POETRY. THE EVENING HOUR. IT was the sweetest, stillest hour O'er hill and valley, dale and sea; Flung out a small still radiancy. Nature slept on-each winding stream Forgot its daylight song awhile, The field flowers closed their eyes to dream; The bending daisy veiled its smile. Night rose! The waveless lake expressed That sparkled on her sombre vest, Still all lay hushed-still nature slept, While gazing on such sweet repose. And yield to such benignant sway, As man, the boasted lord of all, VARIETIES. E. B. GOURDS. To grow gourds, plant them in a rich soil, well manured with rotten dung, in a warm situation. Train the stems regularly, so as not to over-crowd each other, and peg them down to prevent their being tossed about by the wind. Some train them against a wall or trellis, but these modes are only applicable in the case of small sorts: for one weighing 160 lbs. would not be easily supported from the earth. Occasionally they are planted above fermenting dung, and protected, at first, with hand-glasses, as is done with ridge cucumbers. A FAMILY MAN.-The Shah was also a family man, in the broad acceptation of the term; indeed, it may be said that his majesty was the richest man in the world in family ties. It never could be ascertained, I believe, even by himself, the extent of his possessions in this respect, since it was not an uncommon thing to have two or three born to him the same night. I have heard of a hundred and fifty sons, and as many daughters. The precocious Persian youth, and the still more precocious maiden, who is often married at from twelve to fifteen years of age, soon glide into the noose of matrimony, and the consequences are generally numerous. His majesty was blessed with the third and fourth generations, and as I have observed, the family ties could never be told. I have heard them estimated at twelve hundred.-Fowler's Three Years in Persia. EGYPTIAN ASSES.-I never before experienced the perfection of smooth progressive motion. The fleetness of the Egyptian ass's amble is not to be described: one glides on, and, as on a railroad, you can only judge of the rapidity of your progress by seeing how fast you lose sight of succeeding objects. I am longing to take some to England. What charming shooting ponies they would make! if I may be permitted the Hibernicism. The race is quite a thing apart; their coats are so fine that, when clipped, they look as if they were dressed in grey and white satin, for some are nearly colourless.-Hon. Mrs. Damer's Diary. HIS HANDS FULL-A man is supposed to be tolerably well occupied when he has a wife on one arm, a baby on the other, carrying a basket and a cane in his hands, a cigar in his mouth, and a hopeful heir holding on to the skirts of his coat. SAILORS' HOMES.-From the interest I had always taken in the welfare of this deserving but neglected class of beings in my own country, my attention was naturally drawn to their condition here; and I found, on inspection and inquiry, that here, as in England, the sailor is hardly permitted to tread the shore, after his arrival from a long voyage, before he is beset and surrounded with an unprincipled gang of grog. shop keepers, pawnbrokers, procuresses, crimps, and other "land-sharks," as they are most appropriately called, all anxious to make the unsuspecting victim their prey. He is then decoyed by flattering words, and the offer of money for his immediate wants before his wages are paid, to some low boarding-house, attached to which, or near at hand, are all the vicious allurements of intoxicating drink, gaming, dancing, women, and every thing that can draw his money from his pocket; so that by these joint influences he is often drained of the whole earnings of a year of peril and hardship at sea, in the short space of a single week, at the end of which he has to embark again upon the ocean, without even the means of purchasing sufficient clothes for his voyage, or leaving any provision for his family or kindred behind him.Buckingham's America. END OF A RICH POPE.-Clement V., during his feeble and profligate reign, amassed enormous riches by the sale of ecclesiastical benefices and by other scandalous means. He had enriched his relations and his dependents, but he had not secured their gratitude. The moment that his death was announced in the papal palace, all its inmates rushed upon his treasures as if they had been their lawful booty. Amongst his numerous household, not a single servant remained to watch the dead body of their master. The wax candles that lighted his bed of state fell upon the bed clothes, and set them on fire. The flames spread over the whole apartment, but the palace and wardrobe were so plundered that only a miserable cloth could be found to cover the half-burnt remains of one of the richest popes who had ever governed the church.Campbell's Life of Petrarch. Whoever shall review his life, will generally find that the whole tenor of his conduct has been terminated by some accident of no apparent moment, or by a combination of inconsiderable circumstances, acting when his imagination was unoccupied, and his judgment unsettled, and that his prin ciples and actions have taken their colour from some secret infusion, mingled without design in the current of his ideas. The desires that predominate in our hearts are instilled by imperceptible communications, at the time we look upon the various scenes of the world, and the different employments of men, with the neutrality of inexperience; and we come forth from the nursery of the school, invariably destined to the pursuit of great acquisitions or petty accomplishments.-Dr. Johnson. MICROSCOPIC VIEW OF THE FLY.