In the midst of this growing perplexity, the English messenger arrived. His tidings had been long anticipated, yet they came with the effect of a thunderclap. The cabinet had resigned! I of course now waited only for my order to return. But, in the mean time, this event formidably increased the difficulties of my position. Foreigners will never allow themselves to comprehend the nature of any English transaction whatever. They deal with them all as if they were scenes on a stage. In the incorrigible absurdity of their theatrical souls, they imagine a parliamentary defeat to be a revolution, and the change of a ministry the fall of an empire. Paul instantly cast off all his old partialities. He pronounced England undone. The star of France was to be the light of the west; he himself to be the luminary of the east. The bold ambition of Catharine was to be realized; however, without the system or the sagacity of her imperial genius. But Paul was to learn the terrible lesson of a despotic government. The throne separated from the people, is the more in peril the more widely it is separated. The people would not be carried along with their master to the feet of his new political idol. The substantial virtues of the national character resisted that French alliance, which must be begun at once by prostration and ingratitude. France was their new taunter. England was their old ally. They hated France for its republican insolence; they honoured England for its resolute determination to fight out the battle, not for its own sake alone, but for the cause of all nations. Paul, in the attempt to partition the globe, was narrowing his supremacy to his own sepulchre.

Yet, this time of national gloom was the most splendid period of the court. With the double purpose of recovering his popularity, and concealing his negotiations, Paul plunged into the most extraordinary festivity. Balls, masquerades, and fêtes succeeded each other with restless extravagance. But the contrast of the saturnine Emperor with the sudden change of his court was too powerful. It bore the look of desperation; though for what purpose, was still a mystery to the million. I heard many a whisper among the diplomatic circle, that this whirl of life, this hot and fierce dissipation, was, in all Russian reigns, the sure precursor of a catastrophe; though none could yet venture to predict its nature. It was like the furious and frenzied indulgence of a crew in a condemned ship, breaking up the chests and drinking the liquors, in the conviction that none would survive the voyage. Even I, with all my English disregard of the speculative frivolities which to the foreigner are substance and facts, was startled by the increasing glare of those hurried and feverish festivities. More than once, as I entered the imperial saloon, crowded with the civil and military uniforms of every court of Europe, and exhibiting at once European taste and Asiatic magnificence, I could scarcely suppress the feeling that I was only entering the most stately of theatres; where, with all the temporary glitter of the stage, the sounds of the orchestra, and the passion and poetry of the characters—the fifth act was preparing, and the curtain was to fall on the death of nobles and kings.

The impression that evil was to come, already seemed to be universal. Rumours of popular conspiracy, fresh discoveries by the police, and new tales of imperial eccentricity, kept the public mind in constant fitfulness. At length, I received the formal communication of a "challenge" from the Czar to my sovereign, along with all the other crowned heads of Europe, to meet him in a champ-clos, and, sword in hand, decide the quarrels of nations. With this despatch came an invitation for the whole diplomatic body to a masquerade! in which all were commanded to appear as knights in armour—the Czar, as grand-master of the Order of Malta, exhibiting himself in the panoply in which he was to settle the disputes of mankind.

Perplexities like those form a large share of the trials of the foreign ambassador. To attend the fête was embarrassing; but to decline the invitation, would have been equivalent to demanding my passports. And I must acknowledge, that if the eye was to be gratified by the most superb and the most curious of all displays, never was there an occasion more fitted for its indulgence. All the armouries of Europe, and of Asia, seemed to have been searched for the arms and ornaments of this assemblage. The Kremlin had given up its barbaric shields and caps of bronze; the plate-mail of the Crusader; the gold-inlaid morions and cuirasses of France; the silver chain-mail of the Circassian; the steel corslet of the German chivalry; and a whole host of the various and rich equipments of the Greek, the Hungarian, the Moresco, and the Turkoman, made the Winter palace a blaze of knighthood.

Yet, to me, after the first excitement, the whole conveyed a deep impression of melancholy. It irresistibly reminded me of the last ceremonial of dead sovereigns, the "Chapelle Ardente." Even the curtains which fell round the throne, fringed with jewels as they were, to me looked funereal. The immense golden candelabra were to me the lights round a bier. I almost imagined that I could see the sword and sceptre laid across the coffin, and all of the Lord of Empire that remained, a corpse within.

