after a moment's reflection, she said, 'Per-added sharply, "But you were following me haps.'

"This perhaps, so dear to philosophers, encouraged Gringoire. Do you know what friendship is?' he asked. "Yes,' answered the gipsy; it is to being the table with his knife. The girl like brother and sister-two souls meeting smiled, and seemed as if she had been lookwithout mingling-two fingers on the same ing at something through the wall. All at hand.' [Poetical.] once she began to sing, in a voice scarcely audible:

“That man whom you call the duke of his ear. It was the only speech that he un-in it here and there; the stone dogs, griffons, Egypt is the chief of your tribe ?' derstood, the only sound that broke to him the universal silence. His soul dilated in it, "It was he, however, that married us,' like a bird in the sunshine. All at once he observed the poet timidly.

Yes.'

would catch the frenzy of the bell; and then | "She made that pretty little habitual gri-his look became extraordinary; he would mace of hers-'I don't know so much as your name.'

wait the next coming of the vast mass of
metal, as the spider waits for the fly, [rather

"My name?-If you wish to know it, it a low simile, but let it pass,] and then throw is this-Pierre Gringoire.'

"I know a finer one,' said she. "Naughty girl!' rejoined the poet. matter-you shall not provoke me. Nay, you will perhaps love me when you know me better.""

himself headlong upon it. Now, suspended over the abyss, borne to and fro by the for'Nomidable swinging of the bell, he seized the brazen monster by the ears, griped it between his knees, spurred it with both his heels, and redoubled, with the whole shock and weight of his body, the fury of the peal. Meanwhile, the tower trembled, while he shouted and ground his teeth, his red hair bristling up, his breath heaving like the blast of a forge, and his eye flaming, while his monstrous steed was neighing and palpitating under him. Then it was no longer either the great bell of Notre-Dame, or Quasimodo the ringer; it was a dream, a whirl, a tempest; dizziness astride upon clamour, a strange centaur, half man, half bell,-a sort of horrible Astolpho, carried along upon a prodigious hippogriff of living bronze. [This is sublimity itself.]

The reader we suppose has had enough of this. At the same time we are bound to say that we think it perfection, butit is the perfection of silliness. Now for the perfection of bombast. Quasimodo, the poor deformed bell-riuger, had fifteen bells, of which the biggest was his favourite. Upon this subject thus discourseth the gen

tleman who abuses Scott.

"It is not easy to give an idea of his delight on those days on which they rang in full peal. The moment the archdeacon had set him off with the word 'Go!' he ascended the spiral staircase of the steeple quicker than any other person would have descended "The presence of this extraordinary being it. He rushed, all breathless, into the aerial breathed, as it were, a breath of life through chamber of the large Marie; he gazed upon the whole cathedral. There seemed to esher for a moment intently and fondly: then cape from him, so at least said the exaggehe addressed her softly; patted her with his rating superstitions of the multitude, a hand, like a good horse setting out on a mysterious emanation, which animated all long journey; expressing sorrow for the the stones of Notre-Dame, and heaved the trouble he was going to give her. After these deep bosom of the ancient church. To know first caresses, he called out to his assistants, that he was there, was enough to make you placed in the lower story of the tower, to be- think you saw life and motion in the thougin. The latter then hung their weight at sand statues of the galleries and doorways. the ropes; the capstan creaked, and the The old cathedral did indeed seem a creature enormous round of metal swung slowly. docile and obedient to his hand: she waited Quasimodo, panting, followed it with his his will to lift up her loud voice; she was eye. The first stroke of the clapper against filled and possessed with Quasimodo as with the brazen wall that encircled it shook the a familiar spirit. One would have said that wood-work upon which he stood. Quasi- he made the immense building breathe. He modo vibrated with the bell. Vah! he was to be seen all over it: he multiplied would cry, with a burst of insensate laugh-himself upon every point of the structure. ter. Meanwhile, the motion of the bell be- Sometimes you beheld with dread, at the very came quicker and as it went on, taking a top of one of the towers, a fantastic dwarfish wider and wider sweep, Quasimodo's eye, in looking figure, climbing, twisting, crawling like manner, opened wider and wider, and about, descending outside over the abyss, became more and more phosphoric and fla-leaping from projection to projection, and ming. At length the great peal commenced, then thrusting his arm into the throat of the whole tower trembled; wood, lead, stone, all shook together, from the piles of the foundation to the trifoliations at the summit. [This is terrific.] Quasimodo was now in a boiling perspiration, running to and fro, and shaking, with the tower, from head to foot. The bell, now in full and furious swing, presented alternately to each wall of the tower its brazen throat, from whence escaped that tempest breath which was audible at four leagues distance. Quasimodo placed himself before this gaping throat, squatted down and rose up again at each return of the bell, inhaled that furious breath, looked by turns down upon the Place, which was swarming with people, two hundred feet below him, and upon the enormous brazen tongue which came, second after second, and bellowed in

