carry under his apron. One day, the boy forgot the pre-caution, and carried the infamous crystal quite exposed in his hand across the open and crowded street. Mr. ――― was surveying his progress, bath in going and returning; and when he observed him coming towards the shop, with so damnatory a proof of his malpractices holden forth to the gaze of the world, he leaped and danced within his shop-window like an infuriated madman. The poor boy came in quite innocently, little wotting of the crime he had committed, or the reception he was to meet with, when, just as he had deposited the glass upon the counter, a blow from the hand of his master stretched him insensible in a remote corner of the shop, among a parcel of seed-bags. As no qualities will succeed in bu siness unless perfectly good conduct be among the number, and, above all things, an abstinence from tippling, soon became a victim. After he first took to the bent, to use Rob Roy's phrase, I lost sight of him for two or three years. At length, I one day met him on a road a little way out of town. He wore a coat buttoned to the chin, and which, being also very long in the breast, according to a fashion which obtained about the year 1813, seemed to enclose his whole trunk from neck to groin. With the usual cataract of cravat, he wore a hat the most woe-begone, the most dejected, the most melancholy I had ever seen. His face was inflamed and agitated, and as he walked, he swung out his arms with a strange emphatic expression, as if he were saying, " I am d-d ill,used, but I'll tell it to the world." Misery had evidently given him a slight craze, as it almost always does when it overtakes a man accustomed in early life to better things. Some time afterwards I saw him a little revivified through the influence of a new second-hand coat, and he seemed, from a small leathern parcel which he bore under his arm, to be engaged in some small agency. Bat this was a mere flash before utter expiration. relapsed to the Cowgate-to rags-to wretchedness-to madness—immediately after. When I next saw him, it was in that street, the time midnight. He lay in the bottom of a stair, more like a heap of mud than a man. A maniac curse, uttered as I stumbled over him, was the means of my recognising it to be Heavenly powers! He I thought, is this what you dispense in your supreme wisdom as the punishment of venial irregularities, and as the means of preventing others from their indulgence THE UNBLESSIT BAIRN'S STANE. A LEGEND OF LAMMERMUIR. By the Author of" The Chronicles of London Bridge," &c. * * THAT Word's owre true, whilk a' maun ken, "Great clerks are no the wisest men;" Sin' loons o' little grace or lair Gae blunderin' on and start the hare, When aft lang-headit chiels will founder, Gifford, a fairer spot than thee; 67 Wi' vales an' burnies intersectit, An' Lammermuir's auld hills protectit; b to To view the place where Blair an' Home Like this warld's siller-glides away; Jiriq But when the morn is up on hie, And lustie May is in the skie, When bracken, fresh, an' gowans sheen, mot i But that a birkie young an' clever Keep doctors aff-might live for ever! Yet man, where'er his lot is cast, An', in the words o' David, baith Believe it, they whose flatterin' art First wins, then wounds, a lassie's heart, Pass not throughout their span o' time Without some memory o' their crime, Howe'er they slaister up their sin, And keep a' douce their breasts within; Yet Conscience kens fu' weel the hour When man maist fears an' feels his power, And shows in a' that meets the view Something o' her whom guile o'erthrew. Thus, even in a distant land, Young. Jeanie's spoiler felt his hand, An' heard his mighty voice upbraid The slighted love, an' vow unpaid ; Since there it chanced the false one knew O' Scotland's kirk a faithfu' few, "Oh, God! give ear unto my cry, "And so will I perpetually Sing praise unto thy name, That, having made my vows, I may Each day perform the same." He started like the awaken'd deer, But that pure Power, whilk baith had dared, Whilst the sad issue of their shame That this is false, there's none will hold, When the next winter nights were darkest, Fu' soon was brought to mind, I wot, To hae the skirlin' spirit laid. Had ne'er yet heard sic learned speaking; At length there cam a chield o' game, ཏི › A randy lad whom nought could daunt, ་་ He spak, the ghaist for ever fled, But parting, seem'd to say, or said, "It's weel for baith ye spak sae stout, My time o' wanderin' now is out; Sin' Wallydraigle is my name, I'll sleep at last in my lang hame!" Sae ends my story, Wattie's Howe Has neither ghaist nor warlock now The Unblessit Bairnie's Stane is gone,› An' Time has Patie trampled on. But he grew rich, an' thus wad teach, "Gie ilk his name, use ceevil speech; For gude braid Scotch will speed you weel, Wi' saunt or sinner, ghaist or deil !" WHACK, AND THE WHACK SYSTEM. Whack! rowdy-dow !