si 8 Nl&RQirS NOR THERN TO UR. 



der, with her guitar in her hand, ready to accompany her voice 

 in song, and, after the ruder pleasures of the day, to lull us with 

 34 sounds of sweetest melody." Nor is there any poetical exag- 

 geration here. Had Mrs. Callander's lot been differently cast, 

 she might have ranked high amongst professional singers, as 

 strength and sweetness are combined in her song, and, when in 

 its plaintive strain, I really cannot name her equal. Now having 

 said this, how can I bring myself to relate the following fact, or, 

 in other words, to expose the weakness of my nature ? I was 

 asked to sing, I said I could not sing. But I was told I could 

 sing in fact I was at last told that I must sing. 



Now what says Mr. Congreve in his " Mourning Bride ?" 



" Music has charms to soothe the savage breast ; 

 To soften rocks and bend the knotted oak ;" 



and had the poet added, " to make a man make a fool of him- 

 self," the highly-wrought picture would have been complete. 

 " Then," said I, " I will sing," and, perhaps emboldened by the 

 "best part of a bottle of Lafitte murdered the beautiful air of 



" Majestic rose the god of day 

 In yon bright burnish'd sky," 



in very great style. But what can resist the solicitations of the 

 ladies ? Neither the wisdom of Solomon, nor the piety of David, 

 were proof against it, and how could Nimrod's philosophy be 

 expected to be so ? 



But human folly and human presumption seldom pass scot- 

 free never, I believe, by those who have themselves been guilty 

 of them ; and I shall not soon forget my next morning's recol- 

 lection of having so presumptuously presented myself after a 

 well-graced actor. It flitted across my mind as my eyes opened, 

 and a dose of Dover powders would have been powerless in 

 producing the sudorific effect that it almost instantaneously 

 occasioned. I consoled myself, however, with the reflection 

 that life is but a joke, and that the very wisest of us all are but 

 pursuing bubbles which break in their flight. 



By an arrangement recently made* between the owners of them, 

 "hounds are to be reached every day in the week, from either 

 Dunse or Kelso ; and on Friday, November 28th, Major St. 

 Paul met at Cornhill inn, within a mile of Coldstream, a place 



* The Duke of Buccleuch engaged to meet every Tuesday, and Major 

 St. Paul every Friday, within reach of Dunse and Kelso. 



