it, but returned the Bishopps Messenger wth a disdainful and uncivil Letter. The Bishopps servants cominge into the knowledge of the contents of This Letter, desyred the Bishop to give them leave and they would take a distresse for his Rent; So, by his direction, they went to his dwelling place at Clanteverin, and brought awaie 16 poore beastes, Cowes and heyfers, prised at Nyne pounds. Sr John tooke this in great snuffe, and, by Balfours advyse, tooke out from the Sheriff of the Countye a Writt of Repleven to fetche back the goods uppon securitie. There was no formalitie kept in takeinge out the writt, nor in the execution thereof, and Sr John Wishard scorned to redeeme his goods; the Bishopps Bailey therefore sold the Cattell. Balfour heareinge of these proceedings, was gladd to fynd so fytt occasion for his purpose; He sent therefore for Sr John Wishard and St John Wimbes, his sonne in law, who by his meanes had byn Highe Sheriff Twoo yeares Togither; So perswaded the Sheriffe to graunt Sr Johna Writt of Withernam, to take as much of the Bishopps good as the Bishopps servants had taken of his. It was done accordinglie. So the Bishopp being at Dublyn, called up for his Maties service, sixe or seaven of Balfours, and Sr John Wimbes, and Sr John Wishards servants came to Portora, the Bishopps dwelling place, Inniskilling, and drave awaie betweene 40 & 50 English Cowes, worthe three pownds a piece, wch Cowes belonged to Sr Henrye Spottiswood, the Bishopps sonne. SrHenryes servants and some of the Bishopps servants that were left at home, informed heereof, they followed the Cattell, and overtakinge them at the Bridge of Inniskilling, when they would not shewe theire warrant for taking away the Cattell, they rescued them; and when one

of Sr John Wishards servants was too fforwarde to offer vyolence, They gave him a little knock on the head; But the verie next daye af ter came Sr John Wimbes, highe Sheriff, wth 30 or 40 of Balfours Tenaunts and servants, and did drive awaye all the goods about the Bishopps howse, and thoughe there was good suretie offered him that the goods should be foorthcominge, and the Bishopp should aunsweare what could be iustlye demaunded of him, yet the Sheriff would not render Three fayre Stood Mares and theire Coltes: They were so lovelye beasts He tooke them awaye wth hym.”

The Bishop having in vain attempted to obtain redness by fair retaliation of the injury. means, determined to seek it by a

"Some Twoo Dayes after the 2d of December, The Bishopps servants went out againe, some ffyve in number, to take a Distresse for Sr John Wishards Rent, who, as they were passinge by the Lord Balfours Towne, perceaved the Lord Balfours stood of Mares to be pasturinge on the Bishopps land, ffor wch Balfour refused to paie Rent: They resolved, therefore, to goe no further, so severed a parte of the stood, and drove them towards Inniskilling, and were gone neere seaven myles from the place before Sr John Wimbes & above Threescore of the Lord Balfours Tenaunts and servants overtooke them. Sr John incensed wth the indignitie he thoughte done him so latelie, He wthout any woords, at the verie first, thrust William Galbrieth through the showlder wth a pyke, Then twoo or three of his Companie gave him divers other woundes. Humphrye Galbrieth seeing his Brother in this case, he called to Sr John to forbeare, and he should have all content, to whome Sr John aunsweared,

aunsweared, as the Bishopps servants affirmed, Devill have my Soule yf wee part so, whereuppon Humphrye grasled wth Sir John; and while they were wrestlinge in a dirtye Bogg, one Davyd Balfour wounded Humphrye in divers places. Humphrye layeing his accompt his Brother was killed and himself could not escape, He tooke hould of a long Skeane was about St John Wimbes, and therewth did give him a deadlie wound; So they parted; ffor Sr Johns Companie gathered all about St John himself, and pursued the Bishopps servants no further. The Bishopps men had lost muche blood, and were all sore wounded, so had muche adoe to gett home. They did not acquaint the Bishopp wth that was done, neither did he suspect that unhappie accident till Sr William Cole came to

Portera, and affirmed that Sr John was deadlie hurt, and therefore required the Bishopp to enter into a Recognisaunce of a Thowsand Powndes to make his servants foorthcominge at the next Assises."

The Bishop however was afterwards prevailed upon, seemingly by the most direct falsehoods, to enter into a recognizance to the extent of L1500 for the appearance of his servants. The servants however refused to appear; and the affair afforded to Balfour ground for a series of intrigues, treachery, and chicanery, such as can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of the most profligate courts. The Bishop who, it is said, would have been completely ruined by the payment of the sum, had his life for many years rendered miserable by this prosecution. At length the violence of Balfour excited against him such a general hostility, that he found it advisable to quit the kingdom, and retire to London. The Bishop now

began to live in peace, and seemed even at the summit of his wishes. His repose however was soon interrupted by the dissensions in England between Charles I. and his parliament, which, extending to Ireland, broke out into a civil war, the most desolating and sanguinary. In 1664 our prelate sought refuge in London, where he died the same year, and was buried near his brother, the archbishop of St Andrews.

