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THE STUDENT OF SPRECHENBURG

AND

PRICE 6d.

young man, with some warmth. "True," said the other; 66 and, consequently, a person of fine taste and universal information;-my question was needless. You are to understand then, that the poets have been in a peculiar degree interested by these circumstances. Having, accordingly, from all quarters of the island, assembled to-night in the secluded nook where we now are, they are immediately to make trial of their own musical skill; and, in case of a favourable result, a deputation is to set off for London, to offer their services to Signor Bochsa, and perform for the season in the orchestra." The lawyer stood astonished. "Well," said he, on recovering words, "how comes it that we in the literary world have not heard a syllable concerning this strange speculation ?" The senior answered, with an air full of meaning," The whole affair is intended to be kept a profound secret; the strangers have all arrived incog, and if you were to-morrow to meet and question any of them on the sub

THE LIVING POETS OF GREAT BRITAIN. It was about the middle of a moonless night, in the winter of 1829-30, that a young lawyer, residing in the splendid city of Sprechenburg, was slowly making his way homewards through the deserted and glimmering streets. He had spent the evening in a party, concentrating in itself a great proportion of the hilarity and wit of that learned city,-a wit and hilarity which, as Mrs Malaprop might express herself, have been long and justly extinguished. Music and poetry, the last subjects of conversation, naturally enough engrossed his thoughts. His brain, at the same time, laboured under the influ. ence of certain potations, not immoderate, but undoubtedly any thing rather than thin; his heart expanded with kindliness to every person and thing, and ideas flowed in upon him with a rapidity and pleasure completely inex-ject, you would probably be assured that the whole is nopressible, but attended with an incoherence and absurdity for which he, at the moment, found it utterly impossible to account. Every attribute of poetry, and more particularly of the musical art, floated through his imagination in a perfect chaos of delight, and even communicated to his wavering eye-sight a sympathy with their appearances. An immense shapeless road-way of earth, thrown across a deep valley in the heart of the city, appeared to transform itself into the case of an enormous violoncello; and a gigantic column, towering in the centre of a handsome square, presented itself in the lamentable guise of a basoon, wanting the mouth-piece. At last, on endeavouring to ascertain his locality, he found the undertaking completely beyond his powers, and quietly resigning himself to his fate, sat down on a flight of doorsteps, wrapped in sage meditation on human error and ignorance.

The moon shone bright, and allowed him to see that he stood on a low terrace, which overhung a beautiful and extensive garden, disposed with a variety of features and richness of grouping, approaching to that of natural scenery; but he had scarcely time even for wonder at his sudden introduction to the scene, when a gravelooking person stepped forward, and accosted him," I congratulate you, sir, on the honourable choice of which you have been made the object."-" Be good enough to explain yourself," interrupted the young gentleman, somewhat abruptly, and with the fretfulness which seizes a philosophical mind on discovering that it has got beyond its depth." With much pleasure," answered the attendant, bowing with all the polished suavity of Monsieur le confident, in the classical French tragedies: "you have been selected to witness and report to the world one of the most extraordinary occurrences of the day, a musical performance by those British poets who have had the principal share in modelling the taste of the present age. You have, of course, heard with interest of certain animadversions thrown out, in the course of last winter, against the musical direction of the Opera-house in our English capital ?”—“ I am a Sprechenburg advocate," replied the

thing more than a foolish quiz of some would-be-witty writer in Blackwood or the Literary Journal.”

As he spoke, he led the way down the terrace staircase, and they passed rapidly through the more regular quarter of the garden, while the bewildered visitor looked round in not unpleasing wonder at the beauties of the ground. Green squares, marble fountains, shady avenues, all were scattered round; rural lodges and moonlight colonnades shone in the distance; and smooth banks and hollows wafted the delicious fragrance of their clustered flowers.

Gradually the scenery became wilder, and the dissimilar elements of the most picturesque landscapes blended together in masses of magnificent irregularity. The course of waters began to be heard through the trees, and tangled brooks to gleam out from between the richly green hillocks, beyond which the vistas were closed by firshaded ranks of hills. As they advanced, the woods were more and more colossal, and alternately exhibited thicker abysses of gloom, or opened upon steep, rocky, and verdant chasms in the mountainous sides of the romantic dell. They continued ascending, till, amidst thickets entwined with shrubs and creeping plants, and darkly over-arched by wall-like cliffs, the guide suddenly paused, and pointed to a path winding by the corner of a projecting rock which rose like a barrier before them.

