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JOHN ANDERSON my Joe," this is a big book about a thief; but, however, as we gave the public last week the life of a Saint, to wit, John Dagley, it is but fair that we should this week balance the account with the life of a Sinner. Yet we must confess that we are not quite so fond of the subject as the author seems to have been; and shall accordingly abbreviate where he has expanded, and content ourselves with repeating only once the facts which he has thought proper to state in various shapes at least three or four times. This, we take it, is the way to form good-sized octavos; especially when illustrated with notes, anecdotes, and a portrait,' with an appendix of the thief-taker's journal of his pursuit, &c. !

In the olden times when beggars perished, neither comets nor biographers were seen; but now we are as likely to have a stately volume on the demise of a vagabond, as if the heavens had blazed forth a prince's death. Of this order is the Memoir of James Mackcoull, which its compiler has sent into the world with as much formality as if it had been a history of the universe.

Many striking circumstances and daring robberies, in which this remarkable character was engaged (says the preface) have been altogether omitted, as either bordering on indecency, or having a tendency to mislead by exam

ple. Nothing has been admitted which can in any way be deemed offensive to the feelings of the most delicate.

The moral which the life of this daring and successful plunderer inculcates, is striking and impressive. He was reared in vice-and being deprived of a religious education in his youth, wandered through life, as it were, at random. To the protecting influence of religion he was a stranger-his ideas of right and wrong were founded in error-and his whole thoughts and meditations were incessantly bent on the ruin and destruction of his neighbour.'

This is the age of theory and philos ophy from the Stock Exchange financiers and agricultural projectors of the House of Commons, to the biographers of felons who write about a burglar's ideas of right and wrong being founded in error; as if villainy were merely a moral mistake, and murder a misconception in principle ! !

The parish of St. Sepulchre, London, had the honour of the hero's birth in 1763. His father was a marshal's man, and his mother a most abandoned woman: Of three sons, Ben, the youngest, was hanged for robbing Mr. Fleming in Drury Lane; John, the eldest,† was frequently tried for his life, and, like James, most egregiously deserved the gallows: and the only sister of these worthies was a notorious thief and prostitute. Mother and daughter fre

"JOHN MACKCOULL.”

kins, of Bow Street, having occasion to be in that city, identified the soi-disant Captain as the noted Jem Mackcoull of of London. He returned to Edinburgh Oct. 1807; and, deviating from his former line of conduct, he frequented several gaming-tables and coffee-houses as Mr. Moffat.'

He resumed his furtive vocation, and employed himself chiefly in picking pockets at the theatres: this he carried to such an excess, that the public began to be alarmed; some left their watches and pocket-books behind them when they went to the theatre, and those who kept any money in their pockets were on the watch to preserve it. Mackcoull, at this time, had recourse to a singular expedient to facilitate his nefarious practices. Having, probably in the course of his business, remarked how very disagreeable it is to come into contact with a bad breath in a crowd, and how natural it is for a person thus assailed to turn his head away, he determined to try the experiment by artificial means. And, before going to the theatre, he has often been observed to cut down one or two onions in very small pieces, and wrap them up in a piece of leather, which he said he made use of for a stomach complaint! but which he threw into his mouth when he fixed upon a subject to be robbed; and getting up with him in the crowd, and breathing up in his face, was sure of making him turn away his head, until he stole either his pocket-book,watch or money.' Detected in one of these exploits, he found it necessary, after a nine months' detention in prison, to quit the Scottish for the English capital.

