of contending with the rudiments of two languages at the same time. At present, Geography, in as far as it is connected with the studies of the boys, and necessary for the elucidation of the subjects under their notice, is already taught; and for years past, long before the Academy was spoken of, Greek formed a part of the study of the High School boys, during the last three years of their attendance, before going to the University. But of this, more hereafter. The next branch of the New Scheme which presents itself to view is the pecuniary,-not a very trivial one, when the great mass of society is interested. There are some delusions propagated, unintentionally no doubt, by the Directors of the Academy, in their statement, which do not strike the reader at the first glance. In estimating any supposed improvements in the New, upon the system of the Old School, it is of course necessary to limit the comparison in this and other respects to those points in which they fairly adinit of comparison; and, therefore, in stating the fees, we shall confine ourselves to the classical department, throwing out of view entirely the writing, arithmetic, &c., which form no part of the regular High School course, but which the Academy Directors have blended with the Classical branch in their Scheme. The fees will then stand thus in the Edinburgh Academy: 1st Class and year-October quarter £.3, 2s.; January £.1.; April and July quarters £.2; total £.6, 2s. per annum. 2d Class and year-October quarter £.4, 38.; other three quarters £.3.; total £.7, 3s. per annum. 3d Class and year-October quarter £.4, 6s. 6d.; January quarter £.1, 3s. 6d.; April and July quarters £.2, 7s.; total £.7, 17s. per an num. 4th Year and Class-the same as the third, £.7, 17s. 5th, Or Rector's Junior ClassOctober quarter £.4, 9s.; January quarter £.1, 6s.; April and July quarters £.2, 12s.; total £.8, 7s. 6th Year and Class-The same as the fifth, £.8, 7s. In the High School, the sum-total, per annum, paid by a boy, for learning the same branches of educa tion, amounts exactly to £.3, 55., payable at five different times. We make no comment on this; it is plain matter-of-fact. The Academy fees may suit a wealthy aristocracy, but they are not adapted to the purses of the greater part of our citizens. The burden of such fees is too heavy to be borne by many who must give their children a Classical education; for if a man should have three sons at the Fourth Class, he will pay, for Greek and Latin, £.23, 11s. a-year of fees,-exclusive of those for other branches; whereas, in the High School, he would pay only £.9, 15s. Having thus taken a view of some of the more prominent features of the Scheme of the Academy, and compared then with those of the High School, on which, it is said, they are an improvement, we have room, at this time, only for a very few additional remarks. Before proceeding farther, we must state, explicitly, that we have no sort of objection to the Academy, as a private, or even a chartered institution, starting fairly into competition with the High School, and other Schools. There is abundant room in Edinburgh, we are satisfied, for all the Teachers who may be in both establishments; and the public must always benefit by competition, in every department of human exertion. We do not, however, see that it is a legitimate sort of competition, when the proprietors of the New School rest their claims to public confidence upon alleged defects in the High School, when no such defects appear; and upon promised extensions and improvements, which are neither the one nor the other. The first alteration upon the present system of instruction in the High School, (say the Directors,) is a more extended instruction in Greek, by all the Masters," and the plan has been commended, in this respect, as the commencement of a new era" in the Greek Literature of Scotland. It is said, that "our youth, when they enter College, are generally ignorant of the Elements of Greek, many of them do not even know the letters," &c. Now, although no deliberate intention to mislead is imputed, yet it is unequivocally implied, in all this, that there is no Greek taught in the High School, or at least that it is taught in so limited a degree as to leave a reproach of deficiency, in this respect, on the country in general. We beg to state how the fact really stands. Twenty years ago, just about the time when the Directors of the Academy left the High School, little attention, perhaps, was bestowed on Greek at that Semi nary; but it is perfectly well known, that, for