a fixed star, perhaps, the third, never wearied of shining, yet avoiding all sameness even in our lustre-our motions often eccentric, no doubt, and irregular; but anything, as you know, better than standing still,-the only fault we ever had to find with the Sun, but which we are happy now to understand, cannot fairly be laid to his charge, as our whole solar systemnay, fixed stars and all, do, we are credibly informed, keep "moving altogether, if they move at all;" and, although they journey fast, and have been journeying long, have a far way before them yet stretching untravelled through the Universe. The Old Lady is clear for a great deal of exercise, and, of course, fresh air. Fresh air has been exhausted by so many writers, that we shall confine our few concluding remarks to exercise alone. 66 Leaping," she informs us, "among the ancients was confined to distance-but in modern times extended also to height."-Strange that the ancients did not discover high leaping!" One Ireland, a native of Yorkshire, in the eighteenth year of his age, by a fair spring, without any assistance, trick, or deception, leaped over nine horses, standing side by side and a man seated on the middle horse." He also, according to this old woman, "jumped over a garter held fourteen feet high!!!" Now, neither Ireland, nor any other man on record, ever leapt seven feet in height without a spring-board, and none but a fool would talk of fourteen. The nine horses were thin narrow animals-not fairly placed-and Ireland leapt from a spring-board-two feet above the level on which they stood. It was a great leap for Ireland was the prince of leapers, but not more than twenty three feet on level ground-which we ourselves have done-on level ground or nearly so-in presence of a thousand spectators. That by the waybut far leaping is to people in general an unsafe exertion as all intense exertions must be-and ought to be taken in moderation. Nor should any man leap at all after five-andtwenty. It is only for light elastic lads to leap more than twice their own length. Elderly gentlemen, from twenty-five to thirty, should become archers and old men of forty and upwards, golfers. Indeed, various Golf-clubs here and at St Andrews -are most amiable associations of old men. Such spindle-shanks you may nowhere else see as on those linksand even Galen and Cornaro themselves, and old Admiral Henry, would look juvenile among the shadows slowly moving from Tee to Tee. The Old Lady likewise approves ot walking, which she tells us is of two kinds," either on plain ground, or where there are ascents." But" walking against a high wind is very severe exercise, and not to be recommended." Persons who are kept much within doors, "ought as much as possible to accustom themselves to be walking about, even in their own houses." No doubt they have a right to do so if they choose, and do not occupy an upper flat. But stair-walkers with creaking shoes must be disagreeable husbands and fathers. She advises also to change the place where we walk, “for the same place constantly gone over, may excite as many disagreeable and painful sensations as the closet or the study." An agreeable companion, too, she has discovered, contributes much to serenity of mind; "but unless the mode of walk is similar, as well as the taste and character congenial, it is better to walk alone-as either the one or the other of the two companions might be subjected to some constraint;" and, finally, she says, that "to read during a walk is an improper action, highly detrimental to the eyes, and destroys almost all the good effects that can be derived from the exercise." Riding, or, as the old lady has it, riding on horseback, is next strenuously recommended to those who earnestly desire to "live long and comfortably;" but there is not a word dropt about Fox-hunting, almost the only kind of riding, besides Racing, that in our opinion deserves the name. O Lord preserve us! of all amusements, riding on horseback along the highroad by oneself, especially in miry weather, is the most deplorable! We seriously pity every man who keeps a horse-standing at livery. The animal must be ridden-regularly too-if you do not wish him to break your neck. You come at last to be afraid to look out of the window, in case he should be there pacing up and down the street-with the saddle all wet probably-and the long dangling stirrups, with their vacant irons, summoning you to come down, and take a gallop through the glaur. The brute often falls unaccountably lame-first in one foot, and then in another-giving you the air of a cadger-caves with his head, though the frost has killed all the flies long ago-keeps starting, boggling, and stumbling, every ten yards-and, once a-month at the least, comes down on his nose, without ever so much as once touching the ground with his knees, which nevertheless have been broken long ago, while the hair, having grown on white, gives them the appearance of being padded. We could not have heart to wish our worst enemy to keep a horse through the winter in a town. Then, what riders are our Edinburgh youth! It is the fashion now to take lessons-and every prig of an apprentice you see on horseback seems to have two cork legs. Out they jut in one immovable position-just as if the ostler had hoisted the young adventurer on, and then skrewed his cork legs to the sticking place with a positive injunction not to attempt shifting them till they come home and have themselves dismounted. They seem to have no joints-either at hip, knee, or ankle and