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lages, as they gradually opened to our view.

At Stilton, we stopped to breakfast. Here the guard and coachman left us, and here our "honours" were desired to remember the above mentioned stage-coach appendages. Every one of us gave each of them a shilling, except a very lovely, handsome young woman, a soldier's widow, who had lost her husband, and was returning home, she gave each of them sixpence, which was all the money she had left, and for which they gave her, in return, some very rough and indecent language. The poor forlorn creature crept to the kitchen fire, for her clothes were still wet with the heavy rain which had fallen the preceding evening but she had nothing left for breakfast; her last shilling had been given to the guard and coachman. As she appeared dejected, I followed her, and sat down to chat with her. "Shall you not breakfast with the other passengers?" "No, Sir." "Are you not well?" "Oh, yes! I am only a little low in spirits, and a little vexed at the unmerited treatment I have just now experienced." "Have you far to travel?" "No, Sir, only fifteen miles; but I leave the coach here, and shall have to travel that distance, perhaps, on foot." "You appear to be very weak." "Yes, I am weak; I have just crossed the ocean, and I was sick during the whole of the voyage." "From the circumstance of your being treated so shamefully by the coachman, I am afraid you have no money." No, Sir, I have not; I gave him the last sixpence I had left; but I am now so near to my home, that I hope I shall be able to struggle through. When in London, I wrote to my father, begging that he would meet me here, but perhaps he has not got the letter,-or he may be dead, you know, for it is five years since I heard from any of my relations." I slipped a crown-piece into her hand, and she gave me a look which I shall never forget; it was a look of gratitude which sprung from the soul." My husband," said she, "was a soldier; he always protected me from insult, but he died of his wounds three days after the battle: I sat by him, and waited on him

with all the tender anxiety of hope; but all would not do; Heaven had ordained that he should leave me." "What will you take?" said I. "A little milk, if they have got any." I ordered a couple of pint bowls to be brought, and a couple of rolls, and we breakfasted together. "And what is to pay?" said I. "Two shillings and sixpence, Sir," was the answer. "Humph!" I exclaimed, and gave him the money. He hoped also that I would remember the waiter, so I threw down sixpence, to get rid of his importunities; he bowed, and, as I thought, appeared to be satisfied. A short time before the coach was ready to set off, an elderly man, in a light cart, drove up, and inquired if a Mrs Beaumont had come by the coach? He was told that she was in the kitchen, and he entered. "Where is she?" he cried, as the door opened. She started, at the well-remembered accents; it was, yes, it was her dear father, who clasped his long-lost darling to his breast. She wept, as she fell into his arms; he blessed, and kissed her, called her his dear Mary, and both of them were soon very happy and composed.

As the coach drove away, she waved her hand, but in a few seconds I had lost sight of her; a turn in the road hid her from my view,-for the coach rattled, and we proceeded rapidly on our journey. "Well," said Mr White, "have you been boxing Harry?" "No," said I, "I have had my breakfast in the kitch

en."

"With the poor woman that looked so melancholy?" "Even so; but the consequence will be, that I shall have to dine with Duke Humphrey, for my finances are getting so low, that I shall soon have pockets to let at a low rent." "Oh! never fear," said he; "I have as much as will suffice for both, till we get home: but was she in distress?" "She was without money?" "Why, being in distress, and being without money, are much the same; but I hope you gave her as much as was necessary to help her forward?" "I did." "Then thou art a friend after my own heart," said he, "and shalt never want a guinea, if I have one to give thee." I now cast my eyes towards the coach-box, and observed a very fine

