they follow a will-o'-the-wisp, and think one lucky move may carry them safe over the mire, and so they go on till they are smothered in it. CHAPTER XXI. "The book is completed And closed like the day, -Longfellow. WHETHER it was the crisp and pleasant frost that succeeded the fog, or the return of his kind and genial friends, or the knowledge that he was gaining ground, that helped the abbé onward, or whether these all combined to do it, is of less importance than was the fact itself, that he made rapid and steady progress. By the time that Anthony King's claim upon Callowfields was made good, and it was known that Miss King was reduced to poverty, he felt able to go to work again; and there was a glimmer of hope that twinkled in his eye, and lurked in his smile, that he might bring back at least a part of his lost independence. He had issued notes to many of his old pupils, and had called on some, and fixed on the following Monday for his first lessons. Grateful as he was to Kezia, and much as he missed her for she had left Mrs. Higgins's for some little time past, as his health grew confirmed-it rather cheered him to return to his old ways; and the "fry-pan" and a few other interdicted articles found their way back to their old home in the cupboard. "I can't think how you get on without Miss Millet," said Cordell to him as they sat at tea; "why didn't you marry her, abbé, and make sure of her?" "Marry!" exclaimed the abbé; "marry Mees Millet? Oh! have you not heard what vilain accent she have? Pah!" and he shrugged up his shoulders; "could you live always wid dat accent, Monsieur Fireplace?" "Well, I don't know that I've any right to be so particular," said Cordell, laughing; "but you might have taught her." "Oh! I have try, I have try," said the abbé, quite seriously; "but she have no ear. She is good, oh, so good! She has cure me in my illness, she has come at my bad pinch, she has make my stocking," putting out his foot; "she has try to make me good man; oh, she is so good! but-have you hear her speaken French?" "No, but, judging by her English, it must be remarkably fine," said Cordell, laughing. "Ah!" said the abbé, with a grimace that showed it was no laughing matter with him, "if you have hear her say 'munshoo' you should know." But what had become of Kezia? Directly she heard the astounding intelligence that the King property had vanished, she went straight to claim cousinship once more with the despoiled heiress. How truly delicate is Christian kindness! You would have thought, to see her manner at their first meeting, that she was now indeed the humble dependent, and Miss King still the great lady, and that she had for the first time found out how to behave in their relative positions. that she literally possessed nothing, for the house she lived in, with its furniture, was all that remained of the vast riches left to her by her father. As the light of truth broke in upon her, and she saw her strangely altered position, she became a prey by turns to stupifying grief and violent paroxysms of anger; and never had Kezia held so unenviable a post as that she had voluntarily sought, yet she went steadily on. "You know, Mr. King," she remarked, "I have my own means, and can afford it; and if I can be any comfort to my poor cousin till you are established at Callowfields, and can take her to live with you, why I shall only be discharging my duty, and however onerious it may be, I shall be able to bear it.” But Anthony King was no farmer; he preferred putting Callowfields into the hands of those who understood its management. He took a small house not very far from the abbé, where he endeavoured by a kindness ill-deserved to make his aunt forget her altered circumstances. At his urgent entreaty. Kezia continued in her post of housekeeper, and vied with him in the work of soothing and consoling. But the more they comforted, the more uncomfortable did Miss King become; she had all the real enjoyments of life as much as formerly, though with less parade, her nephew's liberality and Kezia's skill abundantly providing that she should never personally feel her reverses; yet she became daily more irritable and peevish, and less sensible of their selfsacrifice. "She gets worse and worse," said Kezia one day to Anthony, almost out of heart. "Her gods are gone! we must not be surprised," was his reply. "Ah! that was money and Mr. Case," said Kezia; "I am not so surprised at money, it is a common thing to see people worship that; but let it be between us, Mr. Anthony, I could as soon have made a god of a cat or a cucumber, like the ancient Egyptians, as of her Phoenix, poor Mr. Case-not that I would show disrespect to the dead." She sank at last almost into a state of imbecility, which was so far a relief to Kezia that it gave her many an opportunity of reciting the poems from her green book, which she honestly believed soothed, if they did not edify, the restless invalid. It also gave her much more time for reading, of which she was really fond, and which, as she assured Anthony, brought back many a flagrant memory of the pleasures of her youth. She often saw the abbé, as he had a welcome from Anthony King at all times, and he found it a very agreeable change from his lodging-since Cordell Firebrace had again left England-to spend an evening in the cheerful chit-chat or heart-comforting