I was roused from my reluctant reverie by the approach of a group of masks, who came dancing towards the recess where I had retired, wearied with the general noise, and the exhaustion of the fête. One of the casements opened into the famous Conservatory; and I was enjoying the scents of the thousand flowers and shrubs, of, perhaps, the finest collection in the world. But, in the shade, the group had evidently overlooked me; for they began to speak of matters which they could not have designed for a stranger's ear. The conduct of the Czar, the wrongs of Russia, and the "necessity of coming to a decision," were the topics. Suddenly, as if to avert suspicion, one of the group struck up a popular air on the little three-stringed guitar which throws the Russian crowd into such ecstasies; and they began a dance, accompanying it by a murmuring chorus, which soon convinced me of the dangerous neighbourhood into which I had fallen. The words became well known afterwards. No language excels the Russian in energy; but I must give them in the weakness of a translation.

My conviction was complete, when, in the whirl of the dance, a small roll of paper dropped from the robe of one of the maskers, and fell at my feet. In taking it up to return it to him, I saw that it was a list of names, and, at the head, a name which, from private information, I knew to be involved in dark political purposes. The thought flashed across me, in connexion with the chorus which I had just heard, that the paper was of too much importance to be suffered to leave my possession.—The life of the sovereign might be involved. The group, who had been evidently startled by my sudden appearance among them, now surrounded me, and the loser of the paper insisted on its instant surrender. The violence of his demand only confirmed my resolution. He grew more agitated still, and the group seized me. I laid my hand upon my sword. This measure stopped them for the moment. But in the next, I saw a knife brandished in the air, and felt myself wounded in the arm. My attempt to grasp the weapon had alone saved me from its being buried in my heart. But the fracas now attracted notice; a crowd rushed towards us, and the group suddenly scattered away, leaving me still in possession of the paper. My wound bled, and I felt faint, and desired to be led into the open air. My mask was taken off; and this was scarcely done when I heard my name pronounced, and saw the welcome countenance of my friend Guiscard by my side. He had arrived but on that day, on a mission from his court; had, with his usual eagerness of friendship, gone to enquire for me at the hotel of the embassy; and thus followed me to the fête at the critical time. As he supported me to my equipage, I communicated the circumstances of the rencontre to his clear head and generous heart; and he fully agreed with me on the duty of instantly apprising the Czar of his probable danger. As I was unable to move through pain and feebleness, he offered to take the roll with him, and demand an interview with the sovereign himself, if possible; or, if not, with the governor of the palace. The paper contained not only names of individuals, all, long before, objects of public suspicion, but a sketch of the imperial apartments, and, at the bottom, the words—"three hours after midnight." I looked at my watch, it was already half-past two. This might, or might not be, the appointed night for this dreadful business; but, if it were, there was but one half hour between the throne and the grave. Guiscard hurried off, leaving me in the deepest anxiety, but promising to return as speedily as in his power. But he came not. My anxiety grew intolerable; hour after hour passed away, while I reckoned minute after minute, as if they were so much drained from my own existence. Even, if I had been able to move, it was impossible to know where to follow him. His steps might have been watched. Doubtless the conspirators were on the alert to prevent any approach to the palace. He might have fallen by the pistol of some of those men, who had not scrupled to conspire against their monarch. The most miserable of nights at length wore away; but it was only to be succeeded by the most fearful of mornings. The career of Paul was closed! On the entrance of the chamberlains into his sleeping apartment, the unhappy Czar was found dead. There could be no doubt that he had perished by treason. He was strangled. The intelligence no sooner spread through the capital, than it produced a burst of national sorrow. All his errors were forgotten. All his good qualities were remembered.

But where was my gallant and excellent friend—Guiscard?—Of him I heard nothing.

Another week of suspense, and he appeared. His history was of the most singular kind. On the night when I had last seen him, he had made his way through all obstacles into the palace, and been promised a private interview with the Czar. But, while he urged that no time should be lost, he had sufficient proof that there could be no chance of an interview. A succession of apologies was made: the 'Czar was at supper'—'he was engaged with the minister'—'he had gone to rest.' In total hopelessness of communicating his pressing intelligence in person, he at length consented to seal the roll, and place it in the hands of one of the officers of rank in the household. But that officer himself was in the conspiracy. The paper was immediately destroyed; and the bearer of it was considered to be too dangerous to be sent back. He was put under arrest in an apartment of the palace, and told that his life depended on his silence. He urged his diplomatic character in vain. The only answer was the sword of the conspirator turned to his throat. But within the week the revolution was complete, and he was set at liberty. A new monarch, a new government, a new feeling followed this dangerous act. But the character of the young monarch was made to be popular; the reign of caprice was at an end. The empire felt relieved; and Russia began the most glorious period of her national history.

