The secure one, however, does not appear ever to suppose that the ladies have a veto in proposals of marriage. He looks upon them all as a class so eager on capturing and entrapping men, that it never enters into his head that there is such a thing as a rejected offer. The man he considers to be the passive and accepting party; the lady is the besieging enemy, and he is the fortress; the marriage takes place only if _he_ chooses. It may be supposed, then, what would be the state of a secure one’s mind, if he were to relent some fine day in a fit of generosity (a thing only to be supposed in the event of his becoming _fey_), and in a liberal, candid, honourable manner, offer his hand to a young lady of little fortune, whom he was disposed to think suitable on the score of personal merit alone, but who having some prior attachment to a man one-half as old, and twice as generous, was under the necessity of only thanking him for the honour. The cook or any thing after that! And how the whole sex would rejoice in his calamity!! “A fellow, forsooth, that has been a living insult to the tribe of womankind all his days. He is well served.” There is another kind of secure one, considerably different in circumstances from the above—a married man about sixty, with a large family, in which there are several grown daughters. These girls are constantly under his eye. At church he puts them into a pew, and sits down at the door himself, as if he were a kind of serpent guarding the Hesperian fruit. To the eyes of hundreds of young men under twenty, who are not yet considered to be sufficiently settled in the world to marry, these young ladies seem unapproachable as the top of the steeple. They look as if they were absolutely walled round with jealous and _secure_ paternity. One after another they are taken off by middle-aged cousins and other distant relations, about whose “respectability” there can be no doubt; and the young men in the back pew sigh to see that the family is determined upon being self-contained. For it is one of those families, perhaps, who enjoy the credit of a great deal of vague, and not very strictly apportioned wealth, under the clause, “There’s plenty o’ siller amang them;” and who seem as if they would consider the admission of a stranger into the circle as a thing of some danger, however “respectable” he might appear. TO SCOTLAND. Scotland! the land of all I love, The land of all that love me; Land, whose green sod my youth has trod, Whose sod shall lie above me! Hail! country of the brave and good, Hail! land of song and story; Land of the uncorrupted heart, Of ancient faith and glory! Like mother’s bosom o’er her child, Thy sky is glowing o’er me; Like mother’s ever-smiling face, Thy land lies bright before me. Land of my home, my father’s land, Land where my soul was nourished; Land of anticipated joy, And all by memory cherish’d!