MECHANICAL WONDERS.

Sir Alexander Ramsay had been constructing, upon his estate in Scotland, a piece of machinery, which was driven by a stream of water running through the home farmyard. There were a thrashing-machine, a winnowing machine, a circular saw for splitting trees, and other contrivances. Observing an old man, who had long been about the place, looking very attentively at all that was going on, Sir Alexander said, “Wonderful things people can do now, Robby?" Ay," said Robby, "indeed, Sir Alexander, I'm thinking if Solomon was alive now, he'd be thought naething o' !"-Dean Ramsay.

A SHORT HISTORY.

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The shortest chronicle of the Reformation by Knox, and of the Wars of Claverhouse (Claver'se) in Scotland, which we know of, is that of an old lady who, in speaking of those troublous times, remarked, "Scotland had a sair time o't. First, we had Knox deavin' us wi' his clavers, and syne we had Claver'se deavin' us wi' his knocks."

A LONG HORSE.

A curious correspondence once arose between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas. When the latter applied to Pitt for the loan of a horse "the length of Highgate," Pitt wrote back to say that he was afraid he had not a horse in his possession quite so long as Mr. Dundas had mentioned, but he had sent the longest he had.

AN ELECTION BALL.

An old Scotch laird, at one of these entertainments, had attired himself in splendour for the occasion. The grandee, who was going round, of course showing civilities, said, "I didna ken ye, B- you're so braw." "Nae," said the old squire ; "and I dare say, ye'll no ken me for another seven year!"

SCOTTISH FEELING.

No example of the attachment of Scotchmen to old Scottish ways, and remembrances of their early days, has ever, says Dean Ramsay, struck me more than the story told of old Lord

Lovat, which is amongst the many touching anecdotes which are traditionary of his unfortunate period. On his return from the trial at Westminster Hall, where he had been condemned to death for his adherence to the Stuart cause, he saw out of his coach-window a woman selling the sweet yellow gooseberries, which recalled the associations of youth in his native country. "Stop a minute," cried the old scoffer, who knew his days on earth were numbered; "stop a minute, and gie me a ha'porth of honey-blobs," as if he had gone back in fond recollection to his schoolboy-days, in the High-street of Edinburgh, when honey-blobs had been among the pet luxuries of his young life.

[Doubtless, the sight of the honey-blobs reproved "the offending Adam" in the peer, and reminded him of what innocence had outlived.]

ONE BETTER THAN TWO.

Lord Mulgrave, who made the Expedition of discovery towards the North Pole, was formed on rather a heavy, colossal scale; and to distinguish him from his younger brother, the Honourable Charles Phipps, who had likewise a seat in Parliament, the former was denominated "Ursa Major." He was also called "Alphesibous," it is supposed from some fancied anology between him and the awkward imitator of the Dancing Satyrs, in the fifth eclogue of Virgil's Bucolics.

Lord Mulgrave was distinguished by a singularity of physical conformation, having two distinct voices: the one, strong and hoarse; the other, weak and querulous; of both of which he occasionally availed himself. So extraordinary a circumstance, probably, gave rise to a story of his having fallen into a ditch in a dark night, and calling for aid in his shrill voice. A countryman coming up, was about to assist him; but Lord Mulgrave addressing him in a hoarse tone, the peasant immediately exclaimed, "Oh, if there are two of you in the ditch, you may help each other out of it."

THE DUKE OF SUSSEX'S ANNULLED MARRIAGE.

While travelling in Italy, in 1792, the late Duke of Sussex formed an attachment to Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore. The earl was not in Italy at the time;

but Lady Dunmore consented to a private marriage of her daughter with the Duke, who was then about twenty years of age. The Duke could not have been ignorant of the Royal Marriage Act, which forbad the marriage of English princes with English subjects; and rendered the consent of the reigning sovereign necessary, even when the alliance was with persons of royal blood. Nor is it likely that such a statute could have been unknown to Lady Dunmore. The young couple, after a residence at Rome of several months, came to England. At the desire of the Duke and her friends, the lady consented to a second marriage ceremony, more public and regular than the first. The couple took lodgings in South Molton-street, at the house of a coal-merchant; merely that they might, by residence of one month in the parish of St. George's, Hanover-square, be entitled to have their banns asked in the church of that parish. They were regularly married on the 5th of December, 1793, under the names of Augustus Frederick and Augusta Murray. It was an anxious time for the lady, seeing that she was about to become a mother, and had every motive for wishing to be recognised as a true wife. The King, however, never forgave the Duke for this marriage, and even instituted a suit against his own son in the Court of Arches, for annulling the marriage. The fact of the ceremony at St. George's Church had to be rendered manifest by the testimony of the mother and sister of Lady Augusta, the clergyman who had performed the ceremony, the coal-merchant and his wife, and another witness who was present. So far as the Church was concerned, the marriage was, in all respects, a valid one; but the terms of the Royal Marriage Act were clear and decided; and after many months of anxious doubt the Duke and Lady Augusta were informed, by the irrevocable judgment of the court, that the marriage was no marriage at all in the eyes of the English law, and that their infant son was illegitimate. Lady Augusta, in a letter to a friend, written in 1811, said: "Lord Thurlow told me my marriage was good in law; religion taught me it was good at home; and not one divine of my powerful enemies could make me believe otherwise, or ever will." When the pair separated, the Duke settled on Lady Augusta an income out of the allowance he received from Parliament; but the King took care, through the whole remainder of his life, not to give the Duke a single office or post that would augment his resources.

