only insensible of the impending danger, but would have revolted with indignation from the thought of falling by it." (2d part, p. 91–93.)

We cannot conclude without expressing our conviction of the importance of domestic piety, and our approbation of those who, like the author, with attainments, suited to a higher species of composition, condescend to accommodate themselves to its homely character. It is a remark somewhere of archbishop Tillotson that a family can scarcely deserve the name of christian, which does not daily assemble, for the purposes of prayer and instruction; and we regret the discontinuance of a practice which is so strongly recommended by the worthy primate. At the present day the neglect does not arise from the want of means, but from the deficiency of inclination; and we are persuaded that the perusal of these discourses, dictated in the genuine spirit of piety, will tend to encourage those sentiments that are most favourable to its revival.

GOVERNMENT.

GOVERNMENTS formed by chance, and gradually improved by such expedients as the successive discovery of their defects happened to suggest, are never to be tried by a regular theory. We must be content with them as they are; should we attempt to mend their disproportions, we might easily demolish, and with difficulty rebuild them.

In all political regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant.

No scheme of policy has, in any country, yet brought the rich and poor on equal terms into courts of judicature. Perhaps experience, improving on experience, may in time effect it.

To hinder insurrection by driving away the people, and to govern peaceably, by having no subjects, is an expedient that argues no great profundity of politics.

To soften the obdurate, to convince the mistaken, to mollify the resentful, are worthy of a statesman; but it affords a legislator little self-applause to consider, that where there was formerly an insurrection, there is now a wilderness.

LETTER TO MR. JAMES HOGG.

[From Constable's Edinburgh Magazine.]

MY DEAR HOGG

I AM desirous of talking with you for a few minutes about a strange sort of an essay, now publishing piecemeal in Constable's Edinburgh Magazine, on your life and writings. When I saw it announced in the newspaper advertisement, a cold tremor came over me, for I never doubted that you had died suddenly, and that your name had at last got into an obituary. I am happy to understand, however, that you are in good health and spirits at Eltrive-Lake, and preparing for publication two volumes of Tales, which I hope will be greater favourites with the world, than some of your late works, and, may I add without offence, a little better deserving popularity. This idea of publishing memoirs of the life of a man, before that life is terminated, seems to me not a little absurd; and, in the present case, the execution of the plan is as original as the conception. It would really seem as if the writer had sat down with the intention of trying how ridiculous he could make you and himself; and, though your genius and talents are proof against any such attack, I most willingly acknowledge, that the essayist's efforts upon himself have been crowned with complete success, and that he has made himself the subject of very general and sincere merriment.

Poets, my good friend, are notorious for their vanity, and it is possible that you may be gratified by this outrageous eulogy. If so, pray consider for a moment what I now tell you. All the good folks in this town, who know any thing of you or your writings, are walking about with a malicious grin on their faces, and asking one another "who can be the author of this alarming article?" There is a strong disposition to be merry at your expense-while their curiosity to know the critic is so great, that were he to exhibit himself in the George-street assembly room, at a shilling a-head, he would make more money than by writing in the New series of the Scot's Magazine all his days.

Take up your copy of that Magazine, and let us talk over the article paragraph by paragraph. Your friend being, it is to be

presumed, utterly ignorant of all languages but his own, and, as will be seen by and by, no great deacon in it, would fain persuade you and himself that nothing is so despicable and hurtful as erudition. For this purpose, he draws the picture of a certain imaginary class of men, whom he must have seen in a dream, “ who look down from their fancied elevation on all those who have not been taught to prate in trim phrase of the philosophical creed that happens to be in fashion, or of certain books written in languages that have ceased to be spoken for many centuries! To an acquaintance with them, every one inust be trained, and on them his opinions must be formed, or he can hardly expect to be admitted into good society any more than he should if his coat were not in fashion!" Now, my dear Hogg, all this you know is utter nonsense. I have seen you with my own eyes at a rout with top boots; and the flying tailor of Ettrick, though like yourself a man of genius, never hits your shape, and leaves the tail of your coat infinitely too long. So far from Greek and Latin being universally studied in Edinburgh, or the knowledge of these tongues being a passport into good society, there are not above half a dozen people here who could translate your name into genuine Doric; and I dined yesterday with seventeen young lawyers of great promise, when one of his majesty's deputy advocates was fined in a bumper of salt and water, for giving vent to three Latin words, from which fine he was saved by the timely suggestion of another, that he had committed three false quantities. This anecdote ought to set your friend's mind at ease. He is a an alarmist, But let him be of good cheer, for, with the exception of Professors Christidon and Dunbar, and perhaps the masters of the Highschool, some of whom may, like these gentlemen, have a small smattering of Greek (among others your friend Gray,) the inha bitants of this town are as ignorant of that language as our modern Palladios of the principles of architecture.

