Laden with darkness, now, the wings of night Thousands, and tens of thousands. Female shrieks The startled steed glanced backward, as the flame And blew the winds of heaven, and flames and smoke And sparks were in the air, and blood on earth, All that debases or degrades mankind, Yea! blood and cruelty, and guilt and woe, Moscow ! resplendent city of the North! What rapturous feelings struck the pilgrim's mind, And holding there a thousand crosses bright; Moscow ! resplendent city of the North! A lesson to the realms of human kind. A SIR, LETTER FROM DAVID HUME, ESQUIRE. In your Magazine for February, 1818, (p. 495,) a correspondent of yours, who subscribes D. I., has contradicted, "as utterly destitute of foundation," an anecdote related in Hardy's Memoirs of Lord Charlemont, respecting the generosity of David Hume, the historian, to Dr Blacklock, the blind poet, in communicating to him the benefit of an office held by him (Mr Hume) under the University of Edinburgh. It is true, Lord Charlemont is inaccurate in some of the particulars. The office in question was that of Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates; and Mr Hume neither did, nor could transfer the office itself to Dr Blacklock, but the salary only, which was L.40 a-year. Lord Charlemont had also been misinformed in regard to the rapid, and somewhat romantic way, in which the favour is related as having been conferred by Mr Hume. But the substance of the story-that Mr Hume did receive this salary to the use of Dr Blacklock, and not to his own, I know for certain to be true; for I had often heard it mentioned by Mr Hume's intimate friends, Dr Blair, John Home, and Adam Smith. Though sure of the fact, I did not, however, wish publicly to contradict your corresponddent's statement, in reliance on my own recollection purely, though quite distinct, of what those excellent persons had related to me. But t'other day, in the course of looking into some letters of Mr Hume's, I hit upon evidence of the fact, in Mr Hume's own hand, in a letter to Adam Smith, dated, Edinburgh, 17th December, 1754. Mr Hume, it appears, had a controversy at that time with the curators of the Advocates' Library, respecting certain books which he had bought for the library, and which the curators had ordered to be expunged from the catalogue, and removed from the shelves, as licentious, and unworthy of a place in the library of so grave and so learned a body. It also appears, that Mr Hume had considered himself as not very handsomely treated by the 47, George-Street, 1st October, 1821. ing to the Faculty of Advocates for redress. He found, however, that he was not to expect the support of the Dean of Faculty, and some other leading members of that body. "I saw it then," says he, in this letter to Adam Smith, "impossible to succeed, and accordingly retracted my application: but being equally unwilling to lose the use of the books, and to bear an indignity, I retain the office, but have given Blacklock, our blind poet, a bond of annuity for the salary. I have now put it out of the power of those gentlemen to offer me any indignity, while my motives for remaining in the office are so apparent. I should be glad that you approve of my conduct. I own that I am satisfied with myself." In Mr Hume's account of his own life, he says, "In 1752, the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library." He had wished to conceal, under these general expressions, the liberal way in which he disposed of the emoluments of the office. Allow me to add, that, in 1754, Mr Hume was by no means in affluent circumstances; for he had then recently published the first volume only of his history; and he held no appointment, public or private, but this of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. I am persuaded, Sir, that you will have satisfaction in correcting your correspondent's unintentional mis-statement. It does not, indeed, relate to a matter of much importance; but the anecdote serves to illustrate Mr Hume's temper and dispositions; and, in that view, it may be not entirely without interest. Besides, the public attention has already been called to the incident, both in Lord Charlemont's Memoirs, and in your Magazine; and it will, therefore, be as well that the circumstances should be stated correctly. I am, Sir, Your very obedient And most faithful servant, curators on that occasion; and that The Editor of Blackwood's Magazine. he had entertained a purpose of apply THE VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF COLUMBUS #ECUNDUS. CHAPTER XIII. The King's Birth-Day. GOD SAVE THE KING! THE King's Birth-Day in Edinburgh was one of unusual festivity. Every school had the play on this momentous day; and long before the 4th of June, the mimic cannon were put in order, ammunition laid in, and store of squibs, crackers, sky-rockets, Roman candles, and fire-wheels, were prepared for the joyous demonstration of boyish loyalty. For weeks before, the only talk among the boys was of powder and powder-horns; and the chief occupation preparing match-paper, and arranging the details of the bonfire, and the dress of Johnny Wilkes, which personage has had the honour of being hung and burnt in effigy once a-year in Edinburgh, ever since I remember. Boughs of trees and flowers were also provided on the preceding day, in spite of the annual proclamation of the magistrates, and the care of the proprie tors of shrubberies in the vicinity; and birch and laurel were in particular demand to busk the wall, at the bottom of which was the delightful fire. The King's Birth-days to which I allude, it is necessary to mention, were those which were celebrated previous to the city of Edinburgh having, or requiring to have, a regular police. Since the period of that establishment, the officers of which make little or no distinction between merriment and mischief, bonfires are not allowed, and the firing of squibs and cannon