The Correspondents of the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE and LITERARY MISCELLANY are respectfully requested to transmit their Communications for the Editor to ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY, Edinburgh, or to HURST, ROBINSON, & COMPANY, London; to whom also orders for the Work should be addressed. Printed by J. Ruthven & Sona. Address to the Public. Ar the commencement of another year, it is customary for Editors to address a few words to their readers: in availing ourselves of this prescriptive privilege, however, it is not our intention to emblazon our own merits, indulge in empty boasts, or parade promises of unattainable excellence: our object is to speak directly and explicitly to the point. In the first place, then, we are, of course, grateful for the liberal support we have hitherto received, and the continuance of which we shall endeavour, by encreased exertion, to deserve. In the next place, the leading principle upon which this work has been, in time past, and will, in future, be conducted, is impartiality; a word which we wish to be understood both in a literary and political sense. Trammelled by no party feelings or connections, and consequently reckless of the favour or hostility of the hirelings or retainers of faction,-with whom independent merit is nothing, the shibboleth of their party every thing,—we have abused no man on account of his political prejudices, attachments, or even tergiversations; nor have we condescended to laud folly, extravagance, or nonsense, merely because they emanated from individuals with whom, perhaps, we hold many opinions in common. In evidence of this, it is only necessary to refer to the honest and conscientious praise we have, on several occasions, awarded to Mr Southey, and to the well-merited severity of reproof with which we rebuked the atrocious impieties and blasphemies of Lord Byron. Acting upon this general principle, we have endeavoured to infuse into our pages a reasonable intermixture of the useful and the entertaining-of solid information, and of that lighter and gayer literature which has now acquired such charms for the readers of Periodical Works. The pictures of Scottish manners, customs, superstitions, and scenery, contained in "The Literary Legacy," "Ill Tam, 66 Scraps of the Covenant," "Reminiscences of Auld Langsyne," and other papers of a similar cast, were drawn by masterly hands, and, we have reason to think, have been most favourably received by the public. The papers on Science, which have occasionally appeared in the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, are the productions of a gentleman, whose extensive and accurate acquirements, joined to his great experience, and taste for general literature, warrant the confidence we repose in him, and the value we set on his contributions. Of the poetry we have published, we consider ourselves justified in asserting, that it is of the very first excellence. This opinion, though confidently, is not rashly, or unadvisedly hazarded; and were we not restrained by feelings of delicacy, and other motives in which the public can take no interest, from mentioning the names of the distinguished individuals by whom the greater part of it has. been contributed, this would appear to be not a silly or impertinent boast, but the simple expression of what is due to that excellence, which, under the veritable names of the writers, the public have already most unequivocally acknowledged. When any of our contemporaries shall produce poetry superior in merit to the "Tale of the Secret Tribunal," the "Characters omitted in Crabbe's Parish Register," "The Spartan March," "The Festal Hour," and the great majority of the lighter pieces which have, from time to time, appeared in our columns, we shall he happy to retract the opinion we have now pronounced, and to atone for arrogating to ourselves this excellence by a hearty acquiescence in the principle of-detur digniori. With regard to our means of not only sustaining, but, as we flatter ourselves, greatly improving the character of this Magazine, they are not only ample, but superabundant: so much so, indeed, as to render the task of se lection at once delicate and difficult; delicate, as regards the respective claims of our numerous and able contributors; and difficult, from the general excellence by which the articles transmitted us have been so creditably and so remarkably characterised. We have no hesitation, therefore, in assuring our readers, that we never commenced a year under such fortunate auspices; that the quantity of talent embarked in our service is greater than our most sanguine expectations ever led us to anticipate; and that no effort shall be wanting, on our part, to bring into action the powerful means which have been placed at our disposal. This much we conceived it allowable to state in our own behalf: at the same time we are convinced that we shall be tried by our works, not by our pretensions; that, in this enlightened age, the indispensable preliminary to success is, to deserve it; and that talent, industry, and enterprize, cannot fail of being suitably rewarded. To Correspondents. "ATTICUS SECUNDUS and the New Art of Puffing," is unavoidably The dispostponed, but will assuredly appear as soon as we see occasion. ingenuous trick, to give it no harsher name, to which Verus refers, deserves to be exposed: it is calculated at once, to deceive the public, and injure the respectability of literature. Madame Necker was a very clever woman, but we would rather decline inserting any more of her Letters or Maxims. They have no direct or immediate interest. "The Lucubrations of Geoffrey Plumpington, No. II." were duly received; but our previous arrangements rendered it impossible to provide room for them this month. We beg to acknowledge the receipt of " Hora Scottica, No. III." No. II. has, perhaps, been too long delayed; but we make no promises. We have left a letter at our Publishers for the author of the "Essay on the Contemplation of Nature.” "The Hall of Saint Clare" is, upon the whole, very good. Towards the commencement, however, there are some halting lines, which we wish the author would remedy: when this is done, we shall communicate our determination. "Traits of the French Character" has already been in some measure anticipated by Letters from Paris." The "Verses on the Study of Anatomy, by a Student of Medicine," are very sensible and very devout: but though sense and devotion are very compatible with, they alone do not constitute poetry. The "verses" are at the author's service whenever he chooses to call for them. We have have no wish to "catch" "Tom Beavor:" we only desire to understand him; and when we are fortunate enough to do so, we may possibly publish his lucubration. If we were certain he would not take it amiss, we would give him a bit of gratuitous, and perhaps useful advice; and that would be, never to write without an object. "The Dying Poet" we have not yet read. The press of other matters has rendered it necessary to delay, till our next, the paper on Napoleon's Memoirs. We regret doing so the less, as, by this postponement, we