My mission was now accomplished, for I refused to hold the embassy under a rival cabinet; but I carried with me from St Petersburg two trophies:—the former was the treaty concluded by Paul with France for the march of an army, in conjunction with a French column of 300,000 men, to invade India—a document which had hitherto baffled all diplomatic research; the other was the pathetic and noble letter of Alexander to the British sovereign, proposing a restoration of the national friendship.

I took my leave of the Russian court with a most gracious audience of its new monarch. I saw him long afterwards, under different circumstances, struggling with a tremendous war, pressed by every difficulty which could beset the throne, and throwing the last melancholy and doubtful cast for the independence of Europe. But, both now and then, I saw him, what nature had made him—a noble being. His stature was tall and commanding; and he was one of the most striking figures of his court when in the uniform of his guards. But his manner was still superior—it was at once affable and dignified; he spoke of European interests with intelligence, of his own intentions with candour, and of England with a rational respect for its spirit and institutions. Of his own country, he expressed himself with candour. "I feel," said he, "that I have a great trust laid on me, and I am determined to fulfil it. I shall not make the throne a bed of roses. There is still much to be done, and I shall do what I can. I have the advantage of a fine material in the people. No being is at once more susceptible of improvement, and more grateful for it, than the Russian. He has quick faculties and an honest heart. If the common hazards of empire should come, I know that he will not desert me. In the last extremity of human fortunes, I shall not desert him."

Those generous declarations were gallantly realized on both sides within a few years. I was not then aware that the Imperial prediction would be soon brought to the test. But it was gloriously fulfilled at Moscow, and proudly registered in the fragments of the throne of Napoleon.

Impatient as I was to reach England, I left St Petersburg with regret. Clotilde left it with those feelings which belong to the finer fancy of woman. She remembered it as the scene where she had enjoyed the most dazzling portion of her life; where every countenance had met her with smiles, and every tongue was prodigal of praise; where the day rose on the promise of new enjoyments, and the night descended in royal festivity. As we drove along the banks of the Neva, she more than once stopped the carriage, to give herself a parting glance at the long vista of stately buildings, which she was then to look upon, perhaps, for the last time. The scene was certainly of the most striking order; for we had commenced our journey on the evening of one of the national festivals; and we thus had the whole population, in all their holiday dresses, to give animation to the general aspect of the massive and gigantic architecture. The Neva was covered with barges of the most graceful form; the fronts of the citizens' houses were hung with decorations; music sounded from a vast orchestra in front of the palace; and the air re-echoed with the voices of thousands and tens of thousands, all evidently determined to be happy for the time. We both gazed in silence and admiration. The carriage had accidentally drawn up in view of the little hut which is preserved in the Neva as the dwelling of Peter. I saw a tear glistening on the long eyelash of my lovely fellow traveller.

"If I wanted a proof," said she, "of the intellectual greatness of man, I should find it in this spot. I may see in that hut the emblem of his mind. That a Russian, two centuries ago—almost before the name of Russia was known in Europe—while its court had scarcely emerged from the feuds of barbarous factions, and its throne had been but just rescued from the hands of the Tartar—should have conceived the design of such an empire, and should have crowned his design with such a capital, is to me the most memorable effort of a ruling mind, within all human recollection."

"Clotilde, I was not aware that you were inclined to give the great Czar so tender a tribute," I said laughingly, at her embarrassment in the discovery of a tear stealing down her cheek.

Truth was in her reply. "I agree in the common censure of the darker portions of his course. But I can now judge of him only by what I see. Who is to know the truth of his private history? What can be more unsafe than to judge of the secret actions of princes, from the interested or ignorant narratives of a giddy court, or foreign enemies? But the evidence round us allows of no deception. These piles of marble are unanswerable;—these are the vindications of kings. The man who, sitting in that hut, in the midst of the howling wilderness, imagined the existence of such a city rising round him and his line—at once bringing his country into contact with Europe, and erecting a monument of national greatness, to which Europe itself, in its thousand years of progress, has no equal—must have had a nature made for the highest tasks of human advancement. Of all the panegyrics of an Imperial life, St Petersburg is the most Imperial."

