period often reached excess, was by no means unlikely. The author has met some instances of it in former days, and in old-fashioned families. It was, perhaps, no poetic fiction that records how

66

My cummer and I lay down to sleep,

With two pint stoups at our bed-feet;

And aye when we waken'd we drank them dry :
What think you o' my wee cummer and I?”

It is a current story in Teviotdale, that in the house of an ancient family of distinction, much addicted to the Presbyterian cause, a Bible was always put into the sleeping apartment of the guests, along with a bottle of strong ale. On some occasion there was a meeting of clergymen in the vicinity of the castle, all of whom were invited to dinner by the worthy Baronet, and several abode all night. According to the fashion of the times, seven of the reverend guests were allotted to one large barrackroom, which was used on such occasions of extended hospitality. The butler took care that the divines were presented, according to custom, each with a Bible and a bottle of ale. But after a little consultation among them selves, they are said to have recalled the domestic as he was leaving the apartment. "My friend, " said one of the venerable guests, you must know, when we meet together as brethren, the youngest minister reads aloud a portion of Scripture to the rest only one Bible, therefore, is necessary; take away the other six, and in their place bring six more bottles of ale."

This synod would have suited the "hermit sage" of Johnson, who answered a pupil who enquired for the real road to happiness, with the celebrated line,

"Come, my lad, and drink some beer!"

NOVELS AND TALES. VOL. XV.

THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR.

APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT.-P. 9, 1. 5.

The power of appeal from the Court of Session, the supreme Judges of Scotland, to the Scottish Parliament, in cases of civil right, was fiercely debated before the Union. It was a privilege highly desirable for the sub, ject, as the examination and occasional reversal of their sentences in Parliament, might serve as a check upon the judges, which they greatly required at a time when they were much more distinguished for legal knowledge than for uprightness and integrity.

The members of the Faculty of Advocates, (so the Scottish barristers are termed,) in the year 1674, incurred the violent displeasure of the Court of Session, on account of their refusal to renounce the right of appeal to Parliament; and, by a very arbitrary procedure, the majority of the number were banished from Edinburgh, and consequently deprived of their professional practice for several sessions, or terms. But, by the articles of the Union, an appeal to the British House of Peers has been secured to the Scottish subject, and that right has, no doubt, had its influence in forming the impartial and independent character which, much contrary to the practice of their predecessors, the Judges of the Court of Session have since displayed.

It is easy to conceive, that an old lawyer like the Lord Keeper in the text, should feel alarm at the judgments given in his favour, upon grounds of strict penal law, being brought to appeal under a new and dreaded procedure in a Court eminently impartial, and peculiarly moved by considerations of equity.

In earlier editions of this Work, this legal distinction was not sufficienty explained.

POOR-MAN-OF-MUTTON.-P. 49, 1. 4, (foot.)

The blade-bone of a shoulder of mutton is called in

Scotland " a poor man, as in some parts of England it is termed " a poor knight of Windsor;" in contrast, it must be presumed, to the baronial Sir Lion. It is said, that in the last age an old Scottish peer, whose conditions (none of the most gentle) were marked by a strange and fierce-looking exaggeration of the Highland countenance, chanced to be indisposed while he was in London attending Parliament. The master of the hotel where he lodged, anxious to show attention to his noble guest, waited on him to enumerate the contents of his wellstocked larder, so as to endeavour to hit on something which might suit his appetite. "I think, landlord, said his lordship, rising up from his couch, and throwing back the tartan plaid with which he had screened his grim and ferocious visage- "I think I could eat a morsel of a poor man!" The landlord fled in terror, having no doubt that his guest was a cannibal, who might be in the habit of eating a slice of a tenant, as light food, when he was under regimen.

LINES, Old Woman's Charm.-P. 276, 1. 5.

Reginald Scott tells of an old woman who performed so many cures by means of a charm, that she was suspected of witchcraft. Her mode of practice being enquired into, it was found, that the only fee which she

would accept of, was a loaf of bread and a silver penny; and that the potent charm with which she wrought so many cures, was the doggrel couplet in the text.

THE DUKE'S WALK.-P. 286, 1. 5, (foot.) A walk in the vicinity of Holyrood-house, so called, because often frequented by the Duke of York, afterwards James II., during his residence in Scotland. It was for a long time the usual place of rendezvous for settling affairs of honour.

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