and we tink she pe a witch, a fery creat terrible witch, for she pe knowing all tings tat efer was done since te world was maide. And she pe knowing fwhat man's pe kissing te mhaids, and fwhat mhaids pe under lhoving to men; and she know some tings apoot you too, my lord,—He, he, he! Ay, she pe knowing some tings apoot you too." Lord George went down to the entrance-hall, and ordered her attendance; and behold, there was his unaccountable friend the gipsy-woman! He was greatly struck by her appearance there, especially as it at that moment occurred to him what she had so lately foretold, namely, "that he should never ask the Lady Margaret Ogilvie, for that before he beheld her, he should lose his heart to another;" and he already found these words verified. She addressed him jocularly, asking for the lady Margaret Ogilvie, and how his suit there had thriven; but he answered, that he was much more concerned about another, and if she would tell him who that other one was, where she was, and what was her lineage, he would give her other two French crowns. this in the course of my life! A man had need take good care what he says and what he does in this world; for there are seers and hearers that he little weens of in his philosophy. Why, here is a quean, a merry-conceited quean, who knows all the purposes of my heart, as well as if they were written on it, and a window in my breast through which to read the scroll. I am utterly confounded at what she has told me, and confess myself an egregious fool. But I'll give her the lie for once; for I'll go and ask the Lady Margaret Ogilvie, and wed her too, if it were for nothing more but rendering that inscrutable witch's forebodings of none avail. Yes, I will. I had resolved on it before, it is true, and am resolved on it still." The next day, as he was riding in light armour, and mounted in green and gold, through the wood of Craigy, and, it was believed, on his road to court and to wed the Lady Margaret Ogilvie, he met with a beautiful young lady riding on a black palfrey, and clothed also in green, with a veil of green gauze, that hung down to her knee. The earl doffed his velvet bonnet to her, that waved with splendid plumage, and accosted her in courtly phrase-for his heart was overcome by her great beauty, which excelled all that he had ever beheld in woman; and he felt earnestly disposed to do homage at its shrine. With badinage of wit and flattery, he detained her, eager to dis-mayhap you might like her better. But my errand here cover her name and lineage; but she concealed both with great good-humour, at one time calling herself Bess, at another Marjory, and finally told him, that she was the Queen of the Fairies. Lord George was as much delighted with her good-humour and pleasantry, as with her extraordinary beauty, and resolved, if possible, not to part with her; and when she asked to be directed to the chapel of Craigy, he instantly proffered to accompany her, and likewise find some business with the chaplain when they got there. But, in place of conducting her to the chapel of Craigy, which lay several miles to the westward, he rode straight with her into his own castle, which, owing to the venerable woods that then surrounded it, she never saw till she rode into the court, and that moment the portcullis fell behind them. "If this be the chapel of Craigy, sir," said she," it is on a very extensive scale, and its sacred portals rather of a singular construction. What may be the meaning of this?" "The chaplain is here, my lady Queen of the Fairies," said he;" and, explicitly, you are now my prisoner for the remainder of this day and the following night." “Well, I like this extremely, it is so romantic," said she. "And now that I know whose hands I am in, and his high honour and gallantry, instead of pretending to take offence, I assure you, my lord, I am very happy at being under your roof. You know I can fly off like a beetle, or sail away in a gossamer shroud, on any offence taken." The earl was never so much delighted. He lifted her from her palfrey in his arms, carried her into the entrance-hall, kissed her, and welcomed her to his castle. To describe all the endearments which he lavished on her that day, and that evening, is impossible; for he became every hour more and more enamoured of her as he discovered her rare endowments, and heard her converse and sing with such fluency, both in the French and Italian languages; and, at a late hour, they parted, highly delighted with each other. "I can only tell you, my noble lord," said she, "that she is not who you think she is, where you think she is, nor what you think she is. And haply, if you knew all these things truly, you would not like her so well, and was to warn you not to pursue this amour farther, till you see the issue of your last one; for the deeds then done, and the words then uttered, must be answered for." "Out upon them all, and upon you, witch!" exclaimed he, as if with disgust. "I will have no farther connexion with any of that house." 