A Comparative View of the English and Scottish Dissenters. By the Rev. Adam Thomson, A. M., Coldstream. Edinburgh: John Wardlaw. Berwick Thomas Melrose. 1830.

gave the example, in having eight-and-twenty at his symposion. There were present Plutarch and Galen, and other persons, all famous in their day, and well skilled in poetry, grammar, oratory, music, medicine, philosophy, and gastrology. Each in turn takes his share THIS is a judicious work, by an able man, upon an important subject. The writer points out, in a clear and of conversation, and evolves, from his own peculiar treacomprehensive manner, the merits and the defects of both sury, such a quantity of useful and such amusing know English and Scottish Dissenting Establishments; for the ledge, as charms the reader into a sympathy with the purpose of showing in what manner each may be im-speakers into the imagination, that he is himself one of proved, by the warning or the example furnished in the the guests, and admitted, if not to the solitudes of the cook, yet to the best, most delectable, and most nutrifyother, corroborating his views both by his own reasonings, and by the quoted opinions of many eminent men. Weing part of Laurentius's festivity. The style is always would just hint to the reverend brethren of the Established Church in Scotland, that, as the "signs of the times" denote any thing but halcyon days, they might be worse employed than in perusing this volume, with a view to availing themselves of its sound and valuable observa

tions.

strong, figurative, and sufficiently clear, saving in the passages (the quotations principally) on which Time bas been exercising his tooth. We have discussions on subjects the most trivial, as well as the most important; erudite remarks on the whole encyclopædia of conceivable table-topics, from pepper and sparrows, to Jupiter's own nectar, the hypocrisy of the Stoics, the jealousy of Plate, and the bibacity of Alexander the Great. We have Varro's philology, with the physiology of Pliny; the jocular humour of Lucian, with the disquisitive sedateness of Plato. We have a multitude of domestic ane dotes, that are all, indeed, most precious, of the poets, character so little, unfortunately, is known. We have an antiquarian treat on customs, cups, and ceremonies, appertaining to ancient Greece, for which we look in vain in any other classic; and, above all, we find the whole work so richly interlarded with specimens of the excellent poetry of Greece, and particularly of its comic poetry, of which so few remains are transmitted to us, that, were it but for these preserved specimens alone, the

The Duty, Advantages, and Proper Manner of Hearing the Gospel, pointed out and particularly urged on the Attention of all Classes of the Community. By John Clapperton, Minister of the United Associate Congregation, Johnstone. Second edition, enlarged. Glas-philosophers, and painters of Greece, of whose domestic gow. M. Lochhead. 1830.

THIS is a plain, practical book, in a simple, forcible style, adapted to all classes of the community, and calculated to do considerable good.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

NOTICES OF ATHENÆUS AND MACROBIUS, WITH work of this author is, to the classic scholar, inestimable. SPECIMENS OF GREEK POETRY,

By the Author of " Anster Fair."

the great excellence, as inferred from the specimens quoted, of the poetry of their comic muse; in both of which particulars, we have our suspicions that the moderns, however luxurious they may be deemed, and howsoever disposed to honour Thalia as they may profess themselves, are still inferior to the ingenuity of Greece and Rome.

There are, indeed, two particulars powerfully impressed on the reader by its perusal the immense and accomplished luxury of the banquets of the ancients, connected ATHENEUS, the author of the Derpnosophist, or Sup-with their extraordinary proficiency in gastrology—and per-sages, was a native of Naucratis, a city in Lower Egypt, to which the circumstance of his birth gave celebrity. He flourished during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and probably was professor of grammar and philosophy at Rome, where the scene of his celebrated banquet was laid. He had not, however, the honour of being the first that originated this amusing sort of composition, which, we may remark, vagoda, has Macrobius, a Latin writer, who flourished about 240 been cultivated more by the ancients than by the moderns, years later than Athenæus, has apparently followed the who might turn it to equally good, or to far better acsteps of that writer in the compilation of his Saturnalia. count, than these heathenish sages of gastrology and His banquet is on a smaller scale of preparation and philosophy. Plato, Xenophon, and the earlier writers splendour; and his speakers are fewer, and less signifiof Greece, had, long before the age of Athenæus, reported to cant personages. Yet his work is full of learning and the world the conversations held at their literary symposia; animation. His style is, for his age, correct and elegant, but the Egyptian writer has communicated to this mode of though somewhat florid and incompact in its contexture, composition so much new interest by the veracity of his and exhibiting symptoms of that nerveless ness and pladescriptions, and recommended it so much as a vehicle of cidity which characterise the Latin of that period, and universal information, by the amazing comprehensiveness which seem to be the doom of every language after the of his learning, manifested by so many subjects, and on bloom of its youth is past, and it begins to wither away every the smallest subject discussed, that his book must be into the weakness of servility. His book contains a great acknowledged to stand at the head of all similar composi- deal of most amusing matter, illustratory of Roman feasts tions whatever. The hero and grand chairman of his and customs; but is in nothing more remarkable, than banquet is Laurentius, a noble, opulent, and learned in the copious exposition given (but with no malevolent Roman, who held a dignified situation at the court of intention of detraction) of the appropriation by Virgil of Marcus, and at whose table were congregated the literati the conceptions and language of other poets, whereby it of the city, but principally the travelled philosophers of appears that, from the story of Sinon and the Wooden Greece and the provinces, who, when seated by the side Horse, which is copied word for word from Pisander, to of their noble entertainer, felt that there they were not the suicide of Dido and death of Turnus, very little oriforeigners, but that Rome was indeed as their native city.ginality of invention is left to that celebrated poet. For we will not reduce the interest taken in the narrative, by supposing that it was fictitious; we shall rather please ourselves by considering that the banquet, if not real in its lesser, was at least so in all its more capital circumstances. The author has convened together about twenty guests a number, though greater than the prescription of the Greek poet, who directed that but five should meet at a feast, yet less than that of which Plato

