THE SHEPHERD'S INDIGNATION.

Tickler. Poo-poo-whew!

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Shepherd. That's the way o't. To the pure a' things are pure-and on the faith o' a sayin in Scriptur, ane o' the haliest ever inspired, do people justify indecency after indecency, till-where, may I ask you, Mr Tickler, is it proposed there shall be a stop?

Tickler. I have been at Peebles. Shepherd. I ken what you mean. You hae seen a dizzen hizzies on the banks o' the Tweed trampin claes in boynes, wi' their ain weel-tucked up; and frae ane o' the pleasantest sichts o' the usefullest o' employments, in the pure air and sunshine-pursued wi' "weel-timed daffin," and the industrious merriment of happy hearts-you would reason by a fause analogy in favour o' the exposure o' weel-nigh a' they hae got to expose, o' a gang o' meretrishus limmers, for they're no respectable actresses yon, like them that it's a delicht to see in Rosalind or Beatrice or Perditta-sic as Miss Jarman and Miss Tree-female characters that micht be witnessed even by ministers-but hired at laigh wages-sae might it seem--the grand feck o' them aff the verra streets-to pander to the diseased appeteets o' a luxurious or worn-out generation, or would Lord Grey, think ye sirs, ca't—the Speerit o' the Age?

North and Buller. Bravo-bravo-bravo!

North. Yet in the same city, and at the same season, were represented to agitated or deeply interested audiences such Fair Humanities as my friend Sheridan Knowles's heart awakens before his fancy, and his genius gives ideal being, to be realised before our delighted eyes by such sweet representatives as those you have now named, and who carry into their characters on the stage the same qualities that make them all that is good and amiable in private life!

Buller. Perhaps, Mr Hogg, you have somewhat overdrawn, though not overcoloured, the picture. Yet knowing to what pitch public representations were brought in Rome

Shepherd. To what pitch?

Buller. Read Juvenal.

Shepherd. But I canna-and sae muckle the better-for nae man, I suspeck, was ever improved by satire that painted the vices it denounced; but many have been corrupted by the physical display, who wanted wisdom or will to draw the

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SIR ANDREW AGNEW.-LORD BROUGHAM. moral. Mind ye, sirs, my indignation was not prurient—and were ony coof to ca' it coorse, he wad only show that he kent na the difference atween hypocritical sympathy with grossness affectin cynical contempt, and genuine disgust giving vent in plain language to the feelings of a man.

Tickler. James-your hand.

Shepherd. There. Dog on't, you'll bring bluid!

Tickler. These boys flatter you, James-but that I never do

Shepherd. You err, sir, rather in the opposite direction-but atween the twa it 'ill be feenally found about richt. Oranges, aipples, grapes, and ither fruit, are doutless unco refreshin; but in their case "increase o' appeteet grows on what it feeds on " far mair surely than in Mrs Hamlet's-sae may I ask you, sir, to ring the siller bell for anither dessert?

North. You will find one behind that stand of Japonicas, James.

[The SHEPHERD wheels round the reserve from behind the Japonica stand-and at the same time enter PETER with chasse-café.

North. What is your opinion, my dear Shepherd, of these bills for the better observance of the Sabbath?

Shepherd. What'n bills?

North. Sir Andrew Agnew's and Lord Wynford's.'

Shepherd. I'm ashamed, sir, to say that I never heard tell o' them afore; yet taken by surprise and on the sudden, I shall not pronounce that sic an object lies out o' the sphere o' legal legislation. Stap. I recolleck noo, thinkin Sir Andrew's motion no very weel matured-and that Lord Winefort's speech was real sensible-but what'n a daft protest was yon o' Lord Vox's? It had a queer sound, yon sentence beginning, "Whereas any attempt to restrain drunkenness."- -I

1 "Sir Andrew Agnew, a Scottish baronet of much wealth, was in Parliament at this time, and made it a practice, year after year, to bring forward a Bill for the better observance of the Sabbath. The penal provisions of this proposed statute were so severe, that the Legislature always declined sanctioning them. Lord Wynford had been Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, which he resigned in 1825. He also had an Anti-Sabbath-breaking Bill, one provision of which was that no public bakery should be open during any part of Sunday. Considering that one-third of all the Sunday dinners in London are cooked at public bakeries, the proposition was admitted to be untenable, and the Bill did not pass."-American Editor.

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canna quote the preceese words-but frae his speech it seemed something shocking to the Chancellor to shackle intoxication, and something absurd in the Chancellor to assert, that it was next to impossible to ken when anither man was fou. Perhaps he mayna stoiter-but tak tent o' his een, and you'll see he's no sober. Gin he shut them, that's in itsel suspicious; but wait till ye hear him tryin to speak-and unless he's sae far gane that there's nae mistakin, and therefore nae need o' ony particular index to his contents, ye can tell to a trifle, gin he be a freen, the number o' tummlers, or gin an ordinary man o' a stranger, within half-a-dizzen. A' his Lordship's specifications o' the different taps a man may visit who is on the rove, and his argumentations thence deduced as to the diffeeculty, or rather impossibility, o' ony ae landlord's catchin him at the pint atween the drunk and sober, which if he passes, he belongs, as the logicians say, to another category, are no sae solid as they may be ingenious, and comin frae ane less acquented wi' the ways o' the world than Hairy Broom, micht have been thocht to show that the speaker was sae fond o' theory, as to ken naething about the practice o' the maitter in haun; to sae naething o' bein' sae uncommon funny in sae grave a place as the House o' Lords. Didna he gang the length, sir, o' hintin that they werena an assembly o' rational beings?"

