owre her now uninstructed worshippers."

"Weel! that's grand, James!—that's really famous!" said one of the coterie of Levellers to whom it was delivered; "odd! ye beat a'thing—ye're a match for Wheatbread himsel."

"James," said another, "without meaning to flatter ye, if Billy Pitt had ye to gie him a dressing, I believe he wad offer ye a place the very next day, just to keep yer tongue quiet."

James was one of those who denounced, with all the vehemence and indignation of which he was capable, Britain's engaging in a war with France. He raised up his voice against it. He pronounced it to be an unjust and an impious attempt to support oppression, and to stifle freedom in its cradle.

"But in that freedom they will find a Hercules," cried he, "which, in its very cradle, will grip tyranny by the throat, and a' the kings in Europe winna be able to slacken its grasp."

When the star of Napoleon began to rise, and broke forth with a lustre which dazzled the eyes of a wondering world, the Levellers of Britain, like the Republicans of France, lost sight of their love of liberty, in their admiration of the military glories and rapid triumphs of the hero. James Nicholson was one of those who became blinded with the fame, the splendid success, and the daring genius of the young Corsican. Napoleon became his idol. His deeds, his capacity, his fame, were his daily theme. They became the favourite subject of every Leveller. They did not see in him one who laughed at liberty, and who made it his plaything, who regarded life as stubble, whose ambition circled the globe, and who was the enemy of Britain: they saw in him only a hero, who had burst from obscurity as a meteor from the darkness of night—whose glory had obscured the pomp of princes, and his word consumed their power.

The threatened invasion, and the false alarm, put the Leveller's admiration of Napoleon, and his love of his native land, to a severe trial; but we rejoice to say, for the sake of James Nicholson, that the latter triumphed, and he accompanied a party of volunteers ten miles along the coast, and remained an entire night, and the greater part of a day, under arms, and even he was then ready to say—

But, as the apprehension of the invasion passed away, his admiration of Napoleon's triumphs, and his reverence for what he termed his stupendous genius, burned with redoubled force.

"Princes are as grasshoppers before him," said James; "nations are as spiders' webs. The Alps became as a highway before his spirit—he looked upon Italy, and the land was conquered."

I might describe to you the exultation and the rejoicings of James and his brethren, when they heard of the victories of Marengo, Ulm, and Austerlitz; and how, in their little parties of two and three, they walked a mile farther together in the fields or by the sides of the Tweed, or peradventure indulged in an extra pint with one another, though most of them were temperate men: or, I might describe to you how, upon such occasions, they would ask eagerly, "But what is James saying to it?" I, however, shall dwell only upon his conduct when he heard of the battle of Jena. He was standing with a brother Leveller at a corner of the village when the mail arrived which conveyed the important tidings. I think I see him now, as he appeared at that moment. Both were in expectation of momentous information—they ran to the side of the coach together. "What news?—what news?" they inquired of the guard at once. He stooped down, as they ran by the side of the coach, and informed them. The eyes of James glowed with delight—his nostrils were dilated.

"Oh, the great, the glorious man!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands in ecstasy, and turning away from the coach; "the matchless!—the wonderful!—the great Napoleon! There is none like him—there never was—he is a sun among the stars—they cannot twinkle in his presence."

He and his friends received a weekly paper amongst them; it was the day on which it arrived. They followed the coach to the post-office to receive it; and I need not tell you with what eagerness the contents of that paper were read. James was the reader; and after he had read an account of the battle, he gave his readers a dissertation upon it.

He laid his head upon his pillow, with his thoughts filled with Napoleon and the battle of Jena; and when, on the following morning, he met two or three of his companions at the corner of the village, where they were wont to assemble for ten minutes after breakfast, to discuss the affairs of Europe, James, with a look of even more than his usual importance and sagacity, thus began:—

"I hae dreamed a marvellous dream. I saw the battle of Jena—I beheld the Prussians fly with dismay before the voice of the conqueror. Then did I see the great man, arrayed in his robes of victory, bearing the sword of power in his hand, ascend a throne of gold and of ivory. Over the throne was a gorgeous canopy of purple, and diamonds bespangled the tapestry as a firmament. The crowns of Europe lay before him, and kings, and princes, and nobles, kneeled at his feet. At his nod he made kings and exalted nations. Armies fled and advanced at the moving of his finger—they were machines in his hand. The spirits of Alexander and of Cæsar—all the heroes of antiquity—gazed in wonder upon his throne; each was surrounded by the halo of his victories and the fame of ages; but their haloes became dim before the flash of his sword of power, and the embodiment of their spirits became as a pale mist before the majesty of his eyes and the magnificence of his triumphs. The nations of the earth were also gathered around the throne, and, as with one voice, in the same language, and at the same moment, they waved their hands, and cried, as peals of thunder mingle wi' each other, "Long live the great emperor!" But, while my soul started within me at the mighty shout, and my eyes gazed with wonder and astonishment on the glory and the power of the great man, darkness fell upon the throne, troubled waters dashed around it, and the vision of night and vastness, the emperor, the kneeling kings, the armies, and the people, were encompassed in the dark waves—swallowed as though they had not been; and, with the cold perspiration standing on my forehead, I awoke, and found that I had dreamed."[1]

"It is a singular dream," said one.

"Sleeping or waking, James is the same man," said another, "aye out o' the common run. You and me wad hae sleepit a twelvemonth before we had dreamed the like o' that."

But one circumstance arose which troubled James much, and which all his admiration, yea, all his worship of Napoleon could not wholly overcome. James, as we have hinted, was a rigid Presbyterian, and the idea of a man putting away his wife he could not forgive. When, therefore, Napoleon divorced the gentle Josephine, and took the daughter of Austria to his bed—

"He hath done wrong," said James; "he has erred grievously. He has been an instrument in humbling the pope, the instrument foretold in the Revelation; and he has been the glorious means o' levelling and destroying the Inquisition—but this sin o' putting away his wife, and pretending to marry another, casts a blot upon a' his glories; and I fear that humiliation, as a punishment, will follow the foul sin. Yet, after a', as a man, he was subject to temptation; and, as being no common man, we maunna judge his conduct by common rules."

"Really, James," said the individual he addressed, "wi' a' my admiration o' the great man,