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Fifœana.

remembrance (though not under our
eye, as it is completely destroyed) the
chamber, where the merry-hearted
King of Scotland, after his losses at
Solway Moss, quantum mutatus! in
all the disconsolate desolation of dis-
appointed hopes and a broken heart, re-
tired, to die;-that we passed across
the square, and through the passage,
(which we had seen so lately, and with
so much violence, opened,) into the
still entire and spacious "Tennis-
court," the only antiquity of the kind
now remaining in Scotland;-that we
surveyed the bare and now woodless
fields, which still obtain-quasi lucus
a non lucendo-the name of "Falk-
land wood," and which were strip-
ped of their Caledonian oaks by the
republican violence and rapine of
Cromwell;-that, in compliance with
my invariable practice, we visited the
church-yard, or rather burial-ground,
of Falkland, in which the monument
erected to the memory of the pious and
was all
far-noted Emily Geddie,
that attracted, or deserved to attract,
our notice ;-that we rode out as far
as the old church-yard of Kilgour,† a
most retired and romantic spot, where
we found a farm-steading, constructed
almost entirely of broken head-stones
and monuments;-that we found the
bones and flesh of a dead horse, fester-
ing, in sacrilegious and obscene conta-
mination, in a large stone-coffin, where
the body of the poor unfortunate Prince
David, formerly mentioned, had, in all
probability, been once deposited;-and
that, after having qualified our beef-
steak, with a quantum-suff. of Mrs
Scott's whisky-toddy, and having ob-
tained a full and a detailed account
from our new friend" Nil nisi bonum!"
of the ancient and honourable House
of D-m,-we returned to our places

*

of abode about night-fall, highly gra-
tified, upon the whole, with our ex-
cursion, but exceedingly shocked by
that barbarous disrespect for the re-
lics of antiquity, and the manes of the
dead, which we had been compelled
to witness.

Now, sir, I have finished my narra-
tive; and if, through means of your
extensively circulating Magazine, I
can draw the attention of those in
power to the object of it, namely," to
the enclosing and preservation of our
old, and venerable, and national Ruins,'
I think I shall contribute to the keep-
ing up among us of that patriotic and
chivalrous spirit, which is utterly at
variance with every tendency to radi-
calism and insubordination. And if,
by the slight allusion I have been
compelled to make to the instance of
Kilgour,-which is by no means a
solitary one,-I shall have succeeded
in awakening the attention of one
single parish Proprietor to the subject
of church-yard dilapidation, I shall
have done more for the repose of the
dead, and for the rational satisfaction
of the living, than if I had been the
Inventor of an Iron-safe, to preserve
their bodies from resurrection.

It is my intention, during the latter end of this harvest, to make an ex"Church-yard" cursion over Scotland, with the view of giving you some and "Ruin" intelligences of supplying you with a list of the "moral maxims of the dead"—and with a statement of the" sacrilegious and revolting dilapidations of the living,"-and neither power nor interest shall induce me to spare the guilty, nor to calumniate or misrepresent the innocent.I am yours, &c.

VIATOR.

This singularly pious and affectionate girl,-for she died at sixteen years of age, was daughter to John Geddie, in the Hill-town of Falkland, and has found a historian of her Choice Sentences and Practices" in a James Hogg, (not the Jacobite Hogg,) altogether competent to the task he has undertaken. She was born in 1665, and died in 1681. The pamphlet was published by James Halkerston, Bailie in Falkland, in 1795, for the benefit, as he expresses it, of the rising generation; and is extremely rare, and not a little curious.

+Kilgour was formerly, previous to the union of the two parishes, the burial-ground of Falkland; and either Lesly or Buchanan, or both, for I cannot speak positively, not having the books by me at present,-mention the particulars of the funeral procession from Falkland to Kilgour. Drummond says, Prince David was buried at Lindores, but this seems to be a mistake.

CHARACTERS OF LIVING AUTHORS, BY THEMSELVES.

No. I.

"Dans ce siècle de petits talens et de grands succès, mes chefs-d'œuvre auront cent éditions, s'il le faut. Par-tout les sots crieront que je suis un grand homme, et si je n'ai contre moi que les gens de lettres et les gens de goût, j'arriverai peut-être à l'Académie." LOUVET.

