DOCTOR.-Hear, hear, hear! MAJOR.-Coming from war to literature, have LAIRD. Carry on, Crabtree, and never mind you read Aubrey, the new fiction by the author that roaring gowk! of Castle Avon and Ravenscliffe? DOCTOR.-I have not. clever writer's reputation? Does it sustain the MAJOR.-Most thoroughly! It is a story of surpassing power, replete with nerve and sinew. Though fagged and jaded when I took up the volume, I could not relinquish it till I had come to anchor at finis! MAJOR.-There is no necessity for my enlarging upon the humiliating theme. The idiotical absurdity of the thing must be self-evident to every reflecting mind. What discipline, let me ask, can be communicated to a drove of civilians in the space of an annual half hour? Why, it would take double that time to convince Hodge and Pat that it was unsoldierlike to smoke in the DOCTOR. That is the description of criticism ranks, or to demonstrate, to their comprehen- which I like best! Commend me to the tale sion, that the feet of a soldier should not form a which says to the winking eye, "keep open!" conjunction like the blades of a pair of scissors! MAJOR.-Though dealing with the characters DOCTOR.-Hear, hear, hear! and situations of every-day life, there is nothing LAIRD.-For ony sake, haud your tongue, common-place about Aubrey. It is just the man, if you should be paid for sae doing! There kind of novel which Kit Marlow might have is some truth, Culpepper, in your observations; written, if living in the days of Queen Victoria but what remedy would ye propose for the evil? instead of those of good Queen Bess. MAJOR.-Why, I have not given the matter sufficient consideration to enable me to return a Batisfactory answer to your enquiry. My respected friend, General A, of Toronto Township, once proposed the organization of skeleton companies, and my judgment freely admitted the reasonableness and practicability of his scheme. LAIRD. And what was the General's plan? MAJOR.-That gallant and experienced officer has promised to favour me with a full detail of his theory, and I shall probably have the pleasure of submitting it to you, at an early sederunt. In the meantime, permit me to dismiss the question by remarking that Training Days, at present are the most indefensible of all conceivable absurdities! The men lose a precious day's work for no purpose, and, besides, are tempted to dissipate their reason and their hardearned money in the bar-room. As for the officers LAIRD.-Gang on; I'm no' thin-skinned! MAJOR. As for the officers, they can be likened and compared to nothing else than overgrown, lubberly, mush-brained children, playing at Colonels and Captains for the amusement of boys and the scorn and contempt of sensible women! DOCTOR.-Pray lend me, or loan me (as Jonathan would say) the production you praise so highly, and accept, by way of excambion, this very readable duodecimo. MAJOR.-What name does it answer to ? DOCTOR.-Paul P. De La Gironiere, Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honour. MAJOR. Many thanks for putting the book in my way! I have long wished to be indoctrinated minutely touching these same Philippines. DOCTOR.-In the Chevalier's volume you will find abundance of "sustentation." Though the style of honest Paul is a trifle too French for my taste, he presents his reader with a mass of information, statistical as well as descriptive, touching those interesting possessions of Spain, which could not be gleaned from any other source. MAJOR.-What may be the number of these same Philippines? DOCTOR-I shall answer your question by reading you an extract from the work: The Philippines are a large group of islands in the North Pacific Ocean, and were discovered LAIRD.—No anither word! What ye hae said by Magellan in 1521; they were afterwards is bitter as aloes; but then, there is a glimmer-reign of Philip II, from whom they take their taken possession of by the Spaniards, in the ing o' truth aboot it! No long ago, I shaved name. The islands are said to be eleven hunmy beard at your bidding, and noo I'll strip aff dred in number, but some hundreds of them are my warlike coat, if you'll only lend me a peajacket or a dressing-gown! DOCTOR.- Vade in pace! LAIRD.-Nane o' your Welsh, ye pedantic reprobate! [Exit.] very small, and all are nominally subject to the Spanish government at Manilla. In order to give the reader an idea of their riches, and the vast resources they can furnish to Spain, I shall here give some details of the division of the country into provinces, with the number of towns contained in each, of the popu- DOCTOR.-Here is a description of the grotto lation, and of the various branches of industry of San Mateo, one of the lions of the Philipexercised by the Indians, and, finally, a description of the principal agricultural propines:ducts. DIVISION OF ALL THE PHILIPPINES INTO PROVIN- POPULATION, Provinces. ACCORDING ΤΟ THE CENSUS Number of Towns. Tondo 30 Bulacan 18 Pampanga 26 182,360 Bataan 10 Zambales 15 38,920 Pangasinan 31 215,635 Ilocos (South) Ilocos (North) 14 Islas Batanes 3 190,160 800 107,600 23,285 135,810 196,695 The entrance, the form of which is almost regular, represents pretty well the portico of a church, with a full arch, adorned with verdant festoons, composed of creeping plants and bindweeds. When the visitor has once passed under the portico he enters into a large and spacious Population. hall, studded with stalactites of a very yellow285,030 ish colour, and there a dense crowd of bats, 187,735 frightened by the light of the torches, fly out with great noise and precipitation. For about a hundred paces, in advancing towards the interior, the vault continues