cern not in the highest. He has a just self-consciousness which too often degenerates into pride; yet it is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence; no cold suspicious feeling, but a frank and social onę. The peasant poet bears himself, we might say, like a king in exile: he is cast among the low, and feels himself equal to the highest; yet he claims no rank, that none may be disputed to him. The forward he can repel; the supercilious he can subdue; pretensions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail with him; there is a fire in that dark eye under which the "in solence of condescension" cannot thrive. In his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the majesty of poetry and manhood. And yet, far as he feels himself above common men, he wanders not apart from them, but mixes warmly in their interests; nay throws himself into their arms, and, as it were, entreats them to love him. It is moving to see how, in his darkest despondency, this proud being still seeks relief from friendship; unbosoms himself even to the unworthy; and, amid tears, strains to his glowing heart a heart that knows only the name of friendship. And yet he was quick to learn; a man of keen vision; "before whom common disguises afforded no concealment. His understanding saw through the hollowness even of accom-. plished deceivers; but there was a generous credulity in his heart. And so did our peasant show himself among us; a soul like an Eolian harp, in whose strings the vulgar wind, as it passed through them, changed itself into articulate melody." And this was he for whom the world found no fitter business than quarrelling with smugglers and vintners, computing excise dues upon tallow, and guaging ale barrels! In such toils was that mighty spirit sorrowfully wasted; and a hundred years may pass on before another such is given us to waste.

A Scottish peasant's life was the meanest and rudest of all-lives, till Burns became a poet in it, and a poet of it, found it a man's life, and therefore significant to men. A thousand battle-fields remain unsung; but the wounded hare has not perished without its memorial; a balm of mercy yet breathes on us from its dumb agonies, because a poet was there. Our Halloween had passed and repassed in a rude awe and laughter, since the era of the Druids; but no Theocritus, till Burns, discerned in it the materials of a Scottish Idyl: neither was the Holy Fair any Council of Trent, or Roman Jubilee; but, nevertheless, superstition, and hypocrisy, and fun having been propitious to him, in this man's hand it became a poem, instinct with satire and genuine comic life. Let but the true poet be given us, we repeat it, place him where and how you will, and true poetry will not be wanting.

There is a true old saying, that "love furthers knowledge," but, above all, it is the living essence of that knowledge which makes poets; the first principle of its existence, increase, activity. Of Burns's fervid affection, his generous all-embracing love, we have spoken already as of the grand distinction of his nature, scem equally, in word and deed, in his Life and in his Writings. It were easy to multiply examples. Not man only, but all that environs man in the material and moral universe is lovely in his sight; the "hoary hawthorn," the "troop of grey plover," the "solitary curlew," all are dear to him; all live in this earth along with him, and to all he is knit as in mysterious brotherhood. How

touching is it, for instance, that amidst the gloom of personal misery, brooding over the wintry desolation without him and within him, he thinks of the "ourie cattle," and "silly sheep," and their sufferings in the pitiless storm!

I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' wintry war;

Or through the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,
Beneath a scaur.

ragged

'The tenant of the mean hut with its
roof and chinky wall," has a heart to pity even these.
This is worth several homilies on mercy; for it is
the voice of mercy herself. Burns, indeed, lives in
sympathy; his soul rushes forth into all realms of
being; nothing that has existence can be indifferent
to him. The very devil he cannot hate with right
orthodoxy!

But fare ye weel, auld nickie-ben;
O wad ye tak a thought and men'!
Ye aiblins might-I dinna ken-
Still hae a stake;

I'm wae to think upo' your den,
Even for your sake!

He did not know, probably, that Sterne had been beforehand with him. "He is the father of curses

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

And there thou art-the beautiful, the gay,

No more. "Where be thy gambols now?"—the prank
Fantastic?-all the merriment of play
Which charmed the woodman, as on dasied bank
He wiped the toil-drops, gathering cold and dank,
And rested on his axe? The iron wheel
Of cars has crushed thee,-street-curs, thin and lank,
Have mumbled with their jaws, in search of meal-
There art thou-scorned of all-and spurned by every
heel!

VIII.

Farewell, poor Squirrel! thou hast lived thy day,
And though no greenwood tree beheld thee die,
Nor balmly breezes bore thy breath away—
Well hast thou lived, and eke right joyously,
In this mist world of mirth and misery.
Humble my theme, and of no ancient date-
Yet, Reader! view it not with scornful eye,
Tasks more ungrateful fall in man's estate
Than singing Squirrel's spring, or mourning her sad
fate.
OLD CRONY.

TABLE TALK.

Good Logic. In the dedication of a piece of his, Scarron speaks in this manner to the king: "I shall endeavour to convince your majesty, that to do me a little good would be doing yourself no hurt: if you did me a little good, I should be more cheerful than I am; if I was more cheerful than I am, my comedies would be merrier; if my comedies were merrier, your majesty would be more diverted; if you were the more diverted, your money could not be said to be thrown away. All these conclusions hang together so naturally, that, methinks, I could not hold out against them were I a great monarch, instead of being a miserable indigent creature.

