These Bedesmen are an order of paupers to whom the Kings of Scotland were in the custom of distributing a certain alms, in conformity with the ordinances of the Catholic Church, and who were expected in return to pray for the royal welfare and that of the state. This order is still kept up. Their number is equal to the number of years which his Majesty has lived; and one Blue-Gown additional is put on the roll for every returning royal birth-day. On the same auspicious era, each Bedesman receives a new cloak, or gown of coarse eloth, the colour light blue, with a pewter badge, which confers on them the general privilege of asking alms through all Scotland,-all laws against sorning, masterful beggary, and every other species of mendicity, being suspended in favour of this privileged class. With his cloak, each receives a leathern purse, containing as many shillings Scots (videlicet, pennies sterling) as the sovereign is years old; the zeal of their intercession for the king's long life receiving, it is to be supposed, a great stimulus from their own present and increasing interest in the object of their prayers. On the same occasion one of the Royal Chaplains preaches a sermon to the Bedesmen, who (as one of the reverend gentlemen expressed himself) are the most impatient and inattentive audience in the world. Something of this may arise from a feeling on the part of the Bedesmen, that they are paid for their own devotions, not for listening to those of others. Or, more probably, it arises from impatience, natural, though indecorous in men bearing so venerable a character, to arrive at the conclusion of the ceremonial of the royal birth-day, which, so far as they are concerned, ends in a lusty breakfast of bread and ale; the whole moral and religious exhibition terminating in the advice of Johnson's "Hermit hoar" to his proselyte, "Come, my lad, and drink some beer." Of the charity bestowed on these aged Bedesmen in money and clothing, there are many records in the Treasurer's accompts. The following extract, kindly supplied by Mr MacDonald of the Register House, may interest those whose taste is akin to that of Jonathan Oldbuck of Monkbarns. BLEW GOWNIS. In the Account of SIR ROBERT MELVILL of Murdocarney, Treasurer-Depute of King James VI., there are the following Payments:— "Junij 1590. "Item, to Mr Peter Young, Elimosinar, twentie four gownis of blew clayth, to be gevin to xxiiij auld men, according to the yeiris of his hienes age, extending to viij xx viij elnis clayth; price of the elne xxiiij s. Inde, ij oj li. xij s. “Item, for sextene elnis bukrum to the saidis gownis, price of the elne x s.. Inde, viij li. "Item, twentie four pursis, and in ilk purse twentie four schilling, Inde, xxviij li. xvj s. I have only to add, that although the institution of King's Bedesmen still subsists, they are now seldom to be seen on the streets of Edinburgh, of which their peculiar dress made them rather a characteristic feature. Having thus given an account of the genus and species to which Edie Ochiltree appertains, the author may add, that the individual he had in his eye was Andrew Gemmells, an old mendicant of the character described, who was many years since well known, and must still be remembered, in the vales of Gala, Tweed, Ettrick, Yarrow, and the adjoining country. The author has in his youth repeatedly seen and conversed with Andrew, but cannot recollect whether he held the rank of Blue-Gown. He was a remarkably fine old figure, very tall, and maintaining a soldierlike, or military manner and address. His features were intelligent, with a powerful expression of sarcasm. His motions were always so graceful, that he might almost have been suspected of having studied them; for he might, on any occasion, have served as a model for an artist, so remarkably striking were his ordinary attitudes. Andrew Gemmells had little of the cant of his calling; his wants were food and shelter, or a trifle of money, which he always claimed, and seemed to receive as his due. He sung a good song, told a good story, and could crack a severe jest with all the acumen of Shakspeare's jesters, though without using, like them, the cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a feeling of kindness or charity, which secured him the general good reception which he enjoyed everywhere. In fact, a jest of Andrew Gemmells, especially at the expense of a person of consequence, flew round the circle which he frequented, as surely as the bon-mot of a man of established character for wit glides through the fashionable world. Many of his good things are held in remembrance, but are generally too local and personal to be introduced here. Andrew had a character peculiar to himself among his tribe, for aught I ever heard. He was ready and willing to play at cards or dice with any one who desired such amusement. This was more in the character of the Irish itinerant gambler, called in that country a carrow, than of the Scottish beggar. But the late Reverend Doctor Robert Douglas, minister of Galashiels, assured the author, that the last time he saw Andrew Gemmells, he was engaged in a game at brag with a gentleman of fortune, distinction, and birth. To preserve the due gradations of rank, the party was made at an open window of the chateau, the laird sitting on his chair in the inside, the beggar on a stool in the yard; and they played on the window-sill. The stake was a considerable parcel of silver. The author expressing some surprise, Dr Douglas