Rising from his chair, the count stretched out his hands. But no sooner had his fingers touched the cold water, than he changed colour, trembled, tottered, and falling back in his seat, exclaimed, "I am a dead man-Lord have mercy on me!"

The knights were somewhat alarmed. Supposing, however, that the count was merely chilled, they carried him to another chamber, laid him on a bed, put warm clothing over him, and put bread, spices, and water into his mouth. But it was all to no purpose. He could not utter another word, and he soon after expired.

The knights now whispered that the water must have been poisoned; and the squires who had brought the basin, feeling that suspicion might alight on them, hastened to avert it. Here," said they, "is the water. We have already drunk of it, and will now again do so in presence of you all." The squires drank accordingly, and every one expressed himself satisfied of their innocence.

PRINCE HENRY'S HORSES AND HOUNDS. Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James I. and Anne of Denmark, was a good and gallant prince. From his cradle he was remarkable for his high spirit and courage. He cried much less than other children; and when he hurt himself by falling, or in any other way, he struggled manfully to conceal the pain.

Prince Henry was particularly fond of horses, and early became accomplished as an equestrian. When he was about ten years of age, and residing at the castle of Stirling, he became ambitious of riding a horse whose mettle was so high that his attendants used every argument they could to dissuade him.

It was in vain that they pronounced the exploit hazardous, and refused him their assistance in mounting. Saddling the horse for himself, and leading it to the side of a bank, he managed to climb into the saddle; and, in spite of remonstrances, spurring it to a gallop, he rode up and down three or four times, to exhibit its paces and his horsemanship.

At length Henry reined up, and returned at a gentle pace to his starting point.

Thank God your Highness is safe," said the attendants.

"Tush!" exclaimed the prince, impatiently. "How long shall I continue to be a child in your eyes ?"

Prince Henry, as time passed on, took pleasure in hunting; but rather for the equestrian exercise than the sport. On one occasion, when his hounds were in full pursuit of a stag, and he with the young nobles who formed his court were following fast, the stag crossed the road, along which a butcher, accompanied by his dog, was then trudging.

On catching sight of the stag the butcher's dog immediately rushed to the attack; and the stag, being quite spent with running, was soon torn down. It was already dead when the Prince rode up, and his comrades endeavoured to excite his resentment.

"This butcher," said they, "deserves to be severely punished."

"But," replied the prince, "if the dog killed the stag, how do you know that the man could help it?"

I know," said one, "that if the king had been so served, he would have given the butcher a terrible swearing."

Away!" exclaimed the prince, conclusively, "all the sport in the world is not worth an oath."

In the year 1612, when the people of England regarded him with the highest hopes, Henry Stuart died at St. James's Palace; and he was succeeded as Prince of Wales by his brother Charles, who subsequently ascended the throne as Charles I.

EDITOR, I am glad to see that you last, I promise you. I felt a little queer when I saw it in type, dum relego scripsisse pudet, but I plucked up my courage with never say die, and so, as the clown remarks, here I am again; how are you?

Of course I don't know what you are like, how should I? Very likely you are reading my letter through spectacles; very likely you have a bald head, very likely you are rather stout, and on the shady side of fifty. Well, you were a boy yourself once, and if I may judge from the insertion of my scribble, have not forgotten dulcis juventas, all right-tout droit, what would the French master say to that ? But that is not the topic-I want to say something about Pantomimes. As I said just now, I don't know what you are like, and, I may add, nor what you do like; perhaps you don't care for pantomimes, are ready to shake your

head at them, condemn them, like young B. which can alone gratify the cultivated intellect;" or denouncing them, like the Doctor, as "likely to undermine a boy's integrity and decorum." Get out: if that's your caper, you're a flat, and you cannot say I am a flatterer. Lector benevole, hear me, I am going to run a tilt for pantomimes, and here are-B. Constrictor and the Doctor to be polished off.

