SURNAMES.

Patronymics derived from castles or estates, such as the Culverleys of Culverley, the Stricklands of Strickland, and the Scottish families of that Ilk, are of Norman origin, and have all been introduced since the Conquest. The most ancient family names in Europe are those which indicate some personal or mental attribute, as Canute, the hoary; Rufus, the red; Can-more, the Great-head; Le Gros, the fat; &c. Among the Romans, personal defects, as well as brilliant achievements, gave rise to family names, as Cicero, was so called from a wart upon his nose; Brutus from pretending to be a brute, or an idiot; Scipio Africanus from his conquering Africa. The heraldic ensigns borne by the knightly families of the feudal age has designated an immense number of their descendants; such are the Herons, the Eagles, the Talbots, the Wolfs, the Foxes, &c. The colour of their skin or armonr gave origin to the great southern name of Grey, and also to the greater northern name of Douglas-(dou-glas, Scottice, dark-grey.) From the same cause is to be traced the prevalent European surname of Le Brun, which has produced in the United Kingdom no less than twenty different families who have received hereditary titles of nobility, and of which it is reported the head of one of its Irish branches is shortly to be raised to ducal honours. The noble family of Dalyell, which signifies I dare, according to the legend, obtained their cognomen as follows, In the reign of King Kenneth II., a favourite and near kinsman of that King being hung up by the Picts, it so exceedingly grieved his Majesty, that he proffered a great reward to any of his subjects that would adventure to rescue his corpse, but none would undertake that hazardous enterprise. At last, a certain gentleman came to the King, and said, "Dal-yeil," which in the old Scots language is, "I dare." And he effectually performing it to the King's satisfaction, his posterity took for their surname, the word Dalyell; and for their armorial ensign, that remarkable bearing which has been continued to the present time, viz., sable, a naked man, with his arms extended proper," The numerous races of the Fitz's, Mac's, O's and Sons, all indicate that they are respectively the progeny of Christian parents. Of many of these names, to quote Shakspeare, it may be said! "The moon, where she of earth, would be no nobler;" whilst of not a few, though all good and true liege subjects of the crown, the remark will hold good (to borrow a line from the song of Toby Fillpot,) that they are just as common clay

"As ere stopped a bottle, or fashioned a bowl."

WHAT I HATE.

I hate the tooth-ache, when the maddening jumps,
Like torrent wild, it raves among the stumps;
I hate the whole dire catalogue of aches,
Distempers, fevers hot, and ague shakes.

I hate mad dogs, snakes, dandies, fleas and bugs,
Tea-parties, wild-cats, toads, and whiskey-jugs,
Hard times, bad roads, stale fish, and broken
banks,

Stale news, cold soup, light purse, and lawyers'
thanks.

I hate long stories and short ears of corn,
A costly farm-house an 1 a shabby barn;
More curs than pigs, no books, but many guns,
Sore toes, tight shoes, old debts, and paper duns.
I hate tight-lacing, and loose conversation,
Abundant gab, and little information,

The fool who sings in bed, and snores in meeting,
Who laughs while talking, and who talks while
eating.

Smatter has read Goldsmith's abridged histories, and will talk by the hour of the various policy of and settle for you every disputed point in English the Grecian States; will enlighten you as to the true causes of the decline of the Roman Empire;