We passed rapidly through the Russian provinces, and, intending to embark in one of our frigates cruising the Baltic, felt all the delight of having at length left the damp and dreary forests of Livonia far down in the horizon, and again feeling the breezes blowing from that ocean which the Englishman instinctively regards as a portion of his home. But, as we drove along the smooth sands which line so many leagues of the Baltic, and enjoyed with the full sense of novelty the various contrast of sea and shore, we were startled by the roar of guns from the ramparts of Riga, followed by the peal of bells. What victory, what defeat, what great event, did those announce? The intelligence at length broke on us at the gates; and it was well worth all our interest. "Peace with France." The English ambassador had arrived in Paris. "War was at end, and the world was to be at rest once more." I changed my route immediately, and flew on the road to Paris.

My life was destined to be a succession of scenes. It had been thrown into a whirl of memorable incidents, any one of which would have served for the tumult of fifty years, and for the meditation of the fifty after. But this was the period of powerful, sometimes of terrible, vicissitudes. All ranks of men were reached by them. Kings and statesmen only felt them first: they penetrated to the peasant; and the Continent underwent a moral convulsion—an outpouring of the general elements of society—like that of some vast inundation, sweeping away the landmarks, and uprooting the produce of the soil; until it subsided, leaving the soil in some places irreparably stripped—in others, filled with a new fertility.

I found France in a state of the highest exultation. The national cry was, "that she had covered herself with glory;" and to earn that cry, probably, no Frenchman who ever existed would hesitate to march to Timbuctoo, or swim across the Atlantic. The name of "conquest" is a spell which no brain, from Calais to Bayonne, has ever thought of resisting. The same spell lives, masters, domineers over the national mind, to this hour; and will last, long after Paris has dropped into the depths of its own catacombs, and its fifteen fortresses are calcined under the cannon of some Austrian or Russian invader. It will be impossible to tell future ages the scene which France then presented to the mind. If objects are capable of record, impressions are beyond the power of the pen. No image can be conveyed to posterity by the sensations which crowded on Europe in the course of the French Revolution—the rapidity, the startling lustre, and the deep despair; as it went forth crushing all that the earth had of solid or sacred. It was now only in its midway. The pause had come; but it was only the pause in the hurricane—the still heavier trial was at hand. Even as a stranger, I could see that it was but a lull. Every thing that met the eye in Paris was a preparative for war. The soldier was every thing, and every where. I looked in vain for the Republican costumes which I so fearfully remembered. They had been flung aside for the uniform of the Imperial Guard; or were to be seen only on a few haggard and desolate men, who came out in the twilight, and sat in silence, and gloomy dreams of revenge, in some suburb café. Where were the deadly tribunals, with their drunken judges, their half-naked assassins, and the eternal clank of the guillotines?—all vanished; the whole sullen furniture of the Republican drama flung behind the scenes, and the stage filled with the song and the dance—the pageant and the feast—with all France gazing and delighted at the spectacle. But, my still stronger curiosity was fixed on the one man who had been the soul of the transformation. I have before my eye at this moment his slender and spirituel figure; his calm, but most subtle glance; and the incomparable expression of his smile. His face was classic—the ideal of thought; and, when Canova afterwards transferred it to marble, he could not have made it less like flesh and blood. It was intensely pale—pure, profound, Italian.

A LETTER FROM LONDON.

Certainly, of all tribunals ever invented by the ingenuity of man, a Parliamentary Committee is the most extraordinary. It is a court of enquiry consisting of five members, whose principal qualification is absolute previous ignorance of the localities and conflicting interests with regard to which they must decide. Of their impartiality, therefore, there can be no doubt. You or I might just as well sit down at a moment's notice, and adjudicate upon the merits of three competing lines between Pekin and Canton, with an equal chance of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. Of course they must be guided entirely by evidence, and have plenty of materials laid before them from which they may pick and choose. It is the richest thing in the world to see two crack engineers pitted against each other. The first, who appears on behalf of the line, does not know and cannot conceive the slightest engineering difficulty. If a mountain stands in his way, he plunges fearlessly into its bowels, finds in the interior strata of surpassing mineral wealth, yet marvellously adapted for the purposes of a four-mile tunnel, and brings you out sound and safe at the opposite side, as though he had been perforating a gigantic cheese instead of hammering his path through whinstone coeval with the creation. If a lake stands in the way, he will undertake to drain it, with immense advantage to the neighbouring proprietors. If a valley intervenes, he will bridge it with a viaduct, which shall put to shame the grandest relics of antiquity. He has no knowledge of such bugbears as steep gradients or dangerous curves; a little hocus-pocus with the compasses transforms all these into gentle undulations, and sweeps of the most graceful description. He will run you his rails right through the heart of the most populous city,—yea, even Glasgow herself,—and across the streets, without the slightest interruption to the traffic. He will contrive so, that the hissing of the locomotive shall be as graceful a sound as the plashing of a fountain in the midst of our bisected squares; and he is indignant at the supposition that any human being can be besotted enough to prefer the prospect of a budding garden, to a clean double pair of rails beneath his bedroom window, with a jolly train steaming it along at the rate of some fifty miles per hour.

