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peared in 1822, and contained about 170 original airs. To this work there were 600 subscribers, many of whom put down their names for ten, fifteen, and twenty copies; and among these the Gordons were thickly interspersed. The composer was now in his seventy-fourth year. From Keithmore he then retired to a cottage called Newfield, which he had built for himself, near Craigelachie Bridge. Having made an arrangement with the late Mr Alexander Robertson, music publisher, Edinburgh (now carried into effect), for the publication of a supplement, or second volume, at some future period, Marshall continued the pleasing task of composition, scattering his melodies in profusion. Often the old man thought of hanging his harp on the willows; but with the importunities of his fair admirers, or when his soul would fain have expression as before, the desire was as often overcome, and the old strings struck anew. Shortly after removing to Newfield, he wrote to Mr Robertson as follows:-"I enclose twelve or thirteen reels to help up your supplement; but as I have no copies of the spare ones that I left with you, I cannot tell if I have encroached on any of them." So little of self-sufficiency was in the heart of the veteran, that he adds, "You will therefore examine them, and leave out what you think improper, or alter any passages that you may think by doing so can be improved." In the occasional excursions which he made at this period to Edinburgh, he seldom failed to attend the theatre, to revel in the fine strains of the band led by the late Mr Dewar, who was himself a composer, and had arranged many of Marshall's airs. Placed beside the leader, Marshall enjoyed the sweet performances of the finely-trained band, and Mr Dewar seldom failed to give one or two of the aged composer's own and favourite compositions. On one occasion he felt so delighted with the accompaniments to his air "Of a' the airts the wind can blaw," that it was repeated at his own request. No one who heard Mr Dewar and his band perform such melodies as "The wind blew the bonnie lassie's plaidie awa," or "This is no my ain house," can doubt the effect which his own beautiful melody, executed with such care, taste, and power, would have on Marshall's delicate ear. The last letter he wrote respecting his new volume was in 1830, when he was in his eighty-second year; and three years afterwards, in his eighty-fifth year, in the month of May, when all was harmonious around him, he ended the journey of life. He was buried beside his forefathers and his wife who predeceased him in 1825, at the same age-in the churchyard of Bellie.

their seed and die, and from their own remains a more numerous crop springs into life. After a few of these changes, a sufficient depth of soil is formed, upon which mosses begin to develop themselves, and give to the stone the first faint tint of green, which, although a mere film, indicates the presence of a beautiful class of plants, which, under the microscope, exhibit in their leaves and flowers many points of singular beauty. These mosses, like the lichens, decaying, increase the film of soil, and others of a larger growth supply their places, and run themselves the same round of growth and decay. By and by fungi of various kinds mingle their little globes or umbrella-like forms. Thus, season after season, plants perish and add to the soil, which is at the same time increased in depth by the disintegration of the rock over which it is laid, which is quickened by the operations of vegetable life. The minute seeds of the ferns floating on the breeze now find a sufficient depth of earth to germinate in, and their beautiful fronds eventually wave in loveliness to the passing winds. Plants of a higher and a higher order gradually succeed each other, each series perishing in due season, and giving to the soil additional elements for the growth of their own species or those of others. Flowering plants find a genial home on the once bare rock; and the primrose pale, the purple foxglove, or the gaudy poppy, open their flowers to the joy of light. Eventually the tree is seen to spring from the soil; and where once the tempest beat on the bare cold rock, is now the lordly and branching tree, with its thousand leaves, affording shelter from the storm for the bird and the beast.-R. Hunt in Pharmaceutical Times.

GOOD AND BAD LUCK.

