will not be felo de se this bout. I trust in Provi- | that in something of that kind consists the summum dence, and in the manly principles of Lord North, bonum. But mounted as I am upon the aboveLord Suffolk, and half a dozen more of those sound mentioned hobby-horse, I can, however, assure you politicians who have a fair and just preponderance in the management of that constitution. If I hear of a half measure in the next six months, I shall be sorry for it; if I could hear of a cruel one I should be still more so. But there is at bottom, in John Bull and all his children, an innate principle of humanity, which no other nation under the sun can boast of. John Bull can quarrel and box with his own brother, and give or take a black eye with every exertion of his hot-headedness; but to shake hands and be friends again, without the smallest remnant of rancor, is a species of benevolence which, as far as I know, belongs to John exclusively, and I love him for it most cordially. When matters became more serious, there is the same spirit, but it is corrected by no inconsiderable glimpse of that useful common sense which lurks at the bottom even of John Bull's prejudices. To leave the rebellious Americans to their own tottering independence, and to make the most of them in the way of unrestrained commerce, was as hearty, homely, contemptuous, and withal prudent a view, as an Englishman in those circumstances could possibly take! Tell me, my Cham, when may the campaign open again? I must have Philadelphia in my possession before the middle of May. Pray tell me all about the new dictator and his powers? I pity his dictatorship with such a council at his elbow. Will Washington like this absurd pageantry? Has he sense enough to be a peacemaker? The moment of projection in America is fast approaching, and I need not tell you that all my warmest hopes are at stake upon the success of the chemistry. If it should turn those stubborn and ungrateful enthusiasts into loyal subjects, it will have done the best best service to old England, that has been rendered in the course of the last hundred years. If, on the contrary, experience shall convince us of the inefficiency of all our efforts to subdue that vast continent, I am clear for shaking off the Americans; leaving them to their own tottering independence, and making the most of them in the way of unrestrained commerce. These passages are from letters to Anthony Chamier, the friend of Johnson and Goldsmith, and the victim of Junius. Another of his most intimate correspondents was another well-known victim of the great political satirist, Bradshaw, who writes an excellent letter, always lively, and full of character as well as news. Chamier and Bradshaw belonged, with Keith and other wellknown men, to a club of twelve, who called themselves the " gang," and this association figures largely, as well as most good-naturedly, throughout the correspondence. The qualities of Keith, which we have remarked as most prominent in his letters, break out very pleasantly in his communications with Bradshaw. As thus: I don't know how it is, my dear friend, but the same old story which you and I talked over in a post-chaise, about a thousand pounds a year, a wife, and a farm, is continually thrilling through my brain; and I can't, for the soul of me, help thinking with great truth, that whilst I am to serve my master abroad, I never can have a commission so honorable and agreeable as the one I now enjoy. I like the sovereigns I am sent to, their capital, and their subjects. There is not a happier man in all Austria than myself; yet I have a hankering after home, which, as it is built upon laudable motives, I cannot wish to suppress. I have often thought that not one in a hundred of you odd fellows, who wallow in the luxury of the land you live in, knows the value of the enjoyments which are within his reach. For my own part, I never think of John Bull and his little proud island without a singular pleasure. There is a queerness in John that I delight in; there is a stamp upon him-a character-a variety-a manliness, which nothing can come up to; and then John's women are so fresh and tidy, his grass so green, his mutton and claret so good, his house so much his own, that I cannot relinquish my share of those advantages. And again, when he acknowledges the receipt of a book of Bunbury's prints-the famous social and high-life caricaturist of that day. By the bye, the book of Bunbury's prints was a present worthy of an emperor; and I should hardly have exchanged it against a patent of prince of his holy empire. I laughed myself black in the face at the "Shaver and the Shavee;" and my German servants, who had never heard the vulgar sound of a loud laugh, ran into the room to see what the You must deuce had befallen his excellency. know that we never laugh here beyond a