THE HERON CORRESPONDENCE. No. XVII. CHARLES HERON TO HIS BROTHER WILLIAM. Bonnybrae, near Dumfries. You MY DEAR BILLY,-Every thing being now nearly arranged, we shall require your presence on Saturday. So, dispose of yourself upon the "Independent;" and if you can prevail upon Mr. Lyon, its proprietor, to come with you, so much the better. I was at his, you know, and if he cares to see me go through the trial, he shall be as welcome as he is wherever he goes, or "as the flowers in May," as an Irishman would say.- As our little and esteemed friend has not sent over the French gloves yet, nor his own person either, I fear we must put up with the want of both. will get them very superior at the Spread Eagle, which, you know, is next door to those truly magnificent shops which Mr. Douglas is preparing. By the way, here they will hardly credit me when I tell them of the hundreds of pounds that are to be lavished on plate-glass alone for their fronts. Go and see the plans, and then you will "confirm the testimony of the preceding witness," as the reporters have it. As to the habiliments for myself, Mr. Forrester may be relied on, without your putting yourself to trouble. But, when I think on it, you had as well consult his partner, Mr. M'Kinnon, about a shooting jacket for me, which I did not think of before I left town. He is quite au fait to these matters. Mary herself writes to her friend regarding her own gear. I, however, request you to consult that lady as to procuring one of those high and narrow-crowned bonnets of exquisitely fine and picturesquely-patterned straw, which, however French in their aspect, I admire exceedingly; and, besides, they are as yet almost unknown. She begs to thank you for the twenty-fourth "Ant," and the third "Casquet," so promptly sent, as well as for another present it will take a casquet to contain-you rogue-the novel sort of necklace of iron cameos, bound in spaces of Jet." She is in a passion, however, about the "Tit for Tat," alleging that she has discovered that the young lady upon whom the reformation-as it is to be hoped-was wrought, is actually a friend of her own! -The other periodical seems, in her views, to be unexceptionable. Its very title is a hit, since what female is there who longs not to have a piece of furniture with its dear name, even although it be literary instead of Brazilian gems that it may contain? One slip only has escaped the editor in the last. Maria Graham wrote "Three Months in the Mountains near Rome," but it was another gifted woman, now, alas! no more, who gave the world such a faithful picture of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century.". -When upon books, I may as well request of you to secure at our friends', the agents for the Dumfries Magazine in Glasgow, a complete set of the work, as I want to make a present of the three volumes, and perfect sets are not plenty now, although I think in taking it all in the lump, you will get a deduction. It is a mine of Scottish character and anecdote; and personages for half-a-dozen good novels might be easily lifted bodily out of it. The popularity of its editor's exquisite "bits" on animals, the feathered tribes more especially, you are aware of. Mr. Hunter, I see, facetiously accuses another friend of mine of poaching upon this manor. I am sure, however, that, in the spirit of a true sportsman, the gentleman whose right to this domain must be admitted, since it is now recorded in the "Herald Office," will be the first to "hail and good-morrow" with so expert a shot as the author of the "Memoirs of a Military Goose" assuredly is. If successful in my shooting jacket, I'll give him farther food for speculation—on the birth and parentage of a brace of partridges. While upon sporting subjects, I am reminded of my wish to procure and preserve a copy of the Chronicle's account of the fight between Byrne and Avery. It was by far the best narrative of a boxing-match I have ever seen: graphic without slang; vivid, but never coarse; and conveying a perfect idea of, pardon me for saying so to you, a vulgar scene, without any vulgarity. I wonder who drew it up? He has sufficient sympathy, with even misdirected bravery and spirit, united with a due moral reprobation of cruelty and bloodshed. yet, had I been at the fight, I think I might have perchance forgotten the pain of the vanquished, in the excitement occasioned by witnessing his gallantry and Byrne's courage and coolness. Simon will assuredly be Champion ere long, and then Tom Reynolds may, as Quin did when the late king made his first speech, triumphantly exclaim, ""Twas I that taught the boy to -FIGHT. And I was glad to see the jargon about "round 1st," &c. dismissed in the paper I alluded to. Be sure you get me one. Since I left town, you have had an irruption of lawyers from the East, I learn. Fullarton was previously unknown in Glasgow; but is not likely to be a stranger in our cases in future, as I hear. What was Professor Leslie doing among you? He did not give evidence on the river question, that I perceive, although his friend, Mr. Thom, did. It must be a proud thing for the latter gentleman thus to be called to the most widely sundered parts of Scotland to give a scientific and practical opinion on difficult questions, without his having travelled to eminence through a professor's curiculum. I am sorry to learn that his friend and your old preceptor leaves us, as I had hoped that he would one day teach my children what I never had patience to learn myself-flying off at a tangent from all his sines. Before he goes, let him have a perusal of Mr. Dunlop of Liverpool's plan for a system of practical commercial education, which lies in my desk. He will at least admit that it is ingeniously conceived. it; To conclude, my dear Billy, I really don't think that I have got any thing more to trouble you about, or even to say, excepting, that as the days of running for the stakes of the Caledonian Hunt are put a little nearer our conveniency, I shall indulge Mary by allowing her to remain among her relatives in Dumfries until that week's festivities be over, even although I should have to make a run to town myself to assist Saveall in the interment of "The Ant," and