dropped entirely," or, in other words, annihilated. The New Zealanders, who, in spite of their cannibalism and destructive propensities, appear to have more poetry in their souls than any of their neighbours, imagine that the spirits of their victorious fathers hover in the blast over their native villages, and then, plunging into the glittering waves of the sea near the North Cape, repair to the Elysium prepared for them, which they denominate Atamira. The souls of those, on the contrary, who are slain in battle, and devoured by their enemies, are eternally unhappy? and it is said to be for this reason, from a species of revenge which would do honour to the heart of a Grand Inquisitor, that the New Zealanders are so diabolically anxious to feed upon their foes. They are desirous to have them not only dead, but damned.

Dancing is essentially the amusement of savages, and civilized nations preserve a taste for it, mcrely, we presume, from respect for the wisdom of their wild forefathers, who, when they had eaten a piece of raw fish, or the limb of an enemy, felt their blood kindle in their veins, and expressed their uncouth delight by sporting the toe round the fire which had ooked their dinner. For this reason, an assembly of bipeds of both sexes, increasing the rapidity of their circulation with delicate viands and wine, and frisking about in various postures, now bounding like fanatical jumpers, and now gliding along the floor like ghosts, have always appeared to us an extremely ludicrous sight, and have infallibly carried back our minds to those days when we were familiar with the relatives and friends of Robinson Crusoe's Friday. Nevertheless we are by no means inimical to these primitive sports; and are not a jot the less delighted to observe a dance, because it is connected in our mind with cannibalism and blazing fires, than if it had originated at Almack's.

ghost. It was the intention of Mr. Buckingham, in his magnificent way, to distribute fifty thousand copies of the first number, both as an advertisement and as a specimen of the coming work; but the Commissioners of Stamps, who have more eyes than even Argus, stepped in to prevent the accomplishment of the design, by declaring that though Mr. Buckingham might give away five hundred thousand newspapers if he liked, the Treasury must have fourpence a piece for them. In this dilemma, the editor had recourse to the expedient of a mock specimen number— anticipating the march of time by an undefined number of years, and describing many things as having actually occurred, which some had talked of, some had dreamed of, and some had wished, and many things that had never been talked of, dreamed of, or wished. The specimen "Argus" was full of anachronisms; and in making up its various parts, coherence and consistency seem to have been very little thought of: still many of the guesses then made at random have received, in the brief period that has since elapsed, a very remarkable fulfilment. A copy of the paper was lately pointed out to us; and it will amuse our readers to note a few of the curious coincidences. Be it remembered, the specimen" Argus" appeared about the beginning of July 1828. The following are among the notices.

"Lord Brougham, the Lord High Chancellor, has conferred the living of Middlecoat on the Rev. Sidney Smith.'

"The Right Honourable Francis Jeffrey, Lord Advocate, has already, we hear, secured his election for the county.' [Of Edinburgh.]

"In the event of an entire change of Ministers, these two appointments were certainly to be looked for; but as certainly, the prospects of an entire change of Ministry were exceedingly faint in June 1828. Some of the guesses are even more remarkable

"It is proposed, we understand, soon after the rising of Parliament, to give a dinner in the Assembly Rooms [Edin

in this city of the close system.-Edinburgh Journal.'

This is still future, of course-Parliament is not yet risen. Shall we fix the 5th of July next, the anniversary of another great Scotch victory, the battle of Bannockburn ?

"Since the elective franchise was transferred from the ancient (and therefore rotten) borough of Ripon to the flourishing town of Leeds, the manufactures of the place have taken a fresh spring. —Leeds Mercury?'

"Charles X.,the Ex-King of France,con

tinues to reside at Presburg, in Lower Hungary.'

"FRANCE-At noon a salute announced the arrival of the President of the Republic, the venerable Lafayette, attended by General Gerard; Minister of Wur; M. C. Dupin, Minister of the Interior; and M. Lafitte, of Finance.'

"There is not very much wrong in this last extract; perhaps, however, the most extraordinary of the whole is the following.

"It is confidently hoped, that the united efforts of these Powers [Great Britain, France, and Austria] to put an end to the five year's war, will be finally successful, and will end by the acknowledgment by the Emperor Nicholas of the independenec of the Crown of Warsaw'

"We had some mind, when we began, to try our skill at guessing in imitation of Mr. Buckingham; but so many dark clouds at present cover up the face of our political sky-there is so fearful a moaning in the air-there are so terrible signs of commotion on the earth-that we are fain to shut our eyes to the prophetic vision that fits before them; and humbly trust to bide the tempest, when it comes, by aid superior to our own!"

OH! STEAL NOT THOU MY FAITH AWAY.

