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likely to say respecting them. The retrospect has been a painfully interesting, and a most humbling one.

Chas. And why so, my father? What scene could your life present to you, but that of a long tract of lofty and honoured exertion?-a poet's work followed by a poet's reward?

Dryd. No, no, boy; that sight was not what I saw. I will tell you. I saw myself at the starting-place in the race of life, endowed with a vigour and elevation of genius rarely granted to the human mind (God knows, I say it with a feeling far removed from vanity); with tastes early directed to the genuine sources of poetical inspiration, and habits of thought accordant with those of the greatest followers of the art. And I then saw myself, thus qualified, passing through life in a servile dependence on popular opinions and courtly caprice, embedding my jewel of fancy in the coarse setting of temporary and prosaic themes; or, alas! far worse! sullying its purity with the incrustations of licentiousness, rant, and irreligion. I looked with pain on a lengthened life, which, in the bitterest sense the words can bear, has been in vain; beginning in hope, spent in misapplied toil, ending in sorrow and in want.

Chas. Surely such views as these are both disheartening and unfounded. I am grieved to own, my beloved father, that your old age is exposed to many deprivations which it ill deserves. But you cannot avoid perceiving that the cause lies, not in yourself, scarcely even in your friends, but chiefly in those revolutions of state, of which you have seen so many, and in which your conduct, as far as I have watched it, has done you the highest honour. Dryd. I admit, that in regard to the few latter years of my life, your observation is correct: I had no reason to expect any thing save neglect and desertion. I could bear it; I could have even rejoiced in it, had I had no weightier cause for regret. But it is my literary career which disturbs me when I recall it. What a scene does it present of misemployed energies! With the mass of the people my reputation rests principally on those very productions which I would give the world never to have written, my plays. My genius was no way calculated for the stage; the shifting, scarcely perceptible, phases of character, I could supply only by a sustained dignity, unnatural, perhaps, in itself, and certainly epic rather than dramatic; the bursts of passion and the effusions of feeling were, in my hands, exaggerated or lost; and in almost all the most important features of dramatic excellence I was surpassed by one or other of my contemporaries or juniors ;-by that wonderful young man Congreve, by the unfortunate Otway; and, even in my own path of tragic pomp and declamation, I have had often to own myself at least equalled by Lee; and after all, I fear none of us will long maintain a high rank as dramatic writers.

Chas. You have at least the plea of necessity for your dramatic works; and, it is surely a consoling reflection, that by means of them you have been enabled to support yourself at least in comfort, through many changes of favour from royal and courtly patrons.

Dryd. It ought not to have been necessary: No man ought to make himself the slave of popular vice and fickleness, by taking up literature as a profession. In the earliest periods of a nation's literary glory, which are her brightest, authors are not such by trade, neither in succeeding times ought they to be.

Chas. Ah, my dear father, your temporary vexation leads you into assertions, at which, in cooler moments, you will yourself smile.-But we will dismiss the subject of your dramatic writings: it is an ungrateful one.

and such will future generations call me. I shall not be forgotten; I know it: but I shall not be remembered with approbation. I would fain hope only that I shall be thought on with regret and pity.

Chas. What mean you? I can with difficulty understand this unusual mood of dejection, and these baseless forebodings.

Dryd. Call them truths, Charles; old age and death are prophetical.

Chas. Then youth and affection shall assume the tone of prophecy also, and show you what judgment posterity will pronounce on your other works. They will look back on you, father, with respect and admiration. They will contemplate the language and form of poetry before our time, and then, turning to your satires and translations, they will acknowledge who it was that transmuted irregularity and coarseness into an harmonious magnificence, and a strong, stately rapidity, which poetry before you never knew. They will own you as the poet who has fashioned the finest measure of the language, who has first shown its capabilities, and, in its structure, united beauty with vigour. And when they come to search, as they must, more deeply than into the mere words-when, to speak poetically, as becomes me in addressing a poet, they put aside the golden veil which covers the face of the genius of poetry, and look on the features which it has partly beautified, partly concealed, then will your services to the world of letters become still more strikingly evident. Recollect what the subjects have been which I have been obliged to handle, and you will see that I have been justifiable in aiming at something higher; since it was such ambition only that could have ensured me a conspicuous immortality.

