him in Cadie Fraser's time. He said that he lived ten years after King George's accession, in the momentary expectation of winning his cause every day in the Session time, and every hour in the day, and at last fell down dead, in what my informer called a " Perplexity fit," upon a proposal for a composition being made to him in the Outer-House. I have chosen to retain my informer's phrase, not being able justly to determine whether it is a corruption of the word apoplexy, as my friend Mr. Oldbuck supposes, or the name of some peculiar disorder incidental to those who have concern in the Courts of Law, as many callings and conditions of men have diseases appropriate to themselves. The same cadie also remembered Blind Willie Stevenson, who was called Wandering Willie, and who ended his days "unco beinly, in Sir Arthur Redgauntlet's ha' neuk." "He had done the family some gude turn," he said, "specially when ane of the Argyle gentlemen was coming down on a wheen of them that had the 'auld leaven' about them, and wad hae taen every man o' them, and nae less nor headed and hanged them. But Willie, and a friend they had, called Robin the Rambler, gae them warning, by playing tunes such as, the Campbells are coming,' and the like, whereby they got timeous warning to take the wing." I need not point out to your acuteness, my worthy sir, that this seems to refer to some inaccurate account of the transactions in which you seem so much interested.

Respecting Redgauntlet, about whose subsequent history you are more particularly inquisitive, I have learned, from an excellent person who was a priest in the Scottish Monastery of Ratisbon, before its suppression, that he remained for two or three years in the family of the Chevalier, and only left it at last in consequence of some discords in that melancholy household. As he had hinted to General Campbell, he exchanged his residence for the cloister, and displayed in the latter part of his life a strong sense of the duties of religion, which in his earlier days he had too much neglected, being altogether engaged in political speculations and intrigues. He rose to the situ

ation of Prior, in the house which he belonged to, and which was of a very strict order of religion. He sometimes received his countrymen, whom accident brought to Ratisbon, and curiosity induced to visit the Monastery of ——. But it was remarked, that though he listened with interest and attention, when Britain, or particularly Scotland, became the subject of conversation, yet he never either introduced or prolonged the subject, never used the English language, never inquired about English affairs, and, above all, never mentioned his own family. His strict observation of the rules of his order gave him, at the time of his death, some pretensions to be chosen a saint, and the brethren of the Monastery of made great efforts for that effect, and brought forward some plausible proofs of miracles. But there was a circumstance which threw a doubt over the subject, and prevented the consistory from acceding to the wishes of the worthy brethren. Under his habit, and secured in a small silver box, he had worn perpetually around his neck a lock of hair which the fathers avouched to be a relic. But the Avocato del Diablo, in combating (as was his official duty) the pretensions of the candidate for sanctity, made it at least equally probable that the supposed relic was taken from the head of a brother of the deceased Prior, who had been executed for adherence to the Stuart family in 1745-6; and the motto, Haud oblivicendum, seemed to intimate a tone of mundane feeling and recollection of injuries, which made it at least doubtful whether, even in the quiet and gloom of the cloister, Father Hugo had forgotten the sufferings and injuries of the House of Redgauntlet.

NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET.

1. Page 22. Every one must remember instances of this festive custom, in which the adaptation of the tone to the toast was remarkably felicitous. Old Niel Gow, and his son Nathaniel, were peculiarly happy on such occa

sions.

2. Page 30. By taking the oaths to Government.

3. Page 40. Scotland, in its half civilized state, exhibited too many examples of the exertion of arbitrary force and violence, rendered easy by the dominion which lairds exerted over their tenants, and chiefs over their clans. The captivity of Lady Grange, in the desolate cliffs of Saint Kilda, is in the recollection of every one. At the supposed date of the novel also, a man of the name of Merrilees, a tanner in Leith, absconded from his country to escape his creditors; and after having slain his own mastiff dog, and put a bit of red cloth in its mouth, as if it had died in a contest with soldiers, and involved his own existence in as much mystery as possible, made his escape into Yorkshire. Here he was detected by persons sent in search of him, to whom he gave a portentous account of his having been carried off and concealed in various places. Mr. Merrilees was, in short, a kind of male Elizabeth Canning, but did not trespass on the public credulity quite so long.

4. Page 41. Not much in those days, for within my recollection the London post was brought north in a small mail-cart; and men are yet alive who recollect when it came down with only one single letter for Edinburgh, addressed to the manager of the British Linen Company.

5. Page 42. I remember hearing this identical answer given by an old Highland gentleman of the Forty-five, when he heard of the opening of the New Assembly-Rooms in George Street.

6. Page 51. The escape of a Jacobite gentleman while on the road_to Carlisle to take his trial for his share in the affair of 1745, took place at Errickstane-brae, in the singular manner ascribed to the Laird of Summertrees in the text. The author has seen in his youth the gentleman to whom the adventure actually happened. The distance of time makes some indistinctness of recollection, but it is believed the real name was MacEwen, or MacMillan.

7. Page 51. An old gentleman of the author's name was engaged in the affair of 1715, and with some difficulty was saved from the gallows, by the intercession of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. Her grace, who maintained a good deal of authority over her clan, sent for the object of her intercession, and warning him of the risk which he had run, and the trouble she had taken on his account, wound up her lecture by intimating, that in case of such disloyalty again, he was not to expect her interest in his favour. "An it please your Grace," said the stout old Tory, "I fear I am too old to see another opportunity."

