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by fire-ships, &c.-English fleet advances -music plays "Rule Britannia.' The procession of all the English rivers, and their tributaries, with their emblems, &c., begins with Handel's water music, ends with a chorus to the march in Judas Maccabæus.-During this scene, PUFF directs and applauds everything-then Puff. Well, pretty well-but not quite perfect.-So, ladies and gentlemen, if you please, we'll rehearse this piece again to-morrow. [Curtain drops.

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THE TREASURE-SHIP.
BY LORD HOUGHTON.

My heart is freighted full of love,
As full as any argosy,

With gems below and gems above,
And ready for the open sea;
For the wind is blowing summerly.

Full strings of nature's beaded pearl,
Sweet tears! composed in amorous ties
And turkis-lockets, that no churl
Hath fashioned out mechanic-wise,
But all made up of thy blue eyes.

And girdles wove of subtle sound,
And thoughts not trusted to the air,
Of antique mould,—the same as bound,
In Paradise, the primal pair,

Before Love's arts and niceness were.

And carcanets of living sighs;

Gums that have dropped from Love's own stem,
And one small jewel most I prize-
The darling gaud of all of them-

I wot, so rare and fine a gem
Ne'er glowed on Eastern anadem.

I've cased the rubies of thy smiles,
In rich and triply-plated gold;
But this no other wealth defiles,
Itself itself can only hold-
The stealthy kiss on Maple-wold.

TO THE EVENING STAR.

Star that bringest home the bee,
And sett'st the weary labourer free!
If any star shed peace, 'tis thou,
That send'st it from above,
Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow
Are sweet as hers we love.

Come to the luxuriant skies,
Whilst the landscape's odours rise,
Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard,
And songs, when toil is done,
From cottages whose smoke unstirr'd
Curls yellow in the sun.

Star of love's soft interviews, Parted lovers on the muse; Their remembrancer in Heaven

Of thrilling vows thou art, Too delicious to be riven By absence from the heart.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

3.

THE BIG LIE.

A HUNTER'S STORY.

is the night dedicated among the professional hunters to what is called "The Lying Camp." "The Lying Camp!" I exclaimed to Columbus Mills, one of our party, a wealthy moun

[William Gilmore Simms, LL D., born in Charles-taineer, of large estates, whose guest I have

ton, South Carolina, 17th April, 1806; died there, 11th
June, 1870. He was one of the most prolific writers of
America. A mere catalogue of his works in poetry,
fiction, drama, history, biography, criticism, and mis-
cellaneous literature would fill a page. It will be suf
ficient to state that his best known works are a series
of revolutionary and border romances, published in
eighteen volumes, the most notable of which are-The
Forayers, Mellichampe, Border Beagles, Woodcraft, and
Beauchamp. Griswold, in the Prose Writers of America,
says: "His (Mr. Simms') descriptions are bold and
graphic, and his characters have considerable indi-
viduality. He is most successful in sketches of rude
border life, in bustling, tumultuous action.
The shorter stories of Mr. Simms are his best works.
They have unity, completeness, and strength." Not-
withstanding his vast literary labours, Mr. Simms
took an active part in politics, and in 1846 missed,
only by one vote, being elected lieutenant-governor of
his native state.]

The day's work was done, and a good day's work it was. We had bagged a couple of fine bucks and a fat doe; and now we lay camped at the foot of the "Balsam Range" of mountains in North Carolina, preparing for our supper. We were a right merry group of seven

-four professional hunters, and three amateurs, myself among the latter. There was Jim Fisher, Aleck Wood, Sam or Sharp Snaffles alias "Yaou," and Nathan Langford alias the Pious."

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These were our professional hunters. Our amateurs may well continue nameless, as their achievements do not call for any present record.

There stood our tent pitched at the foot of the mountains, with a beautiful cascade leaping headlong toward us, and subsiding into a mountain runnel, and finally into a little lakelet, the waters of which, edged with perpetual foam, were as clear as crystal.

Our baggage waggon, which had been sent round to meet us by trail routes through the gorges, stood near the tent, which was of stout army canvas.

That baggage waggon held a variety of luxuries. There was a barrel of the best bolted wheat flour. There were a dozen choice hams, a sack of coffee, a keg of sugar, a few thousand of cigars, and last, not least, a corpulent barrel of Western usquebaugh, vulgarly "whisky," to say nothing of a pair of demijohns of equal dimensions, one containing peach brandy of mountain manufacture, the other the luscious honey from the mountain hives.

Supper over, and it is Saturday night.

been for some time. "What do you mean by the Lying Camp,' Columbus?"

The explanation soon followed.