Dryd. You flatter me.

Chas. I grant that many, nay, most, of your poems appear to promise nothing very elevated; but you have the more merit in improving them as you have. You have refined these uninviting subjects into a calm and attractive species of poetry; you have cast back the dull realities of the present into the distant hazy twilight of fancy; the poor sights, the cold hearts, and the meagre joys, which daily surround and disappoint us, you have described with a glow of imagery which will make our descendants look back on your times with wishful admiration.

Dryd. Would that it were so!—but I have not done this. Your filial piety and strong imagination together, are hurrying you into misrepresentation. I have, it is true, and I am proud to say it—I have indeed elevated the tone of poetical thought on ordinary subjects; I have purified the public taste, and taught the difference between elaborated, sophistical, pedantic analogies, and the warm transports of true poetical vision; and I have confined the illustration which poetry throws on life within its proper limits, drawing it only from its genuine sources, of ordinary intellectual acquirement, and, above all, of our moral and universal feelings. But here I have stopped, at the very point where genuine poetry begins. Of the pure elements which this analysis procured me, I have not attempted to make use by applying them to high and worthy ends. I have cleared and decorated the broken fountain-head of poetry, and then sent out its waters to flow through a tract barren as Arabian sands. Enough of this.I have been thinking, too, this afternoon, upon those among the many associates of my long life whom I remember most distinctly. They are those whom I knew many years ago, and who have long since died, and been, many of them, forgotten by almost all but me; and yet it is these whom, with the ordinary weakness of age, I seem often to behold standing before me so vividly, that I have addressed them and fancied that they answered

Dryd. It is one which, for years, I have been unable to think of without sorrow and indignation. For there are in these works worse faults than those of the under-me; while present events and characters pass by me, and standing. It is a sad thought to an old man of sixty-nine, that he has spent the best part of his life in acting the ribald buffoon to a licentious court. Such have I been;

leave in my memory scarce a trace. Yes for the old man, memory is the only reality. And yet this decay is indeed the only token of advancing years of which I am

conscious. I have been meditating to-day on my instructors and predecessors in poetry; and especially on the greatest of the number, John Milton. You will hardly understand how strangely that man's name affects me. I think of none oftener, and yet I never hear it without pain.

Chas. What? You cannot feel envy? Oh, no, my father; it is impossible!

to their usual resolute tone; and when you visit my
apartment again, you may find my opinions more cheer-
fully formed, and more vigorously uttered. Adieu.
AN ARTIST.

LATIN VERSIONS OF THE PSALMS; GEORGE BUCHANAN, ARTHUR JOHNSTON. By William Tennant.

Ir is a circumstance most honourable to the classic muse of Scotland, that, of the poetical paraphrases, com

piled in Latin, of the Psalms of David, the two held in principal estimation, either in our own country or on the Continent, are the productions of Scotsmen. That of Buchanan was hailed with commendation, shortly after of Arthur Johnston, which appeared about a century later, the Reformation, by the first scholars of Europe ;-that was preferred by many, in its simplicity, to the more ostentatious production that preceded it; and, if it extruded not Buchanan altogether from his undivided post of possession in our schools, at least put in an equal and amicable claim for associated honours.

