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WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, NO 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDInburgh;

AND T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND, LONDON;

To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed.

SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

[OLIVER & BOYD, Printers, Edinburgh.]

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TAM GLEN having, in consequence of the exhortations of Mr Micklewham, and the earnest entreaties of Mr Daff, backed by the pious animadversions of the rigidly righteous Mr Craig, confessed a fault, and acknowledged an irregular marriage with Meg Milliken-their child was admitted to church privileges. But before the day of baptism, Mr Daff, who thought Tam had given but sullen symptoms of penitence, said, to put him in better humour with his fate, "Noo, Tam, since ye hae beguiled us of the infare of the bridal, we maun mak up fort at the christening; so I'll speak to Mr Snodgrass to bid the Doctor's friens and acquaintance to the ploy, that we may get as meikle amang us as will pay for the bairn's baptismal frock."

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Mr Craig, who was present, and who never lost an opportunity of testifying, as he said, his "discountenance of the crying iniquity," remonstrated with Mr Daff on the unchristian nature of the proposal, stigmatizing it with good emphasis, as a sinful nourishing of carnality in his day and generation." Mr Micklewham, however, interfered, and said, "it was a matter of weight and concernment, and therefore it behoves you to consult Mr Snodgrass on the fitness of the thing. For if the thing itself is not fit and proper, it cannot expect his countenance; and, on that account, before we reckon on his compliance with what Mr Daff has propounded, we should first learn whether he approves of it at all." Whereupon the two elders and the session-clerk adjourned to the manse, in which Mr Snodgrass, during the absence of the incumbent, had taken up his abode.

The heads of the previous conversation were recapitulated by Mr Micklewham, as the Rev. Mr F of Port Glasgow Sabbathly says, in the peroration of his sermons, " with as much brevity as was consistent with perspicuity;" and the matter being duly digested by Mr Snodgrass, that orthodox young man, as Mrs Glibbans denominated him, on hearing him for the first time, declared that the notion of a pay christening was a benevolent and kind thought, "For, is not the order to increase and multiply, one of the first commands in the Scriptures of truth?" said Mr Snodgrass, addressing himself to Mr Craig. "Surely, then, when children are brought into the world, a great law of our nature has been fulfilled, and there is cause for rejoicing and gladness! And is it not an obligation imposed upon all Christians, to welcome the stranger, and to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked; and what greater stranger can there be than a helpless babe? who more in need of sustenance than the infant, that knows not the way even to its mother's bosom? and whom shall we clothe, if we do not the wailing innocent, that the hand of Providence places in poverty and nakedness before us, to try, as it were, the depth of our Christian principles, and to awaken the sympathy of our humane feelings?"

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Mr Craig replied, "Its a' very true and sound what Mr Snodgrass has observed, but Tam Glen's wean is neither a stranger, nor hungry, nor naked, but a sturdy brat, that has been rinning its lane for mare than sax weeks." "Ah!" said Mr Snodgrass familiarly, "I fear, Mr Craig, ye're a Malthusian in your heart." The sanctimonious elder was thunder-struck at the word. Of many a various shade and modification of sectarianism he had heard, but the Malthusian heresy was new to his ears, and awful to his conscience, and he begged Mr Snodgrass to tell him in what it chiefly consisted, protesting his innocence of that, and of every erroneous doctrine.

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66

Mr Snodgrass happened to regard the opinions of Malthus on population, as equally contrary to religion and nature, and not at all founded in truth. "It is evident, that the reproductive principle in the earth and vegetables, and all things and animals which constitute the means of subsistence, is much more vigorous than in man; it may be therefore affirmed, that the multiplication of the means of subsistence is an effect of the multiplication of population, for the one is augmented in quantity, by the skill and care of the other," said Mr Snodgrass, seizing with avidity this opportunity of stating what he thought on the subject, although his auditors were but the session-clerk, and two elders of a country parish. We cannot pursue the train of his argument, but we should do injustice to the philosophy of Malthus, if we suppressed the observation which Mr Daff made at the conclusion. "Gude safe's!" said the goodnatured elder, "if it's true that we breed faster than the Lord provides for us, we maun drown the poor folks' weans like kittlings." Na, na," exclaimed Mr Craig, "ye're a' out neighbour, I see now the utility of church censures. True," said Mr Micklewham, "and the ordination of the stool of repentance, the horrors of which, in the opinion of the fifteen lords at Edinburgh, palliated child-murder, is doubtless a Malthusian institution." But Mr Snodgrass put an end to the controversy, by fixing a day for the christening, and telling, he would do his best to procure a good collection, according to the benevolent suggestion of Mr Daff. And to this cause we are indebted for the next series of the Pringle correspondence,. for our worthy and intelligent correspondent, Mr M'Gruel, dined at the manse, on the day appointed, along with Mrs Glibbans and daughter, Miss Mally Glencairn, Miss Isabella Todd, &c. and other friends of the ministers' family, whom Mr Snodgrass invited from Irvine, to be present at the christening; and it was after drinking the doctor's health, in excellent three year old gooseberry, of Mrs Pringle's own making, that the following letters were produced, and read, as Miss Mally said, " pro bono publico," and to satisfy all concerned in the family. Where Miss Mally learned her Latin, we know not, for at Moore's school, neither in our time, nor in that of our senior, the right honourable David Boyle, Lord Justice Clerk, were any young women taught there in that tongue; and we doubt, if even such a thing was known, in the more ancient days of the worthy Mr Dickie. But as the late Dr Oliphant of Dumbarton, a delightful man, said one day in a sermon concerning salt having lost its savour, observing, "it was a pity there was such a dreadful duty on so useful an article; that, however, is none of our business at present, let us leave it, and all the other temporalities of sin, to the king's ministers, and minister to the word." So, therefore, returning from the digression concerning Miss Mally Glencairn, and the grammar schoolmasters of Irvine, we beg attention, in the first place, to Mr Andrew Pringle's account of his late Majesty's funeral.

