encircle us once more, the postern gates are closed, the draw bridge is up, and pent in its narrow den beneath, the water foams and struggles with the sunken starlings. Jerkins and quarter-staves are in the streets again the nightly watch is set, the rebel, sad and lonely in his Tower dungeon, tries to sleep and weeps for home and children. Aloft upon the gates and walls are noble heads, glaring fiercely down upon the dreaming city, and vexing the hungry dogs that scent them in the air and tear the ground beneath with dismal howlings.The axe, the block, the rack, in their dark chambers give signs of recent use. The Thames floating past long lines of cheerful windows whence come a burst of music and a stream of light, bears sullenly to the Palace wall the last red stain brought on the tide from Traitor's-gate. But your pardon, brother. The night wears, and I am talking idly."

The other Giant appeared to be entirely of this opinion, for during the foregoing rhapsody of his fellow sentinelhe had been scratching his head with an air of comical uneasiness, or rather with an air that would have been very comical if he had been a dwarf or an ordinary sized man. He winked too, and though it could not be doubted for a moment that he winked to himself, still he certainly cocked his enormous eye towards the gallery where the listener was concealed. Nor was this all, for he gaped; and when he gaped, Joe was horribly reminded of the popular prejudice on the subject of giants, and of their fabled power of smelling out Englishmen, however closely concealed.

His alarm was such that he nearly swooned, and it was some little time before his power of sight or hearing was restored. When he recovered he found that the elder Giant was pressing the younger to commence the Chronicles, and that the latter was endeavoring to excuse himself, on the ground that the night was far spent, and it would be better to wait until the next. Well assured by this that he was certainly about to begin directly, the listener collected his faculties by a great effort, and distinctly heard Magog express himself to the following effect:

In the sixteenth century, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory, (albeit many of her golden days are rusted with blood,) there lived in the city of London a bold young 'prentice, who loved his master's daughter. There were no doubt within the walls a great many young 'prentices in this condition, but I speak of only one, and his name was Hugh Graham.

This Hugh was apprenticed to an honest Bowyer who dwelt in the ward of Cheype, and was rumored to possess great wealth. Rumor was quite as infallible in those days as at the present time, but it happened then as now, to be sometimes right by accident. It stumbled upon the truth when it gave the old Bowyer a mint of money. His trade had been aprofitable one in the time of King Henry the Eighth, who encouraged English archery to the utmost, and he had been prodent and discreet. Thus it came to pass that Mistress Alice, his only daughter, was the richest heiress in all his wealthy ward. Young Hugh had often maintained with staff and cudgel that she was the handsomest. To do him justice, I believe she was.

Never did 'prentice long to distinguish himself in the eyes of his lady-love so ardently as Hugh. Sometimes he pic tured to himself the house taking fire by night, and he, when all drew back in fear, rushing through flame and smoke and bearing her from the ruins in his arms. At other times he thought of a rising of fierce rebels, an attack upon the city, a strong assault upon the Bowyer's house in particular, and he falling on the threshold pierced with numberless wounds in defence of Mistress Alice. If he could only enact some prodigy of valor, do some wonderful deed and let her know that she had inspired it, he thought he could die contented. Sometimes the Bowyer and his daughter would go out to supper with a worthy citizen at the fashionable hour of six o'clock, and on such occasions Hugh wearing his blue 'prentice cloak as gallantly as 'prentice might, would attend with a lantern and his trusty club to escort them home. These were the brightest moments of his life. To hold the light while Mistress Alice picked her steps, to touch her hand as he helped her over broken ways, to have her leaning on his arm-it sometimes even came to that-this was happiness indeed!

If he could have gained the heart of pretty Mistress Alice knocking this conviction into stubborn people's heads, Hugh would have had no cause to fear. But though the Bowyer's daughter smiled in secret to hear of his doughty deeds for her sake, and though her little waiting woman reported all her smiles (and many more) to Hugh, and though was at a vast expense in kisses and small coin to recompense her fidelity, he made no progress in his love. He durst whisper it to Mistress Alice save on sure encouragement, and that she never gave him. A glance of her dark eye as esat at the door on a summer's evening after prayer time, while he and the neighboring 'prentices exercised themselves the street with blunted sword and buckler, would fire Hugh's blood so that none could stand before him; but then he glanced at others quite as kindly as on him, and where the use of cracking crowns if Mistress Alice smiled upon be cracked as well as on the cracker?

treasured

voice in an

When the nights were fair, Hugh followed in the rear, his eyes riveted on the graceful figure of the Bowyer's daughter as she and the old man moved on before him. So they threaded the narrow winding streets of the city, now passing beneath the overhanging gables of old wooden houses whence creaking signs projected into the street, and now emerging from some dark and frowning gateway into the clear moonlight. At such times, or when the shouts of straggling brawlers met her ear, the Bowyer's daughter would look timidly back at Hugh beseeching him to draw nearer; and then how he grasped his club and longed to do battle with a dozen rufflers, for he love of Mistress Alice!

