Which made my wild regardless soul Upon me threw their calm disdain, And hid it in its secret breast With all the wealth that made me blest! O'er where that isle was wont to be, Where peace might sit and rule the sea; Which sometimes made me strangely start, The wife and children of my heart. Since then I've wander'd lone and long A thing for any foot to spurn: The hope is dead within my breast, What kindred spirit, young and fair, Mr Thomas Brydson is a poet full of soft and gentle feeling. He has sent us the following lines from Oban, where he now resides: From another Glasgow bard, whose sonnets in general find acceptation in our eyes, we have been favoured with the following communication: Sir,-Slippers have long been appropriated to the feet, and for you it has been reserved, to show of how great benefit they may be in the more dignified service of the head. In your SLIPPERS, you have found room for both brains and feet,-a rhymester and a punster may be pardoned for making the remark. 1 have heard they are all sole; and no one can doubt there is the principle of life in them who judges from the last, and indeed from all. Perhaps, when you next resign the editorial pen to your SLIPPERS, you will be kind enough to recommend the prefixed Sonnet to their notice and indulgence. I am, sir, &c. NEIL CROSS. Here is the sonnet alluded to: SONNET TO MY NATIVE STREAM. By Neil Cross. Strange fancies oftimes take the poet's brain, And this dear spot together, so have wrought And I have innocently, without thought, T. B. J." is another Glasgow poet; but he has written this time in prose, and poets often write very sensibly in prose. We are not quite sure that we agree with the opinions contained in the following paper; but as it is fair that all sides of a question should be stated, and as the motto on our title-page shall never be lost sight of by us,-" Here's freedom to him that would write,”—we are well pleased to give a place to this temperate and candid communication: A DEFENCE OF SACRED POETRY. Poetry's highest achievements were made long ago by the inspired writers. They breathed and burned from the lips of Job and of the Prophets, and were hallowed by the lyre of David. In after times, they were also revealed in the gloom and glory of the apocalyptic visions. From the admirable adaptation of such subjects to poetry, in imitation of the inspired authors, many writers of sublime genius have taken their plan, and characters, and scenery, from Holy Writ. Against such, however, there has been, and now exists, a loud outery; and to show the injustice of the censures heaped upon writers of sacred poetry, is the object of the following remarks. It is alleged by wise and good men, that works of imagination, founded upon Scripture, tend to hurt the mind of the reader by mingling in his memory Truth with Fiction. To this objection it may be answered, that the poet should never bring forward any thing contradictory to divine truth,-his embellishments should all coincide with, and flow naturally from, those passages on which his plan is founded. If, however, a bold fancy should overcharge the history with improbability, such, from its very nature, must be easily apparent, and have no power to hurt the cause of virtue. Thus, Milton's description of the devil's manner of tempting our first parents,—although not precisely according to the text of Scripture,—if it should assume in the mind of any the place of revelation, is not calculated to produce any evil tendency. Another and more frequent objection to poetry founded upon sacred subjects is, that it is sinful and dangerous to touch upon, or attempt to embellish, the Word of God. To this we think it a sufficient answer, that the historical portions of Holy Writ being merely a sketch work of what took place, nothing can be more natural than for the imagination to fill it up; and this can be easily done, without failing to keep in view, at the same time, the grand outlines of the picture. The poet should, however, be very guarded in his expression and invention. He should imitate the Word, as he would copy the works, of the Author of all things, by keeping truth ever before him. He should not only be exceedingly careful of going against what is written, but he should not imagine any thing which is beneath the dignity of his subject. In touching upon themes connected with the vitals of Christianity, he should feel as if treading on hallowed ground, and walk in the footsteps of the inspired writers with the most high and holy reverence. disappearing; and that language, and ideas, and subjects of loftier character, will take their place. Moral beauty is the greatest and only true source of the sublime. And what can give finer scope for moving the deepest feelings than when the poet shall treat of religious hope and fear, the mysterious and the infinite, death and immortality, the greatness of Truth, and the beauty of Virtue? Let the writer of Sacred Poetry, then, continue with courage, and whatever the cant of criticism may say, let him be assured he will meet with a hearing from the religious and tasteful public. Let him take the advice of the blind master of English song, and seek a fitness for his studies" by devout prayer to the Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." Glasgow. T. B. J. Returning