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scenery! what can such a child as you know about scenery? where is your passport? Shew it me directly, and, then, you may get along about your business.

Edward reddened with indignation at this surly speech, and said-Sir, you have no right to insult me, because you are a magistrate; your business is to examine me with civility and with decency, as a stranger, and cooly to ascertain, whether or not any suspicion is justly attached to my character. The question, as to my passport and credentials, has been already asked by Mr. Sterling, and decisively answered by me, and, consequently, ought not to have been repeated by you, Sir; you ought to have known, that it was highly improper to press that question upon me a second time.

At this unexpected reply, the fat and heavy justice M— stared, with his mouth wide open, his eyes starting forward, and his eye-brows elevated nearly to the top of his low and scanty forehead, as if they were about to make a tour of the back settlements of his skull; but he made no answer. Mr. Sterling, again expressed his uneasiness at Edward's having brought no written credentials with him, and said, that he must confine him in prison 'till some further information respecting him could be obtained; the clerk, or mittimus-manufacturer was now sent for, in order to make out Edward's passport into Dundee gaol. The clerk entered, exhibiting a countenance bearing all those strongly marked traits of low cunning, hardness, and cruelty, which the pettifogging part of the law is very apt to engraft upon dullnes and ignorance.

He slunk heavily into the room, sate himself down, and scowling darkly upon Edward, with a self-important shake of the head, cried-So, my young master, you think to impose upon us by a tale of your being an English traveller; but if you are what you pretend to be, and not a liar, and an impostor, you can tell us of a great many people, whom you know in England, I suppose.-Edward—Mr. Sterling, I request, that you would not suffer your clerk so grossly to insult me, under the pitiful pretext of acting by the authority of justice; if any more such questions are put to me, I must chastise them in a manner more suitable to their coarseness than are mere words.

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Mr. Sterling, then, intimated to his clerk, that he must not conduct his examination in so abrupt a manner, and the mittimus-monger thus proceeded. What manuscript book is that, on which you keep your right hand?—Edward—A little private memorandum book-It was, in fact, a small book, in which Edward wrote little sonnets, and the effusions of his wounded heart, in memory of his departed Mary.-The clerk, then, said-Oh! oh! now I have catched you; we must take a look at those private memorandums of yours.Edward-No, you shall never see this book: it is as sacred in my sight as a letter; and I will no more suffer its contents to be examined by those, whom I neither know, nor respect, than I will suffer my epistolatory correspondence to be read at your market cross.

Justice M-, now, went out to procure some constables, who might take Edward into custody as a dangerous person. During M's absence Mr. Sterling entertained Edward with an account of the various surmises which the sagacious and polite inhabitants of Dundee thought it incumbent upon them to disseminate through the town (which contains twenty-five thousand people) concerning him and his intentions.

Some declared, that he was a French spy, come with a full determination to murder all the people in the land; others said that he was an English deserter, who wished to hide himself in Dundee; some insisted upon it, that he was an Irish rebel, and should be hanged up on the spot, as a specimen of British justice, and an example of Dundee loyalty to their sovereign; others, again, contented themselves with mercifully insinuating, that he was a wandering Jew, and, therefore, should be put into the round house a few days, and then publicly whipped through the town; after which entertainment he might be sent about his business.

Edward laughed; and replied,-I do not wonder at my being detained in Dundee, when I recollect, that about a fortnight since, a very near relation of mine, a colonel in the army, was found guilty of having a servant and two horses, of travelling into the country for his pleasure, of bathing in a river at Black-wall, and of having a port-manteau containing some linen, and a full dress suit of black clothes. All these All these very

suspicious circumstances, being put together, the worthy inhabitants of the place, aided by the wisdom of their enlightened and sagacious magistrates, drew this profound conclusion, that the said person, who had linen and silk stockings in his port-manteau, with many other wicked inventions, could be no other than a French spy, whose design was to bring about some dreadful catastrophe to the British nation, and had actually commenced his terrible plan of operations, by swimming, all naked as he was born, in their river, which was an English river.

