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man, and used to praise my parts in a manner which was very soothing to me; moreover, her father, the bailie, was possessed of wealth, and it was thought whoever would be the happy man, would not get her empty-handed. The first time I attracted her notice was once I preached in the Muckle Kirk of Boroughtown-my text was culled from the Song of Solomon. I am ashamed to say how often she occupied my thoughts afterwards, and abstracted my mind from my studies. I gave up my researches into the labours of the Fathers, and the metaphysical subtilties of the profounder divines, and hunted through Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, and Anacreon, for love ditties, which I translated, with her name inserted instead of the Lydias and Delias of the originals, and which she handed about among her acquaintances, not a little proud and delighted with the compliments. But, alas! "woman is but warld's gear!" My preferment, like the rainbow, fled the faster from me, and seemed even more distant, the more eagerly I pursued. Miss Pruan began to get impatient-sullen-distant-and at last contemptuous in her treatment of me; and I was awaked one day from my reverie of bliss and happiness, by hearing that she had made an elopement with some rakish and profligate ensign of a regiment. Her father, grieved and irritated, died soon after, and disinherited her; and, in the course of years, I had a sort of melancholy satisfaction in beholding the just retribution of Providence, for the same lady came home a poor widow, with two or three children, and now resides in her native borough; the which place, when I visit occasionally to make a purchase of books and quills for my school, if I chance to see her on the streets, I walk hastily past on the other side, not willing to give pain to her feelings, or awaken unpleasant recollections of my own. But, to return from this vain digression. Mr Thumpbottom, the dominie, had been but in a sickly state during the winter, and, to relieve him a little of his harassing duty, I had been occasionally in the practice of teaching the school. One evening in the spring, as my father and I were sitting by the fireside, he busy mending some of his horse-gear, and I conning over a sermon which I was to preach next SunVOL. XVIII.

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day, my mother entered, and with a look of importance, and shake of the head, said, "I have just been seeing that puir man, the dominie, and I am saer mista'en if he is in a good way." My father looked up, and exclaimed, Ah, poor man!" The thread of my sermon also snapped, and arousing myself at the intelligence, I also exclaimed, "Alas, poor man!" We then, with many reflections on the uncertainty of life, began to speculate much on the sick man's complaint, and the probable duration of his life. Towards night, my mother having gone out a second time, again returned, and informed us the dominie was much worse. Next day I paid him a visit, and found him very ill indeed, and he scarcely recognized me. Early in the morning I was roused by my father and mother, who told me the dominie was gone, and that I should lose no time. in communicating the intelligence to the minister. I hastened up to the manse accordingly, and found the minister in a great measure prepared for the intelligence. He, as became him, made many pithy remarks on the certainty of death, the folly of laying up our treasures here, and the insignificance of all worldly concerns; pronounced a glowing eulogium on the talents, virtue, and friendly and convivial disposition of the deceased ; expressed a sort of unavailing regret that we could never get a successor who would equal, or at all events surpass him; and finally concluded with what I, and I daresay the reader also by this time expected, viz., proposing the situation to myself. In short, through the influence of the minister, I was, in all due time, inducted into the charge of the school of Knockbrae, was put in possession of a free house containing three apartments, and the yearly income, exclusive of some few scholars' fees, of L.10, 13s. 4d.

I was now set down in something like a comfortable competency, and, as is the case with most men, especially with those who have a shade of indolence in their temperament, as I must confess myself to have, when I found my wants thus partly provided for, I was less strenuous and persevering in my applications to my patrons for a kirk; and they, on the other hand, seizing hold of the opportunity of my relaxation, gradually slunk from under the load of their promise, in the N