Saturday night is devoted by the mountaineers engaged in a camp hunt, which sometimes contemplates a course of several weeks, to stories of their adventures-"long yarns"chiefly relating to the objects of their chase and the wild experiences of their professional life. The hunter who naturally inclines to exaggeration is, at such a period, privileged to deal in all the extravagances of inventionnay he is required to do so! To be literal, or confine himself to the bald and naked truth. is not only discreditable, but a finable offence! He is, in such a case, made to swallow a long. strong, and difficult potation! He cannot be too extravagant in his incident; but he is als required to exhibit a certain degree of art in their use; and he thus frequently rises into a certain realm of fiction, the ingenuities of which are made to compensate for the exaggerations. as they do in the Arabian Nights and other Oriental romances.

This will suffice for explanation.

Nearly all our professional hunters assembled on the present occasion were tolerable racon teurs. They complimented Jim Fisher by throwing the raw deer-skin over his shoulders: tying the antlers of the buck with a red handkerchief over his forehead; seating him on the biggest boulder which lay at hand; and sprinkling him with a stoup of whisky, they christened him "The Big Lie" for the occasion. And in this character he complacently presided during the rest of the evening; till the company prepared for sleep, which was not till midnight, he was king of the feast.

It was the duty of the "Big Lie" to regu late proceedings, keep order, appoint the racosteurs severally, and admonish them when he found them foregoing their privileges, and narrating bald, naked, and uninteresting truth. They must deal in fiction.

Jim Fisher was seventy years old, and a veteran hunter, the most famous in all the country. He looked authority, and promptly began to assert it, which he did in a single word:

"Yaou!"

"Yaou" was the nom de nique of one of the hunters, whose proper name was Sam Snaffles, It but who, from his special smartness, had

obtained the farther sobriquet of "Sharp Snaffles."

Columbus Mills whispered me that he was called "Yaou" from his frequent use of that word, which, in the Choctaw dialect, simply means "Yes." Snaffles had rambled consider ably among the Choctaws, and picked up a variety of their words, which he was fond of using in preference to the vulgar English; and his common use of "Yaou" for the affirmative had prompted the substitution of it for his own name. He answered to the name.

"Ay-yee, Yaou," was the response of Sam. "I was afeard, 'Big Lie,' that you'd be hitching me up the very first in your team."

Sam Snaffles swallowed his peach and honey at a gulp, hemmed thrice lustily, put himself into an attitude, and began as follows.

truth's nothing but a peg in the wall that I hangs the lie upon. A'ter a while I promise that you sha'n't see the peg."

"Worm along, Yaou!"

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'Well, Jedge, I warn't a-doing much among the bucks yet-jest for the reason that I was quite too eager in the scent a'ter a sartin doe! Now, Jedge, you never seed my wife-my Merry Ann, as I calls her; and ef you was to see her now-though she's prime grit yit-you would never believe that, of all the womankind in all these mountains, she was the very yaller flower of the forest, with the reddest rose cheeks you ever did see, and sich a mouth, and sich bright curly hair, and so tall, and so slender, and so all over beautiful. O Lawd! when I thinks of it and them times, I don't see how 'twas possible to think of buck-hunting when thar was sich a doe, with sich eyes shining on me. "Well, Jedge, Merry Ann was the only da'ter of Jeff Hopson and Keziah Hopson, his

I shall adopt his language as closely as possible; but it is not possible, in any degree, to convey any adequate idea of his manner, which | was admirably appropriate to the subject-wife, who was the da'ter of Squire Claypole, matter. Indeed, the fellow was a born actor.

The "Jedge" was the nom de guerre which the hunters had conferred upon me, looking, no doubt, to my venerable aspect for I had travelled considerably beyond my teens-and the general dignity of my bearing.

"You see, Jedge," addressing me especially as the distinguished stranger, "I'm a telling this hyar history of mine jest to please you, and I'll try to please you ef I kin. These fellows hyar have hearn it so often that they knows all about it jest as well as I do my own self, and they knows the truth of it all, and would swear to it afore any hunters' court in all the county, ef so be the affidavy was to be tooken in camp and on a Saturday night.

"You see then, Jedge, it's about a dozen or fourteen years ago, when I was a young fellow without much beard on my chin, though I was full grown as I am now-strong as a horse, ef not quite so big as a buffalo. I was then jest a-beginning my 'prenticeship to the hunting business, and looking to sich persons as the 'Big Lie' thar to show me how to take the track of b'ar, buck, and painther.

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'But I confess I weren't a-doing much. I hed a great deal to l'arn, and I reckon I miss'd many more bucks than I ever hit-that is, jest up to that time

"Look you, Yaou," said "Big Lie," interrupting him, "you're gitting too close upon the etarnal stupid truth! All you've been a-saying is jest nothing but the naked truth, as I knows it. Jest crook your trail!"

"And how's a man to lie decently onless you lets him hev a bit of truth to go upon? The

whose wife was Margery Clough, that lived down upon Pacolet River

"Look you, Yaou, ain't you getting into them derned facts agin, eh?"