Dryd. What is it you say, boy? Do you doubt me, as the world has done? No, sir: I am not envious; and the scribblers who have said so are as lying as they are unskilful. They have charged me with malice and envy, because I scourged Settle and Blackmore into their merited contempt; as if the lion envied the toad whom he treads on and tramples into dust! No; for Milton's genius I never entertained any sentiment but reverence : I knew him once; from his advice I received much benefit; from his example I ought to have received more. Listen to me what I tell you, I should not choose to publish to the world. I have done too much already to secure its esteem, and, before its votaries, old Bayes will keep up a bold face to the last. But to you, my son, I freely confess, that when I look back upon Milton's course, it seems In instituting a comparative criticism between these a tacit reproach upon my own. His life, or, at least, that rival and respectable productions, it is necessary, first of part of it which he so nobly employed, was spent in disall, and independently of the influence of name or authograce and poverty like mine: he, like me, had much to struggle with; but he overcame it all, while I-Werity, to make a reference of the copies to their original,

cannot live over again!

And now that I have spoken of Milton, let me enjoy the pleasure of mentioning the design which I had formed of raising myself into the same class with him and his illustrious brethren. I was conversant, in part, with the same studies which formed his mind, and those of Spenser and Chaucer these great men were my masters, as they were his; and I saw that in the school of chivalry there was room for lofty and poetical invention, to an extent far from exhausted by all that has yet been attempted in it. It was my aim-But why need I speak of it? I had not the resolution to go on working in the coldness of neglect, to rear the fairy structure which I planned, and acquire

and to consider whether of the two transmits best to the

beautiful." Of the two writers, however, Buchanan must

mind of the reader the genuine and peculiar spirit of the great Master of the Hebrew lyre. For my own part, were I to read David in any other language than his own, I confess that I should, in unhesitating preference, betake myself to the Latin prose, or to the English prose version, either of which two represents more faithfully than can be done by any poetical paraphrase, the strong, striking, majestic peculiarities of the muse of Judea. For, if these peculiarities consist in sentiment, at once simple, comprest, fervent, and vehement,-in language, animated, natural, and sublime, shorn down to the most rigid restriction in beautiful, without ornament, without artifice, impressive regard to adjuncts and epithets-these qualities (the higha deathless renown as its founder: small encouragement would have inspirited me, and that little was denied. Why be discovered in the versions of Buchanan or Johuston. est surely to be found in writing) are, I fear, not much to should I speak of my designs? and yet it is an old man's Indeed, they cannot by any means be reckoned a living happiness, and it shall be indulged. My Epic Poem!— The thought makes me young again! my old eyes are transcript of the great original; they are but a general dim, and my hearing feeble, as if I listened from the incongruous garnishments, adorned and adulterated with and unfaithful resemblance, marred into dissimilitude by depth of a grave; but the shapes which have blessed my mind are still present with it, and in my imagination remind the reader more of Mount Parnassus and the the gawds and trinkets of heathenism, that perpetually there is no old age, no decay, no mortality!-My Epic! -King Arthur!-The Round Table !-Let me be silent Roman Capitol, than of the mountain "that stands most awhile, my son, and enjoy the pictures which the names be considered the more unfaithful, and that, principally, bring up before me. They are undefined, thronged, and fleeting, but lively and gorgeous in shape and colouring, artificial; his genius, diffusive and rhetorical as it was, because he is most eloquent, copiously redundant, and as if they were painted on the evening skies; and happy, being, from these excellencies, or, it may be, these defects, oh, most happy, am I while I gaze on them. They are less fitted than Johnston's to express, in brief and poweryonder, like a Roman procession of triumph :-enchanted ful phrase, the sublimity of the hymns of Zion. Of all castles, golden palaces, and gardens overhanging witchthe versions of the Psalms, whether Latin, or English, or lakes or thundering rivers-crowned and mailed knights, Scotch, that of Buchanan is the most verbose; it is, in riding through the shade of black silent forests-abbeys fact, rather an illustratory commentary in resounding and cells, filled with the voice of prayers and anthemsverse, than a poetical translation; and if it has more sothe tented battle-field, with its grove of blazoned banners norous and princely majesty than Tate and Brady's, it and glittering spears-and the lamp-lit half-seen chamber, where the necromancer does his midnight rites of has, in return, more verbosity, more extraneous and unpower. It is a wilderness, a chaos of ancient and chisuitable imagery, more unnecessary and endless circumlocution. val-ous splendour, rich with the mysterious presence of In proof of this, we may only refer to the inantiquity—the presence which dwells on the ruined tower,troductory verses of the 23d, 49th, and 73d Psalms, and and the mossy arch or temple; and the superior intelli- and beautiful thoughts of the original are but dimly to be to the whole of the 19th and 130th, where the simple gences which preside over and inspire the scene, appear recognised through the elaborate and immense superabunas if they waited but my command, to rise and mingle dance of words that overwhelm them. He is also asvisibly amongst its inhabitants!-Fie on me, foolish old suredly not to be acquitted of blame in using, as he does, man! I am a very child!-Let it go!-And it has past so many phrases borrowed from heathen mythology and away, like my youthful hopes, like my lost and valueless existence !-I can say no more on this subject: leave me, Charles, for the present. I do not always think thus gloomily perhaps an hour's repose may restore my spirits

