stronger imagination and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than are the usual lot of man; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging wild flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little minnows in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies-in short, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than any man living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase; lastly, fill up the measure of his woes by bestowing on him a spurning sense of his own dignity, and you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet. To you, Madam, I need not recount the fairy pleasures the muse bestows to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry is like bewitching woman; she has in all ages been accused of misleading mankind from the councils of wisdom and the paths of prudence, involving them in difficulties, baiting them with poverty, branding them with infamy, and plunging them in the whirling vortex of ruin; yet, where is the man but must own that all our happiness on earth is not worthy the name -that even the holy hermit's solitary prospect of paradisiacal bliss is but the glitter of a northern sun rising over a frozen region, compared with the many pleasures the nameless raptures that we owe to the lovely Queen of the heart of Man! R. B.

[Miss Helen Craik of Arbigland had merit both as a poetess and novelist: her ballads may be compared with those of Macneill, and her novels, amid much graphic force, had a seasoning of the satiric, which rendered them acceptable to all who understood their allusions. She died some years ago at Allonby: she was much of an enthusiast, and lived estranged from her family for a long period of her life. Her father was one of the wisest gentlemen and most sensible improvers of property on the Scottish side of the Solway: his taste, too, in architecture was of a pure kind: he lived to a good old age, and had the misfortune to witness with his own eyes the melancholy death of his only son. The heir of Arbigland, accompanied by some sixteen young men of the parish, set off one summer morning in his pleasure skiff to pay a visit to the English shore: when more than half-way over the Solway, a whirlwind suddenly arose, seized the sails, whirled the skiff around, and down it went with all on board-though a vessel was near, not a soul was saved. The wretched father saw all this from a seat on the top of the house: after the skiff sank he sat still for an hour, looking fixedly, it is said, on the sea. Arbigland is now the property of his grandson, Douglas Hamilton Craik, Esq. The situation on the Solway side is beautiful: the house is a model of proportion and elegant workmanship: the woods, which partly enclose it, are very lofty, and some of the firs of the spruce tribe are of enormous girth. Burns was a frequent visitor here: nor has the ancient hospitality of the house of Craik declined, nor its love of literature.ED.]

No. CCXX.

TO LADY GLENCAIRN.

MY LADY,

THE honour you have done your poor poet, in writing him so very obliging a letter, and the pleasure the enclosed beautiful verses have given him, came very seasonably to his aid amid the cheerless gloom and sinking despondency of diseased nerves and December weather. As to forgetting the family of Glencairn, Heaven is my witness with what sincerity I could use those old verses which please me more in their rude simplicity than the most elegant lines I ever saw.

If thee, Jerusalem, I forget,

Skill part from my right hand.

My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave,

If I do thee forget,

Jerusalem, and thee above

My chief joy do not set.

When I am tempted to do any thing improper, I dare not, because I look on myself as accountable to your ladyship and family. Now and then when I have the honour to be called to the tables of the great, if I happen to meet with any mortification from the stately stupidity of self-sufficient squires,

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or the luxurious insolence of upstart nabobs, I get above the creatures by calling to remembrance that I am patronised by the Noble House of Glencairn ; and at gala-times, such as New-year's day, a christening, or the Kirn-night, when my punch-bowl is brought from its dusty corner and filled up in honour of the occasion, I begin with,―The Countess of Glencairn! My good woman, with the enthusiasm of a grateful heart, next cries, My Lord! and so the toast goes on until I end with Lady Harriet's little angel! whose epithalamium I have pledged myself to write.

When I received your ladyship's letter, I was just in the act of transcribing for you some verses I have lately composed; and meant to have sent them my first leisure hour, and acquainted you with my late change of life. I mentioned to my lord, my fears concerning my farm. Those fears were indeed too true; it is a bargain would have ruined me but for the lucky circumstance of my having an excise commission.

People may talk as they please, of the ignominy of the excise; 50l. a year will support my wife and children, and keep me independent of the world; and I would much rather have it said that my profession borrowed credit from me, than that I borrowed credit from my profession. Another advantage I have in this business, is the knowledge it gives me of the various shades of human character, consequently assisting me vastly in my poetic pur

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suits. I had the most ardent enthusiasm for the muses when nobody knew me, but myself, and that ardour is by no means cooled now that my lord Glencairn's goodness has introduced me to all the world. Not that I am in haste for the press. have no idea of publishing, else I certainly had consulted my noble generous patron; but after acting the part of an honest man, and supporting my fa mily, my whole wishes and views are directed to poetic pursuits. I am aware that though I were to to give performances to the world superior to my former works, still if they were of the same kind with those, the comparative reception they would meet with would mortify me. I have turned my thoughts on the drama. I do not mean the stately buskin of the tragic muse.

Does not your ladyship think that an Edinburgh theatre would be more amused with affectation, folly and whim of true Scotish growth, than manners which by far the greatest part of the audience can only know at second hand?

I have the honour to be,

Your ladyship's ever devoted

And grateful humble servant,

R. B.