husband was met walking up the High Street, loaded with his guns and fishing-rods, and replied calmly to some one that inquired after his wife, “that the poor woman was trying to save a parcel of crockery, and some trumpery books;” the last being those which served her to conduct the business of the house.  There were many elderly gentlemen in the author’s younger days, who still held it part of the amusement of a journey “to parley with mine host,” who often resembled, in his quaint humour, mine Host of the Garter, in the Merry Wives of Windsor; or Blague of the George, in the Merry Devil of Edmonton.  Sometimes the landlady took her share of entertaining the company.  In either case, the omitting to pay them due attention gave displeasure, and perhaps brought down a smart jest, as on the following occasion:—­A jolly dame who, not “sixty years since,” kept the principal caravansary at Greenlaw, in Berwickshire, had the honour to receive under her roof a very worthy clergyman, with three sons of the same profession, each having a cure of souls; be it said in passing, none of the reverend party were reckoned powerful in the pulpit.  After dinner was over, the worthy senior, in the pride of his heart, asked Mrs. Buchan whether she ever had had such a party in her house before.  “Here sit I,” he said, “a placed minister of the kirk of Scotland, and here sit my three sons, each a placed minister of the same kirk.—­Confess, Luckie Buchan, you never had such a party in your house before.”  The question was not premised by any invitation to sit down and take a glass of wine or the like, so Mrs. B. answered drily, “Indeed, sir, I cannot just say that ever I had such a party in my house before, except once in the forty-five, when I had a Highland piper here, with his three sons, all Highland pipers; and deil a spring they could play amang them!”—­Notes to the New Edition of the Waverley Novels.

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CATCHING TIGERS.

In some parts of South America, a great many tigers are caught with the lasso by the Indian and Creole inhabitants for the sake of their skins.  They are also sometimes entrapped in the following manner:  a large chest, or wooden frame, is made, supported upon four wheels, and is dragged by oxen to a place where the traces of tigers have been discovered.  In the furthest corner of the chest is put a putrid piece of flesh, by way of bait, which is no sooner laid hold of by the tiger than the door of the trap falls; he is killed by a musket ball, or a spear thrust through the crevices of the planks.—­Memoirs of General Miller.

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ODE.

(From the Persian.)

  The joys of love and youth be mine,
  The cheerful glass, the ruby wine,
  The social feast, the merry friend,
  And brimming goblets without end.

  The maid whose lips all sweets contain,
  The minstrel with bewitching strain,
  And, by my side, the merry soul
  Who briskly circulates the bowl!