of the Ptolemies, the last link of that long lineage, whose earliest ancestry was birthed in the mystery of old millenniums-far back amid the haze of antiquity, a faithful inference of the asp-bitten queen-the Rome-worshipped Cleopatra the heir consecutive to the monarchy of the Pharaohs a king throneless born, with a sovereignty of ruins, and only the Nile-the blue river, unaltered from her natal majesty-when she first shoaled round the basis of Theban bulwark, and took on her immortal bosom shadows of the new-sprung pyramid, long ere it gathered the swarthiness of ages, and murmured at the inroad of temples on either side, making herself an avenue of columns, and washed the feet of obelisks, whose pilgrim marbles were floated down from the now dark and untrodden mountains, where the savage of Abyssinia hath planted his indomitable fastness, to secure him from the research of science, from the infallible religion, from brotherhood with Europe, the ripe cheek of the world.

We have to-day a strong muster of old friends. Here are both a song and a sonnet by one of them, full of true and gentle feeling :

There seems a charm about those days departed,
When ev'ry valley had its sainted spring;
When, at his convent gate, the lightsome-hearted
And rosy-visaged friar would sit and fling
His blessing to the traveller,-while around
The solemn walls a sacred silence hung,
Save when, at morn or even, arose the sound
Of anthem sweet, by many voices sung ;-
There seems a charm-but underneath the pride
Of heav'n-imparted power, and ritual high,
What crimes of fraud 'gainst folly are descried

By time-taught Reason's disenchanting eye !—
Away, then, with the thought that would again
Subject our native land to Superstition's reign!

Behold another old acquaintance-Lorma, whose jeu d'esprit, entitled "A T Party," in the last Christmas Number, is one of the cleverest instances of alliteration in the language. He writes at present on a graver theme, vigorously and with pathos.-Hast thou, too, Lorma, felt the misery of blighted affection ?

NEVER!

"NEVER!"-There's poison in the sound,

That chills my life's blood to the core,That drags my spirit to the ground, Without one hope of rising more!

"NEVER!"-O suns will rise and set,

And night's proud garniture return, And smiles will light thy fair face yet,But ne'er for me thy tears will burn! "NEVER!"-All else in Nature's range

Take varied forms at Heaven's decree; But thou alone still scornest change, And still thy heart is cold to me!

"NEVER!"-O then a last farewell!Before me gloom is gathering fast; Might I but find some soothing spell,

To still the memory of the past!

LORMA.

Our old friends first, and then our new, always has been, and always will be, our rule. Here is a poem-a curious wild thing-by one of our oldest :

MAD TOM'S SONG.

The great round moon !-tu-whit! tu-whoo!
I ride on its rim when I've nothing to do,-
I ride on its rim, and I sail away,

And I dash off the stars from its sides like spray.

Were you ever at sea when the waves ran high,
And the ships of a nation went tumbling by?
Did you hear the cries of the seamen bold?
Did you hear the squeaking of rats in the hold?

But what is a voyage along the sea,

To lilting through all the sky with me,Over the clouds, and the rainbow's rim, Over the tops of the seraphim?

The great round moon!-tu-whit! tu-whoo!
When there's frost in the air, her nose looks blue,-
Her nose looks blue, and her cheeks look red,
And her eyes are starting half out of her head ;-

Yet better loves she the frosty night,
When the icicles round her are clanking bright,
And jangling like bells as she journeys on,
Than a sky made warm by the summer sun.

Better loves she the snow and the hail,
Veiling the earth with their gossamer veil,
Than the flaunting flowers of the rosy spring,
That lift up their heads to the sun-their king.

Away! away
y! before the wind!

That long-tail'd comet is far behind;
And the track that is left by our silver car
Is bright as the train of a shooting star.

The great round moon !-tu-whit! tu-whoo!
I ride on her rim when I've nothing to do,-

I ride on her rim, and I laugh as I go,
At all that is puzzling the earth below.

Men flatter a lordling who comes into place,
Just as I see a planet extinguish'd in space:
Men weep o'er a score who have perish'd in fight,
Just as I see a world emerging to light.

