Mr. Lowe took the chair on St. Andrew's Day (this
day week), at a dinner held at St. James's Hall, to celebrate the 208th anni- versary of the foundation of the Scottish Corporation Charity, and was very amusing, giving a certain freshness even to the most hackneyed toasts, and remarking, when he proposed the Charity itself, that it dated back almost from the union of England with Scotland, and was much needed then, if he might judge from the story of Richie Moniplies (in the "Fortunes of Nigel "), and making it a new merit of the Charity that, like most Scotch charity, it was not "indiscriminate." Mr. Lowe was indeed quite eloquent during his appeal for funds on the circumstances entirely beyond their own control which make men successful, who but for these circumstances might have been glad to receive instead of giving, and should therefore give the more. In thanking the company for his own health, which was drunk with Highland honours, he was most entertaining on the advantages (never to be his, though he heartily wished they had been his) of a Scottish parentage. "I never observed that any Englishman would do anything for me because I was an Englishman. But, gentlemen, I have relations who are Scotchmen, and when these relations come to London, I observe that they always put up at a Scotch hotel, buy clothes at Scotch tailors, go to Scotch doctors, and, as far as they can, invi- gorate the nationality of Scotland by confining their custom exclusively to Scotchmen." Hence he felt strongly with Mr. Bedingfield, who, when he had saved George III. from a mob, and was asked what reward he would like, replied, "I wish to God your Majesty would make me a Scotchman." In fact, Mr. Lowe was so Scottish, so vigorous, and so amusing, that he fairly got his hand into the Scottish pocket, and the donations and subscriptions announced exceeded /2,000. Mr. Lowe would have succeeded as a preacher of charity sermons,—after Dean Swift's and Row- land Hill's fashion. He would have taken at least their amount. of license, and made good use of it too.
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