and condemned her faults.

her conduct towards us.

THE EDITOR'S SHANTY.

He did not justify Fort Du Quesne, and on the Heights of Abrathat we were of the blood and bone of her chil- could not find it in his heart to strike her But he remembered ham, Randolph could not-for his soul, he dren. He remembered that we spoke her lan- then." guage, and that we were connected with her by the strongest commercial ties and interests; hae occasion, Crabtree, to write to Maister LAIRD.-Eh, man, but that's fine! If ye ever that, though we had fought her through a long and bloody war, yet we had fought her by the Baldwin, be sure to say that should he ever light of her own principles; that her own great visit Canada, I'll tak' it unkind if he doesna' men had cheered us on in the fight; and that mak' my bit shanty at Bonnie Braes his head the body of the English nation were with us against a corrupt and venal ministry, when we took up arms against their and our tyrants. quarters! He remembered that from England we had in- tion more. MAJOR.-Permit me to give you one quotaherited all the principles of liberty, which lie It has referenee to the unswerving at the basis of our government-freedom of constancy with which Randolph adhered to the speech and of the press; the Habeas Corpus ; trial by jury; representation with taxation ; text which regulated his political curriculum: and the great body of our laws. "He preached State-Rights, as if his life had her for what she had done in the cause of doctrines. Whenever he spoke-whatever he He reverenced been consecrated to the ministry of those human progress, and for the Protestant reli- wrote-wherever he went-State-Rights, Stategion; for her achievements in arts and arms; Rights --STATE-RIGHTS were the exhaustless for her lettered glory; for the light shed on themes of his discourse. the human mind by her master writers; for his bell ringing before him, as he walked Like Xavier, with the blessings showered by her great philan- amidst strange cities, addressing the startled thropists upon the world.

"He saw her in a new phase of character. Whatever was left of freedom in the old world, had taken shelter in that island, as man, during the deluge, in the ark.

"She opposed the only barrier now left to the sway of unlimited empire, by a despot, whom he detested as one of the most merciless and remorseless tyrants that ever scourged this planet. Deserted of all other men and nations, she was not dismayed. She did not even seek such was the spirit of her prodigious pride

of salvation, and denouncing the coming wrath; attention of the wayfarers, with the messages Randolph came among men, the untiring apostle of his creed, ever raising his shrill voice, "against the alarming encroachments of the Federal Government."

"Nor was he without his reward. The distinctive doctrines of his school, in their fundamental and primitive purity, were well-nigh lost, after the era of the fusion of parties in Monroe's, if not, indeed, under the "silken Mansfieldism" of Madison's administration. to avoid the issue. She defied it. it was eager-fevered-panting for it. She dared The old knights and cavaliers of the South stood against the arch-conqueror's power, as She were living, indeed, but were torpid; like-as we have somewhere her own sea-girt isle stands in the ocean-calm knightly horsemen, in the ENCHANTED CAVE, seen it quoted-the amidst the storm and the waves that blow and seated on their steeds with lances in rest and break harmlessly on the shore. She was largely and senseless as marble, until the magician warlike port, but rider and horse spell-bound

Suppose

indebted, but she poured out money like water. Her people were already heavily taxed, but she blew his horn, when, at the first blast, they quadrupled the taxes, She taxed everything deeds of chivalrous emprize; so Randolph's that supports or embellishes life, all the elequickened into life, and sprang forth again to ments of nature, everything of human necesclarion tones waked the leaders of his party to sity or luxury, from the cradle to the coffin. battle for the cause of their order. The shock was about to come. The long guns of the cinque-ports were already loaded, and all this labour and all this life were poured, "But suppose he had no reward? the matches blazing, to open upon the expect-like water, in the sand? Suppose he had ant enemy, as he descended upon her coasts. followed, always, a losing banner? What then? We came as a new enemy into the field. It Are we wasting ink and paper in recording the was natural to expect her, in the face of the annals of such a warfare-the story of such a old foe, thought by so many to be himself an over-match for her, to hasten to make terms constancy so frequent, and devotion to princiman? Are martyrs so common-is heroie with us, rather than have another enemy upon ple and love of truth such vulgar things, in her. No! She refused, in the agony and this our age of political purity and sainted stress of danger, to do what she refused in statesmanship, that a man, consecrating the other times. She turned to us the same look noblest faculties to the service of his country, of resolute and imperturbable defiance-with and following no meaner lights than the judg some touch of friendly reluctance in it, it may ment and conscience God gave him, to guide be-which she had turned to her ancient foe. his steps through a long road of trial and As she stood in her armour, glittering like a war-temptation, is unworthy of being held up for god, beneath the lion-banner, under which we admiration and reverence?"

had fought with her at the Long Meadows, at LAIRD. That puts me in mind of the perti

MAJOR.-Peace, er look out for a Lenten

DOCTOR.-Not for many a long day have I read any book with such appetite as the one " captioned" (as they say in Hamilton) Captain Canot: or Twenty Years of an African Slaver.