I may here, as well as anywhere, impart the secret of what is called good and bad luck. There are men who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite against them, bemoan, in the poverty of a wretched old age, the misfortunes of their lives. Luck for ever ran against them, and for others. One, with a good profession, lost his luck in the river, where he idled away his time a-fishing, when he should have been in the office. Another, with a good trade, perpetually burnt up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his employers to leave him. Another, with a lucrative business, lost his luck by amazing diligence at everything but his business. Another, who steadily fol lowed his trade, as steadily followed his bottle. Another, who was honest and constant to his work, erred by perpetual misjudgments-he lacked discretion. Hundreds 'Marshall left five sons and one daughter. Only one son lose their luck by indorsing, by sanguine speculations, by -the third-survives, who is now Colonel William Mar- trusting fraudulent men, and by dishonest gains. A man shall. The eldest son, Alexander, became a major in the never has good luck who has a bad wife. I never knew an East India Company's service, and died at the age of early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his thirty-nine, in 1807, at Keithmore, having returned home earnings, and strictly honest, who complained of bad luck. in bad health after the siege of Seringapatam. The second A good character, good habits, and iron industry, are imwas a jeweller in London, but he, too, retired from bad pregnable to the assaults of all the ill luck that fools ever health. The fourth, John, captain in the 26th foot, died in dreamt of. But when I see a tatterdemalion creeping 1829 at Madras; the fifth, Lieutenant George, in Spain, in out of a tavern late in the forenoon, with his hands stuck 1812. The only daughter married Mr Macinnes, Danda- into his pockets, the rim of his hat turned up, and the lieth, and in her family is a magnificent portrait of her crown knocked in, I know he has had bad luck-for the father, painted by Moir at the command of the Duke of worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, or a tippler. Gordon, and since presented to Mrs Macinnes by the Duke-Lectures to Young Men, by H. W. Beecher. of Richmond. Marshall, as a musician, had no claim to the same rank as the Mozarts and Handels. He knew

little of the grander effects of harmony. He was a thoroughly native genius. His taste, his inspiration, the current of his thought, were all imbued with the spirit of the old Scottish minstrels-that spirit, which, borrowing no more than it lent, gave a character distinct and beautiful to the music of our country. His melodies were at once natural, original, and effective: for strathspeys, Burns called him "the finest composer of this age." With him sleeps the cunning of the craft-he was the last of the band of the pure, enthusiastic, prolific Scottish composers.'

DEVELOPMENT OF VEGETABLE LIFE.

The progress by which the surface of the earth becomes covered with vegetable life is sufficiently curious to merit some of our attention. Let us suppose the bare surface of a rock under the action of those changes which all bodies exposed to atmospheric influences undergo. In a little time we shall discover upon its face little coloured cups or lines, with small hard disks. These at first sight would never be taken for plants, but on close examination they will be found to be lichens. These minute plants shed

OCCUPATION FOR CHILDREN.

The habits of children prove that occupation is of necessity with most of them. They love to be busy, even about nothing, still more to be usefully employed. With some children it is a strongly-developed physical necessity, and if not turned to good account, will be productive of positive evil, thus verifying the old adage, that Idleness is the mother of mischief." Children should be encouraged, or if indolently disinclined to it, should be disciplined into performing for themselves every little office relative to the toilet which they are capable of performing. They should also keep their own clothes and other possessions in neat order, and fetch for themselves whatever they want; in short, they should learn to be as independent of the services of others as possible, fitting them alike to make a good use of prosperity, and to meet with fortitude any reverse of fortune that may befall them. I know of no rank, however exalted, in which such a system would not prove beneficial.-Hints on the Formation of Character.

Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by D. CHAMBERS, 98 Miller Street, Glasgow; W. S. ORR, 147 Strand, London; and J. M'GLASHAN, 21 D'Olier Street, Dublin.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh.

EDINBURGH

JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 210. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1848.

PRICE 14d.

