The Sun.
London, England, 1832-11-15 00:00:00

ANECDOTE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

When the Reform fever was at its height, a small Con-
servative party in Selkirk and neighbourhood determined
to get up a loyal and constitutional address, to be pre-
sented to both Houses of Parliament ; and, as a matter of
course, the Sheriff of the county was respectfully requested
to lend the Ultras, or Loyalists—no matter which—the
aid of his felicitous and ever-ready pen. The Baronet ac-
cepted the invitation ; set to work vigorously ; plied his
task continuously for the space of three days, and in the
end produced a memorial, or petition, almost rivalling in
bulk a single manuscript volume of the Waverley Novels.
That his heart was in his words we do not, and cannot
doubt for a moment ; and accordingly, when the author
had said all he felt and thought on the subject, he ordered
his carriage and departed for Selkirk, where the parties in-
terested were ready to receive him. The idea of having
saved Britain and Ireland from a measure that threatened
to level every ancient land-mark and long-cherished insti-
-1 tution " at one fell swoop," as Scotland was saved from
the dreaded infliction of a metallic currency, was no
doubt cheering in the highest degree; and thus far
there was no disparity of feeling, though some of those
present looked rather askance when they guaged, by a
single glance of the eye, the length, breadth, and depth
of so formidable a memorial. To have read it out and
out, would have required a pretty long sederunt, and
before much progress bad been made some one remarked,
" that a paper exceeding the Reform Bill itself in length,
schedules and boundaries included, would infallibly, if
received or listened to at all, be thrown aside on the recital
of the prayer and title,"—a general feeling of embarrass.
ment pervaded the assembly. Dr. Johnson tells a story
of Addison, which we cannot resist alluding to here. The
author, or editor of the Spectator, who acted at one time
as Under Secretary of State, on being asked to pen some
particular paper, spent so much time over it in selecting
happy phrases, and balancing sentences, that his superiors
would not wait the slow progress of mental parturition;
and the biographer adds, that at last a common clerk ex-
ecuted with ease, in an every-day style, what proved too
hard for the illustrious Addison. And so it fared on the
present occasion. The Clerk to the Meeting, although
peradventure no great scribe, did the needful on the prin.
ciple that brevity is the soul of wisdom, as well as of wit;
and strange to say, his petition superseded that of the
great author of Waverley. But the cream of the story
follows. The Baronet himself felt no wise displeased ;
having disburdened his mind, said his say, and made a
clean breast, he was not a man to be put cut of humour
by " Rejected Addresses," but on the contrary told every
one what had happened as a good joke—another striking
proof of his habitual serenity and equanimity of temper.
_Dumfries Courier.

DUBLIN, Nov. 13.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER.

THE KING V. THE ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH AND AN

OTHER.

Considerable interest is excited here this morning by the
preparations for this trial, which is one at bar, before a
Special Jury from the county of Cavan.
This is an information on the part of the Attorney-
General against the defendants, for intrusion into the
possession of 1192 acres of land, in the county of Cavan,
part of the property forfeited to the Crown by the Irish
rebellion of 1641. The Reverend defendant does not
claim by right of his ecclesiastical tithes (he is primate of
I-eland) but as one of the descendants of Lieutenant
Colonel Beresford, who, by the Act of Settlement in 1660,
became entitled to a large tract of land in this county.
The Crown, however, now asserts that the land in ques-
tion is a portion of the one-third of forfeited estates, which
the adventurors in posse,sions thereof were obliged to
surrender to the use of the Crown by the Act of Explana-
tion which passed in the year 1665, and one object of
which was to revest one-third of the forfeited estates in the
Crown. This litter portion the Attorney-General con-
tends belongs of right, and beyond the possibility of doubt,
to the King; unless it can be shown that his Majesty or
his predecessors have parted with the same since the year
1665 (when the Act of Explanation passed) by legal con•
veyance. It appeared from the part of the Learned Gen-
tleman's statement which we heard, that the lands in ques-
tion were mentioned, in the Dawn Survey and other
ancient documents of Record in this county, as having
been the property of one Gower, an Irish Papist, and that
with other lands to the amount of 10,000 acres they were
in possession of the said Lieutenant Colonel Beresford,
previous to 1665, when the Act aforesaid compelled him
to surrender one-third of that property. And it is alleged
that the 1,192 acres which did belong to Gower are not
included in the certificate of the two-thirds, which under
that Act the ancestor of the defendant was entitled to
retain. The title of the Crown, therefore, will depend
on the proof of this last mentioned fact.