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The sounds were those of a violin stamped and bowed with the skill, so rarely to be met with, which makes that difficult instrument the most delightful of any. The air was one, breathing in refined melody the genuine inspiration of those ancient years when Patriotism raised her standard of the silver cross,-when haughty Chivalry plunged his war-steed into the fray,-and Romance looked forth from her grey hermit-tower on haunted valleys and dark sepulchral woods. The temper it excited was the stirring and rejoicing one which makes the soul go bounding on its way like the bark before the western gale. Yet in the strain which now rose from its strings, a deeper and loftier spirit often mingled; while, in the light elastic measures of the ancient Scottish poetry, it poured forth a rush of sounds which those old masters of the

parts offended by decided dissonances and abrupt changes of key; and with regard to mastery of the instrument, the impression produced was the very reverse of that which was excited by the first performer: for here a feeling accompanied the hearer, that the cathedral organ of Milton was indeed too powerful for the hand which now touched its keys; as if in these failing days we must be contented with short and interrupted strains of the music of poetry, nor hope to hear those sustained strains of harmony, which the hand of old devotion drew from its unfathomed receptacles of sound.

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The notes which next broke the silence were those of violoncello,-deep, impressive, and possessing the finest quality of tone. Through the still air of night, the wild and extraordinary music which rose into it was heard with startling distinctness. Rude pauses often broke in upon the measure; but where the flame of the poetic frenzy struck most fiercely on the poet's heart, those thoughtful and intensely musical sounds bore in them a tremendous

art might have loved to hear. The commencement of the music had a wild and supernatural meaning, as if its theme were some tale of early enchantments and deeplybelieved appearances of fear; a melody dark as if borrowed from the dim haze of the place which witnessed it, and flashing with a fitful splendour like that which alone illuminated the spot the darting and vanishing light of the meteor-streamers of the north. And as the sky-lit flames revealed glimpses of the green and cliff-encircled amphitheatre, the air sank into a calmer tone, and, in longdrawn fits of harmony, embodied the purest delight in the shifting moods of nature's charms, and the most lively perceptions of their poetical qualities and associations. But there was still a further height to try; and those bursts of warlike enthusiasm which had occasionally kindled through the serener light of the former song, augured well of the strength which was to luxuriate in full-grown freedom amidst the deafening clamours of the battle-field. The notes rose, and the wonder was, that the familiar instrument could be made to utter tones of such varied, power-energy, an energy and wildness of expression which could ful, and elevated music, alternately booming with the thrilling beat of the drum, and piercing like the shrill blare of the trumpet, through the quivering ear and the beating and glowing heart. Now was heard the deep and stilly tramp of distant armies,-now, as they neared, the hum of swords and the dashing of armour united in rousing harmony, till the charging hosts dashed together as the flooded river leaps upon the sea, and the fierce exultation of the combat was imaged in a long and tempestuous sweep of music, free as the race of the winter-blast, and majestic as the echoed thunder in the darkened vale. With throbbing veins and eyes flashing ardour through their filling tears, the listener drank in the strain; and, as he half sprang forward to join the fancied fight, felt as if he could himself, at that moment, like the Poet's own MARMION, have looked gladly from the bed of death on the march of his victorious banner, and collected his energies in one expiring effort, to utter his last delirious shout of intense and martial exultation. And then, in a sad minor movement, one brief measure wailed for the ill which was to follow, and expressed a mingled grief for desolate houses and a vanquished land.

flow only from the rich and wide chambers of one spirit, that of COLERIDGE. The song resembled the effusion of a mind which saw every object through a peculiar, but splendid medium; a mind which had the silence of midnight before it in the full blaze of noon, and which, in the crowded assemblages of real life, was present in thought with spiritual and awful existences. The most ordinary objects were viewed by this singular and powerful imagination as if surrounded by a ghost-like radiance, and endowed in their nature with a mysterious and hidden life; and when his song strove to give voice to the feelings which his fantasy suggested, it rolled on with the low and distant sound rising from beneath the rocks of an engulfed and subterraneous river.

