a remarkably clever and shrewd lawyer, one David Williamson, and also for Alexander Murray, Sheriff of Selkirkshire, and to these three Linton told his story, assuring them, that he could vouch for the truth of it in every particular; and after Williamson had questioned him backwards and forwards, it was resolved that something should drawn to Carlisle to hear the trial, and there is little doubt, that, if matters had gone otherwise than they did, a rescue was intended. Why should any body despise a dream, or any thing whatever in which one seriously believes? Blackwood's Mag. For the Olio. Concluded ftom p. 59. instantly be done for the safety of Scott. THE DREAM OF A BOOKWORM. Accordingly, Williamson wrote a letter to the Mayor, which was signed by the Earl, and the Sheriff of Scott's county, which letter charged the Mayor to take good heed what he was about, and not to move in the matter of Scott till Quarter-session day, which was not distant, and then counsel would attend to see justice done to a man, who had always been so highly esteemed. And that by all means he (the Mayor) was to secure Scott's three accusers, and not suffer them by any means to escape, as he should answer for it. The letter also bore a list of the English witnesses who behoved to be there. Linton hastened back with it, and that letter changed the face of affairs mightily. The grand swindler and the tall robber were both seized and laid in irons, and the other, also, was found with great trouble. From that time forth there remained little doubt of the truth of Scott's narrative; for this man was no other than the notorions Edward Thom, who had eluded the sentence of the law both in Scotland and England, in the most wonderful manner, and it was well known that he belonged to a notable gang of robbers. It is a pity that the history of that interesting trial is far too long for a winter-evening tale, such as this, though I have often heard it all gone over ;how Williamson astonished the natives with his cross questions, his speeches, and his evidences;-how confounded the mayor and aldermen were that they had not discerned these circumstances before; how Thom, at last, turned king's evidence, and confessed the whole-how the head swindler was condemned and executed, and the tall robber whipped and dismissed, because he had in fact only intended a robbery, but had no hand in it;-and, finally, how Scott was released with the highest approbation; while both magistrates and burgesses of ancient Carlisle strove with one another how to heap favours on him and his friend Thomas Linton. There were upwards of two hundred Scottish yeomen accompanied the two friends up the Esk, who had all been ACCORDINGLY Oates, having provided himself with a warrant, repaired one morning with his satellites to the chambers of the young templar and commenced a rigid search. Not a single nook in the apartment escaped their scrutiny. Every thing was turned topsy turvy, but nothing was found to excite suspicion. At length I was found in the library, and handed to Oates for his inspection. I saw the eye of the informer glisten with expectation but his countenance fell when Oates, who understood French, pronounced me to be any thing but " damnable and idolatrous." They soon quitted the chambers overwhelmed with disappointment and mortification, the young templar calling after them that he would bring his action against the whole band for trespass. Nothing else occurred to disturb me for several years, but in the course of time my possessor died, and I passed successively into thehands of several persons, and at length again came into the hands of a bookseller in Fleet Street. Here I was purchased by a gentleman who shortly after proceeded to Ireland. Again I passed through many hands until I became an inmate of the small library of that man whom the poet Goldsmith eulogized in his beautiful poem the "Deserted Village;" and finally into the hands of that eccentric being himself. Long would it take me to tell of the many shifts which that genius was put to during his subsequent stay in London, for I was shortly brought back to England by the poet, who took up his lodging in an obscure alley near Fleet-street. He was soon penny less and destitute, and I daily beheld him part with many little necessaries to procure a meal. At length the few books he possessed were one by one conveyed to a certain shop in the neighbourhood and pledged for a tenth of their value. It soon came to my turn and I was transferred to the red depot of the old hunks, who liberally advanced a shilling upon me. I had for my companions there such a countless host of articles, that their names would fill a good sized dictionary. Here were bracelets pawned for a rich merchant's wife; there a gold watch imprisoned by a young spendthrift, who had a fortune of 20,0001. left him at the decease of his father.In one corner was stowed away a valuable collection of plate, the property of a dowager, who had raised a sum upon it to answer her present necessaries. In fine, here was every thing that could be named,-as multifarious a collection of valuables as ever filled the stronghold of a bandit. I was released from my confinement about a twelvemonth after, having been sold to (do not stare!)