DISCOUNT FOR CASH.

The following anecdote is related in a journal of the year 1789 :

A service of plate was delivered at the duke of Clarence's house, by his order, accompanied by the bill, amounting to 1500l., which his royal highness deeming exorbitant, sent back, remarking, that he conceived the overcharge to be occasioned by the apprehension that the tradesman might be kept long out of his money.' He added, that so far from its being his intention to pay by tedious instalments, or otherwise distress those with whom he dealt, he had laid it down as an invariable principle, to discharge every account the moment it became due. The account was returned to his royal highness the next morning, with three hundred pounds taken off, and it was instantly paid.

The perfume and the bloom
That shall decorate the flower,
Are quickening in the gloom
Of their subterranean bower;
And the juices meant to feed
Trees, vegetables, fruits,
Unerringly proceed

To their preappointed roots.

How awful the thought

Of the wonders under ground, Of the mystic changes wrought

In the silent, dark profound; How each thing upwards tends

By necessity decreed, And a world's support depends

On the shooting of a seed!

The Summer's in her ark,

And this sunny-pinion'd day.
Is commission'd to remark
Whether Winter holds her sway;
Go back, thou dove of peace,
With the myrtle on thy wing,
Say that floods and tempests cease,
And the world is ripe for Spring.

Thou hast fann'd the sleeping Earth
Till her dreams are all of flowers,
And the waters look in mirth
For their overhanging bowers;
The forest seems to listen

For the rustle of its leaves,
And the very skies to glisten
In the hope of summer eves.

Thy vivifying spell

Has been felt beneath the wave,

By the dormouse in its cell,

And the mole within its cave; And the summer tribes that creep, Or in air expand their wing, Have started from their sleep,

At the summons of the Spring.

The cattle lift their voices

From the valleys and the hills, And the feather'd race rejoices With a gush of tuneful bills; And if this cloudless arch

Fills the poet's song with glee, O thou sunny first of March, Be it dedicate to thee!

This beautiful poem has afforded me exquisite gratification. Till I saw it printed in Mr. Dyce's "Specimens of British Poetesses," I was ignorant that a living lady had written so delightfully. Without a friend at my elbow to instruct me whether I should prefix "Miss" or "Mrs." to her felicitous name, I transcribe—as I find it in Mr. Dyce's volume-FELICIA HEMANS.

For the Table Book.

66

"Is the master at home, sir?" said a broad-shouldered Scotchman (wearing a regimental coat of the regiment, and with his bonnet in his hand) to myself, who had answered a ring at the office-bell. I replied that he was not. "Weel, that's onlucky, sir," said he, "for ye see, sir, a hae goten a pertection here, an' a hae been till a' the Scotchmen that a can hear ony thing o', but they hae a' signed for the month; an' a hae a shorteness o' brith, that wunna lat me wurk or du ony thing; an' a'd be vary glaid gin a cud git doon to Scoteland i' the nixt vaissel, for a hanna' a baubee; an', as a sid afore, a canna wurk, an' gin maister B. wud jist sign ma pertecVol. I.-10.

MATTHEWS and Self

tion, a hae twa seagnatures, an' a'd git awa' the morn." For once I had told no lie in denying Mr. B. to his visitor, and, therefore, in no dread of detection from cough, or other vivâ voce evidence, I ushered the "valiant Scot" into the sanctum of a lawyer's clerk.

There is a very laudable benevolent institution in London, called the "Scottish Hospital," which, on proper representations made to it, signed by three of its members, (forms whereof are annexed, in blank, to the printed petition, which is given gratuitously to applicants,) will pass poor natives of Scotland to such parts of their father-land as they wish, free of expense, and will otherwise relieve their wants; but each member is only allowed

to sign one petition each month. This poor fellow had come in hopes of obtaining Mr. B.'s signature to his request to be sent home; and, while waiting to procure it, told me the circumstances that had reduced him to ask it.

