1

my mind to be more like the force of slung over my shoulder '; and with my a balista, a catapulta, or battering ram, rod in my right hand, and the bridle or like a right-handed hit judiciously in my left, I was lighted past the planted by my friend Mr Cribb, than cundy, the midden, and the pig-stye, any other species of mechanical force and set fairly on the road to Edinwith which I was acquainted. Mr burgh. Southdown, however, after some cogi- I jogged on at a quiet trot, till, cotation, declared he had found it out; ming down a lane near Colinton, and and rubbing his hands in ecstasy at riding near the side of the road, which the discovery, shouted out, “ De’il's was at that place overhung by trees, in't if it can be ony thing else than I received a smart blow on the chops the tup pet the callants had learned with a stick, which seemed to have to box,” that was the operator in this come from some person on the other behind-hand manner of applying phy- side of the dike.As it is the duty of sical strength.

every man to resist all attempts at Geordy now began to apologize for injury of his person or spoliation of his the part he had taken in the scene, goods, I raised my fishing-rod, unforand hoped " I wasna hurt, for he tunately my only weapon, and struck would rather have broken his leg than with my utmost strength in the didune me the slightest injury, had he rection from whence I conceived the known wha I was; but, "deed, sir, if blow to proceed. My rod broke in two ye kent how we're troubled wi' tink with the violence of the stroke, lealers, and thae kind o' folk, and how ving part of it in my hand ; and being Kirsty lost twa dukes no a week ago, now without other weapon of offence forbye the chickens that were ta en or defence, I hope it is no imputation awa' by the tod, it's eneugh to pit a on my courage to say, that I hurried body in a passion, and hard for poor forward to avoid farther mischief. folk to lose their substance by landa -- I had not much passed the village loupers, · vermin, and vagabonds.”- of Colinton, when I overtook a man, “ Ye're ay ower rash wi' your hands, apparently a farmer, on horseback be Geordy," said Mrs Christian ; "ye're fore me. As he seemed to be going ay ower rash ; for it's no a year yet till the same road, I thought I could not Hallowe'en sin' ye killed our ain dog, do better than join company for muu striking at a foumart the puir beast tual protection, and with that view was worrying."

pushed the poney alongside the horse By the assistance of my worthy and of the stranger. As soon as I came hospitable friend, I now changed my within hearing, I saluted him by say apparel, which, with blood, dirt, and ing, “ Dark night, friend!" He made water of various descriptions, too te- no reply, but turned his horse to the dious to be here enumerated, was to- other side of the road. I followed, or tally unfitting for present wear ; sub rather the poney followed, for the sake stituting for my own pantaloons, the of society likewise I presume. “Will corduroy breeches of a man twice my you allow me to bear you company size-sliding myself into a coat which friend?” again I said.“ Mind your might have contained the body of a ain concerns and I'll mind mine," said bailie,--and drawing on a pair of blue he, setting off at a quick trot Uns worsted stockings, which ascended to willing to be repulsed by a shew of near my watch-chain. I have no doubt incivility, I put spurs to the poney: that I made a most grotesque figure; explaining to the stranger, that if he and as I felt some difficulty in mana- were going to Edinburgh, I should be ging my new appointments, my wor- glad of his company, for the road was thy friend insisted that I should take in my opinion, not very safe. . Ye's his poney, “which kent every stane o' hae nae company frae me,” said be; the road, though it war the mark hour riding still faster ;"I

dinna like sic o'midnight. Ye hae naething to do, associates, an if it be God's will ye's said he, but to leave the beast at no hae my bluid to answer for this Reid's, in the Candlemaker-Row, and night," continued he, putting his horse I'll send a callant in for't in the moins to its utmost speed. My poney,

wheing.” This offer was too much to my ther

from sympathy or fun, required taste to be refused. I had rather ride but little inducement to go at the point than walk at any time. So the poney same pace, and on we splattered as was saddled ; my fishing-basket, or we had been riding for a saddle at a trout-creel, as Geordy called it, was yeomanry race,--the man's breathing

a

and occasional ejaculations evidently present next morning,—and for the

shewing that he conceived he was fly- first time in my life I dined upon an ging for his life.

