NOTES OF THE MONTH. 44-9 



trombones, key-bugle, violin, and clarionet. They have pl a yed five 

 or six pieces of difficult execution in the exactest manner linking 

 their most subtle harmonies in one, and touching their most delicate 

 points with a skill and finish which their Swiss predecessors could 

 no more approach than a Christmas carolist can approach to Pindar. 

 So much for prejudice ! 



THE SCOTTISH MARTYR. Never did mortal man, saving Mr. 

 Irving and Bow'sen Smith, so constantly oppose himself to what he 

 considers the sins and vanities of this wicked world as this sainted 

 baronet, and fe\v have been so meagrely rewarded for their toil. If 

 he is again discomfited if the lieges will not be saved on any terms, 

 we shall have the cracked-brained Quixote turning out to the road- 

 side and trying his skill upon the traveller. We hope the seed may 

 not fall among thorns, but that he may reap a goodly crop of saints. 

 But to be serious we really would advice poor Sir Andrew to let 

 these Sabbath bills be handled by some one of a less zealous tem- 

 perament ; for good Sir Andrew is a man of too " cribbed, cabined, 

 and confined" a mind to do any good in so important and delicate a 

 subject one in which the interests of this world and the next have 

 to be equally weighed and adjusted, or else not touched at all. Sir 

 Andrew looks only to the last; but with such eyes as, while they 

 are shut to the Sunday indulgences of the rich, are wide open as day 

 to the walking-out-of-town, tea-gardens, road-side-public-house, 

 boating, and one-horse-chaise enjoyments of the middling and poorer 

 classes. That this sacred day should be observed as sacredly as pos- 

 sible, we agree. That there are many things done, and many busi- 

 nesses transacted on that day which are not necessary to it, we believe. 

 If for no better reasons than the refreshment, and the health, and the 

 sanity both of body and mind, which one day's interval of repose 

 between twelve days of toil and trouble brings with it to the over- 

 worked bodies and minds of this world, we should warmly approve 

 of the seventh day being set apart, and even being compelled to be 

 set apart for rest, and for such other solid purposes as lie between 

 a man's duty to this world and his reverence for a better. But Sir 

 Andrew would do more than this he would compel more than this. 

 He would make us observers of religion if he cannot make us reli- 

 gious. His countrymen are great observers of Sunday ordinances ; 

 you may walk through the cities and towns of Scotland at church- 

 time, and they are desolate. This decency of deportment lasts till 

 the close of the evening service, when every tavern is reeking warm 

 with whiskey-toddy ; and we have it from the honest confession of a 

 Scotchman, that before " the iron tongue of Time has tolled twelve," 

 there are more drunken men to be seen in the good city of Edinburgh, 

 with its limited population, than you could meet with in London 

 with its millions. So much for mere observances for mere outside 

 signs of decency, where "the inward and spiritual" grace is want- 

 ing. Would Sir Andrew bring us to this pass ? If he would, let 

 him try ; but he will, as the lawyers say, " take nothing by the 

 motion." 



If Sir Andrew would confine his interference to such Sunday evils 



M.M. No. 100. 3 M 