In the first seven beautiful verses of this Psalm, there are, in Hebrew, but 77 words; reckoning all the affixes and suffixes; in Bupressed within three or four short lines! chanan, 192, which occupy a whole octavo page. The Hebrew is com

language, than producing rich and sunny fruit of exquisite and highly-ripened flavour. His Psalms are rather a poetical exposition and flowery commentary, than a faithful or vivid representation of the peculiar beauties of these Songs of Zion.

The version of Arthur Johnston, which has, I believe, received more commendation than Buchanan's in every country except our own, where his rival's preponderating reputation has too much overshadowed him, is liable, though in a far less degree, to the same charge of unfaithfulness. He has too much of brazen walls, and hot

necrology, as Orcus with his torrent waters, Stygian chains, Torches of the Furies, Recess of lofty Olympus, and such like ethnical allusions; yet even this is not sufficient for him; he unsanctifies his subject still more by purloining whole lines from the Latin poets, forming thereby a combination as incongruous and monstrous as would have been the pasting of pagan scraps and heathenish phylacteries on the unspotted robe of King David, as the consecrating the unhallowed vessels of the Capitolian Jupiter to the pure service of the Temple. He begins, for example, the 82d Psalm with two lines from an ode of Horace, of which only two letters are changed, ma-dog-stars, and anchors, and shipwrecks, and harbours, and king the substitution of Jove for Jovis. His work is, in this regard, much more a quilted-work of centos than Johnston's. This redundancy exhibits itself, not only in a multiplication of different words, but also in the tame, forceless repetition of the same word, apparently in the design of playing upon the term, a puerile figure of speech, and, from the kingly majesty of the Jewish lyrist, as distant as earth is from heaven. For example, we have

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"Justosque justus justitiæ parens
Amore sancto amplectitur."-Ps. xi. 7.

"Nec aevi

Inclusus spatiis, æternis legibus orbem
Eternus et ipse gubernas."-Ps. lxviii. 5.
"Frigidus sub frigido

Cumulo."-Ps. xciv. 17.

"Impio in scelere pios."-Ps. xcvii. 7.

Deficit mens spe salutis; spes nec illam deficit."—
Ps. cxix. 81.

And numerous other examples, frequently line after line
continuously. He introduces also, like Tate and Brady,
similitudes and illustrations, not only not to be found in
the original, but such as neither King David nor the
Jews had probably any conception of. He uses the word
anchor repeatedly, a nautical instrument, the name of
which is not to be found in the Hebrew language; he
has Aethiopic vultures, African crops, drunken taverns,
cubs of the Libyan lioness, ferocious Scythians, &c.
translations confound all geographical, historical, and
chronological proprieties; he mentions the

"Sonante Perses arva findens ungula"-Ps.vii.

