impressed with the conviction that the imitation was defective, the assimilation incomplete. London, mighty London, gigantic, incomparable, and unapproachable, scarce noticeable was Birmingham's thin and thready current contrasted with the overwhelming flood that I have seen pressing along thy narrow, deeply-fretted channels! Inferior was the place in all respects. The very handicraftsmen were a less clean and neat, a paler, and a sadder race, than that I had left behind me. Mr Chaser, my mother's cousin, was the owner of a foundery, situated in a smoke-dried lane. Attached to the works was a small house, in which resided the proprietor and his family. I reached the door, surveyed it for a moment, and sighed with apprehension. I touched the bell, and my heart palpitated when I heard it tinging through the house. The bell was not answered. For a quarter of an hour I stood expectant, lacking the courage to ring again.

At last I ventured. At the close of another quarter of an hour, and after a third appeal, the door was opened. A young man, pale and sickly-looking, stood before me. He was in his shirt sleeves. His hands and arms were smeared with patches of dirt, and his face, from which perspiration was fall. ing thickly, matched them. His eyes were of a light blue colour, and deeply sunk in his head. He fixed them on the ground, from which fact you might possibly infer that he was modest and bashful, if the sinister and villanous expression of the rest of his features did not prove him at once to be as whiteliver'd and vicious, as he was blue-eyed and whitefaced.

"Did you ring before?" he enquired in a surly tone, and without deigning to look at me.

"I did," I answered, with some hauteur;" and I desire to speak with your master."

"What do you mean, stupid, by master?" was the elegant reply. "Here, come in," he continued. "Curse the door-this is how half the work gets spoilt. He may find somebody else to be porter, or else a better man to stand at the forge. Well, come in, can't you? Who are you? What's your business?"

"Does Mr Chaser live here?" I asked.

"Why, of course he does-you know that as well as I do-didn't you say just now you wanted to see him?why, what the devil do you mean?"

With these words I was ushered, or rather pushed, into a room that opened into the passage, and was within a few yards of the street door. The palefaced youth departed. Who was he? Surely not a relative of Mr Chaser's? His son, for instance? Oh, Heaven forbid! I had scarcely time to notice two red-coloured prints upon the wall -representations of Industry and Idleness before a heavy footstep warned me to prepare for the bodily presence of Mr Chaser himself. My pulse leaped higher and higher as the affecting moment of our interview drew near. How delighted he would be to receive me! He had never seen me before. Twenty years had elapsed since he last beheld my mother. How he would grieve to hear of her death! How bitterly would he regret the angry words which had passed between him and my father, giving rise to the family quarrel which followed so soon afterwards-severing them entirely from one another. A fat, unshaven gentleman walked in, and I retreated involuntarily a pace or two. He also was without a coat. An air of unmi. tigated vulgarity pervaded the whole man, and I prayed internally that the fleshy bulk constituted Mr Chaser's foreman. He spoke the accent was provincial-" Well, young man, and what do you woant with me?"

"Mr Chaser, sir?" I asked, too well assured already.

"Yes; you've hit it," he answered with a grin. "I are Chaser, and I are awful busy, too, so I'll thank you to make haste."

"You are connected, sir, I think, with a family of the name of Stukely," (I looked in vain in Mr Chaser's eye for some glad token of acknowledgement,) "lately resident in London?" I continued, in dismay.

"Well, and whoat of that, my man? If you have any claim on that there estate, you should see the assignees. I can't help you. I haven't seen the man for twenty years, and I don't know nothing on his affairs. My only wonder is, he warn't in the Gazette a score of years ago-a sleepy-headed, obstinate, old stupid ass."

"I am his son, sir," I answered

prevent my accepting a favour at your hands."

"I doan't know what you mean by that exactly. I suppose its sarce. Damn it, beggars shouldn't be sarcy, any how!"

