of W-n L-e, who still has it in his possession. We found a comb, a gimblet, a vial, a small neat square board, a pair of plated knee-buckles, and several samples of cloth of dif ferent kinds, rolled neatly up within one another. At length, while we were busy on the search, Mr. Lt picked up a leathern case, which seemed to have been wrapped round and round by some ribbon, or cord, that had been rotten from it, for the swaddling marks still remained. Both Land Be called out that it was the tobacco spleuchan, and a well-filled ane too; but on opening it out, we found, to our great astonishment, that it contained a printed pamphlet

4

-W

"With very little trouble, save that of thorough drying, I unrolled it all with ease, and found the very tract which I have here ventured to lay before the public, part of it in small bad print, and the remainder in manuscript.

"Alongst the head, the title is the same as given in the present edition of the work. I altered the title to A Selfjustified Sinner, but my booksellers did not approve of it; and there being a curse pronounced by the writer on hint that should dare to alter or amend, I have let it stand as it is. Should it be thought to attach discredit to any received principle of our church, I am blameless. The printed part ends at page 340, and the rest is in a fine old hand, extremely small and close. I have ordered the printer to procure a fac-simile of it, to be bound in with the volume.

"With regard to the work itself, I dare not venture a judgment, for I do not understand it. 1 believe no person, man or woman, will ever peruse it with the same attention that I have done, and yet I confess that I do not comprehend the writer's drift. It is certainly impossible that these scenes could ever have occurred, that he describes as having himself transacted. I think it may be possible that he had some hand in the death of his brother, and yet I am disposed greatly to doubt it; and the numerous distorted traditions, &c. which remain of that event, may be attributable to the work having been printed and burnt, and of course the story known to all the printers, with their families and gossips. That the young Laird of Dalcastle came by a violent death, their remains no doubt; but that this wretch slew him, there is to me a good deal. However, allowing this to have been the case, I account all the rest either dreaming or madness; or, as he says to Mr Watson, a religious parable, on purpose to illustrate someting scarcely tangible, but to which he seems to have attached great weight. Were the relation at all con

sistent with reason, it corresponds so minutely with traditionary facts, that it would scarcely have missed to have been received as authentic; but in this day, and with the present generation, it will not go down, that a man should be daily tempted by the devil, in the semblance of a fellow creature; and at length lured to self-destruction, in the hopes that this same fiend and tormentor was to suffer and fall along with him. It was a bold theme for an allegory, and would have suited that age well had it been taken up by one fully quali fied for the task, which this writer was not. In short, we must either conceive him not only the greatest fool, but the greatest wretch, on whom was ever stamped the form of humanity; or, that he was a religious maniac, who wrote and wrote about a deluded creature, till he arrived at that height of madness, that he believed himself the very object whom he had been all along describing. And in order to escape from an ideal tormentor, committed that act for which, according to the tenets he embraced, there was no remission, and which consigned his memory and his name to everlasting detestation."

AN

ELEGIAC BALLAD,

Pithy, plaintive, and pathetic, on the death of poor Peter Wilkinson, who died by the bite of a mad Cat, in the month of July, 1824.

Ah luckless wight thy feeling heart
For those fur off beat high,

And therefore was it thou wert doomed
A feline death to die. He m

IV.

Now ever after all black cats
Be they accursed quite!

Since one hath been the cruel death
Of such a gentle wight. (white)

V.

You would have thought at Paddyntown
He drew his latest breath,
All overwhelmed upon dry ground
By a cat-her-act of death.

VI.

Thus in his very prime of life
Did he go off from us;
Ah! little did we think he was
So Pussy-lanimous.

VII.

The doctor to his mother said,
And his learned head he shook,
"Ah! madam-mad am 1," said he,
And he gave us such a look!

VIII.

You would have thought him in a fit,
But a fit alas! 'twas none,—

He upright in his bed did sit,
In a very loose night gown.

IX.

We laid him in St. Bride's Church-yard,
His bed of rest was deep;

As beds should be when men are laid
With such a bride to sleep.

X.

Upon the left-hand as you tread
The Church-yard path along,
We left him so upon the right
You're sure to seek him wrong.

* I have of late lost all my mirth; and indeed it goes so heavily with my dis position, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

SHAKSPEARE'S HAMLET.