BALLAD OF ROSABELLE.-SIR WALter Scott. (For notice of Scott see page 172.) On listen, listen, ladies gay! "Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! "The blackening wave is edged with white; "Last night the gifted seer did view A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay ""Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir ""Tis not because the ring they ride, And Lindesay at the ring rides well, O'er Roslin all that dreary night A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; It glared on Roslin's castled rock, It ruddied all the copsewood glen; Seemed all on fire that chapel proud, Each baron, for a sable shroud, Sheathed in his iron panoply. Seemed all on fire within, around, Deep sacristy and altar's pale; And glimmered all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair- There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold And each St. Clair was buried there, With candle, with book, and with knell ; 1 Isle, ANECDOTE OF SHELLEY.—Leigh HuNT. LEIGH HUNT, an accomplished literary man of the last generation, was born in 1784, and died in 1859. He will be remembered not so much by his own writings as from his having been the friend of Byron and Shelley. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, a poet of exquisite genius but of strange opinions, which he might have outlived had he not been cut off so young, was born in 1792 and drowned in 1822, at the age of thirty. 1. I was returning home one night to Hampstead, after the opera. As I approached the door, I heard strange and alarming shrieks, mixed with the voice of a man. The next day it was reported by the gossips that Mr. Shelley, for it was he who was there, had brought "some very strange female" into the house, no better, of course, than she ought to be. The real Christianity of his conduct had puzzled them. In coming to our house that night, he had found a woman lying near the top of the hill, in fits. It was a fierce winter night, with snow upon the ground; and winter loses nothing of its fierceness at Hampstead. 2. My friend, always the promptest as well as the most pitying on these occasions, knocked at the first houses he could reach, in order to have the woman taken in. The invariable answer was, that they could not do it. He asked for an outhouse to put her in, while he went for a doctor. Impossible! In vain he assured them she was no impostor. They would not dispute the point with him; but doors were closed, and windows were shut down. 3. Had he lit upon worthy Mr. Park, the philologist, that gentleman would assuredly have come. But he lived too far off. Had he lit upon my friend Armitage Brown, who lived on another side of the heath, or on his friend and neighbour Dilke, they would either of them have jumped up from amidst their books or their bed-clothes, and have gone out with him. But the paucity of Christians is astonishing, considering the number of them. 4. Time flies; the poor woman is in convulsions; her son, a young man, lamenting over her. At last my friend sees a carriage driving up to a house at a little distance. The knock is given; the warm door opens; servants and lights pour forth. Now, thought he, is the time. He puts on his best address, which anybody might recognize for that of the highest gentleman as well as of an interesting individual, and plants himself in the way of an elderly person, who is stepping out of the carriage with his family. 5. He tells his story. you go and see her?" 66 66 66 They only press on the faster. 'Will No, sir; there's no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it. Impostors swarm everywhere: the thing cannot be done. Sir, your conduct is extraordinary." 'Sir," cried Shelley, assuming a very different manner, and forcing the flourishing householder to stop out of astonishment, "I am sorry to say that your conduct is not extraordinary; and if my own seems to amaze you, I will tell you something which may amaze you a little more, and I hope will frighten you. It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the patience of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes in this country (which is very probable), recollect what I tell you: you will have your house, that you refuse to put the miserable woman into, burnt over your head." "God bless me, sir! Dear me, sir!" exclaimed the poor, frightened man, and fluttered into his mansion. 6. The woman was then brought to our house, which was at some distance, and down a bleak path (it was in the vale of Health); and Shelley and her son were obliged to hold her till the doctor could arrive. It appeared that she had been attending this son in London, on a criminal charge made against him, the agitation of which had thrown her into the fits on her return. The doctor said that she would have perished had she lain there a short time longer. The next day my friend sent mother and son comfortably home to Hendon, where they were known, and whence they returned him thanks full of gratitude. SPELL AND PRONOUNCE Hamp'stead, a district on the north west of London. invariable, without variation. impos'tor, a cheat. philologist, a student of languages. pau'city, fewness. extraordinary, out of the common. grat'itude, thankfulness. GOD, THE ONLY COMFORTER.-MOORE. O THOU who dry'st the mourner's tear, If, when deceived and wounded here, The friends who in our sunshine live, But Thou wilt heal that broken heart, When joy no longer soothes or cheers, Oh, who would bear life's stormy doom, Did not Thy wing of love Come brightly wafting through the gloom Our Peace-branch from above! Then sorrow, touch'd by Thee, grows bright As darkness shews us worlds of light I DARE do all that may become a man: THE FOOD WE USE. I. OUR MINERAL FOODS. 1. Water.—Water is found everywhere in the liquid parts of the system-in the blood, in lymph, which is a fluid found in the absorbent vessels throughout the body,-in the secretions, and in the solid parts of the body. It forms more than two-thirds of our whole weight; and the following table will show that it constitutes a considerable part of even its hardest portions :— QUANTITY OF WATER IN 1,000 PARTS, IN Hence, in the body of a man weighing one hundred and fiftyfour pounds, no fewer than one hundred and sixteen pounds are water. You may, from this, judge how necessary water is for our life. Most of our food is, in fact, prepared, or dissolved by water before we eat it, or rendered soluble in the stomach and the intestines by it, and introduced into the system by passing through the walls of the fine capillary, or hair-like, blood-vessels. It is also by being held in solution in water that the waste of the body is carried off by the perspiration and by the kidneys. 2. Salts. Sea-salt, or chloride of sodium, is found in all the liquids of the body. The blood contains 4 parts of it in the 100, and the saliva 1 in 100; the muscles 2, the bones 2, and the cartilages 24 in each 100 parts. Thus, salt is one of the most useful parts of our food, and also a condiment absolutely necessary for our properly digesting it. Salt is of special benefit, as part of the watery portion of the blood, in keeping the red globules in it in a proper condition. The animals have our own craving for salt, especially in inland countries. In Canada, a horse can be lured and caught by no temptation so readily as by the sight of a piece of salt, and the surest way to keep cows from straying there is by "salting" them, from time to time, at the farm steading. Farmers even in France, |