That none may feel, and none can know ! 6. Chorus. Now, Sion, art thou cast away! Thy name is sunk for ever! Yea, thou art cast away! Wait to uncover thee! Thy glory is darken'd, and turn'd into shame; Oh where are thy ancient deeds, where is thy fame? How shall the Gentile glory now, That she the Empress lieth low; Rejected of her Lord, and spoil'd her former name! 7. Messias. Yea from the fix'd foundation-stone, The seat the Father call'd his own And dark and long the night shall be, Thy sons and thee! And claps his wings in joy to hear The groan that tells him death is near; Then shalt thou darkness dread-but more the coming light! 8. Semi-chorus. Oh, who shall pray to God! Oh woe! And weep and pray-Oh no! Oh no! Thou shalt not tempt thy God again; As thou received thy Lord-so be thy fate 9. Chorus. What glorious vision meets our eyes, God is himself their holy shrine, The Lamb their temple fair! THE STEAM-BOAT; Or, The Voyages and Travels of Thomas Duffle, Cloth-merchant in the Saltmarket of Glasgow. No. VIII. WHEN I had abundantly satisfied my curiosity with the curious things of London, I was admonished by my purse, which had suffered a sore bowel complaint from the time of my arrival, that it behoved me to think of taking it to grass and replenishment in the Salt-market. Accordingly after settling counts with Mrs Damask, I got a hackney to carry my portmanty to the wharf, where I embarked on board the Mountaineer steam-boat, bound, God willing, to the Port of Leith. I had not been long on board when, lo! and behold who should I see, flourishing his cane, but that nice, good-tempered, fat man, whose genius and talents in the abstruse art of song writing make such a figure in Blackwood's Magazine. "Hey, Doctor!" quo I at length; Hegh, sirs, but a sight of you here is gude for sair een-whar d'ye come frae ?" The Doctor, who is a pawkie loon, as is well kent, said nothing at first, but looking as it were down at me with an inquisitive and jealousing ee, cried out, in his funny way, "Whar did that creature speak frae? Lord sake, Tammy Duffle, how came ye here? What's ta'en you a gallanting out o' the Salt-Market? I thought the Gallowgate would hae been the farthest o' your tramps. But ye hae nae doubt been up wi' a cargo o' your loyalty to the Coronation. Lord sake, man, but I'm glad to see you: I have nae had the visibility o' a Christian face since the Heavens kens when, Tammy." In this way the Odontist for a space o' time continued his mirthful devices till the vessel was put under way by the steam being set on, when we had somne solid conversation thegether-in the first place anent the news from Glasgow, of which the Doctor was in great want, by reason of his long absence; and in the second, concerning the Doctor's experience, and observes on the kingdom of France, and the city of Paris, appertaining thereto. But as it is his full intention to give the world some narration of his travels, it would be a breach of confidence to rehearse herein what he told to me. While we were thus holding a jocose conversation, a gentleman that had the look of a divine joined in with us, and he being taken with the Doctor's funny sayings, began to ettle at something of the sort himself; and upon his suggestion the Doctor, and him, and me, retired to a corner by ourselves, where the Odontist called on the steward to bring us a bottle of the port out of his basket of sea-stores; for the Doctor, being a man of a jolly as well as a jocose humour, had laid in a plentiful extra supply of divers sorts of good wines. This stranger turned out to be no other than the Rev. Mr Birkwhistle, the Minister of Ďintonknow. He is an elderly man, of a composed appearance, with something, however, of a peery weery twinkling about the een, which betrayed that he knew more than he let on. He had been at London on some gospel affair anent the call of a minister; but whether he had been on the leet, and wasna successful, or merely as a visitant-ablins to spy the nakedness of the land, I'll no take it upon me to say; but he had a fouth of queer stories, which it was a curiosity to hear of, in the manner that he discoursed of the same. Among others, he told us of a very surprising thing that befell himself. THE WIG AND THE BLACK CAT. TALE, NO. XIII. "By an agreement with the session," said Mr Birkwhistle, "I was invited to preach the action sermon at Kilmartin, and my new wig coming home from Glasgow by the Saltcoats carrier on the Thursday afore, I took it unopened on the Saturday evening in the box to the Manse, where I was to bide during the preachings with the widow. It happened, however, that in going in the stage-fly from my own parish to Kilmartin, a dreadful shower came on, and the box with my new wig thereintil, being on the outside tap of the coach, the wind flew and the rain fell, and by the help and colleagury of the twa, the seams of the box were invaded, and the wig, when I took it out on the Saturday night, was just a clash o' weet. "At that time o' night, there wasna a barber to be had for love or money within three miles o' the Manse; indeed I dinna think, for that matter, there was a creature o' the sort within the bounds and jurisdictions of the parish; so that I could make no better o't than to borrow the dredge-box out of the kitchen, and dress the wig with my own hands. 