A long pause succeeded: yet the mind had scarcely recovered from the impression of that imaginative piece of music, when a more lightsome burst of melody broke out, expressed in the clear, sweet, bell-like tones of the harmonicon. The hand which wandered over its keys was that of the poet who gave to the world the pure and delicate pictures of the ISLE OF PALMS. Every bar of the music overflowed with combinations of ideas the most gorgeous and lovely; the fulness of delight was uttered in sounds of rich and conscious vigour, and mournful ca

even to tears. But every varied emotion of pleasure in nature, of triumph in delicious hopes, or of sorrow for death and misery, all were embodied with an airiness and ideality of tone which resembled the echo of music rather than its first sounds. The air in every turn discovered the movements of a mind which inhaled the fairness of nature like the very breath of its life, which saw every object in all the colours of the brightening rainbow, and clothed with a thousand decorations invisible to the common eye; and which yet, amidst this glow of increased beauty, believed that poetry is something too sacred for expressing unshadowed joy, and felt that the greenness of the earth is but a thin covering for its graves.

It had scarcely ceased, when, as if in harmony with its closing temper, there arose the deep and solemn swell of an organ, in whose touch the listener immediately recog-dences sank away in a tenderness of expression affecting nised the hand of WORDSWORTH. The former strain had been consecrated to Memory: this was a garland hung on the altar of Hope. And as man, identifying himself with the future, looks forward through many fears and sorrows, but looks backward on vanished ages with a pleasing awe, untinged by a single selfish feeling, so was this piece of music instinct with the sad spirit with which we contemplate the land of futurity, when we for the time forget that around us stretches the shifting pageant of the present, and far and illimitable behind us the dim and glorious scenery of the past. And the prevailing mood of the music was one of deep and often anxious meditation, which could for a while quietly and calmly brood over the loveliness of the external world, and celebrate its praise in melody befitting the subject; but which ever and anon strained onwards to look into the soul of man, and speculate with sorrowful and half prophetic earnestness on his future prospects and destiny. But it had many moments of exquisite and sacred beauty, when it trembled and rose more and more loudly, till its full and ecstatic breath floated through the air, sweet as the first voices of the angelic harps that greet the freed spirit at the gates of heaven. There was no passion in the notes, and even some of the milder and more lovely feelings seemed to have died in the poet's soul, as if unworthy to find a place in the spirit whose inmost cells were filled by an awe and calm rejoicing, as of one standing in the presence of superior natures, and chanting an anthem which he proudly felt was not unworthy of his place. Yet, dignified and almost divine as were many passages, the ear was in some

The hautboy, which next struck the ear, fingered by the LAUREAT, was played with much skill; and the instrument, possessing, to the full extent, neither the power of some of the harsher instruments, nor the plaintiveness characterising its own class, yet combined, in no small measure, the capabilities of both kinds. A few passages there were which were given with much pathos, and many with great fire of execution; but the finest part of the performance was a grotesque concerto, apparently intended as an experiment to determine how many seemingly inconsistent sorts of time could be harmoniously blended in one composition. As the song of THALABA proceeded, the mind was hurried along by a series of rapidly changing and varied representations of the most fanciful and striking description, awakening few of those more vivid emotions and sensibilities which are the grandest effect of music and poetry, but dazzling by a lofty

sedateness of tone, an unobtrusive quaintness of modula-lated to put our impartiality to the test as this now before tion, and a profusion of arabesque and marvellous orna- us. Moderate in all his other feelings, there was one ment, probably never before united within the same limits. which, in Mr Jefferson's breast, was strong, deep, and This air was followed by a performance on the Pandean | lasting—and that one was, hatred to England. We can pipes, in which the ETTRICK SHEPHERD executed and imi- account for the rooted character of this passion by the tated the melodies which had pleased and nurtured his fact, that he knew nothing whatever of the domestic life mind in childhood and youth. And whether the mea- of this country, and that the greater portion of his polisure was the stern and unearthly one which ushered in tical career was spent in an embittered struggle against the most savage and sublime spot in the range of High- her pretensions as a nation. Still, there is something reland grandeur, the haunted and terrific Loch Avin,— —or pulsive in the virulent tone in which he always speaks whether, in an altered tone, full of fanciful imagery and of Great Britain, and of every thing connected with her, enthusiastic sense of the beautiful, it described the won- that necessarily engenders a reciprocal dislike in our ders of the fairy-land of thought, with the feeling and breasts. It is almost impossible to avoid entertaining an power of one who believed in the very wildest of the en- aversion to the man whose confidential, no less than his trancing legends which he sang,-in all its changes, the public writings, are one huge libel against our national instrument, so far as its confined scale admitted, was ma- character. His duties as a statesman, it is true, oblige naged with the mastery of one whose whole soul was him occasionally to speak us fair, and his principles as a bound up in its simple notes, and in the train of old and philosopher force him now and then to admit our merits; poetical thoughts which they excited. but even in these transient intervals, his words are cold and measured, while the continually recurring expressions of his antipathy are full, unconstrained, and heartfelt. Until we had thus made our readers aware of the leading feature of Jefferson's mind, it would have been difficult for us to have attempted to convey to them, without interruption, any idea of the light which his works throw upon the history of his country.

