gain as a thing virtually completed, and the other, not being able conscientiously to deny this, found himself bound to make his engagement good. A search was ordered for the fugitives, but it proved fruitless; and all that came out on inquiry was, that the other negroes on the two estates suspected two or three secret meetings to have taken place between the missing parties, notwithstanding all the intervening obstacles. Considering the purposes which he had had in view, it was natural for Mr St Clair to regret this event, and he did so the more, as the interminable woods and wilds of the interior, which must have given shelter for the time, he thought, to the fugitives, were but too likely to prove their grave. It was not that starvation could readily overtake them, for, in that rich clime, the earth produced fruits of itself in abundance, as fabled to do in the golden age, and even clothing was a work requiring little labour or skill; but then the greater part of the country was infested by animals deadly to man. These reflections increased Mr St Clair's regret at the flight of Gomez. But time, that throws its pall over all mortal things and feelings, banished ere long the remembrance of the fugitive. Mr St Clair saw many summers and winters pass away after the date of this event. He married, had children, and became a widower. Of his children, one daughter alone survived to mature years. She, however, was a creature fitted to supply the place of many children, being singular alike for her beauty and excellence of disposition. It was the more fortunate for her father that such was the case, as in his advanced years, or, at least, when he had reached the age of fifty, misfortunes began to fall thick and sore upon him, and he greatly needed a domestic comforter. His mishaps were partly to be ascribed to the weather and climate, and partly to the law. A litigious neighbour-one of the severest pests that can befall a little community-involved Mr St Clair in contests which his open and unsuspecting character but little fitted him to conduct with success, or

even to escape from without great disadvantage. It is needless to enter into the details, however, of Mr St Clair's misfortunes. It is enough to mention that his patrimonial property dwindled away very considerably in his hands, and even the portion which remained became comparatively valueless to him. His slaves, being property of a peculiarly available kind in these countries, were parted with by degrees, to an extent that materially impaired the productiveness of the small landed estate saved from the wreck. Mr St Clair bitterly lamented the separation, as much from

his generally declining condition, could not fail to be
widely known. He had ever been well liked, and his
misfortunes were the subject of general talk and
general commiseration. The latter feeling was greatly
strengthened when it became known that the mar-
riage of two young people who had loved one another
from their infancy, namely, Captain Lightburn and
Miss St Clair, was decisively broken up from the same
cause, the father of the lover having forbidden the
union. Mr Lightburn, it was known, was not a bad
man, but he was avaricious, and had formed the hope,
it was supposed, of getting a great bargain of the
remaining St Clair property through his neighbour's
necessities. This expectation had led him to break
his promise.

The very negroes of the neighbourhood were en-
raged at this conduct of Mr Lightburn. A group of
them were standing in the street of the district village
one day, and showing teeth at a great rate against
him, when one of them suddenly said, "Massa Sanclare
nebber do berry well after him no buy Gomez' wife.
Ah, you no mind Gomez. Nebber mind, me am old.
Me mind dem well." One of the others present, also
an old negro, turned upon the speaker at these words,
and exclaimed, "What you say? Massa Sanclare berry
good man-dat is, good for white man. Him buy
Gomez' wife dat indontickle night Gomez run away,
and him nebber know noting at all about it." Here
a second interruption took place. Unnoticed to any
of the others, this conversation, with all that had
preceded it, had been overheard by an elderly stranger
negro, a wild-looking being, with a head of white
wool, and a garment of the rudest and scantiest de-
scription even for the tropics. This man called on
the talkers to repeat their words. They did so, and
having listened to it with an air of suppressed eager-
ness, he turned away, and disappeared.

Scarcely a week afterwards, a strange scene took
place at Mr St Clair's dwelling. The proprietor was
seated along with his daughter in the cool of the
evening at an open balcony, the father more depressed
in spirits than ever, and the daughter labouring with
the tenderest patience to soothe and cheer her parent.
"All will be well yet, dear father," said she repeat-
edly; "all will be well. Do not give way. Something
will occur to befriend us, if you will but be cheerful
and active." The duteousness of the speaker deserved
such befriending, and at that very moment it was not
far off. Great was the surprise of the father and child
to behold, soon afterwards, a string of negroes, more
by one old negro, and a female advanced also in
than twenty in number, troop in before them, headed
observation was necessary to discover that the whole
group, who presented the appearance of a regular gra-
composed of individuals of both sexes, were all mem-
dation in age, from thirty downwards, and who were
bers of one family, the heads of which were the two
old negroes alluded to. All of them were scantily
clad, but evidently redundant in health and animation.
They knelt before the surprised St Clairs, and all of
claiming," Pardon, massa! pardon, massa!"
them followed the example of the elder ones in ex-

years.

mitting the parents, and the young ones remained as hired servants ever afterwards.

Need we say what was the consequence of this new horde of cultivators upon the estate of Mr St Clair? Under the government of Gomez, the fields soon resumed their former aspect, and the proprietor became a "comfortable" man, if not quite so rich as before. Mr Lightburn speedily lost all hope, also, of getting a bargain of the property, and was content to let it come into his family in a more pleasant and respectable way, namely, by the intermarriage of his son with the beautiful and dutiful heiress. And so ends this TRUE STORY.

SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.

THE Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, written chiefly by himself, and arranged by his sons, form one of the most interesting works of the day, whether regarded as a piece of biography, or as a description of the career of a man in public life. For the sake of those who may not have it in their power to peruse the original, and also that we may attract to the work the attention of those who are placed in more fortunate circumstances, we beg to offer the following brief sketch.

Samuel Romilly was descended, through both his parents, from respectable families, expatriated from the south of France at the commencement of the eighteenth century, on account of their attachment to the Protestant religion. The father became a jeweller in London, and followed that profession with success during his life, being a man of good abilities and the most estimable character. His children were numerous, but few survived to mature years. Samuel, born in 1757, was left in infancy chiefly to the care of servants, his mother being afflicted with ill health; and, at this early point of his career, impressions were made upon his mind which well deserve attention, as having materially influenced his after-career. On reaching nearly the prime of life, he wrote a biographical sketch of his youthful days for his own gratification; and in this record, with which the volumes before us open, he thus refers to the period in question: "It is commonly said to be the happy privilege of youth to feel no misfortunes but the present, to be careless of the future, and forgetful of the past. That happy privilege I cannot recollect having ever enjoyed. "In my earliest infancy, my imagination was alarmed, and my fears awakened, by stories of devils, witches, and

apparitions; and they had a much greater effect upon me than is even usual with children; at least I judge

his own diminishing fortunes; nor was the regret less kind feeling towards his people, as from a regard to on their part, for to him they had been bondsmen only The group was an extraordinary one, and a very slight so, from their effect being of a more than usual durain name. In short, the latter years of Mr St Clair were full of new and painful privations. He was reckoned by his neighbours a falling man, and many prophesied that his all would go from him, and his final days be penniless.

