seen it, I shall transcribe a few lines for your

amusement.

"Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,
From Hamburgh's port (while Hamburgh yet had Mails)
Ere yet unlucky Fame-compelled to creep
To snowy Gottenburgh-was chilled to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery exit to a friend,

She came- —Waltz came—and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match;
And-almost crushed beneath the glorious news,
Ten plays-and forty tales of Kotzebue's;
One envoy's letters, six composers' airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsig fairs;
Meiner's four volumes upon womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunk's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynê, such as should not sink the packet.

"Fraught with this cargo-and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate,
The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,
And round her flocked the daughters of the land.

Not lovelorn Quixote-when his Sancho thought
The knight's fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another's head,

Not Cleopatra on her galley's deck,

Displayed so much of leg, or more of neck,

Than thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

"To you-ye husbands of ten years! whose brows Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse; To you, of nine years less-who only bear

The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear,
With added ornaments around them rolled,

Of native brass, or law-awarded gold;
To you-ye matrons, ever on the watch
To mar a son's, or make a daughter's match;
To you-ye children of whom chance accords,
Always the ladies' and sometimes their lords';
To you-ye single gentlemen! who seek
Torments for life, or pleasures for a week
As Love or Hymen your endeavours guide,
To gain your own, or snatch another's bride:
To one and all the lovely stranger came,
And every ball-room echoes with her name.

"Endearing Waltz-to thy more melting tune Bow Irish jig-and ancient rigadoon;

Scotch reels avaunt !—and country dance forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe;
Waltz-Waltz—alone both arms and legs demands,
Liberal of feet and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight,
Where ne'er before-but-pray put out the light."
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier

Shines much too far-or I am much too near;

And true, though strange-Waltz whispers this remark,

My slippery steps are safest in the dark.'

But here the Muse with due decorum halts,

And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz.'

"Observant travellers! of every time,
Ye quartos! published upon every clime;
O say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round,
Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound;
Can Egypt's Almas-tantalizing groupe-
Columbia's caperers to the warlike whoop-
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn,
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be borne?
Ah no! from Morier's pages up to Galt's,
Each tourist pens a paragraph for Waltz.'

"Shades of those belles, whose reign began of yore, With George the Third's-and ended long before; Though in your daughters' daughters yet you thrive, Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive! Back to the ball-room speed your spectred host, Fools' paradise is dull to that you lost; No treacherous powder bids Conjecture quake, No stiff-starched stays make meddling fingers ache; (Transferred to those ambiguous things that ape Goats in their visage, women in their shape ;) No damsel faints when rather closely pressed, But more caressing seems when most caressed; Superfluous hartshorn and reviving salts, Both banished by the sovereign cordial ' Waltz.'

Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,
Would e'en proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
Thee Fashion hails-from Countesses to Queens,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns-if nothing else—at least our heads;
With thee e'en clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockneys practise what they can't pronounce.

Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And rhyme finds partner rhyme in praise of Waltz.'"

And now, my dear aunt, I have surely written to you, at the least, with most dutiful ful

ness.

P. M.

231

LETTER XX.

TO THE REV. DAVID WILLIAMS.

DEAR WILLIAMS,

THE life I have led here has been such a strange mixture of all sorts of occupations, that were I to send you a literal diary of my transactions, I believe you would not fail to discover abundant room for doubting the authenticity of the M.S. I shall therefore reserve the full and entire history of this part of my existence, till I may have opportunity of communicating it to you viva voce over a bottle of Binn D, and proceed in the meantime, as I have been doing, to give you little glimpses and fragments of it, exactly in the order that pleases to suggest itself.

In Smollet's time, according to the inimitable and unquestionable authority of our cousin, Matthew Bramble, no stranger could sleep more than a single night in Edinburgh, with the preservation of any thing like an effectual incognito. In those days, as I have already told you, the people all inhabited in the Old Town of