ludicrous, indications of a miser's despair, he is surpassingly excellent. There is Jones too with his foot mercurial; and Emery with a face like a shining copper kettle boiling over with indignation at his master's follies.

THE LYCEUM. This little theatre is always lively and pleasant. One is not crowded so much as at Covent Garden, and there are always three or four good comic performers, and half a dozen clever little actresses, who do their best to entertain us, and succeed. There is Dowton so excellent in his infirmity of impatience. There is Harley with his merriment insisting upon a sympathetic grin. There is Wrench, the most easy of actors, on good terms with himself and every body else.There is Wilkinson, the most forlorn of comedians, letting his tragical mirth escape at every pore, like the water from the tub of the Danaides. There is Chatterley, who appears always to have just risen from dinner, round, little, and half animated by some intoxicating spirit, like the dumpling with quicksilver in it which the conjuror displays. And T. P. Cooke, a goodlooking man of five feet eleven inches, or thereabouts. And now we come to the ladies. They are all young, and it is quite pleasant to look at them. Miss Kelly is first and foremost here. as in other places. She is beyond competition the cleverest and most versatile actress on the stage-we have felt more deeply her sobs than even the imposing tragedy of Miss O'Neill; but in comedy who is like her? She laughs, and weeps, and dances, and jokes, and sings, till many persons not being able to fix their admiration upon one prominent excellence, are content to split their praise, and so defraud her of her due in each. Miss Stevenson is the most earnest of young women, and like a rogue in grain. And Mrs Chatterly is a very pleasing actress, and has an eastern languish in her eye altogether becoming.

And now, kind reader, hast thou ever seen Miss Carew? if not, go; and if thou be not vanquished by her sweet and melting voice, then art thou made of stone. Many a time have we, in the idle month of September, gone to the Lyceum, and planting ourselves on the first row of the pit, or in the stage box, sat looking through our eye-glass till we forgot every thing but her. The critics say that she imitates Miss Stephens VOL. VI.

she does slightly, but she will get rid of that fault, and she can afford to do without it. Miss Stephens has the most melodious voice on the English stage, and this young girl seems to come nearest to her. She is quite as animated as Miss S., and has not quite so much simplicity-we believe that is the word—and then, we do not wish to conceal this, she appears to us to be handsomer. Do not fancy, however, that we have been beguiled by her face into an eulogium, but go and see her; and admire as thou valuest us.

And now, what further can we say? there is really such a dearth of subjects

"How now, how now,

zens ?"

what say the citi

Ha! we had forgot. We thank the Duke of Gloster for his hint. Yesthere is a schism in the city. Turtle is no longer exclusively worshipped. That English Osiris has been shaken from his pedestal. The citizens have found other fish to fry, and have ac◄ quired an appetite for higher things.Pudding gives place at last to fame.The sheriffs have become ambitious.They sigh for pre-eminence in office, and the chain of office (we do not like the badge) becomes an object of dispute. Guildhall trembles with the sound. They debate with an anger and a vehemence which the Mayor himself cannot silence or appease. And is it come to this? Gods! shall all this be borne? shall not dinners be eaten in quiet, and has port lost its power to sooth? The sheriffs may like talking, and be content with livery applause, but

"Non omnes arbusta juvant humilesque myricæ."

We beg to mention things of more consequence. Majora Canamus, as the poet says. Discussion is all very well in its way, and for a short period; but is a noisy stomach to be hushed with words? We say these things openly, and let the sheriffs take it as they list. We do not bite our thumbs at them, but we bite our thumbs: and will, if it so please us, be even melancholy, and murmur in secret. If the sheriffs will be ambitious and virtuous, let them in God's name begin; but shall we, therefore, have no " cakes and ale?" Let any man who has taken his beef (two pounds) and his bottle regularly for the last twenty years, think well of our protest; and if he disagree with

H

rit, and by the inhabitants of great towns, a ghost is generally thought to be very like a whale.

