been striking. Here a fat round oily Bailie, with his beetle legs and bald head, lay flat upon the ice, eyeing up his stone, and writhing from side to side, as if in the act of determining its direction. There a tall scare-crow Laird, with one leg up, and both arms extended, standing on tiptoe, in the attitude of an ostrich flying, screaming himself into downright hoarseness Sweep, sweep! why don't ye sweep?-It will do a' the thing-it will do a' the thing!-Let it alane, I tell ye let it alane!if ye had na meddled wi't, it wad ha'e been a' the shot!" &c. &c.-But I am speaking to you in parables; and in order that you may be interested in my very interesting narrative, you must be initiated in the Technicalities of the game.

I cannot give your civic apprehension a better notion of it than by saying, that it is conducted precisely upon the same principles with "Bowls;" each player endeavouring to possess himself of a birth near the Tee, or to dispossess his adversary of an advantageous position. The lead, or first stone, is always, except on very drug ice, expected to lie short, a few feet of the Tee, and to be guarded, if possible, by the same player's succeeding stone. When the middle of the ice is thus closed up against the enemy, he must either break up guards, in order to reach the Winner, or by a side-shot, with the view of bringing up, by means of what is termed an in-wick, his next stone, immediately behind the winner,-thus possess himself of the shot. At one time you are requested, by your love of the game, to play Tee-high, a drawn shot. Again, your admonition is, to play slow, to risk a Hog. Now an Egg is to be broken, you must put this stone a yard, you must chap and guard. Again, you are directed to let this travee, see the end of the loch, to gie it the weight of your arm. Anon a Port is to be taken, and you must come up "inter Syllum et Charibdim." A gain, you are warned not to sell your

stone, and should the Winner be only half-covered, you are instructed to take what you see of it. The person who plays the last stone has in gen eral the lead in the direction; and there is no office in which more quickness of eye and tact in apprehension are requisite-not only in reference to the object which it is necessary to attempt, but still more, perhaps, in respect of the skill and prowess of the different Players. To make a man strike, for example, who can scarcely play Tee-high, however desirable in the circumstances of the game, would only be making bad worse; and to make another guard upon an enemy's stone, who would be apt, from rashness, to drive it shot, would be equally inexpedient. A Director on a rink is a General in battle, who will not send a parcel of Germans to do the work of the 71st or 42d. Every player is armed with a broom, which he lays down before, or holds suspended over, the advancing stone, according as circumstances may suit. But

"See where Norah with the basket comes!"

the Minister's Lass is advancing, and I am glad of it, both on your account, Mr North, and on my own; on yours, be cause she puts an end to this chapter of "Technicalities;" on my own, be cause she brings under her arm a basket filled with bread, cheese, and with a suitable accompaniment of bottlestore. The good Parson himself officiating now in the capacity of Ganymede, we, shall I say, eat our ambrozia,t and drink our nectar, with a keenness of relish of which your musty corporeal appetite can have no perception.

It was my misfortune to meet in my immediate opponent, an out-kneed, five o'clock, left handed Taylor-such epithets are quite Homeric !-whose stones seemed to move into their places by instinct, often too, by means of a kind of rotatory motion, which this Hero of the goose communicated to them in the setting off, passing them up a port or across a bias with

the greatest ease imaginable. The squint of this fellow, for he possessed this in addition to his other eccentric accomplishments, was to me quite intolerable. And if his looks were repulsive, his laugh was not less so, bursting out from time to time in the most savage screams. I really believe I could have seen him, had it not been for spoiling the ice, sunk. One advantage I gained over him; and as it was my only one, my organ of Self-esteem, No 10, will not suffer me to overlook it. And thus it was, our opponents lay shot, guarded, and barricadoed in a most teazing manner. To break up the guards under our circumstances, was impossible; and, after much deliberation, I was directed to play a side shot, to save. So soon, however, as the eagle eye of Hogg caught the angle, at which my stone lay in respect of the Tee, he sprung forward, with something betwixt a scream and a laugh, admonishing me, that the End might yet be taken in such a way; that a' the Town-Council o' Lochmaben, wi' the Laird at their back, wad na recover it. "Come cannily down," said he, "just a tee length shot, nae mair, in-wick your ain stane, and trust to my besom for the rest. Down I came to be sure, and for once, at least, according to direction, in-wicked my own stone, and whirling about like a school-boy's top, settled fairly on the centre of the ring. Had you seen my look of self-complacency, as I advanced up the rink, and, in the face of my applauding friends, inquired with the most affected simplicity imaginable, "If I had done any good?"-you would have envied me, my feelings." Good," says Hogg, grasping my hand like a Smith's vice, "Good! to be sure, ye hae taen the en' man, an' what is mair, we'll keep it too, in spite o' a' the Thieves,-I mean," added he, looking rather archly into the face of the Bailie,-Curlers in Annandale.

