quarry fifty feet deep, and as many high; yet, "without stop or stay, down the rocky way" the hunter train flows on; for the music grows fiercer and more savage,-lo! all that remains together of the pack, in far more dreadful madness than hydrophobia, leaping out of their skins, under insanity from the scent, now strong as stink, for Vulpes can hardly now make a crawl of it; and ere he, they, whipper-in, or any one of the other three demoniacs, have time to look in one another's splashed faces, he is torn into a thousand pieces, gobbled up in the general growl; and smug, and smooth, and dry, and warm, and cozey, as he was an hour and twenty-five minutes ago exactly, in his furze-bush in the cover, he is now piecemeal in about thirty distinct stomachs; and is he not, pray, well off for sepulture?

SOLILOQUY ON THE ANNUALS.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1829.)

PERIODICAL literature-how sweet is the name! "Tis a type of many of the most beautiful things and events in nature; or say, rather, that they are types of it—both the flowers and the stars. As to flowers, they are the prettiest periodicals ever published in folio-the leaves are wirewove and hot-pressed by Nature's self; their circulation is wide over all the land; from castle to cottage they are regularly taken in; as old age bends over them, his youth is renewed; and you see childhood poring upon them, prest close to its very bosom. Some of them are ephemeral, and their contents are exhaled between the rising and setting sun. Once a-week others break through their green, pink, or crimson cover; and how delightful, on the seventh day, smiles in the sunshine the Sabbath flowerthe only Sunday publication perused without blame by the most religious-even before morning prayer. Each month, indeed, throughout the whole year, has its own flowerperiodical. Some are annual, some biennial, some triennial, and there are perennials that seem to live for ever -and yet are still periodical-though our love will not allow us to know when they die, and phoenix-like reappear from their own ashes. So much for flowers-typifying or typified;-leaves emblematical of pages-buds of binding -dew-veils of covers-and the wafting away of bloom and fragrance like the dissemination of fine feelings, bright fancies, and winged thoughts!

The flowers are the periodicals of the earth-the stars are those of heaven. With what unfailing regularity do the numbers issue forth! Hesperus and Lucifer! ye are

one concern! The pole-star is studied by all nations. How beautiful the poetry of the moon! On what subject does not the sun throw light! No fear of hurting your eyes by reading that fine clear large type on that softened page. Lo! as you turn over, one blue, another yellow, and another green, all, all alike delightful to the pupil, and dear to him as the very apple of his eye! Yes, the great periodical press of heaven is unceasingly at work-night and day; and though even it has been taxed, and its emanations confined, still their circulation is incalculable; nor have we yet heard that Ministers intend instituting any prosecution against it. It is yet free, the only free power all over the world. 'Tis indeed like the air we breatheif we have it not, we die!

Look, then, at all our paper periodicals with pleasure, for sake of the flowers and the stars. Suppose them all extinct, and life would be like a flowerless earth, a starless heaven. We should soon forget the seasons themselvesthe days of the week-and the weeks of the month-and the months of the year-and the years of the centuryand the centuries of all time-and all time itself flowing away on into eternity. The periodicals of external nature would soon all lose their meaning, were there no longer any periodicals of the soul. These are the lights and shadows of life, merrily dancing or gravely stealing over the dial; remembrancers of the past-teachers of the present-prophets of the future hours. Were they all dead, spring would in vain renew her promise-wearisome would be the long, long, interminable summer days-the fruits of autumn would taste fushionless-and the winter ingle blink mournfully round the hearth. What are the blessed seasons themselves, in nature and in Thomson, but periodicals of a larger growth? They are the parents, or publishers, or editors, of all the others-principal contributors-nay, subscribers too-and may their pretty family live for ever, still dying, yet ever renewed, and on the increase every year. We should suspect him of a bad, black heart, who loved not the periodical literature of earth and sky-who would weep not to see one of its flowers wither-one of its stars fall-one beauty to die on its humble bed-one glory to drop from its lofty sphere. Let

them bloom and burn on-flowers in which there is no poison, stars in which there is no disease--whose blossoms are all sweet, and whose rays are all sanative-both alike steeped in dew, and both, to the fine ear of nature's worshipper, bathed in music.

Only look at Maga! One hundred and forty-eight months old! and yet lovely as maiden between frock and gown--even as sweet sixteen! Not a wrinkle on cheek or forehead! No crow-foot has touched her eyes

"Her eye's blue languish, and her golden hair!"

Like an antelope in the wilderness--or swan on the riveror eagle in the sky. Dream that she is dead, and oh! what a world! Yet die she must some day--so must the moon and stars. Meanwhile there is a blessing in prayersand hark! how the nations cry, "Oh! Maga, live for ever!"

We often pity our poor ancestors. How they contrived to make the ends meet, surpasses our conjectural powers. What a weary waste must have seemed expanding before their eyes between morning and night! Don't tell us that the human female never longs for other pastime than

"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer."

True, ladies sighed not then for periodicals--but there, in the depths of their ignorance, lay their utter wretchedness. What! keep pickling and preserving during the whole mortal life of an immortal being! Except when at jelly, everlastingly at jam! The soul sickens at the monotonous sweetness of such a wersh existence. True that many sat all life-long at needle-work; but is not that a very sew-sew sort of life? Then oh! the miserable males! We speak of times after the invention, it is true, of printing-but who read what were called books then? Books! no more like our periodicals, than dry, rotten, worm-eaten, fungous logs are like green living leafy trees, laden with dews, bees, and birds, in the musical sunshine. What could males do then but yawn, sleep, snore, guzzle, guttle, and drink till they grew dead and got buried? Fox-hunting won't always do--and often it is not to be had; who can be happy with his gun through good report and bad report in

an a' day's rain? Small amusement in fishing in muddy waters; palls upon the sense quarrelling with neighbours on points of etiquette and the disputed property of hedgerow trees; a fever in the family ceases to raise the pulse of any inmate, except the patient; death itself is no relief to the dulness; a funeral is little better; the yawn of the grave seems a sort of unhallowed mockery; the scutcheon hung out on the front of the old dismal hall, is like a sign on a deserted spittal; along with sables is worn a suitable stupidity by all the sad survivers, and such, before the era of periodicals, such was life in-merry England. Oh! dear!-oh! dear me !

We shall not enter into any historical details-for this is not a monologue for the Quarterly-but we simply assert, that in the times we allude to (don't mention dates) there was little or no reading in England. There was neither the reading fly nor the reading public. What could this be owing to, but the non-existence of periodicals? What elderly-young lady could be expected to turn from house affairs, for example, to Spenser's Fairy Queen? It is a long, long, long poem, that Fairy Queen of Spenser's; nobody, of course, ever dreamt of getting through it; but though you may have given up all hope of getting through a poem or a wood, you expect to be able to find your way back again to the spot where you unluckily got in; not so, however, with the Fairy Queen. Beautiful it is indeed, most exquisitely and unapproachably beautiful in many passages, especially about ladies and ladies' love more than celestial, for Venus loses in comparison her lustre in the sky; but still people were afraid to get into it then as now; and "heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb," lay buried in dust. As to Shakspeare, we cannot find many traces of him in the domestic occupations of the English gentry during the times alluded to; nor do we believe that the character of Hamlet was at all relished in their halls, though perhaps an occasional squire chuckled at the humours of Sir John Falstaff. We have Mr. Wordsworth's authority for believing that Paradise Lost was a dead letter, and John Milton virtually anonymous. We need say no more. Books like these, huge heavy vols. lay with other lumber in garrets and