Next rose the accents of the flute of CAMPEELL, an instrument of exquisite tone, and played with the utmost accuracy of stop and softness of breathing. The delicious harmony, uninterrupted by a single note that could have marred its sweetness, floated like the very voice of the spirit of youth, a spirit for the first time finding sounds to utter those mute, unexpressed visions which had given happiness to its early years, and while, with fond affection, it lingered in fancy among their sunny landscapes, hymning them in mingled strains of blissful rapture and romantic sorrow. It was an air soft and passionate beyond description,—one which, sung to us in sinking and pensive years, brings up before us the very impress and presence of our own youthful fancies; it was the voice of ideas too purely beautiful to be real, too soothing to be believed untrue.

Last came a lively prelude on the guitar, the music of the thronged ball-room and the splendid saloon, exciting none of those deeper and more melancholy reflections which might cloud the festivity of the place, but calling up gorgeous groups of voluptuous and attractive ideas. It was the instrument of MOORE, fingered in short ariettas, with the rapidity of thought, and in the presto movements suited to the sprightly evolutions of the dance,-played with great richness of sound, and perfectly in tune, but with a profusion of graces much injuring the effect of the many pathetic, tender, and imaginative ideas with which its varying measures abounded.

The music had ended: but the concealed spectator yet stood with head bent forward, in the attitude of deep attention, while his mind formed to itself pleasurable and distinct remembrances of the feast of melody he had just enjoyed. He raised his head, and spoke, half to himself:-" We have heard nothing of two of our greatest names, Byron and Shelley. How is this?" In a moment the blush of shame flitted across his cheek, as he muttered in a lower tone, "They are right; there is no jesting with death!" He was suddenly awaked from his reverie by the voice of his guide. "You appear to have felt the excellences of these our amateur performers; are you prepared to listen to my criticism on their faults?"—" Confound their faults! what are their faults to me?"

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Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia, in the year 1743. He was bred a lawyer, and, attaining his majority in 1764, entered upon public life just as the dissensions which led to the independence of the United States were commencing. As, successively, a member of the legislative assembly of his native state, and of Congress, Governor of Virginia, Charge d'Affaires in France, Secretary of State, Vice-President, and President, he was uninterruptedly engaged in public business from the beginning of the American commotions till the year 1809; and from that period down till his death, a few years ago, he kept a watchful eye upon the political transactions of his native country, and continued in active correspondence with its leading statesmen. From the time of his first taking a share in public business, he retained a copy of every letter he wrote, and this voluminous correspondence occupies by far the greatest and most interesting portion of the four volumes now published. His memoirs, written by himself, which are prefixed, are brief and unsatisfactory. The editor conjectures that they were designed for the use of his family alone; and, even supposing that Mr Jefferson had contemplated no wider circulation of this document, we cannot but think that he must have meant it merely as a first hasty jotting, to be extended and filled up at leisure.

The reader naturally anticipates that this collection of documents must afford rich materials for the historian of the United States ;-nor is he mistaken. In Jefferson's letters, we find a minute and faithful picture of the labours by which the internal arrangements of the new state were completed, and of the degrees by which she attained to the place she now holds among the nations. We see in them the progress of her system of constitutional and international law, from its first conception till it attained its present degree of developement and consistency. In perusing the work, we cannot help being deeply impressed by the noiseless and unpretending manner in which Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Maddison, and Munroe, (the leaders of both parties,) at first laid the broad and firm foundations of the infant country, and afterwards reared it to its present extent and power. Its constitution depends, more than any the world has yet seen, upon the preservation of a healthy moral tone among its population, and upon a succession of gifted and patriotic leaders; but if Heaven continue to grant it such men as it has hitherto had, the future power of this infant Hercules must be tremendous. We say this assuredly in no cowardly or desponding spirit, though it would be folly to pretend, that, as Britons,

with interest, as serving to elucidate the moral character and domestic economy of the nation at the beginning of the 17th century. It is true that a criminal tribunal is not the place to seek for a flattering, perhaps not even a just, picture of an age; but, as our peasants say of any windfall, "it helps wi' the lave." The differing degrees of rudeness and atrocity with which the same crimes are perpetrated at different periods, form no bad index of a people's comparative civilisation.

