that touch pitch will be defiled: the most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.

Ver.

partner.

You have always been called a merciful man,

Dog. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will; much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

Ver. If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse, and bid her still it.

2 Wat. How, if the nurse be asleep, and will not hear us?

Dog. Why then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with crying: for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it bààs, will never answer a calf when he bleats.

Ver. 'Tis very true.

Dog. This is the end of the charge. You, constable, are to present the prince's own person; if you meet the prince in the night, you may stay him.

Ver. Nay, by'rlady that, I think, he cannot.

Dog. Five shillings to one on't, with any man that knows the statutes, he may stay him: marry, not without the prince be willing: for, indeed, the watch ought to of fend no man; and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.

Ver. By'rlady, I think, it be so.

Dog. Ha, ha, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows' counsels and your own, and good night. Come, neighbour.

SECTION LIX.

EXTRACT FROM RINGAN GILHAIZE.....John Galt.

MODERATION!-You, Mr. Renwick, counsel moderation -you recommend the door of peace to be still kept openyou doubt if the scriptures warrant us to undertake revenge; and you hope that our forbearance may work to repentance among our enemies. Mr. Renwick, you have hitherto been a preacher, not a sufferer; with you the resistance to Charles Stuart's government has been a thing of doctrine-of no more than doctrine, Mr. Renwickwith us it has been a consideration of facts. Judge ye therefore between yourself and us,-I say, between your

self and us; for I ask no other judge to decide, whether we are not, by all the laws of God and man, justified in avowing that we mean to do as we are done by.

And, Mr. Renwick, you will call to mind, that in this sore controversy, the cause of debate came not from us. We were peaceable christians, enjoying the shade of the vine and the fig-tree of the gospel, planted by the care and cherished by the blood of our forefathers, protected by the laws, and gladdened in our protection by the oaths and the covenants which the king had sworn to maintain. The Presbyterian freedom of worship was our property,―we were in possession and enjoyment, no man could call our right to it in question,-the king had vowed, as a condition before he was allowed to receive the crown, that he would preserve it. Yet, for more than twenty years, there has been a most cruel, fraudulent, and outrageous endeavour instituted, and carried on, to deprive us of that freedom and birthright. We were asking no new thing from government, we were taking no step to disturb government, we were in peace with all men, when government, with the principles of a robber and the cruelty of a tyrant, demanded of us to surrender those immunities of conscience which our fathers had earned and defended; to deny the gospel as it is written in the evangelists, and to accept the commentary of Charles Stuart, a man who has had no respect to the most solemn oaths, and of James Sharp, the apostate of St. Andrews, whose crimes provoked a deed, that but for their crimson hue, no man could have doubted to call a most foul murder. The king, and his crew, Mr. Renwick, are, to the indubitable judgment of all just men, the causers and the aggressors in the existing difference between his subjects and him. In so far, therefore, if blame there be, it lieth not with us nor in our cause.

But, sir, not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited freedom of religious worship, Charles Stuart and his abettors have pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same, with more animosity than they ever did any crime. I speak not to you, Mr. Renwick, of your own outcast condition,-perhaps you delight in the perils of martyrdom; I speak not to those around us, who, in their persons, their substance, and their families, have endured the torture, poverty, and irremediable dishonour, they may be meek and hallowed men, willing to endure. But 1 call to mind what I am and was myself. I think of my quiet home,-it is all ashes. I remember my

brave first-born,-he was slain at Bothwell-brigg. Why need I speak of my honest brother; the waves of the ocean, commissioned by our persecutors, have triumphed over him in the cold seas of the Orkneys; and as for my wife, what was she to you? Ye cannot be greatly disturbed that she is in her grave. No, ye are quiet, calm, and prudent persons; it would be a most indiscreet thing of you, you who have suffered no wrongs yourselves, to stir on her account; and then how unreasonable I should be, were I to speak of two fair and innocent maidens. It is weak of me to weep, though they were my daughters. O men and christians, brothers, fathers! but ye are content to bear with such wrongs, and I alone of all here may go to the gates of the cities, and try to discover which of the martyred heads mouldering there belongs to a son or a friend. Nor is it of any account whether the bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave. To the dead all places are alike; and to the slave what signifies who is master. Let us therefore forget the past,-let us keep open the door of reconciliation,-smother all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler. We have our lives, we have been spared; the merciless bloodhounds have not yet reached us. Let us therefore be humble and thankful, and cry to Charles Stuart, O king, live forever !—for he has but cast us into a fiery furnace and a lion's den.