same manner as you may have seen a lazy and unconscious nag flinch from his draught when the stimulating application of the whip was withdrawn; so that I have again and again had the mortification to perceive vacancies filled up by others, where I had good grounds to expect a preference myself. I have thus been so long accustomed to endure the " bitterness of hope deferred," that I have at last almost ceased to entertain any expectations of further preferment, and have disciplined my mind to the more manly and Christian feeling of resignation and contentment. Indeed, after all, I have grounds of satisfaction which are sufficient to gratify any reasonable man. I am second to only one in the circle in which I move, and am looked up to by the whole parish with respect and admiration, bating a few little personal and professional animosities, which no individual or situation can escape, and which shall be duly and faithfully narrated in their proper place. My classical erudition, though it can only be understood by my brethren of the birch, commands for me more general and unanimous praise and wonder, than if I were surrounded by a whole university of learned scholars. I have a pride in perceiving that I am the oracle of the country round. Often is my abode visited by those who wish my advice to direct their conduct, solve their difficulties, or conduct their important concerns; and, when I walk out in an evening after dismissing my scholars, I am often to be seen seated on a stone, or broken-down pailing, surrounded by a circle of eager and delighted listeners. I have the satisfaction of thinking, too, that I have been the means of training up many generations of youth in the wholesome discipline of truth, virtue, and classical erudition; and, indeed, seldom has anything been more gratifying to me than to receive a visit and the thanks of my quondam pupils, after they have grown up to the years of discretion; the which I have repeatedly done from several who have arisen to some consequence in the world.

We live here in a calm and secluded quiet, far removed from the stir and bustle of the " great Babel." All that agitates, enfuriates, and debases society, is removed far from us. We only hear of wars, tumults, partystrife, impiety, and folly; and, hear

ing, smile that such things should so convulse the " poor sons of a day!" The contemplation of the calm, placid, or sublime scenery of nature, soothes the monotony of our existence. The slow, winding sweep of the river, as it rolls on incessantly amid its thick-wooded banks, is a more pleasing object than the full tide of chequered existence pouring along the cramped and polluted streets of a city, and the distant soothing roar of the mountain cataract, more congenial than the yell and clamour of an agitated multitude.

But there is society here also-simple and primitive, no doubt, though, to the eye of taste, rude and inelegant; not without the original imperfections of humanity, though, I will venture to say, more fresh from the hands of nature, their good qualities less adulterated, and their evil less complicated and enormous, than those of a crowded and more refined neighbourhood. I have always been of the opinion of those who think that mankind is the same throughout, and only modified by situation, society, and education. In my long, intimate, and varied intercourse with my fellow-parishioners, I have marked gleaming forth, even from amid the obscuring cloud of universal ignorance, such symptoms and indications of a diversity of peculiar character, talent, and propensity, as convinces me of the accuracy of Gray's beautiful and wellknown supposition in his elegy:

Some heart once pregnant with celestial "Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

fire;

Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyreSome village Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood."

It is to the sages, the humourists, and the wits of the parish, that I am now about to introduce the reader. He will find a motley group assembled together, for it is my practice to converse freely with all men who come within my sphere; and I have found, by experience, the truth of an excellent observation, that there are few,

if any, from whose conversation you will not reap either some amusement, instruction, or advantage. I have also a great predilection for the conversation of originals, or what the world calls naturals, whether it be, as some may be ill-natured enough to remark, that their ideas may be more congenial with my own, I cannot say, but I have often much greater amusement from the company of a fool than from that of many who think themselves wise men. My door has been ever open, and my fireside ever free, to the

stranger, the wanderer, or the distressed. In a lonely and secluded parish, and in the long solitude of a winter night, even the entrance of a beggar has been hailed with joy ; and, seated at my warm hearth, and partaking of my simple fare, he has rewarded my hospitality with many a tale of his wanderings, with the occurrences of the world, or news of the country round, which then, perhaps, for the first time, had reached my

ears.

CHAP. II.

The Sexton of Knockbrae.

"Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making."

