Certainly the Count Fitz-Hum must have had the happiest art of reconciling contradictions, and insinuating hopes into the most desperate cases, for the petitioners, one and all, quitted his presence delighted and elevated with hope. Possibly one part of his secret might lie in the peremptory injunction which he laid upon all the petitioners to observe the profoundest silence for the present upon his intentions in their favour. The corporate bodies were now despatched; but such was the report of the prince's gracious affability, that the whole town kept crowding to the commissioner's house, and pressing for the honour of an audience. The commissioner represented to the mob that his highness was made neither of steel nor of granite, and was at length worn out by the fatigues of the day. But to this every man answered, that what he had to say would be finished in two words, and could not add much to the prince's fatigue; and all kept their ground before the house as firm as a wall. In this emergency the Count Fitz-Hum resorted to a ruse. He sent round a servant from the back-door to mingle with the crowd, and proclaim that a mad dog was ranging about the streets, and had already bit many other dogs and several men. This answered: the cry of "mad dog" was set up; the mob flew asunder from their cohesion, and the blockade of the Pighouse was raised. Farewell now to all faith in man or dog; for all might be among the bitten, and consequently might in turn be among the biters. by some court intrigue; but he could assure his | newspaper, called out clamorously for a literary faithful council, that on his return to his capi- censorship. On the other hand, the editor of tal his first care would be to punish the authors the newspaper prayed for unlimited freedom of of so scandalous a measure, and to take such the press and abolition of the law of libel. other steps, of an opposite description, as were due to the long services of the petitioners, and to the honour and dignity of the nation." The council were then presented seriatim, and had all the honour of kissing hands. These gentlemen having withdrawn, next came all the trading companies; each with an address of congratulation expressive of love and devotion, but uniformly bearing some little rider attached to it of a more exclusive nature. The tailors prayed for the general abolition of seamstresses, as nuisances and invaders of chartered rights and interests. The shoemakers, in conjunction with the tanners and curriers, complained that Providence had in vain endowed leather with the valuable property of perishableness-if the selfishness of the irontrade were allowed to counteract this benign arrangement by driving nails into all men's shoesoles. The hair-dressers were modest, indeed too modest in their demands—confining themselves to the request, that for the better encouragement of wigs, a tax should be imposed on every man who wore his own hair, and that it should be felony for a gentleman to appear without powder. The glaziers were content with the existing state of things; only that they felt it their duty to complain of the police regulation against breaking the windows of those who refused to join in public illuminations; a regulation the more harsh, as it was well known that hail-storms had for many years sadly fallen off, and the present race of hail-stones were scandalously degenerated from their ancestors of the last generation. The bakers complained that their enemies had accused them of wishing to sell their bread at a higher price, which was a base insinuation; all they wished for was, that they might diminish their loaves in size; and this, upon public grounds, was highly requisite, "fulness of bread" being notoriously the root of Jacobinism, and under the present assize of bread, men ate so much bread that they did not know what the d- they would be at. A course of small loaves would therefore be the best means of bringing them round to sound principles. To the bakers succeeded the projectors; the first of whom offered to make the town conduits and sewers navigable, if his highness would "lend him a thousand pounds.' The clergy of the city, whose sufferings had been great from the weekly scourgings which they and their works received from the town The night was now come; dinner was past, at which all the grandees of the place had been present; all had now departed, delighted with the condescensions of the count, and puzzled only on one point, viz. the extraordinary warmth of his attentions to the commissioner's daughter. The young lady's large fortune might have explained this excessive homage in any other case, but not in that of a prince, and beauty or accomplishments they said she had none. Here then was subject for meditation without end to all the curious in natural philosophy. Amongst these, spite of parental vanity, were the commissioner and his wife; but an explanation was soon given, which however did but explain one riddle by another. The count desired a private interview, in which, to the infinite astonishment of the parents, he demanded the hand of their daughter in marriage. State policy, he was aware, opposed such connections; but the pleadings of the heart outweighed all considerations of that sort; and he requested that, with the consent of the young lady, the marriage might be solemnized immediately. The honour was too much for the commissioner; he felt himself in some measure guilty of treason, by harbouring for one moment hopes of so presumptuous a nature, and in a great panic he ran away and hid himself in the wine-cellar. Here he imbibed fresh courage; and, upon his re-ascent to the upper world, and finding that his daughter joined her entreaties to those of the count, he began to fear that the treason might lie on the other side, viz. in opposing the wishes of his, sovereign, and he joyfully gave his consent; upon which, all things being in readiness, the marriage was