But walk by yourself into the Highlands of Scotland-traverse wide black moors through the driving mistscome suddenly on lonesome and roaring waterfalls-sit by the dashing waves of dreary lochs-lose yourself for a whole wild and stormy day in a savage glen, or a dark pine-forestscale mountains in company with the sunbeams, the shadows, the clouds, and the red-deer-sleep all night by yourself in some deserted shieling—or in the hut of a solitary herdsman-become a man of the mountains-let your eyes be fed on their colours, and your ears filled with their music, till heart, soul, imagination, life, are all melted into and interfused with the awful shapes, hues, and sounds of the earth you tread, and of the heavens that overshadow you; and you will then know the force and the meaning of the word Superstition, and start, in those sublime solitudes, to think how darkly and how obscurely meet the boundaries of truth and illusion, and how mingled is the long tumultuous array of real forms and imaginary phantoms! We are now sitting by the side of Loch-Aven, a scene of utter solitude. The stream that issues from it flows eight or ten miles through a narrow winding glen before it reaches a human dwelling, and that is a single one in the desert. For several miles farther down, Glen-Aven is still solitary, and even then admits, as with reluctance, the small tree-sheltered cottage and its patch of green pasture or little corn field. But all around us, where we now sit, stretch the mountainous moors of Lord Fife-Sir James Grant -and the Duke of Gordon-and the only mark of feet is a black narrow path winding through the heather, by which the cattle from Strathspey are sometimes brought across the hills to join the great road that leads them to the Lowlands. We have left our Tent on the distant banks of the Dee and have our little library in our knapsack. The Secret Commonwealth, by Mr Robert Kirk of Aberfoile, 1691 -Martin's Account of the Isles-Mrs Grant on the Superstitions of the Highlands-and the Queen's Wake. A young Highlander is sitting by our side, who has never been out of the hearing of the storms of his native

hills-and whose uncultivated and dreary mind is charged with all their wildest traditions. We open the Queen's Wake and read the following very poetical note:

Glen-Avin.-P. 104.

"There are many scenes among the Grampian deserts which amaze the traveller who ventures to explore them; and in the most pathless wastes the most striking landscapes are often concealed. Glen-Avin exceeds them all in what may be termed stern and solemn grandeur. It is indeed a sublime solitude, in which the principle feature with lines of wild beauty, such as an extenis deformity; yet that deformity is mixed sive lake, with its islets and bays, the strag gling trees, and the spots of shaded green; and, altogether, it is such a scene as man has rarely looked upon. I spent a summer day in visiting it. The hills were clear of mist, yet the heavens were extremely dark -the effect upon the scene exceeded all description. My mind, during the whole day, experienced the same sort of sensation as if I had been in a dream; and on returning from the excursion, I did not wonder at the superstition of the neighbouring inhabitants, who believe it to be the summer haunt of innumerable tribes of fairies, and many other spirits, some of whom seem to be the most fantastic, and to behave in the most eccentric manner, of any I ever before heard of. Though the glen is upprodigious extent, it contains no human wards of twenty miles in length, and of

habitation. It lies in the west corner of Banffshire, in the very middle of the Grampian hills."

"Fahm is a little ugly monster, who frequents the summits of the mountains around Glen-Avin, and no other place in the world that I know of. My guide, D. M'Queen, declared that he had himself seen him; and, by his description, Fahm appears sional visitant, whose intentions are evil and to be no native of this world, but an occadangerous. He is only seen about the break of day, and on the highest verge of the mountain. His head is twice as large as his whole body beside; and if any living creature cross the track over which he has passed before the sun shine upon it, certain death is the consequence. The head of that person or animal instantly begins to swell, grows to an immense size, and finally bursts. Such a disease is really incident to sheep on kingdom, where the grounds are elevated to those heights, and in several parts of the a great height above the sea; but in no place save Glen-Avin is Fahm blamed for it."

