* * * *
The moon on the east oriel shone,
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
By foliated tracery combined;
Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand
'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand
In many a freakish knot had twined;
Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow-wreaths to stone.[4]

[2] Built by David I. in 1136.

[3] Corbells, the projections from which the arches spring,
usually cut in a fantastic face, or mask.

[4] Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel."

The monks of Melrose were caricatured for their sensuality at the
Reformation. Their Abbey suffered in consequence; for the condemnator,
out of the ruins, built himself a house, which may still be seen near
the church. "The regality," says Mr. Chambers, "soon after passed into
the hands of Lord Binning, an eminent lawyer, ancestor to the Earl of
Haddington; and about a century ago, the whole became the property of
the Buccleuch family."

* * * * *

LACONICS.

(_For the Mirror_.)

The most important advantages we enjoy, and the greatest discoveries
that science can boast, have proceeded from men who have either seen
little of the world, or have secluded themselves entirely for the
purposes of study. Not only those arts which are exclusively the result
of calculation, such as navigation, mechanism, and others, but even
agriculture, may be said to derive its improvement, if not its origin,
from the same source.

Where a cause is good, an appeal should be directed to the heart rather
than the head: the application comes more home, and reaches more
forcibly, where it is the most necessary--the natural rather than the
improved faculties of the human understanding.

Common sense is looked upon as a vulgar quality, but nevertheless it is
the only talisman to conduct us prosperously through the world. The man
of refined sense has been compared to one who carries about with him
nothing but gold, when he may be every moment in want of smaller change.

The grand cause of failure in most undertakings is the want of
unanimity. This, however, we find is not wanting where actual danger, as
well as possible advantage may accrue to the parties concerned. It is
whimsical enough that thieves and other ruffians, while they bid open
defiance to the laws, both of God and man, pay implicit obedience to
their own.

Aristotle