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and the sublime sympathy that stilled the vast assemblage while he spoke and then looked at the pitiful crew standing on the shabby scaffold, all of them like criminals guilty of no particular crime, but somehow or other invested with the mean air of servants out of livery and out of place-I could not but very painfully feel the disheartening and humiliating contrast; nor was my shame for the degeneracy of my countrymen not exacerbated by the miserable and wretched speeches emitted in voices that alternately played cheep! and peep! or sputtered out in syllables that seemed composed of slaver, and left most of their fluency on the waistcoats of the delirious idiot drivelling about Claverhouse and Bothwell-bridge. North. Why, he is their crack orator.

Tickler. The mob near the scaffold was very far indeed from resembling the swell-mob. It looked like the last relics of a meal-mob, that had scattered on the streets what it should have put in its stomach-or rather like a general meeting of your friends the old clothesmen.

North. My friends the old clothesmen-I beg you to be civil. Tickler. You know you always knock them down simply for popping the question.' But they were far from being enthusiastic.

North. You seldom find united in one and the same individual the extremes of enthusiasm and hunger.

Tickler. I did not say they all looked hungry-though I do not doubt many of them were so— —but they almost all looked as if they had been drunk the night before, and kept spitting till they stood in a puddle of phlegm. 'Twas rather a raw day, and the afternoon of a raw day towards the end of November, in the Grassmarket, is not favourable to noses. The cheekery got sallower and sallower as the light declined, and the mob began to snifter, and wipe its nose on its sleeve-dangerous symptoms of anger and disgust. It then began to swear and to cut jokes, and only wanted spirit for a row. "Spunksspunks-spunks-who will buy my spunks ?"-cried an errant voice with a beseeching earnestness, that wershified the insipidity of the patriot at that moment advising his Majesty to

1 It is reported that the Professor once read a salutary lesson to these pests of the Edinburgh streets, by flooring on the spot one of their number who had been particularly pertinacious in his inquiries after the Professor's cast-off habiliments.

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look to his crown, and Jock's appeal to the sympathy of the shiverers excited an abortive guffaw.

Shepherd. Wha leuch?

Tickler. The meanest of mankind are yet susceptible of shame, and from the outskirts of the mob I saw slinkings away into closes, and heard sulky proposals, such as "Come awa, Jamie-for I never heard sic haverers; come awa, and let's join for a dram."

Shepherd. Wi' a' my heart. Your health, sir.

Tickler. There had not at the thickest been more than a couple of thousand near the scaffold, and as the mob thinned, and you could see through "its looped and windowed raggedness," you could not help admiring how the lowest rabble in Scotland contrive to have such fair skins.

North. Cutaneous diseases are now chiefly confined to England.

Tickler. True, I seldom go there now for fear of catching the itch.

North. 'Tis a retribution on them for all their wit on the Scotch fiddle.

Tickler. Had these poor fellows attended to their own business instead of the affairs of the state, they might all, with the regular wages going, have clad themselves decently on week-days, and had a Sunday suit; whereas, you never saw out of Ireland such apologies for breeches; and one radical at a distance I mistook for a Highlandman, whose imagined kilt of the Macgregor tartan, on somewhat nearer inspection appeared in its true colours-those of a dirty shirt.

Shepherd. I hae been tryin a' I could no to hear you—but I hae been obliged, whether I would or no, to follow the threid o' your discourse, like a speeder waverin apparently again' his wull in the wund

North. On a line of his own spinning, James; but, Shepherd, you are like the fly, unwittingly caught in the spider's web.

Shepherd. I dinna like to hear you abusin puir folk.

North. Come, come, James—much as I esteem you, I shall not suffer you to utter such stuff.

Shepherd. Weel, weel, then-I eat in my words.

North. I love the people of Scotland, James, and they

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know it. A nobler race never toiled for bread. Abuse the poor, indeed!-No

"An honest man's the noblest work of God"— And Scotland is full of them-of men in low degree, on whose hearts nature has set her own badge of highest merit, that to my eyes shines brighter than any silver star. The commonalty of Scotland has produced many of her greatest geniuses and most heroic patriots-and will continue to produce them; but independently of such produce rich and rare, I love the people for the sake of the virtues of their own condition, on which the country, equally in time of peace and of war, for her happiness and her safety mainly relies. And now that the political privileges of the people have been extended-though to such extension I was adverse, and gave reasons for my opposition which never yet have been refuted -so far from finding fault with their exercise of those privileges, I would despise them now whom I have heretofore admired, were they not to value them highly, and to consider every case in which they think themselves called to use their rights, as a case of conscience.

Shepherd. Soun' doctrine that—and high sentiment too— just like yoursel!

North. Nay, I shall always make great allowance for them in times of excitement; and the moment you hear me call them mob or rabble, get me cognosced, and confined, and let the Lodge be let.