gentle simper, that dimples the cheek, unless when a grandee or a dear creature happens to be immoderately witty, and then we indulge them with a flying titter. They say throughout Europe that John Bull is a grave, inorose fellow; but hang me if John does not shake his fat sides with ten times the glee that I ever saw since I left him. My service to everybody that wishes me back for home consumption. Let us not omit to give a specimen of Bradshaw's news. The date of the following is the 2nd of April, 1773: The times are hard, and the poor of all ranks are severely pinched. Even Charles Fox finds a difficulty in raising money. He was under a necessity of staking 2,000l. at Newmarket last Monday, for some matches that were to be run that day. The twelve tribes of Israel were all tried, but their hearts were uncircumcised and hard, and he could not raise a single guinea. He declared this at White's and Almack's on the preceding Friday night; he seriously offered 6,000l. at the end of six months, for an immediate supply of 3,000Z.; and, at last, thinking himself sure of winning his matches he offered 5007. for the loan of 2,000l. till the following Tuesday night. No offers would tempt his friends, nor soften the hard hearts of the Jews; and poor Charles was in the last stage of whole fortune, in his pocket, he came into White's distress. In this situation, with five guineas, his an hour before dinner on Saturday; there he found Harry Cavendish (the house of commons notewriter) with whom he began to play billiards for a guinea; and having a run of luck, he won, with the assistance of some bets, eighty-five guineas; which enabled him to go to Almack's at night, where, without losing one cast, he won 3,0007.! His good fortune then left him, and he lost back 7007.; but he cut at three o'clock in the morning, with 2,3007., which enabled him to make his stakes at Newmarket. All this I know to be exactly true. I have not heard what he did at Newmarket, but I will venture to pronounce, that no lord of the treasury ever had such a practical knowledge of circulation, nor such extensive dealings with the moneyed interest of this country. If he escapes a pistol in a gloomy hour, when the ways and means are desperate, what has not this country to expect when he is at the head of its finances? Friday Evening. Charles Fox has lost every shilling he had, at Newmarket! The great meeting is Monday se'night, and he must win more than 3,000l., for none can he borrow. Three years earlier, from Dresden, we find Colonel Keith thus writing to his sister, Walter Scott's Mrs. Bethune Baliol. The reader will be interested to observe, in this letter of the year 1770, the sketch of a tragedy which bears a strong resemblance to that which Mrs Bethune Baliol afterwards told the author of Waverley, and which will be wept over by many generations as the Bride of Lammermoor. The "farce" which follows is not less worth reading. packthread in their pockets, he slily hitched one end Our next two extracts relate to Sir Robert Keith's father. The first is from one of his dispatches to Lord Bute, dated at St. Petersburg in 1762. HOW TO MAKE GENTLEMEN OF A NOBILITY. Here I must not omit apprizing your lordship of a most noble action of the emperor's, who, having gone for the first time in great state to the senate, on Thursday last, did there declare the nobility and gentry of Russia to be free, and in every respect on the same footing with the nobility of the other kingdoms of Europe, with liberty to enter or not into the service of any foreign state, without the permission of the emperor or his successors to the throne. Your lordship may easily imagine the astonishment and pleasure with which the nobility received this royal boon, and the inward satisfaction with which they must have felt themselves from slaves at once become freemen, and really gentlemen. DISTRIBUTION OF FORTUNE'S GIFTS. Apropos of adventures. In a company of dear creatures, to-day, we had a French newspaper, containing a most dismal story of a young gentleman, who, after a variety of beautiful obstacles, and formidable rivals, had at last obtained the hand and heart of his Dulcinea. On the wedding-day a joyful company dined, danced, and supped; and the loving couple having retired about midnight, the guests determined to dance till breakfast next morning. So said, so done; and at nine o'clock the dancers went in a body towards the door of the nuptial chamber, to hail the happy pair. Upon approaching, lamentable cries were heard; the door was burst open, and the young and lovely bride was found bathing with tears the dead body of her bridegroom, who must have expired some hours before, as he was already cold. The most pathetic One of Mr. Keith's daughters, while recounting grief ensued; the lady was torn from the chamber in all the agonies of despair, and unable