soms flee intil separate leaves, and a' the leaves gang careerin in air outower the lea, and that would be an eemage o' the sudden flicht o'a heap o' snaw-white lambs, a' broken up in a moment as they lay amang the sunshine, and scattered far and wide o'er the greensward-sune to be regathered on the Starting-Knoll; but there the eemage wunna haud, for rose-leaves ance dissipated dee like love-kisses lavished in dreams.

North. Rose-leaves and rose-lips-lambs and lasses-and love-kisses lavished in dreams! And all these images suggested in a shepherd's recollection of a Spring-shower! Prevailing pastoral Poet, complete thy picture.

Shepherd. See how the trouties are loupin in the pools-for a shower o' insecks hae come winnowing their way on the wings o' the western wind, frae the weel-watered wavings o' Elibank's whisperin woods.

North. No such imitative melodies in Homer! The sentence is like a sugh.

Shepherd. 'Twas nae faut o' mine, sir, for ma mouth got fou o' double-Ws-and I had to whiff and whustle them out. But hush and list, sir-list and hush! For that finest, faintest, amaist evanescent music-merry, or mournful, just as ye may be disposed to think and feel it but now it is merry-dear me it's clean gane-there-there it is heard again-like the dying tone o' the sma'est cord o' the harp o' an angel happy in the heart o' the highest heavens-and what may it be-since our ears are too dull to hear seraphic string or strain-but the hymn, to us amaist hushed by the altitude-although still pourin and pourin out like a torrent-o' the lyrical Laverock, wha, at the first patterin o' the spring-shower upon the braird about his nest, had shot, wi' short, fast-repeated soarings, a-singing up the sky, as if in the delirium o' his delicht he would hae forsaken the earth for ever—but wha, noo that he has reached at last the pinnacle o' his aerial ambition, wull sune be heard descendin, as if he were naething but a sang-and then seem a musical speck in the sky-till again ring a' the lower regions wi' his still loud, but far tenderer strains-for soarin he pours, but sinkin he breathes his voice, till it ceases suddenly in a flutter and a murmur ower the head o' his brooding mate-lifted lovingly up wi' its large saft een to welcome her lover-husband to their blessed nest!"

66 THE SHEPHERD BLOWING SOAP-BUBBLES.

Shepherd. I hae nae tale to tell; but it sae happened that I had never heard tell o' blawing saip-bubbles frae a pipe till I was aucht year auld-the maist poetical repok perhaps in the life o' a great untaucht original genius.

Tickler. Millions of poets are cut off ere they reach that epoch! Shepherd. And mony million mair by teethin

Tickler. And the gripes.

Shepherd. That's tautology-teethin includes the gripes-though you may hae forgotten't; but great wits hae short memories-that's proverbial-sae let me proceed.

Tickler. Wet your whistle.

Shepherd. My whustle's never dry. I had seen a lassie doin't; and though she couldna do't weel, yet even sic bubbles as she blew-she was a verra bonny bit lassie-appeared to my imagination mair beautifu' than ony ither sicht my een had ever beheld-no exceppin the blab o' hinny that I used to haud up atween me and the licht, afore I sooked it, after I had flung awa, in twa halves, the bumbee that had gathered it partly frae the clover and partly frae the heather-floures. Tickler. How amiable is infant cruelty!

Shepherd. And how detestable the cruelty o' auld age! That verra day I took up the saip-I remember the shape and size o' the cut at this moment-and bat a bit aff-makin it appear by the nibblin o' my teeth, as if the thief had been a mouse.

Tickler. How amiable is infant hypocrisy !

Shepherd. Whare was ye last nicht, you auld Archimawgo? I then laid hauns on a new pipe my faither had brocht frae Selkirk in a present for my mother-for the cutty was worn down to an inch, and had ower strong a smell even for the auld wives; but as for my mother, she was then in the prime o' life, and reckoned verra like the Duchess; and havin provided mysel wi' a tea-cup and a drap water, I stole out intil what ance had been the garden o' Ettrick Ha', and sat doun aneath ane o' the elm-trees, as big then as they are noo-and in solitude, wi' a beatin heart, prepared my suds. I quaked a' the same as if I had been gaun to do something wickit—

North. Shakespearean.

