And changing empires wane and wax, When time and thou shalt part for ever!" I WARRANT I find means to entertain your intellects without fatiguing your limbs. I am no friend to violent exertion myself. A walk in the garden once a day is exertion enough for any thinking being; none but a fool or a fox-hunter would require more.-377. WE are so apt, in our engrossing egotism, to consider al those accessories which are drawn around us by prosperity as pertaining and belonging to our own persons, that the discovery of our unimportance, when left to our own proper resources, becomes inexpressibly mortifying.-Rob Roy, 525. SO EFFECTUALLY, my dear Tresham, does the sense of being pleased and amused blunt our faculties of perception and discrimination of character, that I can only compare it to the taste of certain fruits, at once luscious and poignant, which renders our palate totally unfit for relishing or distinguishing the viands which are subsequently subjected to its criticism.— 553. THE deacon used to say to me, "Nick-young Nick "-(his name was Nicol as weel as mine, sae folk ca'd us in their daffin' young Nick and auld Nick)—“ Nick," said he," never put out your arm farther than ye can draw it easily back again."-590. "THAT's the Forth," said the baillie, with an air of reverence, which I have observed the Scotch usually pay to their distinguished rivers. I received my friend's communication with the importance which he seemed to think appertained to it. In fact, I was not a little pleased, after so long and dull a journey, to approach a region which promised to engage the imagination. My faithful squire, Andrew, did not seem to be quite of the same opinion; for he received the solemn information, "That is the Forth," with a Umph! An' he had said that's the public-house, it wad ha'e been mair to the purpose." -609. 66 "I HA'E a sincere regard for ye," said Andrew, "and I 'm sure ye 'll be a credit to your friends if ye live to saw out your wild aits, and get some mair sense and steadiness. But I can follow ye nae farther, even if ye suld founder and perish from the way for lack of guidance and counsel. To gang into Rob Roy's country is a mere tempting o' Providence."-614. "MORRIS," said I, “has already paid the last ransom which mortal man can owe." "Eh! what? exclaimed my companion, hastily ; "what d' ye say? I trust it was in the skirmish he was killed ?" "He was slain in cold blood, after the fight was over, Mr. Campbell." "Cold blood! how fell that, sir? Speak out, sir, and do not Maister or Campbell me-my foot is on my native heath, and my name is Mac Gregor!"-635. WE spent, accordingly, one hospitable day with the baillie; and took leave of him, as this narrative now does. He continued to grow in wealth, honour, and credit; and actually rose to the highest civic honours in his native city. About two years after the period I have mentioned he tired of his bachelor life, and promoted Mattie from her wheel by the kitchen fire to the upper end of his table, in the character of Mrs. Jarvie. Baillie Grahame, the Mac Vitties, and others (for all men have their enemies in the councils of a royal burgh) ridiculed this transformation. "But," said Mr. Jarvie, "let them say their say; I'll ne'er fash mysell, nor lose my liking, for sae feckless a matter as a nine days' clash. My honest father, the deacon, had a bye-word,— 'Brent brow and lily skin, A loving heart and a leal within, Is better than gowd or gentle kin.'”—646. -Old Mortality, 775. "YE speak reasonably, my lord," said Dalgetty, "and, ceteris paribus, I might be induced to see the matter in the same light; but, my lord, there is a southern proverb-'fine words butter no parsnips.' "—A Legend of Montrose, 67. UPON one occasion, in particular, when she joked with the laird on the propriety of giving a mistress to the house of Dumbiedikes, he was so effectually startled, that neither laced hat, tobacco-pipe, nor the intelligent proprietor of these moveables visited Woodend for a fortnight. Rebecca was therefore compelled to leave the laird to proceed at his own snail's pace, convinced by experience of the grave-digger's aphorism, that " your dull ass will not mend his pace for beating."Heart of Mid-Lothian, 170. "I AM very heartily glad he is weel and thriving," said Mr. Deans, with a gravity that seemed intended to cut short the subject; but a woman who is bent upon a point is not easily pushed aside from it. "And," continued Mrs. Butler, “be can wag his head in a pulpit now, neibor Deans; think but of that, my ain o'e, and a' body maun sit still and listen to him as if he were the Paip of Rome." "The what?-the who? woman!" said Deans, with a sternness far beyond his usual gravity, as soon as these offensive words had struck upon the tympanum of his ear."Eh, guide us!" said the poor woman; "I had forgot what an ill-will ye had aye at the Paip; and sae had my puir gudeman, Stephen Butler. Mony an afternoon he wad sit and take up his testimony again the Paip, and again baptising of bairns and the like." "Woman!" reiterated Deans, "either speak about what ye ken something o', or be silent. I say that independency is a foul heresy, and anabaptism a... deceiving error, whilk should be rooted out of the land wi' the fire o' the spiritual and the sword o' the civil magistrate." "Weel, weel, neibor, I'll no say that ye mayna be right," answered the submissive Judith. "I am sure ye are right about the sawing and the mawing, the sheaving and the leading, and what for suld ye no be right about kirk-work too? But concerning my o'e, Reuben Butler?" "Reuben Butler, gudewife," said David, with solemnity, "is a lad I wish heartily weel to, even as if he were mine ain son; but I doubt there will be outs and ins in the track of his walk. I muckle fear his gifts will get the heels of his grace. He has ower muckle human wit and learning, and thinks as muckle about the form of the bicker as he does about the healsomeness of the food. He maun 'broider the marriage-garment with lace and passments, or it's no gude eneugh for him. And its like he 's something proud o' his human gifts and learning, whilk enables him to dress up his doctrine in that fine airy dress. But," added he, at seeing the old woman's uneasiness at his discourse, "affliction may gi'e him a jagg, and let the wind out o' him, as out o' a cow that 's eaten wet clover, and the lad may do weel, and be a burning and a shining light; and I trust it will be yours to see and his to feel it, and that soon.”