Till every Magazine's a stye,

With Ettrick Jamie's eulogy;

And Hogg the fulsome praise returns,

And, eulogising Robert Burns,

Informs his friends-he's surely funning 'em

That "Rab" was nought to Allan Cunningham !*
Whilst both proscribe with savage rigour,
All Southron Bards for want of vigour,-

And

a suspicion as to the ultimate object of his flattery. Mr. B.'s puffs of his friend stand some chance of being received cum grano salis, whilst the ink is yet wet which proclaims him the most accomplished master of his language in England, and the most impartial and enlightened critic in the world!-

Many have been the periodicals which have professed to despise and to expose this conspiracy against the best interests of literature; but like some modern politicians, their plans of reform seem to have been designed only for their neighbours ; for they have, for the most part, acted as though they considered themselves perfectly independent of the operation of their own professed principles. There are some editors, too, who pay their contributors by allowing them to puff themselves and their friends in their columns,-a practice which may not improperly be designated the "literary truck system;" and which calls imperatively for the reprobation of every honest and well-meaning critic. But I feel that I am treading on dangerous ground. .

* See Hogg's praise of Cunningham in the Edinburgh Literary Journal, etc.; and Allan's praise of the Shepherd in the Athenæum, etc. No honest critic, on this side of the Tweed, would wish to withhold a fair proportion of praise from the Bard of Kilmeny and his friend; but it is somewhat too much to find them eternally comparing each other to Robert Burns, and sneering at all poets whose minds do not seem to have been cast in the same mould with their own.

A smooth and "capernoitie" race,

That scarcely dare a "howdy" face!*
Too "prudent" and "discreet" a throng,
To revel o'er a prurient song ;†

And all unskilled to hide a flaw,

Beneath a veil of Scotch patois.

But to return: you ask, my friend,
How I contrive my hours to spend-

* In a late number of Blackwood's Magazine, Hogg complains of the capernoitiness (see Dr. Jamieson's Dictionary) of some of the editors of Annuals, in declining to publish his happiest efforts. He must, however, admit that his "Baboon Legend," and his Seeking a Howdy," are not altogether adapted for drawing-room perusal. What Christopher North could have been about to have admitted into his Magazine such a farrago of unmeaning trash, as the article in which the Shepherd grunts forth his anathemas, I am at a loss to conceive. Hogg talks about "conceit," too, which reminds one forcibly of the old epigram:

"Joe hates conceited bards, which shews

Self-love is not a fault of Joe's!"

+ See Mr. Cunningham's mode of apologizing for the indecencies he has thought proper to publish in his collection of Scottish Songs. I suppose I shall be ranked among the "discreet," "prudent," and "delicate" critics he denounces, if I confess that his book does not impress me with a very exalted notion of the purity of Scottish pastoral manners. It does not demand a very fastidious taste, to be disgusted with the obscenities (I can call them by no other name) with which these songs abound. If, therefore, he disapproves of my smoothness (see his sneers in various periodicals), I am no less opposed to his coarseness; and thus, if he pleases, we are even.

How I can manage to forego,

Good Lady B.'s galante shew;
Where miracles of wit and art

66

Appear like shadows, so depart; "-
A sort of Fantoccini crew,

As hollow, and as wooden too!
Practitioners from Blarney Hall ;*
And critics, smallest of the small;

Whose tongues no honeyed verbiage lack,—
Save when you chance—to turn your back!
Where " pocket poets,"† numberless,
And lords and ladies of the Press,
Are trotted out to shew their paces,
And practise learned airs and graces;
Or else are marshalled, Bard by Blue,
Like pictures at "a private view!"
Where embryo Lawrences are thronging,
And painters, to no school belonging;
Where Poetasters raise our wonder,
By robbing Croly of his thunder;

And swarms of Scotch and Irish Editors
Make bards for promised praise their creditors;

While spinsters marvel-simple folk,

That puff-born fame should end in smoke!

* Castle, methinks, I should have said,

But that the stubborn rhyme forbade.

+ A pet phrase of Lady Morgan.

And scarce a single gala night,
But brings some prodigy to light;

Some Pantaloon turned Oxford Scholar,
With frenzied eye and loose shirt collar;
Whom silly, simpering girls environ,
And deem a sort of second Byron;
Or, Jerdan's head be all the guilt on,*
Call (save the mark!) the modern Milton!
Or, haply, some young artless dame,

All "sighs," "love," "kisses," "tears," and "flame,"
Who, at the age of sweet sixteen,

Makes love as warmly as

66

Upon her race poetic, starts,

Thigheen;"

With volumes full of "darts" and "hearts;'

And lest the world should fail to heed them,
Sends "Pa" about the town to read them;--

All buried in a bag as green

As that which bothered once a queen;

And full enough of "young desire,"

To set the very Thames on fire!

What is a Conversazione? +

List, and its picture shall be shewn ye:

* See the extravagant praise of Robert Montgomery, in the Literary Gazette.

+ It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary for me to disclaim an intention of alluding to any Conversazione in particular. Some of my dramatis persone are common to all assemblies of the kind; and are too much accustomed to criticise their neighbours, to be entitled to exemption from criticism themselves.

It is a print be-littered room,

Where light is taught to mimic gloom;
As full as ever it can cram-

All heat, confusion, jabber, jam :
A bustling group of busy men,
Knights of the pencil and the pen ;—
Professors of all sorts of arts;
Mustachioed apes from foreign parts;
With here and there a lady sitting,
Or through the lettered chaos flitting,
Lorn as a lover's maiden lay,

Or angel, that has lost her way!
Where, ranged in order due, are seen
All sorts of beasts, unclean and clean;
Each specimen of Nature's work,—
Jew, Christian, Atheist, Brahmin, Turk;
With many a bird of kindred feather,
All huddled in the ark together!
Philosophers of vast pretence,
Without a grain of common sense;
Anatomists of books and men,

Who cut and cut, and come again!
And Scientifics, full of learning,
With breeches so inured to burning,
So very incombustible,

They scarcely fear to go to h—ll !*

The worthy Chevalier Aldini has, I am informed, constructed a pair of asbestos inexpressibles, which will enable him to take