66 "My lord, I have but one thing to say. You have committed yourself the words have been said that cannot be unsaid; and, be assured, you must either take a wife out of that house, or lose your head. There is that power engaged in it that resistance is vain." "Out upon you, witch," cried he; you are some emissary of that malignant house, therefore hence with you. I am more concerned about one word you said, than about all that house and its too powerful faction;" and so saying, he left her, and hasted up the stair. "It is true," said he to himself," that I do not know who she is; but sure I know well enough where she is." He then sent his aunt to call the lovely stranger, but the lady was gone vanished once and for ever-and how she made her escape, no man could tell-but her palfrey still remained in the stall. The earl was now rendered quite stupid with astonishment, and caused his servants to run here and there, and search the most unfeasable places, but the lady was lost. In the course of a week, and while the earl was still ruminating on the angelic beauty of the young lady and her mysterious disappearance, and really reasoning with himself whether or not she could have been a human creature, he was seized by a warrant from the regent and carried to prison, to answer for the deforcement of a lady of high rank, and making away with her in his own castle! When examined, he withheld nothing, but his tale gained no credence; and there being a powerful faction then against him, and the lady's palfrey and part of her dress being found, he was declared guilty by a majority of his peers, and the advocate pleaded hard for his immediate execution and forfeiture to the lady's father; but he was adjudged to imprisonment for a year and a day in the first place, lest the lady should make her appearance. The next morning, the earl was early astir, impatient again to meet his lovely guest; and he waited and wait- Although matters stood thus hard with him, he was ed, but still she did not leave her apartment. At length overwhelmed only with love. He scarcely thought of his impatience was in part diverted by a servant telling his own perilous state, but ever and anon of the lovely him that there was a woman in the castle, who refused creature who had brought him to it. He saw her night to go away till she had seen him in private; and, more- and day in his mind's eye, in all her beauty, sweetness, over, that no one knew how she came there, for that the and condescension, and he would have given the whole portcullis had never been raised since the time that he him-world to have seen her again in reality. self had entered; and he added, "Inteed, my lord, she In the midst of these hardships, he was assailed by pe fery strainge kerling, and have creat teall of chatt; another great personage, mentioned before, regarding his conduct to one of his family, and a sacred promise of marriage given. This was made out an exceedingly bad story, and excited the indignation of the reformers in a terrible degree, though it seems only to have been an affair of very common gallantry, which the lady herself seems never to have resented. The earl was hardly set; his life was at stake, and if he escaped with that, he saw nothing but debasement and ruin before him. At the same time, the great person, his opponent, proffered to save both his life and his honour, if he would ally himself by marriage to his house, and join interests with him. Lord George refused absolutely for a while, but the weariness of confinement, and the dread that a warrant might be signed for his execution, at last overcame his spirit, and he consented. Accordingly, his brother John was dispatched to make choice of one to the earl, for he himself was quite callous about the matter. Neither would they suffer him to leave prison till he was married firm and fast. Sir John had plenty of choice of sisters, cousins, and aunts, and took the one he thought his brother would like best. The two were married in prison, the lady wearing a veil; but in troth the earl never looked at her, for he abhorred the very thoughts of her, thinking only of his beloved fairy queen, and the love-tokens which they had exchanged. They went to the earl's house in the Canongate, where a banquet was prepared, but the bride did nothing but sob and weep, and the earl sat as glum as if his death warrant had been signed. It was a melancholy wedding, and, notwithstanding the efforts of some gentlemen and ladies to raise a little mirth, they failed, and a funereal gloom hung over the assembled friends. When the ladies retired, the earl began and drank at the wine as through desperation, or as if he resolved to be cheery in the midst of his despair; but at rather a late hour his squire announced to him that a stranger lady was in the hall who desired to speak with him. "Ask her what she wants," said Lord George; "I will speak to no more ladies tonight." The squire went and did as desired, and came back with a small diamond cross in his hand, saying, "The lady desires to return you this, my lord, but she requests the favour to give it into your own