always been reputed the favorite haunts | his heart, stricken with grief, would sudof the merry fairies, for which Fletcher, denly desert her spouse. The fairy

in his "Faithful Shepherdess," assigns
a beautiful reason:

"A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks,
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying, flesh and dull mortality."

Among the Scottish peasants it was
believed that, when persons were afflict-
ed with consumption, the fairies had
stolen the human soul, and put an elfish
one in its place.
The victims were ad-
vised to lie by night, in a semi-nude
state, near some fairy-haunted well. It
may be well thought that this was

"A remedy sure

To kill or cure."

In country parts every disturbance among the cattle was referred to the agency of the sprites. If a horse took the "staggers," a calf had the "blackleg," or the sheep were troubled with the "red-water," the frightened owner ascribed his misfortunes to the mischievous pranks of the elves, whom he had undoubtedly offended. The triangular flint-stones, commonly found in Scotland and Ireland, were said to be arrow-heads shot by fairy bowmen against the lowing herds.

Thus every herd by sad experience knows
How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows
fly:

When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,
Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers

lie."

Melusine dwelt with Count de Lusignan
for many years, and nothing arose to
disturb their mutual happiness, until
curiosity caused the Count, contrary to
his promise, to follow her to a certain
hall one Saturday. Melusine was bath-
ing in company with elves, but upon
being discovered, sent up
a loud
wail and vanished. It is believed that,
even to this day, she protects the Lusig-
nan family, and is heard to lament when
one of them is about to die. Beautiful
nymphs were often wooed by men, but
were almost invariably obliged to de-
part to their subterranean palaces to ob-
tain the consent of the fairy monarch to
their espousals. The ardent swain
awaited, on the banks of the lake, the
coming of his beloved; but, after a short
time, the upheaving of the waters be-
came tinged with blood, telling mysteri-

ously of the anger of the fairy race.
The Banshee is a personage well known
in Ireland, and of whom every respect-
able nurse, well versed in her art, has
many tales. She was a shape of whom
Her presence near a habitation was sup-
persons caught only occasional glimpses.
posed to presage the death of some of its
inmates. When she appeared to any
individual of the great Irish septs, utter-
ing her mournful caoine, the fact indi-
cated that either he or the chief of his
family was about to be summoned to
eternity. It will be readily perceived
by the intelligent reader that fairy my-
thology furnishes a beautiful field to the
imaginative writer from which to cull
choice bouquets.

The female fays were exceedingly beautiful and graceful. Many noble knights of medieval times, in their wanderings, met with these ravishing crea- Nor is it an uncultivated field. Shakestures; and, becoming enamored, sought peare has immortalized the doings of the them in marriage. Usually, in such mischievous Puck, and thrown all airicases, the fairy exacted a pledge of some ness and grace around Titania, Queen of kind from her mortal suitor, and, if he the Fairies. Ben Johnson also made broke his plighted faith, the darling of use of fairy personages in his dramatie

Would pay its owners back, though not in gold; clined to find fault than to praise. In Only a little of its wasted leisure

one of the pauses of the quadrille she said, with a pettish sniff and a disdainful toss of her curly head, "Look at that

Would take the pressure from the troubled lady in the next quadrille. She is Mrs.

distress and confusion of his young blun- been so affable to two such little snobs as derer. you I!" The person to whom he spokewas the Duke of Argyle.

The old fairy tales of our childhood are full of lessons of caution in our dealings Now all these, though extreme inwith the unknown. The powerful fairy who stances, are sufficiently possible to any comes disguised as a beggar woman, and one who has but a meagre share of discrerewards the sisters with diamonds and tion to be lessons and warnings against pearls, or toads and snakes, according to rash, unknowing, or too boastful talking. their treatment of her and the words they It is sure to bring discredit and confusion speak; the mighty genius disguised for on the head of the prater, if not to-day, the moment, as a bird, a fish, a fowl, who then to-morrow; foolish words being of tries the metal of the passer by, with ban the same nature with evil ones and chickor blessing, help or hinderance, according ens, and coming home to roost, as the to the humanity or inhumanity resulting Chinese say curses do.

