EDINBURGH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 549, 21 September 1863, Page 5

EDINBURGH.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT,

25th July, 18G3. The Dunedin correspondent of the (London) Times tells us that a thousand stalwart Otagonian3 are going to occupy as military settlers the belt of native land intervening between Tatavaimaka and New Plymouth. Is this (rue 1 and how long have you had a Mer jury of the great Jupiter amongst you 1 His Iris I suppose, is Miss Rye. At any rate, that lady writes long letters to the '"leading journal," containing not very flattering accounts of your manners and customs, and rather more favorable reports than we receive from other quarters of her own proceedings To turn to a rather more practical system of emigration than that of the, no doubt, kind-hearted, "but still somewhat captious and visionary lady I have mentioned, the Nelson sailed from the Clyde on the 15th for Dunedin, having on board 250 passengers, principally agricultural laborers, and the largest cargo ever shipped from Glasgow to your city. The 1 new Manager of the Bank of Ofrago is to be Mr John Bathsate, formerly of PeeblesYour Government Surveyor is to be Mr Char.'es O'Neill, C. E., to whom Glasgow is largely indebted for the graceful and most convenient suspension bridge which connects Glasgow Green with the south bank of the Clyde. Mr 0' Neill is an enthusiastic volunteer. He held a commission as captain in the 3rd Lancashire Riflles, and is said to be the author of the improved Wimbleton system of scoring. I read in my Scotsman this morning that the Sir William Eyre lost 22 of of her passengers before she made the Invercargill Bluff, and two after she had let go her anchor. Captain Stewart tha Emigration Agent on the Clyde, brought an action against her owner for not having put enough water on board. Sheriff Bell assoilzied the defenders, but pave no costs. An effort is now being made to send as man? unemployed cotton operatives as possible from the west of Scotland to Canada. A first batch ot 230 left the Clyde on the 16th,- Handloom weavers will probably constitute the majority ot those sent out. _ For many a year, thanks to the powerloom, their occupation had been almost gone, and had there been no cotton famine, th«re would have been a dearth of bread for them. Canada is selected as their nt-w home, chiefly because the cost of conveying them to it will be so small.