hand." The earl struck the table with his closed hand till every cup jangled, sprung to his feet, overturned the chair, and then leaped over it, and seizing the squire by the throat, he cried, “I would give my earldom, you dog, to have the lady who owns that under my roof." "Hoo-hoo! and so you would?" said Ranald, a servant mentioned formerly; put you need not be kiffing half te mare of tat, for she pe te fery same lady, and I know her goot enough." The earl burst into the hall, and there indeed was his lovely countess, standing in the same green habit and green veil in which he had first beheld her. He first bowed to her and kissed her hand, and then taking her into his arms, he kissed her cheek and chin, and then her cherry lips, as if inhalling the soul of love from them. He was in perfect rapture, and knew not what he was doing, for he forthwith led his queen of the fairies into the festal hall among his new wife's relations, and proclaimed his recovered fair one his betrothed and his own true love, declaring that he would never part with her again till death separated them. The company stared at one another, and believed the earl gone quite mad, and more so when he addressed the great nobleman as follows: "And now, my good lord, take home your daughter, or your niece, or whatever she be, safely with you again. She is none the worse of me, but she shall be the better. I am quite in earnest. Take her home with you, and require what dowery you please with her, even to the half of all I possess." The great earl could scarcely contain himself, but, springing up, he came to the twain and said, "My Lord George, have you really lost your reason, or has the wine deprived you of your true sight, that thus you insist on my taking home my young kinswoman with me, and at the same time stand swearing you will never part with her? That lady, my lord, is your bride, your married wife. Look at the ring you so lately put on her finger." The lady stretched forth her hand, and Lord George mechanically stretched forth his; but his eyes were dazzled, he could distinguish no one thing from another. He could only kneel at her feet, kiss her hands in an agony of joy, while the tears trickled from his eyes. This lady, notwithstanding the mystery that hung over her art, proved a most exemplary wife, and mother of a fine family. There are many other curious stories about her and Jenny Elphingston; but these being quite distinct from this, can be told by themselves at any time. It appears, both from oral and written lore, that Jenny Elphingston and she, when combined, could almost have effected any thing, which all the country weened to have been done by the black art. TO A LADY, WHO ASKED ME TO WRITE FOR HER A POEM OF NINETY TASK a horse beyond his strength, Though you gave me ninety quills, Ninety miles I'd walk for you, Though my thoughts were thick as showers, When you have drunk up the sea, Even the bard who lives on rhyme, Well you know my love is such, Though you frown'd with ninety frowns, Bribed me with twice ninety towns, Offer'd me the starry signs, I could not write ninety lines. Many a deed I've boldly done Long I hope for thee and me Ninety songs the bird will sing, But his life the poet tines, If he aims at ninety lines. Ask me for a thousand pounds, I have ate of every dish- I have drunk of every cup, Since, then, you have used me so, Ninety times a long farewell, H. G. B. A TALE OF ST MARY'S KIRKYARD. By Thomas Tod Stoddart, Author of "The Deathwake." I LOVE lakes,—I love their sunny calm, their storm, and their moonlit heave; they resemble the quiet and the passion of human life. Who that enjoys Scottish scenery, but has spent a day by the green banks of the solitary St Mary's Loch? It is a calm and a melancholy sheet of water, unspotted with a single island, and walled in by mountain scenery of wild outline; but still green, and covered to the hill tops with numerous sheep. On one side is seen an old churchyard, rising half-way up a slope of brown heath. A few head-stones are all that give character to the spot: no tomb or epitaphed marble, but only the grey fragments of some fallen rock, sown over with lichens, and planted at the top of lowly mounds each the sealed entrance to a narrow home. One there is more elevated than the rest; it contains two dwellers, a female and a suicide. Their story is a sad one. Walter Grieve, the only son of a shepherd, was a wild and daring lad, of an open and generous disposition. Welcome at every cottage, he gained the hearts of the old as well as the young. There was always laughter where he went; even the austere Cameronian unbent his features at the mention of some of his happy jokes or wild adventures, embellished only by the native wit of the narrator. For miles round, he was the pride of every body; and when on the Sabbath days, in his new plaid, he crossed over the hill to the church at Ettrick, he was always accompanied by a group of both young and old, to whom, by his happy, but not unappropriate conversation, he relieved the tediousness of their sacred journey. Among