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North. No, no-James-he merely said in his protest that some of the provisions of the intended measure were such as had never before been offered to the consideration "of an assembly of rational beings."

Shepherd. You'll find, sir, that rational and irrational are a' ane by implication. But if you canna see that, why then, as his Lordship said to the Yearl o' Wicklow, "I am not bound to find you understaundin," nor yet, as he said to the Marquess o' Londonderry, to gie you "the smallest glimmer" o' insicht into the recondite meanin o' my remark.

Buller. Why, my dear sir, you seem to have all the most remarkable passages of the Parliamentary eloquence of the day at your finger's end.

Shepherd. Stale sourocks.1

Buller. Sir?

Shepherd. Naething. As for the Sabbath-" keep it holy."

1 Sourock-sorrel.

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THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SABBATH.

But in Lunnon hoo can that be brocht about? Oh! gin it could, wouldna a' Protestant Christians be glad indeed! But if religion canna guard frae profanation her ain especial day, my heart misgies me as to the power o' ony ither law. Yet may the magistrate, commissioned with salutary authority by mere human wisdom, enforce obedience to the mandate of the King of kings. Outward obedience may come to foster inward; for submission becomes habit—and habit inclination— and inclination love-and love piety; and thus, though of mean origin, may grow up a sentiment that shall be high-no less, sirs, than a sacred sentiment inspiring a man's speerit with all that is holy-on the holy day. For a day set apart from secular concerns—and, as far as may be, from the worldly feelings that cling to them even in thought—has a prodigious power, sirs, ower a' that is divine in our human,—and lang before the close o' life, or the beginning o' its decline-ay, even in youth-boyhood-childhood-yea, we have a' read and believed o' sic effects wrocht even in the heart o' verra infancy becomes like a Law o' Nature. Ay, as if the sun rose more solemnly-yet not less sweetly-on the Sabbath Morning-and a profounder stillness pervaded not the earth only, but the sky.

North. My dear James.

Shepherd. I'm no meaning to deceive either you or me, sir, with the belief that much o' this is no the wark o' imagination-for mony a stormy Sabbath has sunk mony a ship on the sea; but still, for the main o' human life, in a true Christian kintra, sic as Scotland, the Sabbath is a day o' rest-first to men's bodies, and then to men's souls; and gin the Sabbath be lown,' which, far oftener than itherwise, a thousand memories tell me it has been in the Forest-the peacefu' and gratefu' heart collects a' the lang-gane cawms intil the thochtfu' feelin o' ae endurin cawm-and it hangs ower the idea o' the Sabbath, making it, even when the elements are at strife, still in the soul as the heart o' a kirk, when the minister is rising to pray, or a sweet serene sound at intervals rises upon our ear, like the psalm the congregation sings, when even some amang the three-year-auld infants are not wholly mute!

North. How unlike the Sundays I have seen, James, in

1 Lown-calm.

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many Roman Catholic countries! Yet dared I not there to condemn the happiness with which I could not sympathise so entirely as I would fain have done for though creed and custom had deeply engraved all the impressions of which you have so beautifully spoken, not on the tablets of my memory, but of my conscience-yet what was I that I should see sin where the eyes of far better and wiser men saw no sin, but looked on, well pleased, with faces now bright with mirthful smiles, that an hour ago at the altar were drenched in tears!

Shepherd. David danced before the Ark. But what if the Moderator were to do sae on his way up the High Street to hear the sermon preached before the Commissioner!

North. In England, Mr Buller-I speak of the places I best know-the Sabbath is so well observed that I know not if it could be better-yet its spirit is not either to my eye or my heart the same as in Scotland. Should I say rightly, were I to say that the Sabbath-spirit in England is serene-in Scotland austere? Hardly so. For let no lightness, or frivolity, or indifference, or torpor, be seen anywhere around him; and neither in the kirk-nor walking to or from the kirk-nor in his own house or garden-should I say the countenance of THE ELDER or of any one of his family was austere, though he and they be true, in faith and in works, to their forefathers of the Covenant.

Shepherd. I canna bring mysel to dout-though without a grain o' dogmatism-that o' a' the ways o' observin the Seventh Day, that which has prevailed in Scotland—if no ever sin' the Reformation, sin' the establishment o' the Presbyterian kirk-is the best; and for this ae reason—that wi' us the Sabbath is Itself. The common use of the term Sabbath-breakin conveys a' that is shockin—and I'm no speakin o' that; but the Sabbath may be broken, surely, sir, in anither sense, and perhaps without ony sin-for there can be nae sin without evil intention, and nae evil intention's in the hearts o' thae Roman Catholic lads and lasses-be they Italians or Germans-or what not-wha break doun and fritter awa the Sabbath-dancin aneath poplar or linden tree. Na-for a' that I ken-that may be the best kind o' Sabbath for them-seein that to judge what is best requires a knowledge o' their character and o' their condition the ither days