He sometime after returned to Scotland to execute his grand robbery on the bank at Glasgow, in which his accomplices were Harry French and the notorious Huffey White, whose escape from the Hulks was achieved that he might assist in the enterprise. It is curious to trace these scoundrels in their dark operations. At Glasgow, having first ascertained the locks and sent patterns, they received a box by the mail from London, with the skeleton keys, and other implements necessary for their purpose; but as these did not answer, Mackcoull journeyed to town,

and had the keys made according to a wooden model, under his own superintendence. The plot was most cunningly constructed, and, their plans being complete, they discharged their lodgings,where they had been 3 months, without fraud, and removed to some concealment, whence they issued to commit the robbery. They got £20,000, and instantly posted off for London; where our hero deceived his two associates to the amount of about £4,000.❜

The intricacies in which these rogues involved themselves are not worth tracing. White was apprehended; and about £12,000 of the money being restored, no prosecution followed, and he was only sent back to the Hulks on his former sentence; and French was, for a like reason, transported to Botany Bay. Mackcoull having secured about £8,000, and given out that he had sailed for the West Indies, lived in concealment till 1812; changing the large notes, at much loss, thro' agents of his own stamp, or perhaps personally in the north. He was then apprehended, and sent in irons to Scotland, to satisfy the Bank for its loss in paper.

At Glasgow he baffled the magistrates and the laws; and became so confident of never being detected, that he had actually the hardihood to institute a civil suit against the Bank for the amount of a bill taken from his person when committed, and purchased with their own notes which he had stolen. This extra

ordinary suit lasted a long time (several years), and cost all the parties much money; indeed so sublimely uncertain, as well as so finely tedious, is the law of Scotland, so like the law of England in putting the rascal and the honest man on the same footing, as long as they have the means of paying fees,it is clear but for the strenuous and fortunate exertions in developing the whole chain of this iniquity, Mr. Mackcoull, the plaintiff, would not only have forced the Bank to refund, but have obtained heavy damages for injurious treatment !!! It happened that he was defeated; and, being defeated in consequence of a decisive proof of the robbery, he was tried and condemned; but died in the jail of Edinburgh in utter wretchedness, raving and abandoned.'

THIS

HIS is a work abounding in original and curious matter concerning the Highlands. A great deal of interest has always been felt in every thing relating to that romantic country and to the manners of the people by whom it is inhabited; but there has been a very great want of authentic information concerning them. Indeed, excepting their conduct as soldiers, and when removed from their native country, there has hitherto been little opportunity of our becoming acquainted with the character of the highlanders. Living in a remote and rugged country-separated by their language and their habits from their lowland neighbours-abandoned by the government of the country, which delegated its authority to the chiefs of the various tribes, there was not much to attract the attention of their neighbours to the state of this people, till the events of 1715 and 1745 made them terrible to the House of Hanover, and drew down upon them the vengeance of the British Parliament. We have heard daily of the oppressions and wrongs done to the people of Ireland, till we have forgotten the prescriptions and penal statutes against the highlanders-and have forgotten too, that though these were of a severity unparalleled by any of those so loudly complained of in the case of Ireland-they provoked no outrages against the government-no assassinations-no wild sallies of revenge. Thus, at least, if we were then ignorant of the peculiar virtues of the highlanders, their patient, but manly submission to those penalties which the wisdom of the legislature had imposed upon them, shewed that they were not a turbulent or ferocious people.

When this truth became apparent to the government, the more vexatious and oppressive part of those penalties -the proscription of their dress and language was generously removed. Since that time the highlanders have well and nobly borne their share in fighting the battles of the country.

*

Still there has been, as we have remarked, a great deficiency of authentic accounts as to the domestic habits of this ancient race. To Sir Walter Scott we owe nearly all that has been made known, probably even the admirable essay published some years ago in the Quarterly Review, on the subject of the Culloden Papers, which embodies so much of the information previously published respecting the Highlands.

The work now before us will give infinite gratification to all those who received pleasure from that essay. The singular anecdotes which it contains, will go a great way to fill up the masterly outline there drawn. The truth is, that so much nonsense has for a long time been written concerning the highlanders, and the character of that people has been so much injured by the vulgar and clumsy panegyrics of stupid scribblers, that we consider a work like this, written by a gentleman so well qualified to do justice to the task, and for the express purpose of stating authentie facts, instead of sporting any new or fanciful system, valuable not only to that country to which the author is an honour, but to every man of sense and education.