—Old Ballad. THE introduction of the expressive vocable whack into the critical columns of the Literary Journal, cannot have escaped the observation of its judicious readers. To adopt the language of the nursery reviewers,-" This ingenious and admirable phrase has supplied a desideratum in our literature." A sheet of the forthcoming edition of Webster's Dictionary has been cancelled to provide for its insertion. The most erudite philologists of Northern Germany are engaged in hot discussion touching its origia and primitive signification. Good, easy men to the Sphynx herself they must turn for the solution of the riddle. In these unassuming pages they will discover the presiding power of a spirit of tongues far more potential than that which inspired Adelung, The word whack has been traced by sundry learned personages to the Pali; by others not less gifted, to the Pelhavi. Our friend Dr Bowring inclines in favour of a Magyar origin. Another friend adduces plausible reasons in behalf of Haut-Allemand-Ancien A Silesian divine avers that he has seen it in the Speeda PhysicoMathematico-Historica of the Father Premonstratensis John Zahn. A Spanish wit, famed for the gravity and celsitude of his genius, triumphantly refers to the Rebbinical Bibliotheque of Bartoloccius, as the virgin depositary of the verbal treasure. To these illustrious, authe rities we say, "Gentlemen, you are all equally right, hapless mortal, who, struggling with the “res angustæ," for, in sooth, you are all completely wrong." Philosophy deduces a lesson of wisdom from such disputations. Here we have a question that admits of the simplest elucidation, puzzling some of the longest heads in Europe. A Whack is the child of a British printing-office. compositor, we believe of Milesian parentage, gave birth to it. The sons of green lerne are familiar with Paddy Whack, who, it cannot be doubted, was a broad-shouldered, harum-scarum, never-care-a-curse sort of monstrosity. By an easy association, Patricio's cognomen was transferred to the cumbrous mass of metal piled together by a hard bout at the composing-stick. · From the printing-office, whack was transferred by some stenographical compositor to the gallery of the House of Commons. The Parliamentarian reporter who wendeth his way from St Stephen's to the Strand, or Printing-house-square, burdened with the massive oratory of the " Collective Wisdom," exulteth in the magnitude of his whack, when, on the ensuing day, he points to a brace of columns in the Morning Chronicle or Times, as the product of notes taken in the short period of three quarters of an hour. In a literary point of view, the title of whacker, or writer of whacks, does credit to the Parliamentary reporters. To attain it, is the condition of their bond-the stamp of their utility. But they must beware of perpetuating it in their after-avocations. They must not talk whack, like Horace Twiss or Poulett Thom son, nor publish it, like divers of their quondam associates, whom it were invidious to particularize. We now arrive at the system which "whack" has enabled us so fully to characterize. The matured productions of the mind are waxing rather scanty of late; and literature, pretending to permanency, is travelling down a plane of very abrupt inclination. Opinions vary as to the cause; we place the saddle nowhere. Sufficient to us is the fact. The bulkier periodicals are vast depots of whack. In a first-rate magazine, ten masterly pages, like the articles by Kit o' the North, will float a whole whack-berg. The Quarterly Reviews, having an unrestricted privilege of coping with the entire range of solemn stupidity, perform their revolutions by the sheer dint of the vis inertia. Their readers are much to be pitied; their editors more. The Libraries and Annuals must also be quoted as imposing registers of whackiana. Gentlemen who exchange authorship for whackership are not without their plea. The former is a pedestrian, the latter a cab-driving trade. The magicians of the Row, or of New Burlington Street, order a work from a corrscientious slave of the lamp. They demand, within the space of six