constructed out of two old silken gowns, whilome pertaining to my great grandmother, and the which, I asseverate upon mine own credit, were more worthy of the imposing name of brocade, than that of simple flimsy silk.

In like manner, too, most worthy Public, it has been hinted that I, Cuthbert Clutterbuck, am, somehow or other, related to that most inestimable old Highland gentleman called Ossian. I disclaim the connection altogether; and let Macpherson himself gainsay me, or prove the reverse. As for Sindbad, whom men have called the sailor, Aboulfouaris, and Robinson Crusoe, with whom I have been associated as to use a common expression

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bird of the same feather, their erudite works indubitably delighted mine earlier day, and the perusal of them then awoke in my heart a feeling it can never know again. It was like the impression of a first love-known once, and but once, in life; the memory of it may survive, but the reality will never return. Farther than this, gentle Public, I disclaim all knowledge of, or connection with, the parties I have named. In justice to them, however, I am bound to say, that having proved this said land of Utopia to be a mere ideal land—a place without a "local habitation and a name, -it follows, that they are no more inhabitants of it than I am, and that neither of us know any thing

more about the place, or have any closer connection with it, than the renowned Jedediah Cleishbotham himself, whose reality and identity I have never heard disputed.

It is no doubt true, dear Public, that I cannot bring forward a living witness to the identity of Aboulfouaris, Sindbad, or Robinson Crusoe; nor, for my present occasion, is it necessary that I should. Their works speak for them; and having shewn that they are not the beings of the land of fable, is, in my humble apprehension, somewhat akin to establishing that they belong to the land of reality; for he who is not of another world, must doubtless be of this; although my worthy friend the Schoolmaster invariably dings

into my dexter ear, that my conclusion, as he most logically terms it, is what he is pleased to denominate a non sequitur- of the precise meaning of the whilk term I profess myself to be profoundly ignorant. But, as respects myself, I feel it my bounden duty to go a step farther; and, in the present instance, to use my utmost endeavours to satisfy you of my identity. Gentle Public, on this point, the testimony of a single credible witness is worth all the idle words that I could utter. I refer you, then, to my excellent and unexampled friend, the Schoolmaster of Kennaquhair, whose singleminded bosom has been the receptacle of my confidence since the first day of my establishment in these

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parts. I cannot lose this opportunity of doing justice to a good friend, because, whatever his faults may have been- and doubtless he had some, for which of us is without them? - he hath been to me as a tried blade in the grasp of its owner -dear Public, forgive the similealbeit, in respect that, upon more occasions than one, he hath taken upon himself to lecture me, as he calls it, and to extract the root of common sense from the wide square of my multifarious and wandering ideas, his testimony can scarcely be rejected upon the ground of inordinate affection, nor ob reverentiam personarum, et metum perjurii, as the Roman law hath it. To another witness, had he been in existence,