—171. His features were uncommonly handsome, and all about him would have been interesting and prepossessing but for that indescribable expression which habitual dissipation gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity in look and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a mask for confusion and apprehension.-179. 66 BUTLER perceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow it up. Think," he said, "young man," laying his hand kindly upon the stranger's shoulder, "what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose for yourself, to kill or be killed. Think what it is to rush uncalled into the presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evil passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with your best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellowcreature. Or, suppose yourself the scarce less wretched survivor, with the guilt of Cain, the first murderer, in your heart, with his stamp upon your brow-that stamp which struck all who gazed on him with unutterable horror, and by which the murderer is made manifest to all who look upon him." LOCKMAN, so called from the small quantity of meal (Scottice, lock), which he was entitled to take out of every boll exposed to market in the city. In Edinburgh the duty has been very long commuted; but in Dumfries the finisher of the law still exercises, or did lately exercise, his privilege, the quantity taken being regulated by a small iron ladle, which he uses as the measure of his perquisite.-Note L. "THERE's no saying anent that-zeal catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane-match," observed the secretary. "I have kend a minister wad be fair gude day and fair gude e'en wi' ilka mon in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz! he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common sense, and common comprehension."-207. SO SLIGHT and unfrequent was the intercourse betwixt London and Edinburgh, that men still alive remember that upon one occasion the mail from the former city arrived at the General Post Office in Scotland with only one letter in it. -241. THERE is, perhaps, no time at which we are disposed to think so highly of a friend as when we find him standing higher than we expected in the esteem of others. When assured of the reality of Butler's change of prospects, David expressed his great satisfaction at his success in life, which, he observed, was entirely owing to himself. He took leave of the man of business, and walked homewards, forgetting his weariness in the various speculations to which this wonderful piece of intelligence gave rise. Honest David had now, like other great men, to go to work to reconcile his speculative principles with existing circumstances; and, like other great men, when they set seriously about that task, he was tolerably successful.-296. MRS. BUTLER, whom we must no longer, if we can help it, term by the familiar name of Jeanie, brought into the married state the same firm mind and affectionate disposition-the same natural and homely good sense, and spirit of useful exertion-in a word, all the domestic good qualities, of which she had given proof during her maiden life. She did not, indeed, rival Butler in learning; but then no woman more devoutly venerated the extent of her husband's erudition. She did not pretend to understand his expositions of divinity; but no minister of the presbytery had his humble dinner so well arranged, his clothes and linen in equal good order, his fireside so neatly swept, his parlour so clean, and his books so well dusted. If he talked to Jeanie of what she did not understand, and (for the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster) he sometimes did harangue more scholarly and wisely than was necessary, she listened in placid silence; and whenever the point referred to common life, and was such as came under the grasp of a strong natural understanding, her views were more forcible, and her observations more acute, than his own.--308. AFTER blazing nearly ten years in the fashionable world, and, hiding like many of her compeers, an aching heart with a gay demeanour-after declining repeated offers of the most respectable kind for a second matrimonial engagement, Lady Staunton betrayed the inward wound by retiring to the Continent, and taking up her abode in the convent where she had received her education. She never took the veil, but lived and died in severe seclusion, and in the practice of the Roman Catholic religion, in all its formal observances, vigils, and austerities. Jeanie had so much of her father's spirit as to sorrow bitterly for this apostacy, and Butler joined in her regret. "Yet any religion, however imperfect," he said, "was better than cold scepticism, or the hurrying din of dissipation, which fills the ears of worldlings until they care for none of these things." Meanwhile, happy in each other, in the prosperity of their family, and the love and honour of all who knew them, this simple pair lived beloved, and died lamented. Reader-This tale will not be told in vain if it shall be found to illustrate the great truth, that guilt, though it may attain temporal splendour, can never confer real happiness; that the evil consequences of our crimes long survive |