Royal George. He is easily wrought upon, and
something must be done to induce him to push on
at once to the Pentridge meeting, on pretence that his
influence alone can turn the Nottingham Captain and his
crew from their fanatical purpose. The meeting is
sure to be a seditious one; and if we can fix him with
taking any part in it, we are safe. His intention is to
come straight home from the Royal George, where this
awaits you. He must not come home."

This epistle had no signature, and was
addressed to Mr. Nolliver, under cover to K.
N. Nobble, Esq., Royal George, Nottingham,
to be left till called for. "The only suspicious
circumstance against the man," said Mr.
Vollum, "is this going about with an alias."
The letter bore the Crookston Withers post-
mark.

And, to Mr. Vollum's astonishment, so did
all the letters found on the other prisoner;
except one, and this had no post-mark. It
purported to be written by a political friend
of Lord Wordley, but the writing was very
like that of the prisoner, Nobble. It
intreated the recipient to go to Pentridge,
and use all his eloquence and influence to
turn aside the assembly to abandon its
mad and hopeless purpose. All the other
letters were deeply black-bordered and
were from the same writer—a lady.
Although Mr. Vollum, divined at a glance the
tender nature of this correspondence, he
sorted it according to dates, and went
through it as minutely as I had done, and
as methodically as if it had consisted of
indictments or leases. When he had finished
this part of his task, Mr. Vollum observed,
speaking to himself (a habit he had), "No
treason here, worse than domestic treason.
Well, when one brother does hate another,
the case—especially if the hate of a soured
woman is thrown into bargain—always
turns out to be a case of Cain and Abel."

He had been occupied in his scrutiny for
nearly half an hour, when, overhead—where
all had hitherto been deadly quiet—there
was a sudden moving of chairs, and
scuffling of feet. The court was being broken up
abruptly. A constable (Mr. Frontis, in fact,
the ladies' hair-dresser) ran down-stairs, rang
the ostler's bell, and ordered, in the highest
pitch of his treble voice, "A po-shay and
pair immejently! " He then satisfied the
curiosity that bloomed in the landlady's face
by squeaking, "Why, mem, we're in the
wrong county. The prisoners is remanded
to Derby."

GOLD IN GREAT BRITAIN.

"Cursed be the gold and silver which persuade
Weak men to follow far fatiguing trade!
The lily—Peace—outshines the silver store,
And life is dearer than the golden ore."

THE camel-driver of the poet may be
regarded as a type of those who, yielding to
the promptings of avarice, forsake the plodding
paths of honest and humble industry,
and commit themselves to the delusive
streams which "flow o'er golden sands." The
history of gold-seeking has, through all ages,
developed the worst features of humanity.
Depravity, crime, and misery are the
invariable attendants—the presiding fates—of the
gold-fields. The wretched character of the
earliest gold-seekers of the Bactrian steppes
appears in that strange story which
Herodotus tells: "It is affirmed, that the
Arimaspi—a people who have but one eye—
take the gold away by violence from the
griffins." So wretched was the character of
the gold-seeker in the eyes of Pliny, that
he thus commences his chapter on gold:
"Oh! that the use of gold were clean gone.
Would God it could possibly be quite
abolished among men, setting them, as it
doth, into such a cursed and excessive thirst
after it."

As it was in the days of antiquity, so was it
in the middle ages, and so it is in the present
day. The gold-miner of Scythia—of Spanish
America—of California and Australia, have
differed but little in character. A depraved
population distinguishes alike the auriferous
regions of the Old and of the New World.
Thus, too, deception, dishonesty, and crime
mark the story of the search for gold in
England.

We are told in the Triads, that the
Welsh princes rode in golden cars. Caesar
informs us that he was induced to invade
Britain by the representations which had
been made of its mineral treasures. Certain it
is that the Romans mined for gold in Wales;
at Ogofan, in Carmarthenshire, are well-
defined evidences of their search, and from the
remains of workshops, and the discovery of
golden ornaments, it would appear that search
must have been to some extent successful.
A strange tradition is connected with the
old British king Cymbeline. "Cymboline,
prince of the Trinobantes, which included
Essex, is stated to have coined gold money
instead of rings." Then the writer, Sir John
Pettus, in his strange but instructive Fodinæ
Regales, says, "This was probably the mine
afterwards discovered in the time of Henry
the Fourth." No such mine was ever found,
but Henry the Fourth, by his letters
mandamus, commands Walter Fitz Walter—"upon
information of a concealed mine of gold in
Essex—to apprehend all such persons as he
in his judgment thinks fit, that do conceal the
said mine, and to bring them before the
king and his council, there to receive what
shall be thought fit to be ordered."

From the reign of Henry the Third we
find numerous grants of all mines of gold,
and silver, in certain counties of England,
Scotland, and the English pale of Ireland.
Edward the Third and Henry the Sixth
appear to have been especially desirous of
developing the auriferous treasures of their
country, judging from the numerous grants
made by them. Shropshire, Cornwall, Devonshire