the general good reception which he enjoyed every where. In fact, a jest of Andrew Gemmell's, cially at the expense of a person of consequence, flew round the circle which he frequented, as surely as the bon-mot of a man of established character for wit glides through the fashionable world. Many of his good things are held in remembrance, but are generally too local and personal to be introduced here. Andrew had a character peculiar to himself among his tribe, for aught I ever heard. He was ready and willing to play at cards or dice with any one who desired such amusement. This was more in the character of the Irish itinerant gambler, called in the country a carrow, than of the Scottish beggar. But the late 'Rev. Doctor Robert Douglass, minister of Galashiels, assured the author, that the last time he saw Andrew Gemmells, he was engaged in a game at brag with a gentlemau of fortune, distinction, and birth. To preserve the due gradations of rank, the party was made at an open window of the château, the laird sitting on his chair in the inside, the beggar on a stool in the yard; and they played on the window-sill. The stake was a considerable parcel of silver. The author expressing some surprise, Dr. Douglass observed, that the laird was no doubt a humourist or original; but that many decent persons in those times would, like him, have thought there was nothing extraordinary in passing an hour, either in card-playing or conversation, with Andrew Gemmells. This singular mendicant had generally, or was supposed to have, as much money about his person as would have been thought the value of his life among modern foot-pads. On one occasion, a country gentleman, generally esteemed a very narrow man, happening to meet Andrew, expressed great regret that he had no silver in his pocket, or he would have given sixpence : -" I

can give you change for a note, laird," replied Andrew. Like most who have arisen to the head of their profession, the modern degradation which mendicity has undergone was often the subject of Andrew's lamentations. As a trade, he said, it was forty pounds a-year worse since he had first practised it. On another occasion he observed, begging was in modern times scarcely the profession of a gentleman, and that if he had twenty sons he would not easily be induced to breed one of them up in his own line. When or where this laudator temporis acti closed his wanderings, the author never heard with certainty; but most probably, as Burns says.

66

he died a cadger-powny's death
At some dike side."

The author may add another picture of the same kind as Edie Ochiltree and Andrew Gemmells; considering these illustrations as a sort of gallery, open to the reception of any thing which may elucidate former manners, or amuse the reader. The author's contemporaries at the university of Edinburgh will probably remember the thin, wasted form of a venerable old Bedesman, who stood by the Potter-row port, now demolished, and, without speaking a syllable, gently inclined his head, and offered his hat, but with the least possible degree of urgency, towards each individual who passed. This man gained, by silence and the extenuated and wasted appearance of a palmer from a remote country, the same tribute which was yielded to Andrew Gemmell's sarcastic humour and stately deporment. He was understood to be able to maintain a son a student in the theological classes of the University, at the gate of which the father was a mendicant. The young man was modest and inclined to learning, so that a student of the same age, and whose parents were rather of the lower order, moved by seeing him excluded from the society of other scholars when the secret of his birth was suspected, endeavoured to console him by offering him some occasional civilities. The old mendicant was grateful for this attention to his son; and one day, as the friendly student passed, he stooped forward more than usual, as if to intercept his passage. The scholar drew out a halfpenny, which he concluded was the beggar's object, when he was surprised to receive his thanks for the kindness he had shewn to Jemmie, and at the same time a cordial invitation to dine with them next Saturday, " on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes," adding, "ye'll put on your clean sark, as I have company." The student was strongly tempted to accept this hospitable proposal, as many in his place would probably have done; but as the mo. tive might have been capable of misrepresentation, he thought it most prudent, considering the character and circumstances of the old man, to decline the invitation. Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity, designed to throw light on a novel in which a character of that description plays a prominent part. We conclude that we have vindicated Edie Ochiltree's right to the importance assigned him; and have shewn, that we have known one beggar take a hand at cards with a person of distinction, and another give dinner parties. I know not if it be worth while to observe, that the Antiquary was not so well received on its first appearance as either of its predecessors; though in course of time it rose to equal, and with some readers, superior popularity.