SELF-AID AGAINST PERTURBATION.

When our diseas'd affections
Harmful to human freedom, and storm-like
Inferring darkness to th' infected mind
Oppress our comforts, 'tis but letting in
The light of reason, and a purer spirit
Take in another way; like rooms that fight
With windows 'gainst the wind, yet let in light."
CHAPMAN.

The man who shrinks from investigation, lest he should mistake false for true, can have no reason for supposing himself free from that delusion in his actual opinions.—Bailey.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WE have had thoughts of doing what SCHOLASTICUS wishes.

T. F. T. appears to have an honourable and earnest nature, and no mean feeling of the tone of poetry; but two of his sonnets are not admissible in this journal on account of their polemical and political tendencies, and we are doubtful whether the third would sufficiently interest the general reader.

We will look into the book mentioned by W. D. who writes to us under a new and venerable signature. J. A. has been merely kept out,"not at all willingly, by a press of matter; and while we are writing this notice, we must express a fear that we shall be forced to omit paying our debts to other writers, J. and M. S. included, till next week. We shall take warning by this compulsion, (against which we find it impossible to guard, especially in a publication which must be squared to the printer's necessities at the eleventh hour,) and fix no more days in future for the appearance of what is delayed. It is hazarding apparent negligence to our readers, and needless responsibility to ourselves.

We hope to become better acquainted with the muse of T. C.

R. J. understandeth dulcet benediction; but have we not seen the verses before?

Attention shall be paid forthwith to E. B. and to H. H.

W. H. M., we conceive, mistook the signature. We cannot refer to it at this moment, nor the article he speaks of; but we have a recollection of intending it for insertion, and will look for it.

Several contributions are under consideration.

LONDON: Published by H. HOOPER, 13, Pall Mall East. From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26. 1834.

THE CAT BY THE FIRE.

A BLAZING fire, a warm rug, candles lit and curtains drawn, the kettle on for tea (if rich, you may have a silver kettle, and so partake the pleasures of the poor), and finally, the cat before you, attracting your attention, it is a scene which every body likes unless he has a morbid aversion to cats; which is not common. There are some nice inquirers, it is true, who are apt to make uneasy comparisons of cats with dogs,-to say they are not so loving, that they prefer the house to the man, &c. But agreeably to the good old maxim, that "comparisons are odious," our readers, we hope, will continue to like what is likeable in anything, for its own sake, without trying to render it unlikeable from its inferiority to something else,--a process by which we might ingeniously contrive to put soot into every dish that is set before us, and to reject one thing after another, till we were pleased with nothing. Here is a good fireside, and a cat to it; and it would be our own fault, if, in removing to another house and another fireside, we did not take care that the cat removed with us. Cats cannot look to the moving of goods, as men do. If we would have creatures considerate towards us, we must be so towards them. It is not to be expected of everybody, quadruped or biped, that they should stick to us in spite of our want of merit, like a dog or a benevolent sage. Besides, stories have been told of cats very much to the credit of their benignity; such as their following a master about like a dog, waiting at a gentleman's door to thank him for some obligation over night, &c. And our readers may remember the history of the famous Godolphin Arabian, upon upon whose grave a cat that had lived with him in the stable, went and stretched itself, and died.

The cat purrs, as if it applauded our consideration, -and gently moves its tail. What an odd expression of the power to be irritable and the will to be pleased there is in its face, as it looks up at us. We must own, that we do not prefer a cat in the act of purring, or of looking in that manner. It reminds us of the sort of smile, or simmer (simper is too weak and fleeting a word) that is apt to be in the faces of irritable people, when they are pleased to be in a state of satisfaction. We prefer, for a general expression, the cat in a quiet unpretending state, and the human countenance with a look indicative of habitual grace and composure, as if it were not necessary to take any violent steps to prove its amiability, the "smile without a smile," as the poet beautifully calls it.*

that

Furthermore, (in order to get rid at once of all may be objected to poor Pussy, as boys at school get down their bad dumpling as fast as possible, before the meat comes) we own we have an objection to the way in which a cat sports with a mouse before she kills it, tossing and jerking it about like a ball, and letting it go, in order to pounce upon it with the greater relish. And yet what right have we to apply human measures of cruelty to the inferior reflectability of a cat? Perhaps she has no idea of the mouse's being alive, in the sense that we have,-most likely she looks upon it as a pleasant moveable toy, made to be eaten,—a sort of lively pudding, that oddly jumps hither and thither. It would be hard to beat • Knowles, in the Beggar of Bethnal Green.'

[From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.]

No. 35.

into the head of a country squire, of the old class, that there is any cruelty in hunting a hare; and most assuredly it would be still harder to beat mousesparing into the head of a cat. You might read the most pungent essay on the subject into her ear, and she would only sneeze at it.

