ciple speaks with a voice of thunder against violent innovation, for the sake of possible improvement, where things are already well. We ought not to desire better bread than is made of wheat. Our Scottish proverb warns us to let weel bide; and all the world has heard of the untranslateable Italian epitaph upon the man, who died of taking physic to make him better, when he was already in health. I am, Mr Journalist, Yours, MALACHI MALAGROWTHER. POSTSCRIPT. Since writing these hasty thoughts, I hear it reported that we are to have an extension of our precarious reprieve, and that our six months are to be extended to six years. I would not have Scotland trust to this hollow truce. The measure ought, like all others, to be canvassed on its merits, and frankly admitted or rejected; it has been stirred, and ought to be decided. I request my countrymen not to be soothed into inactivity by that temporizing, and, I will say, unmanly vacillation. Government is pledged to nothing by taking an open course; for if the bill, so far as applicable to Scotland, is at present absolutely laid aside, there can be no objection to their resuming it at any period, when, from change of circumstances, it may be advantageous to Scotland, and when, for what I know, it may be welcomed as a boon. But if held over our heads as a minatory measure, to take place within a certain period, what can the event be but to cripple and ultimately destroy the present system, on which a direct attack is found at present inexpedient? Can the Bankers continue to conduct their profession on the same secure footing, with an abrogation of it in prospect? Must it not cease to be what it has hitherto been -a business carried on both for their own profit, and for the accommodation of the country? Instead of employing their capital in the usual channels, must they not in self-defence employ it in forming others? Will not the substantial and wealthy withdraw their funds from that species of commerce? And may not the place of these be supplied by men of daring adventure, without corresponding capital, who will take a chance of wealth or ruin in the evolutions of the game? If it is the absolute and irrevocable determination that the bill is to be extended to us, the sooner the great penalty is inflicted the better; for in politics and commerce, as in all the other affairs of life, absolute and certain evil is better than uncertainty and protracted suspense. LETTER II. DEAR MR JOURNALIST, February 28, 1826. When I last wrote to you, I own it was with the feelings of one who discharges a painful duty, merely because he feels it to be one, and without much hope of his endeavour being useful. Swift says that kingdoms may be subject to poverty and lowness of heart as well as individuals; and that in such moments they become reckless of their own interests, and contract habits of submission, which encourage those who wish to take advantage of them to prefer the most unreasonable pretensions. It was when Esau came from the harvest, faint, and at point to die, that Jacob proposed to him his exorbitant bargain of the mess of pottage. There is a deep and typical mystery under the scriptural transaction; but, taken as simple fact, the sottish facility of the circumvented heir rather aggravates the unfeeling selfishness of the artful brother, to whom he was made a dupe. The "whoreson Apoplexy" of Scotland may be rather a case of repletion than exhaustion, but it has the same dispiriting effects. Yet, into whatever deep and passive slumber our native country may have been lulled from habits of peaceful acquiescence, the Government have now found a way to awaken her. The knife has gone to the very quick, and the comatose patient is roused to most acute possession of his feelings and his intellect. The heather is on fire far and wide; and every man, woman, and child in the country, are bound by the duty they owe to their native land, to spread the alarm and increase the blaze. Ucalegon Jam proximus ardet The city of Edinburgh has uttered a voice becoming the ancient Queen of the North. The Law Bodies, and the Gentry of Mid-Lothian, have set the example of petitioning Government, and proclaiming their sense of the measure designed; it has been followed in other counties, and I trust to see it soon spread into the smallest burghs, into the most wild districts of Scotland. There are none which the impending misery will not reach-there are no Scotchmen so humble that they have not a share in a national insult, so lowly that they will not suffer from a national wrong-none that are uninterested in maintaining our rights both individually, and as a people-and none, I trust, that have not spirit to do so, by all legal and peaceable means. I congratulate you, sir, on the awakened spirit of our representatives in the two Houses of Parliament. Our true-hearted Duke of Athole, and Lord Lauderdale, whose acuteness and powers of thinking and reasoning may, without disparage ment, be compared with those of any statesman now living, have set an example not to be forgotten; and we know that the slender proportion of aristocracy, which Scotland was left in possession of at the Union, entertain the same patriotic sentiments. We are equally assured of the faith of our representatives in the Lower House, and they on their part may believe they will not serve an ungrateful public. Scotland expects from them the exertions corresponding to their high trust-a trust of which they must render an account to their constituents, and that very shortly. Let every body of electors, from Dumfries to Dingwall, instruct its representative upon their own sentiments, and upon the conduct which they desire he should hold during this great national crisis; and let the Administration be aware, that if any of our members should desert the public cause on this occasion, they are not like to have the benefit of their implicit homage in the next Parliament. Burns's address to them in jest, is language which may now be held to the Scottish representatives in serious earnest :— "Does ony great man glunch and gloom, If honestly they cannot come, Far better want them." I have been told by some cautious friends, that the time for such remonstrances as I do most earnestly recommend to our Scottish representatives, would be now more unfavourable than formerly-so |