Mr. W- came into the sanctum sanctorum before the bookseller and his new author had quite made an end of their confabulation. He forthwith asked Mr. Blackwood for his gem, upon which a silver snuff-box was produced, and I immediately recollected the inimitable description in the Chaldee MS., which had given rise to the expression used by my friend. Nothing I think can be more exquisite.---“ And he took from under his girdle a gem of curious workmanship, of silver, made by the hand of a cunning artificer, and overlaid within with pure gold; and he took from thence something in colour like unto the dust of the earth, or the ashes that remain of a furnace, and be snuffed it up like the east wind, and returned the gem again to its place." But I must reserve the famous Chaldee MS., and the character of this farfamed Magazine, for another letter.

On coming away, W-reminded me that I had said I would dine with him at any tavern be pleased, and proposed that we should honour with our company a house in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. Blackwood's shop, and frequently alluded to in his Magazine, as the great haunt of its wits. Indeed, it is one of the localities taken notice of by the achaic jeu-d'esprit I have just quoted," as thou lookest to the road of Gabriel and the land of Ambrose," which last proper name is that of the keeper of this tavern. W had often supped, but never dined, bere before, so that it was somewhat of an experiment; but our reception was such as to make us by no means repent of it. We had an excellent dinner, and port so superb, that my friend called it quite a discovery. I took particular notice of the salmon, which mine host assured us came from the Tay, but which I could scarcely have believed to be the real product of that river, unless Whad confirmed the statement, and added, by way of explanation, that the Tay salmon one sees in London loses at least half its flavour in consequence of its being transported thither in ice. Here, it is certainly the finest salmon one meets with. The fish from the Tweed are quite poor in comparison. The fact is, I suppose, that before any river can nourish salmon into their full perfection, it must flow through a long tract of rich country. The finest salmon in the whole world are those of the Thames and the Severn-those of the Rhine and the Loire come next; but, in spite of more exquisite cookery, their inferiority is still quite apparent. We made ourselves very happy in this

snug little tavern till nine o'clock, when we adjourned to Oman's, and concluded the evening with a little Al Echam, and a cup of coffee.

The street, or lane, in which Ambrose's tavern is situated, derives its name of Gabriel's Road, from a horrible murder which was committed there a great number of years ago. Any occurrence of that sort seems to make a prodigious lasting impression on the minds of the Scottish people. You remember Muschat's Cairn in the Heart of Mid-Lothian --I think Gabriel's Road is a more shocking name. Cairn is too fine a word to be coupled with the idea of a vulgar murder. But they both sound horribly enough. The story of Gabriel, however, is one that ought to be remembered, for it is one of the most striking illustrations, I have ever met with, of the effects of puritanical superstition in destroying the moral feelings, when carried to the extreme, in former days not uncommon in Scotland. Gabriel was a Preacher or Licentiate of the Kirk, employed as domestic tutor in a gentleman's family in Edinburgh, where he had for pupils two fine boys of eight or ten years of age. The tutor enter tained, it seems, some partiality for the Abigail of the children's mother, and it so happened, that one of his pupils observed him kiss the girl one day in passing through an anteroom, where she was sitting. The little fellow carried this interesting piece of intelligence to his brother, and both of them mentioned it by way of a good joke to their mother the same evening. Whether the lady had dropped some hint of what she bad heard to her maid, or whether she had done so to the Preacher himself, I have not learned; but so it was, that he found he had been discovered, and by what means also. The idea of having been detected in such a trivial trespass, was enough to poison for ever the spirit of this juvenile presbyterian-his whole soul became filled with the blackest demons of rage, and he resolved to sacrifice to his indignation the instruments of what be conceived to be so deadly a disgrace. It was Sunday, and after going to church as usual with his pupils, he led them out to walk in the country-for the ground on which the New Town of Edinburgh now stands was then considered as the country by the people of Edinburgh. After passing calmly, to

all appearance, through several of the green fields, which have now become streets and squares, he came to a place more lonely than the rest, and there drawing a large clasp

A

knife from his pocket, he at once stabbed the elder of bis pupils to the heart. The younger boy gazed on him for a moment, and then fled with shrieks of terror; but the murderer pursued him with the bloody knife in his band, and slew him also as soon as he was overtaken. The whole of this shocking scene was observed distinctly from the Old Town, by innumerable crowds of people, who were near enough to see every motion of the murderer, and bear the cries of the infants, although the deep ravine between them and the place of blood, was far more than sufficient to prevent any possibility of rescue. The tutor sat down upon the spot, immediately after having concluded his butchery, as if in a stupor of despair and madness, and was only roused to his recollection by the touch of the hands that seized him.