"My poor Helen,” said he one day to his daughter, "I can scarcely bear to see you so cheerful. Do you know what you have lost? I fear you cannot comprehend it, or you would be more downcast." I know I comprehend it well, dear father," was the daughter's reply; "but I can look it all in the face and yet be cheerful. Besides, I know that much of your care and vexation is about me, and I wish to show you that it is uncalled for. I do not vex and fret myself because I am no longer an heiress. If we have but enough to live upon, and while you are with me, I am contented and happy—yes, happy.” The father was silent for a moment, and then continued the conversation. "Ah! I question if we shall even have enough long, my poor girl. The remnant of our property is falling to wreck for want of proper cultivation, and more of it must be sold, I fear, to save the rest. But, Helen, my love," proceeded he, after a pause, " have you thought how this must affect you otherwise? Can you bear up against the cruel blow which must come upon you in another way than by pecuniary losses though caused by them?" "You allude to my engagement with Captain Lightburn, father," said Miss St Clair, with a light and flitting blush, yet such a one as is called to the cheek of youthful maiden by one subject alone. "Yes, I do, my dear," replied the father. "My poor Helen, be prepared for the worst. Mr Lightburn, too, has at length become cold, or rather inimical, to your sinking father; the son will do the same, or will not, at least, be permitted to do otherwise." "No, no, you wrong him," said the young lady hastily. "Captain Lightburn has written to me; he is to be home in a few days, and he has pressed me to consent to the immediate fulfilment of our engagement, though his father, by letter, had requested him to break it off at once, as he best may. Do him justice, dear father; such is the purport of his letter. received it yesterday, but did not wish to vex you by disclosing it." "And have you answered it, Helen asked Mr St Clair. "I have, sir," said the young lady; "I fulfilled his father's wish by setting him formally at liberty, and expressed my intention never to consent to any step of which his father was not cognisant." "That is my own, my good Helen," exclaimed Mr St Clair, folding her in his arms. "And clamation was, can you bear up against this shock, my sweet child?" Miss St Clair was silent for a few moments, and her tears fell fast in the meanwhile. "Yes, dear father, I will try. And fear not," continued she more cheerfully, it is my duty, and I will be supported in the struggle !"

abound, infested my imagination very long after I tion. The images of terror with which those tales had discarded all belief in the tales themselves, and in

the notions on which they are built; and even now, although I have been accustomed for many years to pass my evenings and my nights in solitude, and without even a servant sleeping in my chambers, I must, with some shame, confess that they are sometimes very unwelcome intruders upon my thoughts.

I had other apprehensions, and some of a kind which are commonly reserved for maturer years. I was A light broke suddenly on Mr St Clair's mind. He oppressed with a constant terror of death, not indeed came down to the group, and exclaimed, "You are for myself, but for my father, whose life was certainly Gomez !" "Yes, massa! pardon!" We shall not much dearer to me than my own. I never looked on weary the reader with the explanation of Gomez in his countenance, on which care and affliction had his own words. On the occasion of his flight with his deeply imprinted premature marks of old age, without wife, he had gone far inland, and, when almost des- reflecting that there could not be many years of his pairing of life, had lighted on a small colony of blacks, excellent life still to come. If he returned home later runaways like himself, who had fixed themselves in a than usual, though but half an hour, a thousand accisecluded spot, and who there kept themselves in ex- dents presented themselves to my mind; and, when istence, for many years, by mutual aid. Of this settle-put to bed, I lay sleepless, and in the most tormenting ment Gomez became a member, and continued so for anxiety, till I heard him knock." This uncommon many years. During all that time, he had only once sensitiveness of disposition, partly natural, perhaps, or twice, and with great caution, visited the frequented but most certainly fostered also, to a large degree, districts of the colony. On the last occasion, he had by the unfortunate morbidness of fancy alluded to, heard tidings about Mr St Clair which made a deep tended ultimately to produce consequences most unimpression on him. The runaway negro had a warm happy for Romilly himself, as well as for his country, and generous heart, and he never had forgotten the to which he had made his life of the deepest value. A kindness of his old master, to whom, moreover, he was warning to parents, and all employed about the young, intelligent enough to know, he was regularly bound is thus to be drawn from this case, in which we see by a legal payment, or outlay of money, on the other's one of the most powerful of human intellects unalterpart. As his family grew up, their outlawed and pre-ably affected by erroneous treatment in mere infancy. carious condition, as a runaway race, had often in- When a little further advanced in life, Romilly was clined him to give himself up, and, after hearing of sent to a very inferior school, selected seemingly beMr St Clair's distresses, he went back to his colony cause it had been once kept by a French refugee, and with a fixed resolution to return to his master, and because many persons of that description (who were relieve his wants by the hands of himself and his fa- always very intimate among themselves, and attended mily, which numbered twenty-one members. Even a common place of worship) still sent their children these formed still but a part of his family, for two or thither. The miserable creature who kept this semithree of his elder children had united their fortunes nary was a tyrant to all but a few boys of the more with those of other young persons of the original co-affluent class, among whom Romilly was numbered; Ilony, and a few young, merry-eyed, white-teethed, but the latter gives us a remarkable proof of the grinning creatures, slung at the backs of the stronger early excellence of his disposition, by telling us that members of the party, had a right to call old Gomez he was wont to "burn with shame at not being among grandfather. the victims of the master's injustice." He also made the observation, that the ill-conduct of the boys increased in proportion to the cruelty exercised upon them. After learning, at this school, scarcely any thing but a little French, Samuel was taken away, and various schemes were proposed for his settlement in life. The profession of an attorney was thought of, as also that of a merchant, and several others. Fortunately, obstacles sprung up for the moment in the way of all these proposals. We say fortunately, because by being temporarily taken into his father's own

The partial sale of Mr St Clair's properties, and

Such was the story that Gomez told, and which he closed by the reiterated cry of "Pardon, massa! pardon !" Mr St Clair, for many reasons, was deeply affected by this event. But his first answering ex"No! no! I can never hold myself entitled to a right over this family." The simple creatures, however, cried at his refusal, and laughed when they gained his permission that they should at least serve and work for him. And upon these terms of voluntary servitude did the healthy and happy race of Gomez enter upon the St Clair estate. The proprietor of it, however, insisted upon formally manu

*Three vols. London: Murray. 1840.

