pupil was allowed three teaspoonfuls, in a wine-glass, which, with hot water and cassonade, made a charming beaker of toddy.— P. 199.

Such days as these, however, were not of long duration. Six months glided past, and other scenes soon obliterated these disagreeable associations and reminiscences. Thrown in his youth into a variety of society, and among individuals of the most eccentric character, his reminiscences are of a highly amusing nature. Without being, as the title implies, strictly literary, they are sufficiently agreeable and allied, through himself, to literature and literary men, to warrant their being placed in these records. Besides, it is not to be expected that because a person is himself literary, he should incessantly be mixing in the society of literary men; his experience of life, the fortuitous combinations of many circumstances, would throw him among the most different characters, who are not a whit the less entertaining because not literary, or even illiterate.

Society, at the time when Mr. Gillies was a young man, was very different to what it is now. And this remark we make without insinuating that our author is as old as Methuselah. Our progress, as a people, has been wonderful and rapid, and we have outlived the days of such coarse revelry as is described in the early pages of our author's Memoirs. It is astonishing how people could even live in times when the lucifer match was unknown, and fires had to be kindled by means of gunpowder or flint and steel! The days, the fashions, and the times have altered, and, be it hoped, much for the better.

With the lofty, mysterious, horsehair head-dress-the patching, the powdering, rouging, and otherwise deforming the figure of our women, many other social enormities have disappeared; much of the low taste for night bouts, extraordinary feats of drunkenness, and day revels and ridiculous dissipations, have passed, and men, if they do waste time in idle revelry or dissipation, do so less openly and with less defiance of public opinion. The days of powdered curls, and square coats, and broad frills, have passed, and a more refined, though but slightly elegant, costume, has taken its place. The progress a nation has made in civilization may be shrewdly guessed at by its prevailing fashions and costumes. When men powdered their hair, and devoted whole shelves of their wardrobes to their cravats-when gold, and fine muslin, and brocade adorned their persons, fewer great things were done; when the plain and sober dress was assumed, it showed that men had become more practical and devoted to politics, business, and statesman-like habits. Those who, amidst the rapid civilization of their neighbours, still pre

serve the quaint relics of a former age in dress and habits, come to be looked upon as natural curiosities. In 1794, therefore, our author looked upon the laird of Bonnymune as a rare specimen of ancient formality and eccentricity, ruling like a petty sovereign over his passive tenantry, beneath the black, bleak hills of Castelthun. His chief boast was, that he had never slept a night from under his own roof. His ancestors had always slept there, and that to him constituted an unanswerable argument why he should do so likewise. Being unfortunately, however, extremely fond of assembling round him those who could tope like himself, he on one occasion fell a victim to his own weakness. One day after dinner, at a friend's house, his discriminating taste being rather obtuse, he very willingly

Drank cherry bounce, mistaking it for port, and declaring that it was a pleasant, pure, and generous wine, very old in bottle. As a matter of course, when the midnight hour approached, the laird wished to ride home, and the horses were ordered. But Peter had never in his life seen his venerable master so far gone; besides, they had a long way to ride, and the night was both dark and gusty.

'After some consultation with the kind host and his family, it was agreed that Bonnymune could not, and must not attempt to ride home. But as any proposition for his going to bed, or staying in the house after twelve o'clock, would be resisted and resented with obduracy, stratagem was used.

They led him out of doors with a light, which the wind instantly extinguished. Then in the pitchy darkness, they assisted him to mount, not upon horseback, but upon a fail dyke or turf wall, a common kind of fence in the far north. Here Peter had cleverly attached the bridle to the stump of an elder bush, he put the reins and the whip into the hands of his master, and then retired, with the words, "Now your honour, the road straight afore ye."

'Away went the laird, as he supposed, whipping and spurring to his heart's content, till he arrived at the land of dreams and utter oblivion. When wearied of his exertions he tumbled off. Now Peter ventured to advance-"Eh, sirs, dang me, to think of the lyke of that!" Then raising his voice, "We're at hame now, sir! we're at hame I'm telling ye! Your honour's just fa'en off at our ain stable door."

'But stratagem was no longer needed. The laird persisted most comfortably in his profound sleep, and was carried to bed without a murmur. Next morning, however, no sooner did he wake to consciousness, than he vowed vengeance for the trick that had been played on him; declaring, moreover, that had he been allowed his own way, he could have ridden home as well as ever he did in his life. He departed at daybreak in huge wrath, and would not, by any persuasions, be induced to visit at the house again.'-Vol. i. p. 15.

It happened once that a friend came unexpectedly to dinner,

and, as it proved extremely bad weather, the laird invited him to stay all night. The storm, instead of abating, the next morning was increased; and the Scotch visitor having heard there was a good library collected by the laird's ancestors, ventured to ask if he might hunt over the 'auld buiks' to amuse himself with.

'Buiks, man!' was the reply he received, 'ten cart loads of them gin ye like; and what's mair, ye're welcome to take them hame to your ain hame, if ye think siccan rubbish worth the expense of cartage.'

Thus encouraged, as may be supposed, the visitor proceeded at once to the rarely-opened library, accompanied by the laird, who amused himself with a broad grin in peering over the young student's shoulder, accompanying his proceedings with a sort of verbal commentary, composed of a series of contemptuous grunts, whenever an exclamation of delight burst from the visitor. At last, heedless of the shower of grunts, and shrugs, and satirical observations, of the owner, after a long examination the connoisseur suddenly came upon a heap of plays and novels, or devil's buiks' as the laird called them, and amongst them discovered a folio, which he asked permission to borrow.

