thing" may afford us matter for quotation for some Numbers to come. It will always be a resource in case of want, and it reads rather more smoothly than our lamented friend Dryasdust, or even than the Letters from Holland, for which we are under so much obligation to an anonymous author. We may inform our readers, by the bye, that two more epistles will complete that interesting series, and we shall give them both in our next Number.-Before leaving Mr Collier, we must debate with him a little on the accusation of plagiary which he brings against poor Mr R. Junius. We rather think there is no plagiary in the case, and that this ingenious person is merely quoting a passage from Feltham, so well known, that it had probably become proverbial, and did not require the author's name to be mentioned. This is the way in which (as Dr Paley shows in his Evidences) passages in Scripture are often given by the older Fathers; and now, certainly we might quote, Who steals my purse steals trash, 'twas mine, 'tis his, &c. without thinking it necessary to say that the author of the sentiment is Shakespeare. This is both a more charitable and a more probable account of Mr Junius's procedure, than the supposition of the plagiary. It is scarcely possible that he should have taken one of the most striking sentences out of a very popular book, and palmed it for his own, at the end of a dedication, too, to a man of wit and letters, who must have known it perfectly, supposing his other readers to have been blind. We think Mr Collier will, upon consideration, be satisfied that we are in the right, and, in a second edition of his Decameron, he may put our explanation, if he pleases, into the mouth of Mr Elliot or Mr Morton, and we shall not charge him with a plagiary, but shall be very well pleased to find our opinion emanating from such respectable authority as that of either of these gentlemen.-We shall add only, in conclusion, what we ought rather to have begun with, the view which our author has given, in his preface, of the subjects chiefly discussed in these conversations. "There is but one of the succeeding onversations, the seventh, which can be properly called miscellaneous, for all the rest have one leading object, more or less strictly pursued. Thus in the first, a very rare poem of much talent by Fitzgeffrey, may be said to be the ground-work; all the digressions in their degrees contributing to illustrate it. The second treats par ticularly of the rise and progress of undramatic blank verse in English, used at least a century before the publication of Paradise Lost. The four next conversations are devoted to the origin and improvement of satirical poetry, of which Bishop Hall, with a little of what Lord Bacon calls the varnish of boasting,' falsely claims, and has been generally admitted to be the earliest inventor or practiser, when, in truth, he was preceded by several celebrated writers. The seventh contains a collection of cu rious poems, independently of such as the author had introduced in his progress in furtherance of the main designs. The eighth criticises an original novel, on which Shakespeare founded his Twelfth Night,' very recently discovered, and unknown to all his numerous editors: it also adverts to other productions to which our great dramatic bard was indebted. The ninth and tenth conversations embrace a review of many of the most rare productions for and against theatrical performances, from the carliest times to the Restoration: it, of course, includes not a few interesting particulars illustrative of the history of the stage, and some tracts that have hitherto escaped notice." pp. vii—ix. THE MODERN DECAMERON. WE had just finished our remarks on Mr Collier, and were sitting with much complacency in our Editorial armchair, looking up to the ceiling of the room, somewhat after the mode of Sir Percy Shafton in the Monastery, when the door opened, and two of our most familiar companions entered. Somehow or other we had never been able to impress them with any profound respect for the dignity of our high of fice; and they were so rude on the present occasion as to burst out into a loud fit of laughter, when they dis covered the manner in which we had been employed. They began, too, to lay hold of our papers, as we were conveying them into a private drawer, and that drawer being opened, their sacrilegious hands were immediately in the heart of it, disembowelling it of its contents, without shame or remorse. We were much piqued, no doubt, and remonstrated with becoming spirit, but Jannes and Jambres this?" To the Editor of the Edinburgh Magazine. Sir, the following was written by a wor→ thy but unfortunate young man, a farmer's son, previous to his departure for Jamaica, and as I think the piece has some merit, the insertion of it in your Magazine will much oblige, &c. "Well, shall I read a stanza, Mr Editor?" "We authorize you to do (said Jannes,) for Heaven's sake, come so, (we replied.") "My dear fellow, down from your High Jinks. I shall where but in print; but give us the not allow you to be a pluralist any stanza, Jambres. Jambres. Loud roars the blast frae Siedlaw And chilled by frost is ilka fountain; I wander out to mourn wi' nature, The storm alang the At ilka turn.