Nelson, "sometimes followed up by a postscript in a sad serawling style from Maria.' If by Maria is meant Lady Hamilton, as we conjecture, her name was "Emma." The mistake is not of much consequence, but still a very careless one, which a dash of the pen would have rectified.

There are many letters from Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, the late Lord Caernarvon (then Lord Portchester), Sir Egerton Brydges, and others, which now appear for the first time, and are all more or less interesting. Two in particular deserve notice, from Dr. John Gillies, author of the "History of Greece," and many other works of first-rate merit. These letters are too long for insertion, and curtailment would spoil them. They are excellent specimens of literary correspondence. No memoirs of the life and writings of Dr. Gillies have yet appeared, and if his nephew has leisure and materials, we think such a book would be a valuable acquisition.

There are also amusing particulars of Henry Mackenzie, the "Man of Feeling," Maturin, the author of Bertram, John Clarke, afterwards Lord Eldin; John Pinkerton, an undoubted nuisance; James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd of all originals the most extraordinary; of Thomas Campbell, the Bard of Hope; of the origin of Blackwood's Magazine and the Chaldee Manuscript, which set all Edinburgh by the ears, and of which it is diflicult to say whether it produced most fun or indignation.

Delightful are these reminiscences of "Auld Reekie," and the memorabilia of that far-famed capital. They carry us back to five happy years of that very period, when we sojourned within her walls and communed with her worthies; when the heart was light, the brow unwrinkled by either time or care, and the thick black locks had not been superseded by shreds of iron gray transforming into silvery white. We were acquainted with many of these parties commemorated by Mr. Gillies, and as we turn over his pages we think of many more we knew and mingled with, who have nearly all passed away with the others, and are thus called up again to mental vision.

There was James Ballantyne, the brother of John, of whom the wicked wits said in the Chaldee Manuscript, "He nibbleth the shoe-latchets of the mighty, VOL. XXXVII.-NO. CCXXI.

and darkeneth counsel by the multiplying of vain words." He had these peculiarities undoubtedly, but they were very entertaining, and he was withal a man of good pretensions in letters, and the best writer of a theatrical criticism in Scotland. There were also Liston, the great chirurgeon; Sir William Allan, the most unassuming man of genius that ever lived; Grecian Williams and "Big" Williams, two men of very different proportions; David Bridges, who had a soul above buttons; Miller, the politest of booksellers; Constable, the haughtiest ; Blackwood, the gravest; and Peter Hill, the merriest. There was also a strange animal of the bibliopolistic species, named Stevenson, patronised by Sir Walter Scott, who dwelt in a cellar in Princes-street, well stocked with rare and curious old volumes, of which he knew the value. There were Drs. Chalmers and Andrew Thompson, powerful in the pulpit; and sometimes there came the Rev. Edward Irving, looking like an exceedingly mad missionary, to hear whose rhapsodies people crowded round the doors long before they were opened, as in remote periods at the pit and gallery entrances of theatres, and sacrificed pounds of solid substance with innumerable skirts of coats. There were Dr. Hamilton with the cocked hat, and his still more celebrated Namesake, without one. There were Patrick Robertson, called by his familiars Peter, not yet a judge, but unrivalled at a joke, or as a president or croupier; and Donaldson, the great chess-player, who beat the London Club, and laughed the Automaton to scorn. There were Roland, the best fencer in Europe, and Francalanza, not worth a tithe of him. There were (and are still) William Murray, incomparable both as manager and actor, and Mackay, the inimitable Baillie Jarvie. There werenow that our memory is on its mettle, we verily believe we could gallop merrily on to the "crack of doom," and not exhaust the list-but we must hurry to an end. Last, though far from least, there was dear old William Kerr, for more than forty years secretary to the General Post Ollice, and universally beloved of men. We can see him now, shufiling along in a pair of boundless shoes, shaped like canoes from Otaheite or Owhyhee; the strings of his nether garments untied in graceful 2 Q

abandonment, his frill embroidered with snuff, and his face glowing with benevolence; always in a bustle, and nearly invisible behind piles of letters. He was simple as a child himself, and had no belief in human duplicity. In that gentle nature there were no passions; the temperament was too mild to admit such turbulent inmates; but it acknowledged three ruling propensities. These were, dabbling in all the lotteries; franking everything for all his acquaintance, from half a sheet of note paper up to a house-key or a parcel of haberdashery;* and attending everybody's funeral. How he found time for the latter avocation, it was impossible to divine, but that he never neglected it is certain. If all on whom he bestowed that attention could have obtained leave for a single day to return the compliment when his own interment occurred, the procession would have been longer and more numerous than that which graced the royal progress of George IV. from Holyrood to the Castle and back again in the memorable month of August, 1822. When our kind old friend, for such we ever found him, retired on a superannuated pension, and became master of his own time, we never could make out how he employed it, yet still he appeared in the usual hurry of business, and assuredly he left ample occupation behind him for those who succeeded.

The

cleansing of the Augean stable was trifling recreation compared to reducing the disorder which reigned in every department of the Edinburgh postoffice.