now to the vicinity of Edinburgh, the subjoined poem, which we think fanciful and amusing, has come to us from a mysterious place near Dalkeith: A HIGHLAND GLEN. Instead of being prejudicial to the interests of religion, we believe sacred poetry, on the contrary, to produce the very opposite effect. Being arrayed in the garb of Fancy, the lessons of Revelation may be, and are, made to recommend themselves to the hearts of the heedless and unthinking. Medicine is administered to perverse child-A SONG OF WITCHES HEARD BY A BENIGHTED TRAVELLER IN ren by being mingled with something more palatable; so, also, may be administered the medicine of the mind. In hours, too, of melancholy musing, and even upon still and solitary Sabbaths, have not the best men and Christians found a languor steal over them in monotonously poring upon the Bible? In such seasons, who has not found a pleasing relief in turning to the Paradise Lost of Milton, -the Messiah of Klopstock,-Gessner's Death of Abel, -Pollok's Course of Time,-or John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress? No rule in Aristotle's Art of Poetry is accounted more excellent than that in which he states that a fine poem should be founded upon the probable and the marvellous. If this be true, the subjects of Scripture have these peculiar requisites;—the mind having faith in their facts, and wonder at their miracles and events. There is a style of poetry which may be called the intellectual, it describes men and manners, the power and the pathos of the feelings. There is another, and at present more favoured style, which dwells chiefly among the simple and sublime beauties of nature. But the highest style of poetry, in our opinion, is not that which discloses pictures of real life or of nature. Reality is not the realm in which the fancy loves best to expatiate; she loves to wander amid the unmeasured fields of possibility; to create beings and landscapes beyond the sun and the sphere of day; "Above the stir and smoke of this dim spot It is the duty of imaginative writers to be always giving the mind a view of something brighter and better than what is here; to bring forth speculations on the past or the future, and, by their spell, to etherealize them into a dim and shadowy effect. It is as if it were kindly allowed to man, when driven from the paradise of earth by the sky-tempered sword of the Archangel, to awake, by the power of his fancy, a mental Eden of bliss and beauty. The all-engrossing interest which religious subjects have, fits them admirably for the attention of the poet. Homer seems to have known this when he interwove his nobly-invented Iliad with the mythology of his time. If this was the effect in the heathen writer, how much more must it be so with the more lofty revelations of Christianity! It has been said by the judicious Addison, that to be great in its subject and its character are the first essentials of a fine poem. Where can there be found such store of great subject and character as in the writings of Scripture? There reigns at present in matters poetical a perverted taste for subjects from ordinary life, for simplicity and familiarity of language, which has degraded the art of poetry in the eyes of many of its most genuine admirers. But it is hoped that the milk-and-water poetry is fas Huzza for our Prince !-for no Prince is so great, Bring joints from the finger, the thumb, and the toe ; Into hare, cat, or greyhound, themselves they transform--- Some dance on a rope; in a twinkling they whirl first, Mr D. Mac Askill, a name we have seen before, Six Edinburgh poets remain upon our list. Come thou though we have never seen its owner. Thomas Haynes Bayly, popular as he is, might have written the following verses with credit to himself: LINES TO HER WHO BEST CAN UNDERSTAND THEM. By D. MacAskill. They tell me that another's arm They whisper those ripe rosy lips Another's lip hath prest, That thou hast pour'd thy soul's first love Upon another's breast! They say he drew thy curls aside, What words to paint were weak; And the curls that veil'd thy high pale brow, Fell trembling o'er his cheek! Hast thou forgot that summer eve, From woods and blooming ground? Thou didst not speak, but, girl, thine eye Told all it told to his! You swore by all your hopes of Heaven, By your quenchless love, your constancy,— False maid! take back thy faithless love, Thou teachest me that love is breath, Come thou next, Mr Anonymous ;-there is good stuff in this poem of thine: THE RUINED ABBEY. The sullen owl, and man's profane abuse, In those grey aisles, where once the song of morn O'er the awed soul there steals an anxious dread, It feels that here there must be holy ground; Though hush'd each leaf and living thing around, Ay, thou remorseless monarch of decay! Here baffled mankind questions not thy sway; Yet, wherefore strive to shorten thine own span ? Dost thou not know thy being hangs on man? For, lo! that awful hour steals on apace, When man-the last survivor of his raceShall, with thy venom'd blood, thy white hair lave, And drag thee down with him to an eternal grave! W. H. The author of the following stanzas says, in his accompanying letter," Sometimes I think, in your own words, that' I have never done what I can do,' and I But the gloom in thy breast, and the shade