So far back as 18-, being advised to remove from the city of to the country, for the benefit of my health, which had got somewhat out of order by close study and confinement; instead of taking up my residence at a wateringplace, I resolved to ramble through some parts of Durham. Letters of introduction were easily procured from some friends, to acquaintances living near such places as I proposed to visit. My reader need not for a moment be apprehensive, that he is about to be bored with a prosing journal, detailing accounts of scenes, rocks, and vallies-no such thing-the "cuisine," is somewhat more to my taste; and there is not a reasonable being in existence, who will not frankly admit that the pleasantest view, seen in the whole of a country trip, is the view of the " dejeuner."

My first visit was to a plain straightforward fox-hunter, to whom I had an introduction, and who received me with all the frankness usually attendant on such a character, assuring me, at the same time, how much he regretted that the state of my health would not allow me to go deep into the bottle, but that Mrs.

would take charge of me, and see my wants attended to. Here is some of the influence of “gossiping;" long before my arrival, every little circumstance connected with me was fully known, and thus it plays its part, influencing in some way even the minutest concerns of our lives.

At dinner, Mrs. resolving to take charge of me, assigned me the seat next to her. Mr. was in the act of asking, whether he should send me part of the dish before him, and I was just assenting (it happening to be the very thing I should have preferred) but, the

hostess at once interposed, asking, with the greatest surprise, could "any such thing be recommended to an invalid. She must be allowed to know what was, and what was not fit, for a delicate person, and had prepared under her own eye, a made-dish,' such as was fit for an invalid after a journey." Spirits of Kitchiner! of Curtis! and all the other aldermanic tribe of eating animals, look down with pity on a poor disciple, whose only fault was that of having been troubled with a bit of a short cough, or a little thickness of wind, and for this small offence was doomed, in the face of the very fare he could have feasted on, to eat that which he ever loathed, and the very sound of whose name, even now, makes him shudder-"a made dish, after a journey!"

To prescribe the quality of the thing to be eaten, seemed a mere preliminary act of guardianship on the part of my hostess; to order the quantity, followed naturally enough, as a matter of course; but, though with patient submission to inexorable fate, I ate almost to repletion of viands thus presented, my only recompence was-"Oh, you really are doing nothing, you have scarcely eaten a morsel." Repeated assurances that I already had abundance were of no avail, my plate was still loaded with unsparing hand. To diversify the scene, or rather to produce a diversion, I tried to get some fluid to sip, by way of interlude; and while in the act of calling to the servant, my hostess, ever watchful of my comforts, seemed disposed to crown her attentions, by adding to the pile already before me, but her attention was roused to another subject. The sound of the word, "glass of ale," as I called to the servant, suspended every other purpose.

<< Surely, sir, your physician does not allow you ale, it is quite impossible: such beverage is never allowed to an invalid. I see I must take charge of you; you'll allow me to show you how to mix your wine and water, it is the only drink fit for delicate persons."

Literally horror-struck at the very name of that vilest of all vile mixtures, wine and water, I still felt that resistance or protestation were alike unavailing, and so was obliged to make a virtue of sad necessity, and submit with as much composure as I could assume. Wine, sir, as every body knows, was once, even in this great wine-bibbing country, used only medicinally; but now it has become so much an article of every day's

usc, that all trace of its original character is lost, I mean that character of nauseousness that appertains to every part and portion of the res-medica-however it was once my lot to drink port, I say medicinal port, with every circumstance of feel and gesture that attends the act of gulping down some compost of the pharmacopolists.

Possibly you may have witnessed the sensation that is caused by the arrival of an unexpected guest; and. amongst other causes of bustle, in a country-house that does not rejoice in a well-stored winecellar the haste with which a courier is dispatched to the next town for the "wine for dinner."-Just fancy, for a moment, such a skipper, returning home with this article of luxury committed to his charge:-see the zeal with which he grasps the neck of a brace of bottles, one in each fist, and then think of the effect that a trot of two or three miles, on a hot day, will have on its contents; -then think what must be the feelings of a man, who happened to get a glimpse of the probation to which that luckless wine had been subjected, and at dinner, on asking for a glass of ale, is peremptorily told he must have wine and water, which is his utter aversion at the best of times; and then, when an awkward clown clumsily inserts a bad cork-screw, sees, to his utter dismay, the cork come away piecemeal, and the turbid "black strap" issue, gurgling forth, loaded with fragments of cork, or sediment, or both, now rendered even more manifest by the watering to which it is subjected;— when, I say, you have all these preliminaries in your mind's eye, just figure a devoted being, endeavouring to still the qualm that kicks at his stomach, and VOL. Ì.

tries to compose the wrinkle that would twirl up his nose, as he prepares to gulp down the nauseous draught, to which his guardian angel had doomed him.Picture to yourself all this, and have you not, at one view, the very climax of human misery ?

