false bouquets hurled by friends from dark boxes? Not at all; this would spoil everything. The happiness of the lovers now complete, they go hand in hand together up the stage, where the moon is shining over a lake; they take a boat, and glide away from our sight under the silver moon. It is poetical to the end, with just one touch of contrast to heighten the effect. As the curtain rolls slowly down, shutting off the noise and the heated air, there peeps out from the side scenes the grim, mocking visage of Mephistopheles, attired in diabolical red for some after-burlesque. Whether the audience sees him, or is intended to see him, we cannot tell, but so ends the pantomime d'amour. In half an hour the audience has dispersed, and we are threading the silent streets of Seville; a real moon is lighting up the Giralda, and the fountains are sparkling under the old Moorish walls. Does the Perea Nena, we wonder, dancing now to a fashionable, crowded opera-house, ever recall the triumph of the little girl of fifteen summers, and that passionate audience which she conquered with her eyes? Does the "first lady" of the ballet, the envied centre of a hundred ballet-girls-gliding down the centre of the stage on pasteboard toes, or swung aloft between rows of gas jets and painted clouds of heaven-ever achieve a triumph like this? But the dance-the Bolero, the reader may ask; what is it? For we have not really described it at all. It is, in one word, the poetry of motion, and the language of the eyes. It is one of the cosas d'Espana; it is oriental in its origin, and it has entranced men and women for four thousand years. But the fire is dying out before over-civilization, and one of its embers flickers for a moment-where, my good friend Don Pedro? In the pages of the Casquet of Literature.-Christmas No. of London Society, 1871. THE ROBIN. BY J. G. WHITTIER. My old Welch neighbour over the way Crept slowly out in the sun of spring, Pushed from her ears the locks of gray, And listened to hear the robin sing. Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped, And, cruel in sport as boys will be, Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped From bough to bough in the apple-tree. 1 "Nay!" said the grandmother; "have you not heard, My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit, "He brings cool dew in his little bill, And lets it fall on the souls of sin: You can see the mark on his red breast still "My poor Bron rhuddyn my breast-burned bird, Singing so sweetly from limb to limb, Very dear to the heart of Our Lord Is he who pities the lost like Him!" "Amen!" I said to the beautiful myth; "Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well: Each good thought is a drop wherewith To cool and lessen the fires of hell. "Prayers of love like rain-drops fall, Tears of pity are cooling dew, And dear to the heart of Our Lord are all Who suffer like Him in the good they do!" WHEESHT! He The [Robert Chambers, LL.D., born in Peebles, 10th July, 1802; died at St. Andrews, 17th March, 1871. was intended for the ministry, but family misfortunes compelled him at an early age to begin business in Edinburgh as a bookseller. His elder brother, William, was engaged in the same trade, and the two afterwards united to establish the firm of W. & R. Chambers. In their capacities as authors, editors and publishers, the brothers Chambers have earned a distinguished place in the history of literature in the present century. Memoir of Robert Chambers, with Autobiographic Reminiscences of William Chambers, is a valuable and interesting work, which shows what talent and industry may achieve. Dr. Robert Chambers produced over seventy volumes, exclusive of detached papers; the more important of his works are: Traditions of Edinburgh; The Popular Rhymes of Scotland; Histories of the Scottish Rebellions; Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen; A Cyclopædia of English Literature; Life and Works of Burns: Domestic Annals of Scotland; Life of Smollett: Ancient Sea-margins; The Book of Days, &c. &c. Of the brothers the Dublin University Magazine said they were "both of them men of remarkable native power, both of them trained to habits of business and punctuality, both of them upheld in all their dealings by strict prudence and conscientiousness, and both of them practised, according to their different aims and tendencies, in literary labour."] Genius of Silence! whose step, as thou walkest over the earth, falls as lightly as the descending snow-flake, invest me with thy mantle of down, and provide me with a quill of softest plume, while I attempt to recount all the own hearty hail-fellow-well-met kind of acproperties and associations of thy shibboleth-quaintances, give him a sound slap on the WHEESHT! Everybody must have more or less acquaintance with a provokingly quiet set of people, who constantly look and move as if they were saying wheesht!