twenty years past, the study of Greek has been extended, and has, in succession, been taught by all the Masters without any fee, although an additional hour is devoted to that purpose. Professor Pillans taught Greek when he was Rector; and Mr Gray taught it with a zeal and ability, which, we will venture to say, cannot be surpassed by many Masters in the New Academy, from whatever quarter of the world they may come. It is at present taught in the Fourth Class, and in the Rector's Class for two years; and the best way of rebutting the implication, (to call it nothing more,) that boys go to the University, from the High School, ignorant of the Elements of Greek, and even of the letters, is just to state the readings in Greek, at the Rector's Class, for the last two, and the current year. During the Session ending August 1822, the Lowest Class, besides going through Moore's Grammar, read the Collectanea Minora; Extracts from the New Testament; the Odes of Anacreon; and part of the Cyropædia. In the Second Class, they read Dunbar's Exercises; Lucian's Dialogues; and nearly 400 lines of the 18th Book of the Iliad ;-and in the Highest Class, besides the business of the Second Class, the third Book of the Iliad, the Alcestis of Euripides, and Extracts from Herodotus. The Second and Highest Classes read also the whole of St. Mathew's Gospel; and there were seven boys in the Class who professed to read the whole Iliad. During the Session ended last August, the Lowest Greek Class (besides their grammatical repetitions) read portions of the New Testament; the Odes of Anacreon; Xeno VOL. XIV. phon's Cyropædia; Extracts from the 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th Books of the Iliad ; and the 18th Book, from line 356, to the end. Besides all the work of the Lower Class, those in the Higher read seven Extracts from Herodotus; part of Xenophon's Anabasis; and above 1000 lines of the Philoctetes of Sophocles. Almost all the boys read the Gospel of St. Mark, and two Chapters of Luke; and the Hiad in various proportions. Four boys professed the whole Iliad, and one boy the whole Odyssey. And during the present Session, the Highest Greek Class has read, as ordinary lessons, the Prometheus Vinctus of Eschylus, and nearly all the First Book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The Lower Class is engaged in the Analecta Minora. Some boys have read the last Twelve Books of the Iliad, and the whole Odyssey; and, since October last, they are also engaged in reading Xenophon's Works, and Luke's Gospel. This has been the course of Greek Study in the Rector's Classes alone, for the last three years; and the fact can be ascertained by inquiring at any school-boy in his Classes. If the Academy Masters shall be able to make any extension on this Course of Greek Study, they must work miracles; for the Rector of the High School devotes six hours every day to his Classes; and, divide their time as they will, and vary their studies as they please, they have not time for doing much more than is already done in the Old School. As to English, Writing, and Arithmetic, it will be found, on a strict examination, that, although these branches seem to be taught at a cheaper rate at the Academy than they are near the High School, yet this is more apparent than real; for it is only by diminishing the time usually devoted to those branches that the teaching is made cheaper. During the first three years' attendance at the Academy, there is to be no Arithmetic taught which seems to be as great an omission as Algebra and Geometry are premature in the system. We are quite satisfied, that, with respect to those branches which are not classical, the advantages are not on the side of the Academy; for the boys are tied down to attend 3 U* these whether the Masters be good or bad, and are denied the benefit of that competition which it is professedly one of the objects of the Institution to furnish. A very unfounded insinuation has been made about Candlemas Fees, as if they were still to be considered a voluntary boon; whereas the sum now exacted was constituted a regular charge upwards of twenty years ago; and, at this moment, there are not half-adozen boys at the High School who pay the Masters one farthing more than the regulated charges. There are many other remarks which present themselves to us-but we must be brief; yet we cannot omit to remark, that corporal punish ment has long been all but banished from the High School. We have no inclination, and no motive to puff it. But it has long held a fair reputation, of