Shepherd. I should in that case hae nae objections to sit in't rent-free, provided the trustees would only pay the taxes, and the wages o' the gardener for keepin up the place, and the gravel-walks tidy-for o' a' things on the yerth I do maist detest and abhor chicken-weed and siclike trailin trash chokin up the boxwood and ither odoriferous plants, sae that you micht maw the avenue wi' a scythe, and put up into cocks a kind o' coorse product, atween hay and strae and rashes, that stirks in wunter wad eat rather than starve.

North. But no friends, James, of the people are they who collect such ragamuffin congregations of the dregs of the lowest canaille as that which disgraced the Grassmarket, and libel the lower orders by addressing the insignificant assortment of small gangs, as if they represented the worth and intelligence, and industry, and patriotism of the Working

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Classes. Why, Tickler tells me that the few scores belonging to that excellent order stood aloof in knots with their aprons on, for a short while regarding the proceedings with indifference or contempt, and then walking away, with a laugh or a frown, to their afternoon's work. It is a stupid mistake, and shows utter ignorance of their characters, to believe that the respectable mechanics of Edinburgh like to see magistrates and gentlemen descending to a level on which they themselves would scorn to stand. They think and sayI have heard more than one of them say so that they wonder how their superiors in station can submit to such degradation as they themselves, humble men as they are, would spurn; and are surprised how they are permitted to do so by their wives.

Shepherd. The wives o' the workin classes, I ken, aye set their faces against their husbands attendin sic riff-raffery affairs; for in nae ither class o' society hae honest men's wives mair becoming pride, and in amaist every woman's breist there is a natural repugnance to a' pursuits-except it be an occasional ploy that tak her man frae his wark or his fireside and especially to sic as embitter and exasperate his temper, which politics, as they're ca'd, are certain sure to do, and to mak him a domestic tyrant at last.

North. What cruel wickedness is involved in these two words-Domestic Tyrant!

Shepherd. The chiel, frae abusin the misgovernment o' the kintra, and the misdirection o' public affairs, and a' things whatsomever in the wide warld-the haill system in short, sir, o' our foreign and domestic policy-acquires a habit o' fautfindin that he applies to the mismanagement o' the hame department within his ain door-cheeks-and the neibours hear him flytin on the gudewife like a tinkler, till at last he taks to the harlin o' her alang the flure by the hair o' the heid— and some nicht the poleish1 enter at the cry o' murder, and carry the Radical Reformer to the shells.2

North. Strang-strang-strang-James. Shepherd. Mind ye, sirs, I'm no sayin this is the common character o' Radical Reformers amang mechanics. It is an extreme case—the cry of murder. For a woman will thole a hantle o' ill-usage afore she breaks out either in fury or fear at her husband, rememberin the days o' their youth. But 1 Poleish-police.

2 Shells-cells.

the peace o' the fireside may be sair disturbit without things comin till that extremity; and I mainteen it's no in the natur o' things that ony hard-workin, contented, decent, douce, domestic chiel wi' a wife, and of coorse weans, can lang busy himsel wi' correckin the abuses o' church and state, without suner than he suspecks becomin rather idlish, gey sour, no just sae ceevil in his mainner as he used to be, upsettin, and proud o' being the cock o' the company whare ilka bit bantam maun hae its craw-instead o' happy in bein' the cock o' his ain roost, chucklin by the saft side o' his ain chucklin hen, as bonny as if she were yet a yearock, though she has been aften clackin, and has bred up chickens that are some o' them doin for themsels, and the rest cheerfully runnin about and pickin crumbs frae the floor.

North. Tickler, how pleasingly he illustrates his political and economical views!

Shepherd. Safe us! what's become o' a' the oysters!-You hae aye been a great freen, sir, o' the educatin o' the People.

North. Always. I shall give my support to no Ministry that does not strive with all its might and main to effect that object. The late Ministry deserved praise for what they did; and we shall show ourselves a strange nation indeed if we grudge any grant of the public monies, however magnificent, to be employed in spreading and establishing knowledge in the land.

Shepherd. Wasna't twunty thousand pounds?

North. And too little. What if it were a hundred thousand? The mind of the people would repay it-in hard cash—a thousandfold. Even as a Utilitarian, I say-at any cost-let our twenty-four millions have education.

Shepherd. That's a man.

North. But let us know what we are about-and what we are to expect and what are the possibilities of education. I am willing to believe that a constant progress is making towards truth, and that this must be for happiness; but any one who looks at the world and its history may satisfy himself that for some reason or another this truth was not intended to come all at once. Either in the human understanding, or the positive state of the human will, there is some ground wherefore this should not be. It is not possible, then, nor meant to push mankind forwards at once into the possession of the inherit