As to the unnatural cruelties, which we sometimes read of, committed by cats upon their offspring, they are exceptions to the common and beautiful rules of nature, and accordingly we have nothing to do with them. They are traceable to some unnatural circumstances of breeding or position. Enormities as monstrous are to be found among human beings, and argue nothing against the general character of the not always immaculate; Dr Franklin cut off his differing with him in

species. Even dogs are and sages have made slips. son with a shilling, for politics.

But cats resemble tigers? They are tigers in miniature? Well, and very pretty miniatures they are. And what has the tiger himself done, that he has not a right to his dinner, as well as Jones? A tiger treats a man much as a cat does a mouse ;-granted; but we have no reason to suppose that he is aware of the man's sufferings, or means anything but to satisfy his hunger; and what have the butcher and poulterer been about, meanwhile? The tiger, it is true, lays about him a little superfluously sometimes, when he gets into a sheep fold, and kills more than he eats; but does not the Squire or the Marquis do pretty much like him in the month of September? Nay, do we not hear of venerable judges, that would not hurt a fly, going about in that refreshing month, seeking whom they may lame? See the effect of habit and education! And you can educate the tiger in no other way than by attending to his stomach. Fill that, and he will want no men to eat, probably not even to lame. On the other hand, deprive Jones of his dinner for a day or two, and see what a state he will be in, especially if he is by nature irascible. Nay, keep him from it for half an hour, and observe the tiger propensities of his stomach and fingers, how worthy of killing he thinks the cook, and what boxes of the ear he feels inclined to give the footboy.

Animals, by the nature of things, in their present state, dispose of one another into their respective stomachs, without ill-will on any side. They keep down the several populations of their neighbours, till time may come when superfluous population of any kind need not exist, and predatory appearances may vanish from the earth, as the wolves have done from England. But whether they may or not, is not a question by a hundred times so important to moral inquirers as into the possibilities of human education and the nonsense of ill-will. Show the nonentity of that, and we may all get our dinners as jovially as we can, sure of these three undoubted facts,—that life is long, death short, and the world beautiful. And so we bring our thoughts back again to the fireside, and look at the cat.

Poor Pussy! she looks up at us again, as if she thanked us for those vindications of dinner; and symbolically gives a twist of a yawn, and a lick to her whiskers. Now she proceeds to clean herself all over, having a just sense of the demands of her elegant person,-beginning judiciously with her paws, and fetching amazing tongues at her hind-hips. Anon, she scratches her neck with a foot of rapid delight, leaning her head towards it, and shutting her eyes,

PRICE THREE HALFPEnce.

half to accommodate the action of the skin, and half to enjoy the luxury. She then rewards her paws with a few more touches;-look at the action of her head and neck, how pleasing it is, the ears pointed forward, and the neck gently arching to and fro. Finally, she gives a sneeze, and another twist of mouth and whiskers, and then, curling her tail towards her front claws, settles herself on her hind quarters, in an attitude of bland meditation.

What does she think of ?—Of her saucer of milk at breakfast? or of the thump she got yesterday in the kitchen, for stealing the meat? or of her own meat, the Tartar's dish, noble horse-flesh? or of her friend the cat next door, the most impassioned of serenaders? or of her little ones, some of whom are now large, and all of them gone? Is that among her recollections when she looks pensive? Does she taste of the noble prerogative-sorrows of man?

She is a sprightly cat, hardly past her youth; so happening to move the fringe of the rug a little with our foot, she darts out a paw, and begins plucking it and inquiring into the matter, as if it were a challenge to play, or something lively enough to be eaten. What a graceful action of that foot of hers, between delicacy and petulance, combining something of a thrust out, a beat, and a scratch. There seems even something of a little bit of fear in it, as if just enough to provoke her courage, and give her the excitement of a sense of hazard. We remember being much amused with seeing a kitten manifestly making a series of experiments upon the patience of its mother,

trying how far the latter would put up with positive bites and thumps. The kitten ran at her every moment, gave her a knock or a bite of the tail; and then ran back again, to recommence the assault. The mother sate looking at her, as if betwixt tolerance and admiration, to see how far the spirit of the family was inherited or improved by her sprightly offspring. At length, however, the "little Pickle" presumed too far, and the mother, lifting up her paw, and meeting her at the very nick of the moment, gave her one of the most unsophisticated boxes of the ear we ever beheld. It sent her rolling half over the and made her come to a most ludicrous pause, with the oddest little look of premature and wincing meditation.