to be very lofty, and the gallery spacious; but suddenly the former declines immensely, and the latter becomes so narrow that it scarce admits of a passage for one man, who is obliged to crawl on his hands and knees to pass through, and continue in this painful situation for about a hundred yards. And now the gallery becomes wide again, and the vault rises several feet high. But here, again, a new difficulty soon presents itself, and which must be overcome; a sort of a wall, three or four yards high must be climbed over, and immediately behind which lies a most dangerous subterraneous place, where two enormous precipices, with open mouths on a level with the ground, seem ready to swallow up the imprudent traveller, who, although he has his torch lighted, should not walk, step by step, and with the greatest precaution, through this gloomy labyrinth. A few stones thrown into these gulfs attest, by the hollow noise produced by their falling to the bottom that they are several hundred feet deep. Then the gallery, which is still wide and spacious, runs on without presenting anything remarkable till the visitor arrives on the spot where the last researches stopped at. Here it seems to terminate by a sort of rotunda, surrounded by In this number-3,345,790-of inhabitants, stalactites of divers forms, and which, in which constitute all the population under the one part, represents a real dome supported by Spanish Government, columns. This dome looks over a small lake, are comprised from 25,000 to 80,000 Chinese. Exclusive of this out of which a murmuring stream flows conpopulation there exist unknown number of In- tinually into the precipices already described. dians, who, to avoid the payment of taxes, have It was here that we began our serious investigafound means to escape from the census; and tions, desirous of ascertaining if it were possible to also the wild savages in the interior of the island of Luzon, whose number there is no means of knowing. 10,000 35,180 30,501 91,275 78,250 20,730 prolong this subterraneous peregrination. We dived several times into the lake without discovering anything favourable to our desires; we then directed our steps to the right, examining all the while, by the light of our torches, the smallest gaps to be seen in the sides of the gallery, when at last, after many unsuccessful attempts, we discovered a hole through which a man's arm could scarcely pass. By introducing a torch into it, how great was our surprise to see within it an immense space, I need not add LAIRD.—What's that you are saying about studded with rock-crystal. Bonnie Braes? DOCTOR.—Oh, nothing; save and except that Crabtree's monkey coat fits you to admiration! LAIRD.-Ye may be speaking the truth, but I hae my doubts. that such a discovery inspired us with the greatest desire of more closely examining that which we had but an imperfect view of. We therefore set our Indian to work with his pickaxe, to widen the hole and make a passage for us; his labour went on slowly, he struck his tal. blows gently and cautiously, so as to avoid a and dazzling, as if they had been covered over falling-in of the rock, which would not only with the most admirably transparent rock-cryshave marred our hopes, but would, besides, Even in some places did the hand of men have caused a great disaster. The vault of seem to have presided over the ornamenting of rocks suspended over our heads might bury us all this enchanted palace. Numberless stalactites alive, and, as will be seen by the sequel, the and stalagmites, as pellucid as the limpid precautions we had taken were not fruitless. stream that has just been seized by the frost, At the moment when our hopes were about to be assumed here and there the most fantastic realised, the aperture being now wide enough forms and shapes-they represent brilliant to admit of us passing through it-suddenly draperies, rows of columns, lustres, and chanand above our heads we heard a hollow pro-deliers. At one end, close to the wall, was to longed rustling noise that froze us to death; be seen an altar, with steps leading up to it, the vault had been shaken, and we dreaded its and which seemed in expectation of the priest to falling upon us. For a moment, which seemed celebrate divine service. It would be imto us, however, very long, we were all terrified; possible for my pen to describe everything that the Indian himself was standing as motionless transported us with joy, and drew forth our as a statue, with his hands upon the handle of admiration; we really imagined ourselves to be his pick-axe, just in the same position as he in one of the Arabian Nights' palaces, and the was when he gave his last blow. After a mo- Indians themselves were far from guessing the ment's solemn silence, when our fright had a one-half of the wonders we had just discovered. little subsided, we began to examine the nature Having left this dazzling palace, we continued of the danger we had just escaped. Above our under-ground ramble, penetrating more our heads a long and wide split ran along the and more into the bowels of the earth, followvault to a distance of several yards, and, at the ing step by step a winding labyrinth, but place where it stopped, an enormous rock, de- which for a whole half-league offered nothing retached from the dome, had been most providen-markable to our view, except now and then the tially impeded in its fall downwards by one of sight of the very great dangers our undauntable the columns, which, acting as a sort of butress, curiosity urged us on to. in certain parts the kept it suspended over the opening we had just vault no longer presented the aspect as being