Close by this is another little octagon of nions.. Most of these affecting features of her captivity I have hitherto explored; filled, it is true, with feelings of lofty excite ment. But since then I have studied her history, or rather both its factions; the one adverse to the lovely martyr, I ap proached with coolness and as much impartiality as I could muster; but into the others I plunged with all the ardour of unchained impatience. I was like one, who after a dry walk in the dog-days reaches the green margent of an exulting river, and compels himself to pause under the old lonely brown oak, lest the change should be too hasty. Such is patchwork-a parterre of unfading flowers-a cabinet of cheap curio-He reaps, however, the fruit of his sities, and a tapestry, whose stories, if not depicted in the glowing semblance of colours, are no less vividly impressed by the powerful pencils of fancy, memory, or association. Apropos, of tapestry, I must see all THE MARIAN CASTLES. I will revisit those I have already seen, and make pilgrimage to those I have not yet inspected. forbearance by the plunge he at last makes into the refreshing ecstatic tide. And now, with conviction on my mind, it will not be the ignis fatuus of dazzling romance, but the steady though painted magic lantern of history, that will enable me to linger with delight on spots which feudal darkness overshadowed once, and which modern enlightment has abandoned now. To me the Marian The towers that cast their huge and Castles will no longer be the objects of menacing shadows upon her feeble, thin, an interest made up of curiosity as well but faithful retinue, like giants by the as sympathy. The breadth of the moat side of distressed damsels of old,-the-the bulk of the ramparts-the altitude vast portals that opened as if to swallow of the turrets-the arches the heraldic up this shadow of regality,-the high and shields, will not long detain my attention. echoing courts of gloomy magnificence, It will be enough that Mary Stuart hath that only testified, by their mailed strength dwelt in them; that their iron walls and and colossal grandeur, the rank and im- gloomy grates have had their adamanportance of their visitant,-the wearisome tine hardness put to shame by the invinturret stairs that have been sanctified by cible fortitude of an innocent heart. the ascent of that symmetric foot, with many a sob and sigh of grief and fatigue between; the painted chambers, whose gorgeous tapestry, impictured with all the legends of romance, or the tragedies of history, shewed her nothing so romantic as her own adventures-nothing so tragical as her own life; the deep embayed oriels, from whose open lattice her soft eyes grew dim with tears, her fragrant lips quivered with complaint as she looked afar to the princely forest or the purple mountains; the high-testered beds, whose damask, or velvet, or cloth of gold, marked her through the livelong night, as the livid lamp shewed her the splendid opulence of her titled gaolers; the fireplace where, by the winter's blaze, she and her poor faithful wenches plied the many coloured embroidery, or laid sadly down the tambour frame, for the melan. choly solace, It will be enough that their severest privations were incompetent to unqueen a diademed brow; and that their meanest, their most cheerless chambers (while they were her dwelling) became palaces illuminated by the presence of the fairest, the gentlest, and the highest-hearted princess, that ever experienced how empty was the title of the Lord's anointed! But of all places for reverie, the most inventive is THE BED. Let the old eastern tales, or our own romances, tell of this or that wonder, of Tartarian wooden horses careering under you through the air; or magic boats bearing you without oar or rudder to the sorcerer's castle. I know no machine so wonderful as my bed. I say machine for is it not one? Look at this old settee of mine, for instance. Come, strip! off with your earthly weeds, and don that truly fairy vest, a nightshirt-nobody wears a nightcap now, or I should call it a Fortunatus' cap. Ascend the high mattrassleave only so much of the old damask curtains open as may enable you to watch with swimming eyes the reddish reflection of the flickering wood-fire eddying through the chamber! How fast it is converting in its mystic light the shadows of the ebony cabinet, the tall swing-mirror, the sprawling table and the other furniture, into so many phantoms gathering round your couch; as if to bear you to the regions of romance, whither your confused senses tell you that you are bound! Deep midnight reigns around. The gallery door is closed-a disheartening silence shuts me out from the sympathy, the society, apparently the protection of man! The lamp is now extinguished; and, nestling in my bed, my winking eyes scarce perceive the apparitions and vanishings of the low embered grate my dull ears scarcely catch the solemn converse which the winds are holding with the potent stars-my limbs have forgotten their nerve and lustihood that bore them in the morning over the distant moor-my mind relaxes those delightful powers that rapt it in the glories of the lettered volume, and the dark ponderous wainscot of the flame-umbered room begins to flit from my sight -till at length, full swooping on every vanquished sense, sleep seizes his willing slave. As at the drawing of a curtain the whole scene changes! What tracts of fairy land appear?what regions of wonder, whether delightful or dismal, you