then look at the way they hold the bridle! That is riding à la militaire! The quill-driver thinks himself a cavalry officer-and has the audacity to ride past Jock's Lodge. This Pain is expensive-and purchased Pain is by idiots for a while thought Pleasure. But we have an article on Riding" lying by us-which shall be forthcoming in an early Number-by a gentleman lineally descended from John Gilpin. Grannum next addresses herself, on the subject of Exercise, exclusively to men of letters-and we cannot help thinking has ourselves more particularly in her eye, which she cocks leeringly at Old Christopher. She recom'mends us to have "dumb-bells and a couple of flesh-brushes always at hand, that we may steal a few moments from our studies to exercise the superior extremities with the former, and the inferior limbs and the head and neck with the latter." Dumb-bells we have never used since Jack Thurtell attempted to murder his friend Wood with a pair-and as for flesh-brushes, why, our skin is as clear as amber, and our flesh as firm as marble. She tells 66 us, farther, "to use the flesh-brush for fifteen or twenty minutes regularly every morning on first getting out of bed-and to pursue the same practice also at night." At this rate, the flesh-brush would never be out of our hands-and we should be afraid of establishing a Raw." Let mangy and scurvy people scrub their superior and inferior extremities with the fleshbrush, to their own and the Old Lady's heart's content. But commend us to a good stiff, hard, rough, yarn towel-that makes our body blush like a Peony, and glow like a Furnace. Literary men are also told" for a change to run briskly up and down stairs several times, or to use the shuttlecock"- or fight with their own shadow,' -an exercise described, it seems, by Addison in one of his Spectators. When the worst has come to the worst, we shall fight with our own shadow; but that will not be till not a blockhead is left on the face of the whole earth for us to bastinado-not till we observe that we are positively the Last Man, shall we have recourse to that recreation. We are finally told to read aloud and loudly, "out of any work before us" -"to promote pulmonary circulation, and strengthen the digestive organs.' We know a much better exercise of the lungs than that, and one we frequently practise. It is to thrust our head and shoulders out of the window, and imagining that we see a scoundrel stealing apples in the orchard, or carrying off a howtowdie, to roar out upon him as if it were Stentor blowing a great brazen trumpet, "Who are you-you rascal-stand still or I will blow you to atoms with this blunderbuss!" The thief takes to his heels, and having got a hundred yards farther off, you must intensify your roar into a Briareus-even unto the third remove-and then the chance is, that some decent citizen heaves in sight, who, terrified out of his seven senses, falls head over heels into the kennel when you, still anxious" to promote pulmonary circulation and strengthen your digestive organs," burst out into a guffaw that startles the Castle rockand then, letting down the lattice, return to your article, which, like the haggis of the Director-General, is indeed a Roarer. Cetera desunt. Noctes Ambrosianae. No. XXXV. ΧΡΗ ΔΕΝ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΩ ΚΥΛΙΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΝΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΑΩΝ [This is a distich by wise old Phocylides, An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days; Meaning, ""TIS RIGHT FOR GOOD WINEBIBBING PEOPLE, "NOT TO LET THE JUG PACE ROUND THE BOARD LIKE A CRIPPLE; An excellent rule of the hearty old cock 'tis- C. N. ap. Ambr. SCENE I-Picardy Place-South-East Drawing Room-The SHEPHERD Solus. SHEPHERD. Perfec' enchantment! Ae single material coal fire multiplied by mirrors into a score o' unsubstantial reflections, ilka image burnin' awa' as brichtly up its ain shadowy chimley, as the original Prototeep! Only, ye dinna hear the phantom-fires murmuring about the bars-their flickering tongues are a' silent -they micht seem to reek at a puff o' the Prototeep,-but sic seemin' wadna dim the atmosphere o' this splendid Saloon. The refraction and reflection o' light's a beautifu' mystery, and I wus I understood the sceence o' optics. And yet ablins it's better no-I michtna then wi' sic a shudder o' instantawneous delicht, naething short o' religion, glower upon the rainbow, the Apparition o' the storm. Let Pheelosophers ken causes-Poets effecks. Ye canna ca' him an ignorawmus that kens effecks—and then in the moral world, which belangs to men o' genius like Me and Burns, there's for the maist part a confused but no an obscure notion o' causes accompanying the knowledge o' effecks-difficult to express formally, like a preacher in his poopit, or a professor in his chair, but colouring the poetry o' effecks wi' the tinge o' the pheelosophy o' causes, sae that the reader alloos that reason and imagination are ane, and that there's nae truth like fiction.-O, ye bit bonny bricht burning fires, there's only ane amang ye a' that gies ony heat! A' the rest's but delusion-just as when the evening star lets loose her locks to the dews high up in heaven, every pool amang the mountains has its ain Eidolon, sae that the earth seems strewn with stars, yet a' the while there's in reality but ae star, and her name is Venus, the delicht o' Gods and men and universal natur.