and the Revenue Cutter--for the solution of which he
recommended the aid of algebra. It is not so quick as you would imagine.
We forget the usual rate of a cannon-ball in good condition, when he is
in training--and before he is at all blown. So do we forget, we are
sorry to confess, the number of centuries that it would take a good,
stout, well-made, able-bodied cannon-ball, to accomplish a journey to
our planet from one of the fixed stars. The great difficulty, we
confess, would be to get him safely conveyed thither. If that could be
done, we should have no fear of his finding his way back, if not in our
time, in that of our posterity. However red-hot he might have been on
starting, he would be cool enough, no doubt, on his arrival at the goal;
yet we should have no objection to back him against Time for a
trifle--Time, we observe, in almost all matches being beat, often indeed
by the most miserable hacks, that can with difficulty raise a gallop.
Time, however, possibly runs booty; for when he does make play, it must
be confessed that he is a spanker, and that nothing has been seen with
such a stride since Eclipse.

O beautiful and beloved Highland Parish! in whose dashing glens our
beating heart first felt the awe of solitude, and learned to commune
(alas! to what purpose?) with the tumult of its own thoughts! The
circuit of thy skies was indeed a glorious arena spread over the
mountain-tops for the combats of the great birds of prey! One wild cry
or another was in the lift--of the hawk, or the glead, or the raven, or
the eagle--or when those fiends slept, of the peaceful heron, and
sea-bird by wandering boys pursued in its easy flight, till the
snow-white child of ocean wavered away far inland, as if in search of a
steadfast happiness unknown on the restless waves. Seldom did the eagle
stoop to the challenge of the inferior fowl; but when he did, it was
like a mailed knight treading down unknown men in battle. The hawks, and
the gleads, and the ravens, and the carrion-crows, and the hooded-crows,
and the rooks, and the magpies, and all the rest of the rural militia,
forgetting their own feuds, sometimes came sallying from all quarters,
with even a few facetious jackdaws from the old castle, to show fight
with the monarch of the air. Amidst all that multitude of wings
winnowing the wind, was heard the sough and whizz of those mighty vans,
as the Royal Bird, himself an army, performed his majestic evolutions
with all t