The last fifty years of mortal regeneration and improvement have effected more changes in the old fasts, and feasts, and merrymakings of Scotland, than twice and twice over that time of any other period since it became a nation. Every year we see the good old customs dying out, or strangled by the Protaean imp Fashion, who, in the grand march of improvement of which we are so proud, in the perking conceit of heirs-apparent of the millennium, seems to be the only creature that derives benefit from the eternal changes that, by-and-by, we fear, will turn our heads, and make us look _back_ for the true period of happiness and wisdom. But what enrageth us the more is, that, while all our fun of Beltane, Halloween, Hogmanay, Hanselmonday, and all our old merrymakings, are gone with our absentee lords and thanes-- "Wha will their tenants pyke and squeize, And purse up all their rent; Syne wallop it to far courts, and bleize Till riggs and schaws are spent"-- and to whose contempt of our old customs we attribute a great part of their decay--we, in the very midst of the glorious improvement that has succeeded, are still cheated, belied, robbed, and plundered on all hands by political adventurers, private jobbers, and saintly hypocrites, in an artful, clean-fingered, and beautiful style of the trade, a thousand times more provoking than the clumsy, old-fashioned, _honest_ kind of roguery that used to be in fashion, when folk were not too large for innocent mirth, and not too wise for enjoying what was liked by their ancestors. The people cry improvement--so do we; but we cherish a theory that has no charm, in these days of absolute faith in politics and parliament for the regeneration of man, that the true good of society--that is, the improvement of the heart and morals of a great country--lies in a sphere far humbler than the gorgeous recesses of Westminster--the fireside; a place that in former days, was revered, and honoured, and cherished, not only as the cradle of morals, but the abode of soul-stirring joys, and the scene of the celebration of many old and sacred amusements which humanized the young heart, and moulded and prepared it for the reception of those feelings which are interwoven with the very principle of social good. A political wrangle is a poor substitute for the old moral tales of the winter evenings of old Scotland. Even our legends of superstitious fear carried in them the boon of heartfelt obligation, which, when the subject was changed for the duties of life, still retained its strength, and wrought for good. These things are all gone; and, dissatisfied as we are with the bold substitutes of modern wisdom, let us use that which they cannot take from us, our books of "auld lear," and refresh ourselves with a peep at Leslie, in the Hogmanay of 16--. Who has not heard of "Christ's Kirk" in the kingdom of Fife, that place so celebrated by King James, in