-a velvet-footed race, with smooth, goodly faces, who eat, drink, walk, and sleep-perhaps snore too-below their breath, and would not for the world be guilty of what they call making a fuss. This set of people are always very anxious that things should be managed in a prudent, quiet, unostentatious way. If they were going to have a ride in a coach-supposing they could bear the rattle of such a thing-they would have it drawn up six doors off. -lest folk Should say that they were proud." They keep the doors within their house always well oiled, and the pulleys of their windows in the best state of repair, so that none of them may ever be guilty of a single creak or rattle. Their clothes are always very trim about their persons,—or, to use a Scottish phrase, clappit; no superfluous skirts-no majestic train—not so much as a useless lappel, if it can be avoided; because such things tend to make a fuss-might even happen to pull down something that would make a crash, or a clash, or a dash, or a splash, or something else in ash. When they rise to leave a room, it is perceptible that they are sedulous to glide away as smoothly, and noiselessly, and unobservedly, as possible: they are evidently much put about that they cannot devolve through the key-hole, so as to save the fluster of opening the door. "We must learn to walk circumspectly. We must make no stir. Let us take things coolly. Let us do everything with decency and propriety. Allow no room for evil tongues. As well not give people occasion to speak. We'll do very well in our own quiet way. WHEESHT!" As these people move along, they keep a clear look-out on all hands, afraid to come in contact with anything; and they evidently would feel much convenienced, if Providence would see fit to furnish them with antennæ like the spider, or whiskers like the cat, so that they might be admonished beforehand of the chance of being disturbed by any little object. If they saw a nut-shell in the way, they would go about to avoid treading upon it. "Bad boys, to throw their nut-shells down in the way!" If you were to come up behind one of them in the street, and, conceiving him to be one of your shoulder, and ask him how he did, you would see him start like a Laputan philosopher under the influence of the flapper, and perhaps next moment faint, sink, and die away upon the street, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown, unless an address card happened to be found in his pocket. But see one trysted with an obstreperous bottle of small ale, with which he is going to regale you as you drop in, some warm, thirsty forenoon, at his country box. He brings in the bottle in his arms, nursing it all the way as carefully as he would a new-born babe. He sets about the business of driving in the screw with all the solemnity, and silence, and decorum with which a Druid could have set about the sacrifice of a human being. stopper is recusant-it requires more exertion than he can at any time think of making, for violent gesture is equivalent to noise. It has to be transferred to your own less scrupulous care. You make the cork fly in a moment, and see what a water-spout of foam! The quietist is paralyzed with the loudness of the report, and the fizzing, cheeping, squeaking, spirting, and squirting which the liquor makes, as you vainly endeavour to repress it with your hand. The echoes of the house, that have slumbered for months, are roused by your calls for relays of tumblers, wherein to receive the seemingly endless effusion of froth. And after puzzling The and noozling your way to the bottom of half-adozen of these tumblers, in the vain quest of a mouthful, you leave the unhappy quietist in agony for the evening-his ears rent with your jocund remarks on the small ale, and all the rest of his senses shattered, and torn, and disgusted with the scene of ravage which you have been the innocent means of introducing into his parlour. It must be remarked that these velvet people scarcely detest anything so much as a hearty laugh. They mark a cachinnator as a man to be avoided. Of men whom they have every other reason to regard with esteem, they will remark-“Yes, he is very good-a very estimable man: but don't you think he has a rather boisterous way of laughing?" Your quietist never laughs, even at the most amusing incident or witticism: he only treats you to a soft noiseless smile. In their conversation, they appear as if they were at some pains to avoid using the harsh consonants, such as r and 8: they indulge chiefly in liquids and vowels, and do a great deal with such monosyllabic interjections, as ah, eh, ay, oh, &c. They often speak upon a respiration, instead of an aspiration, as if their words made and no get it after a'. Ye'll hae a vote? [Here the person addressed intimates many friendly wishes, but is not inclined to give a distinct pledge.] Ou na-we canna expek that, ye ken. It wad neither be richt o' me to ask it, nor for you to gie't. The toon's interest, abune a' things! But I just ca'd to let ye ken hoo things stude. I'm by na means anxious for the place to John. But some o' oor