the other day; yet I did not find any willing to part with your nottes at the least discount.' As to the comparatively little notoriety of the establishment, we can fully believe the remark. It seems to have been long before the full uses of a bank were recognised in Scotland. As an illustration: in November 1707, John Strachan of Craigcrook was robbed of one thousand pounds sterling in coin, which he kept in a chest in his study, within his lodging in Edinburgh. This seems to show that for some years after the Bank was established, gentlemen continued to keep large sums of money in their own houses, instead of banking it.

The Bank of Scotland is usually said to have been established by William Paterson, the Scotchman who projected the Bank of England. But whatever may have been Paterson's secret concern in the matter, our author takes no notice of it, but distinctly says that 'the Bank was first projected at London by an English gentleman, John Holland, with whom,' he adds, eleven other Scots gentlemen, some residing at Edinburgh, and some at London, did join.' They procured in July 1695 an act of the Scotch parliament organising the Bank. The stock, now L.1,000,000 sterling (generally bearing a premium of about sixty-three per cent.), was originally L.100,000; which, however, was described with the grandeur of the Scotch denomination as L.1,200,000. The L.800,000 Scots set aside for parties residing in Scotland was subscribed for in the course of the months of November and December, the Marquis of Tweeddale, his Majesty's High Commissioner to that parliament, and Lord Chancellor at the time, and his son my Lord Yester, being the first subscribers.' The remaining third of the stock was subscribed in London in one day, a great part being taken by Scotchmen residing there. The first arrangement of officials gave the half of the direction and the appointment of governor to the English adventurers; but in a few years, when the number of English shareholders sank below thirteen, this was necessarily changed; and from that time the Bank was wholly in the management of natives.

The history of Scotland having been up to this time a tissue of warlike incident and religious contention, it is interesting now to trace the first dawnings of the commercial spirit, and to observe the smallness of the transactions which our people could then compass. Only one-tenth of the stock being paid in, it is actually a fact that the first bank in Scotland commenced business with no more than L.10,000! After twenty-six years, we find that only another tenth of the stock had been paid, making the active capital but L.20,000. The Bank set up in no imposing edifice, such as those which now adorn the streets of modern Edinburgh and Glasgow, but in a flat, or floor of a house, in the Parliament Square, from which, unluckily, they were burnt out in 1700, but without any loss besides the furniture. The directors met some trouble soon after starting from an attempt at rivalry by the African Company, during which it was found necessary to call up the second L. 10,000 from the shareholders; but this was soon overpast, and the extra capital returned as superfluous. The Bank issued L.100, L.50, L.20, L.10, and L.5 notes, which got into such good circulation, that the directors were encouraged to lend money freely on various kinds of security, heritable and movable. They also commenced an exchange trade. To support this, and favour the circulation of their notes, they opened branches at Glasgow, Aberdeen, Montrose, and Dundee; but this turned out ill, the expense far exceeding the advantage and conveniency arising therefrom: for though the Company would willingly have been at some moderate charge to keep them up, if they could thereby have effectuated an answerable circulation of bank-notes about these places for accommodating the lieges in their affairs, yet they found that those offices did contribute to neither of those ends; for the money that was once lodged at any of those places, by the cashiers issuing bills payable at Edinburgh, could not be redrawn thence by bills from

Edinburgh: so the directors were obliged to give up those offices (after having been at considerable charges in the experiment), and to bring their money to Edinburgh by horse-carriage. We find it stated by Dr Cleland that this attempt was made in Glasgow in 1696, and abandoned in the ensuing year. He says it was renewed in 1731, but again given up in 1733, for the same reason of want of business. It was not till 1749 that banking fairly took root in the commercial emporium of the west.*

One-pound notes, an article which has since been remarkably naturalised in Scotland, were first issued by the Bank of Scotland in January 1699. The anony. mous historian of the Bank says, they are found to be very convenient, not only in the country, but also in the city of Edinburgh, though there is scarce any hopes that they can obtain a currency, to any considerable value, in our public markets and fairs, as some have thought, for nothing answers there among the common people but silver money, even gold being little known among them.' This passage will amuse those who reflect on the now inveterate attachment of Scotland to one-pound notes; a cause in which Sir Walter Scott had almost made her draw the claymore in 1826, and which would even now be a stumbling block in any general measure for making our currency more metallic. The allusion to the prevalence of silver money in the seventeenth century shows the sense of the general term for money still used in Scotland-siller.