Our author informs us that about the year 1827 he passed into a shadow, and muses a little on what he denominates shadowism; by which is to be understood the state at which ancient gentlemen, whose "lands and goods are gone and spent," are usually held to have arrived, by a benevolent public; who are set down as neither useful nor ornamental, seeing they have nothing left, and are perpetually receiving notice to make vacancies, with hints that their room would be preferred to their company. It must be admitted the fast generation of the present century are strongly imbued with these charitable

Nevertheless it behoves all responsible fathers of families, and well-preserved old ladies, of either sex, in good health and spirits, to withstand resolutely the spread of these opinions, and to insist on exercising all the rights and privi leges of living utility, until they of their own free will consent to resign them. If they do not look to it in time, and fight for themselves, they will chance, ere long, to be treated much after the fashion in which heads of Hindu families are disposed of by impatient successors, when they conceive their sires to have become useless incumbrances. They are told affectionately that Brama wants them, and they must go to him; whereupon their ears and noses are plugged up, and they are thrown into the Ganges, just as the Sultan sometimes disposes of frail young ladies of his establishment in the adjacent Bosphorus. A friend of ours, now a gene ral, but then a very young officer in India, once witnessed this operation in progress, and performed what he thought an act of humanity in rescuing the patient from his cold bath before he was drowned, and had to keep him ever after for his pains. He was by no means thankful for the interference, and rather reproached his deliverer for restoring him. He was dead in law, struck off from his caste, no longer acknowledged by any one, and a stray waif on creation's waste. A good les son for philanthropists who are inclined to meddle gratuitously in other people's

affairs.

The portion of this work which treats of foreign travel and continental notorieties, including Goëthe, Tieck, Müll

ner, Dr. Becker, and Gustavus IV. under his assumed name of Colonel Gustafson, are neither particularly amusing nor edifying, and we are not sorry when our author gets home again, although nothing bright or cheering appears to have hailed his return. Goethe, like many others, has had his day. The present reading public know nothing of the "Sorrows of Werter;" and he would be a very rash publisher who should venture its revival. It is buried in the same sepulchre with "Zimmermann on Solitude." Faust has become a little stale by the numerous translations, and not even Scott could render "Goëtz Von Berlichingen" readable. "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship," no doubt, contains an admirable analysis of Hamlet, for all who can understand and agree with it. The same may be freely admitted of Ticck's lucubrations on our great dramatist and his immediate predecessors. We have been told lately by various writers that the German critics comprehend Shakspeare better than we do, and expound his mighty genius more faithfully. That they have a more aesthetic↑ conception of his ideas, and can penetrate more thoroughly all the intricate machinery of his imagination. On these points we are either ignorant or obstinate. We don't pretend to understand clearly what aesthetic means; we think

the merit of Shakspeare, like that of every great original genius, was simple rather than complex. We fancy his meanings to be obvious rather than obscure or mystical, and we leave others to enter into a controversy we freely confess to be a little beyond our mark.

We here take leave of Mr. Gillies and his agreeable volumes, thanking him for the entertainment we have derived from them, and still more for the pleasant recollections they have revived. When they reach a second edition, we entreat of him to purify them from the constant repetition of the most common-place French terms which occurs incessantly, and is both affected and unnecessary. The text is disfigured, and the sense is anything but improved, by these substitutions. It is also clearly unjust to the native, vigorous Saxon, which is thus pushed from its legitimate position to make way for exotic intruders, with very inferior pretensions. The practice, we are sorry to observe, is becoming too general. If our writers continue to indulge in this, at the rate they are doing at present, we shall very soon cease to have a national tongue. English will disappear into French, and our standard authors, of fifty years' antiquity, will require the help of a dictionary, and be classed, with Greek and Latin, among the dead languages.

GLENDRUID, the residence of Brook Aylmer, in the barony of West Muskerry, was a pretty, romantic spot: nothing wonderful or extraordinary; there are hundreds as pleasing and pretty in most mountainous districts. Still it was a very pretty spot; such as a quiet, thoughtful man night desire to possess; a little secluded nook, amid the sweet solitudes of rock, and heather, and mountain. A rugged old road, leading from Macroom to Millstreet, passed by the gate, and conducted the traveller, according to the manner of our ancestors, up and down hills, and amid stones and declivities, till he was deposited, sorely bumped, bruised, and wearied, at his journey's end. The inconveniences of travel were, however, recompensed to any one who had a soul for the picturesque, by the beauty and frequent grandeur of the scenery through which it led. To the north extended a wild, rugged tract of heath, and moor, and turf-bog, beyond which, at a distance of about four or five miles, the grand form of Musherymore uprose in solitary majesty. He who has not yet climbed that lofty mountain, and viewed the splendid panorama from its summit, has a great pleasure in store. Far and away, beneath the spectator, who gazes as from an eagle's flight, each wellknown field, and road, and farm, can scarce be recognised, in their dwindled littleness.