-all these are fables which inculcate be- Also one of the pitfalls of society is nevolence as the primary, but caution as that habit of depreciation of common the secondary, lesson; and the Scripture friends in which certain people indulge. phrase of "entertaining angels unawares" Some go further and broaden depreciation is of that same pattern. Nothing indeed into scandal; but even less than this is is more needful to inculcate on all persons one of the most unwise of a large class of than a habit of general politeness, and a conversational follies, and indubitably will temper of universal benevolence; nothing lead to trouble in the end. If it does more dangerous than detraction, insolence, nothing worse, it weakens the trust of the boasting, or lying in strange company. person to whom you make those unpleasThe story of Lord Camelford, with whom ant remarks; for we must be besotted a snob of the day made free in the chop with vanity if we cannot transfer to ourhouse, is a case in point; "doubled" by a selves the same bad principle which we more modern anecdote of how a bagman, see, or rather hear, applied to others. We traveling first-class in Scotland with two see two people who appear to be on the gentlemen, delivered himself of sundry best and most affectionate terms together. philippics concerning the character and They kiss if they are women, they are conduct of a well-known lord of high de frank and genial in their greetings if they gree, through whose estates they were are men; if you are sincere and of a simple passing. His companions followed his nature yourself, you take it all in as quite lead, insomuch as they gave him his head real and solid manifestation, and are conand let him talk, when, on stopping at a tent to trust to your own belief. To your certain station, one of the gentlemen got pain and astonishment, you find it a mere out, and was received with every mark of show, without an ounce weight of subrespect. "Who is he?" asked the bag- stance in it. No sooner has the house man, beginning to quake. "The Duke of door closed on the friend who, but a few -"replied his companion, naming the minutes ago, seemed to be all that was nobleman against whom he had been in- dear to the heart and honored by the veighing. "What! you really don't say judgment of your "mutuality," than you so!" gasped the poor snob, sinking back are treated to a volume of sarcasms, of into his compartment in a state of col- fault-findings, of small peckings and picklapse; then, by degrees rousing himself, ings at things which had either never and said, "And to think he has struck you at all, or of which, if you had

he sat

up

So

DESPONDENT.

Ah, I have dwelt too long amid the shadows,
Cold and congealing, of this nether earth;
And thou, my soul, would'st tread the embowered
meadows

Of the high heaven of a grander birth!
For howsoe'er we strive, 'mid toil and anguish,
There comes impiety, until we languish,
To stay the tide of evil in its flow,

seen, you would have carefully concealed rely on the ignorance of any one, and to your knowledge from the world, and have take for granted that everybody knows interpreted them generously to yourself. everything about everybody else that all But your "mutuality" is not so reticent, our unkind words will be reported to their and in half an hour you have been shown subject—and that every stranger should the seamy side of every quality, and learned be treated with courtesy and considerathe real meaning of every action which, tion. until now, you had loved and believed in, and giving your "mutuality" credit for believing and loving too. The first thought that must strike any one with common sense is, "after this comes my turn." that, whatever else is accomplished in the way of weakening your trust in the person attacked, there is sure to be also the idea of weakened trust in the per son attacking, and a general sense of hollowness and insincerity throughout. Besides, these things leak out even where least intended. They come round in time, and always with additions; and though you may be reticent for your own part, some one else is sure to be incautious, perhaps ill-na'ured as well, and the peckings and pickings are exaggerated into assaults far more damaging than they really were intended to be. There is no point of manner or social policy more to be insisted on than reserve in speaking of others. You ought to know your friend very well before you trust yourself to criticise; and even in the safety of your own family fault-finding is a dangerous habit to all concerned, and to be avoided as much as possible-and, with fault-finding, all that class of rudeness to strangers that springs from not knowing who they are, and therefore not feeling called on to be well-bred. For civilization is for the most part unfortunately Thou art the King to whom this mad ambition

only a matter of surface manner, and the traditional scratching of the Russ may be applied to more than the ethnological Tartar. We may do wrong by unkind speech and impolite bearing, but we cannot do wrong by the reverse; and, of two modes of action, it is the safer never to