66 Although Mr Keckle had been buried but the week before, the mistress, as a' minister's wives of the right gospel and evangelical kind should be, was in a wholesome state of composity, and seeing what I was ettling at, said to me, the minister had a blockhead whereon he was wont to dress and fribble his wig, and that although it was a sair heart to her to see ony other man's wig upon the same, I was welcome to use my freedoms therewith. Accordingly, the blockhead, on the end of a stick, like the shank of a carpet-besom, was brought intil the room; and the same being stuck into the finger-hole of a buffet-stool, I set myself to dress and fribble with my new wig, and Mrs Keckle the while sat beside me, and we had some very edifying conversation indeed, concerning the vexations of spirit that all flesh is heir to. 66 During our discoursing, as I was not a deacon at the dressing of wigs, I was obligated now and then to contemplate and consider the effect of my fribbling at a distance, and to give Mrs Keckle the dredge-box to shake the flour on where it was seen to be wanting. But all this was done in great sincerity of heart between her and me; although, to be sure, it was none of the most zealous kind of religion on my part, to be fribbling with my hands and comb at the wig, and saying at the same time with my tongue, orthodox texts out of the Scriptures. Nor, in like manner, was it just what could be hoped for, that Mrs Keckle, when I spoke to her on the everlasting joys of an eternal salvation, where friends meet to part no more, saying, a bit pluff with the box there, on the left curls," (in the way of a parenthesis,) that she wouldna feel a great deal; but for all that, we did our part well, and she was long after heard to say, that she had never been more edified in her life, than when she helped me to dress my wig on that occasion. "But all is vanity and vexation of spirit in this world of sin and misery. When the wig was dressed, and as white and beautiful to the eye of man as a cauliflower, I took it from off its stance on the blockhead, which was a great short-sightedness of me to do, and I prinned it to the curtain of the bed, in the room wherein I was instructed by Mrs Keckle to sleep. Little did either me or that worthy woman dream of the mischief that was then brewing and hatching, against the great care and occupation wherewith we had in a manner regenerated the periwig into its primitive style of perfectness. "You must understand, that Mrs Keckle had a black cat, that was not past the pranks of kittenhood, though in outwardly show a most douce and well comported beast; and what would ye think Baudrons was doing all the time that the mistress and me were so eydent about the wig? She was sitting on a chair, watching every pluff that I gave, and meditating with the device of an evil spirit, how to spoil all the bravery that I was so industriously endeavouring to restore into its proper pedigree and formalities. I have long had a notion that black cats are no overly canny, and the conduct of Mrs Keckle's was an evidential kithing to the effect, that there is nothing of uncharitableness in that notion of mine; howsomever, no to enlarge on such points of philosophical controversy, the wig being put in order, I carried it to the bed-room, and, as I was saying, prinned it to the bedcurtains, and then went down stairs again to the parlour to make exercise, and to taste Mrs Keckle's mutton ham, by way of a relish to a tumbler of toddy, having declined any sort of methodical supper. Considering the melancholious necessity that had occasioned my coming to the Kilmartin Manse, I was beholden to enlarge a little after supper with Mrs Keckle, by which the tumbler of toddy was exhausted before I had made an end of my exhortation, which the mistress seeing, she said that if I would make another cheerer she would partake in a glass with me. It's no my habit to go such lengths at ony time, the more especially on a Saturday night; but she was so pressing that I could not but gratify her, so I made the second tumbler, and