tell how I rejoice! A son of my dear Klopstock! Oh, when shall I have him? It is long since I have made the remark, that geniuses do not engender geniuses. No children at all, bad sons, or at the most lovely daughters like you and Milton. But a daughter or a son only, with a good heart without genius, I will nevertheless love dearly.

'I think that about this time a nephew of mine will wait on you. His name is Winlhem, a young rich merchant, who has no bad qualities, and several good, which he has still to cultivate. His mother was, I think, twenty years older than I, but we other children loved her dearly like a mother. She had an excellent character, but is long since dead.

"This is no letter but only a newspaper of your Hamburg daughter. When I have my husband and my child I will write you more (if God gives me health and life). You will think that I shall be not a mother only but a nurse also; though the latter (thank God that the former is not so too) is quite against fashion and good breeding, and though nobody can think it possible to be always with the child at home!

"M. KLOPSTOCK."

This was the last letter from this sweet creature. The next in the series is from a different hand.

"Honored Sir,

Hanover, December 21st, 1758.

"As perhaps you do not know that one of your fair correspondents, Mrs. Klopstock, died in a very dreadful manner, in childbed, I think myself obliged to acquaint you with this most melancholy accident.

"Mr. Klopstock, in the first motion of his affliction, composed an ode to God Almighty, which I have not yet seen, but I hope to get by-and-by.

"I shall esteem myself highly favored by a line or two from any of your family, for I presume you sometimes kindly re

A subsequent letter contradicts the fact of the ode's being com

posed at this time. But a comparison of the dates of Mr. Major's communication and of Mrs. Klopstock's last interesting letter, still brings this poetizing a great calamity far too near the time of its occurrence to be satisfactory to those who have read and sympathized with the quick feelings of the devoted wife. It is pleasanter to remember that Klopstock never married again, till, in his old age, a few years before his death, he had the ceremony performed between himself and a kinswoman, who lived with him, in order to entitle her, as his widow, to the pensions he enjoyed from different Courts.

XXXIII.

FINE SINGLE POEMS.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, &C.

NOTHING seems stranger amid the strange fluctuations of popularity than the way in which the songs and shorter poems of the most eminent writers occasionally pass from the highest vogue into the most complete oblivion, and are at once forgotten as if they had never been. Scott's spirited ballad, "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee," is a case in point. Several persons (among the rest Mrs. Hughes, the valued friend of the author) have complained to me, not only that it is not included among Sir Walter's ballads, but that they were unable to discover it elsewhere. Upon mentioning this to another dear friend of mine, the man who, of all whom I have known, has the keenest scent for literary game, and is the most certain to discover a lost poem, he threw himself upon the track, and failing to obtain a printed copy, succeeded in procuring one in manuscript, taken down from the lips of a veteran vocalist; not, as I should judge, from his recitation, but from his singing, for it is no uncommon thing with singers to be unable to divorce the sense from the sound, so that you must have the music with the words, or go without them altogether.

At all events this transcript is a curiosity. The whole ballad is written as if it were prose: no capital at the beginning of the lines; no break, as indicated by the rhyme, at the conclusion; no division between the stanzas. All these ceremonies are cast aside, with a bold contempt for vulgar usages, and the entire song thrown into one long paragraph. I think it is Cowper who wrote a rhyming letter upon the same principle; but the jingle being more obtrusive, and the chorus a wanting, the effect of the intentional pleasantry is far less ludicrous than that produced by this unconscious and graver error

I endeavored to restore the natural divisions of the verse; and having since discovered a printed copy, buried in the Doom of Devorgoil, where of course nobody looked for it, I am delighted to transfer to my pages one of the most spirited and characteristic ballads ever written.

To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claverhouse who spoke,
Ere the king's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke;
So let each cavalier who loves honor and me,

Come follow the bonnets of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come saddle your horses, and call up your men;
Come open the westport and let us gang free,
And its room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee !

Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street,
The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat;
But the Provost douce man, said, "Just e'en let him be,
The Gude Town is weel quit of that Deil of Dundee !"
Come fill up the cup, &c.

As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow

Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow;

But the young plants of grace they looked cowthie and slee,
Thikinng luck to thy bonnet, thou Bonny Dundee !

Come fill up my cup, &c.

With sour-featured Whigs the Grass-market was thranged
As if half the West had set tryst to be hanged;

There was spite in each look, there was fear in each e'e,`
As they watched for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, &c.

These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears,

And lang-hafted gullies to kill cavaliers;

But they shrunk to close-heads, and the causeway was free
At the toss of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, &c.

He spurred to the foot of the proud castle rock,
And with the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke;

"Let Mons Meg and her marrows speak twa words or three
For the love of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee."
Come fill up my cup, &c.

The Gordon demands of him which way he goes-
"Where'er shall direct me the shade of Montrose !
Your Grace in short space shall hear tidings of me
Or that low lies the bonnet of Bonny Dundee.
Come fill up my cup, &c.

"There are hills beyond Pentland, and lands beyond Forth,
If there's lords in the Lowlands, there's chiefs in the North,
There are wild Duniewassals three thousand times three
Will cry 'Hoigh!' for the bonnet of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, &c.

"There's brass on the target of barkened bull-hide,
There's steel in the scabbard that dangles beside;
The brass shall be burnished, the steel shall flash free
At a toss of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, &c.

"Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks,—
Ere I own an usurper I'll crouch with the fox;
And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee
You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me."
Come fill up my cup, &c.

He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown,
The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on,
Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermiston's lea
Died away the wild war-notes of Bonny Dundee.
Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come saddle the horses, and call up the men,
Come open your gates, and let me gae free,

For it's up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee !

There are abundant indications that the "Bonnets of Bonny Dundee" was a favorite with its illustrious writer. The following song, from "The Pirate," is interesting, not merely from its own merit, but from an anecdote related by Mr. Lockhart. When on a tour in the North of England, it was sung to Sir Walter as set by Mrs. Robert Arkwright. Beautiful words," observed he; "Byron's of course." He was much shocked when undeceived.

The stanzas themselves are deeply touching. They form part of a serenade, sung by Cleveland under Minna's window, when compelled to return to his ship.

Farewell! farewell! the voice you hear
Has left its last soft tone with you;
Its next must join the seaward cheer,
And shout among the shouting crew.

The accents which I scarce could form,
Beneath your frown's controlling check,
Must give the word above the storm

To cut the mast and clear the wreck.