Whilst Scotchmen are thus flocking out of their country, two war vessels flying the French tri-color half-mast hi>rh, brought and escorted ba-k t> his natiye land, on Tuesday, the corpse of Scotland's premier pier. Some score of years ago, when I was a scbuol-boy in beautiful Bath. I sometimes met riding-, sometimes on foot, once in Van Amburgh's Cirous' an old gentleman who*e white hair fell in a scanty pig-tail over the collar of his black coat, and who always wore Hessian"?. This I was told, was William fieckford. Now [ had read in Child's Harold "■ And thftu, too. Vathek,, England's wealthiest son,"' and •looked.with reverence on a man who had actually been embalmed in verse by Byron. I was tuld that -Vathek was no longer England's wealthiest son, but that made the old man somehoVmore interesting to me.,-- I let my fancy'nin riot in picturing to myself what his treasures used to be, and devoured with greedy ears, toe storie* that were told me of'the treasures he still retained, in jewels and plate and china an'l works of art and oriental curiosities— enough if sold, to dower with -handsome fortunes, a 3ozen duchesses—in his double house1 in Lansdo'wne Crescent, and the Tower "called"afteriiis name, which stands on the down above, from which the Crescent takes its name. I read Vath ck and the Letters in which. Beekford describes his travels. I got to hear all I could about Fonthill, to' build, which Beckforl was in such haste that he ■pressed into his service all available labor for miles around, and turned night, into day by menns of lanterns, torches, and bonfires. I heard, of. course th« curious collection of mingled truth and falsehood winch always- cluster round the name of a man of genius and wealth, who lives solitary in a city, or iodeed, any where, hnlt from pride ani half from eccentricity. I was informed that Bedford w«s an model, and that he had left instructions in his will that he should not be buried in consecrate!) pround but m the garden of his tower-that he had'alrendvhad his tomb made out of a massive block of red polished gn.nite, the weight of which ha-1 caused the railway acciden rat Wootton Bassett. Wheu a innn has the reputation of being a sceptic, his orthodox neighbors, of course, always charitably jump to the conclusion that his morals must be infinitely worse than their own, instead o; being as is frequently the case—take the utetances of Spinoza and -iehte, for example—far better. Accordingly I listened to dark hints of darkest deeds perpetrated by the old ?naa, when his blood was hottest in darkest hours. * 'Id wive's fables I believe all these stories to have been, but. I do sot kuow that there is much reason to suppo^ that Beckford was better than his neighnor.--. He seems, at any rate to have been a very irascable and, in some cases, an implacable old man. He was accustomed, I was informed, to flog his servants when he was out of temper. His servants, however, rather liked the operation than otherwise, and would put themselves in his- way when the evil spirit was upon him, since they always received golden ointment with which to salve thickly their cuts and contusions. One of my anecdotes ran that whilst he was chastising his butler, he dropped bis cane, picked it up, presented it to him with the quiet remark of ' ■ your stick, your honor," and patiently submitted to the rest of the flogging. < Another of ray anecdotes was that Beckford had disinherited and sworn th.it he would never see again (although he would daily have a cover laid for at table) one of his daughters, because she had married clandestinely a subaletrn' in a. line regiment, whereas her sister had married the Duke of Hamilton.- Well, one day 'I. read in the Bath Chronic'e that Beckford was dead, and, "greatly to my surprise, that he was to be buried in the Bath Cemetery. The day of the funeval was soft and grey. The church bells in the basin which Bath fills were dolefully tolling as 1 walked along the fable land which extends between abrupt Beechen Oliff and lovely sloping Lyncombe Vale, rich according to the season in apple blossom, primroses, pale, fragile wood anemones and vernal foliage of virgin green ; in the dark foliage, the lush grass of summer, and tin splendour of summer flowers, drooping their clusters from branches trained along hot walls, boughs of standard trees which just wave in the sultry air, or bushes guarding- their beauties with fixed bayonets, blazing in pcecil parterres, or gleaming in ten-banked rows of glory through open greenhouses, in terraced gardens; or in the mournful magnificence of trees which autumn has made an harmonious chord of all the colors—a sere leaf ever and anon dropping slowly through the still air to the ground -the blended gold and ruby of ripe frui,t, the ripe reds of hedge-side ferns, and the rambling luxuriance of hedgerow creepers. 1 think it was in autumn that I looked down on Lyncombe Vale, on my road to the Bath Cemetery, to witness the funeral of the old man who had taken so strong a hold upon my interest. Sadly through the unsuuny air floated up the monotonous voices of the towers and steeples. I did not then know what the blackguard boys of Avon-street and Holloway were chanting in the thoroughfares of Bath. " Toll, toll the bell." Beckford's soul has gone to hel'." At last_ the hear*e and the long line of carriages wound into the burial ground, the solemn word> -were read, and the mob rushed forward to get a glimpse of the coffin, covered with the costliest purple velvet I which Genoa weaves, ami heavily plated, and handled and studded with gold. So fiercely did tha mob rush that I was carried off my feet and clashed against two of the chief mourners, a man with the face and a frame of an Apollo, and a veiled woman in black who seemed worthy to be his bride. That man was he -whose corpse was last week in grimy Greenock, that woman she who is now his disconsolate widow, the Princess Marie of B tden. Strange to say, the Duke had insured his life for LIOO,OGO, chiefly in Scotch offices, a month before he died. A rumor has got afloat that the companies intend to dispute the policies, on the ground that his, Grace concealed from them the fact that he had latterly fallen into intemperate habits.: On the other .hand.- it is said that the companies moan to do no such thing, and that the insinuation of' drunkenness is an utterly gratuitous—and if so, of course, a most % af~^ calumny. It seems to be founded on the fact ttiat the Duke was retiring from a petit souper in .Faris when he was seized with the falling fit which cost him his life. The Duke, on dit, wa-* coldly regarded at the . court of St. James's, because he -w fond of visiting the TuiUeries. and .took so little interest in any British- interests, save those of his own tenants. It must be confessed that all that the British public knows of the Duke is that he was very wealthy, very proud, and so handsome that many a heart is said to have been broken— fhoPrin'^M I'o^ 11 ?r ow a days-^en he married ■SiS-vW IT 6 ' He apPßars t0 have been an excellent landlord however. Hia tenants showed their appreciation of him by flocking by hundreds, and at great inconvenience to his funeral. The classically Mioalded body wlueh will so soon be corruption, was landed m state at Greenock, received in state a? Hamilton, there : it*lay id state, and on Thursday it wa S: nuried in state ia the mausoleum in the^ Hamilton Palace grounds. It rests besides that of his mother, Beckford's daughter. When the branches of the veiling ehu-tvees