8. Page 51. BRAXY MUTTON.-The flesh of sheep that has died of disease, not by the hand of the butcher. In pastoral countries it is used as food with little scruple.

9. Page 80. The Scottish pint of liquid measure comprehends four English measures of the same denomination. The jest is well known of my poor countryman, who, driven to extremity by the raillery of the Southern, on the small denomination of the Scottish coin, at length answered, “Ay, ay! But the deil tak them that has the least pint-stoup.'

10. Page 89. I am sorry to say, that the modes of concealment described in the imaginary premises of Mr. Trambull, are of a kind which have been common on the frontiers of late years. The neighbourhood of two nations having different laws, though united in government, still leads to a multitude of transgressions on the Border, and extreme difficulty in apprehending delinquents. About twenty years since, as far as my recollection serves, there was along the frontier an organized gang of coiners, forgers, smugglers, and other malefactors, whose operations were conducted on a scale not inferior to what is here described. The chief of the party was one Richard Mendham, a carpenter, who rose to opulence, although ignorant even of the arts of reading and writing. But he had found a short road to wealth, and bad taken singular measures for conducting his operations. Amongst these, he found means to build, in a suburb of Berwick called Spittal, a street of small houses, as if for the investment of property. He himself inhabited one of these; another, a species of public-house, was open to his confederates, who held secret and unsuspected communication with him by crossing the roofs of the intervening houses, and descending by a trap-stair, which admitted them into the alcove of the diningroom of Dick Mendham's private mansion. A vault, too, beneath Mendham's stable, was accessible in the manner mentioned in the novel. The post of one of the stalls turned round on a bolt being withdrawn, and gave admittance to a subterranean place of concealment for contraband and stolen goods, to a great extent. Richard Mendham, the head of this very formidable conspiracy, which involved malefactors of every kind, was tried and executed at Jedburgh, where the author was present as Sheriff of Selkirkshire. Mendham had previously been tried, but escaped by want of proof and the ingenuity of his counsel.

11 Page 104. A small landed proprietor.

12. Page 151. Several persons have brought down to these days the impressions which Nature had thus recorded, when they were yet babes unborn. One lady of quality, whose father was long under sentence of death, previous to the rebellion, was marked on the back of the neck, by the sign of a broad Another, whose kinsmen had been slain in battle, and died on the scaffold to the number of seven, bore a child spattered on the right shoulder and down the arm, with scarlet drops, as if of blood. Many other instances might be quoted.

axe.

13. Page 162. The particulars here given are of course entirely imaginary; that is, they have no other foundation toan what might be supposed probable, had such a circumstance actually taken place. Yet a report to such an effect was long and generally current, though now having wholly lost its lingering credit; those who gave it currency, if they did not originate it, being, with the tradition itself, now mouldered in the dust. The attachment to the unfortunate house of Stuart among its adherents, continued to exist and to be fondly cherished, longer perhaps than in any similar case in any other country; and when reason was baffled, and all hope destroyed, by repeated frustration, the mere dreams of imagination were summoned in to fill up the dreary blank, left in so many hearts. Of the many reports set on foot and circulated from this cause, the tradition in question, though amongst the

least authenticated, is not the least striking; and, in excuse of what may be considered as a violent infraction of probability in the foregoing chapter, the author is under the necessity of quoting it. It was always said, though with very little appearance of truth, that upon the coronation of George III., wher. the Champion of England, Dymock, or his representative, appeared in Westminster Hall, and, in the language of chivalry, solemnly wagered his body to defend in single combat the right of the young King to the crown of these realms, at the moment when he Hung down his gauntlet as the gage of battle, an unknown female stepped from the crowd and lifted the pledge, leaving another gage in room of it, with a paper expressing, that if a fair field of combat should be allowed, a champion of rank, and birth would appear with equal arms to dispute the claim of King George to the British kingdoms. The story, as we have said, is probably one of the numerous fictions which were circulated to keep up the spirits of a sinking faction. The incident however, possible, if it could be supposed to be attended by any motive adequate to the risk, and might be imagined to occur to a person of Redgauntlet's enthusiastic character.

was,

14. Page 174. The northern gate of Carlisle was long garnished with the heads of the Scottish rebels executed in 1746.

15. Page 175. The Highland regiments were first employed by the celebrated Earl of Chatham, who assumed to himself no small degree of praise for having called forth to the support of the country and the government, the valour which had been too often directed against both.

16. Page 187. In common parlance, a crowbar and hatchet.

17. Page 197. A student of divinity who has not been able to complete his studies on theology.

18. Page 204. The persons engaged in these occupations were at this time bondsmen; and in case they left the ground of the farm to which they belonged, and as pertaining to which their services were bought or sold, they were liable to be brought back by a summary process. The existence of this species of slavery being thought irreconcilable with the spirit of liberty, colliers and salters were declared free, and put upon the same footing with other servants, by the Act 15 Geo. III. chapter 28th. They were so far from desiring or prizing the blessing conferred on them, that they esteemed the interest taken in their freedom to be a mere decree on the part of the proprietors to get rid of what they called head and harigald money, payable to them when a female of their number, by bearing a child, made an addition to eve stock of their master's property.

END OF REDGAUNTLET.