New Introduction to the Antiquary.

Varieties.

SUPERSTITION.

Voltaire says, that superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: the very foolish daughter of a very wise mother

ANCIENT JOKE.

One rogue brought a lawsuit against another, which was heard before Phillip of Macedon. His judgment is admired by Plutarch both for its wit and its justice. It was, "That the defendant should fly from Macedon, and the plaintiff should follow!"

Poet's Corner.

HOW KISSING CAME IN FASHION.
My Cora dear, you wished to hear
How kissing came in fashion :
I said I knew, and 'twould not đồ

To balk your expectation.-
You know we're told, it chanced of old
That Adam's early life,
Was wholly spent in discontent,

1

For why? he had no wife. And so in sleep while lying deep, And full of care already, That from his chest a rib was prest, And of it formed a lady. Now when a child, I often smiled, And smile e'en now I own, To think a dame so well formed came From such a crooked bone. I know there are some ladies fair, (Come, frown not, I don't fib,) Though round the waist with corsets laced,

:

As crooked as a rib. When Eve appear'd, how Adam stared! He cried, how can it be, A form so bright as meets my sight, Was ever made from me? That beauteous face, those limbs of grace, Do all unearthly seem: Is what I see, bone, flesh of me?

No, no, I'm in a dream."

He rubb'd his eyes; to his surprise,
The vision still was there;
And still amazed, he eager gazed
Upon a thing so fair.

She turn'd her head; her lips so red
Then sudden met his eye;
"Is that my flesh, so sweetly fresh!
Egad," said he, " I'll try."
And thence, my dear, it doth appear
That kissing came in fashion;
I said I knew and 'twould not do
To balk your expectation.

ARIO.

Published by J. ROBINS, Bride Court, Fleet Street, where all communications (post paid) are requested to be addressed; and sold by J. DUNCOMBE, 19, Little Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; SHERWOOD AND CO. Paternoster Row; SUTHERLAND, Edinburgh; MAC PHUN, Glasgow; and all Booksellers and Newsmen.

lody on this romantic spot, where his last breath departed in plaintive melody.

It is a fact, however, that no regular account of the life of Saint Kevin, or particular description of the spot has, to the knowledge of the writer, been as yet penned in prose. In detached and brief articles from old Irish books, and from the poetry of Moore and Edwards, the beloved bards of Erin, but more particularly through the information obtained from an Irish clergyman, of the Roman Catholic priesthood, a scholar and a gentleman, and from a lady of high intellectual character, who had visited the spot, the writer has procured, and will lay before her readers, the following story. It will be found that she has given the reins to imagination; this, it is to be hoped, will be pardoned, as it is her wish to afford all the amusement in her power to her readers.

The meaning of the word Glendalough, signifies in the Irish language, the valley of two lakes. This valley is situated in the county of Wicklow, about twenty miles from the city of Dublin, and was an "Episcopal See till the year 1214, when it was annexed to the diocese of Christ Church, Dublin, soon after which it fell into decay, and became almost a desert." Here, the poet and painter can contemplate with delight, the bold and rugged cliff, and the lofty height of the mountains reflected in the still and dark bosom of the gloomy lakes. The antiquarian can feast his eyes, and speculate in the fields of learning and imagination, while examining these venerable and singular relics of ancient times. On this spot is a round tower said to be one hundred and ten feet in height, and about fifty-two in circumference; also the ruins of seven chapels, which latter are contiguous to each other, and present a feature of intense interest and solemnity. The most singular

and interesting of all the traditions handed down to us, though imperfect, and which has been the subject of many a fireside reverie to the writer, is the following.

Saint Kevin, a native of Wicklow, was born A.D. 498, and from childhood, as it were, was intuitively of a pious disposition, nature having designed him for no ordinary purpose. His parents being themselves religious people, encouraged this propensity. Accordingly, when he reached the years of manhood, he embraced a monastic life, and leaving friends and home, secluded himself among the romantic but gloomy wilds of Lake Glendalough and the Kippure Mountains, in whose vicinity he founded an abbey; and, if we may be permitted to believe tradition, he was as near perfection as it is possible for fallible man to

reach.

