THE misletoe hung," not "in the castle hall," but from the roof of a homely cottage in a remote part of Glo'stershire. It was Christmas Eve. My readers this side the Atlantic, may not be aware that, in England, it is the custom at Christmas tine, among the middle and lower classes, to adorn the walls with sprigs of holly, the beautiful, bright red berries of which give a lively and cheerful aspect to the dingiest apartment. It is also usual to hang from the roof a tolerably large misletoe bush, which has a talismanic property in that it gives the swains the privilege of kissing every rustic belle that they can draw, or catch, under the magic bough; and, as it often happens that the manner in which such kisses are received, clearly indicates the damsel's "likes and dislikes," the lovers are more than ordinarily anxious to avail themselves of the misletoe privilege, because the repulse which they then meet, saves them from a more disagreeable verbal one, or the encouragement confirms hopes that have been previously formed.

The girl had become a fine young woman, the boy a strapping, laughter-loving urchin, and eighty winters had left their many wrinkles and strong lines upon the old lady, when we find them in their cottage on Christmas Eve, with one addition to their party, almost their only friend, no less a personage than Ralph Hopkins, the suitor of Amy Rogers. Ralph could hardly be said to be an accepted suitor, for, though he had often pressed Amy hard to speak the decisive word, he had as yet been unable to get a definite acceptance, although her general manner was such that the sturdy yeoman justly considered he had little cause to despair.

There seemed but one difficulty in the way,Daine Rogers would not leave her cottage, in which she had lived nearly sixty years, and which was endeared to her by the joys and sorrows of a long and chequered life; although Ralph's mother, who lived with him in his snug farm-house, had repeatedly pointed out how comfortably they could make one family, and Ralph had urged his suit to the same purpose over and over again.

Old Dame Rogers had one foible, common to nearly all the old ladies of England; she was passionately fond of cards. "All fours" was her glory, "high,

Christmas, in England, is a season of festivity to all classes. The high and low-rich and poor-all seem to have their hearts warmed and opened to their fellow men. Families, that have been separated the whole year, make an effort to draw around the parent hearth at that season of rejoicing,-the thrifty trades-low, Jack and the game," her Eutopia! All festivals man partially forgets his gains, the bankrupt one his anticipated troubles, and none but the most miserable, or the most degraded, are exempt from that general lighting up of the brighter part of humanity, consequent upon the Christmas holidays. Each house offers to its inhabitants and visitors the best cheer its owner can afford. How that cheer differs-how many and varied are its grades-how little the rich spare from their superfluity to add to the comfort of their poorer brethren, is not now my subject. I would take my reader into a cottage, assuring him that although in such places there may not be found the dainties nor the elegancies of life, there will always be discovered a hearty, honest welcome, not the less sincere because uttered in unpolished language,-true politeness emanates from kind feeling and good nature.

Dame Rogers lived in a village some forty miles from the capital of the County of Gloucestershire, as far removed from the polish of civilized society as the extreme point of the far west. The old lady had lived to see her son and his wife in the grave, when she assumed the care of two children left by them, one a girl nearly arrived at womanhood, the other a little boy, much younger. The Dame had long been a widow, and supported herself by knitting-an occupation in which she was materially assisted by her grand-daughter.

must be indicated by card playing, and as Amy was not only naturally sweet tempered, but felt bound by her grandmother's kindness to bear with her infirmi ties, she was ever ready to gratify her inclinations. Thus, on Christmas Eve, although the moon shone brightly, and Amy had partially agreed with Ralph that she would stroll out toward the farm-house, about the time that he was to leave home, she sat down without a murmur to play with her grandmother, who, besides being somewhat slow in her conceptions of the various points of the game, suffered from a lamentable and uncontrolable drowsiness.

Virtue never goes unrewarded it is said, and Amy's forbearance was speedily repaid by the entrance of her rustic lover.

