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CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL.

something by the labour of their children, in order to
eke out the means for the family subsistence. Be this
as it may,
the case is deplorable, and well deserves the
public attention. The instruction which is given to
the fraction who attend school, is meagre in the ex-
treme, and has no sensible effect in elevating the in-
tellectual capacities of the people.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

LIVING ON THE CONTINENT.

MANY persons enjoying but moderate incomes have a desire to follow the example of numerous absentees of fortune, by going to reside somewhere on the continent. In those cases in which the comparatively severe climate of Britain produces an injurious effect on the health, it may be advisable to proceed abroad; but in almost all other cases, as, for instance, for the sake of cheap living, a permanent residence in a foreign counIt is of importance try is not to be recommended. to make our meaning clear on this point. In many places upon the continent, certain articles of meat and drink, as bread, beef, vegetables, wines, and spirits, are considerably lower in price than in any part of England; house rent is also much lower; but most other things are either dearer, or cannot be had at any money. The comforts we daily enjoy consist of innumerable trifles; and unless these be obtained with tolerable ease, it matters little that a few pence, or it may be a few shillings, are saved weekly in the purchase of bread, and one or two other necessaries.

next the skin. This simple expedient has saved many
lives, and would save many more, if adopted to a
greater extent, and better understood. The subject
is to the last degree commonplace; but as it in-
volves a question of very serious importance, we
hope to be allowed to say a word or two regarding
it. In our variable climate, although we know no-
thing of extremes of heat or cold, we are constantly
liable to be chilled or overwarmed, both within and
without doors, and it is of importance that we should
adopt such clothing as will suit either of these
conditions, and prevent us from feeling the change.
Flannel effects this desirable object. It keeps our
case of heat relieves us by becoming an absorbent
persons warm when exposed to cold, and in the
for moisture, which it throws off insensibly, leaving
the skin in a state of comparative comfort. Linen
utterly fails in accomplishing these points. Flannel
is thus equally useful in summer as in winter. Some
persons imagine that it should be employed only in
the winter and cold spring months, and they conse-
quently throw it off on the approach of summer.
This is a dangerous fallacy. Flannel should be worn
all the year round, never left off for a single day on
any account. If thrown off from an idea that the
diately exposed to the atmospheric influence; the per-
weather is getting warm, the skin becomes imme-
spiration, if any, cools on the person; the unprotected
pores shrink and close; catarrh, or some other disease,
under the general name of "a bad cold," ensues; and
the victim of imprudence perhaps barely escapes with
ever to avoid this great error, as they value their health
his life. We strongly recommend all persons whatso-
or their lives. To wear flannel properly, it should
remain upon the person both day and night, and be
shifted only once a-week, or thereabouts, according
to circumstances. Too frequent shifting is injurious.
When employed in this careful manner, and when the
tepid bath is also occasionally used, the person is pre-
served in that comfortable and proper condition, exte-
riorly, which is most conducive to health and longevity.

MR P. E. TURNBULL'S TRAVELS IN
AUSTRIA.*

The English, generally speaking, who reside abroad, are not to be envied. For the sake of cheapness they may have planted themselves in one of the neat little German towns on the Upper Rhine, or in some part of France; but we doubt very much if in the long run they save money by being absentees, or if their comforts, all things considered, be equal to what they could have procured at home. The following are the drawbacks to which they must in general MR TURNBULL, accompanied by his brother, employed submit-Winters of more intense cold than in Bri- the years 1834-5-6 in making a tour of various countries of Europe; and he now publishes his observations tain; houses built more for show than comfort, and on the Austrian Empire in two volumes, the first beextremely ill adapted for the severities of the cold season; no coal; wood for fuel very dear; many small luxuries or necessaries, of tropical product, not to being descriptive of his journeyings and what he saw of had, or excessively high-priced, being loaded with duties from England; all kinds of furniture of a poor description, as, for example, plain rush-bottomed chairs; carpets, none; no grates, fire-irons, or fenders, brick stoves being generally used; many houses without bells; the towns at night badly lighted; malt-liquors execrable; needles, pins, nails, and all

kinds of metal articles, either imported from England and dear, or of bad native manufacture; most kinds of clothing, ditto. To these disagreeable points may be added the prevalence of a strange tongue, manners, medical practice, and religion. The matter can scarcely be said to be mended where there is a pretty numerous circle of English residents, because it may happen that some of these are persons who have gone abroad for the mere sake of enjoying a cheap indulgence in certain kinds of liquors, gaming, or some frivolous species of amusement, and with whom it might not be agreeable to associate.

In all points of view, a permanent residence in any part of continental Europe is not to be recommended, on the score of great cheapness of living, health, or general comfort. There are, doubtless, many places where a foreign residence may be rendered agreeable in the way of variety, and change of scene, but only for a few months in summer or autumn. Those who wish to make a small income go as far as possible, have an opportunity of doing so to good advantage within the compass of the United Kingdom. There are places in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, fully as healthful, far more comfortable, and, probably, as cheap as most of the crack places of living on the continent. The truth is, many rush to the continent to do that by compulsion which they could as well do roluntarily at home. They will submit to privations in Germany, which would be considered too great a degradation in England. The same cheapness of living may be attained here as abroad, provided we sink to that stage of comfort which the continent generally yields. There are few cottages of our peasantry which are not more comfortable, take them all the year round, and all that they usually contain, than the palaces in most parts of the continent; their bedding, their furniture, their cooking and eating apparatus, even the handles of their doors, and window fastenings, are all superior. It is evident, therefore, that cheapness is only of comparative value, and may be procured at too dear a rate. This, as well as the preceding hints, we leave to the consideration of those who may have formed a design to leave their native country for a foreign residence.

USE OF FLANNEL.

No modern improvement in dressing has proved so beneficial to health, as the use of a woollen garment

the external features of the country, while the second
is devoted to a view of its social and political condition,
under the various heads, religion, education, finances,
is evidently no hater of the present forms of society
jurisprudence, domestic and foreign policy, &c. He
and government under the three great monarchies of
Eastern Europe; at the same time, he seems mode-
rate and candid, and is probably, therefore, no un-
faithful reporter. His second volume is by many
degrees the more valuable of the two; but its contents
are the least calculated for notice in the present place,
and we therefore pass it entirely over.
of travels is the cheerful narrative of a man of good
education and respectable powers of observation, and
one who, from his allusions and his general tone, may
be presumed to have moved, abroad as well as at home,
in what is called good society.

The volume

One of the most interesting parts of the volume relates to a visit which the author paid to the exiled royal family of France, at a retired country-house which they occupied about thirteen English miles from Prague. As a friend of the Baron de Damas, governor to the Duc de Bordeaux, Mr Turnbull had been admitted to familiar intercourse with that young prince before the Revolution, and he still looked back with melancholy pleasure to those days. "Puschtierad," says he, "is a valuable domain belonging to the Grand Duke of Tuscany; but its value consists in the abundance of its products, not in its natural beauty or artificial decoration. The country around is cheerless and bare of trees.

The rude shrubberies immediately near it can hardly be dignified with the name of pleasure-grounds; and the chateau itself is a large long building of two stories in height, generally of one room only in depth, with all the windows fronting the north, and the doors opening into corridors, which on the southern side run along the whole extent of the façade. On arriving there, I found on the doors of each room along the corridors, except those immediately occupied by the royal personages, cards affixed with the names of their respective tenants. No attendant appeared about the -all was still and silent, and gave the idea of a mopassages, or the rooms within, or the courts without nastery rather than a palace.