He was a native of, where the rents had lately been raised, by a new laird, far beyond the capabilities of the tacksmen. They had done their best to pay them-had struggled long, and hard, with an ungrateful soil-but their will and industry were lost; and they were, finally, borne down by hard times, and harsh measures. Twas hard to leave the hearths which generations of their forefathers had shadowed and hallowed 'twas yet harder to see their infants' lips worrying the exhausted breast, and to watch the cheeks of their children as they grew pale from want-and to see their frolics tamed by hunger into inert stupidity. An American trader had just touched at their island, for the purpose of receiving emigrants, and half its inhabitants had domiciled themselves on board, before her arrival had been known twelve hours. Our poor Scot would fain have joined them, with his family and parents, but he lacked the means to provide even the scanty store of oatmeal and butter which they were required to ship before they could be allowed to step on deck; so, in a fit of distress, and despair, he left the home that had never been a day out of his sight, and enlist ed with a party of his regiment, then at for the sole purpose of sending to the afflicted tenants of his "bit housey," the poor pittance of bounty he received, to be a short stay 'twixt them and starva

tion.

He had been last at St. John's, Newfoundland; "and there," said he, indignantly, "they mun mak' a cook's orderly o' me, as gin a war' nae as proper a man as ony o' them to carry a musket; an' they sint me to du a' the odd jobes o' a chap that did a wife's-wark, tho' there were a gude fivety young chaps i' the regiment that had liked it wul aneugh, and were better fetting for the like o' sican a place than mysel. And so, sir," he continued, "thar a was, working mysel intill a scalding heat, and than a'd geng out to carry in the cauld water; an' i' the deeing o't, a got a cauld that sattled inwardly, an' garr'd me hae a fivre an' spit blood. Weel, sir, aifter mony months, a gote better; but oh! a was unco weak, and but a puir creature frae a strong man afore it: but a did na mak muckle o't, for a thought ay, gin ony thing cam o't to disable me, or so, that a should

hae goten feve-pence or sax-pence a-day, an' that had been a great help.'

Oh! if the rich would but take the trouble to learn how many happy hearts they might make at small expense-and fashion their deeds to their knowledgehow many prayers might nightly ascend with their names from grateful bosoms to the recording angel's ears-and how much better would the credit side of their account with eternity appear on that day, when the great balance must be struck !

There was a pause-for my narrator's breath failed him; and I took the opportunity of surveying him. He was about thirty, with a half hale, half hectic cheek; a strong red beard, of some three days' growth, and a thick crop of light hair, such as only Scotchmen have one of the Cain's brands of our northern brethrenit curled firmly round his forehead; and his head was set upon his broad shoulders with that pillar of neck which Adrian in particular, and many other of the Romani emperors, are represented with, on their coins, but which is rarely seen at present. He must, when in full health, have stood about five feet seven; but, now, he lost somewhat of his height in a stoop, contracted during his illness, about the chest and shoulders, and common to most people affected with pulmonary complaints: his frame was bulky, but the sinews seemed to have lost their tension; and he looked like "one of might,” who had grappled strongly with an evil one in sore sickness. He bore no air of discontent, hard as his lot was; yet there was nothing theatrical in his resignation. All Scotchmen are predestinarians, and he fancied he saw the immediate hand of Providence working out his destiny through his misfortunes, and against such interference he thought it vain to clamour. Far other were my feelings when I looked on his fresh, broad face, and manly features, his open brow, his width of shoulders, and depth of chest, and heard how the breath laboured in that chest for inefficient vent

