"But when, at length, our poor Champagne By foes was overrun, He seem'd alone to hold his ground- One night as might be now-I heard And saw,- -Good God!-'twas he himself, What! Granny, Granny, there he sat? 'Neath Paris walls to strike for France He went; but on the cup he used Such value did I set He, whom a Pope had crown'd, alas! 'Twas long denied: No, no, Soon shall he reappear; said they, O'er ocean comes he; and the foe Shall find his master here. Ah, what a bitter pang I felt When forced to own 'twas true! The "Violon Brisé," another of Beranger's most popular songs, is in something of the same style, and is in the original one of the most touching and interesting poems of its class ever written. It loses much in translation, but Mr. Young gives it with much effect: THE BROKEN FIDDLE. "Come here, my poor dog, honest beast; Munch away, never mind my despair, Here's a morsel of cake for to-day, at the least, If to-morrow black bread be our fare. "Last night in our valley the foe Victors only by trickery-spoke: "Come here, my poor dog, honest beast; Munch away, never mind my despair, "How long will the Sundays appear, In the barn, or beneath the old tree! "How it shorten'd the toils of the poor! How it took the chill off from their lot! "What hate it hath served to suppress! What tears hath forbidden to flow! What good-all the sceptres on earth have done less "But my courage they warm-we must chase They have broken my fiddle-'tis well-in its place, "And the friends whom I quit-a long list- That the barbarous hordes I refused to assist "Then come, my poor dog, honest beast; Munch away, never mind my despair, The beautiful illustrations which embellish this volume, struck off from the plates prepared for the illustrated Paris edition, by Perrotin (which is the edition of the poet's works), and the handsome style attractive. It will be best appreciated by those who in which it has been published, makes the book very best understand Beranger and his position, social, poetical, and political, and who can enjoy his humour tion. To others it is an introduction to a man of and pathos in the original as well as in the transla- | great and peculiar genius, which ought to be followed i up by an acquaintance with his works in their vernacular. INSTINCT IN A BIRD. ONCE when travelling in Tennesee, Wilson was struck with the manner in which the habits of the Play a tune, we would dance; but I boldly said, pennated grouse are adapted to its residence on dry, No!' So my fiddle in anger they broke. ""Twas the villagers' orchestra; now Happy days, pleasant fêtes, are no more! In the shade who can get up our dances? or how "Its strings, they we lustily plied At the dawn of the fortunate day, sandy plains. One of them was kept there in a cage, having been caught alive in a trap. It was observed that the bird never drank, and seemed rather to avoid the water; but a few drops one day falling upon the cage, and trickling down the bars, the bird drank them with great dexterity, and an eagerness that showed she was suffering with thirst. The experiment was then To announce the young bridegroom awaiting the made whether she would drink under other cir bride, With his escort to show her the way. "Did the priest give an ear to its touch He our dance without fear would allow ; The gladness it spread all around it was such, It had smoothed even royalty's brow. "What, and if it has preluded strains That our glory was wont to awake! Could I dream that the foeman invading our plains cumstances, and though she lived entirely on dry Indian corn, the cup of water in the cage was for a whole week untasted and untouched; but the moment water was sprinkled on the bars, she drank it eagerly as before. It occurred to him at once, that in the natural haunts of the bird, the only water it could procure was from the drops of rain and dew. YEW TREES. Ir is strange, but no less true, that the origin of some of the most widely extended customs is often enveloped in the deepest obscurity. Not the least remarkable of these is the practice of planting Yew Trees in localities devoted to the burial of the dead. The custom appears to have been coeval with, if not prior to, the erection of churches themselves. It prevailed in Gaul, previous to the Roman invasion; and there are well-attested instances of trees in existence in this country, eight, ten, and twelve centuries old. There are several specimens in Kent of great size and antiquity; some of which, though still crowned with their chaplets of verdure, have become completely cavernons, the