In this gloomy and cheerless dwelling, which seemed to harmonise too faithfully with the fortunes of its

* Austria. By Peter Evan Turnbull, Esq. F.R.S. and F.S.A. 2 vols. London, Murray. 1840.

present inhabitants, were now assembled the old King
Charles X., the Duke and Duchess d'Angouleme,
Mademoiselle, and the Duke de Bordeaux; together
with a few attached adherents, who still followed the
fortunes and formed the little court of him whom they
Latil had lately taken his departure for Rome. The
regarded as their lawful sovereign. The Cardinal de
Baron de Damas and the Duchess de Gontaut, who
had directed the education of the prince and princess,
had been compelled by circumstances of a peculiar and
painful nature, to quit their charge, and had retired
bers of the establishment, were absent in other parts;
into France. Some others who were properly mem-
the Duke de Polignac, the Count O'Hegerty, the Abbé
and those now at Puschtierad were the Duke de Blacas,
Fraissinous, M. de Barante, the Countess d'Agoult,
and one or two other ladies in attendance on the
Duchess d'Angouleme and Mademoiselle. My first
visit was to the young duke, who was now in his fif-
teenth year. When I had seen him at Paris, and
afterwards immediately on his arrival at Lulworth,
he was of slim and delicate form, full of vivacity, but,
in appearance at least, of rather doubtful health. I
now found him a fine stout healthy youth, with the
Bourbon features strongly marked, and a clear ruddy
but his figure was broad and thick-set, and gave indi-
complexion. He was by no means tall for his age;
cations that in this respect he would rather resemble
his father than his grandfather. On his intellectual
powers, our interview was too short and too constrained
to allow me to form any accurate judgment; for that
expected under the high authority of M. de Damas,
was not permitted by the gentleman now acting as his
frank and free communication which I might have
tutor, who remained by his side during the whole of
my visit, and to whom I was personally a perfect
stranger. The young prince expressed pleasure at
seeing me, although it is not very probable that at his
age he would have remembered with any distinctness

the smaller circumstances which had occurred several
cations, that he felt a painful consciousness of the
years before; but it appeared to me, from some indi-
change of his condition, and of the altered circum-
stances under which he was now placed. Be this as
it may, the tutor seemed decidedly desirous to repress
fering to assume the conversation to himself; and
rather than to encourage his observations, by inter-
thus leaving me little more than the opportunity of
forming a general opinion, that he was altogether a
fine and promising boy. In the Duchess d'Angou-
but otherwise her health was good; and to say that
leme, to whose apartments I next proceeded, I saw
little change. She was suffering from a severe cold,
her general tone was melancholy and dejected, is only
to say that she was, in the exile of Puschtierad, what
spoke much of her nephew, of his clearness of intellect,
she had been in her brightest hours at Paris: "Sht
the expression of any sanguine expectations of the
and his close application to his studies-but without
future; and, indeed, the sad retrospect of her own
past life would afford little encouragement for the
illusions of hope. However opinions may differ as to
this princess, with reference to the political tenden-
sorrows of her life without a sentiment of deep com-
cies of her character, it is impossible to reflect on the
passion. After a childhood of royal splendour, her
earliest remembrances are those of the prison and the
scaffold. She saw her parents led forth to public exe-
cution-she was herself conveyed from the cells of the
Her entrance into Paris
by domestic happiness.
Temple to pass twenty years in exile, little alleviated
after this protracted banishment was rendered to her
a period of anguish; fer, by some unfortunate ar-
rangement, she was made to pass over the site of the
mured; and I well remember (for I was a spectator
prison where herself and her parents had been im-
of the scene) the agitated and almost convulsive ex-
pression of her countenance, during the celebration of
the Te Deum at Notre Dame, which preceded her
ancestors ere she was again driven forth into foreign
approach to the Tuilleries. Short was the interval
after she had resumed her position in the palace of her
exile; and I now beheld her, after her third emigra-
tion, in the dreary monastic solitude of Puschtierad.
Her main support here was that strong and deep reli-
prosperity, may have been sometimes lamented as
gious fervour, which, during the short period of her
failing consolation.
excessive, but in which she now found a firm and un-

Strongly contrasted with the appearance and de-
I was introduced into his apartment
meanour of this unhappy princess, were those of the
aged monarch.
by the Duke de Blacas, and was honoured with a very
looked even more lank than in former days, owing
to the long brown frock, or rather greatcoat, in
long and agreeable interview. His tall thin figure
which he was arrayed, which closed tight round
his slender form, and descended to his heels. He
stooped much; but otherwise, although now in his
seventy-eighth year, he showed little marks of age,
Charles X. was still, as he had ever
been, a fine specimen of the old French gentleman-
and his countenance and manner were lively and
kind and familiar in his address, polished but easy in
animated.
his manner, and gay in the midst of adversity. With
him, was neither restraint nor melancholy; and, as
he chatted familiarly of France, and Spain, and Eng-
land, of the events of his own past life, and of the
fortunes which he trusted might hereafter beam upon
his house, I am willing to hope that he may have de

short halt near the palace of Prince Liechtenstein, proceeded to that of the Russian embassy. The circumstance of the first of these light open carriages having so many as six horses, attracted notice; and it was soon known that the two gentlemen in it, muffled up in cloaks against the rain and cold, were the Emperor Nicholas accompanied by Prince Charles of Liechtenstein, whose attendants followed in the second calêche. The Austrian emperor was at this period absent; accompanied by the imperial princes, and the officers of state, he had been making a tour of inspection through his Bohemian provinces, at the close of which he had met the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia at the conferences at Teplitz, and had returned with them from thence to pass a few days at Prague.