many years survive me, it may be a source of great Sir Samuel was destined, through these causes, to attain
satisfaction to turn over these pages; to learn or to success only to a very limited extent in his lifetime, his
recollect what I was, what I have done, with whom I toils were not thrown away. Almost by him alone, was
have lived, and to whom I have been known. Such the public mind prepared by slow degrees for the adop-
is the information that these pages will afford, and tion of a more humane penal code, and for the reforma-
they will, I fear, afford nothing more. Of instruc- tion of abuses in the civil laws. Latterly, his sons,
tion there is but little that they can supply: what to animated by similar humane considerations, have been
shun, or what to pursue, is that of which a life, so instrumental in carrying into effect several of his pro-
little chequered with events as mine, can hardly pre-posed meliorations; and others, who admit themselves
sent any very striking lessons. I have been in no to be pupils of Romilly, have been successful in effect-
trying situations; the force of my character has never ing similar improvements. In short, if the entire
been called forth; I have fallen into no very egregious abolition of capital punishments seems now to be a
faults, and I have had the good fortune to escape thing nearly attainable, we owe it in a great measure
those situations which generally lead to them; but, to the twenty years' labours of Sir Samuel Romilly.
from the pious affection which may have been instilled
into my children's minds, they may set a considerable
value, and take a lively interest in facts which, to the
rest of mankind, must appear altogether insipid and
indifferent. It is, therefore, to enjoy conversation
with my children, at a time when I shall be incapable
of conversing with any one, and to live with them, as
it were, long after I shall have descended into the
grave, that I proceed with this narrative of my life.
It is surrounded by these children in their happy in-
fant state; cheered with the little sallies of their wit;
exhilarated with their spirits; become youthful, as it
were, by their youth; and transported at sometimes
discovering in them the dawnings of their mother's
virtues; it is in the repose of a short period of leisure
after unusual fatigues in my profession; it is in a fine
season, in the midst of a beautiful country, with some
of the richest and most luxuriant scenes of nature
spread before me; it is in the midst of all these sources
of enjoyment and of happiness, that I sit down to this
pleasing employment."

In 1818, his beloved wife fell grievously ill, and the brief entries in Sir Samuel's diary of this period show how inseparably his existence was entwined with hers. On the 9th of October she had become slightly better, and the diary then records that the writer" slept for the first time after many sleepless nights." She relapsed, and died on 29th October; and, three days afterwards, his finely-fibred intellect being disarranged by the heavy calamity, Sir Samuel Romilly terminated his own life, leaving a reputation, both as respects public or private character, excelled by that of no man among his contemporaries.

SOME GOSSIP RESPECTING THE CARSE
OF GOWRY.

office, young Romilly was left with such leisure as enabled him to supply a great existing deficiency, and educate himself. He became an unlimited reader. His father's easy or rather wealthy circumstances gave the youth the power of purchasing books and entering libraries at will, and he used the privilege to the acquisition of extensive general information. Nor was this all. He had formerly begun to learn the Latin language, but he now made himself a good classical scholar, and read all the best works of antiquity. In short, he fairly educated himself, as so many other men of talent have done. Sir Samuel's picture of his family-circle at this period, consisting of his parents, his brother, his sister, and himself, is a delightful one. Their house, in High Street, Marylebone, was not large, and a casual observer might have imagined their comforts to be few. "But those who had mingled in our family, and had hearts to feel in what real happiness consists, would have formed a very different judgment. They would have found a lively, youthful, and accomplished society, blest with every enjoyment that an endearing home can afford; a society united by a similarity of tastes, dispositions, and affections, as well as by the strongest ties of blood. They would have admired our lively, varied, and innocent pleasures; our summer rides and walks in the cheerful country, which was close to us; our winter evening occupations of drawing, while one of us read aloud some interesting book, or the eldest of my cousins played and sung to us with exquisite taste and expression; the little banquets with which we celebrated the anniversary of my father's wedding, UNPREPARED as our English readers may be for the and of the birth of every member of our happy society; announcement, there are two or three plains in Scotand the dances with which, in spite of the smallness land. One, and perhaps the principal one, is the of our rooms, we were frequently indulged. I cannot recollect the days, happily I may say the years, which Such a passage as this it is impossible to curtail, Carse of Gowry, a broad stripe of almost perfectly thus passed away, without the most lively emotion. though, by quoting it, we leave to ourselves but little level land, stretching along the north side of the Firth I love to transport myself in idea into our little par- space for noticing the events of Romilly's public life. of Tay, and forming part of the county of Perth. It lour with its green paper, and the beautiful prints of After visiting the Continent, he was called to the is about fifteen miles in length, and in some places Vivares, Bartolozzi, and Strange, from the pictures of bar in 1783, and entered on the midland circuit in four or five in breadth, the hills of Fife rising on the Claude, Carracci, Raphael, and Correggio, with which the following year. In 1784, he also translated a its walls were elegantly adorned; and to call again to pamphlet of Mirabeau, whose warmest friendship, as south beyond the Firth, while, to the north, there is a mind the familiar and affectionate society of young well as that of Dumont and other distinguished fo- similar range of moderately high hills, dividing the and old intermixed, which was gathered round the reigners, he afterwards enjoyed, as their correspon- district from Strathmore and the Stormont, two simifire; and even the Italian greyhound, the cat, and the dence with him, in these volumes, sufficiently proves.larly level tracts of less extent; beyond which, again, spaniel, which lay in perfect harmony basking before Lord Lansdowne was one of the first British statesmen to the north, rises the great rampart of the Gramit. I delight to see the door open, that I may recog-whose notice he attracted, and by that nobleman he pians. At the lower or east end of the Carse of nise the friendly countenances of the servants, and, was early offered a seat in parliament. But this and Gowry, is Dundee, from which the smoke of numeabove all, of the old nurse, to whom we were all en- other similar offers he declined, from a dislike to rous factories is seen perpetually rising. At the deared, because it was while she attended my mother enter the house but as an independent or popularly upper or west end, about the place where the river that her health had so much improved." elected member. A number of years also elapsed ere ceases to be navigable, and in one of the most beautiful he rose at the bar; and here the cause was one not spots in the country, is placed the "fair city" of less honourable to him. He never concealed his early Perth. The ordinary road between these two towns formed wishes for the reform both of our civil and passes through the whole length of the Carse, with criminal laws, and in the eyes of employing attorneys (to all appearance) scarcely a rise or fall of a single such sentiments were any thing but recommendatory. foot from end to end. However, Romilly's abilities ultimately overcame all This fine plain, being composed, as far as the soil obstacles. In 1798, being then evidently in the way is concerned, of a deep clayey alluvium, is, in the to abundant wealth, as well as to the highest profes- proper season, one sea of waving grain of the richest sional honours, he married Miss Gerbett, of Knill kind, excepting that here and there the eye rests Court, Herefordshire, with whom he had formed ac- upon a gentleman's mansion, thickly ensconced in wood, or upon a scarcely less comfortable-looking the reader. "Some miles from Bowood is the form suite of farm-buildings, beside which, perhaps, several of a white horse, grotesquely cut out upon the downs, stacks of last year's grain may be observed, even while and forming a land-mark to a wide extent of country. the crop of the present year is yellowing unto the To that object it is that I owe all the real happiness harvest. No stone enclosures harshly break up the of my life. In the year 1796, I made a visit to wide expanse into formal squares, but at the utmost Bowood. My dear Anne, who had been staying there a low hedge-row divides field from field-the more some weeks with her father and her sisters, was about general demarcation, even where the estates of diffeto leave it. The day fixed for their departure was rent proprietors are concerned, being merely a sunk the eve of that on which I arrived; and, if nothing drain. Only in two or three places does the ground had occurred to disappoint their purpose, I never rise at all above the general surface; and it is remarkshould have seen her. But it happened that, on the able that most of these places bear names in which preceding day, she was one of an equestrian party the syllable inch occurs as, for example, Inchsture, which was made to visit this curious object; she over- Inch Martin, &c. Inch is Gaelic for island. [Strange heated herself by her ride; a violent cold and pain in to say, it signifies the same thing in some of the her face was the consequence. Her father found it aboriginal languages of North America.] It is thereindispensably necessary to defer his journey for several fore believed that all these places were at one time in days, and in the mean time I arrived. I saw in her the condition of islands, while the adjacent country the most beautiful and accomplished creature that was a deep flow or morass, or perhaps covered with ever blessed the sight and understanding of man. A the waters of the Tay. That the carse was at one most intelligent mind, an uncommonly correct judg- time in the latter state, tradition loudly avers; ment, a lively imagination, a cheerful disposition, a and such is said to have been the case since the noble and generous way of thinking, an elevation and country at large began to be inhabited. Places are heroism of character, and a warmth and tenderness even pointed out on the face of hills above the carse, of affection such as are rarely found even in her sex, on the north side, where rings used to confine vessels were among her extraordinary endowments. I was had been found rivetted in the rock. It is certain captivated alike by the beauties of her person and that this fine region continued to be a mere morass the charms of her mind. A mutual attachment was till within a century from the present time. The formed between us, which, at the end of little more inhabitants, instead of the race of intelligent and than a year, was consecrated by marriage.” affluent farmers they now are, were then a set of boors, who contended for a wretched maintenance with a soil of wet clay, and were generally known as the Carles [that is, churls] o' the Carse. A story goes that a certain laird, provoked out of all patience by their rude and intractable nature, declared in his anger that he believed he could make better men out of the clay with his own hands. Not long after, he got bogged in going home, and, after some hours of vain struggling, was fain to ask the help of a carle whom he saw passing. "Ah, yes," said the hob-nail, "I see you are making your men: I'll not disturb you."