The opposing engineer has a contrary story to tell. He has the utmost confidence in the general ability of his scientific friend, but on this occasion he has the misfortune to differ in opinion. Very carefully has he gone over the whole of the line surveyed. He is sorry to say that the gradients are utterly impossible, and the curves approaching to a circle. Tunnelling is out of the question. How are two miles of quicksand and two of basaltic rock to be gone through? The first is deeper than the Serbonian bog, and would swallow up the whole British army. The second could not be pierced in a shorter time than Pharaoh took to construct the pyramids of Egypt. He considers a railway in the heart of a town to be an absolute and intolerable nuisance; and, on the whole, looking at the plan before him, he has come to the conclusion, that a more dangerous and impracticable line was never yet laid before a committee of the United Parliament of Great Britain.

So much for the engineering Hector and Achilles. Out of these two opinions, of necessity, must the five respectable members on the bench form their judgment; for of themselves they know nothing, having been purposely selected on account of their superior ignorance. Cross-examination makes the matter still worse. A cantankerous waspish counsel, with the voice of an exasperated cockatoo, endeavours to make the opposing engineer contradict himself. He might as well try to overturn Ailsa Crag. He of the impossible gradients is the hero of a hundred committees, quite accustomed to legal artifice, cool, wary, and self-collected. He receives every thrust with a pleasant smile, and sometimes returns them with damaging effect. If close pressed, he is conscious that behind him is a thicket of algebra, into which neither counsel nor judges will dare to follow; and so fortified by the mysteries of his calling, he is ready to defy the universe. Then come the hordes of subordinate witnesses, the gentlemen who are to give evidence for and against the bill. One side represents the country as abounding in mineral produce and agricultural wealth: the other likens it unto Patmos, or the stony Arabia. Tims swears that the people of his district are mad, insane, rabid in favour of the line. Jenkins, his next-door neighbour, on the contrary, protests that if the rails were laid down to-morrow, they would be torn up by an insurrection of the populace en masse. John thinks the Dreep-daily Extension is the only one at all suited to supply the wants of the country; Sandy opines that the Powhead's Junction is the true and genuine potato; and both John and Sandy, Tims and Jenkins, are backed by a host of corroborators. Then come the speeches of the counsel, and rare specimens they are of unadulterated oratory. I swear to you, Bogle, that, no later than a week ago, I listened to such a picture of Glasgow and the Clyde, from the lips of a gentleman eminent alike in law and letters, as would have thrown a diorama of Damascus into the shade. He had it all, sir, from the orchards of Clydesdale to the banks of Bothwell, the pastoral slopes of Ruglen, and the emerald solitudes of the Green. The river flowed down towards the sea in translucent waves of crystal. From the parapets of the bridge you watched the salmon cleaving their way upwards in vivid lines of light. Never did Phœbus beam upon a lovelier object than the fair suburb of the Gorbals, as seen from the Broomielaw, reposing upon its shadow in perfect stillness. Then came the forest of masts, the activity of the dockyards, and

Further down, the villas of the merchant princes burst upon your view, each of them a perfect Sirmio—then Port-Glasgow, half spanned by the arch of a dissolving rainbow—Dumbarton, grand and solemn as became the death-place of the Bruce—Ben Lomond, with its hoary head swathed in impenetrable clouds—and lo! the ocean and the isles. Not a Glasgow man in the committee-room but yearned with love and admiration towards the gifted speaker, who certainly did make out a case for the Queen of the West such as no matter-of-fact person could possibly have believed. And all this was done by merely substituting a Claude Lorraine glass for our ordinary dingy atmosphere. The outline was most correct and graphic, but the secret lay in the handling and distribution of the colours. I shall not wonder if the whole committee, clerk included come down this autumn to catch a glimpse of that terrestrial paradise.