rived a momentary satisfaction from the visit of disinterested respect thus paid to him by one, who, however comparatively lowly in station, and however discordant from him in many important points of opinion, still retained a grateful remembrance of the kindnesses and hospitalities received within the walls of his palace, during the days of his royal domination. The French volatility with which he passed rapidly from subject to subject, was sometimes tempered with a feeling, not mournful but pensive, with which he alluded to his own advanced age, and the doubtful expectations he entertained (for he seemed not wholly bereft of hope) of another restoration for himself. His anticipations in favour of his grandson were expressed in more sanguine terms. He spoke of him with much affection, and said that the great object | of himself and his family was to render the young This sudden and rapid visit of the Russian emperor prince worthy of any destinies that might await him. to the Austrian capital at such a moment, was made His favourable reception in England, and the atten- the subject of singular political speculations, not only tions shown to him in Scotland, were subjects on at Vienna, but also in most of the foreign journalswhich he evidently liked to enlarge, for he recurred all of them, as I believe, without the slightest foundato them more than once. He was full of anecdote as tion. The simple fact appears to have been this. Long to the events of his residence at Holyrood, in the first years of confidential intercourse had produced, in the emigration, and some of them were singular enough: late and present Russian emperors, a warm personal but the circumstances on which he dwelt with most affection for the late Emperor Francis, whom Alexevident satisfaction were those of his favourable re- ander used to flatter with the title of his political ception at Poole and other parts of Dorsetshire, on father. Being so near as Prague, Nicholas determined his last arrival from France; in all of which he had to visit the tomb and the widow of his departed friend, been made to apprehend that he would have met with and he carried this determination into effect with his insult and outrage. His political observations on in- usual rapidity of movement, and aversion to ceremodividuals and parties in the different countries of nious preparation. Calling, one morning, on the Europe, would perhaps be of little interest to the Austrian emperor at Prague-I am come,' said he, reader; but, whether such were the case or not, I to ask your majesty's commands for Vienna.' 'How cannot permit to myself the publication of opinions said the astonished Ferdinand. Are you going to and feelings, however in themselves unimportant, ex- Vienna? When? Immediately-the carriage is pressed in a casual interview by an exiled king. I at the door; and he immediately departed, declining will only observe, that, in speaking of the existing the offer of an avant-courier, to make preparations. rulers of France, no unkind expression escaped his He took with him Prince Charles of Liechtenstein, lips; and that a sentiment of compassion only, not of as a companion, or aid-de-camp of honour. A courier anger, appeared to exist in his mind towards those was dispatched by Ferdinand to announce the imporwho had been his subjects. More than once I made tant guest; but Nicholas reached Vienna five hours my half inclination to depart, but the good-natured before him. He drove first, as I have observed, to the old sovereign was so full of vivacity, that he still pro- Russian embassy, where he changed his dress (it was longed the interview; and I believe it was owing to then four o'clock), and proceeded to Schönbrunn, three some suggestion of the Duke de Blacas, who had, miles from Vienna-remained some time with the during the whole time, remained in silence near the imperial widow who there resided in the greatest royal person, that I ultimately received my dismissal. seclusion, and returned to pass the evening with the Charles X. was still in possession of great bodily Princess Metternich, whose husband was at Prague. power, and every autumn enjoyed the pleasures of The following morning, having seen two or three la Chasse' on the domains of certain high Bohemian persons of his acquaintance, he paid a reverential visit nobles, with all the relish, and almost all the vigour, to the tomb of Francis-beside which he continued of his early years. His confidential friend and prin- some time on his knees apparently in prayer. He cipal counsellor was the Duke de Blacas-a noble- then went to several shops and bought small articles man of great wealth and large possessions both in-called for a few minutes on the archduchess, and France and Germany, and who sacrificed the plea on Princess Metternich-went out again to Schönsures and the luxuries of life, to attend on the person brunn, and dined at half past one with the empress of his former sovereign. As the duke was minister mother-returned to Vienna, and left it at five o'clock of a kingdom bounded by a garden wall, so Count for Prague; which he reached on the third day of O'Hegerty was grand-master of the horse to a prince his absence, and while Ferdinand was still there." without a stud. The royal establishments were on the most limited scale. The servants were very few ; the carriages were hired when required; and of horses, Charles X. was possessor of two only, which were kept for the exercise of the Duke de Bordeaux." Mr Turnbull remarks with surprise that this poor court was split into two factions, the source of contention being the question whether Charles X. or Henry V. was the legitimate king of France. Charles, it seems, had taken some scruple respecting his abdication, which he could not now be prevailed on to ratify; and this was one cause why the Duchess de Berri succeeded so ill in her enterprise in La Vendee, many royalists refusing to concur in a scheme which had for its object the advancement of the king's grandson to the exclusion of the king himself. Charles X., we are told, afterwards engaged a journal in the south of France to advocate his rights, and the Duchess de Berri immediately bought another to defend the claims of her son. So much was the court of Puschtierad torn by these contentions, that some of the individuals composing it actually refused to sit at table with each other! Mr Turnbull seems inclined to fear that the education of the young prince has been conducted on a narrow scale.

FALCONER AND BRUCE,

AN EDINBURGH FIRESIDE STORY.

IN the year 1788, an event took place at Dundee, which excited a great sensation all over Scotland. On the night of the 16th of February, the office of the Dundee Banking Company was broken into, and robbed of the sum of L.422, 2s. 6d. It was discovered that the robbery had been effected by means of a hole made in the ceiling, through which the plunderers had effected their entrance and escape. The interests of so wide a circle of persons are involved in the security of a bank, that it was natural for such an occurrence to create much stir and alarm, though the sum stolen was comparatively small. Accordingly, a reward of one hundred and fifty pounds was immediately offered for information respecting the offenders, part of the sum to be paid on conviction. For some time no discovery was made, but at length a person named Alexander Macdonald, tailor in DunOur author's descriptions of Vienna, Prague, Trieste, dee, came forward and gave information, implicating and other large cities, as also his accounts of the three individuals, James Falconer and Peter Bruce, mines, particularly those of Idria, are prominent parts merchants in Dundee, and James Dick, late shipmasof his book; but we have only space for a short pas-ter there, in the affair of the bank robbery. sage relative to the first of those capitals, in which a curious and we should suppose authentic anecdote is On Wednesday the 13th of August, the trial of given of one of the most remarkable of the present Falconer and Bruce took place in the Edinburgh Jusreigning sovereigns of Europe. "One object more I ticiary Court, before Lord Hailes and other judges. shall mention, before ending the subject of Vienna. Dick had left Dundee before the charge was made It is the vault below the Capucin monastery, in against him, and appears to have been out of the way which repose the mortal remains of eighty members of the imperial family, each under his monument of during the whole progress of the business. When marble. They are chiefly ranged along the walls. Macdonald was brought forward for examination, the A more central spot is occupied by the tomb of Maria leading counsel for the pannels offered some objections Theresa, and not far from it is that wherein are depo- to his testimony. The counsel declared himself able sited the remains of the late Emperor Francis II. On the 2d of November, All-souls Day, this chamber of to prove that Macdonald was a person of bad general death is open to the public; and I have seen it then character; that he had once stolen a bill; that he crowded with curious and well-conducted spectators: had personated an exciseman, and had made a seizure but the occasion of my mentioning it at present, is a of tea under that character; besides being guilty of visit paid to it while we were at Vienna, and which well exhibits the active habits and rapid movements of another imperial personage. One day early in October (1835), when walking in the Herrengasse, one of the principal streets, I noticed the arrival of two open calêches or britzkas, in post, which, after a

several other illegal acts. But the judges held that a conviction and sentence in a proper court were the only circumstances that could justify the rejection of party's evidence in a criminal cause. Accordingly, as Macdonald had never been so tried and convicted, he

a

was allowed to give evidence, although, in addition to the preceding objections, it was also proved that he had claimed the reward offered in the case now under examination; a circumstance which he himself had previously denied to the court in the most positive

terms.

Macdonald deposed that, eight months before the commission of the crime, he had been requested by Falconer, Bruce, and Dick, to join them in plan for robbing the bank, and had been repeatedly spoken to about the same scheme afterwards, being at the same time bound to secrecy by a terrible oath. Two other persons were concerned, according to the witness, with the three mentioned; but either these men were out of the way, or the court appears to have permitted him to keep the names of these parties to himself. Macdonald then proceeded to state, that Falconer and his compa nions had called upon him late on the Saturday night on which the bank was robbed, and desired him, with threats, to rise out of bed and follow them to the bank They left him, and he rose and dressed himself. On going into the street, he met two women, Anne Valentine and one Menzies, the former of whom was With these women he went seeking a boy, her son. towards the town-house, which is above the bank, the hall of the town-house being separate from the bank office only by a single floor and ceiling in one part. In the Guildhall he saw the glimmer of a light, and conjectured that the plunderers had made their way into it. He and his companions went up the townhall steps, and there, on looking through the key-hole, they saw Falconer with his coat off, and Bruce and the others engaged in fastening a rope around his waist, for the purpose of letting him down through a hole which they had made. Macdonald saw Fal coner let down, after which he and those with him left the town-hall steps, and went back to the street. They remained there till the five plunderers came out, and were seen by them. This took place about one on the Sunday morning.