to give to him an instance of unbecoming parsimony in a any account of the disaster. A fever and frenzy great personage, added a regret that those most richfollowed next day, and she died within eight-and-ly endowed with the gifts of fortune were not always forty hours, without ever recovering her senses. possessed of the generous and liberal heart which Buried together, as you may believe. The ought to accompany them. story is well and affectingly told in the newspaper; it is said to have happened recently, and the scene is laid in Edinburgh! Now, Miss, my dear creatures insist, that I shall (through your means) dive to the bottom of this mystery, and report accordingly. So much for that. N. B. No marks of violence on the dead husband. Foul play from a rival suspected by the newswriter. I swear that there never was a man or maid poisoned in Caledonia. I foresee your answer. 'Tis all a fiction! After a tragedy comes a farce; I'll tell you a story. You must know that we have more pages here than any court in Christendom; all pickles! One of these little gentry, during the last fair, stood for a considerable time at a booth where toys were sold by an ill-natured old woman. His looks spoke desire, his cloth forbade credit; and the beldame told him peevishly not to take up the room of one who might become a buyer. The page observed that the lady had upon a shelf in her booth, a pitcher filled with cream, and, as all pages have "Child!" exclaimed Mr. Keith, (or rather " lassie," for the veteran diplomatist when excited was apt to relapse into the dialect of his youth,) "would you give them that too?" The last public service of Sir Robert Keith was at the congress of Sistovo, and from this place his letters to his sisters are extremely lively and amusing. The date of that from which the following extract is taken is March, 1791. I have led an insipid life; such a life as would have tired an oyster. But what with five German romances, three political folios, and half a dozen French firebrand pamphlets, and a couple of new almanacs, I have crept on through my vegetable existence, and enriched my mind with some queer knowledge, and a supplement to my favorite store of nonsense! If I were to tell my Mussulman messmates what a delight I take in nonsense, every hair of their head would wag contempt at me. But the truth is, that these plenipos are so very wise, them. so mortally sententious, and so devoid of imagi- Neither the professions nor the execution of nation, that a facetious cobbler is worth a score of any journal in its infancy are to be held worth much. We cannot put implicit faith in the acMy Christian colleagues are not remarkable for pleasantry; yet I have heard them laugh outright, quaintance of yesterday. But the manner and (contrary to the advice of Lord Chesterfield,) and tone of the Journal of Design are good, the edithey have all genius enough to enter into the spirit tor's resources appear to be considerable, and some of Burke's book, which I have lent to them, and novel features in the undertaking cannot fail to as they read English, it has proved a real feast to arrest attention strongly. The introduction of each of them in his turn. The French nation is actual patterns of manufactured fabrics strikes one going on to enhance the value of that book, by at first as a somewhat daring innovation, a too obplunging deeper and deeper into the slough of an-vious introduction of literature to trade; but it is archy. I was sorry to learn, by a late letter from Arbuthnot, that the democratic madness is daily found, on examination, to be in no respect out of gaining ground at Geneva, and at Lausanne. place, but indeed suitable and useful in every What follows concerns the death of Maria Theresa of Austria. AN EMPRESS LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE. way. More or less every department of the book has a similar practical scope given to it. The obvious drift is to make it as useful to the manufac As she sat in her chair, she inclined her head turer as to the public, by making the interest of back, and seemed inclined to slumber. One of her both the same. But everything will depend on women arranged the cushions round her dying sovereign, and asked in a whisper, if her majesty its objects being carried out with a strict and unwould compose herself to sleep? No," said the wavering impartiality. We shall have no reason empress, (raising herself,) I could sleep; but to complain of a defect in this respect if the promdeath is too near; and I must not let him steal ise of the opening address is kept steadily in upon me in that way. I have been preparing for mind. "We profess that our aim is to foster orhis approach these fifteen years, and I am resolved namental art in all ways, and to do those things to look him in the face without fear or horror." for its advance, in all its branches, which it would And she did so; for she ordered her physician to give her notice aloud when death was at hand, and be the appropriate business of a board of design to she employed her parting breath in thanking Heaven, do, if such a useful department of government actand blessing her people, and her children. ually existed."