To make a long story short, never was a game more keenly contested. We were fifteen, twenty-seven, thirty, all, and our opponents were ly ing the game shot, under circumstances which left no hope of our success. Hogg had only increased our embarrassment by his first stone,

and he stood over the last in suspense what to attempt. Nothing could exceed the silent expression of triumph which pervaded the widening cheeks of the worthy Lochmabeners, as they looked first at the shot, then at the defence, and last of all at the seemingly total inefficiency of Hogg. Some small wit, too, was floating in an under-current, and our Champion was advised by the Laird "to hog it." "A-weel," says the shepherd," hog or no hog, hap-weel rap-weel, I'll be down amang ye, sae tak tent to your taes there." Upon which, spreading himself out into all his breadth, and fastening his Cramps into the ice with a most ponderous dash, and pouring all the pith of his nervous arm and shoulder into the Message, down it came full roar upon the Laird's last guard, fairly upset, and after a semicircular revolution of a few yards, righted, and finally settled "shot." All this was the work of an instant, "dicto citius," and never was a feat in which madam Fortune had at least, as the Taylor afterwards observed, 7-8ths of the merit, crowned with so much applause. I am certain the very Eels were amazed. But " let him that standeth take heed lest he fall." The stone with which our bard's messenger had conversed, having, according to certain laws, nobody remembers how long ago passed, just received as much impulse as the other had lost, set off in a tangent, and, in the most unceremonious manner imaginable, tripped up the Laird's heels. "My certie, lad, ye'll learn to ken a Hog the neist time ye come to the ice," said the exulting shepherd, as he eagerly assisted in reinstating the Laird on his legs. Suffice it at present to add, what nothing but the most determined adherence to truth could induce me to do, that, notwithstanding this partial success, the "Spiel" was lost, on the side of Closeburn, by ONE SHOT!

I should now proceed to give you« ] some account of our "evening recrea tions;" but, as my eyes are half-shut, I shall reserve this "in alteram hor am," In the meantime, I remains yours truly, PETER MACFINN.

Helmorran Manse,

10th Feb. 1820.

GOD SAVE THE KING.”*

THE prejudice which fixes our regard upon the fortunes of worldly grandeur, is deeply rooted in our nature; and if it will not bear the chilling scrutiny of metaphysics, stands impregnable in the strong-holds of the heart. The affections at least so far as they are expanded upon objects of a public nature,-look upward by an inborn direction, which no philosophy can control; and if they are not repelled by the lowering and unkindly aspect of their idol, they will gather round and concentrate upon it their brightest rays. The mere glitter which invests the summits of society, is sufficient, of itself, to attract and detain the common eye-the enchantments which play around the unexplored elevations of earthly grandeur, are omnipotent alike over the humble and the more pretending vulgar;-and while they chain down the spirit of the one in stupid wonder and amazement, exhaust the fluttering activity of the other in servile and senseless imitation. The spectacle of great power and exalted station, will at all times exert a mastery over the feelings of the great mass of mankind; and while the philosopher will respect the bias with which it is vain to contend, he will endeavour to give it a wise and a wholesome direction, by exacting from the objects of popular idolatry that energy of virtue, and purity of example, to which their stations imperiously call them, and which, when they are realized, render the prejudice that invests grandeur with admiration, the fountain of the best and most precious blessings which can be diffused over society.

