and eighty pounds per annum; what have you, Sir, to set against that? I insist upon it you do not vote for that bill."

"But I have pledged myself in a speech," said Sittingbourn.

"Then, Sir, I wish you would not speak so much," said Clerk, "like the parrot, you might perhaps think the more; or, like our last excellent representative, who never spoke at all, think as much as he did. You must not vote for it, Sir, that's all

"Lieutenant Dobbins, Sir," said the servant, announcing a thin meagre man, buttoned up to the chin in a blue surtout-shirt invisible. "Mr. Dobbins, your servant," said Sittingbourn. "Yours, Sir," said the Lieutenant. bours; perhaps we are here on the same errand.”

"Ah! some friends and neigh

"These gentlemen," said the Member, "are come to complain of me.” "Then, Sir," said the Lieutenant, "we are all agreed; and as we are all of the same party, and the same club, I have no scruple in speaking out at once, for I am in a hurry; we military men are punctual, and I have another appointment; in fact, Mr. Sittingbourn, I perceive that you voted for the reduction of the army."

"I did, Sir," said Sittingbourn, " and conscientiously too; I think our military force is too considerable for the peaceable times in which we live."

"That's all very fine, Mr. Sittingbourn," said the Lieutenant, “and no man in the kingdom is more anxious for reduction in the public expenditure than myself; but of all the things to touch, the army, Sir, is the last. I have been for many years on half-pay-I have no chance of getting upon full-pay if the least reduction takes place-if things remain as they are, it is possible; but the idea of blighting the prospects of a man who so strenuously supported you—

"Sir," said Sittingbourn, "I was speaking on a great national question-I spoke in generals

"Yes, Sir," said Dobbins, " and forgot the lieutenants; but that won't do."

"All I know is," said Sittingbourn," that amongst the most vehement advocates for reduction-amongst the most ardent denouncers of extravagant expenditure-you were the foremost, and I—”

"That's all very right, Sir," said Dobbins ; "I feel that I am an oppressed man-I have had beardless boys put over my head-the system is a corrupt one and a base one-but reduction, Sir-I-››

"Mr. Cowl, Sir," said the servant, ushering in a portly person, known to be the most opulent maltster in the borough. Without deigning to recognise the other visitors of the Honourable Member, he began at once to disburden himself of his peculiar grievance.

"So, Sir," said he, " you voted against the repeal of the malt-taxthat's a pretty go-how came that about?"

"Why, Sir," said Sittingbourn, "as you ask me so plainly, I will answer as candidly. I went determined to oppose the tax and support the repeal; but after hearing Sir Robert Peel's explanation, I confess I could not, in justice and honour, do otherwise than vote for its con

tinuation."

"That's a pretty go," said Cowl; "you are a nice man to send to the House of Commons, with your Peel and your repeal; all I can say is,

that you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sir, and I am worth fifty thousand pounds, and neither ashamed nor afraid to tell you so."

"I cannot see why I should be ashamed of acting conscientiously," said Sittingbourn.

"Didn't you pledge yourself to vote against it?"

"I did," said Sittingbourn; "but I was convinced by argument." Argument," ," said Cowl, " fiddlededee for argument; I didn't give you my vote, Sir, to be argued out of your promise.'

"I saw no injury done to the people by the tax," said Sittingbourn;

"I saw

<< Saw,"
," said Cowl; "I don't care what you saw.

Who cares for

the people? I have heard you say it would not have made a penny a pot difference in beer to the people, as you call them, but it would have made more than five or six shillings in the bushel to me; and who are the people, I should like to know, if it is not the maltsters?"

"I think, Mr. Cowl," said a very respectable old gentleman who had entered the apartment unobserved by the orator, and had heard the greater part of his speech; "I think, Sir, the people-that is to saythe people most to be consulted in a mercantile county, are the large proprietors of canal shares."

"Mr. Lock," said Sittingbourn, are you here too-and to complain ?"

"Indeed I am, Sir," said Lock; "here, Sir-here is your name voting in a majority for the Rattledumslap Rail-road; the success of which will just rob me of four thousand six hundred a-year-supersedes the whole line of the Towtwaddle Canal of which I hold at this moment two-thirds of the shares."

"That is nothing to me, Mr. Lock," exclaimed a gruff voice from the ante-room-for the electors crowded in so fast that Sittingbourn's servant had neither power to check, nor time to announce them-" Nothing, Sir-nothing.

"How so, Mr. Jarvis ?" said Lock, evidently displeased on being interrupted.