OH! steal not thou my faith away,

Nor tempt to doubt the trusting mind-
Let all that earth can yield decay,
But leave this heavenly gift behind :-
Our life is but a meteor gleam,

Lit up among surrounding gloom-
A dying lamp, a fitful beam,
Quench'd in the cold and silent tomb.
Yet if, as holy men have said,

There lie beyond that dreary bourne
Some region where the faithful dead

Eternally forget to mourn; -
Welcome the scoff, the sword, the chain,
The burning wild, the black abyss-
I shrink not from the path of pain,

Which endeth in a world like this.
But, oh! if all that nerves us here,
When grief assails and sorrow stings,
'Exist but in the shadowy sphere

Of Fancy's weak imaginings;
If hopes, though cherish'd long and deep,
Be cold and baseless mockeries,
Then welcome that eternal sleep

Which knoweth not of dreams like these.
Yet, hush! thou troubled heart! be still;
Renounce thy vain philosophy ;-
Like morning on the misty hill,

The light of Hope will break on thee.
Go-search the prophet's deathless page→→
Go-question thou the radiant sky,
And learn from them, mistaken sage!

The glorious words" Thou shalt not die!"

SCRAPS OF ANTIQUITY. BY WILLIAM TENNANT.

I HAVE not heard of a more ingenious argument proposed for the exercise of unanimity and good agreement, than that made use of by the pinguid orator of Byzantinum among his divided fellow-citizens. The forum of Byzantinum was raging with faction; the good-humoured orator ascended the tribune, and addressed the people in the following strain:-"Fellowcitizens, ye belold how fat I am!"-looking down upon his sleek, capon-lined rotundity of abdomen; "yet fat as I am," continued he, " my wife is still fatter; nevertheless, fat though we both be, we both sleep in one bed, and that merely because we agree; were we to differ, the whole house could not contain us!"

One of the most extravagant and unseemly entertainments introduced after dinner for the amusement of guests, was that practised at the court of a certain king of Thrace, and recorded by an old Greek writer. The Greeks, it is true, had odd enough amusements after dining; such as the performances of quacks, and miracle men, who swallowed and vomited fire, and danced on their heads upon the points of poinards and scimitars. But the Thracian amusement possesses more originality and extravagance. It was called The Game of Hanging. They attached a strong cord with a noose to the top of the chamber-ceiling. Into this noose one of the guests, alternately as his turn came, or by lot as his chance fell, thrust his head, supporting his feet at the same time on a large voluble stone, set for the purpose of his elevation; he held, at the same time, his drawn sword in his hand, ready for the terrible exigence. When his head was adjusted into the noose, another of the guests approached and kicked from under him the voluble stone, so that his body was left to swing suspended on the cord. If he had sufficient presence of mind, and steadiness of nerve, during this suspension, he cut the cord and saved himself; if he could not do so, he was allowed to swing on and agitate himself to death-the company all the while enjoying with laughter his convulsions and strainings to extricate himself. Barbarous and unnatural as such an entertainment may be deemed in our modern conceptions, it is nevertheless in accordance with the manners of the bar

barians who practised it; but how shall we apologize for that polished people, our so much-admired Romans, whose young noblemen, after their bacchanalian dinners, were at times wont to introduce a pair or two of gladiators, who fought in their presence till one of two of the parties fel gasping in blood at his feet, while bursts of applause broke from the admiring revellers? A Roman consul was once, while at a banquet in Gaul, entreated by his mistress to permit her to enjoy the spectacle of a human being beheaded; he ordered a criminal to be led into the dining-room where they sat, and, before the eyes of both, as they reclined at table, the miserable unfortunate was beheaded! Such were some of the fellow-countrymen of the accomplished Cicero, Antoninus, and Seneca.

It is remarkable that the liking for fish seems to be the predominant characteristic of every people as it increases in opulence, and refines in luxurious enjoyments. Poor people are generally not very fond of fish. The ancient Greeks, like our lowest Scottish country peoule, had rather a dislike of fish; they never te them except when compelled by necessity. Homer, who is very minute in his enumeration of the heroic dishes, excludes them from the tables of Agamemnon and Achilles. In later times, the Greeks became so excessively fond of fish, that their word ophonion-which expresses nearly the meaning of our Scottish word kitchendenotes fish principally, as that meat which, above all others, was preferred for being eaten with bread. The seas and shores of Greece and the islands were ransacked for the most delicate fish, and exhorbitant prices were paid for them by the city epicures, The fishmongers of Athens were, to judge of them from description, a most opulent and powerful body; they were classed with the bankers of the city, and were alike unpopular, alike unmercifully lashed by the dramatic poets of Athens. There was a strange Jaw at Corinth, one of the wealthiest, as it was the most commercial city, of Greece, that if any stranger appearing among them seemed to live too luxuriously, and was seen too frequently at the marketplace purchasing high-priced fish, he was questioned by the magistrates as to his means of being able to maintain his table so expensively; if he showed the means of doing so, he was allowed to remain; if he cou d not exhibit his pecuniary capabilities, and persisted to purchase deur fish, he was consigned to the city executioner.

