barrel, whilk the Doctor said was by gauging bigger than the Irvine

muckle kirk, and a masking fat, like a barn for mugnited. But all
thae were as nothing to a curiosity of a steam-ingine, that minches

minch collops as natural as life--and stuffs the sosogees itself, in
a manner past the poor of nature to consiv. They have, to be shure,

in London, many things to help work--for in our kitchen there is a
smoking-jack to roast the meat, that gangs of its oun free will, and

the brisker the fire, the faster it runs; but a potatoe-beetle is
not to be had within the four walls of London, which is a great want

in a house; Mrs. Argent never hard of sic a thing.
Me and the Doctor have likewise been in the Houses of Parliament,

and the Doctor since has been again to heer the argol-bargoling
aboot the queen. But, cepting the king's throne, which is all gold

and velvet, with a croun on the top, and stars all round, there was
nothing worth the looking at in them baith. Howsomever, I sat in

the king's seat, and in the preses chair of the House of Commons,
which, you no, is something for me to say; and we have been to see

the printing of books, where the very smallest dividual syllib is
taken up by itself and made into words by the hand, so as to be

quite confounding how it could ever read sense. But there is ane
piece of industry and froughgalaty I should not forget, whilk is

wives going about with whirl-barrows, selling horses' flesh to the
cats and dogs by weight, and the cats and dogs know them very well

by their voices. In short, Miss Mally, there is nothing heer that
the hand is not turnt to; and there is, I can see, a better order

and method really among the Londoners than among our Scotch folks,
notwithstanding their advantages of edicashion, but my pepper will

hold no more at present, from your true friend,
JANET PRINGLE.

There was a considerablediversity of opinion among the commentators
on this epistle. Mrs. Craig was the first who broke silence, and

displayed a great deal of erudition on the minch-collop-engine, and
the potatoe-beetle, in which she was interrupted by the indignant

Mrs. Glibbans, who exclaimed, "I am surprised to hear you, Mrs.
Craig, speak of sic baubles, when the word of God's in danger of

being controverted by an Act of Parliament. But, Mr. Snodgrass,
dinna ye think that this painting of the queen's face is a

Jezebitical testification against her?" Mr. Snodgrass replied, with
an unwonted sobriety of manner, and with an emphasis that showed he

intended to make some impression on his auditors--"It is impossible
to judge correctly of strangers by measuring them according to our

own notions of propriety. It has certainly long been a practice in
courts to disfigure the beauty of the human countenance with paint;

but what, in itself, may have been originally assumed for a mask or
disguise, may, by usage, have grown into a very harmless custom. I

am not, therefore, disposed to attach any criminal importance to the
circumstance of her majesty wearing paint. Her late majesty did so

herself." "I do not say it was criminal," said Mrs. Glibbans; "I
only meant it was sinful, and I think it is." The accent of

authority in which this was said, prevented Mr. Snodgrass from
offering any reply; and, a brief pause ensuing, Miss Molly Glencairn

observed, that it was a surprising thing how the Doctor and Mrs.
Pringle managed their matters so well. "Ay," said Mrs. Craig, "but

we a' ken what a manager the mistress is--she's the bee that mak's
the hincy--she does not gang bizzing aboot, like a thriftless wasp,

through her neighbours' houses." "I tell you, Betty, my dear,"
cried Mr. Craig, "that you shouldna make comparisons--what's past is

gane--and Mrs. Glibbans and you maun now be friends." "They're a'
friends to me that's no faes, and am very glad to see Mrs. Glibbans

sociable in my house; but she needna hae made sae light of me when
she was here before." And, in saying this, the amiable hostess

burst into a loud sob of sorrow, which induced Mr. Snodgrass to beg
Mr. Micklewham to read the Doctor's letter, by which a happy stop

was put to the further manifestation of the grudge which Mrs. Craig
harboured against Mrs. Glibbans for the lecture she had received, on

what the latter called "the incarnated effect of a more than
Potipharian claught o' the godly Mr. Craig."

LETTER XXVII
The Rev. Z. Pringle, D.D., to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and

Session-Clerk of Garnock
Dear Sir--I had a great satisfaction in hearing that Mr. Snodgrass,

in my place, prays for the queen on the Lord's Day, which liberty,
to do in our national church, is a thing to be upholden with a

fearless spirit, even with the spirit of martyrdom, that we may not
bow down in Scotland to the prelatic Baal of an order in Council,

whereof the Archbishop of Canterbury, that is cousin-german to the
Pope of Rome, is art and part. Verily, the sending forth of that

order to the General Assembly was treachery to the solemn oath of
the new king, whereby he took the vows upon him, conform to the

Articles of the Union, to maintain the Church of Scotland as by law
established, so that for the Archbishop of Canterbury to meddle

therein was a shooting out of the horns of aggressive domination.
I think it is right of me to testify thus much, through you, to the

Session, that the elders may stand on their posts to bar all such
breaking in of the Episcopalian boar into our corner of the

vineyard.
Anent the queen's case and condition, I say nothing; for be she

guilty, or be she innocent, we all know that she was born in sin,
and brought forth in iniquity--prone to evil, as the sparks fly

upwards--and desperatelywicked, like you and me, or any other poor
Christian sinner, which is reason enough to make us think of her in

the remembering prayer.
Since she came over, there has been a wonderful work doing here; and

it is thought that the crown will be taken off her head by a strong
handling of the Parliament; and really, when I think of the bishops

sitting high in the peerage, like owls and rooks in the bartisans of
an old tower, I have my fears that they can bode her no good. I

have seen them in the House of Lords, clothed in their idolatrous
robes; and when I looked at them so proudly placed at the right hand

of the king's throne, and on the side of the powerful, egging on, as
I saw one of them doing in a whisper, the Lord Liverpool, before he

rose to speak against the queen, the blood ran cold in my veins, and
I thought of their woeful persecutions of our national church, and

prayed inwardly that I might be keepit in the humility of a zealous
presbyter, and that the corruption of the frail human nature within

me might never be tempted by the pampered whoredoms of prelacy.
Saving the Lord Chancellor, all the other temporal peers were just

as they had come in from the crown of the causeway--none of them
having a judicialgarment, which was a shame; and as for the

Chancellor's long robe, it was not so good as my own gown; but he is
said to be a very narrow man. What he spoke, however, was no doubt

sound law; yet I could observe he has a bad custom of taking the
name of God in vain, which I wonder at, considering he has such a

kittle conscience, which, on less occasions, causes him often to
shed tears.

Mrs. Pringle and me, by ourselves, had a fine quiet canny sight of
the queen, out of the window of a pastry baxter's shop, opposite to

where her majesty stays. She seems to be a plump and jocose little
woman; gleg, blithe, and throwgaun for her years, and on an easy

footing with the lower orders--coming to the window when they call
for her, and becking to them, which is very civil of her, and gets

them to take her part against the government.
The baxter in whose shop we saw this told us that her majesty said,

on being invited to take her dinner at an inn on the road from
Dover, that she would be content with a mutton-chop at the King's

Arms in London, {2} which shows that she is a lady of a very hamely
disposition. Mrs. Pringle thought her not big enough for a queen;

but we cannot expect every one to be like that bright accidental
star, Queen Elizabeth, whose effigy we have seen preserved in armour

in the Tower of London, and in wax in Westminster Abbey, where they
have a living-like likeness of Lord Nelson, in the very identical

regimentals that he was killed in. They are both wonderful places,
but it costs a power of money to get through them, and all the folk