the knavery of the gamekeeper and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hitherto put in force, far too successfully, to thin the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting tribe.  On the ruin of the old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I made a place with stone and mortar, about 4 ft. square, and fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into it.  Huge masses of ivy now quite cover it.  In about a month or so after it was finished, a pair of barn owls came and took up their abode in it.  I threatened to strangle the keeper if ever, after this, he molested either the old birds or their young ones; and I assured the housekeeper that I would take upon myself the whole responsibility of all the sickness, woe, and sorrow that the new tenants might bring into the Hall.  She made a low courtesy; as much as to say, “Sir, I fall into your will and pleasure:”  but I saw in her eye that she had made up her mind to have to do with things of fearful and portentous shape, and to hear many a midnight wailing in the surrounding woods.  I do not think that up to the day of this old lady’s death, which took place in her eighty-fourth year, she ever looked with pleasure or contentment on the barn owl, as it flew round the large sycamore trees which grow near the old ruined gateway.

(To be concluded in our next.)

[1] “Ill-omen’d in his form, the unlucky fowl,
     Abhorr’d by men, and call’d a screeching owl.”—­Garth’s Trans.

[2] “They fly by night, and assail infants in the nurse’s absence.”

[3] “Even the ill-boding owl is declared a bird of good omen.”

[4] “The Stygian owl gives sad omens in a thousand places.”

[5] “A feather of the night owl.”

[6] ——­“And, on her palace top,
    The lonely owl with oft repeated scream
    Complains, and spins into a dismal length
    Her baleful shrieks.”—­Trapp’s Trans.

[7] “And sell bodies torn from their tombs.”

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

BLONDEL DE NESLE.

“Blondel de Nesle the favourite minstrel of Richard Coeur de Lion, and an attendant upon his person, devoted himself to discover the place of his confinement during the crusade against Saladin, emperor of the Saracens.  He wandered in vain from castle to palace, till he learned that a strong and almost inaccessible fortress upon the Danube was watched with peculiar strictness, as containing some state-prisoner of distinction.  The minstrel took his harp, and approaching as near the castle as he durst, came so nigh the walls as to hear the melancholy captive soothing his imprisonment with music.  Blondel touched his harp; the prisoner heard and was silent:  upon this the minstrel played the first part of a tune, or lay, known to the captive; who instantly played the second part; and thus, the faithful servant obtained the certainty that the inmate of the castle was no other than his royal master.”—­Tales of a Grandfather, p 69.