The autobiographical sketch from which these extracts are taken, brings down the life of Romilly only to his twenty-first year, though not written till after he had arrived at the age of thirty-nine, and had been at the bar for twelve years. One of the most interesting points in these volumes consists in the contrast of feelings and circumstances, which the opening of the second and distinct autobiographical sketch exhibits, as compared with the first. In commencing his first sketch, he says, "I sit down to write my life; the life of one who never achieved any thing memor-quaintance in a way that he must himself describe to able, and who will probably leave no posterity." He continues to say, that a subject so uninteresting could never attract any readers but himself: "It is for myself I write, for myself alone." Written in 1813, the second sketch thus opens :-" After an interval of seventeen years, I am about to resume the task of writing my life-a task undertaken in very different circumstances, and with very different views, from those with which I now resume it. When I began to set down the few events of my unimportant history, I was living in great privacy; I was unmarried, and it seemed in a very high degree probable that I should always remain so. My life was wasting away with few very lively enjoyments, and without the prospect that my existence could ever have much influence on the happiness of others; or that I should leave behind me any trace by which, twenty years after I was dead, it could be known that ever I had lived. But since that period, and within the last few years, I have been in situations that were more conspicuous; and though it has never been my good fortune to render any important service, either to my fellow-creatures or to my country, yet, for a short period of time at least, some degree of public attention has been fixed on me. It is, however, with no view to the public that I am induced to preserve any memorial of my life, but wholly from private considerations. It is in my domestic life that the most important changes have taken place. For the last fifteen years, my happiness has been the constant study of the most excellent of wives; a woman in whom a strong understanding, the noblest and most elevated sentiments, and the most courageous virtue, are united to the warmest affection, and to the utmost delicacy of mind and tenderness of heart; and all these intellectual perfections are graced and adorned by the most splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld. She has borne to me seven children, who are living; and in all of whom I persuade myself that I discover the promise of their, one day, proving themselves not unworthy of such a mother. Some of them are of so tender an age that I can hardly hope that I shall live till their education is finished, and much less that I shall have the happiness to see them established in life; and of some it is not improbable that I may be taken from them while they are yet of such tender years that, as they advance in life, they may retain but little recollection of their father. To these, and iven to my dear wife, if, as I devoutly wish, she should

In 1806, when the Whig party, to which he had attached himself, came into power, Romilly became Solicitor-General, on which occasion he received the honour of knighthood, though greatly against his will; he also now entered parliament for Queensborough. During his short tenure of office, he gave universal satisfaction, and afterwards maintained the esteem of all men, as a representative of the nation, up to the period of his decease. He distinguished himself, above all, as an advocate of humanity in our criminal code, and reformer of our civil laws. For many years, in session after session of parliament, he laboured unweariedly in his liberal and benevolent course, endeavouring to lessen the severity of the laws against felony, forgery, and other branches of crime, then punished capitally in almost every case. But the reigning king was a stern upholder of the existing laws, and all the chief legal dignitaries of the time opposed themselves to Romilly's views. Though

We must not be too ready to sneer at such traditions as the above. The modern doctrine of changes of level in the earth's surface gives it considerable credibility. It could have only required an elevation of some ten or twelve feet (such an elevation as often takes place in South America at this day) to convert the Carse of Gowry from the condition of a broad estuary to its

present state. Perhaps the elevation is still gradually, though imperceptibly, advancing, just as it may be a slow and unobserved sinking which is causing the sea to aggress upon the coast in some other districts. This supposition derives some countenance from an old popular saying with regard to two large boulder stones which lie within the water-mark at Invergowry, near the bottom of the Carse, and go by the name of the Gows of Gowry. It is said of these stones, from which the sea is supposed to be gradually receding,

"When the Gows of Gowry come to land,

The day of judgment's near at hand." The prophecy is laid in the name of Thomas the Rhymer. As such it is, of course, of no value; but, if it be an indication that the stones appear from time to time to be somewhat nearer the land, the couplet is not unworthy of notice. At Invergowry, it may here be remarked, is one of a series of small harbours constructed along the Firth of Tay about sixty years ago, for the shipping of rural produce, and which have been of great service in advancing agriculture in this beautiful region.

