ranquil and cheerful life
than that of a Goldfinch in a cage in spring, with his wife and his
children. All his social affections are cultivated to the utmost. He
possesses many accomplishments unknown to his brethren among the
trees;--he has never known what it is to want a meal in times of the
greatest scarcity; and he admires the beautiful frostwork on the
windows, when thousands of his feathered friends are buried in the snow,
or, what is almost as bad, baked up into pies, and devoured by a large
supper-party of both sexes, who fortify their flummery and flirtation by
such viands, and, remorseless, swallow dozens upon dozens of the
warblers of the woods.

Ay, ay, Mr Goldy! you are wondering what we are now doing, and
speculating upon the scribbler with arch eyes and elevated crest, as if
you would know the subject of his lucubrations. What the wiser or better
wouldst thou be of human knowledge? Sometimes that little heart of thine
goes pit-a-pat, when a great, ugly, staring contributor thrusts his
inquisitive nose within the wires--or when a strange cat glides round
and round the room, fascinating thee with the glare of his fierce fixed
eyes;--but what is all that to the woes of an Editor?--Yes, sweet
simpleton! do you not know that we are the editor of _Blackwood's
Magazine_--Christopher North! Yes, indeed, we are that very man--that
self-same much-calumniated man-monster and Ogre. There, there!--perch on
our shoulder, and let us laugh together at the whole world.

CHRISTOPHER IN HIS AVIARY.

SECOND CANTICLE.

The golden eagle leads the van of our Birds of Prey--and there she sits
in her usual carriage when in a state of rest. Her hunger and her thirst
have been appeased--her wings are folded up in a dignified
tranquillity--her talons, grasping a leafless branch, are almost hidden
by the feathers of her breast--her sleepless eye has lost something of
its ferocity--and the Royal Bird is almost serene in her solitary state
in the cliff. The gorcock unalarmed crows among the moors and
mosses--the blackbird whistles in the birken shaw--and the cony erects
his ears at the mouth of his burrow, and whisks away frolicsome among
the whins or heather.

There is no index to the hour--neither light nor shadow--no cloud. But
from the composed aspect of the Bird, we may suppose it to be the hush
of evening after a day of successful foray. The imps in the eyrie have
been fed, and their hungry cry will not be heard t