and the rest, that watch day and night, with outstretched neck and open jaws, around the monstrous cathedral, were heard to bark. And, if it was a Christmas night, while the great bell, that seemed to rattle in its throat, was calling the faithful to the blazing midnight mass, for there was such an air spread over the gloomy front, that the great doorway seemed to be devouring the multitude, while the round window above it was looking down upon them; and all this came from Quasimodo. Egypt would have taken him for the god of this temple, the middle ages believed him to be its demon; he was in fact its soul."

This is better than any thing in Chrononotonthologos. But, after all this thunder, we must have something soothing. Here is the very thing we want,—a dissertation on a little shoe.

"We doubt whether there be anything in the world more gladdening to the heart of a mother than the ideas awakened by the sight of her infant's little shoe; above all, when it is the holiday, the Sunday, the christening shoe-the shoe embroidered to the very sole, a shoe in which the child has not yet takeu one step. That shoe, so tiny, has such a charm in it-'tis so impossible for it to walk

-that it is to the mother as if she saw her child. She smiles at it, she kisses it, she talks to it-she asks herself, can it really be that there's a foot so small ?"

One remarkable fact is recorded at page 190 of the second volume.

1482, the Annunciation fell on Tuesday, the "It happened that in the year of our Lord,

25th of March."

That the festival of the Annunciation

should fall on Tuesday is not much; but it is worth setting down that "it happened" to fall on the 25th of March, seeing that it so happens every year.

One more touch of bombast, and we must give over.

"Oh, these are the true pincers heated at the fires of hell! Oh! blessed is he that is sawn asunder between two boards, or torn to pieces by four horses! Knowst thou what that torture is, endured through long nights, from boiling arteries, a breaking heart, a bursting head, and teeth-gnawed handssome sculptured gorgon ;-it was Quasimodo fell tormentors which are unceasingly turning pulling the crows from their nests. Some-you, as on a burning gridiron, over a thought times, in a dark corner of the church, you of love, jealousy, and despair!-Young girl, would stumble against a sort of living chi-mercy!-A truce for a moment!-A few mera, squatting and dogged-looking-it was ashes on this living coal!-Wipe away, I Quasimodo musing. Sometimes you espied, conjure thee, the perspiration that streams upon one of the steeples, an enormous head, in large drops from my brow!" and a parcel of deranged limbs, swinging fu- And it is in this tone of exaggeration and riously at the end of a rope,-it was Quasi-horror that a large portion of the book is modo ringing the vesper-bell or the Angelus. written. Upon every convenient occasion Often, at night, a hideous form was seen the parties grind their teeth, and tear their wandering upon the light delicate balustrade hair, and claw their flesh, and bite, and which crowns the towers, and borders the scratch, and kick, and roll, and tumble, in top of the chancel,-it was the hunchback of the drollest manner imaginable. There is Notre-Dame. Then, the good women of the no falling off in the catastrophe. The gipsy neighbourhood would say, something fantas-girl, after divers ineffectual attempts, is at tic, supernatural, horrible, was to be seen in last hanged in good earnest. The priest is the whole church, eyes and mouths opened thrown from the top of the cathedral; and,

after bounding about among the slopes and gutters like a cricket-ball, alights on the roof of a house, from which he rolls to the ground, and is forthwith smashed to jelly. The bell ringer disappears; the author, or his translator, writes a short chapter, joking upon the whole matter, and the book comes to an end.