MAJOR.-My impression, founded upon some partial newspaper extracts, was, that it was a trifle long-winded and common-place-ish.

nacity wi' which my respected uncle, Gavin been accused o' lubricity, and the charge backed Glendinning o' Melrose, stuck to his pig-tail, or by Robert Burns? tie. "Na, Doctor!" quoth Gavin to the minister, wha was advising him to amputate the ap-vigil! pendage. "Na, Doctor, it will gang wi' me to the kirk-yard! The savoury Ralph Erskine had a tie whilk reached half way doon to his latter end, and I canna' gang far wrang in following sic an orthodox example. When ye preach me as sappy and unctuous a sermon as the wershest o' Ralph's, I'll divorce my tail, but no' till then !" DOCTOR.-Never were you more thoroughly DOCTOR. off your eggs, than when you jumped to such a LAIRD. If ye had ever heard the then mess conclusion! The Captain, in spite of his grewJohn o' Melrose hold forth, ye never would hae some trade, is a veritable brick-a veritable speered sic a needless question! My honest soup of a juvenile, as the Paddyism "broth of a uncle died as he had lived, leaving strict injunc-boy," is translated at the Normal School! I do tions in his will that the tie was to accompany not use the language of exaggeration when I him to the grave! affirm that his journal is as entertaining and DOCTOR. Let it repose in the coffin where it graphic as the fictions of Dan. Defoe! found a sanctuary!

Did the divorce over take place?

LAIRD.-No' sao fast, auld Paregoric! The pig-tail never obtained permission into that grim

ark!

LAIRD. That's a big word!

DOCTOR.-Yes, but it is a true word! Canot

possesses the rare faculty of making you see When the corpse was ganging to be kist- objects with his eyes. You become, nolens ed, it was discovered that the tie was sae stiff, volens, an actor in the scenes which he describes, that it couldna' be doubled up. Accordingly, and a particeps criminis in his huxtories of human Samuel Shavings, the undertaker, had to bore flesh! With all my ante--lavery predilections. a hole in the head o' the coffin, through which I had become an enthusiastic dealer in animated the affair projected like a ratton's fud! Weel ebony, before I had half-finished the volume! do I mind the graceless cheers o' the reprobate schil laddies, at the sight o' the familiar pendulosity wag-wagging frae below the mort-cloth! DOCTOR.-If a' tales be true, that is no lie! LAIRD.-Confound the vagabond! Does he mean to insinuate that a ruling elder could tell a lee!

DOCTOR.—Why, if Robert Burns is to be credited, personages of an ecclesiastical status, even more exalted, may be guilty of such a backsliding! Have you forgotten the pungent lines in Death and Dr. Hornbook ?"

"Even ministers, they hae been kenn'd
In holy rapture,

Arousing whid, at times, to vend,

And nail't wi' Scripture!"

MAJOR.-Somewhat too much of this!

I

MAJOR.-Does the writer not draw drafts upon the bank of fancy?

DOCTOR.-There is abundance of evidence, both internal and external, to refute such a sup

position. You instinctively feel that the man is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I am as thoroughly convinced, as I am of my own identity, that he gives, in the words of the preface, "a true picture of aboriginal Africa, unstirred by progress, unmodified by reflected civilization, full of the barbarism that blood and tradition have handed down from the beginning, and embalmed in its prejudices, like the corpses of Egypt."

MAJOR,-Had the Captain any brushes with our cruisers in the course of his transactions? DOCTOR.-Several. On one occasion, when hereby throw down the baton, and proclaim this sailing under the Portuguese flag, which, as he unprofitable duello at an end. Shut up, San- had no title to use it, constituted him a pirate grado! Not another word out of your head, in the eye of law, he fought with an English Bonnie Braes, or the can of turtle soup which corvette. He was captured, after a dashing Mr. Leask sent this afternoon shall remain un-action, and as the sequel of the adventure furbroached! nishes a pleasing illustration of the good-heartLAIRD.-But only consider the provocation!edness of our blue-jackets, I shall quote it:What will the Session say if they hear that I've "I was summoned to the cabin, where numer

ous questions were put all of which I answered into the boat by itself; next, your boy is in frankly and truly. Thirteen of my crew were the neighbourhood to help you with the skiff; slain, and nearly all the rest wounded. My and, finally, it is pitch dark, perfectly calm, papers were next inspected, and found to be and there isn't a sentry to be seen aft the cabin Spanish. "How was it, then," exclaimed the door. Now, good night, my clever fighter, and commander, "that you fought under the Portu- let me never have the happiness of seeing your guese flag?" face again!"