-I am

"Why, Sir," said the new complainant, "you are a rich mana poor one-your kinal did us a precious sight of harm of itself, and that ought never to have been suffered; but, as you say, the rail-road, which will take passengers as well as luggage, will be the ruin on me. Yes, Mr. Sittingbourn, if that Rattledumslap Bill is passed, no vote of mine do you ever have again; I'a horsed that road now nigh upon thirty years I bore up against the kinal-but for the rail-road

t

"I give you my word," said Sittingbourn, "I was not aware that the rail-road would interfere with your interests; or, to tell you the truth, that it would come near your line. It struck me as a great national work worthy of support.'

"National work!" said Lock-" It is mighty agreeable to hear you putting what you call a national work in competition with my Towtwaddle Canal."

"Yes, or the Eclipse, Wonder, and Rocket, all of which call me master," said Jarvis.

"I," said Mist," take higher grounds of objection to Mr. Sittingbourn." "And I," said Cross, "higher still-the oppression of a vast body of Englishmen."

"The danger," cried Mist," of a large connexion of exemplary Christians."

"Christians," said a Scotch gentleman in a very seedy coat, dinna talk of Christianity-Muster Sittingbourn, Sir, ye hae done it noo as far as I'm concerned. You voted for the ould Speaker instead of the new one, and yet the old one was a Tory and the new one is a Whag."

"I admit it," said Sittingbourn; "but I did so conscientiously, not only because I believed the late Speaker the fittest man for the Chair, but because I had voted for him in the last Parliament, at the express desire of the party who now opposed him."

"That's a' is it," said the Scotch gentleman. "God help your innocence; hooever, I care little for it one way or ither; the present Speaker ocht to hae been supported by you to whom I gi'd my vote, for he is a Scot, and, as my gude wife tells me, a cousin of her ain."

66 Sir," ," said Cowl, opening his ponderous jaws, "I have just six questions to put to you."

Sir," said Sittingbourn, "I cannot allow any questions to be put here; this is neither the House of Commons nor the hustings; and as I have other things to do besides listening to the separate grievances of a whole constituency, I shall wish you a very good morning, leaving my breakfast-parlour entirely at your service to discuss your own business, which is none of mine; and I only beg leave to tell you, that whatever your opinion of the relative obligations of a representative to his constituents may be, I, for one, conscious of doing my duty to you and to my country, to the best of my ability, will neither hold the office of a slave, nor endure the character of a delegate. I wish you all a very good morning, and when next we meet in the Town Hall I shall be happy to hear what you have to say." Then making his bow, the patriotic member left his liberal constituents, who, after finishing the remnant of their representative's breakfast-leaving, I believe, the spoons and tea-potretired in the highest degree of anger at the declaration of the "pride and glory" of their borough, and at the exposure which their own complaints had made of the true character of election patriotism, and the real objects of POLITICAL DICTATION.

SONNET.

CALL ye this rest? Is the heart's wound then closed

In that the dagger is at length withdrawn?

Hath the quick soul eternally reposed

Because each sense to partial death is gone?

No! the torn breast of suffering is unhealed;
Or, if we rest on life's unheeded soil,

'Tis but as rests the reaper of the field

Who whets his blunted scythe for added toil:

The edge of grief is dulled, but each worn thought
Lends it new sharpness 'gainst its future use;
Thus is each hour with apprehension fraught,
And thus we linger o'er our time's abuse,
Till, bound and fettered by the iron years,
We see our hopes led captive by our fears!

April 16th, 1835.

E. L. MONTAGU,

AN ADVENTURE ON THE GREEN MOUNTAINS.

No traveller who has ever been in Vermont can have forgotten the Green Mountains, a long chain of highlands that stretch from north to south through the whole length of the State, and send down from their verdant sides ten thousand perennial streams to water the pleasant land and feed the Upper Connecticut and Lake Champlain. Here and there, along the undulations of the ridges, may be remarked an eminence more abrupt and lofty than the rest, shooting up a sharp peak of gray granite above the woody and rounded summits of his neighbours; but the general aspect of the whole range is that of an immense pile of forest, where every point, and slope, and crag, and precipice is clad in a thick mantle of vegetation. Up and down, among these mountains, the eye may light upon spots, few and far between, that indicate the presence of man; in the southern parts, a snug little village, whose bright white houses and church spire peep out from the bosom of the dark forest, like an oasis in the desert, or a good deed in a naughty world: towards the northern extremity of the State, the traveller may encounter the lonely log-hut of the settler, with a field of Indian corn and a dozen acres of blackened stumps; where half a score of flaxen-headed urchins seem to have fallen from the clouds into the heart of an almost impenetrable wilderness.