In 1704, there was a scarcity of cash all over the kingdom, and a rumour arose that the privy-council designed by proclamation to raise the value of the several current species.' This caused a run of twenty days' continuance on the Bank, which at length, being exhausted of cash, was obliged to stop payment. At the request of the directors, the privy-council inquired into the state of its affairs, which being found satisfactory, a memorial was published, by which public confidence was restored. The Bank made all easy by announcing its design to allow interest on its notes until they should be called in for payment. It was at this crisis that the second L.10,000 was permanently raised from the shareholders. In the midst of the trouble, a teller named Pringle was detected as having embezzled L.425, 108.; no small loss, considering the diminutive capital of the Company, and that its affairs were then in the hands of creditors.†

When it became necessary at the Union to draw in the Scottish coin, and replace it with British, the Bank of Scotland undertook the business, and accomplished it without fee or reward. The directors expected some favour in consequence from the government; but owing to the confusions following on the death of Queen Anne, no actual recognition of their service had been rendered by the government up to the time when our author wrote. It is curious, in our cool and regular times, to look back on the somewhat romantic troubles to which banking was exposed in the days of a disputed succes sion. The Pretender' appeared with a fleet off the mouth of the Firth of Forth in March 1708, when the Bank of Scotland had a large sum lying in ingots in the Mint at Edinburgh, besides a considerable sum in its own office, being coin brought in to be recoined; 'all of which could not well have been carried off or concealed.' But fortunately the dreaded expedition did not land. A similar danger arose at the breaking out of the rebellion of 1715. A run then taking place, and the directors having paid out all the specie of their own which they had in hand, it was found necessary, on the 19th September, to stop payment, and order the notes to bear interest from that date. About L.30,000 of public money, which they had in charge, was at the same time deposited for safety in the castle of Edinburgh. At the conclusion of the insurrection next spring, these notes were called in, and business recom

*New Statistical Account of Scotland, vi. 220. ↑ Maclaurin's Criminal Cases, p. 20.

menced with its usual regularity. It would appear that these temporary suspensions were justly estimated by the public, and that the credit of the Bank was in no degree seriously injured by them.

In fact the Bank of Scotland was now in something like the repute of a well-dowered lass-apt to be a little troubled by the impetuosity of her wooers. A company of adventurers had advanced L.250,000 in the way of a stock, to be employed for the benefit of Scotland, as an equivalent for the share she took at the Union in the taxes occasioned by the national debt of England. These gentlemen, not content with the four per cent. which they were allowed on their debentures, wished to draw banking profits from their stock; and for this purpose they proposed a union with the Bank of Scotland, on a footing which would have been something like the result of the intrusion of a cuckoo into a sparrow's nest. The Bank, like a modest, judicious young lady, gave a civil refusal to the over-ardent addresses of the equivalent;' at which the suitor became very sulky. No sooner was this negotiation at an end, than a similar one came upon the tapis. A mutual-assurance society against losses by fire had been formed in Edinburgh under the name of the Friendly Society, and as it met with good encouragement, it was immediately rivalled by a company professing the same objects, but contemplating a profit to themselves from the business. This latter body, styling themselves the Edinburgh Society, did not meet with success, and they therefore turned their thoughts to banking. They soon let it be understood that they must either be received into the Bank of Scotland, or they would do what was in their power to ruin it. Being disregarded, they collected notes of the Bank to the amount of L.8400, and taking an opportunity when the South Sea Scheme had drawn much specie away from Scotland, brought those all at once forward for payment. One cannot but smile at the expectations founded on a sum which must now represent so trifling a part of the daily business of the establishment. The plan failed, and there was no run in consequence. The disappointed Society was so mean, after all, as to offer a union of stocks, which was civilly declined. A few months afterwards it perished ignominiously, amidst the many other bubbles of the South Sea period.