As the work will probably find its way into public libraries, we are bound to mention that it is one which no female can read, except the young ladies who take the evening air in

Fleet-street.

We ought to apologize for wasting so much space on so worthless a production; but, as the book came forward with such monstrous pretensions, we were desirous of shewing our readers what sort of work it was which was to put to shame the admirers

of Scott.

The Prospects of the Nation in regard to its National Gallery; including a Reply to Mr. Wilkins the Architect, as to the intended Buildings. By Charles Purser, London: 1833.

of Regent-street, we may be justified in con- would be annually realized by the letting on cluding that one of the immediate conse- building leases of the valuable ground at quences of the street which is now to connect Charing Cross, would far more than defray the north and south divisions of the metro- the charge of its establishment. But, in polis, will be the union of its eastern and order to reduce this annual charge, as far as western extremities, by the junction of Ox- | may be consistent with true economy, and at ford-street with High-street, Bloomsbury, in the same time to consult the best interests a straight line, instead of by the present cir- of art, as well as the wishes of the public, cuitous route. When these magnificent im- the galleries of painting and sculpture might provements are effected, our National Gallery be opened on alternate days of the week, by will be found in the very nucleus of the me- which means not only would the public have tropolis." access every day to one or other of these If Mr. Nash's splendid design for a new splendid national collections, but artists, or street from Charing Cross to the British that portion of the public who resort thither Museum were carried into effect, the latter for professional study, would every day be would be approachable even from the Admi-enabled to pursue their labours in one or the ralty. If this involves the sacrifice of too other of these galleries, free from interrup many interests, there is another plan, to tion and annoyance. Let it not be forgotten, which we think no rational objection could likewise, that the same establishment serving be taken. Open a street from the top of St. all the purposes of both departments, would, Martin's-lane to St. Giles's church. The line with the exception of one, or perhaps two is nearly prepared for it, and the few houses superior officers, need no addition to that which would be destroyed are among the which is already required for the proper conmost worthless in London. An opening on duct and safe custody of the British Museum. the other side of High-street into Great Were, I say, such an arrangement as this to Russell-street would have the additional ad- | be effected, so far from there existing a nevantage of breaking up one of the worst cessity for any further application to ParliaMR. PURSER objects to Mr. Wilkins's plan neighbourhoods in the metropolis-a nur- ment for an extension of its grant, a consifor a National Gallery, as do all the rest of sery of physical and moral pollution. A derable surplus would remain in the hands of the world, except Lord Duncannon and Mr. communication would thus be opened be- government, and that too, after having comWilkins himself. The discussion of this tween the houses of parliament, courts of pleted one of the grandest assemblages of the business seems to be very exciting. Mr. law, government offices, etc. and that great works of nature and of human genius that Wilkins got remarkably warm when he told legal and commercial colony settled upon the the world produces." Mr. Jerdan to "hold his tongue and eat his Bedford and Foundling estates. The propudding," and Mr. Purser is not very cool.perty destroyed is almost valueless, the beAs to the locality of the proposed gallery, we incline to agree with the latter gentleman. "But why should we seek a new habitation, when we already possess one combining all the objects of which we are in pursuit; and that, too, in a more eminent degree than could be obtained in any other locality But, to return to Mr. Purser. He shews, whatever ? Why should our National Gal- | (and in our times this is a very important lery of Pictures be separated from our Na-point,) that his plan is the most economical | tional Gallery of Sculpture? and why should that can be devised. In truth, on the score our Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, of expense, we do not see how, in the present and Architecture, be refused an association circumstances of the country, any other is with the most valuable emporium of the arts practicable. which the country possesses-the British Museum."

pp. 76.

Architect.
Cochrane and M'Crone.

Although Mr. Croker did not know where Russell-square was, we dare say the public would find their way to the gallery, even though it were placed in so obscure a neighbourhood. But why should it be obscure? Mr. Purser shews that, in this respect, it is both improvable and improving.