And yield in sorrow to our victor foe!
Even now the billows of the free old ocean
Bring war's fierce rumors to our burden'd ears;
And the deep depths of all our heart's emotion
Is roused till streameth from our eyes the tears.
The why or whither of this fierce assembling
None can divine save he who spake the word,
That gathered round his standard without tremb-
ling

The hearts heroic, by war's glory stirred!
He moveth on, the poor, the humble minion,

Intrusting all to him who wears the crown;
Who dares to doubt, or hazard an opinion,
The willing law strikes quick the caitiff down'
And thus the millions ready to do battle

High to maintain the glory of their king,
'gnobly rush like thoughtless, soulless cattle,
To war's great shambles without murmuring.
Ah God, we pray that Thou would'st stay the
slaughter,

The deeds impious, with Thy mighty hand, That wifely heart, or noble loving daughter May suffer not in either sunny land!

Must bow, and render at no distant day
A true account of this, its earthly mission,
Since o'er mankind it held its lesser sway.
Then let Thy law, unhallowed now and broken-
The law of peace on earth, good-will to men-
Again with Sinai's thunder be outspoken,
Till from the bounds of earth it speaks again!
ASPIRANT.

MARBLES.

THAT famous old man, Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus, in his great anxiety to have his son, Martinus, use only the very best of books, toys and games, advised the employment of "some few modern playthings, such as might prove of use to his mind, by instilling an early notion of the sciences."

"Taw is the com

He goes on to say:
mon name of this play in England.”

He is in error, however, in this last statement, I feel confident, for a taw is "restricted to the marble employed to knuckle with," says a correspondent to the first series of the famous "Notes and Queries;" and, of my own knowledge, I can state that all the boys here of EngHe found, for example, that “marbles lish descent who use the term (and I taught him percussion and the laws of have known many) apply it according motion; nutcrackers, the use of the to the extract given from "Notes and lever; swinging on the ends of a board, Queries." the balance; bottle-screws, the vice; whirligigs, the axis and the peritrochia; bird-cages, the pulley; and tops, the centrifugal motion."

Regarding the first use of marbles as 3 game, there is but little known; it is doubtless a long time since they were originally introduced to the youth's collection of sports, and I think they really proceeded from Egypt, that great country of mystery and mysteries, but have little on which to found the opinion; one fact, however, may perhaps give some clue:

In England, and in some places in the United States, a marble which is almost wholly used to knuckle with, and which is quite often an "alley," is called a "taw." It is thought these two words may have been derived from alabaster, thereby showing that the marbles, or globes, were originally made of that substance, and, as in Egypt, alabaster was manipulated so much, and for so long a series of years back, therefore, or accordingly, our little globes had their origin the land of the Sphynx.

Marbles are made of either baked clay (which is most used), agate, or other stony substance, and are produced in immense quantities in Saxony for the United States, India and China, they being the largest consumers of the toys.

At Oberstein, on the Nahe, in Germany, where there are large agate mills and quarries, the refuse is carefully turned to good paying account, by being made into the small balls employed by experts to knuckle with, and are mostly sent to the American market.

The substance used in Saxony is a hard, calcareous stone, which is first broken into blocks, nearly square, by blows with a hammer. These are then thrown by the one hundred or two hundred into a small sort of mill, which is formed of a flat, stationary slab of stone, with a number of concentric furrows upon its face. A block of oak, or other hard wood, of the same diametric size, is placed over the small stones, and partly resting upon them. This block or log is kept revolving while the water flows upon the stone slab. In about fifteen Brande, in his valuable volumes of minutes the stones are turned to spheres, "Popular Antiquities," says that "mar- and then, being fit for sale, are hencebles had, no doubt, their origin in bowls, forth called "marbles." One establishand received their name from the sub-ment, containing only three of these rude stance of which the bowls were formerly mills, will turn out fully sixty thousand made;" but I think there is doubt of marbles in each week.

that, and for the reason given above.

Agates are made into marbles at