show off his own skill in clearing up the darkness of points, which would never have been left mysterious in the oracles of God had it been judged meet that our reason should fully comprehend them. And yet in spite of all this-the appearance of sincerity and ardour was so strong in most of the addresses, that it was impossible to listen to them without feeling respect for those from whose lips they proceeded, and I had no difficulty in believing that custom and ancient prejudice might have been sufficient to render them the most acceptable vehicles for the warmest devotional feelings of those whose serious and earnest physiognomies met my too-excursive eye in every quarter of the Assembly.

As the hour of dinner approached, however, I could not avoid observing a considerable diminution in the attentiveness of the majority of the audience, and, at last, an apparently interminable orator was fairly jogged on the elbow by his neighbours, as the finger of the clock began to come within a few lines of the appointed period. W———— and I adjourned with many others to the Royal Hotel, where it is the custom, during the sitting of the Assembly, for such as have attended the levee of the Commissioner, to be present on the same day at the more substantial ceremonial of his dinner. The feast was a pretty thing in its way, and did credit to the state of the bold individual who has adventured to finger the napkin of the peerless Macculloch. The company, too, was splendid at my end of the table, where the more fashionable members of the party were congregated within hearing of the Commissioner himself. Toward the other extremity, at which his Grace's purse-bearer officiated as croupier, the company seemed to consist mostly of clerical personages—and I thought the broad hungry faces of some of these rural divines looked somewhat aghast upon the fine Frenchified dishes, omelets, orissoles, crocats, and fricandeaus, which smoaked in all the pomp of garlic beneath their sharp nostrils." Fat have we gotten hereawa?"-cried one of them --whose keen brazen voice penetrated quite across the room, in very indecorous distinctness, "Fat have we here, Dr. Macbrair ?—I wish I had a guid platefu' of beef an' reets—this is

feed fit for naebody but Moushers."-" Ye say naething but the trowth," said the other-"an binna a bit fite fish, I've got naething to ca' a moothfu' since I cam here the day."-A compassionate waiter, however, soon brought two large trenchers of roast mutton from the side-table, and smoothed effectually the clamours of these ravenous Aberdonians. They were quite silent for some ten minutes, I imagine; but a salver of hock being carried round, they both drank with precipitation of the unwonted fluid-and I perceived them spitting and sputtering afterwards, as if they had swallowed vinegar. I heard them muttering something about "pooshening”—but the poison came my own way, and my attention was diverted from the conclusion of their colloquy.

The dinner, however, was upon the whole rather a stately than an agreeable one; and although the wine was good, I can scarcely say I regretted the earliness of the hour at which the Commissioner rose, and the party broke up. It was no more than seven when we departed, so that I carried W-home with me to Oman's, and gave him a bottle or two of better claret than his Grace's-for wine, after all, is an equivocator with gout as well as with some other distempers, and if it accelerates the advent of the fit, there is no question it hastens also the departure of its relics. Such, at least, is the creed of

PETER MORRIS, M. D. &c. &c. &c.

LETTER LX.

TO THE SAME.

I WENT often to the Assembly during its sittings; but, in general, I found the business in which they were engaged of a nature so dull, that I was contented to make my visits short. It was only on one day that I was induced to prolong my stay during the whole sederunt—and, in truth, I am given to understand, that it is only when subjects of the sort then discussed come before them, that even among the clergy

themselves, much interest or attention is excited. On entering the house, indeed, I could not but remark, that the rows set apart for Members of Assembly were garnished with a plentiful admixture of persons, obviously of a totally different description from those with whose faces I had formed some acquaintance on the "day of prayers." Here and there among the sober clergymen, on either side of the house, might be seen scattered knots of young men, who wore indeed black coats, but whose whole air and mien were decidedly the reverse of clerical. Not a few of their faces, moreover, were already familiar to me, although I could not at first bring myself to believe that they were actually the same faces I had so often speculated upon, among the far different accompaniments of the Outer-House and its side-bars. A friend, however, to whom I applied for information, told me at once that my suspicions were perfectly well founded, and that the young gentlemen whose unecclesiastical appearance had struck my observation, were no other than so many juvenile advocates, to whom, it would seem, their respective Presbyteries and Boroughs in the country had entrusted the duties of representing them in the General Assembly of the Church. You have heard, no doubt, that a certain number of Lay Elders are admitted to the counsels of all the Ecclesiastical Courts in Scotland-but nobody certainly would have suspected that such a venerable designation could be applied to such persons as these young limbs of the law. Could the spirit of Knox re-animate once more the dust that sleeps beneath the chancel of St. Giles's, what wrath would suffuse the "grim visage of verjuice, frowning over a red beard in shape like unto an otter's tail," on seeing the seats which such laymen as George Buchanan once held, profaned by the intrusion of such heirs as these. Truly, the great as would have deemed it foul scorn that the Scottish Zion should seek her Ruling Elders in the StoveSchool.

