Various

“ But Wakefield's pride was severely hurt, and he answered disdainfully, "Take it all man—take it all—never make two bites of a cherry—thou canst talk over the gentry, and blear a plain man's eye—Out upon you, man—I would not kiss any man's dirty latchets for leave to bake in his oven." ”

“ But though a sprack lad, and fond of pleasure and its haunts, Harry Wakefield was steady, and not the cautious Robin Oig M'Combich himself was more attentive to the main chance. His holidays were holidays indeed; but his days of work were dedicated [pg 285] to steady and persevering labour. In countenance and temper, Wakefield was the model of Old England's merry yeomen, whose clothyard shafts, in so many hundred battles, asserted her superiority over the nations, and whose good sabres, in our own time, are her cheapest and most assured defence. ”

“ Robin Oig, sorry but not surprised at his comrade's displeasure, hastened to entreat his friend to wait but an hour till he had gone to the Squire's house to receive payment for the cattle he had sold, and he would come back and help him to drive the cattle into some convenient place of rest, and explain to him the whole mistake they had both of them fallen into. But the Englishman continued indignant: "Thou hast been selling, hast thou? Ay, ay—thou is a cunning lad for kenning the hours of bargaining. ”

“ Go to the devil with thyself, for I will ne'er see thy fause loon's visage again—thou should be ashamed to look me in the face."
"I am ashamed to look no man in the face," said Robin Oig, something moved; "and, moreover, I will look you in the face this blessed day, if you will bide at the Clachan down yonder."
"Mayhap you had as well keep away," said his comrade; and turning his back on his former friend, he collected his unwilling associates, assisted by the bailiff, who took some real and some affected interest in seeing Wakefield accommodated. ”

“ Most people you meet in your walks in the common thoroughfare of London, glide, shuffle, or crawl onward, as if they conscientiously thought they had no manner of right to tread the earth but on sufferance. ”

“ If Robin Oig did not laugh, or even smile frequently, as indeed is not the practice among his countrymen, his bright eyes usually gleamed from under his bonnet with an expression of cheerfulness ready to be turned into mirth.
The departure of Robin Oig was an incident in the little town, in and near which he had many friends male and female. He was a topping person in his way, transacted considerable business on his own behalf, and was intrusted by the best farmers in the Highlands, in preference to any other drover in that district. ”

“ His writings will remain for ever the grandest monument of a genius which opened to him the whole heart of man, all the mines of fancy, all the stores of nature, and gave him power beyond all other writers, to move, astonish, and delight mankind. ”

“ THE DRAMA AND ITS PROFESSORS.
(For the Mirror.)
It is remarkable with what difference actors were treated among the ancients. At Athens, they were held in such esteem, as to be sometimes appointed to discharge embassies and other negotiations; whereas, at Rome, if a citizen became an actor, he thereby forfeited his freedom. Among the moderns, actors are best treated in England; the French having much the same opinion of them that the Romans had; for though an actor of talent, in Paris, is more regarded than here, he nevertheless is deeply degraded. ”

“ Robin Oig M'Combich, go not this day to England!"
"Prutt, trutt," answered Robin Oig, "that will never do neither—it would be next thing to running the country. For shame, Muhme—give me the dirk. You cannot tell by the colour the difference betwixt the blood of a black bullock and a white one, and you speak of knowing Saxon from Gaelic blood. All men have their blood from Adam, Muhme. ”

“ The tea-tree loves to grow in valleys, at the foot of mountains, and upon the banks of rivers, where it enjoys a southern exposure to the sun, though it endures considerable variations of heat and cold, as it flourishes in the northern clime of Peking, as well as about Canton; and it is observed that the degree of cold at Peking is as severe in winter as in some parts of Europe. However, the best tea grows in a mild, temperate climate, the country about Nanking producing better tea than either Peking or Canton, betwixt which places it is situated. ”

“ In the drama, the most interesting emotions are excited; the dangerous passions of hate, envy, avarice, and pride, with all their innumerable train of attendant vices, are detected and exposed. Love, friendship, gratitude, and all those active and generous virtues which warm the heart and exalt the mind, are held up as objects of emulation. ”

“ But you cannot have more of a sow but a grumph. It's a shame my father's knife should ever slash a haggis for the like of him."
Thus saying, (but saying it in Gaelic,) Robin drove on his cattle, and waved farewell to all behind him. He was in the greater haste, because he expected to join at Falkirk a comrade and brother in profession, with whom he proposed to travel in company.
Robin Oig's chosen friend was a young Englishman, Harry Wakefield by name, well known at every northern market, and in his way as much famed and honoured as our Highland driver of bullocks. ”

“ The Peach—This delicate and excellent fruit is a striking instance of what judicious cultivation may produce. The common almond has always been considered the original stock of this monument of skill and assiduity. The estimation in which it is held, and the care and expense incurred in its cultivation both in forcing-houses and in the open air, is proof of its superiority: and no fruit repays the labour of the attendant, or the expense of the owner, more bountifully than this. ”

“ It consists, as is well known, in the person who makes the deasil, walking three times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun. At once, however, she stopped short, and exclaimed, in a voice of alarm and horror, "Grandson of my father, there is blood on your hand." "Hush, for God's sake, aunt," said Robin Oig; "you will bring more trouble on yourself with this Taishataragh (second sight) than you will be able to get out of for many a day." ”