So fond, were the Athenians of fish, and so nice about the mode of pickling or preserving them, that they presented with the right of citizenship the two sons of one Chræriphilus, merely because their father had invented a new sauce for scombri, or makarel; whence as Athenian wit, on seeing the two youths galloping about the streets in their new equestrian dignity, denominated them The Two Makarels on horseback,-The rage of the Roman voluptuaries for delicate fish is well known; not only did they bring them from the shores of Britain and the farthest islands, but they endeavoured to colonize the seas in the neighbourhood of Rome with breeds of new fish. Octavius the admiral of the Roman fleet, brought from some distant sca an immense number of scari, or chars, with which he stocked and peopled the ocean between Ostia and Campania, as a nursery of new scari. What success be fell this piscatory sort of colonization is not recorded.

There is pretty good evidence for supposing that no less a person than Osiris, the great God of Egypt, was the first distiller of whisky on record. For the Egyptians had, from time almost immemorial, a distillation or brewage from barley, called by the Greeks barley-wine, not inferior, they say, in flavour, and superior in strength, to wine. Allusion is made to this liquor in several passages of ancient wris ters. The poor people of Egypt drank it instead of wine, and were wont to intoxicate themselves with it, just as our poorer people do with whisky. It seems also to have been no stranger to the Hebrews; for reference is certainly made to it in the Old Testament, under the name of “strong drink," stronger than wine, and resorted to by determined drinkers for the sake of inebriation. Among the Celtæ in Spain and France, it seems to have been common as a substitute for wine; Polybius speaks of a certain Celtic king of part of Iberia, or Spain, who affected great court pomp, and had in the middle of his hall golden and silver bowls full of this barley-wine, of which his guests and courtiers sipped or quaffed at their pleasure—a custom which, it is said, for many a century prevailed among his Celtic descendants, the reguli of our Scottish Highlands. The antiquity of this distillation is proved by the Egyptian tradition which ascribed its invention to Osiris. It may not improbably be supposed that the Egyptians communicated the invention to the Babylonians and Hebrews, who transmitted it northwards to the Thracians and Celta of Spain and Gaul,

Whence art thou, thou false Bacchus, fierce and hot?

By the true Bacchus! I do know thee not:
He smells of nectar; thy brain-burning smell
Is not of flowers of heaven, but weeds of hell.
The lack-vine Celts, impoverish'd, breech'd, and
rude,

From prickly barley-spikes thy beverage brew'd; Whence I should style thee-to appraise thee right

Not the rich blood of Bacchus bounding bright,
But the thin ichor of old Ceres' veins,

Express'd by flames from hungry barley-grains, Child-born of Vulcan's fire to burn up human brains.

THE LATE HENRY MACKENZIE,

ESQ.

HENRY Mackenzie, "The Addison of the North," was the son of Dr. Joshua Mackenzie, of a distinguished branch of the ancient families of the Mackenzies of the north of Scotland. He was born in the year 1745, or 1746. After receiving a liberal education, he devoted himself to the law; and, in 1766, he became an attorney in the Scottish Court of Exchequer. Ultimately his practice in that court produced him abont eight-hundred pounds a year; he became comptroller-general of taxes for Scotland, with a salary of sixhundred a year; and, altogether, his annual income was upwards of two thousand pounds.

When very young Mr. Mackenzie was the author of numerous little pieces in verse; and, though of a kind and gentle temper, the credit which he enjoyed for wit induced him occasionally to attempt the satiric strain. It was, however, in tenderness and simplicity—in the plaintive tone of the elegy-in that charming freshness of imagery which belongs to the pastoral, that he was seen to most advantage. He next aspired to the novel- the sentimental and pathetic novel; and, in 1768 or 1769, in his hours of relaxation from professional employment, he wrote, what has generally been considered his

master piece," The Man of Feeling." At first, the booksellers declined its publication, even as a gratuitous offering; but difficulties were at length surmountedthe book appeared anonymously - and the warmest enthusiasm was excited in its favour. The ladies of Edinburgh, like those of Paris, on the appearance of " La Nouvelle Héloise," all fancied themselves with the author. But the writer was unknown; and a Mr. Eccles, a young Irishi clergyman, was desirous of appropriating his fame to himself. He accordingly was at the pains of transcribing the entire work, and of marking the manuscript with erasures and interlineations, to give it the air of that copy in which the author had wrought the last polish on his piece before sending it to the press. Of course, this gross attempt at deception was not long successful. "The Man of Feeling" was published in 1771; and the éclut with which its real author was received, when known, induced him, in the same, or following year, to adventure the publication of a poem entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness."