Still Hugh went on, and loved her more and more. He thought of her all day, and dreamed of her all night long. He up every word and gesture and had a palpitation of the heart whenever he heard her footstep on the stairs or her adjoining room. To him, the old Bowyer's house was haunted by an angel; there was enchantment in the air in which she moved. It would have been no miracle to Hugh if flowers had sprung from the rush strewn floors beneath the tread of lovely Mistress Alice.

and

space

The old Bowyer was in the habit of lending money on interest to the gallants of the Court, and thus it happened that many a richly-dressed gentleman dismounted at his door. More waving plumes and gallant steeds, indeed, were seen at the Bowyer's house, and more embroidered silks and velvets sparkled in his dark shop and darker private closet than at any merchant's in the city. In those times no less than in the present it would seem that the richest looking cavaliers often wanted money the most.

Of these glittering clients there was one who always came alone. He was always nobly mounted, and having no attendant gave his house in charge to Hugh while he and the Bowyer were closeted within. Once as he sprang into the saddie Mistress Alice was seated at an upper window, and before she could withdraw he had doffed his jewelled cap and kissed his hand. Hugh watched him caracoling down the street, and burnt with indignation. But how much deeper was the glow that reddened in his cheeks when raising his eyes to the casement he saw that Alice watched the stranger too!

He came again and often, each time arrayed more gaily than before, and still the little casement showed him Mistress Alice. At length one heavy day, she fled from home. It had cost her a hard struggle, for all her old father's gifts were strewn about her chamber as if she had parted from them one by one and knew that the time must come when these tokens of his love would wring her heart-yet she was gone.

She left a letter commending her poor father to the care of Hugh, and wishing he might be happier than he could ever have been with her, for he deserved the love of a better and purer heart than she had to bestow. The old man's forgiveness (she said) she had no power to ask, but she prayed God to bless him-and so ended with a blot upon the paper where her tears had fallen.

At first the old man's wrath was kindled, and he carried his wrong to the Queen's throne itself; but there was no redress he learnt at Court, for his daughter had been conveyed abroad. This afterwards appeared to be the truth, as there came from France, after an interval of several years, a letter in her hand. It was written in trembling characters, and almost illegible. Little could be made out save that she often thought of home and her old dear pleasant room-and that she had dreamt her father was dead and had not blessed her and that her heart was breaking.

The poor old Bowyer lingered on, never suffering Hugh to quit his sight, for he knew now that he had loved his daughter and that was the only link that bound him to earth. It broke at length, and he died, bequeathing his old 'prentice his trade and all his wealth, and solemnly charging him, with his last breath to revenge his child if ever he who had worked her misery crossed his path in life again.

order.

The design of the people was to force Master Graham to take refuge in his dwelling, and to defend it until the authorties could interfere or they could gain time for parley. But either from ignorance, or in the confusion of the moment, they stopped at his old house which was closely shut. Some time was lost in beating the doors open and passing him to the front. About a score of the boldest of the other party threw themselves into the torrent while this was being done, and reaching the door at the same moment with himself, cut am off from his defenders.

"I never will turn in such a righteous cause, so help me Heaven!" cried Graham in a voice that at last made itself beard, and confronting them as he spoke. "Least of all will I turn upon this threshold which owes its desolation to such men as ye. I give no quarter, and I will have none! Strike!" For a moment they stood at bay. At that moment a shot from an unseen hand-apparently fired by some person who Lad gained access to one of the opposite houses,-struck Graham in the brain and he fell dead. A wail was heard in the air; many people in the concourse cried that they had seen a spirit glide across the little casement window of the Bowyer's house.

A dead silence succeeded. After a short time some of the flushed and heated throng lay down their arms and softly carried the body within doors. Others fell off or slunk away in knots of two or three, others whispered together in groups, and before a numerous guard, which then rode up, could muster in the street, it was nearly empty.

Those who carried Master Graham to the bed up-stairs were shocked to see r woman lying beneath the window with her hands clasped together. After trying to recover her in vain, they laid her near the citizen, who still retained, tightly rasped in his right hand, the first and last sword that was broken that day at Lud Gate.