animal that I had assisted to kill. The We went on at this rate for about story itself was almost forgotten amid a milé; I calling out occasionally, the bustle of business and the care of "Stop, my good friend, till I speak to more important matters, till it was you :--what are you afraid of?” The again tevived the following week by a honest yeoman, however, declined to paragraph in the newspapers, the ac

slacken his pace; and at the going off curacy of which will be best appreciis of a bye road, turned up his horse and ated by those who have read the preE disappeared. After this I rode quietly ceding narrative. The paragraph to

on till I arrived at the Inn in the which I allude was as follows: Candlemaker-Row, where the poney “ On Tuesday evening last, as a was to be left, and having given him farmer was returning from Currie, he in charge to the hostler, I walked was attacked by a highwayman near home.

the village of Colinton, who snapped On ringing my own door bell, (it à pistol at him, and demanded his was not much after eleven o'clock;) money. The farmer, who was a stout the servant having come to the door athletic man, knocked the pistol out with a candle, no sooner perceived me of the robber's hand by a stroke of his attempting to enter, than she slapped whip, and would inevitably have se thie door in my face, and shut the bolt, cured him had he not set off (for he exclaiming, "Na, nae farther if you was well mounted) at full speed in please ; there's ower mony o your the direction of Edinburgh. The farkind gaun about ; gae about your busia mer pursued him till near the town, ness. If ye're wantin the master, he's but lost sight of him about Merchis no in."— Betty," said I, “ that is ton.” very rude, open the door-it's me.”. I beg to remark, before concluding, "You !-and wha may you be when in honour of my own humanity, that ye're at hame?” replied Betty.--"I to ascertain if I had committed manken it's

you fu' weel; but nae tricks slaughter by the blow which broke in upon travellers; there's ower mony my fishing-rod, I visited the spot in

swindlers in the town, and we hae the course of next day, and to my naething for you here:”-and she re- joy found no traces which could lead treated to her domicile in the kitchen. me to think that I had inadvertently It was excessively hard to be shut out embrued my hands in the blood of a of one's own house, after such a series fellow creature. The other half of my of uncomfortable adventures, and I fishing-rod I found in the inside of made another furious attempt upon the dike, the turf coping of which bore the bell. Nobody answered. I rung evident marks of the violence of the again--a third--a fourth time, before blow; and I made the further disco Betty returned. “Ye had better gang very, that the invisible arm which had quietly about your business, man ! struck me on the face, was the projecta there's naebody wants you here. If ing and leafless branch of a tree which you dinna, I'll gang up the stair, and overhung the road. cry for the police." “ You stupid » Reader, thine own good sense will devil

, you won't shut me out of my leave thee at no loss for a moral reflecown house, will you ?--Open instant. tion, connected with the subject of the ly."Od if that's no like Mr Colum- present chapter. This world is a great bus's voice after a'," said Betty ; "and theatre, in which one has occasionally if it be him, what will he think o' me to play parts as distant from their real for steeking him out at this time of character, as that of Sir Joseph Banks night?"-I was then admitted, after a from a murderer, or as Christopher Cocautious examination of my face and lumbus from a highwayman. Judge person, by the help of the candle, in charitably decide cautiously-act my grotesque habiliments ; Mrs Cox with moderation: And should you ever, lumbus, as was perhaps natural, recoge in your intercourse with the world, nized me with less difficulty; and af. happen to hear any thing to the preter some little sustenance offered and judice of those whom your esteem or received, I soon forgot the disasters of love, - recollect that in most human the evening in the quiet of sleep. affairs, and regarding most human ac

The murdered pig (Mr Southdown tions, “ There are aye twa ways o' tellcan do handsome things) came in a ing" a story."

a

LETTER FROM THOMAS HOPE, ESQ.

Author of Anastasius.
SIR,

for whom, by a high literary complis As an article in the last Number of ment, I have been mistaken; adopted your Magazine, entitled, “ On Anas. a fictitious hero, in order to embody tasius by Lord Byron,"contains my observations on the East in a form some assertions which, though proba- less trite than that of a journal ; avoidbly only meant by the writer as face ed all antiquarian descriptions studitiousness, might be mistaken by some ously, as inconsistent with the cha. simple reader for fact, I beg to state, racter assumed; for the same reason, that in the course of long and various omitted my own name in the titles travels, I resided nearly a twelvemonth page; had finished my novely (or at Constantinople; visited the arsenal whatever else you may be pleased to and bagnio frequently; witnessed the call it,) as to the matter, long before festival of St George ; saw Rhodes; Lord Byron's admirable productions was in Egypt, in Syria, and in every appeared ; and need scarcely addy other place which I have attempted to though I do so explicitly, that I am describe minutely; collected my east- the sole author of Anastasius, ern vocabulary (notwithstanding the And your very humble servant, a gentleman at Gordon's Hotel may be

THOMAS HOPR. ignorant of the circumstance,) on the Duchess Street, spot, and whilst writing my work; Oct. 9, 1821. had at one time an Albanian in my To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazines service, as well as the celebrated poet

FAMILIAR EPISTLES TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH,

From an Old Friend with a New Face.

