the lovers of architecture have little to lament in its removal.  Our Correspondent, E.E., adds—­“This, and not the Lady Chapel, it was, (No. 456 of The Mirror,) that contained the gravestone of one Bishop Wickham, who, however, was not the famous builder of Windsor Castle, in the time of Edward III., but died in 1595, the same year in which he was translated from the see of Lincoln to that of Winchester.  His gravestone, now lying exposed in the churchyard, marks the south-east corner of the site of the aforesaid Magdalen Chapel.”

* * * * *

SCOTTISH ECONOMY.

SHAVINGS V. COAL AND PEAT.

(To the Editor.)

Without intending to be angry, permit me to inform your well-meaning correspondent, M.L.B. that his observations on the inhabitants of “Auld Reekie,” are something like the subject of his communication “Shavings,” rather superficial.

Improvidence forms no feature in the Scottish character; but your flying tourist charges “the gude folk o’ Embro’” with monstrous extravagance in making bonfires of their carpenters’ chips; and proceeds to reflect in the true spirit of civilization how much better it would have been if the builders’ chips had been used in lighting household fires, to the obviously great saving of bundle-wood, than to have thus wantonly forced them to waste their gases on the desert air.  But your traveller forgot that in countries which abound in wheat, rye is seldom eaten; and that on the same principle, in Scotland, where coal and peat are abundant, the “natives,” like the ancient Vestals, never allow their fires to go out, but keep them burning through the whole night.  The business of the “gude man” is, immediately before going to bed, to load the fire with coals, and crown the supply with a “canny passack o’ turf,” which keeps the whole in a state of gentle combustion; when, in the morning a sturdy thrust from the poker, produces an instantaneous blaze.  But, unfortunately, should any untoward “o’er-night clishmaclaver” occasion the neglect of this duty, and the fire be left, like envy, to feed upon its own vitals, a remedy is at hand in the shape of a pan “o’ live coals” from some more provident neighbour, resident in an upper or lower “flat;” and thus without bundle-wood or “shavings,” is the mischief cured.

I hope that this explanation will sufficiently vindicate my Scottish friends from M.L.B.’s aspersion.  Scotchmen improvident! never:  for workhouses are as scarce among them as bundle-wood, or intelligent travellers.  Recollect that I am not in a passion; but this I will say, though the gorge choke me, that M.L.B. strongly reminds me of the French princess, who when she heard of some manufacturers dying in the provinces of starvation, said, “Poor fools! die of starvation—­if I were them I would eat bread and cheese first.”