The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-07 00:00:00

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HER MAJESTY.

OSBORNE, Aug. 5.
-ler Majesty drove out yesterday with Prince

Arthur.
The Princesses walked and drove.

Aug. 6.
The Queen went out yesterday afternoon, accom-
panied by Prince Arthur and Princess Beatrice.
Princess llelena and Princess Louise drove out
with the Princess of Wales.

The Princess of Wales drove out with her Majesty
,n the evening.

To-day is the anniversary of the birth of Prince

ifred.

Her Majesty, Princess Helena, Princess Louise,
and Prince Arthur attended Divine service at Os-
borne this morning.

The Rev. W. L. Onslow, chaplain to her Majesty's
ship Racoon, officiated. • '
_ .

The Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess
Beatrice attended the service at Whippingham
Church.

The Judge Advocate General had an audience of
,he Queen yesterday.

Death of Professor Aytoun.

The death of Professor Aytoun will excite regret
and awaken a sense -of loss far beyond the limits of
Edinburgh, his native city, with which his life and
labours have been so intimately associated. The
tidings of his death will strike the great circle of the
reading public with sorrow—a sorrow not without
some mixture of surprise and disappointment, for
Mr. Aytoun had barely reached his prime, and it
seemed but natural to expect that for a long time
to come his hand would not be idle. But those who

new him, or who had opportunities of observing
him at public seasons, though they might hope,
could scarcely venture to be even as confident as iu
such matters it is usually permitted to be, that his
life would be much prolonged. For a number of
years, while all the time unrelaxing in his attention
to the business of his chair and unremitting in
activity with his pen, his state of health had been
unsatisfactory. No acute or local disease had laid
its hand upon him ; he was rather, as he has himself
on one occasion expressed it, uneasy than unwell ;
and he hoped and sought, by change of air and keen
entrance, so far as his duties allowed, into the
enjoyments of a country life, to repair the
breaches of the past, and prepare a store of
health against the future. For several summers
he went, under medical advice, to Homburg, in
Germany ; his first season there made no change
for the better, but the next effected a marked

improvement, which continued so long as he fre-
quented that morally unwholesome, but, in his ex-
perience, physically salubrious spa. For a year or
two he had retired, for at least part of the summer
recess, to Blackhills, near Elgin, a residence which
he had leased for the sake of the shooting and fish-
ing, and the other country recreations of which he
was so fond ; and it was there that, early on Friday
morning, he died at the too early age of 52.
He was born in 1813, of an old Fifeshire family.

His father, Roger Aytoun, was a lawyer of some
position in Edinburgh, and a Radical in politics.
Young Aytoun received his education at our aca-
demy and university—being distinguished among
his class-fellows at the former by the elegance and
excellence of his English and Latin compositions.
In 1831 he gave to the public his first work—a poem
on " Poland," the inspiration of which his impul-
sive and romantic spirit had doubtless drawn from
the stirring events of the Polish revolution ; but the
poem met with no very cordial reception. In 1840,
Aytoun, whose studies had taken the direction of
the law, was admitted as an advocate. At the bar
he did not make any marked figure, though he had