LETTER XII.

Andrew Pringle, Esq. to the Rev. Charles Snodgrass.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-I have all my life been strangely susceptible of pleasing impressions from public spectacles where great crowds are assembled. This, perhaps you will say, is but another

Windsor Castle Inn.

way of confessing, that, like the common vulgar, I am fond of sights and shows. It may be so, but it is not from the pageants that I derive my enjoyment. A multitude, in fact, is to

me as it were a strain of music, which, with an inestimable and magical influence, calls up from the unknown abyss of the feelings, new combinations of fancy, which, though vague and obscure, as those nebulæ of light that astronomers have supposed to be the rudiments of unformed stars, afterwards become distinct and brilliant acquisitions. In a crowd, I am like the somnambulist in the highest degree of the luminous crisis, when it is said a new world is unfolded to his contemplation, wherein all things have an intimate affinity with the state of man, and yet bear no resemblance to the objects that address themselves to his corporeal faculties. This delightful experience, as it may be called, I have enjoyed this evening, to an exquisite degree, at the funeral of the king; but, although the whole succession of incidents is indelibly imprinted on my recollection, I am still so much affected by the emotion that they excited, as to be incapable of conveying to you any intelligible description of what I saw. It was indeed a scene witnessed through the medium of the feelings, and the effect partakes of the nature of a dream.

I was within the walls of an ancient castle,

The

"So old as if they had forever stood, So strong as if they would forever stand," and it was almost midnight. towers, like the vast spectres of depart ed ages, raised their embattled heads to the skies, monumental witnesses of the strength and antiquity of a great monarchy. A prodigious multitude filled the courts of that venerable edifice, surrounding on all sides a dark embossed structure, the sarcophagus, as it seemed to me at the moment, of the heroism of chivalry.

"A change came o'er the spirit of my dream," and I beheld the scene suddenly illuminated, and the blaze of torches, the glimmering of arms, and warriors and horses, while a mosaic of

human faces, covered like a pavement the courts. A deep low under sound pealed from a distance; in the same moment, a trumpet answered with a single mournful note from the stateliest and darkest portion of the fabric, and it was whispered in every ear, 66 it is coming." Then an awful cadence of solemn music, that affected the heart like silence, was heard at intervals, and a numerous retinue of grave and venerable men,

"The fathers of their time, Those mighty master spirits, that withstood The fall of monarchies, and high upheld Their country's standard, glorious in the storm,"

Passed slowly before me, bearing the emblems and trophies of a king. They were as a series of great historical events, and I beheld behind them, following and followed, an awful and indistinct image, like the vision of Job. It moved on, and I could not discern the form thereof, but there were honours, and heraldries, and sorrow, and silence, and I heard the stir of a profound homage performing within the breasts of all the witnesses. But I must not indulge myself farther on this subject. I cannot hope to excite in you the emotions with which I was so profoundly affected. In the visible objects of the funeral of George the Third, there was but little magnificence; all its sublimity was derived from the trains of thought and currents of feeling, which the sight of so many illustrious characters, surrounded by circumstances associated with the greatness and antiquity of the kingdom, was necessarily calculated to call forth. In this respect, however, it was perhaps the sublimest spectacle ever witnessed in this island; and I am sure, that I cannot live so long as ever again to behold another, that will equally interest me to the same depth and extent. Yours,

ANDREW PRINGLE.

We should ill perform the part of faithful historians, did we omit to record the sentiments expressed by the company on this occasion. Mrs Glibbans, whose knowledge of the points of orthodoxy, had not their equal in the three adjacent parishes, roundly declared, that Mr Andrew Pringle's letter was nothing but a peasemeal of clishmaclavers; that there was no sense in it; and that it was just like the writer, a canary idiot, a touch here and a touch there, without any thing in the shape of cordiality or satisfaction. Miss Isabella Todd answered this objection with that sweetness of manner and virgin diffidence which so well becomes a youthful female member of the establishment, controverting

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