Or this romantic parish, Saunders Macknockie was, for many years, beadle and grave-digger, and a true specimen of the profession he was, a brother, in so far as mirth and humour are concerned, to the laughter-loving grave-digger in Hamlet. His mental and physical constitutions were happily united to one another. His mind and body expressed nothing but the Judicrous. A jest leered in his eye, it curled at his lip, it mantled and diffused itself over his whole visage. He was about four feet eight inches high, and about as much in breadth, firmly compacted and knit together in thew and sinew, lith and limb. He had small sparkling eyes, of a greyish hue, a full round face, which in colour might be compared to the purple of the rosy-fingered morn, when the king of day rises from his bed of waters, or to the back of a lobster, when parboiled. His chin was always covered with a profusion of grisly hairs, which on Sunday appeared as if an attempt had been made to reap them; but either the skill of the operator-viz. himself for a barber was never seen in the parish of Knockbrae, or the instrument employed, had been at fault, for these porcupine quills had kept their settlements unmoved and unsubdued for more than fifty years. The hebdomadal cuts and slashes which garnished his chin on the first day of the week, showed, however, that an attempt had been made to smooth

Hamlet.

his face; and, indeed, the state of Knockie's chin was so familiar to all the parish, and associated with so much rustic wit, that any alteration of the whole man would have been to the worse, at least in the estimation of all who knew him. His clothes were of a light grey colour, for the sake of economy, for he was under-miller to Charlie Clapper. At the funerals, however, of the richer part of the parish, he was generally arrayed in black, that is to say, a suit that had once been black, for it had acquired a brownish colour, from long exposure to sun and rain. It is hardly possible to convey to modern understandings a just conception of the shape of these mourning vestments; suffice it to say, that they were originally made for a stern Cameronian, who prided himself on the largeness of his buttons, and the length and breadth of the skirts of his coat.

These lugubrious weeds, when they covered the outward man of the sexton of Knockbrae, were by no means the sign-posts of inward grief and trouble of spirit; on the contrary, his face, on such occasions, had infused into it a double portion of the ludicrous, which became more conspicuous by the effort which he was forced to make in order to lengthen it out to a becoming degree of longitude. In fine, had the Knockbraeans been heathens instead of Christians, certes their sexton had been deified. He would

have been the laughter-loving Momus of the hills, and his image would have snuffed up the incense of

"Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles," and all the et cætera of broad grins that ever disturbed the face of man.

The levity of this sexton was, however, a stumbling-block of offence to the more serious part of the parish; and indeed it was a wonder to all, that he who had walked hand in hand with death for so many years, should have never thought, that

"Soon some faithful brother of the trade Would do for him what he had done for thousands."

The worthy Mr Langtext had made many attempts to impress on his mind some serious thoughts, but with no great success. As that deep divine was one day walking in the churchyard, conning over, memoriter, the arguments and illustrations of a sermonfor the reading of sermons was never heard of in those days-his attention was suddenly roused by a grumbling sort of noise, followed by loud bursts of laughter, that seemed to issue from a new-made grave at a distance. Approaching it gently, he perceived the sexton sitting in the grave, and looking with a mixed expression of anger and humour on the fragments of a spade which he had just broken.

"The deil o' sic trash o' spades as they mak noo," muttered the old man, "did I ever see. It's nae sax ooks since I gae twa lily-white shillings to that rascal, Tam Carnoch the merchant, for that mussel-shell theredear enough, in conscience, even though they hac risen 10 per cent per annum at London, as he says. He tauld me it was the ace o' spades; but wae betide me if he dinna soon ken to his cost, that he's the knave o' hearts, as sure as my name's Saunders Macknockie. Pretty trash o' wark tools that they mak noo! It's nae a fortnight since I brake aff the end o' my pick, by striking against the skull o' Geordy Greetlang-a dour loon the Dominie says he was, for his tawse could never mak ony impression on his head -oh, that I could hae tauld the same tale about my pick! But I should hae drawn a lesson from hence, not to hae come in contack wi' sic hard material."

Upon this, the sexton sent up from

the bottom of the grave such a loud, and long, and hearty laugh, that the minister stood with utter amazement, like one petrified; and it was not till Knockie had fairly exhausted himself, that Mr Langtext could find utterance to rebuke this thoughtless beadle for his unscasonable mirth.

