Was there nothing in such stanzas as these, to touch the self-constituted Scotch critics of English literature with a presentiment of Byron's future fame?-But truly their remarks on "the poesy of this young lord," were of a piece with the sagacious prophecy set forth in another of their numbers, which doomed to contempt and oblivion the elegant and exquisively pathetic Muse of Montgomery!

24TH. A Robin perches on a window-sill in rear of my abode, (I dwell, Reader, in the environs of the metropolis,) flying directly hither from a tall, hoar-frosted pear-tree, which grows in my neighbour's garden. I watch my opportunity-strew the floor with crumbs-gently lift the sash-retire a little-and speedily have the satisfaction to see the pretty stranger hopping about the apartment, and feasting with an air that bespeaks at once his hunger and his consciousness of practising an unwonted assurance.

From snowy plains, and icy sprays,

From moonless nights, and sunless days,
Welcome, poor bird! I'll cherish thee;
I love thee, for thou trustest me.
Thou need'st not dread a captive's doom;
No! freely flutter round my room;
Perch on my lute's remaining string,
And sweetly of sweet summer sing.
That note, that summer-note, I know;
It wakes at once and soothes my woe;→→→

I see those woods,-I see that stream;

I see-ah, still prolong the dream!

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And if any additional circumstance were wanting to-day, (which is beautifully serene and open for January,) to send all my vagrant thoughts to summer and the country, it is this moment supplied by the entry of a kindlyhearted nephew of my own, who ruralizes at a few miles distance, and who has brought me a fresh-cut turf for my sky-lark, on a bright-green spot anear the centre of which rises that wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," a DAISY. Not that my readers may suppose me so ignorant of rural appearances, as to be unconscious of the frequent prevalence of this pretty flower, in full bloom, at this season: on the contrary, as I take leave to assure them, I can, from a perfect acquaintance with not less than an extraordinary love of the Daisy, say, with Montgomery:

'Tis Flora's page:-in every place,

In every season fresh and fair,
It opens with perennial grace,

And blossoms every where.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,

Its humble buds unheeded rise;

The rose has but a summer reign,

The daisy never dies.

And I am not less prepared, from this morning's experience, to add, with Wordsworth:

When soothed awhile by milder airs,

Thee Winter in the garland wears,
That thinly shades his few grey hairs:
Spring cannot shun thee:

Whole Summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!

Doth in thy crimson head delight,

When rains are on thee.

It might be curious to observe, in scanning the list of our bards of fame, how many of them have delighted in praises of and apostrophes to the Daisy. Nor is attachment to this "lowly flower" the property of Poets only: perhaps all, who have hearts imbued with the relish of Nature, have been more or less led to contemplate and love-they scarce knew what -in it and more especially have such prettilytender feelings been awakened by its casual observation in a foreign clime. We have a pleasing instance of this in the attempt recorded by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learned Baptist Missionary at Mysore, to rear the Daisy at the place of his religious sojourn. With great labour (he writes, addressing a botanical friend in England). I have preserved the common field Daisy, which came up accidentally in some English earth, for these six or seven years; but my whole stock is now only one plant. I have never been able, even with sheltering them, to preserve an old root through the rains; but I get a few seedlings every year. The proportion of small plants in this country is very inconsiderable, the greater number of our vegetable productions being either large shrubs, immense climbers, or timber trees.'-Reading

this extract, the enthusiasm of Montgomery was instantly awakened; and translating himself into Dr. Carey, he wrote a string of such sweet stanzas as the following:

30TH.

Thrice welcome, little English Flower!
My mother-country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,

Never to me such beauty spread:
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.

Thrice welcome, little English Flower!
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year:
Thou, only thou, art little here,

Like worth unfriended or unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone.

Thrice welcome, little English Flower!
I'll rear thee with a trembling hand:
O for the April sun and shower,

The sweet May-dews, of that fair land,
Where DAISIES, thick as starlight, stand
In every walk!-that here might shoot
Thy scions, and thy buds expand,

A hundred from one root!

Thrice welcome, little English Flower!
To me the pledge of Hope unseen:
When sorrow would my soul o'erpower,

For joys that were, or might have been,
I'll call to mind, how, fresh and green,
I saw thee waking from the dust,
Then turn to heaven with brow serene,
And place in God my trust.

BEHEADING OF KING CHARLES

THE FIRST: 1648.-With all that unfeigned reverence which I feel for our English Liturgy, I cannot find in my heart to style the decollation of this sovereign a Martyrdom: though Charles, as I am free to acknowledge, with re'gard to nearly all the circumstances in which he was placed during the latter part of his reign, was a man, more sinned against than sinning.' I am the more disposed to insert in my Tablets for this day the following anecdote, which has an immediate connection with the tragical event, and which has Pope for its authority, from observing that MR. THOMAS CROMWELL, in his recently published "OLIVER CROMWELL AND HIS TIMES"-a book condemned not even by Reviewers for its research and impartiality-has omitted to notice it. -The night after King Charles the First was beheaded, Lord Southampton and a friend of his got leave to sit up by the body, in the Banquetting-house at Whitehall. As they were sitting very melancholy there, about two o'clock in the morning, they heard the tread of somebody coming very slowly up stairs. By and by the door opened, and a man entered, very much muffled up in his cloak, and his face quite hid in it. He approached the body, considered it very attentively for some time; and then shook his head, and sighed out the words "cruel necessity!" He then departed