on thy brow, THE APOLOGY. Fare thee well! fare thee well! and though lovely thou art, By Thomas Aird, Author of " Religious Characteristics," There's a time close at hand-there's an hour hurrying Thou hast come just in the nick of time, good Peter. The evening is calm and beautiful; we shall sit here by the window, sipping cup after cup of thy beverage, forgetting that we are the EDITOR of the Literary Journal, and dreaming of those who are far away, or trying to wreathe out of the past a garland for the future. Let us have some music. Sing us, sweet sister, "The Bridemaid," from Bayly's " Songs of the Minstrels." We are in a mood to sympathize with the feelings of that gentle girl, whose heart grew desolate when she saw the companion of her childhood leave her father's house for ever. Or open R. A. Smith's "Select Melodies," and pick out that Persian air we love so well-" The Dancing Girl's Song," hallowed as it is in its pleasant mournfulness by some of the most delightful associations of our by-gone life. With music, coffee, sunset, and memory, we envy no one ;-we are ourselves alone. [Peter bows respectfully, and retires; the sound of &c. Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate, PART III. ABOUT an hour after Dr Bremner had finished his narrative, we were standing together looking from a window, to observe the complexion of the night, and to calculate what kind of a sky might be expected on the morrow to shine on my departure. A high struggling wind was abroad, such as might turn the boldest eagle back,great black clouds were hearsing the moon through the sky; but anon she came forth flashing her light through white gleaming churchyards, and away over the restless tops of woods, and up the far hills. Looking down the old avenue which led up to the house, I caught, during one of these glimpses through the trees, a view of something black and indistinct coming moving onwards. I pointed it out to Dr Bremner, and we watched its approach till it began to shape itself, distinctly showing a village hearse, drawn by a single ass, on which rode a little old man, and attended by two females. Surprised and horrified, we gazed irresistibly on this strange phenomenon as it came slowly forward, and was stayed bcneath our window; but still more were we struck when the driver alighted, and, with the assistance of the two women, proceeded to remove something from the inside I of the vehicle, which we instantly saw was a human being in life, but apparently faint and sick. We waited till the unhappy figure was carried forward to the door, and then ran down stairs to see what this uncommon visitation might mean. The person thus brought, who was a woman, was so faint that she could not speak; but the man who conducted the hearse told us that she was a stranger, who had fallen very sick at a village about three miles distant; that she cried so much to see Dr Hastings, or Bremner, saying she could not die in peace till she had seen him, and made a clean confession to him, that the good folk of the village were fain to yoke the very hearse, and with an ass too, because every cart and horse of the village were away for lime for the new house of a genAfter the tleman lately arrived from the West Indies. unhappy woman had revived a little, from some cordials which were administered to her, she asked for Dr Bremner, and beckoned him to draw near. "Well, my good woman, here I am," said my friend, stooping to listen to her communications. "Send quickly," said she, in a low, but earnest tone, "for an old woman of the name of Mrs Bonnington: You must be brought together: She lives in a cottage three miles hence, at the foot of Eildon hills." "Why, I can inform you," answered Bremner, "that she is in this very house at present." "You know it all, then!" cried the woman, with a sort of shriek, and almost starting up. "Have mercy on me, Arthur Bonnington! It was I, indeed, that stole you away when a child; but you have found your true mother, Mrs Bonnington!" The face of my friend at this grew ghastly white; he turned round in silence to me with a look of fearful deprecation; then pointing with his forefinger to the woman, who lay covering her face with her hands, he said to me, after a long pause, "Did you hear that, Calvert?" "Hold, good woman!" said I, willing to believe the whole an error, "there must be some mistake here. You are in Dr Bremner's house; and this is Dr Bremner." Through her first show of fear and repentance broke a fierce malignant woman, and I had this answer returned me:" So, sir, you are a wise one, and would challenge my pretensions to speak in this fine house of theirs; but, perhaps, with all your wisdom, sir, you know not, as I know, that there is a large mole on his left shoulder there, which be the pledge that I have had it in my power to vex them all; and that it was I myself who gave him that very name of Bremner, which you seem to rate so highly." Here Bremner took me forcibly by the coat, and pulled me with him into another apartment, where, by the light of the moon, he proceeded to bare his shoulder. "Look," said he, with a ghastly smile, as he showed me indeed a large mole upon it; "what do you think of that now?" "I know not," I exclaimed, "either what to think or say." At of recognition on his shoulder, whilst he sat perfectly So," said he, after a horrid pause, during which he glared upon me for my answer." So, my name is Bonnington, after all. Say-why can't you say it is a most glorious name?