through the mansion. It is supposed that the savory odor of the preparations for dinner led him to the kitchen, where he found the little turnspit quietly seated by the fire. He seized the boykilled him-took the meat from the fire, and spitted the body of his victim, which he half roasted, and was found devouring when the duke, with his domestics, returned from his triumph. The consternation and horror of all concerned may be conceived. The common people, among whom the dreadful tale soon spread, in spite of the Duke's endeavours to suppress it, said that it was "a judgment" upon him for his odious share in the Union. The story runs, that the duke, who had previously regarded his dreadful offspring with no eye of affection, immediately ordered the creature to be smothered. But this is a mistake; the idiot is known to have died in England, and to have survived his father many years, though he did not succeed him upon his death in 1711, when the titles devolved upon Charles, a younger brother.

It is a remarkable fact, in the history of the Queensberry family, that Charles, the third duke of Queensberry, before assuming the title and possessing the estates, which of right descended to his elder brother the idiot, had been created earl of Solway, and had married his countess lady Catherine Hyde, the second daughter of Henry, earl of Clarendon and Rochester, who before her marriage had been deranged in mind and confined in a strait jacket. The duke was born in the house in the Canongate, and resided in it occasionally with his duchess, Catherine, when they visited Scotland; and tradition affirms, that, after duke Charles and his duchess had embroiled themselves with the court, on account of the support which they gave to the poet Gay, they

resided for some time here. It is even said that Gay wrote the Beggar's Opera while residing in the Canongate under their protection; but the patrons of Gay did not quarrel with the Court till after he had written the Beggar's Opera; and it is apparent from his own letters, that he wrote the Beggar's Opera in the same house with Pope and Swift, in England. Certain it is, however, that Gay did live for some time with his patrons both in Edinburgh and at Drumlanrig. Mr. Chambers says, "While Gay was at Drumlanrig he employed himself in picking out a great number of the best books

from the library, which were sent to England, whether for his own use or the duke's our informant does not certify."

Drumlanrig Castle, being a very large and roomy mansion, is duly honored with the tradition of a ghost, said to be the spirit of a lady Anne Douglas, which used to walk about the house, terrifying every body, with her head in one hand, and her fan in the other.

While at the Canongate, Gay is said to have frequently visited Allan Ramsay, whose shop was then in the Luckenbooths -the flat above that long kept by Creech, where, for a long course of years, all the literati of Edinburgh assembled daily, like merchants at an exchange. Here Ramsay used to amuse Gay, by pointing out to him the chief public characters of the city, as they met in the forenoon at the Cross. Here, too, Gay read the Gentle Shepherd," and studied the Scottish language, so that, upon his return to England, he was enabled to make Pope appreciate the beauties of that admirable pastoral. Gay is said, also, to have spent a good deal of time with the sous of mirth and humor in a twopenny-ale- house, opposite to Queensberry-house, kept by one Janet Hall, who was more frequently called Jenny Ha'. This tenement is supposed by Mr. Chambers to have been the lower story of a wooden or plastered edifice in the situation mentioned, where there is now a huckster's shop, marked No. 61.

Upon duchess Catherine, and her sister lady Jane, who was married to the earl of Essex, Prior wrote his sprightly little trifle:

"Thus, Kitty, beautiful and young." Upon the accession of George III., the

duke and duchess were received at St.

James's, and the duchess walked in her place at the coronation. On this occaidea, hit off the following impromptu, sion Horace Walpole, pursuing Prior's which, for the neatness of the turn, and the gallantry of the compliment, was much repeated at the time:

To many a Kitty, Love his car
Would for a day engage;
But Prior's Kitty, ever young,
Obtain'd it for an age.

Yet Mr. Chambers, in allusion to the restraint she was under for her malady, before she wedded, says, "Her conduct in married life was frequently such as to entitle her to a repetition of the saine

treatment. She was, in reality, insane, though the politeness of fashionable society, and the flattery of her poetical friends, seem rather to have attributed her extravagances to an agreeable freedom of carriage and vivacity of mind. Her brother was as clever and as mad as herself, and used to amuse himself by hiding a book in his library, and hunting for it after he had forgot where it was deposited."

The only letter the duchess is known to have written from Scotland is to lady Suffolk, dated, Edinburgh, June, 1734, and contains a passage characteristic of her acuteness." O, had I wings like a dove, for then would I fly away to Marble hill, and be at rest! I mean at rest in my mind. I am tired to death with politics and elections; they ought in conscience to be but once in an age: and I have not met with any one who doth not eat with a knife, and drink a dish of tea. This, added to many other cutting things, makes a dreadful account.-I have been at an assembly; and much amused by the many very extraordinary fashions. Notwithstanding, I can assure you that my tail makes a very notable appearance. If you can, to be sure you will rejoice with me, for the sun has shone to-day,-that I am in hopes it will on Monday, that I may ride out; for on Sunday no such thing is allowed in this country, though we lie, and swear, and steal, and do every other sort of villany every other day of the week

round.-"

The duchess was not an admirer of Scottish manners. She particularly detested the custom of eating off the end of a knife. When people dined with her at Drumlanrig, and began to lift their food in this manner, she used to scream out, and, beseeching them not to cut their throats, would send the horrified offenders a silver spoon, or fork, upon a salver. Gay illustrates this in a letter to Swift, dated February, 1728. "The duchess of Queenborough has signalized her friendship to me in such a conspicuous manner, that I hope (for her sake) you will take care to put your fork to all its proper uses, and suffer nobody for the future to put their knives in their mouth." In another letter to the dean he says, "Think of her with with respect; value and esteem her as I do; and never more despise a fork with three prongs. I wish, too, you would not eat from the point of your knife. She has so much goodness, virtue, and gen

erosity, that, if you knew her, you would have a pleasure in obeying her as I do. She often wishes she had known you."

