And all such traitors as dare oppose the state.' p. 177. Not a syllable is added by Mr. Hogg on the vile and dull scurrility of this excellent Scotch song,' as he is pleased to term it—not a word upon the detestable oppression here dignified with the name of the state;' and to oppose which is held so foul a crime. Yet it relates to the man of whom Mr. Fox, in his History, has closed the biography in these memorable words- Such were the last hours, and such the final close of this great man's life. May the like 'happy serenity, in such dreadful circumstances, and a death equally glorious, be the lot of all whom tyranny, of whatever denomi'nation and description, shall in any age or country call to expiate 'their virtues on the scaffold!' p. 211. And with reference to whom, as if with a prophetic knowledge of the sort of persons who were likely to join in crying down so illustrious a martyr to liberty, he afterwards remarks, that our 'disgust is turned into some'thing like compassion for that very foolish class of men whom the 'world calls wise in their generation.' One of these songs, professing to give the character of a Whig, we are told by the critic, was a great favourite with the Tory 'clubs of Scotland during the late war, in detestation of those who 'deprecated the principles of Pitt;' and he observes, that it is the most violent of all the party songs, bitter as they are.' For this reason alone is it here inserted; for its dulness is at least equal to its violence. Of its correct application to the Whigs of our day, the reader may judge, when he is told that it begins with describing them as saintly hypocrites. All this, however, suits Mr. Hogg's nice' and cleanly palate mightily; and that we may have enough of so good a thing, he subjoins the prose character of a Whig, 'drawn by the 'celebrated Butler,' and which sets out with stating him to be the 'spawn of a regicide, hammered out of a rank Anabaptist hypocrite;' and forthwith becomes too indecent to be further transcribed. will here just mention, for the edification of Mr. Hogg, that the 'celebrated Butler,' who, among many other vituperations, compares a Whig to the nettle, because the more gently you handle him, the more he is apt to hurt you,' is well known to those who know any thing of literary history, to have lived in the family, supported by the bounty, of Sir S. Luke, one of Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned his Hudibras, of which he was pleased to make his kind and hospitable patron the hero. Now we defy We the history of Whiggism to match this anecdote,-or to produce so choice a specimen of the human nettle. That we may not close this article without a specimen of the good songs which the book contains, we shall extract the one which, for sly characteristic Scotch humour, seems to us the best; though we doubt if any of our English readers will relish it. 'Donald's gane up the hill hard and hungry; Donald comes down the hill wild and angry; Donald will clear the gouk's nest cleverly. Here's to the king and Donald Macgillavry.* Come like a weigh-bauk, Donald Macgillavry, Come like a weigh-bauk, Donald Macgillavry; Balance them fair, and balance them cleverly: Off wi' the counterfeit, Donald Macgillavry. Donald's run o'er the hill but his tether, man, As he were wud, or stang'd wi' an ether, man; When he comes back, there's some will look merrily: Here's to King James and Donald Macgillavry. Come like a weaver, Donald Macgillavry, Come like a weaver Donald Macgillavry, Pack on your back, and elwand sae cleverly; Gie them full measure, my Donald Macgillavry. [There are quoted three more such stanzas.] 2. LETTER FROM JAMES HOGG TO HIS REVIEWER. a Our readers will not expect us to copy much from this angry reply of Mr. Hogg to the preceding review-when we inform them, that he calls his antagonist, " clumsy booby," jackanapes," "hack of Constable's," "great gawk," a "coarse tyke," four times "an ass" and a "great blackguard!" with a few more indecent epithets. The following are select specimens of his critical witand in the rest of this critique under Mr. Hogg's signature, the reader will find his frankness to be vulgarity, and his bluntness coarse egotism. "What would you think, suppose I should just stop a little-and see what kind of a style you write yourself, you who are so desperate severe a critic on other folk. I'm thinking your style is as bald as the face of "Jem Thomson's auld mare ;" and it is plain you have no idea of composition." * Donald Macgillavry is here put for the Highland Clans generally. "You speak of "a sort of speculative Jacobitism," being "a sort of twin brother to the new-fangled doctrine of legitimacy." You must have a fearful bad ear to endure the jingle there, man; and, besides, "twin brother to a new-fangled doctrine," is terrible bad writing." "You gravely tell us that Hume was a "truly able" man. This is a discovery with a vengeance. Oh, man! "truly able" is just one of the stupidest epithets I ever saw. It makes one almost sick and squeamish to look at it." "His is not that judicious abstinence which gains what greediness never can reach-that delicate hand which feels its way, and gains admittance where brute force knocks in vain." These are, most undoubtedly, two of the very worst metaphors that I ever saw in literature. The charge, too, is perfectly false. I am not a greedy man, though I take my victuals well; and I am sure that I put it into a better skin than some I could mention. Abstinence, in my opinion, is never judicious, except when one has nothing to eat-and that is not likely to be my case, so long as there are mawkins and moorfowl within the bounds of the forest, fish in Yarrow, and trouts in St. Mary's Loch. As to a delicate hand, I never had pretensions to it—but it has felt its way, notwithstanding, wherever there was occasion; and, as to gaining admittance, I have had doors opened to me, before now, by better men in livery than the author of this article. Nobody will accuse him, poor fellow, of "brute force;" for he is weak as a willow. Skip over a page or two of drivelling, which I have already done for, and observe your stupidity in what follows." "Pray who are you, who lived so familiarly