which we see no reason to bereave it, merely because some respectable gentlemen have chosen to establish another seminary. We wish them all possible success. Yet, we must say, it is sufficiently aspiring in several respects. It does appear somewhat anomalous that a School, which assumes the highest station in Scotland, should have an Episcopalian Clergyman at its head; and that Englishmen and Welshmen should have been selected to teach Latin and Greek, according to the Scotch mode of pronunciation. A Sketch. OH! who would deem a land so lone and rude, Vile earth-worms, grovelling through life's lowest course, Who with such rapture can its ruins mark, As on their rocks they hail the stranded bark,— Hatch'd on whose hearts, the seeds of hate and strife, Like dunghill offals, fester into life, Nurs'd by the steams that rancour can supply, Upon the hot-beds of malignity, Of bile and bitterness as black as Hell, And rotten as the Borough where they dwell! Chapter II. RELICS OF A WANDERER. "THE sun shone bright, the morning after, to every eye in the village," excepting Captain Macfergus. At an early hour, his handmaid, Nicky, was observed to run across the street with an empty choppin bottle, to the house of Mrs Mason. "Our master is in an awfu' state," said Nicky to the landlady, "wi' his last night's bowse." In assuming that Mrs Mason was in the knowledge of the bowse, Nicky was perfectly correct, for the whole particulars had been communicated by Nicky herself, on the previous evening, before either of them had retired to rest. "I'm sure he looks awfully disjasked?" inquired the compassionate landlady. "Troth does he," replied the communicative handmaid; "he's lying yonder, husking like a mad dog, and spitting sixpences; and he says nought will revive his drooping spirits but a bottle o' sma' beer." The bottle was procured, and its contents were administered to the Captain in a wooden bicker by the faithful Nicky, after which he desired the shutters of his bed-room window to be closed. At an early hour I awoke; and feeling impatient to have a survey of the Burgh, I sallied out to the street, while Mr Heaviland was performing his ablutions, and Mrs Jardine was commencing preparations for breakfast. And here it may not be amiss to introduce a description of the place, drawn from the observations which I made during a pretty long residence. The name of Dubslacks, I presume, is familiar to the readers of Scottish history and antiquities. Like many other Royal Burghs, it has suffered sad reverses, and been reduced, at length, to hopeless and irredeemable obscurity. Its name may be discovered in an itinerary, or detected in a map; but to the generality of the British public, it is as little known, and not so much talked of, as the Royal Burgh of Tombuctoo. Situated upon "a blasted heath," the approach to it announces the most wretched penury, the feeling of VOL. XIV. which is confirmed in the breast of the traveller, by the lugubrious aspect of the Burgh itself. There is nothing about the Burgh, in short, to distinguish it from any Scottish village, excepting the utter want of every appearance of comfort,-a cross, where no market is ever held,-and a small square building, which comprehends a jail and a court-room, and is surmounted by a dwarfish whitewashed spire, which, at a distance, may be mistaken for a dovecot. This spire marks the centre of the Burgh; and receding from it is the main street, distinguishable by two three slated houses, placed at straggling distances, kail-yards, cottages, and pig-styes. On this street recline at their ease the dogs of the Burgh, whose hostility to vehicles of every description, above the rank of a peatcart, has been long proverbial. If ever it is your hap, gentle reader, to travel through Dubslacks in a chaise, you will observe your driver, as you approach the town, if he be a man of prudence, and accustomed to the road, adjust the lash of his whip, and exercise his wrist as if preparing for a most laborious duty. Ere this, the whole curs of the Burgh have congregated. The yell which is raised as you enter is truly astounding. The gaunt and emaciated carcasses of the pack are proof against the tempest of blows which descends from the seat of the driver; but he, like a man deeply skilled in their anatomy, plies at their mouths, as they tear and gnaw at the wheels of the carriage with the most rabid impatience. The spectacle is sublime. Ensconced within your machine, you despise the storm which howls below, while hens, chickens, and pigs, fly and scamper about in all directions, as if a tornado raged within the Burgh. By this canine escort you are attended through the Burgh, and beyond its boundaries, where, exhausted with fatigue, they drop off singly, in a paroxysm of rage and hunger. This striking peculiarity of character in the dog of Dubslacks I have never been able to account for upon any satisfactory principle. 