I assure you, you will see something that will entertain--no, that's an improper phrase--but that will interest you, from the resemblances which I will point out betwixt popular customs on such occasions and those of the ancients." "Heaven forgive me!" thought M'Intyre;--"I shall certainly misbehave, and lose all the credit I have so lately and accidentally gained." When they set out, schooled as he was by the warning and entreating looks of his sister, the soldier made his resolution strong to give no offence by evincing inattention or impatience.

But our best resolutions are frail, when opposed to our predominant inclinations.

Our Antiquary,--to leave nothing unexplained, had commenced with the funeral rites of the ancient Scandinavians, when his nephew interrupted him, in a discussion upon the "age of hills," to remark that a large sea-gull, which flitted around them, had come twice within shot.

This error being acknowledged and pardoned, Oldbuck resumed his disquisition.
"These are circumstances you ought to attend to and be familiar with, my dear Hector; for, in the strange contingencies of the present war which agitates every corner of Europe, there is no knowing where you may be called upon to serve.

If in Norway, for example, or Denmark, or any part of the ancient Scania, or Scandinavia, as we term it, what could be more convenient than to have at your fingers' ends the history and antiquities of that ancient country, the officina gentium, the mother of modern Europe, the nursery of those heroes, Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure, Who smiled in death ?-- How animating, for example, at the conclusion of a weary march, to find yourself in the vicinity of a Runic monument, and discover that you have pitched your tent beside the tomb of a hero!" "I am afraid, sir, our mess would be better supplied if it chanced to be in the neighbourhood of a good poultry-yard." "Alas, that you should say so! No wonder the days of Cressy and Agincourt are no more, when respect for ancient valour has died away in the breasts of the British soldiery." "By no means, sir--by no manner of means.