-Examiner. Let us place beside this the death of a philosopher, whose name has outlived the imperial one. THE HISTORIAN ROBERTSON MENTIONS THE DEATH OF DAVID HUME. On Friday, I saw for the last time our worthy friend, Mr. Hume. He died yesterday, as much beloved by those who enjoyed his society, for his amiable qualities, as he was admired by others for his genius and talents. Other names as famous occur frequently in the volumes. There are some excellent letters of Marshal Conway, Horace Walpole's friend-as good as any we have seen from that celebrated person. The Duke of Newcastle and the elder Pitt contribute more sparingly. There is a series of curious letters on the first French revolution and its influences, addressed to Keith by the Lord Auckland of that day. And Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Piozzi, and the Duchess of Kingston, contribute each a letter sufficiently characteristic to have been recognized without the signature attached to it. PLUNDER OF INDIA.-By the following account of the plunder which the British army obtained at the capture of Mooltan, it appears that there is no lack of stimulus to the cupidity of the invaders of the Punjaub :— The treasures discovered in the subterranean chambers of the citadel appear to be altogether of scending into the cavities in which the treasures of oriental magnificence and of Asiatic profusion. Dethe fortress had been accumulated, the inspecting officer is said to have found opium, and indigo, and salt, and sulphur, and drugs of every description heaped together in endless profusion; enormous hoards of wheat on one hand, on the other almost inexhaustible stores of rice; stacks of ghee vessels bales of costly shawls and gorgeous silks; chest brimming with their unctuous contents; bales upon after chest crammed with scabbards blazing with gold and jewels; tiers of copper canisters filled to the brim with gold mohurs." My poor pen," says a correspondent of the Delhi Gazette, "cannot describe the variety of wealth displayed to the inquisitive eye. Tumbrils, under strong guards, have been moving to and fro with gold coin all the day. And, in addition to this, three or four crores of specie were still known to be concealed beyond the amount already discovered-one crore of rupees being one million of pounds sterling!" The Journal of Design. Nos. I. and II. With numerous Illustrations. Chapman and Hall. We like the evidence of increased attention to the promotion of ornamental design in British manufactures which the appearance of this journal All these treasures have been given up as plunimplies. We are glad to think the art of suffi- der to the army by the British general. If Gencient recognized importance to justify the estab-eral Scott had served Mexico in the same style, lishment of a special organ for the advancement when should we have heard the last of it from the and protection of its interests. British press?-Boston Courier. From Bentley's Miscellany. FORGIVENESS. THE RETURN. BY ALFRED CROWQUILL. THE wind was north-east! Everybody knows that the wind can't help being frightfully and bitingly cold when it comes from that quarter, said to be the place to which all the ingenuity of man has never been able to get him an introduction. I do not see the use of it, if he could, for taking a long journey, when he knows at starting he will only be received in a cold and cutting manner, is folly. The wind, then, was north-east, as near as could be guessed in the dark. If you turned your face to that quarter, you might almost feel certain it was, as the whistling sharpness seized upon all prominences with such a numbing feel that it made your profile a matter of doubt. Your face became too rigid for a smile, and the tips of your fingers painfully obtrusive; rubbing your hands was a labor in vain; to put them into your pockets is, in such cases, most advisable, as it dislodges the cold air which creeps in the most insidious manner all over you-ay, into your very boots, notwithstanding your patent straps. The wind was positively north-east, and worked away in the most industrious manner, to do credit to the quarter from whence it came, undoing all that a soft south-west had been doing, in a damp way, for days. It turned the mud into hardbake, and licked up as much of the puddles as it could, and then finished off by framing and glazing them in the cheapest and most fanciful manner. The roads were as hard as the solid rock, giving a sound to every footstep, enough to startle itself! Knock! knock knock !