“ In about seven years the shrub rises to a man's height, and as it then bears few leaves, and grows slowly, it is cut down to the stem, which occasions an exuberance of fresh shoots and leaves the succeeding summer. In Japan, the tea-tree is cultivated round the borders of the fields, without regard to soil, but as the Chinese export great quantities of tea, they plant whole fields with it. The tea-trees that yield often the finest leaves, grow on the steep declivities of hills, where it is dangerous and in some cases impracticable to collect them. ”

“ About a mile from the town is a place that bears the name of Hamlet's garden. Here is no relic of ancient interest, excepting the tradition, which affirms that to be the spot where once stood the Danish palace, and where was enacted that tragedy, which has been so gloriously immortalized by the genius of our great dramatic bard. ”

“ He casts as broad and proper a shadow in the sun as any other man. Black he is, indeed, but comely, like the daughters of Jerusalem.—To begin with the hat which he has honoured with a preference—what are your operas or your fire-shovels beside it? ”

“ It is he, and he only, who preserves, in his gait and in his air, the self-sustained and conscious dignity of the first-created man. Surrounded by an inferior creation, he gives the wall to none. That pliancy of temper, which is wont to make itself known by the waiving a point or renouncing a principle for others' advantage, in him has no place ”

“ Although in this age of all but universal hypocrisy and make-believe, every man has at least two fashions of one countenance, it is in dress principally that most men are most unlike themselves. But the coalheaver always sticks close to the attire of his station; he alone wears the consistent and befitting garb of his forefathers ”

“ And thus the conversation proceeded, until they had agreed on the prix juste for the bullocks, the Squire throwing in the temporary accommodation of the enclosure for the cattle into the boot, and Robin making, as he thought, a very good bargain, providing the grass was but tolerable. The Squire walked his pony alongside of the drove, partly to show him the way, and see him put into possession of the field, and partly to learn the latest news of the northern markets.
They arrived at the field, and the pasture seemed excellent. ”

“ It may not be indifferent to the reader to know, that the Highland cattle are peculiarly liable to be taken, or infected, by spells and witchcraft, which judicious people guard against by knitting knots of peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair which terminates the animal's tail. ”

“ Whole acres, with houses upon them, have been carried away in a single storm, while clay shallows, sprinkled with sand and gravel, which stretch a full mile beyond the verge of the cliff, over which the sea now sweeps, demonstrate the original area of the island. ”

“ The heart is melted by the scene, and ready to receive an impression—either to warn the innocent, or to appal the guilty; and numbers of those who have neither abilities nor time for deriving advantage from reading, are powerfully impressed through the medium of the eyes and ears, with those important truths which while they illuminate the understanding, correct the heart. ”

“ The actors in England, have, it is true, only become respectable within the last half century, and though they are termed his majesty's servants, yet an unrepealed statute denounces them as vagabonds. As a body, numerous in itself, they are as free from crime as any other associated body or profession of men, and yet do they "his majesty's servants" continue to lay under the stigma which the above unrepealed act fixes upon them. ”

“ We have detected the same duck through many unprincipled disguises, playing a different part in the farce of domestic economy, with a versatility hardly to have been expected in one of the most generally despised of the web-footed tribe. When travelling at one's own sweet will, one feeds at a different inn every meal ”

“ Burke, indeed, has gone so far as to observe that "the theatre is a better school of moral sentiment than churches." The drama, therefore, has a right to find a place; and to its professors are we indebted for what may justly be considered one of the highest of all intellectual gratifications. ”

“ It is the opinion of an eminent orchardist that as the apple is an artificial production, and, as such, has its stages of youth, maturity, and old age, it cannot, in its period of decrepitude, be by any means renovated to its pristine state, either by pruning or cutting down, changing its place, or by transferring its parts to young and vigorous stocks ”

“ But a free agent ought to live well on his travels—some degrees better, without doubt, than when at home. People seldom live very well at home. There is always something requiring to be eaten up, that it may not be lost, which destroys the soothing and satisfactory symmetry of an unexceptionable dinner. ”

“ How far was he pehind?"
"I think about six or seven miles," answered the squire, "for I passed them at the Christenbury Cragg, and I overtook you at the Hollan Bush. If his beasts be leg-weary, he will be may be selling bargains."
"Na, na, Hughie Morrison is no the man for pargains—ye maun come to some Highland body like Robin Oig hersell for the like of these;—put I maun be wishing you good night, and twenty of them, let alane ane, and I maun down to the Clachan to see if the lad Henry Waakfelt is out of his humdudgeons yet." ”

“ The Apple.—It is difficult to find adequate terms to set forth the value of the advantages which have accrued to mankind from the cultivation of this deservedly high-prized fruit. One circumstance in the history of the apple must not pass unnoticed here, viz., the deterioration of the old sorts, which regaled and were the boast of our forefathers a century ago. ”

“ Cromwell and his Puritans had a holy horror of actors. They pronounced them Sons of Belial! and professors of abomination. During the whole reign of the Republican Parliament, and Protectorate, the theatres of that day were closed, or, if opened by stealth, were subject to the visits of the emissaries of "Praise God Barebones," "Fight the Good Fight," and their crew. The actors were driven off the stage by soldiers, and the cant word of that period is still recorded, "Enter red coat, exit hat and cloak." ”