Subjoined is a translation of two portions of poetry preserved by Athenæus; the former the production' of Xenophanes of Colophon; the latter, of Ephippus; the comic writer: *

*The Editor of the Literary Journal begs to direct attention to the translations which follow. They are executed with an ease, a

vivacity, and an elegance, which probably no other Scottish scholar could equal.

Susie was what the country people call "a kind o' half-betwixt the lady's messen, escaped by stealth from the witted body," perfectly harmless and peaceable, yet capa- string, and the shepherd's "Rover," whose gaucy tail, ble, on occasions, of making a successful retort, or pur- like that of the 1811 comet, was calculated to sweep pupsuing her own interest with wonderful precision. Her pies and messens, as the latter was to brush stars and wits, indeed, had early-from what cause I know not—--- planets, aside at a single whisk! Whenever the shadow gone a wool-gathering; and that there might be no pre- of the minister was marked by Susie in the doorway, mature separation of parties so closely allied, her body then was her rod of authority extended, and no one of very usually accompanied them. It was, in fact, Susie's Peel's new police ever excelled her in inflicting terror annual custom, soon after the season of sheep-shearing, or upon all manner of vagrants. A few sudden and someclipping, to make an excursion, with a basketful of crockery what alarming "yelps," followed up by a hollow and ware-ycleped in Jamieson, "pigs"-into what was then indistinct growl of remonstrance, indicated to the minister called, in Closeburn parlance, "the Woo'-Lan," or more and congregation that there was a recognised authority mountainous district of the parish-there to exchange, or in operation, calculated to preserve order and silence even barter, every variety of plain, graved, spotted, striped, amongst the brutes present. To such of your readers as and clouded bowl, jug, and porringer, for somewhere may be disposed to question the faithfulness and accuracy about ten times their real value in wool. The value, of this picture, I recommend a pilgrimage, not indeed to however, of this latter article ought rather to be judged of the Kirk of Shotts, but to that of Crawford-John, where, from the estimation in which that received in exchange in order to cheat the church-going tykes out of their was held, than from its use and importance in the hands legitimate "note of rejoicing" at the rising of the congre of its new possessor. The bien gudewife of a large muir- gation, previous to the pronouncing of the blessing, every land farm, stocked with some seventy score of ewes, be- individual present preserves his seat, till the last benesides sheep, lambs, and gimmers, whose children were as diction be pronounced, and a general rising can be followed olive-plants around her, numerous and healthy, and by an immediate dismissal. whose household servants were no way particular in the preservation of earthenware, and who was, withal, possessed of a key to somewhat above 600 stone of wool, lately piled up and ready for the merchant;-I say, a mountain dame, thus circumstanced, and withal at the distance of five miles and a bittock from shop or market, was not likely to higgle with a silly, half-witted, wellknown, and ever-welcome visitant, whose stores were at once so captivating and so useful, and at the same time so difficult in any other way to be supplied. On such occasions, which I have myself witnessed, and in which I have taken an active part, there was a degree of excitement of which town-bred and polite readers can form but an imperfect idea. Every little elf, who, in frock or petticoat, could splash through a dub, wear a ewe or fondle a pet lamb, was seen capering and vapouring from kitchen to ha', and from ha' to "chamer," with each a trophy from Susie's basket at the extremity of an outstretched arm. Nor was the gudeman himself, as he reproved the din and checked the riot, actually insensible to the accession of happiness which Susie's presence had occasioned. Nay, I have often seen him cast an odd fleece over the fauld dyke after Susie, though the mistress had already made her all the remuneration which she judged necessary! It was thus that this poor bare-footed, yet almost neatly dressed, wanderer of the "Woo' Lan'," obtained the materiel, which, being by her own industry (and that of a wee lassie, into whose history I do not at present stoop to enquire) converted into sale yarn, and