room,

Not

That lapping of the milk out of the saucer is what one's human thirst cannot sympathize with. It seems as if there could be no satisfaction in such a series of atoms of drink. Yet the saucer is soon emptied; and there is a refreshment to one's ears in that sound of plashing with which the action is accompanied, and which seems indicative of a like comfort to Pussy's mouth. Her tongue is thin, and can make a spoon of itself. This, however, is common to other quadrupeds with the cat, and does not, therefore, more particularly belong to our feline consideration. so the electricity of its coat, which gives out sparks under the hand; its passion for the herb valerian (did the reader ever see one roll in it? it is a mad sight) and other singular delicacies of nature, among which perhaps is to be reckoned its taste for fish, a creature with whose element it has so little to do, that it is supposed even to abhor it; though lately we read somewhere of a swimming cat, that used to fish for itself. And this reminds us of an exquisite anecdote of dear, dogmatic, diseased, thoughtful, surly, charitable Johnson, who would go

out of doors himself, and buy oysters for his cat, because his black servant was too proud to do it! Not

that we condemn the black, in those enslaving, unliberating days. He had a right to the mistake, though we should have thought better of him had he seen farther, and subjected his pride to affection for such a master. But Johnson's true practical delicacy in the matter is beautiful. Be assured that he thought nothing of " condescension" in it, or of being eccentric. He was singular in some things, because he could not help it. But he hated eccentricity. No: in his best moments he felt himself simply to be a man, and a good man too, though a frail, one that in virtue as well as humility, and in a knowledge of his ignorance as well as his wisdom, was desirous of being a Christian philosopher; and accordingly he went out, and bought food for his hungry cat, because his poor negro was too proud to do it, and there was nobody else in the way whom he had a right to ask. What must anybody that saw him have thought, as he turned up Bolt court! But doubtless he went as secretly as possible, that is to say, if he considered the thing at all. His friend Garrick could not have done as much! He was too grand, and on the great "stage" of life. Goldsmith could; but he would hardly have thought of it. Beauclerc might; but he would have thought it necessary to excuse it with a jest or a wager, or some such thing. Sir Joshua Reynolds, with his fashionable, fine-lady-painting hand, would certainly have shrunk from it. Burke would have reasoned himself into its propriety, but he would have reasoned himself out again. Gibbon! Imagine its being put into the head of Gibbon!! He and his bag-wig would have started with all the horror of a gentleman-usher; and he would have rung the bell for the cook's-deputy's-under-assistant-errand-boy.

Cats at firesides live luxuriously, and are the picture of comfort; but lest they should not bear their portion of trouble in this world, they have the drawbacks of being liable to be shut out of doors on cold nights, beatings from the "aggravated" cooks, overpettings of children (how should we like to be squeezed and pulled about in that manner by some great patronizing giants?) and last, not least, horrible, merciless tramples of unconscious human feet and unfeeling legs of chairs. Elegance, comfort, and security seem the order of the day on all sides, and you are going to sit down to dinner, or to music, or to take tea, when all of a sudden the cat gives a squall as if she was mashed; and you are not sure that the fact is otherwise. Yet she gets in the way again, as before; and dares all the feet and mahogany in the room. Beautiful present sufficingness of a cat's imagination! Confined to the snug circle of her own sides, and the two next inches of rug or carpet.

ABODES OF MEN OF GENIUS.

EXPENCE

Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught CONVENIENCE to perplex him, ART to fall, POMP to deject, and BEAUTY to displease. We have all by heart the true and delightful reflexions of Johnson on literary associations. When the scene we tread suggests to us the men or the deeds, which have left their celebrity to the spot, we are in the presence of their fame, and feel its influence!

A literary friend, whom a hint of mine had induced to visit the old tower in the garden of Buffon, where the sage retired every morning to compose, passed so long a time in that lonely apartment, as to have raised some solicitude among the honest folks of Montbar, who having seen the Englishman enter, but not return, during a heavy thunder-storm which had occurred in the interval, informed the good mayor, who came in due form, to notify the ambiguous state of the stranger. My friend is, as is well known, a genius of that caste who could pass two hours in the Tower of Buffon, without being aware that he had been all that time occupied by suggestions of ideas and reveries, which in some minds such a locality may excite. He was also busied with his pencil; for he has favoured me with two drawings of the interior and the exterior of the old tower in the garden, the nakedness within can Such was only be compared to the solitude without. the studying-room of Buffon, where his eye, resting on no object, never interrupted the unity of his meditations of Nature.

"In return for my friend's kindness, it has cost me two hours, I think, in attempting to translate the beautiful picture of this literary retreat, which Vicq d'Azyr has finished with all the warmth of a votary. At Montbar, in the midst of an ornamented garden is seen an antique tower, it was there that Buffon wrote the history of Nature, and from that spot his fame spread through the universe. There he came at sunrise, and no one, however importunate, was suffered to trouble him. The calmn of the morning hour, the first warbling of the birds, the varied aspect of the country, all at that moment which touched the senses, recalled him to his model. Free, independent, he wandered in his walks; there was he seen with quickened or with slow steps, or standing rapt in thought, oftentimes with his eyes fixed on the heavens in a moment of inspiration, as if satisfied with the thought that so profoundly occupied his soul, sometimes, collected within himself, he sought what could not always be found; or at the moment of producing, he effaced, and re-wrote, to produce once more; then he harmonized, in silence, all the parts of his composition, which he frequently repeated to himself, till, satisfied with the corrections, he seemed to repay himself for the pains of his beautiful prose, by

(From the new edition of D'Israeli's Curiosities of the pleasure he found in declaiming it aloud. Thus

Literature.')

