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quickly-trembling with indignation. "He is in his grave-you must not speak so of him.'

"Whoat!" he exclaimed, seemingly surprised, but laughing very loud, "be you the chap as went to college to be made a parson on, and to learn extravagance, as if they didn't teach it fast enough at home? Nice notions them for working people! I say," he added, tipping me what I supposed to be the true Brummagem wink, "it was hardly fair upon the creditors to be filling your pockets up there when he knew he was a-going to break. I've heard it all, you see. We are not asleep, you see. And so the old man's dead! But he has taken care of you, I reckon?"

" I do not understand you, sir."

"Oh, doan't you?" said he, looking very cunning. "Well, then, perhaps you'll tell me whoat you have come to ask of me?"

"Nothing," I answered, determined at that moment, if I died afterwards of want, not to become indebted to Mr Chaser for a sixpence.

"Noathing? that's queer at any rate. Well-your mother's dead, I hear. A pretty match she made of it at last. I toald her how it would be -and so did every body else. A good woman, too, was Mary. I loiked your mother. Many a frolic I are had with her when we were youngsters. She was a tender-hearted creature.

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wonder she never wrote to me; but if she had, I dare say I shouldn't have answered her, for I hate writing, and I couldn't bear your father."

Disgusted as I had become in this short space of time with Mr Chaser, his affectionate remembrance of my mother extracted all viciousness from the aversion with which I looked upon him. Furthermore, his mention of my dear mother's name recalled her last sad interview with me-her latest wish-my own solemn promise to her, and I felt that I dared not withhold the letter which I had engaged to place in Mr Chaser's hands. In many things I had crossed the nearest wishes of her heart. The only compensation that I could offer to her memory was a compliance with her strict injunction. What if a shrinking sense of vexation and of shame irritated me, and sought to hold me back? What, if in entreating aid from such a man, I suffered pangs far more se

vere than any the wide and open world could inflict upon me. It was reason. able and just. The retribution had commenced. It was proper that I should suffer. I placed the letter on the table.

"And whoat do you call that there?" enquired Mr Chaser, as I did so.

"A letter from my mother, addressed to you, sir, and written many months ago."

"And whoy, in the name of goodness, didn't you send it by the post before? That's cheap and expeditious like."

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"Read it, sir," I answered. "Noa, do you read it to me. should loike to hear a college chap. That must be foine-cut on."

I was sick at heart; but I performed my penance faithfully, and read on. It was a long epistle; such as I expected it to be. First, it reverted, and most feelingly, to the distant days which they had passed together, nurtured and brought up under one roof - but soon it flew to its main object, that of securing for me a home when my own should have passed away. She implored her cousin to receive me, and informed him that her deathbed would be made easy by the assurance she would have in her last moments of his ready agreement with her wishes."

"Well, I are glad of that, at all events," said Chaser, when I had finished.

"Of what, sir?" I enquired. "Of her dying easy and assured; because whatever happens now can make no difference to her. I doan't see what I can do for you. My lads have done their schooling, and I are too old to learn myself. You put up for a schoolmaster, I suppose ?"

"I think, sir, I could teach the rudiments."

"Can you make a pair of breeches?" "A pair of breeches!"

"Yes-boots, or any thing that's useful? You doan't expect me to keep you like a gentleman at college, do you? The lads are wanting clothes. If you were a tailor now, you might have the job."

"I am willing to work, sir," I replied, " and am ready to learn; and I come to you only in obedience to my mother's commands. If you can help me, and wish to help me, a little ridicule, and a few harsh words, shall not

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!"

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 me. 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

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 disap-ly, pearance 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

me.

The plaited lips then opened slightand 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."

"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

our men are constantly under our heyes."

I began to think of my prospects, and to consider my next movements. I spoke mechanically to Mrs Chaserhardly aware of my questions, or conscious of her replies.

"Have you any daughters, ma'am?" I asked, for want of a better question. "One, Mr Stukely-Miss Eliza. She is now at ome for the olydays.Do you hear that-listen!"

