It will appear, from these notices, that no individual has sat for the portrait of Dinmont, but that it has been painted from indiscriminate recollections of various border store-farmers. We cannot do better than conclude with the words of the author himself, when introducing this subject to the reader:—“The present store-farmers of the south of Scotland are a much more refined race than their fathers, and the manners I am now to describe have either altogether disappeared or are greatly modified. Without losing their rural simplicity of manners, they now cultivate arts unknown to the former generation, not only in the progressive improvement of their possessions, but in all the comforts of life. Their houses are more commodious, their habits of life better regulated, so as better to keep pace with those of the civilized world; and the best of luxuries, the luxury of knowledge, has gained much ground among the hills during the last thirty years. Deep drinking, formerly their greatest failing, is now fast losing ground; and while the frankness of their extensive hospitality continues the same, it is, generally speaking, refined in its character, and restrained in its excesses.” A SCOTCH PROBATIONER. (_Dominie Sampson._) There are few of our _originals_ in whom we can exhibit such precise points of coincident resemblance between the real and fictitious character, as in him whom we now assign as the prototype of Dominie Sampson. The person of _real_ existence also possesses the singular recommendation of presenting more dignified and admirable characteristics, in their plain unvarnished detail, than the ridiculous caricature produced in “Guy Mannering,” though _it_ be drawn by an author whose elegant imagination has often exalted, but seldom debased, the materials to which he has condescended to be indebted.