it would be considered in the wages; there
was a frankness in this declaration which
commended itself at once. Here we were superior.
We could reason—drop the word—and bring
him back to right courses. But with Mr.
Joseph Andrews it is different: be he ever so
respectful or so modest in his piety, we do not
like it. But this is opening a chapter in human
nature; for perhaps we do not like "superior
piety" in others, even in our equals.

What does all this point to? Whither are
we to turn? There must be relief somewhere.
The evil is beginning to excite the consideration
of thoughtful men.

It is, indeed, a judgment on our vanity. To
gratify the wretched pomp of having what Mr.
Justice Blackstone calls one of "the worthier
blood" to open our door when Mr. Jones calls,
we suffer acutely at home, and lay down our
unresisting bodies to be driven over again and
again by a vile Juggernaut butler or footman.
Away with the nuisance, I say! The real
remedy is not so far off. There is neat-handed
Phyllis, trim—perhaps pretty—smart—light
of touch, soft in walk, nimble, brisk, and,
above all, willing. Her shoes do not creak like
that sot's, whom we had to send away last
week, having been roused, by a strong smell of
burning, to go down pantry-wards, and having
there found a lighted candle under a shelf,
which was slowly "charring" away, while the
wretch was lying on his bed with his clothes
on, and a bottle of our best brandy beside
him. She does not clatter among your silver
at the sideboard, or take an hour getting round
the table. In the value of her attendance she
is worth two of the chartered brutes, especially
to those who have no legitimate state to keep
up. An attentive, quiet, ready, systematic
male servitor at table is, however, invaluable,
not only in himself, but as an example to the
less accomplished understrappers, and where he
is in his proper place, that is, with a master who
can afford to keep him. Those who cannot,
should be contented with and prize the neat-
handed Phyllis. But, alas! how many struggle
on with mongrel men-servants merely for the
ostentation of the thing, and undergo endless
domestic tortures for the vicarious display of
crested buttons and bits of gold lace.

THE SIEGE OF SEVEN ACRES.

IT is but dimly remembered, even by historians,
that for several years after the revolution
of 1688, seven acres of Great Britain withstood
the naval and military forces of the rest of the
realm, the besieged refusing allegiance to
William and Mary, and heroically fighting under
the defiant banner of James the Third.

This four years' siege was maintained on the
island of Bass, which lies near the mouth of
the Forth, about two miles from the coast
of East Lothian, and which is, in fact, a
column of pure trap that rises perpendicularly
out of the sea to the height of four hundred
feet, though it shelves, on the southern side,
down to a cliff some ninety feet above the
waterline, where are built a series of gloomy state
prisons, surrounded by battlements embrasured
for at least twenty pieces of cannon. The habitable
surface of the rock comprises about seven
acres. It is perforated by a cavern, fearfully dark
in the centre, where, at times, the sea roars with
astounding violence; yet, notwithstanding the
terrors of its aspect, it is sometimes explored by
the young fishermen. Around the island, the
water averages two hundred feet in depth.
After the Restoration, this place was used as a
state prison, chiefly for troublesome political
culprits—a species of Scottish Bastille for non-
juring clergymen, of whom there were at one
time nearly fifty secluded on the island rock,
under a military guard. "The island of the Basse"
(to quote Magnæ Britanniæ Notitiæ, 1709) "was
an ancient possession of the family of Lauderdale,
and in the reign of Charles the Second
was bought and annexed to the crown. The
garrison is commanded by an ensign, a sergeant,
a corporal, and soldiers, whose pay is as
follows:

                                                   s. d.
     The ensign, per diem, is .  .  4  0
     The sergeant   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  2  0
     The corporal    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  1  4

The soldiers are taken out of her Majesty's
regiment of Guards, and paid with an allowance
of twopence sterling to each, which makes their
pay ninepence per diem."

In the spring of 1689, there were sent as
prisoners to the Bass four young officers of King
James's army in the north—Lieutenants Michael
Middleton and Halyburton, and Ensigns Roy
and Dunbar, who had been captured by General
Sir Thomas Livingstone, after the battle of
Killycrankie.

Fiery cavaliers of Dundee, boiling with hatred
and scorn of their sour and stern but now
triumphant  captors—for civil, political, religious,
and feudal rancour all seemed to inflame
party spirit in those unhappy times—they
commenced at once to plot for freedom; and
such adventurous blades soon found an
opportunity of turning the tables on their jailers
—a party of the Scots Guards, under Lieutenant
Wood.

Young and daring, the solitude and seclusion
of that lonely little castle, washed by the sea,
must soon have become intolerable to those
gentlemen, who had only before them a hopeless
captivity or a miserable death, and they boldly
conceived an idea of capturing the place.

This scheme is said to have been first
concerted in the house of Sir George Seton, of
Garleton, near Drem, who was afterwards made
a prisoner therefor, and it is also said to have
been originally suggested by Captain Charles
Maitland, the superseded deputy-governor for
King James, who certainly had several meetings
concerning the affair with two young cavaliers,
David Blair (son of James Blair, of Ardblair),
William Crawford, of Ardmillan, and some
others, who had all lived for a time, disguised as