Nothing can be better than this, our dear James, but what were you dreaming of when you spoke of a long loch in this glen? Loch-Aven is now before our eyes, a small loch of about two and a half miles in circumference; and the long dreary glen at whose head it lies, with now and then a lovely spot of green turf at the confluence of some little torrent with the Aven, is much more impressive to the imagination than any lake.

Let us see what Mr Kirk says of the Highland fairies. He observes, that the fairies, or good people, are of a middle nature between man and angel, "somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best seen in twilight." Some of them are fed by sucking "into some fine spiritous liquors, that pierce like pure oil or air, while others prey on grain like crows or mice." In one part of the tract, he hints, that they "eat only the aerial and ethereal parts ;" and in another, the most spiritous matter for prolonging life-"such as aquavite is among liquids." They are sometimes heard to bake bread, strike hammers, and do "such like services within the little hillocks they haunt." Their ordinary dwellings are any cranie or cleft of the earth where the air enters; "for there is no such thing as a pure wilderness in the universe." It is now the lot of humanity to "labour for these abstruse people;" but before the earth was so overrun by us, they had their own tillage, and the " prent of their furrows are yet to be seen on the shoulders of very high hills." They remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the year, so travelling till doomsday;" and at such times, when their camelion-like bodies swim in the air, "with bag and baggage, seers, and men of second sight, have many terrifying encounters with them even on highways." On this account, our author states, that the Scottish-Irish keep church duly every first Sunday of the quarter to hallow themselves, though, he adds, they may not perhaps be seen there again till the next quarter. Their houses, though invisible to vulgar eyes, are large and fair, "like Rachland and other enchanted islands-having firlights, continual lamps, and fires without fuel to sustain them." It is remarkable of all fairies, that their apparel and speech is like that of the people and country under which they

live. Hence in the Highlands they all wear plaids and variegated garments, and are heard to speak choice Gaelic. They do not, however, speak much," and it is by way of whistling, clear not rough." The fairywomen are said to " spin very fineto dry, to tossue, and embroyder"their webs, however, being in all probability "curious cobwebs, impalpable rainbows of a phantastic imitation of the actions of more terrestrical mortals." They have "aristocratical laws," but no observable religion, and disappear at the holy name. Yet notwithstanding this imputation against them of want of religion, Mr Kirk mentions, "that a very young maid, who lived near to my last residence, in one night learned a large piece of poetry, by the frequent repetition of it from one of our nimble and courteous spirits, whereof a part was pious, the rest superstitious (for I have no copy of it), and no person was ever heard to repeat it before, nor was the maid capable to repeat it herself.” They have also many disastrous doings of their own-as convocations, fighting, gashes, wounds, and burials, both in the earth and air. With respect to their procreation, Mr Kirk says, "that the air being a body as well as earth, no reason can be given why there may not be particles of more vivific' spirit formed of it for procreation; and if our aping darlings did not thus procreate, their whole number would be exhausted after a considerable space of time." Though, upon the whole, they prefer doing harm to doing good, yet they do not all the harm in their power; and though never perceived to be in very great pain, yet are usually rather sullen and silent. They are said to have " many pleasant toyish books; but the operation of these pieces only appears in some paroxysms of antic corybantic jollity, as if ravished and prompted by a new spirit entering into them, at that instant, slighter and merrier than their own." Of the Bible they know nothing, "save collected parcels for charms and countercharms." They are observed to dwindle and decay at a certain period, all about one age. Their weapons are never of iron, but of a yellow soft flint," shaped like a barbed arrowhead;" and as to their skill in archery, Mr Kirk says, "that they are not infallible Benjaminites, hitting at a hair's

breadth, nor are they wholly unvan quishable. Those persons who are unsanctified, and hence pierced or wounded by such weapons, which makes them do somewhat very unlike their former practice, causing a sudden alteration, yet the cause of it imperceptible, are called FEY." With respect to their moral character in general, Mr Kirk justly observes, that whatever may be thought of it in fairy-land, child-stealing is an indictable offence: their trysting, in the shape of succulæ, with young men is also highly irregular; but, on the whole, they are not so much given "to swearing or intemperance as to envy, spite, hypocrisy, lying, and dissimulation"-a pretty account of the fairies, or good people.

