Several, James. NORTH. SHEPHERD. What? Severals. Mr Awmrose-Dinna bring in a single ither guse, till we hae dispatched our freen' at the head o' the table.-Mr Tickler, whare'll ye sit? and what'll ye eat? and what'll ye drink? and what'll ye want to hear? and what'll ye want to say? For, oh, sir! you've been pleesant the nicht-in ane o' your loun, but no seelent, humours. Na, niffer plates at ance-though yours is clean, and mine swooming' wi' sappy shavin's aff the bonny bosom o' the best bird that ever waddled among stubble. (SHEPHERD insists on NORTH exchanging trenchers. NORTH. You know the way, James, to the old man's heart! SHEPHERD. It's like the grave. What for? 'Cause the " paths o' glory lead" till it! Thank ye, Tickler, for the twa spawls. (SHEPHERD, with infinite alacrity and address, forks both legs with the same instrument, and leaves TICKLER desolate. TICKLER. Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare! Robb'd of a goose, I yet may share the feast. Close by the regal chair, Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. Ambrose-a goose !-a goose!-my kingdom for a goose,-and, Tappie! pot o' pota! SHEPHERD. Gurney! Gurney! Guse, man, guse, ane's gane and anither's comin'— guse, man-Gurney-guse, guse, guse! (GURNEY appears, and the Noctes vanish. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL'S WORK, CANONGATE. PARLIAMENTARY SAYINGS AND DOINGS. No. II., 329 SONNETS ON THE GIANTS' CAUSEWAY. BY LEODIENSIS, 342 GOOD-NIGHT, 343 THE EARLY LOST. BY DELTA, 344 PARTIES, 346 PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN. CHAP. VII. The Spectre-Smitten, 361 376 DR PARR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. No. II., MR SADLER AND THE EDINBurgh ReviewER. A PROLUSION, IN THREE CHAPTERS. BY CHRISTOPHer North. 392 405 417 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, NO. 45, GEORGE STREET, EDINBurgh; To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed. SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH. A MYRIAD-MINDED Vision of Winter comes, breathing, frost-work-like, over the mirror of our imagination! And who knows but that the words which give it a second being-words seeming to be things, and things thoughts-after all that evanescent imagery has relapsed into nothing, may prove a Prose-Poem, in which the lover of nature may behold some of her most beautiful and sublimest forms, fixed permanently before his gaze that mental gaze, which, when the bodily eye is shut, or its range limited, continues to behold all creation in boundless reveries and dreams, lying beneath a sweeter or a more sullen light than ever fell from a material sun over a material world? A Prose-Poem! The builders of the lofty rhyme are now contented to look back, through the vista of years, on the enduring edifices their genius constructed in its prime some are old and some dead--the right hands of all the living have either forgot their cunning, are idle in the joy of glory achieved, or are loath to essay other works, "Lest aught else great might stamp them mortal." Some hands may have been chilled -almost palsied by doubt-despond ency-or" hope deferred, that maketh the heart sick," and they who own them, number themselves no more among the Muses' Sons. The cares and duties of life have won away others from the charms of song; and haply one or two there be, in whom strange and cureless sorrows have dimmed and deadened "The Vision and the Faculty divine !" Now that those deep diapasons have ceased to roll-now that no more, "through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise,' in the hush may audience be found to listen even to our humbler strains provided they are breathed from the inspiration of a not unthoughtful heart, and obey the biddings of that Sense of Beauty, which is born with every creature" endowed with discourse of reason;" and when cherished by Conscience, God's vicegerent here below, can clothe insensate things with the charm of life, and imbue life with a spirit that speaks of immortality! A Prose-Poem! Yes-Prose is Poetry, whenever Passion and Imagination give utterance, in union and in unison, to the dreams by which * See our December Number, for Fyttes I. and II. VOL. XXIX. NO. CLXXVII. T they are haunted and possessed! burn," and the whole "mysterious world of eye and ear" undergoes fair or glorious transfiguration. This House of ours is a prisonthis Study of ours a cell. Time has laid his fetters on our feet-fetters fine as the gossamer, but strong as Samson's ribs, silken-soft to wise submission, but to vain impatience galling as cankered wound that keeps ceaselessly eating into the bone. But while our bodily feet are thus bound by an inevitable and inexorable law, lo! our mortal wings are yet free as those of the lark, the dove, or the eagle-and they shall be expanded as of yore, in calm or tempest, now touching with their tips the bosom of this dearly beloved earth, and now aspiring heavenwards, beyond the realms of mist and cloud, even unto the very core of the still heart of that otherwise unapproachable sky, which graciously opens to receive the soul on its flight, when, disencumbered of the burden of all grovelling thoughts, and strong in its spirituality, it exults to soar "Beyond this visible diurnal sphere," nearing and nearing the native region of its own incomprehensible being! Now touching, we said, with their tips the bosom of this dearly beloved earth! How sweet that attraction to imagination's wings! How delightful in that lower flight to skim along the green ground, or as now along the soft-bosomed beauty of the virgin snow! We were asleep all night long -sound asleep as children-while the flakes were falling, and “soft as snow on snow" were all the descendings of our untroubled dreams. The moon and all her stars were willing that their lustre should be veiled by that peaceful shower-and the sun, pleased with the purity of the morning-earth, all white as innocence, looked down from heaven with a meek unmelting light, and still leaves undissolved the stainless splendour. There is Frost in the air but he "does his spiriting gently," studding the ground-snow thickly with diamonds, and shaping the treesnow according to the peculiar and characteristic beauty of the leaves and sprays on which it has alighted almost as gently as the dews of spring. You know every kind of tree still by its own spirit shewing itself through that fairy veil-momentarily disguised from recognition-but admired the more in the sweet surprise with which again your heart salutes its familiar branches all fancifully ornamented with their snow-foliage, that murmurs not like the green leaves of summer, that like the yellow leaves of autumn strews not the earth with decay, but often melts away into change so invisible and inaudible, that you wonder, in the sunshine, to find that it is all vanished, and to see the old tree again standing in its own faint-green glossy bark, with its many million buds, which perhaps fancy suddenly expands into a power of umbrage impenetrable to the sun in Scorpio. Lo! a sudden burst of sunshine, bringing back the pensive spirit from the past to the present, and kindling it, till it dances like light reflected from a burning mirror! Behold what a cheerful Sun-scene, though almost destitute of life!— An undulating Landscape, hillocky and hilly, but not mountainous, and buried under the weight of a day and night's incessant and continuous snowfall! The weather has not been windyand now that the flakes have ceased falling, there is not a cloud to be seen, except some delicate braidings, here and there along the calm of the Great Blue Sea of Heaven. Most luminous is the sun, but you can look straight on his face, almost with unwinking eyes, so mild and mellow is his large light as it overflows the day. All enclosures have disappeared, and you indistinctly ken the greater landmarks, such as a grove, a wood, a hall, a castle, a spire, a village, a town,-the faint haze of a far off and smokeless city. Most intense is the silence. For all the streams are dumb, and the great river lies like a dead serpent in the strath. Not dead --for, lo! yonder one of his folds glitters-and in the glitter you see him moving-while all the rest of his sullen length is palsied by frost, and looks livid and more livid at every distant and more distant winding. What blackens on that tower of snow? Crows roosting innumerous on a huge |