being so good under such auspices. The present manager is indefatigable-but not a magician. It would need the lamp of Aladdin for him to restore the edifice he has to perform in to a tenantable condition, without the support of the wealthy and the powerful, even if the proprietors were to let him have the use of it for nothing. Originally ill placed, should the Exchange be moved to near its site, that objection may be in part done away with, although it can never succeed, as it would have done, if situated in the great thoroughfare of the city, when its expenses would every night have been paid by casual passengers, who dropped in at half-price. But the owners of the property have lost too much already to expect that they should risk another shilling, without the guarantee of a return, in the shape of adequate rent for it; and how, then, is this to be obtained, while the size of the house, and its cheerless aspect, neutralizes all the efforts of the Manager to keep a tolerable company, even with the assistance derived from working in two places at once, like a drudge, and embracing the whole of the western circuit, whilst Alexander, by possessing a house of manageable extent, and in a centrical situation, contrives to realize money, if not to acquire empty respectability, in a mischievous rivalry with the regular and legitimate drama, which alone, even in the best of times, we could barely support in the condition it ought to be?

My Lord, I shall best show my respect for you, by endeavouring, in the fewest possible words, to answer this question which I have asked of myself. To elevate the character of, and give spirit to, the public evening amusements of Glasgow, I hold it to be essential to cultivate and foster the chief of these-namely-the Dramatic, which, by bringing all classes of society under one roof, without inconvenience or disrespectful contact, creates sympathies, and excites community of sentiment, as highly to be desired as is that spirit of, and wish for enjoyment which becomes, in turn, the main-spring for setting in motion diversions of a more peculiar and select description. To effect this, then, my Lord, let your example be given with that effect the esteem in which you are held would be sure to pave the way for, in patronizing the Drama, and leading the public to regard the regular appropriation of a small sum annually to its support, as one of the most laudable ways of spending their money. This can, in a single month, be done by one hundred gentlemen following your lead, and sub

scribing six guineas, which shall secure three members of their own family, except sons come of age, admission to the Boxes on every night of performance, saving bona fide benefits-and by two hundred and fifty more subscribing three guineas for the same privilege, individually, to the Pit. Fourteen hundred pounds, the original rent of the Theatre, when it was in its most high and palmy state, would thus be secured; and, upon the pledge of this, the proprietors would, undoubtedly, put the house in a thorough state of repair-lower its ceiling, by cutting off the one shilling gallery-diminish the height of the boxesfurnish a complete and splendid suite of stock scenery, wardrobe, and properties and keep the house in that condition, and regularly and beautifully lighted, and, for their own security, insured. I am supposing all this sum to be annually given as the equivalent for the house and its accommodations. Mr. Seymour, then, would only have to provide a company, whose merits should be of a kind to attract strangers in the city to visit what, at present, not one of them ever thinks of, although there can never be fewer than two hundred and fifty in town, and induce those whose visits were formerly so "few and far between," as to make it not worth their while to subscribe regularly, to come, at least, their former average number of times, while the scheme would thus occasion those who systematically supported the Theatre, to bring others, either directly, by accompanying, or indirectly, by attracting them, to a place which would be always more than "tolerably well attended." He would thus be able to pay to these respectable salaries, and secure to himself a fair return for his exertions and his risk. His obvious interest would stimulate exertions, and secure civility and zeal, and his extensive circuit would occasion the year's amusements to be spread over its whole surface, and not concentrated into one season of unintermitting nights.

On every evening of performance the manager might safely calculate (after having, for a time, retained a company, and produced novelties of excellence sufficient to re-awaken the taste for the Drama, for which Glasgow was once distinguished) upon drawing, in cash, an average of thirty or forty pounds, from which occasional temporary new scenery and dresses, salaries, and printing, and postages, would alone have to be provided for. A summer benefit for himself, of £150, and a winter one of £200, would be sure to mark the sense of the subscribers, if his exertions

pleased them; and the profits of his circuit, which the circumstance of his city company being thus kept constantly together would so materially aid, would go to yield an industrious, spirited, and intelligent man, a handsome, and, above all, a certain income.

Under such an arrangement, my Lord, it is impossible to doubt that the Drama would flourish in Glasgow; the general character of the amusements of its young men -too often at present debasing, or wretchedly idle and extravagant-be improved; the pot-house become less resorted to by the wearied mechanic; the tavern less frequented by the fagged clerk; and the punch-bowl receive a briefer homage from the masters of these.

Music and dancing, and even arts of a nobler kind, have often before been invigorated and refined from the source from which, there are writers who will have it, they originally sprung-the stage; and yet these may own the obligation even in the city which has been scornfully but unjustly termed a Boetian suburb, but which more truly might be styled the "Venice of the West."

