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brought them together in the morning, I come into your garden and please myself with the flowers and plants, and I bathe in these fountains. On this account the flowers and plants are beautiful, for they are watered from my baths. See now whether any one of your plants is broken, whether any fruit has been gathered, whether any flower-root has been trodden down, whether any fountain is troubled. And I say farewell to the only one of men, who in his old age has seen this child!' With these words he sprang like a young nightingale upon the myrtles, and passing from branch to branch, he crept through the leaves up to the top. I saw his wings upon his shoulders, and I saw a little bow between the wings and the shoulders; and then I saw no longer either them or him.

“Unless I have borne these gray hairs in vain, and unless as I grow older I become more foolish, you are dedicated to Love, and Love has the care of you."

Chap. 4.—"They were quite delighted, as if they had heard a fable, not a history; and they inquired, 'What is Love, whether a boy or a bird, and what power has he?" Philetas answered: My Children, Love is a god, young and beautiful and winged; he therefore delights in youth, follows after beauty, and gives wings to the soul. And he has more power than Jove. He governs the elements; he governs the stars; he governs his peers the Gods. You have not so much power over the goats and sheep. The flowers are all the work of Love; these plants are his productions. Through his influence the rivers flow and the winds breathe. I remember a bull overcome by love, and he bellowed as if he had been stung by a gad-fly; and a he-goat enamoured of a she-goat, and he followed her every where.

"Even I have been young, and I was in love with Amaryllis. I remembered not food, I sought not after drink, I

took no sleep. My soul grieved; my heart palpitated; my body was chilled. I cried as if beaten; I was silent as if dead. I threw myself into the rivers as if burning. I called upon Pan to help me, for he loved Pitys: I blessed the echo for repeating after me the name of Amaryllis: I broke my reeds, for they could charm my oxen but could not bring Amaryllis.

"There is no cure for Love, that is either to be drunken, or to be swallowed, or to be uttered in incantations, except only a kiss, an embrace, and unrestrained caresses.'"

ON THE SCOTCH CHARACTER.

(A Fragment.)

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THE Scotch nation are a body-corporate. They hang together like a swarm of bees. I do not know how it may be among themselves, but with us they are all united as one man. They are not straggling individuals, but embodied, formidable abstractions-determined personifications of the land they come from. A Scotchman gets on in the world, because he is not one, but many. He moves in himself a host, drawn up in battle-array, and armed at all points against all impugners. He is a double existence-he stands for himself and his country. Every Scotchman is bond and surety for every other Scotchman-he thinks nothing Scotch foreign to him. If you see a Scotchman in the street, you may be almost sure it is another Scotchman he is arm in arm with; and what is more, you may be sure they are talking of Scotchmen. Begin at the Arctic Circle, and they take Scotland in their way back. Plant the foot of the compasses in the meridian, and they turn it by degrees to "Edina's darling seat"-true as the needle to the Pole. If you happen to say it is a high wind, they say there are high winds in Edinburgh. Should you mention Hampstead or Highgate, they smile at this as a local prejudice, and remind you of the Calton Hill. The conversation wanders and is impertinent, unless it hangs by this loop. It" runs the great circle, and is still at home." You would think there was no other place in the world but Scotland, but that they strive to convince

you at every turn of its superiority to all other places. Nothing goes down but Scotch Magazines and Reviews, Scotch airs, Scotch bravery, Scotch hospitality, Scotch novels, and Scotch logic. Some one the other day at a literary dinner in Scotland apologized for alluding to the name of Shakespear so often, because he was not a Scotchman. What a blessing that the Duke of Wellington was not a Scotchman, or we should never have heard the last of him! Even Sir Walter Scott, I understand, talks of the Scotch Novels in all companies; and by waving the title of the author, is at liberty to repeat the subject ad infinitum.

Lismahago in Smollett is a striking and laughable picture of this national propensity. He maintained with good discretion and method that oat-cakes were better than wheaten bread, and that the air of the old town of Edinburgh was sweet and salubrious. He was a favourable specimen of the class-acute though pertinacious, pleasant but wrong.* In general, his countrymen only plod on with the national character fastened behind them, looking round with wary eye and warning voice to those who would pick out a single article of their precious charge; and are as drawling and troublesome as if they were hired by the hour to disclaim and exemplify all the vices of which they stand accused. Is this repulsive egotism peculiar to them merely in their travelling capacity, when they have to make their way among strangers, and are jealous of the honour of the parent-country, on which they have ungraciously turned their backs? So Lord Erskine, after an absence of fifty years, made an appropriate eulogy on the place of his birth, and having traced the feeling of patriotism in himself to its source in that habitual

Some persons have asserted that the Scotch have no humour. It is in rain to set up this plea, since Smollett was a Scotchman.

attachment which all wandering tribes have to their places of fixed residence, turned his horses' heads towards England and farewell sentiment!

The Irish and others, who come and stay among us, however full they may be of the same prejudice, keep it in a great measure to themselves, and do not vent it in all companies and on all occasions, proper or improper. The natives of the sister-kingdom in particular rather cut their country like a poor relation, are shy of being seen in one another's company, and try to soften down the brogue into a natural gentility of expression. A Scotchman, on the contrary, is never easy but when his favourite subject is started, treats it with unqualified breadth of accent, and seems assured that every one else must be as fond of talking of Scotland and Scotchmen as he is.

Is it a relic of the ancient system of clanship? And are the Scotch pitted against all the rest of the world, on the same principle that they formerly herded and banded together under some chosen leader, and harried the neighbouring district? This seems to be the most likely solution. A feeling of antipathy and partisanship, of offensive and defensive warfare, may be considered as necessary to the mind of a Scotchman. He is nothing in himself but as he is opposed to or in league with others. He must be for or against somebody. He must have a cause to fight for; a point to carry in argument. He is not an unit, but an aggregate; he is not a link, but a chain. He belongs to the regiment. I should hardly call a Scotchman conceited, though there is often something that borders strongly on the appearance of it. He has (speaking in the Jump) no personal or individual pretensions. He is not proud of himself, but of being a Scotchman. He has no existence or excellence except what he derives from some external accident, or shares with some body of men. He is a

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