FLIGHT OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.

In a fine evening (July 16th, 1814), about the hour of seven, when the streets are deserted by all persons of condition, the young Princess Charlotte rushed out of her residence in Warwick House, unattended; hastily crossed Cockspurstreet; flung herself into the first hackney-coach she could find, and drove to her mother's house in Connaught-place. The Princess of Wales having gone to pass the day at her Blackheath villa, a messenger was despatched for her, another for her law adviser, Mr. Brougham, and a third for Miss Mercer Elphinstone, the young Princess's bosom friend. Brougham arrived before the Princess of Wales had returned; and Miss Elphinstone had only obeyed the summons. Soon after the Royal mother came, accompanied by Lady Charlotte Lindsay, her lady in waiting. It was found that the Princess Charlotte's fixed resolution was to leave her father's house, and that which he had appointed for her residence, and to live thenceforth with her mother. But Mr. Brougham is understood to have felt himself under the painful necessity of explaining to her that, by the law, as all the twelve Judges but one had laid it down in George I.'s reign, and as it was now admitted to be settled, the King or the Regent had the absolute power to dispose of the persons of all the Royal Family while under age. The Duke of Sussex, who had always taken her part, was sent for, and attended the invitation to join in these consultations. It was an untoward incident in this remarkable affair, that he had never seen the Princess of Wales since the investigation of 1806, which had begun upon a false charge brought by the wife of one of his equerries, and that he had, without any kind of warrant from the fact, been supposed by the Princess to have set on, or at least supported the accuser. He, however, warmly joined in the whole of the deliberations of that singular night.

As soon as the flight of the young lady was ascertained, and the place of her retreat discovered, the Regent's officers of state and other functionaries were despatched after her. The Lord Chancellor Eldon first arrived, but not in any particular imposing state, "regard being had" to his eminent station; for, indeed, he came in a hackney-coach. Whether it was that the example of the Princess Charlotte herself had for the day brought this simple and economical mode of con

veyance into fashion, or that concealment was much studied, or that despatch was deemed more essential than ceremony and pomp-certain it is, that all who came, including the Duke of York, arrived in similar vehicles, and that some remained inclosed in them, without entering the Royal mansion. At length, after much pains and many entreaties, used by the Duke of Sussex and the Princess of Wales herself, as well as Miss Elphinstone and Lady C. Lindsay (whom she always honoured with a just regard), to enforce the advice given by Mr. Brougham, that she should return without delay to her own residence, and submit to the Regent, the young Princess, accompanied by the Duke of York and her governess, who had now been sent for and arrived in a Royal carriage, returned to Warwick House, between four and five o'clock in the morning. There was then a Westminster election in progress, in consequence of Lord Cochrane's expulsion; and it is said that on her complaining to Mr. Brougham that he, too, was deserting her, and leaving her in her father's power, when the people would have stood by her he took her to the window, when the morning had just dawned, and, pointing to the Park, and the spacious streets which lay before her, said that he had only to show her a few hours later on the spot where she now stood, and all the people of this vast metropolis would be gathered together on that plain, with one common feeling in her behalf-but that the triumph of one hour would be dearly purchased by the consequences which must assuredly follow in the next, when the troops poured in, and quelled all resistance to the clear and undoubted law of the land, with the certain effusion of blood -nay, that through the rest of her life she never would escape the odium which, in this country, always attends those who, by breaking the law, occasion such calamities. This consideration, much more than any quailing of her dauntless spirit, or faltering of her filial affection, is believed to have weighed upon her mind, and induced her to return home.

This admirably written narrative of a very remarkable incident is attributed to Lord Brougham. The late Sir Frankland Lewis was accustomed to say that it was somewhat highly coloured throughout; it first appeared in the Edinburgh Review.