such as composed this train, was Mary Scott, the daughter of an aged farmer on the banks of the Meggat, a mile or two above Henderland. She was the flower of the forest. Beautiful in person, and happy in temper, she commanded the admiration of the young, and the esteem of the old. Not a youth about the Cramoult but would have risked his life for the innocent-hearted girl; and none more ready than Walter Grieve. Many a time had he clambered those precipitous rocks that shadow the Grey-mare's Tail, a short way below Loch Skene, for no other purpose than to bring back the brood of the blue falcon to laughing but anxious Mary; and the burn of Winterhope was not seldom travelled to furnish the old farmer and his daughter with a creelful of fine trout. No wonder an early attachment took place. Walter Grieve loved; and Mary, by her avowed preference, signified, in the presence of others, that she was not regardless of his emotion. They would have married, and a happier couple never have been met with; but Mary's father died immediately before the expected crisis of their union. The bridal robes were exchanged for the garment of sorrow; and Walter Grieve laid the head of his parent-in-law in the grave, on the very day that was to have fixed him as Mary's husband. After the funeral, he went back to his weeping bride. A relation of her father's, who dwelt in a distant part of Scotland, was about to remove her to his own family. This was a blow that Walter had forgot to anticipate among the others created by the recent loss. But now he felt it heavily. To be separated for a whole year, till her regret was removed, and time should again sanction the nuptials so sadly disturbed, was nothing. But Mary was going out into the world!-too innocent not to be corrupted, too simple not to be deceived! She would now see many, more embellished with the art of flattery, more captivating to the unsuspicious; though few she would find so honest in their professions, so true in their attachments. Walter would be forgotten,the bold, the sincere Walter: but Mary trusted otherwise; and the vow she made before departure, told how keenly she felt the reproaches of the jealous lover. It was a lovely night, that before which the fatherless girl was to leave her native home. The moon shone through the solitary vale—all along over Meggat stream, and the white sheep fed in her light up among the Glengaber Hills; here and there the wreck of an old treeoutliving the decay of a great forest that had once stretched over the whole country-groaned like a broken harp in the hands of an expiring minstrel, whose wizard ear was palsied by the frost of age, and the current of whose thoughts was barred at its entrance to eternity by the gathering channels of stormy years. Walter and Mary were together for the last time, and they walked down in silence, as if by one common impulse, to a favourite haunt of their younger days. It was the grave of Cochran-a noted marauder, defeated centuries before by one of the Scottish kings. A stone slab, with an elaborate inscription, is all that marks the spot. On this they sate down together. Situated on the top of a considerable eminence, before them lay the loch of St Mary's, silvered over with a magic veil of moonshine, that shadowed away all idea of the depths below; and the Meggat rose up imperceptibly in the opposite direction, appearing at short intervals, as the windings of its channel came to be free from the concealment of the high and lonely embankment. It was here that Walter first broke the sorrowful silence each had hitherto preserved, and he sought a renewal of Mary's first consent, prefacing his earnest demand with a vow of eternal love. "Nay, Walter, ye had spoken of ither things, did ye ken what was uppermaist in my heart; but my puir father-I maun see him nae mair!" "Ye hae lost ae friend, Mary; it was God's will-he aye rules for the best: ye are about to part frae anither." "No, for ever, as I hae dune wi' him; we'll meet again." "Heaven grant it so; but why part, Mary?" Mary burst into a flood of tears. "There's nane here I can stop wi'; it's no' but what they'd mak me welcome, but they're a' strangers in a way, an' my auntie says I maun gang wi' her, an' my puir father had axed her afore." "It's no sin to marry, Mary." "Na, na, dinna speak o't, or ye'll brak my heart; it's no decent, I hae nae a mind to't the noo; gin a year come". "An' ye may hae forgotten Walter Grieve." "Forget! I may forget mysell-I may forget Heaven but ye canna think it-it's no in ye; Oh, Watty, an' ye did ken what I feel." "Gie me your hand, Mary; we'll aye luve, come what may; mony a time will I be here by mysell, and a' yon starns shinin', an' yon moon wi' its bricht and bonny face; an' I'll sit doon on this green stane, an' think o' the lovely Lady Cochran, that hid hersell ahint the waterfa' till the cruel men cam an' stabbed her; an' than o' thee, Mary! wi' thy bonny tresses a' dancin' in the wind" "Whisht, Watty, that's no talk for the like as I am, a puir orphan; let's gang, the cauld dew's no for a