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know the generosity of Britons, and intended to implore the assistance of your father; but since I climbed your garden wall, he has never entered its precincts alone; and were your Portuguese servants to know or suspect my presence, my own now most wretched life would be insufficient to glut the revenge of my persecutors. I have watched with eagerness the interest you seem to take in the immortal work of my hapless countryman. I saw your tears of sympathy shed for Inez, and I heard your deep-heaved sigh when you arrived at the melancholy catastrophe which terminated her life and her wrongs. In a moment I decided upon throwing myself at your feet. Exhausted nature can no longer exist without sustenance. I faint with hunger, lady. Surely she who could sigh at the misfortunes of Inez de Castro, will not deny her aid to one of noble birth and rank, whose wrongs are not less than those of the ill-fated queen?'

"I did not. The Inquisition never again enclosed

within its walls the noble Mendez. A Briton in his love of liberty, and a philosopher in his devotion to truth, he exchanged his persecuting country and its bigoted rules, for the freedom of a denizen of this land, and the hand of the unworthiest of its daughters. His name, too, he parted with, as I did mine, and the first sigh of awakened sensibility was but the prelude of years of similar unclouded happiness."

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SPECIMENS OF A SERIES OF NEW READINGS IN BAILEY AND JOHNSON.-No. III.

Abduction.-The Irish method of wooing an heiress. Accent-Provincial.-A music which often deepens pathos -heightens humour-and gives additional force to truth;—but wit, like gentility, renounces it.

Atticism.-In Inverness a style of English purer than Addison's-in Edinburgh a Mid-Lothian twang-in England a forgotten affectation.

Auburn.-A colour nobody can describe-of which there are no specimens in Syme's Nomenclature-but a great many in love lockets: the name of a village where Apollo delivered lectures on Political Economy. X.-A cross looking letter, which will permit nobody to take its name in vain at the beginning of an English word and yet excellence itself could not be obtained in our language without it.

Yes. One of the syllables of fate-a peg upon which destiny hangs the hopes of lovers.

Yielding. What mistresses are when they utter the preceding short word.

Youthful.-Another term for happy. That which can make even awkwardness graceful.

Yawn.-An enjoyment never to be indulged in in the presence of a sweetheart or a patron. A thing impossito do in reading our lucubrations.

THE PICTURE GALLERY. No. I.

By the Poet Laureate of the Dillettanti Society. [We have received the following contribution from a gentleman whose title would seem to connect him with the respectable body, of whose proceedings in relation to the Fine Arts in the West, we have promised to speak, even previous to the publication of the first volume of their Transactions. We strongly suspect, however, that, in his case, the principle of self-nomination has been exercised. Should it not be so, we hope to share in the annual butt of sack, which is the usual honorarium of laureates, and that, doubtless, that body will accord to him.]

No. I.—On a Painting of a Bacchante, by Henderson.

Lift that branch of foliage green;

Part the leaves-unlace the screen.
Lo! the ruddy Boy is there,
Nestling in the leopard's lair!
Ah! the dimples of his chin
Gossip of a joy within.
See the sparkles of his eye,
Shot from spirits mounting high!
Look! his forehead's curls twine
Playful, but with grace divine;—
'Tis an embodied God of Wine!

Sleek the spotted pard beside him,
Leaping, asks the boy to ride him;
Gambols round the spot where, clinging
To the vine-branch, just at springing
From his velvet knee, the urchin
(Where in play the rogue's been lurching,)
Waits, but looks, before he'll rise,
Bright as light from beauty's eyes.
O! 'tis thus wine's rays of gladness
Shine from out the depths of sadness,-
Taming, too, the spirit's madness!

Ever be, Boy-God like thee
All my hours of revelry!
Soul of heaven-frame of earth
Thine! no gross or frantic mirth
Fires the one, the other wastes;
'Tis but joy thy spirit tastes:

Bright, doubtless, as thine eye of blue,

But smooth, like thy breast's cov'ring, too!

O! it was a thought divine,

Thus to paint the God of Wine!

Limner! be my homage thine!

THE HERON CORRESPONDENCE. No. IV.

MARY HERON TO CATHERINE GRIERSON,

DEAR KATE,

*

*

Bath-Street, 24th January, 1827.

But I fear I have tired you by my catalogue of coz. Charles' friends, with the cross old lady with whom he boards at their head; and since you never have seen Galbraith's superb establishment-nor can conceive what the warehouse of Messrs. Campbell is till you are through it, and do not know how calmly and pleasantly one can tumble over silks in Mr. Davie's till they find what suits, I need not add another word about fashions, excepting that the velvet bonnets are still worn as "wide as the Atlantic," as Tom describes their

front-ladies, it must be admitted, at present, have a vast extent of face-and that a Royal Wardrobe is shortly to be sold in Glasgow.And now to come to the Concerts. The Glasgow Theatre, you know, is of great size and architectural beauty well, think how elegant it must have looked on Monday night, with the whole stage, and a portion of the pit raised to its level, closed in like a superb music saloon, while in the area, and around the dress circle opening from it, were crowded the gentry of this Venice of the West. It was indeed splendid, even in spite of the general mourning-which I trust will not be insisted on after the first night (Tom tells me I don't become such deep black)— that gave to the first part of the performances-Seymour had weepers too-the dolour, if the sublimity of a funeral service. In my letters from Edinburgh at last Festival, I described all the vocalists, except Mr. Knyvett-who, to my astonishment, I find a quiet old man, with a little tuft of hair on the top of a bald head, and expressive face of that unperturbed calmness, that arises from the assured confidence of being perfectly master of his art. I could not conceive what made the fair and bewitching Travis marry him, till I heard his voice and then