-The eye of the common house fly is fixed so as to enable its prominent organs of vision to view accurately the objects around in every direction; it is furnished with 8000 hexagonal faces, all calculated to convey perfect images to the optic nerve-all slightly convexall acting as so many cornea-8000 included within a space no larger than the head of a pin!-all hexagonal-all of the best possible form to prevent a waste of space! This is so wonderful that it would stagger belief if not vouched for by being the result of the microscopical researches of such men as Lewenhoeck, and others equally eminent. CONDUCTED BY JAMES GRANT, AUTHOR OF "RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS," "THE GREAT METROPOLIS," &c. AND FRANCIS ROSS, FORMERLY SOLE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL. ILLUSTRATIONS OF HUMANITY. country, can always rely upon his "vote and interest." He is a most strenuous supporter of the corn laws: he potently believes in the propriety and advantages of good prices for agricultural produce. With those who cry out for cheap bread, he has no sympathy. The higher the price of the quartern loaf, the better in his opinion for the country. The clamours of the manufacturers and artizans for the extinction of the corn monopoly, appear to him to be altogether ungrounded. The agitation so often got up in large towns on this subject, he at once pronounces to be supremely absurd. Why the agitators are not like himself, contented with things as they are, is to him altogether incomprehensible. Stop every mill in Lancashire, shatter all the machinery in the kingdom in countless pieces, perish for ever trade and commerce, " rather than that wheat should not bring a certain price per quarter," is the motto of the Country Squire. And yet there is nothing unkindly in his nature, he is, on the contrary, a good-hearted man. His creed is the consequence of his imperfect education; and its errors are only to be rectified by a more enlarged and more intimate acquaintance with the schoolmaster. DOMESTIC DUTIES. No. XXX. THE COUNTRY SQUIRE. NONE but those who have resided in rural districts can have any idea of the importance and popularity in his own contracted circle, of the Country Squire. He is a prince in miniature. Not only the servants in his own establishment, but the peasants in the locality, are his subjects. His name is with them a household word. He is the never-ending theme of their conversation. The most favourable construction is put on his most equivocal actions; and the virtues he possesses, and the generous deeds he performs, are viewed through a glass of a marvellously magnifying power. He is all but idolized. No sacrifice would be deemed too great by the neighbouring peasantry, which could increase his gratification, or add to his happiness. He is the sun of the little world in which he moves. His will is a law; his pleasure has only to be known to be obeyed. A nod or a smile from the Country Squire is the very perfection of earthly bliss to the peasant who has the good fortune to receive it. An approving look or a kindly word lightens the heaviest labour, and renders pleasant that which is irksome. When "riding out" in his locality, every eye is eager to catch his, and every hat, or head where there hap- THE refinements of fashion, the duties of the toilet, pens to be no hat, is touched in token of honest, and what compose the elegant amusements of young though rude obeisance. He is loved, esteemed, al- women, should, on no account, unless in very particular most idolized by all around him. He knows nothing instances, impede their course of instruction in the more except by report, of the disappointments, the hollow-useful and lasting duties of domestic life. To preserve a house, however mean or however dignified, in the best ness, the heart-burnings, the mortifications, the envies, possible order, to have a knowledge in making up of peculiar to the artificial society of populous towns. No female attire, and to be learned in the divers processes of wonder then, that poets paint in glowing colours, and cookery, are, in general, absolutely essential; that is to philosophers pant for, the unsophisticated pleasures say, if young women have any ambition to be placed at of country life. Those only who have lived alternately the head of a domestic establishment suitable to their in crowded cities and in rural districts, can fully feel rank and prospects in life. The house being the approthe force of the truth embodied in the lines of Cowper, be thoroughly mistress of all its details, and in ne inpriate kingdom of the wife, it is necessary that she should "God made the country, and man made the town." stance be left at the mercy of strangers or servants, who, even if anxious to please, seldom possess an education The occupations of the Country Squire are few and which renders them competent to carry on a household simple. He daily rides around his lands in summer, in its different parts. By a close, yet tempered, superand converses with the more experienced peasantry vision on the part of the mistress of the establishment, about the state of the weather and the appearance of a corresponding degree of comfort, peace, and saving of the crops. In winter, he is chiefly to be seen about expence, is produced, and by her laxity or carelessness, exactly the opposite results take place. Without proper the farm-steading, giving instructions to his men. discipline and firmness, all the cares of the young wife Once a week he rides to the neighbouring market may be frustrated. I think it is Miss Edgeworth who town to meet with his brother squires of the county, says, in one of her excellent novels, that the greater proand to ascertain the prices of grain. In the evenings portion of the miseries of life proceed from taking things he sits for an hour or two over his after-dinner tum- for