not choose to inflict any tangible vengeance-we may DEBT AND BANKRUPTCY. give him the benefit of that meekness of judgment THE insolvent debtor among the Romans was cut to which would speak tenderly of all human infirmity; pieces and distributed among his creditors. Even in but undoubtedly this person has been guilty of a great England, the bankrupt was treated as a criminal, and fault. He has committed a practical aggression on the subjected to the personal punishment of imprison- rights of his neighbours. He has either done this from ment. In Scotland, till a hundred years ago, they set undue love of his own gratifications, or from a recklessthe 'dyvour' upon a pillory, with stockings of various ness about his affairs which every reasonable person colours, to subject him to the scorn of the multitude. knows cannot be indulged in without the greatest danAll these are traits of the natural sense of mankind ger. Society ought not to forgive it too easily. Such a regarding the immorality of insolvable debt. Recog-person is not entitled to stand exactly on the same platnising it as a positive encroachment upon each other's form of moral repute with those who keep clear of debt. rights and property, they are disposed to punish it So society will say in its cool moments; but, unluckily, accordingly. We are indebted to two things for the one of its perverse sympathies interferes with the mainchange of public sentiment about insolvency-increased tenance of the principle. Men in the mass feel for the humanity, and the new aspect which debt assumes when poor and embarrassed, and against the rich or those who it is contracted in the course of commercial transac- have enough. Very often those who fall short are easytions. We are now no more inclined to be severe with natured, kind-hearted men, and therefore popular. Perdebtors than with others who injure us. The bank- sons in the opposite circumstances often are of hard ruptcy laws have partaken of the amelioration of the character-not general favourites. Then our selfhood criminal code generally. We now trust for our protec- is more soothed in looking on a downcast or outcast tion here, as against more violent offences, more to person, than on one who stands in all the pride of indethe moral influences working in society, than to the pendence. Thus it comes about that society never visits vengeance of the law. And when we become fami- debtors of this class with the full punishment which, as liarised, as we are, with mercantile engagements, in guilty of an infraction of rights, they deserve. It might which all are debtors and creditors by turns-not that be different if we were to get quit of the fallacies which one may live upon another's means, but because of a beset the case. Creditors are not necessarily either rich, mere conveniency in the transacting of business-we or hard, or self-sufficient, but often very much the recease to regard such obligations in that personal light verse. Neither are debtors always necessarily generous : in which they were once contemplated. Failures to having used their neighbours' property for their own fulfil engagements appear as only the effects of miscal- benefit and indulgence, it may fairly be inferred of them culation or mischance. And then that sense, that what that they are fully as likely to be selfish. But we canmay be your turn to-day may be mine to-morrow, not, it will be said, shake off fallacies resting on symmakes us wondrous kind.' It is like the Irish small pathies so deeply founded in our nature. Then our farmer being so gracious to the poor wayfaring beggar, sufferings from foolish and unprincipled debtors are the because he does not know but what it may be his own penalty which we must pay for our absurdity. Let not fate next winter. It is a case proved by exceptions; debtors, however, exult too much in the privilege, or for where is it that bankruptcy is still beheld with the take too much advantage of it. It is, after all, but pity greatest share of the ancient horror?-Always in pri- which is extended to them-a sentiment whose associamitive communities, such as little country towns, where tions are in no good savour in human experiences. no complicated business engagements exist. Nothing can save debt from the stamp which destiny has put upon it-degradation. The reckless may therefore feel assured that, in the long-run, it is somewhat better to be over an equality with the world than below it.

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But indiscriminating humanity and commerce may carry us too far in our changed views regarding debt and bankruptcy. At least it appears as if very culpable cases were sometimes looked on somewhat too leniently, and as if some of the salutary checks which formerly existed would now be well resorted to. Some discrimination regarding various kinds of insolvents is needed; and there might even be some improvement counselled as to our ordinary ideas regarding the purest of commercial bankruptcies.

When a person in private life, with an ascertainable income, and liable to no risks which can damage his resources, is found short of means to liquidate his obligations, what should we say of or do to him? We may

In commercial insolvency there is a less direct appearance of selfishness in the debtor, in as far as the articles for which the debt was contracted are not for objects of domestic consumption or personal gratification. The culprit seems only a loser in a game of chance. Things have gone against him. He has met with losses. The very machinery, so to call it, of business blinds us somewhat to the position he is in. We only see so many ruled books of accounts, and little slips of inscribed paper. We only hear of 'state of the money market,'

capital; but in as far as it is not expressly referable to actual means-that is, the means of making good, and that readily, any difference between the value of goods purchased or engaged for, and that to which they may fall, and all other unfavourable contingencies which may be expected to take place in the course of business-it is a delusion and a snare. Men proclaim that the business of the world would be at a stand-still if there were not this faith, not in things unseen, but in things which do not exist. We deny the assertion. The business of the world would be executed by men possessing real means, if it were not anticipated by men without means. The traders on fiction, who are a species of impostors, only so far prevent those who would trade on fact from having their legitimate share of the said business; and how far it would be better for the public at large that the latter class were not thus interfered with, it is superfluous to say.

