all proportion with the capabilities of the land; while education and civilization fell equally short of the strength and numbers of the people; nay, industry was paralized by distress, and emulation cramped for want of encouragement and pecuniary means. In my` quality of examiner I have no right to talk to government on these subjects, but (Scotchman like) the less I said on this subject, the more I thought, and the more I was convinced that Caledonia was the happiest and best used Sister of the two. In vain I looked for the parks and five hundreds per annum of the O.'s and the Mac's, my studying and travelling acquaintanccs. The father of one of them tenanted a mud edifice upon a bog, and was ground to death by tithes, taxes, and a bad landlord. Perhaps these parks, rent- tolls, &c. were mere figures in speech, and as such let them rest. There was no lack of noble mansions and fine estates springing up amongst surrounding misery, the possessors of which were, even then, absentees; and whose stewards and land-agents were pounding the cattle of the indigent, and driving them to despair. This prefatory matter may, perchance, be considered superfluous by my reader; but I beg leave to assure him, or her, that it leads to the subject of MatchMaking.

In the course of my tour through a great part of the country, I sojourned for a short time in the Counties of Galway and Roscommon; from the former I was frightened away by the constant reports of pistols discharged in duels, sometimes fought in public; for the amateurs there would turn out to see a couple of gentlemen decide an affair of honour, with as much avidity

as the fancy resort to Moulsey Hurst, or Wormwood Scrubs, to witness two fellow-creatures half-murdering each other for a purse of gold and their colours, a silk handkerchief, of vulgar pattern, for the neck of a ruffian. How much more honourable would it be to bleed for their national flag! But there is knavery as well as barbarity in these contests, and we will leave the scrubs of all denominations to themselves. From the latter I was driven by the almost certainty (if I remained) of breaking my neck over the stone walls, which it was quite fashionable and almost necessary to leap over, in and out of the sporting field. In each of these counties there was a prodigious deal of Match-Making; the country gentlemen who really had some hundreds of pounds annually, dipped and mortgaged a little, had another drawback of their unemployed stock, in the form of fine-grown, smiling-eyed, affable young ladies: now the market being overstocked, and the price being much lowered by the over-produce of these fair and flourishing plants, the owners were obliged to part with these valuables (for such as wives and mothers, they generally were) at a very low rate indeed; since this was not a dead stock on hand, but one which consumed other articles which must come from, instead of going to, market. For these mighty reasons, parents were incessantly on the alert for sons-in-law; sisters helped each other off in the best manner they could; the brothers turned husband-hunters; and if a stranger came amongst them, he was not made game of in the vulgar ordinary way, but he was either ensnared by bright eyes and warm complexions, brought down by the long bow of

ladies' change of condition and home. Of the truth of this remark I soon became convinced; for, on going to a private ball in Edinburgh, and seeing the crowd of female candidates for partners, the thing became still more obvious. I enquired of one worthy dame where her other fair daughters were (there being three in the room) and she told me, " Marion is with her brother in India, her sister Jessie is very well married in the same country; Bessie has just ta'en a planter in Jamaica, and she has sent for Susan as her companion; but" (turning to the only grown up daughter of the remaining three) "there is your old acquaintance Annie." As much as to say, "she is grown up a fine lassie, and is to be had if sought for." A gentle traffic this, but doubtless a successful one; for I observed son James engaging his sister to a number of his brother officers, on leave of absence, and after. one engagement another, perhaps, may follow. As further instances of Scotch match-making, a lady of very high rank was such a dab at these negotiations that, when she married off all her daughters to titles and fortunes, which she almost did vi et armis, which let us translate by the force of argument and those arms which female attractions make use of on these occasions, she turned her views to pairing off her more distant relations; and so fond was she of these matchings and marryings, that an old baronet informed me, he dared not go to Castle, for fear she should insist upon his wedding one of her maids or other female attendants, just by way of keeping in her hand, and having something to do in this line.

The last match-making matter which came within my notice was that of a friend of my own. It must be allowed that there are coming ladies, and going ladies, engaging misses and forbidding misses; there are also pretty maidens, who, (to use a vulger expression) go for to come, such as love

Or, like the flirting Galatea of the Latin bard, when she flies to the grove to escape her suitor,

se cupit ante videri."

Of these coming, engaging misses, these fair runaways who expect to be followed, was my friend, Amanda M'Matchem. One of a dozen fine children, and second of seven daughters; she hung out for promotion at an early age, more for the good of Ma and family than from any self-interested motive, or from her feeling lonesome, as Widow Wadman did. The Laird or eldest male held the estate, out of which he, like a dutiful son, gave a liberal allowance to his mother, and she expended a great proportion thereof in dressing her daughters, whilst the four other children were giving a dressing to their country's foes wherever they met them, by land or by sea, in Europe, India, or America; for their swords were their chief inheritance, and they all served in the navy and army. The seven sisters, like the streams of the Nile, glided on together in perfect harmony with each other, until it became necessary to direct their attractions into some other channel, and they were nothing averse to visiting a foreign shore, more rich than the rock which bore

ladies' change of condition and home. Of the truth of this remark I soon became convinced; for, on going to a private ball in Edinburgh, and sceing the crowd of female candidates for partners, the thing became still more obvious. I enquired of one worthy dame where her other fair daughters were (there being three in the room) and she told me," Marion is with her brother in India, her sister Jessie is very well married in the same country; Bessie has just ta'en a planter in Jamaica, and she has sent for Susan as her companion; but" (turning to the only grown up daughter of the remaining three) "there is your old acquaintance Annie." As much as to say, "she is grown up a fine lassie, and is to be had if sought for." A gentle traffic this, but doubtless a successful one; for I observed son James engaging his sister to a number of his brother officers, on leave of absence, and after one engagement another, perhaps, may follow. As further instances of Scotch match-making, a lady of very high rank was such a dab at these negotiations that, when she married off all her daughters to titles and fortunes, which she almost did vi et armis, which let us translate by the force of argument and those arms which female attractions make use of on these occasions, she turned her views to pairing off her more distant relations; and so fond was she of these matchings and marryings, that an old baronet informed me, he dared not go to Castle, for fear she should insist upon his wedding one of her maids or other female attendants, just by way of keeping in her hand, and having something to do in this line.