young gentleman, alongside of coachee, flogging away in fine style. "Who is that gentleman?" said I, to a plain-looking man who sat by iny side?" "It's a farmer's son in this neighbourhood, Sir," said he; "his father was servant to my father, when I was a lad at school; but the high price of corn and cattle has lately made gentlemen of many a beggar's brat beside Master Goslin here." "It seems, then, you are acquainted with him?” "Not I, indeed his father lives in the next village to where I live, but I have no acquaintance wi' him neither; in his own opinion, he's a great man, but not in mine, as well as many other folks; however, he visits at the squire's, and talks loudly at market-dinners, and now and then rides ower a poor labourer, as he gallops home on his blood-horse, drunk wi' wine." "But the young man appears to be a genteel youth enough." "Aye, as you say, he's genteel enough; why, he and his sister have both on 'em been seven years at boarding-school, and you see he is finishing his education by learning to drive; and the girl his sister sits, aye for hours together, in a fine carpeted parlour, wi' mahogany chairs, and a great huge looking-glass, wi' a gilt frame, plaistered up again' a papered wall, drumming on the black and white thingums of a pie-hannah, and squalling like a tom-cat to the music, as she calls it. His muther is i' th' inside the coach, as fine as a dancing horse; but at home she's as mean as muck,-she's an owd, girning owd, gripe-gutly owd creature, that wouldn't give a poor fellow a drink o' small beer, an' he were clamming wi' thirst. But she can spare money for the lad and her to go to Lincoln races wi', and thither it is they are now posting." "They have risen, then, in the world?" said I.

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coachee was all in a bustle to get hold of the reins, and appeared, as my right hand friend observed, to be quite in a fluster. The passengers were all on the alert, expecting every minute to be upset, and those that could, put themselves in readiness to make a spring. As soon as we arrived at the bottom of the hill, over went the vehicle, and such leaping, and such scrambling, and such squalling ensued, as would have frighted a hero, had he been at leisure; but as every one was busy in taking care of himself, and, as soon as landed, was examining his own limbs, to ascertain if nothing was wrong,-all, for a season, was hurry and confusion. At length, as no one complained, it was concluded that no one was hurt. Every one next examined his clothes, and, except a little dirt, there was no damage done this way, save that Mr Goslin's dandy top-coat had received a rent almost the whole length of the back; it had, moreover, lost one of the skirts, and a pocket, which latter article hung dangling on a bough, like a mole in å bush. The inside passengers were in a worse plight than any of us; for the os frontis of an Irish gentleman, in its way to the ground, coming in contact with Mrs Goslin's nose, had opened both sluices, and the blood ran down in copious streams; both her eyes also were black; so that what with stir, and the disaster before mentioned, she and her son were obliged to return home; he to refit for the races, and she to stop at home, which, as the adage says, is always the best place for good housewives. "Well, Sir," said I to my friend the farmer, as soon as we had got under-way again, "and how do you like to be driven by a dandy coachman ?" "Not at all," said he, scowling; " and I assure you, if I was a Justice o' Peace, I would prevent such doing in future, or I'd fine the owners ;-and I should, let me tell you, ha' been upon the bench long ago, but you see they found out I was a bit on a Radical. My name is Smith; I am fond o' reading Cobbet's Register-aye, he's the boy for exposing the Borough-mongers, and the Tax-eaters, and the Drones, and all the rest that have sold themselves to the Devil, or the Ministers, which

is all one. Yes, he does a world of good; and would, if they would let him, soon set all things to right; I believe he'll be i'th' Parliament House before long." "I believe not," said I; "and as for the good he does, or ever will do, why" "I think," said Mr White, "that he is a great rascal." "I've heard many a rascal say so," replied Mr Smith." He is a monstrous liar also," said Mr White, "I have," said Mr Smith, "heard many a monstrous liar say so.' ""Let us drop the subject, gentlemen," said I; every political demagogue has his admirers, and so has Mr Cobbett, some of whom are as coarse in their manners as he is in his writings."

66

We dined at Newark, where we had almost a fresh party, our former company having fallen off one by one, till nobody was left but Mr White and myself.

A stage-coach may very properly be compared to the world at large; -we breakfast, dine, and sup together, a few times at most, and then part, to meet no more. A few slight regrets are sometimes felt at the moment of separation, but in most cases we look with indifference, and sometimes with cold neglect, at the loss of our acquaintance, and often do not suffer even a sigh to escape us.

The company here were all of them far superior, in point of dress, to those who had left us; I verily thought that some of them had been of the higher order of gentry, or, for ought I could tell, some of them might be of noble blood, or of ancient family. But I was out in my reckoning; for, when their mouths opened, oh! what a falling off! all the gentry, and all the nobility, sunk into sober citizens, and mere mechanics;-a lady desired to be helped to a 6c spoonful of sauce, after that here gentleman had been sarved." By way of opening, I observed to a gentleman on my right, that it was a fine day. "Yes, Sir,' said he, giving me a nod, which he intended for a bow, "it is a very fine day, very fine indeed, I never saw a more finer day in the whole course of my life.' Wonderful, thought I; but I was relieved from further thought in a hurry; he on my left, having twisted and twined

VOL. XT.