Here was the question I always expected, and for which I had in vain taxed with my wit with the hearty grasp of a sailor, and, as he As he said this, he rose, shaking my hand and ingenuity to supply a reasonable excuse! passed my servant, slipped something into his I had nothing to say for the daring violation of pocket, which proved to be a couple of sorenationality; so I resolved to tell the truth reigns. Meanwhile, the steward appeared with boldly about my dispute with the Dane, and blankets, which he spread on the locker; and, my desire to deceive him early in the day, but blowing out the lamp, went on deck with a I cautiously omitted the adroitness with which "good night." I had deprived him of his darkies. I confessed that I forgot the flag when I found that I had It was very still, and unusually dark. There a different foe from the Dane to contend with, was dead silence in the corvette. Presently, I and I flattered myself with the hope that, had crawled softly to the stern window, and lying I repulsed the first unaided onset, I would flat on my stomach over the transom, peered have been able to escape with the usual sea-out into night. There, in reality, was my boat breeze.

towing astern by a slack line! As I gazed, some one on deck above me drew in the rope with softest motion, until the skiff lay close under the windows. Patiently, slowly, cautiously,-fearing the sound of his fall, and dreading almost the rush of my breath in the profound A change of colour, an earnest gaze at the silence,-I lowered my boy into the boat. The floor, compressed lips and clenched teeth, were basket followed. The negro fastened the boatmy only replies. hook to the cabin window, and on this, lame as

The captain looked at me in silence a while, and, in a sorrowful voice, asked if I was aware that my defence under the Portugese ensign, no matter what tempted its use, could only be construed as an act of piracy!

This painful scrutiny took place before the I was, I followed the basket. Fortunately, not surgeon, whose looks and expressions strongly a plash, a crack, or a footfall disturbed the denoted his cordial sympathy with my situ- silence. I looked aloft, and no one was visible ation. "Yes," said Captain ****, "it is on the quarter-deck. A slight jerk brought the a pity for a sailor who fights as bravely as you boat-rope softly into the water, and I drifted have done, in defence of what he considers his away into the darkness. property, to be condemned for a combination of mistakes and forgetfulness.

However, let

LAIRD.—What kind o' a production is this,

us not hasten matters; you are hungry and that bears the new-fangled, jaw-breaking name want rest, and, though we are navy-men, and o' Periscopies ? Is it onything anent the on the coast of Africa, we are not savages." Peris, that Tummas Moore maks sic a sang I was then directed to remain where I was till aboot? further orders, while my servant came below with an abundant supply of provisions. The MAJOR.-Not at all. The volume is a mere captain went on deck, but the doctor remained. collection of odds and ends which have appeared Presently, I saw the surgeon and the com- in sundry Yankee magazines and newspapers. mander's steward busy over a basket of biscuits,

meat and bottles, to the handle of which a LAIRD.-Were the aforesaid odds and ends cord several yards in length, was carefully worthy o' republication?

knotted. After this was arranged, the doctor

called for a lamp, and unrolling a chart, asked MAJOR. So far as two-thirds thereof are whether I knew the position of the vessel. concerned, I should emphatically say-no! The I replied affirmatively, and, at his request, author, William Elder, appears to be one of measured the distance, and noted the course those writing machines, who are at all times to the nearest land, which was Cape Verga, about thirty-seven miles off. ready to grapple with every subject, to order, "Now, Don Teodore, if I were in your place, from Parr's Pills up to the philosophy of Kant. with the prospect of a noose and tight-rope Under an editor who could judiciously use the dancing before me, I have not the slightest scissors, he might make a useful penny-a-liner, hesitation in saying that I would make an at- but further this deponent sayeth not! He enuntempt to know what Cape Verga is made of

before twenty-four hours were over my head! ciates stale platitudes with all the apparent And see, my good fellow, how Providence, profundity of a seraphic doctor; and every now accident, or fortune favours you! First of all, and then shows his originality by differing point your own boat happens to be towing astern be- blank from his fellow mortals! neath these very cabin windows; secondly, a basket of provisions, water and brandy, stands packed on the transom, almost ready to slip puir William ?