When in Scotland, the duchess always dressed in the garb of a peasant girl, in order to ridicule and discountenance the stately dresses and demeanor of the Scottish gentlewomen. One evening some country ladies paid her a visit in their best brocades, as for some state occasion. Her grace proposed a walk, and they were under the necessity of trooping off in all the splendor of full dress, to the utter discomfiture of their starched-up frills and flounces. Her grace, at last, pretending to be tired, sat down upon a dunghill at the end of a farm-house, and saying, Pray, ladies, be seated," they stood so much in awe of her, that they durst not refuse; and she had the exquisite satisfaction of spoiling all their silks. Let womankind conceive, as only womankind can, the rage and spite that must have possessed their bosoms, and the battery of female tongues that must have opened upon her grace, as soon as they were free from the restraint of her presence.

When she went out to an evening entertainment, and found a tea-equipage paraded, which she thought too fine for the rank of the owner, she would contrive to overset the table, and break the china. The forced politeness of her hosts on such occasions, and the assurances that no harm was done, &c., delighted her exceedingly.

Her custom of dressing like a countrygirl once occasioned the duchess a disagreeable adventure at a review. On her attempting to approach the duke, the guard, to whom she was unknown, pushed her rudely back. This put her into such a passion, that she could not be appeased until his grace assured her that the men had been all soundly flogged for their insolence.

She carried to court her plain-dealing and plain-dressing. An order had been issued, forbidding the ladies to appear at the drawing-room in aprons. This was disregarded by the duchess, whose rustic costume would have been by no means complete without that piece of dress. On approaching the door, the lord in waiting stopped the duchess, and told her grace that he could not possibly give her admission in that guise; without a moment's hesitation she stripped off her apron, threw it in his lordship's face, and walked on, in her brown gown and petticoat, into the brilliant circle.

The duchess's caprices were endless, yet, both in her conversation and letters, she displayed a great degree of wit and quickness of mind. The duchess died in London, in 1777, at the age of seventytwo. Nobody, perhaps, except Gay, was ever attached to her. She seems to have been one of those beings who are too much feared, admired, or envied, to be loved.

The duke, on the contrary, who was a man of ordinary mind, with an amiable disposition, and a good temper, had the affection and esteem of all. His benevolence extended even to his old horses, none of which he would ever permit to be killed or sold. He allowed the veterans of his stud free range in some of his old parks, with leave to die decent and natural deaths. Upon the duke's decease, at the age of eighty, in 1778, the luckless survivors of these pensioners were all put up to sale by his successor; and the feeble and pampered animals were forced to drag carts, and do other hard labor, till they broke down and died on the roads and in the ditches.

Duke Charles's eldest son, lord Drumlanrig, inherited his mother's malady, and was mad. He had contracted himself to one lady and wedded another. The lady whom he married was an amiable daughter of the earl of Hopetoun. He loved her tenderly, as she deserved; but, owing to his precontract, they were unhappy, and were often observed in the beautiful pleasuregrounds, at Drumlanrig, weeping bitterly together. These hapless circumstances ended fatally. During a journey to London, in 1754, he rode on before the coach in which the duchess travelled, and shot himself with one of his own pistols.

TOUCHING FOR THE EVIL

July 6, 1660, Mr. Evelyn enters in his diary, on this day-" His majesty Charles II. began first to touch for the evil, according to custome, thus:-his majesty sitting under his state in the banquettinghouse, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, his majesty strokes their faces, or cheekes, with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplaine in his formalities says, 'he put his hands upon them and he healed them.' This is sayd to every one in particular. When they have been all touched they come up again

in the same order, and the other chaplaine kneeling, and having an angel-gold* strung on white ribbon on his arme, delivers them one by one to his majesty, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they pass, whilst the first chaplaine repeats, that is the true light, who came into the world.' Then follows an epistle (as at first a gospel), with the liturgy, prayers for the sick, with some alteration, lastly the blessing: then the lord chamberlaine and comptroller of the household bring a basin, ewer, and towell for his majesty to wash."

It appears that on May 14, 1664, "a notice was given that it is his sacred majesty's pleasure to continue the healing of his people for the evil during the month of May, and then to give over till Michaelmas."+

This alleged miraculous power is supposed to have been first exercised by Edward the Confessor, and to have been since hereditary in the royal line, at least to the period of the decease of queen Anne.‡

[For the Year Book.] DIALOGUE ON THE DEATH Of Lindley MURRAY, ESQ.

"A truly good man--he writes very correctly." Dramatis Persona.

I-is the first person.
THOU-is the second person.
HE: SHE: or, IT-is the third person.

I-Those sentinels in sable clad

Why stand they there, supinely sad ?
THOU-To mimic sorrow they convene,

Before the house where death has been :
But 'twere of no avail to ask

For whom they speed their mournful task,
Since he, whose door they have sur-
rounded,

Tells us that "Mutes cannot be sounded." HE-Death, then, if I have rightly heard, Was so "6 irregular" a word, That Murray, though he might define it, Was quite unable to "decline" it.

July 6. Sun rises.

sets.

Nipplewort flowers.

D. A.

Convolvolus tricolor in full flower.

Pieces of money so called from having the figure of an angel on them.

+ Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iv. 55. Drake's Shakspeare and His Times, i. 370. See further in the Every Day Book.