Pass we over the hearty greeting and seasonable wishes of the good-natured yeoman. Game after game was played to the entire satisfaction of the old lady, who, though sleeping half her time, and holding much worse cards than Amy, nevertheless contrived to win nine-tenths of the games. Whether this arose from Amy's bad play, or from her interest in the whispered conversation of Ralph, we are not prepared to decide. After the luxuries usual at such times-a plentiful supply of toast and cider, warmed with a red hot poker-Ralph got up to leave, yet lingering as lovers only linger, he pretended to be deeply anxious

for Amy to win the last game, and, leaning over her, anxiety overcame his scruples as to propriety, and he under the assumed intention of showing which card rushed up the ladder, wrapped the old lady in blankets, she should play, contrived, whilst the grandmother and bore her down, resigning her to some of the unsuspiciously dozed over her cards, to avail himself neighbors, who conveyed her to the nearest house. of the over-hanging misletoe, to snatch a warm kiss Amy's situation had, in the meantime, become more from the laughing and blushing Amy, to the infinite { perilous; the fire had spread round the house; the delight of her urchin brother. outer walls were one sheet of fire; the room in which she was, suffocatingly hot with smoke and bursting flames; while around the window the blaze was so fierce and high, that the villagers strove to dissuade Ralph from again attempting to enter. Ralph, however, was no coward, and would, to save a life, have encountered similar danger at any time; but to save Amy he would have gone to certain death. He was soon in the room, and taking off his rough over-coat, wrapped it carefully around her, then telling the boy to follow him cautiously, he took Amy in his arms, and boldly walking through the blazing window, succeeded in reaching the ground and depositing his precious burthen in safety. They were not a minute too soon, for the next moment the floor fell in, and the whole cottage was a mass of flame.

Ralph passed over the distance of about half a mile between his own house and the cottage of Amy, with that quick, buoyant step, belonging to good health, and a consciousness of being beloved by the object of his affection. Arrived at home, he sat an hour gossiping with his mother about the arrangements of the morrow-Amy and her relatives were to spend the day with them-and, after all the important subjects therewith connected were settled, he went out to look round his premises, as was his general custom, before retiring to rest. The first thing which caught his attention, was a blaze of light in the direction of the village the fears of the lover were immediately aroused, and the more steadily he gazed, the more was he convinced that the fire was at Dame Rogers's. To call his mother, to receive an opinion from her confirming his own, was the work of a moment, and then to retrace his steps to the village with a speed which the vigor of manhood, urged by the anxiety and fears of love, could alone equal, was the immediate consequence. The distance between the two houses had probably never before been passed in so short a time, each step confirmed Ralph's fears, and when he stood before the cottage, he found the lower part enveloped in flames, which were wreathing round the windows of the sleeping rooms, as though impatient to devour the unconscious occupants.

In the country, a fire creates infinitely more alarm, and excites infinitely greater sympathy for the sufferers than in cities. Dame Rogers's neighbors vied with each other in attending to the immediate wants of herself and grandchildren. On Christmas morning they were removed to Ralph Hopkins's, and if before the accident Ralph had little cause to fear his success, that success was rendered perfectly certain, by Amy's tearful gratitude for saving herself and relatives.

As the old adage says 't is an ill-wind that blows nobody good," so, that sad as was Dame Rogers's misfortune, Ralph Hopkins did not much regret it,

the only impediment to his marriage, with Amy an event which took place only a few weeks subsequent to the fire.

Ralph shouted aloud to the sleepers and the neigh-because the destruction of the cottage did away with bors, but, before they could be aroused, the flames had entirely destroyed the stairs, and had so surrounded the window of the second floor, that escape, even that way, if much longer delayed, would be doubtful. In Ralph's mother, Dame Rogers found a congenial Ralph had procured a ladder, and raised it to the win-spirit, and the two old ladies enjoy their game together, dow, to which Amy had come and told him that she while Amy darns her stockings, and Ralph smokes his could not awake her grandmother. The lover's pipe, each and all perfectly happy.

SHAKSPEARE GALLERY OF BEAUTY.-NO. VII.

