first informed us, was kidnapped by D’Artagnan in the midst of his army and carried off in a fishing boat from Coldstream to Holland, to be laid bound before his lawful king, brought back after all in time to prevent Athos from exterminating a company of Scottish soldiers in defence of his million. The whole series of those Three Musketeers’ adventures contains many such curious side lights on the history of our country. In a comic opera, of course, one need not read up for examinations; yet Scribe’s _Dame Blanche_, bearing to the _Monastery_ and _Guy Mannering_ much the same relation as Thackeray’s _Rebecca and Rowena_ to _Ivanhoe_, should not have opened with a rustic Scots couple hard up for a godfather to their child, nor ended with the sale of an estate that carried with it a peerage and a seat in Parliament. Perhaps, after all, Scottish writers may be trusted for a more faithful picture of their own country; and one would commend the reader rather to Sarah Tytler’s _St. Mungo’s City_ as a truthful and taking tale of Glasgow life, including a trip on the Clyde under characteristic circumstances. Only this trip is not one to be suggested to strangers, since it is an incident of Glasgow Fair, that concentrated week of more than Bank Holiday-making, when the great city of the West disperses itself to its waterside resorts so recklessly that in the familiar rainy weather churches as well as police stations may have to be thrown open to thousands of roofless and hundreds of senseless guests. Let the Sir Charles Grandisons of the south, and the Miss Ophelias of the States mix themselves rather with the Trades Holidays’ bustle of Edinburgh, or the 12th August distraction of Perth station. “The steamer (as our author describes this popular excursion), fluttering with flags from stem to stern, was pushing down the river on the sunny yet showery summer day, preceded and followed by many similar vessels, through the labyrinth of shipping from every part of the world--past wharves and warehouses deserted by toilers--past the yards, well known to ship-builders, with skeleton ships on the stocks, where the sheds were forsaken and the din mute. Down and down the living freight went, till green pastures and ripening cornfields began to smile under the very [Illustration: GLEN SANNOX, ISLE OF ARRAN]