-an alderman of London! My owner was as fond of turtle as any of his feast-loving brethren. No revel or water party was ever got up at which he did not attend; but he was a learned man, and, next to a good dinner, loved a good book. I will do him the justice to say that I was prized above all the valuable tomes in his library, and that, though his fist was none of the smallest I was handled with all possible delicacy. But, unfortunately, my possessor died suddenly of an apoplectic fit, brought on by over indulgence at a feasting bout at Greenwich. The alderman having no near relations, I fell to the lot of Here I suddenly awoke and marvelled. The venerable volume lay open on my reading desk, but the voice was silent. Such, gentlest and most courteous of readers, is the substance of what I had revealed to me. If in the relation thou hast found me dull and prosing, I pray thee to attribute it rather to my want of skill in such details than to any unwillingness to please thee. London, July 1830. MACKLINIANA. The Original Macheath.-Tom Walker, as he was constantly called, (the so much celebrated original Macheath in the Beggar's Opera), was well known to Macklin, both on and off the stage. He was a young man, rather rising in the mediocre parts of comedy, when the following accident brought him out in Macheath. Quin was first designed for this part, who barely sung well enough to give a convivial song in company, which, at that time of day, was * Quin performed the part of Macheath for his own benefit, (at Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mar. 29, 1730,) which produced 1121, 13s. 6d., in money-tickets 931. 16s, almost an indispensable claim on every performer; and on this account perhaps did not much relish the business: the high reputation of Gay, however, and the critical junto who supported him, made him drudge through twe rehearsals. On the close of the last, Walker was observed humming some of the songs behind the scenes, in a tone and liveliness of manner, which attracted all their notice. Quin laid hold of this circumstance to get rid of the part, and exclaimed, Ay, there's a man who is much more qualified to do you justice than I am. Walker was called on to make the experiment; and Gay, who instantly saw the difference, accepted him as the hero of his piece. 66 The Beggar's Opera.-Mr. Gay wrote all, or the greatest part of this opera, at the Duke of Queensbury's, in the summer-house, which is something like a cavern on the side of a bank, at Amesbury. The duke and duchess were great friends to learned and ingenious men; particularly to the late celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot. At that period the duchess thought herself slighted at court, and had desisted attending the drawingroom. Miss Arbuthnot and Mr. Gay were almost constantly with her; and I believe, to gratify the duchess, he touched on the modes of the court; and Miss Arbuthnot knowing many old Scots and English songs, collected the most proper airs, and Gay wrote in suitable measure for them; so they had no need of a musician to compose new tunes. The whole money received for the sixty-two nights of this opera was 11,1991. 14s.; and one night, (making the sixty-three,) for a benefit, 1681. 10s. Young Macklin. I was informed nearly fifty years since by an elderly gentleman, who was born and bred in Dublin, that Macklin had been a shoeboy, i. e. a blacker of shoes, at the college in Dublin, and was a waiter or marker at a gaming table, where his common appellation was cursed Charley. Hyppesly, the original Peachum.In this character Hyppesly adopted the very dress of Jonathan Wild a black coat, scarlet waistcoat with broad gold lace, velvet breeches, white silk rolledup stockings gartered under the knees with black straps, square-toed shoes, white flowing wig, laced hat, silver hilted sword, &c. Shuter followed his example. He, Wild, was hanged in 1725. The truc-born Irishman,-acted at Covent Garden one night only, Nov. 28th, 1767, and not printed; Macklin seemed to acquiesce in the withdrawal, saying, in his strong manner, "I believe the audience are right; there's a geography in humour as well as in morals, which I had not previously considered." In rehearsing this piece, Macklin took infinite pains to instruct a young actor in his part, who having to pronounce "Lady Kinnegad," did it so differently from what the veteran expected, that he could not help exclaiming in an angry tone, "What trade are you, Sir?" The performer answered, 'Sir, I am a gentleman." "Then," rejoined he, "stick to that, Sir, for you will never be an actor." Macklin as Macbeth.-The squibs on this occasion were innumerable; the following being short, are given as a specimen : I learned to-night what ne'er before I knew, all. WITCHCRAFT IN SCOTLAND. WITCHCRAFT, in the reign of James I. became the all-engrossing topic of the day, and the ordinary accusation resorted to whenever it was the object of one individual to ruin another, just as certain other offences were during the reign of Justinian, and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy. In Scotland the evil was not less busy in high places, than among the humbler beings, who had generally been professors of the art magic. A sort of relation of clientage seems to have been established between the operative performers, and those noble patrons (chiefly, we regret to say of the fair sex) by whom their services were put in requisition. The Lady Buccleugh, of Branxholm Hall, whose spells have