.

LETTER IV.
On the Personalities of the Augustan Age of English Literature.
MY DEAR KIT,

lic, whom the Whigs are so sedulously "I SYMPATHISE

with the indignation again trying to gull, that what is now you feel against “those pluckless To called personality is a very ancienty ries," who having smarted so long perhaps an inveterate quality of all themselves under the Whig cat-o criticism. I do not mean, however, nine tails, viz. PERSONALITIES, had that you should write a regular history at last mustered courage to attack their of personalities, but only in a cursory adversaries, but, failing in the science, way convince some of your faintand wanting bottom, have cried pec- hearted readers, that the heinous sin cavi. Courage, my old friendstick of personality, which the Whigs, worto your own principles, and still wield thy souls ! are so piously trying to rail your crutch undismayed. The new out of fashion, was quite as gross in outcry against personalities, ought only former days as in our own. to make

you the more explicit in mam Old Dennis, the Jeffrey of Queen nifesting your determination to adhere Anne's time, says of Pope, in his to the rule you have adopted, namely, “ Reflections, Critical and Satirical, to use against your adversaries thewean on a Rhapsody called an Essay on Cripons which they have themselves used; ticism, printed by Bernard Lintot," and I therefore again take leave to re

* One would swear that this younge iterate what I urged in my last, name- ster (the Poet,) had espoused some ly, that you should shew the Whigs, antiquated muse, who had sued out a from their own oracles and organs, divorce from some superannuated sin: that they have far exceeded, both in ner upon account of impotence, and spite and venom, the utmost walice who being and by the former of your bitterest resentment, and, in spouse, has got the gout in her decree many instances, without one allaying pid age, which makes her hobble so drop of your generous good humour; damnably;”. This is pretty plain and and also to remind the credulous pubs free criticism. Match it if you can

even from the writings of the Whigs Or still more of these verses,
of our own time. Cobbett himself

6 Know Eusden thirsts no more, for sack
has nothing so rich and perfect. But of praise,
this, it will be said, is only meta. He sleeps among the dull of ancient days ;
phorical," and applicable to The Safe where no critics damn, no duns mo-
Essay on Criticism. The author is lest,
spared, indeed! Then read on, “He is Where wretched Withers, Ward, and
a little affected hypocrite, who has no

Golden rest, thing in his mouth but candour, truth, And high-born Howard, more majestic sire, friendship, good nature, humanity and with fools of quality complete the quire. magnanimity. He is so great a lover Thou, Cibber thou, his laurel shalt supof falsehood, that whenever he has a

port, mind to calumniate his cotemporaries, Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him

Folly, my son, has still a friend at court. he brands them with some defect which

come! is contrary to some good quality, for Sound, sound, ye viols! be the cat-call which all their friends and acquain- dumb. tapces commend them.” But did Pope prosecute Dennis for this? No he had dy; but was Pope prosecuted by Eus

Here is both personality and paromore sense he did as you would have den for calling him a drunkard, or redone in his age and situation; he wrote viled like your excellent Chaldean for the Dunciad. Pope was also elsewhere the allusion to the 24th psalm ? And described as a creature that is at once a beast and a man; a Whig and a thing like the account of Curl's miss.

pray when did you send forth any Tory, a writer of Guardians and Exa

hap? miners; a jesuitical professor of truth; a base and foul pretender to candour. “ Full in the middle way there stood a lake, Theobald, in Mist's Journal for 22d Which Curl's Corinna chanced that morn June, 1728, declared that “he ought to

to make : have a price set on his head, and to (Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop be hunted down as a wild beast.”. In Her evening cates before her neighbour's Gulliveriana, he is desired to cut his Here fortuned Curl to slide ; loud shout the

shop.). throat or hang himself. So much for band, the critics of the Augustan age of Eng. And Bernard, Bernard ! rings through all lish literature. But let us now look at the Strand. Pope's retaliation-for his satire, like Obscene with filth, the miscreant lies beyour own, was retaliation with this

wray'd, difference however, that as the pro- Fallen in the plash his wickedness had laid, vocation was personal, the revenge was I shall neither advert to the coarse. personal. Yours was party, and your mess of this passage, nor offend the de retaliation is also party, and of course licate organs of some of your friends, the more innocent of the two, for you by quoting what follows about Curl's have attacked only public principles, being offensively put forth, and public conduct, nefarious in its practices, or lu

“ Renew'd by ordure's sympathetic force, dicrous-by its folly. I will begin with As oild

by magic juices for the course. the Dunciad.