with his late Majesty. You are not the gentleman, are you, who once happened to sleep in the same bed with Theodore, king of Corsica, and complained of him because he wore spurs, and vowed never again to sleep in the same bed with a king? I pass over about two score of bad sentences, and come to a piece of severity. "Mr. Hogg carries this a step farther, and tries to cast imputations on the memory of those founders of a liberty, which he either cannot appreciate, because his principles are slavish, or sets little account upon, because its history, its adventures, will not serve to work up into middling poems, and tales calculated to lengthen and sadden a 'winter's evening." The value of a man's principles is best estimated by his life. Now, I have never flattered any man-asked a favour of any man-lived upon any man's money-or been the slave of any man. I defy this my secret enemy to say as much. I have been a hard working man all my life, for many long years on the green hill-side, and for not a few in a brown study. I am better entitled to repeat Smollett's lines than any hack of Constable's: 6 Thy Spirit, Independence! let me share "But what is the use of exposing you any farther? Sitting in among the chaps of the Edinburgh Review, you think yourself, no doubt, a big chiel; but you are far from it-and you must confess -or if you do not-all the rest of the world will-that I have taken you out by the cuff of the neck-given you two or three kicks on the only part about you that can speak any ways intelligibly, and then let you go back in a great fluster to your cronies, who will be telling you, peradventure, that you have given the Shepherd a dressing, which you will try to believe in spite" * * He lives where "the inhabitants, high and low-Scotts, Pringles, Ballantynes, Brydens, Laidlaws, and Hoggs-are all (I may say all, for the exceptions are imperceptible in quantity, and in quality worthless) all animated with the same belief-all born and nursed in the same principles-all ready at a moment's warning, to mount and draw for the protection of those institutions, [aristocracy and monarchy] which, with unceasing pertinacity, you have assailed for twenty years,-which, God be praised, you have as yet ineffectually assailed-and which, I trust, will form the happiness and glory of our children's children, long after it shall have been forgotton that such a thing as the Edinburgh Review ever existed, to say nothing of you and the like of you, that are no better than disgraces to the Review, such as it is." "Your cronies will no doubt tell you that I am in a great passion, and that you have given me a dressing. But I care no more about you than about a cross-bred colley that keeps yowling on a bit knowe by the road-side at folk going by to the kirk-till some one throws two or three chucky-stones at him that make him hide among the heather, till he comes stealing out again, perhaps, by-andby, and impotently gnaws the very granite that gored his hurdies." "But I have no intention to enter into general disquisition-it does not suit me; and I am aware of my own place, however different the case may be with those I am encountering." "Yours with disgust, "JAMES HOGG." [After all this, the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine, Mr. Hogg's friend, speaks of "the Sampson-like style in which Mr. Hogg has quitted himself."-This style may suit the taste of the Ballantynes, the Brydens, the Laidlaws, &c. but it will not answer for the wilds of America.'] ART. III. The Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia. A pastorale Romance. By Sir PHILIP SIDNEY. The eighth edition. London, 1633; folio; pp. 482. [Review August, 1820.] THE name of Sir Philip Sidney is associated with many pleasing and delightful recollections. We remember him as one of the greatest ornaments of the most glorious reign in our annals-as one who communicated to the court of Elizabeth that tincture of romance, which gives it to our view, when seen through the dusky distances of antiquity, a mellow and chastened richness, not unlike the variegated and brilliant colouring with which the rays of the departing sun are embued by the painted windows through which they penetrate, as they "Illume with mellow light the brown-brow'd aisle." We remember him as the patron and friend of our English Ariosto, the author of that enchanting production, The Fairy Queen, which we are sorry to see it is now the fashion to underrate and neglect. And lastly, we remember him as the contemporary of Shakspeare, and as one of the kindred spirits of that enchanted circle, of which Shakspeare was the master magician and wizard supreme. Few characters, indeed, appear so well fitted to excite enthusiastic admiration as that of Sir Philip Sidney. Uniting all the accomplishments which youthful ardour and universality of talent could acquire or bestow-delighting nations with the varied witchery of his powers, and courts with the fascination of his address leaving the learned astonished with his proficiency, and the ladies enraptured with his grace, and communicating, wherever he went, the love and spirit of gladness-he was, and well deserved to be, the idol of the age he lived in. He appeared to be a good in which all nations considered themselves to be interested-not the partial and sole property and product of one people, but an universal benefaction, given and intended for all, and in the glory and honour of which all had a right to be partakers. His death, therefore, was lamented by every court he had visited; and, to do honour to his memory, kings clad themselves in the habiliments of grief, and universities poured forth their tribute of academical sorrow. So rare an union of attractions, so unaccustomed a concentration of excellence, such a compound of military renown with literary distinction, and courtly refinement with noble frankness, gave him a passport to every heart, and secured him, at once, universal sympathy and esteem. He was, indeed, if ever there was one, a gentleman, finished and complete, in whom mildness was associated with courage, erudition mollified by refinement, and courtliness dignified by truth. He is a specimen of what the English character was VOL. II. 15 |