spoke. Together with their contribution to the Scottish offering, they presented me with quite a collection of the works of different writers of Dundee, beautifully bound.

We came away before the exercises of the evening were finished.

The next morning we had quite a large breakfast party, mostly ministers and their wives. Good old Dr. Dick was there, and I had an introduction to him, and had pleasure in speaking to him of the interest with which his works have been read in America. Of this fact I was told that he had received more substantial assurance in a comfortable sum of money subscribed and remitted to him by his American readers. If this be so it is a most commendable movement.

What a pity it was, during Scott's financial embarrassments, that every man, woman, and child in America, who had received pleasure from his writings, had not subscribed something towards an offering justly due to him!

Our host, Mr. Thoms, was one of the first to republish in Scotland Professor Stuart's Letters to Dr. Channing, with a preface of his own. He showed me Professor Stuart's letter in reply, and seemed rather amused that the professor directed it to the Rev. James Thom, supposing, of course, that so much theological zeal could not inhere in a layman. He also showed us many autograph letters of their former pastor, Mr. Cheyne, whose interesting memoirs have excited a good deal of attention in some circles in America.

After breakfast the ladies of the Dundee Antislavery Society called, and then the lord provost took us in his carriage to see the city. Dundee is the third town of Scotland in population, and a place of great antiquity. Its population in 1851 was seventy-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine, and

at Dryburgh, or what there are must be gifted with that power of self-multiplication which inheres in the wood of the true Cross. I bought them in blind faith, however, suppressing all rationalistic doubts, as a good relic hunter should.

I went up into a little room where an elderly woman professed to have quite a collection of the Melrose relics. Some years ago extensive restorations and repairs were made in the old abbey, in which Walter Scott took a deep interest. At that time, when the scaffolding was up for repairing the building, as I understood, Scott had the plaster casts made of different parts, which he afterwards incorporated into his own dwelling at Abbotsford. I said to the good woman that I had understood by Washington Irving's account, that Scott appropriated bona fide fragments of the building, and alluded to the account which he gives of the little red sandstone lion from Melrose. She repelled the idea with great energy, and said she had often heard Sir Walter say, that he would not carry off a bit of the building as big as his thumb. She showed me several plaster casts that she had in her possession, which were taken at this time. There were several corbels there; one was the head of an old monk, and looked as if it might have been a mask taken of his face the moment after death; the eyes were hollow and sunken, the cheeks fallen in, the mouth lying helplessly open, showing one or two melancholy old stumps of teeth. I wondered over this, whether it really was the fac-simile of some poor old Father Ambrose, or Father Francis, whose disconsolate look, after his death agony, had so struck the gloomy fancy of the artist as to lead him to immortalize him in a corbel, for a lasting admonition to his fat worldly brethren; for if we may trust the old song, these

commotions in Scotland. In the time of Charles I. it stood out for the solemn league and covenant, for which crime the Earl of Montrose was sent against it, who took and burned it. It is said that he called Dundee a most seditious town, the securest haunt and receptacle of rebels, and a place that had contributed as much as any other to the rebellion. Yet afterwards, when Montrose was led a captive through Dundee, the historian observes, "It is remarkable of the town of Dundee, in which he lodged one night, that though it had suffered more by his army than any town else within the kingdom, yet were they, amongst all the rest, so far from exulting over him, that the whole town testified a great deal of sorrow for his woful condition; and there was he likewise furnished with clothes suitable to his birth and person."

This town of Dundee was stormed by Monk and the forces of Parliament during the time of the commonwealth, because they had sheltered the fugitive Charles II., and granted him money. When taken by Monk, he committed a great many barbarities.

It has also been once visited by the plague, and once with a seven years' dearth or famine.

Most of these particulars I found in a History of Dundee, which formed one of the books presented to me.

The town is beautifully situated on the Firth of Tay, which here spreads its waters, and the quantity of shipping indicates commercial prosperity.

I was shown no abbeys or cathedrals, either because none ever existed, or because they were destroyed when the town was fired.

In our rides about the city, the local recollections that our friends seemed to recur to with as much interest as any, were

those connected with the queen's visit to Dundee, in 1844. The spot where she landed has been commemorated by the erection of a superb triumphal arch in stone. The provost said some of the people were quite astonished at the plainness of the queen's dress, having looked for something very dazzling and overpowering from a queen. They could scarcely believe their eyes, when they saw her riding by in a plain bonnet, and enveloped in a simple shepherd's plaid.

The queen is exceedingly popular in Scotland, doubtless in part because she heartily appreciated the beauty of the country, and the strong and interesting traits of the people. She has a country residence at Balmorrow, where she spends a part of every year; and the impression seems to prevail among her Scottish subjects, that she never appears to feel herself more happy or more at home than in this her Highland dwelling. The legend is, that here she delights to throw off the restraints of royalty; to go about plainly dressed, like a private individual; to visit in the cottages of the poor; to interest herself in the instruction of the children; and to initiate the future heir of England into that practical love of the people which is the best qualification for a ruler.

I repeat to you the things which I hear floating of the public characters of England, and you can attach what degree of credence you may think proper. As a general rule in this censorious world, I think it safe to suppose that the good which is commonly reported of public characters, if not true in the letter of its details, is at least so in its general spirit. The stories which are told about distinguished people generally run in a channel coincident with the facts of their character. On the other hand, with regard to evil reports, it is safe always to allow something for the natural propensity to

detraction and slander, which is one of the most undoubted facts of human nature in all lands.

We left Dundee at two o'clock, by cars, for Edinburgh. In the evening we attended another soirée of the working men of Edinburgh. As it was similar in all respects to the one at Glasgow, I will not dwell upon it, further than to say how gratifying to me, in every respect, are occasions in which working men, as a class, stand out before the public. They are to form, more and more, a new power in society, greater than the old power of helmet and sword, and I rejoice in every indication that they are learning to understand themselves.

We have received letters from the working men, both in Dundee and Glasgow, desiring our return to attend soirées in those cities. Nothing could give us greater pleasure, had we time and strength. No class of men are more vitally interested in the conflict of freedom against slavery than working men. The principle upon which slavery is founded touches every interest of theirs. If it be right that one half of the community should deprive the other half of education, of all opportunities to rise in the world, of all property rights and all family ties, merely to make them more convenient tools for their profit and luxury, then every injustice and extortion, which oppresses the laboring man in any country, can be equally defended.