solid made. Having, after mature examination, ascer-as stone, earth alone seemed to be its component tained that the column and the rock were pretty parts; and here and there, recent proofs of solid, like rash men accustomed to defy all falling-in showed us that still more considerable danger and surmount any sort of obstacle or ones might take place, and cut off from us all difficulty, we resolved upon gliding one by one means of retreat. Nevertheless we pushed on into the dangerous yawning. Dr. Genu, who still far beyond our present adventurous distill then had kept a profound silence, on hear-covery, and at last arrived at a new, magnifiing of our resolution was suddenly seized with cent, and extensive space, all bespangled, like such panic of fear that he recovered his voice, the first with brilliant stalactites, and in no imploring and begging of us to take him out of way inferior to the former in gorgeous beauty the cavern; and, as if he had been suddenly of its details. Here again we gave ourselves seized with a sort of vertigo, he told us, with up to the most minute examination of the many interrupted accents, that he could not breathe wonders surrounding us, and which shone like that he felt himself as if he were smothering-prisms by the light of our torches. We gathered that his heart was beating so violently, were from off the ground several small stalagmites, he to stay any longer amidst the dangers we as large and as round as hazel-nuts, and so were running, he was certain of dying from the like that fruit, when preserved, that some days effects of a rupture of the heart. He offered later, at a ball at Manilla, we presented some all he possessed on earth to him that would save of them to the ladies, whose first movement his life, and with clasped hands he supplicated was to put them to their mouth; but soon finding our Indians not to forsake him, but to guide out their mistake, they entreated to be allowed him out of the place. We therefore took com- to keep them, as they said, converted into earpassion on his state of mind and suffered the ring drops. Having fully enjoyed the beautiful Indian to guide him out; but as soon as the and brilliant spectacle presented to our eyes, latter returned, and having ascertained during we now began to feel the effects of hunger and his absence that neither the rocky fragment nor fatigue. We had been walking in this subterthe column had stirred, but which had been the raneous domain to the extent of more than momentary cause of our alarm, we put our three miles, had taken no rest or refreshment project into execution, and like serpents, one since morning, and the day was already far adafter the other, we crawled into the dangerous vanced. opening, which was scarcely large enough for I have often experienced that our moral strength our passing through. We soon ceased think-decreases in proportion as our physical strength ing of our past dangers, nor did our present does; and of course we must have been in that imprudence much pre-occupy our minds, all our state when sinister suppositions took possession attention being entirely absorbed by what of our imaginations. One of our party compresented itself to our ravished eyes. Here we municated to us a reflection he had just made were in the midst of a saloon wearing a most-which was, that a falling-in might have fairy aspect, and, by the light of our torches, taken place between us and the issue from the the vault, the floor, and the wall were shining grotto; or, what appeared still more probable, that the enormous rock, that was suspended MAJOR.-Right glad am I that you have been and buttressed up by the column, might have the means of reminding me of a work which I fallen down, and thus bar up all passage wish much to behold a welcome inmate of the through the hole we had so rashly made. Had such a misfortune happened to us what a Shanty. What's the MAJOR. In answer to your first question, I horrible situation we should have been in! We LAIRD. -Wha's the author? could hope for no help from without, even from name o' his buik? our friend Genu, who, as we had witnessed, had| been so upset by fear; so that, rather than suffer the anguish and die the death of the respond, Gerald Massey. His volume is intitled, wretch buried alive in a sepulchre, our The Ballad of Babe Christabel, and other Lyrical poignards must have been our last resource. All these reflections, which we analysed and commented upon, one by one, made us re Poems. DOCTOR.-Though I flatter myself that I keep LAIRD. I never heard tell o' the chiel before. solve upon returning, and leaving to others, more pretty well up with the literature of our age, imprudent than ourselves, if any there be, the the name of Massey falleth strangely upon mine care of exploring the space we had still to ear. travel over. We soon got over the ground that separated us from the place we had most to dread. Providence had favoured and protected usthe large fragment of rock, that object of all our first met with the little lyrical duodecimo which fears, was still propped up. One after the other I hold in my hands, and up to that epoch I did we squeeze ourselves through the narrow likewise was ignorant of the existence of a new opening, avoiding as much as possible the least and a true poet. friction, till at last we had all passed through. Joyous were we on seeing ourselves out of LAIRD.-Indeed, man, let's hae a pree o' the danger after so perilous an enterprise, and we lad! But first and foremost, what are his antewere already beginning to direct our steps to- cedents? wards the outlet of the cavern, when suddenly a hollow, prolonged noise, and below our feet MAJOR.