outward trunks being full of perpendicular interstices, the tree being sustained by a cluster of columnar supports, instead of its original wood. The churchyard of Upper Hardres, Kent, contains two very ancient yews; one of them, however, was nearly destroyed by the memorable November gale some years since; its companion measures twentyone feet in girth, three feet above the soil. Brabourne churchyard, in the same county, once contained, on the authority of Evelyn, a yew tree, fifty-eight feet in circumference; the tree has long since disappeared. It is a remarkable fact, however, that both Mrs. Somerville, and Humboldt, in their descriptions of the vegetable world, represent this tree as in actual existence. The latter writer, who quotes from Decandolle, assigns to this identical specimen, the Taxus baccata, an antiquity of thirty centuries. The age of trees has been a subject of much curious inquiry and speculation. Pliny speaks of a cypress which was planted at the foundation of Rome, and fell through neglect in the last year of the reign of the Emperor Nero. Ancient writers record the celebrated Lydian plane-tree, which Xerxes decorated with ornaments; and the ash at Ephesus, venerated by the Greeks. The Banyan, Ficus Indica, attains an immense age, and as a particular specimen, we may refer to the sacred Banyan of Ceylon. Yew trees, however, as individuals, are undoubtedly the most ancient trees of Europe. The Scotch yew of Fortingal was estimated to be from twenty-five to twenty-six centuries old, and those at Ripon, in Yorkshire, and at Crowhurst in Sussex, ranged from twelve to fourteen centuries. Stouting churchyard contains a yew tree which, at four feet from the ground, measures twenty feet in circumference. In Monk's Horton churchyard there is a tree seventeen feet six inches in girth; averaging the same from five to ten feet high. There is also a fine specimen in Elham churchyard. Eulichen records a yew at Grassford, North Wales, fourteen hundred years old, and in girth, fifty-two feet, below the branches; and another tree in Derbyshire, is estimated to be two thousand one hundred years in age. The author of “ Physical Geography" refers to a tree in Senegal, the Baobab, VOL. XIII. which from the number of its concentric rings is calculated to be five thousand one hundred and fifty years old. Humboldt, however, throws some doubts upon the correctness of this mode of reckoning; still, in his "Aspects of Nature," in a discussion on the longevity of trees, he assigns to Michel Montagne the merit of being the first vegetable physiologist who noticed the relation of the annual rings to the duration of the tree. Malpighi also called attention to the same subject subsequent to Montagne. The longevity of the yew-tree is undoubted, and there are few, if any, species of the vegetable world which can equal it; hence, perhaps as a type of immortality, we may imagine why it has been planted near religious houses, and in the receptacles for the dead. It has been a generally prevalent opinion, however, that the cultivation of this tree was encouraged for the purpose of supplying the English yeomanry and archers with bow-staves; and that, for greater security and protection, it was planted in churchyards. was From the existence of many statutes on the subject, considerable importance was undoubtedly attached to the means for obtaining a constant supply of yew bow-staves. The attention of the legislature was actively engaged respecting the importation of these articles from the continent; although we have proofs that there were considerable forests of yew in Sussex, Buckinghamshire, Westmoreland, in Scotland, and in Ireland, where vast quantities of the wood have been found in a fossil state. By one of those absurd restrictions too, by which commerce sought to be regulated in former times, a certain price was placed upon bow-staves, beyond which the owners were not allowed to sell them; and as if to increase the difficulties with which the ancient merchant had to contend, he was compelled to pay a sort of tax, towards the defences of the country, by supplying so many staves for every butt of bourdeaux or sherry that he imported. He was also obliged to import four staves of yew for every ton of goods shipped from places where these articles were procurable. Although the practice of planting yew-trees in churchyards has been generally prevalent, we should rather trace the custom to superstitious ideas or to religious feelings, such as dictated the planting of cypresses in the cemeteries of the East. The