Soon after, a similar proposal came from the Royal Exchange Assurance Company, and was dealt with in like manner. The clamours of these various courtships are, however, proof that many men felt themselves and their capital to be unjustly excluded from a share of the banking business of Scotland. It was not to be expected that the whole of that business could be long conducted upon twenty or thirty thousand pounds, with the possessors of other thousands standing round, all anxious to be at work in the same field. Accordingly, in 1727, a determined effort was made by the shareholders of the 'equivalent' to obtain the necessary sanction of the government for setting up a rival bank. Our pamphleteer gives full details of the struggle thereanent, and a fierce one it seems to have been. One insinuation made use of against the Bank of Scotland was, that its management was ill affected to the government; to which our author gives a decided contradiction. We know not how far the contradiction was valid; but we have seen some evidences of Mr David Drummond, who was treasurer (that is, manager) for many years, having been what was commonly called a Jacobite. In Balthayock House, in Perthshire, there are preserved many curious papers of this gentleman, including a series of friendly letters to him from the exiled Earl of Perth, the most hated of the ex-ministers of the Stuarts in Scotland. There is also a subscription list for a fund to provide sustenance and legal counsel to the many Scottish gentlemen confined at Carlisle for their share in the insurrection of 1715. If we are to regard this, as seems not unreasonable, in the character of a musterroll of those who were friendly to the cause of the Stuarts, it may well surprise us, from the number and

character of the subscribers, there being in it the names of nineteen Scottish nobles (Errol, Haddington, Roseberry, Morton, Hopetoun, Dundonald, Moray, Rutherglen, Cassillis, Elibank, Colville, Blantyre, Coupar, Traquair, March, Galloway, Kinnoul, Deskford, and Eglintoune), the Commissioners of Excise, the Merchant Company and three of the incorporated trades of Edinburgh, the magistrates of Haddington, the Society of Periwigmakers in Edinburgh, &c. Above all, the subscription was under the charge of Mr Drummond, treasurer of the Bank of Scotland! Whatever truth there might be in the charge of Jacobitism, as against the management of the Bank generally, certain it is that the gentlemen of the equivalent' gained their point, and were enabled in the same year to set a-going with their capital the Royal Bank of Scotland,' which has ever since maintained an honourable rivalry with its great original.

Since then, in the course of time, several other chartered banks have been started in Scotland, besides many private joint-stock concerns, most of which have been successful in their career. Amongst them all, the primitive concern of 1695-long affectionately distinguished as the AULD BANK-still rears its venerable head in the Old Town of Edinburgh, with a capital enlarged to a million, and thirty-one branches scattered throughout the provinces. Time may give a sentimental interest even to a bank. One cannot think quite unmovedly of such an institution going on from the days when the soul of Scotland was still thrilling with the Solemn League and Covenant, all through the times of the romantic expeditions of the Highlanders for the House of Stuart, and down through the more wonderful events which marked the conclusion of the last and beginning of the present century, with a credit which has not once been interrupted for 133 years, and a regularity of routine which nothing during that time has broken, but the necessity of sending the cash for a short time to the castle in 1745, to be out of the way of Prince Charlie. Such things are not only curious historically; they raise our ideas of human probity, and seem to show that the affairs of mortals are not wholly of the inconstant and fitful character which commonplace remark assigns to them.

6

THE NUTHATCH.