،، Instead of deteriorating any public structure, we should improve the Museum by completing it; while every circumstance would seem to combine as well to its preseut benefit as to its future grandeur. A splendid street at this moment in progress from Waterloo bridge (one of the most stupendous constructions of art and science which this or any other age has produced,) up to the very foot of the British museum, will remove all those objections which some might be inclined to make to the obscurity of the neighbourhood. From the extensive improvements that have followed the formation

nefit would be immense. We hope that our
career of improvement will not end with the
completion of Regent-street. We have heard
nothing lately of the projected improvements
in Westminster, but we trust they are not
forgotten.

Davenant; or the Escape. An Historical Tale. London: 1833. Whittaker and Co. THIS is an agreeable tale, somewhat in the style of De Foe. It contains a sketch of the adventures of an officer, who served at the battle of Culloden; after which he becomes involved in certain disagreeable circumstances, which occasion him to fly to the West Indies. The author states that he has traversed most of the ground that he describes: his scenes in the West Indies will offend neither of the parties who are now so fiercely fighting the slavery question, as they are laid at a period previous to its discussion. The following

، One of the most important results, how - | account of a planter's misfortunes, is, we fear, ever, of the plan now proposed for uniting not singular either with regard to the impruthe National Gallery with the British Museum, dence in which they began, or the villany would be the saving of enormous expense to by which they were completed. the public, and this not only in its immediate "One evening, when Mr. Noble and foundation, but in the annual cost of its fu- Davenant were sitting alone, something in ture establishment. The estimate which has conversation touched a chord of the planter's been submitted to Parliament, however in- | wounded feelings. He began speaking of adequate it may prove for the completion of a himself, and related his history to our hero, building, which, after all, holds out but | as follows. slender hopes of satisfying the public, or be- "You see me, Mr. Davenant,' said the nefitting posterity, is ample for the present planter, 'in a comparatively humble situcommencement of a structure on a scale of ation; but it was not always so, for I was the utmost magnificence and lasting grandeur, once in the possession of an ample fortune, if built according to the principles already and had as fine an estate as any man in suggested for its future exterior, and on Jamaica; but some imprudence on my own which plan only can we hope, under present part, together with great folly and villany ou circumstances, to erect a National Gallery the part of others, reduced me from affluence permanently worthy of the country. The to poverty. I was educated in England, and grounds of the British Museum, the property then returned to my native country; shortly of the public, possess ample space for the after which my father died, and left me amply accomplishment of this important object in provided for; I now resolved to marry, but, our National Gallery, while the sum which instead of choosing a wife from among the

Creole ladies, who are remarkable for their sweetness of disposition and domestic virtues, I must needs go to England to search for one, and meeting with a fine dashing girl at a ball, whom I had for a partner, I called upon her next morning, became deeply enamoured, and, continuing my addresses, brought things to a conclusion in a very few weeks. We were married, and I soon after brought her out with me to Jamaica, though I noticed au evident reluctance to quit the sphere of fashion and extravagance in which she had moved...

"For awhile, however, my wife was very well pleased with the West Indies; the novelties amused her, and the attentions of people pleased her, and the deference shewn to a woman of her taste and elegance gratified her vanity; but after a while these things ceased to give satisfaction; she complained incessantly of the seclusion, monotony, and insipidity of West Indian life, and gave me no rest till I consented to return to England, and take up my residence in it.

"When storms arise, friends fly from grief, And leave us like the autumn leaf:"

vagancies, and even went beyond them in
endeavouring to surpass her rival. Again I
remonstrated, and again she resorted to tears, for, from the list of subscribers, we count
and promised amendment; but, alas! her
no less than 384 copies already disposed of;
protestations were not followed by any change these, at a guinea each, (and such is the
of conduct: she would not see her rival price of the book,) would, we are bound to say,
triumph, let what would happen; so that furnish a tolerable handsome remuneration
at length my affairs became so desperate, that for six times the merit it can fairly lay claim
I repaired to a West India House, to which
to. The manner too in which it is got up,
I was in the habit of consigning my produce, is, when we look at the charge, shabby to a
and mortgaged my property for about a quar-degree: the very worst possible paper, a
ter of its value; but, being unable to pay the most indifferent type, its covering flimsy,
first year's interest when it became due, the and its stitching insecure. Any monthly
partners of this house (who owed all their magazine, at half-a-crown, is elegant in com-
prosperity to the friendship and exertions of parison. Neither the paper, type, or cover of
my father) took advantage of my distress, a book, are of much importance, if the con-
and got an order of chancery to foreclose the tents be sterling; it is only when they are
mortgage. They then wrote out to their trifling and unimportant, we think twice
agent in Jamaica, desiring him to put my upon the subject, and then feel it extremely
property up for sale, and, directed by them, unsatisfactory that a purchase should be
he managed the thing so cleverly that he neither useful nor ornamental.
easily outbid the few who were apprised of
the sale, and my beautiful and valuable plan-
tation was knocked down to his rascally em-
ployers at about one-eighth of its value; and
thus did these wretches actually buy it with
my own money !'

