ther. To the latter she likewise gave three or four numbers of the Caledonian Mercury, the only newspaper which was then published to the north of the Tweed.

Both gentlemen retired to examine their dispatches, and Edward speedily found that those which he had received contained matters of very deep interest.

CHAPTER II.

News from England.

THE letters which Waverley had hitherto received from his relations in England, were not such as required any particular notice in this narrative. His father usually wrote to him with the pompous affectation of one who was too much oppressed by public affairs to find leisure to attend to those of his own family. Now and then he mentioned persons of rank in Scotland to whom he could wish his son should pay some attention; but Waverley, hitherto occupied by the amusements which he/ had found at Tully-Veolan and Glennaquoich, dispensed with paying any attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of ab

sence, and so forth, furnished a ready apology. But, latterly, the burthen of Mr Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and which would insure his son's obtaining the most rapid promotion, should he remain in the military service. Sir Everard's letters were of a different tenor. They were short; for the good: baronet was none of your illimitable cor respondents whose manuscript overflows: the folds of their large post paper, and leaves no room for the seal; but they were kind and affectionate, and seldom concluded without some allusion to our hero's steed, some question about the state of his purse, and a special enquiry after such of his recruits as had preceded him from Waverley-Honour. Aunt Rachael charged him to remember his principles of religion, to take care of his health, to beware of Scotch mists, which, she had heard, would wet an Englishman to the skin; never to go out

at night without his great-coat; and, above all, to wear flannel near his skin.

Mr Pembroke only wrote to our hero one letter, but it was of the bulk of six epistles of these degenerate days, containing, in the moderate compass of ten folio pages, closely written, a precis of a supplementary quarto manuscript of addenda, delenda, et corrigenda, in reference to the two tracts with which he had presented Waverley. This he considered as a mere sop in the pan to stay the appetite of Edward's curiosity, until he should find an opportunity of sending down the volume. itself, which was much too heavy for the post, and which he proposed to accompa ny with certain interesting pamphlets, lately published by his friend in Little Britain, with whom he had kept up a sort of literary correspondence, in virtue of. which the library shelves of WaverleyHonour were loaded with much trash, and a good round bill, seldom summed in fewer than three figures, was yearly transmit

ted, in which Sir Edward Waverley of Waverley-Honour, Bart., was marked Dr. to Jonathan Grubbet, bookseller and stationer, Little Britain. Such had hitherto been the style of the letters which Edward had received from England; but the packet delivered to him at Glennaquoich was of a different and more interesting complexion. It would be impossible for the reader, even were I to insert the letters at full length, to comprehend the real cause of their being written, without a glance into the interior of the British Cabinet at the period in question.

The ministers of the day happened (no very singular event) to be divided into two parties; the weakest of which, making up by assiduity of intrigue their in feriority in real consequence, had of late acquired some new proselytes, and with them the hope of superseding their rivals in the favour of the sovereign, and over-1 powering them in the House of Commons. Amongst others, they had thought it