A’ The lumms smokeless!  No ae jack turnin’ a piece o’ roastin’ beef afore ae fire in ony ae kitchen in a’ the New Toon!  Streets and squares a’ grass-grown, sae that they micht be mawn!  Shops like bee-hives that hae de’d in wunter!  Coaches settin’ aff for Stirlin’, and Perth, and Glasgow, and no ae passenger either inside or out—­only the driver keepin’ up his heart wi’ flourishin’ his whup, and the guard, sittin’ in perfect solitude, playin’ an eerie spring on his bugle-horn!  The shut-up play-house a’ covered ower wi’ bills that seem to speak o’ plays acted in an antediluvian world!  Here, perhaps, a leevin’ creter, like ane emage, staunin’ at the mouth o’ a close, or hirplin’ alang, like the last relic o’ the plague.  And oh! but the stane-statue o’ the late Lord Melville, staunin’ a’ by himsell up in the silent air, a hunder-and-fifty feet high, has then a ghastly seeming in the sky, like some giant condemned to perpetual imprisonment on his pedestal, and mournin’ ower the desolation of the city that in life he loved so well.—­Noctes—­Blackwood’s Magazine.

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NAVARINO.

A Correspondent has sent us a copy of some “Stanzas written in Commemoration of the Battle of Navarin,” written by A. Grassie, piper on board H.M.S.  Glasgow, R.N.—­or “by a sailor in the engagement.”  One of the twelve stanzas is as follows:—­

  To save the sacrifice of life,
    Was valiant Codrington’s design;
  And for those Turks it had been good. 
    If to his terms they would incline: 
  They fired upon the Dartmouth’s boat,
    And killed some of its gallant men;
  But that distinguished frigate had
    Complete revenge at Navarin.

This specimen of nautical numbers reminds us of Addison’s suggestion for setting the Chelsea and Greenwich pensioners to write accounts of the battles in which they had served; and we hope others will follow Mr. Grassie’s example in these piping times of peace.

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CARVING AND GILDING.

A point of some importance in the internal decoration of palatial houses, viz. the introduction of “ornaments of the age of Louis XIV.” is now canvassing among connoisseurs, or rather among those who direct the public taste.  Some of our readers are probably aware that the mansion built for the late Duke of York, and Crockford’s Club-house, are embellished in this style, which, to say the best, is gorgeous and expensive, without displaying good taste.  We ought to leave such matters to the classical Mr. T. Hope, who has written a folio volume on “Household Furniture and Internal Decorations;” or the Carvers, Gilders, and Cabinet-Makers’ Societies might sit in council on the subject.  The question is interesting to all lovers of the fine arts, and to men of taste generally.