graphy, however, the art of lock-picking always keeps ahead of the
art of locking, as that of inventing destructive missiles seems to
outstrip that of forging impenetrable plates. Wodrow's trick was the
same as that of Samuel Pepys, and productive of the same
consequences--the excitement of a rabid curiosity, which at last found
its way into the recesses of his secret communings. They are now
printed, in the fine type of the Maitland Club, in four portly quartos,
under the title, Wodrow's Analecta. Few books would hold out so much
temptation to a commentator, but their editor is dumb, faithfully
reprinting the whole, page by page, and abstaining both from
introduction and explanatory foot-note.

Perhaps in the circumstances this was a prudent measure. Those who enjoy
the weaknesses of the enthusiastic historian have them at full length.
As to others partially like-minded with him, but more worldly, who would
rather that such a tissue of absurdities had not been revealed, they are
bound over to silence, seeing that a word said against the book is a
word of reproach against its idolised author--for as to the editor, he
may repeat after Macbeth, "Thou canst not say I did it."

Mr Buckle's ravenous researches into the most distant recesses of
literature revealed to him this pose. He has taken some curious
specimens out of it, but he might have made his anthology still richer
had he been in search of the picturesque and ludicrous, instead of
seeking solid support for his great theory of positivism. What he
chiefly amuses one with in this part of the world, however, is the
solemn manner in which he treats the responsibility of giving increased
publicity to such things, and invokes the Deity to witness that his
objects are sincere, and he is influenced by no irreverence. This
feeling may arise from a very creditable source, but a native of
Scotland has difficulty in understanding it. In this country, being, as
many of us have been, within the very skirts of the great contests that
have shaken the realm--Jacobitism on the one hand and Covenantism on the
other--we are roughened and hardened, and what shocks our sensitive
neighbours is very good fun to ourselves.

It appears that Wodrow had intended to publish a book on remarkable
special providences--something of a scientific character it was to be,
containing a classification of their phenomena, perhaps a theory of
their connection with revealed religion. The natural laws by