-certainly a good deal longer than Hastings or Bremner! And, for my new crest, O! be- "I hope," he said, turning to me, "this will not last yond all question, I am entitled to wear the bloody dag- long, both for her own gentle sake, and because I wish her to be calm and clear, that she may answer me some ger in a dexter. Who can deny me that, or, at least, a knife, if the dagger be not appropriate? I have done ex-questions relative to that child, Emily Bonnington. My cellent good service in my day, with the knife, it seems -My own sister! my own brother, too!" Here he fell into some low muttering calculations, from which at length recovering, he pushed me violently out of the apartment, saying, "Calvert, you must leave me for a while to my penance." Immediately I went to the servants who were tending the unhappy author of all this mischief, and strictly enjoined them to keep the circumstances of the evening secret from Mrs Bonnington, whose very weak state of health made it dangerous for her to hear them. Returning to the door of the apartment in which I had left Dr Bremner, (now Bonnington,) I listened; but all was quiet within, save that I heard his loud and measured breathing, as of a victim dressed and laid out bound, numbering the hours till the appointed sacrifice; when, being unwilling to break in upon him, I retired to another room, and threw myself down upon a bed. About daybreak I was startled by a shrill outcry fron Mrs Bonnington's room, which made me haste to see what was the matter; and on entering her room, there I beheld that woman, the evil genius of this family, who, in her malignant wish to triumph over a former rival, (I write from after knowledge,) had crawled from her own sick pallet, to fasten upon Mrs Bonnington's ear, and instif into her heart, the poisonous tale of her fratricidal son. "Come to me quickly, Mr Calvert," cried the unhappy mother. "Oh! they have broken my heart; for they have bid me go and see the man that murdered Harry Bonnington, and claim him for my son. But I will go-I will go and I must bid him be at peace; for, oh! he cannot be well. But I'll not believe it: my heart cannot. Away, fast, Mr Calvert, and bid him come to me in peace, and we shall say nothing about that matter. Where is he? where is he? He is not so kind as my Harry, else he would come fast to me; but he cannot be well. O take away that vile woman, and bring Arthur to me before I die!" own sister! my preserver! by day and night! But these I tried to remonstrate with him against this proposed journey to London, arguing that it could only heap fresh calamities on his head. ❝ or "And pray, sir, what am I?" was his answer; what is my life, that I should nurture myself delicately? Now, speak not to me, sir, unless you can bring her before me in life, that I may bid her weep no more, nor think of her dishonour any more. My beautiful preserver! And I to be-Well, well, would we could wash these hands!" "It is at least better," I returned, wishing to propose a mitigation of the case, "that she has died before knowing the full extent of the evil." "But you cannot tell me,” he said," why young Harry Bonnington is lying in his blood, killed by his own brother! Surely, surely there is no good reason for that? There came the bold boy, like a young dragon, to fight against his sister's destroyer! I was there, too, to guard our Emily from dishonour; and yet I slew her best friend! Now, before the just Heavens, show me the moral of that! God knows, I would give a round entire world for the life and love of that bright-haired boy! Oh! had he but known who I was, and for what I was there!-Well, well, they must sleep on!" In my indignation, I turned to drive the hag, like a wild beast, out of the room; but, conscious of her malignity, she had quitted her post, at which, as I entered, I saw her holding back the curtain, leaning over the pillow, and, more hideous than a nightmare, brooding over Mrs Bonnington's repose; she was now retreating out of the apartment. I then hasted into the next room to seek Dr Arthur Bonnington, and found him, dimly seen in the blear dawn, sitting on a chair, his shoulder still uncovered, his look and attitude the very same as when, Mrs Bonnington recovered so much, that she was able some hours before, I left him there. I advanced, and to tell her son many things regarding his sister Emily, told him that his mother already knew he was her son, and his ill-starred brother; and this she did voluntarily, and that she wished to see him instantly. He sat for to the great satisfaction of Dr Bonnington, who, though several minutes gazing on me intensely, yet without seem- anxious to gain such information, was yet unwilling to ing to apprehend the purport of my communication, when afflict his sick mother, by questions on so sorrowful a subhis mother, hastily attired, entered, and, exclaiming with|ject. Gradually again she grew worse; and now the a shriek, "I know it all, my son!" threw herself upon hour of her dissolution began to draw nigh. Her son his neck. Wildly she then began to look for the mark sate by her bedside, watching the faint smile that light |