account of its intrinsic merit, though that was considerable, as that it formed the commencement of a subject which certainly much more than many you have hitherto treated of, desired a share of your readers' consideration. I trust, that through your future exertions, this desideratum in the literature of Scotland will be speedily and effectually supplied.-I I have used the freedom to send you a present of some Loch Ard trouts killed this morning. Is not the larg est of the dozen a singularly large trout? He is like a fish. LETTER FROM MR ODOHERTY, ENCLOSING THE THIRD PART OF CHRISTABEL. MY DEAR Editor, I need not say how much obliged to you I am for your kind recommendation of my poems to the notice of the public. Such liberality does you credit, and "I verily believe promotes your sale." Nothing can more decidedly prove the degraded state of our periodical criticism, than this fact, that not one review, but your own incomparable one, has so much as alluded to the existence of my poetry. What Mr Gifford can mean by such neglect of a man of at least equal genius with himself, I leave him to explain to the world, when and how he can-as for Mr Jeffrey, the well-known difference of our political sentiments The Monthly Reviewers hate me because sufficiently accounts for his silence. I am not a Unitarian, nor dissenter of any kind, and the British Critic looks down upon me because I am neither an Oxonian nor a Cantab. Of the notice of "Maga" I am not very ambitious, having been long tired of old women, and I do trust should my muse ever be buried, Colburn will not suffer that vampyre, Dr Polidori, to suck her blood. To you, therefore, my sweet editor, my undivided gratitude is due, and it shall be expressed in a way most conducive to your interests. You must have observed with regret, that many of our best living poets leave their greatest works in an unfinished state. It is my intention to finish these works for them, for I never could, at any period of my life, bear to think that any thing should be left but half done. I have accordingly finished Mr Coleridge's Christabel, and what was a still more laborious task, Mr Wordsworth's Excursion. If Lord Byron does not publish Don Juan speedily, I will, for I have written him, and he is very restless in my desk. I have likewise ready for the press, a thick octavo of " Plays on the Passions," which, if Miss Joanna Baillie does not bestir herself, shall infallibly be out before the fall of the leaf. In short, I wish, like the celebrated Macvey Napier, Esq., to become a SUPPLEMENTARY GENIUS, and while he undertakes to render complete all the rest of human knowledge, permit me to do the same service to poetry. I have sent you the third part of Christabel, per my friend the "Bagman," who, so far from being a fool, as one of your critics averred, is next to our friend D, one of the sharpest blades in Glasgow. You will receive a bale of the Excursion by the waggon very soon.-Yours, for ever and a day, MORGAN ODOHERTY. Archie Cameron's College, Glasgow. 4th June. CHRISTABEL. The Introduction to Part the Third. LISTEN! ye know that I am mad, And ye will listen!-wizard dreams Were with me!-all is true that seems! From dreams alone can truth be had In dreams divinest lore is taught, For the eye, no more distraught, Of sound unconscious, may apply Thus am I wisest in my sleep, For thoughts and things, which day-light brings, Come to the spirit sad and single, When the hushed frame is silent in repose! CHRISTABEL, PART THIRD. NINE moons have waxed, and the tenth, in its wane, And her cheek was pale, save when, with a start, And at moments a big tear filled the eye, To count his beads in solemn shrift- Oh! had her old father the secret known, Am I asleep or am I awake? In very truth I oft mistake, - As the stories of old come over my brain, Sweet Christabel, it is not well That a maiden of sinless chastity In childbirth pangs should be doomed to die, Alas, that scandal thus should wreak Of the things that be did we know but half, Or that deeper grief, (when its orb is dry, That the world should view thee with mistrust, But in I rush, with too swift a gale, Into the ocean of my tale! Not yet young Christabel, I ween, Of her babe hath lighter been. -'Tis the month of the snow and the blast, And the days of Christmas mirth are past, When the oak-roots heaped on the hearth blazed bright, Casting a broad and dusky light On the shadowy forms of the warriors old, Who stared from the wall, most grim to behold On shields where the spider his tapestry weaves, On the holly boughs and the ivy leaves, The few green glories that still remain To mock the storm and welcome the rain, Brighter and livelier mid tempest and shower, Brave emblems o'er the winter hearth, Twelve solar months complete and clear (I saw her big breast swelling pant) What time, I dreamed, in ghostly wise For I am the hierarch Of the mystical and dark And now, if rightly I do spell Of the lady Christabel, She hates the three times ten so white, And woe is hers-alas! alack! She hates the three times ten so black- I hear her moaning in the dark!— "Tis the month of January, While the snow is heavy on beechen bower Dear girl, I ask thee seriously. Thy cheek is pale, thy locks are wild Ah, think, how big thou art with child!— Tho' the baron's red cloak thro' the land hath no f llow, Dost thou wander to the field of graves Where the elder its spectral branches waves? Where thy mother sleeps in the silent vault? Thither go not, or I deem almost That thou wilt frighten thy mother's ghost! Or wilt thou wend to the huge oak-tree, 'Tis pleasant-'tis pleasant, in summer time, When the light winds above 'mong the light leaves are singing, "Tis pleasant-'tis pleasant, when happily humming Is heard where it hides 'mong the grass-blades green, One-Two-Three-Four-Five-Six-Seven-Eight-Nine-Ten Eleven! Tempest or calm-moonshine or shower, And the cock awakens, and echoes the sound, And at every measured tone You may hear the old baron grunt and groan; She mews thro' all the hours of sleep- Let it rain, however fast, Rest from rain will come at last, |