and all the ither particulars belanging to our trade, which he said, at lang and last, after we had jokit thegither, was a power better ane than the farming.

"Yeshould mak yere son ane then," said I, "if ye think sae. Have ye ony bairns ?"

"Ye've het the nail on the head.Od, man, if ye wasna sae far away, I would bind our auldest callant to your sell, I'm sae weel pleased wi' yere gentlemany manners. But I'm speaking havers.'

"Havers here or havers there, what," said I," is to prevent ye boarding him, at a cheap rate, either wi' our friend Mrs Grassie, or wi' the wife? Either of the twa wad be a sort of mother till him."

"Deed, I daur say wou'd they," answered Maister Glen, stroking his chin, which was gey rough, and hadna got a clean sin Sunday, having had four days of sheer growth,-our meeting, ye'll observe by this, being on the Thursday afternoon,-" Deed would they.-Od, I maun speak to the mistress about it."

On the head of this we had anither jug, three being cannie, after which we were baith a wee tozy-mozy; so I daursay Mrs Grassie saw plainly that we were getting into a state where we wad not easily make a halt; so, without letting on, she brought in the teathings before us, and showed us a play-bill, to tell us that a company of strolling play-actors had come in a body in the morning, with a haill cartful of scenery and grand dresses; and were to make an exhibition at seven o'clock, at the ransom of a shilling ahead, in Laird Wheatley's barn.

Mony a time and often had I heard of play-acting, and of players making themselves kings and queens, and saying a great many wonderful things; but I had never before an opportunity of making mysell a witness to the truth of these hearsays. So Maister Glen, being as fu' of nonsense, and as fain to have his curiosity gratified, we took upon us the stout resolution to gang out thegither, he offering to treat me, and I determined to rin the risk of Maister Wiggie our minister's rebuke, for the transgression, hoping it would make nae lasting impression on his mind, being for the first and only time. Folks shouldna at a' times be ower scrupulous.

After paying our money at the door, never, while I live and breathe, will I forget what we saw and heard that night; it just looks to me, by all the world, when I think on't, like a fairy dream. The place was crowded to the ee; Maister Glen and me having nearly got our ribs dung in before we fand a seat, and them behint were obliged to mount the back benches to get a sight. Right to the fore-hand of us was a large green curtain, some five or six ells wide, a guid deal the waur of the wear, having seen service through twa three simmers; and, just in the front of it, were eight or ten penny candles stuck in a board fastened to the ground, to let us see the players' feet, like, when they came on the stage, and even before they came on the stage, for the curtain being scrimpit in length, we saw legs and feet moving behind the scenes very neatly; while twa blind fiddlers they had brought with them played the bonniest ye ever heard. Odd, the very music was worth a sixpence of itsell.

The place, as I said before, was choke full, just to excess; so that ane could scarcely breathe. Indeed I never saw ony pairt sae crowded, not even at a tent-preaching, when Mr Roarer was giving his discourses on the Building of Solomon's Temple. We were obligated to have the windows opened for a mouthful of fresh air, the barn being as close as a baker's oven, my neighbour and me fanning our red faces wi' our hats, to keep us cool; and, though all were half stewed, we had the worst o't, the toddy we had ta'en having fermented the blood of our bodies into a perfect fever.

Just at the time that the twa blind fiddlers were playing the Downfall of Paris, a handbell rang, and up goes the green curtain; being hauled to the ceiling, as I observed wi' the tail of my ee, by a birkie at the side, that had haud of a rope. So, on the music stopping, and all becoming as still as that you might have heard a pin fall, in comes a decent old gentleman at his leisure, weil powdered, wi' an auld-fashioned coat on, waist-coat with flappockets, brown breeches with buckles at the knees, and silk stockings with red gushats on a blue ground. I never saw a man in sic distress; he stampit about, and better stampit about, dadding the end of his staff on the ground, and imploring all the powers

of heaven and yearth to help him to find out his run-awa' daughter, that had decampit wi' some neerdoweil loon of a half-pay captain, that keppit her in his arms frae her bedroom-window, up twa pair o' stairs. Every father and head of a family maun hae felt for a man in his situation, thus to be rubbit of his dear bairn, and an only daughter too, as he tellt us owre and owre again, as the saut saut tears ran gushing down his withered face, and he aye blew his nose on his clean calendered pocket napkin. But, ye ken, the thing was absurd to suppose that we should ken onything about the matter, having never seen either him or his daughter between the een afore, and no kenning them by headmark; so, though we sympathized with him, as folks ought to do wi' a fellow-creature in affliction, we thought it best to haud our tongues, to see what might cast up better than he expected. So out he gaed stumping at the ither side, determined, he said, to find them out, though he should follow them to the world's end, Johnny Groat's House, or something to that effect.

