If we cannot call Andrew a learned, yet he is certainly an accomplished man, for he has made considerable proficiency in the French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Languages, and has, occasionally, we believe, taught all of them. In the pursuit of his favourite objects, he betrayed all the enthusiasm and ingenuity of resource, as to means, which are peculiar to men of genius, and which enable them successfully to persevere in tasks which ordinary men would at once shrink from, or very soon renounce, in despair. Except the Latin, (for Andrew attended the grammar-school of this town,) he mastered the other languages with which he is acquainted, almost solely by his own unaided exertions. In accomplishing this he had, of course, many formidable obstacles to surmount. The want of a person to give him the sounds of the various words and letters, was not the least of these. This difficulty he removed in a curious way. He managed to teach his mother, an uneducated woman, and, at the time, pretty far advanced in life, to pronounce all the languages, with which he sought an acquaintance, not excepting the Greek and Hebrew.

Andrew is now about seventy years of age; and is consequently quite unfitted to strike up either reel or countrydance. On this account, for his profession never yielded him more than a bare livelihood, he is now in a very destitute state. He has by no means, however, been quite forgotten by his townsmen, for, some time ago, a considerable number of humane gentlemen contributed a sum for his relief; and we hope-we are sure-that more will be done in this way. To suffer such a man as Andrew Lindsay, however humble he may be in life, to end his days amongst us in misery, would entail a lasting disgrace on the town, we may say, on the county.

We had almost forgot to mention that Andrew used to be a keen florist, and has walked many miles to see, as he expressed it, a fine flower.

Andrew's somnolent feats too, should not be forgotten. Mr. Coleridge has certainly the advantage of Andrew during

their waking hours, but, when both are sound asleep, Andrew is the greater man of the two. Mr. Coleridge can only make rhymes in the land of Nod, but Andrew, when there, can play such merry springs to them in the land of the waking, as to render it impossible for any one to sleep but himself. As one instance of this out of many; a gentleman informed us that at a private dance which he attended, a number of years ago, and when Andrew was the sole minstrel, on one of the reels being lengthened out considerably beyond the ordinary time, the usual signals for stopping the music were given once and again, but to no purpose; seeing the musician would take no common hint, the dancers tried the more broad one of ceasing to dance : to the astonishment of the whole party, however, the music still went on, correctly and spiritedly too, when, upon going up to Andrew, to ascertain the cause of this extraordinary conduct, he was found fast asleep, in which state he must have been playing for, at least, 5 or 7 minutes, perhaps much longer.

This is a wonderful instance of the power of habit.

HISTORIA STI. MIRENI CONFESSORIS.

"THE

\HE supinity of elder days," says the learned Sir Thomas Brown, "hath left so much in silence, or time hath so martyred the records, that the most industrious do find no easy work to erect a new Britannia; and I may repeat the observation as equally just and applicable to the difficulty which the most industrious head will find, in erecting a history of the blessed Confessor, Saint Mirenus. Meagre and unsatisfactory are the annals which time hath spared of this holy man; his name alone may be said to live in history; for the praise-worthy actions of his long and well-spent life have long since sunk into silent forgetfulness, and the remotest tradition hath preserved no echo, however faint, of that fame which at one time, no doubt, filled the land with the odour of his sanctity.

The kingdom of Stratcluid was the field of Saint Miren's labours, and the destruction of that kingdom in the year 972, temp. Kenneth IV. and the flight of a great portion of its inhabitants to Wales, about the year 872, may account for the non-existence of any native records regarding the Saint. But I am not without hopes that some curious searcher into antiquity may hereafter discover some fair manuscript of virgin vellum, containing a history of his life, in all likelihood compiled by that noble and pious prince Dunwallon, the last king of the Stratcludenses, who went to Rome in the year 972, and who died there.

Mirenus was a monk of Greece, and in all probability he was a native of Patras in Achaia, where he first distinguished himself for his piety and love of letters, and where he re

sided until he left that city in company with Saint Regulus and other holy men yet still the place of his nativity must remain in doubt, and sorry am I to say that of his parentage nothing is known, and of the era of his birth, equally little. This is to be the more regretted, because the ancient document which furnishes the first notice of the venerable Confessor has been impugned on the score of its chronological accuracy, by the acute historian who first gave it to the public. The document referred to is part of the Register of the Priory of St. Andrews, written about the year 1140, and is entitled "Historia Beati Reguli et fundacionis ecclesiæ Sancti Andreæ."* From it we learn that Mirenus was one of the holy men who, under the conduct of St. Regulus, imported the sacred reliques of the apostle, St. Andrew, into Scotland. As the history of the transmigration of the Saint's bones is curious, we shall abridge it for the satisfaction of the reader.

In the year 345, an angel appeared to the holy men who guarded the reliques of the Saint, and ordered their bishop, St. Regulus, to visit the sarcophagus, where these were hid, and abstract therefrom three fingers of the Saint's right hand, his arm, from the elbow to the shoulder, his knee-pan, and one of his teeth. This St. Regulus did, and secreted the precious bones. And time it was for him to do so, for the next morning the Emperor Constantine, with a great army, came and laid waste the city of Patras, where the body of the Saint had reposed ever since his martyrdom, and unceremoniously carried along with him to Rome, the scrinium which contained the remainder of the dilapidated Saint's bones. From Rome, the Imperial Collector of Reliques proceeded to the island of Tyber and Collossia, from which he purloined the bones of St. Luke the evangelist, and of Timothy, the disciple of the blessed Paul the apostle. With these holy and revered spoils he then returned to Constantinople.

* See appendix to Vol. I of Mr. Pinkerton's Early History of Scotland-also Appendix to Dr. Jamieson's History of the Culdees.

In these days, Hungus, the son of Ferlon, a great king of the Picts, was engaged in war with Athelstane, King of the Saxons. On the night before the armies joined battle, St. Andrew appeared to Hungus in a dream, and assured him of victory on the following day; but Hungus, having no acquaintance with the Saint, asked him the following questions, Quis est tu? et unde venis? Whereupon the shade of the apostle made this response: "Ego sum Andreas apostolus Christi, et nunc de coelo veni a Deo missus revelare tibi, quod in die crastino expugnabo inimicos tuos et tibi subjugabo; et læta victoria potitus ipse cum exercitu tuo incolumis reparabis. Et in regnum tuum Reliquæ meæ afferentur; et locus ad quem deferentur cum omni honore et veneratione celebris erit, usque in ultimum diem seculi." The Saint then took his leave, and the King awoke from his dream, the particulars of which he immediately communicated to his followers, who joyfully swore to hold the apostle in the utmost reverence, provided the event of the battle proved as felicitous as had been predicted. Next morning the Pictish and Saxon armies joined battle, and Hungus proving victorious, had the satisfaction of cutting off Prince Athelstane's head, and thereafter of fixing it upon a stake above the principal gate of his Capital.

Not long after this splendid victory, an angel again appeared to St. Regulus, and commanded him to embark with his companions, taking with them the bones of the Saint, and to steer their course northward. St. Regulus obeyed the injunctions of the heavenly messenger; but as it is not our purpose to follow him in his wanderings by sea, or wayfarings by land, which occupied the period of a year and a half, we shall only mention, that, after many perils, he at length arrived in Scotland; and his arrival having been announced by the Apostle himself, as mentioned before, he was kindly and hospitably entertained by King Hungus and his people. The grateful King likewise made large grants of lands to the holy pilgrims, who founded a church at Chilrymont, and dedicated it to the Martyr of Patras ;

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