"I reckon I em, 'Big Lie.' 'Scuse me; I'll kiver the pegs direct-lie, one a'ter t'other. Whar was I? Ah! Oh! Well, Jedge, poor hunter and poor man-jest, you see, a squatter on the side of a leetle bit of a mountain close on to Columbus Mills, at Mount Tryon, I was all the time on a hot trail a'ter Merry Ann Hopson. I went thar to see her a'most every night; and sometimes I carried a buck for the old people, and sometimes a doeskin for the gal; and I do think, bad hunter as I then was, I pretty much kept the fambly in deer meat through the whole winter.

"Well, Jedge, though Jeff Hopson was glad enough to git my meat always, he didn't affection me as I did his da'ter. He was a sharp, close, money-loving old fellow, who was always considerate of the main chaince; and the old lady, his wife, who hairdly dare say her soul was her own, she jest looked both ways, as I may say, for Sunday, never giving a fair look to me or my chainces, when his eyes were sot on her.

But 'twa'n't so with my Merry Ann. She hed the eyes for me from the beginning, and soon she hed the feelings; and, you see, Jedge, we sometimes did git a chaince, when old Jeff was gone from home, to come to a sort of onderstanding about our feelings; and the long and the short of it was that Merry Ann confessed to me that she'd like nothing better than to be my wife. She liked no other man but me.

"Now, Jedge, a'ter that, what was a young fellow to do? That, I say, was the proper kind of incouragement. So I said, 'I'll ax your daddy.' Then she got scary, and said, 'Oh, don't, for somehow, Sam, I'm a-thinking daddy don't like you enough yit. Jest hold on a bit, and come often, and bring him venison, and try to make him laugh, which you kin do, you know, and a'ter a time you kin try him.' And so I did or rether I didn't. I put off the axing. I come constant. I brought venison all the time, and b'ar meat a plenty, a'most three days in every week.

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Well, Jedge, this went on for a long time, a'most the whole winter, and spring, and summer, till the winter begun to come in agin. I carried 'em the venison, and Merry Ann meets me in the woods, and we hes sich a pleasant time when we meets on them little odd chainces that I gits hot as thunder to bring the business to a sweet honey finish.

"But Merry Ann keeps on scary, and she puts me off, ontil, one day, one a'ternoon, about sundown, she meets me in the woods, and she's all in a flusteration. And she ups and tells me how old John Grimstead, the old bachelor (a fellow about forty years old, and the dear gal not yet twenty), how he's a'ter her, and bekaise he's got a good fairm, and mules and horses, how her daddy's giving him the open mouth incouragement.

"Then I says to Merry Ann:

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"You sees, I kain't put off no longer. must out with it, and ax your daddy at onst.' And then her scary fit come on again, and she begs me not to-not jist yit. But I swears by all the Hokies that I won't put off another day; and so, as I haird the old man was in the house that very hour, I left Merry Ann in the woods, all in a trimbling, and I jist went ahead, detarmined to have the figure straight, whether odd

or even.

"I was jubious; but I jist bolted into the house, as free and easy and bold as ef I was the very best customer that the old man wanted to

see.

Here Yaou paused to renew his draught of peach and honey.

"Well, Jedge, I put a bold face on the business, though my hairt was gitting up into my throat, and I was almost a-gasping for my breath, when I was fairly in the big room, and standing up before the old squaire. He was a-setting in his big squar hide-bottom'd armchair, looking like a jedge upon the bench jist about to send a poor fellow to the gallows. As he seed me come in, looking queer enough, I reckon, his mouth put on a sort of grin,

which showed all his grinders, and he looked for all the world as ef he guessed the business I come about. But he said good-natured enough, "Well, Sam Snaffles, how goes it?' "I said to myself,

"It's jest as well to git the worst at onst, and then thar'll be an eend of the oneasiness.' So I up and told him, in pretty soft, smooth sort of speechifying, as how I was mighty fond of Merry Ann, and she, I was a-thinking, of me, and that I jest come to ax ef I might hev Merry Ann for my wife.

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"Then he opened his eyes wide, as ef he never ixpected to hear sich a proposal from me. "What!' says he. 'You?' "Jest so, squaire,' says I. Ef it pleases you to believe me, and to consider it reasonable, the axing.'

"He sot quiet for a minit or more, then he gits up, knocks all the fire out of his pipe on the chimney, fills it, and lights it agin, and then comes straight up to me, whar I was a-setting on the chair in front of him, and without a word he takes the collar of my coat betwixt the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and he says:

"Git up, Sam Snaffles. Git up, ef you please.'

"Well, I gits up, and he says:

"Hyar. Come. Hyar.'

"And with that he leads me right across the room to a big looking-glass that hung agin the partition wall, and thar he stops before the glass, facing it and holding me by the collar all the time.