furnished our own Northern Wizard with some of his most striking pictures; the Countess of Athol, the Countess of Huntly, the wife of the Chancellor Arran, the Lady Ker, wife of James, Master of Requests, the Countess of Lothian, the Countess of Angus, (more fortunate in her generation than her grandmother Lady Glam mis,) were all, if we are to believe the scandal of Scotstarvet, either protectors of witches or themselves dabblers in the art. Even Knox himself did not escape the accusation of witchcraft; the power and energy of mind with which Providence had gifted him, the enemies of the Reformation attributed to a darker source. He was accused of having attempted to raise "some sanctes" in the churchyard of St. Andrew's, but in the course of this resuscitation upstarted the devil himself, having a huge pair of horns on his head, at which terrible sight Knox's secretary became mad with fear, and shortly after died. Nay, to such a height had the mania gone, that Scot of Scotstarvet mentions that Sir Lewis Ballantyne, Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, " by curiosity dealt with a warlock called Richard Grahame," (the same person who figures in the trial of Alison Balfour, as a confederate of Bothwell's,) "to raise the devil, who having raised him in his own yard, in the Canongate, he was thereby so terrified that he took sickness and thereof died." This was a staggering state of Scots statemen" indeed, when even the supreme criminal judge of Scotland was thus at the head of the delinquents. Well might any unfortunate criminal have said with Angelo "Thieves for their robbery have authority, When judges steal themselves." Meas. for Meas. Act. II. Scene 2. Nor, in fact, was the Church less deeply implicated than the court and the hall of justice; for in the case of Alison Pearson, (1588) we find the celebrated Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, laying aside the fear of the Act of Parliament, and condescending to apply to this poor wretch for a potion to cure him of his sick ness! A faith so strong and so general could not be long in manifesting itself in works. In 1572 occurs the first entry in the Justiciary Record, the trial of Janet Bowman, of which no particulars are given, except the emphatic sentence "Convict: and Brynt." No fewer than thirty-five trials appear to have taken place before the Court of Justiciary during the remainder of James's reign, (to 1625) in almost all of which the result is the same as in the case of Bowman. For. Quar. ROYAL PORTRAITS, No. 3. (For the Olio.) HENRY THE FIRST. THIS king had the surname of Beauclerk, or Scholar, given to him, not, as it is supposed, from his great learning, but rather in contradistinction to his predecessors, both of whom were in some degree illiterate. He is charged with incontinency,-a failing not uncommon among kings; but he appears seldom to have indulged in excesses of the table, for it is said that he never ate but when hungry, or drank except when thirsty. He was very partial to animals, and at Woodstock had a large menagerie of wild beasts. He suffered priests to marry upon their paying a large sum, and the loss of a limb was commuted to a fine; yet his character appears to have been tinctured with cruelty, as his conduct towards his brother, Robert Duke of Normandy, will shew. The duke having raised an army against his brother, was defeated and taken prisoner, and afterwards brought to England, where he was kept in close confinement; but not long after attempting to escape, the king caused his eyes to be put out,-an act from which humanity recoils, and which will remain for ever a blot upon the memory of Henry. This horrible deed counterbalances the many good acts which he performed to his subjects, among which may be reckoned the releasing them from the tax of Dane-gelt, and many other unjust impositions of former kings. His courage was great, and in one battle he fought like a common soldier, and received such severe strokes on the head that the blood gushed from his mouth. A quarrel with his son-in-law (the Earl of Anjou) threw him into a fever, which was increased by his eating lampreys, a dish of which he was very fond, but which never agreed with him, and he died at Rouen on the 1st of December in the year 1135. Some writers say, that he died in consequence of an injury received in a fall from his horse, but this has not been confirmed. His bowells, brains and eyes were interred at Rouen, and his body in Reading Abbey, which he had founded during his reign. His appearance was elegant and manly. His figure lusty, his chest large Baker says that the physician who took out the brains of the king died shortly after, in consequence of inhaling the horrible effluvia. AMONG the many works written to display in an attractive and pleasing form the truths of natural history, the British Naturalist must hold a very prominent station. The present volume which is equal, if not superior to its predecessor, unfolds with great simplicity the operations of nature throughout the year, and particularises especially the features and phenomena of those enchanting seasons, Spring and Summer. Great praise is due to the author for the felicitous manner in which he has executed a task of considerable difficulty; his pages are diversified with so many important facts, that turn to whatever leaf you may, you are sure to find