Hardly was his back turned, and amaist before ye could cry Jack Robison, in comes the birkie and the very young leddy the auld gentleman described, arm and arm thegither, smoodging and lauching like daft. Dog on it! it was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the croud of folk, he pat his arm round her waist, and caad her his sweetheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and everything that is sweet. If they had been courting in a closs thegither on a Friday night, they couldna hae said mair to ane anither, or gaen greater lengths. I thought sich shame to be an ee-witness to sic ongoings, that I was obliged at last to haud up my hat afore my face, and look down; though, for a' that, the young lad, to be sich a blackguard as his conduct showed, was weil enough faured, and had a guid coat to his back, wi' double gilt buttons, and fashionable lapells, to say little o' a very weil-made pair of buckskins, a little the waur o' the wear to be sure, but which, if they had been weil cleaned, would hae lookit amaist as gude as new. How they had come we never could learn, as we neither saw chaise nor gig; but, from his having spurs on his boots, it is mair

than likely that they had lightit at the back-door of the barn frae a horse, she riding on a pad behint him maybe, with her hand round his waist.

The faither lookit to be a rich auld bool, baith from his manner of speaking, and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his daughter; but, to be sure, when so many of us were present that had an equal right to the spulzie, it wadna be a great deal a thousand pounds when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so we just bidit a wee.

Things were brought to a bearing, howsomever, sooner than either themsells, I daur say, or onybody else present, seemed to hae the least glimpse of; for, just in the middle of their fine goings-on, the sound of a coming fit was heard, and the lassie taking guilt to her, cried out, "Hide me, hide me, for the sake of gudeness, for yonder comes my old father!"

Nae sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a closet; and, after shutting the door on her, he sat down upon a chair, pretending to be asleep in a moment. The auld faither came bouncing in, and seeing the fellow as sound as a tap, he ran forrit and gaed him sich a shake, as if he wad hae shooken him a' sundry, which sune made him open his een as fast as he had steekit them. After blackguarding the chield at no allowance, cursing him up hill and down dale, and caaing him every name but a gentleman, he haddit his staff ower his crown, and gripping him by the cuff o' the neck, askit him what he had made o' his daughter. Never since I was born did I ever see sich brazen-faced impudence! The rascal had the brass to say at ance, that he hadna seen word or wittens of his daughter for a month, though mair than a hundred folk sitting in his company had seen him dauting her with his arm round her jimpy waist, not five minutes before. As a man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised, for I aye hated leeing, as a puir cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten commandments; and I fand my neebour, Mr Glen, fidgetting on the seat as weel as me; so I thocht, that whaever spoke first, wad hae the best right to be entitled to the reward; whereupon, just as he was in the act of rising up, I took the word out of his mouth, saying, "Dinna believe him, auld gentleman

-dinna believe him, friend; he's telling a parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! It's no worth arguing, or caaing witnesses; just open that press door, and ye'll see whether I'm speaking truth or no."

The auld man stared, and lookit dumb-foundered; and the young man, instead of rinning forrit wi' his double nieves to strike me, the only thing I was feared for, began a lauching, as if I had dune him a gude turn. But never since I had a being, did I ever witness sich an uproar and noise as immediately took place. The haill house was sae glad that the scoundrel had been exposed, that they set up siccan a roar o' lauchter, and thumpit away at siccan a rate at the boards wi' their feet, that at lang and last, wi' pushing, and fidgetting, and hadding their sides, down fell the place they ca' the gallery, a' the folk in't being hurl'd tapsy-turvy, head foremost amang the saw-dust on the floor below; their guffawing sune being turned to howling, ilka ane crying louder than anither at the tap note of their voices, "Murder! murder! haud aff me; murder! my ribs are in; murder! I'm killed-I'm speechless!" and ither lamentations to that effect; so that a rush to the door took place, in which everything was overturned-the door-keeper being wheeled away like wildfire-the furms strampit to pieces-the lights knockit out-and the twa blind fiddlers dung head foremost ower the stage, the bass fiddle cracking like thunder at every bruise. Siccan tearing, and swearing, and tumbling, and squeeling, was never witnessed in the memory of man, sin the building of Babel; legs being likely to be broken, sides staved in, een knocked out, and lives lost; there being only ae door, and that a sma' ane;