I'm a philosopher of no philosophy,
and know not where the deuce my
wisdom came from, unless it was in-
born, or "connatural," as Shaftesbury
will have it. I have studied neither the
heavens, nor the earth, nor man, nor
books; but I have studied myself, have
turned over the leaves of my own
heart, and read the cabalistic charac-
ters of self-knowledge. Nor without
success, for truth, I trust, has been no
stranger to my pen. If all the world
followed my example, there would be
some sense in it.-But they do not.
They have not courage and alacrity
enough to catch wisdom and folly "as
they fly." They ponder and weighers there are not in the world.
wind about a vacuum, like the steps of
a geometrical stair-case. They do not
"pluck bright knowledge from the
pale-faced moon." They do not dare
to look from the table land of their
own genius, their own perceptions,
nor sweep boldly over the regions of
philosophy, "knowing nothing, caring
nothing." They do not expatiate over
literature with the step of freemen,
they are shackled, and have not the
spirit to be truly vagabond. They are
not elevated to a just idea of them-
selves, their own feelings are not hal-
lowed, and they put forth their thought
"fearfully, and in the dark." This is
not the way to be wise ;-there is con-
fidence required for wisdom as well as
for war. We are all of one kind; the
feelings of nature are universal, and
he that can turn his eye in upon him-
self,-that has mental squint enough
to look behind his nose, may read there
the irrefragable laws and principles of
humanity. This is the difficulty,
the bar between man and knowledge,
as is observed by Mr Locke, (who, by
the bye, is an author I despise, -a phi-
losopher who reasoned without feel-
ing, and felt without reason). If a
person can once enter into the recep-
tacles of his own feelings, muse upon
himself, watch the formation and pro-
gress of his opinions, he will then have
studied the best primer of philosophy.
If he can once lay hold of the end of
that web, he can unravel it ad infini-
tum. With his pen in his fingers, and
his glass before him, he no sooner be-

gins, than he is at the bottom of the
page; and the Indian jugglers, with
their brazen balls, were nothing to the
style in which he can fling sentences
about. I can speak but from my own
experience: I have found it so; and
though there is a degree of excellence,
which all persons cannot arrive at, yet
the fabrication of essays is a double em-
ployment, and I here record the prin-
ciple by which I arrived at its perfec-
tion, as a bequest and lesson to poste-
rity.-Despise learning; never mind'
books, but to borrow. Let the ideas
play around self, and that is the way
to please the selfish reader—other read-

It is vulgarly supposed, that a man, who is always thinking and talking of himself, is an egotist. He is no such thing; he is the least egotistical of all men. It is the world he is studying all the time, and self is but the glass through which he views and speculates upon nature. People call me egotist; they don't know what they say. I never think of myself, but as one among the many-a drop in the ocean of life. If I anatomize my own heart, 'tis that I can lay hands on no other so conveniently; and when I do even make use of the letter I, I merely mean by it any highly-gifted and originallyminded individual. I have always thought myself very like Rousseau, except in one thing, that I hate the womankind,'-I have reason-he had not. Nevertheless, had he hung up his shield in a temple, I'm sure I should recognize it. I feel within me a kindred spirit,-the same expansive intellect that strays over the bounds of speculation, and has grasped nothing, because it met nothing worthy,-the same yearning after what the soul can never attain, the same eloquent and restless thought, whose trains are ropes of sand, undone as soon as done,-the same feverish thirst to gulp up knowledge, with a stomach in which no knowledge can rest. If a fortuitous congregation of atoms ever formed any thing, it formed us, for truly we are a tesselated pair, each of a disposition curiously dove-tailed, as Burke said of Lord Chatham's ministry,-of facul

ties put together so higgledy piggledy, that however excellent each is in its kind, the union is an abortion,-a worse than nothing-but the anagrams of intellect, as Donne would say. The world, too, has treated us similarly; with the most patriotic feelings, our countries have laughed at us; with the most philanthropic pens, we have become the buts and bye words of criticism; and with the warmest hearts, we never had a friend. He despised poetry-so -so do I; he despised booklearning-I know nothing about it; he did not care for the great-the great do not care for me. What further traits of resemblance would you have? his breeches hung about his heels. The author of a mighty fine review of Childe Harold compares the author, my friend's friend, to Rousseau, and ekes out the similarity in poetic prose. I have no fault to find with the Review, it being buon camarado of mine, but they might have made out a better comparison. It was L. H. first suggested to me my resemblance to the author of Eloisa; it is one of those obligations I can never forget. He said, at the same time, that he himself was like Tasso, and added, in his waggery, he would prove that bard a Cockney. This is neither wit nor good sense in my friend, who, finding he cannot shake off the title, wishes to convert it into a crown ;-it won't do, the brave public' will have it a fool's cap.

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As for me, I care not; they will have me Cockney-they're welcome; they will have me pimpled in soul and in body-they're welcome; I know what they will not have me-but no matter; I wander from my thememyself, but I cannot help it. The thoughts of what I have suffered from envenomed pens come thick upon me; but posterity will do me justice, and there will yet be "sweet sad tears" shed over the tombs of me and of my tribe. Nevertheless, let me not give up the ghost before my time-I am worth two dead men yet; nor let it be here on record that I could be moved by my hard-hearted and hard-headed perse cutors. But "what is writ is writ"it goes to my heart to blot one quarter of a page. My thoughts walk forth upon the street, like malefactors on the drop, with their irons knocked off. They come unshackled, unquestioned, unconcocted; and if I have uttered heaps of folly in iny day, I trust there was some leaven-good or bad, which

I care not to save it from being utterly insipid.