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his mouth and lips, and writhed till his words were almost strangled in the delivery, thus opened: "He was certain that we should, before long, have rain, for he observed that the barometric tube evidently portended that vapour was ascending into the upper regions of the atmosphere; he thought, too, that the delightful fumes arising from the effluvia exhaled from the bean-flowers by the solar beams, evidently betokened a change in the lower strata of the firmament; that a junction of these phenomena would precipitate the moisture; that the particles would coalesce, and that rain would ultimately be produced." This gentleman, I afterwards discovered, was the master of a large boarding-school in that neighbourhood. A young man, who, I was informed, was his usher, bawled out, just as we were going to the coach, "I say, does none o' ye naw nowt o' no hat o' mine no where?" To which another of the company replied, "I think beloike that's it under th' table i' th' fire nookin, with crown trodden out a' moast." 66 'Aye, and so it is," said the other; "the crown's squeezed out, an' its nudged all to piecesI shall be forced, I'm 'feard, to ha' a new one." I had almost forgot to mention, that, at Newark, we had a good plain dinner, for which we paid three shillings and sixpence each, and eighteen-pence for a glass of port-wine-negus, which made just five shillings. At this there was no grumbling, although, I can assure you, if experience has not already told you, that, at home, I, and my wife, and eight children-in all, ten of uscan have a much better dinner for that sum. Here again coachee left us: Another shilling, "your honour," and another touch of the hat. We are always generous when from home, for fear, I suppose, we should be taken for low scrubs :—why, if you do not blab, you may possibly be taken for an Esquire; at the same time that those of your own street, in your own town, who know you, only call you Mr Snip, the tailor;who is there, then, so paltry, that would not cheerfully pay a shilling, for once in his life, to be elevated to the rank of Esquire? The following recipe will be useful to persons X X

going to London, or elsewhere: "You must stare,-knit your brows, -look cross,-never speak except to order what you want,-use no civility, -strut, swagger, look big; and then every blockhead which you may chance to meet with will take you for a great man." "Tis a glorious thing to be mistaken by an ostler, or a barber, or a coachman, for a fat Parson, a country Esquire, or a gentleman farmer; it is pretty much the same as a student being called a learned man by his washer-woman : but there are people who are desirous of being thought to be rich, or great, by any body; and such people may every day be met with in stage-coaches, or in steam-packets, or, in fact, any where else: they are, for the most part, tailors, or drapers, or grocers, or shoe-makers-lucky dogs, who have been successful in business; or else they are merchants' clerks, or a sort of would-be gentry, whom nobody owns, or with whom no respectable person claims relationship.

At Doncaster we had a fresh coachman-another shilling went; but I took notice that two passengers, of the above gentlemanly description, no doubt, gave coachee, the one two shillings and sixpence, and the other three shillings. I have been credibly informed, that it is very common for a single coachman to make three hundred pounds a-year. At Leeds we had another coachman, and another guard, one shilling and sixpence more;-here, because we would not take supper at one o'clock in the morning, the landlord was vexed, and would not let us have a bottle of wine: when I asked for a bottle of port, "we do not sell wine," was the reply. At Manchester, another coachman-another shilling. Our last stage was from St. Helen's to Liverpool, a distance of twelve miles, which we ran in ten minutes less than an hour; the coachman flogged, and the horses were at full stretch every inch of the way. I was terrified for the consequences that might ensue; Mr White grew pale through fear, and told the fellow that he would apply to a Magistrate; but he continued to cut away, with

