CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PREFACE. THESE Volumes contain such of the Author's contributions to Blackwood's Magazine, as appeared to deal with subjects of general, intrinsic, and permanent interest and importance. Most of them were originally written with a view to subsequent separate publication; and some have cost the Author great pains, alike in the writing and revision. The paper, however, entitled "The Mystery of Murder, and its Defence," did not appear in Blackwood's Magazine, but in the quarterly Law Review, and is included in these "Miscellanies," for reasons stated in a note subjoined to the commencement of the paper. The short prize poem, entitled "The Martyr Patriots," is here inserted, principally from the Author's desire to indicate his early connexion with the ancient and distinguished University of Edinburgh, towards which he entertains feelings of great respect. The last article in this collection, entitled "Some Personal Recollections of Christopher North," is a brief unstudied tribute of affection and admiration for the character and genius of Professor Wilson. It was written originally for these "Miscellanies;" but, at Messrs Blackwood's request, also appears in the number of Blackwood's Magazine for December 1854. It has been suggested to the Author, with reference to an allusion made, in a note to that paper, to a letter received by him from Sir Walter Scott, that the reader might be pleased to see the entire letter: which is therefore here given, as an evidence of the extraordinary good nature and condescension of that great writer to an unknown correspondent, a mere boy -scarcely entered upon his seventeenth year. He had, at that early period, nearly completed, in secret, a work for the press; and, in a sudden fit of that enthusiasm with which the author of "Waverley" inspired so many of his myriad readers, actually presumed to write to him, giving an outline of the proposed undertaking, and asking the great man's advice how to set about publishing! Hoping that his intrusion in so doing may be deemed, in some degree, atoned for, by giving the public so interesting an evidence of the then Great Unknown's good-natured counsels to an |