After carefully perusing this, and the preceding Num

we are entirely void of misgivings in regard to the future. Literary men may tell us (and truly) that America is behind in art, science, and literature; shallow babblers may sneer at some peculiar habits of the Americans, and at their want of the last Bond Street polish; but men who can look deeper, and read, in their history of fifty years, their enterprising spirit, the immense resources of their scarcely half-occupied territory, and the manly practical sense of their governors, will not be likely to join in any hasty ridicule of this people. The Romans were rude and illiterate for the first five hun-bers of Mr Pitcairn's valuable publication, we cannot say dred years of their growing greatness; and there was, amid all their courage and patriotism, a stain of avarice and selfishness. Yet we do not find that these hindered them one moment in their progress to universal empire. It is true, that times are changed since then; and America will neither have the wish nor the power to emulate their career. But the superior opportunities which a nation so extensive, and promising to be so firmly knit, must enjoy, for attracting a large share of this world's wealth, are yet incalculable.

Of the particular contents of this work, our limits, of course, do not admit of our giving any thing like a detailed account. The most interesting are ::-Firstly, The debates in Congress respecting the declaration of independence. Secondly, That part of Jefferson's correspondence which, extending from 1781 to 1789, paints the reluctance and slow degrees by which America was received within the pale of nations. Thirdly, The documents tending to show the gradual extension and formation of her commercial and diplomatic system. Lastly, The insight given us, by a long series of letters, written during the heat of the contest, into the struggles by which the constitution of the United States was firmly established.

The contents of the work are almost exclusively political and scientific;-there are scarcely any intimations of the personal and domestic habits of the author and his contemporaries. We meet now and then with a hasty sketch of some leading actor in the times, sufficiently shrewd and graphic, but always restricted to his public character. Jefferson himself betrays little of his own character. From what little offers, we would say that its predominant feature was strong practical understanding. Of imagination he had not a tittle; and if he had any of the common feelings and affections of humanity, he has (except in the case of his hatred to England) been wonderfully successful in subduing them. Of devotional feeling he seems to have been entirely unsusceptible. What he calls religion, takes cognizance only of man's duties to his fellows. His mind, therefore, shorn as it was of some of humanity's most noble faculties, was of no very elevated cast; and yet there was a power about him, as long as he moved within his own circle, that enforces our admiration. Less amiable, but more energetic, he belongs essentially to the same class of intellects as Franklin.

It redounds to the credit of the Editor that he has not attempted to swell this publication by any of the common tricks of book-making. On the contrary, we may remark, that an occasional note to inform us who the correspondents are, or to explain a local allusion, would not have increased its bulk materially, and would have been (in this country at least) highly useful and acceptable.

that we feel over-and-above proud of our ancestors. The timber out of which they were hewn might have been good originally, but it was terribly warped in the making. We do not allude to their rude and coarse superstitions, of which we have given specimens on former occasions ; nor to those habitual acts of lawless violence, in which all classes indulged, but to the low standard of honour and honesty which these records show prevailed among the middle class. Along the shores on either side of the Forth and Tay, and through the low country as far as Aberdeen, the people seem to have been tolerably domesticated. It is, perhaps, what a lawyer calls travelling a little out of the record, (but, as it elucidates our point, we do not much mind that,) when we say, that having lately had occasion to consult some of the burgh records of Scotland, we were much struck by the anxiety evinced at the period, by this part of the population, for the diffusion of education. The eager attachment of the burgesses to the reformed religion likewise, although it in too many cases begot a pharisaical spirit, at least made them acquainted with more elevated feelings and principles. But with all this there was still a deep and radical taint adhering to them. Habits of industry, though gaining ground, were not yet so firmly rooted that a line of demarcation could be strongly drawn betwixt the honest pains-taking class, and the idle and dissolute, who indulged in acts of fraud and violence. The wolves and the sheep were penned up together, and this (to say nothing of the danger to which the more pacific race were thereby exposed) had the bad effect of seducing many of the lambs to assume carnivorous habits. Among the numerous bands of lawless men whose misdeeds bring them into collision with the courts of justice, we find an unwarrantable number of douce burgesses, and young men of respectable families. The most common crimes are stouthrief on a magnificent scale, and coining of false money. In this latter branch of business the Flemings, who had at that time considerable intercourse with Scotland, dealt largely. Bibles and bad money seem to have constituted the bulk of their imports.