Such is a brief and unexaggerated abstract of the transactions of these railway committees; and you may judge for yourself how far the members are likely to understand the true circumstances of the case from evidence so singularly conflicting. Sometimes three or four days are wasted before they can even comprehend the precise position of the lines which they are required to consider, and, after all, these impressions must be of the haziest description. For my own part, I think the legislature has made a most palpable mistake in not intrusting such important functions to parties who possess competent local knowledge; and I am satisfied that the result of the present session has proved the insufficiency of the system. I demur altogether to the propriety of devolving upon Members of Parliament the duties of a civil jury. They have surely enough to do in weighing and determining the larger questions of policy, without entering into the minute details necessarily involved in the consideration of railways, roads, bridges, and canals. These should be transferred to parties conversant with such subjects, and responsible to the public for their decisions. Besides this, the direct pecuniary loss to Scotland by the present system of sending witnesses to London—though personally I have no reason to complain—is quite enormous, and demands attention in a national point of view. It is calculated that not less than a million and a half sterling, has been expended in the course of last year in carrying the Scottish bills through Parliament, and by far the greater part of this sum has been absorbed by plethoric London, and cannot by possibility return. Now, the whole annual value of the lands and houses in Scotland does not exceed ten millions, (in 1843, it was little more than nine)—an amount which is totally inadequate to afford so prodigious a deduction as this, for the mere purpose of procuring authority to carry our own schemes into execution. That the seventh part of the rental of a country should be drawn away from it, and expended beyond its boundaries, in the course of simple preliminary investigations, is not only an exorbitant abuse, but, to my mind, a clear demonstration of the total falsity of the system. It may have worked tolerably when there was less work to do; but the amazing increase of private bills during the last few years must render a new arrangement necessary. I wish our countrymen would be a little more alive to the vast benefit of local institutions in a pecuniary point of view. Can there be any doubt, that, if the details connected with all the private bills applicable to Scotland, were referred to a paid board of commissioners sitting permanently in Edinburgh, whose judgment of course would be subject to the review of Parliament, the business would be got through, not only more cheaply, but with greater satisfaction and dispatch? I cannot see why London should be entitled to this exclusive monopoly, or the principle of centralization pushed so far as to injure the extremities of the empire. The private committee business has already become an absolute nuisance to the whole bulk of the members. It is a function for which few of them have been educated, which is in itself highly distasteful, and, moreover, interferes most materially with their public duties. Let them, then, be freed from this thraldom, and Scotland will have no reason to complain. We don't ask for any power of legislation; we only require that within and among ourselves the necessary investigations shall be made. This can be done in Edinburgh quite as well as in London; and very sorely does our poor Metropolis stand in need of such indigenous support. Dublin has its viceregal court, and therefore can make some stand against centralization. Edinburgh has nothing left her except the courts of law, which have been pared down by ignorant experimentalists to the smallest possible substance. All that could be taken from her has been transferred to London. Her local boards, her officers of state, have vanished one by one; and scarce any remonstrance has been made against these useless and unjustifiable aggressions.

I find myself getting into the Malagrowther vein, so I had better pull up in time, without hinting at the existence of claymores. Only this, should there ever be a decent agitation in Scotland, you will find the old Tories at the head of it, demanding the restitution of certain ancient rights, which Whiggery has subverted, and Conservatism trodden under foot. Undoubtedly, at no very distant period, the great questions of centralization and uniformity will be gravely and considerately discussed, both within and without the walls of the British Parliament. Next year it is probable that the transit between Edinburgh and London will be effected in fourteen hours. That of itself will go far to bring matters to a crisis. If we are to be centralized, let the work be thoroughly done; if not, let us get back at least a reasonable portion of our own.

But to the committees. You can have no idea, Bogle, of the excitement caused by any of their decisions. At the close of the evidence, counsel, agents, and spectators are unceremoniously hustled out of the room, to give leisure for the selected senators to make up their minds on the propriety of passing or rejecting the preamble of the bill. In the lobby all is confusion. Near the door stand five-and-twenty speculators, all of them heavy holders of stock, some flushed in the face like peonies, some pale and trembling with excitement. The barristers, for the most part, have a devil-may-care look, as if it mattered little to them, whether the Dreep-daily or Powhead's gentry shall carry the day. And, in truth, it is of little consequence. The sittings of this committee cannot by possibility be prolonged, and as most of the legal gentlemen have other briefs—

"To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new."

