Power is right, knavery common sense, Honour a sound, and principle pretence: Virtue’s abandoned, honesty’s disgraced, Plain sense is scorned; what rivals all is--_Taste!_ ❦ _Les Riens._ Quand on aime, _rien_ n’est frivole. Un _rien_ sert ou nuit au bonheur; Un _rien_ afflige, un _rien_ console; Il n’est point de _rien_ pour le cœur. Un _rien_ peut aigrir la souffrance; Un _rien_ l’adoucit de moitié; Tout n’est _rien_ pour l’indifférence; Un _rien_ est tout pour l’amitié. ❦ [Sidenote: A Cottage in Scotland.] “_God bless you; and may the field of battle never leave your heart sair!_” It is scarcely possible to imagine a more natural and appropriate address _from_ a soldier’s wife _to_ a soldier’s wife. This, was the spontaneous effusion of grateful feeling, excited by some little service which I had been the means of rendering to a soldier of my husband’s regiment, for which his wife came to thank me. It is one of the many instances which I have met of that species of _Ossianic_ expression (if I may be allowed the term) which distinguishes the lower orders of the Scotch and Irish. I remember an occurrence in the life of an unfortunate friend of mine, which not only proves how capable this class of people are of deep and refined sentiment, but also of a strength and pathos of language which loses nothing from the simplicity of its guise. The lady to whom I allude, had, under circumstances of very peculiar misfortune, in which reason, nearly shaken from its seat, had deprived her of all sense save that of misery, been admitted to the shelter of a cottage by the road side, in the neighbourhood of D----, whose honest inhabitants hastened to afford her the only comforts their power admitted; their own bed, the warmth of their peat fire, and a share of their humble meal. They sought with kind solicitude, unmixed with obtrusive curiosity, to learn the causes which led to the sorrow they witnessed, but finding every effort vain, they checked their inquiries. “Puir thing! her heart’s crushed, and her spirit broken,” said the gudewife, whilst she placed the poor wanderer’s head upon her homely pillow, and then seated herself with her old man by their turf fire and unclosed the Bible, which with the Poems of Robert Burns constituted their library.