No intellect in pantomimes, eh? Not in the fellow who paints those stunning scenes, and is called on when the Clown has made his first tumble, and Harlequin, and Columbine, and the rest are grouped together, and lighted up with coloured fires-no intellect there-throw him over! No intellect in the puns that seem as if the whole dictionary has gone mad, and every word meant something different from what you supposed; no intellect in the music, in the scraping of the "four-and-twenty

fiddlers;" in the singing of the burlesque actors; while the style in which they dance something like dancing, not as if their legs were as stiff as gate-posts-is a sight to see; and then the fighting when the little one in chain-armour with such feathers, fights the big 'un with the horrible mask-ay, and slays him at the footlights, while the prison-keeper capers in time to the fighting-no intellect, eh? I guess there is a precious sight more intellect wanted to do all that than there is to construe a dose of Latin or to put boshy rhymes into Greek.

But, look here, when I go to see a pantomime-and I go as often as I can-I don't go in for intellect, but jolly fun. B. Constrictor complains of the "childish nonsense" of the Pantaloon and Clown, and the waggeries they play on everybody; call it what you like, it is very funny, and I find that sensible old people

laugh at it as well as young ones, and that if some old buffer, who has been splitting his sides with laughing, grumbles at all, it is only because he fancies Joey Grimaldi was funnier in his Hot Codlings than "Boleno " or "Any other Man,"-fastidientes stomachia-it shows a weak stomach to shrink from fun. Suppose the pantomime was real life, what a prime lark they would have with you, my precise schoolfellow; and, depend upon it, there is so much truth in it as this, that the stuck up party, the pattern of propriety, the model boy, or model man, is the fair target for fun. Here's a real original conundrum, ask your Ma' to crack it for you. Why is your head like a French postage-stamp? Because it is a timbre poste-Yah! Give me change for a bit of chalk.

Now for the Doctor; he thinks my principles would be upset by the Clown's want of

respect for meum and tuum. Why, my venerable preceptor, do you think because I see the Clown at Christmas go slap through a baker's window, in for a buster, to come out with a roll; that I should make a jump at the glaze of Fancytwist; that I should bone a couple of pounds of sausages from Trotter's the porkman, and stow them away in the pockets of my what's-their-names, together with a flounder, a flat-iron, a baby's rattle, a pottle of strawberries, and some gingerbread nuts? Do you think I should empty the baked potato-can of the "all-hot" man at the corner, while engaging him in conversation, and fill up the can with some dead kittens? Do you think I should knock down timid old ladies, sit down upon a baby, bonnet the policeman, and then say, "Please, sir, it was not me, sir?" And yet this is precisely the sort of thing I see the Clown do. If you do think that a boy's integrity or sense of decorum would be hurt by such a sight, I really

cannot help saying it is time you shut up shop --I mean closed the academy-and went to rusticate in the neighbourhood of Hanwell.

But I suppose if I talked for a month, and wrote a letter three miles long, we should not be a bit nearer thinking alike. B. Constrictor goes in for intellect; you go in for propriety; I go in for fun. Ego de caseo loquor, tu de creta respondes. I like the pantomime because it makes me laugh, and the more I laugh the better I feel. Hurrah! I'm going to-night, and ain't afraid that my mind or my morals will be hurt a bit by the petty larceny of Clown and Pantaloon.

Yours truly,

THE ODD Boy.

P.S.-I say, why do you spell sidereal (see your question in your "Notes and Queries ") with one e? Would not you catch it if you were at ours-hot!

man. "I mean I'll give you half-a-crown if you'll conduct me safe across this frightful moor, where it seems a man may fall into a shaft at every step."

"Ef he doant knaw the way," said Betty, complacently.

A bargain being struck for half-a-crown, Betty, in consideration of that sum, steered the gentleman safely over the common, pointing out the shafts they avoided with a chuckle of Cornish pride, while he on his part took care to say no more of his escort. At the door of his own house, a stately cold mansion standing in the best street of the town, Betty pocketed his gift with these words,

"I reckon thic's about the wuth of my burd. Tha next time I saw ee I thoft I'd have tha price of un out of ee, and I have. You see I havn't read thic book of yourn for nauthin!"

IV.

"CHANGE caps with me," said the queer little man to Zacky, as he led him into the shadow of a huge granite rock that stood out bare and shining in the moonlight.

"Thankee, comrade," answered Zacky. "I don't like swapping; I reckon I'd raather keep my aun."