The work is divided into two parts. The first relates to the state of the country at various periods of its annals, and the manners of the people: the second part contains the history of the various highland regiments; and occupies (as might be expected from the laudable partiality of a gallant officer to his own profession,) considerably more than half the work :--but in every part of it we find (what alone is valuable in such a work) a profusion of facts and anecdotes. We hasten therefore to lay some of these before our readers.

"The King (George the Second) having never seen a highland soldier, expressed a desire to see one. Three privates, remarkable for their figure and good looks, were fixed upon and sent to London a short time before the regiment

marched. These were Gregor M'Gregor, commonly called the beautiful; John Campbell, son of Duncan Campbell, of the family of Duneaves, Perthshire; and John Grant from Strathsprey, of the family of Ballindalloch. Grant fell sick and died at Aberfeldy. The others "were presented by their Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir Robert Munro, to the King, and performed the broadsword exercise, and that of the Lochaber axe,or lance, before his Majesty, the Duke of Cumberland, Marshal Wade, and a number of general officers assembled for the purpose, in the Great Gallery at St. James's. They displayed so much dexterity and skill in the management of their weapons, as to give perfect satisfaction to his Majesty. Each got a gratuity of one guinea, which they gave to the porter at the palace gate as they passed out." They thought that the King had mistaken their character and condition in their own country. Such was, in general, the character of the men who originally composed the Black Watch. This feeling of self-estimation inspired a high spirit and sense of honour in the regiment which continued to form its character and conduct, long after the description of men who originally composed it was totally changed.

"In those times of strife and trouble, instances might be given of fidelity and unbroken faith that would fill a volume. The following will show that this honourable feeling was common amongst the lowest and most ignorant. In the years 1746 and 1747, some of the gentlemen who had been out" in the rebellion, were occasionally concealed in a deep woody den near my grandfather's house. A poor half-witted creature, brought up about the house, was, along with many others, intrusted with the secret of their concealment, and employed in supplying them with necessaries. It was supposed that when the troops came round on their usual searches, they could not imagine that he could be intrusted with so important a secret, and consequently no questions would be asked. One day two ladies, friends to the gentlemen, wished to visit them in their cave, and asked Jamie Forbes to show them the way.

Seeing that they came from the house, and judging from their manner that they were friends, he did not object to their request, and walked away before them. When they had proceeded a short way, one of the ladies offered him five shillings. The instant he saw the money, he put his hands behind his back, and seemed to lose all recollection. "He did not know what they wanted ;-he never saw the gentlemen, and knew nothing of them," and turning away, walked in quite a contrary direction. When questioned afterwards why he ran away from the ladies, he answered, that when they had offered him such a sum, (five shillings was of some value seventy years ago, and would have bought two sheep in the highlands,) he suspected that they had no good intention, and that their fine clothes and fair words were meant to entrap the gentlemen."

In the following anecdote, there is, we think, something peculiary affecting. It shows the strength of that principle of clanship by which these people were bound to each other; which nourished in the minds of the poorest the honourable pride of ancient birth, and made each man consider himself, in all the circumstances of life, the representative and guardian of the rights and honours of his ancestors and brethren.

"Alexander Macleod, from the isle of Skye, was some years ago seized with a fatal illness in Glenorchy, where he died. When he found his end approaching, he earnestly requested that he might be buried in the buryingground of the principal family in the district, as he was descended from one as ancient, warlike, and honourable; and that he would not die in peace if he thought his family would be dishonoured in his person by being buried in a mean and improper manner. Al though his first request could not be complied with, he was buried in a corner of the church-yard, where his grave is preserved in its original state by the venerable pastor of Glenorchy."

We may trace the same feeling in the following instance :

"The attachment and friendship of