There have been few great authors who took from the beginning to writing as a profession-it is too appalling-I doubt if it would require half so much courage to lead a forlorn hope. They are, for the most part, men, against whom all other avenues were shut,-who have been pushed from their stools,

"And being for all other trades, unfit, Only t' avoid being idle, set up wit." And this not for lack of capacity, but for want of will; none of them could give a reason for being what they are→ I could not, I know, for one. Yet mine was a natural course. It is an easy transition from the pencil to the pen, only the handling of the first must be the result of long practice, and unwearied assiduity. The latter goes more glibly, and is the engine of greater power. We long to grasp it, as if it were Jove's thunderbolt, and "hot and heavy" we find it. The study of the arts, too, is a terrible provocative to criticism-to canting and unmeaning criticism. I must confess, I tremble to think what literature is likely to suffer from the encroachments of that superficial and conceited tribe. I was myself one of them, and may own it, though they be to me the first

aneath the sun. They leap to taste, without laying any foundation of knowledge with their eyes stuck into the subject matter of their work; their notions of things are too apt to resemble those of the " fly upon the wellproportioned dome;" their overstrained idea of the all-importance of their art, may be a very useful feeling to themselves, and to their own exertions, but, to the world, it is pedantry and impudence. There are other things besides painting, and of this truth, they do not seem enough aware. There are exceptions, however I am one, Hanother. And I take this opportunity of

weighing a little into the opposite scale, since I perceive they hold up their heads more than ordinary, (especially the Cockney artists) on the strength of my former essays. I have. heard a dauber speak of me, 'yes, he writes about the art,' in much the same tone as if he were recommending Milton to a divine for having treated of the Deity. They shall no more such essays, nor shall they again lay such flattering unction to their souls.

I must needs be an honest man, for

I speak hard always of what I love best; it is upon points nearest our own hearts that we are inost apt to feel spleen. Downright foes never come within arm's length of one, one cannot get a blow at them; and we must fall foul of our friends, were it but for practice sake, to keep our pugnacity in tune. People, with whom I have been in habits of intimacy, have complained that I make free with their names, borrow my best things from their conversation, and afterwards abuse them. It is all very likely; but why do they talk so much? If they throw their knowledge into one's hands, how can we help making use of it? Let them enter their tongues at Stationer's Hall, if they would preserve the copy-right of speech, nor be bringing their action of trover to regain what they have carelessly squandered.

He that writes much, must necessarily write a great deal of bad, and a great deal of borrowed. The gentleman author, that takes up the pen once in three months, to fabricate a pet essay for his favourite miscellany or review, may keep up his character as a tasteful and fastidious penman. But let him be like me, scribbling from one end of the year to the other-obliged to it, at all hours and in all humours-and let's see what a mixture will be his warp and woof?-Let him, in an evil moment, be compelled to "set himself doggedly about it," as Johnson says, and he'll be glad to prop himself up with the gossip of his acquaintances, and the amusing peculiarities of his friends. Let him stick in his working clothes, hammering away all weathers, like Lord Castlereagh in the House, and he'll have little time for display and got up speeches. He'll soon learn to despise which word comes foremost, and which comes fittest, and, in the way of diction, he'll soon cry out with myself" all's grist that comes to the mill." Grammarians and verbal critics may cry out against us for corrupting the language-they may collate, and talk with Mr Blair of purity, propriety, and precision; but we own no such rules to our craft;-with us, words

are

"Winds, whose ways we know not of." All we have to do is, to take the first that offers, and sail wherever it may blow;-all parts are alike, so as the voyage be effected-all subjects alike, so the page be concluded.

Talking of subjects-I have been often accused of a fondness for paradox. I am not ashamed of the predilection. Truth, in my mind, is a bull, and the only way to seize it is by the horns. This bold method of attack the startled reader calls paradox. He had rather spend hours in hunting it into a corner, with but a poor chance of noosing it after all, and is envious of him that has the courage to grasp it at once. I like the Irish for this, they blunder upon truth so heartily, and knock it out of circumstances, as if these were made of flint, and their heads of iron. I blunder on it myself often, but the worst of this method is, that one is so apt to mistake common-place for a new discovery. We light upon it so suddenly, that there is no time to examine its features, and thus often send forth an old worn-out maxim as a spic and span-new precept. But 'tis the same thing,-half the world won't recognize it, and the other half won't take the trouble of exposing it. All the didactic prosing of the age-prosing, be it in verse or not, is but the his crambe repetita-the old sirloin done up into kickshaws and fritters. Gravity and sense are out of tune→→→ the stock is exhausted to the knowing-the only vein unworked is hu mour. Waggery is always original and there is more genuine inspiration in comic humour, than in the mightymouthed sublime. Madame de Stael, that eloquent writer,-whom I know but in translstion by the bye-has anticipated these observations of mine in her Essay on Fiction:-" Nature and thought are inexhaustible in producing sentiment and meditation; but in humour or pleasantry, there is a certain felicity of expression, or perception, of which it is impossible to calculate the return. Every idea which excites laughter may be considered as a discovery; but this opens no track to the future adventurer. To this eccentric power there lies no path,of this poignant pleasure there is no perennial source. That it exists, we are persuaded, since we see it con stantly renewed; but we are as little able to explain the course as to direct the means. The gift of pleasantry more truly partakes of inspiration than the most exalted enthusiasm.". The world are beginning to be of the same opinion, they are finding out this truth more and more every day. Na tural humour, lightness of heart, and