out at all minding what was said, till we arrived at the Bell Inn, at the entrance into Liverpool. The horses were all in a white foam; one of them dropt down, and the assistants got pieces of hoop-iron to scrape off the sweat, before coachee dared to drive them through the town, to the Red Lion. An informer in such a case would be a meritorious character: a poor carrier is often fined for whipping his horse, when he is driving a solitary cart, or a pot-man for kicking his donkey; and all this is very right: but a villanous coachman can insult you with impunity, distress the horses, and endanger the lives of the passengers, whenever he pleases ; because, perhaps, he has laid a wager with another rascal of the same fraternity, or that he may swagger about what he did in the morning, after he has got drunk in the evening; but the society for prosecuting vice, or for punishing cruelty to the brute creation, are, in this case, deaf to the calls of humanity, and blind to these unwarrantable proceedings. I have twice crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and I do positively aver, that, in a good ship, there is not half the danger, in such a voyage, that there is in a journey from London to Liverpool by a stage-coach. And as to impositions, except among CORN JEWS and MILLERS, no such imposition is any where to be met with, as that which is every day practised upon travellers, by inn-keepers, coach-proprietors, and their underlings of every description. I shall only further observe, that, in the evening of the day after our arrival, an opposition coachman drove against a lamp-post, by which piece of carelessness the coach was nearly dashed to pieces, and five passengers nearly killed; one woman had her jawbone broken, another had a leg and an arm broken, and a man had his head terribly crushed. The coachman ran away, and by so doing, left the proprietors at full liberty to say that they had ordered him to be careful; this decampment he judged, no doubt, would be a sufficient apology to public feeling, and an atonement more than sufficient to the poor unfortunate mangled passengers!

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF BILLS OF EXCHANGE, PROMISSORY NOTES, AND LETTERS OF CREDIT, IN SCOTLAND*.

TREATISES upon particular departments of the municipal law have been multiplied astonishingly of late, to the grief and dismay of small practitioners, who are ambitious of a complete collection. Such a collection strikes the vulgar eye as a type of professional eminence, and, in that respect, is of great utility to the owner; but the expense of forming it is vastly oppressive, and hence it is that the clamour against the multitude of law-publications is exclusively confined to a very small and insignificant circle of the learned brotherhood. Doubtless, such treatises may be propagated to an endless and intolerable amount. Judges in this country are law-makers, and occasionally, perhaps, law-breakers; smashing an old Act of Parliament with about as much remorse as a squirrel feels in cracking a filbert; and they being, after all, but "mortal men," (as one of their number once modestly observed to a rustic who was overpowered by awe in his godlike presence,) their notions of right and expediency, "the moral fitness of things," as Philosopher Square has it, and so forth, must fluctuate more or less with the opinions of the age, and bear the faint impress of its spirit. A considerable number of years ago, it was held good that a guardian should expend his ward's money in rout and wassail, as the excellent means of strengthening the link which connects the higher and lower orders. The Lord Chancellor, however, opined differently, thinking there was no call for introducing Epicurism into the social system; and it therefore was not left to Time to correct the highly philosophical decision. But since steel links instead of golden ones have come into fashion, it may safely be predicated, that no such decision would have been pronounced at the present day. This is an exemplification of what we propose to remark,-namely, that, not to the originating of new cases alone, but partly to the instability of the human judgment, is it owing that our Supreme Courts are continually giving out new decisions, thick as the leaves in Valombrosa. These float for a time like the ova of fish upon the surface of Chinese rivers, which the careful fisherman collects, and preserves in ponds until they become portly and saleable salmon. In the same way does the Collector of Decisions drag the Courts for the spawn of the intellect,-hatches them into life and palpable entities, and marshals them in the stately and phalanx-like form of a treatise or commentary.

In the extensive vineyard of the law, there is not a more invaluable labourer than the collector. His labour is not simply productive, in the common acceptation of that term, but productive of incalculable benefits to the whole community. A book which professes to embrace the whole system of law, however lucidly it may explain general principles and analogies, must, of necessity, be defective, in marking all the perpetually occurring peculiarities and exceptions, and the various modifications which rules must undergo in practice, when brought into collision with others no less sacred and valuable. Such a book, Erskine's Institutes for example, is of indispensable use to the neophyte, who derives from it a clear and unbroken view of the system, which is spread out before him like the face of a country upon a scientifically constructed map; but, like that map, it is not descriptive of numberless minute solecisms and phenomena, which the student ought carefully to investigate; and hence, every practitioner must have experienced, that it is of little value to him in solving the doubts and difficulties

A Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes, and Letters of Credit, in Scotland. By William Glen. Second Edition, corrected and greatly enlarged, including the most important decisions in Scotland and England, brought down to the present period; by a Member of the College of Justice. Printed for Oliver & Boyd, and Bell & Bradfute, Edinburgh. Smith & Son, and Robertson & Atkinson, Glasgow; and G. & W. B. Whittaker, and Charles Hunter, London. 1824.

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