When Hyder Ali invaded the kingdom of Calicut, an Indian widow, about the age of thirty, her estate, near the confines of Carrara, a miserShe had upon braved in person all his efforts. able fort, called Bailary, into which she went, and took with her twelve hundred horsemen, her sub-history in a manner the most satisfactory. It is jects and labourers, who determined to perish by true that, owing to the profusion of materials her side. They sustained two violent assults, and which he has accumulated in his mind, he will each time rushing into the midst of the enemy's ing one event or one person with another. For occasionally fall into the trifling error of confoundtroops, repulsed them with considerable loss. An incursion from the Mahrattas, at last, give Hyder in expelling the Tarquins from Rome; but that instance, he thinks Brutus was perfectly justified Ali an opportunity of abandoning the siege. Her there was no necessity for his destroying Julius gratitude was as eminent as her courage. A young Cæsar. He is thoroughly satisfied it was with a gentleman of the name of Brown was, as a free trader, negociating for the purchase of some goods malicious intention, and not by accident, that Wat for the European market; he went with her into Tyrrel slew William Rufus in the New Forest; siege had been abandoned, she made him presents tolerably well read in Enfield's Speaker; and, the fort, and assisted in the defence. After the and that Charles the First carried matters too far, when he insisted on levying pin money. He is which enabled him to return to his native country; thus prepared, he will criticise, in a dashing, offand enjoy a fortune acquired by his virtue and hand style, every English author, from Shakspeare and Milton to Byron and Campbell-from Addison and Johnson to Southey and Scott. in Paris, he walked three times up and down the Louvre, with a catalogue in his hand, and a hired guide at his side; and now he will babble of Raphael and Titian, Correggio and Claude, of colour and chiarscuro, breadth, depth, light and shade, with all the intrepidity of ignorance. But Smatter's chief source of information is the Penny Magazine; from this he crams, and the greater portion of his talk, throughout a whole week, will be of Machiavel, Monkeys, or Maccaroni; the building of the pyramids, or the mode of making mouse-traps; the structure of the human mind, or the anatomy and habits of fleas, according to the

spirit.

THE HIGHLAND BRIDE.

Away to the Highlands!-away and away!
Where the precipice frowns, and the waterfalls
play;

Where Nature unshackled sits guileless and free,
And smiles on the beauty that graces her knee;
Oh! haste thee-nor linger for time or for tide
Till the sweet child of Nature's thy young High-
land bride.

Leave the bustle of crowds, and the town-dappled
plain;

Away to where wildness and solitude reign!
Where Valour still smiles on the sons of the North,
And Innocence gives hospitality birth;
Where Love kindles blushes he heeds not to hide,
Away to the Highlands!-away to thy bride.
Leave the smile and the phrase of the bland and
polite,

Who would mock at thy woe, though bewailing
thy plight,

To the hills-to the hills! where, though homely
thy cheer,
Men

rude as their mountains have bosoms as
clear;

And the air from the heath on the cataract's side,
Fans the snows on the breast of thy young High-

land bride.

Hark! the wild notes of joy ring the welkin along,
And solitude wakes at the mountaineer's song;
And Scotia starts at the soul-moving strain,
And leaps to the sound of the pibroch again;
And Valour-as erst in the hour of his pride,
Drinks a health to the bridegroom-a health to

the bride.

Now hush'd in the banquet, and silent the jest,
While Love gladly gathers his pinions to rest;
And the moon steals abroad, her new children to
greet,

And mellow the time from herself named so sweet.
Oh! dear be the raptures by virtue supplied;
Good night to the bridegroom!-good night to the
bride.

Long, long may the bright stream of happiness
flow!

Unsullied its fountain-unmingled with woe!
May their daughters be pure as old Scotia's rills,
And fresh as the heather that blooms on her hills!
Their sons, like the wind-nourish'd elms at their
side-

contents of his last number.

ON AN OLD NEWSPAPER.

One morn, about a hundred years ago,
Record of human happiness and woe,
This chronicle was ushered into life:

When

Of foreign fury, and of civil strife.
Just issued from the teeming press. perchance
On the peer's breakfast-board the clean sheet
lay,

While, with a listless and a lordly glance,

He scanned the stirring topics of the day.

Or, on some summer's eve, it might have been,
When pure and cooling breezes were abroad,
The country squire, with most sagacious mien,
A careful glance upon the page bestowed.
Or there, with throbbing heart, and weeping eye,
The maid might read her warrior lover's doom;
This, the sad cause of many a bursting sigh,

That 'scaped her in her dimly-lighted room.
Weddings, and bankruptcies, and want, and woe,
There form a leaf of thy great volume, time!
And here the inward grief, that "pass th' show,"
The mourner's grief, perchance, demands a line.
The mourner's grief! he is no mourner now;

The prisoner's pang, a touch hath set him free; Both he who ruled, and those once wont to bowHe bears no sway, they no more bend the knee. Go! read a homily to living men:

Those of a former age were great as they,
Warriors were valient, princes powerful then;
Time's gorgon hath transformed them into clay.
Bear them a solemn message from the skies:-
Tell them thy page hath outliv'd learning's
breath;-

Here's a health to the bridegroom!-a health to Teach them that Wisdom's essence only lies
In making life an antidote for death.

the bride.