"May be," said he catching my eye in its wanderings, as he raised his own from the ground," May be a'd be better, gin a were doon i' wun nain place." I was vext to my soul that my look had spoken so plainly as to elicit this remark. Tell a man in a consumption that he looks charmingly, and you have opened the sluices of his heart almost as effectually, to your ingress, as if you had really cured him. And yet I think this poor fellow said what he did, rather to please one whom

nook o'

he saw took an interest in him, than to flatter himself into a belief of recovery, or from any such existing belief; for, shortly after, when I asked him what he would do in Scotland, "A dunna ken wat a mun du,” he replied; “ a canna du ony labouring wark, an' a ha na goten ony trade but, ye see, sir, we like ay to die whar wer're born; and my faither, an' my gran'faither afore him forbye, a' my ither kin, an' the mither that bore me, there a' i' the kirk-yaird; an' than my wife an twa bairnies :"- There was a pause in the soldier's voice; he had not learnt the drama of mendicity or sentimentality, but, by! there was a tear in his eye.*. I hate a scene as much as Byron did, but I admire a feeling heart, and pity a sorrowthe tear did not fall. I looked in his face when I heard his voice again; his eye glistened, and the lash was wet, but the tear was gone And there stood I, whose slender body scarcely comprehended one half of the circumference of his muscular frame." And the hand of Death is here!" said I; and then I turned my eyes upon myself, and almost wondered how my soul dwelt in so frail a tenement, while his was about to escape from such a seeming fastness of flesh.

ful one

After some further conversation, he told me his regiment had at one time been ordered off for Africa against the Ashantees; and sure never mortal man regretted counter orders on such grounds as he did those which balked his expectations of a visit to Sierra Leone." A thought," said he, 66 wur regiment woud ha gien to Aifrica against the Aishantees-an a was in hopes it wud it's a didly climate, an' there was nae money goten out o' the laist fray; but thin-perhaps its jist as well to die in ae place as anitherbut than we canna bring wursels to feel it, tho' we may think it-an' than ye see, sir, as a sid afore, a hae twa bairnies, an gin a'd laid doon wi' the rast, the mither o' them might hae goten the widow's pension for them an' hirsel." The widow's pension! sixpence a-day for a woman and two children and death to the fourth person as the only price of it! Hear this, shade of Lemprière! Manlius and the Horatii died to save a country, and to purchase earthly immortality by their deaths -but here's a poor fellow willing to give up

*[". The ACCUSING SPIRIT flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, and blushed as he gave it inthe RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever!"Sterne. ED.]

the ghost, by sword, plague, 'pestilence, or famine, to secure a wife and two children two-pence each, per day!

Look to it, ye three-bottle beasts, or men-as the courtesy of a cringing world calls you look to it, when ye toast the next lordly victor "with three times three !" -Shout 'till the roof rings, and then think, amid the din of your compeers, of the humble dead of those who walk silently in the path of the grave, and of the widowed and fatherless. Commanders die for glory, for a funeral procession, or a title, or wealth for those they leave behind; but who speaks of the private, who dies with a wound for every pore?-he rots on the earth; or, with some scores or hundreds of his comrades, a few inches beneath it; and his wife gets "sixpence a day!"

Poor fellow, thought I, as I looked on my narrator were I a king-but kings cannot scrape acquaintance with every man in the ranks of their forces-but had I been your officer, I think you should not have wanted your pension for the few days that are to shine on you in this world; and, had you fallen, it should have gone hard with me, but your wife and two children should have had their twopence each per day-and, were I a man of fortune, I would be proud to keep the life in such a heart, as long as God would permit and so saying, or thinking-and blinking away the dimness of humanity from my eye-I thrust my hand into my pocket, and gave him SIXPENCE:

Reader! smile not; I am but a poor harum scarum headed mortal-'t was all I had, "in possession, expectancy, remainder,

or reversion

J. J. K.

Highland Legend.

The following poem originates in a legend which is still popular in many parts of the highlands of Scotland: that a female branch of the noble family of Douglas contracted an imprudent marriage with a kerne, or mountain peasant, who was drowned in the Western Islands, where he had escaped for concealment from the persecutions of the offended family of his wife. She survived him eighteen years, and wandered a maniac over the mountains; where, as superstition alleges, she is even now to be seen at daybreak. The stanzas are supposed to be the extempore recitations of an old bard to a group of attentive villagers.