fever, an' I've a warm brow an' a sair heart." And Walter kissed Mary's fair cheek, and they went home, Walter to his own hut, and Mary to her lonely house. The day after, she was removed away, far from her native hills, to the bustle of a market town near Glasgow. Walter was now no longer himself. The sheep died on his hands through neglect; he lost every relish for the social amusements of his companions, and kept himself strangely retired from their observation. The cause of this was known to all, and for the time lamented; but still it was thought he took too grievously to heart a misfortune which a few months would remedy, when he would find restored to his own heart the now divided object of its regards. But Walter harboured a strange presentiment-a sort of undefinable dread crept in upon his mind-a vague something distracted his imagination. He fancied himself no longer the object of Mary's affections; he created dreams of rivals that never existed, except in the shadowy vagueness of his ungrounded suspicions. Not far from where Walter lived was the dwelling of one Gilbert Brydon. Of the same occupation in life, they had long been companions together. Gilbert had little attraction to recommend him; unamiable in disposition, of harsh features, and fierce and disagreeable intonation, he secured the secret dislike of all he came in contact with. Nor was Walter unacquainted with his character; though obliged often to be together, he maintained towards him nothing more than a show of friendship there was no reciprocal feeling or similarity of temper. Of late years he had regarded him with marked hostility, on account of some reported insult offered to Mary Scott. She herself had never breathed his name, and her father in his lifetime had forbidden his presence. Gilbert was a man of the worst passions; he saw himself despised, and he brooded over revenge. Now that old Adam Scott was removed, and his daughter placed beyond reach of counteracting his design, he no sooner saw the impression produced by her departure upon Walter Grieve, than he determined, at the cost of every principle, to trifle with affections so sacred in their nature, as those which the latter displayed. Being on a visit to Glasgow, he procured assistance to forge a letter in the name of Mary Scott's relatives, purporting not merely an alienation of her wishes, but her approaching nuptials with a young man of the place where she then resided. This was addressed to Walter Grieve. He received it from the hands of the carrier a day or two after, the very night the nuptials were described as to take place. Being directed from the town where Mary lived, he opened it with breathless anxiety. The dreadful announcement prostrated him upon the ground. When he recovered, it was only to rush up among the hills, he knew not where. That night he was missed at home: his father, an old man, went in search of him, and not for many a weary hour did he gain upon any traces of his heart-stricken son. At length he found him suspended by his plaid upon an old thorn. It was a sad sight for an aged parent to see; he was led helpless from the spot, and a few weeks after was no more. As for Walter, he was removed, cold and lifeless, to a neighbouring hut, and next day buried in the midst of a wild morass-the horror with which the crime of suicide was regarded by the surrounding peasantry, excluding his remains from the common privilege of consecrated ground. This was never told to Mary Scott: she lived on un | altered in her love, and fondly persuaded that all was well. At length the year expired, and custom allowed her the privilege of dispensing with her garments of sorrow. She talked of her union with Walter as an approaching event, little suspecting the fatal inroad made upon her hopes. The day soon arrived for her return to her native home; every new scene brought her nearer to his cottage; that cottage now untenanted-now solitary. When arrived at Henderland, she was met by a shepherd -it was Gilbert Brydon; he started as he saw her, and passed without notice. At the Cramoult, she was received in somewhat a similar manner, by one of the herds—once her father's. "Ye dinna ken me, John ?" "Ay, weel eneugh," was the short reply; which was immediately succeeded by-" An' what brings ye back here, ye ne'er-do-weel, after ye hae broken puir Watty Grieve's heart, and garred him do the awfu' deed?" "The awfu' deed, John!" "Ay! weel ken ye o't. Oh, lassie, ye hae muckle, muckle to answer for, and that besides the death o' Watty Grieve." "Walter Grieve! dead! killed himself!" exclaimed she, falling down upon the hard ground. John Anderson had a warm heart, and he lifted the poor girl into her father's old house, and there she heard the whole story, how Walter had received a letter, accusing her of inconstancy, and how it went to his heart, and how he strangled himself with his own hand, and was buried up by the Birch Craig, in a morass. Poor Mary! her brain was struck with the sad recital, and a long, long fever she had before she rose from her lonely bed. At length her