On the south lay the border counties, and on the north the Highlands, both districts, though from somewhat different causes, and with varying shades of character, in a sufficiently rude and barbarous state. In the case of the former there is at least this alleviating circumstance, that their rudeness was fostered by their continual exposure to hostilities from another nation; the barbarism of the lat ter was perpetuated by the more unpardonable indulgence in personal and domestic feuds, as illustrated by the dissensions of the Islesmen commemorated in Mr Pitcairn's earlier numbers, and the case of Patrick Stewart (p. 393) in the present.

This fasciculus tends also to throw some new light on the character of James, our Scottish Solomon, and, in truth, not much to his advantage. The case of Kincaid

Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. Part IV. From Sept. 1600 of Craighouse (p. 336), who seems to have been seduced to July 1602. Edinburgh. William Tait. 1830.

THE greater proportion of the present Number of this interesting work is occupied with documents relative to the Gowrie Conspiracy—a subject upon which we entered at too great length on a former occasion, to leave any necessity for our discussing it again at present. There are, however, in this Part, several trials unconnected with that transaction, which are, nevertheless, pregnant

by the King's instrumentality into the perpetration of abduction, in order that he might be amerced in a swinging fine, as well as in his "guid broune horse," might make a good incident in a comedy. The unblushing manner in which many are declared free from all farther quarrel, because they have disbursed a certain sum for his Majesty's use, is no more than James's usual brainless trumpeting of his indecorums led us to expect. But the case of Archibald Cornwall (p. 349) has very much sha

ken our preconceived notions of the King's goodness of heart. This unfortunate man was a town-officer, and had been employed in a judicial sale of household furniture. The "rowpe" took place near the common gibbet, and there being a picture of the King among the goods, the officer, in order to show it to advantage, was proceed ing inadvertently to attach it to the gibbet, but was prevented. For this inadvertency he was tried and executed, his body being allowed to hang four-and-twenty hours. This happened at a time when the adherents of the covenant were daily speaking in a strain which bordered upon treason, and yet not a voice was raised against this act of cold-blooded pride and cruelty.

A stripling about the age of sixteen, who has been hitherto rather short and dumpy, suddenly finds himself shoot out like asparagus, and all at once become portentously long and thin. His mother and sisters with all possible expedition proceed to let out reefs from the cuffs of his coat and the legs of his trowsers; but to little purpose, for the sleeves of the one arrive only a short way below the elbows, and the trowsers, as if their legs had been cut away instead of lengthened, terminate in a very ludicrous and Highland fashion somewhere about the knees. There is at length no alternative; recourse must be had to a skilful tailor, and in his new suit of clothes, behold! our hero is all at once, to his own considerable surprise, a young man! Adieu at once to marbles and paper kites; the King's birth-day fades into obscurity, and blind-man's-buff becomes undignified! At dancingparties he is considered a very eligible partner, and ladies quiz him upon the subject of his being in love. And no wonder; for being naturally susceptible, and having read a considerable number of novels and not a few romances, be seldom falls asleep before he has vowed in his own Ocean, Stella, and other Poems. By John Mackenzie, | heart eternal fidelity to some Adelaide, Clara, or MaD. D., Minister of Portpatrick. Second Edition. | tilda. Then, in a most unaccountable manner, he sudEdinburgh. A. Macredie. 1830. Pp. 153. denly conceives the idea of taking a solitary walk,—a Poetical Aspirations. By William Anderson, Esq. Edin-walk away into the country where there are some green burgh. John Anderson, jun. 1830. Pp. 200. Exodus; or, the Curse of Egypt, a Sketch from Scripture; | and other Poems. By T. B. J. Glasgow. W. R. M‘Phun. 1830. Pp. 176.

We wish Mr Pitcairn all possible success; for his work is already a most valuable addition to the history of our country and laws, and every new number seems to add to its interest.

Domestic Life, and other Poems. Edinburgh. Waugh & Innes. 1830. Pp. 127.

