Chapter 1

Now Scot and English are agreed,
And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,
Where, such the splendours that attend him,
His very mother scarce had kend him.
His metamorphosis behold,
From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;
His back-sword, with the iron hilt,
To rapier, fairly hatch'd and gilt;
Was ever seen a gallant braver!
His very bonnet's grown a beaver.
_The Reformation._

The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the
south and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been
happily terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the
English Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland
was worn by the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and
the succession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate
national prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister
kingdoms were removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed
brought to regard those upon the opposite bank as friends and as
brethren.

These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of
King James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of
his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged
him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with
neglecting those early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much
indebted.

The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him
perpetually to interfere as mediator between the contending factions,
whose brawls disturbed the Court. But, notwithstanding all his
precautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual
hatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years,
had been so very recently united, broke forth with a fury which
menaced a general convulsion; and, spreading from the highest to the
lowest classes, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament,
factions in the court, and duels among the gentry, was no less
productive of riots and brawls amongst the lower orders.

While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in
the city of London an ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned
mechanic, much devoted to abstract studies, David Ramsay by name, who,
whether recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the
courtiers alleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his
birthplace, in the good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in
James's household the post of maker of watches and horologes to his
Majesty. He scorned not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar,
a few yards to the eastward of Saint Dunstan's Church.

The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it may be supposed,
was something