latter individual the common was said to have derived its name. According to tradition, the widow of Bruntfield had three sons, all of whom she brought up with the duty of revenging their father's death inculcated upon them, and with the view that each, as he successively reached the years of manhood, should challenge and fight Carmichael. Two did this, and met with their father's fate; but the youngest obtained leave from the king to fight Carmichael in public lists on the island of Cramond, where a vast assemblage of people, from every part of Scotland, met to witness the combat. Carmichael, though a tall and powerful man compared with his opponent, was killed on the spot.'

For notices of the Moubrays of Barnbougle, an honourable family now extinct, see Mr Pitcairn's excellent publication of Criminal Trials.

A PARISIAN MERCHANT.

It is worthy of observation, that the great majority of the benefactors of the poorer classes have been persons who themselves had to struggle with the hardships of life, and who have owed only to industry, to order, and economy, the happiness of being able to assist their fellow-creatures. Men born to wealth and greatness, are too often ignorant of the privations and wretchedness of their inferiors; but those who have undergone similar trials and difficulties, are taught to look upon those beneath them with that intelligent eye which a common feeling alone can give: they learn to discover and to divine their wants, and know, by the experienced misery, the point to which relief can best be applied.

A new and striking proof of the truth of this assertion was afforded by a paragraph in the French papers of the month of February 1840, which, in announcing the death of a man hitherto known only within a narrow

circle, told also of a bequest to a very large amount, to be appropriated to the opening of an asylum for a class of persons whose necessities he was able, for the reasons above mentioned, accurately to estimate, and of whose excellent qualities he wished to prove his appreciation— that class was the clerks of the city of Paris.

Charles Lawrence Donaud was born at Paris, the 10th of August 1762, of one of those old families who did honour to commerce by irreproachable integrity. Having distinguished himself at the college of Harcourt, he began the study of the law, and was received, while still a young man, as advocate in the French parliament; but soon his natural bias for the profession of his fathers made him repair to England, the commercial fame of which led him thither, in ardent desire for information.

Having returned to his own country, after a six years' absence, he founded at Paris a new establishment, which soon became flourishing. The property bequeathed to him by his father, considerable in that day, enabled him to enlarge his commercial relations. But the Revolution began, and despoiled him of everything-not only of a great part of his patrimony, but of all that he had acquired by commerce, so that he might be regarded as utterly ruined.

Happily, our merchant did not suffer himself to be cast down by this reverse of fortune. Endowed with a strong mind, with indefatigable perseverance, no sooner did better days dawn than he began again his commercial engagements, which his industry rendered lucrative, and in which he had the advantage of a credit which he had established by his probity, his undeviating exactitude, and his many other estimable qualities. One of his favourite maxims was: that if industry lays the foundation of fortune, economy must raise the superstructure;' and so faithfully did he adhere to this principle, that he was never known to waste, in what could minister merely to luxury, the fruits of his labours.

Though blunt in manner, Donaud was most benevolent, tender-hearted, and generous. He had a real attachment

for those who served him with zeal and perseverance, and his last will was dictated by a desire to leave proofs of that attachment to such of them as should survive him. In a note-book kept by him, the following entry was found, bearing date July 18, 1829: 'L-, my faithful cashier, died this morning after an illness of thirty-eight days, and the Society of Merchant Clerks have performed the last rites, and defrayed the expenses of his funeral. L had exercised the office of cashier in my establishment for thirty-five years, without my ever having discovered the slightest inaccuracy or incorrectness in the immense receipts that passed through his hands during all that period of time. So little did I

reckon upon surviving him, that in my will, I had left him his full salary for life, and also a sum of money over and above, so as to place him quite at his ease. Man proposes, and God disposes.'