If they rode on the moon, through the boundless blue,
They would join in my chorus-tu-whit! tu-whoo!
They would alter their notions of virtue and sin,
And weigh 'gainst their world the head of a pin!

Let us not forget James Miller, who has written seve ral sweet and simple songs in his native tongue, and the following will add to the list

My Dearest Friend,-You have been remiss in not answering my last, but I cannot refrain from acquainting you with my good fortune, more especially as to you I am indebted for many hints, which I turned to good account, in dramatising the old story from Gil Blas, which you so much admire.

My

Well, thank God, it is over; Tancred and Sigismunda has been acted with unlooked-for success. friend Garrick did wonders, although, as you will afterwards see, his success was wormwood to one of my oldest and truest friends, a worthy fellow for all that, and, like myself, of social habits. Quin, who was with me during the performance, was but a Job's comforter; and while he told me the characters were finely imagined, added, that the actors, including little Davy, had not mind enough to understand my conceptions; and their bad acting would infallibly ruin the play. However, he admitted that Mr Cibber had some merit, but that Garrick strutted about too much like a Bantam cock, and that he had not a particle of tenderness in his composition. This was bad enough, and you, my dear friend, must have pitied me; but I was rewarded at last, for my play was rapturously received, and even Quin, prejudiced as he is, obliged to admit that little Davy had

acquitted himself almost as well as he could have done himself. Doddington joined us in the course of the evening, and attempted to mitigate the severity of Quin's observations, but without effect, for he continued game to the last, and contended that the success of the tragedy was owing entirely to its own merits, and was very little promoted by the efforts of the actors.

At last Quin's natural benevolence conquered his spleen, and he rejoiced as much as I could possibly have done at my triumph. I had previously agreed to sup with him, be the event what it might; he very justly remarking, whether Tancred was damned or not, supper was a damned good meal, that could not be dispensed with, and that a glass of sack punch would exhilarate my spirits if depressed, or heighten them if elated. Accordingly, off we set, and took Doddington with us, and I have not passed so pleasant an evening for many years. Quin was in the best spirits, and Doddington in excellent humour, laying aside, his usual pomposity of manners. Quin became amazingly affectionate; first of all it was "Doddy," and then "Bubb"-a freedom which the courtier, who is indeed a good creature, pocketed. When the evening had advanced, I ventured to propose the health of Garrick, to whom I am under great obligations, and Quin, without hesitation, pledged a bumper to the toast, confessing that Davy had something in him after all; "but had I been Tancred," said he, "by G-, I would have electrified them!" and with that he gave us some exhibitions, which nearly made Doddington and myself die with laughter, for the love speeches he had selected were given in the same manner as if he were about to address the Roman senate. Fortunately for us, he was too much taken up with himself to attend to us. left him spouting at four o'clock, and I slipped home with Doddington in his chariot.

We

I have already said so much of myself, that I have only room to add, that I am in treaty for sale of the copyright, for a sum that will astonish you, and which I will tell you about in my next. With kindest love to Tom, believe me to be your attached friend, JAMES THOMSON.

(Addressed,) Mr Wm. Paterson,

at Mrs Nichol's, Rochester (Kent.)

We shall now look westward, and first of all, to a town for which we have a regard, for more reasons than oneGlasgow. She need not be ashamed of the poet who gave birth to the stanzas which he has entitled

That wooded bank I've stroll'd along,
Oft ere the summer sun had set,
And mingled with the joyous throng,

That round that fountain's margin met,—
Hours that I never shall forget;
When looks exprest the throbbing breast,
And more than graceless bard may tell,
And maiden's eyes, bright as the skies,
Sparkled beside the Pear-Tree Well.

Now years have past,-that lovely place
Looks fresh, but not so fresh as then ;
I meet not one familiar face,

I hear the shouts of stranger men
Come pealing up the silvan glen;
My friends are gone-I'm left alone,

And cares and griefs my bosom swell;
The rank grass waves above their graves,
Far from the gurgling Pear Tree Well.