in making its last will and testament known to its heirs-at-law-the Glasgow public; and once more to see the Kean, who is to be three nights with you on his way from Bute. As for the bag of fruit that accompanies this, our uncle expects no thanks for and yet, for you know he has a horticultural hobby in his stud, I rather think he would not be displeased at getting the first number of a work on a pleasant subject, with an abominable title, that I perceive is announced, "The Pomological Magazine!" This indeed is the only novelty in literature I can perceive above the horizon this month. Next month, I am able to say, the "Chronicles of the Canongate," in two volumes, and containing three tales, “The Highland Widow," "The Drovers," and "The Surgeon's Daughter," will appear. As for the magazines, it would seem as if all their editors and prime hands, as well as those of "The Ant," were out of town, so sleepy are their contents. Heaven forefend it be not on the same errand-or at least have the same result, i. e. of making them silent-or what shall become of one-half of what a bachelor's life is worth enduring for-a wintry night, a good fire, a room to yourself, and three uncut magazines! -The ninth treatise of the Library of Knowledge is out, I learn; enclose it, for, written as I know it to be by the first anatomist in Britain, I am anxious to see how the difficult but interesting and popular subject is handled. And if any alterations appear to be made in the Femicide's Confessions, let me have the second edition. I agree with Mr. M'— in tracing a resemblance between its best passages and a certain clever orator's Sterling style. He was, even before he left Glasgow, a lady killer, you know. But I must really stop. On Monday, believe me, I shall look for both you and "The Bookseller's Wife."-So, till then, credit me to be your loving and bachelor brother, CHARLES HERON. P. S.-Promenade shoes of unbleached linen are quite the rage, I hear. Procure a pair for Mary. MORE MISERIES. Groan 20th. Having shoes which make amends for unnecessary breadth of sole by a corresponding brevity of longitude. Groan 21st. Having hawked up the phlegm of a cold, and dust of a dry evening before you recollect that you had passed through a crowd, on your way to a tea party, with an outside pocket, and a new silk handkerchief-which is off. Groan 22d. Being neither able to procure water cold enough for punch, nor hot enough for toddy, although you are in a steam boat, the temperature of whose eating-room broils you below, upon a day when that of the air chills you into apathy above. Groan 23d. Staining with ink a light-coloured vest upon the first evening of a four days' trip, and having no other in your portmanteau, nor an acquaintance within twenty miles who is as slender in the chest as yourself. Groan 24th. Being so much interested in the romantic beauties of a district as to impel you to explore every nook within ten miles of your residence, while your stomach is so improved in its digestion, that, before you have walked half that distance, you wonder when is the next meal-time. Groan 25th. Having hastily written an important and confidential note, which you have to send by an impertinent yet literate messenger, who is just ready to set off-to discover that there is neither wax, wafer, rosin, paste, nor gum, within a mile and a half of you. Groan 26th. Receiving a copy of "The Observer," " Atlas,' 66 Sphinx," or other colossal paper, with a cover, addressed by a friend who never sends a paper but to show you something in it; and, after reading every line from the date to the imprimatur, discovering that he has forgotten to mark the passage he wished you to see-or has sent you the wrong journal. Groan 27th. Finding that your bookseller has packed up and despatched to you in the Highlands, a copy of the "Particular Baptist," instead of the " Sporting Magazine." N. B. You somewhat feverish as to the St. Leger bettings. Groan 28th. Comprehending every word in a French or Italian quotation, which occurs in a letter of much importance, except one, which is at once so ill written and so idiomatic, that it sets all your ingenuity at defiance. Groan 29th. Having accumulated a choice collection of wretchednesses perfectly novel, and being informed that there is not a corner can be spared for their enumeration. The Maximist. No. VII. If for nothing else, O'Doherty deserves the gratitude of posterity for making public the plan of keeping up drawers, by running the braces through loops in their head-band. There can be no conviction that you love, till you have suffered for doing so. He would be the best grammarian who could fashion a system to himself, upon the impulse of his own wants, and from the results of his own observations, although he had never read a page of Lindley Murray. Women appear more variable and inconsistent than men merely because they more unguardedly exhibit their transitions of emotion. In conducting a periodical work, it is sometimes necessary to recollect that the vulgar are in a majority on most matters of taste. There are men of wealth and mind who will not venture to patronize rising talent, even on the cheapest method of stimulating its exertions, by a shake of the hand and an invitation to a dinnerparty, and who yet cannot help wishing to purchase its forbearance, if a smile, when no one else is by, could be the price of it. Give me the man who is cold in his rectitude and stiff in his indiscriminate intercourse with society, rather than him who has suavity without sincerity, or who is even good humoured without knowing why. The most triumphant moment of a man's existence is that one which immediately follows his success in extracting a seed from between his teeth. It cannot be a lofty genius which refuses to sympathise with the inspiration of others. Prostration here, like the worship of divinity, elevates rather than abases. It is possible to make a periodical pay in Glasgow. Our Readers are informed, that, with next No. the Selected Volume will be complete, as will the Original with the next again, when the Title Pages, Preface, Index, &c. will be given. wwwwww Printed by James Curll, 55, Bell-Street, and sold by all Booksellers. |