Vigorous he rises, from the effluvia strong, 3" There has been some doubt among

Imbibes n

new life, and scours and stinks

along."
the commentators 'as to who was the
hero of the poem, and therefore let us

I have not looked into the Dunciad pass him over. But what is to be said since we were chums together at Dame of the personality in the description of Norton's, and I had no remembrance Bedlam ?

of its obscenity and grossness. Surely “ Close to those walls, where folly holds Byron must have been quizzing the

Smalls” when he eulogized the moral her throne, And laughs to think Munroe would take taste of Pope ; and I would here ask, her down,

has he himself ever been considered as Where o'er the gates, by his famed fa.

a libeller, for his English Bards and ther's hand,

Scotch Reviewers?"-But, for the

prea Great Çibber's brazen brainless brothers sent, our business is with Twickens stand.”

ham..

The two celebrated statues of Raving and Melancholy Madness, were by Cibber's father.

turn."

"Fearless on high stood unabash'd De Foe, Again, look at the famous sketch of And Tutchin Hagrant from the scourge the Duke of Buckingham.

below; There Ridpath, Roper, cudgell'å might ye “ A man so various, that he seem'd to be view,

Not one, but all mankind's epitome ; The very worsted still look'd black and Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong ; blue.”

Was every thing by starts, and nothing

long; I do not mean to defend the allu- But, in the course of one revolving moon, sions in these verses to the punish: Was chemist, poet, statesman and buffoon: ments which some of the parties men. Then all for women, painting, rhyming, tioned suffered, for all such things are drinking, in bad taste, but merely to remind your Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thin-skinned friends, that when you thinking. have happened, once or twice, in some momentary fit of spleen, to sneer at the legal misfortunes of some of the Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft, Cockney libellers, you have had the He left not faction, but of that was left.” classical authority of Pope for your example. But what is the foregoing And what's this to many others? to the following ?

And when did you ever say any thing " A second see, by meeker manners know!, to Dryden's Shimei? But is Dryden,

comparable against Mayor or Alderman And modest as the maid that șips alone;

for that character of Slingsby Bethel, From the strong fate of drams, if thou get

considered to have exceeded the anfree, Another Durfey, Ward ! shall sing in thee. cient charter of the satirists? Thee shall each alehouse, thee each gill.

But to leave the Absalom and Achihouse mourn,

tophel, (every verse of which is a drop And answering gin-shops sourer sighs re- of the genuine aquafortis of personal,

įty,)what have even the Whigs of our But I am disgusted with the ribaldry own time, gross as they have been, ever of the Danciad, a work, both on ac of the Duke of Marlborough in Tar

written to match Dryden's character count of its absurdity and malicious spirit, long since justly consigned to quin and Tullia. contempt and neglect. I will there- 66 Of these, 'a captain of the guard was fore throw it aside, and dip a little into vorst, Dryden. In which of all your piquant Whose memory, to this day, stands aye pages, can you shew me any thing half accurst; so keenly personal, aş fifty extracts This rogue, advanced to military trust, which may be made from his Absalom By

his own whoredom and his sister's lust, and Achitophel ? Take, for example, And plotted to betray lim to his foes.”

Forsook his master, after dreadful vows, the character of Lord Shaftesbury.

This, I think, is a tolerable specimen “A name to all succeeding ages cursed ; of the licensed licentiousness of the For close designs and crooked councils fit, press of former days; but what shall Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; Restless, unfix'd in principles and place; and his Consort Mary.

we say to the account of King William In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which, working out its way,

“ The states thought fit Fretted the pigmy body to decay. That Tarquin on the vacant throne should Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bonds divide; Voted him regent in their senate house; Else why should he, with wealth and ho. And with an empty name endowed his nour bless'd,

spouse, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest, The elder Tullia; who, some authors feign, Punish a body which he could not please, Drove o'er her father's corpse a rumbling Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease.

wain. And all to leave what with his toil he won, But she, more guilty, numerous wains did To that unfeather'd two-legged thing- drive,

To crush her father and her king alive ; Got while his soul did huddled notions try, And, in remembrance of his hasten'd fall, And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy; Resolved to institute a weekly ball. In friendship false, implacable in hate, The jolly glutton grew in bulk and chin, Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state." Feasted on rapine, and enjoy'd her sin ;

sit ;