MR. W seeing that I had recovered a considerable measure of my vigour, insisted upon carrying me with him to make my bow at the levee of the Earl of Morton, who has come down as the King's Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of this year. Detesting, as he does, the Kirk-its Creed-and its practice to wait in all due form upon the representative of Majesty, at this its great festival, is a thing which he would think it highly indecorous in him, or in the head and representative of any ancient Scottish family, to omit; and, indeed, he is of opinion, that no gentleman of any figure who happens to be in Scotland at the time, should fail to appear in the same manner. He was, besides, more than commonly anxious in his devoirs on this occasion, on account of his veneration for the blood of the old Earls of Douglas, whose true representative he says the Earl of Morton is. My curiosity came powerfully in back of his zeal, and I promised to be in all readiness next morning at the hour he appointed.

In the meantime, His Grace (for such is the style of the Commissioner) had already arrived at the Royal Hotel, where, more avito, the provost and baillies, in all the gallantry of furred cloaks and gold chains, were in readiness to receive him, and present the ancient silver keys, symbolical of the long-vanished gates of the Gude Town of Edinburgh. The style in which the whole of this mock royalty is got up, strikes me as being extremely absurd. In the first place, I hold it a plain matter, that, if the King's majesty is to send à representative to preside over the disputes of the Scottish ministers and elders, this representative should be lodged no

where but in the Palace of Holyrood, where he might hold his mimic state in the same halls and galleries which might have been dignified by the feet of the real monarchs of Scotland. Instead of this, the Commissioner is lodged in a common hotel-a magnificent one indeed-but which has assuredly nothing royal about it but its name. And then, its situation is supposed to be too distant from the place where the Assembly meets, to allow of his walking all the way thither in procession, as it seems ancient custom requires him to do. So when the hour of meeting approaches, his Grace is smuggled over the bridge in a sedan chair, and stuck up in the Merchant's Hall to receive the company that come to ⚫ swell the train of his procession. The undignified uses to which the apartment is applied at other times (for it serves as a reading-room all the rest of the year) is enough to throw an addition, and surely a needless addition, of ridicule over the scenes of courtly greeting to which it is now devoted. But it is within an easy walk of St. Giles's Church, and that counterbalances all objections.

Meaning to be in London, and kiss the Prince's hand once more, before I return to Wales, I had brought my old court suit with me-the same suit of modest chocolate-coloured kerseymere, David, which has figured in the presence of King George and Queen Charlotte at St. James's-of Napoleon and Louis le désiré at the Thuilleries-of smooth Pius the Sixth at the Vatican-of solemn Francis at the Schloss of Vienna-of grim whiskered Frederick William at Berlinof pale monastic Augustus at Dresden-to say nothing of the late enormous Hector of Wirtemberg, the good worthy Grand Duke of Weimar and Eisenach, and some score of minor thrones, principalities, and dominations besides. I took it for granted, that I could not make my appearance in presence of the Ecclesiastical Lord Lieutenant, without mounting this venerable garb; so John had the coat, waiscoat, and breeches well aired, and amused himself half an evening in polishing the steel buttons and buckles-and my queue being dropped into a seemly bag, and my loins girded with my

father's somewhat rusty rapier-I drove once more cap-apee a courtier-to my rendezvous in the Lawn-Market.

W

I found W― arrayed in a deputy-lieutenant's uniform of blue and red, with (albeit somewhat against the rules) the little cross of Dannebrog, which he had conferred on him many years ago, when he was in Denmark-on his breast; but in spite of his own splendour, he quizzed me unmercifully on the sober pomp of my own vestments-assuring me, that, except the Commissioner, and his purse-bearer and pages, I should find nobody in a court suit at the levee. It was too late, however, to change; and as I am not a very nervous man about trifles, I did not choose to miss the sight merely because I had over-dressed myself. W's old coachman had combed his wig in full puff, and his lackey mounted behind us in a fine gala livery of green and white, as old as Queen Ann's sixpences-so I question not the contents of the yellow chariot, outside and inside, made rather a conspicuous appearance. However, we soon reached the Merchant's Hall, and were ushered into the Presence-chamber of his Grace.