THIS the Richmond river!' I exclaimed; 'Oh, impossible!' It was narrow, deep, and clear, winding amid rich pasture-land, and with superb banks of wood beginning to rise on one side; while here and there the chalky cliffs, in fantastic and jagged forms, broke through the dense screen of the rich green amphitheatre. Then came a cottage by the side of the lock, tastefully ornamented, and with a profusion of roses twining around the pillars of the open veranda; while the flowers on the garden banks hung over, kissing the limpid waters. This was succeeded by a weir, and a picturesque mill, or a fishing summer-house perched on the opposite elevation. Then suddenly the road branched off, and we lost sight of this sweet scene, and in a few minutes more we were driving through the straggling village of C— Here we saw thatched cottages with gable-ends, and vines trained up the fronts, half hiding the latticed windows; and our conveyance at length stopped at a very old and dilapidated-looking house of entertainment, certainly not reaching to the dignity of an inn: this was certainly the Nuthatch.' There could be no mistake, for the announcement was written up in plain terms. On alighting, we were ushered into a large uncarpeted room, hung round with pictures so faded and mouldy, that it was impossible at a first glance to discover the subjects they were intended to represent. The walls of this apartment were discoloured from damp; and though the oak table and quaintlycarved arm-chairs were scrupulously clean, as well as the shining floor, yet altogether it presented an untempting aspect. The sleeping apartments wore tho

the unhappy mother, all knew, and none others ventured to intrude on the fearful privacy of the scene. From the very first tidings of alarm the poor widow had been paralysed and helpless, but the silent agonies she endured that night added untold years to her appearance.

With the early morning light the remains of sweet little Bessy Milner were brought into the village: they were with some difficulty recovered from their watery bed, where the under-current had drawn them down, half-hidden and buried, amid the tangled weeds and rushes. That one faint cry, and all was over; how, or where it happened, who may tell? It was one of those sudden, mysterious, and unaccountable calamities which puzzle the wisest and most calculating heads.

The grassy mound was pointed out to me in Cchurchyard which marks the spot where rest the remains of mother and child, for the widow did not survive her loss quite six months. All was now, indeed, explained. For many weeks poor Kate had hovered betwixt life and death; her self-reproaches were terrific and overwhelming; and when at length a naturally good constitution overcame the ravages of disease and sorrow, the settled melancholy of her aspect spoke the tale of past suffering and remorse. Could she listen to a love tale? Could she dare to become a happy wife? Would not just Heaven strike her dead if she dared to forget her crime of carelessness and neglect, whereby two human lives were sacrificed? So tender, too, as all the villagers were; the gentry so kind and encouraging; would this be so were she to bury her contrition beneath bridal raiment and a smiling countenance?

Though poor Kate thus argued, yet I had earnest hopes of better things' in store for her; when the balm should no longer be rejected which alone can heal a wound such as hers, and the mind so crushed and prostrated regain its healthful elasticity. This was effected in the course of time; and with real pleasure and gratitude we received an invitation from our humble friends to attend the rural festivities at C, in honour of the nuptials of sweet Kate of the Nuthatch and her cousin Mr Thomas the ornithologist.

THE ECONOMIC VIEW OF TEMPERANCE. IT is to be feared that the mere lecturing and abusing of those thoughtless and unhappy persons who pay too little regard to the rules of temperance, has not been attended with any remarkable degree of success. A melancholy waste of zeal, and an idle misdirection of indignation, have been displayed, and a maximum of wrath has been followed with a pitiable minimum of conversion. There is room for suspicion, indeed, that but little is to be done in this way for erring brother man. The denunciations hurled from tract, periodical, and platform against the poor frail lovers of a glass too much, might almost as hopefully have been launched at the mute and passive barrels, gray beards, and bottles which in vast array open their mouths and throats throughout this bibulous land for the reception of the varied preparations of malt, whether brown foaming ale or limpid gurgling alcohol. To make the drunkard -that sad object of pity-the despised and detested butt of holy wrath and virtuous indignation, is hardly more reasonable than to exhaust ourselves in vituperative abuse of the indolence of the man unable to walk by reason of a broken limb. He in whose mind a sense of duty controls not the indulgence of base propensities, will rarely be either lectured, or scolded, or sneered into becoming behaviour. There are very many conclusive and unexceptionable reasons why rational beings should not darken their reason, and waste their means, and destroy their health, by the improper use of strong drink. But the problem is, how to bring such reasons to impinge with sufficient force on the understandings of certain classes of men, so as to lead them to the exercise of a wise self-denial. One fact is cheering, that the class which was drunken in our fathers' days