I ceased to wonder,-it is so sweet-and soft and silveryand subdued to his wife's clearer and loftier notes. He never sings alone. It might wile the bird from the bush, let alone a female with the music in her soul that Miss T. had. After all, Kate, you must agree with me that there is nothing woos a woman like singing, except dancing, perhaps. If sense and talent accompanies that accomplishment, so much the betterif not, the man can please without them. As to the music, I was certainly most charmed with the Glees. Nothing could be more perfect than the union of distinct sounds into one harmonious whole in " My Laddie is gone," saving in "When Sappho." O, Kate, to have heard that thrilling glorious burst of song-in honour of the woman-bard, too-at its close, coming again and again to the strain, not like a fading echo, but as a fond lover turning to take another and another-farewell I suppose I must say was a thing to remember for a lifetime! Had the snow been five feet deep at Sanquhar-there been no assemblies this week-nor Charles to have had a ball while I was here, (I shan't say on my account)-I would have come all the way from Dumfries to hear it. The "Gentle Lark" and "Soldier's Dream," were my favourite Solos: the lady's astonishing execution in the one, and the truly touching, yet dignified and varied feeling of little Vaughan in the other, were equally beautiful in their way. There was little to criticise in the dresses: the two most tastefully attired ladies that I saw sat in the same box-one, a young matron, wore a red feather, elegantly drooping from her black head-dress-and the other, a lovely widow, a turban of black velvet and pearls, truly regal in its effect. But I must conclude my letter, for the hour of dressing for the next is at hand, and Gairdner waits to put my hair in order -Adieu, dearest Kate-remember thy

MARY.

CHARLES HERON TO THOMAS HERON.

25th January.

* Mary's letter will tell you all about the Music. She is as gay as-as she always is when I am in ill-humour. Another year has elapsed, and yet there has not been the slightest movement on the part of a sluggish public, to do honour to the memory of the mightiest spirit that has passed away, if we except one, this 19th century. Where is the marble statue of Byron ?-Why is this 25th of January a silent day, when men have but one social way of showing their regret, their admiration, and their love, by pledging the wine cup, and pealing through the festal hall the names of the glorious-dead-I had almost writ—the undying sons of song? Burns and Byron came into the world on this day-" made up so as to be themselves wretched in it, while

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they charmed happier millions; but their spirits cry aloud " for that tribute which they ought to have received, with less alloy in their lifetime-the applause of their grateful, and, through them, their honoured country. But no more of this. Another year shall not elapse, if I can help it, without something being done here to rouse up others elsewhere to keep this as the holiday of genius-the next day in the kalendar to the Shakspeare's 23d of April.- -The Apocryphal war still rages. An able cleric and laic have given some hard rubs to each other, and threaten more. The combatants dined at a party given by Cunningham of Lainshaw lately. I wonder if they forgot polemics over port, or their animosities when they could not "keep the wolf from the door."You recollect the "Garret Window in the last" Ant"? Well, our

friend Mr. of -, as you saw, extracted the story, and was waited upon by a bilious tailor who had had an evening party, and some obliging friend, who assured him that the "Tale of the Trongate" was neither more nor less than a libel on his hospitality. It is not his attic story that is illuminated, you may rest assured.- -The site of the new Exchange is not yet fixed. 'Twere pity that it were-where first proposed, for to carry it out of the great geographical line which must ever divide Glasgow into two equal partstake it as far west as need requires-would be as absurd as to insist that the road to Dumbarton should take a bend up to New Kilpatrick. Mr. Ewing's speech was neat, as usual, but the Lord Provost did not relish his accusing him of a bull, nor alluding to a herring being called "a Glasgow Magistrate."

Jeffrey's article on Pulpit Eloquence, which he is known to have been engaged in studying for some time, disappoints me. Not so his review of Moore's Sheridan, which is as sparkling as that work itself, till he begins to defend the Whigs in a body, in a way they will not thank him for. -The Charity play, I fear, will not go on that was suggested. 'Tis pity. I was to have played Mattie in Rob Roy. But another pull for the petticoat!course in the Mechanics. profound and clear

-I mean to attend Clarke's second His Chemical lectures are at once Did you see how the newspapers quoted, as from old twaddling Cradock's Memoirs, the good joke of the Genteel Dinner, although Creech the bookseller published it thirty years ago-laughing thus at a parsimony he afterwards fell into himself as I do at a prosiness I may perhaps be guilty of, unless I speedily say adieu.-C. H.

To Correspondents.-The affecting and eloquent letter of M. J. E. we are sure he will, on reflection, feel convinced would irritate and offend more than it could reform.-The Picture Gallery, Nos. II. and III. in our next.

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