You know Lord Morton, so I don't need to tell you that the heir of the Douglasses made a highly respectable appearance, standing in the midst of his circle, in blue and gold, with the green ribbon and star of the Thistle. I had often seen his lordship; so, after being introduced by W-, and making my lowest bow, as in duty bound, I exercised my optics more on the Court than the Commissioner -the needles than their magnet. You never saw such a motley crew of homage-doers. I myself and my old chocolate suit might be considered, it struck me, as forming a sort of link between the officers in scarlet uniform, and the Members of Assembly in black dishabilles, of which two classes of persons the greater part of the company was composed. But, altogether, there could not be a more miserable mixture of tawdriness and meanness. Here stood a spruce Irish hero, stuck all over with peninsular medals, in jack-boots-there, a heavy-headed minister, with his car

rotty hair flying ad libitum about his ears-his huge hands half buried in the fobs of his velveteen breeches, and a pair of black worsted stockings, hanging line upon line, measure upon measure, about his ankles. On one side, a tall, stately, very fine-looking peer of the realm, clad in solemn black from head to foot, and having a double bamboo in his hand, almost as tall as himself, might be supposed to represent the old Lords of the Covenant, who were glad to add to the natural consequence of their nobility, that of being "Elders in Israel." On the other, a little shabby scrivener, in trowsers, (pro scelus!) might be seen swelling with vanity at the notion of his being permitted to stand so close to so many of his betters-and twirling his hat all the while in an agony of impudent awkwardness. To the left, the Procurator of the Kirk, (the official law-adviser of the Assembly,) in his advocate's wig of three tails, and the Moderator himself, distinguished from his clerical brethren by a single-breasted coat and cocked hat, might be seen laying their heads together, touching some minutiae of the approaching meeting -while the right was occupied, in all manner of civic solemnity and glory, by a phalanx of the magistracy of Edinburgh. The figure which these last worthies cut is so imposing, that I can easily believe in the truth of a story I have heard of last year's Assembly, which, at first sight, would, no doubt, have somewhat the air of a quiz. The Earl of Errol was the Commissioner, and the University of Glasgow had thought fit to send an address of congratulation to his Lordship, on his having attained to so high an office. Their envoy was their Principal-an ancient divine, as I am told, who has been well used to Assemblies and Commissioners for more than half a century. On this occasion, however, his long experience seems to have been of little use to him, for he committed a sad blunder in the mode of delivering his address. The gorgeous array of Baillies, it is to be supposed, had caught his eye on first entering the Presence-room, and dazzled it so much, that it would have required some time to recover its power of discrimination.

Of this gorgeous array, the centre-star was one Baillie powdered with a particular degree of splendour, and the Principal, never doubting that he was the Commissioner, stepped close to him, and rolled out the well-poised periods of his address, with an air of unquestioning submission, that quite convulsed the whole of those who were up to the joke. The Baillie himself, however, was too much thunderstruck to be able to stop him, and the true dignitary enjoyed the humour of the thing too much to deprive his Double of any part of the compliment. In a word, it was not till the doctor had made an end of speaking, and stood in smiling expectation of his Grace's reply, that some kind friend whispered him he was in the wrong box; and, looking round, he saw, in an opposite corner of the room, a personage, not indeed so fat, and, perhaps, not quite so fine as his Baillie, but possessing a native grace and majesty of port and lineament, which spoke but too plainly where the incense should have been offered. This was a cruel scene; but the awe with which some of the rural pastors about me seemed to survey, now and then, the grand knot of Baillies, was sufficient to convince me that it might have happened very naturally. The present levee, by the way, was, as W-informed me, by much the most splendid he had seen for a long while-the old Duke of Gordon was among the company, and a greater number than is common of the inferior orders of the nobility. The most conspicuous, however, in every point of view, was the Earl of Hopetoun, the Achates of Wellington, and a true hero in figure as well as in more important matters. Close by his side stood his heroic brother-in-arms, Colonel David Steuart, of Garth, whom I met two years ago at Lord Combermere's.

By and bye, the tolling of the bells of St. Giles' announced that the time was come for the procession to move, and the Commissioner quitted the chamber, preceded and followed by a few awkward-looking pages in red coats, and some other attendants. The nobility then marshalled themselves in order due, and descended-a baronet or two after