He tried to retain his miner's felt hat on his head, but the little man was too dexterous for him, and Zacky found himself bonneted with the red cap before he could wink with astonishment.

At the same instant, the earth seemed to reel around him, moon and stars disappeared, the flames of the bonfire danced before his eyes, ships out at sea turned upside down, and sank into the waves, their sails foremost, the cliffs shrank lower and lower till they dwindled down to the beach-the shining sands faded, fluttered, and grew black as the dark waters, like a great moving cloud, rolled in and swallowed them. Then the church steeple became insubstantial, and waved to and fro for a moment like a shadow, fading down, down, down into the black tumbling waves;the cottages, but a moment before speckled white with moonshine and flecked with spray, slanted sideways like a row of thin cards, and tumbling dreamily one over the other, fell down into the darkness, the veriest vision of thinnest unreality. Men, women and children, clustered round the fire, grew vapouryheads, arms, and bodies faded into each other, and grotesquely mingling with the mist were suddenly wafted away by a breath of wind into dim nothingness. Voices an instant before, merrily ringing in his ears now floated by like mere wisps of sound, or seemed broken up into distant music, that faded away here and there, and aroused him in whispers insubstantial as a dream. Even these dispersed in fainter and fainter echoes, as they floated down over the faded cliff, the shadowy village and vanished steeple, into the dreamy sea.

There was a moment of great stillness, intense and solenın, and then Zacky, numbed and bewildered, removed the cap from his brow.

A blaze of light flashed upon his eyes, and a thousand stars danced around him. He was

in a deep dell green and lovely; a silver stream ran meandering through it with a gentle music, soft and low as the lullaby of an angel; tall rushes, yellow buttercups, horse-daisies and daffodils waved their heads over the clear water. Up and down the banks ran the tiny fluttering stars, twinkling with soft laughter like silver bells. Over all the dell shone a soft subdued light like a glow-worm's sheen. It was this had dazzled Zacky's dazed eyes; and as he rubbed them again and again, and stared with all his might, he saw he was among the pixies, and what he had taken for stars were only their golden and gemmed crowns, which, as they danced to and fro and in and out beneath the grass and daisies, glittered like little stars new-fallen from the sky to sport too near the ground.

'Well," said a tiny voice, like a fairy flute, sharp and clear, "what do you think of this, Zachariah Rosvear ?"

Zacky looked up, and saw a little man seated on the tapering point of a waving rush, with his little legs cased in crimson, jauntily crossed, and twisted round the bending stem. 'Pleasant, isn't it?" said the little man. Give me my crown, Zachy, which I lent you just now ?"

66

Zacky stared about for the crown, but could see nothing, till it suddenly occurred to him to look at his own hands, and there, held between his thick forefinger and his clumsy thumb, lay the jewelled circlet, whilom a red cap on Zacky's bewildered head. Very politely he stepped forward, and bowed low before the waving rush.

"Your honour's crown is too good for the likes of me," said Zacky, picking up his hat, which lay at the pixy's feet, and handing him the crown.

The king of the pixies put it on, and then fixed Zacky with a pair of keen dark eyes, sharp as sword points. You think yourself a clever man, Zacky ?"

"Oh, yes!" chorussed all the pixies, clapping their little hands together with a soft murmur, that mingled with the flow of the brook and the rustling of the grass and rushes.

Yes, your honour," said Zacky, scraping his left leg far behind him in his attempt to make a bow the most respectful that human ingenuity could devise.

And I say you are a fool, Zacky," answered the king of the pixies.

A fool," murmured all the little pixies, while the brook took up the echo, and rippled it gently over its pebbles into quiet pools, where the silver water flashed into a smile, as it whispered it back to the waving rushes.

"Please your honour, I know I arn't so clever as Betty by a long sight," said Zacky, modestly. " asked

"How do you know she is cleverer ? the king of the pixies. "She's more stingier than me, your honour, and a deal 'cuter arter money."

"Ah!" said the king with a deep sigh.

Ah!" sighed the pixies in plaintive echo. "Ah!" sighed the wailing wind, as it swept down into the valley with a shriek, crossing the waters of the brook coldly, which shuddered and dashed on with a wilder look, un