-Ma faith, you're a maist magnificent time-piece, towerin' there on the mantel, mair like a palace wi' thae ivory pillars, or the verra temple o' Solomon! To what a heicht man has carried the mechanical airts-till they've become imaginative! There's poetry in that portal-mercy on us, twa figures comin' out, haun in haun, frae the interior o' the building intill the open air, apparelled like wee bit Christians, yet nae bigger than fairies. Weel, that beats a'-first the tane and then the tither, wi' its tiny siller rod, seemin' to strike the chimes on a sheet o' tinseland then aff and awa in amang the ticks o' the clock-wark! Puir creturs, wi' a' their fantastic friskiness, they maun lead a slavish life, up and out to their wark, every hour o' the day and nicht, Sabbaths and a', sae that they haena time even to finish a dream. That's waur than human life itsell; for the wee midshipman in a man-o'-war is aye allooed four hours' sleep at a streatch, and mair than that is the lot o' the puirest herd callant, wha, haein' nae pawrents, is glad to sair a hard master, withouten ony wage-a plaid, parritch, and a cauff-bed.-Mony, certes, is the curious contrivance for notin' time! The hourglass-to my mind, the maist impressive, perhaps, o' them a'-as ye see the sand perpetually dreep-dreepin' awa momently-and then a' dune just like life. Then, wi' a touch o' the haun, or whawmle in which there's aye something baith o' feelin' and o' thocht, there begins anither era, or epoch of an hour, during which ane o' your ain bairns, wha has been lang in a decline, and visited by the doctor only when he's been at ony rate passin' by, gies a groanlike sich, and ye ken in a moment that he's dead-or an earthquake tumbles down Lisbon, or some city in Calabria, while a' the folk, men, women, and children, fall down on their knees, or are crushed aiblins by falling churches. "The dial-stane aged and green,"-ane o' Cammel's fine lines! Houses change families, not only at Michaelmas, but often on a sudden summons frae death, there is a general flitting, awa a'thegither frae this side o' the kintra, nane o' the neebours ken whare; and sae, ye see, dial-stanes get green, for there are nae bairns' hauns to pick aff the moss, and it's no muckle that the Robin Redbreast taks for his nest or the Kitty-Wren. It's aften been a mournfu' thocht wi' me, that o' a' the dial-stanes I ever saw, staunin' in a sort o' circle in the middle o' a garden, or in a nyeuck o' grun that might ance hae been a garden, just as you gang in or out o' the village, or in a kirk-yard, there was aye something wrang wi' them, either wi' the finger or the face, sae that Time laughed at his ain altar, and gied it a kick in the by-gaun, till it begood to hang a to the tae-side like a negleckit tomb-stane ower the banes o' some ane or ither buried lang afore the Covenant.-Isna that a fiddle on the brace-piece? Let's hawnle her-Ay, just like a' the lave-ae string wantin'-and something or ither wrang wi' twa three o' the pegs-sae, that whan ye skrew up, they'll no haud the grip. Ne'ertheless, I'll play mysell a bit tune. Got, she's no an ill fiddle-but some folk can bring music out o' a boot-jack. O MOTHER, tell the laird o't, Or sair-ly it will grieve me, O, That I'm to wake the ewes the night, An' Annie's to gang wi' me, O. I'll wake the ewes my night about, But ne'er wi' ane sae sau-cy, O; Nor sit my lane the lee-lang night Wi' sic a scornfu' lassie, O. I'll no wake, I'll no wake, I'll no wake wi' Annie, O, Nor sit my lane o'er night wi' ane Sae thraward an' un-can-nie, O. Dear son, be wise an' warie, VOL. XXIII. P The ewes ye wake are fair enough, I tauld ye ear', I tauld ye late, When left your lane wi' Annie, O. The night it was a simmer night, Neist morning at his mother's knee, An' An' aye he clasp'd her kindly, O. I'm no in bad vice the nicht-and oh! but the Saloon's a gran' ha' for singin'! Here's your health and sang, sir. Dog on't, if I didna believe for a minute that yon Image was anither Man! I dinna a'thegither just like this room, for it's getting unco like a Pandemonium. It would be a fearsome room to get fou in-for then you would sit glowerin' in the middle o' forty fires, and yet fear that you were nae Salamander. You wud be frichtened to stir, in case you either walked intil the real ribs, or gaed crash through a lookin'-glass thinken't the trance. I'm beginnin' to get a wee dizzy-sae let me sit down on this settee. Oh! Wow but this is a sonsie sofa! It wad do brawly for a honeymoon. It's aneugh o' itsell to gar a man fa' in love wi' he disna ken wha-or the ugliest woman o' a' his hail acquantance. I declare that I dinna ken whether I'm sittin', or stannin', or lyin', or hangin' in air, or dookin' in warm water. The leanest o' human kind wud fin' itsell saft and plump, on, or rather in, sic a settee, for there's nae kennin' the seat frae the thing sittin', and ane's amalgamated, to use a chemical word, corporeally wi' the cushions, and part and parcel o' the fringed furniture o' a room fit to be the Sanctum Sanctorum o' the Spirit o' Sardanapalus after Apotheosis. Sae intense is the luxury, that it gars me unawaures use langnebbed classical words, in preference to my mither tongue, which seems ower puir-like and impovereeshed for giein' adequate expression to a voluptuousness that laps my spirit in an Oriental Elysium. A doobled rose-leaf would be felt uneasily below my limbs the noo-yet I wud be ower steeped in luxurious laziness to allow mysell even to be lifted up by the saft fingers, and hauns, and arms, and shouthers, o' a train o' virgins, till the loveliest o' them a' micht redd |