-hammer! hammer! hammer! went the merry soles-men, women, and children, very little children and all! All the undertakers, living where they are never liked, could not have come up to it, even with their unaccountable multiplied knockings. It was as if the cold-hearted north-east was making a gigantic coffin, at a short notice, to bury the summer and autumn in. Like an energetic advocate for the early closing movement, it put up its sparkling frost-work shutters over every pane: so that the wooden ones might as well have been up, for what you could see of the goods and wares in the shopkeepers' windows. Carters and working-men began to belabor themselves with both hands, in the most insane manner, after the fashion of devout disciplants. Everybody seemed to aim at unusual velocity, carrying out the delusion that they were "putting on the steam," by the volumes of smoke-like breath that rolled palpably around them. Yet everybody appeared pleased, although the tears did come into their eyes, and their respiration became alternately hot and cold. It was certainly bracing and invigorating, sending the warm blood to the heart, and giving birth to pleasant feelings; thoughts of home and comfortable firesides, and pitiful thoughts for those without them. A north-east wind appears a cold and boisterous visitor, yet it blows open the doors of our hearts, and the doors of shelter for the poor, that only open at its bidding. Even in its severity it brings charity in its hand, and, with its cold finger, points out to us our duties, too often neglected at other times. So the north-east wind is not so bad after all. The wind commemorated in the foregoing thoughts was a frolicsome visitor of a few winters past, and, having gained its point, went the way of all winds; what particular way that is I do not pretend to know; for although we are pretty certain as to where it comes from, if there be any faith in weathercocks, where it goes to is a puzzler. Long coaches were then on the road, at their very best. I, and a companion to whom I shall have much pleasure in introducing you, had rubbed the frostiness off the window-glass of one of those conveyances, which was taking us down the road some forty miles or so, and seen all that I have written about. My companion-for it is with him this tale has to do, and not with me-was a fine hale old man, between seventy and eighty-so his family Bible said; but he was a boy. Age had rumpled his cheek into a perfect cobweb of wrinkles, but had left the rosy color of youth almost as bright as ever. His well-turned leg was as active, and his eye as clear, as at middle age. Time seemed to have pegged away at the tough old man, until he found it labor in vain, and then given him up in despair, to take his own time about his journey. The truth was, he could not touch his heart; when that is young, man is never old. He was an independent man in the village where he was born, to which locality we were bound. The same roof sheltered his gray hairs that had sheltered him when sleeping in his cradle. He, watching for the London coaches, bent over the same gate that he had climbed up for that purpose as a child. His life, with few exceptions, had been one of calm and sunshine, undisturbed in his cottage with the turmoil and vanity of the great world. my I used to call him uncle, from a distant relationship by marriage; I did not care how distant. There is always a pleasure and a pride in deluding oneself into a relationship with the good. He, at the utmost stretch of his jocosity, called me lord," as I and the lord of the manor were the only two seen about in black, except, indeed, the gentleman who came over for an hour and a half on Sunday mornings to preach, from some distant village. He being only a very small visitor, his coat was very little seen. My uncle, in the kindness of his heart, excused him: "Poor fellow," said he, "he has two more churches to attend to !" We had progressed some miles on our journey, and found the cold getting more severe at every mile; consequently, upon the first stoppage to change horses, we alighted to knock some life and feeling into our feet. At the door of the little inn, self-same bitter night. "Money, my dear boy, a small covered cart drew on one side to give us is given to us as almoners. Woe betide us if we room. After ordering something warm, we popped break our trust! The reward for charity is uninto the large kitchen, invited by the roaring fire questionable, is immediate; witness the glow that which illumined the whole place. There, around pervades the heart when you give to those who its blaze, sat some poor shuddering wretches, who, are in sorrow and distress. On the contrary, see we understood, were being passed to their parishes, the continual misery of the foolish ones, who close in the little cart which we had