The fan, an emblem of her heart she holds, Deluded nymph, how much mistaken toil, What's gain'd? That men exclaim not,-oh how fair, Ah think the time must come, when youthful grace Ye rural shades, that charm the poet's view, Ah, to no sphere is Vanity confined, And Affectation works in every mind! Yet while our eyes are to ourselves untrue, But, stranger still!-in others we detect, Mock every fault of gesture, look, or tone, Thus old Garrulio, if his speech you balk, Exclaims-" Good Heaven! how some men love to talk!" Yon ancient pair of sister virgins see, In all the pride of maiden dignity! With equal charms the gazer's eye they strike, Each deaf, each spiteful, each deform'd alike. If in Rugosa fewer spots appear, Divine Gorgonia boasts a milder leer. Gorgonia whispers you, with shaking pate, "My sister's alter'd dismally of late! Those wrinkles tell a tale;-she owns fourscore; Pooh, pooh! between ourselves, she's five years more, How ill she dresses!-And her temper!-Sir, No mortal but myself could live with her!" Such curves can ne'er the lines of beauty be ;- Vain as a peacock!-Oh, you need not fear; So in a mirror every form is shewn Nor only does the aim at Self-content Then, bursting into youth, it whores and drinks, We deem we vanquish what itself expires; MOURN, ANCIENT CALEDONIA ! His Majesty's Ministers have removed from Scotland the Boards of Excise and Customs. They have thereby taken from Edinburgh, in the incomes of the officers of these institutions, derived from their own funds or from Government, at least forty thousand pounds sterling a-year. They are now proposing to abridge the Court of Exchequer, preparatory, no doubt, to the removal of another forty thousand a-year. They are also proposing to abolish or abridge our other Courts of Law with the same view. They will soon make a poor Edinburgh, and a poor Scotland. When Wellington proposed to establish King's College in London, in rivalship of the university of the Whigs, he is represented as having said, that he never had the benefit of a university education. He must have spent his youth in India, and his best years in the Peninsula gaining glory for himself and his country. Let us do him justice. He must be patriotic, or attached to the renown of that empire which he has so eminently contributed to aggrandize. But he has neither had the means nor the leisure to acquire a knowledge of its political institutions, or of what is beneficial to its permanent interests. This ignorance has appeared in all that he has done. As a soldier he has looked only to stratagem and success in his projects, but of the ultimate tendency of these projects he is no judge. As to his coadjutor, Mr Peel, he has knowledge, but he yields up his own opinion, and gives way to others. He then remains obstinate in the wrong lest he should be accused of unsteadiness, and be called a weathercock. Wellington has, in other respects, collected a Cabinet like himself, and they have made war upon Scotland. Scotland is treated by his Grace as a conquered province. This would, perhaps, have happened sooner, had not the two Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, the last made by proprietors of only poor L.12,000 a-year, shewn to British Ministers the danger of treating lightly even a small corner of the poorest part of Scotland. A But those days have gone by. new generation has arisen of men of virtuous resignation-philosophers, no doubt,-economists, who value public establishments by pounds, shillings, and pence-or little men, who look to themselves in the first place, and have no vision for remoter interests. Scotland has, it seems, become tame and feeble, fallen into old age and decay. It may safely be trodden down, and its interests disregarded. Even they who bear the names of its ancient nobles and gentry, once of high and independent spirit, see it degraded in silence, or attach themselves to the chariotwheels of those who treat it with insult. Where now is the spirit that once animated the Douglas, the Buccleuch, MacCallummore, Hamilton, the Graham, the Elliot, the Hume, the Gordon, and a thousand others? But an excuse is held out, and it is still something that we are thought worthy of being treated with the civility of an excuse or apology. The excuse is economy or thrift. It is necessary to be economical-now that taxes come slowly in, and that a part of the nation at least have been proclaimed from the throne to be in a state of distress. Far be it from me to censure economy. Our country has always got sufficient credit for it. Our climate is cold. Much of our soil is naturally barren; and without economy, assisted as it has been by industry and great intelligence on the part of the inhabitants, this small, and, if you will, this barren portion of the globe, could never have exhibited splendid cities, and displayed harbours, roads, bridges, and cultivation, in a form that rivals or excels regions possessing far higher physical advantages. But I must say something of Scottish economy. Scotchmen, in essentials, never proceeded on that principle. Our southern neighbours, perhaps, require to be told, that in matters which they truly valued, Scotchmen have uniformly regarded economy as a paltry virtue, not distinguishable from vice. A Scottish cottager will often be found living on oatmeal, milk, and potatoes. This is his economy; but he is not on that account hoarding his gains. Observe in what his expenditure consists. On Sunday he and |