acceptances, returned paper, assets, dividends, and other terms more metaphysical than real. It is difficult, particularly when the transactions are of large amount, to connect the case with human passions, error, and trespass. Yet even here the moralist may come in with his rebukes and warnings. The aim of the commercial man in the contracting of his obligations is, after all, a selfish one; he intends, by the results of such transactions, to obtain exactly those tangible indulgences which have brought his non-commercial neighbour into debt. It is, in the world's morality, legitimate to follow this object with one's own means and industry; but it never can be so to follow it by means of the property of another man. Such is the case of him who trades chiefly upon means not his own; who, in other words, trades largely upon credit. If A B, for example, possessing property to the value of only five thousand pounds, orders foreign corn to the amount of fifty thousand, in the hope of making fifteen thousand by it, while There are no doubt wonderful doings amongst those there is a chance on the other hand that, by a fall of who work upon fiction: happy strokes, dashing sucmarkets, it may only sell for thirty, he undoubt- cessful adventures, where there was no substance to edly is risking a loss of fifteen thousand pounds to stand good in the case of an opposite result, are well his creditors for the chance of making as much for known. But these are only dangerous exceptions himself. Rightly judged, this is an unprincipled action from the rule. The chances are, in reality, much -as much so as to commit positive larceny. Yet, sad against the success of a business conducted too much to say, this is the system pursued by a vast proportion on credit. It is a system which always involves a of commercial men. All trading beyond a proper sub- higher scale of prices, and which is costly in its own stratum of means is only a kind of masked profligacy-procedure; thus reducing or extinguishing profits. unless, indeed, credit is pushed upon a man by others, who have their own selfish objects in view; in which case the insolvent may be as much the sinned against as the sinning. We were lately told of mercantile houses which had not been in a position to pay all their debts within the memory of any person; yet the partners had been living in handsome style, upon these ventures of the means of others, during a series of generations! What a false and hollow life! It could never find one voice to justify it, if there were not so many involved in some degree in the turpitude. One painful consideration is, that many, if they would keep to their own means, might be prosperous and happy; but unable to rest satisfied with moderate doings, they rush into the difficulties consequent upon credit, and thus make for themselves great reverses. It appears as if some men had such a liking for embarrassment as others have for opium or brandy, and never could be at rest except when tossed about in a forest of dilemmas. Talk of the frivolous lives of the ultra-gay, of the unhealthy lives of the poor, but what can be more forced, unhealthy, or unnatural, than the life of one of these infatuates of the business world, who rush from speculation to speculation, as if to gratify a morbid love of excitement, and, in the absorbment of their daily avocations, forget nearly every domestic tie?

The few,

There is even a more fatal evil attending it, in the de-
mand which it makes on the time and energies of the
trader, merely to supply ways and means.
as comparatively they may be called, who take the
opposite plan, thrive as much by the freedom in which
their minds are left to attend to the real affairs of busi-
ness, as by any advantage they have in getting all
things at the greatest advantage. It is merely the mis-
take of excessive acquisitiveness, or of rashness in com-
bination with ignorance, that business cannot be limited
to actual means. There is nothing to prevent it, if men
will only be contented to do that in ten years which
requires ten years, and not to attempt doing it in five,
or three, or any shorter time. Let them use the gains
of one year for the business of the next, and never try
to make any sum of money do more than its proper
amount of work. If they are to make a risk, let it
strictly be one which, in its worst issue, will not em-
barrass them. On such principles, they will conduct
their affairs with peace of mind, and with the best like-
lihood of success. Are such persons above credit-or
is credit slighted by their course of procedure? Not
at all. These persons enjoy true credit, in there being
such an assurance of their substantiality, that whatever
they wish to purchase, will be sent on their order-the
whole play of the blood and muscle of their business

It surely might be possible to make the proper allow-will be healthy by reason of the dependence placed on ance for the bankruptcies occurring through inevitable misfortunes, and yet be sufficiently alive to the nature of those cases in which there had been no right substantial basis of means from the beginning, or where business had been persevered in long after the right means had ceased to exist. Were the latter course marked by the public as immoral, which is its real character, we might hope to see it less frequently followed. Perhaps there is need for some reform of our whole ideas regarding credit. When it is said that without credit business could not be carried on, that credit is the soul of business, and so forth, a truth is stated; but it does not properly imply anything more than this, that a man must be believed to have the means, as well as the honest intention, of discharging his obligations, in order that his transactions may go on smoothly, seeing that it is practically impossible, in any but a small class of cases, to hand the money in exchange for goods. It is to be feared that with the mercantile class generally, the maxim has come to sanction the incurring of obligations without any very rigid regard to the means of discharging them. Some appear to worship it as a principle which comes in place of, and dispenses with,

them. Such is, in truth, the only right kind of credit. That which enables one man to do without money what another man does with it, is, as has been already. said, a delusion.