His

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For so many striking infidelities and inaccuracies, not even all the eloquence and metrical talent of Buchanan can form any compensation; his inexhaustible stock of phraseology, his unrivalled dexterity in moulding it into verses of every dimension that were in use among the Romans, much as they deserve our admiration, and much and justly as they are admired by us, are but the very seducers that misled him into his faults as a versifier of the Psalms. His mind was florid rather than sublime; elegant and eloquent rather than fervid or animated; luxuriating rather in the flowers and foliage of beautiful

cynosures, and such unbiblical tropes and trumpery. He is sometimes irreverent in applying improper expressions to the Deity, as,

"Crimina dum plectis, formam, ceu tinea, rodis."
-Ps. xxxix. 11;
where, from the construction, the Almighty, not man's
beauty, is likened to a moth :-also,

"Eripe te stratis."-Ps. xliv. 26.
"Sic passibus æquis

"-Ps. cxix. 117.

Te sequar."

"Dum reputo quam sint tibi lyncea lumina,
Miror."-Ps. cxxxix. 6.

"Ibit in amplexus protinus ille tuos.-Ps. cxlv. 18.
"Solymam qui servat aperta,

Dum stertunt alii, lumina semper habet."

-Ps. cxxi. 4.

Yet, notwithstanding these and several ballucinations of similar sort, his work, by those who desiderate in the copy the simple energies of the original, deserves, beyond doubt, to be preferred. He is not tempted, like Buchanan, by his luxuriance of phraseology, and by the necessity of filling up, by some means or other, metrical stanzas of prescribed and inexorable length, to expatiate from the Psalmist's simplicity, and weaken, by circumlocution, what he must needs beat out and expand. His diction is therefore more firm and nervous, and, though not absolutely Hebræan, makes a nearer approach to the unadorned energy of Jewry. Accordingly, all the sublime passages are read with more touching effect in his than in Buchanan's translation; he has many beautiful and even powerful lines, such as can scarce be matched by his more popular competitor, the style of Johnston possessing somewhat of Ovidian ease, accompanied with strength and simplicity, while the tragic pomp and worldly parade of Seneca and Prudentius are more affected by Buchanan. In all his Psalms, saving one, Johnston has adopted the Elegiac couplet of Hexameter and Pentameter, which, by forcing him to restrict the expression of his thoughts within two lines, has prevented him from flying off into any reprehensible exuberance. In order to show, however, that he could have written, had it so pleased him, in Buchanan's multitude of metres, he has, with strange obliquity of taste, selected the 119th whereon to exhibit his metrical capabilities, turning all the parts of that didactic and preceptial poem, into every possible lyrical diversity. Than this choice nothing could have been more unfortunate, as that Psalm is written in one tenor of unvarying equality, and approaches nearer to prose than any other of the Psalms. Buchanan has, with much more taste and propriety, thrown it all into Trochaic Tetrameters.

As class-books, these two Latin paraphrases have been long read, Buchanan in our Scottish, Johnston most, I believe, in the schools of Holland. Yet it may be very fair matter of doubt whether lessons from such books of modern compilation are proper Sunday exercises. If it is intended that boys should, at an early age, imbibe a taste for, and catch the true spirit of, Hebrew poetry, the prose version, which is obvious to any puerile capacity,

is infinitely to be preferred; whereas, in the poetical versions, the pure gold of Judea is so confounded with the orichalc and spurious metal of Latium, that youthful intellect, incapable of separating them, is apt to confound through life the associations of Jupiter Capitolinus with him that "sits between the Cherubim." If it is only intended, on the other hand, that boys, by such lessons, should be familiarized with Latin metres and the difficulties of scanning, then, I say, that it is a dishonourable and unhallowed use to which to debase the Lyrist of Judea, whose songs and sentiments are too noble and too divine to be connected with the cold, repulsive, pedagogical impediments of Spondees and Dactyls.

Devongrove, Clackmannanshire, }

ORIGINAL POETRY.

THE MEETING OF ANGLERS;

OR,

THE ST RONAN'S MUSTER-ROLL.