so that, when we had been carried aff our feet that length, my wind was fairly gane, and a sick dwam cam ower me, lights of a' manner of colours, red, blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that entirely deprived me o' common sense, till, on opening my een in the dark, I fand mysell leaning wi' my braid side against the wa" on the opposite side of the close. It was some time before I mindit what had happened; so, dreading scaith, I fand first the ae arm, and then the ither, to see if they were broken-syne my head-and syne baith o' my legs; but a', as weel as I could discover, was skin-hale and scart-free. On perceiving which, my' joy was without bounds, having a great notion that I had been killed on the spot. So I reached round my hand, very thankfully, to tak out my pocketnapkin, to gie my brow a wipe, when lo and behold the tail of my Sunday's coat was fairly aff an' away, dockit by the haunch buttons.

Sae muckle for plays and play-actors-the first and last, I trust in grace, that I shall ever see. But indeed I could expect nae better, after the warning that Maister Wiggie had mair than ance gien us frae the pupit on the subject; sae, instead of getting my grand reward for finding the auld man's daughter, the haill covey them, nae better than a set of swindlers, took leg-bail, and made that very night a moonlight flitting; and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought frae sunrise to sunset, for twa days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being weel paid for his trouble, as he deserved, got naething left him but a ruckle of his ain guid deals, a' dung to shivers.

MR EDITOR,

ON the whole, you have treated Sheridan handsomely enough, made a fair distinction between his bright days and his black ones, between the time when wit came of itself, and the time when he was obliged to send for it. But let me say one word for what the world thinks the least defensible point about him. His payability. He is, of course, written down as little

better than a very pleasant swindler, whose purpose was to pay no man a shilling, whom he could put off with a joke, and whose life was a long trick worthy of the best of his own Jews.

Now, you may rely upon my knowledge of the fact, that there was no man more paying than Sheridan, when he had a shilling in his possession; that he actually was always paying, and in many instances, through mere

agony at being dunned, has paid the same debt over and over. The more impudent demand was, as might be expected, the first paid; and impudence was so no qriously effective with this very sensitive man, that it habitually swept away his means of discharging the true creditor.

It is allowed, that he was unfit for all business that required punctuality, accuracy, or economy; in short, that he was what so many men are, a bad man of business, and this even went so far, that he is said to have never kept a receipt nor a key! Yet, to what did the debts of this proverb of wastefulness and dishonesty amount at last? Why, to the inordinate sum of five thousand pounds! There are five thousand very honest and well-charactered gentlemen in the realm, who would think themselves the luckiest fellows alive to find their debts cleared down to five thousand pounds.*

As to his personal liberality, which you seem to doubt, the question is not easily answered. The most liberal are seldom those whose bounty is the most easily traced. It even becomes a maxim, that the most public givers are the least liberal. But so far as I can ascertain, Sheridan was charitable, and frequently destitute as he was of money from his struggling theatre, he did his best to relieve those who came in his way.

Theatrical life is miserably fertile in such applications, and we should have heard heavier complaints of the hardness of his heart, if he had rejected the tenth part of his applicants.

But his public life is more tangible. You altogether doubt his capability of any political nobleness. The man who has seen what public life is made of, may well be inclined to doubt the existence of any one generous, manly, or independent feeling in that school. When every man isstruggling for himself, selfishness becomes, from a principle of policy, a principle of nature. It must have been a powerful, original repulsion to bowing the neck, that makes any man stand straight under the heavy harness of party.