MEN of genius have usually been condemned to compose their finest works, which are usually their earliest ones, under the roof of a garret; and few literary characters have lived, like Pliny or Voltaire, in a villa or château of their own. It has not, therefore, often happened that a man of genius could raise local emotions by his own intellectual suggestion. Ariosto, who built a palace in his verse, lodged himself in a small house, and found that stanzas and stones were not put together at the same rate; old Montaigne has left a description of his library," over the entrance of my house, where I view my courtyards and garden, and at once survey all the operations of my family."

There is, however, a feeling among literary men, of building up their own elegant fancies, and giving a permanency to their own tastes; we dwell on their favourite scenes as a sort of portraits, and we eagerly collect those few prints which are their only vestiges. A collection might be formed of such literary residences, chosen for their amenity and retirement, and adorned by the objects of their studies, from that of the younger Pliny, who called his villa of literary leisure by the endearing title of villula, to that of Cassidorus, the prime minister of Theodoric, who has left so magnificent a description of his literary retreat, where all the elegancies of life were at hand;

he engraved it in his memory and would recite it to his friends, or induce some to read it to him. At those moments, he was himself a severe judge, and would again re-compose it, desirous of attaining to that perfection which is denied to the impatient writer."

A curious circumstance connected with local associations, occurred to that extraordinary oriental student, Fourmont. Originally he belonged to a religious community, and never failed in performing his offices; but he was expelled by the Superior for an irregularity of conduct, not likely to have become contagious through the brotherhood-he frequently prolonged his studies far into the night, and it was possible that the house might be burned by such superfluity of learning. Fourmont retreated to the college of Montaigne, where he occupied the very chambers which had been formerly those of Erasmus; a circumstance which contributed to excite his emulation and to hasten his studies. He who smiles at the force of such emotions, only proves that he has not expe rienced what are real and substantial as the scene itself for those who are concerned in them. Pope, who had far more enthusiasm in his poetical disposition than is generally understood, was extremely susceptible of the literary associations with localities; one of the volumes of his Homer was began and finished in an old tower over the chapel at Stanton Harcourt; and he has perpetuated the event, if not

consecrated the place, by scratching with a diamond on a pane of stained glass, this inscription:-In the year 1718, Alexander Pope

Finished HERE

The Fifth Volume of Homer.

It was the same feeling which induced him one day, market, to desire Harte to enter a little shop, where when taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haygoing up three pair of stairs into a small room, Pope said, "In this garret Addison wrote his Campaign." Nothing less than a strong feeling impelled the poet to ascend the garret-it was a consecrated spot to his eye, and certainly a curious instance of the power of

genius contrasted with its miserable locality! Addiin a garret, could he have called about him "the son, whose mind had fought through "a campaign" house of literary repose, where all parts would have pleasures of imagination," had probably planned a been in harmony with his mind.

Such residences of men of genius have been enjoyed by some; and the vivid descriptions which they have left us convey something of the delightfulness which charmed their studious repose.

The Italian, Paul Jovius, has composed more than three hundred concise eulogies of statesmen, warriors, and literary men of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries: but the occasion which induced him to compose them is perhaps more interesting than the compositions.

Jovius had a villa, situated on a peninsula, bordered by the lake of Como. It was built on the ruins of the villa of Pliny, and in his time the foundations were still visible. When the surrounding lake was calm, the sculptured marbles, the trunks of columns, and the fragments of those pyramids which had once adorned the residence of the friend of Trajan, were still viewed in its lucid bosom. Jovius was the enthusiast of literature, and the leisure which it loves. He was an historian, with the imagination of a poet; and though a Christian prelate, almost a worshipper of the sweet fictions of Pagan mythology: and when his pen was kept pure from satire or adulation, to which it was too much accustomed, it becomes a pencil. He paints with rapture his gardens bathed by the waters of the lake; the shade and freshness of his woods; his green slopes; his sparkling fountains; the deep silence and calm of his solitude. A statue was raised in his gardens to Nature! In his hall stood a fine statue of Apollo, and the Muses around, with their attributes. library was guarded by a Mercury, and there was an apartment adorned with Doric columns and with pictures of the most pleasing subjects, dedicated to the Graces! Such was the interior. Without, the transparent lake here spread its broad mirror, and there was seen luminously winding by banks covered with olives and laurels; in the distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphitheatre, blushing with vines, and the first elevation of the Alps, covered with woods and pasture, and sprinkled with herds and flocks.

