Commercial closed its session on Thursday last.- Swan has enlisted some able artists for the Series of Views I before mentioned to you. My copy goes to Dumfries; but you may see his numbers in Edinburgh. They are well worth your while, and deserve all the praise they have received. The writer of the Notices I lately recommended as the fittest person to write the article Glasgow for an Encyclopædia, so you may guess these are well done.Your Aikman comes poorly off in the controversy about his History of Scotland carried on for the benefit of the Newspapers; and, faith, I think the escape a lucky one his publishers made. Struthers, the poet, steps into his shoes, and will do the Covenanters justice.- The good folks of Montrose, like you of Edinburgh, have a tender pity for our ignorance and mental destitution-so much so, as to print a journal there for our use, and send it as a "Scrutinist" to Glasgow, to spy the nakedness of the land, and invent new words like "commercialist," for our improvement. Even Falkirk, too, sends us its "Monthly Magazine" of old thoughts, printed with older types—but it has not the modesty to insinuate its foreign features in the guise of a "New Glasgow Periodical."- -I shall expect you on Wednesday, and have a friend or two to dinner on that day. C. H.

LOCAL LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. We understand the following works are preparing for publication in this city:

An Essay on the supposed Existence of a Race of respectable "Merchants and Manufacturers," who are said to dwell East of the Post Office. By a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society, and Exchange Committee.

The Vision of the Opening of London-Street: being a conclusion to the Vision of Judgment. By another Laureate.

Veterinary Essay on the Local Injuries to the Feet of Horses, occasioned by the Carriage-Road round the Green.

Disquisition on some Ancient Remains of a Carriage dug out of Monteith-Row. By a Member of the Antiquarian Society. The belief that this was what was once the Ratton's-alias, Mr. Watson's Cart-will be here fully confuted.

Architectural Essay on the Glasgow Gothic, as exemplified in St. Mary's Chapel. By a Modeller of Pye-Crust Ornaments.

On the Superstitions of the Inhabitants of Deanside-Brae, with an Inquiry into the Influence of Roads and Canals on the Progress of Civilization.

To Correspondents. We have tried in vain to alter a line of K.'s, which, effected, would have left his little piece unexceptionable. Alexis has got a place beside us at last, although elsewhere.

Printed by James Curll, 55, Bell-Street, and sold by all Booksellers.
PRICE THREEPENCE.

No. XIII.-SATURDAY, 19th MAY, 1827.

Original.

DRYGATE STORIE S.-No. III.

HANNAH BARCLAY; OR, QUAKER-LOVE. FIVE and twenty years ago, there was not a prettier face to be seen from the Gorbals to the Drygate Brig than that which peeped out from beneath the drab-coloured and close-tied bonnet of Hannah Barclay. She was the child of parents who were as rigid in their peculiarities of manners and discipline, as they were in those of dress. From their austerity and scrupulous adherence to the formalities of their particular sect, as much as from their name and the traditionary speculations of the neighbourhood, I presume that they were remote descendants of that Barclay of Urie who wrote the Apology for, and made many converts to, the Quakers, who, up to his time, were almost unknown in Scotland. The father and mother were of the same name, being relations, and of dispositions equally similar before as after their marriage. Whether, in contracting that sacred obligation, their mutual inclinations had been consulted, I never heard; but from the conduct of the survivor to their only child, Í should think they were not, even although some expressions which once or twice escaped Hannah would almost lead to another conclusion. As to the positive requirements of their creed, in regard to the renouncing of private judgment or preference in the selection of a partner for life, I only know what popular belief has echoed, and the fate of Hannah Barclay has in some degree confirmed. She was its victim.

His

Jonathan Barclay kept a shop in the Drygate of Glasgow, in 1799, as he had done for twenty years before, and was esteemed a man of means and credit, who rather extorted respect for his punctuality than won it by his integrity, though he was possessed of both. manner was cold; and his look itself was chilly. face was as pale as if the blood had frozen in its way from the heart; and his air as stiff as if it were congealing even there. But surely never did the spirit of gentle and staid gladness light upon a being of this earth, if it was

His

not upon his bonnie daughter, while yet but a girl, kindling up her red cheek, which it dimpled, into a perpetual smile of such sweetness as far surpassed the charms of that face in which the most mirthful joyance nestles in the links of laughter-folded graces.

Martin Glassford was not the last to note this surpassing loveliness, so set off with the fringing of innocent mirth. He was the son of a near neighbour-handsome, comely, bold, generous, and ardent in the love he soon felt, and shortly avowed, toward the timid and gentle Hannah Barclay: what wonder, then, that he made a deep impression on her heart? He was fourteen years of age when he left the Grammar-School, with just as much Latin as would carry him through the examinations for admission among the body of writers-with one of whom he was apprenticed, to follow the law as a profession. He never studied hard afterwards. The death of his father gave to his other parent the means, as before she had the will, to lavish upon the boy sums which then would have sufficed to keep the pocket of a man. consequence may be anticipated. His boldness became reckless-his generosity profuse-and his boyish attachment for Hannah Barclay deepened into a passion, but also became tainted with a precociousness of the perceptions of sense, to which she remained a stranger.