The Giant uttered these concluding words with sudden preipitation, and on the instant the strange light which had filled the hall faded away. Joe glanced involuntarily at the eastern window, and saw the first pale gleam of morning. He turned is head again towards the other window in which the Giants had been seated. It was empty. The cask of wine was gone, and he could dimly make out that the two great figures stood mute and motionless upon their pedestals.

After rubbing his eyes and wondering for full half an hour, daring which time he observed morning come creeping on, he yielded to the drowsiness which overpowered him, and fell to a refreshing slumber. When he awoke it was broad day; the building was open, and workmen were busily engaged in removing the vestiges of last night's feast.

Stealing gently down the little stairs, and assuming the air of some early lounger who had dropped in from the street, he ked up to the foot of each pedestal in turn, and attentively examined the figure it supported. There could be no doubt about the features of either; he recollected the exact expreson they had worn at different passages of their conversation, al recognized in every line and lineament the Giants of the night. Assured that it was no vision but that he had heard and seen with his own proper senses, he walked forth, determining at all hazards to conceal himself in the Guildhall again that evening. He further resolved to sleep all day, so that he might be very wakeful and vigilant, and above all that he might take notice of the figures at the precise moment of their becoming animated and subsiding into their old state, which he gatly reproached himself for not having done already.

I tell you what, sir. If you vote me into one of those empty chairs, you'll have among you a man with a fund of gentlemanly information that'll astonish you. I can let you into a few anecdotes about some fine women of title, that are quite high life, sir-the tip-top sort of thing. I know the name of every man who has been out on an affair of honor within the last five-and-twenty years; I know the private particulars of every cross and squabble that has taken place upon the turf, at the gaming-table or elsewhere, during the whole of that time. I have been called the gentlemanly chronicle. You may consider yourself a lucky dog; upon my soul you may congratulate yourself, though I say so.

"It's an uncommon good notion that of yours, not letting any body know where you live. I have tried it, but there has always been an anxiety respecting me which has found me out. Your deaf friend is a cunning fellow to keep his name so close. I have tried that too, but have always failed. I shall be proud to make his acquaintance-tell him so, with my compliments.

"You must have been a queer fellow when you were a child, confounded queer. It's odd all that about the picture in your first paper-prosy, but told in a devilish gentlemanly sort o way. In places like that, I could come in with great effec with a touch of life-Don't you feel that?

"I am anxiously waiting for your next paper to know whether your friends live upon the premises, and at your expense, which I take it for granted is the case. If I am right in this impression, I know a charming fellow (an excellent compato zoui and most delightful company) who will be proud to join you. Some years ago he seconded a great many prize-fighters, and once fought an amateur match himself; since then, he has driven several mails, broken at different periods all the lamps on the right-hand side of Oxford-street, and six times carried away every bell-handle in Bloomsbury-square, besides turning off the gas in various thoroughfares. In point of gentlemanliness he is unrivaled, and I should say that, next to myself, he is of all men the best suited to your purpose.

In one of the middle counties of Scotland, no matter whether on the eastern or the western side of the great spinal ridge of mountains by which the said country, northward of the Forth and Tay, is divided into two parts; the one exposed to the cold east winds which come from continental Europe, and the other to the soft but dripping gales of the Atlantic; in one of those counties there is a beautiful little river, the primary streams of which are collected from a mossy table land of great elevation, and of the most bleak, blackened, and forbidding character. When collected, they dance down a steep slope of many hundred feet; and at the end of this slope they dash over a rock of great elevation, forming a cascade which is beautiful at all times, and truly splendid during the heavy falls of rain to which such districts are subject in the autumn. Immediately at the bottom of the fall the river becomes tranquil, and even expands into a lake, upon whose surface not a sunbeam fulls for several months during the win