observed, that the laird was no doubt a humourist or original; but that many decent persons in those times would, like him, have thought there was nothing extraordinary in passing an hour, either in card-playing or conversation, with Andrew Gemmells. This singular mendicant had generally, or was supposed to have, as much money about his person, as would have been thought the value of his life among modern foot-pads. On one occasion, a country gentleman, generally esteemed a very narrow man, happening to meet Andrew, expressed great regret that he had no silver in his pocket, or he would have given him sixpence :-"I can give you change for a note, laird," replied Andrew. Like most who have arisen to the head of their profession, the modern degradation which mendicity has undergone was often the subject of Andrew's lamentations. As a trade, he said, it was forty pounds a-year worse since he had first practised it. On another occasion he observed, begging was in modern times scarcely the profession of a gentleman; and that if he had twenty sons, he would not easily be induced to breed one of them up in his own line. When or where this laudator temporis acti closed his wanderings, the author never heard with certainty; but most probably, as Burns says, 64 he died a cadger-powny's death, At some dike side." The author may add another picture of the same kind as Edie Ochiltree and Andrew Gemmells; considering these illustrations as a sort of gallery, open to the reception of anything which may elucidate former manners, or amuse the reader. The author's contemporaries at the university of Edinburgh will probably remember the thin wasted form of a venerable old Bedesman, who stood by the Potter-row port, now demolished, and, without speaking a syllable, gently inclined his head, and offered his hat, but with the least possible degree of urgency, towards each individual who passed. This man gained, by silence and the extenuated and wasted appearance of a palmer from a remote country, the same tribute which was yielded to Andrew Gemmells's sarcastic humour and stately deportment. He was understood to be able to maintain a son a student in the theological classes of the University, at the gate of which the father was a mendicant. The young man was modest and inclined to learning, so that a student of the same age, and whose parents were rather of the lower order, moved by seeing him excluded from the society of other scholars when the secret of his birth was suspected, endeavoured to console him by offering him some occasional civilities. The old mendicant was grateful for this attention to his son, and one day, as the friendly student passed, he stooped forward more than usual, a if to intercept his passage. The scholar drew out a halfpenny, which he concluded was the beggar's object, when he was surprised to receive his thanks for the kindness he had shown to Jemmie, and at the same time a cordial invitation to dine with them next Saturday, "on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes," adding, "ye'll put on your clean sark, as I have company." The student was strongly tempted to accept this hospitable proposal, as many in his place would probably have done; but, as the motive might have been capable of misrepresentation, he thought it most prudent, considering the character and circumstances of the old man, to decline the invitation. Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity, designed to throw light on a Novel in which a character of that description plays a prominent part. We conclude, that we have vindicated Edie Ochiltree's right to the importance assigned him; and have shown, that we have known one beggar take a hand at cards with a person of distinction, and another give dinner parties. I know not if it be worth while to observe, that the Antiquary was not so well received on its first appearance as either of its predecessors, though in course of time it rose to equal, and, with some readers, superior popularity. The Antiquary. CHAPTER I. *Go call a coach, and let a coach be call'd, And let the man who calleth be the caller; And in his calling let him nothing call, But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a coach, ye gods!" Chrononhotonthologos. It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, journeying towards the northeast of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place, as the name implies, and as is well known to all my northern readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Frith of Forth. The coach was calculated to carry six regular passengers, besides such interlopers as the coachman could pick up by the way, and intrude upon those who were legally in possession. The tickets, which conferred right to a seat in this vehicle of little ease, were dispensed by a sharp-looking old dame, with a pair of spectacles on a very thin nose, who inhabited a "laigh shop," anglicè, a cellar, opening to the High Street by a straight and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold tape, thread, needles, skeans of worsted, coarse linen cloth, and such feminine gear, to those who had the courage and skill to descend to the profundity of her dwelling, without falling headlong themselves, or throwing down any of the numerous articles which, piled on each side of the descent, indicated the profession of the trader below. his fellow-citizens. The boots, the great-coat, the umbrella, the little bundle in his hand, the hat pulled over his resolved