weel I wat it was baith nappy and good; for in the brewing I had an ee to pleasing Mrs Keckle, and knowing that the leddies like it strong and sweet, I wasna sparing either of the spirit bottle or the sugar bowl. But I trow both the widow and me had to rue the consequences that befell us in that night, for when I went up again intil the bed-room, I was what ye would call a thought off the nail, by the which my sleep wasna just what it should have been, and dreams and visions of all sorts came hovering about my pillow, and at times I felt, as it were, the bed whirling round. "In this condition, with a bit dover now and then, I lay till the hour of midnight, at the which season, I had a strange dream-wherein I thought my wig was kindled by twa candles of a deadly yellow light, and then I beheld, as it were, an imp of darkness dancing at my bed-side, whereat I turned myself round, and covered my head with the clothes, just in an eerie mood, between sleeping and waking. I had not, however, lain long in that posture, when I felt, as I thought, a hand claming softly over the bed-clothes like a temptation, and it was past the compass of my power to think what it could be. By and by I heard a dreadful thud on the floor, and something moving in the darkness, so I raised my head in a courageous manner to see and question who was there. But judge what I suffered, when I beheld, by the dim glimmer of the star-light of the window, that the curtains of the bed were awfully shaken, and every now and then what I thought a woman with a mutch keeking in upon me. The little gude was surely busy that night, for I thought the apparition was the widow, and that I saw Cluty himself at every other keek she gave, looking at me o'er her shoulder with his fiery cen. In short, the sight and vision grew to such a head upon me, that I started up, and cried with a loud voice, "O! Mistress Keckle, Mistress Keckle, what's brought you here?" The sound of my terrification gart the whole house dirĺ, and the widow herself, with her twa servan lasses, with candles in their hands, came in their flannen coaties to see what was the matter, thinking I had gane by myself, or was taken with some sore dead-ill. But when the lights entered the room, I was cured of my passion of amazement, and huddling intil the bed aneath the clothes, I expounded to the women what had disturbed me, and what an apparition I had seennot hinting, however, that I thought it was Mrs Keckle. While I was thus speaking, one of the maidens geid a shrill skirling laugh, crying, Och hon, the poor wig!" and sure enough no thing could be more humiliating than the sight it was; for the black cat, instigated, as I think, by Diabolus himself to an endeavour to pull it down, had with her claws combed out both the curls and the pouther; so that it was hinging as lank and feckless as a tap of lint, just as if neither the mistress nor me had laid a hand upon it. And thus it was brought to light and testimony, that what I had seen and heard was but the deevil of a black cat louping and jumping to bring down my new wig for a playock to herself, in the which most singular exploits she utterly ruined it; for upon an examine next day the whole faculty of the curls was destroyed, and great detriment done to the substance thereof." The Odontist, at the end of Mr Birkwhistle's story, applied himself to seduce from her taciturnity a matronly woman, that uttered herself in a sort of Englified Scotch, or, as the Doctor said in a by way, winking with a drollery that was itself an entertainment to me- "Her words are just a mixture of pease and sweeties." 66 Madam," quo' the Odontist," as ye seem to have had some experience of man, ye'll just gie us a bit tig and gae by, in the shape of some wee couthy tale; and to help to oil the hinge of your tongue-hae, take a glass o' wine. "Ye're very obligatory," said the mistress ; "and I thank you for this great proof of your politesse and expedience. But deed, Doctor, I have met with nothing of a jocosity to entertain the like of you, saving a sore fright that I got some years ago, the which, in all particulars, was one of the most comical misfortunes that ever happened to any single woman, far less to a desolate widow like me.' TRAVELLING BY NIGHT. TALE, NO. XIV. "YE should ken, Doctor, and gentlemen, and ladies, that I am, by reason of birth, parentage, and education, an Edinburgh woman. But, in course of time, it so fell out, that when I was married, I found myself left a widow in the city of Bristol; upon the which yevent I took up a house in Clifton,nae doubt, Doctor, ye have heard often enough tell o' Clifton,-and living there, as I was saying, I took a wearying fit to see my kith