health came back, but not the fair bloom, nor the mirthful heart. She was strangely altered, and never a word did she say to those that were round about her, only she asked to be led to Walter's grave; and they took her up to the lonely spot, and showed her a head-stone they had placed there, and she kissed the green turf, and sang a hymn over it, and they led her away home to her dwelling. A few nights after, she was missed at the humble board. The poor girl had gone all alone to her lover's grave, and she dug up the spot with her own hands-for she could not bear to think of Walter lying in unholy ground-and she lifted the corpse herself, still fresh as when first found, being kept from decay by the nature of the moss where it was buried. It was a strange task for one so fair; and she took from her shoulders her grey mantle, and wrapped it round her dead lover, and all night long carried him in her arms over the dark hills. Few were the stars that shone on her solitary journey; but the wind went by, and lifted the folds of the grey mantle, and shook the purple heaths and the long ferns, and, ere morning came, she was alone at St Mary's Churchyard, bending over the pale corpse; and there was she found, herself as lifeless, with her cheek laid upon his, and her blue eyes shut, and her hair, wet with dew, streaming upon the moss. Both were buried in one grave-under one mound. Gilbert Brydon soon left the country, and was never more heard of. A confession of his fraud was discovered in his own hut-only that many might curse his memory, who had never seen him. I had returned from a visit to the Ettrick Shepherd the last time I entered St Mary's Churchyard : it was an eve of stillness and beauty. Far down was to be seen the Yarrow, haunted with a thousand recollections of Border story, on whose banks were the strongholds of the Douglasses, the Murrays, and the Scots, the towers of Hangingshaw and Newark; and then to my right rose a long stretch of the lonely loch, and beyond it its twin sister of the Lowes and Bodsbeck, and the Moffat hills, and the Eskdale moors, famed as the retreat of the persecuted in the day of the Covenant. I heard the foregoing tale from the lips of an aged shepherd, who was then employed in the melancholy task of digging a grave for another child of mortality. ΤΑ ΣΠΟΡΑΔΗΝ, OR MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES OF ANTIQUITY, APOTHEGMS, tion. By William Tennant. ARCESILAUS, the founder of the Middle Academy, was not only possessed of wealth, but liberal in its distribuThere is recorded one delightful anecdote of his generosity. On learning that Apelles, the celebrated painter, was, in his old age, at once labouring with disease and poverty, he called at his house with a purse of gold in his pocket; and, seating himself at his bedside, "Here," said he, looking round upon the meagre replenishments of the chamber, "here is nothing saving the bare elements of Empedocles,-fire, water, earth, and a roomy expanse of empty ether; my friend, you are not even bedded pleasantly; your very pillow is unsmoothed and merciless to you;" so saying, he shook up his pillow, as if for the purpose of smoothing it for the head of his sick friend; and, in so doing, he secretly slipt in beneath the bolster his concealed purse of gold. After his departure, the attendant old woman discovered the treasure, and, in a state of perplexed admiration, announced it to Apelles. "Ah! it is like him," said the languid painter; "it is one of the thievish tricks of Arcesilaus!" The mirth and turbulent exclamations of joyous congratulation that attended the conclusion of vintage-time, to which allusion is made in several passages of the Old Testament, not only originated the drama in Greece, but gave its name to Tragedy-Tguyadia, or the song of the wine-lees, having been its original name. The praises of Bacchus, who was also addressed by the name of Dithyrambus, were first shouted and sung by the tumultuary assemblage of vintage-men and vintage-women in extemporaneous verses, which, from his name, were called Dithyrambics. Rapturous expressions of joy, humorous rebukes, and bold sallies of wit, seem to have constituted the substance of their tumultuous entertainment. As a representative of this mirthful body, the chorus was formed, containing originally fifty persons: as that number was found by experience to be too large and inconvenient, thirty-five were withdrawn, leaving fifteen, which continued to be the regular number on the Athenian stage. In order to relieve, by some interruption of interlude, the chorus from their fatigue of chanting and reciting, Thespis, a native of Icara, a village in Attica, introduced one actor with a mask; Eschylus introduced a second actor with the scenic palla, or magnificent robe which the Athenian priests afterwards copied from him: he also introduced various masks and dances, which he himself practised and taught. Sophocles, shortly afterwards, brought forward a third actor, and invented scenepainting, which was considered as the apex of improvement, and the complete perfection of the scenic apparatus. that being, as he called it, his best gymnasium—or pleasantest exercise in smallest space. There is a story told of the two philosophers, Menedemus and Asclepades, who, when young men, and students of wisdom under one of the Athenian masters, were enabled to maintain a respectable personal appearance merely by grinding every night at the mill for two drachmæ, or about 1s. 4d. a-night; on hearing which, the Areopagites, in admiration of their frugality and love of wisdom, presented them with an honorary gift of 200 drachmæ.