rudeness. Even in the neighboring towns and villages the
laborers of the lagoons are little known; and the produce of their
manufacture, though exported to France and England, attracts little
notice to the country itself, except among those who are engaged in its
production. This will account for the very little that is popularly
known of the borax lagoons of Tuscany, or of the race of peasants by
whom they are rendered profitable.

[From Colburn's "New Monthly Magazine."]

WALLACE AND FAWDON.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

This ballad was suggested by one of the notes to the _Lay of the Last
Minstrel_. Wallace, the great Scottish patriot, had been defeated in a
sharp encounter with the English. He was forced to retreat with only
sixteen followers, the English pursued him with a bloodhound and his
sole chance of escape from that tremendous investigator was either in
baffling the scent altogether (which was impossible, unless fugitives
could take to the water, and continue there for some distance), or in
confusing it by the spilling of blood. For the latter purpose, a captive
was sometimes sacrificed; in which case the hound stopped upon the
body.

The supernatural part of the story of Fawdon is treated by its first
relater, Harry the Minstrel, as a mere legend, and that not a very
credible one; but as a mere legend it is very fine, and quite sufficient
for poetical purposes; nor should the old poet's philosophy have thought
proper to gainsay it. Nevertheless, as the mysteries of the conscience
are more awful things than any merely gratuitous terror (besides leaving
optical phenomena quite as real as the latter may find them), even the
supernatural part of the story becomes probable when we consider the
agitations which the noble mind of Wallace may have undergone during
such trying physical circumstances, and such extremes of moral
responsibility. It seems clear, that however necessary the death of
Fawdon may have been to his companions, or to Scotland, his slayer
regretted it; I have suggested the kind of reason which he would most
likely have had for the regret; and, upon the whole, it is my opinion,
that Wallace actually saw the visions, and that the legend originated in
the fact. I do not mean to imply that Fawdon became present, embodied or
disembodied, whatever may have been the case with his spectre. I only
say that what the legend reports Wallace to have seen, was actually in
the hero's eyes. The remainder of th