The wild animals of this country have been chased, by the progress of the settlements and the enterprize of the hunters, from their old haunts on the banks of the rivers, and among the lowland glades, and have taken refuge in the Green Mountains, where a safe asylum is afforded them in the dark solitudes of the forest. Here, in spots never yet trodden by man, still linger the black bear, the cougar, the wolf, and the deer. From these secure coverts issue shoals of foxes, that carry havoc into the farmer's barn-yard, murder his young lambs, and scamper off with his geese and turkeys. The bears and the cougars are less numerous; but the wolves are so formidable, as to have come under the ban of the legislature, and a bounty has been set upon the heads of all and singular among them; but wolves, it seems, may be so incorrigible as to set light even by a governor's proclamation.

It was but a few years ago that I was spending the fine season in a country ramble, and found myself at a small village on the western side of these mountains. The extreme wildness of the scenery in this quarter had a peculiar charm for me, and I lingered several days about the spot, feasting myself with the contemplation of these pictures of stern savage nature in all its rude and primeval freshness. I loved to gaze on those gigantic heaps of forest, rising pile above pile, immense ramparts of luxuriant green: and to mark the gigantic shadows that played over their sides when the declining sun cast his slant beams along them through the clear evening air. I was fond of strolling among the lone woody glens, those dim, untrodden solitudes, where silence reigned undisturbed, save by the gushing of a fountain, the note of an unseen bird, or the whispering among the leaves, of airy tongues that seemed to syllable strange accents. The novelty and freshness of the sensations thus created in the mind of one who had been for months immured within the straitened precincts of the capital of New England,

looking out of a narrow window upon paving stones and piles of brick, may be easily imagined. I became unwilling to leave this grand scenery; and when a little satiated with the first impressions, thought of amusing myself by hunting.

Though I fancy I should hardly make my title good to a sporting character, as people regard it on this side of the Atlantic, inasmuch as I never risked my neck on horseback after a fox or a hare, yet I could boast I had slain my thousands. The environs of Boston could bear witness; Lynn beach, where I had bagged peeps by basketsfull; Nantasket, where the ducks and plover had fallen in battalions under my fowling-piece; Roxbury and Dedham woods too, that had seen the gray squirrels rain from the tree-tops on the days that I was abroad; in short, I thought myself a match for any game that a man might chance upon of a summer day, and I resolved upon making a hunting excursion up the mountain at the foot of which the village was situated. There were plenty of deer in these parts, and a deer I had never shot. "I will shoot a deer at least," said I, "and if a bear should cross my path, woe be to him;-the skin I will carry home to Boston. As to wolves-the bounty will certainly pay for all the ammunition I shall expend." So, without more ado, I borrowed a gun of my host, and set off up the mountain one fine morning. "Many a man," says Sancho Panza, "goes out for wool and comes home shorn." Whether I belong to this number, it would not be proper to inform the reader at present.

Hunting deer in the American woods is an occupation very unlike the same pursuit in Great Britain. It is by no means a chase,-no galloping on horseback over twenty miles of open country. On the contrary, the hunter must wind his way slowly and stealthily through the dark woods without being able to send his glance half a stone's-throw before him, among the gigantic trunks and tangled thickets; or he stations himself in ambush near some opening in the forest, and waits motionless and silent for the deer to pass. Dogs must not be employed, as the noise they make in barking or rustling among the bushes, is sure to startle the animal ere the hunter can approach within gunshot. I left mine, therefore, at the farm-house, and took nothing with me but my gun.

The mountain which I proposed to ascend was an irregular mass of hills heaped upon hills, till the highest summit towered considerably above all the other eminences in the great chain within the sweep of the horizon. The whole mountain was thickly wooded, except the rocky peak at the summit, or the shelving sides of a deep ravine here and there, down which the mountain-showers poured at times torrents of water, with a violence that swept along rocks in their current, and tore away the trees by the roots. There were also a few small open spaces among the woods on the southern slope of the mountain, a little distance up, where the farmers turned their cattle to pasture, and a rude pathway had been cut through the forest, leading to these places. Above, all was a dense wilderness, although a track, hardly discernible, had been pursued by occasional visiters to the summit, which afforded a wide prospect over the surrounding country.

The sun was up, but not in sight, as I set forth; he yet lay hidden on the eastern side of the mountain, which rose before my sight, a mass of darkening shadow, its sharp bold outline distinctly relieved against the