instantly visit? In one short night, ages of existence seem to be included-in a few brief hours you joy and grieve, strike and suffer, love and hate, live and die ! Mercy heaven! what wild gothic hall shuts me in? through nine tal lancet windows, what a strife do I witness in the night sky! The moon shoots madly from her serene state with all the flames of a meteor-hellish light flakes the solemn sable of the air; and millions of ghosts are seen busy in horrid antics, or vying in works of 'bale, now glaring in the light, now yelling in the darkness. Forests, towns, and spires, are shewn me in that strife of gloom and flame, and the forests are uprooted, the spires cleft, and the towns fired. In an instant this wild horror vanishes, and a worse succeeds. I am still in that vast hall-alone in darkness, and in silence that makes my ears tingle-my hair stand on end-and my flesh creep. From the farthest end of the ample apartment, a something apparently too horrible for my wildest imaginings to scan, advances upon menothing but an agonised grasp answers my enhorrored efforts to scream, and in an instant that too passes away. I am suddenly with some dear friend, roaming through meadows that glitter at noontide, plucking fragrant flowers, wooing the sun by blue brooks, or shunning him in shady thickets; the dearest and the sweetest interchange of heart and thought is all the while enhancing these pleasures with the brother of my heart's heart. On a sudden, some horrible assailant rushes upon me, my friend flies and leaves me to my fate; and I, in paroxysms of dismay, unroot at length my stiffened feet, speed over space that lengthens as I traverse it, climb over gates that twist round my limbs-scram ble through hedges that hold me back in their briars, and leap down craigs where my breath leaves me, and my feet never touch the ground. This scene past, I seem to find myself just retired to rest,-when, lo! a sudden sight invades my eyes, and twenty rifts of my bedroom ceiling pour forth spouts of flame; the whole house is rocking with roars of conflagration, which darts up through the crevices of the floor beneath my feet; the door is locked and the use of my hands is gone. I hear them shriek my name-I shriek in return, but they hear me not. Volumes of fire advance through the room; then ensues a dark mist, and I find myself in the vicinity of the sea! A delicious sunny landscape, a massive castle, and soft lawns and majestic pine woods! It is the neaptide, and I am watching from a high hill at a distance the Titan battalia of billows that hurl themselves upon the sounding shore. On a sudden there is a horrid yell, and, without power to flee, I discern an enormous mass of water, high as heaven, rolling towards me, and I am swept away amidst nameless monsters→→→ unless Spenser can give them a name. Most ugly shapes and horrible aspects Such as dame, Nature's selfe mote feare to see, Or shame that ever should so fowle defects Spring-headed hydras, and sea-should'ring whales; 1 -But Nature here puts a boundary to her sufferings, and I awake,-my eyes startling, my limbs trembling, my heart palpitating, my whole system deranged! Yet, oh, the bliss as perception slowly returns, like moonlight on a subsiding storm, and by the still-glimmering firelight appear the old beloved dormitory, the damask curtains, the polished wainscot, the walnut cabinet, the low sofa, and the book-encumbered table-sure comforters, reassuring my betossed mind! My parched lips pour an orison to the Throne of Grace, and straight alights an angel on my pillow, and gives me sweetly wild and soothing waking dreams, that, leading my pleased fancy through ruined halls, haunted castles, caves of banditti, lovers' bowers, adventureful forests, mines frequented by fairies, towers whence the necromancer reads the stars, moorland granges of strange encounters, towns of old bygone histories-flings over all the sweetest and the brightest, and the most engaging colours of REVERIE! CHAPTER ON OLD COATS. (Concluded.) THERE is yet another light in which old coats may be viewed: I mean as chroniclers of the past, as vouchers to particular events. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, always dated from his last new dress. Following in the wake of so illustrious a precedent, I date from my last (save one) new coat, which was first ushered into being during the memorable period of the Queen's trial. Do I remember that epoch from the agitation it called forth? From the loyalty, the radicalism, the wisdom and the folly it quickened into life?-Assuredly not. I gained nothing by the wisdom. I lost as much by the folly. I was neither the better nor the worse for the agitation. Why then do I still remember that period? Simply and selfishly from the circumstance of its having occasioned the dismemberment-most calamitous to a poor annuitant!