-Gerald Massey, who has just at a rapid trembling excited once more all our tained his twenty-sixth year, is the son of an fears. But those fears was soon calmed by English canal boatman. A large per-centage our Indian, who came running towards us at of his existence has been spent in toil and grindfull speed, brandishing in his hand his pick-axe. ing poverty. Hear how bitterly he alludes to The imprudent fellow, unwilling to sacrifice it, had waited till we were some paces distant, and his cold and sunless early days:then pulling it to him most forcibly, while all 66 Having had to earn my own dearly won bread," the while he took good care to keep quickly he says, "by the eternal cheapening of flesh and moving away, when thanks to Providence, or to and blood thus early, I never knew what childhis own nimbleness, he was not crushed to hood meant. I had no childhood. Ever since atoms by the fragment of the rock, which, I can remember, I have had the aching fear of being no longer butressed up by the column that want throbbing in heart and brow. The curhad been shaken, fell to the ground, completely rents of my life were early poisoned, and few, stopping up the issue through which we had methinks, would pass unscathed through the passed one after the other so that no doubt scenes and circumstances in which I have lived, no one, after us, will be able to penetrate into none, if they were as curious and precocious as the beautiful part of that grotto which we had I was. The child comes into the world, like a just passed through so fortunately. After this new coin upon upon it; and in like manner as last episode we no longer hesitated in returning, the Jews sweat down sovereigns, by hustling and it was with the greatest delight that we them in a bag to get gold-dust out of them, so beheld once more the great luminary of the is the poor man's child hustled and sweated down world, and found our friend Genu sitting upon in this bag of society to get wealth out of it; a block of marble, reflecting upon our long absence, and, at the same time, our unqualified temerity. MAJOR.-I see the book contains pictorial il lustrations. DOCTOR.-It does, and they are well executed, and apparently characteristic. Altogether a better bargain for five shillings never was offered to the "reading million" by Harper Brothers. LAIRD. Is there onything new in the poetical line? It's unco wersh wark speaking continually aboot prose, prose, prose! and even as the impress of the Queen is effaced by the Jewish process, so is the image of God worn from heart and brow, and day by day the child recedes devilward. I look back now with wonder, not that so few escape, but that any escape at all, to win a nobler growth to their humanity. So blighting are the influences which surround thousands in early life, to which I can bear such bitter testimony." LAIRD. Wacsock! waesock! Folk speak o' the pleasures o' memory, but I doubt few sic pleasures can fa' to the share o' puir Gerald! MAJOR.-At the age of fifteen the stripling came to London, where he procured employment as an errand boy, and found opportunity for reading. This was the beginning of a new world, so to speak. He tells us : "Till then I had often wondered why I lived at all-whether "It was not better not to be, I was so full of misery. She danceth on her golden way, In dainty dalliance with the May, Earth weareth heaven for bridal ring, Now I began to think that the crown of all desire, and the sum of all existence, was to read and get knowledge. Read! read! read! I used to read at all possible times, and in all possible places; up in bed till two or three in the morning-nothing daunted by once setting the bed on fire. Greatly indebted was I also to the book stalls, where I have read a great deal, and returning the next day to continue the subject; but sometimes the book was gone, and then great was my grief! When out of a situation, I have often gone without a meal to purchase a book. Until I fell in love, and began to rhyme as a matter of consequence, I never had the least predilection for poetry. In fact, I always eschewed it; if ever I met with any, I immediately skipped it over, and passed on, as one does with the description of scenery, &c., in a novel. I always loved the birds and flowers, the woods and the stars; I felt delight| in being alone in a summer-wood, with song, like a spirit, in the trees, and the golden sunbursts glinting through the verdurous roof; and was conscious of a mysterious creeping of the blood, and tingling of the nerves, when standing alone in the starry midnight, as in Gods own presence-chamber. But until I began to nae clap-trap there! Gerald has got the root rhyme, I cared nothing for written poetry. The and fang o' the matter in him, as my brither first verses I ever made were upon Hope,' There's when I was utterly hopeless; and after I had elder, Ezra Crookshanks, would say ! MAJOR.-What I am about to read is equally begun I never ceased for about four years, at the end of which time I rushed into print." DOCTOR.-Having "rushed into print," how did the young poet fare? Has he drawn a prize in the lottery of the republic of letters? MAJOR.-Yea, verily! Within a brief space three large editions of his volume have been vended in England, and I hold in my hand a Fankee reprint of the same. fine. The poet is describing the BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM. It needs but break the Cestus-charm. Last night, with weddable, white arms, And thoughts that throng'd with quaint alarms, She trembled o'er her mirror'd charms, Like Eve first glassing her new life: And the Maid startled at the Wife, |