Many fine mansions are interspersed throughout the Carse. The traveller, advancing from Dundee, finds the first of any note in Castle Huntly, a stupendous old fortalice which formerly belonged to the Strathmore family, and now to a gentleman named Paterson. The next is Rossie Priory, the seat of Lord Kinnaird-a modern specimen of the monastic style, at least in externals. Errol, the seat of Mr Allan, and Murie, the seat of Miss Spence Yeaman, are conspicuous near the centre of the district. Farther on, we have Glendoig, the seat of Mr Craigie, some of whose predecessors have been eminent in the law. Megginch (one of the ancient islands of the Carse) is the residence of a family, the ladies of which have been remarkable during several generations for their beauty, and the rank which some of them thereby attained. A certain "bonnie Jeany Drummond" of Megginch, who, according to a song in her praise, "towered aboon them a'," became Duchess of Athole, by which alliance she gave occasion to a former lover, a Dr Austin, to write the well-known complaint, "For lack of gowd she's left me." Seggieden, the residence of a branch of the Hays of Kinnoull, is a little way farther west. In that house is kept an old family-piece in the shape of a drinking cup, which every successive laird was expected to drain at a draught, in order to prove his being worthy of the honours of the family. This is alluded to in an old local proverb, the sense of which, we must own, is somewhat obscure.

"Suck it out, Seggieden,

Though it's thin, it's weel pledged." But by far the finest house in the whole district is Kinfauns, the seat of Lord Gray, a very ancient Scottish baron, one of whose family is noted in Mary's sad history under the name of the Master of Gray. This superb modern castle is felicitously placed on a terrace about a hundred feet above the level of the Carse, with lofty wooded heights on both sides, and fine cultivated slopes extending behind, while the front commands one of the most beautiful views in the country, composed of the Tay winding gracefully through its rich vale, and the Fife hills rising at no great distance beyond. So elegant a house, so beautifully situated, and adorned with so many objects of taste, it has rarely been our fortune to visit. The principal floor is composed of a magnificent suite of apartments, comprehending, besides a dining-room and two drawingrooms, a splendid vestibule and gallery, full of statuary, &c., a gorgeous library, a billiard-room, and a room which Lord Gray calls his "workshop," seeing that it contains the tools, machines, and philosophical instruments, with which he amuses his leisure. In all of these rooms there are pictures by the first masters, constituting in themselves an attraction of the highest order. One by Guercino, in the principal drawing-room," the Denial of Christ by Peter," is certainly one of the most arresting pictures we have ever chanced to behold. Lord Gray has spent a lifetime in collecting the many beautiful works of art of all kinds with which his house is adorned.

The district of Gowry contains several places which no one acquainted with the history of our country can visit without interest. At the back of the range of hills bounding the Carse on the north, is Dunsinnan, so celebrated in the tragic tale of Macbeth. This hill stands detached from the rest, and, rising to a height of seven or eight hundred feet, commands a view of the country around to a considerable distance, including Strathmore, the Stormont, and Blairgowrie. Amongst the hills bounding the distance, the attention of the visiter is always directed to Birnam, which is in the immediate neighbourhood of Dunkeld, and fully fifteen miles distant. Dunsinnan bears on its face and top substantial proofs of Macbeth's history. The remains of a waggon road are observable sloping round the hill from the bottom to the top, being no doubt that by which the usurper caused his thanes to drag the materials for his castle. On the top are the remains of several concentric walls and fosses, and of some large building which they had surrounded, as well as of a well by which it is said the garrison was supplied with water. One is filled with strange feelings in standing amidst these grassy vestiges of what was a castle eight hundred years ago-a castle reared Ly a tyrant to defend himself from a nation's hatred, and amidst whose ruins he ultimately perished. It is felt, at the same time, how history sinks beneath the tale told, however wildly, by genius; and it is to Shak

speare, not to Dalrymple, that we revert for the story
of the usurper, while endeavouring to realise it on the
ground where it is said to have taken place. It is re-
markable how correct in general the bard of Avon has
contrived to be with respect to the geography of his
play; and this has led to a surmise that he may have
visited the spot in person, possibly in the capacity of
a member of the company of players which Elizabeth
is known to have sent to Scotland to regale James VI.,
and which appears to have acted at the neighbouring
city of Perth. It is, however, quite possible that
Shakspeare may have attained all this correctness by
merely adhering closely to the legend he found in
Hollinshed's Chronicles.

Amongst the hills overlooking the Carse are several
places noted in the popular accounts of Sir William
Wallace. Kilspindy is now a small parish village, but
was formerly the site of a castle: it lies at the open-
ing of one of the little glens which pervade this range
of hills, about half way up the carse. Henry the Min-
strel relates that, when Scotland was subjugated by
Edward, the elder Wallace fled with his eldest son to
the Lennox, and that then the mother, with her
second son, William,

"To Gowry passed, and dwelt in Kilspindy.

The knicht, her father, thither he them sent
To his uncle, that with full gude intent
In Gowry dwelt, and had gude living there-
Ane aged man, the whilk received them fair."
Young Wallace was then placed at school in Dundee,
where, however, his indignation at the insolence of the
English garrison led to his killing the son of a distin-
guished officer, and he had then to fly for his life.
Escaping from the town, he made for Kilspindy, and
on his way is said by tradition to have rested for a
little at the village of Forgandenny, where a poor man
named Smith and his wife refreshed him with cakes
and milk. Little more than forty years ago, the de-
scendants of Smith showed, the stone on which the
hero had sat by their ancestor's door, and perhaps do
so still. While skulking under the protection of his
uncle, he is said to have concealed himself occasionally
in a cave within the glen of Pitroddie, near Kilspindy.
We had lately the curiosity to visit this glen, and to
inspect the cave. The glen is wild and lonely, with
steep furzy slopes, and a little rill trickling at the
bottom. In the face of a porphyritic rock overhang-
ing the rivulet, there is a long slit, which was probably
at one time masked with brushwood. On entering
this opening, we find that from the rock hanging over
in a screen-like fashion in front, there is room both to
stand and lie in the interior. This, according to tra-
dition, was the lair of the brave youth who was des-
tined thereafter to "rescue Scotland thryse." At the
distance of about a couple of miles to the westward,
and within a similar opening of the hills, are the re-
mains of the ancient tower of Balthayock, the residence
of that family of Blairs, of which Wallace's friend and
chaplain, Mr Robert Blair, was a scion. We lately
felt no small surprise at learning that this family still
exists, and in possession of its original property, though
it has removed its residence to a small modern man-
sion in the neighbourhood. The old tower is now re-
duced in height, but what remains is of great age and
vast strength: a plain dwelling adjoins, on which we
found a coat armorial, with the initials A. B., and the
date 1578. The poem of Blind Harry, we may only
remind our readers, professes to be constructed on the
basis of a history of Wallace compiled by Mr Robert
Blair. Kinfauns is another place associated with the
name of Wallace. The ancient castle, which stood on
the site of the present, was the seat of Thomas Longue-
ville, a noted French pirate, whom Wallace over-
powered at sea, and converted into an ally, and who
seems to have been the ancestor of a family named
Charteris, long settled at Kinfauns. There still exists
in the modern castle a two-handed sword, which inva-
riable tradition describes as having formerly belonged
to Wallace.

