The baillie, who had heard the news at the Amt-house, now arrived delighted and congratulating. The vicar rose and shook his hand. The old countryman was touched, and stared with open eyes upon him. "Most honoured, Herr kinsman," said he, "that is the very first time in my life. It shall always be so," replied the vicar good-humouredly, "when a man climbs so high, he may well venture to descend a little."

Simon who sat side-ways in the arbour, so that he could see into the deep cool porch of the house, and through this into the road, now became uneasy, and rose suddenly to accost a stranger who had just entered the house. What was his surprise to recognise in this person, no other than his illustrious patron, who now appeared red with haste, and dressed in a shabby great coat, and hurriedly deprecrated all demonstrations of honour on the part of the counsellor, who contrasted with him in the rich uniform he wore, seemed almost like a prince by the side of his dependent: "I am in extreme haste, and completely incognito," said the stranger, " I have journeyed hither unknown, and desire still not to be known to any one: but I find here, neither waggon nor horses, and must to-day travel at least twenty miles towards the frontier yonder. Procure me horses, but quickly! I have business yonder of the last importance." Simon fluttered and delighted, beckoned to Casper the helper, who also figured as coachman in the family: the latter brought out the horses, put them to the waggon, and received directions from the counsellor, who helped the stranger to mount. He would have kissed his hand, but the other embraced him warmly, saying: "Worthy excellent man, you shall soon know more of me. For the present take my hearty thanks." Off went the horses and the waggon.

The vicar had remained at a distance looking on with surprise. "Who was that, my son?" he enquired, "thou didst offer to kiss his hand." "Hush father," said the son, with an expressive look, "it was himself, the prince, he does not choose to be recognized, he has important state business, twenty miles hence, and wishes to appear there incognito. So not a syllable in the subject. We may look forthwith for important political changes. The minister is this moment in the same quarter,-who knows-"

"And he embraced thee!" cried the old man, " embraced thee! and ever hugged thee close, I saw it plainly." They returned to the rest of the party, and the vicar passed the whole afternoon in gazing with silent respect upon his fortunate son, without, in his wonderment, taking much part in the conversation.

(To be concluded in our next.)

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THE FISHER'S WIFE.

O, COULD I calm yon raging sea,
Whose mountain waves toss fearfully

Their giant crests of foam!
For He is in his slender bark,
Breasting that world of waters dark;

Kind Ocean, waft him home!

'Tis awful at such hour to wake,
And dare the tempest for his sake,
Trembling with hope and fear;
To listen to the sea-gull's scream-
I see, I see the white sail gleam!
My husband, thou art near!

He'll chide me for my fond distress,
And with a kind and gay caress

Buoy up my sinking heart;
Yet he will tempt the wave again,
And call the anxions terrors vain
That rack me when we part.

Beautiful is the deep blue sea,
When summer gales sigh placidly
Over the billows hoar;
'Tis music then to hear them dash,
As the bright waters leap and flash
Against the rocky shore.

But now, in every echoing surge
I hear a note of Ocean's dirge
Around its victim's bier!
He's safe! and these are idle fears,
I'll brush away my woman's tears;
My husband, thou art here!

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A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS.

CHIMNEYS have characters! I am convinced of that. They are a people, and have minds, dispositions, temperaments, and passions like other folk. They have also diseases like the human species, and do not want for their "doctors." Are they not affected by east winds just as much as any of us, and have they not their own inexplicable fits of the sullens, and are they not awfully testy when contradicted, just

like ourselves?

The faculty of smoke-doctors may be a very learned and respectable faculty for anything I know; but whoever heard of a chimney being cured? Nobody! The truth is, a chimney's disorders generally proceed from its original physical constitution: and one might just as well talk of expelling an hereditary disease from an individual of the human race. The only way is to destroy the chimney altogether and create it anew. "A "doctor" will speak to you of "old wives," and of "cans" one-mouthed, two-mouthed, and poly-mouthed; but put no faith in smoke-doctors. You might just as well expect a doctor to cure you, by ordering a new nightcap.

But the maladies which affect chimneys, often proceed from their situation in life. Circumstances govern us all, and chimneys too. A chimney of my acquaintance once testified this in a remarkable manner. It was a chimney that had just begun the world in a new part of the town, and belonged to a house three stories in height. Now, this chimney was as wellbehaved and well-regulated a chimney as one could have seen in a summer's day; and had a juvenile vivacity, which could not be repressed by the east wind itself. At last, however, it be came all of a sudden very irregular in its conduct, and seemed to have lost all its former health aed spirits. Doctors were called in, who examined the patient, and prescribed all kinds of cans, which were speedily got. All would not do, however; instead of recovering, it became worse, and seemed, by the increased vehemence with which it repelled the advances of the smoke, to indicate that the doctors did not understand the nature of its trouble. Alas! it was not the body, but the mind of the chimney that was diseased! My sensitive young friend was affronted at the very idea of these fellows attempting to cure its grievances by such common-place applications. A full convocation of all the smoke-doctors in town being at length called, and their deliberations being assisted by some experienced builders, it was discovered that the cause of all its woes was the tall and overtopping gable of a contiguous house, whose chimneys carried their heads at least twenty feet higher than that of the afflicted chimney in question; so that envy-sheer envy alone, was the cause of of all its ailments. This was proved to my full satisfaction, by what happened afterwards; for the patient, being, as it were, continued into the tall gable, and allowed to carry as high