brio, it begins to think the best philosophy, and it is right. Doubtless this is the great cause of the popularity of that confounded Northern Magazine, which seems to have taken out a patent for laughing at all the world. Like the spear of Achilles, however, its point can convey pleasure as well as pain-a balm as well as a wound. It is a wicked wag, yet one cannot help laughing with it at times, even against one's-self. I shall never forget the look of L. H. when he read himself described in it, as a turkey-cock coquetting with the hostile number newly come out. There was more good nature in the article than he had met any where for a long time, and he grinned with a quantum of glee that would have suffocated a monkey. I would that Heaven had endowed me with more of the risible faculty, or more of the serious; that I had been decidedly one or the other, instead of being of that mongrel humour, which deals out philosophy with flippant air, and cracks jests with coffin visage. I can't enrol myself under any banner; and cannot, for the life of me, be either serious or merry. I've tried both; but my gravity was doggedness, and my mirth most uncouth gambolling. So I must e'en remain as I am,-up or down, as stimuli make or leave me. It is a sorry look-out, though, to be dependent on these, to owe every bright thought to "mine host," or mine apothecary. I am not an admirer of" the sober berry's juice;" it generates more wind than ideas. Johnson's favourite beverage is better, but it is not that I worship. "Tell me what company you keep," says the adage; a more pertinent query would be, "Tell me what liquor you drink." I would undertake to tell any character upon this data. There is a manifestcompromise between wine and water" in Mr Octavius Gilchrist; 'tis easy to discover sour beer in Mr Gifford's pen; and brisk toddy in North's -equally easy in mine, to descry the dizziness of spirit, or the washiness of water, whichever at the time be the reigning potion.

This hurried sketch will not see the light till I am no more. Twill be found among my papers, affixed to my Memoirs, and my executors will give it to the world with pomp. Then will I, uncoated, unbreeched, and uncravatted, look down from the empyreal on the scatteration of my foes. A life

am

of drudgery-of "hubble, bubble, toil, and trouble"-will be repaid with ages of fame; and, enthroned between Addison and Bacon, my spirit shall wield the sceptre of Cockney philosophy.Yet let me not be discontented; I not all forsaken. From Winterston to Hampstead my name is known-at least, with respect. I am in literature the lord-mayor of the city-the Wood of Parnassus (what an idea!). The apprentices of Cockaigne point at me, as towards the highest grade of their ambition. I am the prefect of all city critical gazettes; and L. H. for all his huffing and strutting, is but my deputy-my proconsul.-Said I not well, Bully Rock? I blew into his nostrils all the genius he possesses, and introduced him to the honourable fraternity of washerwomen and the roundtable; since which auspicious day, he lacked never a beef-steak, or a clean shirt. But of him, and of all my acquaintances, I have left valuable memorials throughout my writings. This observation, and that anecdote, have always come pat into my sentences; so that, with my mixture of gossip and philosophy, I shall be the halfBoswell, half-Johnson, of my age.— Not that I deign to compare myself with the first in dignity, or with the last in "that fine tact, that airy intuitive faculty," that purchases at halfprice ready-made wisdom. As to my politics, it would be a difficult matter to say what they were. I know not myself; so that we will treat them as a country schoolmaster gets over a hard word, "It's Greek, Bill, read on."As to my temper, it is of the genus irritabile prosaicorum (if that be good Latin.) I am very willing to give, but little able to return a blow. I weep under the lash, and, in truth, am too innocent for the world. After attacking private character and public virtue, endeavouring to sap all principles of religion and government,-uttering whatever slander or blasphemy caprice suggested, or malice spurred me to,-yet am I surprised, and unable to discover, how or why any one can be angry with me. I own, it is a puzzle to me to find out how I have made enemies. Yet, such is the world, that I am belaboured on all sides ;friends and foes alike fall foul of me;

and often am I tempted to cry out, in the language of that book I have neglected, "There is no peace for me, but in the grave."

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