Ah! boyhood scenes, dear to my heart,
Were I allow'd one fond request,
'Twould be, when I from hence depart,

And when I'm laid with them that rest,
That this green turf may wrap my breast,

And my grave be beneath that tree,

The song of birds my funeral knell; Then, freed from foes, sweet my repose, Lull'd by the murmuring Pear-Tree Well.

M. S.

Travelling a little farther west, we arrive at the good town of Paisley, and there we find the author of some stanzas with which we are well pleased:

STANELY CASTLE.

Old Stanely, thy walls so bleak and bare,
As they rise o'er the moorland lea,
Bring back to our mind the scenes that were,
In the days of chivalry-

In the days of mail'd warrior knight,
Of lawless power, and feudal might.

They mind us of feasting in the hall
With noisy revelry;

And many a merry lay recall

Of the ancient minstrelsy;

And they mind us of love in the ladye's bower,
At the witching time, sweet midnight's hour.
When the lovely streaks of rising morn
In the eastern sky appear,

We hear the sound of the huntsman's horn
As he follows the fleet red-deer;

Or the merry yo! ho! through wood and glen,
When the wolf is roused from his braky den.

They mind us of tilt and tournament,
'Mong knights both brave and keen ;
And we hear the sport and merriment
Of the peasantry on the green,
As they quaff the cups of the castle ale,
Or list to the wandering minstrel's tale.

We witness the gallant knight's return
From the land of Palestine ;

And we feel our hearts within us burn,
As he tells of every scene,
Where with sword and lance he boldly crush'd
The pride of the heathen in the dust.

At the altar, from his fair ladye,
He claims the lovely hand

He has won by his matchless braverye,
Far off in the Holy Land;

And we note the hooded monks around,
And we list to the abbey-bell's merry sound.-

But all is changed! no music now

Resounds through thy arched halls,
Save that of the winds as they rudely blow
Through thy bare and ruin'd walls;
And the noise of mirth and of revelry
Hath pass'd away for ever from thee.

At the early dawn of rising morn,
We may hear the merry yo! ho!
Or catch the sound of the huntsman's horn,
But it starts nor deer nor roe;

For they all have fled from the face of men,
And the wolf for ever hath left its den.

Within thy walls no festive band
Proclaims thy knight return'd,
To claim the lovely ladye's hand,

By matchless valour earn'd;

And we mark no marriage-train wend its way
From thy castle gates to the abbey grey.

The deep-toned bell sounds merry no more;
The abbey, too, yields in decay;
And the altar is gone where oft of yore
Knelt knight and ladye gay;

And monk, and fair ladye, and warrior bold,
Forgotten, are mouldering beneath the mould.

where we meet with the Rev. J. Anderson, who walks among the hills, and muses on sweet fancies like those contained in the following

STANZAS,

WRITTEN ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN WINTER.

By the Rev. J. Anderson.

The sun looks joyous forth again,

And the short winter day,

Like to some widow'd mother, smiles
Beneath her weeds of grey.

The skies, without a floating cloud,
Gleam mirror'd in the sea-
The merry birds are wantoning
Upon the leafless tree.

On day so bright as this, how sweet
To wander down the stream,
And muse on things long past away
Like visions in a dream!

How sweet to mark the homeward ship,
While winds all sleeping be,
With laden wings slow floating o'er
The wide and glorious sea!

How sweet to hear in forest glade

The feather'd minstrels sing,The chirrup of the household bird, It seems the voice of spring!

Yet more I love a winter day,

So fair and calm as this;

It minds me, 'mid the darker time, Of bygone happiness. Helensburgh.