Mr. Mackenzie's next production was "The Man of the World;" a sort of second part of "The Man of Feeling :" but, like most second parts, continuations, sequels, &c. it was, though clever and interesting, inferior to its predecessors. Dr. Johnson, despising and abhoring the fashionable whine of sensibility, treated the work with far more asperity than it deserved.

"Julia de Roubigné," a novel, in the epistolary form, was the last work of this class from the pen of Mr. Mackenzie. It is extremely elegant, tender; and affecting ; but its pathos has a cast of sickliness, and the mournful nature of the catastrophe produces a sensation more painful than pleasing on the mind of the reader.

Mr. Mackenzie was a writer of plays, but he was less successful as a dramatic writer than a novelist.

Turning back to the year 1767, we find that Mr. Mackenzie then married Miss Pennel Grant, sister of Sir James Grant, of Grant, by whom he had a family of eleven children.

About ten or twelve years afterwards, he and a few of his friends, mostly lawyers, who used to meet occasionally for convivial conversation, at a tavern kept by M. Bayll, a Frenchman, projected the publi cation of a series of papers on morals, manners, taste and literature, similar to those of the Spectator. This society was originally designated "The Tabernacle," but afterwards "The Mirror Club." Their scheme was speedily carried into

effect, and the papers, under the title of "The Mirror," of which Mr. Mackenzie was the editor, were published in weekly numbers, at the price of threepence per folio-sheet. The sale never reached beyond three or four hundred in single papers; but the succession of the numbers was no sooner closed, than the whole, with the names of the respective authors, were republished in three duodecimo volumes. The writers sold the copy-right; out of the produce of which they presented a donation of £100 to the Orphan Hospital, and purchased a hogshead of Claret for the use of the Club.

Το "The Mirror" succeeded "The Lawyer," a periodical of a similar cha racter, and equally successful. Mr. Mackenzie was the chief and most valuable contributor to each of these works.

In political literature, Mr. Mackenzie was the author of a "Review of the Proceedings of the Parliament, which met first in the year 1784," and of a series of "Letters under the signature of Brutus." In all those exertions which during the war of the French revolution were found necessary to support the government and preserve the peace of the country, no person was more honourably or more usefully zealous.

Mr. Mackenzie was remarkably fond of the rural diversions of fowling, hunting, and fishing. In private life, his conversation was ever the charm and the pride of society. He died at Edinburgh, his constant residence, on the 14th of January,

THECessation of the bounty for the enconragement of the herringfishery having taken place in April, 1830, it may not be useless to direct the public attention to the state of this branch of national industry. It appears from this report, that there were cured in the year ended April, 1830 -three hundred and twenty-nine thousand five hundred and fifty-seven barrels of white herrings-being a decrease, as compared with the number cured in the former year, of twenty-six thousand four hundred and twenty-two half barrels.

The quantity of cod and ling cured in the last year has increased-it amounting to one hundred and four thousand nine hundred and fourteen hundred weights, cured dried – and five thousand six hundred and fifty-two and a quarter hundred weights, and eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-six barrels and a half cured in pick e.

From the boat account it appears that eleven thousand one hundred and ninetynine boats were employed in the shorecuring department of the fishery, manned by forty-eight thousand six hundred and ninety-nine fishermen, and the total number of persons employed therein was eighty, thousand and three hundred.

The most interesting part of the report is the series of observations, which the Commissioners think it proper to make on the effect which the "bounty has produced in raising the character of the British fishery, and in adding to its importance as a branch of national wealth." Threy state, that when the establishment was instituted, (the office for the herring fishery in Edinburgh, but the date is not stated), it was impossible almost to find a barrel of the legal size of thirty-two gallons. No attention whatever appeared to be paid to the strength of the stave, to the number of the hoops, or to the structure of the barrel at all, and hence they were unable to retain the pickle for any time. It was the practice also, at the period alluded to, to attempt to cure the herrings in a lump, without gutting them, or removing the viscera in any manner, and in short, that the methods of catching and curing fish, thus in use, were in a very barbarous and backward state. The present state of the fishery is the reverse of all this. The barrels are of full size, substantially made, and adequately hooped, the seams between the staves, are stopped by flags, the gutting is carried on on the most approved principles-and the whole process, from delivery of the cured fish, is now conthe embarkation of the fisherman to the ducted in a manner that leaves nothing to complain of. whatever for the most fastidious consumer

similar improvements in the cure of cod, "All these improvements, together with ling, or hake," the commissioners are in

duced to "ascribe to the effect of the bounty, acting as stimulus to the curer and thus inducing them to abandon their and other persons engaged in the fishery; long established slovenly practices, and to adopt a more improved system; from a conviction, that unless they did so, the bounty could not be obtained; and it is gratifying to observe, that the utility of