But, my worthy fellow, does not your own good sense lead you to despise the writer who can speak slightingly of the lords of the ancient world? Though no scholar yourself, I know that you admire those who are, and regret that your want of education has for ever shut you out from such sources of inspiration. Ignorant of ancient lore as we are in this city, I did not think it contained

such a Hun as the writer of that Essay-one man who, with blinded eyes, could turn up his nose in derision of what his sou never could have understood. You have written some fine poetry, and your name will descend to posterity with credit among the bards of Scotland; but believe me, that one drama of a Greek tragedian is worth all that you and all the other uneducated poets in the world ever wrote or ever will write. Do not therefore allow this person to cajole you into this foolish faith, nor believe it possible that you can be the better of sharing in his ignorance.

Having delivered this violent philippic against learning and education, two of the great evils of this life from which he congratulates himself and you on having escaped Scot-free, the old gentleman, (for he must be exceedingly old) proceeds to trace your genius" to what he conceives to be the most favourable situation for its development." No poet, he thinks, ever enjoyed such advantages as you. And, first of all, you had the supreme felicity, and incalculable benefit, of being born in Ettrick Forest, which we are told "combines almost all the soft beauty and wild sublimity that Highland scenery exhibits." This, my dear Hogg, you must know to be a very great mistake, and that Ettrick Forest, though a most interesting district, scarcely possesses one of the characteristic features of our Highland scenery. He next tells you, what you never suspected before, and cannot possibly believe now, in the face both of tradition and authentic history, that 66 every cleugh in these vallies is sanctified by the blood of some martyr!" This is rather in contradiction with himself; for he says, in the very same paragraph, "that there the sturdy champions of the covenant found an asylum,"-not a very comfortable one it would appear. The inhabitants of Ettrick Forest are, it seems, chiefly descended from these "sturdy champions of the covenant, and retain all the noble-mindedness that arises from the consciousness of an illustrious ancestry!" Here the old gentleman waxes still more animated, and declares, "that if he were asked what people of Britain had suffered least from the evil consequences of excessive refinement, he should answer, without hesitation, the inhabitants of Ettrick and Yarrow!" Truly, my dear James, every person who has seen you, or indeed any other south country shepherd or farmer, observes at once that you

have suffered very little indeed from excessive refinement; but your friend must pardon me for thinking that I could exhibit, against all Ettrick, a sturdy celt from Lochaber or Badenoch, who would put you all to shame, and show, in unapproached perfection, all the beauty and glory of barbarism.

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Your friend now ventures into particulars, and informs us, that your mother" was one of the most original of women,”—that she soon observed in you "a kindred spirit,"-that to her "the world is indebted for the Queen's Wake," a weight of national debt which can never be wiped off," that her mind of great original power was strenuously exerted in the formation of your heart, and the development of your understanding;"-and that "she held you in breathless silence, and fearful, though pleasing agitation, by stories of ghosts, and fairies, and brownies, and witches, and dead lights, &c. &c. &c." Her searching eye soon marked your talent for versification, and she used to say, "Jamie, my man, gang ben the house and make me a sang." After all this, how distressing is it to find all at once that the old gentleman's memory is quite decayed. From this excellent mother, to whom you are represented as owing so much, indeed every thing, it appears you were separated entirely by domestic poverty, at the age of seven years! and that "your boyhood and youth were spent in the solitude of the mountains, with no other moral guardian than the good principles your parents had instilled into your mind, and your own reflections, and no other intellectual guide than nature, (i. e. no intellectual or moral guide at all.)

The old gentleman now informs us, in very pompous terms, that "you grew up to manhood in a state of servitude; but in you it produced no degradation, and could not repress the noble aspirings of a generous mind, conscious of its own value, leaning with confidence on its own resources, and feeling itself equal to great undertakings." I have quoted this inflated passage principally to let it be contrasted with your own simple and beautiful narrative of your early life, in which it appears, that you struggled through many difficulties and hardships with an unshaken spirit; but that for many long years you feit your resources to be but small, and that, as for great undertakings, your ambition was confined to little poetical competitions with brother shepherds as