One of the most picturesque of the openings in the
Gowry hills is occupied by the old mansion of Fingask,
the seat of Sir Peter Murray Threipland, Bart., from
whose terraces, in our opinion, the views are even finer
than from those of Kinfauns, the space commanded
being much greater and equally beautiful, while the
opposite hills, being more remote, give all their peculiar
effect without any detraction on the score of tameness
or deficiency of wood. Fingask was remarkable in the
last century for the Jacobitism of its proprietors. Sir
David Threipland was in the insurrection of 1715, and
his lady entertained at this house the unfortunate
prince for whose sake the party had taken up arms,
while on his progress from Peterhead to Perth. The
estate was consequently forfeited, and the family dis-
possessed of their ancient seat. A striking anecdote is
related of the lady of the mansion on that occasion.
Amidst the ruin of her husband's affairs, and while he
was endeavouring to escape from the country, she gave
birth to a son. A few frightened friends had gathered
round her at that distressing moment, and amongst
the rest a clergyman of the persecuted Episcopal
Church of Scotland from Perth. It was desirable to
use the services of this gentleman while he remained
in the house; but the friends knew not how to pro-
ceed, having no instructions from the father, and being
fearful of agitating the mind of the mother with ques-
tions. The lady, hearing their whispers in her chamber,
and comprehending that they wished to know what
name should be bestowed on the child, said hastily,
from her bed, "Stuart, to be sure." And the infant

was christened by that name accordingly, at the very moment when, for its sake, the parents were ruined. This child lived to fight in the insurrection of 1745-6, after which he skulked a long time in the Highlands in company with Young Locheil. Escaping all these perils, he lived to purchase back the family property by means of his wife's fortune; and the government, in 1824, restored the title to his son. In the house are still shown some remains of the bed occupied by the old chevalier, and also the camp bed which Prince Charles carried about with him in his more romantic campaign, besides a great quantity of medals and other interesting memorials of the expatriated family of Stuart.

The people amongst the hills are a more primitive people than those of the Carse, and retain many oldworld stories which, in another situation, must have long ago been obliterated. There is a lonely ruined tower in this mountain district, called Evelick Castle, till a recent period the seat of a branch of the family of Lindsay. One of the last Lindsays of Evelick married a sister of the famous Earl of Mansfield; and one of the children of that pair married Allan Ramsay, the celebrated portrait-painter. The place is now desolate, and the property has been divided amongst heirs. female. With a wild and tragic tale respecting Evelick, we shall conclude this long chapter of chit-chat. Some ages ago, the laird of Evelick, being a widower with one son, married a widow who also had a son about the same age. The young people grew up together; but the lady's child soon saw that he was a very different person in the eyes of the world from his stepbrother. Envy and deadly malice then took possession of him, and he one day beguiled the other youth into the neighbouring glen of Pitroddie, the same lonely dell where Wallace had found refuge from the English. Having there induced his brother to lie down upon the ground, as for the purpose of measuring their comparative lengths, he cut the throat of the unsuspecting youth, and then, in an agony of fear and remorse, rushed home to the castle of Evelick, where he shut himself up in his own room. The story goes on to relate, that his mother and step-father saw him no more, and that he continued in his room, fed by his nurse through a small window, until he was taken to Edinburgh by the officers of justice, and there tried and condemned to death. His original doom was to be hanged; but his mother gave a sum of money to obtain for him the less ignominious death of decapitation, and he thus perished accordingly.

SKETCHES OF SUPERSTITIONS.
WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND.

WITCHCRAFT was first denounced in England, by
formal and explicit statutes, in the year 1541, in the
reign of Henry VIII. Previously to that time, many
witch-trials had taken place, and severe punishments
had even been inflicted on the parties concerned; but
this was occasioned by the direction of the arts of
sorcery, in these particular instances, against the lives
and well-being of others, and not from the legal crimi-
nality of such arts themselves. Shakspeare has made
some early cases of this nature familiar to us, and in
particular that of the Duchess of Gloucester, who, for
conspiring with witches against the life of the reigning
sovereign, Henry VI., was compelled to do public
penance, and imprisoned for life. But, as has been
said, the mode of prosecuting the guilty purpose was
here altogether a subsidiary matter. If a person waved
his hat three times in the air, and three times cried
"Buzz!" under the impression that by that formula
the life of another might be taken away, the old law
and law-makers (as, for example, Selden, who states
this very case), considered the formulist worthy of
death as a murderer in intent; and, upon this prin-
ciple, the trafficking with witches was punished in
early times.

Witchcraft, however, by and bye assumed greater statutory importance, in England as elsewhere. Henry VIII.'s two acts were levelled against conjuration, witchcraft, false prophecies, and pulling down of

crosses.

Here the charge was still something beyond mere sorcery, and it was left for Elizabeth, in 1562, to direct a statute exclusively against that imaginary crime. At the same time, that princess extenuated her conduct in part, by limiting the penalty of the crime, when stripped of its customary accessories, to the pillory. The first transgression, at least, received no heavier punishment. The cases of Elizabeth's reign were chiefly cases of pretended possession, sometimes, however, involving capital charges against those said to have caused the possession. In one famous case, of which the main features were as ludicrous as the issue was deplorable, three poor persons, an old man named Samuel, with his wife and daughter, were tried at Huntingdon, for having bewitched the children of a Mr Throgmorton. Joan Throgmorton, a girl of fifteen, and the eldest of the children, was the main witness for the prosecution. She related many scenes, in which the actors were herself and a number of spirits sent by Dame Samuel to torment her, and to throw her into fits. These spirits, she said, were on familiar terms with her, and were named Pluck, Hardname, Catch, Blue, and three Smacks who were cousins. Among other things, she said that one of the Smacks professed himself an admirer of hers, and beat the rest for her sake, as in the following instance related by her. One day Smack appeared before her.

