AUSTRIA.
The present Emperor of Austria is a gentle, fatherly old man. We have heard none of his subjects speak of him with anything but love and affection. The meanest peasant has access to him; and, except on public occasions, he leads a simpler life than any nobleman among ourselves. It is, perhaps, less the emperor than the nobility who govern in Austria, and less the nobility than Metternich, the prince-pattern of prime-ministers.—Foreign Review.
HANGING.
The following letter tends to rectify an error which very generally prevails, namely, that it costs only thirteen-pence halfpenny to be hung. It is copied literatim et verbatim, from one made out by Mr. Ketch himself, and proves that a man cannot be hung for so mere a trifle:—
"Silvester. s. d.
Executioner's Fees............ 7 6
Stripping the Body............ 4 6
Use of Shell.................. 2 6
1813. ______
Nov. 10. 14 6"
Blackwood's Magazine.
SCOTTISH POETRY.
The passion of the Scots, from whatever race derived, for poetry and music, developed itself in the earliest stages of their history. They possessed a wild imagination, a dark and gloomy mythology; they peopled the caves, the woods, the rivers, and the mountains, with spirits, elves, giants, and dragons; and are we to wonder that the Scots, a nation in whose veins the blood of all those remote races is unquestionably mingled, should, at a very remote period, have evinced an enthusiastic admiration for song and poetry; that the harper was to be found amongst the officers who composed the personal state of the sovereign, and that the country maintained a privileged race of wandering minstrels, who eagerly seized on the prevailing superstitions and romantic legends, and wove them in rude, but sometimes very expressive versification, into their stories and ballads; who were welcome guests at the gate of every feudal castle, and fondly beloved by the great body of the people.—Tytler's History of Scotland.