brows, the determined importance of his pace, his brief answers to the salutations of lounging acquaintances, are all marks by which the experienced traveller in mail-coach or diligence can distinguish, at a distance, the companion of his future journey, as he pushes onward to the place of rendezvous. It is then that, with worldly wisdom, the first comer hastens to secure the best birth in the coach for himself, and to make the most convenient arrangement for his baggage before the arrival of his competitors. Our youth, who was gifted with little prudence of any sort, and who was, moreover, by the absence of the coach, deprived of the power of availing himself of his priority of choice, amused himself, instead, by speculating upon the occupation and character of the personage who was now come to the coach-office. He was a good-looking man of the age of sixty, perhaps older, but his hale complexion and firm step announced that years had not impaired his strength or health. His countenance was of the true Scottish cast, strongly marked, and rather harsh in features, with a shrewd and penetrating eye, and a countenance in which habitual gravity was enlivened by a cast of ironical humour. His dress was uniform, and of a colour becoming his age and gravity; a wig, well dressed and powdered, surmounted by a slouched hat, had something of a professional air. He might be a clergyman, yet his appearance was more that of a man of the world than usually belongs to the kirk of Scotland, and his first ejaculation put the matter beyond question. He arrived with a hurried pace, and, casting an alarmed glance towards the dial-plate of the church, then looking at the place where the coach should have been, exclaimed, "Deil's in it-I am too late after all!" The written hand-bill, which, pasted on a projecting board, announced that the Queensferry Diligence, or Hawes Fly, departed precisely at twelve o'clock on Tuesday, the fifteenth July, 17—, in order to secure for travellers the opportunity of passing the Frith with the flood-tide, lied on the present occasion like a bulletin; for although that hour was pealed from Saint Giles's steeple, and repeated by the Tron, no coach appeared upon the appointed The young man relieved his anxiety, by telling stand. It is true, only two tickets had been taken him the coach had not yet appeared. The old genout, and possibly the lady of the subterranean man- tleman, apparently conscious of his own want of sion might have an understanding with her Auto-punctuality, did not at first feel courageous enough medon, that, in such cases, a little space was to be allowed for the chance of filling up the vacant places -or the said Automedon might have been attending a funeral, and be delayed by the necessity of stripping his vehicle of its lugubrious trappingsor he might have staid to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary with his crony the hostler-or-in short, he did not make his appearance. The young gentleman, who began to grow somewhat impatient, was now joined by a companion in this petty misery of human life—the person who had taken out the other place. He who is bent upon & journey is usually easily to be distinguished from to censure that of the coachman. He took a parcel, containing apparently a large folio, from a little boy who followed him, and, patting him on the head, bid him go back and tell Mr B, that if he had known he was to have had so much time, he would have put another word or two to their bargain,then told the boy to mind his business, and he would be as thriving a lad as ever dusted a duodecimo. The boy lingered, perhaps in hopes of a penny to buy marbles; but none was forthcoming. Our senior leaned his little bundle upon one of the posts at the head of the staircase, and, facing the traveller who had first arrived, waited in silence for about five minutes the arrival of the expected diligence. At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the minute-hand of the clock, having compared it with his own watch, a huge and antique gold repeater, and having twitched about his features to give due emphasis to one or two peevish pshaws, he hailed the old lady of the cavern. "Good woman,-what the d-1 is her name? - Mrs Macleuchar!" Mrs Macleuchar, aware that she had a defensive part to sustain in the encounter which was to follow, was in no hurry to hasten the discussion by returning a ready answer. "Mrs Macleuchar-Good woman," (with an vated voice)- then apart, "Old doited hag, she's as deaf as a post-I say, Mrs Macleuchar!" "I am just serving a customer.-Indeed, hinny, it will no be a bodle cheaper than I tell ye." "Woman," reiterated the traveller," do you think we can stand here all day till you have cheated that poor servant wench out of her half-year's fee and bountith?" be on the north side to-day-and all the expense of his journey, besides damages, direct and consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted head of Mrs Macleuchar. There was something so comic in his pettish resentment, that the younger traveller, who was in no such pressing hurry to depart, could not help being amused with it, especially as it was obvious, that every now and then the old gentleman, though very angry, could not help laughing at his own vehemence. But when Mrs Macleuchar began also to join in the laughter, he quickly put a stop to her ill-timed merriment. "Woman," said he, " is that advertisement ele-thine?" showing a bit of crumpled printed paper: "Does it not set forth, that, God willing, as you hypocritically express it, the Hawes Fly, or Queensferry Diligence, would set forth to-day at twelve o'clock and is it not, thou falsest of creatures, now a quarter past twelve, and no such fly or diligence to be seen-Dost thou know the consequence of seducing the heges by false reports?