ou have it, after many digressions. My thoughts never
strike a plane surface, but always a spherical, and fly off in a
tangent.

Sydney Smith says, 'Remember the flood and be brief.' You know I belong
to a very old family; and from an ancestor, who lived before the flood,
has been transmitted through a long line of O'Mollys a disposition to
spin out. Unfortunately an antediluvian length of time was not an
_heir-loom_ to

Your humble servant,

MOLLY O'MOLLY.

* * * * *

SKETCHES OF EDINBURGH LITERATI.

BY A FORMER MEMBER OF ITS PRESS.

There was a time when the little hamlet of Cockpaine, ten miles from
Edinburgh, in addition to the charms of its scenery, was also socially
attractive from the high literary talent of several of its residents. It
was situated on the banks of the Esk, whose rapid flow affords a
valuable water-power. This had been improved under the enterprise of Mr.
Craig, an extensive manufacturer, who became at last proprietor not only
of the mills, but of the entire village. Mr. Craig was successful for
several years; but the revulsions of trade during the Crimean war swept
away his previous profits, and in 1854 he sank in utter bankruptcy.

The extensive domain of the Earl of Dalhousie lay next to Cockpaine, and
the village site seemed all that was necessary to its completeness. As
soon as the latter was offered for sale, the earl made the long-desired
purchase, and then began the immediate eviction of its population. I saw
four hundred operatives, of all ages, driven off on one sad occasion--a
scene which reminded me most painfully of Goldsmith's lines in the
'Deserted Village:'--

'Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day
That called them from their native walks away,
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.'

A subsequent visit to what was once the thriving village, with its
embowered cottages reflected from the waters of the Esk, its groups of
romping children, its Sabbath melodies and its secular din, now changed
to a nobleman's preserves, recalled the following truthful sketch from
the same poem:--

'Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed,
In Nature's simplest charms arrayed;
Bu