conversation of that hospitable fireside. "I wish Monsieur Fireplace had stay in dis country," the abbé often said. "Is it not strange ting? I love my country, I live here (but it is ver good country!); and Monsieur Fireplace live in France, and his heart live in England!" "Man proposes, God disposes," said Anthony; "that's the way to account for such puzzles." Ah, I am glad I have learn to know dat in dis country," said the abbé, with a reverential gesture It was a long time before Miss King could take in all the facts which so greatly affected her. It re-expressive of gratitude and submission. quired much telling, much convincing, much going over the same ground, to make her comprehend that she had been the dupe of a fictitious friendship, and It did indeed seem strange that Cordell, whose prejudices were so strong, should have been induced to overcome them, but he had displayed such extra ordinary activity, keenness, aptitude for business, and industry in the pursuit of his friend's affairs, as to attract the attention of a distant relative with whom he had before had little communication. From him he received an offer of partnership in his business, provided he would work in it, and a promise that he should become his heir. It was less the allurement of riches than of regular occupation that induced Cordell to accept the offer. He was already independent, but he had tasted the sweets of industry, and contrasting them with the idle life he had previously led, he felt their value. He often visited England, and never without seeing the abbé, and bringing with him substantial proofs of his regard, and he invariably asked if Miss Millet had improved in her accent. Every time Cordell came he found the abbé more cheery and more grateful, till at last the old man met him with the joyful greeting, "Ah, Monsieur Fireplace, I am soon get back my two tousand, and go to see my poor sister and broder. I have such kind friends, and de bank has mend a little and pay me back some money; but I have de Friend above all friends," he added, laying his hand upon his heart. "If I had not lose my two tousand pound, I do not know if I could have say so ever; it was ver good for me to be afflicted." There are moments when happiness as well as grief is too great for utterance; and when the abbé, having prepared for his departure, came to take leave of Anthony and Kezia, he could not, except by looks, express his emotions. He was accompanied by Fisher, whom Cordell had well provided for, feeling that he owed him some. return for the involuntary service he had rendered him, and for the anxiety he had been made to endure by means of it. He had procured for him a lucrative post in the house with which he was now connected, having placed him under the abbé as a pupil till he was quite qualified for its duties. "You won't forget us," said Kezia, as she gave the abbé her parting token of regard, some of her favourite poems copied into a book like her own. "Forget! aha!" exclaimed the abbé. "Give me good word to part wid, Monsieur Antoine," he added, turning to Anthony. "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies," said Anthony, wringing his hand. "It is ver hard to go away," said the abbé, “but we shall meet again.' "In that good country, old friend, where all tribes, people, and nations shall speak one tongue," said Anthony. When Miss King's death relieved Anthony from that drain on his purse, he no longer scrupled to marry, and most harmonious was the spirit that reigned between his chosen wife and his cousin Kezia. In fact, a happier old age than that which lay before the latter could hardly be conceived. Her delight, as years went on, was to preside as superintendent in the nursery, and when her pupils had advanced beyond nursery teaching, they clung to her still for nursery lore, in which she made herself, for their benefit, a great proficient. Many "a piece" out of the green book did she teach them, and many a tale would she tell, always vigorously, and with earnest regard to the moral. Her choicest stories were about the poor old abbé, whom she remembered with true affection. Anthony King, who had begun life with a feeble constitution, inherited from his mother, and which his equable spirit had gone far to strengthen, whose want of suspicion, arising from his own honesty of purpose, made Mr. Caleb Case, and those like him, call him a fool, went through life, after his instalment at Callowfields, happily and prosperously. While he carefully procured for his children the advantage that he had wanted in his youth, he steadily kept before them the truth that a believed Bible, believed in the heart as well as in the head, is the only sure foundation of happiness. "Men, indeed," he would say, "who are ignorant of this, who even condemn and despise it, grow rich and great, richer and greater than many who live for another and a better world; but the end, my children, think of the end; remember there is surely coming a time to every child of earth when heart and flesh must fail, and they only are happy who in that day can say, 'The Lord is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.'' And I have sought in mine own earthly rhyme Listening that sweet and awful spheric roll: THE PUNS AND PUNNING. BY JOHN TIMBS. II. HEODORE HOOK was admirable in what he terms "the very plums in the pudding of