LAIRD.-Are ye no a fraction overly snell on

of an essay upon our great English epic

Let

MAJOR.-Judge from the following snatch tree. The Don's ladies are composed of veritable flesh and blood, and his knights are regular bone-breakers and blood-tappers! One of them would put to flighta baker's dozen of Miss Porter's wishy-washy heroes, who indulge in bear's grease, and cannot make a campaign without a supply of medicated shaving soap and pearl tooth powder!

"In our apprehension Milton's Paradise Lost is a very bad novel-a book, whose mischief in theology, moral tone, and general influence, are not atoned for even by its poetry!" LAIRD,-Hoot awa' wi' the clatty land louper! my freend and benefactress, Jenny, hae his tinkler-tongued trash, in order to sing geese wi'! If I kenned whaur the Toronto hangman puts up, I would gie him a groat, in order to burn the abomination at the common place o' execution.

DOCTOR. You perceive, Laird, that an Elder can write heresy as well as a meaner mortal!

LAIRD. None o' your impudence, ye railing Rab-shakeh! Oh, I wish I had ye before the Kirk Session for half an hour! Foul fa' me, if I wadna' gie ye a face red as a pickled beet! MAJOR.-By the way, Bonnie Braes, in case I forget it, let me give you this volume for my friend, the fair and chaste Grizelda.

LAIRD. That's oor Girzy, I suppose! Hech, sirs, but she's getting up in the world! What ca' ye the piece? MAJOR.-Donna Blanca of Navarre: an Historical Romance, by Don Francisco Navarro Villoslada.

LAIRD. It will be a translation, I'm thinking. MAJOR.—You are right. It is an English version of a story which has acquired no small degree of popularity in Spain.

LAIRD.-But what makes ye sae keen for Girzy, puir woman, to get it?

LAIRD.-Weel, mony kind thanks to you for the buik; but, man, I wish sairly that Girzy would tak' to some profitable course o' reading! She kens as little aboot history as she does aboot the pattern o' Cleopatra's night-sark!

MAJOR.-Why, for that matter, your sister will receive from the perusal of Donna Blanca a considerable inkling of the manners and customs, and the intestine feuds of Spain during the fifteenth century.`

LAIRD. That's aye some consolation! Better for a bairn to eat it's way to learning through a ginger-bread alphabet, than to grow up ignorant o' the A, B, C !

DOCTOR.-So it seems, Laird, you have been seeing Dugald Macallister, the far-famed wizard of Saint Mungo?

LAIRD.-Confound me if Toronto is not the very El Dorado o' gossip! I verily believe that if the Laird blew his nose at the Lunatic Asylum twa minutes afore twull, the transaction would be reported at St Lawrence Ha', ere the knock had heralded the birth o' noon! Wha informed

you o' my visit to Dugald ?

DOCTOR.-Our mutual friend the Bachelor of Music. He sat behind you in the same box. MAJOR. And how did you enjoy the necro

MAJOR.-Because it is just the thing for a romantic maiden's perusal. Donna Blanca is a tale of the genuine old school, full of love-mak-mancer's performances ? ing, and mysteries, and murders, and what not, as an egg is of meat.

LAIRD.-Is it clever?

MAJOR. Decidedly so. The author is impregnated to the back-bone with the concentrated essence of story telling. On he goes from one adventure to another, without stopping to moralize, or do the sentimental, and crams as much material into a chapter as would serve the majority of modern fiction manufacturers for a full-grown volume!

LAIRD.-No' weel at a'.

MAJOR.-Indeed! Why, I understood that he was a clever, nimble-fingered mountebank!

LAIRD. He was o' that, and yet I was choused and cheated oot o' every particle o' pleasure, which I might hae derived from his cantrips, in consequence o' my having the misfortune to be seated next to a diabolically practical man!

DOCTOR.-Pray explain yourself!

LAIRD. The vagabond (I canna ca' him onything else) to whom I refer was a prim, stuckDOCTOR.-Are you serious in your commen- up, black-a-viced-looking customer, sporting dations? On cursorily turning over the pages black claes and a white neck-cloth, stiff as a of Don Villoslada's engenderation, it struck me sheet o' tin iron. Frae the style o' his conthat it belonged to the justly exploded Minerva versation, I jaloused that he was a Professor o' Press school of literature ! Moral, Natural, and Political Philosophy in MAJOR.-"Clean wrang," as Bailie Nicol some o' the ten thousand and ten Universities Jarvie says. It is a pear of a widely different o' Dollardom, wha confer degrees upon young