3 X An hypothesis, indeed, has been started upon the subject by my worthy friend Mr Heaviland. He supposes the spokes of a carriage-wheel are believed, by the aforesaid dogs, to be the ribs of oxen, or other animals; and that the wheel appears, to their imaginations, distempered by famine and putrid food, to be a machine devised for the express purpose of tantalizing and insulting them. Be this as it may, one thing is certain, that before Ďubslacks can ever become a great thoroughfare, as has been often devoutly wished by some of its more patriotic inhabitants, some method must be taken to subdue this indecent propensity on the part of its dogs. But a truce with description. The most correct idea of the place will be obtained by attending to the circumstances which I shall have occasion to record. In the course of my morning's walk, I observed upon the street a grave old man, of tall stature, but remarkably slender, wrapped up to the chin in a threadbare blue greatcoat, and carrying upright a polished staff of ashwood, approaching nearly to his own height. The meagre aspect of the man, and the sagacity which seemed seated in his countenance, combined with his figure and equipments, fully realized the idea which we are apt to form of a wizard; and, as he stalked along, he commanded, from both old and young, the most profound respect. On returning to Mrs Jardine's, I observed this person standing opposite to her door, in the centre of a little group, with his staff firmly planted in the ground, and one hand uplifted, appearing sometimes to be propounding grave maxims, at other times pursuing the Socratic mode of reasoning with his auditors, whose pride stood effectually rebuked in his presence. I lingered about the door until the termination of the colloquy, when I observed his disciples, for such I took them to be, walk away gloomy and thoughtful, as if some hidden truths had been revealed to them which perplexed their understandings. Mrs Jardine, at the time, happening to come to the door, I made some inquiries at her respecting this dignified individual. "Is it auld John Herbertson ye mean, Sir? O! that's ane o' the langestheaded men in a' our parashin, or in a' the toons roun' about. I'm sure I dinna ken what to ca' him, unless it be that he's ane o' the birliemen o' our Burgh; but when folks are in a burble, they're aye a' sure to rin to John Herbertson. The body has been plowtering in law-books a' the days o' his life; and when he speaks, nought 'll gang down wi' him but Erskine-Erskine. There's no a pley that's started, here or hereabouts, but John has a finger in't on the ae side or the other, though I think it's a' the winning side, for fient a pley e'er gangs wrang wi' John, he's sae fu' o' quirks and contrivances. But it's baith meat and drink to him, puir auld man! and I'm sure a penny's better wared on his advice, than givin't awa' to ony o' thae young skilts o' writers about Drumdrouth, that gang galloping through our toon, hunting after pleys, as if a horse and a bunch o' papers sticking out o' their pouch made up for the want o' baith lear and experience. I'm sure I've often leugh at my ain gudeman telling a story o' ane Mungo Carruthers, wha practised in the toon of Kettlestane,- —a braw, gashchield i' thae days, but whae died sair down i' the world, puir man! Weel, Mungo's coming through Dubslacks ae day frae a Shirra-court they had been haʼding in Drumdrouth, and nought would ser' him but he wad step in and ha'e a gill at Thomas Kirkpatrick's. Sae he left his fine bluid mare, that he bought out o' the Laird o' Castledyke's siller, standing at the door till he took aff his dram. Weel, the mare's brought out again, and Mungo, wi' meikle ado, gets up to the louping-on-stane, and wi' a great brange, he jumps fairly o'er the back o' the beast, and comes flap down on his face in Jenny Jamieson's midden. Then there was sic a hurra raised by the folks, as if the man had performed some clever mountebank trick, they were a' sae spited at the pride o' the Kettlestane lawyer. This same John Herbertson said a gey bitter thing to Mungo, just as he was sprawling out o' the dubs. It sae happened, that there was a pley at the very time about |