In truth, friends, Mr. Renwick is quite right. This feeling of indignation against our oppressors is a most imprudent thing. If we desire to enjoy our own contempt, and to deserve the derision of men, and to merit the abhorrence of Heaven, let us yield ourselves to all that Charles Stuart and his sect require. We can do nothing better, nothing so meritorious, nothing by which we can so reasonably hope for punishment here and condemnation hereafter. But if there is one man at this meeting,-1 am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of feelings,-if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw his sword, and say with me, Wo to the house of Stuart ! Wo to the oppressors! And may a just God look with favour on our

cause.

0 2

SECTION LX.

SELIM EDWARD..... Thomson.

Edward. WHENCE is it those barbarians here again,
Those base, those murdering cowards, dare be seen?
What new accursed attempt is now on foot?
What new assassination ?-Start not, dervise,
Tinge not thy caitiff cheek with redd'ning honour.
What, thou!-Dost thou pretend to feel reproach?
Art thou not of a shameless race of people,
Harden'd in arts of cruelty and blood,
Perfidious all?—Yes, have you not profan'd
The faith of nations, broke the holy tie
That binds the families of earth together,
That gives even foes to meet with generous trust,
And teaches war security ?-Your prince,

Your prince has done it. And you should hereafter
Be hunted from your dens like savage beasts;
Be crush'd like serpents!

Selim. If, king of England, in this weighty matter,
On which depends the weal and life of thousands,
You love and seek the truth, let reason judge,

Cool, steady, quiet, and dispassioned reason.
For never yet, since the proud selfish race
Of men began to jar, did passion give,
Nor ever can it give a right decision.

Edw. Reason has judg'd, and passion shall chastise,
Shall make you howl, ye cowards of the east!—
What can be clearer ?—This vile prince of Jaffa!
This infamy of princes! sends a ruffian

(By his own hand and seal commission'd, sends him)
To treat of peace and, as I read his letters,
The villain stabs me. This, if this wants light,
There is no certainty in human reason;
If this not shines with all-conyincing truth,
Yon sun is dark.

Sel. The impious wretch who did assail thy life,
O king of England, was indeed an envoy
Sent by the prince of Jaffa this we own;
But then he was an execrable bigot,
Who, for such horrid purposes, had crept
Into the cheated sultan's court and service,
As by the traitor's papers we have learn'd.

Edw. False, utterly false ! the lie of guilty fear! You all are bigots, robbers, ruffians all!

It is the very genius of your nation.

Vindictive rage, the thirst of blood consumes you :
You live by rapine, thence your empire rose ;
And your religion is a mere pretence

To rob and murder in the name of heaven.

Sel. Be patient, prince, be more humane and just.
You have your virtues, have your vices too;
And we have ours. The liberal hand of nature
Has not created us, nor any nation
Beneath the blessed canopy of heaven,

Of such malignant clay, but each may boast
Their native virtues, and their Maker's bounty.
You call us bigots. O! canst thou with that

Reproach us, christian prince? What brought thee hither?
What else but bigotry? What dost thou here?
What else but persecute? The truth is great,
Greater than thou, and I will give it way;
Even thou thyself, in all thy rage, wilt hear it.
From their remotest source, these holy wars,
What have they breathed but bigotry and rapine?
Did not the first crusaders, when their zeal
Should have shone out the purest, did they not,
Led by the frantic hermit who began

The murderous trade, through their own countries spread
The woes their vice could not reserve for ours?

Though this exceeds the purport of my message,
Yet must I thus, insulted in my country,

Insulted in religion, bid thee think,

O king of England, on the different conduct
Of saracens and christians; when beneath
Your pious Godfrey, in the first crusade,
Jerusalem was sack'd; and when beneath
Our generous Saladin, it was retaken.

O hideous scene! my soul within me shrinks,
Abhorrent, from the view! Twelve thousand wretches,

Receiv'd to mercy, void of all defence,

Trusting to plighted faith, to purchas'd safety

Behold these naked wretches, in cold blood,

Men, women, children-murder'd! basely murder'd !—
The holy temple, which you came to rescue,
Regorges with the barbarous profanation ;-
The streets run dismal torrents: Drown'd in blood,
The very soldier sickens at his carnage.