Accordingly, an army of constables, rushed forth, with sticks and staves, and seized the delinquent in the very act of tying on his cravat, and thrust him into prison. They, then sealed his port-manteau, and sent an express to London to the Duke of Portland, the Secretary of State for the home department, setting forth, that they had valiantly secured a dangerous French spy, as he was sounding the very depths of their river; that they had him fast in durance, and had put some black sealing wax on his port-manteau. In a few days they received for answer, that the gentleman, whom they had thus hospitably treated, bore a high rank in the army, and was, in every respect, one to whom no indignity ought to be shown by those, who wished to support the existing government of the British empire.

When Edward had related his little narrative, Mr. Sterling smiled, and said-To be sure, these things are very unpleasant; but what can magistrates do? They must perform their duty to the public; and it will sometimes unavoidably happen, that individual convenience must be sacrificed to general safety. Meanwhile entered M- followed by the constables, and halberdiers, whom Mr. Sterling desired to wait at the door; and, then, turning to Edward, said,—Is there no possibility of preventing your being lodged in the gaol; do you know any one in Dundee?-Edward-I know no more of Dundee than I do of the capital of New Holland; have you any regiments of soldiers quartered here?-Ster- ling-Yes, the-regiment of horse is here now.-EdwardThen, pray, send for the major of that regiment, he is my cousin, and will identify my person. 2 F

VOL. II.

Mr. Sterling, himself, immediately left the room, and soon, thereafter, returned, leading in Major H-, who stared with surprize, and cried out-Ned, my dear boy, what could bring you down to Scotland alone, and with this scanty equipage?-Mr. Sterling's countenance brightened up, when he saw, that the Major recognized Edward; and, again apologizing for the trouble, which he had so reluctantly given, he took his leave.

The Major and Edward spent the remainder of the night together, and Edward, without retiring to rest, and in spite of his cousin's earnest intreaties, either to stay a few days at Dundee, or to take a servant and horses to travel onward, left Dundee at five o'clock in the morning, and directed his march towards Perth. He strode forward, as usual, musing on his departed girl, 'till he was wearied, and unable to endure the heat of the sun any longer. At Inch-ker, therefore, he inquired for the inn, and was shewn, by a little ragged child, to a hut, very small, and very wretched. He had, already, put one leg over the threshold, when an old woman, resembling Otway's hag in person and in habiliments, stopped his farther entrance, and in an angry, though tremulous tone of voice, expressed her astonishment at his presumption, and want of manners, in that he was not ashamed to think of entering, without leave, into a marchant's hoose.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THIRD SECTION.

AMERICAN LITERATURE REVIEWED.

W

NATURE DISPLAYED, &c.

BY N. G. DUFIEF.

(Continued from Vol. 2. No. 3. page 159.)

"Ecce iterum Crispinus, et est mihi sæpe vocandus
In partes."-

HEN the late Lord Thurlow was Lord high Chancel

lor of England, a certain Welsh parson was announced to him by his servant in waiting.-Shew him in ;—said his lordship, and the parson was shewn in accordingly.Thurlow looked at him, for a moment, and not liking his physiognomonical appearance, exclaimed,-Shew him out!-and the parson was, instantaneously, shewn out.

Alas! we cannot do this ;—what was quite official in Lord Chancellor Thurlow, is not allowable in us poor Reviewers, who are under the dismal necessity of travelling on, for some time longer, in the company of the hitherto unparalleled, and never in future to be equalled, author of Nature Displayed. But to proceed ;– -we are now favoured with a superabundant effusion of abuse upon all the teachers of the "old school;"—that is, all those, who attempt to teach language "by grammar;"-and M. Dufief relates an instance of the superiority of his method over that of the old school, and tells us, as how some gentlemen, who had learned French gramatically, were examined by him, and found deficient— "in translating by word of mouth."

"I then," says M. Dufief,-" proceeded next to their French translations from English authors. The reader will naturally suppose, that they could not be more correct, although a dictionary might have been of use, than their speaking;—for, he who walks upon crutches, or limps, certainly cannot dance in a graceful manner."

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