The whole of the manuscript except a few pages at the end, is written in a handwriting, which the Editor considers to be that of Dr Spottiswood himself.

The Scottish Adventurerers; or the Way to Rise; an Historical Tale, by Hector Macneill, Esq. 2 vols. small 8vo. 12s. Blackwood.

FEW objects are of more impor

tance to society, than the state of education among that numerous and very useful class, who are raised immediately above the lowest. These compose the better order of mechanics and tradesmen; they not only themselves perform a great part of the business of the. Society, but superintend and eniploy the bulk of the labouring community. They do not merely work with their hands, but require a very considerable share of intelligence and information. Their situation too renders them liable to certain errors in the mode of training their families. In general, they have a propensity to look upwards: they are ambitious to remove themselves, as far as possible, from the class in mediately beneath, and which is apt to claim a connexion with them. În all their habits, they are ever disposed to an imitation of the gay and fashionable circles; and this tendency has become peculiarly strong in the present age, which has been distinguished by the general diffusion of luxury throughout all ranks.

No

No one has exerted himself so zealously and indefatigably in the counteraction of this reigning error, as the author of the present work. To expose it has been the grand aim of all his recent publications; and as he never undertakes any, which has not some benefit to the public in view, his present undertaking relates to a question intimately connected with the same object. It is the established practice, in this country, for every one who can give his children any education at all, to send them for three or four years to a grammar school; and this forms often nearly the whole of the instruction conferred upon them. Mr

Macneill conceives, that, for those who are neither born to an independent fortune, nor destined for the learned professions, such an education must be worse than useless, and can have no effect but that of giving them a distaste for the occupations in which their life is to be employed. He insists, that if the time spent in learning mere words were employed in acquiring a knowledge useful for the common affairs of life, young men of this rank would be much better prepared for the part which they were to act. He illustrates this opinion by the history of two youths, one of whom has received a good education in the ordinary sense of the word; that is, has been rendered master of all that the grammar school can teach the other according to his plan, has been initiated only in useful and practical branches. From the opposite reception and success which these two young men experience, when thrown unassisted upon the world, he endeavours to prove the superiority of one system to the other.

In endeavouring to convey an idea of the manner in which this work has been executed, we do not

conceive, that our readers would have reason to thank us, for giving them an outline of the story. They will probably be much better pleased to trace it themselves, as it is unfolded by the author in the course of his narrative. We shall only mention, that the two young men are hurried, by a disasastrous accident on board of a ship of war: and the first part of the work is chiefly employed in delineating the dif ference of their feelings and conduct in such a situation. Mr Macneill was peculiarly qualified to execute this task, having, as he mentions in the preface, been himself enured during the course of several years, to the habits of a seafaring life. It is rarely that persons qualified to delineate these manners, have had such good opportunities of observation. He shall therefore give a specimen of this part of the performance. It relates to the incidents which occurred immediately after our two heroes were placed in the very unpleasant situation above alluded to.

"You

"The boatswain, who was naturally a humane man, and, as far as was consistent with his duty, kind and indulgent to the seamen, had the two lads birthed and messed; and telling them to be of good cheer, and not cast down with their misfortune, assured them, that if they conducted themselves properly, and minded their business, they should be taken care of. have had a hard brush I find, my lads." said he, "at the commencement of your service, but that's nothing at all against you, but rather in your favour. We seamen must lay our account with meeting with these things every day in our lives, and the sooner we meet with them the better. All you have to do is, to attend to your duty, obey your

orders,

ørders, and do every thing as well as you can, and there is no fear of your coming on.-We have no id lers, no skulkers here, every one must be active and alert!” So say. ing, he left them.