immediately celebrated, and a select company, who witnessed it, had the honour of kissing the hand of the new Countess Fitz-Hum. | Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, before a horseman's horn was heard at the commissioner's gate. "A special messenger with despatches, no doubt," said the count; and immediately a servant entered with a box bearing the state arms. Von Hoax unlocked the box; and from a great body of papers which he said were "merely petitions, addresses, or despatches from foreign powers," he drew out and presented to the count a "despatch from the privycouncil." The count read it, repeatedly shrugging his shoulders. No bad news, I hope?" said the commissioner, deriving courage from his recent alliance with the state personage to ask after the state affairs. "No, no; none of any importance," said the count, with great suavity; "a little rebellion, nothing more," smiling at the same time with the most imperturbable complacency. "Rebellion!" said Mr. Pig, loud; "nothing more!" said Mr. Pig to himself. Why, what, upon earth" "Yes, my dear sir, rebellion; a little rebellion. Very unpleasant, as I believe you were going to observe; truly unpleasant, and distressing to every well-regulated mind!" 'Distressing! ay, no doubt; and very awful. Are the rebels in strength? Have they possessed themselves of--" "Oh, my dear sir!" interrupted Fitz-Hum, smiling with the utmost gaiety, "make your self easy; nothing like nipping these things in the bud. Vigour and well-timed lenity will do wonders. What most disturbs me, however, is the necessity of returning instantly to my capital: to-morrow I must be at the head of my troops, who have already taken the field; 1 so that I shall be obliged to quit my beloved bride without a moment's delay, for I would not have her exposed to the dangers of war, however transient." At this moment the carriage, which had been summoned by Von Hoax, rolled up to the door: the count whispered a few tender words in the ear of his bride; uttered some nothings to her father, of which all that transpired were the words "truly distressing," and "every well-constituted mind;" smiled most graciously on the whole company, pressed the commissioner's hand as fervently as he had done on his arrival, stepped into the carriage, and in a few moments "the blue landan" and the gentleman with "superb whiskers" had vanished through the city gates. Early the next morning, under solemn pledges of secrecy, "the rebellion" and the marriage were circulated in every quarter of the town; and the more so, as strict orders had been left to the contrary. With respect to the marriage, all parties (especially fathers, mothers, and daughters) agreed privately that his serene highness was a great fool; but as to the rebellion, the guilds and companies declared unanimously that they would fight for him to the last man. Meantime the commissioner presented his accounts to the council: they were of startling amount; and, although prompt payment seemed the most prudent measure towards the father-in-law of a reigning prince, yet, on the other hand, the "rebellion" suggested arguments for demurring a little. And accordingly the commissioner was informed that his accounts were admitted ad deliberandum. On returning home, the commissioner found in the saloon a large despatch which had fallen out of the pocket of Von Hoax: this, he was at first surprised to discover, was nothing but a sheet of blank paper. However, on recollecting himself, "No doubt," said he, "in times of rebellion ink is not safe: no doubt some important intelligence is concealed in this sheet of white paper, which some mysterious chemical preparation must reveal.” So saying, he sealed up the despatch, sent it off by an estafette, and charged it in a supplementary note of expenses to the council. Meantime the newspapers arrived from the capital, but they said not a word of the rebellion; in fact, they were more than usually dull, not containing even a lie of much interest. All this, however, the commissioner ascribed to the prudential policy which their own safety dictated to the editors in times of rebellion; and the longer the silence lasted so much the more critical (it was inferred) must be the state of affairs, and so much the more prodigious that accumulating arrear of great events which any decisive blow would open upon them. At length, when the general patience began to give way, a newspaper arrived, which, under the head of domestic intelligence, communicated the following anecdote: highness. On the contrary, he had given himself out both before and after his entry into the town for no more than the Count Fitz-Hum; and it was they, the good people of that town, who had insisted on mistaking him for a prince. If they would kiss his hand, was it for him, an humble individual of no pretensions, arrogantly to refuse? If they would make addresses to him, was it for an inconsiderable person like himself rudely to refuse to listen or to answer, when the greatest kings (as was notorious) always attended and replied in the most gracious terms? On further inquiry, the whole circumstances were detailed to the prince, and amused him greatly; but, when the narrator came to the final article of the "rebellion" (under which sounding title a friend of Von Holster's had communicated to him a general plot among his creditors for seizing his person), the good-natured prince laughed so immoderately, that it was easy to see that no very severe punishment would follow. In fact, by his services to the late prince Von H. had established some claims upon the gratitude of this, an acknowledgment which the prince generously made at this seasonable crisis. Such an acknowledgment from such a quarter, together with some other marks of favour to Von H., could not fail to pacify the "rebels" against that gentleman, and to reconcile Mr. Commissioner Pig to a marriage which he had already once approved