shot; and, by the power of their distorted faces, driving away the constantly filling crowd, as if some demon had become incarnate, to terrify the cruel in the moment of their enjoyment. I knew that I was now in that piteous, hideous, degraded condition, and I knew, moreover, that I was never to escape from that state while time endured; but that thenceforth, till the day of judgment, I was to be thus rended asunder in tormenting convulsions. It was my doom; and I came at last to be satisfied that I deserved it-that it was the righteous infliction of torment on a spirit leeply polluted with crime.

In a moment I was drenched in blood. It seemed that a sharp weapon like a scythe, at one sweep, from an unseen arm, cut off a limb, and miserably mutilated my body. The agony changed my swoon; and as I was sensible for a single moment of the transiDion from one swoon to another, a whole crowd of familiar objects drove by my Soul, and then I was again plunged nto the haunted darkness. My life 10w seemed to be ebbing away-slight limpses of sense visited my soul-I ried to articulate to stretch out my emaining arm to something alive, hat seemed to be near me-but speech -motion-almost thought and voliion were gone, and I lay with palpiations and singultus at my heart, as f' all my body were become insensible nd a mere clod, except my heart, n whose out-pouring blood, consciusness and torment were together rowing fainter and fainter, and faling into annihilation.

Some change took place. There was -bearing along of my remaining life -there was motion and sound. They vere united. It was I who was borne long-and a weeping, wailing, lauenting voice kept close unto mehe voice of love, and of grief. Somehing touched my forehead-it was epeated again and again. It felt like tear-and then a kiss seemed to drop pon my eyelids. But still I was waftd unconsciously along and along, and lown and down interminable windings -and still the tears, and sobs, and sighs continued and then a small hand seemed to touch mine, and I hought of my children. Are they liing still, thought I, or are we all urrying down together, by some myserious avenue, and on the wings of

some mysterious power, into the dark bosom of eternity? There was then a grating as of a huge iron door on its hinges, but louder than any thunder, and I was flung down a gulph, and dashed into nothing.

But from this blessed insensibility I was too soon awaked, and what I afterwards suffered, though perhaps less hideous and terrific, was yet such as even now to make the drops of sweat to stand on my brow, and my blood to curdle. I seemed to be recovered into a sort of delirious stupor, in which I had just power of perception sufficient to discern the horrors of my situation. I beheld a figure clothed in white, like a ghost risen in its winding-sheet, standing before me, and on its breast a wide wound, from which the blood had issued in torrents, and stained all that part of the shroud from the heart to its feet. It fixed its hollow eyes upon mine, and when I started with horror, the phantom seemed to imitate my action with derision, and to bring its corpse-like features into a horrid likeness of mine. In the blindness of superstitious terror, I staggered headlong towards the object, and while it disappeared with a hideous crash, as if the earth, or the hell where I was imprisoned, were falling into pieces, I felt myself transfixed, as it were, with a thousand daggers, and recovering my voice through the agony, shrieked aloud. Then I thought there descended upon me, as from the angry heavens, a shower of such icy chillness, that the little blood left in my exhausted veins was entirely frozen, and I was conscious of life only by a feeling of the uttermost intensity of cold, as if I were some insect inclosed in a frozen globule of water in some great ice bay in the Polar Sea. This feeling gradually relaxed into a shivering fit resembling an earthly sensation, my eyes opened of themselves, and there stood before me, my wife, and the two friends in whose presence this calamity had fallen upon me.

The truth is, Mr Editor, that I had got as drunk as an owl, and that the preceding narrative presents the public with a very slight and imperfect sketch of my feelings after falling off my chair, till I came to my recollection in my own bed-room, with a Kilmarnock night-cap on my head, and my good wife s dressing-gown on, to keep me from catching cold, my

the fiends of my dream were merely the captain and my wife, and who, it seems, had used the word salamander, why I know not. In a fit I most assuredly was, and our maid was despatched for a doctor. He came in a jiffy-having been fortunately in the street, cutting off a neighbour's thigh from the socket-and bled me copiously in the arm. This not only throws an air of probability over that part of the previous narrative, in which I describe myself as having in a trance lost an arm from the sweep of a scythe, but also throws, unless I greatly err, much light on the whole theory and practice of dreaming. After I had filled a wash-hand basin with excellent, warm, pure, ruddy blood, I was lifted up on a seat formed of the interlineation of all the fingers belonging to my wife, the maid, the parson, the captain, and the doctor; and, with one arm over the shoulder of the church, and the other over the shoulder of the profession, I was borne along the lobby, and carried up stairs, with the view of being deposited in the stranger's bed-room. But it was not made down; so I was brought back again down stairs to our own room, where I understand the procession met our little Tommy, with his finger in his mouth, crying lustily, on the supposition that his daddy was dead. Grief being catching, Mrs Davison had also begun to blubber; and being sensible, I presume, that she had been too violent in the dining-room scene, during which I had never spoken a word, she burst into tears, kissed me just as I was, and hid her lovely face in her husband's bosom. The reader, by referring to that part of the narrative which describes the impression made upon me during my intoxica