weeks, the biography of a sage, a textbook of science, an historical guide. The slave demurs as to time; is cashiered, and a whacker substituted, who works the work, and bears away the glory. The age calls itself enquiring, and countenances the traffic in printed paper. The voracity of a reading public" is gratified, as the undiscriminating maw of the hog is appeased by the swineherd. In the estimation of those who cater for it, its taste is like that of the Irishman, who was indifferent whether his whisky were good or bad, provided it made him drunk." Give as more whack!" they cried bontes! YUKA ** "It will be all one an hour hence." toLiterature in England is as poorly remunerated as science♫i» Its endeavours meet with few grateful distinctions or seasonable aids. The intellect of the country is seldom invited to join the national councils, or to preside at official bureaux. It is treated either as an alien, or as a beggurșit is either neglected or pensioned. For a solitary Wordsworth, enabled humbly to walk in the verdant shades of independent privacy, how many thickskulled dragoons are coronetted into legislators! The is impelled by a resistless vocation to letters, and would fain bequeath to posterity a lofty memorial of the mindmust e'en content himself with the pristine privations of Grub Street, or lower his aspirations, and perpetrate whack. FRAGMENTS-AN INDIAN BATTLE. By S. C. Hall, Editor of the " Amulet,” &c. FROM THE DESCRIPTIONS OF AN EYE-WITNESS. THEY call'd me from my restless bed, Over a human victim, dead, An old man knelt, and call'd it prayer. But first he summon'd them around They turn'd towards their gods to pray. 'Twas night-the ambush'd warriors lay Summon'd the mists from the morass; They laugh'd, and they rush'd on their prey. They met like the wave when the ocean winds roar, * I saw an old man fighting there, The clotted blood his hand had spilt, The white scalp from the old man's head; And laugh'd at all they did or said. But once he shrunk, when the hot sun And came o'er his skull where the wound was fresh, . There was a chief among the dead, For he had been a noble foe, And those who cursed him, deem'd him so. Ooze gently o'er his sable skin. To watch him-still they fear'd him-die. When to the ground his foe was thrown, Then by his side laid down to die. TO THE AURORA BOREALIS. By Thomas Atkinson. BANNER of midnight-vagrant light- Yet, as we gaze on thee to see The future pictured as of old, Lo! thou shut'st up our destiny In many a quick and antic fold! Say, comest thou rushing with wild wing, To warn us of some pending ill? For still belief will fondly cling, When nought remains of prophet-skill! Yes o'er the peaceful front of heaven Methinks the charging squadrons fly! Look! o'er yon steep battalions driven ! Hark to the missiles hurtling by! 'Tis past the rustling strife is o'er, But 'thwart the broad expanse of blue, Where madly flicker'd light before, Now spreads a silent, holy hue. And, folding like the radiant wings Then let me, as our fathers did, In thee behold the coming time! The future may not all be hid→ And oracles have spoke in rhyme ! When the brief strife of MIGHT and RIGHT, The last that will be here, is o'er, Then PEACE and TRUTH, like yon calm light, Shall lend to earth one glory more! But thou wilt pale when morning's ray Makes bright yon wide expanse of sky; Shall these, like thee, too fade away, And all their light and lustre die? They perish not!Thou melt'st in light, : Exhaled in all that's pure and bright, As thou by yonder coming day! Glasgow, December 12, 1830. STANZAS. By Laurence Macdonald. I NEVER more on aught will place my heart That 's given to change, or subject to decay; For I have witness'd friendship, love, depart As if they were the trifles of a day, For every breath of air to waft away! A moonshine and a mockery, all a name, Full of fallacious hopes that lead astray, The veriest fiction of distemper'd dream, Mere floating bubbles, bursting on life's checker'd stream. But I will love the mountains and the sky With an unearthly and increasing love, And all those far and fairy lights on high, That look like spirits as they smile above! Oh! that my soul were winged like the dove, Or that my life, bright star! were part of thee, That I might in thy glorious orbit move, A thing of light, unprison'd, pure, and free, Spread like thy rays o'er nature's realm-eternity! Not that the world and I are friends or foesI never sought its love, deserved its hate, Nor have I mingled in its marts