His

cameos, intaglios, and all that variety of the riches of art which he had drawn from Rome : but the walls did not yield in value, for they were covered by pictures of his own composition, or copies by his own hand, made at Venice and Madrid, of Titian and Paul Veronese.

No foreigners, men of letters, or lovers of the arts, or even princes, would pass through Antwerp, without visiting the house of Rubens, to witness the animated residence of genius, and the great man who had conceived the idea. Yet great as was his mind, and splendid as were the habits of his life, he could not resist the intreaties of the hundred thousand florins of our Duke of Buckingham, to dispose of the studio. The great artist could not, however abandon the delightful contemplations he was depriving himself of; and as substitutes for the miracles of art he had lost, he solicited and obtained leave to replace them by casts, which were scrupulously deposited in the places where the originals had stood.

Of this feeling of the local residences of genius, the Italians appear to have been, not perhaps more susceptible than any other people, but more energetic in their enthusiasm. Florence exhibits many monuments of this sort. In the neighbourhood of Santa Maria Nevelle, Zimmerman has noticed a house of the celebrated Viviani, which is a singular monument of gratitude to his illustrious master, Galileo. The front is adorned with the bust of this father of science, and between the windows are engraven accounts of the discoveries of Galileo: it is the most

beautiful biography of genius! Yet another still more eloquently excites our emotions-the house of Michael Angelo: his pupils, in perpetual testimony of their admiration and gratitude, have ornamented it with all the leading features of his life, the very soul of this vast genius put in action: this is more than biography!-it is living as with a contemporary!

CASTLE-BUILDING.

To the Editor of the London Journal.

DEAR SIR,—I am one of that large class of unfortunates called castle-builders,-one of those who thriftlessly mis-spend hours upon hours of their valuable time in the profitless debauchery of "building new nothings wonderful to see;" till my mind has, I fear, materially suffered from long indulgence in the harmful habit.

Often and often have I gone to bed an hour sooner to talk to myself about my airy plans, until sleep has come upon me in the midst of a flaming oration, wherein I turned the whole universe round my little finger by the overpowering effect of my rhetoric ;at anothor time astonishing a listening senate, or leading on an invincible army to victory, or astounding my countrymen in the still small voice of poesy. All these visions are pleasing enough at the time; but they are like

The snow that falls upon a river,

A moment white, then gone for ever;

and when I come to the dull realities of earth, and find how poor and weak I am, compared with what I have fancied myself to be, I feel humiliated more than I can express.

But, notwithstanding this feeling of self-abasement, I persevere in my misdeeds, and am unable intirely (though I have done so partially) to break through this pernicious habit.

Many of your readers, doubtless, have given way to the same course of fancy with myself, and must have experienced its dangerous tendency. You, yourself, dear Sir, when young in years, as still you are in imagination, may have taken pleasure in the same delinquency. If I am right in my conjecture, you will be doing a good both to them and to myself by acquiescing in my request, which is that you should suggest some method for breaking the habit of which I complain.

Of the numerous plans that I have tried, all have in a great measure failed, and I appeal to you, as to a father, to suggest to me some plan of escape. Yours, faithfully,

October 23, 1834.

H. B.

ADAM FLEMING AND FAIR HELEN. [WE avail ourselves with pleasure of the following communications from a Correspondent, which "flush up" the roses of poor Helen's grave, to the confusion of the memory of the Lounger."]

SIR,-In the last number of your London Journal,' I see the affecting story of Fair Helen of Kirkconnel' related. The author of the 'Lounger's Common-place Book' really seems not acquainted with the songs written on the subject, or else he would not have called them indifferent. Cunningham's version of Fleming's lament over the grave of Helen to which you allude, I here copy :

FAIR HELEN OF KIRCONNEL.

I wish I were where Helen lies-
Night and day on me she cries;
O, that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirconnel lea.

O Helen fair beyond compare,
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair
Until the day I die.

Mr Allan

O think nae ye my heart was sair
When my love dropt and spoke nae mair!
She sank and swoon'd wi' meikle care

On fair Kirconnel lea.

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curs'd the hand that fir'd the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succour me.

As I went down the water wide,
None but my foe to be my guide,
With sword in hand and side by side,

On fair Kirconnel lea,

The small bird ceas'd its song with awe, When our bright swords it heard and saw, And I hew'd him in pieces sma'

For her that died for me.†

O that I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries,
Out of my bed she bids me rise,

"O come, my love, to me."

O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
If I were with thee I were blest,
Where thou lies low and takes thy rest,
On fair Kirconnel lea.

I wish my grave were growing green, A winding sheet drawn o'er my een, And I in Helen's arms lying

On fair Kirconnel lea.

I wish I were where Helen lies,
Night and day on me she cries;
I'm sick of all beneath the skies

Since my love died for me!

Yet God hath given to me a mind,
The which to thee shalt prove as kind
As any one that thou shalt find,
Of high or low degree.