This was Macdonald's evidence, and it was corroborated by the women Valentine and Menzies, as respected the seeing of the pannels on the street, and in the town-hall.

This was the whole evidence against Falconer and Bruce. The counter-testimony was of various kinds. The accused were persons of respectable station and character; their accusers were not. A living friend of Bruce, who was his schoolfellow and intimate friend, declares to us that no one who knew him believed for a moment in his guilt. Again, each of the prisoners brought witnesses to prove an alibi, and these witnesses were of respectable character; but unfortunately their testimony did not bear upon the precise hour at which the robbery was committed. Three witnesses saw Falconer in his own house between ten and eleven, and the latest visitor saw him in bed, complaining of illness. Three witnesses deposed also to Bruce being at home late on Saturday night; one person heard him reading at twelve o'clock at night. Moreover, the counsel for the prisoners declared that it was impossible for Macdonald and the women to have seen the hole through which the robbers had descended into the bank, from their position at the town-hall door. Strange to say, this point, which would have utterly subverted the whole criminatory evidence, does not appear to have been thoroughly examined into.

Notwithstanding the bad character of Macdonald, the main witness, and the strong points in favour of the accused, Lord Hailes, the presiding judge, summed up against them, and the jury gave a verdict of guilty, by a plurality of voices. The prisoners were condemned to death; yet, as the jury were divided on the case, so do the highest authorities of the land appear to have been. The unfortunate men were respited two different times. At their trial, as well as during the whole of their confinement, they uniformly denied their accession to the robbery, and all knowledge of any intention to perpetrate it. They were at last executed at Edinburgh on the 24th of December 1788. "Their behaviour on the scaffold (says the Scots Magazine of the day) was devout, serious, and becoming; and in their last address they implored that mercy and forgiveness might be extended to those unhappy persons by whose testimony they had been thus untimely cut off. It is hoped that time, which unveils the dark and hidden doings of the most artful, will yet reveal to the public the whole history of this mysterious affair."

Little more than a year after the execution of these unfortunate men, who died in the prime of life, a cause was brought before the Court of Session, in which Alexander Macdonald, Alexander Menzies, and the heirs of William Bruce, late shipmaster in DunAnne Kermack, were the parties on one side, while dee (and either father or uncle to the executed Peter Bruce), were implicated on the other side. Macdonald had instituted a process for the recovery of L.384, for which he held a bill purporting to have been granted by William Bruce. The result of the trial was, that Macdonald was found guilty of a gross fraud in obtaining the bill, and his witnesses and accomplices convicted of direct perjury. Macdonald was sentenced to be transported beyond seas for fourteen years, expelled from Scotland for life, and declared infamous. Menzies received the same sentence, with this difference, that his transmarine exile was for seven years; and in sentencing him, the Lord President declared him to be a "most infamous man, dangerous to society, and one who feared neither God nor man." The

woman received a sentence more lenient, but was also declared infamous, according to the forms of law of the day.

rage

The exposure of this conspiracy excited a dire suspicion in the public mind. The name of Menzies will be remembered as having been that of one of the In short, evidences against Falconer and Bruce. there appeared too much reason to fear that Macdonald had induced a band of confederates to perjure themselves on both occasions. The public thought so; for, in sentencing the man, Lord Henderland said, that, "had it not been for the peculiar situation of the pannel, he should have proposed that a public whipping be added to the punishment; but he feared the of an incensed populace would prove fatal to the prisoner." The Lord President also remarked, that " from what had appeared in this bill affair, there was room for a melancholy doubt whether all was right with respect to a late trial, but that he would leave this to God and the prisoner's own conscience." Macdonald, who is described as a man evidently "possessing superior talents," and as having spoken for himself at the bill-trial with “an energy and address worthy of a better cause," had the hardihood to stand up and answer the Lord President's hint, by solemnly asseverating that Falconer and Bruce were really guilty of the robbery of the Dundee Bank. He also made an appeal against the sentence of banishment, which produced no effect.

Although a great portion of the public was now firmly persuaded of the innocence of Falconer and Bruce, believing from Macdonald's audacity in bringing a fraudulent claim against the aged relative of Peter Bruce that he was a man capable of any villany, yet a mystery hung over the subject to a certain extent. However, in the middle of the year 1790, two years after the execution of Falconer and Bruce, an extraordinary sensation was caused in Edinburgh by the commission of a number of mysterious robberies, the author or authors of which contrived to evade the vigilance of the authorities. These robberies followed each other in quick succession. For example, William Proctor, grave-digger, was knocked down and robbed, at the back of the Castle, on the night of July the 31st. Thomas Elliott, tacksman of Heriot House toll, was knocked down and robbed at the Sciennes, on the night of August the 2d. James Logan was knocked down and robbed of a gold watch on the Earthen Mound, on the night of August the 4th. Within the same five days alone, a housebreaking and another robbery took place. From descriptions and other circumstances, the criminal authorities were led to believe these acts, with many others, to have But been committed by one daring and active man. all their exertions were inefficient in tracking the guilty party. At length suspicion fell upon a soldier in the Castle. Inquiry and a trial followed, when it was discovered that this soldier, William Gadesby, then only twenty-eight years of age, had not only committed the series of robberies which had attracted so much attention, but had carried on a similar course, with almost unexampled success and daring, from the age of fourteen upwards. Since his enlisting, he had contrived to leave the Castle repeatedly by night: he mentioned at his trial that hackney-coaches, going in and out at late hours from the officers' barracks, afforded him his usual means of passage. This singuHar malefactor, whose exploits also form a theme of remark in fireside tales in Scotland, was sentenced to die on the scaffold, on the 20th of February 1791.

Amongst his greatest crimes, though not one of those for which he suffered, must be reckoned that of his having allowed two innocent men to go to the scaffold for a crime not their own, but his. Such was the case. William Gadesby was the robber of the Dundee Bank. The wretch Macdonald, and the women who supported his evidence, had been actuated by the miserable desire to possess the stipulated reward, and had burdened their souls with the heavy crime of perjury in order to accomplish that object. Speaking of the execution of Gadesby, the Annual Register for 1791 states, "With his last breath he declared Falconer and Bruce, who were executed here two years ago for robbing the Dundee Bank, to be innocent of that crime, and acknowledged his own guilt!" The deed had been committed by him before entering the army. It is impossible to read the case of Falconer and Bruce in the present day, without an indignant sense of the mercilessness with which the laws were administered fifty years ago in Scotland. Here, upon manifestly bad and insufficient evidence, two men of good repute were put to an ignominious death, for a crime which, even had they been guilty of it, would have been far too dearly expiated by the sacrifice of two lives. It was atrocious in the first place to condemn on such evidence, and doubly atrocious in the second place to execute two men for such a crime. Judges sincerely anxious to do justice might have been expected to take some pains to sift and test the cvidence, particularly by the obvious expedient of ascertaining if it was possible, from the Guildhall door, to have seen the robbers descend into the bank. None of the ordinary records of such events hint at such an inquiry having been made. And, considering the dubiety of the case, the supreme authority might have been expected to commute the punishment. But all persons in those days entrusted with the administration of the laws, from royalty itself downwards, were hurried away by an insane anxiety to punish. Life was held as light in the ba

lance against the most trifling article of property; and
servile juries were found to yield to the dictates of
judges in whatever they were pleased to command.
We may surely congratulate ourselves on the better
spirit which has since dawned on all these parties, and
the superior value which is now put on human life-
invariably one of the clearest marks of an advanced
civilisation.