freends wad hae us to come forrit, and we did na like that they should ha' been at sae muckle trouble on oor account, and we fa' back after a'. In the meantime, ye'll say naething till ye hear frae me. We're gaun to be very cautious. We'll feel our way less noise when bound inwards than outwards: | ony farther; for we wadna like to pit in for't they seem as if they wished to swallow their very language, upon the same principal as a manufactory consuming its own smoke, so that it might never more give any trouble, or create any fuss in the world. Sometimes, in company, they escape the horror of making a noise with their tongues altogether. They sit in a composed manner, perhaps looking into the fire, and only signify their appreciation of what you are saying to them by occasional inarticulate sounds within their closed lips, or by a motion of the head to one side, or by a mere transient glance of the eye. This is what they call having a little quiet conversation; and when the parties rise, it is always observable that they display an appearance of vast edification. These men of aspirate existence are often found in possession of small public dignities, such as that of provost, bailie, or town-clerk in some country burgh. Nothing can be done by such people-no step can be taken, till they have thoroughly ascertained that it is to have a perfectly good appearance, and that there is no back-come or negative influence which may derange it. "Wheesht! just let us keep a calm sough. We must proceed decently. We must walk with circumspection. That business about the Port-brae-I'll just take occasion some night to ca' in by John Richie's, and hear what he says about it, and if he doesna seem to hae any objection, we'll see what may be done. In the meantime, ye may throw yersell in Mr. ——'s way, and hear his breath. We canna be ower cautious. Dinna gang anes eerand. That would look ower set-like on the business. We'll see about it a', by and by; ay, we'll see about it; just be canny for awhile; wheesht!" Or perhaps it is-"That business about the clerkship to the buird: my son John, he's a weel-doing lad. Mr. Jamieson, his late master, just looked upon him as the apple o' his ee. He used to say he could take a voyage to Cheena, and hae an easy mind a' the time, for he was sure that John wad hae everything richt when he cam back. Served a regular apprenticeship to a double-you-ess. Though it's mysel that says't, there canna be a candidate better qualifeed. For my ain part, I'm an auld servant o' the toon. In that business, ye ken, o' the brig, I was never aff my feet lost a gude deal o' my ain business by negleck -and ye ken as weel as ony body hoo muckle fyke I've ha'en wi' the Puir's House, I've just been considering whether John has ony chance. We're anxious to soond our way afore we gang Wheesht!" Even to the humblest individuals connected with corporations this system of quietness extends. There is always a kind of valet or man of the corporation's body, who hands about the circulars which call the members together, attends to the decoring, as Caleb Balderstone would call it, of the hall of assembly, and lives in a den hard by, where he "keeps the keys." This man is always found to be a most decided votary of the idea of wheesht. He goes noiseless about the place, like a puff of Old Town smoke, and seems absolutely oppressed with a sense of the decency with which it is necessary to conduct "corporation business." Yea, he cannot pronounce the very word "corporation,” without that sinking of the voice and interjectional reverence of manner with which certain words of a really sacred nature are properly uttered in ordinary discourse. He looks upon "the corporation" as the greatest of all public bodies; if the government itself be greater, it is only greater in another way. And the deacon, in his opinion-oh, no man can equal the deacon. "The corporation is very rich. We support twenty-three dekeyed members and eleven widows, and we ha'e a richt to put five callants into the Orphan Hospital. We've our chairter frae James the Sixth; and our record-we've a grand record. It has the Catholic oath at the beginning,-“ By my pairt of Paradise"-that ilk member swears to, when he enters. If you wad be very quiet about it, ye micht gang up stairs and see't. Mak' nae noise, now. Wheesht!" There is a kindred set of men, who act in something like the same capacity to places of worship-old decent men-squires of the church's body, who come in, as avant-couriers of the minister, to lay down his Bible on the desk, and who evidently are at a great deal of trouble in keeping up a tremendously grave and important aspect, appropriate to their duties. These old men appear in large entailed black coats, which have been in the family for ages, and the skirts of which sweep solemn ly by, almost like the mainsheet of a seventyfour. Such persons might be the very doorkeepers of the Court of Silence-the highpriests of the idea of wheesht. They are immensely impressed with a