seen on our en- their hands and their hearts against the call of the trance. One more particularly interested us, from needy: scraping a mountain of wealth, that they her extreme old age, which, from appearance, must may die worth so much money, but not one blesshave been upwards of seventy. The cold seemed ing. They drag the worthless weight with them to have made her insensible; her almost equally to the verge of the unfathomable future, and it frozen companions were attempting, by every at- sinks them tention, to bring back some life into the poor old creature. "She's blind, too, poor old soul," said one rough-looking fellow, who was rubbing her bony hand between his palms, as he saw our pitying looks; "she 'll never live the way down, I'm sure; it's come on so bitter, and that tilt draws the cold through us dreadful." "Where is she going to, poor soul?" said my pitying uncle, as he drew the back of his hand across his eyes. 66 'Deeper and deeper still.' "If I ever feel indisposed, or out of humor, as the world calls it, (and we are all liable to megrims,) I go among my fellows, and give my mite where I know it is a blessing, and rightly bestowed, which is very easy to find out in such a small community as this is. You would be astonished what excellent physic I find it. Mind, my dear boy," continued he, "I don't preach, nor wish to give you lessons, for you have forgot Thirty miles on, sir," answered the man; ten more than I, in my simple way, ever knew. "the village of But these thoughts, after our painful scene of to My uncle turned his eyes towards me ;-the night, will find utterance. very village-his own! "I do not know her face," said he. "I believe, sir, she 's been a long time away in foreign parts, or somewhere: I don't know rightly," continued the man. "Poor thing! poor thing!" muttered the kind old man ; "she must not go on- -it would be worse than murder. Landlady," said he, turning to the kind-hearted woman who had brought in a cup of hot tea for the poor creature, "Black Will's coach comes through here in an hour, she must go with him. I'll pay. Put her inside. He'll set her down: he's a kind-hearted fellow. Do what you can for her, there's a good soul." As he said all this, in a hurried tone, he kept gazing upon the death-like features of the old woman, and passing from one poor shivering object to another his hot glass of brandy and water. He drew out his purse, and put some money into the hand of the landlady. "Give her what you can to do her good," continued he, "and I'll see after her to-morrow. I live where she is going to. Wrap her up, you know, and-" "Ready, sir," says the coachman; "the other insides are in." We bowled away. "So take up your cards and let me see whether you play better than you used to do." I did as he directed me, but, as had been the case on all my visits, I was most wofully beaten; I never was a card-player. My brain was galloping and careering away, upon a thousand subjects, called up by the last few hours' incidents. At last he threw down the cards with a laugh, vowing that it was no honor to beat me. I bore it like a martyr, and took my candlestick to retire to bed-we parted on the broad landing. I shook him heartily by the hand and wished him pleasant dreams: who doubts that he had them? Such a bed! sweet as a bed of flowers, instead of feathers. No more bumps in it than the waves of the sea, like which it received me as I plunged into it. That dear old patchwork counterpane, quilted to a miracle of warmth, was to me always like a memorandum-book of generations. Little square bits of long-departed pride, snipped from the Sunday-going gowns of aunts and grandmothers, all passed away, patterns of women. Could it have found tongues to prate of its possessors, what a strange history it would have been! For a few minutes we did Tick-tick-tick! went the powerful old clock. not utter a word; at last the kind old man began It had me at an advantage now, and would be to rub his hands, and exclaim, "Well, getting heard. It was an unusual sound to my metropoliout for so short a time as that circulates one's tan ears, and I began counting its vibrations. I blood. I feel all of a glow-as warm as a positively felt as if I were swinging with its intoast!" No doubt of it, but not a drop of the defatigable pendulum. When I had almost got at brandy and water had passed his lips. full swing, much to my annoyance, the light of my candle, which I had placed on a well-polished old coffer, or clothes-chest, sent one of its little rays upon the frame of a picture that hung opposite to my bed. I knew the picture well: it was a very poor drawing of a young female head, with "Money!" said my uncle, placing the pegs leisurely and thoughtfully in the cribbage-board, as we sat toasting our shins before the sparkling logs on his hearth, after our cosy supper, on the |