- › (for so we beg leave to designate these gentlemen) would take no reproof, but very soon had our whole drawer emptied on the floor, amidst continued peals of absolos ysλws, as Homer expresseth it. We saw there was nothing for it, but to humour the joke; and,. now gentlemen, (said we,) since you have scattered our valuable MSS. like the Sybill's leaves, be so good as collect them again, and put them in the order in which you found them." "My dear friends, (said Jannes,) for I must address you, Mr Editor, it seems, in the plural number, your papers shall be all put right before we go, but Jambres and I must first have a little peep into them." "You have lighted (said we) upon the poet's corner, and have let in the day upon many choice productions which might else never have been roused from their dark repose. Since we have entered upon these high functions, we have made a grand An' sigh o'er ilka alter'd feature ; discovery that every human being is Ah winter, winter, sair you treat her a poet; we suspect poetry, indeed, is An' gar her mourn, a necessary consequence of original or An' wi' your whistling blasts you beat her birth-sin; and that may be the meaning of the saying, Poeta nascitur, non fit. All that huge mass of papers on the floor are the accumulations of this itching humour, which have grown upon us in the course of a few months. One half of them we have never read, and we now look upon them with as hopeless an eye, as the Lord Chancellor of England did upon the ever-growing mass of cases for his decision." "You must appoint us (said Jannes) your Vice-Chancellors to help you through. I doubt not but we shall make a pretty dispatch." Jambres in the meantime had opened one of Mr Collier's volumes, and having read a page or two,-"I do not see (says he) but that you will find as much good stuff upon the carpet as this ingenious gentleman has been able to glean out of the refuse of Old English poetry, and probably we may get hints for conversation and criticism no less entertaining and discursive than his interlocutors derived from their blackletter treasures. We cannot, to be sure, have much to say about dates or editions; but in other respects, I believe, we may place your modern versifiers nearly along-side of his ancient ones. Let us see what comes first, for we must take whatever our haul will bring to hand. What is VOL. VI. "Hold, I beseech you, (said Jannes,) if you give us any more of this, I shall be uncharitable enough to hope, that the poet encountered a more fatal storm in his way to Jamaica, and that the remorseless deep closed o'er the head of the loved Lycidas.' What follows? Doggrel verses, I think; have you ever seen them, Mr Editor?" Edit. O yes, they were sent me (since I must not say us) for publication last February, and are a list of errata in verse for the January Number. Jannes. There is something novel in the idea at least; read them if you please; but do not mouth them too much. Edit. I see what you are after— and I suspect you to be one of those very good-natured friends, with whom the world abounds, who will never let a joke go down, but, if a man has once been made a little ridiculous, are determined to remind him of it to the end of the chapter, long after he himself has forgotten it, and has lost every feeling of irritation on the subject. Mouth say you?-No! I shall "speak the speech trippingly on the tongue. 3 L Dunkeld's reverend bishop, (Pray, who could divine him?) Rumain comes out from your kettles. On Williams's volume, Page 50, second column, of the secret of the ease and freedom in the great writers a century, and, still more, two centuries back. They had infinite genius, no doubt, but they did not scruple to write whatever came into their heads, and hence their astonishing boldness and facility. Shakespeare would by no means have been the poetical wonder that he is, if he had not given vent to all the nonsense that passed through his brain, no less than to the profound wisdom and the boundless fancy that had there their local habitation. But nobody can write nonsense now, for At the top, you've got "matter of arrange- these wise editors and critics of all ment" Meo periculo, Read" amusement," you pickle you, But your blunders they flow thick Round fair Aberbrothick. sorts are for ever on the watch to fall foul of every one's nonsense but their own-so that I really have some satisfaction in overhauling this poetical trash, dull though it be. I have here Thus we have "Griffith so often granted dipped for another lot-What is this, As an honest chronicler."- The passage alone I clear Byquoted" the word plainly wanted. This blunder is vile, and errs Mr Editor? It is entitled SHAKESPEARE-A Sonnet, I think. Edit. O! I assure you this is any thing but nonsense. Is it not signed H. H. L.? The very same! I shall read this, without fear as to the result. SHAKESPEARE. On his clan, both the chieftains and clients. High art thou plac'd, sweetest of poets: Then Front-de-Bouf's chaplain, Who was no slender sapling, But with eating and drinking died crapu lous, Is "waked" (read "evoked,") For may I be choaked If in Purgatory poor souls can nap, alas! Next Moore the astrologer, Enough for the present, If this month's number isn't From blunders more free and emunctum, OMNE TULIT PUNCTUM. Jambres. Something too much of this. Not enough of point for Punctum neither, methinks. Do you remember Swift's pun upon your correspondent's signature?It is in the dying speech of Tom Ashe the Punster-Omne tulit pun-Tom. Jannes. Swift owed a good deal of his success to his effrontery, as well as his wit; and that, by the way, is part high Thine epitaph is written: thy great fame Lives in the winds, and thy most noble name Stands printed fair upon the eternal sky. A crown hast thou of flowers, that never die; And the mild accents of the southern breeze, The murmur of the melancholy trees, And babbling brooks, talk of thy memory. -'Tis fit it should be thus, for thou hast hung A beauty round the flower, and music gi ven Unto the trees the brooks-the winds,— and flung Immortal colours on the face of heaven. Thou of all things didst speak most gra ciously, "Tis fit that all things now celebrate thee. H. H. L. Jambres. Bravo! Mr Collier would have given every line in his Fitzgeffrey, his Lodge, and all the rest of his manes (for it is really a sort of