Like Wordsworth, we must still be "stepping westward," and down we must go to Ayr, where we once were, and never may be again. A scholar sits there in his study, who supplies us with the subjoined entertaining and interesting paper :

in the discoveries of the present day, there is mention of whole chambers, and whole series of excavations, systematically filled with the mummies of the bird. In the subterraneous caverns of Abousir-the famed repositories of birds-travellers find a sort of conical jar, made of coarse earthenware, and the cover of it luted on with the mud of the Nile. This urn contains an embalmed bird, swathed in linen, and so described by the travellers, as to be taken for no other than the sacred ibis. The urns lie on their sides with the mouths outwards; they are packed in regular tiers from floor to roof; and the Arabs, who seem to have had patience to examine, assert that the series are continued to an infinite distance from the front backwards. The ibis was a long-legged bird, nearly of the size of a partridge; its body was covered with snow-white plumage, and its extremities were tipped with black. It frequented the Nile, fed on insects, and was called the enemy of serpents. The priests told Herodotus that the ibis, every spring, encountered the winged serpents coming into Egypt, and destroyed them. From its service in this particular, as well as in devouring the reptiles and insects of the land, arose that sacred protection and ceremony, with which it had, from time immemorial, been regarded. At the present day, there is in Egypt, a bird, corresponding with the old mention of the ibis, and with its mummies, now found in the urns, which is believed by the sçavans and naturalists to be the sacred fowl of the ancient priests. In the pagan times of Egypt, the hierarchy inflicted the pain of death on any of the people who had killed an ibis even by accident; and this ancient prejudice remains at the present day, for the natives are greatly offended if one of these birds is wantonly destroyed. The solemn sacrifice and burial of an ibis took place on the initiation of a priest, and at other public and private ceremonies.-The history of the hawk is well known, as its rapacity has signalized it in many countries, to be the terror of the helpless. But it seems to be more gentle in Egypt, for Pococke says he saw the pigeon and the hawk perched amicably together. The brilliancy of its eye rendered this bird an emblematic type of the sun :-to Osiris, therefore, it was sacred. Osiris, or the sun, was worshipped under the figure of a hawk, and the bird is frequently sculptured on

CHIEFLY RELATING TO SEPULTURE.

The animal race of Egypt was not numerous for an African country, but it must have been carefully protected, as every beast, according to Herodotus, was held in veneration. Whoever was known to have killed a hawk, could not escape the punishment of death. The dying of a cat or dog was an occasion of the deepest mourning. But it required the artifice of the priesthood to nourish a religious propriety of adoration, and at the same time prevent the political evil of bestial swarms. The phoenix, ibis, and hawk, are the most remarkable of the feathered tribe, for the ceremonies with which they were regarded. The history of the phoenix is well known to be fabulous; and the reasons of its adoration are not sufficiently established. Herodotus appears to have seen drawings, in which its size and form resembled the eagle's, and its wings were of a ruby and golden hue. The priests maintained that the phoenix was seen in Egypt, only once in five centuries, on the regular occasion of the new bird carrying the body of its parent to the Temple of the sun. The history of the ibis is better authenticated; for, in coincidence with the clear records of Herodotus, it is found, by modern travellers, in the subterranean tombs, And the circumstance of the bird's identity is sufficiently confirmed, although the localities are at variance with history, which has given Hermopolis as the exclusive deposit. In like manner, it is related that the cats were buried at Bubastis, and yet we do not fail to find them at Gurnook and other places in great numbers. The ibis was embalmed, and afterwards entombed with much solemnity and care. And

of the fox, is often quite detached from hieroglyphic symbolism, and stands as a charm, or merely an ornament. The present natives, and even the Turks of Egypt, never kill this bird; and among the old heathen, its destruction was a capital offence. The solemn rites of embalming and interment were performed on the hawk at Butos in the Delta.

Among quadrupeds, the cat, dog, and hippopotamus, chiefly claim our attention; but of these we have least to do with the hippopotamus, as it is the least connected with sepulture. This animal had cloven hoofs, the mane and tail of a horse, a thick and ponderous hide, and in size equalled a large ox. It was sacred to that district of Egypt, in which the crocodile was abhorred; and the beasts were each symbolical of one event-the Deluge, although they had a great enmity the one to the other. It never descended farther into Egypt than the cataracts near Philo, or the straits and falls of the Nile at the southern extremity of the land. In the beginning of the Persian conquest, we find the Egyptians severely bowing to the sanctity of animals. Cambyses opened the eastern gate of the land with the key of Egyptian superstition, and burst the barriers of Pelusium with a holy and inviolable vanguard. The townsmen shrunk from the defence of the city, when they beheld the sacred animals of their country exposed, on the ranks of the enemy, to the first brunt of their own resistance. The cat and the dog were the principal actors in this singular scene of brute ascendency, but here maintained a part by no means unproportioned to their usual consequence. For when a domestic cat sickened and died, the family lamented the

