her with a lively little amateur waterman, paddling about in a little
boat, selfishly built to hold none other than himself--a hill rising in
the middle ground, and two or three minor editions of the same towards the
distance, carefully dotted with trees, after the fashion of a ready-made
portable park from the toy _depot_ in the Lowther Arcade--two bee-hives, a
water-mill, some majestic smoke, something that looks like a skein of
thread thrown over a mountain, and the memorable chiaro-scuro, form the
interesting episodes of this glorious essay in the epic pastoral.

* * * * *

SYNCRETIC LITERATURE

_Observations on the Epic Poem of Giles Scroggins and Molly
Brown--resumed._

The fatal operation of the unavoidable, ever-impending, ruthless shears of
the stern controller of human destiny, and curtailer of human life--the
action by which

"Fate's scissors cut Giles Scroggins' thread,"

or rather the thread of Giles Scroggins' life, at once and most completely
establishes the wholesome moral as to the fearful uncertainty of all
sublunary anticipations, and stands forth a beautiful beacon to warn the
over-weaning "worldly wisemen" from their often too-fondly-cherished
dreams of realising, by their own means and appliances, the darling
projects of their ambitious hopes!

The immediate effect of the operation performed by Fate's scissors, or
rather by Fate herself--as she was the great and absolute disposer--to
whom the implement employed was but a matter of fancy; for had Fate so
chosen, a bucket, a bowie-knife, a brick-bat, a black cap, or a box of
patent pills, might, as well as her destructive shears, have made a tenant
for a yawning grave of doomed Giles Scroggins. We say, the immediate
effect arising from this cutting cause was one in which both parties--the
living bride and defunct bridegroom--were equally concerned, their lover's
co-partnership rendering each liable for the acts or accidents of the
other; therefore as may be (and we think is) clearly established, under
these circumstances,

"They could _not_ be _mar-ri_-ed!"

There is something deliciously affecting in the beautiful drawing out of
the last syllable!--it seems like the lingering of the heart's best
feelings upon the blighted prospects of its purest joys!--the ceremony
that would have completed the union of the loving maiden and admiring
swain, blending, as it were, like the twin prongs of a brass-b