The dinner-scene, to my great relief, passed away, and the sigual for the ladies to retire gave some prospect of being freed from farther outrage, for so it may truly be called; but my hostess, lest by any possibility I might forget her attention, perceiving my eye to stray towards a flask of clear mountain-dew that was laid on the table, strictly, as her parting injunction, forbad any other liquor than negus.

The host was not so excessively submissive as to have every command carried into execution, and he allowed me to fortify myself with some of the " раtience" which he found probably to be indispensable to himself, whenever he wished to assume even the appearance of being a free agent. Thus strengthened I took courage, and resolved, that, come what may, at the tea-table I should drink no medicinals. There, happily, no subject of difference occurred; all went quietly on, and as early hours are necessary for an invalid, I was conducted to my sleeping apartment shortly after 10 o'clock. Here, at my very entrance, I felt a glowing proof of the attention paid to my comforts as an invalid, particularly an asthmatic one; a huge pile of wood blazed before me, though on referring to my diary I found the time of the year was June 2d. The curtains were drawn closely round the bed, the window-shutters carefully barred, blinds, &c. &c. adjusted so as to defy Boreas himself to slide in one puff to my assistance, even if at my last gasp for a mouthful of fresh air. But, Sir! I was an invalid, and somewhat asthmatic: therefore, in every particular, as you see, treated as such!! To undo all the other overt-acts of attention was easy enough, but as for the great blazing log that was literally hissing in the fireplace, to eject that was quite out of the question. So, submission being the order of the day, nothing remained for me, but to make up my mind quietly to bear "those ills we have," though the catalogue seems pretty full, as even the last section of our first day's history testifies a blazing fire, close curtains, and a pile of down for an asthmatic.

P

THE life of a soldier is checquered by a greater variety of scenes and circumstances, than that of most individualshis wandering profession, his uncertain period of residence in any one particular place-his connections with individuals, suddenly formed, and as suddenly to be broken, make him what may be truly called a citizen of the world.He has no spot upon earth where he can say to himself, this is my fixed place of abode-my home:-No-even after a night of heart-expanding conviviality, when he has sworn eternal friendship with a circle of casual merry-makers and good fellows-when he has been placed upon a level with his betters in wit or wealth, by the potent and equalizing influence of the grape, or brandy, or whiskey toddy,-he is liable to be roused out of his deep and refreshing slumbers, to be hurried off in a twinkling to some distant part of the kingdom-to some foreign country-or to -the lord knows where.

A soldier's life then is one of continual excitement, and he who is not an old stager in the profession, and whose heart is unaccustomed to the sudden tearing up of friendships and attachments by the roots, how much pain has he to encounter before he can pass through the world in a soldier-like kind of way. For my part, I have been always of a pathetic and even melancholy turn of mind, and it was the opportunities that I saw in a soldier's life for an indulgence of my favourite feelings, that first induced me to adopt the profession of

the army.

A few years since I was quartered with my regiment in a secluded and agreeably-situated town in one of the western districts of the sisterkingdom. All the knowledge of which that I shall give my readers is, what they can collect from description. A small river of clear water, meandering through morasses for a distance of several miles from the mountains where it takes its rise, divides the town into two equal parts, by a sort of east and west division, which are united by a narrow bridge, with houses, inhabited by petty

-Shakspeare.

grocers, linen-merchants, retailers of leather, snuff-manufacturers, with numerous and indispensable little venders of native whiskey, which latter houses are always well frequented.-To the east of the town the wide-spreading bog of Allen extends its flat surface of heath and water, to an extent beyond the reach of human eye; the prospect of this wild morass is excluded from the view on the north and south by thick woods, and elevations of the country which diversify the landscape on each side, for a considerable space. To the west, and at about the distance of nine miles, is a chain of hills of very imposing magnitude and a variety of shapes, far above the tops of which is seen towering, in majestic superiority, that pile of earth and rock and fern commonly called in the district I am describing, "the hill of the white fairy."

The immediate environs of the town are decorated by handsomely-situated little villas, belonging to the gentry of the place-a few old family-mansions are to be scen, surrounded by lofty trees, the remains of former and more prosperous days-but those latter edifices are many of them deserted by their owners; and those that are inhabited by the descendants of goodly ancestors, are much neglected and gone to decay.

This town, like most others of equal extent, has its church for the weekly resort of the pious and well-inclinedits goal for the reception of refractory characters, its chapel, so called par excellence, for its Roman Catholics, and its meeting-house for its saints.-It also has to boast of its old castle and its holy well. At the western entrance there stands a badly whitewashed-desolate -malt-house looking building, called the Veterans Barracks, appended to one end of which, as a sort of codicil, was a small shop, commonly called the canteen, kept by the sergeant-major's wife, smelling strongly of pipe-clay, red herrings, and rancid butter, and in which a great deal of every thing might be purchased for due consideration. Every object in and about this barrack