The philosophy of these remarks entirely applies to the question regarding a circulating medium. Barter is, after all, the fundamental idea of commerce. When we pay for articles in gold, we are only exchanging one article for another. It is more convenient and economical to have notes representing the gold; but this does not necessarily imply that we may have notes which there is no gold to represent. That were to proceed upon fiction instead of fact. The gold lying in the coffers of the note-issuing company is not idle. It is serving all the time as a basis for the ideal character of the notes out of doors. But may there not be notes representing land, or houses, or goods, as well as gold? It has been tried and found wanting.* The basis article

* In America particularly. The Scottish banks are remarkable for the large business they long carried on upon the basis of general property; but for this there are special reasons in the small

ness of the country, which makes every man's circumstances

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must be readily available and receivable, otherwise the ideal money loses character, and its function ceases. Whatever tends to prevent a currency of this kind, or of any kind but that which is immediately backed by substances which mankind set a distinct value upon, and are always willing to receive at a certain rate, must be serviceable to the true interests of the community. There may be some evils attending it, not springing from itself, but from the imprudence which it checks; but the general force of this principle is clearly advantageous.

The evils of debt and bankruptcy may be said, like many others, to arise from the blind efforts of human ignorance and passion to fly in the face of natural ordinations which we cannot resist with impunity. If men would observe and go along with these ordinations, they would so far secure their happiness. But it so happens that a man may receive what is called a perfect or firstrate education, and yet be unacquainted with some of the very primary rules affecting his wellbeing as an inhabitant of the earth. The period of comparative security from this class of evils must, therefore, be expected only when the knowledge of mankind has been increased.

A LEGEND OF THE PARLIAMENT SQUARE.

REPORTED BY FRANCES BROWN.

I was the youngest of five sons, all of whom were apprenticed in different mercantile establishments in Edinburgh before I had left school; and my parents deliberated so long regarding the description of business suitable to my peculiar genius, that at length, in my eighteenth year, the advice of our schoolmaster, and my own selection, determined the matter, and I was bound apprentice to a respectable bookseller, who carried on his business in the lower flat of one of the old houses in the Parliament Square.

My master was a man of about thirty-five. In person he was thin, wiry, and rather low of stature; with an ascetical cunning countenance, oatmeal-coloured hair, and a remarkably even temper, allied to a large stock of accumulated caution, and a quiet store of dull pride, on the double account of what he called the old respectability of his family,' and a well-established busi

ness.

His premises consisted of a large shop and a small back parlour: the former had more than an average supply of customers, and the latter was filled every forenoon by the local literati and politicians, who dropped in one after another to discuss the news. When I became his apprentice, the duties of the shop were divided between two young men and myself. Being some years older than I, and brothers, they consorted so much together, that I found myself utterly alone, so that I was forced to relieve the tedium of a new and not over-active business by most diligently observing my master's movements, as the best amusement within my reach.

The house of which he occupied part was one of those huge fabrics, rising to the height of fourteen storeys, which might have been seen in the Parliament Square before the great fire of 1824. The shop and back parlour were situated on what was the ground flat towards the square, close beside the establishments of a tailor and a green-grocer. Adjacent to my master's door opened the common stair, which wound, flight after flight, up to the very attics; dingy, not over clean, and presenting the only medium of communication with the nether earth to some threescore persons of various ranks and fortunes, from Miss M Millan, the maiden lady, who occupied her family's town-house on the seventh storey, up to the two expatriated French nuns, who made artificial flowers, at the gable windows

readily known, and in the extreme prudence with which the basiness of banking was always conducted in this part of the empire. These things, with time, produced confidence, and enabled bankers to do with less gold than is usually necessary.

of the fourteenth. His home was in St John's Street, that ancient improvement of the Canongate, where his mother and two sisters, still called young ladies in right of their single state, occupied a self-contained house in a style of old gentility. Thence the bookseller came every morning at eight, as certainly as the hour sounded from the old clock of St Giles. Thither he returned to lunch at twelve, and to dinner at five, with the same unvarying precision. Each evening at eight he stole up the adjacent stair, after special precautions to avoid observation, returning regularly at ten to see the shop shut. The nature of his evening resort was for some time a mystery. It was conducted with such perfect secrecy, that I verily believe neither of the young shopmen ever suspected it. Being themselves, indeed, rivals for the smiles of the green-grocer's red-haired daughter, they were the less likely to trouble themselves about the matter. I, however, having as yet no folly of my own on hands, felt differently; and growing desperate on the twenty-first night of my unrewarded surveillance, I determined to follow him, though at a most respectful distance, up the dark stair.