yew was a sacred plant among many nations. It had a supposed efficiency in keeping off evil spirits. As an evergreen it was a symbol of immortality, and consequently was not inaptly planted near the sepulchres of the dead. Even now, evergreens are borne at processions in some parts of England, and, as a type of hope and of eternity, a green sprig or branch is thrown into the grave. On Palm Sunday, branches of the yew are often displayed instead of the palm, and Caxton in his Directions for keeping Feasts all the Year," is decisive upon this point, alleging, that as we have not the olive for an evergreen, the yew is substituted in H its stead. There is something in the dark foliage of the yew, its perennial green, and the majestic mournfulness of its appearance, that especially befits it to illustrate the resting-places of the dead, and in the earlier ages of society, among a rude people, prone more to cherish appeals to the imagination than to the reason, and whose very religion was made up of passionate expressions, and imposing ceremonies, who selected the gloom of primeval forests for their temples, and worshipped their deities in mystery and seclusion,-this feeling would survive after the occasion that awakened it was gone. The Celt, or Teuton, when he had become a Christian convert, would dwell with fondness on the superstitions of his race; and as some of the early propagators of Christianity conformed to many innocent customs which fell in with the feelings of their disciples, perhaps this planting of the yew-tree by the remains of the dead was part of their traditional practice. If a superstition, its beauty and its gracefulness go far to excuse it, and we trust it may long survive many others of more equivocal character, engrafted at an early age upon our religious obser vances. The planting of the yew as a sepulchral emblem may also be derived from the Romans, since Statius has recorded the fact that his countrymen carried garlands of this tree in funeral processions. At Sparta, soldiers who fell in battle, and women who died in childbed, were at their interment honoured according to the laws of Lycurgus, with a procession of green boughs. Thus was there ever something touching, though fantastic in these ancient ceremonies. "The Greeks," as Philipot informs us, "strewed flowers over the urns and repositories of their dead, and adorned them with ribands, as they did the urn of Philopomen; but they more particularly affected the scattering of myrtle and amaranthus, as the Romans did that of the rose. Both these rations, however, concurred in the similar composition of the funeral pile, which was furnished and made up of rosemary, larynx, yew, cypress, and fir, wherein it is probable was couched some tacit hint of their surviving hopes, and in which mysterious hieroglyphics, as being trees which were perpetually verdant, were wrapped up the secret inferences of future resurrection." Perhaps the wood of the yew might also have been used for coffins, as the Athenians, according to Thucidydes, were accustomed, when burying their heroes, to employ cypress wood for the same purpose. There is something deeply significant in the various uses to which the yew-tree has been dedicated. Now, as the emblem of mourning or immortality, holding its tenancy for ages in the burial places of our forefathers, as generation after generation sported around it in childhood, grew up to maturity, and at last slept beneath its shade; now, in the gardens of the ancient English gentry, in the quaint forms of goblins, monsters, and “ paynins bold," presiding in gloomy state or fantastic humour over high terraced walls, and neat clipped parterres; nay, even this practice may have been derived from our Roman conquerors. Whenever they planted a garden, they set up a god, and the Termini of their boundaries, or the Priapi or Hermi of their pleasure grounds, may after all have been the prototypes of those fantastic guardians of yew, or box, which seemed to watch in silence and precision over the destinies of the vegetable world. That world has indeed run somewhat wild, and quite outgrown them. Opposed as our modern ideas may be to this monster peopling of our gardens, with pyramids, giants, birds, and dragons, we cannot look otherwise but kindly on these sports of the imagination. Though vestiges of the olden times, and types of an era of much mental darkness, they can never be without their interest to succeeding generations. Like the fossil remains of a former world, though they may appear at first sight to be