of. His scruples had originally been vanquished in the wine-cellar, and there also it was that, upon hearing of the total extinction of the "rebellion," he drowned all scruples for a second time. "A curious hoax has been played off on a certain loyal and ancient borough-town not a hundred miles from the little river P On the accession of our present gracious prince, and before his person was generally known to his subjects, a wager of large amount was laid by a certain Mr. Von Holster, who had been a gentleman of the bed-chamber to his late highness, that he would succeed in passing himself off upon the whole town and corporation in question for the new sovereign. Having paved the way for his own success by a previous communication through a clerk in the house of W. & Co., he departed on his errand, attended by an agent for the parties who betted against him. This agent bore the name of Von Hoax; and, by his report, the wager has been adjudged to Von Holster as brilliantly won. Thus far all was well; what follows, however, is still better. Some time ago a young lady of large fortune, and still larger expectations, on a visit to the capital, had met with Mr. Von H., and had clandestinely formed an acquaintance which had ripened into a strong attachment. The gentleman, however, had no fortune, or none which corresponded to the expectations of the lady's family. Under these circumstances the lady (despairing in any other way of obtaining her father's consent) agreed that, in connection with his scheme for winning the wager, he should attempt another, more interesting to them both; in pursuance of which arrangement, he contrived to fix himself under his princely incognito at the very house of Mr. Commissioner P., the father of his mistress; and the result is, that he has actually married her with the entire approbation of her friends. Whether the sequel of the affair will correspond with its success hitherto remains, however, to be seen. Certain it is that for the present, until the prince's pleasure can be taken, Mr. Von Hol-week he receives so many private notifications of ster has been committed to prison under the new law for abolishing bets of a certain description, and also for having presumed to personate the sovereign.” Thus far the newspaper:-however, in a few days, all clouds hanging over the prospects of the young couple cleared away. Mr. Von Holster, in a dutiful petition to the prince, declared that he had not personated his serene The town of - has, however, still occasion to remember the blue landau, and the superb whiskers, from the jokes which they are now and then called on to parry upon that subject. Doctor B in particular, the physician of that town, having originally offered one hundred dollars to the man who should notify to him his appointment to the place of court physician, has been obliged solemnly to advertize in the gazette for the information of the wits in the capital, "that he will not consider himself bound to that promise; seeing that every that appointment, that it would quite beggar him to pay for them at that rate." With respect to the various petitioners-the bakers, the glaziers, the hair-dressers, &c.-they all maintain that, though Fitz-Hum may have been a spurious prince, yet undoubtedly the man had so much sense and political discernment, that he well deserved to have been a true one.— Knight's Magazine. THE LAY OF THE BRAVE CAMERON. [John Stuart Blackie, born in Glasgow, 1809. Poet, and professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. Educated at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Göttingen. He early devoted himself to the study of classical philology, and has exercised an important influence upon the progress of the science of language. He was called to the Scottish bar in 1834; became professor of humanity in Aberdeen in 1841; and was appointed to the Greek chair of the Edinburgh University in 1852. His chief works are: A metrical translation of Faust, with notes and introduction; Translations of Eschylus and Homer, with Critical Dissertations and Notes Philo. logical and Archæological; A Treatise on Beauty, with an exposition of the theory of beauty, according to Plato; A Book of Colloques, English and Greek; Phases of Morals; Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece; Musa Burschikosa, or Students' Songs; War Songs of the Germans; Lays of the Highlands and Islands (from which we quote); On Self-culture; &c. &c. Professor Blackie took a prominent part in the movement for the abolition of the test act in Scottish universities. A keen sensibility to the beauties of nature, lively spirit, and forcible expression characterize his poetry.] At Quatre Bras, when the fight ran high, When the Cameron men are wanted." Now hotter and hotter the battle grew, Where the Cameron men are wanted!" Brave Cameron shot, like a shaft from a bow, And with him the lads whom he loved, like a torrent Where the Cameron men were wanted. Brave Cameron then, from the battle's roar, But not till he heard the loud hurrah Where the Cameron men were wanted. By the road to Ghent they buried him then, His funeral wail they chanted. And now he sleeps (for they bore him home, THE MORAY FLOODS. [Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, born 1784; died at Edinburgh, 29th May, 1848. He took an active part in political and social affairs, and was a frequent contributor to Blackwood and other magazines. His chief works are Lochandhu; The Wolf of Badenoch-two historical romances; Highland Rambles, with Long Tales to Shorten the Way; and An Account of the Great Floods of August, 1829, in the province of Moray and adjoining districts. The latter was regarded as his most successful work. "It is worth a gross of fashionable novels and twenty tours," wrote Professor Wilson. **Sir Thomas tells a pathetic or a humorous story admirably, and many such are scattered over these pages"] The flood, both in the