EY HENRY D. COOKE.

OPHELIA.

(See Plate.)

utter destruction of the reasoning powers; it is the total imbecility, which, as medical people well know, too frequently follows some terrible shock to the spirits. Constance is frantic; Lear is mad; Ophelia is insane. Her sweet mind lies in fragments before us-a pitiful spectacle! Her wild, rambling fancies; her quick transitions from gaiety to sadness-each equally purposeless and causeless; her snatches of old ballads, such as, perhaps, her nurse sang her to sleep with in her infancy-are all so true to the life, that we forget to wonder, and can only weep. belonged to Shakspeare alone, so to temper such a picture, that we can endure to dwell upon it :

'Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favor and to prettiness.'

It

"That in her madness she should exchange her bash

meanor for the impatient restlessness that spurns at straws, and say and sing precisely what she never would, or could have uttered, had she been in possession of her reason, is so far from being an impropriety, that it is an additional stroke of nature It is one of the symptoms of this species of insanity, as we are assured by physicians."-MRS. JAMESON.

In the tragedy of Hamlet, which we consider the master-piece of the world's poet," there is a wonderful diversity of character, and equally various modifications of feeling, which excite the deepest interest, and appeal to almost every passion of the human heart. The mind recoils at the hidden treachery and guilt of the false king, and the perjured queen; it looks through their external assumption of calmness, upon their hearts, blackened by crime, and writhing with remorse and secret fear. We are relieved from this contemplation of their deeper gilt by the introduction of Polonius-a knave of lighter dye"-at whom we are at times disposed to laugh, and at times to applaud, as with the conceited garulousness of age, hediscourses mingled wisdom and folly." Again, the impetuous grief of Laertes when he hears the death of his father, or mourns his dead sister, arouses our sympathy; but among all these emotions, which alternately hold the ascendency, none exert so complete {ful silence for empty babbling, her sweet maidenly desway over the mind and heart, as those excited by the character of Hamlet. We participate in his fearful awe, at the re-appearance of his murdered father-we sympathize with him in his gloomy resolves for revenge, and are then thrown back to gaze with mingled interest and fear upon the "wreck which madness nakes," until we find ourselves again insensibly carried along by the same current of passion which swept away his reason. From this violent storm of revengeful grief, it is a relief to turn to the mild and gentle character of Ophelia. But it is not this contrast alone which excites our interest. By the command of her father, Ophelia, though contrary to the promptings of her heart, discountenances the suit of Hamlet. The trial is a severe one, and though she passes through the ordeal, "grief sets his signet upon her brow," and the calm serenity of her life is broken. The death of her father, soon after, is a shock too great to be borne after the recent events. The weight of her calamities presses upon her tender heart;-the tendrils which affection had entwined around it, are broken, and, as they part asunder, the moorings of reason give way, and she floats, a wreck upon the dark waters of insanity. Here it is that our sympathies are most excited-for we are looking upon the consequences of the crimes of others, visited upon unoffending innocence; we behold the ruin of beauty, beautiful even in ruin!

"Ophelia's madness is not the suspension, but the

We conclude by extracting the following from Verplanck's Illustrated Shakspeare.

Over her, the sweet Ophelia,' even Johnson descends from his stern censorship to mourn as the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious;' while Hazlitt, in a strain of passionate eloquence, exclaims: Ophelia is a character almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon. Oh, rose of May! Oh, flower too soon faded! Her love, her madness, and her death, are described with the truest touches of tenderness and pathos. It is a character which nobody but Shakspeare could have drawn in the way he has done; and to the conception of which, there is not the smallest approach, except in some of the old romantic ballads.'

"Mrs. Jameson, after having pourtrayed, with great beauty and truth, the effect of Ophelia's character, has, with equal delicacy of discrimination, shown the principle by which that effect is produced. It is the helplessness of Ophelia, arising merely from her innocence, and pictured without any indication of weakness, which melts us with such profound pity.'"