conversation"-punning-which he treats in this mock profound manner: "A punster (that is, a regular, hard-hitting, thickand-thin punster) sits gaping for an opportunity to jingle his nonsense with whatever happens to be going on; and catching up some detached bit of a rational conversation, perverts its sense to his favourite sound, so that instead of anything like a continuous intellectual intercourse, which one might hope to enjoy in pleasant society, one is perpetually interrupted by his absurd distortions and unseasonable ribaldry. "Admitting, however, the viciousness, the felonious trickery of punning, which, says the patriot, is like the air, if we have it not, we cannot breathe: therefore, seeing that if we have it not, we cannot breathe therefore, seeing that it is quite impossible to put down punning, the next best thing we can do is to regulate it. "The proverb says 'wits jump,' so may punsters. We propose, in order to save time and trouble, to enumerate a few puns, which, for the better regulation of jesting, are positively prohibited in all decent societies where punning is practised; and first, since the great (indeed, the only) merit of a pun is its undoubted originality, its unequivocal novelty, its extemporaneous construction and instantaneous explosion, all puns by recurrence, all puns by repetition, and all puns by anticipation are prohibited. "In the next place, all the following travelling Puns are strictly prohibited :--All allusions, upon entering a town, to the pound and the stocks; knowing a man by his gait, and not by his style; calling a tall turnpike-keeper a colossus of roads; paying a postboy's charges of ways and means; seeing no sign of an inn; talking of a hedger having a stake in the bank; all allusion to sun and air to a newly-married couple; all stuff about village-belles; calling a belfry a court of a peal; saying, upon two carpenters putting up a paling that they are very peaceable men to be fencing in a field; all trash about 'manors make the man,' in the shooting season; and all stuff about trees, after this fashion: That's a pop'lar tree;' 'I'll turn over a new leaf, and make my bough,' etc. "Puns upon field-sports, such as racing being a matter of course; a good shot being fond of his butt and barrel; or, saying that a man deserves a rod for taking up such a line; if he is sitting under a bridge, calling him an arch fellow, or supposing him a nobleman because he takes his place among the piers, or that he will catch nothing but cold and no fish by hook or by crook. All these are prohibited. resemble each other wonderfully; they are as alike as two peas." "They are," retorted Hook, "and quite as green." Sometimes, Theodore Hook was strangely puzzled by hard names in his improvisations, as in the case of a Mr. Rosenagen, a young Dane; but he mastered the difficulty as follows: "Yet more of my Muse is required, I'll Rosen agen and go on." When Theodore Hook was on his way home from the Mauritius, to be tried for his treasury irregu larities, the ship stopped a day or two at St. Helena, where he encountered Lord Charles Somerset on his way to assume the governorship of the Cape. Lord Charles, who had met him in London occasionally, and knew nothing of his arrest, said, "I hope you are not going home for your health, Mr. Hook." "Why," said Theodore, "I am sorry to say they think there's something wrong in the chest.” In Theodore Hook's garden, a friend, viewing Putney Bridge, observed that he had been informed that it was a very good investment; and, turning to his host, inquired if such was the case, if the bridge really answered. "I don't know," said Hook; but you have only to cross it, and you are sure to be toded." Hook's favourite resort for fishing was Ditton, which he has thus commemorated:— "Give me a punt, a rod, and a line, A snug arm-chair to sit on, Some well-iced drink, and weather fine, And let me fish at Ditton." The Rev. Mr. Barham, of the "Ingoldsby Legends," "To talk of yellow pickles, and say the way to an attached friend of Theodore Hook, called upon Turn'em Green is through Hammersmith; all allusions him one day in Cleveland Row. Haynes Bayley was to eating men, for Eton men, Staines on the table- there at lunch. Hook introduced him: Barham, cloth, Eggham, &c., are exploded; or, saying to a lady-Mr. Bayley; there are several of the name; this who asks you to help her to the wing of a chicken, is not Old Bailey, with whom you may one day that it is only a matter of a pinion; all quibbles become intimate, but the gentleman whom we call about dressing hare and eating it; or, upon helping Butterfly Bayley" (in allusion to his song, "I'd be yourself, to say you have a platonic affection for a Butterfly," then in the height of its popularity). roast beef; or, when fried fish runs short, singing to "A misnomer, Hook," replied Barham, "Mr. Bayley the mistress of the house, with Tom Mooreis not yet out of the grub!" "Here comes Mr. Winter, collector of taxes, I'd advise you to pay him whatever he axes; Though Winter his name is, his process is summery.” Two silly brothers, twins, were very much about town in Hook's time, and they took every pains by dressing alike to deceive their friends as to their identity. A companion was expatiating upon theso modern Dromios, at which Hook grew impatient. "Well," said his friend, "you will admit