but so many monstrosities, gentler reflections will recall something, even in the days of old, akin to what is graceful and beautiful still. They had human hearts, these said rough forefathers, gentle affections too, that then as now haunted the groves; love found its trysting-place,¦ or mused upon its day-dream, beneath the seclusion of these garden deities, what time the Norman twanged his bow in the New Forest, or the startled deer glanced in light and shadow through the glades of Sherwood. In spite of the innovations of the modern landscape gardener, who measures his skill by his power of optical deception, and thinks he has achieved an intellectual triumph when, by the appearance of a lawn of boundless extent, he tempts you to stumble over a hà hà fence into a grassy moat, there are still many grounds kept up in the old-fashioned style. Castles and antiquated halls, nay old trees too, call us back to the past, and in spite of the stern realities of which history is ever reminding us, that past always appears to us like a distant landscape, which, however barren and uninteresting on actual survey, is invested through the distance with a thousand beautiful hues and shadows. A fairy-like haze Les over it; tradition, like twilight, has its forms of illusion, its deepening gloom and darkness, streaked at times with gleams that shed back from the blue infinite of the past a thousand spells. Virgil has sung of the "broad spreading beech," Gray has recorded the yew-tree in his "Elegy," and in the ancient British laws, the yew denominated "sacred" in all lists of trees, was computed to far exceed the oak itself in value. Much is it to be regretted that its beautiful wood is not more employed for furniture, and articles of domestic use. There is no indigenous tree, and few foreign ones, more excellent in grain or colour, and few which so readily conform to the direction of the turner's gouge. It is to be lamented, too, that this tree is not more generally planted, and unless the ancient practice be revived, another age or two must see not only our churchyards, but our gardens, deprived of all successors of this stately and venerable associate of the oak and I come forward; and then, as he went his rounds, kissthe holly. As a tree, too, it has its individual ing one after another, stopt short when he came to interest, its early English recollections, and although me, twice made as though he would have saluted me, from its boughs were fashioned the weapons that sped and then held back, making me looke so stupid, that the shafts fatal to three kings of England, Harold, I cd have boxed his ears for his payns. 'Speciallie as Rufus, and Cœur de Lion, it armed the prowess which father burst out a-laughing, and cried, "The third raised the shout of victory on the memorable plains of time's lucky!" Cressy, Agincourt, and Flodden. The days of English archery are gone. From the reign of Elizabeth this pursuit ceased to be aught but a pastime, and the practice only remains to vary the sports of our boyish days, or to grace the festivities of some rural fête. THE HOUSEHOLD OF SIR THOS. MORE. LIBELLUS A MARGARETA MORE, QUINDECIM ANNOS NATA, CHELSELE INCEPTVS. "Nulla dies sine linea." Chelsea, June 18. On asking Mr. Gunnel to what use I s put this fayr libellus, he did suggest my making it a kinde of family register, wherein to note y more important of our domestick passages, whether of joy or griefemy father's journies and absences-the visits of learned men, theire notable sayings, etc. You are smart at the pen, Mistress Margaret," he was pleased to say; " and I woulde humblie advise your journalling in ye same fearless manner in the which you framed that letter which soe well pleased the Bishop of Exeter, that he sent you a Portugal piece. Twill be well to write it in English, which 'tis expedient for you not altogether to negleckt, even for the more honourable Latin." Methinks I am close upon womanhood. . . . "Humble advise," quotha! to me, that hath so oft humblic sued for his pardon, and sometimes in vayn! 