On he went from flight to flight, passing with particular celerity the door of Miss M'Millan, with whom he was on speaking terms on account of family respectability; but at length, on the ninth flat, he paused at a side door on the landing, listened for a few minutes, and then, as if convinced that all was safe, gave a low tinkle at the old brass pin which served as a knocker. The door opened, and the light streamed out. I heard a woman's voice, that seemed to speak in tones of welcome; but all I could catch of my master's response, for it was low and hurried, was, Miss Barbara.' The door was closed, and I crept to the keyhole. Oh ye that have secret courtships, beware of idle apprentices!

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Within, there was a large apartment lighted by a clear coal fire, and a couple of small candles placed on a table covered with all manner of millinery apparatus ; morsels of all colours were scattered about; there were two chairs, each supporting a silk dress, apparently fresh from the needle; two more, occupied by as many ladies; and one had been just placed for my master; besides which, a small shelf of books, and an article which might have been either a folding-bed or cupboard of the olden time, were the only pieces of furniture visible to me.

The inhabitants were evidently poor; but the dress of one of them, nearest whom my master sat, though cheap and well worn in more senses than one, attracted even my boyish eye from the superior taste and neatness of its arrangements. She was young, but not a girl; her face was mild, and remarkably intelligent. She was pale and slender; life seemed to have gone hardly with her; but her eye looked bright, as if for the present all things went well, as it glanced from the bookseller's face to the white lace and bright pink ribbons of which she was framing a cap. The other was a large grayhaired, hard-looking woman, robust in her age as a tree that had only time to strive with, and knew no inward waster. The black in which she was clothed from head to foot seemed old and strong as herself, and there was a usurer-like hope in the glance with which she surveyed my master, like one who anticipated a good bargain. But what an altered man was he from the quiet cautious bookseller of the shop and the back parlour! Never did the climbing of nine storeys, even in the Porcelain Tower, effect such a transformation! His words flowed fast and free, as a winter millstream; his air had attained the very sublimity of self-conceit; and no sultan could have taken possession of his divan with an air of more undoubted authority.

His conversation was entirely addressed to the younger lady, whom I soon discovered to be Miss Barbara Johnstone. But oh what a world of petty falsehoods regarding his own exploits in and out of the shop! What professions of candour, liberality, and disinterested affection, combined with every human virtue,

did my worthy master declare to that delighted listener! And how often did her fair beaming face rise from that tedious piece of millinery with applause, and laughter, and admiration, for all his wit and wisdom!

Seriously, I have always been a lover of justice; and it might be that that love was stronger in my boyhood, which may account for certain longings for water and a syringe which came across me at the moment, especially considering the conveniency of the keyhole. But those useful articles were far below; besides, the silk dresses, and that mild face, were in the way, and a rising movement on the part of the bookseller was enough to send me with all possible expedition back to the shop.

6

No one had missed me; but scarcely had I taken my accustomed place, when in stepped a young man, tall, dark, and rather handsome, but evidently fresh from the country, and wearing the weary look of one exhausted by a fruitless search, yet determined to make a last effort as he leant his arms on the counter, looked bashfully round the shop, and at length, fixing on mine as the least appalling face, inquired if I kent the present abode o' Mistress M'Clatchie, sometime housekeeper to the Laird o' Loch Drumlie, and her niesh, Miss Barbara Johnstone?' which, he understood, was situated somewhere in the Parliament Square.

The bookseller's company rose to my remembrance, and here was an opportunity, such as no prying apprentice could neglect, of learning something of their history; so I answered the stranger's question by demanding, What sort of a woman was Mrs M Clatchie?' Good-looking, but a wee camstarie, an' aye dressed in black like a gentlewoman,' responded he. "What business did she follow?' I continued. Oh, naething ava,' said the applicant. She had siller o' her ain; but her niesh was a mantymaker. Do you ken onything o' her?' he added with increasing earnestness.

Had I been farther advanced in years, it is probable that our proverbial northern prudence would have suggested some further delay and investigation; but as it was, the stranger's anxiety overcame my youth, and I at once directed him to the ninth flat, first door on the right-hand side. He stammered out his thanks, and bolted up the common stair, leaving the shopmen tittering at his uncouth appearance; but in less than half an hour my master returned as quietly, though much earlier, than usual, and we all observed that something disturbed the equanimity of his temper that evening.