The magistrates of Camlachie, though sorely agitated for the integrity of that important borough, threatened by the Dreep-daily Extension with immediate intersection, yet preserve a becoming decorum of feature. The senior bailie bows a dignified assent to the protestations of the Parliamentary solicitor, that it is quite impossible the bill can pass—such an interference with vested rights never can be sanctioned by a British House of Commons, &c. &c.; and then, with a shrewd eye to future proceedings, the wily Machiavel hints that at all events the House of Lords will be sure to put the matter right. What in the name of torture can make the committee deliberate so long? Two hours have elapsed since we were excluded, and yet there is no indication of a judgment. The chairman of the Powhead's line, which on the whole has had the worst of it in evidence, begins to gain confidence from the delay. Whispers arise and circulate that the committee are two to two, the chairman not being able to make up his mind either way; but as his wife is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell—there is a buzz as of a hive overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall be partially restored. Now for the dictum—"The Committee, having heard evidence, are of opinion that the preamble of the Dreep-daily Extension Bill has not been proved, and further, that the preamble of the Powheads Junction Bill has been satisfactorily proved, and they intend to report accordingly." One second's pause, and a triumphant cheer bursts from the dignitaries of Camlachie. The five-and-twenty speculators darting at once to the door, choke up the entrance for a time—divers coat-tails give way, and hats disappear in the scuffle—at last they break out from the Cloisters like so many demoniacs, fling themselves into four-and-twenty cabs, and offer triple fares for immediate transmission to the City. One, more knowing than the rest, sneaks down to Westminster Bridge, finds a steamer just starting, makes his way by water to the Exchange; and five minutes before the earliest cab, obstructed by a covey of coal-carts in the Strand, can fetch its agitated inmate to his broker, his speedier rival has sold several thousand Dreep-dailys to unwitting and unfortunate purchasers, and has become the coveted possessor of every Powhead scrip then negotiable in the London market. If there is any caricature in this sketch I shall submit to do penance in the pillory.

I think I have now bored you sufficiently with railway matters: being a literary character, you may like to know how I otherwise employ my time. Imprimis, I have not attended a single debate in the House of Commons. It is quite enough to spell one's way through the dreary columns of the Times after the matutinal muffin, without exposing the mind to the cruelties of a Maynooth debate, or the body to the tender mercies of the novel mode of ventilation. I find the theatres much more amusing, not from the excellence of the dramatic performances, but from their sheer and gross absurdity, which, without actual experience, is almost too monstrous for belief. The fact is, that a new Cockney school has arisen, ten times more twaddling and impotent than the ancient academy of that name. The old professors, for whom I always had a sneaking kindness, affected a sort of solitary grandeur, deported themselves with the conscious swagger of genius, read Tooke's Pantheon, and prated of the Heathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, to be sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebuke than an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsook his legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and became unsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. The literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have regular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang and pilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work these materials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals, by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wondering world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are surrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in your ears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. In vain you turn aside, in hopes to get rid of the nuisance. Go where you will, a perfect cloud of midges keeps hovering round your head, each tiny bloodsucker sounding his diminutive horn, in the full and perfect belief that he discourses most excellent music. Even so, in London, are you surrounded with these philosophers of the Cider-cellar. Their works stare you every where in the face; the magazines abound with their wit; their songs, consisting for the most part of prurient parodies, are resonant throughout the purlieus of Covent Garden. What is worse than all, they have wriggled themselves into a sort of monopoly of the theatres, persuaded the public to cashier Shakespeare, who is now utterly out of date, and to instal in his place a certain Mr J.R. Planché as the leading swan of the Thames. In giving him this prominent place, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who with much modesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, have acknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and with him they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylor and Albert Smith, Esquires, thus bear testimony to his merits in one of their inimitable prologues:

Ben Jonson never penned a more delicate or classical compliment, albeit it halteth a little. Let us then submit to the better judgment of our brethren, and bow down promiscuously before any brazen calf which their eager idolatry may rear. Let London promulgate the law of letters, as well as the statutes of the land. Therefore, say I, away with Romeo, and give us Cinderella; banish Hamlet, and welcome Sleeping Beauty; let the Tempest make room for Fortunio; and Venice Preserved for the gentle Graciosa and Percinet! Do you, Bogle, disencumber your study as fast as you can of these absurd busts of the older dramatists, now fit for nothing but targets in a shooting-gallery. Fling the effigies, one and all, into the area; and let us see, in their stead, each on its appropriate pedestal, with some culinary garland round the head, new stucco casts of J.R. Planché, Albert Smith, and Gilbert à-Beckett, Esquires.

