vivifying influence over the character of our countrymen, the religious citizen, who sees the hostility with which it is assailed in some quarters, and the indifference with which it is treated in the highest, will often inquire with anxiety of some purer source than the newspapers, what amidst all those thickly coming changes are likely to be its prospects and its fate? The man of quiet and moral habits, who reckons tranquillity among the first duties of a citizen, will inquire whether the national character and morals are likely to be improved by withdrawing men from their ordinary and peaceful occupations, and embarking them in those irregular habits of excitement which a long and rapid succession of political struggles never fails to produce? The industrious, who have already felt how completely trade and industry may be paralized by political commotion and fear of change, will inquire how the continued agitation of questions, by which the interests of different classes are proposed to be successively assailed, is likely to operate upon their present prospects, and their hopes of one day attaining wealth and distinction by honest and honourable exertion? These, and the many other subsidiary and collateral questions which must occur to the mind of every thinking man in this restless period, we shall endeavour to answer in plain, impartial, intelligible language. Forewarned as we have been against what quarters the attack is to be directed, it is our fault if we be not forearmed. Plain things to plain men shall be our motto; and while we may occasionally employ good-natured ridicule as "the test of truth," we trust we shall always speak (as we are sure we feel) without rancour towards any party, without hostility to any individual, and with a wish to do justice to the opinions of all.

These, then, are the chief views which have induced me to choose the present rather dull season of the year, for the commencement of this publication. But I would not have my readers to suppose that I, by any means, intend to limit myself to these, or to any other topics which may arise out of the Edinburgh election. I propose to consider any subjects which, at this momentous period of our national history, may seem most worthy of consideration; and without laying down any general rules as to the mode of discussion, except that I shall enter upon all subjects in a spirit of the most perfect freedom and independence that it shall be my endeavour to be plain and intelligible, rather than learned or profound—and that, if I should unfortunately be tedious and wearisome, it shall not be from the length of my lucubrations. I shall merely add, in conclusion, that another important point which I shall endeavour to keep in view is VARIETY; and I am glad to say, that, from the assistance which I have already obtained, and which I have no doubt of obtaining in the progress of the work, from persons in my own sphere of life, I can promise this with tolerable certainty; for there is no one to whom I have mentioned my intended work, (and among these there are not a few who have found leisure, from their daily employments, to cultivate habits of composition, both in prose and verse,) who have not expressed their anxiety that it should be such as to do credit to the TEN POUNDERS of Edinburgh.

* Lest it should be supposed that there is any allusion here to the distinguished person who is, at present, at the head of his Majesty's government, it may be proper to state, that this is the real and genuine name of a very old and popular English tune-the tune, if we mistake not, of the first song in the Beggar's Opera.

EDINBURGH Printed by PETER BROWN, Lady Stair's Close, and published, every Saturday, by STILLIES, Brothers, 140, High Street, and sold by all Booksellers.

I HAVE, and always will have, a certain degree of respect for Mr James Abercromby, as the son of an illustrious soldier, who died gloriously in the service of his country. And although, in national gratitude to his gallant father, a pension of no less than three thousand a-year is settled on his elder brother, Lord Abercromby, and his heirs, still, if this, the younger brother, were in needy circumstances, and unable to gain a livelihood by his own talents or industry, I would cheerfully contribute my humble share towards giving him a respectable maintenance—say three, four, or even five hundred a-year, at the public expense; for, poor as I am, I would not have it said that we allowed his father's son to be in want. But, except as being “his father's son," I must honestly confess that I am quite at a loss to see in what way he has any claim whatever, either on the country at large or on this city. No doubt, he has long been a zealous adherent of a PARTY; and as it is always the business of a party to magnify the merits of any of its own members, more particularly on any occasion when he may be brought into our notice for party purposes, we have heard a good deal of late of his public services. But when I have asked what these services areand I have put this question to more than one of his own party-I have never yet been able to get any thing like an answer; and, indeed, the result of every conversation in which I have endeavoured to arrive at a just estimate of his merits, has just been this, that he is the son of a most distinguished man. In truth-if the truth must be spoken-this gentleman does not seem to be marked out by nature for anything deserving the name of "public services." The fairest test of a man's talents, of course, is the place which he holds in his own profession. Now, Mr Abercromby is by profession an English lawyer, yet, as far as I can learn, he has never been much more heard of in the English courts of law, than his opponent, Mr Aytoun, has been in our own. As a public speaker, he is not to be spoken of in the same day with Mr Aytoun: he is common-place, flat, and prosy, to a degree that is scarcely credible to those who have never actually heard him. Then, as a politician, it is quite enough to say, that one of the few occasions on which he took a prominent part in Parliament, was in supporting the attempt to abolish the Scotch one pound notes-the insane attempt, which, as we all remember, was averted by the genius of that illustrious person over whose bed of sickness we now unhappily mourn!