loss by a general tonsure of their eyebrows; and the death of a dog could only be mourned by shaving from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet. And the dead cats were removed to sacred places, and, after the honours of embalming, were entombed in those wonderful caverns that attest, at the present day, the truth of the recorded infatuation. The dogs also had their funeral pomp, as is well proved by the catalogues of the antiquarian, which make strange mention of large earthen jars, crumbling in the decay of age, and exposing the shrunk remains of the canine god.

We conclude our account of these mysteries with a short notice of the crocodile. From the point of the Delta to Elephantina, the religious sway of the crocodile was only interrupted by a few instances of detestation. The people, for instance, of Tentyris or Dendera, in Upper Egypt, were celebrated for their ingenuity and boldness in combating the mailed champion of the Nile. The head, back, and tail of this creature, are incrusted in hard impenetrable scales, and the physical strength of it is enormous. Its hideous presence is terror and flight, scarcely less to man than to every other animal. Some additional circumstances, peculiar and abominable, complete the stamp of horror so strangely impressed on this monster, but they do not need to be celebrated by the antiquarian. In the old records of Herodotus, we find a passage which is thus translated by Beloe :-" They who live near Thebes, and the Lake Maris, hold the crocodile in religious veneration; they select one, which they render tame and docile, suspending golden ornaments from its ears, and sometimes gems of value; the fore-feet are secured by a chain. They feed it with the flesh of the sacred victims, and with other appointed food. While it lives, they treat it with unceasing attention; and when it dies, it is first embalmed, and afterwards deposited in a sacred chest." None of these chests are known to us, but we have read strange accounts, given by travellers, of crocodile tombs and subterranean labyrinths. Some of these places have been discovered near an Arab village in Upper Egypt, called Amabdee. The travellers first descend a perpendicular pit, about twenty feet deep; then they find an entrance into a subterranean chamber hewn out of the solid rock. One door leads onwards from this room, but the travellers may lose their way in intricate passages, or, after long and apprehensive toil, find they have got no farther than the original apartment. If they have courage to make a second attempt, they may indeed unfold the way to another chamber, but the entrance to it may be defended by some dark and perilous gap or hole. They may succeed in crossing this unsounded trench, and, rallying their courageous numbers under the banner of the torch, continue to stoop and file through the darksome passages; but the foremost may be smothered to death by some mephitic blast, and the terror of the survivors may redouble the hazard of their returning way. Such are the places which the old heathens have formed for the interment of their sacred crocodiles. Ayr, Oct. 1830.

S. T.

Where is St Ninians? for we blush to confess that we have at this moment forgotten. Wherever it be, the inhabitants need not be afraid to own “Lambda,” if he always writes as good sonnets as the two which we now present to our readers :

SONNET TO WORDSWORTH.

Wordsworth! thy mind, with eloquence embued,
Derived from mighty Nature, chasten'd too
By deep Divinity,-from storm and flood,
And rugged rock, and flower, and waving wood,
Draws a strong moral. There be many, who,
In pettish ignorance of what is due
To one whom God hath gifted specially,

Scorn at the workings of thy glorious spirit, And scoff (in much content and ribald glee) Applause and triumph, to their own demerit.

Thus is it, that the men, who cannot lend
From their own souls to what they hear or see,
Whose hearts to Nature's secrets bear no key,
Laugh at the things they dare not comprehend.

SONNET.A WELL-LOVED SCENE.

A rushing stream by dipping hazels veil'd,
Making high music as it hurries on,
Now swelling into thunder, and anon
Fainting like gentlest breath, as if it fail'd,
To let the shoutings of the merry birds

Fall on the ear,-a mead of level green, With hanging trees at intervals between, Furnish a scene which lacketh not our words To call it beautiful. In such a spot,

With fair Contentment for a dower, and one Willing and happy to cast in her lot