The Doge of that Italian Republic yearly honoured the pageant of wedding the Adriatic to his city. Your setting your successors the example of annually uniting a care for the amusements of the thousands placed under your control, with the more obvious and important business of your dignified station, will be a new honour and boast to even a family in which the higher civic offices have been made hereditary, by the regular descent of talent and integrity.

I am, My Lord, with the most profound respect, your Lordship's most obedient and very humble Servant,

PHILO-DRAMATICUS.

LINES

Written in the prospect of the Re-opening of the Glasgow
Theatre, after a long suspension of Performances.

Again shall we behold that lonely fane
Reared to the Sister Muses and the God
Of Poesy and Song-yet, ah! by them
But transient visited-since round its gates
Few, few and zealless are the worshippers
That not in nightly but in yearly round
Reluctant congregate-shall we behold

The altar raised anew within its walls,

On which the dew of tears-the balm of mirth-
The fire of lofty passion roused to song;
Yea-and the heart-the human fleshy heart,
Stript of the cerements of cold pomp and pride,
In which the world buries it-and waked
To native energy, have offered been,
Touch'd by the Promethean torch of Genius?
Again shall all its pillared porticoes

Be draperied with fair faces, whose bright eyes
Shall beam with gladness-or swim to our hearts,
In witching conquest, on pale Pity's stream?
Its area-shall it peopled be once more
With the grey sage, and fiery essenced youth;
With those to whom the Drama and its sons
Speak of remembrances worth gold untold,
And the green years of boyhood; and with them
To whom the stage is yet the Muse's shrine,
The land of young romance and airy dreams,
Who deem a night spent in its magic sphere
As one whose hours sweet Mem'ry buys to treasure
Among its richest-most heart-soothing stores?
Yes! that deserted and forgotten fane

Again shall echo Shakspeare's godlike thoughts,
Or the rich music of our Otway's lines!

SONNET

ACCOMPANYING A COPY OF

"Paul and Virginia," and "The Exiles of Siberia.”

The touching stories which this little tome
Enclose, fair lady, paint the varied hues

Our lives may wear, or wandering or at home-
Whether we sojourn calm, or frequent devious roam.
If either, Oh! what chance and change accrues!

The sunshine of Virginia's infant hour

Was gloomed in tempests: whilst she yet was young,
The gentle Muscovite's sole wealth and dower
Was exile and misfortune; yet that power

Which blesseth in its chastening, o'er her hung,

The panoply of innocence to guard,

And gave that beauty which all hearts can win.
-Thine these are, lady; Oh! be't heaven's award
That thine, too, be the bliss pourtrayed within,
With nought of that alloy too oft to joy akin!

THE HERON CORRESPONDENCE. No. XVI. CHARLES HERON TO HIS UNCLE.

MY DEAR UNCLE,-In obedience to your wish, I have made every inquiry regarding the new arrangements in our Grammar-School course of study, and find that you are already in possession of all the information I can give, since you have the newspapers containing Mr. Cleland's abstract of the alterations intended to be adopted in the High School of Edinburgh, which, it would appear, our authorities are inclined, with that timidity in every matter literary which we gratify the Eastern Magi by exhibiting, implicitly to follow.

Yet, my dear Sir, if I might be allowed to hazard an opinion, I would suggest that my little cousin, since you wish him to be a procurator in Glasgow, "that hot-bed of lawsuits" as you term it, and none are allowed to practise but they who have been reared in the place, should not take the "optional" branches of education in the Grammar-School here, since I can neither admit it to be fair, that the masters of that academy should seek to monopolize the whole details of education, nor likely that men who have devoted their whole lives to the study of dead languages will excel greatly in the sciences, or be able to simplify the mathematics to the comprehension of boys with the same ease as Mr. Wallace, who has bent his whole energies to the task. Will Mr. Sanderson or Mr. Lindsay instruet their pupils with less effect that they are not part of a corporation whose members do not altogether rely upon their zeal and industry for their annual income; or is the principle of utility in the division in labour refused to be recognised in the business of instruction alone? I feel assured, my dear uncle, that on your adverting to these considerations, you will agree with me in the propriety of even allowing John to "walk from George's Street to his other classes," the more that the play-ground of the boys is now too much circumscribed.

The question as to the Poor Rates of the city, still agitates it, and divides public opinion. My own leaning, like yours, is in favour of a modification of the present plan,⚫which has been advocated by Mr. Cleland, in by far the ablest paper I have seen from his pen, and replied to with no less talent by, I believe, a gentleman whose legal skill in drawing up a marriage settlement I should like exceedingly to put to the test in a short time.

The paper on the Cotton Trade, in the Edinburgh Review, is by your friend Mr. M'Culloch, and much of the information in it is at once new and important. Mr. D. Bannatyne's article in the Supplement to the Britannica, however, forms the basis. In Brewster's Journal, there was lately a very curious essay, demonstrating that the "fine linen" of