unanimity, acquitted the accused. Gordon, under the name of Cameron, was led from the bar with acclamations; but at the threshold of the session's court, another pursuivant awaited him with an arrest for high treason, as an adherent to the Pretender in arms. The enraged crowd would have rescued him by force, and made outcries which he silenced with a haughty air of command, desiring to be led back to his judges. He insisted in such cool and firm language, and his countenance had in it such a rare authority, that after some dispute about the breach of official order, he was admitted into a room where two or three of the chief lords of session, and the chancellor of the jury, were assembled. Though still fettered both on hands and feet, he stood before them in an attitude of singular grace, and made this speech as it appears in the language of the record.

The people abroad would befriend me, because they love the cause they think I have served; and my judge, I take leave to think, would pity me, if they saw an old man and a tender woman pleading again for my life. But I will profit in nothing by my judges' pity, nor the people's love for a Cameron. I have triumphed enough to-day, since I have baffled both my accusers and my jury. I am Gordon, chief of the wandering tribes; but since you have acquitted me on "soul and conscience," you cannot try me again; and, since I am not Cameron, you cannot try me for Cameron's treasons. I have had my revenge of my father's enemy, and I might have had

more. He once felt the dead grip* of a Gordon, and he should have felt it again if he had not called me his son, and blessed me as my father once did. If you had sent me to the Grass-market, I would have been hanged as a Cameron, for it is better for one of that name than mine to die the death of a dog; but, since you have set me free, I will live free as a Gordon."

This extraordinary appeal astonished and confounded his hearers. They were ashamed of their mistaken judgment, and dismayed at the dilemma. They could neither prove him to be a Cameron or a Gordon, except by his own avowal, which might be false either in the first or second cause; and after some consultation with the secretary of state, it was agreed to transport him privately to France. But on his road to a seaport, his escort was attacked by a troop of wild men and women, who fought with the fury of Arabs till they had rescued their leader, whose name remained celebrated till within the last sixty years as the most formidable of the gipsey tribe.

*The grasp of a drowning man.

ELLEN.

"'Tis good to be off with the old love
Before you be on with the new."

EVERY one has something to say of himself. The veteran grows young, as he recounts the exploits of his youth, and shows how fields and reputation were lost and won. The citizen has his old-world story, which he loves to tell, and who is there so hard-hearted as would wish to interrupt him? I, too, have my story, and to relieve the tedium of a sick-bed, I have become an egotist, and, such as it is, have resolved to relate it. If I can be a hero no where else, I shall at least be the hero of my own little tale.

Of my early youth I shall say little. I had a father who looked strictly after me, and a mother who loved me, but who died before I could appreciate her tenderness. As I was the only child, I was allowed, on all hands, to be a prodigy of learning, steadiness, and so forth: but the truth is, the old folks were deceived; I was too lazy to study any thing except works of imagination, and my

character of steadiness was more indebted to my face than to my manners. After going through the routine of school and college, I was sent to study law, previous to appearing at the Scottish bar. I had always wished to enter the army, but the vile peace did away with every view of that sort; so instead of the crimson jacket, I was obliged to assume the dingy uniform of the law.

I was now about twenty-one,-six feet high, and with as much beauty as avoided the imputation of ugliness, but, I imagine, not enough to entitle me to the character of handsome. Hitherto my life had been an unbroken level. I had never felt my heart the least moved by love, and this, I suppose, because my father was incessantly boring me to look out for a wife. There is always something disagreeable in a father speaking to his son about love and matrimony; an old man has no sentiment about him, or if he has, it lies buried at the bottom of his purse. I, at least, found the truth of this; and when my father used to harp on this subject, I always, as speedily as possible, put an end to his tune.

My manners, though sometimes lively, were, in general, grave. I never was very fond of company, and I now began to live more secluded than ever. My favourite amusement was to wander alone towards Arthur's Seat, and there, throwing myself down on some sunny rock, I used to feast my mind with the fanciful thoughts which the beautiful scenery around called forth. I felt, like another Mirza, among the hills of Bagdad. I heard the

hum of the great city, I saw the smoke rising from a thousand palaces, I felt myself amid the haunts of busy men; then turning myself round, every thing seemed at once to vanish; houses, and noise, and men, disappeared, and I found myself stretched on a bare rock, the steep hills before me, and the sheep feeding quietly in the green valley beneath. Such were the thoughts which used to pass along my untroubled mind, like light clouds flitting across the blue of a summer sky.

But I felt that something was wanting to make my dream complete; my heart wearied for some one who might be a partaker and a heightener of my happiness,~~~~ some bright being, with intelligent countenance, and pale forehead, and dark mournful eyes, whose feelings would be deep as my own, and who would love me with that pure, that relying love, without which I felt I could never be content. Such was the visionary portrait which fancy drew, and which my soul loved well to contemplate.

For a couple of years did I lead this unprofitable, but to me delicious sort of life. At this time my father died, and I lost a kind, a good-hearted, a dear parent. I was told that I had always been a dutiful son, but my own heart reproached me with many an act which had been long forgotten, but which, now that he was gone for ever, rose in fearful and sorrowful array before me. The same lapse of time, however, while to some it is bringing grief, to others carries a remedy for their woes. I again began to mix in company, and, for his father's sake, Gerald