and shows; My stars I blame not, nor accuse my fate, Nor triumph has been mine, nor yet defeat; I war with none, but court a quiet repose, And love the Muse's haunts, the bard's retreat, And wander out alone at evening's close, When all of life into intenser feeling grows! And though, at times, my vision doth survey Life's ever-troubled sea and cloudy sky, With mankind's many crimes in dread array, And he himself pursued by hell-hound's cry, ́ Then toss'd away to flames that never die, I have no trembling fear of aught, of all That in so dark a picture meets the eye; There's yet some lovely spots upon this ball That bave not known the withering blight of man's first fall. And there be here some stainless beings too, Gemming the wilds of nature, like yon star, Ruling men's destinies: ye make or mar THE LONDON DRAMA. Regent's Park, London, Monday, Dec. 20th, 1830. As we happen to know that the managers of Covent Garden long considered it an event rather to be wished for than expected, that Miss Paton's place, as the repre sentative of Cinderella, and the singer of Rossini's "La Cenerentola" music, would speedily, if ever, be adequately supplied, the very unqualified success of their fair debutante, Miss Inverarity, in that truly difficult part, is a matter of no slight congratulation, as regards either the interests of the theatre, or the gratification of the public. As the attempt was arduous, however, so the success has been most complete; and with the requisite allowances for the nervous trepidation of a first appearance, certainly her first in London, her performance as a singer was the | which, though characterized by our defunct Right Ilona{{{ best it has been our good fortune to witness for many friend, Lord Byron, as one on "which all men are fluent,'!! years past; as an actress, it was more than promising; and few agreeable-self;" yet would our personal fair fame and we are so fully borne out in our very favourable be so perilled by our own silence, that we are compelled to opinion by two unusually crowded audiences, that there break through all the trammels of our modesty, and thus can be little hazard in predicting Miss Inverarity's rapid defend ourselves. There is, as to our annoyance we have advances to the highest honours of her profession. When indeed long seen, placarded on old walls, a certain doer of to this, we add that she is young, graceful, and good- doggerel for minor theatres about town, ycleped Mister C. looking, it is scarcely necessary to say more in her favour, A. Somerset, and very judiciously designated by our learned and it would be manifest injustice to her to say less. The colleague, "OLD CERBERUs," as "a blockhead," for whom, character of the Prince was played for a first time by Mr from the similarity of our names, WE, alas! have been, Wilson, who certainly never either played or sung so well and perchance may again be, mistaken. Tendering our before; and, represented as the whole opera now is, there spotless reputation, therefore, far too highly to run the is every prospect of its revival fully rivalling its original slightest risk of being even suspected to have any connexion popularity. "The Omnibus" nightly continues to “send the hearers laughing to their beds," and Miss Kemble's with an individual, of whom we in reality know nothing Lady Townley and Calista, with a new Altamont, Mr beyond what we have told; thus publicly do we disown all G. Bennet, vice Mr Parry, have filled the house each dramas; and, to leave the world without an excuse for ever relationship with the disfigurer of Ducrow's classical evening of her performance. again imagining that we two are one, our future critical lucubrations will invariably be signed at full length, Peregrine Somerset. LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF ROYAL SOCIETY. Monday, 20th December Dr Duncan read a paper on Mudar, and the remarkable properties of its active principle Mudarine, which he illustrated by experiments performed before the Society. A paper by Mr Stein was read, giving an account of the improved method of distilling, by exposing the mash, in shomers, to the action of steam. The essay was illustrated by a series of beautifully executed diagrams. THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD-HIMSELF HIS ** ་* ་་་ Bard of the wilderness, Mr Macready's adaptation, or rather, we believe, his compression, of Lord Byron's "Werner," was at length produced on Wednesday last, at Drury Lane, with the most triumphant success,the three