have resembled those of a bailiff at the
present time. Some unfortunate tenant had
fallen into arrears for rent, and the relentless
hand of the law had seized this man's goods—
chairs, benches, tables, bed, and, unfortunately
for poor Cornwall (who was perhaps no great
judge of the fine arts) a ' portraitour " of the
king. Let us hope it was hideously like, and
did justice to the truculent insignificance of
expression of the great original. While the
worthy official was preparing to dispose of
the goods by auction at the market cross,
it struck him that if this splendid specimen
of painting could be seen by the crowd
assembled, he might have a chance of getting
a few extra shillings when its turn came to
be sold. He therefore got a hammer and a
nail, and was in the act of going towards a
certain tall, dark, dismal-looking beam which
stood close to the rostrum he occupied, for
the purpose of hanging the representation of
majesty high enough to be viewed by all.
What was this tall upright beam, with the
projecting arm and the remains of a piece of
cord dangling from it in the air? Some
friends stopped the auctioneer from making
use of the fatal tree. The hammer was put
back in its place— the nail left innocuous in
the wood. What! is James to be disappointed
of his vengeance? Is he to have no
blood? Listen to the " dittay," or accusa-
tion:—

"The which day Archibald Cornwall, one
of the town officers of Edinburgh, being
entered on pannel, dilated, accused, and pursued
for the treasonable and ignominious dishonouring
and defaming, so far as in him lay,
of our sovereign lord, the King's majesty,
by taking of his Highness's portraiture to the
public market-place of this burgh, and there
shamefully and vilely setting the same to the
stoops and upbearers of the gibbet; and in
more, and manifest, and treasonable contempt
and disdain of his majesty, he stood up upon
a board or form beside the said gibbet, and
drove a nail therein, so high as he could
reach it, and lifted up his Highness's portrait
aforesaid, and held the same upon the gibbet,
pressing (intending) to have hung the same
thereon, and to have left it there as an
ignominious spectacle to the whole world, if he
had not been staid by the indignation of the
whole people, menacing to stone him to
death, and pulling him perforce from the said
gibbet, to stay his treasonable fact as
aforesaid."

The jury found the unfortunate man "guilty
of setting his Majesty's portrait to the tram
or beam of the gibbet, and presenting of the
same to be hung high upon a nail infixed in
the said gibbet." And then comes the sentence
which sent James rejoicing home:
"For the which cause the said Justice Depute,
by the dempster of the said court, decerned
and ordained the said Archibald Cornwall to
forfeit life, lands, and goods (Oho! he was
a wealthy man, this bailiff!) and to be
taken to the said gibbet, whereupon he
intended hang his Majesty's portrait, and
thereon to be hanged till he be dead, and
to hang thereupon by the space of twenty-
four hours with a paper on his forehead
containing that vile crime committed by
him."

The careful editor of these curious trials
informs us, that James took a deep and active
part in the death of this poor man; and that
on all occasions the slightest infraction on his
personal dignity was never forgiven. Nay,
we find as he advanced in years he extended
his guardianship of his individual honour to
that of his native land. Touch a Scotchman,
you had the king for your enemy; and at
that time, when all the scum and outpouring
of the north forced its way into every cranny
and corner of England, his majesty had quite
enough to do to restrain the reproaches and
sneers, and animosities of his new and less
obedient subjects. It was with difficulty the
Scotch of all ranks and degrees could be protected
from personal violence. They were
mobbed in theatres, and lampooned in prose
and verse. But woe to the lampooner if he
were discovered. There was a bloated jester
in Whitehall, with a broad Scotch brogue,
with the vanity of a woman and the
malevolence of a coward, who resented any
depreciatory allusions to his ancient kingdom as
insults to himself and attacks on his sovereign
power. There appeared one day in the
streets of Edinburgh a Polish gentleman of
the name of Stercoff (Latinised into
Stercovius). He travelled in his national garb,
as he had probably done in the other
enlightened capitals of Europe; but the Scottish
people, with an instinctive persuasion that
nobody could visit their cold and inhospitable
land without some sinister object, insulted
the foreigner wherever he appeared. They
hooted him on account of his dress, and of
course despised him because he spoke with a
foreign accent, and perhaps because he
occasionally washed his hands. At all events,
they made the man's visit very disagreeable.
He revenged himself by the publication of a
pamphlet called a Legend of Reproaches; and,
in it, expressed some very free opinions as to
the politeness, the kindness, the civilisation
of the Scottish nation. The king read the
book; and, from that hour, the fate of
Stercovius was sealed. He had left the country;
he was quietly living at home. But he had
a king for his enemy, and nothing could save
him. An ambassador was sent over to demand
his life: money was lavished to bribe
compliance: the claimant was King of
England. The culprit's native state was
anxious to stand well with the successor of
Elizabeth; and Stercovius was arrested and
hanged! The persecution of this poor man
cost his Majesty upwards of six hundred
pounds— a great sum in those days— but
revenge was sweet; and, if it could be had for
nothing, sweeter still. So he applied to the