granted. The good wife takes nothing for granted. bler of toddy; and if no friend be with him to share She gives forth her orders distinctly, and if requisite, sees them executed. Let those things be impressed on the his hospitality, he eagerly cons over either the pro- minds of my fair young country-women. William Cobvincial paper, or some daily London journal of four bett, who has written a good deal on the value of industry or five days' antiquity. When he takes up a metro- in household affairs, has well said, "that the lover is politan paper, his reading commences with the prices blind; but that the husband has eyes to see with. He of agricultural produce; in the case of the local print, soon discovers that there is something wanted besides he begins at the beginning, namely, with the first ad- dimples and cherry cheeks; and I would (says he) have vertisement. His notions on political topics are not fathers seriously reflect, and to be well assured, that the way to make their daughters to be long admired, beloved, very accurate or profound, but he knows enough to and respected by their husbands, is to make them skilmake him a warm partizan of Church and State. He ful, able, and active in the most necessary concerns of a is a thorough tory, and the tory candidate going the family. Eating and drinking (continues he) come three times every day; the preparations for these and all the ministry necessary to them, belong to the wife; and I hold it to be impossible, that, at the end of two years, a really ignorant, sluttish wife should possess any thing worthy of the name of love from her husband. A woman who understands all things above mentioned is really a skilful person; a person worthy of respect, and that will be treated as such." "How great is the change (says a respectable female writer) which is instantly effected in the situation of a woman by the few solemn words pronounced at the altar! She, who the moment before was, perhaps, a careless member of one family, finds herself, as if by magic, at the head of another, and involved in duties of the highest importance. If she possess good sense, her earnest wish will be to act with propriety in her new sphere. The married and single state equally demand the exercise and improvement of the best qualities of the heart and the mind. Sincerity, discretion, a well-governed temper, forgetfulness of self, charitable allowance for the frailty of human nature, are all requisite in both conditions. But the single woman being, in general, responsible for her own conduct solely, is chiefly required to cultivate passive qualities. To fall easily into the domestic current of regulations and habits; to guard with care against those attacks of caprice and ill humour which disturb its course; to assist rather than to take the lead in all family arrangements, are among her duties while the married woman, in whose hands are the happiness and welfare of others, is called upon to lead, to regulate, and command. She has to examine every point in the new situation into which she is transplanted; to cultivate in herself, and to encourage in her husband, rational and domestic tastes, which may prove sources of amusement in every stage of their lives, and particularly at the latter period, when other resources shall have lost their power to charm. She has to proportion, not, as in the single state, her own personal expenses merely, but the whole expenditure of her household, to the income which she is now to command; and in this part of her duty there is often exercise for self-denial as well as for judgment. The condition of her husband may require her to abandon, not only habits of expense, but even those of generosity. It may demand from her a rigid adherence to economy neither easy nor pleasant, when contrary habits and tastes, under more liberal circumstances, have been fixed and cultivated. Such alterations in habit may at first be regarded as sacrifices, but in the end they will meet their compensation. Sometimes, however, the means of indulging liberal and generous propensities are extended by marriage. Where this is the case, that extreme attention to economy, which circumscribes the expenditure very much within the boundaries of the income, would betray a narrow and mean spirit, and would have the effect to abridge the blessings which by affluence may be dispensed around. "No woman should place herself at the head of a family without feeling the importance of the character which she has to sustain. Her example alone may afford better instruction than either precepts or admonition, both to her children and servants. By a 'daily beauty' in her life, she may present a model by which all around her will insensibly mould themselves. Knowledge is power' only when it fits us for the station in which we find ourselves placed. Of all the social domestic and personal obligations of the young wife, her husband is the centre: when they are properly discharged, his welfare and happiness are certainly promoted; and his esteem, affection, and confidence established on a permanent basis. In neglecting them, he is neglected, his respectability diminished, and his domestic peace and comfort destroyed. One who, selfishly regardless of family duties, leads a life of dissipation and amusement, whose heart and soul are in the world, and never at home, is worthless as a wife or mother. She neglects the chief and positive duties of life, without fulfilling those of a minor character with any good effect. At home her example is injurious, and if abroad she possess any influence, it is merely of a temporary nature, resting, probably, on no securer ground than that of fashion. In portraying the beau ideal of a married woman, I should describe one not absorbed in any single part, but