After all, is it to be wondered at if the public lacketh novelty? Shakespeare has had possession of the stage for nearly two centuries—quite enough, one would think, to pacify his unconscionable Manes. We have been dosed with his dramas from our youth upwards. Two generations of the race of Kean have, in our own day, perished, after a series of air-stabs, upon Bosworth field. We have seen twenty different Hamlets appear upon the damp chill platform of Elsinore, and fully as many Romeos in the sunny streets of Verona. The nightingale in the pomegranate-tree was beginning to sing hoarsely and out of tune; therefore it was full time that our ears should be dieted with other sounds. Well, no sooner was the wish expressed, than we were presented with "Nina Sforza," the "Legend of Florence," and several other dramas of the highest class. Sheridan Knowles and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton professed themselves ready to administer any amount of food to the craving appetite of the age—but all in vain. Tragedy was not what we wanted—nor comedy—no, nor even passable melodrama. We sighed for something of a more ethereal sort, and—laud we the gods!—the manna has descended in showers. Go into any of the London theatres now, and the following is your bill of fare. Fairies you have by scores in flesh-coloured tights, spangles, and paucity of petticoats; gnomes of every description, from the gigantic glittering diamond beetle, to the grotesque and dusky tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs and swelling busts are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass—dragons vomiting at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains in Trafalgar Square—Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesian owl—and the Seven Champions of Christendom smoking cigars upon the parapets of Hungerford Bridge! All these things have I seen, Bogle, yea, and cheered them to the echo, in company with some thousand Cockneys, all agape at the glitter of tinselled pasteboard, and the glories of the Catharine-wheel. Such is the intellectual banquet which London, queen of literature, presents to her fastidious children!

The form of dramatic composition now most in vogue is the burlesque; or, in the language of the great Planché, "the original, grand, comic, romantic, operatic, melo-dramatic, fairy extravaganza!" There is a title for you, that would have put Polonius to the blush. I have invested some three shillings in the purchase of several of these works, in order that I might study at leisure the bold and brilliant wit, the elegant language, and the ingenious metaphors which had entranced me when I heard them uttered from the stage. I am now tolerably master of the subject, and therefore beg leave, before condescending upon details, to hand you a recipe for the concoction of one of these delectable dishes. Take my advice, and make the experiment yourself. Red Riding-Hood, I think, is still a virgin story; but, unless you make haste, she will be snapped up, for they are rapidly exhausting the stores of the "Contes des Fées." Alexander will probably give you something for it, or you can try our old friend Miller at the Green. The process is shortly this. Select a fairy tale, or a chapter from the Arabian Nights; write out the dramatis personæ, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals, genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent corps de ballet; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slang repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet contain either a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. This in London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom fails to bring down three distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. I fear you may be trammelled a little by the scantiness of local allusions. Hungerford Bridge and Trafalgar Square, as I have already hinted, have kept the Cockneys in roars of laughter for years, and are dragged forward with unrelenting perseverance, but still undiminished effect, in each successive extravaganza. I suspect you will find that the populace of Glasgow are less easy to be tickled, and somewhat jealous of quips at their familiar haunts. However, don't be down-hearted. Go boldly at the Gorbals, the Goosedubs, and the great chimney-stalk of St Rollox; it is impossible to predict how boldly the municipal pulse may bound beneath the pressure of a dexterous finger. Next, you must compose some stanzas, as vapid as you please, to be sung by the leading virgin in pantaloons; or, what is better still, a few parodies adapted to the most popular airs. I see a fine field for your ingenuity in the Jacobite relics; they are entwined with our most sacred national recollections, and therefore may be desecrated at will. Never lose sight for a moment of the manifold advantages derivable from a free use of the trap-door and the flying-wires; throw in a transparency, an Elysian field, a dissolving view, and a miniature Vesuvius, and