May Flowers. Poems and Songs; some in the Scottish
Dialect. By John Imlah.
London. Baldwin, Cra-
dock, & Joy. Pp. 231.

THE history of a small volume of miscellaneous poems
from its first conception to its final completion, from its
cradle to its grave, would afford materials for a curious
chapter, illustrative of the phenomena of mind. Consi-
dering the matter superficially, we have often wondered
within ourselves what on earth could ever tempt a young
or middle-aged man gravely to print one hundred and
fifty or two hundred pages, consisting of detached pieces
of rhyme. We have said to ourselves, What possible ad-
vantages does the author of this publication expect to
arise out of it? In these days, when the power of ver-
sifying is almost as common as that of eating or walking,
can he anticipate that a little book in blue, yellow, red,
or green boards, (for there are all these varieties,) with a
neat title-page and a modest preface, and a very toler-
able collection of pretty thoughts under the head of
"Lines," "Stanzas," "Sonnets," " Canzonets," "Sere-
nades," "Songs," " Impromptus," or "Fragments,"-
can he by any chance anticipate that such a little book
will fill his coffers with money, or crown his brow with
laurels? Upon what principle is it that he voluntarily
undergoes all the "whips and scorns" of authorship,
"the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,”—
the suppressed smile of his friends as often as his three-
and-sixpenny volume comes across their memory, the
open ridicule of his foes, who, as soon as they discover
that their enemy" hath written a book," proceed to
make him aware of what Hamlet meant when he spoke

of

"the spurns

Which patient merit of the unworthy takes?"

Why and wherefore has he brought down upon his own head so great a load of misery? We have revolved this question a thousand times, and after keeping it longalla mente reposta-we can answer it satisfactorily only on the supposition that most of these miscellaneous-poem- | publishing authors go on step by step, from little to little, until, upon awaking some morning, they see a book upon the breakfast-table, and blush to find it their own. Let us for a moment look a little deeper into the heart of this mystery, and if possible trace the rise and progress of the phenomenon.

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trees a good way off the dust of the high road, and a stream tolerably clear, only that there is a large dyeing establishment on its banks, and a hill or two in the back-ground, trying to look as picturesque as they can; and where he can hear what he knows to be the voice of birds, without enquiring too curiously whether it be only the chirping of the sparrow, or the warbling of the linnet. he puts his hand first into his breeches' pocket, and takes Under the influence of sights and sounds so harmonious, out a silver pencil, and then into his coat pocket, and takes out a memorandum-book, in which there are several blank leaves. To one of these leaves the youthful poet intrusts and then with a trembling thrill restores the memoranhis maiden effusion-a sonnet perhaps, or "Lines to ——,' dum-book to its accustomed place, and with a more than ordinary flush upon his countenance, returns home to dinner. For weeks it may be for months—he is like the little girl described by Montgomery who "had a secret of her own," because she had discovered a bird's nest. He knows that he has written poetry, but he breathes not the fact to mortal man; he is ashamed to confess the weakness. But blank leaves of his first memorandum-book are filled, and he takes some more solitary walks; and at length all the he finds himself under the necessity of purchasing a second. Still, like Von Dunder in the farce, he "sticks to his incognito," till the fatal hour at length arrives when the lady of his heart determines on keeping an al bum.

fuse.

He is asked for a contribution, and he dare not reand spotless Bristol-board is intrusted to his keeping; and, The snowy whiteness of its exquisite gilt leaves fully impressed with the weight of the responsibility, he the fineness of their hair-strokes, and with much agitamends half-a-dozen pens in a manner calculated to secure tion commits some of his own verses to the sacred book, modestly affixing to them his initials only. But now his fate is sealed; the intelligence flies like wild-fire; he is a poet; his verses are the sweetest things ever written. Albums pour in from all quarters, accompanied with most irresistible three-cornered pink-coloured notes: "Will he do Miss A the honour ?"-" Will he so far oblige Miss B?"" Might Miss C venture to request ?"

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Meantime, all the young ladies assure him that several "real judges" have pronounced his poetry most beautiful." "The Editor of Blackwood's Magazine said his 'Lines to -'were full of genius." "The Editor of the Literary Journal said his Stanzas to a Lady' were equal to any thing Moore had ever written." "Surely he intended publishing?" "At all events he should write for the periodicals." No mortal man could resist such an attack as this. Without saying a word to any body, he

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