PAINTING UPON GLASS.
GLASS-PAINTING is understood to have had its origin
in the third century, and in the eighth and tenth cen-
turies we have clear proofs of its having been used
for the decoration of church windows. But it was
not till the fourteenth century that the manner of
fixing colours in glass, or enamelling, was discovered.
This was a most important addition to the resources
of the art, and from the period of its discovery, glass-
painting began more especially to flourish. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it reached its acme,
and a prodigious quantity of coloured glass resulted
from the labours of that age. Great painters gave
their aid in the ornamenting of churches in this way.
In Germany, Albert Durer thus gained great celebrity.
France and the Netherlands abounded in artists who
devoted themselves to the same task. England, also,
was visited by Bernhard de Linge, a Fleming, in the
reign of James I., and by him a school was there
founded, which continued the exercise of the art for
many years afterwards. But the taste for thus deco-
rating churches declined soon after, and in the eigh-
teenth century, glass-painting fell altogether into
decay. It has, however, been revived on the conti-
nent in the nineteenth century. M. St Frank of
Nuremberg has recently attained to a great distinction
as a painter on glass at the royal porcelain manu-
factory of Munich. In France, still more recently
(within these five years), M. Thibaut and M. Theve-
not have revived glass-painting at the manufactory of
Clermont, and have executed some works that will
bear comparison with aught produced in past times.
The chapel of Notre-Dame de Beaume has been en-
riched by M. Thibaut with beautiful paintings of this
order, and he has produced two other great pieces, an
Annunciation of the Virgin, and a representation of
Anne of Bourbon at her devotions. The cathedral of
Metz, too, has been recently adorned by some exquisite
glass-paintings of the Virgin and others. In France,
in short, the art has experienced a complete resusci-
tation. The government has lent its patronage, able
artists are directing themselves to the subject, and at
all the late exhibitions of art, specimens have been
exposed that have attracted great attention. We may
expect soon to learn that all the great buildings of
the country are beautified by this art, the products of
which have a superlatively rich and attractive effect.
It may be imagined by some that the art of glass-
call for such observations. But
painting is neither of sufficient importance, nor of
sufficient difficulty,
the case is otherwise. We have had an opportunity
of witnessing the process in this country, and hearing
its details explained, and can readily perceive that the
execution of a great work of this order must be a
thing of no easy accomplishment. Certain metallic
oxides and other mineral preparations, chiefly of the
precious metals, are the substances constituting the
paints or colours. Soft glass is the material operated
upon, crown glass being too hard for the purpose. The
glass-painter, besides being provided with a colour
shop, has a large oven in his work-place, above the
furnace of which are large shelves of iron, such as are
used in stereotyping. The purpose of this is to receive
the glass when made ready in the following manner:
The workman having chosen his colours, and mixed
up the materials as in ordinary water-colour painting,
spreads the compost over the glass with a fine brush
(supposing that this is all to be painted of one colour),
and takes great care to divide and disseminate the
paint accurately and nicely. The plate of glass is
then introduced into one of the oven shelves, and there
exposed for a time to a strong heat. The pores of the
glass are to a certain extent opened, and the metallic
pigment becomes incorporated with the body of it,
without destroying the form, transparency, or polish.
The glass, on being taken out, cooled, and cleaned, is
found to have acquired the tint of the pigment. If
the substance, however, has been spread unequally,
one part will be more deeply tinted than another, and
the heat, also, must be regulated carefully by expe-
rience, otherwise the glass will be more or less fused,
and its form and texture destroyed. The painter
can destroy the smooth surface of the glass when he
chooses, and this is done in obscuring glass, as it is
called, by the use of a white mineral pigment. This
is spread as before, and after the glass is properly
heated, it comes from the oven with the surface rough,
precisely as if it had been ground like the common
obscured glass of an argand burner.

ordinary care is demanded for the regulation of the
to design with the pencil, though this might be done,
heating process. The practice of glass-painters is not
but to cover their ground with the colours, and outline
the desired figures by scraping out the rest with a
knife.

It may now be readily conceived how great will be the difficulty of executing a great painting in this manner. Such figures as diamonds, hearts, and the common ornamental designs of windows, are done with considerable ease, where the coloured part consists of a single uniform tint. But though designs including human figures and dresses are much more trouble they cost, their effect being so rich and beaudifficult, they are, generally speaking, well worth the tiful.

By the inferior modes of glass-painting, which consist simply of laying on the colours on the back of the glass in a cold state, as in ordinary canvass-painting, beautiful works of art have also been produced. The and indeed frequently are. In Edinburgh there are different styles may be mingled to a certain extent, but two mercantile houses, we believe, which carry on the mode of enamel-painting just described, and in these many very beautiful pieces have been produced; but their operations are conducted on a comparatively small scale, there being no demand at present for great pieces for the decoration of public edifices in this country.

CURE OF SQUINTING.

WE extract from the British and Foreign Medical Review, the following account of cures of congenital squinting performed by Professor Diffenbach, of Berlin. The reviewer quotes from the Medicinsche Zeitung for Novem ber 13, 1839, and February 5 and 12, 1840.

"The following cases are masterpieces from the han of a master. The operation is beautiful in its simplicity, and the result delightful to contemplate. Who shall set bounds to the progress of surgery? These operations are the first of the kind ever performed on the living subject; but Stromeyer has the merit of having suggested the operation, and he performed it on the dead body, with a 'CASE L.-The subject of this operation was a child direct view to proving its practicability on the living. seven years old, whose eye was drawn far into the inner angle of the eyelids, so as to produce considerable disfigurement. The operation was performed in the following manner:-The head of the child was held against a third hook, which he gave to a third assistant to hold, the chest of one assistant, while another with two hooks kept the eyelids widely apart. The operator then passed through the conjunctiva, and to some depth in the subjacent cellular tissue at the internal canthus. He next fixed a fine double hook in the sclerotica at the inner ball, where it is continued from it to the internal canthus, angle, and, taking it in his left hand, drew the eye outwards. Then cutting into the conjunctiva close to the and penetrating more deeply by separating the cellular nal rectus muscle, close to its insertion, with a fine pair tissue by the side of the sclerotica, he divided the intershock; and in another instant became straight, so that of scissors. The eye was immediately drawn outwards there was no difference perceptible between its direction by the external rectus, as if it had received an electric and that of the other eye.

The hemorrhage during the operation was but slight, though sufficient to impede it. The after-treatment consisted of cold lotions; no inflammation ensued, and within eight days the cure was completed.

CASE II-Carl Gerhard, aged ten, affected with squint since his fourth year. His parents wishing him to become a printer, were anxious to have this defect removed, as it the point of junction of the iris and sclerotica formed the interfered with composing. The right eye was so completely drawn into the inner angle, that on a first view centre of the anterior surface of the eyeball. By an effort the eye could be drawn from the canthus and placed straight, but could not be turned at all outwards. The operation was performed as in the last case, the conjuncthe extent of four lines, in order to bring the muscle into tiva being cut through, and the sclerotica laid bare to view, which was cut with a curved scissors as before. The squint was gone; the eyeball, when at rest, stood nearly straight, or rather a little turned outwards, and could be turned more readily by the patient's efforts in this direction than inwards. All the other movements of the eye were free. The bleeding was here much less than in the former case, and caused no interruption. The sudden turning of the eyeball outwards, observed in the first case, did not take place here.