that they James Smith's bachelorship is thus attested in his niece's album: "Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die, Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses! Is annexed to my name Is derived from Rejected Addresses." Bloomsbury (the house was taken down when the When John Kemble lived in Great Russell Street, western wing of the British Museum was built), he had one of his windows made double, so as to keep out the noise. Upon this James Smith wrote: "Rheumatic pains make Kemble halt, Nay, fretting in amazement, At Gore House, Kensington, Smith wrote this punning flattery to the Countess of Blessington: "Mild Wilberforce, by all belov'd, Once own'd this hallow'd spot; Yet here still slavery attacks Whom Blessington invites ; The chains from which he freed the Blacks, The moderation of Smith's character was most apparent on the usually exciting subject of politics. He professed, it is believed, Conservative opinions; but, on no occasion, could he be betrayed into anything like a positive declaration in company. "My political opinions," he once said, are those of the lady who sits next to me; and, as the fair sex are generally perplexed, like monarchs, with the fear of change, I constantly find myself Conservative." "Mr. Smith, you look like a Conservative," said a young man across the table, thinking to pay him a compliment. "Certainly, sir," was the prompt reply; "my crutches remind me that I am no member of the movement party." Hood's early punning propensity was shown in the "Lion's Head" of the London Magazine, wherein one writer is informed that his "Night" is too long, for the moon rises twice in it. The "Essay on Agricultural Distress would only increase it." The "Tears of Sensibility had better be dropped." "B is surely humming." The "Echo will not answer. Whilst it is suggested the "Sonnet to the Sun must have been written for a Lark." 6 offend no one, were never more gracefully brought together. This reminds me of another story. It is worth putting down. A lady once said to me, Southey made a poem for me, and you shall hear it. I was, I believe, about three years old, and used to say, I are. He took me on his knee, fondled me, and would not let me go till I had learned and repeated these lines: "A cow's daughter is called a calf, And a sheep's child a lamb. But should always say I am." Now a dunce or a common man would not throw off, even for children, such graceful levities. I repeated this poem to Southey. He laughed and said, 'When my children were infants, I used to make such things daily. There have been hundreds such forgotten."" Swift's fondness for puns is well known. Perhaps the application of the line of Virgil to the lady who threw down with her mantua a Cremona fiddle, is the best ever made: "Mantua, væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremone!' To an elderly gentleman who had lost his spectacles, the dean said: "If this rain continues all night, you will certainly recover them in the morning betimes: "Nocte pluit tota-redeunt spectacula mane." Here is a legitimate wit. A man of distinction, not remarkable for regularity in his private concerns, "Better known than trusted," was the dean's translation, chose for his motto, Eques haud male notus. when some one related the circumstance. Swift had an odd humour of making extempore proverbs. Observing that a gentleman in whose garden he walked with some friends seemed to have no intention to request them to eat any of the fruit, Swift observed, "It was a saying of my dear grandmother, 'Always pull a peach When it is within your reach ;"" In the "Dream of Eugene Aram," he makes the and helping himself accordingly, his example was murderer say of himself, and victim "A dozen times I groaned; the dead What exquisite fancy and feeling are there in this. apology to one whose birthday was in November : "I have brought no roses, sweetest, I could find no flowers, dear: It was when all sweets were over Crabb Robinson writes thus pleasantly of Southey in 1841-"Instead of telling you of him (Southey) in his sad condition, I will copy a pleasant jeu d'esprit by him when pressed to write something in an album. There were on one side of the paper several names; the precise individuals I do not know. One was Dan O'Connell. Southey wrote on the other side to this effect (I cannot answer for the precise words):— 'Birds of a feather Flock together, Vide the opposite page; But do not thence gather That I'm of like feather With all the brave birds in this cage,' etc. Surely good-humour and gentle satire, which can followed by the whole company. At another time he framed an "old saying and true," for the benefit of a person who had fallen from his horse into the mire: "The more dirt The less hurt." The man rose much consoled. - He threw some very useful rules into rhyming adages. Sheridan quotes two. One was a direction to those who ride together through the water:"When through the water you do ride, Keep very close, or very wide." Another related to the decanting of wine :"First rack slow, and then rack quick, Then rack slow till you come to the thick." Porson made several visits to the British Museum to read and consider the block of black marble known as the Rosetta stone, whence he got the sobriquet of "Judge Blackstone." Porson would often relate, with shameless humour, that he went to call on one of the judges, with whom he was intimate, when a gentleman, who did not know Porson, was waiting impatiently for the barber. The Professor, who was negligently dressed, and had besides a patch of brown paper soaked in vinegar on | "When Dido found Eneas would not come, She mourned in silence, and was Di-do-dum." Horace Walpole observes: "A good pun is not amiss. Let me tell you one I met with in some book the other day. The Earl of Leicester, that unworthy favourite of Elizabeth, was forming a park about Cornbury, thinking to enclose it with posts and rails. As he was one day calculating the expense, a gentleman stood by, and told the earl he did not go the cheapest way to work. 