"You start, Mr. Davenant, at the relation of this foul instance of knavery,' continued Noble; but it is not at all uncommon; numbers have lost their estates in the same way. The money obtained by the sale of my patrimony was nearly all spent, when my wife died of a rapid consumption, brought on

"But the unkindest cut of all" is, that the novelty which we had a right to look for in every page is found only in a few. The book is chiefly made up of by-gone farces and contributions to fashionable periodicals. For instance, "Perfection, or the Lady of Munster;" and "The Proof of the Pudding," a burletta, performed at the Olympic; these alone occupy nearly an hundred pages. Also, "My Great Grandmother's Harpsichord," "Lunatic Lays," and other "Light Articles," which have long since had their day. We do not think this exactly right; the subscriptions were not taken for the publication of the works of Mr. Hayues Bayly, but for a work he was about to pro.

duce.

And now, having said all that we have to say in the unwelcome vein, we will do that justice to Mr. Bayly which he deserves. Without being absolutely a poet, he has something of poetry in him; some ingredients, wanting which, no man could ever be a perfect master of the divine art, yet which, alone, can never make more than a pleasing, and sometimes felicitous versifier. He has a fine perception of those apparently trifling chords which yet vibrate forcibly on our best feelings; and he not unfrequently touches them with much effect. He displays soul and feeling in his happiest efforts; but no more: we miss the imagination and energy of thought that belong to one born to be more than the insect of a summer.

"Accordingly, with a heavy heart I yielded to her request, and, taking leave 'of all our dear friends, we went on board ship, and on our arrival in England, hastened to London, and took an excellent house at the court end of the town. My wife was now perfectly happy, and blessing herself that she had come home safe, after being in the land of fevers and barbarism, as she termed it: she launched at once into a system of extravagance, "Enough to bear a royal merchant down,' by a succession of colds, which she caught by frequent exposures to cold night-air and which finally terminated in my ruin. during a winter of dissipation. Her failings She had long panted to cut a dash amongst had bern many, but my affection for her had her fashionable friends in England, and almost blinded me to them all; and now deeming my fortune to be equal to any ex- that she was gone, I was inconsolable for her penditure, she set no bounds to her waste loss. After her interment I threw up my and prodigality. My house was always kept establishment, took leave of my friends, and open, and peace and happiness were com- returned to Jamaica, bringing with me a fine pletely banished from it; every comfort in little boy, my only child; but he died soon life was sacrificed at the shrine of fashion; after my arrival; and thus was I left alone card-parties, routes, balls, masquerades, and in the world. I continued to reside at other entertainments, followed each other in Kingston, upon the wreck of my fortune, and, one continual round, and were attended with on the return of Mr. Raymond, I applied to such enormous expense, that I at length re-him for employment as an overseer, when monstrated with my wife upon the subject, he kindly gave me the management of this assuring her that my fortune was wholly in-plantation."" adequate to support it. She heard me with surprise, for (like many other people) she considered that being a West India planter, my riches must necessarily be inexhaustible, and it was some time before I could convince Before we conclude, we will give a specimen, her that the continuance of such a style of THE musings of a man of but mediocre that we think will justify us in the observaliving as the present must, at no very distant genius are not likely to be instructive or evention we have made. "The Neglected period, end in my ruin. She now dropt tears entertaining to any great extent: his pro- Child," would perhaps best serve our purpose; of bitter regret and sorrow at being thus ar- sings are pretty sure to be dull. If our but it has been printed, and reprinted, alrested in her splendid career, and made readers agree with us thus far, they will ready, as it deserves to be. We therefore promises of amendment; which she might expect but little from the work we are prefer the following. possibly have kept, but, unfortunately, just about to notice. We do not wish to be unat this crisis our late common friend, Mr. necessarily severe on the contents of this Raymond, who had just come over from volume of Mr. Bayly's, for it is obviously got They have seen better days,' you say, Jamaica, took up his residence in our neigh-up less with a view to increase his reputation bourhood, whose lady, as you know, is one as a writer, than to meet those worldly of the same character as mine was; and my losses to which we are all subject, and which, wife seeing the dashing style in which Mrs. unfortunately, he has not escaped. Raymond lived, and resolving that her own author may, however, congratulate himself husband should not be thought less wealthy on finding in his own person an exception than Mrs. Raymond's, continued her extra- to the rule, which says that