[THE silver medal, given annually by the St Ronan's Border Club to the best angler, was competed for on Thursday, the 5th inst., and won by W. M'Donald, Esq. of Powderhall. On the night before the competition, two of the principal office-bearers of the Club sat enjoying themselves in Riddell's Inn till a late hour, and the debate growing very keen about the prowess of the various candidates for the prize, the one director, to put an end to it, proposed to the other to sing a song. The proposal was willingly acceded to, and the following composition was the result. If any part of it has subsequently turned out true, it can only be attributed to the spirit or prophecy, or the second sight.]

LITTLE wat ye wha's comin'-
Will o' Powderha' 's comin',
Jock is comin', Sandy 's comin',
Mr Nibbs an' a''s comin';
Scougal's comin', Rose is comin',
Robin Boyd, to blaw, comin',
Philosophy an' poetry,

An' doctor's drugs, an' a' 's comin'.

Meat is comin', drink is comin',
The silver medal braw 's comin',
Hens an' cocks, an' bubbly jocks,
An' good fat soup an' a' 's comin';
A' the members look sae stout,
At every cast they 'll draw a trout,
But nane that 's in will e'er come out,
For a' that crack an' craw 's comin'.

Cricks are comin', tricks are comin',
Neither shame nor law 's comin',
Mellers, spellers, yettlin-sellers,
E'en-down lees an' a' 's comin';
Some trouts are gather'd for a week,
An' some amang the sand to seek,
An' some in grass as green as leek—
O little wat we wha 's comin'!

But wha to trust nae man can tell,
My ain's the warst o' a' strummin',
But there are tricks a man may smell,
An' find his mou' a-thraw comin'.
Come, dinna glower, an' dinna grin,
Cheating an' leeing are nae sin;
There's ay some hope o' truth in ane,
Sin' Will o' Powderha' 's comin'.

A borrow'd trout, there's little doubt,
Is but a very sma' hummin',
But siccan tricks, as five or six
Frae poet's creel to draw, comin'-

If our friend the Ettrick Shepherd be the author of this song, he has, with great modesty, made no allusion to himself; but we are willing to back him, at the next competition, against any man who ever switched the Tweed with horse-hair.-ED.

The thing's enough to pit ane out, May wae light on his silly snout! But let us drink our glasses out, For little wat we wha 's comin'.

LAST NIGHT.

By Miss Jewsbury.*

I SAT with one I love last night,
I heard a sweet, an olden strain,
In other days it woke delight,

Last night but pain!

Last night I saw the stars arise,

But clouds soon dimm'd the ether blue, And when we sought each other's eyes, Tears dimm'd them too.

We paced along our favourite walk,

But paced in silence broken-hearted,
Of old we used to smile and talk-
Last night we parted!

Oh! grief can give the blight of years,
The stony impress of the dead,
We look'd farewell through blinding tears,
And then Hope fled !

A GRAND NEW BLACKING SANG.

By the Ettrick Shepherd.

BLACK-MAKERS now their shops may seal,
Warren may gang an' black the deil;
For a' their whuds an' a' their wiles,
They'll ne'er compare wi' Jamie Kyle's:
I've tried them a', by burnish'd gold!
And Kyle's is best a thousandfold.

But gude preserve my glancin' cloots-
The cocks come fightin' wi' my boots!
The dogs sit gurrin' at their shadows,
An' a tom cat completely mad is!
The birds come hangin' wing an' feather,
To woo upon my upper leather;
An' the bull trout, (the warst of a',)
Whene'er my glancin' limb he saw,
Came splashin' out frae 'mang the segs,
An' bobb'd an' swatter'd round my legs;
For in these mirrors, polish'd gleaming,
He saw a mate in crystal swimming :
This I ca', joking all apart,
Complete perfection o' the art.

Sae a' the blousterin' Blacking-makers May claw their pows, an' turn street-rakers, Or gang wi' ane that's right auld farren, The sly, redoubted Robin Warren,

To hunt the otter an' the beaver
By sources of Missouri river,
Or fly to Afric's sultry shores,

An' help to black the Blackamores;
For business here they can have none-
Othello's occupation's gone.

