ered; and it should be the duty of this court to weigh
dispassionately the complaint of every man injured in his honour, either
by word or deed, and to force the offender to make a public apology. If he
refused the apology, he would be the breaker of a second law; an offender
against a high court, as well as against the man he had injured, and might
be punished with fine and imprisonment, the latter to last until he saw
the error of his conduct, and made the concession which the court
demanded.

If, after the establishment of this tribunal, men should be found of a
nature so bloodthirsty as not to be satisfied with its peaceful decisions,
and should resort to the old and barbarous mode of an appeal to the
pistol, some means might be found of dealing with them. To hang them as
murderers would be of no avail; for to such men death would have few
terrors. Shame alone would bring them to reason. Transportation, the
tread-wheel, or a public whipping, would perhaps be sufficient.

RELICS.

A fouth o' auld knick-knackets,
Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets,
Wad hand the Lothians three, in tackets,
A towmond guid;
An' parritch pats, and auld saut backets,
Afore the flood.
BURNS.

[Illustration: T]

The love for relics is one which will never be eradicated as long as
feeling and affection are denizens of the heart. It is a love which is
most easily excited in the best and kindliest natures, and which few are
callous enough to scoff at. Who would not treasure the lock of hair that
once adorned the brow of the faithful wife now cold in death, or that hung
down the neck of a beloved infant now sleeping under the sward? Not one!
They are home-relics, whose sacred worth is intelligible to all: spoils
rescued from the devouring grave, which to the affectionate are beyond all
price. How dear to a forlorn survivor the book over whose pages he has
pored with one departed! How much greater its value, if that hand, now
cold, had written a thought, an opinion, or a name, upon the leaf! Besides
these sweet domestic relics, there are others which no one can condemn:
relics sanctified by that admiration of greatness and goodness which is
akin to love; such as the copy of Montaigne's _Florio_, with the name of
Shakspeare upon the leaf, written by the poet of all time himself; the
chair preserved at Antwerp, in which Ru