"Now that looking-glass, Jedge, was about the biggest I ever did see. It was a'most three feet high, and a'most two feet wide, and it had a bright, broad frame, shiny like gold, with a heap of leetle figgers worked all round it. I reckon thar's no sich glass now in all the mountain country.

"Well, thar he hed me up, both on us standing in front of this glass, whar we could a'most see the whole of our full figgers from head to foot.

"And when we hed stood thar for a minit or so, he says, quite solemn like: "Look in the glass, Sam Snaffles." "So I looked.

"Well,' says I. 'I sees you, Squaire Hopson, and myself, Sam Snaffles.' "Look good,' says he; obzarve well.' "Well,' says I, 'I'm a-looking with all my eyes. I only sees what I tells you.' "But you don't obzarve,' says he. Look ing and seeing's one thing,' says he, 'but obzarving's another. Now obzarve.'

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'By this time, Jedge, I was getting sort o' pusson that's not a parfect man. I obzarved riled, for I could see that somehow he was jest you long ago, and seed whar you was wanting. a-trying to make me feel redickilous. So II axed about you. I axed your horse.'

says:

"Look you, Squaire Hopson, ef you thinks I never seed myself in a glass afore this, you're mighty mistaken.'

"Very well,' says he. Now obzarve. You sees your own figger, and your face, and you air obzarving as well as you know how. Now, Mr. Sam Snaffles-now that you've hed a fair look at yourself-jest now answer me, from your honest conscience, a'ter all you've seen, ef you honestly thinks you're the sort of pusson to hev my da'ter.'

"And with that he gin me a twist, and when I wheeled round he hed wheeled round too, and thar we stood full facing one another. Lawd! how I was riled! But I answered,

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And why not, I'd like to know, Squaire Hopson? I ain't the handsomest man in the world, but I'm not the ugliest; and folks don't generally consider me at all among the uglies. I'm as tall a man as you, and as stout and strong, and as good a man o' my inches as ever stepped in shoe-leather. And it's enough to tell you, squaire, whatever you may think, that Merry Ann believes in me, and she's a way of thinking that I'm jest about the very pusson that ought to hev her.'

"Merry Ann's thinking,' says he, 'don't run all fours with her fayther's thinking. I axed you, Sam Snaffles, to obzarve yourself in the glass. I telled you that seeing warn't edzactly obzarving. You seed only the inches; you seed that you hed eyes, and mouth, and nose, and the airms and legs of a man. But eyes and mouth, and legs and airms, don't make a man.'

"Oh, they don't,' says I.

"No, indeed,' says he. 'I seed that you hed all them; but then I seed thar was one thing that you hedn't got.'

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'Jimini!' says I, mighty confused. 'What thing's a-wanting to me to make me man?'.

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"Axed my horse!' says I, pretty nigh dumfoundered.

"Yes; I axed your horse, and he said to me, 'Look at me. I hain't got an ounce of spar' flesh on my bones. You kin count all my ribs. You kin lay the whole length of your airm betwixt any two on 'em, and it'll lie thar as snug as a black snake betwixt two poles of a log-house.' Says he, 'Sam's got no capital. He ain't got any time five bushels of corn in his crib, and he's such a monstrous feeder himself that he'll eat out four bushels, and think it mighty hard upon him to give me the other one.' Thar, now, was your horse's testimony, Sam, agin you. Then I axed about your cabin, and your way of living. I was curious, and went to see you one day when I knowed you waur at home. You hed but one chair, which you gin me to sit on, and you sot on the eend of a barrel for yourself. You gin me a rasher of bacon what hedn't a streak of fat in it. You hed a poor quarter of a poor doe hanging from the rafters, a poor beast that somebody hed disabled

"I shot it myself,' says I.

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Well, it was a-dying when you shot it, and all the hunters say you was a poor shooter at anything. Your cabin had but one room, and that you slept in and ate in, and the floor was six inches deep in dirt. Says I to myself, says I, 'This poor fellow's got no capital; and he hasn't the head to git capital:' and from that moment, Sam Snaffles, the more I obzarved you the more sartin 'twas that you never could be a man ef you waur to live a thousand years.'

"A'ter that long speechifying, Jedge, you might ha' ground me up in a mill, biled me down in a pot, and scattered me over a manure heap, and I wouldn't ha' been able to say a

word.

"I cotched up my hat, and was a-gwine, when he said to me, with his derned infernal big grin:

"Take another look in the glass, Sam Snaffles, and obzarve well, and you'll see jest whar it is I thinks that you're wanting.'

"I didn't stop for any more. I jest bolted, like a hot shot out of a shovel, and didn't know my own self, or whatever steps I tuk, tell I got into the thicket and met Merry Ann coming towards me.

"I must liquor now.

"Well, Jedge, it was a hard meeting betwixt me and Merry Ann. The poor gal come to

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