The case which had induced all these worthies to congregate themselves among the more regular and conscientious members of the Convocation, was that of a Northern Minister, (from the Hebrides, I believe,) who had been ac

cused of criminal conversation with his house-keeper, and who now, after having been tried in succession by the minor jurisdictions of the Presbytery and Provincial Synod, was about to have his guilt or innocence finally determined by the supreme fiat of the infallible Assembly. The moment his case was announced, I observed an unusual commotion in every part of the house-ministers, laymen, and ladies, all alike leaning forward to catch the ipsissima verba of the peccant parson's dittay. It did not seem to be held proper, however, that the last named body of auditors should be indulged with the full gratification of their curiosity, for several of the leading ministers round the Moderator's table began immediately by nods, winks, and pointings, to intimate to them the necessity of their withdrawing themselves. Nods and winks, however, did not produce much effect; and Dr. Macknight, the principal secretary of the Assembly, was obliged to make himself very conspicuous by a terrific use of his lungs in exhortation, before the whole of the fair visiters could be prevailed upon to take themselves off. After they were gone, the remaining audience. seemed to feel themselves at liberty to listen with more undisguised eagerness to the minutia of the affair; and, indeed, the prolixity of the details to which they listened, was no less extravagant than disgusting. For myself, after hearing an hour or two of the thing, I became heartily sick of it, and would have retired had it not been for the sake of the specimens of clerical eloquence which I hoped to hear after the evidence had been gone through. Even this, however, did not gratify me quite so much as I had expected. Dr. Inglis and Sir Harry Moncrieff seemed to be contented with delivering their opinions (which, by the way, exactly coincided) in as few words as possible, and the banquet of expatiating and commenting was left almost untouched for the less delicate lips of the minorum gentium Dei from the country. The more conspicuous of the clerical orators, were Dr. Skene Keith, a shrewd, bitter, sarcastic humourist from Aberdeenshire, and Mr. Lapslie, an energetic rhapsolist from the west of Scotland. The last-mentioned individual is undoubtedly the most enthusiastic speaker I ever

heard. He is a fine, tall, bony man, with a face full of fire, and a bush of white locks, which he shakes about him like the thyrsus of a Bacchanal. He tears his waistcoat open -he bares his breast as if he had scars to show-he bellows-he sobs-he weeps-and sits down at the end of his harangue, trembling all to the fingers' ends like an exhausted Pythoness. He possesses, undoubtedly, many of the natural elements of oratory-but of perfect oratory it may be said, as the Stagyrite has already said of perfect poetry, that it is the affair σε μανικό λινος αλλά έμφρονος 3 I wont trouble you with the minutia-the poor minister was at last found innocent-and for how much of his safety he might be indebted to the impassioned defence of Dr. Lapslie, I shall not pretend to guess.

But whatever may be thought of the external shows and forms of their procedure, I should imagine there can be no more than one and the same respectful opinion concerning that severe and scrutinizing style of ecclesiastical discipline, of which such procedure constitutes so remarkable a part. It must be admitted, David, in spite of all our prejudices, that this popular form of church government carries with it manifold advantages. To you, who so well know the present state of discipline in the Church of England—it is not necessary that I should say much on this head. That no clergyman in the Church of Scotland can be suspected of any breach of that decorum, the absolute integrity of which is so necessary to his professional usefulness, without at once subjecting himself to the anxious and jealous investigation of Courts composed as these are-this one circumstance is, of itself, enough to convince me, that the clerical character in Scotland must stand very high in the sacred secureness of its purity. And so, indeed, is the fact, "their enemies themselves being witnesses." Even W—, with all his Episcopalian prejudices, is proud of the uncontaminated character of the Clergy of the Established Church of Scotland, and scruples not to express his wish that some churches, with whose form of government he is better pleased, were better capable of sustaining a comparison with this. For me, I was always less of a bigot than W