Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq. of Monkbarns, was requested to act as
Secretary.

The Preses then addressed the meeting to the following purpose:--

"Gentlemen, I need scarcely remind you, that we have a joint
interest in the valuable property which has accumulated under our
common labours. While the public have been idly engaged in
ascribing to one individual or another the immense mass of various
matter, which the labours of many had accumulated, you, gentlemen,
well know, that every person in this numerous assembly has had his
share in the honours and profits of our common success. It is,
indeed, to me a mystery, how the sharp-sighted could suppose so
huge a mass of sense and nonsense, jest and earnest, humorous and
pathetic, good, bad, and indifferent, amounting to scores of
volumes, could be the work of one hand, when we know the doctrine
so well laid down by the immortal Adam Smith, concerning the
division of labour. Were those who entertained an opinion so
strange, not wise enough to know, that it requires twenty pairs of
hands to make a thing so trifling as a pin--twenty couple of dogs
to kill an animal so insignificant as a fox?--"

"Hout, man!" said a stout countryman, "I have a grew-bitch at home
will worry the best tod in Pomoragrains, before ye could say,
Dumpling."

"Who is that person?" said the Preses, with some warmth, as it
appeared to us.

"A son of Dandy Dinmont's," answered the unabashed rustic. "God,