and kin in Scotland, and so set out in the coach, with the design and intent of travelling by night and by day to Edinburgh, straight through, without stopping. I'll never forget, to the day I die, what befell me in that journey, by a nocturnal reciprocity with a poor young man. "We took him in on the road, where he was waiting for the carriage, with an umbrella under his oxter, and a bundle in his hand. The sight of him was a sore thing, for his eyes were big and blue, his cheeks skin and bone, and he had a host that was just dreadful. It was death rapping with his knuckle at the chamber door of the poor creature's precious soul. But we travelled on, and I said to the young man that his friends were making a victim of him. He, however, had no fear, saying he was going home to try the benefit of his native air. "When we came, I think it was to the town of Lancaster, I steppit out to get a chop of dinner, leaving the lad in the coach, and when I had received a refreshment, and taken my seat again, I saw he was busy with his bundle, in the custody of which he had a bottle and a veal pye. Heavens preserve us! quo' I, what poison is that ye have been murdering yourself with?-But he only laughed to see the terror I was in. For a' that, to think of a man with such a coughing host, eating such a peppery conservatory as a pye, and tasting of the deadly indecorum of a brandy bottle, was a constipation of affliction that I cannot sufficiently express. "However, nothing happened for some time, but the coach hurled, he hosted, and the night it was growing dark; at last he gave, as ye would say, a skraik, and fell as dead as a doornail, with the pye and the bottle on the seat before me. 66 "At first, as ye may think, I was confounded, but presently I heard a lad that was ree with drink singing on the top of the coach; so being my leeful lane with the dead body, I put my head out at the window, and bade the coachman to stop. It was by this time quite dark. held him up, as away the coach went with us all three. "I wish, ma'am," said the supporter, after having sat sometime silent," that the man be not already dead, for I do not think he breathes." "Don't trouble him," quo' I, "he's but in a low way." We had not gone far till he lifted the dead man's arm and let it fall, and it fell like a lump of clay. 66 By heaven, he's dead!" said my living companion in alarm; "he does not breath, and his hand is as powerless as a knuckle of veal." "Cannot you let the man alone," said I; "how would you like to be so fashed if ye had fainted yourself? I tell you it's no decent to be meddling with either his feet or hands." Upon my saying which words, the drunken fool, holding up the body with his left hand, lifted one of its legs and let it drop. 66 66 "Madam," said he, in a mournful voice, "he does not breath, he has no power in his hands, and his leg's a dead log. I'll bet ten to one, he's dead." Surely," quo' I, no poor woman was ever so tormented as Î am—what business have you either to bet or bargain on the subject? Cannot ye in a peaceable manner just do as I bid you, and keep the poor man in a christian posture?" "But for all that, we had not driven far till the inquisitive fellow put his hand into the bosom of the corpse. "By jingo, madam," said he, "if this ben't a dead man, the last oyster I swallowed is living yet he does not breathe, his hand's powerless, his leg can't move, and his heart don't beat. The game's all up with him, depend upon't, or my name's not Jack Lowther." "I'll be very much obligated to you," quo' I to the driver, "if ye'll let the gentlemen that's singing so blythely come in beside me; for the poor lad that was here has taken an ill turn." "Well, I declare, Mr Lowther," "The coachman very civilly consent- quo' I, "I never met the like of you ed to this, and the drunken nightin--who ever heard of a man dying in a gale was allowed to come in; but before he got the door opened, I took care to set the corpse upright, and to place it all in order with the bundle in its hand on its knee. "Friend," said I to the ree man, "ye'll be so good as to keep this poor lad in a steady posture, for he has had a low turn, and maybe it'll be some time before he recover.' "I'll do that," said he ; and accordingly he sat beside the dead man and stage-coach? I am surprised ye could think of mentioning such a thing to a leddy. It's enough to frighten me out of my judgment-for the love of peace, Mr Lowther, hold your tongue about death, and haud up the man till we get to Kendal.” 66 I may hold him up-that I don't refuse; but ina'am," said Mr Lowther, "the poor fellow is already food for worms. Feel his bosom, put in your hand-do pray. By Jingo, he is as cold |