The boy felt quite well on the following day. He could separate the eyelids without difficulty. The conwas nearly straight, only turned a little more outwards junctiva in the inner angle of the eye was red. The eye than the other. In eight days the cure was complete. and the eye quite straight.

CASE III. Albert Victor, aged fifteen, affected with strabismus of the left eye since his earliest infancy. The this effort being relaxed, it instantly returned to the eyeball was turned deeply into the inner angle, but by former position. The operation was performed precisely an effort of the will it could be turned straight; but on This is certainly an easy process, where a plate of in the same manner, it being only here specified that the glass is simply to be tinted of a single colour. But external incision in the conjunctiva was semilunar, and matters are altered when figures of many hues are to that the muscle was cut by introducing the pointed blade be intermingled, or, in other words, where a fancy the eye was removed, the ball turned at first outwards, painting is to be put upon one glass. Here, in the but in a moment returned to the straight position. The first place, is to be exercised all the skill of the com- edges of the wound did not gape, so that the external mon pictorial artist, as well in designing as in colour- incision was barely perceptible. The eye was covered ing, and this has to be accomplished, moreover, with with a cold poultice, and the patient subjected to the limited means, seeing that certain paints only can be antiphlogistic regimen. In eight days the cure was com used in the process; while, in the second place, extra-plete, and the squint entirely gone."

of the scissors beneath it. As soon as the hook that held

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skill and success.

"The next booth in the fair into which our party entered was that of Crank Smirky, the celebrated conjuror, who invited the company to witness his wonder ful display of the art of legerdemain: he was dressed as an astrologer, with a loose gown of green velvet, and a red cap; he had a long grey beard, and his nose was bestraddled by a pair of green spectacles.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said the mystic professor, 'I shall have the honour of convincing you this day, that my single hand is more than a match for all the sharp eyes of Overton. You will admit that a beautiful eye makes silence eloquent-a kind eye, contradiction an assent-and an enraged eye, beauty deformed; out my hand shall, by its magic influence, make eloquence dumb, assent a contradiction, and deformity beautiful.'

So saying, the professor beckoned a villager, who sat near the stage, to approach and assist him in the performance of his first grand trick.

Dobby,' exclaimed his terrified wife, 'sit thee still; that man has dealings with the old one; I would not that he should touch your garment for all the gingerbread in the fair.'

This exclamation of the terrified wife set the whole

audience in a roar, and produced a confusion which the skilful conjuror is always anxious to create, when any sly work is to be performed. In truth, this scene had been previously concerted by the renowned Crank Smirky, who had engaged this said Dobby as his confederate. A series of very amusing tricks were then performed with cards and counters; such, for instance, as desiring some person to draw a card from the pack, and having observed what it was, to return it; which card, to the wonder of the company, was immediately found in Dobby's pocket. Mr Seymour informed his children that the explanation of this trick would serve to show the manner in which most

of the deceptions by cards were performed. He said, that the conjuror's pack of cards always contained a card, technically termed a brief card,' or 'the old gentleman,' which is one made on purpose by the cardmaker, and is a little larger than any of the rest; the performer always knows it by feeling it, and can easily force it upon the unsuspecting drawer; should he, however, attempt to take any other, the conjuror, under some pretence, shuffles again, till at length he induces him to take the one intended for him. After the card has been introduced again into the pack, the performer, without any difficulty, withdraws it, and the confederate is called upon to produce the duplicate which had been previously placed in his pocket.

The children were told that the several deceptions with coin, or counters, which they had witnessed, were accomplished by a species of dexterity acquired only by practice, and termed 'palming;' it consisted in being able to retain a shilling, halfpenny, or counter, in the palm of the hand, while it remained extended; thus the performer desires any one to reckon five pieces, which are accordingly placed on the table before him, the conjuror then takes them up, and having dexterously palmed one, he adds it to the number as he places it in the hand of the unsuspecting person.

Tom and his sisters expressed themselves much pleased and surprised with the dexterity of the performer. But,' added the intelligent boy, 'I should be much more gratified by tricks that were indebted for their mystery to some philosophical principle.'

Mr Seymour, turning to his son, said, that if he waited patiently he would shortly be gratified in that wish, for he knew Crank Smirky was prepared to exhibit some recreations in divination, that were founded on the science of numbers.

Nor was Mr Seymour mistaken; for after a few more specimens of his dexterity, the conjuror requested Mr Twaddleton, who was sitting directly in his front, to taken an even number of counters in one hand, and an odd number in the other; and he would tell him, he said, in which hand he held the even number. Mr Twaddleton having complied with the request, he was further desired to multiply the number in the right hand by any even number he pleased, as, for instance, 2; and that in the left hand by an odd number,

as 3.

"I have done so,' said the vicar. Then be pleased to add together the two products, and tell me whether the sum be odd or even.' "It is odd,' replied Mr Twaddleton.

If so,' said the conjuror, the even number of counters will be in your right hand.'

The vicar exposed the counters, and admitted the correctness of the conjuror's decision.

NOTE. This problem is to be found in Hutton's Recreations, and is stated as follows:'A person having in one hand an eren number of

* Darton and Clark, London.

shillings, and in the other an odd, to tell in which hand he has the even number.

Desire the person to multiply the number in the right hand by any even number whatever, and that in the left by any odd number; then bid him to add to gether the two products, and if the whole sum be odd, the even number of shillings will be in the right hand, and the odd number in the left; if the sum be even, the contrary will be the case. By a similar process, a person having in one hand a piece of gold, and in the other a piece of silver, we can tell in which hand he holds the gold, and in which the silver. For this purpose, some value represented by an even number, such as 8, must be assigned to the gold, and a value represented by an odd number, such as 3, must be assigned to the silver; after which the operation is exactly the same as in the preceding example.

To conceal the artifice better, it will be sufficient to ask whether the sum of the two products can be halved without a remainder; for, in that case, the total will be even, and in the contrary case odd. It will be readily seen that the pieces, instead of being in the two hands of the same person, may be supposed to be in the hands of two persons, one of whom has the even number, or piece of gold, and the other the odd number, or piece of silver. The same operations may then be performed in regard to these two persons, as are performed in regard to the two hands of the same person, calling the one, privately, the right, and the other the left."

Ladies and gentlemen,' exclaimed the man of mystery, 'I now humbly crave your silent attention, while I exhibit one of the most wonderful examples of my art. Here is a ring-there a shilling-and there a glove. I shall presently request each of the three gentlemen before me to take one of those articles, so secretly as to prevent the possibility of my discovering the choice he may have made. I have here, you perceive, twenty-four counters; one of which I shall give to you, Mr Seymour; turo to you, reverend sir; and three to you, my young philosopher; the remaining eighteen shall remain on the table. Now, gentlemen, I shall retire, and during my absence you will be so good as to distribute the three articles in any way you may think proper.'

The professor, accordingly, walked off the stage, when Mr Seymour took the ring, the vicar the shilling, and Tom Seymour the glove. The conjuror, on his return, said that he had one more favour to request, that the person who had the ring should take from the eighteen counters on the table as many as he already possessed; the one with the shilling twice as many, and the person with the glove four times as many as he before possessed. The conjuror again retired, in order that the distribution might be made without his observing it. On returning, the conjuror, having first cast his eye upon the counters that remained on the table, informed the company that Mr Seymour had taken the ring, Mr Twaddleton the shilling, and the young gentleman the glove. The moment the parties assented to this decision, the whole company expressed their satisfaction and astonishment by thunders of applause.