'Tis well to make trial of Gonellus his "humble" advice: albeit, our daylie course is so methodicall, that 'twill afford scant subject for y° pen-Vitam contraet una dies. ... As I traced ye last word, methoughte I heard well-known tones of Erasmus his pleasant voyce; and, looking forthe of my lattice, did indeede beholde the deare little man coming up from y river side with my father, who, because of y heat, had given his cloak to a tall stripling behind him to bear. I flew up stairs, to advertise mother, who was half in ad half out of her grogram gown, and who stayed me clasp her owches; so that, by ye time I had folwed her down stairs, we founde 'em alreadie in ye tail. So soon as I had kissed their hands, and obtayned ir blessings, the tall lad stept forthe, and who sd Le be but William Roper, returned from my father's errand over-seas! He hath grown hugelie, and looks Garnish; but his manners are worsened insteade of etered by forayn travell; for, insteade of his old franknesse, he hung upon hand till father bade him After supper, we took deare Erasmus entirely over ye house, in a kind of family procession, e'en from the buttery and scalding-house to our own deare Academia, with its cool green curtain flapping in ye evening breeze, and blowing aside, as though on purpose to give a glimpse of ye cleare-shining Thames! Erasmus noted and admired the stone jar, placed by Mercy Giggs on ye table, full of blue and yellow irises, scarlet tiger-lilies, dog-roses, honeysuckles, moonwort, and herb-trinity; and alsoe our various desks, eache in its own little retirement,―mine own, in speciall, so pleasantly situate! He protested, with everie semblance of sincerity, he had never seene so pretty an academy. I should think not, indeede! Bess, Daisy, and I, are of opinion, that there is not likelie to be such another in ye world. He glanced, too, at y books on our desks; Bessy's being Livy; Daisy's, Sallust; and mine, St. Augustine, with father's marks where I was to read, and where desist. He tolde Erasmus, laying his hand fondlie on my head, "Here is one who knows what is implied in the word Trust." Dear father, well I may! He added, "there was no law against laughing in his academia, for that his girls knew how to be merry and wise." From the house to the new building, the chapel and gallery, and thence to visitt all the dumb kinde, from the great horned owls to Cecy's pet dormice. Erasmus was amused at some of theire names, and doubted whether Dun Scotus and the venerable Bede would have thoughte themselves complimented in being made name-fathers to a couple of owls; though he admitted that Argus and Juno were goode cognomens for peacocks. Will Roper hath broughte mother a pretty little forayn animal called a marmot, but she sayd she had noe time for such-like playthings, and bade him give it to his little wife. Methinks, I being neare sixteen and he close upon twenty, we are too old for those childish names now, nor am I much flattered at a present not intended for me; however, I shall be kind to the little creature, and, perhaps, grow fond of it, as 'tis both harmlesse and diverting. To return, howbeit, to Erasmus; Cecy, who had hold of his gown, and had alreadie, through his familiar kindnesse and her own childish heedlessness, somewhat transgrest bounds, began now in her mirthe to fabricate a dialogue, she pretended to have overhearde, between Argus and Juno as they stoode pearcht on a stone parapet. Erasmus was entertayned with her garrulitie for a while, but at length gentlie checkt her, with "Love ye truth, little mayd, love ye truth, or, if thou liest, let it be with a circumstance," a qualification which made mother stare and father laugh. Sayth Erasmus, "there is no harm in a fabella, | and enables me to promote peace and justice; I have apologus, or parabola, so long as its character be dif- leisure to chat with my wife, and sport with my tinctlie recognised for such, but contrariwise, much children; I have hours for devotion, and hours for goode; and ye same hath been sanctioned, not only by philosophie and ye liberall arts, which are absolutelie ye wiser heads of Greece and Rome, but by our deare medicinall to me, as antidotes to ye sharpe but conLord himself. Therefore, Cecilie, whom I love tracted habitts of mind engendered by ye law. If exceedinglie, be not abasht, child, at my reproof, for there be anicthing in a court life which can compensate thy dialogue between the two peacocks was innocent for ye losse of anie of these blessings, deare Desiderius, no less than ingenious, till thou wouldst have insisted pray tell me what it is, for I confesse I know not." that they, in sooth, sayd something like what thou "You are a comicall genius," says Erasmus. didst invent. Therein thou didst violence to ye "As for you," retorted father, you are at your truth, which St. Paul hath typified by a girdle, to be olde trick of arguing on ye wrong side, as you did ye worn next the heart, and that not only confineth firste time we mett. Nay, don't we know you can within due limits but addeth strength. So