"It was not long ere Tom found himself well enough to proceed on deck, and explore the general scene that was moving around him. He was anxious to observe the nature of a service to which he was a complete stranger; but Andrew, whe ther from indifference, reluctance, or real illness, remained below in his birth, pleading his inability to move from the pain of the bruises which he had received in his Newhaven battle. Amidst all the misfortunes that had lately befallen him, he had preserved his Horace, which now not only served as a companion to him in his hours of melancholy solitude, but acted as a balm to his wounded mind, and a balsam to his sores, superior to any which the surgeon's mate could apply. As his prolonged confinement rather surprised the boatswain, who was informed by his attendant that the wounds in his head were completely healed, he paid him occasional visits to rouse him into action, and had invariably found him poring over a little book, which he read at the faint light of a small tallow candle, placed in a horn lanthorn. Wondering that a book of so diminutive a size could occupy him so long, and suspecting that he was "shamming Abraham," he one evening accosted him, after his usual salutation of Well, what cheer shipmate? in the following terms: "What! have you not overhauled that little book yet? Damn my eyes, there can't be much stuff in itOne, I think, might get through it in an hour or two, and here you have been at it every night for near a fortnight. Let's see what like it February 1812.

is." said he, snatching the book out of Andrew's hands, and opening it"O! I'm blasted if I understand one word of it!-What the hell is it?" said he, turning to Tom, who had just come down.

"It is Horace," answered Tom. "Horrors!" exclaimed the boat. swain, "what the devil has he to do with them?-Why, it's no wonder why you are melancholy, my lad! But we have horrors enough to grapple with here, without looking into a book for them, so I wou'd advise you to chuck it overboard, and come upon deck, and look at something else. Here's your messmate, who has been bustling about from morn to night, overhauling every thing he could set his eye on, and inquiring about every thing he did not understand. That's the way to make a good seaman, and, if I am not hellishly out of my reckoning, he'll make one very soon. Come, come! you must remain here no longer-the surgeon's mate tells me that devil a thing's the matter with you; so remember, I expect to see you to-morrow-morning on the main deck-there's no shamming Abraham here-every man must do his duty."

In the course of the narrative, we are introduced to the family of the Timbertones, in which Mr Macneill has exhibited two opposite erforce a taste for music, where it rors; one, that of endeavouring to does not exist, the other, that of does not exist, the other, that of checking it where it has been naturally implanted. The following family dialogue will afford a very good specimen of the manner in which this subject has been illustrated.

"She (the daughter) loved her book, her pencil, and her needle; but none of these were permitted to interfere with her musical tasks, as her mother, five or six timesa-day,bawled

Out,

out, "Sit down to your piano, Arabella! you have been a great deal too long from it: Sit down to your piano, I tell you!"

"The girl at last became so harassed and worn out with this irksomę and incessant toil, that, no longer able to endure it, she entreated her mother to release her from what was so unpleasant; but to no effect. "Would you give up a branch so indispensibly necessary for every young woman who has the least pretensions to genteelity and fashion?" exclaimed the sagacious mother. "Do you see one exception among all your intimates or acquaintance and would it not be disgraceful to you, as well as to us, were you deficient in what is now considered as the most important and the most elegant part of female education? --Impossible!"?

"It may be important to those who receive pleasure from it, and who are qualified to give pleasure to others," said Arabella; "but that is not the case with me, I would not give one farthing for all the music in the world, nor can I expect to arrive at any perfection in it, when I have neither a voice sufficient to reach one octave, nor an ear to distinguish treble from common time."

"That's nothing," rejoined the judicious mother" all this will come by practice. Your Master tells me so, and that a good Timeist can be made without a músical ear; and as for your voice, he says it is not yet nearly formed, but that years and daily practice will render it not only sweet but powerful!"

"Now what the Master says must be nonsense, mother," rejoined Arabella; "for there is Betsy Nightingale, who is much younger than I am, and who can with ease reach nearly three octaves, and has besides so nice an ear, that before her

first month of instruction was over, she could distinguish the smallest discord: But Betsy has a natural genius for music, and I have not, mother."

"Really, my dear," said Mr. Tinbertone, (who all this time had been listening to the argument); "I cannot help thinking that what Arabella says is very just. Neither you nor I, you know, have the least taste for music, nor ever had a mu. sical voice or ear in our lives; how then can we expect such qualities in our daughter? And since such gifts are not the portion of all, why should we strive against nature, and render the poor girl miserable for nothing?"

"Hold your tongue, Mr. Timbertone," said his wife, impatiently, "you know nothing at all of the matter. Will any body pretend to say that music is not to be acquired by practice alone, when every parent in Edinburgh gives it to their daughters without the least exception?-And pray, Mr Timbertone, what a pretty figure should we make, if our daughter was deficient in any branch of education, especially in one which is now universally admired, and considered as the very first accomplishment a young lady can possess? Suppose now, for instance, that we had an evening party: could we possibly avoid giving them an entertainment, which they all lay their account with-music, both vocal and instrumental? And should we not look very foolish, and very contemptible, Mr Timbertone, if instead of our own daughter contributing to this entertainment, we should be under the necessity of applying to the daughters of others, and consequently acknowledging to the whole company, that we had neglected to give Arabella what no mechanic's daughter in Edinburgh is ignorant of?-Impossible, Mr. Timbertone! We should be the

town