Tickler. Nothing equal to it in Massinger.

Shepherd. Wi' a trummlin heart-indeed a' in a trummle-I put the mooth o' the pipe as gently's I could on the precious saip-andwater, and it sooked in the wee bells till they a' made but ae muckle bell, on which depended a' my happiness for that day at least, for in my agitation I let the tea-cup fa'-though thank God it didna break -and a' my hopes were in the bole o' that pipe, and it was limited to that ae single charge! I drew in my breath-and I held in my breath-wi' the same sort o' shiver that a wean gies afore gaun into the dookin—and then I let out ae sigh after anither sigh-hainin my breath-when oh! ineffable and inconceivable happiness! the bells grew intil bubbles! and the bubbles intil balloons! and the balloons intil meteors! and the meteors intil moons! a' irradiated wi' lustre, a thousand times mair mony-coloured than the rainbow-each in itsel a wee glorious globe o' a warld-and the beautifu' series followin ane anither up the air, as if they were sailin awa to heaven. I forgot utterly that they were saip-suds, and thocht them what they seemed to be-creturs o' the element! till first ane and then anither-ah waes me! gaed out and left me staunin forlorn wi' my pipe in my haun aneath the auld elm-tree, as if the warld I breathed in was altered back intil what it was before-and I, Jamie Hogg, again at ance a schoolboy and a herd, likely to get his licks baith frae Mr. Beattie the dominie, and auld Mr. Laidlaw-instead o' muntin up to heaven as the bubbles munted up to heaven, to find our hame in the sky! I looked sideways to the houses-and there was my mother fleein

towards me-shakin her nieve, and ca’in me 'Sorrow'—and demandin hoo I daured to meddle wi' that pipe? The stalk at that moment broke into ten pieces in my hand and the head o' the pipe, pale as death, trundled at my feet. I felt my crime to be murder-and without a struggle submitted to my mother, who gave me my paiks, which I took as silent as a fox. Severe disenchantment! Yet though my ears tingled, when I touched them, till bed-time, I was an unreformed sinner in sleep-and blew dream-saip-bubbles frae a visionary pipe up the ether of imagination, uninterrupted, unterrified, and unpunished by any mortal mother-dream-saip-bubbles far transcendin in purest loveliness even them for which I had wept."

From these extracts it will be seen that all the highest work of the Noctes falls to the Shepherd. And this leads us to note, as one other peculiarity about these compositions in their present form as a substantial addition to our permanent literature, the circumstance that they are a new specimen-and perhaps the last specimen on a large scale that the world can expect-of the use of the Scottish dialect for literary purposes. The Scotch of Wilson, as put into the mouth of the Ettrick Shepherd, is quite as genuine and natural and rich as that of either Burns or Scott, and possesses qualities of its own, showing that even these great masters of the national dialect had not fathomed all its resources. The fact that it was in this dialect, so uncouth to the English ear, that Wilson, Oxford man and practised English writer as he was, achieved his highest literary successes, is not unworthy of remark. It proves a certain deep congeniality between his whole intellectual mode and nature and the forms of phraseology which the Scottish language provided. It is as if, associated with the Scottish language and bound up with its very being, there were a certain traditional cast of thought incapable of being efficiently maintained in any other ensemble of linguistic conditions, and as if in this cast of thought Wilson was most at home. What that cast of thought is, it might be difficult to define. To a great extent its speciality seems to consist in a vein of self-irony-an incessant tendency to the humorous in the midst of the serious. But whatever that mode of intellect is for which the Scottish dialect was the appropriate medium, it seems decreed that it shall either disappear from British literature, or have to exert itself under the disadvantages of translation. In these Noctes, probably (but there is no certainty in such matters), we have the last extensive exhibition of the Scottish language in literature. Curiously enough, it is English authors, rather than Scotch, that seem bent at present on continuing the occasional use of the Scottish dialect in British books. Mr. Kingsley's Sandy Mackaye in Alton Locke is one out of several recent instances that might be quoted. Should any of our English readers, ap

proving of this penchant, desire a few lessons in the Scottish dialect, they cannot do better than make a study of the Noctes, with the help of Professor Ferrier's glossary of Scottish terms appended to the present edition of them.