DEAR SIR,

tion, by this touching little Incident, will not fail to admire the singular coincidence between those wild and strange feelings, and the character of the cause which produced them. Having seen me put to bed in my wife's night-gown, as aforesaid, (which having been done rather violently, seemed to me like dashing me down on the pavement from a house-top,) the party left me, and went down stairs to take a check of supper. I had snored away for a couple of hours, till finding, I presume, from Mrs D. not being at my side, that something unusual had occurred, I reeled out of bed. A candle of about twenty to the pound had very considerately been placed in a bowl, and by its light, a large looking-glass, at which my wife admires her person, had reflected to me myself, standing in my wife's night-gown, which, I am sorry to say, bore testimony, by its sanguine hue, that I had been sickvery sick, after having been put to bed. In my very natural fear of that ghost, I broke my wife's looking-glass into shivers, and cut myself considerably in the concussion. The noise brought the family up, one of whom immediately threw a basin of cold water in my face, which made me think of the Polar Sea; and after mutual explanation and reconciliation, I marched down stairs, somewhat muzzy, and took my jug of hot punch with the rest. I had a slight headach next day; but the bleeding did me great good. I never was better than at the moment of now writing to you. As to the Moral, it is too obvious to be overlooked; and therefore I leave the world to profit by it. Yours most sincerely,

BARKER has shewn so much good temper in his Retort Courteous, that it would be unfair if I hit him hard in return. I forgive him his little jets of spleen, such as his accusing me of slander, &c. in consideration of his having made an effort to laugh, which is very commendable in a man situated as he is. Besides, I am in a mask, and he, with more chivalry than pru

D.D.

dence, comes forth to the fight bareheaded, exposing his unhelmeted pate to the Andrew Ferrara of a champion whose brows are enveloped in the casque of Pluto. I shall not abuse his good faith; for whatever dog I may be, I am not so ruthless a bloodhound as his alarmed imagination depicts me. Nor am I the least angry with his quotations from old Caius, (whom I have read, and could quote too, if I were in the mood,) for I think them not destitute of fun, and quite well enough for a lexicographer; and my tranquillity is perhaps the more unruffled, in consequence of my perceiving that his hits, being all directed at Blomfield, do me no hurt. * With regard to my quotation from Persius, with which he waxes wroth, all I can say is, that I am sorry to see he labours under some unaccountable delusion, as to the common arrangement of a sentence; but I freely give up the false quantity in the line from Lucan. I can only allege in my defence, that it was the will of Messieurs the printers, to give diis for deis an accident which will happen in spite of us, in the best regulated families; and I wish B. joy of his sharp, press-correcting eye. It is no mean qualification in a verbal critic.

I did certainly see the notice to which he refers me, but was afraid he was forgetting his promise, and thought a refresher to his memory would be no harm. I am glad he appears after Christmas; till which time I must look a-head for other jaw-relaxing matter. For, with deference to his gravity, I see nothing undignified in ind indulging in that inextinguish able laugh, which was not deemed unworthy of the tenants of Olympus, and, as Mr B. knows, is held, by the highest authority, to be one of the most distinctive propria of our species. There is something, I know not what, that strikes me as irresistibly comic about Alderman Wood, and that water-bladder, the shoy-hoy Waithman, as Cobbet politely calls him, and the much injured knight of Maria Theresa, which, (and not any intention of connecting their politics with those of Barker, who is a loyal and honest Tory,) made me pitch on these three famous political W's. as prime butts for laughing at; nor is that general impression on my mind diminished by our friend Thes. comparing me most Plutarchically with Waithman, and panegyrizing the learning of that erudite star of Cockaigne. But he certainly is too clever in his hit upon

the tragedies. For it is plain, my dear Christopher, that the tragedies I meant were not the doleful farces of Knightsbridge, &c. but the actual dramas of these droll gentlemen, commemorated by your hard-hearted correspondent, Sappho, in your last, "who, in old Drury, or in Covent Garden," made sport for me during last season. They were lovely in their lives, but alas! they are clean gone, The stroke of death did end their time,

And cut them off just in their prime,

as the tombstone poet has it-and me morial of them remains none, nor has any body arisen to supply their place, no one in fact, as yet, has put in his claim for the vacant situation of tragedyman, which certainly has diminished the quantity of "sportive matter" in this

foggy city.

