e same month with the writing of _Scots, wha hae
wi' Wallace bled_!

Fully to appreciate the feelings of alarm under which Burns acted on
this occasion, it must be kept in view that the trial of Mr Thomas
Muir for sedition had taken place on the 30th of August, when, in the
evidence against him, appeared that of his servant, Ann Fisher, to the
effect that he had purchased and distributed certain copies of Paine's
_Rights of Man_. The stress laid upon that testimony by the
crown-counsel had excited much remark. It might well appear to a
government officer like Burns, that his own conduct at such a crisis
ought to be in the highest degree circumspect. We do not know exactly
the time when the incident which we are about to relate took place,
but it appears likely to have been nearly that of Muir's trial. Our
poet one day called upon his quondam neighbour, George Haugh, the
blacksmith, and, handing him a copy of Paine's _Common Sense_ and
_Rights of Man_, desired him to keep these books for him, as, if they
were found in his own house, he should be a ruined man. Haugh readily
accepted the trust, and the books remained in possession of his family
down to a recent period.--_Chambers's Life and Works of Burns, Vol.
IV._, _just published._

CURIOUS EXPERIMENT IN WOOL-GROWING.

The following is worthy of notice, as exemplifying what may be done,
by judicious attention, to improve an important national staple:--

'In a lecture recently delivered by Mr Owen at the Society of Arts,
the learned professor detailed the particulars of a highly interesting
experiment, which resulted in the establishment of one of the very few
instances in which the origination of a distinct variety of a domestic
quadruped could be satisfactorily traced, with all the circumstances
attending its development well authenticated. We must premise it by
stating, that amongst the series of wools shewn in the French
department of the Great Exhibition, were specimens characterised by
the jury as a wool of singular and peculiar properties; the hair,
glossy and silky, similar to mohair, retaining at the same time
certain properties of the merino breed. This wool was exhibited by J.
L. Graux, of the farm of Mauchamp, Commune de Juvincourt, and the
produce of a peculiar variety of the merino breed of sheep, and it
thus arose. In the year 1828, one of the ewes of the flock of merinos
in the farm of Mauchamp, produced a male lamb, which, as it grew up,
bec