Next day the stranger called again, when the back parlour was free. The bookseller saluted him as an acquaintance; and great was my amusement when, entering with a message devised for the occasion, I witnessed his awkward bows and bashful acknowledgments while my master introduced him to the luminaries there as Master Dugald M'Dougal, son of the Reverend Duncan M'Dougal, now minister of Stra'clathick, in the North Highlands, whose sermons on Predestination had created such general interest in Edinburgh about twenty years before.

As his embarrassment wore away, it was wonderful what intelligence the mighty men of the back parlour found in him; and on his departure, all broke forth in the stranger's praise, my master leading the way in his usual quiet and lengthy fashion.

M'Dougal had been brought up in the primitive piety and simplicity of a Highland clergyman's household among hills, and glens, and shepherds; but a love of poetry so often found in what one of its votaries has called the earth's wild places'-took possession of his mind. The numbers came, whether regularly or not, I cannot tell; but he sung, and became great among his people. His verses were translated into Gaelic by the patriarchs of the heath; the pipers of Stra'clathick found airs for them; the lasses sang them at their spinning wheels; and he had sought the northern capital-with letters of recommendation from scores of Highland lairds and ministers, who considered him the

glory of his native glen-in order to publish a volume of poems, which, as they were admired by the Macraes and Mackays, he believed must secure the applause of all Britain, and command certain pecuniary supplies necessary for the accomplishment of the cherished hope of his life the pursuance of his father's profession. Nor was this design unmingled with memories of Mrs M'Clatchie and her niece, who, being cousins in only the fourth degree, had been intimate with the poet's family while they managed the house and dairy of Loch Drumlie till the decease of the old laird; and certain rumours of his successor's intention to bring home a lady, had made the gentle aunt remember that Barbara possessed elegant hands, and might repay with tolerable interest all she was discovered to have cost that calculating dame since the death of her parents-which event took place in Barbara's infancy-by a small additional expenditure on her apprenticeship to a dressmaker: it was for this reason that they had removed to Edinburgh. There Barbara acquired, in one year's attendance on the establishment of the Misses Menzies (for her aunt would allow no more time), sufficient dexterity to carry on a small private business of her own in the domicile where I had seen her; the profits of which were barely sufficient to support herself and the amiable lady, who insisted, in her own peculiar parlance, on being kept as lang as she had keepit her; and that,' she was wont to add, was a gey while!' whilst the earnings of her own housekeeping-days accumulated interest in the savings' bank.

Thus they lived till Barbara reached her twenty-fifth year, her aunt always insisting that she was only nineteen; the girl expending her energy and ingenuity on every form of figure and temper, on all manner of materials, from serge to satin; and Mrs M'Clatchie superintending the expenditure of the supplies, and daily exhorting her niece to thank Providence, wha had graciously gien her a guide and a director.'

Poor Barbara could have dispensed with her direction at times; but she had grown used to the old flint, and without her the workroom would have been solitary, unless, indeed, for the visits of my worthy master, who had dropped in for the last seven months as duly as the evening fell, and wherefore, none could say with certainty, for he had never committed himself by either Vow or declaration; but having seen Barbara frequently pass up the common stair, an acquaintance slowly grew up between them, which at length ripened into intimacy; but the bookseller kept his visits a solemn secret, for he knew how to contrast the respectability of his family with the rank of a dressmaker.

All this I learned in progress of time by those two gates of knowledge-as an Eastern philosopher hath it— inquiry and observation; and partly from the poet himself, who regarded me with some degree of confidence on account of my first service.

He had taken lodgings in the square; and as I found time to keep watch over his movements, as well as those of my master, it was soon manifest that the winding stair was trodden with equal frequency by both. But while M'Dougal went with the frankness of a friend at all hours, the respectable bookseller continued to prefer twilight for his visits, and always returned sooner if he found the young Highlander before him-a fact of some importance to me in those apprentice times, as I learned by the poet's motions to estimate the probable duration of my master's absence.

Let me also confess, though it is now with some confusion of face, that often, as the winter evenings lengthened, was I the unobserved rearguard of both aspirants. Through the same quiet keyhole I saw and heard the bookseller exhibit his wit, his wisdom, and, as far as words could do, his wealth; and young M'Dougal grow eloquent over the story of Burns and Highland Mary, and the beauties of the kirk and manse of Stra'clathick; but I also perceived that credible medium, the warm flush which brightened the fair face of Barbara when she welcomed my master, compared with the calm and

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