Musings and Prosings. By Thomas Haynes
Bayly. F. Birlé, 36, Rue des Pipots,
Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The

"THEY HAVE SEEN BETTER DAYS."

Oh tell me when and where;
Give me the clue to steal away
The memory of their care:
There is deep feeling in the tone
Of that most touching phrase;
And sympathy has tears for one
Who has seen better days.

And though of past days oft they speak,
Scarce call them better days.

Have they endur'd neglect or wrong,
And known diminished wealth?
Light evils; if to them belong

Love, competence, and health:
They who hang hopeless o'er the couch
When beauty's bloom decays,
May feel despairing thoughts approach,
And weep for better days."

fore us.

how, if got there, it could be taken away, the residences of the planters, and with yet I knew that many had disappeared; and negro houses in abundance. Diego Martin it was not till I had left St. Vincent, and is, however, far inferior to the valley of resided in Trinidad, that I learnt the inge- Marraval: a beautiful and most crystal nuity of the thief. I was then told by B.'s stream runs through it-a most agreeable fellow-servant, that he had a way of putting neighbourhood in a tropical climate. Groves of fruit trees laden with their treasures, and forest trees, of noble growth, cover all the banks and ridges; while the elegant cocoanut branches waving in the light breeze, like gigantic ostrich feathers, and shewing at times, underneath, their silvery tint, contrast finely with the darker foliage around, and with the deep sky of a tropical climate.

a string round the bottle when in the cellar
without my seeing, and he put the end of
the string through the window-bars; and
when I was gone, he drew it to the bars,
and placing the neck through the bars, he
drew the cork, poured out the wine, and
then breaking the bottle, carried away the
fragments.

"I found Marraval not only cool, but absolutely cold-so completely were the sun's rays excluded from it. But it was a damp unpleasant cold; there was a sensation of chilliness induced that made you feel, not only that the sun's rays were then absent from the valley, but that the sun had never

"B. could pack pretty well and I emThere is much simplicity and beauty in ployed him the day before I left St. Vincent these lines; and it is right to say that they in packing a case of liquor, and so very cledo not stand quite alone in the volume be-ver was he in his mode of deceit, that, alWe have mentioned one fact though I stood by the whole time till the box was packed and the lid nailed on, after which concerning it, and we hope it will ensure it was deposited where he had no access to the countenance of the many, as it assuredly blunts the edge of criticism with the it, yet, when this case was opened, the bot-shone there. tles were found all empty, and they were not the bottles I had given him to put in; for those I gave were French bottles, and the ones he put in were English: now he must have contrived, while wrapping the straw round each bottle, to place an empty English bottle instead of a French full one."

few.

Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the West Indies. By Mrs. Carmichael, Five Years a Resident in St. Vincent and Trinidad. 2 vols. 8vo. Lon

don : 1833. Whittaker, Treacher, and Co.

[Fourth Notice.]