"What, ma'am ?"

"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 creatureall 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. I must fetch her. Pardon me."

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.

DR JAMIESON'S SCOTTISH DICTIONARY.

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,

His

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. 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-rusticsimplicity 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 we advert to the imperfections and inaccuracies of Johnson's great work in the same department, and remember how the public were imposed apon by the empty and impudent quackeries of Tooke. The last thirty years have done more for Teutonic philology than had been accomplished in the previous century. Dr Jamieson studied and wrote in the spirit of a

period which preceded the recent dis

coveries; and he has now the disadvantage of being read and criticized after those discoveries have been matured and made familiar. Those who have been even partially initiated in the rigi schools of the present day, are apt to look with contempt and surprise on others with whom Wachter and Junius, or even Ihre and Adelung, are still infallible authorities. But our excellent lexicographer was too old to profit by this modern reformation, even if its results had reached his ears, and, like the monk with the

. misprinted missal, he would probably to the last have preferred his old mumpsimus to our new sumpsimus.

An occurrence in Dr Jamieson's life, which seems to have awakened his attention to the studies which afterwards distinguished him, gave them also unfortunately an erroneous direction. The incident to which we refer, is alluded to in his original dissertation prefixed to the dictionary, and is fully detailed in the biographical memoir inserted in the present edition:

"The doctor had not yet projected his great work, the dictionary; the first idea of which arose accidentally from the conversation of one of the many distinguished persons whom he met at Mr Dempster's residence; Dunnichen being long the frequent rendezvous of not merely the most eminent men of Scotland, but of such learned foreigners as from time to time visited the country. This was the learned Grim Thorkelin, professor of antiquities in Copenhagen. Up to this period Dr Jamieson had held the common opinion, that the Scottish is not a language, and nothing more than a corrupt dialect of the English, or at least of the Anglo-Saxon. The learned Danish professor first undeceived him-though full conviction came tardily and proved, to his satisfaction, that there are many words in our national tongue which have never passed through the channel of AngloSaxon, nor been spoken in England. Before leaving Dunnichen, Thorkelin re

quested the doctor to note down for him all the singular words used in that part of the country, no matter how vulgar he might himself consider them; and to give

the received meaning of each. Jamieson laughed at the request, saying, 'What would you do, sir, with our vulgar words? they are merely corruptions of English.' Thorkelin, who spoke English fluently, replied with considerable warmth, 'If that

fantast Johnson had said so, I would

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have forgiven him, because of his ignorance and prejudice: but I cannot make the same excuse for you, when you speak in this contemptuous manner of the language of your country, which is, in fact, more ancient than the English. I have now spent four months in Angus and Sutherland, and I have met with between three and four hundred words purely Gothic, that were never used in Anglo-Saxon. You will admit that I am pretty well acquainted with Gothic. am a Goth, a native of Iceland, the inhabitants of which are an unmixed race, who speak the same language which their ancestors brought from Norway a thousand years ago. All or most of these words which I have noted down, are familiar to me in my native island. If you do not find out the sense of some of the terms which strike you as singular, send them to me; and I am pretty certain I shall be able to explain them to you. Jamieson, to oblige the learned stranger, forthwith purchased a twopenny paper book, and began to write down all the remarkable or uncouth words of the district. From such small beginnings, made more than twenty years before any part of the work was published, arose the four large quarto volumes of his DICTIONARY and SUPPLEMENT, the revolution in his opinion as to the origin of the Scottish language, and that theory of its origin which he has maintained in the learned dissertations which accompany the dictionary."

We have much respect for Professor Thorkelin as a learned and laborious man; but when we think of him in connexion with Anglo-Saxon philology, and as an editor of the Poem of Beowulf, under the title "De Danorum Rebus Gestis," which is probably the most blundering book that ever issued from the press, we cannot recognise him as an eminent judge in such matters, and the conversation which is here said to have been held confirms our distrust. The Icelander boasts of being a Goth an appellation to which he was only entitled in the same sense in which it is due to a Cockney or a

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