Thurisday, the 15th of Febricare, 1638-The Sessions resenting and taking to their earnest consideratione, the slak and slender resorting to the house of God, by sundrie tradesmen, but especiallie of masoners and wrights, and they, for that effect, being convenied, are admonished to repair to the kirk in tyme coming better than heretofore they have done, otherwayes their loft, which is erected in the church, will be taken down.

Thurisday, the 17th March, 1642 -Euphame Thomsone, and Janet Jonstone, servitors to Jon Burges, for scolding of uthers, hinc inde, are ordained to be put in the jogs presentlie.

Thurisday, last of March-Agnes Welsh is heirby enacted that if any time, she sal be hard to scold or to upbraid Andro Steuart, or his wyff, the lady Middlebre, with any contumelious speeches, or waiting at their windows, in the night, IPSO FACTO, she is content to embrace banishment.

9th June, 1642-Jon Clerk, tailor, for being observed to shave sundry of this burgh on the Sabboth day, in the morning, is commanded that henceforward he be not found in the like breach of the only day, and that under the paine of x lib. toties quoties.

17th Dec., 1646-Matthew Baillie, tailor, compeiring, and for slandering the whole toune in sundrie naushtie and base expressiones, in averring that he was too highlie stinted in public burdens, is ordained to stand in the pillar this next Setterday, at the preparatione Sermone, and to pay forty shillings to the poore.

Setterday, 19th Dec. 1646-Compeired James Putcheone mer, and confessed his groose falt, in drinking James Grahame's (the Marquis of Montrose's) health, is ordained to acknowledge his offence upon his bare knees, in the session house, and to pay one dollar to the poore.

Monday, 13th March, 1646-Janet Wilson, spous to Jon Wilson, mer. for gathering of cale yesterday, on

the Lord's day is ordained to declare her falt from her seat on Sunday, and to pay twelve shillings to the poore.

SUWARROW'S LACONISM.

His movements were quick as lightning: yet his motto was-" Haste is necessary, hurry injurious."-Prince Coburg on the Rumnith, in a French letter, urgently requests his assistance: he sends it back, with the Russian superscription: "I am coming. Suwarrow." And, in a few hours he arrives with 16,000 men.-The vizier with 10,000 men is beaten. He scarcely approaches Ismail when the mighty fortress falls into his hands, and he writes-"The Russian standard flies on the walls of Ismail!" After the total defeat of the Polish army near Brest Litowsk, he wrote to Rumjanzow-" Siraknowsky's corps is no more!" A short time after he writes, "Huzza! Warsaw is ours!" and receives the equally memorable reply-" Huzza! Field-marshal Suwarrow-Catherine." He never walked, he always ran; and never rode but in a gallop. He often repeated-" Money is necessary in war, but time is still more precious. I act by minutes, and not by hours." His words were as concise as his letters.Pressed by the enemy on all sides, the Austrian General Melas asks him

whither to retire. With a pencil he writes in reply-" To Placencia, i. e. forward." Melas obeys. Macdonald is beaten on the plains of Hannibal, and Suwarrow receives the victorious Melas in Placencia.-Baron Thugut wished to draw from him his plans for the war. Suwarrow gave him a blank sheet of paper, and hurrying away, he said, "These are my plans!"

But when it was proposed to act in the offensive, he said with indignation to the foreign aid-de-camp→ "Tell your Prince, he is a young man; but I am an old soldier: the words retreat and defensive are not in my vocabulary. I have overthrown the theory of tactics hitherto em

6.6

ployed, and made my own: adieu?" He had been the first to leave blockaded fortresses in the back of his army. He disliked ambiguity in speech, as much as he loved short and decisive replies. Asking one day an Austrian General "Why did Hannibal not go to Rome after the battle of Cannæ ?" who immediately repliedPerhaps they had also a council of war at Carthage ;" he instantly understood, and embraced him affectionately. When this same council wished to prescribe to him his warlike movements, he had not even the patience to read their instructions through,and wrote underneath," Full power to the General-in-Chief-reporting only to the Emperor in person: such are my orders."-His sayings were often very pithy, and he did not even disdain a pun. Hearing some person extolling the cunning of Dumouriez, he said-" He is not cunning who is considered as such." -He delighted to repeat and explain his military tactics to his soldiers on the parade; and they were such that every one of them could understand them. He used to say, "The bullet is silly, but the bayonet is dexterous." And, Huzza, to the bayonet!" was for his army the signal for victory.-LITERARY MUSEUM.

66

THE LAST DAYS OF
HERCULANCUM.