"Whence come you, Mr Smack?" she said to him. trade for many years (from 1644 downwards), the
"From fighting Pluck and the rest, with cowl-staves, tide of popular opinion finally turned against Hop-
in Dame Samuel's back-yard," replied Smack; and kins, and he was subjected, by a party of indignant
soon thereafter, accordingly, Pluck and Blue walked experimenters, to his own favourite test of swimming.
in, the one with his head broken, and the other limp-It is said that he escaped with life, but, from that
ing. "How do you manage to beat them," said the time forth, he was never heard of again.
young lady to the victorious Smack; "you are little, The era of the Long Parliament was that, perhaps,
and they are big." "Oh," says Smack, "I can take which witnessed the greatest number of executions
up any two of them, and my cousins beat the rest." for witchcraft. Three thousand persons are said to have
Of such stuff were these charges made. It would perished during the continuance of the sittings of that
appear that they were either the offspring of insanity body, by legal executions, independently of summary
on the part of the youthful Throgmortons, or that, deaths at the hands of the mob. Witch-executions,
having begun the farce in sport or spite, the accusers however, were continued with nearly equal frequency
found at length that they could not retreat without a long afterwards. One noted case occurred in 1664,
disgraceful confession of imposture. In part, the con- when the enlightened and just Sir Matthew Hale
duct of the poor Samuels was affecting, and even high- tried and condemned two women, Amy Dunny and
minded. After lengthened worrying, the accusers got Rose Callender, at Saint Edmondsbury, for bewitch-
Dame Samuel indirectly to confess her guilt, by making children, and other similar offences. Some of the
ing her repeat a prescribed charm, which had the effect items of the charge may be mentioned. Being ca-
of at once bringing the children out of their fits. But priciously refused some herrings, which they desired
the old man and the daughter steadily maintained their to purchase, the two old women expressed themselves
innocence. The unfortunate family were condemned in impatient language, and a child of the herring-dea-
on the 4th April 1593, and soon after executed. ler soon afterwards fell ill-in consequence. A carter
When James I. ascended the English throne, he drove his waggon against the cottage of Amy Dunny,
unfortunately conceived it to be his duty immediately and drew from her some not unnatural objurgations;
to illuminate the southerns on the subject of witch- immediately after which, the vehicle of the man stuck
craft. An act of the first year of his reign defines the fast in a gate, without its wheels being impeded by
crime with a degree of minuteness worthy of the adept either of the posts, and the unfortunate Amy was
from whose pen it undoubtedly proceeded. Any one credited with the accident. Such accusations formed
that shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation of the burden of the dittay, in addition to the bewitch-
any evil or wicked spirit, or consult, or covenant with, ing of the children. These young accusers were pro-
entertain or employ, feed or reward, any evil or wicked duced in court, and, on being touched by the old
spirit, to or for ANY purpose; or take up any dead man, women, fell into fits. But, on their eyes being co-
&c. &c. &c.; such offenders, duly and lawfully con- vered, they were thrown into the same convulsions by
victed and attainted, shall suffer death." We have other parties, precisely in the same way. In the face
here witchcraft first distinctly made, of itself, a capital of this palpable proof of imposture, and despite the
crime. Many years had not passed away after the general absurdity of the charges, Sir Matthew Hale
passing of this statute, ere the delusion, which had committed Amy Dunny and Rose Callender to the
heretofore committed but occasional and local mis- tender mercies of the hangman. It is stated that the
chief, became an epidemical frenzy, devastating every opinion of the learned Sir Thomas Browne, who was
corner of England. Leaving out of sight single accidentally present, had great weight against the pri-
executions, we find such wholesale murders as the soners. He declared his belief that the children were
following in abundance on the record. In 1612, truly bewitched, and supported the possibility of such
twelve persons were condemned at once at Lancaster, possessions by long and learned arguments, theologi-
and many more in 1613, when the whole kingdom cal and metaphysical. Yet Sir Matthew Hale was
rang with the fame of the "Lancashire witches" in one of the wisest and best men of his time, and Sir
1622, six at York; in 1634, seventeen in Lancashire; Thomas Browne had written an able work in exposi-
in 1644, sixteen at Yarmouth; in 1645, fifteen at tion of Popular Fallacies!
Chelmsford; and in 1645 and 1646, sixty persons
perished in Suffolk, and nearly an equal number,
at the same time, in Huntingdon. These are but
a few selected cases. The poor creatures, who usually
composed these ill-fated bands, are thus described by
an able observer:-"An old woman with a wrinkled
face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint
eye, a squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue, having a
ragged coat on her back, a spindle in her hand, and a
dog by her side a wretched, infirm, and impotent
creature, pelted and persecuted by all the neighbour
hood, because the farmer's cart had stuck in the gate-
way, or some idle boy had pretended to spit needles
and pins for the sake of a holiday from school or work"
-such were the poor unfortunates, selected to undergo
the last tests and tortures sanctioned by the laws, and

himself to the devil, on condition of being made the best dancer in Lancashire. The dissenting clergy took this youth under their charge, and a committee of them fasted and prayed, publicly and almost incessantly, for a whole year, in order to expel the dancing demon. The idea of this impostor leaping for a twelvemonth, and playing fantastic tricks before these grave divines, is extremely ludicrous. But the divines played tricks not less fantastic. They became so contemptuously intimate with the demon, as to mock him on account of saltatory deficiencies. A portion of their addresses to him on this score has been preserved, but of too ridiculous a nature for quotation in these pages. If any thing else than a mere impostor, it is probable that Dugdale was affected with St Vitus' Dance; and this is the more likely, as a regular physician brought his dancing to a close after all. But the divines took care to claim the merit of the cure.

After the time of Holt, the ministers of the law went a step farther in their course of improvement, and spared the accused in spite of condemnatory cerdicts. In 1711, Chief-justice Powell presided at a trial where an old woman was pronounced guilty. The judge, who had sneered openly at the whole proceedings, asked the jury if they found the woman" guilty upon the indictment of conversing with the devil in the shape of a cat?" The reply was, "We do find her guilty of that," but the question of the judge produced its intended effect in casting ridicule on the whole charge, and the woman was pardoned. An able writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review remarks, after noticing this case, "yet, frightful to think, after all this, in 1716, Mrs Hicks and her daughter, aged nine, were hanged at Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings, and making a lather of soap! With_this crowning atrocity, the catalogue of murders in England closes." And a long catalogue, and a black catalogue it was. "Barrington, in his observations on the statute of Henry VI., does not hesitate to estimate the numbers of those put to death in England, on this charge, at THIRTY THOUSAND!"

