"Here with a book of verse beneath the bough, A loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness, The wilderness were Paradise enow." Mary looks in amazement at the old gentleman with the insinuating voice, anon bursts into a merry peal, and trips off with the remark, "_There's nae fules like auld anes_," which a listening Londoner takes to mean, "There's nothing fills like onions!" ANECDOTES OF THE SMOKING-ROOM. SONNET TO RALEIGH. The conversation of an intelligent commercial traveller is, as I said, of a facetious and entertaining turn. He speaks to so many people in the course of a day and hears so many anecdotes as he rushes about, that his sense of humour becomes very keen. Old Burton, author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, used to dissipate his sombre thoughts by listening to the coarse badinage of bargemen: a modern, afflicted with Burton's complaint, might well find a cure in the smoking-room of a hotel among a company of commercial travellers. One Saturday night, in a Shetland hotel, I listened to a crowd of these merry gentlemen communicating to each other their several collections of stories. Before doing so, they all sang with great fervour the well-known hymn _The Sands of Time are Sinking_, a whisky-traveller officiating at the harmonium. One of the number ostentatiously beat time with his pipe. It was a very affecting scene, and certain of the singers were moved to tears at their own melody. The company then settled down, in a pleased frame of mind, to tell stories. I noted some of these, and as they were new to me, I cherish the hope that they may not be stale to others. The following preliminary sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to be apposite and new; it is needed to give atmosphere to the tales: Raleigh! the benefactor of thy kind, May azure undulations ever roll As incense to thee from the glowing bowl, Thy rapt disciples fume with placid mind In easy chair, by ingle-nook reclined! Next to the mage, Prometheus, who stole From Heaven's court with philanthropic soul, The wonder-working fire, thou art enshrined In mortal bosoms as a friend, for thou Did'st bring from sunset isles the magic leaf That weaves enchantment's halo round the brow, Alleviates the pang of every grief And stirs the bard, exempt from fretting cares, To wail the weird of pipeless millionaires. And now for the stories. "PEELIN'S BELOW THE TREE."