'Why?' said my lord. Because,' replied the gentleman, if your lordship will find posts, the country will find railings.' "Morrow's Library " is the Mudie's of Dublin, and the Rev. Mr. Day was a popular preacher. "How inconsistent," said Archbishop Whately, "is the piety of certain ladies here! They go to Day for a sermon, and to Morrow for a novel!" Lord Erskine often disported himself with boyish glee in punning. He fired off a double-barrel when encountering his friend, Mr. Maylem, at Ramsgate. The latter observed that his physician had ordered him not to bathe. "Oh, then," said Erskine, "you are Malum prohibitum." "My wife, however," re joined the other, "does bathe." "Oh, then," said Erskine, perfectly delighted, "she is Malum in se." Doctor Barton was a punster. He said, "The fellows of my college wished to have an organ in the chapel, but I put a stop to it." Whether for the sake of the pun, or because he disliked music, is uncertain. He invited, for the love of punning, Mr. Crowe and Mr. Rooke to dine with him; and having given Mr. Birdmore, another guest, a hint to be rather after the time, on his appearing, said, "Mr. Rooke! Mr. Crowe! I beg leave to introduce one Bird more!" To him, though it has been attributed to others, belongs the glory or the shame of having said to one who, having re-established his health by a diet of milk and eggs, took a wife: "So, you have been egged on to matrimony. I hope the yoke will sit easy on you." Lever never tired of telling. Mrs. Grote, the wife of There was one pun of Sydney Smith's that Charles the distinguished historian, appeared once at a soirée with a queer sort of turban on her accomplished head. "Look at that," said Sydney; "that's the origin of the word grotesque." once observed: "The only acquaintance I have made Sydney Smith, in a letter to Mr. Howard, of Corby, sensible man, with great amenity of disposition." at Taunton is that of the clerk of the parish, a very said, "On what subject?" "Oh, any subject-the Daniel Purcell, asked to make a pun impromptu, king." "Oh, but the king is no subject,” was Daniel's prompt reply. Sir Richard Steele said there must be something in the air that made Irishmen make so many bulls, and thought that if an Englishman were born there he would do the same. is exhausted. The subject is inexhaustible, but my allotted space THE LAND OF THE GIANT CITIES. BY THE REV. W. WRIGHT, B.A., DAMASCUS. VIII. WE complete our exploration of Melah es Sarrar of April. From one of the towers of Melah we in a spirit of high-wrought enthusiasm. We find it an irregular square, surrounded by high walls, partly in ruins, and great towers in the walls, in some places grouped two and two, and over sixty feet high. They resemble the towers of Palmyra, but contain no loculi for bodies. Five of these high towers are in a good state of preservation, three more in a tolerable state, and there are foundations of several others in different quarters. The ruins are wonderfully crushed together, "battered by the shocks of doom." Some of the ruins have very lofty doors, and there are a number of very high arches standing among the ruins, the object of which it is difficult to conjecture. On many of the lintels we see Greek crosses, and we copy eight Greek inscriptions, one of them dedicated to Dusares, a deity much worshipped in Bashan. The town stands in the midst of a large cultivated plain, which, when looked at horizontally, seems one flat of grey stones, but when you ride through it you find that all the stones are loose, and that the soil among them is all cultivated. Owing to the altitude of the plain, they were still ploughing and sowing a little on the 11th count fourteen other ruins in sight, and most of them inhabited. On the top of a hill due east stands a very conspicuous ruin, Deir en Nasara, the convent of the Christians, which is said, I hope truly, to be the last ruin in that direction. A large number of Druzes, and some Christians, burrow among is Husein Abu Muhammed, a son of Nejm, Sheikh the ruins of Melah es Sarrâr. Their sheikh of Ormân. Husein is not so big as his father, but resembles him very much, and is exceedingly handsome and gentlemanly. From him we learn for the first time that the ruin was visited three years previously. We conjecture rightly that it must have been by the indefatigable Waddington; but we are very much chagrined that we cannot have even this little corner beyond the bounds of civilisation for begins to fade from colossal tower and massive ruin, our own quiet exploration. Immediately the glory and we put the whole thing down as late Romanin fact, Byzantine. And rightly too, for one of the |