The shallowest water makes most din,
The deadest pool the deepest linn ;
The richest man least truth within,

Though he preferred be.

Yet, ne'ertheless, I am content,
And ne'er a whit my love repent,
But think the time was a' weel spent,

Though I disdained be.

O, Helen sweet, and maist complete, My captive spirit's at thy feet! Thinks thou still fit thus for to treat

Thy captive cruelly?

O, Helen brave! but this I crave,
On thy poor slave some pity have,
And do him save that's near his grave,
And dies for love of thee.

275

In addition to the facts related by the writer of the article in your Journal,' it may be mentioned that the despised lover and murdering villain was a Bell of Blacket-house. Some accounts make Fleming pursue Bell into Spain and slay him in the streets of Madrid, returning whence he died on her grave, breathing her name in his last sigh. Scott writes, "The grave of the lovers is yet shown in the churchyard of Kirconnell, near Sprinkell. Upon the tomb-stone can still be read-Hic jacet Adamus Fleming; a cross and a sword are sculptured on the stone. The former is called by the country people the gun with which Helen was murdered; and the latter the avenging sword of her lover. Sit illis terra levis ! A heap of stones is raised on the spot where the murder was committed,-a token of abhorrence common to most nations."-Border Minstrelsy, edition, 1833, vol. 2. p. 10.

Mr Robert Chambers tells us that, "besides being the subject of many songs, the story of Fair Helen' was some years ago wrought up in the shape of a poem as long as the 'Lady of the Lake,' and it is the foundation of at least one novel of the ordinary size."- Chambers's Scottish Songs, vol. 1, p. 145.

For other information about Fair Helen,' your readers are referred to Pennant's Tour in Scotland;' to some verses in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1783,' written in an old copy of Drummond of Hawthornden's History of Scotland,' where "burd Helen's" heart was "transpierced" by an "arrow ;" to Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland,' vol. xiii. p. 275; Ritson's Scottish Songs,' vol. i. p. 145; 'Pinkerton's Tragic Ballads,' p. 109, where the editor has given a poem of his own composition referring to it; and Jamieson's Popular Ballads,' vol. i. p. 200, where is the old song, and an imitation by the editor.

The subject cannot be concluded better, than with Mr Wordsworth's

ELLEN IRWIN, OR THE BRAES OF KIRTLE.

Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate

Upon the braes of Kirtle,

Was lovely as a Grecian maid
Adorn'd with wreaths of myrtle.
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay,
And there did they beguile the day
With love and gentle speeches,
Beneath the budding beeches.

From many knights and many squires,
The Bruce had been selected;
And Gordon, fairest of them all,

By Ellen was rejected.

Sad tidings to that noble youth!

For it may be proclaimed with truth,

If Bruce hath loved sincerely,

That Gordon loves as dearly.

* Another version of the Song alludes to this ;To foreign climes the traitor fled,

But quickly after him I sped,
Ere long beneath my glaive he bled,
For her that died for me.

But what is Gordon's beauteous face,
And what are Gordon's crosses,
To them who sit by Kirtle's braes
Upon the verdant mosses?
Alas! that ever he was born!
That Gordon couch'd behind a thorn,
Saw them and their caressing;
Beholds them blest and blessing.

Proud Gordon cannot bear the thoughts
That through his brain are travelling,-
And, starting up, to Bruce's heart
He launched a deadly javelin !

Fair Ellen saw it when it came,

And stepping forth to meet the same,

Did with her body cover

The youth, her chosen lover.

And falling into Bruce's arms,

Thus died the beauteous Ellen;

Thus, from the heart of her true-love,
The mortal spear repelling.
And Bruce, as soon as he had slain
The Gordon, sail'd away to Spain ;
And fought with rage incessant
Against the Moorish Crescent.

But many days, and many months,

And many years ensuing,

This wretched Knight did vainly seek
The death that he was wooing :
So coming his last help to crave,
Heart-broken upon Ellen's grave
His body he extended,

And there his sorrow ended.

THE MEETING OF THE AMICI.* CLOSE the window-shutters tight, We will have a feast to-night, "Feast of reason-flow of soul," Sparkling glass, and brimming bowl; Toast the girl our fancy loves, Sing the song our heart approves ; Feel how different we are From the common sons of care,— Men who cannot, after toil, Love the lone lamp's midnight oil, Bright'ning, as we feel it does, All our joys and all our woes,— Men who will not see the flowers Blooming in this world of ours; But who merely sow and reap, Eat and drink, and wake and sleep. Who would change his pow'r of mind With the dull untutor'd hind? Who would be an idiot lord? Who would wield a hero's sword? Who would wish the miser's chest? Who with baubles think him blest? None of us-oh no, not one, If he could not, when the sun Leaves the west for other lands, Thus, around the bowl shake hands ; Thus commingle heart with heart, Soul with soul-man's better part; Thus evince to one another,

How mankind can make a brother!