As I have a P.S. as long as my letter to write, I shall conclude by assuring Mr B., that when I again go through Thetford, I shall call on him as he de sires it, hoping that he will allow me thicker potations than Spa-water-of which, or indeed any other kind of water, I do not profess myself an ama teur. I expect more magnanimous fluid. Thetford, I imagine, can supply some of that famous ἐκ τῶν ·κριθῶν πομαλειπόμενη ἐ πολυ τῆς περὶ τὸν οἶνον ἐνωδίας, ὃ κα λοῦσι ζύν θoν, † of which I take Mr Barker from his honest beer-barrel metaphors to be a patron, and which is, at all events, bet ter than gripe-giving mineral water. If I should see his MS. before he com mits it to the press (a thing not very probable just now,) I shall give him in return for his advice to me, a couple of admonitions.-1st. Not to teaze himself by answering jokes on Thes. or such mere trifles. He has a right to use that or any other intelligible abbreviation he pleases. If he think fit to shorten his own name to Mr Bark. or even to Mr Ba., I know of no act of parliament against it; but allxiously justifying such things, and quoting learned authorities, and writing whole pages about them, is ridiculous to the last degree. And, adly, Not to snarl so wickedly at Dr Blomfield, for every one sees the reason. We

† Diod. Sic.

never never heard from Barker or Burges a word of the Doctor's plagiarisms or other misdemeanours, until he had roughly handled Thes. in the Quarterly Review. Hinc illæ lacrymæ. I have not looked into Burges's Supplices yet, but I must candidly confess, I do not hink much of the article in the Classical Journal, to which he refers me o laugh at. The most laughable mater about them is, Burges's having the ace to introduce with a strong paneyric, the following puff direct on himelf by Dobree. "Neque silentio præereundus Georgius Burges, vetus et robatus amicus, qui multa e codicius excerpsit, et alia docte, ut solet, et tiliter admonuit."-[C. I. No. 42, p. 71. And a little higher up he calls imself " the Editor's (Dobree, editor f the Porsoni Aristophanica) learned iend, George Burges," which is droll nough beyond doubt.

- Let me, however, borrow a joke om G. B. as it is a good advice to E.

I. B.

- (κιδναμένης [κάρτ'] ἐν στήθεσσιν οργῆς

- Δεῖ πεφυλάχθαι γλῶσσαν ΜΑΨ-ΥΛΑΚΤΑΝ.

Ir Barker, drive anger away from your breast,

nd let your unfortunate tongue be at rest.* Angry quarrels between scholars do good. How would Mr Barker like be retorted on by Mr Bloomfield in words of rare Ben? "What hath done more than a base cur? Bark1 and made a noise; had a fool or tro to spit in his mouth; but they are. ther enemies of my fame, than me,

e

ose Barkers!"

Wishing him nevertheless every sucss in the great work on which he is mployed,- -I remain, dear Christoter, yours sincerely,

A CONSTANT READER.

London, Dec. 2.

P. S.-I wish to say a few words Yout the Classical Journal. B. says I As actuated by a peculiar motive, to ur out the vials of my wrath on Vat periodical. Not I indeed. I on

ly panegyrized Mr Cæcilius Metellus, for his ingenuity in authenticating your first Horæ Scandicæ, by parallel passages out of Euripides, Milton, Job, and Saint Paul, adding, what was perfectly true, that he was nevertheless a very respectable scholar, and possessed of some fun. The thing was very fairly and good-humouredly taken in the Classical Journal, where I was described as one of “the minor γελωτοποιοι, in that Miscellany of Momus, Blackwood's Magazine." So far from wishing to disparage the Journal, I am a regular reader of it, and find always much to interest me in its pages. Sir W. Drummond's Essays are learned and ingenious. What Professor Dunbar writes, is always worth reading, in spite of the adverse criticism of your friend Hogg in the Tent. The Miscellanea Classica, and Adversaria Literaria, are generally amusing; and there are many correspondents who write well on their several subjects. They had, for example, a good series of articles in the late Numbers, on the Language and Literature of Cornwall. Besides, it is pleasant to have a place of refuge for the exercises of our Universities, which are sometimes-not often to be sure-worth reading for their own merits, but always deserve attention, as affording indices of the progress of classical learning among us. Of course the Journal has its Balaamitish contributors, ex. gr. Taylor the Platonist, and Bellamy the antiHebraist, who is a tremendous bore. How any body can give book-room to Taylor, I cannot conceive; but nevertheless you find him in almost every number, talking incredible nonsense. I take a random example. One of the numbers, containing Burges's assault on C. J. B. is before me, and in it we have from Taylor the following DISCOVERY OF A VERSE OF HOMER. "The following verse is ascribed by Proclus on the Timæus of Plato (p. 334.) to Homer, but is not to be found in any of the writings of that poet, which are now extant. The line is,

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