It might be a fair question whether the stranger’s science is so obsolete as the style of literature in which he is attacked, since Dunbar’s satirical poem, among other minor indications of a character unsuited to the higher offices in the Christian ministry, insinuates that the adventurer committed several murders; and although, the charge is made in a sort of rough jocularity, the force of it does not by any means rest on its absurdity and incredibility. He was accused of a mad project for extracting gold from the Wanlockhead Hills, in Dumfriesshire, which cannot be utterly scorned in the present day, since gold has actually been extracted from them, though, the process has not returned twenty shillings to the pound. This curious creature completed his absurdities by the construction of a pair of wings, with which he was to take a delightful aerial excursion to his native country. He proved his sincerity by starting in full feather from Stirling Castle. In such affairs it is, as Madame du Deffaud said about that walk taken by St Denis round Paris with his own head for a burden, _le premier pas qui coute_. The poor adventurer tumbled at once, and was picked up with a broken thigh-bone. Such is the only Frenchman who became conspicuous before Albany’s time as holding rank and office in Scotland. Albany had not long rubbed on with the Scots Estates when he found that he really must go to Paris, and as there seems to have been no business concerning Scotland that he could transact there, an uncontrollable yearning to be once more in his own gay world is the only motive we can find for his trip. The Estates of Scotland were in a surly humour, and not much inclined to allow him his holidays. They appointed a council of regency to act for him. He, however, as if he knew nothing about the constitutional arrangements in Scotland, appointed a sort of representative, who cannot have known more about the condition and constitution of Scotland than his constituent, though he had been one of the illustrious guests present at the marriage of James IV. He was called by Pitscottie ‘Monsieur Tilliebattie,’ but his full name was Antoine d’Arces de la Bastie, and he had been nicknamed or distinguished, as the case might be, as the Chevalier Blanc, or White Knight, like the celebrated Joannes Corvinus, the Knight of Wallachia, whose son became king of Hungary. M. Michel calls him the “_chivalresque et brillant La Bastie, chez qui le guerrier et l’homme d’état etaient encore supérieurs au champion des tournois_.” He was a sort of fanatic for the old principle of chivalry, then beginning to disappear before the breath of free inquiry, and the active useful pursuits it was inspiring. M. Michel quotes from a contemporary writer, who describes him as perambulating Spain, Portugal, England, and France, and proclaiming himself ready to meet all comers of sufficient rank, not merely to break a lance in chivalrous courtesy, but _à combattre à