There is nothing indeed, which the imagination of man can conceive, at once more august and attractive, than the spectacle of a virtuous monarch, filling, not in name, but in fact, the parental relation to a faithful people, and acknowledged with deep and universal homage, as the Father of his country. The majesty, which in such a case is inseparable from the conception of the character, fills every channel through which the gentler feelings of the heart take their course, and expands every generous emotion to its own fulness and magnificence. There is no good man, born and edu

cated under a constitutional monarchy, to whom the very idea of his lawful Prince, does not bring with it a thou sand associations of deep and gene rous enthusiasm,-of heartfelt respect, of firm attachment, of boundless fidelity; and when to these natural sentiments, which are the offspring of habit and of feeling, rather than of reflection, are added the qualities which the judgment unites with the heart in approving-the image, to which the public devotion may rationally as well as naturally be paid, is complete. When the errors of education, the seductions of flattery, the malignant influence of power, the fascinating prospects of ambition have all been suffered, experienced, and resisted, and the Prince comes forth from the terrible ordeal untainted; when he issues from the dense atmosphere of the court, beaming with every virtue which, in the humblest citizen, would command affection and esteem, we are compelled to recognise in the royal prodigy, the depth and soundness of a heart, of which no inferior condition could attest the existence, or develope the value.

to

At the moment we are committing paper these hasty and imperfect reflections, our city is putting on a solemn aspect of mourning for our departed Monarch, the suitable emblem of the inward emotions which have already filled every loyal bosom. The various sounds issuing in alternate sadness from her lofty spires and rockbuilt fortress announce that the hour approaches which is to consign his mortal remains to the dust; the reign of more than half a century is closed; the majesty of Britain, under the guardianship of which the far greater part of the present generation saw the light, has partaken the fate from which no earthly grandeur is exempted.

Our venerable monarch, after guiding, throughout a long and troubled period, the destinies of a mighty people, has paid the last sad debt of nature, and is severed for ever from our anxieties and our hopes. But he never can be severed from our profound and grateful remembrance-there he lies embalmed in the immortal freshness of his virtue-there his image is preserved imperishable and realizes

a fonder and finer commemoration than the proudest ambition can hope from the most splendid historic monument to its fame.

It is far from our intention to descend to the compilation of the various anecdotes of his late Majesty, many of them very trivial, and almost all of them without any stamp of authenticity, which the periodical press, in its venal fever of activity, has so profusely obtruded upon public notice. The public character of George III. is written in the annals of the country; his private virtues in the affection and reverence of his people. And so deep is this affection, that, although his descent to the grave was long preceded by the darkest of human calamities, which hung like a cloud over his declining years-although the moral separation betwixt himself and his people had long been completed in the mysterious dispensation of Providence -although there was nothing upon which their eyes could fix but the majestic pile which enclosed the royal sufferer, or to which their hearts could turn but the shadow of a-name,-was there an interest more solemn and touching, if not more intense, that clung to his fate, than if he had been snatched from us in all the pride of youth, and had fallen at once from his meridian greatness. It is the privilege of virtue that affliction only dignifies and consecrates it. The long continued suffering of the late King only saddened and solemnized the impatient sympathy with which its first access was universally regarded.

dark and devious track through which the state was to be whirled amid the commotions of the world. George III. it is well known, was not a puppet in the hands of any administration-nor was he carried passively round the circle of public policy, without the constitutional exercise of his own presiding will. His spirit mingled with the current of affairs, and his image is impressed upon the history of his reign. What a history this is, and what a magnificent volume of instruction and example it will afford to the latest posterity! The very species appears to have grown in magnitude, in the progression of half a century-the mind of man has burst from its prison of ages-the power of intellect has started into existence with the terrible and volcanic energies that denote the instant of creation. What are all the maxims recorded in the old digest of policy? What! the mere physical collisions which broke at intervals the slumbers of the European states-ceased without leaving a trace of their almost innocuous rage, and now serve only to variegate the dead level of history-compared with the exploits performed by the Herculean infancy of opinion? The wave has been impelled over the surface of society to recede no more, and the reign of George III. has been rendered for ever memorable by the most terrible and majestic phenomenon of the moral world. In the novel and appalling trials to which the royal fortitude was put, the Monarch uniformly acquitted himself so as to command the confidence of his people. His spirit was bound up with their genius and character-he was himself a profound reverer of the national institutionsand, in the stern virtue with which he resolved their defence, the nation saw the pledge of its own security and glory.