however good the performance, it invariably turns from the stage to the scene of action in front of it.

A country of which our earliest knowledge is only of a date of 340 years, can possess no other than very modern antiquities; but few even of these are to be found in Jamaica. Kingston was only

built after the destruction of Port-Royal 142 years ago; consequently, no Spanish remains are to be found here, and indeed there are very few in any part of the island. Perhaps the objects of most interest, and of the greatest antiquity at present to be sought after, are the tombs and remains of the habitations of some of those republicans who took an active part in the downfall of the unfortunate Charles, and who fled here at the time of the Restoration. At that period, vast numbers of the prescribed republicans took refuge in Jamaica; and there is no doubt the spirit of liberty, the impatience of all control exercised by the authority of the mother country, and even the turbulent independence which has influenced the character of the colonial legislature, are to be attributed to the principles which the early republicans carried with them to this island. Among the partisans of Cromwell who fled here at his death, there were several of the regicides: Wait and Blagrove, two of the King's judges; the children of General Harrison; the son of Scott,

from whose daughter the great proprietor Beckford was descended: the son of the President Bradshaw was also among the number of the republican settlers, but he appears to have arrived here prior to Cromwell's death. Colonel Humphrey, whose father had borne the sword before Bradshaw at the trial of the King, held a high military command here.

Of persons who have signalised themselves in more peaceable pursuits, the names of very few are associated with colonial recollections. Kingston has been the residence of about half-a-dozen persons who subsequently distinguished themselves in literature and science: Smollett, Walcott, Lewis, Long, Brown, and Edwards have been residents of Jamaica at different periods, and some of them sojourners at Kingston. But I ought not to omit among its literary visitants the talented author of the "Life of a Sailor;" nor the able author of "Tom Cringle" among its former residents, who has not chosen to divulge his name, and which I shall not presume to do, though it is tolerably well known to this community, and very generally respected by it; but in stating that he is neither an Englishman nor an Irishman, a sailor nor a soldier, I trust I am only lifting a very little corner of the veil of his mystery.*

* If Tom were now to visit Jamaica, it would grieve his kind heart (for that he is a kind-hearted man, every

The house in which Smollett lodged in Kingston is still in existence, in Harbour Street, and is

reader of his must be persuaded) to find how few of those of his hospitable companions, whom he has made his heroes, are now in existence, and how few of those who remain are in the prosperous circumstances in which he left them. The judge who never went to dinner without his ice-saw, has been gathered to his fathers; but "the one-handed Scotchman," who surmounted the objection to his costume at the door of the ball-room by converting his long trousers into knee-breeches, without the aid of his tailor, is still as vigorous and as genuinely Scotch as

ever.

Eschylus Stave still flourishes in Kingston, and time has not impaired his powers of elocution: the gentleman who broke his arm in the exploits after dinner is sobered down to a quiet convivialist, the best-humoured man that ever was incurably argumentative. Old Steady in the west is just as imperturbable in the serenity of his nature as the day he was burned out of the ship that was conveying him to Kingston; while the facetious Aaron Bang, at one time the Mercutio, and at another the Tristram Shandy of the novel, has merged into an elderly gentleman, the mercurialism of whose character is hardly to be recognised in the demure tranquillity of a pains-taking attorney.

But the hand of time does not travel over the dial of human nature for a period of a dozen years, without affecting the elasticity of the spring which sets its machinery in motion; and that period has elapsed since the buoyant spirits of the planter of St. Thomas in the Vale furnished materials for the description of Aaron Bang's whimsicalities. It is not every Yorick, however, like Aaron Bang, who has been" a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," whose jibes, and gambols, and flashes of merri

now occupied by a tailor, next door to Mr. Threadway's. I am told by that gentleman's nephew, that an old negro woman, who had lived in the house a very long time, and has been dead only a few years, remembered Smollett. She must have been of a very great age, for it is upwards of eighty years ago since Smollett was in Jamaica. He served as a cabin-boy in 1743, at the action of Porto Cavallo, under Admiral Knowles, the same person who afterwards became Governor of Jamaica, in 1751. Smollett was subsequently made surgeon's-mate, and must have been for a considerable time on the West India station. Knowles returned to England in 1756, and shortly afterwards prosecuted Smollett for a libel; for which offence he was fined, and imprisoned in the Marshalsea.

A house nearly opposite that in which Smollett resided, I am informed, was the residence, for a short time, of Dr. Walcott, the celebrated Peter Pindar. Walcott was brought up to the medical profession under a country apothecary. 1767 he accompanied Sir William Trelawney, the newly-appointed Governor, to Jamaica, as medical attendant in a short time, however, he changed the medical for the clerical profession, and offi

In

ment" were wont to set the table in a roar," who becomes estimable for his worth when he has ceased to be remarkable for his jocularity.

ciated in his new calling for some time in the parish of Vere. Walcott was not in orders when he left England, nor did he return to England to be ordained, previously to his procuring his clerical appointment. There was no bishop at that period in the West Indies; and how he became qualified for the clerical profession, I do not know. But he did not long remain in Jamaica; and it appears his ministry was not satisfactory to his parishioners.

There is a Spanish lady now living here,- -a Madame Emanuele, the wife, or at least the companion, of Bolivar in all his latter fortunes. This lady is now of middle age, commanding in her person, of considerable intellectual powers, and of an undaunted spirit. She is the Lady Hr Se ⚫ of this country: her saloon is decorated with swords

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and pistols of various fashions; and she has even done some good service with them. At Bolivar's death she was exiled from the country, so great were the fears of her influence over the people. She lives here in almost total seclusion;-few, if any, Englishmen know there is such a person sojourning in Kingston. On several occasions, the intrepidity and presence of mind of Madame Emanuele rescued Bolivar from situations of the most imminent hazard.

In the last revolutionary conspiracies against the life of this great man at Bogota, he owed his