proaching her rival, who now spun if possible with double speed on finding Biddy coming up with her. At length they were again even, and just at that moment in came her friend the little red woman, and asked aloud, "is there any one in this kemp that knows my name ?" This question she asked three times before Biddy could pluck up courage to answer her. She at last said,

"There's a girl in this town does know your name—
Your name is Even Trot-Even Trot."

"Ay," said the old woman, "and so it is; and let that name be your guide and your husband's through life. Go steadily along, but let your step be even; stop little; keep always advancing; and you'll never have cause to rue the day that first saw Even Trot."

you

We need scarcely add that Biddy won the kemp and the husband, and that she and Shaun lived long and happily together; and I have only now to wish, kind reader, that you and I may live longer and more happily still.

FRANK MARTIN AND THE FAIRIES.

WHEN a superstition is once impressed strongly upon the popular credulity, the fiction always assumes the shape and form which the peculiar imagination of the country is constituted to body forth. This faculty depends so much on climate, temperament, religion, and occupation, that the notions entertained of supernatural beings, though generally based upon one broad feature peculiar to all countries, differ so essentially respecting the form, character, habits, and powers of these beings, that they appear to have been drawn from sources widely removed.

To an inquiring mind there can be no greater proof than this of their being nothing but the creations of our own brain, and of assuming that shape only which has uniformly been impressed upon our imagination at the precise period of life when such impressions are strongest and most permanent, and the reason which ought to combat and investigate them least capable of doing so. If these inane bugbears possessed the consistence of truth and reality, their appearance to mankind would be always uniform, unchangeable, and congruous; but they are beheld, so to speak, through different prejudices and impressions, and consequently change with the media through which they are seen, just as light assumes the hue of the glass through which it passes. Hence their different shape, character, and attributes in different countries, and the frequent absence of rational analogy with respect to them even in the

same.

The force of imagination alone is capable of conjuring up and shaping out that which never had existence, and that too with as much apparent distinctness and truth as if it were real. Go to the lunatic asylum or the mad-house, and there it may be seen in all its strong delusion and positive terror.

Before I close this portion of my little disquisition, I shall relate an anecdote connected with it, of which I myself was the subject. Some years ago I was seized with typhus fever of so terrific a character, that for a long time I lay in a state hovering between life and death, unconscious as a log, without either hope or fear. At length a crisis came, and, aided by the strong stamina of an unbroken constitution, I began to recover, and every day to regain my consciousness more and more. As yet, however, I was very far from being out of danger, for I felt the malady to be still so fiery and oppressive, that I was not surprised when told that the slightest mistake either in my medicine or regimen would have brought on a relapse. At all events, thank God, my recovery advanced; but,

at the same time, the society that surrounded me was wild and picturesque in the highest degree. Never indeed was such a combination of the beautiful and hideous seen, unless in the dreams of a feverish brain like mine, or the distorted reason of a madman. At one side of my bed, looking in upon me with a most hellish and satanic leer, was a face, compared with which the vulgar representations of the devil are comeliness itself, whilst on the other was a female countenance beaming in beauty that was ethereal-angelic. Thus, in fact, was my whole bed surrounded; for they stood as thickly as they could, sometimes flitting about and seeming to crush and jostle one another, but never leaving my bed for a moment. Here were the deformed features of a dwarf, there an angel apparently fresh from heaven; here was a gigantic demon with his huge mouth placed longitudinally in his face, and his nose across it, whilst the Gorgon-like coxcomb grinned as if he were vain, and had cause to be vain, of his beauty. This fellow annoyed me much, and would, I apprehended, have done me an injury, only for the angel on the other side. He made perpetual attempts to come at me, but was as often repulsed by that seraphic creature. Indeed, I feared none of them so much as I did the Gorgon, who evidently had a design on me, and would have rendered my situation truly pitiable, were it not for the protection of the seraph, who always succeeded in keeping him aloof. At length he made one furious rush as if he meant to pounce upon me, and in self-preservation I threw my right arm to the opposite side, and, grasping the seraph by the nose, I found I had caught my poor old nurse by that useful organ, while she was in the act of offering me a drink. For several days I was in this state, the victim of images produced by disease, and the inflammatory excitement of brain consequent upon it. Gradually, however, they began to disappear, and I felt manifest relief, for they were succeeded by impressions as amusing now as the former had been distressing. I imagined

that there was a serious dispute between my right foot and my left, as to which of them was entitled to precedency; and, what was singular, my right leg, thigh, hand, arm and shoulder, most unflinchingly supported the right foot, as did the other limbs the left. The head alone, with an impartiality that did it honour, maintained a strict neutrality. The truth was, I imagined that all my limbs were endowed with a consciousness of individual existence, and I felt quite satisfied that each and all of them possessed the faculty of reason. I have frequently related this anecdote to my friends; but, I know not how it happened, I never could get them to look upon it in any other light than as a specimen of that kind of fiction which ist indulgently termed " drawing the long bow." It is, however, as true as that I now exist, and relate the fact; and, what is more, the arguments which I am about to give are substantially the same that were used by the rival claimants and their respective supporters. The discussion, I must observe, was opened by the left foot, as being the discontented party, and, like all discontented parties, its language was so very violent, that, had its opinions prevailed, there is no doubt but they would have succeeded in completely overturning my constitution.

Left foot. Brother (addressing the right with a great show of affection, but at the same time with a spasmodic twitch of strong discontentment in the big toe), Brother, I don't know how it is that you have during our whole lives always taken the liberty to consider yourself a better foot than I am; and I would feel much obliged to you if you would tell me why it is that you claim this superiority over me. Are we not both equal in every thing?

Right foot. Be quiet, my dear brother. We are equal in every thing, and why, therefore, are you discontented?

Left foot. Because you presume to consider yourself the better and more useful foot.

Right foot. Let us not dispute, my dear brother: each is equally necessary to the other. What could I do without you? Nothing, or at least very little; and what could you do without me? Very little indeed. We were not made to quarrel. Left foot (very hot). I am not disposed to quarrel, but I trust you will admit that I am as good as you, every way your equal, and, begad, in many things your superior. Do you hear that? I am not disposed to quarrel, you rascal, and how dare you say so?

Here there was a strong sensation among all the right members, who felt themselves insulted through this outrage offered to their chief supporter.

Right foot. Since you choose to insult me without provocation, I must stand upon my right

Left (shoving off to a distance). RIGHT!—there, again, what right have you to be termed "right" any more than I?— ("Bravo!—go it, Left; pitch into him; we are equal to him and his," from the friends of the Left. The matter was now likely to become serious, and to end in a row.)

"What's the matter there below?" said the Head; "don't be fools, and make yourselves ridiculous. What would either of you be with a crutch or a cork-leg? which is only another name for a wooden shoe any day."

Right foot. Since he provokes me, I tell him, that ever since the world began, the prejudice of mankind in all nations has been in favour of the right foot and the right hand. (Strong sensation among the left members). Surely he ought not to be ignorant of the proverb, which says, when a man is peculiarly successful in any thing he undertakes, "that man knew how to go about it-he put the right foot foremost !" (Cheers from the right party).

Left. That's mere special pleading the right foot there does not mean you, because you happen to be termed such; but it means the foot which, from its position under the circum