attentive to the whole of life's obligations-one who neglects nothing who regulates and superintends her household concerns; attends to, watches over, and guides her children, and yet is ever ready to consider, in moderation, the demands upon her time, which the numerous and various claims of society may make. Such appears to me to be a right sketch of the character of the married woman. "The first year of a woman's married life is not always most free from vexations and troubles. She carries into one family the prejudices and habits of another, which sometimes prove so different as to cause the task of assimilating herself in her new character, to those with whom she is henceforth to dwell, to be both painful and difficult. If she be solicitous to promote unanimity between her new connexions and herself, she will, perhaps, examine how far she can yield up her own opinions, and render herself agreeable to her new relatives. By yielding a little she may establish herself firmly in their affections. Much of the comfort of the married state depends on the good temper of the wife. Even should the temper of the husband be peculiar, she may, by having the command of her own, lessen some of its bad effects upon the happiness of the family; and though she may not be able to avert them entirely, yet she will derive much satisfaction from knowing she has not increased the evil by her own want of forbearance and good humour. Good temper in a wife is, indeed, indispensable to conjugal happiness. A man may possess every advantage which the world has to give, and may have talents that render him a valuable member of society; yet if his wife be contentious, fretful, or discontented, his sum of happiness is most incomplete. Every man, whether employed in the duties of public or of professional life, meets with numerous circumstances and disappointments which harrass and distress him. For the painful effects of these, a happy home provides an instantaneous antidote. Every thing beyond its walls seems for a time forgotten, while the mind is relieved, and its powers renovated for future exertions in the world, by the healthy air of cheerfulness which he breathes in the domestic circle. How important then it is, that the wife, by her amiable conduct, should obtain that influence over her husband's mind which will prompt him to turn frequently from the world to her society, for happiness and refinement." Mrs. Parkes on Domestic Duties. POETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS.-No. V. THE only poetical contributions we have received since our last article under that head, for which we can find room, are two in number. The first is entitled A MAIDEN'S Dirge. Gently we have laid thee down, Tears shall not be shed for thee,- Yet we all may shortly be, Gentle sleeper! blest with thee, And rejoice to meet thine eyes, In the fields of paradise! Death may come, and on the morrow, Wake again the wail of sorrow- Mercy grant that all we love, (Earth resigned,) may meet above! W. B. RANDS. The other is written in a different strain. It is from the pen of an Edinburgh correspondent, and is headed THE ORPHAN SISTERS. I SAW two orphan sisters mild, Had brightened their fond hopes;-when wild And oh! how happy then! "Twas thus that these two orphans fair And when the dewy clouds of night In deep-toned melody. Years passed away ere in that dale They rest in peace-but far away They rest in peace! and wild flowers spring THE SQUIRE'S TALE. BY ALEXANDER ANDREWS. A. W. A MERRY, jovial party was assembled round the fire at Squire Clinton's mansion, on the night of the 29th of December, 1795, drinking the squire's health (for it was his birthday) in a steaming bowl of punch. The large eight-day clock, that occupied so snug a situation by the side of the fire, had just struck nine, and the watchman's heavy tramp and heavier voice announc ing that it was past nine o'clock," had come within earshot, when the squire requested that some of the party would sing a song. As is usual in such cases, all the young ladies present remembered that they had got severe coughs or sore throats, and the young gentlemen,-" why, they didn't sing." "Well," said the squire good-humouredly, "so none of you will sing.-I must confess, in the words of these bashful young gentlemen, that I never learnt,' but I can tell you a tale, if that will do as well." "Oh, do, pray do!" cried the party. The squire having whetted his memory (and his whistle) with a glass of punch, commenced. "My birth-day in the year '88," said he, was very differently spent. I was then residing in Paris, and had invited some of my acquaintances to wish me many happy returns of the day, when my servant entered, and informed me that two men were waiting in the hall to speak with me. I had scarcely left the room when I was seized and forcibly dragged to the entrance-door; I resisted as much as I was able, but in vain; a pistol was held at my ear, and I was threatened with immediate death if I did not proceed quietly. As soon as we reached the street, I inquired of the ruilians whither they were conducting me, they replied, 'to the Bastille! I demanded their authority, and they produced a lettre de cachet, signed by the king. This was sufficient, I knew that there were no hopes of an escape, and all the bright prospects which I had once imagined were opening around me, faded away as the huge gate of the Bastille swung back on its hinges, and the dismal sound of the key grating in the lock, told me I was a prisoner-most probably for life! This reflection made me desperate,-I struggled with my guards, but the next instant I received a violent blow, and I fell insensible. "When I recovered I found myself in darkness.-I groped about and soon discovered that my prison was not |