"That is really very ingenious,' observed the vicar. 'How could he perform it?' said Tom; 'it is evident that his only guide was the number of counters left

on the board.''

I understand the process by which it was accomplished, and will endeavour, at some future time, to explain it,' replied Mr Seymour.

A number of similar tricks followed, all of which depended upon some algebraical calculation; and the performance was concluded to the entire satisfaction of all present.

NOTE. It is by discovering the number of counters left on the board that the above trick is performed. By means of a table the problem may be immediately solved; but as such a reference would be inconvenient, and, indeed, destructive to the magic of the trick, a Latin verse is substituted, which may be easily carried in the memory, and will be found to answer all the purposes of a table. In order, however, that the become thoroughly acquainted with the machinery of the trick, we shall explain it in the words of its author. The problem is stated as follows:- Three things being prirately distributed to three persons, to guess that which each has got.'

reader may

To make use of these words, you must recollect, that in all cases there can remain only 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, or 7 counters, and never 4. It must likewise be observed, that each syllable contains one of the vowels, which we have made to represent the things proposed, and that the first syllable of each word must be considered as representing the first person, and the second syllable the second. This being comprehended, if there remains only one counter, you must employ the first word, or rather the two first syllables, sal-re, the first of which, that containing A, shows that the first person has the ring represented by A; and the second syllable, that containing E, shows that the second person has the shilling represented by E; from which you may easily conclude that the third person has the glove. If two counters should remain, you must take the second word cer-ta, the first syllable of which, containing E, will show that the first person has the shilling represented by E; and the second syllable, containing A, will indicate that the second person has the ring represented by A. In general, whatever number of counters remain, that word of the verse which is pointed out by the same number must be employed.

SAXON WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

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The English language consists of about thirty-eight thousand words. This includes, of course, not only ra dical words, but all derivatives, except the preterites and participles of verbs; to which must be added some few terms which, though set down in the dictionaries, are either obsolete, or have never ceased to be considered foreign. Of these, about twenty-three thousand, or nearly five-eighths, are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The majority of the rest, in what proportions we cannot say, are Latin and Greek; Latin, however, has the larger * Sharon Turner has adduced passages share. The pas from a series of our most popular writers. sages in question are from the Bible, Shakspeare, Milton, Cowley, Thomson, Addison, Spenser, Locke, Pope, Young, Swift, Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, and Johnson. In five verses out of Genesis, containing one hundred and thirty words, there are only five not Saxon. In as many verses out of the Gospel of St John, containing seventy-four words, there are only two not Saxon. Of the remaining passages, that from Shakspeare contains eightyone words; of these the words not Saxon are thirteen; that from Milton ninety; not Saxon, sixteen: that from Cowley seventy-six; not Saxon, ten: that from Thomson seventy-eight; not Saxon, fourteen: that from Addison seventy-nine; not Saxon, fifteen: that from Spenser ninety-four; not Saxon, twenty: that from Pope eightyseventy-two; not Saxon, fourteen: that from Locks four; not Saxon, twenty-eight: that from Young ninetysix; not Saxon, twenty-one: that from Swift eightyseven; in which nine only are not Saxon: that from Robertson one hundred and fourteen; not Saxon, thirty-four; that from Hume one hundred and one; not Saxon, thirty-eight: that from Gibbon eighty; not Saxon, thirty-one: that from Johnson eighty-seven; not Saxon, twenty-one. In none of these passages is the number of foreign words greater than one-third; in many In all, there are fourteen of them less than one-tenth. hundred and ninety-two words, of which only two hundred and ninety-six are not Saxon. If we were to take this as a criterion, the Saxon would constitute about four-fifths of the language, instead of five-eighths-or about thirty-two fortieths, instead of twenty-five fortieths.-Edinburgh Review.

[Excepting so far as it solves a question in philology, the above exposition is of no value. For some years there has, we think, been a needless fuss about composing in Saxon, or using if possible only words of a Saxon root. Properly speaking, it is of no consequence whence our language is derived; all that writers or speakers have to attend to, is to employ the words which most forcibly and simply express their meaning; whether these be originally from the Saxon or Roman, is a matter of extreme indifference. The object with all writers should be to write English, not Anglo-Saxon.]

DEPARTING EMIGRANT'S SONG.

On the hills of our fathers the sunset is streaming,
I see their brown peaks from the wave:
Upon them in splendour the day-god is beaming,
That cherished more fondly may be, in our dreaining,
The last glimpse of home which he gave.

We thank thee, bright sun! for we still would remember
The scenes that around us have smiled;

Our theme shall they be on the eves of December,
When brightly and cheerily glows the red ember,
Afar on our hearths of the wild.

Our children shall hear of their forefathers' glory,
And lisp in the tongue which they spake;
The triumphs of peace, and the victor-fields gory,
Embalmed in our songs, and recorded in story,
Their young emulation shall wake.

Yes, Scotland! by us in our joy and our sorrow,
Thy name ever hallowed shall be ;
Though far from thy shores shall we be ere the morrow,
A gem from thy crown shall we strive still to borrow,
And ever be worthy of thee.

Let the three things be a ring, a shilling, and a glove. Call the ring A, the shilling E, and the glove I; and in your own mind distinguish the persons by calling them first, second, and third. Then take twentyfour counters, and give one of them to the first person, two to the second, and three to the third. Place the remaining eighteen on the table, and then retire, that the three persons may distribute among themselves the three things proposed, without your observing them. When the distribution has been made, desire the person who has the ring to take from the remaining eighteen counters as many as he has already; the one who has the shilling to take twice as many as he has already, and the person who has the glove to take four times as many. According to the above supposition, then, the first person has taken one, the second four, and the third twelve; consequently, one counter LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W.S. only remains on the table. When this is done, you may return, and, by the number left, can discover what thing each person has taken, by employing the following words :5 6 7 semita vita quies.

1 2 3 Salve certa animæ

T. S.

ORR, Paternoster Row; and sold by all booksellers and newsmen.-Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. Complete sets of the Journal are always to be had from the publishers or their agents; also, any odd numbers to complete sets. Persons requiring their volumes bound along with titlepages and contents, have only to give them into the hands of any bookseller, with orders to that effect.

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CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,"

"CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c.

NUMBER 433.

OUTSIDE AND INSIDE. THERE is an outside and inside in many things besides stage-coaches. We usually at first see only outsides, and think of nothing else; but as we go on in life, we begin to find that there are insides also, and that we must turn up the lining, and look below, in order to ascertain the real characters of things.

