sitting upon thorns, for he cannot hear himself speak. 'Tis a noble recreation. Smith. You are of an old family, Mr. Macrurah; I am quite a plebeian, and do not understand these things. Mac. Faith, Dr. Smith, it is not every one who is able to follow our sennachie, when he goes far into antiquity; but he is always sure of his cup of ale at the conclusion. Smith. Pray, what may your lands rent at ? Mac. Two shillings an acre, overhead, or thereabouts. We send forth droves of the finest little black bullocks you ever saw; and when they come down through Northumberland, it shews the English knaves what noble cheer we have at Coilanach-goilach. Smith. You are obliged to send some of them away, to make other things come back in their stead. Mac. No, faith! no, Dr. Smith. Nothing comes back to me; it goes all to a scoundrel of a trustee. I have been very ill used, Dr. Smith,-very ill, indeed. Smith. That is a common case. You should send away some of your retainers, the pipers for instance, who, to use a proverbial expression, give more cry than wool. Mac. Send away my retainers! Dr. Smith, will it please you to recollect whom you are addressing. Smith. I beg your pardon. Upon my word, I meant no offence. Mac. My eldest son, Fergus, has been very expensive He is worse than a dozen of retainers who don't to me. play at billiards. Smith. Young men must have their swing for a time. Mac. He never looks near me, but in the shooting season, and then it is with a fifty guinea fowling-piece over his shoulders. When he pats his dogs on the head, I tell him not to be so kind to them, for they will one day tear the coat off his father's back. Smith. These young heirs are very apt to forget their arithmetic, when they come down to the metropolis. Mac. I have repeatedly spoken to Mrs. Macrurah about drawing him in, but she says we must support the credit of the family. His principal associates, after all, are nothing but young barrister things, without either cash or connexions; and who think themselves bucks, if they can foist off a guinea's worth of their balderdash, once in the twelvemonth. None of my sons are lawyers-I have put them all into the army. Fergus goes arm in arm even with young R attornies, who, having shuffled over their business in the forenoon, and washed off the dust they gathered among their confounded parchments, think themselves as good as any Highland gentleman. Smith. 'Tis very hard, Mr. Macrurah of Coilanachgoilach. SECTION LXXIII. EXTRACT FROM KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW-YORK. Washington Irving. It seems by some strange and inscrutable fatality, to be the destiny of most countries, (and more especially of your enlightened republics) always to be governed by the most incompetent man in the nation, so that you will scarcely find an individual throughout the whole community who cannot point out innumerable errors in administration, and convince you in the end, that, had he been at the head of affairs, matters would have gone on a thousand times more prosperously. Strange! that government, which seems to be so generally understood, should invariably be so erroneously administered-strange, that the talent of legislation, so prodigally bestowed, should be denied to the only man in the nation to whose station it is requisite ! Scarcely, therefore, had the governor departed on his expedition against the Swedes, than the old factions began to thrust their heads above water, and to gather together in political meetings, to discuss "the state of the nation." Under the tuition of these profound politicians, it is astonishing how suddenly enlightened the swinish multitude became in matters above their comprehension. Cobblers, tinkers, and tailors, all at once felt themselves inspired, like those religious idiots, in the glorious times of monkish illumination; and without any previous study or experience, became instantly capable of directing all the movements of government. To suppose that a man who had helped to discover a country, did not know how it ought to be governed, was preposterous in the extreme. It would have been deemed as much a heresy, as at the present day, to question the political talents and universal infallibility of our old "heroes of "76"-and to doubt that he who had fought for a government, however stupid he might naturally be, was not competent to fill any station under it. But as Peter Stuyvesant had a singular inclination to govern his province without the assistance of his subjects, he felt highly incensed on his return to find the factious His appearance they had assumed during his absence. first measure, therefore, was to restore perfect order, by prostrating the dignity of the sovereign people. He accordingly watched his opportunity, and one evening when the enlightened mob was gathered together, listening to a patriotic speech from an inspired cobbler, the intrepid Peter all at once appeared among them, with a countenance sufficient to petrify a mill stone. The whole meeting was thrown into consternation-the orator seemed to have received a paralytic stroke in the very middle of a sublime sentence, and stood aghast with open mouth and trembling knees, while the words horror! tyranny! liberty! rights! taxes! death! destruction! and a deluge of other patriotic phrases, came roaring from his throat, before he had power to close his lips. The shrewd Peter took no notice of the skulking throng around him, but advancing to the brawling bully-ruffian, and drawing out a huge silver watch, which might have served in times of yore as a town clock, and which is still retained by his descendants as a family curiosity, requested the orator to mend it, and set it going. The orator humbly confessed it was utterly out of his power, as he was unacquainted with the nature of its construction. "Nay, but," said Peter, "try your ingenuity, man; you see all the springs and wheels, and how easily the clumsiest hand may stop it, and pull it to pieces; and why should it not be equally easy to regulate as to stop it?" The orator declared that his trade was wholly different-that he was a poor cobbler, and had never meddled with a watch in his lifeThat there were men skilled in the art, whose business it was to attend to those matters, but for his part, he should only mar the workmanship, and put the whole in confusion. "Why harkee, master of mine," cried Peter, turning suddenly upon him, with a countenance that almost petrified the patcher of shoes into a perfect lapstone-" dost thou pretend to meddle with the movements of government-to regulate, and correct, and patch, and cobble a complicated machine, the principles of which are above thy comprehension, and its simplest operations too subtle for thy understanding; when thou canst not correct a trifling error in a common piece of mechanism, the whole mystery of which is open to thy inspection ?-Hence with thee to the leather and stone, which are emblems of thy head, cobble thy shoes, and confine thyself to the vocation for which heaven has fitted thee" But," elevating his voice until it made the welkin ring, "if ever I catch thee, or any of thy tribe, meddling again with affairs of government, by St. Nicholas, but I'll have every mother's son of ye flayed alive, and your hides stretched for drum-heads, that ye may thenceforth make a noise to some purpose!" SECTION LXXIV. MASANIELLO-GENUINO.....B. S. Ingeman. Genuino. Now, let me wish thee joy! Methinks, great hero, Thy work ere long shall be fulfilled-and I Shall hail in thee the Brutus of our land! Masaniello. That greeting will attend me on the scaffold! But 'tis no matter! If the seeds now sown Gen. Torment thyself? Man. Why with such thoughts Father, such thoughts to me Are joyful, and exalt my soul to heaven! Forgiven in his last hour, was borne away Gen. Nay, thither by the grace Of heaven we all shall come. Truly 'tis great To use it well on earth. Mas. Therefore to-day I use my life-to-morrow, I perchance Gen. Nay, this I hope not. In the rolls of fame Mas. Speak not thus proudly. From approving Heaven Alone can honour flow. The dust which here The Almighty has employed shall be like chaff Gen. But therefore should the flowers that spring on earth, Be cropt before the storm winds come to tear them!— Even this life is a treasure, and if thou Scorn'st its enjoyments, thou disdain'st indeed Mas. Such words in paradise, Ha! have I then The serpent might have used. Betray'd myself?-(aloud.) Well, be it as thou wilt- Mas. The haughty duke should place me by his side, Gen. See'st thou not That thou art call'd to better services Than catching fish and mending nets?-Wert thou A rare and costly pearl, that might for thee Mas. Holy father, I understand thee:-Thou would'st share with me Confessor in my turn. A sin, to set a proper value here On this life's blessings; freely I confess |