This contribution is from the pen of a distir rshed Author

though we are not at liberty to give his name

were gone. The other betook himself to the shelter of one of the ruined isles of the church, which it was known none of the parties attending the funeral would dare to enter at the dead hour of midnight. These aisles were vaulted, and the vaults still held their places, notwithstanding the slipping of the grey slates, and the decay of the beams and boards which had supported the external roof. The bell, too, hung naked in the little tower, with various ends of beam and pieces of board around it, which, from the cause already mentioned, no rustic would dare to touch. It was the same with two great oaken coffins of ancient date, which were placed on end in the aisle, where the would-be anatomist sheltered himself, and they leaned slantingly against the wall, by which means the outer part of the end was raised a few inches above the floor. These coffins were of great weight and thickness, and the length of time which they had been in the ground had given them the blackness of ebony. In one of these ancient coffins, the more cautious of our adventurers ensconced himself, until his coadjutor should come to tell him that the party were gone and the place of sepulture was ascertained. Thus each party 'took his position,' as military men say, with such tactics as he deemed best for ultimately 'carrying' the body of Mary Lindsey. Several hours passed in these positions, not very pleasantly, as may be understood, to him who was ensconced in the old coffin within the haunted church; but of what he saw or what he fancied, there is nothing in the record. Hearing is the untoward sense in such situations; and at all shiftings of the wind, the little hurricanes and gusts will sport for a time.These whispered through the sprays, rattled the loose boards and slates, and something struck the old bell, and owls (there were several in the neighborhood) filled up the nocturnal concert. The coffin occupier became alarmed. He raised himself on tiptoe. His weight on the fore part of the coffin which was off the floor, swung it from its poise, and over it fell with a crash like thunder, not hurting the adventurer, but holding him in a trap from which he had no power of extraction. The sound and its echo from the vault into the trees, terrified him in the yew-tree, and he lost his hold, tumbled headlong, and stunned himself to insensibility, in which state he lay he knew not how many hours. While he lay thus, the funeral was performed, and not a trace left on the sod; and when he came to his senses, it was a fine sunny morning, and the ancient sward of the church-yard showed not a trace of disturbance. He looked around for his companion, but found him not. He however heard a strange thumping in the church: and upon entering the aisle he heard the melancholy complaint-"It's me aneth [under] the coffin!". Finding that his unaided strength was unable to remove this premature dwelling from his associate, he obtained a stake from an adjoining pailing, and using that as a lever, and the stave as a fulcrum, delivered the mourner from his prison-house. This being done, the pair wended their way back to the town, where they arrived about mid-day, jaded and fatigued, but without the body of Mary Lindsey; and this, we believe, began and ended the adventures of both of them in the ignoble act of body-snatching.

NATIONAL HUMILIATION.

tells these triumphing soldiers that it was for the sins of Judah that God had delivered these captives into their hands; "And now," adds he, "ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem, for bondmen and bondwomen unto you. But, are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God? Now hear me, therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren; for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you." This was, certainly, very plain speaking, for one poor prophet who stood, single handed, against a host of armed men, flushed with victory-their swords scarcely yet dry from the slaughter of a hundred and twenty thousand men, and their two hundred thousand captives following in their train. But, from a little historical fragment like this, that preserves, in their original connection, the words before us, we see what sort of men the prophets of God used to be; what those who speak in his name and for the interests of his kingdom, always ought to be; and what those who are true to their office, as interpreters of his law, always will be. dresses to the captains of Israel's hosts, seems to me to be The question which this intrepid prophet of Jehovah adpeculiarly appropriate when addressed, by one of those who, in this Commonwealth, or in this great community of Commonwealths, are officially called to speak of "the kingdom of rulers of this people, on a day like this; when, by the voice God and his righteousness," to this great people, or to the of those rulers themselves, we are called to acts of general and public humiliation of ourselves before God. not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?" individuals, to consider that part of our conduct which begins We are called together to-day, my Christian friends, not as and ends with ourselves, in our own persons, of our domestic relations; and therefore I do not now propose to speak of ourselves, personally. Nor are we convoked by the voice of civil authority, to consider our relations to each other as constituent parts of a Christian church or congregation; and I shall therefore, not speak of affairs that pertain to this church or society; nor do I propose to make any allusion to any thing private or personal or parochial. Nor yet, when speaking, as I do mean to speak, of public, state, or national affairs, do I intend to speak, nor shall I allow myself to speak as a political partizan, of any badge, party or interest; for such I am not, and such I will not be-but simply as a prophet of the Lord, as a Christian moralist, as an observer of events, and as a lover of his race: as an observer, especially, of the people and of the manner in which the people of this land bear upon of this great and good land, of the moral laws of the Creator, those laws; and those laws, in turn, upon the people of this

land.

"Are there

BY JOHN PIER PONT.

This question was addressed by Oded, a Samaritan prophet of God, to the captains of the host of Israel, who, having slain in battle a hundred and twenty thousand valiant men of Judah -because Judah, as a nation, had followed Ahaz their king, in forsaking the God of their fathers--were returning to the royal city of Israel, and had already approached its gates, with much spoil, and with two hundred thousand captiveswomen, sons and daughters of Judah. This bold prophet

bly not a prouder or more boastful nation to be found. And, when we consider that the present English, and the present American people, are brothers, both being children of the same maternal stock, it is not very wonderful that there should be a great family likeness, in the character of the two nations in the point of self-glorification; or that they should both seize upon the same subjects as causes of self-commendation. The genius of the two nations is essentially similar. Their currents of thought, to a great extent, run in the same channels. The objects of pursuit are very much the same; and it is