leading characters of Siegendorf, alias Werner, Ulric, and Gabor, being all admirably sustained by Macrady, Wallack, and Cooper ; who, in the last act particularly, on the discovery of the murderer of Stratenheim, were most powerfully effective, and amply atoned for the notorious defects of the tragedy as an an acting drama, in the earlier scenes. It was announced for repetition amidst the most enthusiastic cheering of a very full house; and, while thus supported, we cannot doubt of its continued popularity; on which deserved success we very sincerely congratulate the managers. As Mr Morton commenced his career of dramatic authorship by writing farces, so it would appear he now means to close it in the same manner; and after having ascended from two acts to three, and then from three to five, he has since descended again to two, and at last to one !—the anecdote," as he terms it, of "A King's Fireside," being an extremely slight translation from the French, by the author of " A Cure for the Heartach" and "Speed the Plough." Farren, as Henri Quatre, dressed the character, as he invariably does every character, most minutely accurate, though we cannot greatly eulogise his acting, which certainly was not so. Prince Louis was played passablement bien by Mrs Waylett, and two very juvenile hopes of the family, Gaston and Hen-sketches of eminent living persons are bad. They are either We never write descriptions of people. All personal rietta, by Misses Poole and M. A. Marshall, who were incontestably the best actors in the piece. The plot of not honest, and consequently not worth a farthing; or they this petit drama turns on the French custom of drawing are honest, and consequently impertinent. None but an a bean out of a plumcake on New-Year's day, the fortunate inferior mind ever thinks of publishing to the world a liteholder of which becomes king for the next hour, during rary portrait of a literary friend. He who does so, is comwhich sixty minutes' sovereignty, Louis, who is the lucky monly actuated either by self-interest or vanity, or both ;— holder of this regal distinction, conducts himself right self-interest, that he may make money by the curiosity of royally in two rather difficult dilemmas, and the piece mankind, and vanity, that he may prove himself to be on an concludes with the clock striking the termination of his intimate footing with one to whom the world looks up. reign." Henri en Famille" may possibly have been popuFrom the indulgence of such motives nothing good can be lar, but we neither expect nor wish for it very great longe-expected. The man truly capable of appreciating the genius vity here; since its writing, acting, and reception, all partook of that mediocrity which is acceptable to neither "gods, men, nor columns." As a hint to those whose duty it is to know better, we may observe, that the pronunciation of the common word Dauphin, by all the characters, was as un- French-like as the most confirmed Cockneyism could make it; and that calling the young prince Mister Louis! was certainly any thing but selon la règle at Fontainbleau! On Thursday evening, Lord Glengall's "Follies of Fashion" was played to the worst "and that's a bad word"-the very worst house of the season though the new farces of "Turning the Tables," and The Jenkinses," made some amends, by attracting a tolerable half-price." And now, enlightened readers of this best of all possible periodicals, the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL, we must crave your kind attention to a very few words on a subject of another, is the last man capable of chronicling, for the amusement of the mob, all the petty peculiarities of character he may have it in his power to observe. Nevertheless, the anxiety which prevails to know as much as can be learned concerning the habits and manners of persons who have made their minds familiar to us through the medium of their works, is not only natural, but praiseworthy. It evinces the sympathy we feel for them, in return for the power they possess over us. Towards none is this sympathy more strongly experienced than towards those whose compositions address themselves more particularly to our national and patriotic associations. Such compositions consist, as it were, of a series of rallying points, on which we know that we are all agreed. This remark applies with peculiar emphasis to songs. The ancient sage thought ballads more influential than laws; and he was not far wrong. They gather us together, inspire us with |