We have dilated sufficiently on the merits of the volumes before us to convey our impression that in virtue of them alone, apart from his other numerous writings, Wilson deserves the place which has been generally accorded to him as a man of true genius and one of the greatest British writers of the present century. Were we again, in conclusion, to revert to the negative side, we should have to point out how that frequent coarseness of speech and that exaggerated license of personal invective which marred the real worth of the Noctes even on their first appearance, detract still more from their literary perfection as writings destined for a longer existence. On these points, however, we have already said enough; and, after all, these were perhaps only forms of what may be noted in conclusion as the prevailing defect not only of the Noctes, but of Wilson's whole literary life-his tendency to expatiate and luxuriantly effloresce rather than to concentrate, compress, and elaborate. It was Goethe who used to insist on a certain habit, which he called specification, as essential to the greatest success in all attempts in art or literature, and ultimately to the enduring influence of any artist or author in respect of his whole career when completed. If we remember aright, it was by way of warning his young fellow-countrymen against the example of such irregular and lawless writers as Jean Paul that he used to utter this remark. The idea likely to be propagated by such an example was, he thought, that a great literary work ought to be a kind of fantasia of thoughts, humours, and imaginations woven together anyhow; and against that idea he entered his protest. It was the business of the literary man, he said, to impart to all his works a certain character and direction corresponding to what was special in his own individuality; and this could only be done by repressing the general, and severely cultivating the specific in all that one wrote. In this habit of specification, concentration, or whatever we may call it, Wilson was certainly deficient. He rioted and luxuriated in the use of his powers; but prescribed for them no distinct succession of definite tasks, and submitted them to no rigorous discipline. Hence, in his speculative thinking, with all its subtlety, a want of that iron tenacity, the result of thought coherently prosecuted, often attained by inferior men; and hence, even in his splendid descriptions and phantasies, a frequent excess of what he himself would have called mere sugh, and a frequent want of that closeness, finish, and intense keenness of effect, which, with the same imagery for

the material, a severer artist could have aimed at. The truth is, those who knew Wilson unanimously feel that, as relics of such a magnificent human being as he was, all the writings that he has left behind him are less than adequate. What we have as Wilson's works in 1856, including even these glorious Noctes, is less than Scott and others who knew the Wilson of 1816 might have expected, and did expect, from such a soul lodged in such a physique. And so, after all, the moral is, that in literature as in war, one may often back the dark-skinned little Roman, drilled and disciplined, against the large succulent Goth, with eyes azure as the heavens and locks like golden sunbeams, whose first appearance terrifies him. With sinews of knotted steel, a step trained and firm, and one weapon at least of which he is master, the man naturally smaller may in the long-run accomplish the greater amount of consistent and effective work. Or, to drop the metaphor, there is many a man who "canna shute," who "canna fish," who "canna loup," who canna warsle," who " canna soom," who " canna put the stane," who canna fling the hammer," who " canna drive a gig," who canna to ony effeck drink whisky," who yet may be a master of his craft, a perfect Kant in cogitation, a Pitt in politics, a Pope, or something better still, in poetry, and altogether a very tough customer if you happen to come across him. Only, the Shepherd is certainly right in recommending open-air exercise; and every one must admit, that if the Goth were disciplined, the Roman, unless he too were of the same huge stature, would have a poor chance.

ART. VIII.—THE PAST AND FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY.

The History of Christianity, from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. By the Rev. H. H. Milman. 3 vols. London: Murray. 1840.

History of Latin Christianity; including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicolas V. By Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. London: Murray. 3 vols. 1854; 3 vols. 1855. Signs of the Times: Letters to Ernst Moritz Arndt on the Dangers to Religious Liberty in the Present State of the World. By Christian Charles Josias Bunsen, D.D., D.C.L., D.Ph. Translated from the German by Susanna Winkworth. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1856.