sold at the Thornhill fair, enabled her and her inmate to

subsist without parish aid, and without any unseemly deprivations. During the frosty weather of winter, Susie was not visible at the "kirk-stile;" but so soon as spring had gained the supremacy, then were the "twasome," as they were termed, like "gouk and titling," seated on a fail dyke, at the side of which ran a pure stream, making the necessary preparations, by means of shoe and stocking, for entrance into the house of prayer. Few passed Susie without accosting her; but it was noticed that the "gudeman of Mitchelslack," (the largest sheep farm in the parish,) and he alone, was recognised by one of Susie's very best cartsies, in acknowledgment of his well-known" Weel, Susie, how's a' the day, woman?"

When in the house of God, and in her seat on the right of old Janet, Susie seemed to consider herself as a kind of official dignitary in the church. Her hand was uniformly armed with a long pike-staff, with which she paraded the mosses, and kept in order the shepherds' curs; by means of which she became a terror and an aversion to all manner of church-going and noise-exhibiting dogs. With Susie there was no manner nor shade of distinction

In singing the psalm, Susie had acquired a habit quite the reverse of that exhibited by our modern knowing ones,—she contrived to chant or croon every line twice over at least. This, as Susie's voice was neither the weakest nor the most melodious, was somewhat calculated to cause discord and confusion. So the precentor, who had oftentimes been driven, by this undue dispatch, several notes out of his calculation, ventured at last (under sanction, and in presence, of one of the elders) to remonstrate with Susie on this unfair proceeding. Susie eyed the

་་

"Lettergae o' haly rhyme"

for some time with a look of mingled surprise and con-
tempt, ejaculating, so soon as her wrath could find utter-
ance, "I'll sing my Maker's praise an ye war hanged!”
This laconic and pointed response proving any thing
but convincing to the elder, he thought proper to inves-
tigate the causes of such an inconvenient repetition.
"What for, woman, d'ye persist in singing the line
twice over?"

"Just because it gusts my gab twice," was the Susanic reply.

Such was Susie MacCaul, who, in her seasons of mental aberration, conceived that she was rode upon by witches, and dragged nightly, in the shape of a grey mare, through all the intricacies of Creehope Linn; but who, in ber more settled and rational hours, could quote Scripture even with the minister himself, and reason, as well as feel,

her way through all the more interesting and essential doctrines of the Cross;--who lived very much liked by her neighbours, and at her death gave manifest "sign" that she had neither lived nor listened to the Gospel in

vain.

THE EDINBURGH DRAMA.

66

WE shall be brief to-day. On Monday "Guy Mannering" was performed; on Tuesday, " Der Freischutz;" on Wednesday, "As You Like It ;" and on Thursday, "Der Freischutz" again: "Perfection" has been the afterpiece of the week. This is not a bill of fare on which we can say much. Guy Mannering" is one of those "national dramas," among which are also "Rob Roy," "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," "The Bride of Lammermoor," "Cramond Brig," and a few more, which our worthy manager seems to consider infallible remedies under all circumstances, and which figere in his bills as often as the advertisements of "Macassar Oil," or "Warren's Blacking," do in the newspapers Now, verily, a weariness of the flesh comes over us st the very name of any of these "national dramas," because we have seen them so often, that we know by heart every