On the whole, the fairy superstition, as described by Mr Kirk, is not a very pleasant one. The fairies of the Lowlands of Scotland are a more beautiful and harmless race, and seem to afford a better field of poetry. But we suspect, that if "Fairy-Land" be attempted by any poet, (and we perceive a poem with that name announced by Mr Wilson, author of the Isle of Palms), he must make it a world of his own imagination; for there is so much inconsistency and contradiction, and even so much of what is unhappy or debasing in the Fairycreed of all nations, that unless a poet takes to himself a right to deal with its inhabitants as he chooses, it seems impossible that his poem should be a pleasing one. The Highlanders are certainly a melancholy people; and hence, have attributed to their fairies, a dim and indistinct character of fear and sorrow. The Seers, too, or secondsight men, who are, by their very gift, always melancholy, having seen fairies more frequently than other persons, have given a dreary picture of them and their pursuits. Without, therefore, endeavouring to seek for the origin of the Celtic Fairies, and to shew, that from the history of the times in which the superstition arose, they must necessarily have assumed something of a mournful and unfriendly nature-it is plain, that from the very temperament of the Highlanders, their imaginary creatures would, generation after generation, be touched with darker and still darker hues; till at last the superstition would, on the whole, be one of fear and danger, and but occa

sionally enlivened by brighter and gentler fancies, as the minds of seers or bards, (at once priests and oracles of superstition) were withdrawn from the gloomy and grim aspect of the mountains, to those verdant mounds and fragrant birch-woods, so beautiful amidst the desolation, and which, in happier and more pleasant dreams, were imagined to be the dwellings of the Fairy People. Such dwellings are beautifully described by Mrs Grant, in her account of the popular superstition of the Highlands.

"In the narrow part of the valley through which the Spey makes its way from the parish of Laggan downwards to that of Kingussie, there is some scenery of a very singular character. To the south, the Spey is seen making some fine bends round the foot of wooded hills. It is bordered by a narrow stripe of meadow, of the richest verdure, and fringed with an edging of beautiful shrubbery. On the north side rises, with Rock, the symbol and boundary of the clan precipitous boldness, Craigow, or the Black who inhabit the valley. It is very black indeed, yet glitters in the sun, from the many little streams which descend from its steep, indeed perpendicular surface.

"In the face of this lofty rock are many apertures, occasioned by the rolling down of portions of the stone, from which echoing

noises are often heard.

"This scene of terror overlooks the soft

features of a landscape below, that is sufficient, with this association, to remind us of what has been said of Beauty sleeping in the lap of horror.'

"An eminence, as you approach towards the entrance to the strait, appears covered with regularly-formed hillocks, of a conical form, and of different sizes, clothed with a and fanciful, sighing and trembling to every kind of dwarf birch, extremely light-looking gale, and breathing odours after a calm evening shower, or rich dewy morning.

"In the depth of the valley, there is a lochan (the diminutive of loch), of superlative beauty. It is a round, clear, and shallow bason, richly fringed with water lilies, and presenting the clearest mirror to the steep wooded banks on the south, and rock which frowns darkly to the north. the rugged face of the lofty and solemn

"On the summit, scarce approachable by human foot, is the only nest of the gosshawk now known to remain in Scotland; and in the memory of the author, the nearest farm to this awful precipice was held by

the tenure of taking down, every year, one of the young of this rare bird, for the lord

of the soil.

"The screaming of the birds of prey on the summit, the roaring of petty water-falls down its sides, and the frequent falls of shivered stone from the surface, made a