-of the very coat in which I have the honour of addressing this essay to the public. In an olfactory crowd, whom her Majesty's "wrongs" had congregated at Hammersmith, my now invalid habiliment was transformed after the fashion of an Ovidian metamorphosis, where the change is usually from the better to the worse, from a coat into a spencer. In a word, some adroit conveyancer eloped with the hinder flaps, and by so doing, secured a snuff-box which played two waltz tunes. The same coat, on which subsequently, by a sort of Taliacotian process, a pair of artificial skirts were grafted, accompanied me through Wales, among mountains where the eagle dwells alone in his supremacy. It was the sole adjunct who was with me, when I rambled along the banks of the Sawthy, when the lark was abroad and singing in the sky, or the shy nightingale flung her song to the winds from among the hushed dells of Keven-gornuth. It was at my back when I climbed the loftiest peak of Cader-Idris, and when with feelings not to be described, I looked down upon sapphire clouds floating in quaint huge masses at an immense distance below me, and saw through their filmy chinks the glittering of thirty lakes, the faint undulating line of a thousand billowy ridges, or the blue expanse of the drowsy ocean, dotted here and there with a passing sail, and bordered far away on the horizon by the dim boundaries of the Irish coast. Moreover, it was at my back when I plunged chindeep into the isle of Ely bogs, in which picturesque condition I was shot at (and of course missed) by a Cockney sportsman, who had mistaken me for a rare and handsome species of the wild duck. But by far the most singular adventure in which this old-fashioned appanage ever bore a part, was one which took place at night-fall at a lonely dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Black Mountains. I had been sporting over those delectable wastes for the greater part of a day, and having as usual shot nothing but an old furze bush, was making the best of my way home towards the vitlage inn where I had taken up my quarters, when the shades of night somewhat suddenly and inconveniently dropped around me. I say inconveniently, for I knew little or nothing of the neighbourhood, and as is always the case on such occasions, took the wrong by-path, which led me far down into a romantic hollow, in the centre of which stood a lone, gloomy-looking hut. I think I never saw so forlorn an object. Its every lineament spoke of solitude and murder. While hesitating whether or not to pass this cut-throat tenement, a light glanced suddenly forth from one of the fissures that time and neglect had made in its walls. This decided me; I felt that I now stood a fair chance of gleaning some information respecting my road; brandishing my gun like a quarter-staff -for I had consumed all my powderI strode resolutely forward, though not without certain awkward misgivings, which a satirist might have tortured into apprehensions, in the direction whence the light proceeded, and was fortunate And a most picturesque discovery I made! Salvator Rosa would have given his ears to have been beside me. At the further end of the ruin, holding a lamp in his hand, whose wild fitful glare fell with strange effect upon his dark swarthy lineaments, stood a brawny ruffian, with a face eloquent of burglary. Near him was stationed another worthy, younger, though equally ferocious in aspect; with black grizzled hair; side-long look, like a fox on a poaching tour: snub nose, and mouth from ear to ear. Both were speaking in under tones; and as the younger, in reply to some question put by his companion, stole a fearful glance about him, I observed a spot of blood on his forehead, and that his hands were stained with the same crimson hue. Horror-struck by such a sight, I was just preparing to retreat, when the following sentences, spoken at intervals in a whisper that sent a thrill through every vein, rivetted me to the spot. "Whereabouts did you catch her, Owen ?" "Just in the lane by the pool side; she was walking alone, so, as I owed the old woman a grudge, I"-and here the wretch chuckled like a fiend-" made no more ado, but grasped her by the neck, and cut her throat!" "We must go and fetch her away then to-night; and above all, cover up the blood with earth, or else" What followed, I was unable to make out; enough, however, had been said, to convince me that I was standing within a yard of two deliberate murderers. What a situation! Alone, at night, in the wildest part of the Black Mountains, with two such villains: I felt that one movement, were it ever so slight, one sound, were it ever so fine, might reach their practised ears, and prove my instant destruction. But I had little time for reflection, for the ruffians making a sudden move towards the door, I moved off also, nor ever once halted, till cut short in my career by a projecting blackthorn, which had attached itself, after a very unconnubial fashion, to my person. With the usual difficulty I procured a divorce from this annoyance; and after rambling about some hours, up one lane, down another, coasting this moor, and crossing that, I at length got into the right track, and arrived at my quarters with the sole inconvenience of having my coat a second time dismembered, like Absyrtus, by his kind aunt Medea. But this was a trifle compared with the more momentous secret that engrossed my whole thoughts. For two days and nights I did nothing but ponder in my mind the way in which I could best disburthen myself of it. At first I thought of telling every thing to my landlord; but when I reflected on the character of my communication, there appeared a something so strange-so romantic-so altogether outre about it, that will the reader credit my weakness?