and beech trees blow aside, the young jjuke cai see from the Palace windows the sumptuous sepulchre in which his ancestors rests, watched over by a rosecrowned emblem ot Lite, a poppy-wreathed emblem of Death, and various emblems of Eternity. One of the tombs in the Hamilton nriuso'eum is an Egyptian sarcoohagus, an<l this reminds me that a man of of whom his country at' large Las far more reason to bs proud than it had to boast of, the late Duke of Hamilton, Henry Khind, of Sihster, the domestic antiquarian and Egyptologist, died recently at Zurich, leaving money for the formation of a Scotch Archajoloaical Lectureihip, to defray the expense of archsQolo"ieal explorations in the N. E. of Scotland, to ».<stiblish two Scholarships in the University of Edinburgh, and to endow an Hospital for the industrial training of the young girls of Wick Kfr W. Chambers has stumbled over an areliasolo^ical curiosity, a volume of records of the Burgh of Peebles, going back as far as 1456. Mr Gr. H. Ramsay, nephew of the former occupant of the chair, has been chosen Professor of Humanity at GHassrow, and Professor Sellar, of Sc Andrews, Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh It is a pity, I think, that that excellent scholar, Dr chmitz, of the Edinburgh High School, who was a candidate tor both chairs, was not elected at Glasgow.^ However, since he w.w n-.ifc, Princa Alfred will not ba deprived of hi 3 private instructions next winter.

The Royal Lieutenant is expected to arrive in the Cly le next Monday. He has been taking a summer cruise round in the Racoon, landing ever and anon, to feast and dance and fish witli"a frequency which must be very pleasant to himself and to his messmates in the wardroom, who accornpuny him. There is seme. difference between sailing with Prince Alfred, and blockading- the pestilential coasts of Africa or storming pahs in New Zealand. The Channel Fleet, .chiefly consisting of iro.iclads, will also soon be looking iv at our eastern and western ports. The French man-of-war's mea, now at Grreenock, and the hluejackets of H.M.S; La ,Hogue, lying off that port, have struck up what may be called an inoffabie friendship. They .roll th~ough the streets together most loyhHv neither comraie can make out what the' dther>'"is saying, but Jack Tar treats Jean Grapaud. liberally to grog, which Jean1 likes but which does not liit&' him. He becomes profuse in his gesticulations' of' gratitude. Jack • muzzy, but far from " j;one"—regards his campanion with a most amusing expression of good-humored contempt. The; Frenchmen have somehow made the Englishmen understand that they want to pull against them. The international races are to come off next week. I am afraid that trance will not gather a very copious crop of laurels. ' .

By-the-bye, Green, of New South Wales, whom the Ohampjon of the Thames licked co easily is looking up in ths London aquatic market In a twocKred rae, on th& London river, ex-champion'Ke.ly being the other oar; he and Green easily walked away from all competitors. In another, a scul ers' mutch, Green came in second to Kplly, the other pullers being nowheie. Again pulling by himself, Wreen. came in first.

Glasgow Fair is nearly over. HabituSs say that the shows are not equ-il—although they count amongst them a French giant eight feet high, and a wretched little Scotchvv..nifin, who ought'to be hurried off at once to an hospital for incurables, imbe•ilely groaning under >he eflVct3 of hideous hydrocephalus -to those of former days. Hengler's Circu-, however—the temp-.rary building cost more than £2000—is a magnific *nt exception to the general rule. The.- Glasgow Theatre Royal will soon rise, phoenix like (most original figure !) from its. a-lies in Dunlop street. In Edinburgh, Professor Pepper's patented ghost, which has excited' so much excitement iv London' ami Paris/has paid1 us a visit.' Th» illusion is really' marvellous,- 'but similar optical effects were years ago brought'upoti the .stage—for instance, wiic-e Banquo spoils the banquet—and, therefore, I cannot see what light Mr Pepper's ghost has to b<} registered like a paletot. More interesting visitors have icoine to Bdinburgtfin1 the subsra .tially flesh and blood persons of the offish and priyvtes of that thoroughly .^cotch regiment, the 92nd Highlanders. The graud-lookine. gallant fellows were received by the inhabitants of our Hunedin 'with au enthusiasm only exceeded by the warmth of the welcome they gave a year or two ago to the equally gallant, soldier-like, and well-behaved 78th. Some of the officer.'!, and many of the privates, of which ' Highland" regiments, by the way, were born either on the other side of the Border or the other side of tae North Channel.