now be declaime backward and forwarde on the same argufriends; wert thou more than eleven and I no priest, ment, as you did on ye Venetian war?" thou shouldst be my little wife, and darn my hose, Erasmus smiled quietlie, and sayd, "What coulde and make me sweet marchpane, such as thou and II do? The pope changed his holy mind." Whereat love. But, oh! this pretty Chelsea! What daisies! father smiled too. what buttercups! what joviall swarms of gnats! The country all about is as nice and flat as Rotterdam." Anon, we sit down to rest and talk in the pavillion. Sayth Erasmus to my father, "I marvel you have never entered into the king's service in some publick capacitic, wherein your learning and knowledge, bothe of men and things, would not onlie serve your own interest, but that of your friends and yo publick.” Father smiled and made answer, "I am better and happier as I am. As for my friends, I alreadie do for them alle I can, soe as they can hardlie consider me in their debt; and, for myself, ye yielding to theire solicitations that I wd putt myself forward for the benefit of the world in generall, wd be like printing a book at request of friends, that ye publick may be charmed with what, in fact, it values at a doit. The cardinall offered me a pension, as retaining fee to the king a little while back, but I tolde him I did not care to be a mathematical point, to have position without magnitude. Erasmus laught and sayd, "I woulde not have you ye slave of anie king; howbeit, you mighte assist him and be useful to him." "The change of the word," sayth father, "does not alter the matter; I shoulde be a slave, as completely as if I had a collar rounde my neck." "But would not increased usefulnesse," says Erasmus, "make you happier?" "Happier?" says father, somewhat heating; "how can that be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius? At present, I live as I will, to which very few courtiers can pretend. Half-a-dozen blue-coated serving-men answer my turn in the house, garden, field, and on the river: I have a few strong horses for work, none for show, plenty of plain food for a healthy family, and enough, with a hearty welcome, for a score of guests that are not dainty. The lengthe of my wife's train infringeth not the statute; and, for myself, I soe hate bravery, that my motto is, 'Of those whom you see in scarlet, not one is happy.' I have a regular profession, which supports my house, "What nonsense you learned men sometimes talk!" pursues father. "I wanted at court, quotha! Fancy a dozen starving men with one roasted pig! betweene them ;-do you think they would be really glad to see a thirteenth come up, with an eye to a small piece of ye crackling? No; believe me, there is none that courtiers are more sincerelie respectfull to than the man who avows he hath no intention of attempting to go shares; and e'en him they care mighty little about, for they love none with truc tendernessc save themselves." "We shall see you at court yet," says Erasmus. Sayth father," Then I will tell you in what guise. With a fool-cap and bells. Pish! I won't aggravate you, churchman as you are, by alluding to the blessings I have which you have not; and I trow there is as much danger in taking you for scrious when you are onlie playful and ironicall as if you were Plato himself." Sayth Erasmus, after some minutes' silence, "I know full well that you holde Plato, in manie instances, ' to be sporting when I accept him in very deed and truth. Speculating he often was; as a brighte, pure flame must needs be struggling up, and, if it findeth no direct vent, come forthe of ye oven's mouth. He was like a man shut into a vault, running hither and thither, with his poor, flickering taper, agonizing to get forthe, and holding himself in readinesse to make a spring forward the moment a door s open. But it never did. Not manie wise are called.' He had clomb a hill in ye darke, and stoode calling to his companions below, 'Come on, come on! this way lies ye east; I am avised we shall see the sun rise anon.' But they never did. What a Christian he woulde have made! Ah! he is one now. He and Socrates-the veil long removed from their eyes-are sitting at Jesus' fect. Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis !" Bessie and I exchanged glances at this so strange ejaculation; but ye subjeckt was of such interest, that we listened with deep attention to what followed. Sayth father, "Whether Socrates were what Plato painted him in his dialogues, is with me a great matter of doubte; but it is not of moment. When |