Southward and westward is one of the noblest mountain ranges in the kingdom: occupying the district of Cork and Kerry between Crookhaven and Tralee; including the mountains of Bantry, with the Priest's Leap the beautiful and superb cliffs that environ and throw their shadows on the waters and forests of the exquisite Glengariff: the deep-hidden monastic solitudes of Gougane Barra: the fairy-land of Killarney, Glena, and Mangerton, and the sublime pinnacles of the Reeks: a glorious array-a world for the poet and the painter-a land of romantic glens, and lakes, and

waterfalls, and superb inlets of the ocean, and magnificent passes among the mountains. East and west, the ocean, at either side of Ireland, is faintly discernible. To the north, the eye overlooks the subordinate eminences of the Boggeraghs; and surveys the counties of Limerick, Clare, Waterford, and Tipperary; and pauses on the proud elevation of the Gaulties.

But this, by-the-bye. Our talk just now is about Glendruid, and not about what may be seen from the top of a neighbouring mountain. The reader, if he is a bit of a poet, will excuse the digression; and if he isn't a poet, but, like King George II., "hates both bainting and boethry," why, he may go study Cocker; the less I (for one) have of his company the better.

The old road took its winding course through a succession of picturesque objects; rock, and cliff, and copse, and sparkling streamlets disporting in their pebbly and broken channels, and mountain farms and ruined castle. But among them all, was none more lovely than Glendruid. As you ap proached it from Macroom, it opened suddenly on you, at a turn of the road. The house, an old-fashioned, comfortable mansion, with rounded gables, somewhat in the Elizabethan style, stood on a lawn of little swelling emerald hills, embowered in trees, partly the relics of an ancient forest. At the foot of these hills, gushing and foaming among the rocks, there brawled a beautiful little river ('yclept Foerish), over which the road led by a picturesque old moss-grown bridge: and beyond the house, sheltering it from the western gates, appeared a range of copse-covered cliffs and hills, with the grand mountain of Mullahaneish towering in the background.

Alas! sweet Glendruid! thy beauty is departed. Ill-management and recklessness of moral principle have dealt with dispoiling hand upon thee. No trees are left to sigh over days that are gone; they are all levelled to their

stumps, and sold.

The emerald hills still smile on the passer-by; but the old house is a ruin a wretched, lonely object, three-fourths dismantled and gone to decay, and abandoned to owls and jackdaws. Broken and defaced, with its windows mostly built up with stones; two or three panes of glass left, and the place of others supplied by an old hat or ragged garment; the parlour, once the scene of hospitality, and mirth, and hopes, and plans, is tenanted by a poor farmer, with his wife and brood of children, not to mention poultry, and an occasional visit from the pigs.

Brook Aylmer, at the period of our narrative, was a bachelor of five-andtwenty years of age, or thereabouts. He had succeeded, on the recent death of his father, to a pretty property of some six or seven hundred per annum; and lived with a brother and an unmarried sister, at Glendruid.

It was a perpetual theme for wonderment in the country for ten miles round—that is to say, within a circle having the neighbouring town of Macroom for a centre, with a radius of ten miles, and circumference of sixtythat he was not married. Sundry rumours on the subject were afloat. Not a week elapsed, but the established gossips of the several lesser circles, within the greater circle above-mentioned, had some news to tell about his approaching nuptials. "Fact!certain settled!-you may depend on it, ma'am, for I had it from," &c. &c.

Poor fellow-felix suum si bonum norit. He was little aware how his neighbours took care of him, and managed his affairs for him. He could not ride into Macroom, but Miss Blunderbore was sure he was going to see pretty little Miss Darkey Diddear. If he turned his bridle towards MountMassy, "Ah!" says Mrs. Hawkes, of Clonracket, "I understand that manœuvre." If he passed into MountHedges, "Whew!" exclaimed elderly Miss Coppinger to her friend Mrs. Crump, Didn't I tell you a month since?" If he bowed to the Miss Churchills, "Oh, ho!" says Dick Gander, of Grassfort, winking to Tom Savage, "is that the game you are at, my cock? Maybe I ain't up to your tricks!" If he stopped to chat with Miss Judy Freke, Phil Fleming, passing by, would look sly, as if he was up to a thing or two. No taking in Phil

Besides, Phil was jealous, and had his own private views about Judy. And if he was only seen leading his horse, and walking with Miss Pleasance, of Carrigasteira, the fact was sufficientprimary evidence, and no mistake; and the only questions were, when the ceremony would take place, and what he would settle upon her, and what his sister would do whether she would continue to reside at Glendruid, or whether "But no matter; no

fear of Annie Aylmer; sure, isn't she engaged this year back to George Yahoo?"

"Not a word of it, ma'am."

"Why then, see that now! I confess I never liked Annie Avlmer. I always thought her a desateful, inthricate, schaymin' little minx: though I always kep me opinnins to myself, and never tould anybody."

"I am sure you was too good-natured, ma'am."

"We should never spake evil of our neighbours, Mrs. Tally; and that has always been a rule of mine; except it might be in a quiet way like, over a cup of tay, and between frinds. 'Tis a mighty quare world we live in !"

"Why then, that's thrue for you, Mrs. Tivy."

&c., &c., &c., &c.

It is a very general rule that gossips