a head as any of its neighbours, never gave its masters any more trouble; and when I went to see how it did, I thought the smoke which issued so freely and complacently from its mouth, seemed to say, "You see I have at length gained my point."

Though I allow that chimneys may be jealous of each other's heights, and sometimes look with an evil can at the honour or prosperity of their neighbours, I do not think that they are in general a democratic people. Many a chimney do I know of very humble height, and even unadorned with cans, and yet very decent, quiet chimneys too. There is a spirit of meek- ness in some chimneys, which seems to fit them best for the lower walks of life, where they are content to exercise their vocations, perhaps, under the baronial protection of some neighbouring stack of chimneys, without fretting their souls with chimerical ideas of liberty and equality.

That chimneys are sentient beings nobody can dispute. Le Sage, an author of no little discernment, says that chimneys can speak. I must confess I never heard them pronounce articulate words, or carry on conversations; but there is one thing of which I am certain-they can howl! I have heard them howl in a high wind, in a very sensible style-almost like speaking-only the sentences not connected. In these cases, however, I consider them to be only expostulating or quarrelling with their enemy, the wind.

At the country town where I spent my youth, there were some thatched houses near the school, with chimneys of a very outré sort. My heart is smitten when I remember how cruel we were to these grotesque but inoffensive chimneys. There was one belonging to the cottage of a poor old widow woman, at which our scorn and our stones were particularly directed. It was constructed of turf, upon a frame-work of upright sticks-the whole so dilapidated, that there was scarcely anything but the sticks left. Most unfortunately for the chimney, it was not altogether of an upright character but inclined a little to one side, and seemed to look down upon us school-boys with open mouth, inviting our attacks. We assuredly did not spare it; for every day we employed the whole quarter of an hour previous to the opening of the school in throwing missiles of any sort we could lay our hands on, at and down its gaping crater; and not a day passed without old Luckie coming into the school-room, complaining of our wickedness, and exhibiting the melancholy fragments of cutty pipes, and little black tea-pots, which, she said, had

suffered from our stones, while lying innocuously by her fireside. I remember hearing an account of one being cleared of its venerable soot by the good man, who had accomplished his singular task by going head foremost into a sack, and ascending by a ladder into the rannle-tree, where he stood and rubbed the sides of the chimney all round with his shoulders ! This custom might be practised with effect in the cure of lumbag-o!

Speaking of chimney-sweeping, we come to chimney-sweeps, who, by-the-bye, are a very noticeable set of men. A friend of mine, in guarding against contact with them in the streets, calls them angels of darkness, in contradistinction to bakers, whom he denominates angels of light, though I consider the one tribe to be fully as great annoyances as the other. When I pass a chimney-sweep in the street, I myself wearing light-coloured clothes at the time, I may say, "Conjuro te Diabole!" and avoid being rude to his person; but in my heart I envy and admire him. Chimney-sweeps see and explore a part of the world which nobody else can see and explore. They surpass the prodigal son in the "Vicar of Wakefield," who saw the outside of the best houses in Amsterdam, for anybody may see that; but to chimney-sweeps alone is it reserved to see the roofs of the best houses. They walk in glorious pre-eminence over the heads of the rest of mankind, and cast their eyes over the surface of another world, which none of us children of the ground shall ever see. I have heard them tell strange wild stories of the dangers they have passed, and the roofs of the lands they have seen, like sailors returned from distant voyages; and, what is very strange, there is scarcely a chimney in the town, of which they do not know the whole nature and character, as well as the owner of the house himself. Nay, I have often been surprised, on calling a chimney-sweeper to administer unto a moody or diseased vent, to observe how familiar he was with its history and peculiarities. How they acquire this wonderful knowledge it is impossible to conceive. I suspect that they talk to each other of nothing but the various chimneys which have come under their hands, and so, each communicating to his neighhour the results of his experience, the whole become as it were, universally acquainted. I remember once calling an old chimneysweep to a very strange chimney, which, before ascending the gable, went across the ceiling of an adjoining room, and, indeed, was all at right angles. Before commencing operations upon this strange specimen of the crooked tribe of chimneys,