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92 "Honest gentleman! I'm sure he cannot be better pleased than I am."

Accordingly, unwilling to confine his gratitude to mere feelings, or verbal expressions, he gave full current to the new-born zeal of office, and endeavoured to express his sense of the honour conferred upon him, by an unmitigated activity in the discharge of his duty. New brooms, it is said, sweep clean; and I myself can bear witness, that, upon the arrival of a new housemaid, the ancient, hereditary, and domestic spiders, who have spun their webs over the lower division of my book-shelves, (consisting chiefly of law and divinity,) during the peaceful reign of her predecessor, fly at full speed before the unexpected inroads of the new mercenary. Even so the Laird of Ellangovvan ruthlessly commenced his magisterial reform, at the expence of various established and superannuated pickers and stealers, who had been his neighbours for half a century. He wrought his miracles like a