Spey and its tributary burn, was terrible at the village of Charlestown of Aberlour. On the 3d of August Charles Cruickshanks, the innkeeper, had a party of friends in his house. There was no inebriety, but there was a fiddle; and what Scotsman is he who does not know that the well-jerked strains of a lively strathspey have a potent spell in them that goes beyond even the witchery of the bowl? On one who daily inhales the breezes from the musical stream that gives name to the measure, the influence is powerful, and it was that day felt by Cruickshanks with a more than ordinary degree of excitement. He was joyous to a pitch that made his wife grave. I have already noticed the predestinarian principles prevalent in these parts. Mrs. Cruickshanks was deeply affected by her husband's unusual jollity. "Surely my goodman is daft the day," said she gravely. | in his eye, and no sound of fear or of complaint "I ne'er saw him dance at sic a rate. Lord grant that he binna fey!1" When the river began to rise rapidly in the evening, Cruickshanks, who had a quantity of wood lying near the mouth of the burn, asked two of his neighbours, James Stewart and James Mackerran, to go and assist him in dragging it out of the water. They readily complied, and Cruickshanks getting on the loose raft of wood, they followed him, and did what they could in pushing and hauling the pieces of timber ashore, till the stream increased so much, that, with one voice, they declared they would stay no longer, and, making a desperate effort, they plunged over head, and reached the land with the greatest difficulty. They then tried all their eloquence to persuade Cruickshanks to come away, but he was a bold and experienced floater, and laughed at their fears; nay, so utterly reckless was he, that, having now diminished the crazy ill-puttogether raft he stood on, till it consisted of a few spars only, he employed himself in trying to catch at, and save some hay-cocks belonging to the clergyman, which were floating past him. But, while his attention was so engaged, the flood was rapidly increasing, till at last even his dauntless heart became appalled at its magnitude and fury. "A horse! a horse!" he loudly and anxiously cried, "Run for one of the minister's horses, and ride in with a rope, else I must go with the stream." He was quickly obeyed, but ere a horse arrived the flood had rendered it impossible to approach him. Seeing that he must abandon all hope of help in that way, Cruickshanks was now seen, as if summoning up all his resolution and presence of mind, to make the perilous attempt of dashing through the raging current with his frail and imperfect raft. Grasping more firmly the iron-shod pole he held in his hand, called in floater's language a sting, he pushed resolutely into it; but he had hardly done so when the violence of the water wrenched from his hold that which was all he had to depend on. A shriek burst from his friends as they beheld the wretched raft dart off with him down the stream, like an arrow freed from the bowstring. But the mind of Cruickshanks was no common one to quail before the first approach of danger. He poised himself, and stood balanced, with determination and self-command 1 "I think,' said the old gardener, to one of the maids, 'the gauger's fie;' by which the common people express those violent spirits, which they think a presage of death."-Guy Mannering. was heard to come from him. At the point where the burn met the river, in the ordinary state of both, there grew some trees, now surrounded by deep and strong currents, and far from the land. The raft took a direction towards one of these, and seeing the wide and tumultuous waters of the Spey before him, in which there was no hope that his loosely connected logs could stick one moment together, he coolly prepared himself, and, collecting all his force into one well-timed and well-directed effort, he sprang, caught a tree, and clung among its boughs, whilst the frail raft hurried away from under his foot, was dashed into fragments, and scattered on the bosom of the waves. A shout of joy arose from his anxious friends, for they now deemed him safe; but he uttered no shout in return. Every nerve was strained to procure help. "A boat!" was the general cry, and some ran this way and some that, to endeavour to procure one. It was now between seven and eight o'clock in the evening. A boat was speedily obtained from Mr. Gordon of Aberlour, and, though no one there was very expert in its use, it was quickly manned by people eager to save Cruickshanks from his perilous situation. The current was too terrible about the tree to admit of their nearing it, so as to take him directly into the boat; but their object was to row through the smoother water, to such a distance as might enable them to throw a rope to him, by which means they hoped to drag him to the boat. Frequently did they attempt this, and as frequently were they foiled, even by that which was considered as the gentler part of the stream, for it hurried them past the point whence they wished to make the cast of their rope, and compelled them to row up again by the side, to start on each fresh adventure. Often were they carried so much in the direction of the tree, as to be compelled to exert all their strength to pull themselves away from him they would have saved, that they might avoid the vortex that would have caught and swept them to destruction. And often was poor Cruickshanks tantalized with the approach of help, which came but to add to the other miseries of his situation that of the bitterest disappointment. Yet he bore all calmly. In the transient glimpses they had of him as they were driven past him, they saw no blenching on his dauntless countenance,-they heard no reproach, no complaint, no sound, but an occasional short exclamation of encouragement to But persevere in their friendly endeavours. the evening wore on, and still they were un |