It so happened, that the Magistrates of the city were assembled together in their Council-Room, waiting till it should be time for them to walk to church in procession, (as is their custom,) when the crowd drew near with their captive. The horror of the multitude was communicated to them, along with their intelligence, and they ordered the wretch to be brought at once into their presence. It is an old law in Scotland, that when a murderer is caught in the very act of guilt, (or, as they call it, red-hand) he may be inmediately executed, without any formality or delay. Never surely could a more fitting occasion be found for carrying this old law into effect. Gabriel was hanged within an hour after the deed was done, the red knife being suspended from his neck, and the blood of the innocents scarcely dry upon his fingers.

Such is the terrible story from which the name of Gabriel's Road is derived. I fear the spirit from which these horrors sprung, is not yet entirely extinct in Scotland; but on this I shall have a better opportunity to make a few remarks, when I come to speak at length of the present religious condition of the nation-the most important of all objects to every liberal traveller in every country--but to none so important as to the traveller who visits Scotland, and studies the people of Scotland, as they deserve to be studied.

Ever your affectionate friend,

P. M.

LETTER XLV.

TO THE SAME.

MY DEAR DAVID WILLIAMS,

I TAKE no offence whatever with any thing you have said, nor do I think it at all likely that I shall ever take any serious offence from any thing you can say. The truth is, that you are looking upon all these matters in far too serious a point of view. I care nothing about this book, of which you have taken up so evil a report; but I insist upon it, that you spend one or two evenings in looking over the copy I send you, before you give me any more of your solemn advices and expostulations. When I have given you time to do this, I shall write to you at greater length, and tell you my own mind all about the matter.

I PRESUME you have now done as I requested; and if so, I have no doubt you are prepared to listen to what I have to say with a more philosophic temper. The prejudices you had taken up without seeing the book, have, I make no question, made unto themselves wings and passed away-at least the most serious of them,-and you are probably quite as capable of taking a calm and impartial view of the affair as I myself am; for as to my allowing any partiality for Wseriously to warp my judgment concerning a literary Journal, in which he sometimes writes-this is, I assure you, a most absurd suspicion of yours-but, transeat cum aliis.

The history of Blackwood's Magazine is very singular in itself, and I think must long continue to form an important epoch in the literary history of Scotland-above all, of Edinburgh. The time of its first appearance was happily chosen, just when the decline of that intense and overmastering interest, formerly attracted to the Edinburgh Review, had fairly begun to be not only felt, but acknowledged on every hand; and had it not appeared at that particular time, it is probable that something, not widely different in spirit and purpose,

must have ere long come forth; for there had already been formed in Scotland a considerable body of rebels to the long undisputed tyrannical sway of Mr. Jeffrey and his friends; and it was necessary that the sentiments of this class should find some vehicle of convenient expression. In short, the diet of levity and sarcastic indifference, which had so long formed the stable nourishment of Scottish intellect, had by repetition lost, to not a few palates, the charming poignancy of its original flavour; and besides, the total failure of all the political prophecies of the Whig wits, and, indeed, the triumphant practical refutation given by the great events of the preceding years to all their enunciations of political principles, had, without doubt, tended very powerfully to throw discredit upon their own opinions in regard to other matters. The Whigs themselves, indeed, were by no means inclined to acknowledge that the sceptre of their rulers had lost any portion of its power; but the continuance of their own firm allegiance was by no means sufficient to prevent this from being actually the case; for, in preceding times, the authority of the critical sceptre had been acknowledged by Scottish Tories, no less humbly than by Scottish Whigs; and it was too natural for these last to suspect, at this alarming crisis, that the former would now think themselves in possession of a favourable opportunity for throwing off a sway, which had always with them rested much more on the potency of fear

than on that of love.

The subjection of the antecedent period had, indeed, been as melancholy and profound, as any thing ever exemplified within the leaden circle of an eastern despot's domination. There was, for a long time, no more thought among the Scottish reading public of questioning the divine right, by which Mr. Jeffrey and his associates ruled over the whole realms of criticism, than there is in China of pulling down the cousin-german of the Moon, and all his bowing court of Mandarins. In many respects, there is no doubt the Scotch had been infinitely indebted to this government-it had done much to refine and polish their ideas and manners--it had given them an air of intelligence and breeding, to which they had been strangers before its erection among them. But these advantages were not of so deep a nature, as to fix themselves with any very lasting sway in the souls of the wiser and better part of the people. They were counterbalanced