Saint Kevin, unfortunately for himself and others, was possesed of an uncommon share of personal attraction. His was the kind of beauty which steals imperceptibly on the heart, but its progress being slow, it fixes itself there never again to depart. His was moral beauty, for the attributes of his amiable character were strongly impressed on his finely formed face and features, and gave ave to his countenance a charm that fascinated every beholder, and was doomed to be the bane of the beautiful blue-eyed Kathleen O'Donnell, "the fair-haired, white-bosomed" maid of Clohoge, so called from the verdant hill where stood her parents' cabin. She was their only child, and because it was her pleasure to do so, they permitted her to ramble through the woods of her native valley, and, seeing that she was happy, they allowed her to be absent day after day, unquestioned and alone; in the season of flowers she amused herself by gathering the Saxifraga Umbrosa, or what is more commonly called "London Pride," a beautiful variegated flower, and this, intermingled with the blossom of the Arbutus, or wild strawberrytree, peculiar to these regions, were, by her, woven into chaptlets, and placed, when he was absent from it, in the cell of the good Saint Kevin; for the fair Kathleen had attended

the prayers and sermons of the holy man, and gathered the sweets of nature in the neighbourhood of his cell, at the seven chapels, till she had fallen most desperately, most incurably in love with the handsome preacher. She, whose ear was deaf to the entreaties of many lovers, and whose heart was enshrined in cold ness and indifference, at length found it animated towards one whose life was devoted to celibacy and his God, a circumstance of which she was perfectly aware, and yet went daily to listen to the language of inspiration that flowed from his sacred lips. It is both strange and true, that she inhaled from them and from his eyes, deep and copious, and intoxicating draughts, but she thought it not a dangerous passion; and why? because the infatuated maiden ascribed her feelings to a religious sentiment, and though she did not proclaim her love on the house-top, as is the fashion of the present day, she nourished it secretly till it became a cureless wound. She was too chaste, too modest to tell how much she loved, but

"Let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Prey upon her damask cheek."

Her mind was misled; she thought it no sin to love the holy man; who was, in her opinion, to be adored in the next degree to her Creator. She

felt that

"His words were divine, and his image was dear."

She therefore saw no impropriety in haunting his footsteps from morning till night, and from day to day, little dreaming that she was following an ignis fatuus, that would lead her eventually to destruction.

The good Saint Kevin at length observed that Kathleen followed him incessantly; he saw that she looked paler, and more unhappy than formerly, and resolved to question her on the subject. Accordingly he one day accosted her thus: "Young maiden, what ails thee? art thou troubled in spirit?-what is it that heaves thy throbbing bosom. with such heavy sighs?"

girl.

Nothing," replied the weeping

"Kathleen," said the young priest, darest thou utter a falsehood to me?-is there any load upon thy heart that cannot be relieved by wholesome confession?" Kathleen wept the more. "What hast thou done to merit so much misery?"

"Nothing," continued she, kneeling at his feet.

"Alas! I fear thou hast committed some horrible crime, that thy tongue has not courage to utter; speak, wretched maiden, and I will pray for thee. Rely on the atonement of Him who died for us. Say what it is that thus overwhelms thy spirits, and I will give thee absolution."

Kathleen's tears flowed plente. ously, but drying them, she made an effort to speak. "Is it a crime to love?" said she.

"No, my child," replied the wondering saint, "if the object of thy affection be one who is worthy of thy regard."

" Then I shall be forgiven," replied she, again weeping, "for the object of my fond, unbroken dream of affection is good, wise, great, and glorious."

"This, Kathleen," said the holy father, " is a picture, a phantasm of the brain; thou hast not drawn it from nature."

The reader can better imagine than can be described, the horror of Saint Kevin when she exclaimed, with streaming eyes and clasped hauds, "Alas! no, I have his