'Borrow!' said the laird, the chap's daft, I think: did na' I tell ye to cart awa' the hale lot o' them? Pit the folio in your saddle-bags, man; make a kirk and a mill o't, or leiht your pipe with the paper.'

This despised volume happened to be the veritable first edition of Shakspere: a rarity now almost unattainable at any price, and which, afterwards, accompanied by the second and third editions, all richly and uniformly bound in Russia leather, was sold to the late Mr. James Roche, of Castle Granard, for five hundred pounds.

We have not, however, completed our anecdote yet; the most important part remains to be told. Still persevering in his examinations, the student came to a compartment of the library which created his no little surprise. The books, it is true, were genuine, but they were, to say the least, very strange in appearance, and by no efforts could he extract one volume from its resting-place. Hereupon the laird began a vociferous chuckle, and, infinitely amused at the wonderment of his guest, explained, that after having stood the lapse of centuries, the shelves became at length worm-eaten, and incapable of supporting any longer their ponderous burden. One day, when the wind was howling about the old house, making the walls themselves tremble, with a heavy crash the book-laden shelves fell to the ground, where they remained for a considerable period. The room being at length required for some purpose or another,

and the pile of volumes obstructing the place, a carpenter was called in and ordered to mend the shelves. This he accordingly did in a very neat and artistic manner. But, unfortunately, when he had completed his appointed task, it was discovered that the volumes would not one of them fit in. The erudite laird and the wise carpenter consulted together, and deemed that they had discovered a clever method of solving the difficulty without being at the pain of disarranging the work already done. So they raised the volumes in rows upon the floor, and measured them and measured the shelves, and by dint of sawing off an inch here and an inch there, at length brought them within the proper compass, and the carpenter inserting them, hammered away with his mallet until they stuck so tight that it was impossible by any exertion of strength to move them. And here they then remained, and probably there remain to this day.

This disregard, or rather incapability of appreciating, books is not, unhappily, a sign of the past. Although education has been so wide-spread, and though under its banner the multitudes are rapidly ranging themselves, a veneration for learning is not so widely diffused as it might be. How often do we not hear, after a man enthusiastic in the cause of literature and books has spent a whole life-time in assembling round him these legacies of genius and talent to posterity-how often, we say, at his death, has not the son, in order to realize a few hundred pounds, ruthlessly offered them to the hammer of the auctioneer, and scattered them far and near. At one time, indeed, almost an antipathy existed to books, and those who devoted themselves to profound study, or deep philosophical researches. A vague fear that their knowledge had led them to penetrate into regions something more than human, cast a halo of awe round the fumes of the midnight lamp! This, in its extreme, has of course long since passed away, but how often do we not hear the term 'pedant' applied to those who have had the patience to explore paths of learning too intricate and difficult for ordinary minds to traverse.

Women, more especially, excepting those thrown by accident within the sphere of literature, cherish an unconquerable aversion to its professors, and this arises, not from any innate dislike to study itself, but from the isolation essential to its pursuit. Many instances of this dislike are on record belonging, it is true, to former times, but which have been attended with serious mischief to those most concerned. Literary men are more to blame for the evils arising out of their intercourse with illiterate women, than the women themselves. It is by no means essential to an author that his wife should be one also.

On the contrary, this is sometimes productive of un

ETERAN.

pleasant results. But it is absolutely necessar bers of a literary man desires to be happy, he must select a wif se tastes and refinement of mind render her capable of sympathizing in his pursuits, and urging him forward in his career. Many a man, when the flush of beauty and youth has passed, sighs for the companion of which he created the ideal.

As an illustration of our remarks we may present our readers with an anecdote narrated to us many years ago, but the facts of which are deeply riveted in our memory from the sort of melancholy association connected with it. Some time ago—in the last century in fact, when literary men were more scarce, and study was more essential to the formation of one-there lived a man utterly devoted to one grand idea; and this was the production of an enormous dictionary of our own language. What were its actual merits the world will never know, though, as it occupied his whole early life, the best years of manhood, and had grown up beneath his touch like a vast mountain, imperceptibly swelling with the lapse of time, he loved it as something absolutely belonging to himself-a part of his very soul. Whether the student unmarried at five-and-forty became at length weary of his solitary life, or whether he wanted some one to listen to the reading of his ponderous dictionary, we know not; certain it is, however, that he took it into his head to marry a young, pretty, and thrifty woman, whose wits may have been a little scarce. Everything went on smoothly in the ménage for some time. At last the young wife began to think that the husband spent much too great a portion of his time in a room yclept the library. There the long hoardings of years were assembled, curious books with parchment covers, and dingy volumes and MSS. in ancient writing and dirty covering. There was an atmosphere of mist exhaling from the chamber continually, much to the annoyance of the thrifty housewife, whom nothing so much delighted as order, cleanliness, and regularity. Nothing could, she was positively convinced, go on well while her husband was penned up for so many hours in that unwholesome den,' where the dust and dirt of ages seemed to have accumulated upon those dingy books and papers. Had the student spent less of his time in this sanctum sanctorum, it is probable the wife would have viewed it with much more respect and admiration. One day the husband left home for a week's visit into the country, and the library was entirely at her mercy. No sooner was his back turned than the wife called all her handmaids together, and commenced a vigorous assault upon the shelves and tables. Precious documents and papers, long hoarded, but musty with age, were recklessly consigned to be burned. At length, nestling in a cobwebby corner, she came