intelligence and entertainment combined. Upon the pugnacity of animals, he thus expresses himself "If we were to take any analogy from other animals, and between animal and animal, the analogy of animals is certainly better than the analogy of man, we should feel inclined to think that their retributive justice would with us get the very opposite name. When animals, in a state of nature and without any training from man, fight with their own species at all, the fight, unless it be for their females or their young, in which animals that are otherwise timid become valiant, is always the fight for conquest and not for justice, and, when a third strikes in, it almost universally falls upon the vanquished or the weaker. Dogs that come to a dog-fight always begin to worry the dog that is down; stags chase the beaten stag, and drive him from the herd; and we remember no case in which the conqueror, however much he may have been the aggressor, thereby roused the indignation of any of the triumph has been in part won by one, it is eagerly caught at by others. We have met with nothing in the conduct of rooks by which we could infer a deviation from this apparently general law of animals; and, therefore, it may be that the rook which suffers, does so, just because it is not so strong or so skilful a warrior as the rest." At page 210, the following forcibly points out the great benefit which man derives from vegetation. "As subjects for study, we have nothing equal to them. The animals, when in a state of nature, flee at our approach, we see them only by snatches, and therefore have not the means of getting a continuous history of them. But the plant stands still, and we can examine it; can watch it from the moment that it is a seed, till its energy be exhausted in the production of millions; and though the manner in which it performs its functions has hitherto defied our philosophy, we have still enough to occupy our attention, and excite our admiration. One of the most valuable properties of vegetables is their inflammability; and to man, in a savage state, they are at once the fuel and the fire; furnish him with that which is his peculiar characteristic, and protect him from the inclemency of the weather, and the night-attacks of those animals for which, in strength and swiftness, he is no match. He collects a bundle of sticks, rubs one against another till it be ignited, the whole are soon in a blaze, and the result is both light and safety. Then the wonderful durability of some of the species. We read of beams that are undecayed, though they have been in the service of man for more than a thousand years; and the great chesnut tree at Tamworth, in Staffordshire, is reported to have stood from the year 800 to the year 1762, and to have produced perfect fruit in 1759,--a duration, compared to which, that of any animal is but as a span. "Vegetables have this further advantage, that they are found every where, and at all seasons; and therefore those who study them may have constant mental occupation; nor is there any one capable of observing at all, that may not, by that study, add something to the common stock of knowledge. To what an extent that may be done, can be so far understood when it is borne in mind that the cultivation of vegetables reaches beyond the record even of the ancient nations, and that the in vention is always attributed to the gods; but yet while there is this remote antiquity, the field for study must be more wide and productive than in any other portion of human knowledge, inasmuch as the study and culture of plants have received more improvement in very recent times than any other branch of human occupation; and that within the last fifty years, more has been added to our knowledge of plants than to any other branch of our knowledge." With the subjoined extract we must conclude our notice of this valuable little volume. "Scott and Burns are and were 'men of the fields,' and we are not to suppose that either of them, with the eyes that they had, both physical and intellectual, for scene, for subject, and character, could have taken at second-hand, from any holder forth upon dead specimens, or any shutter up of nature within the four walls of an aviary, any part of the description of a bird, with which they must have been as familiar as man can be in its native wilds; and yet Scott, in the delightful song with which Ellen Douglas serenades the disguised monarch, has these lines: 'But the lark's shrill fife shall come, Booming from the sedgy shallow.' Burns, again, in a less lively, but more accurately grouped picture of rural sounds, has these lines, which absolutely transport to the scene any one-who has been there before and occupied as he ought to be: The bowlet screamed frae the castle wa', I trembled for my hogie.' And of course the 'from,' in the case that bird, or any part of it, was in the of the bittern, no more meant than bog or quagmire, than the 'from' in the wall of the ruined fortalice, when, the other, meant that the owl was in in fact, it hooted from the ivy with which that wall was draperied, or the trees by which it was shaded." Fine Arts. SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS. THE following notice, which concludes our view of this pleasing Exhibition, has been delayed by the lengthy details of late events that have occupied our pages. We resume the subject with |