The priest against his clerkship stumbled,
And down the stair in concert tumbled.
"Jesu, Jesu, Domine,"

Sung out the priest, "adjuva me!"
With a loud tremulating voice.
On hearing such a thundering noise
The brothers, followed by the rest,
Rush'd to the spot where, sore distressed,
Lay panting clerk and groaning priest.
Both holies gazed on those around them
With looks that spoke a tragic volume.
But not a word could either utter.
The poor clerk fainted clean away,
Part from his fall and sore dismay.

At length restored by spiritual water,
The

sage Priest thus clench'd up the matter:-
"Tis true, my children,"-all here crossed—-
"Your poor departed mother's ghost

In a fierce demon's form I've seen
Glare horribly with writhen mien "—
When just as he these words had spoke,
A brisk and clattering motion broke
On the pale group's astounded ears-
Mute grew the priest with awful fears.
E'er they took thought to hide or flee

Bounced on them Pug, armed cap-à-pie,

Dress'd in the fearful petticoats.

Like statues rooted to their spots,
Muttering within ejaculation,

Each prayed then for his own salvation.
Here the old brother courage took,
And fix'd a scrutinising look

Upon the reckon'd archfiend's face;
His fears to rare surprise gave place.
"Monna Bertuccia!" (Puggy's name)
Shouts he-all look'd, and cried-“The same!"
Prayers were converted suddenly

To laughter loud, and roaring glee
Burst from their heaving sides amain,
Till the roof echoed them again.
Bertuccia, tickled with the fun,
Doffing his serious airs, began
His matchless somersaults to fling,
Despite his awkward covering.
They tried disrobing of our hero,
But he, vindictive as a Nero,

His hook'd claws menaced at their face,
And sat him down, "in pride of place,"
Upon the chair of the deceased,
And shared the remnants of the feast.

LITERARY PURSUITS.

THIS theme, to which we will ever and anon recur, opens up to the eye of the cultivated mind at once so varied, vast, and noble a prospect, that it runs no other risk of being exhausted and becoming stale than in the mind which enters upon it ceasing to be entertained and instructed by that which it was born to appreciate; which delights-if we will only examine inwardly, and bestow some reflective care and pains in the culture of the faculties-we will find of infinite extension and untiring newness. That the human soul has in it, when duly searched and tested, an unlimited capacity for such enjoyments, proves at once, that while such contemplations are calculated to confer the highest pleasure, the pursuit and cultivation of them constitute its strongest claim-apart from revelationto an immortality beyond death and the grave. Of the purely moral and mental pleasures will we speak; those arising out of literary pursuits are of two kinds-the one the Study of Literature, the other in the Composition or Production of it.

The pleasures arising out of the first are induced by the enlargement of our minds-the strengthening and refining of our moral sentiments and the deeper rooting of our affections. The pleasures attendant on the second are the consciousness of serving truth-the glory of the undertaking if we steadily keep in view the good, the noble, the great aim of benefiting our kind-the anticipation of that 'lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, which heaven and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose given labours

advance the good of mankind"-the emotions of that inspiration attendant on the conceptions of genius, the discovery of truth, or the vindication of virtue.

Our subject thus divided, let us dwell for a few moments upon each; and, first, the study of Literature. Now, what are all the various bodies of Literature, History, Poetry, Science and Philosophy, but an enshrinement of the souls of the great departed? They are but books, say some. True, but what are books? Hear Milton : "Books contain a progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a phial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. A good work is a precious life-blood of a master-spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life-they are the seasoned life of man-the ethereal breath of reason itself." Experience is better than all the books in the world, say others. But what are the books of the majority of our greatest writers, but collections and embodiments of experience ?—the knowledge which the buffets of experience had imparted to them, they had the wisdom and the humane ambition to bequeath in an agreeable and impressive form to posterity. Minds of an inherent, inborn energy and aptness have been, as it were, planted like leaven in the hearts of nations, and have, in every age downwards to the present time, been gradually leavening the universal heart of man.

