me, and said I was in love. I rallied them again, and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart, if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it continued for eight months, in which time my friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. I perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last Klopstock said plainly that he loved; and I startled as for a wrong thing. I answered that it was no love but friendship, as it was, what I felt for him; we had not seen one another enough to love (as if love must have more time than friendship)! This was sincerely my meaning, and I had this meaning till Klopstock came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen one another the first time. We saw we were friends; we loved, and we believed that we loved ; and a short time after I could even tell Klopstock that I loved. But we were obliged to part again and wait two years for our wedding. My mother would not let marry me a stranger. I could marry then without her consentment, as by the death of my father my fortune depended not on her. But this was a horrible idea for me, and thank Heaven that I have prevailed by prayers! At this time, knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her lifely son, and thanks God that she has not persisted. We married, and I am the happiest wife in the world. In some few months it will be four years that I am so happy, and still I dote upon Klopstock as if he was my bridegroom. If you "If you knew my husband, you would not wonder. knew his poem I could describe him very briefly, by saying he is in all respects what he is as a poet. This I can say with all wifely modesty. But I dare not speak of my husband; I am all raptures when I do it. And as happy as I am in love, so happy am I in friendship in my mother, two elder sisters, and five other How rich I am! women. "Sir, you have willed that I should speak of myself, but I fear I have done it too much. Yet you see how it interests me. It is not possible, Sir, to tell you what a joy your letters give me. My heart is very able to esteem the favor that you in your venerable age are so condescending good to answer so soon the letters of an unknown young woman, who has no other merit tell how I rejoice! A son of my dear Klopstock! Oh, when shall I have him? It is long since I have made the remark, that geniuses do not engender geniuses. No children at all, bad sons, or at the most lovely daughters like you and Milton. But a daughter or a son only, with a good heart without genius, I will nevertheless love dearly. 66 'I think that about this time a nephew of mine will wait on you. His name is Winlhem, a young rich merchant, who has no bad qualities, and several good, which he has still to cultivate. His mother was, I think, twenty years older than I, but we other children loved her dearly like a mother. She had an excellent character, but is long since dead. This is no letter but only a newspaper of your Hamburg daughter. When I have my husband and my child I will write you more (if God gives me health and life). You will think that I shall be not a mother only but a nurse also; though the latter (thank God that the former is not so too) is quite against fashion and good breeding, and though nobody can think it possible to be always with the child at home! "M. KLOPSTOCK." This was the last letter from this sweet creature. The next in the series is from a different hand. "Honored Sir, "6 Hanover, December 21st, 1758. "As perhaps you do not know that one of your fair correspondents, Mrs. Klopstock, died in a very dreadful manner, in childbed, I think myself obliged to acquaint you with this most melancholy accident. "Mr. Klopstock, in the first motion of his affliction, composed an ode to God Almighty, which I have not yet seen, but I hope to get by-and-by. I shall esteem myself highly favored by a line or two from any of your family, for I presume you sometimes kindly remember "Your most humble servant, "And great admirer, "L. L. G. MAJOR." A subsequent letter contradicts the fact of the ode's being com posed at this time. But a comparison of the dates of Mr. Major's communication and of Mrs. Klopstock's last interesting letter, still brings this poetizing a great calamity far too near the time of its occurrence to be satisfactory to those who have read and sympathized with the quick feelings of the devoted wife. It is pleasanter to remember that Klopstock never married again, till, in his old age, a few years before his death, he had the ceremony performed between himself and a kinswoman, who lived with him, in order to entitle her, as his widow, to the pensions he enjoyed from different Courts. XXXIII. FINE SINGLE POEMS. SIR WALTER SCOTT, &C. NOTHING Seems stranger amid the strange fluctuations of popularity than the way in which the songs and shorter poems of the most eminent writers occasionally pass from the highest vogue into the most complete oblivion, and are at once forgotten as if they had never been. Scott's spirited ballad, "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee," is a case in point. Several persons (among the rest Mrs. Hughes, the valued friend of the author) have complained to me, not only that it is not included among Sir Walter's ballads, but that they were unable to discover it elsewhere. Upon mentioning this to another dear friend of mine, the man who, of all whom I have known, has the keenest scent for literary game, and is the most certain to discover a lost poem, he threw himself upon the track, and failing to obtain a printed copy, succeeded in procuring one in manuscript, taken down from the lips of a veteran vocalist; not, as I should judge, from his recitation, but from his singing, for it is no uncommon thing with singers to be unable to divorce the sense from the sound, so that you must have the music with the words, or go without them altogether. At all events this transcript is a curiosity. The whole ballad is written as if it were prose: no capital at the beginning of the lines; no break, as indicated by the rhyme, at the conclusion; no division between the stanzas. All these ceremonies are cast aside, with a bold contempt for vulgar usages, and the entire song thrown into one long paragraph. I think it is Cowper who wrote a rhyming letter upon the same principle; but the jingle being more obtrusive, and the chorus a wanting, the effect of the intentional pleasantry is far less ludicrous than that produced by this unconscious and graver error I endeavored to restore the natural divisions of the verse; and having since discovered a printed copy, buried in the Doom of Devorgoil, where of course nobody looked for it, I am delighted to transfer to my pages one of the most spirited and characteristic ballads ever written. To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claverhouse who spoke, Come follow the bonnets of Bonny Dundee. Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow; But the young plants of grace they looked cowthie and slee, Come fill up my cup, &c. With sour-featured Whigs the Grass-market was thranged There was spite in each look, there was fear in each e'e, Come fill up my cup, &c. These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, And lang-hafted gullies to kill cavaliers; But they shrunk to close-heads, and the causeway was free Come fill up my cup, &c. He spurred to the foot of the proud castle rock, And with the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke; "Let Mons Meg and her marrows speak twa words or three The Gordon demands of him which way he goes- |