A Society, consisting of ten members, at Maidstone, thus truly characterised in the first number of the London Journal,' as a "knot of spirits, generally young men, who are known above others, for their love of books, for the liberality of their sentiments, and their desire to be ac quainted with all that is going forward in connexion with the graces of poetry and the fine arts." They meet every Saturday evening at each others' houses in rotation, when original papers are read, and friendship and harmony prevail.

Or, if absent, who can tell,

How the pregnant heart will swell?
How the gladdened eye will glisten

At the thought that FRIENDS will listen
With a kindred heart and eye

To our rudest minstrelsy ;
Conscious that 'tis only meant
With this motive, this intent-
Just to speed the time awhile,
Just to raise the jocund smile,
Just to show the goblet's juice
Has with us a double use;
Teaching us to sing and rhyme
In the teeth of Father Time:
Keeping us sometimes till Sunday,
Only to be nearer Monday;
Thus each seventh night to sit
'Mid a galaxy of wit,

And retire to rest-to pray
For the coming Saturday!

Maidstone, Oct. 25, 1834.

F. F. D.

THE LARES IRONICAL, OR FIRE-
IRONS AND HEARTH-BRUSH.

To the Editor of the London Journal. WHILST you have been sunning your imagination in Fairy-land, I, who am but too proud to follow in your wake, have been prosecuting my researches in the Pantheon. Not in that" tricked and frounced" bifrontal Temple of Oxford cum Marlborough street, but that wherein the gods abide. The summer, that like a loved and loving friend, lingers long, yet must depart, has at length disappeared; and the autumnal fire now flames and sparkles, not in cheerfulness, but as performing the funeral obsequies of that season. By this fire, in this mood of mind, I found myself seated, and, like Prince Rasselas, continued to grieve and muse. The long vista of winter lay stretched before my mental view, a sealed book, into whose pages I would fain penetrate, yet was unable. Some ingenious persons have maintained that the pleasures of winter surpass even those of summer. To those, whose happy temperaments “make a sunshine in a shady place," I consign the solution of this problem, regretting that I am not of them. To me, winter appears ever an ugly phantom, whose chill contact paralyses the mind, rendering it incapable of reciprocating pleasures. Could those divinities, thought I, of whose attributes my late researches had but imperfectly instructed me, be propitiated, their friendly aid might interpose some mitigation of the rigours incident to a six months' residence by the-fireside.

I suspect that about this stage of my cogitations, I must have fallen into a dose, for I imagined something brushed by me with a rustling noise, and, on turning round to ascertain its cause, methought I beheld a diminutive creature, with a huge bristly head, around whose dark slender body a seeming gilded serpent was coiled! Observing my consternation, he exclaimed, "Be under no alarm, and pardon the interruption which my appearance has occasioned to the chain of your reflections. I have the desire, as well as the ability, to assist your inquiries. I am well aware that the objects of your present solicitude are certain divinities, who are said to preside over the hearths of mortals, and their favours, the boon which you are at this time occupied with the desire of imploring. Their friendly powers have been too highly extolled, for divinities have their foibles as mortals have. I have been long their attendant, and my length of service has enabled me to observe that in them, which their suppliants reck

not.

In the course of a long bondage, I have acquired many particulars of their secret history. As, among mortals, the difficulty to support dignity with those of the antichamber is sometimes felt, so with us, divinities also are sometimes shorn of their beams. I counsel you, therefore, not to build your hopes too highly on their co-operation. There is much disunion among them. They who lack har

mony in themselves, it is unwise to select as the dispensers of that boon to others; and it is a fact well known in our spheres, that those very divinities

are often the cause of discord, and are generally opposed to each other in the stations they assume. Should they approach, a conflict often succeeds their conjunction, and they are sometimes known to fall together by the ears, with most admired disorder.' On these occasions I am generally summoned to arrange matters, which having achieved successfully, I retire modestly to some obscure corner, where I may hang, for any sympathy my suit and service would ever receive from them. One of them in particular, is of a busy stirring restlessness, which 'breeds me great annoy;' and should the others interpose, they often make matters worse, though it may be with good intent. So I would hope against hope, the real fact being, that they are all a set of incendiaries, notwithstanding their outward polish; and even disturbers of sacred ashes! They all go under feigned names, but I hope you will discover their real appellations. In conclusion, I beseech you to believe that I speak not as a malevolent spirit, but to guard you from the error into which you appear to be falling. Have as little to do with them as may be. Moreover, they are themselves often under the surveillance of some one individual in most families, who would monopolize their joint offices to himself, and through whose jealous prerogative, even my insignificance does not protect me from the performance of much unnecessary labour, whereby my hair becomes prematurely thin, and my powers gradually weakened. That you may acquit me of all ill design in this exposé, I must add that they are all very well in their places. I would that they kept them! Even now I hear great strife and commotion, like that of a discordant trio, who would extract music from a marble stone.

I remain your disinterested adviser,
and humble servant,

-s, to