As a specimen of the manners and ferocious disposition of the German Gipsies, so late as the year 1726, I shall here transcribe a few extracts from an article published in Blackwood's Magazine, for January, 1818. This interesting article is partly an abridged translation, or rather the substance, of a German work on the Gipsies, entitled "A Circumstantial Account of the Famous Egyptian Band of Thieves, and Robbers, and Murderers, whose Leaders were executed at Giessen, by Cord, and Sword, and Wheel, on the 14th and 15th November, 1726, &c." It is edited by Dr. John Benjamin Wiessenburch, an assessor of the criminal tribunal by which these malefactors were condemned, and published at Frankfort and Leipsic, in the year 1727. The translator of this work is Sir Walter Scott, who obligingly offered me the use of his "scraps" on this subject. The following are the details in his own words. "A curious preliminary dissertation records some facts respecting the German Gipsies, which are not uninteresting. "From the authorities collected by Wiessenburch, it appears that these wanderers first appeared in Germany during the reign of Sigismund. The exact year has been disputed; but it is generally placed betwixt 1416 and 1420. They appeared in various bands, under chiefs, to whom they acknowledged obedience, and who assumed the titles of dukes and earls. These leaders originally affected a certain degree of consequence, travelling well equipped, and on horseback, and bringing hawks and hounds in their retinue. Like John Faw, 'Lord of Little Egypt,' they sometimes succeeded in imposing upon the Germans the belief in their very apocryphal dignity, which they assumed during their lives, and recorded upon their tombs, as appears from three epitaphs, quoted by Dr. Wiessenburch. One is in a convent at Steinbach, and records that on St. Sebastians' eve, 1445, 'died the Lord Pannel, Duke of Little Egypt, and Baron of Hirschhorn, in the same land.' A monumental inscription at Bautmer, records the death of the 'Noble Earl Peter, of Lesser Egypt, in 1453;' and a third, at Pferz, as late as 1498, announces the death of the 'high-born, Lord John, Earl of Little Egypt, to whose soul God be gracious and merciful.'