sense of the great ness of the minister, though, perhaps, he is in reality no conflagrator of the Thames; and their whole form and impression breathes of the solemnity of "the vestry." Anything that an elder says is to them law; and if the minister were to address himself to them, they would feel the honour so deeply, that they would not know what they were about all the rest of the day. When they appear within the body of the church they do not, of course, say anything; but it is evident that they mean a great deal by their anti-disturbance aspect. "Children, be all quiet; public worship is just about to commence; it behoves all people to show an outward decency in the house of God. I could give ye a word mysel'; but I leave it to the minister. Wheesht!"1 which they sported a few minutes ago, while talking in the churchyard upon such terrene subjects as crops and markets, display in their pews a gravity appropriate to the place, but which could scarcely have been otherwise assumed. In fact, these old grave men, if planted in the entrance to the cave of Trophonius, would have been sufficient to account for the miracle. During the first prayer they are seen to enter the body of the church, and plant themselves in a seat under the pulpit, with a quietness and solemnity that would not be amiss among the special jurors of Rhadamanthus. If you visit one in his own residence, some evening during the week, you find him sitting in a small lonely room, with a large Bible open before him, into which, as you enter, he quietly thrusts his spectacles for a mark. You almost tremble to disturb so fine a picture of religious contemplation. When he speaks, you find that he has a deep, guttural voice, broken and softened into something inexpressibly smooth and gentle; a constant susurrus of wheesht! If you converse regarding books, you find that, of all secular compoAll I shall say is-sitions, he likes Hervey's Meditations, and what he calls Strum's Reflections. The subdued tone of these works harmonizes finely with the tranquil pulsations of his soul and heart. On a Sunday afternoon, when the slight bustle which the dismissal of the con Then there is a set of equally peaceable old men, who, in the country, act as elders, and stand every Sunday, with a peculiarly mortified and speechless aspect, beside the plate which receives the oblations of the congrega-gregation has made upon the street is all hushtion-"grave and reverend seignors," fixed as statues, with their hands thrust into the opposite cuffs of their spencers, and downcast faces that would not smile for untold gold. The boys, and even older people, are almost afraid to pass them, they are so awfully solemn. In one respect they are a kind of fuglemen. countenances of the worshippers in passing catch from them the contagion of decorum, and instead of the easy, this-world expression The 1 Personages of this kind abound in the streets of Edinburgh during the hour between ten and eleven on Sunday forenoons, when they are all going to their respective places of worship. One of them was observ ed gliding gently along Prince's Street one forenoon, in company with some other "decent people," to whom he was evidently making a few quiet, solemn remarks upon the subject of things in general, with, perhaps, a particular reference to the gaudy show of fine new houses and elegantly dressed people, whom he saw around him. He was just overheard to make one observation; but it was most characteristic of the quiet tribe to which he belonged: "Sirs," said he with a philosophical glance from side to side, "there's nae reality in naething now!" This world is but a fleeting show ed down into the soft and melancholy calm which ever rests that day upon the rural towns of Scotland, if you drop quietly in upon him, you find him sitting in his back room, in the midst of his family, with a stream of rich light from the setting sun falling upon his quiet gray head, and a large Bible displaying its brighter treasures before him. He is reading a chapter to his children in the low, murmuring voice peculiar to him. The whole scene is one of piquant noiselessness and repose; for the children, admirably trained, are all as quiet as doves, and, besides his own voice, there is no sound to be heard, excepting, perhaps, the soft occasional wail of the wind, or the equivocal lull of the distant waterfall. Should one of the young people betray but the slightest mark of restlessness, a glance from the old man, over the top of the spectacles, stills it in an instant. There is something in the scene that seems to say,-"Children, let us all be meek and gentle of spirit-let us all be reverent, and lowly, and quiet; let us sit amidst the stillness of the evening hour, and offer up the silent vespers of a grateful and devout spirit-be every worldly and profane thought banished-be ye holy and calm forward, holding up her hand, after the manwheesht!" There is a set of the generation of quietists, who are ever and anon coming up to you in the street with a curious entre-nous expression of phiz, as if, like a grief-laden ghost, they were possessed of some secret which they could not bring themselves to divulge. Now, for my part, I have no curiosity after secrets. I would rather want the best of them than be at the trouble of recollecting to keep them to myself. Yet these people do often seize me by the button, and attempt to work off “ a great secret upon me, in their quiet way, dribble by dribble, notwithstanding all I can do to the contrary. 