My acquaintance with Mr Chaser would at this moment have been brought to an abrupt conclusion, if the sudden appearance of a lady had not permitted the train of angry words, that had already taken fire on my tongue, to go out without explosion. The lady was finely dressed; she presented a marked, and I thought at first, a favourable contrast to the two male beasts with whom it had been my unlucky fate to engage on this eventful morning. She was bedizened in a highly-coloured gown, and a pink turban adorned a reddish head of hair. Her person was short and thin, and she had a small face with pinched-up features. Her mouth was very small indeed by nature, but art was reducing its dimensions daily. Could she live long enough, the time would arrive at length for its closing up and disappearance altogether. It will have been observed that in the language and deportment of the gentlemen, there had appeared a slight uncouthness, an utter absence, in fact, of the polished ways and forms of lifethose smiling agents, who, on the shortest notice, so courteously and so ably occupy the place of friendshipherself too sacred for undistinguishable mixing in the world. This obvious fault it was the lady's anxious effort to improve. Her method was a pretty one. As I have said, she screwed and drew her mouth into the smallest and genteelest shape, and words fit only for a lady's lips struggled through it, cut and polished, and qualified for ears as royal as a queen's. What could display high breeding better than such a mouth and such speech? True it is that in the process of refining, some words were clipped and maimed, shorn of a few proportions. But much might be forgiven where the intention was so good as Mistress Chaser's. Was it her fault that V and W would still play masquerade upon her tongue-that Veal was Weal, and Washing Vashing? Was she to blame if some independent and unnatural H would at momentous periods be absent without leave; and could she be answerable if he appeared again

just when absenteeism was most devoutly to be wished? How willingly would she have kept the unruly alphabet in order, had it been permitted her! What but an obedient alphabet did she need, in order to become a perfect model of good manners and elegant deportment? Mr Chaser introduced me in his own offensive manner to the fine lady, and took his leave immediately, informing me, as he departed, that it was very plain I could be of no use to him-there was nothing I could do in the shop, and therefore he could be of no possible service to He thought, as I had travelled from London on purpose to see him, that I might as well stay that day to dinner; if I did so, he promised to introduce me to as fine" a set of cheops as had ever grown out of loins, though every one had earned his living since he was ten year old, and ne'er a soul of the lot had ever been to college." He grinned and left

me.

me.

The plaited lips then opened slightly, and a few syllables escaped them. "You are, I presume, the relative of Mr Chaser?"

"My mother was, ma'am," I replied, waiving all personal claim to that high honour.

"He is a noble character, is he not? The true John Bull-the Eng. lishman. There is no hart about him-none at all."

66

Very little ma'am, I think," I answered most sincerely.

"You have been introduced to Master William." (Master to rhyme with disaster.)

"I have not been so fortunate." "He told me that he had spoken to you."

"I have seen no one, ma'am, but Mr Chaser, and the man who came to the street door."

"That man, as you design him, was Master William. He is our eldest boy-and he is at the head of the "rough" department.

"Where then presided Mr Chaser?" thought I, at once smiling from the very depths of my misery.

"You shall see all the boys at dinner, Mr Stukely. As Mr Chaser said in his queent way, they are as fine a set of children as ever you beheld."

"Have you many of them, ma'am?" "I have height." Every one superintends one department-so that all

"The dear at her piano. Miss Eliza is twelve years old-she will be quite accomplished. She has a fortune from my father of her own. She will settle very well."

"No doubt, ma'am." "You shall see her, Mr Stukely. She is a simple-minded creature all life and nature. I will call her Miss Eliza-Miss Eliza," bawled the good lady from the bottom of the stairs.

There was a loud giggle in reply, and nothing more.

"She is such a timid creature. must fetch her.-Pardon me."

I

The lady curtsied and vanished from my presence, with a dignity, which, cut up in little, would have furnished handsomely a dozen families. For a few minutes I stood in active expectation of the threatened visitation. It did not come. By degrees I ceased to look for it, and at last I let it pass from my remembrance altogether. My mind had weightier thought to bear, and it came with fearful pressure. What was I to do? -whither flee next for help? The last, the only hope, was dissipated. The anchor to which I had fondly held,

