This broad assertion startled the whole company. The bookseller, who was employed in posting his ledger, looked down from his three-footed throne with some. thing between a groan and a sigh. Two men in great coats, who were chaffering for an odd set of the Farmer's Magazine, fled one way, and two lairds, whose Martinmas rents had not yet been made forth coming, retreated another. The very shopman and errand-boy were commoved at the extravagance of Pismire's proposition; and Peter Grievance, encouraged by the tacit agreement of the whole company in his favour, buckled up his courage to attack it. "The world never went so well, say you? When the d-l did it ever go so ill before? Have we not had the whole plagues that can affect a people sluiced down on us within this twelvemonth, war and rumours of war, scarcity of money, scarcity of corn, scarcity of every thing but bad weather and taxes ?" With a pleasant and complacent smile, Andrew advanced from his chimney-corner. "And with what period of Scottish history, my dear friend," said he, in a conciliatory voice, intended to decoy his opponent into some specific allegation,“would you compare the present state of the country?" Peter, aware of the trap, and being, besides, no great proficient in history, whereas Andrew is known to be a blackletter man, replied, in general, “That no period could be named in which the condition of Scotland was not better than at present." "You would not, however, include the most barbarous and early period, I sup. pose,” said Andrew," when men wore the skins of beasts, lived in the marshes, or in dens made of loose and uncemented stones; when women had half a dozen husbands, and men a community of wives, and when the tribe never knew the comforts of a good dinner unless when they feasted on their prisoners of war ?” "I might say something," replied our Peter, "concerning the plurality of wives and husbands, thanks to our own increasing immorality and the bad example of our neighbours; but I own it probable that our houses are more comfortable, and our butcher-market better supplied." "Then," quoth Andrew Pismire, "I presume you do not rest your point of perfection upon the reign of the Gracious Duncan, who was dirked in his bed by his cousin of Glammis? or in that of his successor, when we are assured the Thane of Fife, an invited guest to the king's table, had a peck-loaf assigned him for his supper; and when the said mighty Thane commanded so little specie, that he was fain to give the said loaf as an equivalent for transporting him over the ferry at Tay, while he was making his escape from the tyrant's presence ?” There was, in Pismire's argument, a sort of affectation of minute information calculated to intimidate better scholars than Peter, who, therefore, contented himself with replying, "that he did not remember a word of the peck-loaf or ferryboat, as the play was acted; but, no doubt," he added, "the Theatre has long ceased to be the school of useful information." "You would not, then," said Andrew, dispute the point of comparative happiness during the subsequent reigns of the Malcolms, the Williams, and the Alexanders, reigns of which,” he added, we know little-(thank God, muttered Peter, between his teeth)—and that little not to the praise of the times, or the credit of the country. We may, indeed, have heard that Malcolm Canmore had his eye knocked out and his life taken in consequence, by the obscure seneschal of a Northumbrian fortress-that William the Lion was made prisoner in an ill-advised attack on his too-powerful neighbour-that Alexander the Third married a young wife, and died in consequence" "I know nothing of all these folks," said Peter; "but I grant you they may have had distresses in their time as well as we in ours." | suing his victory with unsparing triumph, "he was a contented English vassal for the best part of his life, and it was only the accident of becoming a murderer that made him a patriot and a king. For his victory at Bannockburn, I think we owe him our best bow; and yet what sort of a Scythian independence did his conquest procure us, when, only three or four years after, his best, if not his sole expedient, to defend the country he had liberated against a new inroad of the English, consisted in laying it so completely waste, that of live cattle "Dost grant me, hedge-hog," retort- there was but a single lame bull to be found ed Andrew, in King Richard's vein.- between Berwick and Tranent? Besides, "Then, I suppose, you have placed your Peter, I owe gude King Robert a grudge fancy on the days of Wallace and Bruce ?" for his Black Parliament, in which, for no (Peter's eyes kindled; he had heard of good cause that seems to have been known the names, and hoped they might bring him to his contemporaries, he hung a score or good backing.)" Well, then, do you two of his nobility and crown vassals.chuse the days of the wight Wallace, who, Moreover, I detest the manner of their after burning a few churches, towns, and warfare in those days. What say you to villages, massacring some thousand men, the courteous choice proposed by the good and so forth, like all heroes, was at length Lord James of Douglas between the loss driven into the woods, lived like an out-of the right eye, or the fore finger of the law, and died like a malefactor? Are you prepared to prove, that that Wallace, of whom we talk so much and know so little, whose efforts in defence of his country's independence were totally abortive, and whose only historian is the sapient and veracious Blind Harry, brought such bless ings on a country subdued and occupied by the foreign enemy during his brief warfare of about four years, that you would change your quiet and peaceful lounge about the streets of Edinburgh, with full permission to growl at every thing, from the writers to the scavenger, for a state of servitude under a foreign yoke, varied by fierce insurrection and unsparing bloodshed? And for the Bruce," said Andrew, pur right hand, to each poor devil of an English archer who came into his ruthless hands? Or would you have liked to assist at that notable mess, the Douglasses larder, when the whole stores intended for victualling a fortress were mixed in the hall of the castle, the bags of flour and meal emptied, the casks of wine and beer staved, the sacks of grain spilt, and mingled with the contents of the barrels of salted provisions, the cattle slain on the top of this miscellaneous heap, and the prisoners finally slaughtered, all to make the gruel slab ?'" "Pah!" said Peter, beginning to spit, an action in which he was accompanied by several of the assistants. "Well," said Pismire, " every one knows, executioner within the two first years of his reign, inclusive of his cousin the Duke of Albany, the Earls of Monteith and Lennox. Engaged in the perilous task of humbling his haughty nobles, he fell a victim to the attempt, and was poniarded to death in a common sewer.