is prohibited ; joy and gladness are reduced to mere sentiment; and, however hopeless the experiment, it is attempted, by these worthy protectors of the public peace, to pit auld heads on young shouthers, in spite of nature, and to make youthful limbs move with the tottering regularity of fourscore. That this has hitherto never fully succeeded, I am not sorry; and when takinga walk in a modern King's Birthday morning, I do regret the paucity of the fires, and their stinted ornaments-and in the evening to meet so many idle apprentices, whom this system has driven from the cheerful fire, and the enlivening noise of cannon, Vox Populi. to celebrate the royal birth in the undisturbed retirement of a publichouse, the termination of which celebration often ends in a commitment to the Police-Office-Bridewell-the loss of character-and confirmed depravity. Those who were fathers twenty-five years ago, will recollect the joy which beamed in the eyes of the boys relieved from the tasks of the school for the momentous day, and the delighted preparations that were made to celebrate this happy anniversary; the demand for money to replenish the powder-horn; the array of cannon; and the anxious request to be awakened "exactly at one o'clock." When the day was within a few hours, their little eyes sparkled with gladness at the idea of pleasure to come, and it seemed an age till the moment arrived when it was necessary to light the fire, and usher in the day with the mimic thunder of their little artillery.— "Mamma! will Betty give us a backet of coals?"-" Jenny, mind waken me first!"-" Papa, I winna set aff the crackers till you are up ;" and a thousand demands and expressions of a similar nature, made even the old participate in what gave so much pleasure to the young. I myself recollect of making the fruitless request to be allowed to sit up; have gone to bed for three hours to toss and tumble in feverish anxiety, till the dawn of day shewed it was time to light the fire, and decorate my cap with laurels ; and I have known others go to bed at an earlier hour, not to deprive nature of her accustomed rest, with the ineffectual wish to shorten the intervening period in the forgetfulness of sleep. But to the excited imagination, nothing short of enjoyment can bring again the calm of ordinary and every-day life; and the night preceding the King's Birth-day was generally a sleepless one to most of the schoolboys of Edinburgh. Days of my boyhood !-I look back to your enjoyments with complacency, and almost with regret ! The time that has intervened has not yet obliterated the remembrance of early pleasures; and I recur to the recollections of the past with the gratitude of one who enjoys with relish the beauty of the flowerets which Beneficence has strewed along the path of life. Among the higher rank of boys, bonfires, and the firing of cannon, squibs and crackers, formed the morning's amusement; and rockets and fire-wheels were exhibited at night; while, among their inferiors in point of wealth, the funds to procure powder were chiefly solicited from the passersby. "Eh, mind the banefire !-Mind Johnny Wilkes!" was echoed from the mouths of a dozen importunate urchins, with cap in hand, on the approach of any person near the hallowed fire; and I have oftentimes been fairly obliged to give a penny, though predetermined not to give any thing, to get rid of the obstinate suitors, who would follow one the length of a street,-Johnny Wilkes at the same time, in grotesque habiliments, stuffed with straw, and with hat in hand, looking down from his station on the wall above the fire, so beseechingly, that, in nine cases out of ten, one felt that it was necessary to keep up the spirit of nationality, which still continues to revenge itself upon the author of the North Briton.* John Wilkes, whom his violent opposition to the ministry of the Earl of Bute, and his illiberal attacks upon the country of the premier, in a paper called the "North Briton," have "damn'd to everlasting fame" in Scotland, was, for the libels of which this paper was the vehicle, dismissed from his command of the Buckinghamshire Militia, committed to the Tower, and No. 45 of this obnoxious publication, containing severe remarks upon the King's speech, was ordered by both Houses of Parliament to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, at the Royal Exchange in London, on the 3d of December 1763. Previous to this, Mr Wilkes being in Paris in August of the same year, was recognized by Captain Forbes, an officer in the French service, from his having seen a likeness of Wilkes in a print by Hogarth, when Captain Forbes, after getting his acknowledgment that he was the person he supposed, challenged him, as the author of the reflections upon his country. Mr Wilkes, however, after a number of evasions, contrived to escape fighting, by putting himself under the protection of the police. It is curious, at this distance of time, to read the attacks upon the Scottish people which gave rise to the burning in effigy of their author, which has continued to the present day; and I quote two paragraphs from the Scots Magazine of June 1763, to shew that Mr Wilkes at different times entertained very opposite opinions of Scotland and its inhabitants. The first is an extract of a letter to a friend in England, dated in 1758, which runs thus: "I shall certainly do myself the pleasure of spending great part of this summer in Scotland. I love the people for their hospitality and friendship, as much as I admire them for their strong manly sense, erudition, and excellent taste. never was happier than when in Scotland last; and I shall never be so deficient in gratitude, not to have the greatest respect for the people and country.” I The second is from the North Briton, No. 50, June 1763: "When we speak of national prejudices, we never confine our ideas to place, or have any further objects in our view than people. Hence, though