"I have told you again and again, Saunders Macknockie, of the danger to which you are exposed, by leading a life of sic thoughtlessness and profanity; but exhortation and warning are thrown away upon you. If your heart were not utterly callous and seared over, it would long ere now have been impressed with some serious thoughts of your own frailty and mortality. Think, you grey-headed sinner, that your present seat will soon be your dwelling-place to the end of time—Oh, think where you are now sitting, and repent you of the evil of your ways."

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"Wi' your leave, most reverend and learned sir," replied the sexton, your advice comes an inkling too late at present, for ye ken weel eneugh that there is no repentance in the grave'-the very words were your text last Sunday, and a good sermon it was. Oh, you handled it brawlyand you kept close to your text, for you came over it at the end of every paragraph, which every minister, Elspet Groandeep says, should do; and she's a great judge, and a powerfu' scripture woman, for I saw her once beat Elder Teuchbody at prolemics, I think she ca'd them. There's nane that comes up wi' you, sir, except perhaps that great man frae Helgy, Mr Rantoul; wow! was not that a noble holding forth that he gave us on the afternoon o' the last occasion--and was he no sweet on that glorious word, Mesopotamia? Dootless, it was nac sae weel as you yourself wad hae done, but surely it was far frae deservin the censure which your auld hoosekeeper (I dinna like the woman, she scrimps me o' my milk) passed upon it, videlicet, as the Dominie says, that ane o' her maister's lang oh's was worth an acre, Scotch measure, o' sic cauld, lifeless, fooshionless, threadbare discour

ses.

By thus administering the cup of flattery, which few can refuse to swallow, the sexton averted the storm that was about to burst on him, for punning on the minister's text. "A hope

less case," said the good man, and wheeled away.

The grave-digger in the tragedy of Hamlet, and his brother in "Blair's Grave," a poem which approaches nearer to the manner and language of Shakspeare, than any other in the wide range of our literature, are represented by these great writers as a pair of the most jovial humourists; and most authors, indeed, when they describe the characters of those whose professions bring them much in contact with the scenes of death and mortality, have generally invested them with habits and feelings altogether different from those which we naturally think they should acquire from considering the circumstances in which they are so frequently placed. This is a curious exhibition of human nature, but it is a true one. The pictures which the mighty writers already mentioned have drawn, are not the "airy nothings" of their own imaginations-they have " a local habitation" in this world of ours; they are characters of every-day occurrence. An explanation of this phenomenon has been given by the great dramatist,

-"custom hath made it a property of easiness;" to which we may add, the natural antipathy which the human mind has to dwell on the gloomy thoughts of death and the grave. The physician, the undertaker, and the sexton, are, perhaps, the persons, of all others, who think least on such subjects. To the physician, a deathbed scene will suggest thoughts of the nature of the disease-the ratio me

dendi-the causæ prædisponentes, &c. and his mind will pass from one professional subject to another; till at length it dwell on that sweetest of conceptions-a fee. His constant satellites, the sexton and undertaker, can think of nothing else but the fee.

The same event, then, will suggest a different train of thought to different individuals, which will be regulated by their various professions, habits, education, and a thousand other circumstances. The power of habit over the human mind, seems in many cases to be in proportion to the difficulty which it has to overcome its repugnancy to what is naturally disagreeable to it. In this it resembles the external sense of taste. Opium, ardent spirits, tobacco, and the like, are naturally very disagreeable; but when a liking to them is once acquired, they become absolutely necessary to one's existence. Such is the effect of custom, in modifying our thoughts and sensations. We need not wonder then that grave-diggers are not found to be soft-visaged, weeping sentimentalists. They are familiar with death, they walk hand in hand with the king of terrors-his skeleton form and his formidable dart, are to them objects of indifference; the rank weeds that cover the sod of the churchyard-the broken coffin-the ghastly skull-and unsightly bones, proclaim to them no mighty warning that sin and death are abroad among the children of men. They pursue their accustomed toil, undamped by thought, and even "sing at grave-making.'

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