasing to you? Of remaining alone when you like; of speaking when it suits your convenience so to do, of keeping silent when you prefer it? Believe me, dear reader, remain little, humble, unperceived. Above all things, if it is your misfortune to be a statesman, a politician, or a man of letters, take especial care lest you contract a habit of uttering brilliant speeches in the "House," or of writing pieces capable of drawing crowds to the doors of "Old Drury," or rather of "Sadler's Wells," for, alas! the glory of Drury has passed away-or, in short, of perpetrating any one of those actions which are, now a days, regarded as prodigious, impracticable, or chimerical. Bear in mind, that from the day on which you become a " Lion," that you are run after, talked to, sung to, danced to; from that ill-fated day you no longer belong to yourself; your person, your gestures, your words, your name, have become public property; every one thinks that he has the right of making the use of them that may best serve his or her purpose. And the most capricious, the most fantastic, the most imperious, the most tyrannical of masters, is without contradiction, that many headed monster, which we are pleased to denominate the "World."

When you go to a party-and if you have not previously been in the habit of going into the "World," you are obliged to appear there now-hope no longer to enter noiselessly, to glide furtively into the crowd, to gain a little corner, where you may be permitted in peace to sit modestly ensconced between two or three friends whose conversation interests and amuses you; or rather, alone at a few paces distant from the object of your dreams, whose grace and beauty you silently contemplate.-No such thing; your apparition is an event which moves, removes, and upsets all; they run in crowds to meet you, they surround you; they press upon you, they dispute with you even for that meagre portion of fresh air, which you imagine in your innocence that you have the right of breathing, all speak to you, question you, and you are expected to have at instant command a myriad of

phrases, remarkable, witty, or profound; in short, such phrases as they can circulate next day all over .town, as the latest sayings of the celebrated Mr. So and So; happy, if, after two or three hours duration of this frightful exercise, your tormentors are kind enough to permit you to return home, utterly exhausted, and thoroughly broken down both in mind and body.

Above all things most especially dread and shun the gentlemen connected with the public press; for be assured that with whatever veil you may seek to shroud your person, you cannot remain long hidden from their penetrating glance; they have eyes which pierce through all tissues, pens which respect no mystery. If it is your lot to have met with the most trifling accident, or to have caught the slightest cold, a thousand bulletins are issued and dispersed from one end of the town to the other; in society, in the drawing-rooms of the fashionable world, in the clubs, nothing is spoken of among great and small, but the state of your pulse, of what physician is attending you, if your last night has been a tranquil one, and if the medicine administered has had the desired effect.

When you travel, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, New York, know, long before your own relations and friends, that you have taken your departure for Switzerland, or that you are drinking the waters at Spa, or Wiesbaden; and people given to conjecturing, puzzle their heads to divine, and having divined, hasten to point out to their less clear-sighted brethren, the political, or literary, or scientific end of this emigration; for people take it for granted that all your movements must be for some important end; never for a moment imagining that a celebrated man could possibly travel for his mere individual amusement.

Much more, your itinerary is public, and at every post house you must run the gauntlet of a crowd of idlers and sight-seers, esteeming yourself fortunate even if you escape the infliction of an harangue from the mayor or another principal personage of the spot. The landlord of the hotel at which you alight, arranges his entire household in review order to receive you with becoming respect; you are not free to chose your own room, to order your own dinner; a man like you must occupy the best apartments in the house, devour the choicest morsels, drink the finest wines, pay the highest price for everything, and give double gratuities to all the servants.

In conclusion, I declare to you, dear reader, in all the sincerity of my heart, that were I to be transformed into a cross