some little reputation in criminal business. His
geniality and ready wit, however, made him a
favourite among his fellows of the robe. In 1845
he was fortunate enough to be appointed to the
Chair of Literature and Belles Lettres in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh ; and in 1852 the Conservative
Government further advanced him by making him
Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland. Shortly after his
appointment to his chair, we believe, he married the
youngest daughter of Professor Wilson. From
Oxford University he received, a year or two later,
the degree of D.C.L.
The true history of Professor Aytoun, however, is the
record of his literary labours. These, for well nigh 30
years, have been constant, if not arduous. In his earlier
career, of the same school of politics with his father—he
worked hard, but deplorably in vain, to secure the return
of his cousin, the Radical and erratic James Aytoun, for
Edinburgh, in 1834, when Mr. Jeffrey went to the bench—
he hold a prominent place among,the contributors to Tait's
Magazine; Theodore Martin, his partner in more than one
subsequent literary undertaking, being at this time also on
the staff of Tait. Between 1834 and 1839, however, his
political convictions suffered a change, and in 1839 he
formed the connection with Blackwood's Magazine which
has over since so busily and so closely subsisted. Between
1840—when he published a "Life and Times of Richard 1.,"
of which scarcely anybody has ever heard—and 1848 he re-
mained anonymous ; but during this period appeared in the
pages of Blackwood many of the poems and jeux d'esprit by
which he has bceome most favourably known. Some of the
best of the "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers"—which were
only published in a colleotod form, with the author's name,
in 1848 ; " Haw we got up the Glenmutchkin Railway"
(Oct., 1845) ; " How I became a Yeoman" (Sept., 1846) ;
" How I stood for the Dreepdaily Burghs" (Sept., 1847) ;
these were some of the fruits of Mr. Aytoun's clever-
ness and activity before his name had emerged from
the shadow of the great title of Maga, and of tho great
names that made that title great. The " Lays of the Scot-
tish Cavaliers" was Mr. Aytoun's most ambitious, and it
has been his most successful work ; it has run through 17
editions—at the rate of one per annum—and, from its sub-
ject and spirit, it bids fair to hold a good place in popular
favour.—Scotsman.

Extraordinary Robbery of Letters.
At the Bow-street Police-court, to-day, a mild-looking
little boy, whose head scarcely reached above the dock,
named John Charles Motherwell, and aged 11 years, was
placed at the bar before Mr. Flowers, charged with steal-
ing a number of letters, the property of her Majesty's Post-
master-General. t
The boy, it appeared, had been in the habit of posting
letters at the Throgmorton-street post-office, kept by Mr.
Elphinstone. A cupboard, it appears, is kept there for the
reception of letters in addition to the letter-box, and the
boy having gone to the cupboard to deposit some letters,
he took a handful of those already there, from which he re-
moved the stamps and played with them, having torn up
the letters. About 100 postage stamps, with portions of
letters adhering, was at his home.
A clerk to Messrs. Scott and Francis, of Warnford-court,
identified some of the letters as those sent from their office
for transmission by post.
Henry Buckland, messenger in the same firm, said on the
afternoon of the Ist of August he took the tin box contain-
ing the letters to the post-office in Throgmorton-street,
kelit
by
Mr. Elphinstone. He took them into the shop
and placed them in a cupboard, which is used for the re-
ception of letters while the mail is being made up. It
was about five o'clock. There were other letters in that
cupboard.
Mr. L. Lewis, who appeared for the child—Youput the
letters in a cupboard of which the door was open, and to
which any personhad access in this shop, which is kept by
a confectioner?
Witness—Yes.
Mr. Lewis—The letters were not passed through any
aperture common to all letter boxes ?
Witness—No.
Mr. Lewis—l don't think it can be said that those letters
can properly be said to be iu the custody of the Post-
master-General.
Mr. Flowers—You had better raise that question else-
where.
Mr. Peacock.—There can be no doubt about that matter.
James Patterson said he assisted in the post-office kept
by Mr. Elphinstone, in Throg,,morton-street. The mond
is carried higher up the shop, in a portion which was par"
titioned off. There was a cupboard near that part of the
shop, and the public, when they arrive with large quantities
of letters, after three o'clock, put them into the cupboard
instead of putting them into the letter-box. When the
letters are despatched those in the box and those in the
cupboard are put together into a bag and sent away.
'llii
Mr. Lewis—Then any thief, if he felt so disposed, CO
go to that cupboard and take away as many letters as he fait
disposed.
Witness—Well, I don't know.
Mr. Peacock said he would lay the depositions before
the Attorney-General, and he would in a few days sag
what was to be done with the boy.
faher,
The boy was then given into the custody of bis ' a v..
who undertook to bring him to the court on Tburs'g'''
uezt.