Perhaps there were some of those who supported that extraordinary proposal, such as Goderich, Huskisson, and a few others, who might plead, by way of excuse, their ignorance of Scotland and her best interests; but with regard to any man calling himself a Scotchman, surely nothing more is wanted in order to stamp him with an indelible character of political incapacity, than that he advocated a measure which would at once have razed from the foundation the whole fabric of our commercial prosperity!

There are some men, however, who, though from want of talent, or want of active industry, they are unable to rise by their own efforts, are yet endowed with something like the instinct which teaches those weaker plants which naturalists term " parasitical," to cling to others of a stronger and statelier growth; and in this way it seems to be that Mr James Abercromby has thriven. It would appear that, from an early period of his public life, he contrived to attach himself to some of the most powerful members of the English Whig Aristocracy; I believe he even became connected with one or two English noblemen in a capacity which, at first sight, does not seem quite consistent with the character of an English barrister and a member of Parliament. However this may be, certain it is, that it is to their patronage that we owe that transaction which is now so familiar to us all as "The Exchequer Job," and the upshot of which is, that he now appears among us, a pensioner of two thousand a-year, and a candidate for the city of Edinburgh.

But whatever may have been his services to his noble patrons—and this is a matter into which it would probably be impertinent to inquire too closely-assuredly he has no good claim either to this extravagant allowance from the public purse, or to the high honour to which he now thinks fit to aspire and that this is the prevalent opinion among us, I think he himself must have seen clearly enough the other day, from the wretched failure of what some of the newspapers are pleased to call his "Triumphal Procession." Triumphal Procession !!! Why, it was more like the funeral of some hackney coach proprietor, where there was a general turn out of the brethren of the trade. Never, in the whole annals of unpopularity, was there such a miserable affair, notwithstanding the efforts of a set of Parliament House Whigs to make a fine thing of it, and their ludicrous attempts to maintain even now, in the face of all Edinburgh, united as one man in that most resistless of all causes the cause of laughter-that it was not so very bad after all. We all know with what a flourish of Whig trumpets the thing was proclaimed for several days before, and with what a zealous exhortation to us all to join in it; and yet I verily believe that there were not twenty electors present (I do not mean as spectators, for they were numerous and respectable enough) over and above the batch of lawyers by whom the thing was set a-going, and whom, if Abercromby be not the meekest of men, he certainly never will forgive, for the ridicule they have brought upon him. The most striking circumstance of the whole affair was, as we have already hinted, the extraordinary number of hackney coaches. Now, we know not what may be the case in other great towns, but, in common candour, the Edin

66

burgh hackney coaches must be admitted to be rather lumbering and dingy looking vehicles for a " Triumphal Procession"—the drivers, somehow or other, are, like their betters, not unfrequently a little "out at the elbows," and, occasionally, at the knees also-and it is not easy to persuade the horses to enter fully into the spirit of a day of public rejoicing. All this I have frequently observed before, but I confess I never was so impressed with it as on this late occasion. The effect of the whole scene the long lumbering line of jarvies in its weary and endless pilgrimage—the rueful looks of the passengers, most of whom had evidently never before been in a coach of any denomination—and the pert, priggish, peevish, Parliament House look of those by whom the thing had been got up, amounting at times to something almost like a defiance of the ridicule which they met with as they moved along, never, I think, can be forgotten by those who witnessed it, and, to those who did not, all description must be in vain. It was a scene which, relieved as it was by the merriment of the spectators, could hardly, I think, be called dull; though I shall not pretend to say but that this might have been its prevailing character, even in spite of its absurdity, had not the band of Mr Wombwell's menagerie happened to strike up that lively air, "The Rogue's March," at the very moment that the first hackney coach, containing the Clerk of the Pipe and five others, entered Prince's Street.

It must be observed, that the authors of this preposterous exhibition had left nothing undone in order to engage the mere mob in favour of it; and that they had even endeavoured to persuade them to yoke themselves in the GREAT MAN's carriage, by what was doubtless thought the most effectual means of persuasion for that purpose-by putting up placards advising them against any such extravagant manifestation of their zeal in this great cause. But even this would not do. The great Mr Aytoun has publicly declared that he will have nothing to do with Mr Abercromby, unless he gives up his pension, and that Mr Abercromby has not yet done. No wonder, then, that the followers of Mr Aytoun should decline to wear Mr Abercromby's harness; or, as it was said by Aytoun himself, (who is not without wit in a sly way,) "that they should unanimously refuse to be brought to the Pole for him!"

With this joke of Aytoun's, (which, though inferior to his well-known bon mot as to John Murray and his PIPE, is not without some point,) I conclude this brief notice of Abercromby's "triumphal entry," as to which I must own, that even such as it was, it did not in the least surprise me-for this simple reason, that, however estimable that gentleman may be in private life, and however much respected by his friends and his party, the country knows absolutely nothing of him except as a pensioner of two thousand a-year. And I shall merely add, that, insulted as we of the middle orders have long been by the domination of a set of Whig lawyers, I almost rejoice in the mortification which they must feel in discovering that, for once at least, they have miscalculated either their own influence or our folly, in trying to palm such a political counterfeit as this upon us.