-I actually had not the courage to incur the hazard either of being laughed at, or scouted as a fabricator. But the mind, like the body, when overcharged, must find a market for its surplus commodities. In other words, it must have a vent for its uneasiness. soon felt this to be the case; and after bearing my secret about with me a full fortnight, it became at length so wholly insupportable, that I resolved, come what might, to rid myself of the burden; and accordingly, by my landlord's advice-to whom I imparted every particular-set out for Carmarthen, which was the nearest civilized town, in order to put the whole affair into the hands of the proper legal authorities. It so happened, that the day of my arrival there was the second of the assizes, and as the magistrate before whom I was advised to lay my case, was in court, I made the best of my way thither, and arrived just in time to hear the trial of two murderous-looking felons, in whose intelligent faces I at the very first glance recognised my old acquaintances of the hut. The wretches then were at length detected! Thank God! I involuntarily exclaimed, and waited with throbbing heart the particulars of the solemn charge. In a few minutes, the trial commenced. The counsel for the prosecution drew forth their briefs; those for the defence looked ominous and full of apprehension; the Judge shook his wig; the Jury frowned in horror; the Court was hushed in awful expectation, and Owen Rees and Davy Thomas were formally called on to plead Guilty or Not Guilty, to the charge of having, on the night of the 20th of June-the very night on which I had overheard their conversation,-"-stolen a Goose, the property of Sarah Stubbs, ALIAS Long Sal, spinster"!! Shade of Martinus Scriblerus, was ever sample of the bathos equal to this? Monthly Mag. The Naturalist. FECUNDITY OF INSECTS. some In Kirby and Spence there is a very interesting statement of the number of eggs laid by various insects; the musca meridiana, a common fly, lays two; other flies, six or eight; the flea, twelve; the burying beetle, nicrophorus vespillo, thirty; many flies, under a hundred; the silk-worm moth, about five hundred; the great goat moth, cossas ligniperda, one thousand; acarus Americanus, more than a thousand; the tyger moth, callimorpha caja, sixteen hundred ; cocci, two thousand; others, four thou sand; the female wasp, at least thirty thousand; the queen bee varies considerably in the number of eggs that she produces in one season, in some cases it may amount to forty or fifty thousand or more; a small hemipterous insect, resembling a little moth, alcyrcdes proletella, two hundred thousand. But all these are left far behind by one of the white ants, termes fatali, P. bellicosus of Smeathman, the female of this insect extruding from her enormous matrix not less than sixty eggs in a minute, which makes 3,600 in an hour, 86,400 in a day, 2,419,200 in a lunar month, and the enormous number of 211,449,600 in a year! Probably, indeed, she does not always continue laying at this rate: but if the sum be set as low as possible, it will yet exceed that produced by any other known animal in the creation. The sturgeon is said to lay 1,500,000 eggs; and the cod fish 9,000,000. In the British Museum there are several specimens of the above insect, whose abdomens are extended to an amazing size, they are completely filled with eggs. THE LANTERN FLY. A correspondent in "The Technological and Microscopic Repository," states, "that the most vivid of all the luminous insects, is the great lantern fly, fulgora lanternaria, which affords a light so great, that travellers walking by night are said to be enabled to pursue their journey with sufficient certainty, by three or four of them being tied to a stick, and carried in the manner of a torch! It is common in many parts of South America, and is described by Madam Merian, in her superb work on the insects of Surinam. She gives an entertaining account of the alarm into which she was thrown by the flashing light which proceeded from them in the dark, before she had been apprized of their shining nature. "The Indians once brought me,' (says she,) before I knew that they shone by night, a number of these lantern flies, which I shut up in a large wooden box. I awoke in a fright, and ordered a light In the night, they made such a noise, that from whence the noise proceeded: as soon to be brought, not being able to guess as I found that it came from the box, I opened it, but was still more alarmed, and let fall to the ground in my fright, and as many insects as came out, so many on seeing a flame of fire come out of it; different flames appeared. When I found this to be the case, I recovered from my alarm, and again collected the insects, much admiring their splendid appearof these insects, is sufficiently bright, ance.' 'The light,' she adds, of one that a person may see to read a newspaper by it.' "The light emitted by the fire-fly, lantern of the head, no other part of the proceeds entirely from the hollow part or insect being luminous. Dr. Darwin conjectures that the use of this light is merely to prevent the insects from flying against objects in the night, and to enable them to procure their sustenance in the dark. He seems, however, not to have consitrain of night insects are possessed of this dered, that very few of the numerous luminous property, and all the functions of these are performed with perfect regularity. Its most essential use is, no doubt, as in the other luminous tribes, to point in them the same purpose, in this respect, out the sexes to each other; thus serving The head in this species is large, and as the voice does in the larger animals. somewhat oval. The wings are variegated, and the lower pair are each marked with a large ocellated or eye-like spot. Sometimes the insect is seen of three or four inches in length." |