This cashier, the immediate object of the solicitude of Donaud, had been obliged during his illness to go to an hospital where, from the circumstance of there being a great crowd of patients, he had perhaps not met with the needful care. This occurrence was doubtless the origin of his desire to provide a special asylum for that class—6 a class,' so the will runs, 'so useful to the banker and the merchant, the members of which, for a trifling salary, pass frequently their whole life in preserving the fortunes and credit of bankers and merchants by their rigid accuracy and integrity in discharging the trust reposed in them; and this, too, with so little certainty of a provision for themselves in case of sickness or old age.'

Donaud had no children; he bequeathed the half of his fortune to found an asylum, which, under the name of 'Asylum for the Clerks of Paris,' might receive to the number of ten, infirm, sick, and superannuated patients from that class, taken from the banking and commercial houses of Paris. This act of beneficence is worthy of being remembered, and imitated as regards those aged and necessitous, who, notwithstanding all efforts to the contrary, are in their old days left stranded by misfortune.

CRUISE OF THE SALDANHA AND TALBOT.

THE following attempt to describe a scene which it has seldom been the lot of man both to witness and to survive, will possess a melancholy interest from the associations with which it is connected. We will only premise, by assuring the reader that the narrative is perfectly authentic, and was penned in a communication to a friend in Edinburgh, in almost the very words here set down. Some of our readers perhaps may remember of an extract from it appearing in the Edinburgh newspapers of the time, being inserted for the purpose of allaying the fears of friends and relatives in that quarter, for the safety of those whom common report had, not irrationally, consigned to a watery grave :

LOCHSWILLY, Dec. 10, 1811, H. M. S. Talbot. Ar mid-day of Saturday the 30th ultimo, with a fair wind and a smooth sea, we weighed from our station here, in company with the Saldanha frigate of thirtyeight guns (Captain Pakenham, with a crew of 300 men), on a cruise, as was intended, of twenty days-the Saldanha taking a westerly course, while we stood in the opposite direction. We had scarcely got out of the loch and cleared the heads, however, when we plunged at once into all the miseries of a gale of wind blowing from the west. During the three following days, it continued to increase in violence, when the islands of Coll and Tiree* became visible to us. As the wind had now chopped round more to the north, and continued unabated in violence, the danger of getting involved among the numerous small islands and rugged headlands on the northwest coast of Inverness-shire became evident. It was

*Two small islands lying to the north-west of the Isle of Mull. Tiree was formerly celebrated for a marble quarry, and a fine breed of small horses.

therefore deemed expedient to wear the ship round, and make a port with all expedition. With this view, and favoured by the wind, a course was shaped for Lochswilly; and away we scudded under close-reefed foresail and main-topsail, followed by a tremendous sea, which threatened every moment to overwhelm us, and accompanied by piercing showers of hail, and a gale which blew with incredible fury. The same course was steered until next day about noon, when land was seen on the lee-bow. The weather being thick, some time elapsed before it could be distinctly made out, and it was then ascertained to be the island of North Arran, on the coast of Donegal, westward of Lochswilly. The ship was therefore hauled up some points, and we yet entertained hopes of reaching an anchorage before nightfall, when the weather gradually thickened, and the sea, now that we were upon a wind, broke over us in all directions. Its violence was such, that in a few minutes several of our ports were stove in, at which the water poured in in great abundance, until it was actually breast-high, on the lee-side of the main-deck. Fortunately, but little got below, and the ship was relieved by taking in the foresail. But a dreadful addition was now made to the precariousness of our situation, by the cry of Land ahead!' which was seen from the forecastle, and must have been very near. Not a moment was now lost in wearing the ship round on the other tack, and making what little sail could be carried, to weather the land we had already passed. This soon proved, however, to be a forlorn prospect, for it was found we should run our distance by ten o'clock. All the horrors of shipwreck now stared us in the face, aggravated tenfold by the extreme darkness of the night, and the tremendous force of the wind, which now blew a hurricane. Mountains are insignificant when speaking of the sea that kept pace with it; its violence was awful beyond description, and it frequently broke over all the poor little ship, that shivered and groaned, but behaved admirably.

The force of the sea may be guessed from the fact of the sheet-anchor, nearly a ton and a half in weight, being