tones that never die away from the memory. Mrs Ford answers smile for smile and grip for grip to Mrs Brook--Caius, for the first time, is the perfect gentleman which only Wigan can depict; and scene after scene floats away before us, till it is only by an effort we wake from a dream of Herne the Hunter's Oak to the harsh realities of eighteen hundred and fifty-two. In some future communication we will extend our Commissionership to the other theatres, and to various places of amusement not often brought forward 'neath the glimpses of the moon. Beware, then, ye managers and caterers of public shows; be conscious of the importance and responsibilities of your position. When we see talent, enterprise, and skill, not slow shall we be to give the word of cheer; but where we observe the smallest deviation into the coarse or the insipid, remember you have nothing to expect but rebukes sharper than swords. "A chield's amang ye takin' notes, And, faith, he'll print it." THE COMMERCIAL DISASTERS OF 1851. (TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.) SIR,--The country is shortly to be called upon to decide the important question whether the policy, under which it has for the last few years been governed, is, or is not, susceptible of some modification; and, as one portion of this question, the soundness of our present commercial policy must undoubtedly be discussed. Indeed, it seems to be taken for granted on all hands that this must be the case; and in a great empire like our own, whose main source of strength has been conceived to rest upon the pre-eminence of its mercantile and industrial character, it would be singular if it could be otherwise. And it would be lamentable, too, and little calculated to inspire the hope of peace for the future, and confidence in the stability of our institutions, should that portion of the question at issue be discussed in any other spirit than that of an anxious and careful desire to arrive at the truth. No policy not based upon the truth has ever long prevailed in any civilised country. No Christian man, conscious as such a man ought to be of the imperfections of merely human judgment, could ever set himself up above his fellows as infallible. We have surely a perfect right to appeal to past experience in order to discover what has been the effect of our policy upon the different interests of the country; and in the following pages I shall endeavour to examine dispassionately what has been that effect upon our mercantile and trading classes, and particularly upon those engaged in conducting our large importing and exporting operations.