Let us picture to ourselves the pleasures of one who has a taste for literary pursuits-one who feels that his soul is truly the noblest part of him-that its pleasures and desires, in comparison with the body's, are as infinitely more acute and elevating as the immortal duration of the one compared with the mortal span of the other one whom reason and experience has taught that the faculties of the mind are of a gradual and improvable growth, that, totally dissimilar to our bodily powers, which soon take on their full form and strengthiest completion, the mental faculties move on from study to study-from the searching out and embracing of one truth to another-from the meditation of one system of things to another from the contemplation of one science to the consideration of another, with an eagerness, an energy, and a pleasure, unimpaired and undecaying; rising in the meanwhile from each succeeding effort, mightier in ability, and nearer to that transcendent felicity which awaits the disembodied soul. Let us picture to ourselves a man with these impressions, and what are his pleasures? He studies the best histories of men and nations, and feeds his mind with the great examples of courage, heroism, devotion, and fortitude therein recorded. He studies the poets, and elevates his mind to a greater and more heroical conception of all these virtues; he studies the great leading truths, or it may be the demonstration of the sciences, and soars, under the guidance of Newton or Herschel, to a knowledge of the universe with all its phenomena; he studies the philosophy of the human mind and the nature of things, and his own mind becomes magnified and expanded in the light of reason.

Who

shall sum up or give expression to the pleasures of such a mind?— a mind which we must conclude never loses sight of the end of all study, which, as it has been finely and eloquently expressed by Sir James Mackintosh, is to inspire the love of truth, of wisdom, and of beauty, especially of goodness, the highest beauty, and of that Supreme and Eternal Mind, which is the fountain of all truth and beauty, all wisdom and goodness.

National Lyrics.

THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA.

Ho, Czar of all the Russias!
There's knocking at thy gate-
Thy proud Tower of Sebastopol
Nods to its coming fate;

When Gallia leagues with Britain, tremble thou!
A voice is on the gale,

That will shake and will break,

Amid your empire's wail,

Your haught and cruel heart, whose dark schemes
Make all the Nations wail.

Brave France and bold Britannia,
As one dread power, have come
To sweep o'er the Crimean shore
And strike the Tyrant home;

The double Eagle frighten from its prey,
Or drench in blood its wing;

In their might for the right,
When the Spoiler makes his spring-

When the might for the right feeble grows,
And the Robber makes his spring.

The Russ shields Alma's heights

With eighty thousand men;

The French and English mock their beards
With numbers three to ten-

See! Arnaud to the right wheels his lines,
While Raglan bides his time:-

Hark! the cheer-the dash-the crash!
"Tis the British Charge sublime,

Through carnage, wounds, and death, to the heights!—
They are won-by the Charge sublime.

In vain the Russ stems Gallia

Vain meets them ten to one,

On, through their broken ranks they sweep,
In gory triumph on!

Nor halt till Britain's host they have join'd:-
Then, with a warrior's pride,

Each swore that no more

Would they swerve from other's side;

And they closer drew the bond that day seal'd,
Ne'er to swerve from other's side.

C

Ho, Czar of all the Russias!
There's knocking at thy gate-
Thy proud Tower of Sebastopol
Nods to its coming fate;

When Gallia leagues with Britain, tremble thou!
A voice is on the gale,

That will shake and will break,

Amid your empire's wail,

Your haught and cruel heart, whose dark schemes Make all the Nations wail.

THE BATTLE OF BALAKLAVA.

SING, Muse, of Balaklava's fight,

Where, chief o'er deeds of matchless might

That crowned the British Arms that day,

OLD CALEDONIA bore away

The wreath of glory; honour'd most

For daring deed by all the host,

And o'er her sons and Chieftain true

The halo of the battle drew.

Then fill with me a brimming cup,
And lift on high the sign,

And pledge the gallant NINETY-THIRD,
That form'd the thin red line,
The dauntless thin red line,
The conquering thin red line!

SIR COLIN Saw the Russian Horse
Come, ten to one, the pass to force,
And dareful placed, to meet the shock,
His line of living mountain rock—
A thin, thin line-two deep-no more!
But well he knew the storm and roar
Of that proud sea of Russian crests
Would back recoil before their breasts.
Then fill with me a brimming cup,
And lift on high the sign,

And pledge the NOBLE SOUL that dared
To form the thin red line,

The dauntless thin red line,

The conquering thin red line!

Nor be forgot the fallen few

Who died unto the TARTAN true,
And proudly fell on conquer'd earth-
An honour to their land and hearth.
Britannia mourns her heroes' fall,
Showers battle trophies on their pall;
For Victory this the price-she sighs-
In Victory's arms they died, she cries.

Then pledge in silence memory's cup,
And mingle with the wine
A tear for the departed dead

Who form'd the thin red line,
The dauntless thin red line,
The conquering thin red line!