'Have you heard of anything within the last few days? Anything about ? I heard it whispered last night, but I could not believe it. It was talked of to-day, however, I know, in the Parliament House. And Guthry, I'm told, knows all about it. For God's sake, however, speak loundly about it; and don't say I told you. It's a very delicate business. Wheesht!" And so, after a thousand insinuations, by whisper, wink, shrug, and smile, they quit button, and leave you weltering in astonishment, unable to make out, for the life of you, what all this means; nay, perhaps, so completely do you feel bamboozled by the tide of new and imperfect ideas which has been let loose upon you, that you scarcely know that you are walking on the earth for five minutes after. You feel ravished away, as it were, into middle air, caput ferit alta sidera-not with elation, but with bother ation of spirit. Your imagination toils and pants after their meaning through the great abyss of space; and you hardly feel the pressure of the real world around you for the afternoon. ner of a judge administering an oath, and only pronounces the single emphatic word-wheesht! You are beckoned in a most mysterious manner into a side-room, and told to be very quiet, for has just fallen into a sleep, which the doctor expects to do a great deal of good, and there must, upon no account, be any disturbance. Though the bedroom of the patient is so far away that no voice, however loud, could reach it, this high-priestess of silence still speaks thirty degrees below the zero of articulation, the sense of the necessity of quiet being so weighty upon her mind, that she totally forgets the state of the case in this particular instance, and even, perhaps, if she were removed to the distance of several miles, would still fear to give her words full utterance. You soon find this discreet old lady in full possession of your house, invested with the management of the keys, arbitress of all matters connected with the children's frocks, and sole autocrat of the bread and butter. If you live in any of the streets of the New Town, where hardly a cart or carriage is to be heard from morning till night, you immediately find the street in front of the door strewed with tanners' bark, to deafen the sound of those rarely-occurring annoyances. Of course, if you live in the Old Town, where carts and carriages are incessant, the patient is understood to have nerves accordingly, and no bark is required. Suppose the case to be one where the mistress of the house herself is indisposed: for some time you find your consequence as master entirely absorbed; you are a mere subordinate where once you were principal; the attentions of all the servants, and also of the discreet lady, are all engrossed by the patient; and you come into, Then there is a set of people, of the quieter and go out of the house, without ever being sex-good neighbours, mothers of families, heeded or regarded; unless, perhaps, when you who, when there is any sickness in your own | happen to make a very leetle noise, and then a house, and the mistress of the house herself is troop of harpies, with the discreet lady at their not very well able to take care of it, rush in head, fly upon you, with open mouth and upunbidden, apparently upon the same instinct lifted hands, and all the gesticulation and expreswhich brings birds of prey to fields of battle, sion which might properly accompany an outand immediately begin to assume a strange burst of indignant remonstrance, but which, in kind of unauthorized directorate, as if they this case, is a kind of dumb thunder, ending had been all their lives as familiar with the all in the awful monosyllable wheesht! scene as yourself. These kind persons leave Then, there is an oiling of doors, and a throng their own houses to Providence, all selfish con- of women going through the house in their siderations being abandoned for the time at stockings, or at most in what are called carpet the call of what they term distress. On com- shoes, and a whispering and breathing of ing home to dinner, totally unwitting of the wheesht! for many days, till at last, through trouble which has befallen the family in your very contagion, you yourself become as timid absence, you are surprised in limine, at the as a titmouse, and almost forget the sound of very door-step, by meeting a quiet-looking your own voice. Then the mysterious old oldish woman in her stocking-soles, who comes | woman, how beautifully she manages every |