-dost thou know it might be brought under the statute of leasingmaking? Answer-and for once in thy long, useless, and evil life, let it be in the words of truth and sincerity,-hast thou such a coach?-is it in rerum natura?-or is this base annunciation a mere swindle on the incautious, to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm ?-Hast thou, I say, such a coach? ay or no?" "Cheated!" retorted Mrs Macleuchar, eager to take up the quarrel upon a defensible ground-"I scorn your words, sir; you are an uncivil person, and I desire you will not stand there to slander me at my ain stairhead." "The woman," said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his destined travelling companion, "does not understand the words of action.-Woman," again turning to the vault, "I arraign not thy character, but I desire to know what is become of thy coach?" "What's your wull?" answered Mrs Macleuchar, relapsing into deafness. "We have taken places, ma'am," said the younger stranger," in your diligence for Queensferry". "Which should have been half-way on the road before now," continued the elder and more impatient traveller, rising in wrath as he spoke; " and now in all likelihood we shall miss the tide, and I have business of importance on the other side— and your cursed coach". "The coach-Gude guide us, gentlemen, is it no on the stand yet?" answered the old lady, her shrill tone of expostulation sinking into a kind of apologetic whine. "Is it the coach ye hae been waiting for?" "What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the gutter here, you—you faithless woman, eh?" Mrs Macleuchar now ascended her trap stair (for such it might be called, though constructed of stone), until her nose came upon a level with the pavement; then, after wiping her spectacles to look for that which she well knew was not to be found, she exclaimed, with well-feigned astonishment, "Gude guide us! -saw ever onybody the like o' that?" "Yes, you abominable woman," vociferated the traveller," many have seen the like of it, and all will see the like of it, that have anything to do with your trolloping sex;" then, pacing with great indignation before the door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, like a vessel who gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot down complaints, threats, and reproaches, on the embarrassed Mrs Macleuchar. He would take a post-chaise-he would call a hackney-coach —he would take four horses-he must-he would | "O dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel, green picked out wi' red-three yellow wheels and a black ane." "Woman, thy special description will not serve -it may be only a lie with a circumstance." "O man! man!" said the overwhelmed Mrs Macleuchar, totally exhausted at having been so long the butt of his rhetoric, "take back your three shillings, and mak me quit o' ye." "Not so fast, not so fast, woman - Will three shillings transport me to Queensferry, agreeably to thy treacherous program?—or will it requite the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone? or repay the expenses which I must disburse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the South Ferry for lack of tide?-Will it hire, I say, a pinnace, for which alone the regular price is five shillings?" Here his argument was cut short by a lumbering noise, which proved to be the advance of the expected vehicle, pressing forward with all the dispatch to which the broken-winded jades that drew it could possibly be urged. With ineffable pleasure, Mrs Macleuchar saw her tormentor deposited in the leathern convenience; but still, as it was driving off, his head thrust out of the window reminded her, in words drowned amid the rumbling of the wheels, that, if the diligence did not attain the Ferry in time to save the flood-tide, she, Mrs Macleuchar, should be held responsible for all the consequences that might ensue. The coach had continued in motion for a mile or two before the stranger had completely repossessed himself of his equanimity, as was manifested by the doleful ejaculations, which he made from time to time, on the too great probability, or even certainty, of their missing the flood-tide. By degrees, however, his wrath subsided; he wiped his brows, relaxed his frown, and, undoing the parcel in his hand, produced his folio, on which he gazed from time to time with the knowing look of an amateur, admiring its height and condition, and ascertaining, by a minute and individual inspection of each leaf, that the volume was uninjured and entire from title-page to colophon. His fellow-traveller took the liberty of inquiring the subject of his studies. He lifted up his eyes with something of a sarcastic glance, as if he supposed the young querist would not relish, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the book to be Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium Septentrionale, a book illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland. The querist, unappalled by this learned title, proceeded to put several questions, which indicated that he had made good use of a good education, and although not possessed of minute information