We thought that we had taken our leave of this work, but there are one or two extracts with which we are anxious to gratify our readers. They will be of a more miscellaneous nature than our former ones, which were intended to present, as far as our limits permitted, Mrs. Carmichael's report of the relative situations of planter and slave.

stances:

These must be clever fellows. What would they not be worth in England? But thieves are not the only nuisance of the West Indies, nor perhaps the worst. The myriads of reptiles which contend with man for the mastery, are still worse than they.

I should doubt, with all its beauty, whether Marraval would be a desira ble place to live in. Vegetation is here gigantic. This too was my first introduction to a real grove of noble orange-trees. The oranges were hanging on the boughs, as thickly clustering as any apples I have ever seen. They were of a pale pea-green; and my first impulse was to pull down a bough of the tree to help myself, but little did I wot who were the inmates of that tree. Before almost I was conscious of touching an orange,

was covered from head to foot with chasseur ants. There was but one remedy: Mrs. Warner called one of the men servants, who wood; and I was obliged to submit to rather tore hastily some switches from the brusha rough scourging. I was shockingly stung ; their assaults all the way home. The ant is and, moreover, many of the insects continued black, and about the fourth of an inch long.”’

When these impudent reptiles go so far as

black ants are among the soonest to make "Of the many novelties of Triuidad, the themselves known, and among the least agreeable of acquaintances. It was but the first night of our arrival that, as Mr. C. was Various opinions have been maintained as to stepping into bed, he was attacked by an inthe extent of negro intellect. According to numerable host of these small black ants: this lady, they occasionally display extraor- and, in the course of a few minutes, he was dinary genius, of which the following are in-covered from head to foot. Upon examining to take possession of a house, and eject the the bed, it was full of them-the floor and owners without any process of law, it is walls of the house were completely covered; rather a serious matter: we wonder they do and, in a state of desperation from their not make an act of parliament against it. stings, Mr. C. was obliged to leave the cham-Some of these ants, however, are useful in ber to the enemy, and fly, undressed, to their way, and clear the premises of other insome rooms erected at a short distance from truders; but, like policemen, they are perwhere Mr. W. was sleeping. Here it was sons of consequence, and must not be internot until after a fierce and long encounter fered with in the performance of their duty. that the enemy was forced to retreat for that They will not indeed break your head with night. a truncheon, but will pierce your body with innumerable darts.

66

room

Negro methods of theft defy the most watchful eye. I never went to my storethat I did not miss some article or other, yet it was not once in twenty cases that I could discover the thief. I was certain as to missing bottles of Madeira at different times; and, though I watched as minutely as I could, yet I never saw one of them removed. The cellar had a double door, with a very strong lock on each door; the windows were secured across with wooden rails; none of these were ever broken or displaced; and, as they were old, had they been removed and put in again, it could not have escaped notice. I tried to put a bottle of wine through these bars, but could not succeed; yet it so happened, that, returning quickly to the cellar one day after I had left it, I found a bottle of wine, with the neck of it sticking through the bars, and Bhastily retreating from the spot when he saw me. When I pointed it out to him, he said, 'Misses, that be very strange, it must be Jumbee do so.' At that time I could not comprehend or discover how B. or anybody else had got the bottle to the window, or

"These ants are small, and in colour very black: their bite is attended with consider-1 able irritation. Besides this small ant, there is a larger kind, still more unceremonious and more formidable as visitors. The large ants think nothing of taking forcible possession of a whole house, and fairly driving out its inmates.

"One morning my attention was arrested at Laurel Hill by an unusual number of black birds, whose appearance was foreign to me; they were smaller, but not unlike an English crow; and were perched on a calibash-tree near the kitchen. I asked D., who at that moment came up from the garden, what "On my first arrival in Trinidad, before could be the cause of the appearance of so settling on the estate, I took advantage of many of those black birds? She said, the interval to see something of the country, "Misses, dem be a sign of the blessing of and had soon explored most of the charming God; dey are not de blessing, but only de valleys that lie within the reach of an excur- sign, as we say, of God's blessing. Misses, sion from Port of Spain. The valley of you'll see afore noou-time how the ants Diego Martin is exceedingly beautiful, and will come and clear the houses.' At this within an easy drive of the town. It is moment I was called to breakfast; and, thinkthroughout well cultivated, and studded with ing it was some superstious idea of D.'s, I