tions of modern times.
The fuel of the house, like that of their neighbours, consisted of peat,
procured from the mosses by their own labour. The lights by which, in the
winter evenings, their work was performed, were of their own manufacture,
such as still continue to be used in these cottages; they are made of the
pith of rushes dipped in fat. _White_ candles, as tallow candles are here
called, were reserved to honour the Christmas festivals, and were perhaps
produced upon no other occasions. Once a month, during the proper season,
a sheep was drawn from their small mountain flock, and killed for the use
of the family; and a cow towards the close of the year, was salted and
dried, for winter provision; the hide was tanned to furnish them with
shoes. By these various resources this venerable clergyman reared a
numerous family; not only preserving them, as he affectingly says, "from
wanting the necessaries of life," but affording them an unstinted
education, and the means of raising themselves in society."

* * * * *

SACRIFICE OF A MORISCOE GIRL.

It would be unreasonable to expect analyses of Novel stories in a
periodical sheet like our Miscellany. We rarely attempt the task of giving
them; but prefer giving occasionally a running notice of a meritorious
work of this class, and then leave the reader to indulge his taste at the
nearest library, upon the strength of our recommendation. To let him into
_the plot_ or thread of the story would be ill-judged: for one of the
greatest delights of reading, of all ages, is to expect, hope, and despair,
by turns, and thus become identified with the feelings and actions of all
parties concerned in the narrative. Every lover of novel, tale, and
romance must recollect the pleasure of reading Mr. Grattan's Highways and
Byways, and how beautifully the scenes and incidents were grouped in those
little series of _tales by the roadside_. The charming interest of one of
them is worth a whole volume of lumbering history of a revolution or royal
line. Mr. Grattan, too, has taken all the Low Countries to himself, and
the literature of their life belongs to him. The other day he published a
history of the Netherlands (noticed in the last volume of the _Mirror_,
page 257); and here we have him again, with _The Heiress of Bruges_, a
tale of the year 1600.

The main story needs not be told; but a scene may be easily detached, to
show what spirit-stirring sc