We have now glanced at the chief features in the history of witchcraft in England, from the enactment of the penal statutes against it. These statutes were not finally abolished till the middle of the eighteenth century, and unhappy consequences followed, in various instances, from their being left unrepealed. Though among the enlightened classes the belief in witchcraft no longer existed, the populace, in town and country, still held by the superstitions of their forefathers, and, having the countenance of the statutebook, persecuted the unfortunate beings whose position and circumstances laid them open to the suspicion of sorcery. The ban of public opinion told severely enough upon the comforts of such poor creatures, but the rabble occasionally carried their cruel and ignorant oppressions to a greater length. On the 30th of July 1751, an aged pauper named Osborne, and his wife, were seized by a mob in Staffordshire, dragged through pools, and otherwise so vilely misused, that the woman died under the hands of her assailants. The attention of the law, and the indignation of the humane, were aroused. One man, who had taken a prominent share in the brutal outrage, was condemned on trial, and executed. Immediately afterwards, the penal statutes against witchcraft were abrogated by the legislature, and the remembrance of them only remains, as a wonder and warning to the posterity of those who practised and suffered from them, as well as to mankind at large.

This case occurred in 1664. For some subsequent years trials and executions were yet far from unusual. Chief-justices North and Holt, to their lasting credit, were the first individuals occupying the high places of the law, who had at once the good sense and the courage to set their faces against the continuance of this destructive delusion. In one case, by detecting a piece of gross imposture, Chief-justice North threw into disrepute, once and for all, the trick of pincomiting, one of the most striking and convincing practices of the possessed. A male sorcerer stood at the bar, and his supposed victim was in court, vomiting pins in profusion. These pins were straight, a circumstance which made the greater impression, as those commonly ejected in such cases were bent, engendering frequently the suspicion of their having which tests were of a nature so severe that no one been previously and purposely placed in the mouth. would have dreamed of inflicting them on the vilest The chief-justice was led to suspect something in this of murderers. They were administered by a class of case by certain movements of the bewitched woman, wretches, who, with one Matthew Hopkins at their and, by closely cross-questioning one of her own withead, sprung up in England in the middle of the nesses, he brought it fully out that the woman placed seventeenth century, and took the professional name pins in her stomacher, and, by a dexterous dropping of witch-finders. The practices of the monster Hop-of her head in her simulated fits, picked up the articles kins, who, with his assistants, moved from place to for each successive ejection. The man was found It must not be imagined, we may observe in concluplace in the regular and authorised pursuit of his guiltless. The acquittal called forth such pointed be- sion, that the present generation has no need of such trade, will give a full idea of the tests referred to, as nedictions on the judge from a very old woman pre- a warning, or is relieved by its increased enlightenwell as of the horrible fruits of the witchcraft-frenzy sent, that he was induced to ask the cause. "Oh, my ment from all chance of falling into similar errors. in general. From each town which he visited, Hop- lord," said she, "twenty years ago they would have The nineteenth century has witnessed such imposkins exacted the stated fee of twenty shillings, and, in hanged me for a witch if they could, and now, but tors as Johanna Southcote, Matthews, and Thom, consideration thereof, he cleared the locality of all for your lordship, they would have murdered my and has seen a degree of enthusiastic and unhesitating suspected persons, bringing them to confession and the innocent son." credence given to their pretensions by many persons stake in the following manner :-He stripped them The detected imposture in this case saved the ac-moving in a most respectable rank in society, which naked, shaved them, and thrust pins into their bodies cused. It was under Holt's justiceship, however, that shows that the credulous spirit that created and supto discover the witch's mark; he wrapped them in the first acquittal is supposed to have taken place, in ported witchcraft is not by any means extinguished. sheets, with the great toes and thumbs tied together, despite of all evidence, and upon the fair ground of the It is indeed a spirit only to be fully eradicated by such and dragged them through ponds or rivers, when, if general absurdity of such a charge. In the case of a universality of education and intelligence as can they sunk, it was held as a sign that the baptismal Mother Munnings, tried in 1694, the unfortunate scarcely be expected to exist, excepting after the lapse element did not reject them, and they were cleared-pannel would assuredly have perished, had not Chief- of long-coming centuries of improvement. The subbut if they floated (as they usually would do for a justice Holt summed up in a tone so decidedly adverse ject which has been treated of here, has therefore a time), they were then set down as guilty, and doomed; to the prosecution, that the verdict of Not Guilty was moral. In brief words, the world may learn from it he kept them fasting and awake, and sometimes inces- called forth from the jury. In about ten other trials the peril of encouraging the idea of the possibility of santly walking, for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, before Holt, between the years 1694 and 1701, the direct spiritual influences and communications in as an inducement to confession; and, in short, prac- result was the same, through the same influences. It these latter days-a thing discountenanced alike by tised on the accused such abominable cruelties, that must be remembered, however, that these were merely the lights of reason and scripture. they were glad to escape from life by confession. If noted cases, in which the parties withstood all prelia witch could not shed tears at command (said the minary inducements to confession, and came to the further items of this wretch's creed), or if she hesitated bar with the plea of not guilty. About the same peat a single word in repeating the Lord's prayer, she riod, that is, during the latter years of the seventeenth was in league with the evil one. The results of these century, summary executions were still common, in and such-like tests were actually and universally ad- consequence of confessions extracted after the Hopmitted as evidence by the administrators of the law, kins fashion, yet too much in favour with the lower who, acting upon them, condemned all such as had classes. The acquittals mentioned only prove that the the amazing constancy to hold out against the tor- regular ministers of the law were growing too entures inflicted. Few gave the courts that trouble. lightened to countenance such barbarities. Cases of Butler has described Hopkins in his Hudibras, as one possession, too, were latterly overlooked by the law, which would have brought the parties concerned to a speedy end in earlier days, even though they had done no injury to other people, and were simply unfortunate enough to have made compacts with the demon for the attainment of some purely personal advantages. For example, in 1689, there occurred the famous case After he had murdered hundreds, and pursued his of a youth, named Richard Dugdale, who sacrificed |

Fully empower'd to treat about
Finding revolted witches out.
And has he not within this year
Hanged three score of them in one shire?
Some only for not being drown'd;

And some for sitting above ground.

INTEMPERANCE.

We extract the following observations on a cause of intemperance, from a late number of the Athenæum :"The mode in which Sunday is spent by the lower classes, appears to be a very prominent, though unsuspected, source of juvenile delinquency. Some persons believe it to be their duty to legislate for the world as it ought to be, and, in the meantime, they do infinite mischief to the world as it is. Rarely has the operative an opportunity of seeing a green field, of admiring the works of creation, or even of breathing the pure air of heaven: yet, as is justly observed by the pious author of The Shunammite-Can we view nature in any other light than that of a book of instruction presented to the sons of men, that they may learn the character of God from all its pages, and read how the earth is filled with the goodness of the Lord; that the cattle upon a thousand hills, the calm pursuits of pastoral life, and the