veteran did actually sleep on guard before his
master's door—and that he and the admiral
and the housekeeper were in the secret of this
unaccountable proceeding was now beyond all
doubt.

"A strange end," thought Magdalen, pondering
over her discovery as she stole up-stairs to
her own sleeping-room. "A strange end to a
strange day!"

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLES.

WHAT will the Layard of futurity say when,
haply ages hence, these Records are dug out of
the ruins of what once was Wellington-street, and
the only true history and Chronicle of the Time
is laid before his eyes? To that man,
whoever he may be, great in enterprise, skilful
in research, I will address this particular
Chronicle.

Illustrious sage, and exhumer of buried
knowledge, I have a matter to impart to thee which
will not a little astonish that enlightened age in
which thou livest, and which will materially affect
its views as to the degree of civilisation attained
by those ancient Britons who were in existence
in the year 1862.

You—oh illustrious sage—and those about
you, have doubtless hitherto been of opinion
that the age, whose Small-Beer it is my lot to
chronicle, was an age of great and extraordinary
civilisation. It was, as your friend the
archaeologist in spectacles, truly remarks, the
particular year in which these same ancient
Britons held what they used to call an Exhibition;
a year of great intellectual and mental
progress; a year when the high civilisation
attained by Britain in the nineteenth century
was at its highest. "Yes, yes, yes," your friend
in spectacles remarks, "a great year indeed, a
great year indeed, a remarkable people."

Know then, oh illustrious sage, and you, friend
of the same, in spectacles, know also, that that
same year 1862, of which you speak in terms so
respectful, was characterised by circumstances
which I blush to write of, and which—did not
the customs of our time forbid it—I would have
printed in red ink, in order that this page might
blush too.

You have both of you heard—for are ye not
both learned men?—of a place called Edinburgh,
the metropolis of Scotland—a town which has
deservedly won a high reputation as a seat of
learning, and one of the centres of nineteenth-
century civilisation. Indeed, I may say of it that
it is a noble town, and fair to look upon.. It holds
a high position throughout Great Britain, and
its inhabitants claim for it a higher yet. It has
even been called the Modern Athens, before
now.

But what have I to record concerning this
Modern Athens, this seat of learning, this centre
of civilisation? I have to record that in this very
year 1862—a great year of British advance—this
same town of Edinburgh was thrown into
commotion because it was proposed that a
certain pleasaunce, called the " Royal Botanic
Garden," should be thrown open on Sunday
afternoons, after the hours of Divine Service,
that the public might use it at such times as
a promenade. That this might be, was the humble
petition of no less than fourteen thousand
persons, " chiefly of the working-classes." That
this might not be, was the petition of thirty-four
thousand persons, chiefly no doubt belonging to
the class to which the garden was available on
week-days. It was the petition also of above
one hundred clergymen of different denominations
—the denominations of common-sense and
mercy excepted. Now what a miserable and
degrading state of things is this. Here are no
less than fourteen thousand working-people
asking this small, small thing, that a garden
should be open for them to take their Sunday
afternoon walk in; there is no word spoken
of amusements wanted, no band of music
hinted at. Access to the garden is all that is
asked, and this only in the afternoon after
church-time. One may wonder that the people
should care for this thing; but they do care for it.
We are used to gardens, and even vote them
sometimes slow and wearisome; but to these
people such places look as they look not to us;
and to their unaccustomed senses, the sight of
the plants and trees, and the scent of the flowers,
and the touch of the turf, give a wonderful delight
and joy.

Is it conceivable that an army of thirty-four
thousand persons, with a hundred captains in
white neckcloths at its head, should rise malignant
at the first sound of this proposed innovation?
It is difficult to chronicle such Small-Beer
with patience. To think that it should
ferment and fizz and run over, because a few
poor people want to take an afternoon walk
in a garden on Sunday? What unknown creed
is represented in this cruelty? What creed is
that which forbids men to walk in a garden on
Sunday? Why is it worse to walk along the
paths of the Botanic Gardens than along the
pavement of Princes-street?

Up rises now one of my friends in the white
neckcloths, and tells me the old story, that in
order that the one set of men may be able to
play, another set must of necessity be kept at
work; that if these gardens are open on Sunday,
the gardeners and beadles and the like professional
persons must be in them, perforce, to keep
order. Truly this small class must work, if it
must be called work, for the sake of the large
class who want recreation and change. The
guardian of the street—the policeman—works
also, in order that you may walk safely through
the High-street. Why not shut the inhabitants
up in their homes on Sunday, and so save the
policeman a little?

It is not my business, however, to argue this
question, but simply to register the fact that in
the year 1862, thirty-four thousand persons were
found to rise up in arms because their poorer fellow-