|

syllable in every one of them, we know every tone of rider's mind, and felt satisfied, that in all his practical and every actor's voice in every scene,—we know when there theoretical dealings with that noble quadruped the horse, he will be a laugh, and when there will be a song, and when was a "self-torturing sophist"—that is to say, he was ever there will be silence, and when there will be applause. It is anxious to go farther in the art of horsemanship than any excruciating to go to a theatre with this accurate knowledge body else had done before—in the precise words of the anof the futurity of the evening. We see in prospective no- cient sophist, "nihil actum reputans si quicquid agendum thing but one long yawn, and a sleepy exit at the box-door maneret." The world does not know, but Byron knew, about half past eleven. For Heaven's sake, Mr Murray, what Ducrow has made horses attempt. He has ridden variety!—a little variety! that variedad agradable of which them at full gallop along a slack wire; he has made them we and the Spaniards are so fond. Maybe it's yourself that dance a menuet de là cour on the point of a needle; he thinks the Freischutz a variety? Och! bad luck to you! has tied their fore and hind legs together, and made them It's as ould as the ould gintleman himself. Seriously, hop five miles without stopping; he has travelled at the we doubt whether twelve persons could be selected in rate of thirty miles an hour for a whole fortnight, and Edinburgh who are not tired of the Freischutz. But, been for the most part of the time asleep on their backs; moreover, it is not so well cast now as it used to be. he has, in short, done feats which made Byron ashamed Reynoldson is not nearly so good a Caspar as Pritchard ; of his own Mazeppa, convincing him that the adventures he caricatures the part from beginning to end; and when that hero met with would have been a mere jest to Duhe wants to be pathetic or grand, he is commonly ludi- crow. As to Ducrow's being "the apostle of affliction," crous. His singing, too, is, for the most part, very bur- this epithet must also have arisen from Byron's intimate lesque-something between croaking and roaring. We acquaintance with the whole of his friend's private affairs; believe Reynoldson has some acquaintance with the science and, no doubt, when we come to consider the many of music, but his taste in the practical department is woe- annoyances which the manager of such an establishment fully deficient. Horncastle's Rodolph is inferior to what must be subject to, in the illness of his quadrupeds and Thorne's used to be; and this is not saying much for it, the jealousies of his bipeds, it will not be difficult to allow for we were no great admirers of Thorne, except that he that he may, in point of fact, be" the apostle of afflichad a pleasant, gentlemanly manner; and if he seldom tion." That Ducrow has thrown delighted, he as seldom offended. Harshness and inflexibility are the chief faults of Horncastle's voice; want of expression and of genuine feeling are the leading defects of his style. Miss Turpin's Agnes was respectable, but not to be compared with Miss Noel's, and not so good as Miss Byfeld's. It is needless repeating, week after week, the same opinions concerning people ;-we therefore beg to state, that until they come before us in distinctly new parts, we shall say no more of the importations from the Caledonian. Such of their friends as have a partiality for them, may defend them, if they can; and praise them, if they choose to venture.

In " As You Like It," Miss Jarman's Rosalind is an attraction of no mean kind-fresh, gentle, and playfully artless. None of the other performers require particular mention. Waldron's Jaques is judicious, but we are afraid this actor has soared too high a flight in the line of parts he has undertaken.-We perceive a new piece is announced for this evening, under the title of "The White Phantom ;" we believe it is only a new version of a drama called "The Somnambulist ;" adapted or translated from one of the French Vaudevilles. Miss Jarman plays the leading part, in which, we understand, there are one or two powerful and interesting situations.

Old Cerberus.

DUCROW'S AMPHITHEATRE.

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Ducrow,
The apostle of affliction, he who threw
Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew

The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew
How to make madness beautiful, and cast
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

BYRON.

"Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence,"

no one will deny. That he knows how "to make madness beautiful," every one will grant who has looked at any of his scenes in the circle. On the whole, therefore, after mature deliberation, we must pronounce Byron's description of "wild Ducrow" to be as correct as it is poetical, and it is pleasant to think that justice has been done to such an equestrian by such a bard.

Thus celebrated, there is little wonder that Ducrow has been drawing excellent houses in Edinburgh. His entertainments are varied, and pleasant; and every thing is got up in a classical and picturesque manner. One thing, however, we wish particularly to remark at present; that class of society who think it irreligious to go to the theatre, see no harm in visiting Ducrow's amphitheatre. We hold this to be highly inconsistent and indecorous. For the sincerely, though too rigidly pious, who object to public amusements and representations of any kind, we have a respect, and will not discuss the question with them at present. But of those, who

"Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to,”

we have the most unqualified suspicion. Granting all that is urged against the stage and stage-players to be true, we should like to know, whether the same remarks will not apply to a circus or amphitheatre, and to those who tumble about on horseback, who dance on the tightrope, or who enact antics with their limbs. Is the elegant and delicate wit of the clowns more soothing to religious ears than the music of a fine opera, the chastening satire of a genteel comedy, or the lofty poetry of a We used to wonder why Byron should have spoken noble tragedy? There is sad cant in preaching against thus of Ducrow. That the poet should have had an the theatre, but saying not one word against the amphiintense admiration of that splendid equestrian, could not theatre; there is strange inconsistency in avoiding the be matter of surprise; but that he should have called mansion in Shakspeare Square as an unclean thing, but him a “self-torturing sophist," and "the apostle of afflic-in taking a front row for self and family in the building tion," appeared to us strange. On consideration, how- in Nicolson Street. It would not be a bad idea to pubever, we think we can see what his lordship meant. Re-lish the names, as they sometimes do minorities in the flecting on all those admirable evolutions and exercises through which Ducrow puts his favourite horses, and perceiving how recherché many of them are, and how impossible it would have been for any one else to have conceived them, much less to have carried them into exe-establishment. cution, the poet penetrated into the idiosyncrasy of the

House of Commons, of a few of those précieuses ridicules, who have no fear of their soul's salvation at Ducrow's, but would not estimate it at a pin's fee, were they to venture within the four walls of Mr Manager Murray's

Old Cerberus,