is now, generally speaking, sober. The wretched vice of habitual drunkenness is no longer respectable, and, let us hope, is gradually percolating down through society; so that the time may come when it will be little discernible even in the lowest stratifications of the social state.

There is one view of the matter which might probably make an impression on some of a naturally conscientious disposition of mind, and which has not certainly been hitherto very frequently pressed upon the notice of those whose interests are most deeply implicated. It is this; that frequent indulgence in wine or malt, and spirituous liquors, is a luxury which the man of limited income cannot afford, and is therefore one which he has no right to purchase. What title have I, with weekly wages of twelve or twenty shillings, to lay out a sixth or a tenth part of that sum to buy for myself one mere luxury? Some one with a yearly income of three or four hundred pounds has a passionate liking for fine horses, and would fain treat himself to a few handsome hunters, with their concomitant grooms. But what title has he to indulge in such a luxury? He cannot afford it; and no other reason is necessary to lead him to the exercise of self-denial. Another, perhaps a retired officer with a limited income and an unlimited family, has a perfect craze for grow. ing the rarer sorts of exotics. Is he entitled to shut his eyes to an accumulating butcher's bill, and manifold frocks and jackets past and to come, and to 'pooh, pooh' at sternly-returning quarter-days, and coolly to set about building up acres of glass in his garden, for which he knows he cannot pay without injury to his family? Is he entitled thus to bring himself into difficulties for the sake of indulging even his innocent and commendable taste? No; he cannot afford it: and the eloquence of Demosthenes could not more effectually than this simple consideration constrain him to exercise self-denial. One instance more. Look at that palefaced, somewhat attenuated, but thoughtful and benevolent - looking individual, who is shyly glancing over the magnificently tall copies of his devotedly-admired authors, which the rapid hammer of the auctioneer is consigning to fortunate and wealthy purchasers. Oh if some one, eccentric in their kindness, desired to awaken the purest gratitude of the human heart, twenty or thirty pounds were now well bestowed! But such romantic benevolence is never or rarely exercised. As it is, the book-worshipper cannot afford the price of his idols, and he sees the envied treasures transferred to the hands of others only with a sigh. Does he madly determine to gratify his taste, although his children should go without bread? No; self-denial checks the longing thought, and constrains his tongue to silence.

We desire, therefore, to know what title any working or other man has to indulge his selfish desire for a luxury which costs more money than he can spare? If a man has low tastes, and an empty and coarse mind, perhaps a few hours' riotous drinking with others of like nature may be deemed a very necessary and gratifying indulgence. It is far from being so: but though it were, the question remains, Has he any right to buy for himself such an indulgence? He cannot afford it: and that ought to settle the whole matter. Let him ridicule and defy the benevolent efforts of those who seek to win him to the ways of sobriety; let him despise all advocates of temperate habits as weak, though wellmeaning visionaries and enthusiasts; let him claim to be the master of his own actions, and the judge of his own conduct; but if he continue to buy weekly a certain quantity of liquor, the price of which forms a large proportion of his wages, he is guilty of the meanness of buying a pure luxury which he cannot afford. Broiled salmon, a roast joint of lamb with asparagus, and a bottle of champagne, would be rather an absurd enter-| tainment for the poor old man who, propped on his wooden-leg, and glaring awfully through his eye-protecting mask of black wire-gauze, breaks stones all day by the wayside at so much per square yard. But not