While Kyle, the sprightly Kyle, shall stand
The chemist of his native land-
A blacking-maker, all uncommon,
Is equall'd or excell'd by no man-
The greatest ever born of woman!

N. B. Pray call, before 'tis over late, At hunder an' twall the Canongate.

* We have much pleasure in adding the name of Miss Jewsbury to those which have already graced the pages of the Literary Jouynal. The above simple and touching stanzas might be set with excellent effect to music, and we recommend them with this view to the attention of our musical readers,

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We understand that the first volume of the History of German Literature, by Mr Thomas Carlyle, translator of "Wilhelm Meister," and author of the "Life of Schiller," is now ready for the press. The work is to be published in London.

The Book of Scotland, by Mr William Chambers, is, we understand, now in the press, and is expected to appear about the end of this month. The contents appear to be of a varied and instructive nature. They are designed to exhibit a popular view of our different national institutions, whether political, civil, or religious,-pro. minent and peculiar laws and usages,-duties of public functionaries, and other matters hitherto unpublished, or scattered over a number of works not easily accessible. The book is intended chiefly for the use of strangers, and will form a companion to the Picture of Scotland.

The Reverend John Parker Lawson, M.A., author of the "Life and Times of Archbishop Laud," is preparing for the press a volume entitled, the Doctrine of the Absolution of Sin, as maintained by the Holy Catholic Church in all ages, stated and explained in seven discourses, with notes and illustrations. In these discourses several popular doctrines, such as Universal Pardon, Assurance of Faith, Lay-preaching, Predestination, &c., will be examined.

A work, under the title of Satanic Records, or the Autobiography of a Nobleman, is announced.

The Rev. Dr Wiseman, Rector of the English College at Rome, is at present engaged in translating some Oriental works in the Vatican. The Drama of Nature, a poem, by Joseph Mitchell Burton, is announced.

MEDICAL PROVIDENT INSTITUTION OF SCOTLAND.-The annual public meeting of this society is to take place, we understand, early in June. The objects of the institution are generally-to protect the members throughout their lives from the casualties to which professional men are exposed, and to make provision for their widows, children, or other dependants, after their death. We believe it is to the highly praiseworthy exertions of Dr Edward D. Alison, that the success which has hitherto attended this excellent institution is mainly to be attributed.

THE STONEHAVEN LUMINARY.-A small literary periodical, bearing this name, has been established in Stonehaven. It contains some very creditable writing, both in prose and verse, and indicates a good spirit on the part of its conductors.

NEW MUSIC.-We have received a copy of a new song, entitled, "Where are the Flowers of the Wildwood?" the music by the authoress of "Aloyse," the words by Charles Doyne Sillery. The air is original, plaintive, and expressive. The song was sung by Miss Jarman in the part of Aloyse, in Glasgow, with much applause.

CHIT CHAT FROM LONDON.-The Exhibition of the Royal Academy is now open at Somerset-House. It contains eleven hundred pictures, one half of which are portraits. There are six portraits by the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, all of which are very interesting, particularly those of the Earl of Aberdeen, and Mr Thomas Moore, though the last is not quite finished. The subject of Wilkie's principal picture, as explained in the catalogue, is " His Majesty, King

George the Fourth, received by the Nobles and People of Scotland, upon his entrance to the Palace of Holyrood House, on the 15th of August 1822." Besides the King, this painting contains full-length portraits of the Dukes of Hamilton, Montrose, and Argyle, the late Earl of Hopetoun, Sir Alexander Keith, Sir Walter Scott, and others. There are also, of course, a great multitude of persons of all ranks and ages, executed in Wilkie's peculiarly racy style. The critics, however, differ much in their estimate of the merits of the work. "The whole picture," says a writer in one of the weekly journals, "has the air of the reception of a buckram commander of the old military school, by the lairds of a petty town, all look so staid, me