phantasmagoria that he has made flit before us)-to have found these verses with the delightful cyphers 1602 under them, and a signature denoting them to have been Kit Marlow's, Ben Jonson's, or George Peele's. Did Edit. Yes there was, and from the same hand-but, as Hamlet says, "I must hold my tongue." Give them to Harry Lawes, if you will, and Dante shall give Fame leave to set him higher Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing, Met in the milder shades of Purgatory. Jambres. But what have we got now? Two little stanzas without a title! Let me see-they are prefaced by a billet-doux-Ah! a lady, Mr Editor-the name, too, at full length -I shall read it aloud. Edit. Do not now, I beg you.Really this is very impertinent-pray, gentlemen Jannes. I must have a peep, as Sir Peter Teazle says. Ah! Joseph, whom have we got behind the screen? Edit. Really, gentlemen, this is quite intolerable-I will read you the verses, but the lady's name-pardon me Jambres, (reading.) "My dear friend, I am reading Williams just now, and I send you a momentary glance on the subject." Edit. (seizing the paper.) I tell you, you shall not see another wordbut there is nothing tender here, you are satisfied of that. The poem is quite in the heroic strain, and relates to the glories of ancient Rome. O Italy, how rich a field art thou, Colossal Rome, majestic spectre now, And thou, imperial Rome, to desolation hurled! -What do you think of it? Jambres. Think of it? Why, really, I do not very well know what to think. It is sublime, undoubtedly, and the last stanza, in addition to its other sublime qualities, has all the sublimity of obscurity. I think it is well worthy of the age of Queen Bess, and would have made a great figure in Mr Collier. For instance, here is a stanza from the " angels-soul-enchanting rimes" of Fitzgeffrey, which is by no means so good. Live, ô live ever, ever-living spirites, Where ever-live the sp'rites of vertuous li But when earth's massie apple turnes to shivers, And fire conioines that nature now dissevers, That holds your souls shall then your fames containe, For earth shall end, your praise shall still remaine. "That holds your souls shall then your fames containe," is quite as mysterious as "Thy living glories throned a subject world." Your fair friend's idea of Rome being now only a "majestic spectre" is really fine-I cannot say so much for Fitzgeffrey's conceit of the earth being a massie apple." Jannes was at this moment looking over one of the printed pages of our Magazine, lying on our table. "Here," says he, is a very curious poem entitled "the Marmaiden of Clyde." It is in a dialect of the ancient Scotch language, which is to me quite new, but as far as I can comprehend it, it is very expressive. I rather think the poet, who certainly possesses a fine vein of fancy, and a power of vivid painting, with much fairy lore, has huddled together all the queer words he could find, as Chatterton has done in Rowley, and that seems to me the fault of his diction. He has been mighty sparing of his glossary. Wallee, Wanyoch, Glittie, what the deuce do such words stand for? They are quite as bad as Gawin Douglas's abominations and barbarisms. But I beg your pardon, Mr Editor, I believe I am here treading upon one of your corny toes. However, I hope you will take Punctum's advice, and "dish up" no more of the "bishop." Edit. As for that, time will shew. I am happy, however, to give you an additional paper of glossarial explana Additional Notes to the Marmaiden of Clyde. Wall-ce, s. a spring in a quagmire. Aichan', part. pres. of to aich, to echo. Craigie, a. craggy. ing. Forridden, part. past. worn out with rid Yowit, pres. of to you, to caterwaul. Houit, pres. of to hou, to howl as an owl. Aspait, adv. in flood. Swow, s. the dull and heavy sound produced by the regurgitations of the dashing waves of a river in a flood, or of the sea in a storm. To swow, to emit such a sound. Lashan', part. pres. of to lash, a neuter verb, expressive of the pouring of an irresistible torrent; as a lashan rain, a lushan spait. Athort, pres. athwart, across. of wind. Doupan, part. pres. of to doup, to bow suddenly down. Mowr, s. mock, jeer, flout. Glittie, a. oozy; glit, ooze; glittilie, adv. in the manner of ooze; glittiness, s. ooziness. Lammer-wine, amber-wine. This imaginary liquor was esteemed a sort of elixir of immortality, and its virtues are celebrated in the following infallible recipe. Drink ae coup o' the lammer-wine, An' the tear is nae mair in your e'e. An' drink twae coups o' the lammer-wine, Nae dule nor pine ye'll dree. An' drink three coups o' the lammer-wine, Your mortal life's awa. An' drink four coups o' the lammer-wine, An' drink five coups o' the lammer-wine, An' the nicht is gane, an' the day has come Feelless, a. without sense or feeling, not in the metaphorical but literal acceptation of the words. To Cowd, v. n. to float slowly, with the motion affected a little by slight waves, as the boat cowds finely awa. A cowd, s. a short and pleasant sail, a single gentle croking or motion, produced by a wave. BUZZING gently in my ear, Cold at even is our clime. Hah! avaunt thee, come not near, March 14, 1819. You talked of Wordsworth lately, this smacks of him a little too, for he has all styles, from the sublime of Milton to the namby pamby of Amhe thinks thein all equally good. And brose Philips; and the droll thing is, reason good, because they are all William Wordsworth's. Jambres. Here is a poem, I think, will match your "Fly." It is a winter scene too: how tenderly these poets feel for the whole animal creation! The Robin Red Breast!" There is infinite pathos and simplicity, I see, in this little piece also. The subject is common, to be sure, but there is much originality in the mode of treating it,-la voila. |