Look along any respectable street in one of our large towns-how demure and unimpeachable all the houses appear! Go even into the inside, and be shown up to any of the drawing-rooms, how proper every thing looks! You may ultimately be on visiting terms with the occupants, and dine with them several times, and still all will be smooth and fair. If there be, as often happens, some inmates of pleasing aspect and manners, the favourable impression will be deepened; and you will be apt to suppose that here there is no trace of those jars and cankers which afflict or have afflicted some other home with which you have become familiar. But, in truth, though in one sense you have been in the inside of the house, you are still on the outside of it. You have never yet penetrated below the hardened formal exterior which artificial manners and a wish for good standing with the world impose upon the family. You have only observed that all are well bred, and converse pleasantly with each other, and that there is no apparent lack of the ordinary comforts of life. And such is all that most of us know of each other who live in cities, and only make occasional visits according to invitation. In order to see the real inside of the house, it is necessary to eat in it, not perhaps a whole peck of salt, but at least no inconsiderable quantity, and that in the course of a domesticated residence. It is curious then to find little revelations of the real state of matters gradually breaking out. Perhaps the effect is only like that of subjecting the cheek of beauty to the microscope-coarseness found where all seemed of polished and waxen fairness. Perhaps real woes appear-darkened fortunes and keen apprehensions of future evil-irreconcileable discrepancies of temper in those whom no man can put asunder-bitter though not loud wailings over some member of the flock who seems irretrievably committed to a downward course. A few days may see the stranger who at first deemed all so fair and placid, made the reluctant confidant of parties who have deadly complaints to make of each other. But why peruse the whole catalogue of domestic vexations? Suffice it to know, that of such a nature are the things found in the real insides of many externally good-looking houses. How vain, then, for any one to envy another for an apparently happy home! In all probability, did he know the real character of that other home, he would gladly be contented with his own.

All men have outsides and insides-that is to say, all conform more or less to modes of external decency perhaps in some degree inconsistent with their real character. But while some do this without losing a particle of their innocence, and are in reality as good or perhaps fully better than they appear, the inside in others is, we need scarcely remark, a very different thing from the outside. The extent to which men can simulate virtue, is strikingly proved by the exposures which occasionally take place of superlative hypocrites-men who, after half a lifetime spent in the enjoyment of the highest reputation, are suddenly found to have been delinquents of the blackest dye. Perhaps nothing could entirely protect society from culprits of such extraordinary secretiveness; but surely disappointment would less frequently be felt with the highly esteemed men of the world, if the proper grounds of esteem were better understood. Professions of opinion, expressions of sentiment, wearing solemn looks, conformity to the merest formalities,

SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1840.

at present serve as well to gain high reputation as the most noble practical goodness: are we to wonder that bad men so often impose upon the world, when the world may be said actually to tempt them to try the experiment? Did men look for tests of each other's value only in the good deeds they did, their forbearance and kindness towards their fellows, all those things which constitute the really good man, and which alone the wicked find it difficult to simulate, then might we expect to see hypocrisy come less speed. But even appearances of practical goodness may deceive. They often flow, like certain kinds of talent, rather from infirmity or disease of mind, than from any better cause. Unless they be accompanied by the marks of perfect sanity of reason, unless quite free from all taint of enthusiasm and extravagance, let them also be distrusted.

The outside is unfortunately what men do and always will chiefly judge by ; but this is rather because they find it most convenient, or want the power in all cases to go below the surface, than from a deliberate choice of means. By this habit, such as it is, many peculiarities of human conduct of a less serious nature than the above are governed. Men of simple nature, who think well of themselves, show that they do so, and are called vain and held very light, although they may have many really good qualities: perceiving this, a man of equal or greater self-esteem, but of more worldly nature, conceals the feeling, and, being thought a rationally modest person, is well spoken of, although in truth not nearly so good a man as the other. This is because the self-esteem is an external feature, always conspicuous, and always calling for attention. In like manner, affectations which may amount to mere foible often procure more detestation for those who are guilty of them, than an equal number of grave but unobtrusive vices would do. To turn to another case. The ancient Misses Prinsep, descended from an old but decayed family, and possessing but a very moderate income, have contrived amidst all their poverty still to retain a liveried and halfstarved footman; while Mr John Newall, the affluent mercer, who lives next door, has never yet found courage to hire a scullion-boy,

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No one who does not know the circumstances of the parties minutely, would ever compare the plainlooking menage of the Newalls to the aristocratic style of the old ladies; yet, in sober truth, the Newalls spend more upon luxuries of the most superfluous nature in a month, than the sparing Misses Prinsep do upon their whole household in a quarter of a year. The Newalls escape all supposition of extravagance, simply because their liberality is all directed to things which make no show. But the footman of the Misses Prinsep is an overt act. It is one of the broad marks of style which people think there is no mistaking. And hence it happens that the one of these parties clings to a remnant of high state which circumstances do not justify, while the other, who could afford it twice over, dare not aspire to it. It is perhaps to modifications of the same principle that we are indebted for the infinite varieties of vehicles and equipages which now every where meet the eye, all of them being intended to give the convenience of a carriage, but yet not to look quite like one. Some are low in the wheels; some are professedly open, but with supplementary panels and flaps by which they may on occasion be closed. Some have one peculiarity, some another, but all stop short in some way of the character of the full-blown carriage or chariot; and this, we are persuaded, in most instances, not so much for a saving of price or current expense, but

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

merely on Mrs Gilpin's modest principle, already adverted to. Generally, if fortune continues to smile, the downright carriage is reached at last, but only after a great number of preliminary wrigglings and blinkings, marking the extreme fear of exciting public remark by an external and showing piece of finery.

In little communities, where every one knows every thing about every other person, the physical outside is of little consequence. At least no one feels himself bound to dress up to his station. But in larger communities, where most are strangers to each other, externals become matters of the first importance. There every one must have an outside at least not inferior to his station or character; otherwise unpleasant mistakes would be occurring every hour of the day. On the other hand, the outside being the principal means by which individuals in such circumstances are to be judged of, the evil-disposed have it in their power to assume almost any character. A suit of goodly attire brings the varlet upon a level with the respectable man at once; and hence it comes to pass that the fair outside is, in such communities, rather a negative than a positive recommendation. It is not to be dispensed with, but it will not serve as an absolute diploma of respectability. In the mind of a Londoner, a well-dressed man may be any one of thousands of characters, from the first statesman of the land down to the pickpocket. Something more is needed, to establish a claim to tolerable consideration. In a late novel, a worthy old gentleman is represented as treated in the most insolent style in a police-office, where he had appeared to give evidence against a young petty larcenist, and the sketch appears, as designed by the author, to reflect the greatest discredit on the discrimination, as well as good feeling, of the judge; yet, when the dubiety of all merely external appearances in a great city are considered, such conduct on the part of a man who may be supposed to be accustomed to see all kinds of false appearances put on, looks scarcely unnatural.

66

There is an outside and an inside kind of pride, as may be well seen in the familiar anecdote of Plato and Diogenes. The neat house and well-arranged silk couch of Plato were marks of outside pride; the act of Diogenes, when he came in and trod with dirty feet on his friend's couch, saying, "Thus I trample on the pride of Plato," was a signification of inside pride. Plato was right when he replied, " And with greater pride, Diogenes." The outside pride which merely takes the ordinary modes of showing itself, such as good dress or a neat household, is a much lower measure of the sentiment, than the inside, which wraps itself up in the disguise of a contempt for those things, and is content with its own meditations. In the cynie's case, the process of ideas may be supposed to have been somewhat like the following: "There is a general taste for gay furnishings of house and person. If I live and dress in that style, I shall be confounded with the common herd. To distinguish myself from them, I shall dwell in a tub, and wear a filthy and ragged cloak." The pride which could dictate such a course was probably as much greater than the other species of the passion, as the number of those who acted like Diogenes was less than those whe acted like Plato-for singularity was the real object. In modern times, this passion less frequently exhibits itself in an affectation of slovenliness, than in that of a style of extreme plainness. It is made a principle to eschew certain colours and modes, favourites with the ordinary people of the world; at the same time that excessive richness in substance and ultra cleanness in condition are indulged in, so as to make it clear that poverty has no concern in the matter. At first sight, one is apt to respect a feeling which seems thus to repudiate common indulgences; but its real character of a pretension to some

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