The

Wrapt up in the stiffness of his own creed, and blinded with the self-sufficiency of conscious adherence to all its forms, Jonathan Barclay knew not that the innocent air of infantine and childish sporting had carried the seeds of love into each of these young hearts, and that the dew of holy thoughts, and sometimes the gentle rains of undefined fears and regrets, had nurtured them, in the one, into a plant that might be broken, but never could be uprooted, and, in the other, that the hot sun of youthful ardour called forth a tree that bore fruitage, while yet its arms were saplings. He was unconscious that, when he withdrew Hannah within his own narrow circle of believing relatives, and confided to her the charge of his household, and appointed the fashion of her dress, that she had left, on the outside of that wall of separation between his sect and the world, where for a time she had disported, one reflection, let alone one regret. If it was the fate of Hannah never again to re-cross that boundary, it would seem by the result that she yet occasionally had, loverlike, leaned over its prisoning circle to listen to the breathings of one who became almost pure when beside her. I know not, as I have said, what are the forms, and

what the requirements of the body of Friends, as I love to call them, in regard to the bringing about of matrimonial intercourse. All that was learned of what concerned our neighbour's family was, that when his daughter had reached the age of twenty, he, or "the church," had seen it fit to procure a helpmate that would, after his long widowhood, again make him a husband, and perhaps a father. It appeared to be part of the arrangement that Hannah should be also provided for; for, all at once, it was whispered from servant to servant, and mistress to mistress, round about, that Obed Shearman, a wellknown dealer in English hardwares, and himself a Southron of dark aspect and mature years, was the appointed husband of the young and beautiful Hannah Barclay, as he had long been the ruler and director, as it was said, of his more simple Scottish brethren of the chapel. Obed was a man whom nobody without a broad-brimmed beaver could endure; but yet his cutlery was polished, if his manner was rough, and, in the quality of his goods, the forbiddingness of his aspect was forgotten, and he was wealthy. Notwithstanding this, every one pitied Hannah when they knew she was to become his wife, even before they had learned that she had implored her father not to insist upon their union. That she had, even on her knees, done so, was afterwards asserted; but all that was felt by her, and said, and done, regarding her, is known but to the body of which she was a member, and of whose prejudices she became the sacrifice.

I have heard from an old servant who was then in her father's house, that many and long were the meetings which Obed and he had, and repeated the convocations of the office-bearers of the chapel upon the matter. She told me that Hannah was not locked up after her refusal to marry Obed; but she was watched with an eye that never seemed to slumber, until she promised never more to meet her real and now distracted lover. This promise she kept; but before it was exacted, many a scrap of paper Tibbie said she placed under a loose brick in Jonathan's garden wall. It was but right to prevent the innocent Hannah from indulging in an unguarded intercourse with a young worldling like Martin Glassford; but it must be between God and her father's conscience whether it was not a better method for procuring her happiness his reformation, than the sudden tearing asunder of the ties that bound a daughter to him. Tibbie, I well remember, told me that she had kept many of these scraps, from fear of losing her place, and prof

fered me a perusal of them as relics of a mistress whose very memory was so beautiful that she loved it. I now regret that I did not avail myself of the opportunity, but the first time I visit Lodge-my-loons, should my friends wish to see the love-letters of a young Quakeress, I shall endeavour even yet to procure them from Tibbie's niece.

I have already indicated the catastrophe of a story I need not further prolong. It may be, as I trust it is, that the body of Friends sought not to force a husband upon Hannah; but alas! to her what availed the subtleness of the distinction between compelling her to accept of him, or see frowns for ever upon every face but one-to which she habitually looked for kindness-and precluding even hope of gazing upon the sunshine of that one again! It was said that Obed procured the dismissal of Glassford in disgrace, and bought up some debts against his mother, which he only refrained from prosecuting to recovery on her leaving Glasgow and sending her son to sea. He was drowned in going out to Jamaica-and Hannah Barclay fell asleep, like a closing flower, in the arms of her Maker, the day the news of his death reached the Drygate.

SPECIMENS OF A SERIES OF NEW READINGS IN BAILEY AND JOHNSON.-No. VII. Face. Not only the title-page of a man-but often, too, the table of contents. Facilitate. A term or a method of making some accomplishment almost as easy of acquirement as of being forgotten; a plan for shortening a journey by removing the mile-stones, and abridging a map by the omission of boundaries.

Faction. Any body of politicians who do any thing opposed to any of the notions of any of us.

Faculty, the.-In Glasgow, the "talent, virtue,_reasoning, memory, sense, and motion" of-the Doctors, Lawyers, and Professors.

Fan.-An almost forgotten instrument, which was wont to winnow away the frowns of our grandmothers. Fantasia.—An indescribable conglomeration of notes and dots, which are huddled together to stretch young misses' fingers-and crack the ears of their unfortunate cousins.

Fascination.-The air and manner of one's mistress. Farewell.-The word that lingers on the lips before it seals them—that sound which, uttered by those we love, has but one echo, but it is an undying one; the closing