But can we forget the MUTINY AT THE NORE? The nation in anxiety and terror, the Ministry appalled and wavering in the sight of the most for

midable catastrophe that had ever threatened England. The Whigs exulting in the prospect of the fall of Ministers, even though they fell with the national ruin. Fox, like another leading spirit of evil, lifting his crest, and triumphing in the success of his temptation! Then came forward Sheridan; in the face of his party, in defiance of his party, in the full exposure to sneers and cries of dereliction and tergiversation, he declared, that in such a time the old bonds and principles of parliamentary opposition should not lie on the mind of any honourable man; he stood forth" among the faithless, faithful only found;" avowed that, notwithstanding his continued and full recognition of all his old friendships and pledges, he could for the time see no difference between the sides of the House, no party but the country; and offered his services to any man who would save it. These were not things done in a corner. They are public documents, to be found in the records of the time, and at that period they were acknowledged by the unanimous gratitude of the empire. They make no figure in the pages of his biographer. But they have an honour that will be as permanent, in the hearts of his countrymen.

The independence, spirit, and disdain of all hypocritical party clamour in the very crisis of the country, undoubtedly gave the turn to the time. I will not say, that the empire must have perished without him; nor even that the Ministry might not have felt themselves strong enough in public confidence, to have taken every measure that subsequently extinguished the mutiny. But I limit myself to the plainest and simplest facts, that there was infinite public consternation as the sight of this novel hazard; that the Ministry were perplexed by the fear that the evil was not confined to the fleet, but might be but the first explosion of a series of revolutionary convulsions; that they looked to unanimity in the House, to strengthen the executive; and that in the House they found scorn, exultation, and resistance on the part of the Whigs; till Sheridan, in what I will persist in believing the nobleness of his nature, and the spirit of native fearlessness and

patriotism, walked forth from their ranks, to offer himself to the public service, and shamed his colleagues into following him.

His wit is more easily disputed. Yet, in an age when every man was emulous of conversational brilliancy, what man equalled him? How infinitely meagre are the relics of the Selwyns, Walpoles, Hares, Tookes, and Townshends, to the heap of negligent and unassorted splendours that Sheridan has left behind him! His published bon-mots are the least of this careless treasure, which lies scattered among the memories of his perishing companions. His day, too, was remarkable for theatrical rivalry, by a higher class than have since attempted to sustain the falling honours of the stage. Burgoyne, Andrews, Topham, Cumberland, and others of fortune, fashion, and scholarship,-yet which of them came within bow-shot of this humbly born, unfashionably bred, and indigent man, even in his youth?

His plays are as vivid this moment

as they were the hour they came sparkling from his pen. Can this be said of any of his contemporaries ?— competitors he had none.

His great political crime was, that he flung the Whigs out of the saddle, into which they have never been able to clamber since. There are many, however, who will not look upon this as an inexpiable sin. He threw into contempt a little cabal of aristocratic insolence, that in their moderation would not have left the King the appointment of a turnspit in his own kitchen. With the nation before their eyes, they instituted a degraded traffic for pension and place in the Household; they were detected, scorned, driven out, and this was done by Sheridan! This was his crime. But a crime like this ought to be inscribed on his grave, and the panegyric will outlast the fleeting and prejudiced opinions of any man who attempts to strike his pen through the memory of Brinsley Sheridan.

C. R.

LANDLUBBERS like us have no business to write Naval Sketches; but perhaps it may be in our power to review Naval Sketches tolerably well, nay, better than any seaman in the fleet. The British critic-tar would astound and perplex the reader by his profusion of nautical terminology, and set him completely adrift. We, in our comparative ignorance of Neptune's mother-tongue, must make use of our own land-lingo, more or less generally understood ashore. Besides, seaman's wit, except in original composition, is apt to take aback the sails of a landsman's imagination. Authors, in general, review their own books very ably; witness our periodical literature. Yet we could bet a trifle, that the clever Captain now before us could no more keep his book in the mind's eye, without making lee-way, than we could wear his ship in a gale, without carrying

away every stick. In all probability, the few nautical terms we have now ventured on are all misplaced and misapplied; yet how expressive! Let a coxswain criticise, and he will curse us down to the lowest depths of the breadroom; but "all the ladies now on land" will admire our genius, and own that no subject comes amiss to the Editor of Ebony.

There, now, is the writer of our Man-of-War's-Man-as able-bodied and able-minded a seaman as ever furled a top-gallant-sail; yet could he write a critical article about his own Memoirs? Not he indeed. He would forthwith begin "spinning a long yarn," and then clap such a load of canvass on Maga, that he would run her down, head-foremost, in deep water, till the St Andrew's cross, at the main, would disappear like a flying fish in the foam. But set him on