dreaming of stability and security, had slipped from my clutch, and had cast me hopelessly adrift. I felt the hot blood mounting to my cheek and brain, as I took courage to look with steadiness upon my isolated, desperate condition. The room grew too confined; it was with difficulty I breathed, and I rushed into the open air. "Never," I vowed, "should that inhuman door be closed again upon me." But I walked afterwards for three hours through the long streets of the strange town, and again and again I found myself before the only dwelling that contained human creatures who knew me, to whom I could speak-and I was inclined to ring the bell again—to obtain admittance-ask advice-seek aid. Twenty times, pride, anger, and disgust, interposed to restrain my steps, and to protect me against further insult-if not from further suffering and sorrow. Weakness, inclination, the fear of starvation, of a horrid death from hunger-these were in the opposite balance, and I was content at length to submit to new mortification -to deeper self-abasement. The man had asked me to his table. Who knew what would arise from such a meeting

what sparks of generosity and tender feeling might be elicited from the social board? It was due to my poor mother to make one more attempt. This idea had not occurred to me before. I was glad to find it rising thus to check the dangerous tendency of my evil passions-passions that ever repay indulgence by treachery and betrayal. Emboldened by the instigation of a virtuous principle, sustained by its presence, once more I visited my relatives.

THE memory of Dr Jamieson deserves to be cherished by his countrymen with reverence and gratitude. This amiable and excellent man can claim the praise of having, in no ordinary degree, by his innocent and patriotic pursuits, cultivated that love of country, and that study of native character, which contribute so much to foster a generous emulation and a salutary self-respect. He devoted the learned leisure of a long life to the investigation of our vernacular language and literature, and has widely disseminated a knowledge and an admiration of both among all who claim acquaintance with European philology. While the poems of Burns, and the romances of Scott, have endeared the graces of our modern Doric to many a feeling heart and lively fancy, the Dictionary of the Scottish language has reached the minds of the scientific as well as of the simple, and recalls the important truth, that the phraseology which astonishes or delights us in the Antiquary or the Heart of Midlothian, in the vision of Alloway Kirk or the Address to the Mountain Daisy, is not wholly the rude dialect of rustic men; but is a relic of a rich and noble tongue, which, in the compositions of Barbour, Dunbar, and Douglas, could rival the contemporary productions of England herself.

We willingly avail ourselves of the appearance of a neat reprint of the Scottish Dictionary, to offer our humble estimate of the merits of the work and of its author; and as this new edition does not profess to give any correctory annotations, or any deduction of the science to a more modern stage of its progress, it seems the more necessary to submit some observations, which may assist our readers in appreciating the precise weight and authority to which the dictionary is entitled.

The industry of Dr Jamieson as a lexicographer is entitled to the highest praise. He has diligently amassed a vast store of valuable materials, and has collected all the scattered rays of elucidation which he found within his reach. Numerous illustrative works of northern history, philology, and antiquities, were explored by him,

with a labour which love alone could have maintained; and if all our other monuments should perish, the result of Dr Jamieson's researches would still afford an intelligible and honourable representation of our national disposition and peculiarities. His pages present many a faithful picture of the habits and modes of life, the passages of joy and sadness, the scenes of mourning and of merry-making, which prevailed among a people of remarkable character, sedate and serious, devout and intellectual, yet filled with strong passions and warm fancies, and possessing a keen sense both of ridicule and of tenderness. His citations of vernacular poetry supply a bright anthology of genius of a corresponding kind-rustic simplicity and heartfelt kindliness, broad humour and riotous merriment, biting sarcasm and sagacious thought. These elements were caught and collected at a time when they were yet well understood, and when they still wore those marked features which time and refinement have been rapidly effacing. As a rich repository of native literature, manners, and antiquities, the great work of Dr Jamieson may be considered as invaluable to his countrymen.

Of Dr Jamieson's merits as a philologer we must speak with more caution and qualification. It is perhaps little discredit to him that his knowledge of kindred languages was more derived from the hortus siccus of indexes and vocabularies, than imbibed amidst the living groves and breathing gardens of literature and speech. But it must be further confessed that he had imperfectly mastered the pecuculiar types and transitions of the Teutonic tongues, as connected or contrasted with each other, and that generally he was an unskilful etymologist, and a lax grammarian.

In adverting to faults which truth will not suffer us to conceal, it is exclusively our object to guard against their influence on others, and not on account of their existence to detract from the personal merits of the man. In speaking of Dr Jamieson as we have done in this respect, we feel how little it tends to his dispraise when