-Do you like the times of James II. better, when he stabbed his rival, the Earl of Douglas, with his own hand,-when Scotland was divided into two parties, for the Stuarts and Douglasses, and only the factions of our neighbours of England, as inveterate as our own, kept them from pouncing upon us and swallowing us up?-James III., Lord love him, a musician, bless the mark, and an architect, built fine houses and castles, gave concerts (in the churches to wit,) and lost his life because he wished to add to his musical establishment. His taste for the society of architects and musicians was termed a parMild mea. that I am the most moderate man in argu- "I come next to our Jameses," continued Andrew," a name which called Misfortune bride. James the First, if you please, was a reformer,-a radical one, if two thousand of his subjects fell by the sures (the age called them such) were at was contended for as if it had been a signet, a talisman, an amulet, or any other uncommon thing, to the possession of which power was attached. He struggled gal lantly against the evil time when he gained possession of his freedom, but lost his sons by disease, and died of a broken, heart on account of his unsuccessful war with England, Then came Henry's lion-wooing in behalf of his son Edward.-the fatal rout at Pinkey,the sharp swords of the English raging through the land from all the strong-holds and garrisons which they occupied, and their yet more powerful gold debauching from their allegiance onehalf of the Scottish nobles, Queen Mary only stepped on the stage to give occasion to such a history of woe as perhaps no other history records. All was murder in the open field, or by the hand of the execu tioner. Polemical hate sharpened, and seemed to those whom it stimulated to authorise, the unbounded rancour of hostility. A murdered King was avenged by the long imprisonment and subsequent execution of the Sovereign of Scotland by a vindictive rival. "James VI.," said Andrew, in continuation, “was, during his residence in Scotland, a foot-ball to Fortune and to his factious nobles, like his ancestors before him, and with a single grain of more spirit, could not have escaped being murdered on the many occasions when he fell into the coercive hands of his nobles. The ex. ploits of Bothwell upon his person, the raids of Ruthven and of Stirling, the Gowrie conspiracy, and many other ruffles, must have kept his mind in such a constant state of terror, that a hare would have a better time of it in the neighbourhood of a pack of hounds." by three or four thousand acres of moorI am a plain farmer. I live surrounded land, on which there is neither house nor village besides my own steading, neither hoof nor horn, grass nor corn, but of my own raising. Such a situation you town'sfolks would think lonely enough in winter, and, truly, some of the long evenings would pass rather heavily, unless it were for reading, and music now and then; for my daughters play, and sing sometimes when no one but the family is by. I take a newspaper twice a-week, a constitutional decent publication, the editor of which seldom troubles his readers with his own fancies, but gives the news as he gets them from other quarters which he thinks authentic. It has been a fancy of mine, confirmed by a pretty long experience, that the greatest professors are usually the smallest performers; and it is owing to this that I have taken your SaleRoom also, the first number of which came to me accidentally wrapped about a pound of candles from Dalkeith. The reason of my troubling you with my present correspondence, is this:-In despite of the modesty of your pretensions, you begin by using both strange names and the French language, (which, thank God, I never learnt, nor intend to learn,) with out subjoining a translation. For instance, there is Coryphæus ;-who is Coryphæus ? I asked the minister in the session-room between preachings last Sunday, but he was unfortunately taken with a fit of coughing before he could reply; and, afterwards, he was so much engaged in conversation with Lady Faladam, that I could never get an answer out of him. I am therefore obliged to apply to you in this difficulty, and to request that you will be pleased to translate all the French used in the foregoing numbers, in your next; and above all, furnish information as to Coryphæus. I am, Sir, Your well-wisher, Driginal Poetry. THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. "Weary with anarchy and civil broils, And sadly living on each others spoils, In desperate hope to be protected, A Bull-Dog for their Sovereign they elected. His reign was short. To blood and rapine bred, "The animals, collected then like you, To mould their government anew, "It chanced that Man "Just what they did-an aristocracy A Stag to lead their armies went; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 10 CORRESPONDENTS. We have received a letter from a fair Correspondent, under the signature of Jaquenetta, in which she addresses us by the flattering epithet of Dear Mr Sale-Room, warns us to beware of using hard words, and requests, in particular, an explanation of the word Coryphæus used in our First Number. Although we should be loth to lose the opportunity of displaying occasionally our little stock of learning, we shall always be happy to afford explanation, and have the honour of informing the fair Querist that Coryphæus signifies the principal person, or leader, of any undertaking; and, in the present instance, must be regarded as forming the head of that ingenious individual Mr Sale Room. The above solution will serve as a reply, also, to our friend Agricola's query. The French language will be accompanied by a translation in future. "JY." and "Gamma” are under consideration. Edinburgh, printed by James Ballantyne & Co. for John Ballantyne, Hanover-Street. |