especially portraits, with the graver, yet he owes his chief celebrity to those engraved with aquafortis; and much of his originality is no doubt to be attributed to his sojourn among the gipsies. Thus we have among his works "The Beggars,' The Miserable Beggars,' 'The Frights,' 'The Grotesque Dances of the Harlequins,' 'The RopeDancers,' 'The Miseries of War,' in which, within a very small space, the most horrible sights are assembled, and The Gipsies,' his former travelling companions; besides many other amusing subjects calculated to excite laughter.

His pieces are said to amount to sixteen hundred, many of which are full of figures, in which he excelled, from beggars and peasants to knights and nobles, all characterised with the nicest touches of nature.

Callot died on the 23d March 1635, at the age of fortyone. He was interred at Nancy, where a magnificent monument was erected to his memory by his wife Marguerite Paffinger.

STEAM.

[TRANSLATED FROM AUERSPERG, AN AUSTRIAN poet.]
I HEAR sad hymns, and downcast faces see-
Our prophet-bards have had a boding dream,
A mournful vision of dear poetry,

For ever banished from the earth-by steam.

What! had your crooked roads then such a grace, That long, straight lines must grieve a poet's eye? Is just five miles an hour the poet's pace?

And must not Pegasus attempt to fly?

Out with your coach, as in a happier day,
Harness again your galled and spavined team
(But keep within the old ruts all the way),
And chase the goddess borne away by steam!

Or take a boat, and row well (if you can)
After a steamer on the swelling sea,
And never murmur though the waterinan
Can tell you nothing of your poetry.

Or man a ship, and every random gust
Sent from the wind-god catch within your rag,
As gladly as a beggar some stale crust
Takes with a bow, and drops into his bag.

Or, if 'tis calm, 'twill quite poetic be
There, as if ice-bound, on a summer day—
Perhaps a dolphin rising from the sea

Of poetry may something have to say;

While I, along the vine-clad, rocky Rhine,

On a black swan, the steamer, proudly swim, And lifting up a cup of golden wine,

Sing loudly human art's triumphal hymn;

And gladly celebrate the master-hand

That seized the fire-flame, like Prometheus old, And, through the black shaft 'mid the grassy land, Dragged up the iron from Earth's rocky hold:

And gave command to both-Ye shall not rest
Till striving man is from his bondage free;
Go, fire, and bear man's burdens, east and west!
And, wheels of iron, on his errands flee!'

See how they go, with thunder, through the land— Beneath the steam-clouds heavy masses flee;

So marches on an elephantine band,

With towers and battlements, to victory.

Sce, from his seat beneath the shady tree,
The village patriarch from his sleep arise,

And throwing up his nightcap hastily,

Share in his grandsons' rapture and surprise.

And, 'mid some fears, he hopes for better days,
For which, in youth, he ventured in the fight—
'May this new power,' the village patriarch prays,
Establish Fatherland and freedom's right!'

BEGGING. IN THE OLDEN TIME.

BEGGING has latterly become a precarious and by no means respectable profession. The mendicant is exposed to occasional encounters with police, and he is not quite unacquainted with the prison and treadmill. A great change this on the good old times. A century ago begging was a recognised and tolerated craft, and even so late as fifty years since, mendicants were a respectable sort of persons. We may recall a few memorials of these worthies, as they existed in Scotland.

First, there were the regularly licensed Blue-gownsmen, who stood at the head of the fraternity; for they carried a recognised pass in the shape of a pewter badge, sewed on the front of their cloak. Next, in point of commanding influence, were the lame old women carried from door to door on handbarrows, and who scolded soundly those families who did not give them a good alms and help them forward on their journey. We have a distinct recollection of this class. On a particular occasion we remember one of them giving our servantgirl a good thwack with her crutch for not carrying her steadily. Then, there were certain miscellaneous classes of Daft Jamies,' blind-fiddlers, old soldiers with wooden legs, sailors without an arm, who bawled out famous seasongs, besides a lower stratum composed of the sheer destitute, who fluttered in rags, and were thankful for an alms. Independently, however, of these varieties, there roved about bands of gipsies-a curious relic of an Eastern people, who have not even till this day amalgamated with the settled population.

In these old times money was less plentiful in Scotland than it is at present, and accordingly it was then the custom to give an alms in the shape of a few handfuls of oatmeal. As a receptacle for this bulky article the mendicant usually carried a wallet or small bag; and hence the term 'taking to the meal-pokes,' as equivalent to taking up the trade of begging. In some instances the beggar carried also a wooden bowl or cup, into which the meal was first poured; and this seems to have been by no means a local practice, for the beggar's wooden cup was also known in old times in the Netherlands. Burns, it will be recollected, in his 'Jolly Beggars,' likens a lady's mouth, rather irreverently to an 'awmous (alms) dish.' The meal so collected, besides supplying the personal wants of the mendicant, was sold as occasion required to the humbler class of cottagers.

All readers of Scott's novels will have a vivid recollection of Edie Ochiltree, the jocular Blue-gown in the 'Antiquary. Sir Walter, by his early connection with the south of Scotland, had an opportunity of picking up the character of Edie, the original of which was an aged mendicant in that quarter, named Andrew Gemmel. This personage was about the last vanishing type of the Blue-gown-the king and your honour's bedesman.' As long as the fraternity carried on operations, it numbered as many as the years of the king's age, one being added every year; when each was furnished with a gown or cloak of light-blue cloth, and a purse containing as many shillings as the years of the king might amount to. From the appellation of bedesman, it is more than probable that originally the members carried a string of beads, which they used in reciting prayers in behalf of the monarch.

Andrew Gemmel, whose history is not without interest, began life as a dragoon, in which capacity he fought in the wars of Anne, George I., and George II.; one of the last of his battles being Fontenay. Discharged from service he took up the begging trade, and was so fortunate as to be put on the list of Blue-gowns. He now com

menced his perambulations over the Scottish border counties, and became a favourite at every farm and mansion-house from Berwick to the Bield-the vale of Tweed being his especial beat. According to Scott, Andrew sung a good song, told a merry jest with uncommon ability, and was a capital retailer of news; this last being not the least of his valuable qualifications, as newspapers as yet possessed a very meagre circulation. 'Andrew,' observes Sir Walter, 'had a character peculiar to himself. He was ready and willing to play at cards or dice with any one who desired such amusement. This was more in the character of the Irish itinerant gambler, called in that country a carrow, than of the Scottish beggar. But the late Rev. Dr Robert Douglas, minister of Galashiels, assured the author that the last time he saw Andrew Gemmel he was engaged in a game at "brag" with a gentleman of fortune, distinction, and birth. To preserve the due gradations of rank, the party was made at an open window of the château, the laird sitting on his chair in the inside, the beggar on a stool in the yard, and they played on the window-sill. The stake was a considerable parcel of silver. The author expressing some surprise, Dr Douglas observed that the laird was no doubt a humorist or an original; but that many decent persons in those times would, like him, have thought there was nothing extraordinary in passing an hour, either in cardplaying or conversation, with Andrew Gemmel. This singular mendicant had generally, or was supposed to have, as much money about his person as would have been thought the value of his life among modern footpads. On one occasion a country gentleman, generally esteemed a very narrow man, happening to meet Andrew, expressed great regret that he had no silver in his pocket, or he would have given him a sixpence. "I can give you change for a note, laird," replied Andrew. As with most who have risen to the head of their profession, the modern degradation which mendicity has undergone was often the subject of Andrew's lamentations. As a trade, he said, it was L.40 a year worse since he at