A maid so fair, and so disconsolate; Yet was she once a child of high estate,

And nurst in spendour, till an envious gloom Sunk her beneath its harsh o'erpowering weight; Robb'd her pale features of their orient bloom,

Marriage Customs.

HIGHLAND WEDDINGS.

BY JOHN HAY ALLAN, ESQ.

There is not probably, at the present day, a more social and exhilarating convocation than a highland wedding among the lower orders. The ancient hospitality

tomb.

She walk'd upon the earth, as one who knew
The dread mysterious secrets of the grave;
For never o'er her eye of heav'nly blue

Lighten'd a smile; but like the ocean wave
That roars, unblest with sunshine, through the cave
Rear'd in the depths of Snowden, she had flown
To endless grief for refuge; and would rave,

And tell to the night-winds her tale unknown,
Or wander o'er the heath, deserted and alone.
And when the rain beat hard against the hill,

And storms rush'd by upon their wing of pow'r,
Lonely she'd stray beside the bubbling rill,

Or fearless list the deep-voic'd cataract's roar';
And when the tempest's wrath was heard no more
She wander'd home, the mountain sod to dress
With many a wreath, and many a summer flow'r ;
And thus she liv'd, the sister of distress,
The solitude of love, nurst in the wilderness.
She was the child of nature; earth, sea, sky,
Mountain and cataract, fern-clad hill and dale
Possess'd a nameless charm in her young eye,
Pure and eternal, for in Deva's vale
Her heart first listen'd to a lover's tale,

Breath'd by a mountain kerne; and every scene
That wanton'd blithely in the od❜rous gale,

Had oft beheld her lord's enamour'd mien,

As tremblingly she sought each spot where he had been.

.

But she is gone! The cold earth is her pillow,

And o'er her blooms the summer's sweetest flow'r ; And o'er her ashes weeps the grateful willow

She lov'd to cherish in a happier hourMute is the voice that breath'd from Deva's bow'r, Chill is the soul of the neglected rover; We saw the death-cloud in destruction low'r

O'er her meek head, the western waves roll'd over The corse of him she lov'd, her own devoted lover.

But oft, when the faint sun is in the west,

And the hush'd gales along the ocean die, Strange sounds reecho from her place of rest, And sink into the heart most tenderlyThe bird of evening hour, the humming bee, And the wild music of the mountain rill, Seem breathing sorrow as they murmur by, And whispering to the night, while all is still, The tale of the poor girl-the "Lady of the Hill." W. F. D.-Indicator.

plenty and good humour, and gathers from every side all who have the slightest claim in the blood, name, and friendship of the bride or bridegroom. That olden attachment, which formerly bound together the superiors and their dependants, yet so far influences their character as to bring them together at the same board upon this occasion. When a wedding is to take place, the attendance of the chief, or laird, as well as that of the higher tacksmen, is always solicited by the respective parties, and there are few who would refuse this mark of consideration and good-will. The clansmen are happy in the honour which they receive, and the " Duinne-Uasal" is pleased with the regard and respect which renders the countenance of his presence necessary to his people.

Upon the day of the wedding, the friends of the bridegroom and the bride assemble at the house of their respective parents, with all the guns and pistols which can be collected in the country. If the distance of the two rendezvous is more than a day's march, the bridegroom gathers his friends as much sooner as is necessary to enable them to be with the bride on the day and hour appointed. Both parties are exceedingly proud of the numbers and of the rank which their influence enables them to bring; they therefore spare no pains to render the gathering of their friends as full and as respectable as possible. The company of each party dines at the house of their respective parents. Every attainable display of rustic sumptuousness and rustic gallantry is made to render the festival worthy of an occasion which can happen but once in a life. The labour and the care of months have been long providing the means wherewith to furnish the feast with plenty, and the assistants with gayety; and it is not unfrequent that the savings of a whole year are expended to do honour to this single day.

When the house is small, and the company very numerous, the partitions are frequently taken down, and the whole "biel " thrown into one space. A large table, the