A great city, situated amidst all that nature could create of beauty and of profusion, or art collect of science and magnificence; the growth of many ages; the residence of enlightened multitudes; the scene of splendour, and festivity, and happiness; in one moment withered as by a spell its palaces, its streets, its temples, its gardens glowing with eternal spring,' and its inhabitants in the full enjoyment of all life's blessings, obliterated from their place in creation, not by war, or famine, or disease, or any of the natural means

of destruction to which earth has been accustomed,-but in a single night, as if by magic, and amid the conflagration, as it were, of nature itself, presented a subject on which the wildest imagination might grow weary without even equalling the grand and terrible reality. The eruption of Vesuvius, by which Herculancum and Pompeii were overwhelmed, has been chiefly described to us in the letter of Pliny the younger to Tacitus, given an account of his useless fate, and the situation of of the writer and his mother. The elder Pliny had just returned from the bath, and was retired to his study, when a small speck or clond, which seemed to ascend from Mount Vesuvius, attracted his attention. This cloud gradually increased, and at length assumed the shape of a pine tree, the trunk of earth and vapour, and the leaves red cinders.' Pliny ordered his galley, and urged by his philosophical spirit, went forward to inspect the phenomenon. In a short time, however, philosophy gave way to humanity, and he zealously and adventurously employed his galley in saving the inhabitants of the various beautiful villas which studded that enchanting coast. Among others he went to the assistance of his friend Pomponianus, who was then at Stabiæ. The storm of fire, and the tempest of the earth, increased; and the wretched inhabitants were obliged, by the continual rocking of their houses, to rush out into the fields with pillows tied down by napkins upon their heads, as their sole defence against the shower or stones which fell on them. This, in the course, of nature, was in the middle of the day; but a deeper darkness than that of a winter had closed around the illfated inmates of Herculancum. This artificial darkness continued for three days and nights, and when the sun again appeared over the spot where Herculancum stood, his rays fell upon an ocean of lava! There was neither tree, nor shrub, nor field, nor house, nor living creature, nor visible remains of what human hands had reared;

WILLIAM III. AND DR. RADCLIFFE. -The King, on his return from Holland (where, instead of following the Doctor's advice, he had lived very freely with several German Princes) found himself again very much out of order; and having his sole reliance on Dr. Radcliffe's judgment, sent for him to Kensington the last time, for he was then to be as much out of favour with his Majesty as he was with the Princess. After the necessary questions put by the Physician to the Royal Patient, said the King (shewing his swollen ancles, while the rest of his body was emaciated and like a mere skeleton) "Doctor, what think you of these?"-"Why truly," replied he, "I WOULD NOT HAVE YOUR MAJESTY'S TWO LEGS FOR YOUR THREB KINGDOM."-Which freedom of speech was resented so much, though seemingly not taken notice of

during their conversation, that all the interest the Earl of Albemarle bad at Court, and then he was the chief favourite, could not reinstate him in his Majesty's good graces, who from that very hour, never would suffer him to come into his presence, though he continued to make use of his diet-drinks till three days before his death, which happened to fall out much about the same time as the Doctor had calculated, and which the King had frequently said to the Earl beforementioned, would come to pass, in verification of Radcliffe's prediction. Since it appeared, upon opening his late Majesty's body, that he had lived as long as there was any nutriment for the animal spirits, and that if he had not fallen from his horse, which broke his collar-bone, and might hasten his death for a few days, he must have been gathered to his fathers in less than a month's time, since his lungs were entirely wasted and dried, and crumbled in the hand like a clod of summer dirt.-( Memoirs of John Radcliffe.")

INTERESTING RELIC.-The orignal diamond ring of Mary Queen of Scots, upon which are engraved the Arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, quartered, and which was produced in evidence at the trial of the unfortunate Mary, as a proof of her pretentions of the Crown of England, was in the possession of the late Mr. Blachford, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, at the time of his death. -The history of this fatal ring is curious. It descended from Mary to her grandson Charles I. who gave it on the scaffold to Archbishop Juxon, for his son Charles 11. who, in his troubles, pawned it in Holland for 3001. where it was bought by Governor Yale, and sold at his sale for 3201., as was supposed, for the Pretender. Afterwards it came into the possession of the Earl of Isla, Duke of Argyle, and probably from him to the family of Mr. Blachford. At the sale of his effects, it is said to have

been purchased for the peresent King,' then Prince Regent.

KINGS' FAVOURITES.-Evelyn, in his Journal, says, "Dined at Mr.' Treasurer's, where dined Mons. de Gramont and several French noblemen, and one BLOOD, that impudent bold fellow, who had not long before attempted to steal the imperial crown itself out of the Tower, pretending only curiosity of seeing the regalia there; when stabbing the Keeper, though not mortally, he boldly went away with it through all the guards, and was taken only by the accident of his horse falling down. How he came to be pardoned, and even received into favour, not only after this, but several other exploits almost as daring, both in Ireland and here, I could never come to understand. Some believe he became a Spy of several parties, and did his Majesty service that way, which none alive could do so well as he. The man had not only a daring, but a villainous, unmerciful look; a false countenance; but very well spoken, and dangerously insinuating.*"

Wit's Nunchion.

CHARLES V.-It is well known that this celebrated monarch, who, from the extensiveness of his dominions, and the rapidity of his conquests, projected nothing less than an universal monarchy, at last grew sick, not only of this vain pursuit, but relinquished his crown, and with it all earthly grandeur, to retire into the monastery of St. Just, where he ended his days in the most exemplary line of mortification. The day when he went in his turn to wake the, novices at the hour of matins, one of them, who did not choose to be so early disturbed out of a sound sleep, pretended not to hear him. The de

* Compare NIC-NAC, vol. i. p. 202, 351 and vol. ii. p. 77.