shall, at the same time, be able to give some account of Mr Southey's delightful volume on the Peninsular War. THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY. JANUARY 1823. THE BONDSPIEL DINNER. Vides ut altâ stet nive candidum "Queensberry" nec jam sustineant onus Sylvæ laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acuto. Dissolve frigus ligna super foco Large reponens, atque benignius Deprome quadrimum Saligna, O!" Sally, hark ye," whisky diotâ. NATURE having laid out more than one-half of our frame on locomotive faculties-in other words, man being evidently a moving animal,-it follows, that they who endure a sedentary life, counteract her purposes, and, consequently, expose themselves to her displeasure. They forfeit, in fact, not only the privileges, but even the credit of their caste, and settle down into something still lower than a companionship with the king of Babylon, in his grazing excursion. So fully were the sagacious ancients convinced, not only of the brutal, but even of the infernal character of this preposterous mode of existence, that the prince of Latin verse has particularised "sitting" amongst the punishments of Avernus. "Sedet eternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus!" Indeed, in entering into the workshop of a tailor, in diving into the sub-pavement office of a W. S., or in combating the overpowering air which meets you at the room-door of the mere student, there has often visited my very soul a pang of commiseration for the "poor inhabitant within," flattened, and battered down to a board, like a base coin VOL. XII. nailed to a counter, or presenting, as it were, a centaur transformation, or transmigration, of clerk into downward tripod, and of tripod again into the upper extremities of clerk,— or shivering under a manifest deficiency of flesh, accompanied by an equally manifest redundancy of skin! These, however, are only the allotments of necessity; and it were certainly cruel to expose the unavoidable wretchedness of man, for the single object of distressing him. But such evils" inwoven with," are often exasperated by others that are voluntarily though incautiously admitted into our lot. We are apt to fly from sedentary avocations, to amusements equally sedentary; and thus to render the hours which business yields to recreation, injurious, in place of being conducive to health. What is there, for example, in the marshalling of pawns and rooks,-in a blind, and blinding admiration of kings, and queens, and castles? What is there in the ceaseless and annoying agitation of ivory cubes, and in the ever-recurring dash and rattle on a back-gammon board? What is there even in the inimitable and most bewitching of all sedentary games, whist, to compare, in point of exhilaration, with those more active out-of-doors amusements, to which every season, in some measure, and under some modification, and to which the present season in particular, so directly and urgently solicits us? One very prominent advantage which these latter amusements pos A sess over the former, consists in that buoyancy of spirit, and elasticity of imagination, which exercise under the open air is sure to produce. Whilst the draft, or chess, or cardplayer, rises from his seat, sore with sitting, and absolutely stupified by a wasteful and a useless expence of thought, whilst he yawns himself into a chair at meal-time, and swallows his dinner more from habit than from appetite, whilst he remains flat, absent, or forced in conversation, and is sure to suffer in his health by any, even the slightest degree of artificial excitement,-the votary of open-air amusements, whether he has inhaled his spirits on the land or on the water, under all the excitement and manly emulation of a golfing, quoiting, or curling contest, is sure to bring home with him, to the social board and hour, an extra supply of spirits and vivacity. And if you place him under the additional excitement of a "companion and a bottle," you have made him happier, I verily believe, than ever was the successful candidate at a contested election, or than all the discoverers of all the problems in Euclid. Amongst the exclusive privileges of which they who have been companions in the day's sports are possessed, that of discussing at table the feats of the day is by no means the least. On this subject every one is at home, and every one is enabled, as well as entitled to speak. The silent man now becomes loquacious, the diffident acquires assurance, and the confident and overbearing meets with his match. All that stiffness, and shyness, and jealousy of talent or acquirement, which, in literary companies in particular, sometimes induces weariness and disgust,-all that absolute poverty of invention, and downright dulness, which lies like an incubus over common-place parties, all that monopoly in conversation, which some talking individual so frequently usurps and abuses;-all these evils under the sun are here unknown,-and the full and unrestrained swing of heart and soul comes down in the boasted achievement, the recollected incident, and the challenged mistake or failure. There is a critical juncture, Mr Editor, equally removed from posi tive tipsiness on the one hand, and positive sobriety on the other,-the region and domain, we shall term it, of hilarity,-a passing, indeed, but a powerful hour of open-heartedness and boundless fancy, when the nectar begins first to catch the blood, and long ere it has reached the brain, or tripped up the heels of the consonants, this is the time when a man is conscious of a soul within him, and rejoices in the consciousness, when the blood flows so easily and so rapidly, that the heart escapes every instant, on a tide of feeling, to the very extremities of the system. "Sweet is the breath of Morn; her rising sweet; With charm of earliest birds, pleasant the sun, When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glist'ning with dew ;” and when the "fair Lady Moon" walks forth in her pale virginity, and her chastened lustre "sleeps on all the hills,"-how sweet, too, to ramble in that long hollow valley of Bagdad, which separates Arthur's Seat from Salisbury Crag! and if the shadow of her on whom your heart has fixed all the intensity and purity of a first love, darken the green pathway side, commixed with your own, --if you feel the arm, and grasp the hand of her who clings to you like an ivy, and awakens your very soul, in the justlings and mutual dependencies of every step,-oh! how envious your situation! how exquisite your bliss! Yet, after all, speaking like a rational and a common-sense man, -a character I have done much to acquire, and to preserve which I have made more sacrifices of exquisite folly than all, I believe, it is really worth, a smoking bowl, two good moulded candles, a clean hearth, a clear Newcastle-coal fire, with a suitable accompaniment of blyth, and familiar, and friendly faces, are a match for a deal of whispering, and justling, and moonlight rambling. The good lady, of whose residence and employment, at Kippletringen, even childhood and bed-rid-age have heard, having some friends, male or female, I really forget which, in the |