on the subject of antiquities, had yet acquaintance enough with the classics to render him an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged upon. The elder traveller, observing with pleasure the capacity of his temporary companion to understand and answer him, plunged, nothing loath, into a sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, votive altars, Roman camps, and the rules of castrametation. The pleasure of this discourse had such a dulcifying tendency, that, although two causes of delay occurred, each of much more serious duration than that which had drawn down his wrath upon the unlucky Mrs Macleuchar, our ANTIQUARY only bestowed on the delay the honour of a few episodical poohs and pshaws, which rather seemed to regard the interruption of his disquisition than the retardation of his journey. The first of these stops was occasioned by the breaking of a spring, which half an hour's labour hardly repaired. To the second, the Antiquary was himself accessory, if not the principal cause of it; for, observing that one of the horses had cast a fore-foot shoe, he apprized the coachman of this important deficiency." It's Jamie Martingale that furnishes the naigs on contract, and uphauds them," answered John, "and I am not entitled to make any stop, or to suffer prejudice by the like of these accidents." "And when you go to-I mean to the place you deserve to go to, you scoundrel,-who do you think will uphold you on contract? If you don't stop directly and carry the poor brute to the next smithy, I'll have you punished, if there's a justice of peace in Mid-Lothian ;" and, opening the coach door, out he jumped, while the coachman obeyed his orders, muttering, that "if the gentlemen lost the tide now, they could not say but it was their ain fault, since he was willing to get on." I like so little to analyze the complication of the causes which influence actions, that I will not venture to ascertain whether our Antiquary's humanity to the poor horse was not in some degree aided by his desire of showing his companion a Pict's camp, or Round-about, a subject which he had been elaborately discussing, and of which a specimen, “very curious and perfect indeed," happened to exist about a hundred yards distant from the place where this interruption took place. But were I compelled to decompose the motives of my worthy friend (for such was the gentleman in the sober suit, with powdered wig and slouched hat), 1 should say, that, although he certainly would not in any case have suffered the coachman to proceed while the horse was unfit for service, and likely to suffer VOL. I. 347 No. XXIII. by being urged forward, yet the man of whipcord escaped some severe abuse and reproach by the agreeable mode which the traveller found out to pass the interval of delay. So much time was consumed by these interruptions of their journey, that when they descended the hill above the Hawes (for so the inn on the southern side of the Queensferry is denominated), the experienced eye of the Antiquary at once discerned, from the extent of wet sand, and the number of black stones and rocks, covered with sea-weed, which were visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past. The young traveller expected a burst of indignation; but whether, as Croaker says in "The Good-natured Man," our hero had exhausted himself in fretting away his misfortunes beforehand, so that he did not feel them when they actually arrived, or whether he found the company in which he was placed too congenial to lead him to repine at anything which delayed his journey, it is certain that he submitted to his lot with much resignation. "The d-l's in the diligence and the old hag it belongs to! Diligence, quoth I? Thou shouldst have called it the Sloth-Fly, quoth she? why, it moves like a fly through a glue-pot, as the Irishman says. But however, time and tide tarry for no man ; and so, my young friend, we'll have a snack here at the Hawes, which is a very decent sort of a place, and I'll be very happy to finish the account I was giving you of the difference between the mode of entrenching castra statica and castra astica, things confounded by too many of our historians. Lacka-day, if they had ta'en the pains to satisfy their own eyes, instead of following each other's blind guidance!-Well! we shall be pretty comfortable at the Hawes; and besides, after all, we must have dined somewhere, and it will be pleasanter sailing with the tide of ebb and the evening breeze." In this Christian temper of making the best of all occurrences, our travellers alighted at the Hawes. CHAPTER II. Sir, they do scandal me upon the road here! As the senior traveller descended the crazy steps of the diligence at the inn, he was greeted by the fat, gouty, pursy landlord, with that mixture of familiarity and respect which the Scotch innkeepers of the old school used to assume towards their more valued customers. "Have a care o' us, Monkbarns!" (distinguishing him by his territorial epithet, always most agreeable to the ear of a Scottish proprietor)" is this you? I little thought to have seen your honour here till the summer session was ower.' "Ye donnard auld deevil," answered his guest, his Scottish accent predominating when in anger, though otherwise not particularly remarkable, "ye donnard auld crippled idiot, what have 1 to do with the session, or the geese that flock to it, or the hawks that pick their pinions for them?" "Troth, and that's true," said mine host, who, in |