Such, however, was Mr SMARTLE'S course; and the sole consolation is that, owing to his unprofessional precipitation, the action was set down for trial previously to the commencement of the Long Vacation, and my case may come on some time next Term, and I be put out of my misery at the close of the year. My aforesaid legal adviser, finding that I adhered with the tenacity of bird-slime to my determination to conduct my case in person, did hint in no ambiguous language, that it might perhaps be even better for me to do the guy next November to my native land, and snip my fingers then from a safe distance at the plaintiff. But it is not my practice to exhibit a white feather (except when prostrated by severe bodily panics), and I am consumed by an ardent impatience to air my fluencies and legal learnedness before the publicity of a London Law Court. Now, begone dull care! for I am to dismiss all litigious thoughts till October or November next, and become a _Dolce far niente_, chasing the deer with my heart in the Highlands. My volunteering acquaintance, by the way, has declined to lend me his rifle, on the transparent pretence that it was contrary to regulations, and that it was not the _bon ton_ to pursue grouse-birds and the like with so war-like a weapon. So, on young HOWARD'S advice, I made the purchase from a pawnbroker of a lethal instrument, provided with a duplicate bore, so that, should a bird happen by any chance to escape my first barrel, the second will infallibly make him bite the dust. I have also purchased some cartridges of a very pleasing colour, a hunting knife, and a shot belt and pouch, and if I can only procure some inexpensive kind of sporting hound from the Dogs' Home, I shall be forewarned and forearmed _cap à pie_ for the perils and pleasures of the chase. Miss WEE-WEE did earnestly advise me, inasmuch as I was about to go amongst the savage hill tribes of canny Scotians, to previously make myself acquainted with their idioms, &c., for which purpose she lent me some romances written entirely in Caledonian dialects, also the compositions of Hon. Poet BURNS. But hoity-toity! after much diligent perusal, I arrived at the conclusion that such works were sealed books to the most intelligent foreigner, unless he is furnished with a good Scotch grammar and dictionary. And _mirabile dictu!_ though I have made diligent inquiries of various London booksellers, I have found it utterly impossible to obtain such works in England--a haughty and arrogantly dispositioned country, more inclined to teach than to learn! How many of your boasted British Cabinet, supposed to rule our countless millions of so-called Indian subjects, would be capable to sit down and read and translate--_correctly_--a single sentence from the Mahábhárat in the original? Not more, I shrewdly suspect, than half a dozen at most!