lancholy, and demi-officially ceremonious. It is a sad affair, and the streaky handling of the painting makes its dim and murky tone more uninviting." Etty, Turner, Briggs, and Newton, exhibit, upon the whole, the finest pictures.-A Geographical Society is about to be formed in London on a plan similar to that of the Geographical Society of Paris. An institution of this kind has hitherto been a desideratum in this country, and, if properly conducted, is likely to be of very essential service to the cause of science.-At a recent meeting of the Oriental Translation Committee, a resolution of considerable interest to Oriental scholars was agreed to, that a sum varying from 20 to 100 sovereigns should be given to any person who can point out a translation in the Arabic or any other Oriental language, of a lost Greek or Latin work.

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Theatrical Gossip.-" Hofer, the Tell of the Tyrol," written by Planché, and the music taken from Rossini's "Guillaume Tell," has been prodigiously successful at Drury-Lane. It is supported by the combined talents of Miss Stephens, Vestris, Sinclair, H. Phillips, and Bland.-Two new farces have been produced, one at Drury-Lane and the other at Covent-Garden, called, "A Joke's a Joke, or, too much for Friendship," and "The Colonel;" both were deservedly and unequivocally damned.-Miss Paton took her benefit on Thursday last at Covent-Garden. She played Jessica, with songs, in the Merchant of Venice," to Miss Kemble's Portia, and her father's Shylock-Ducrow has commenced his season at Astley's Amphitheatre, and is drawing crowds.-A ludicrous scene occurred the other evening at the King's Theatre. Malibran and Castelli had performed the parts of Romeo and Juliet, but having died too near the front of the stage, they were left at the fall of the curtain still lying before the audience. It would scarcely have done for them to have risen and walked off, so two gentlemen in yellow livery came forward, and each taking a lady in his arms, bore her away, amidst the shouts and laughter of the audience.-Sontag has been getting herself hissed at Berlin, and this treatment affected her so much that she fainted twice in the course of the evening.-Nothing new has been doing at our Theatre this week. Miss Isabella Paton is to commence a week's engagement this evening, in the "Country Girl," and the "Weathercock."-We observe that Mrs Eyre is to take her benefit on Tuesday, on which occasion Miss Eyre is to appear.-Mr Murray has returned from London, and, as we hinted in our last, he has not come alone.

TUES.
WED.

WEEKLY LIST OF PERFORMANCES.

May 11-14.

Guy Mannering, The Scape Goat, & Cramond Brig.
Wild Oats, No! & Free and Easy.

THURS. George Heriot, William Thompson, &c.
FRI. Rob Roy, & Gilderoy.

TO OUR CORRESPONDENTS. NOTICES of several new works of interest are unavoidably postponed.

The dramatic production of " Clarens" is not without merit, but it contains many symptoms of immature judgment, and we are afraid is not in its present form calculated for representation. It lies at our Publishers'.-The communication from "R. W." of Dunbar, on the subject of the Psalms, will be forwarded to Mr Tennant. -We cannot comply with the request of "Proteus," in reference to his volume of manuscript poetry, unless he ceases to write to us anonymously.-The "Sketches in Sutherland and Caithness" will not suit us. We are obliged by the communication of " T. A." of Glasgow. We are afraid that the MS. to which he alludes has gone amissing. We received with pleasure the communications of our Aberdeen Correspondent "W. S.;" the "Ascent of Elijah" shall have a place. Its author will hear from us in a day or two.-" Remarks on Philology" are unavoidably postponed till next Saturday. The poetry of "T. B. J." and of "W. W.," if possible, in our next.-The Sonnet by "N. C." of Glasgow is more laboured than usual, and does not please us quite so well as we could wish.-"The Song of Love," by "G." of Glasgow, contains some good verses, but it is unequal. We shall be glad, however, to hear again from its author.-A packet lies for "J. S." of Inverness at our Publishers'.

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