in the whole circuit of creation, no country, so desperately wild, or inconceivably miserable as Scotland, can be discovered, yet I will suppose, what never was supposed before, that it contains every thing the Mahometan paradise can produce, and that, in the language of Mr Pope, 'Descending gods could find Elysium there." For which reason my arguments shall have no relation to the wretched spot itself; the propriety of my prejudice being sufficiently supported in the slightest consideration of the inhabitants.". "If any man can shew me a Scot who was not always the most insolent being in office, or the most scandalously cringing of reptiles out of place, I shall readily retract my assertions, and set him down the rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno." Black swans, I am happy to remark, are discovered to be quite common, (where indeed one should have naturally looked for them) at Botany Bay, in New Holland, and the thousands of Englishmen who annually visit our romantic country can attest, that, even in the wildest Highland glens, something better can be found for their roast-beef stomachs, than sheep's-heads, haggises, and oat-meal cakes. I do not doubt, notwithstanding, that there may yet exist some Cockneys, who think our country more barbarous than their own; and from the tirades of Wilkes, and the poetry of Churchill, draw their conclusions regarding Scottish worth and genius : "How can the rogues pretend to sense? Their pound is only twenty pence." But let the little fellows fire away with their cannon, and set off trains and pioies as much as they please, while we, gentle reader, take a walk along the streets, and see what is going on among the elder children. All the horses, on this happy day, were decorated with bunches of flowers, or branches of trees; and the poor animals seemed to pace the ground more lightly, and with an air of satisfaction, which lightened their load. Most of the tradesmen also displayed their loyalty by sprigs in their hats. At an early hour in the morning, the equestrian statue of King Charles II. in the Parliament Close, (almost the only statue we then had,) was fancifully decorated with flowers, and the railing which surrounds it interwoven with birks and laurels. The Parliament House likewise partook in the general jollity, and forgot for a season legal wrangling, in the arches of evergreens, and flowery emblems of kingly dignity, and national distinction, which now decorated its ample hall. The guns of the Castle were fired at twelve, and at the same hour, there was a parade of all the troops in the vicinity, and the volunteers, when they were embodied, who, after firing a feu-de-joie, were marched through the principal streets. The Battery at Newhaven, and the War-ships in the Roads, fired a salute at one o'clock, and all the ships in the harbour were decorated with colours. Little or no work was done among the tradesmen; for in Scotland, shows are so rare, that a very slender apology for keeping a holiday is necessary. The Town-Guard also, (a small body of veterans, which does not now exist,) in their new uniforms, were placed at the door of the Parliament-House, the decorations of which, and the display of the tables and refection, were opened to the view of all who desired it, during the forenoon. army and navy, to celebrate the day by drinking his Majesty's health. The area of the fine hall called the OuterHouse, was laid out with tables, on which were displayed a profusion of sweetmeats, decorated, at intervals, with exotic plants in pots, from the Botanic Garden. The Lord Provost presided, a band of music attended, and the worthy town-rots (soldiers of the City-Guard) attended outside the door, and at every toast fired a volley, which was re-echoed by the huzzas of the crowd in the Square. This manner of celebrating the King's Birth-day, by pouring out libations to his health, was discontinued during the lamented illness of his late Majesty, and has not since been revived. Though I like to see old customs kept up, yet this one in particular, from the almost indiscriminate admission of all classes to the entertainment, and other circumstances, I feel no regret in consigning to desuetude: The Blue-gowns, a set of privileged beggars, of whom Edie Ochiltree is the type, assembled on this day at the Canongate Church, for the purpose of receiving from his Majesty's almoner their annual gratuity in money, and a new gown. A sermon was also delivered on the occasion, and a dinner was provided. The Parliament-House was the place to which the magistrates invited the most respectable citizens, the nobility and gentry, and the officers of the "For to my mind, though I am native And to the manner born,-it is a custom servance.' The Parliament Square, at this time, congregated the chief part of the idle apprentices and boys, who amused themselves without in vulgar merriment, while their superiors were amusing themselves with wine and sweeties within the house. In the Square, at this period, stood a box, which covered the opening of a water-pipe, to be used in cases of fire; and, on the top of this box, it was the strange pleasure of the crowd in those days to burgher every decently-dressed person of whom they could lay hold. This burghering, or admitting to the freedom of the Square, consisted in placing the individual on his bottom on the top of the box, which rose like the ridge of a house, and then lifting him up by the arms and legs, and bringing him down three times, with more or less severity, as the caprice of the exhibitors, or the unwillingness of the party suggested. In general, it went off with good humour; but in some cases, where the person resisted the rude attack, and was carried to the machine by force, serious accidents happened, and the boxes of this description throughout the city were very properly removed. The company in the Parliament House met at six; generally separated |