-Mithridates invented and first set up a corn-mill driven by water, in Cappadocia. Thereafter, and probably from this circumstance, the bakers of Cappadocia became celebrated. An interesting particular connected with the Greek and Oriental practice of nocturnal grinding may be quoted from the military history of Julian :-His forces, when besieging some strong place near Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, had wrought a deep mine under the walls and buildings to the very centre of the city, when his soldiers, on digging the earth upwards to the surface, landed after midnight in the middle of a poor woman's house, who was busily employed in the act of grinding corn for flourbread, and who was doubtless not a little astonished at the emersion into her solitary chamber of such subterranean visitants. The submersion of the town of Helice, on the coast of Achaia, about 400 years before the Christian era, is one of the most remarkable and terrific incidents in the geological history of Europe. Helice was a considerable town of Achaia, about a mile and a quarter from the sea, and celebrated for an altar and statue of Neptune, which was regarded with much veneration by the Ionians and the neighbouring people. The Achaians had slain, about six months before, some suppliants that had fled for protection to the altar; and by that atrocity had, according to the ideas then prevalent, excited the indignation of Neptune, who inflicted upon the place a sweeping and summary vengeance. The submersion took place during winter, and in the night time. A violent vibration of the ground preceded it, and must have loosened the subterranean props of the territory; suddenly the whole shore, for a mile or two, on which the town stood, subsided and sunk to a level with the bottom of the bay that adjoined, and the sea, in one accumulated surge, rushed in on the vacancy created, occupying and overwhelming, in a few seconds, the whole city and plain, so that not a house-roof was in the morning visible. Nothing remained to testify the existence of the town which, the night before, had stood in her pride, and unsuspicious of danger, saving the tops of the few lofty trees that surrounded the altar of Neptune. Not an inhabitant escaped; they must have perished in her, huddled together in the streets, from the alarm given by the earthquake, and more probably asleep in their beds, unconscious of the nature of the tremendous catastrophe that befell them. On the next day the Achaians sent 2000 men to gather and drag for the dead. For many years after, the great brazen statue of Neptune was seen under water, holding in his hand the Hippocamp, which proved a dangerous obstacle to the fishermen as they fastened their nets and plied their occupation over the house-tops of the unfortunate city. There happened to be present, on the night of the submersion, Polis, the Lacedemonian ambassador, who had at one time been an instrument in selling Plato from Sicily as a slave; the Divinity thus punishing him, as an ancient writer says, for his persecution of the philosopher. The extraordinary disaster of this place became a tale of melancholy celebrity throughout the whole heathen world, and was commented upon nearly 500 years after by Antoninus, as a striking instance of the uncertainty and total insolidity of life and human enjoyments. Till about fifty years before the commencement of the Christian era, the ancients had no large mills driven by water, but ground their corn in small mills of one stone rolling rapidly over another, which were agitated by the hands of slaves, or women servants; to which reference is made in the New Testament. The morning, before sunrise, was the time allotted, in the domestic arrangements, for grinding flour for the use of the family during the day; and so loud was the sound of the operation within the houses, as to be heard in all the streets of towns and villages; a circumstance which gives beautiful illustration to the expression in Ecclesiastes,-"the sound of the grinding is low." The Grecian women had a song called the Song of the Mill, which they sung when at that employment, beginning, "Grind, mill, grind; even Pittacus, king of great Mitylene, doth grind." For it seems that Pittacus, tyrant, as he was called, of Mitylene, but nevertheless one of their seven wise men, had been In a state of humble simplicity and comparative accustomed to resort for amusement to the grinding-mill, | poverty, nations, like individuals, use short and rather |