WEEKLY DIARY.

FEBRUARY.

REMARKABLE DAYS.

SUNDAY, 10.-Sexagesima.

See Sep

tuagesima in our last. THURSDAY, 14.-Saint Valentine. Valentine was an ancient presbyter of the church: after a year's imprisonment at Rome he was beaten with clubs, and then beheaded, in the Via Flaminia, about the year 270, under Claudius II. The modern celebration of this day, with young persons, is well known; and it may be some consolation, to those who complain of the gradual decline of good old customs, to be informed, that the practice of sending Valentines' on this day still flourishes in undiminished vigour; it appearing by the returns of the Two-penny Post Office, that the number of letters which passed through that office on the 14th of February, 1821, exceedthe usual daily average by the number of 200,000 letters!

that

Immoved,

bly little more was wanting; but two blows are always nion, even in thought, with those beatified spirits
better than one; and as in a question of morality, or
any other, where men's interests do not compel them
to act or decide, twenty are often insufficient, the se-
cond, though infinitely weaker, may have some con-
sequence.

By a pleasant fellow, I mean a man universally accounted so; for in certain moods of the mind, and in particular societies, we all answer to the description: —where opinions are all in agreement-where a mad speculation is kept in decent countenance, or one com

mon-place seconded by another—where our prejudi

ces are humoured, our likes and dislikes nursed, and

cherished,-where men clap hands to the same song,
and join in the same chorus, there is a nest of plea-

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
And for the testimony of truth have borne
Universal reproach-

Judged them perverse

Though worlds

that looks on life as a needle's point in the vast eternity of time, can have much regard for its polish, or sympathy with our childish excitement?

Pleasant people are never backbone' men; they are never heart and hand with you. Their acquaintances are usually of long standing, because quarreling is not their cue;' but separate them by any circum

sant fellows, though they may be wise men or mad- stance, and they are indifferent to it. Their hand is men, honest men or knaves.

fellow in all companies, and on all occasions; has a

But the pleasant fellow I mean is equally a pleasant

spare bed in every other man's house, a knife and
fork at their table, a good welcome, go when and
where he will, and a good word after he is gone.

There are many shades and distinctions in this class,
as in all others, but these are the distinguishing fea-
tures of them. Some give you a most fearful shake
of the hand on meeting, and hold you by it with a sort
of tremulous enjoyment, as if loth to part so soon ;—
constantly off your guard, and are delighted to see a
have a boyish joyousness about them, that puts you

therefore never subject their feelings to the latter un

friend any where, but at their own house or in jail, and

Valentine's-day, we are happy to find, was not forgotten by the intrepid seamen of the arctic expedition, while laid up in Winter Harbour, and experiencing all the rigours of a North Georgian season; accordingly a jeu d'esprit on the subject appeared in their very entertaining GaA really pleasant fellow is neither a hateful, nor a zette, entitled 'Hyperborean Privilege,' from which we make the following ex-ding person, full of an easy sympathy, active, zealous contemptible one; but is generally a very unpreten

tract.

Young Cupid fond of unity,
Our Boreal community
Defy you with impunity;

Your arrows and your bow.
This day of sensibility,
And Valentine's fertility,
Displays inviucibility
Among the northern snow.
Blest with inflexibility
To bright eyes and gentility,
We owe no liability

Of being hurt by you.
Almost devoid of covering,
In southern climes stay hovering,
The cold would set you shivering;
So, urchin boy, adieu!

For o'er our hearts you must your pow'r resign,
Till we, returning, bow at beauty's shrine.

PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT PEOPLE.

pleasantness. Another variety are only pleasant on
but this last is a contemptible, mongrel breed.
fresh acquaintance, or where it serves their purpose;

|

not against, neither is it for any man. It is not found in the sheriff's books,-this bond hath it not! They do good, I admit, well measured and doled out; but in this they have the advantage of the world, both in opinion and return.

Laying aside, for the present, whatever may personally affect either, for then it is often the reverse of true, I should say, that pleasant and unpleasant people differ most in this, that the one is without imagination, and looks to the naked reality: the other, with imagination,' aggravates' either joy or sorrow.

Unpleasant people have the larger sympathy and more universal humanity. This, it may be said, is contradictory, and opposed to what I have before observed of pleasant people. But if it be a contradiction, it is in human nature; and, to use an apology of Fielding's, I am not writing a system, but a history, and am not obliged to reconcile every matter.' But I think it is not a contradiction. The pleasant man day feelings; the man of more questionable temper is sympathizes with the world in its ordinary and every

roused only by extraordinary circumstances. But he is then awakened to some purpose. He makes common cause with you, in sorrow or suffering; he will needs bear his share of your burthen; for if a portion will be oppressive to him, he sees you sinking under the whole. The pleasant fellow, on the contrary, measures his own shoulders and not your load; he will not lend a hand, and give the groan to your three man beetle' labour; he is content that you should sit down and rest, but has no fancy to bear, the logs the while.'

The great majority of these pleasant fellows are indebted to their negative rather than their positive qua

in a degree, with a quiet self-enjoyment, an enlarged
humanity that includes all mankind, and woman kind
too, for it knows neither distinction nor preference:
taking all things pleasantly that concern him not indi-
vidually, and thereby making all things pleasant;
even sacrificing personal considerations, and always
personal consequence and self-respect, in trifles to the
enjoyment of others; setting up no system, nor pull-❘
ing down any; having no theories, no dreams, no visi-
ons, no opinions that he holds worth wrangling or dis-
puting about; and, indeed, few opinions at all. He
has always a dash more of the animal than of the intel-
lectual about him; and is too mercurial-minded to be
easily fixed, or fixed upon. He lives only in the pre-lities; they have no deep feeling, no engrossing sym-
sent; for the past is immediately forgotten, because
it has no farther consequence, and the future is a
blank, because it has no perceptible influence. As he
can be delighted with a straw, so is he depressed with
its shadow; prick him and he will bleed; tickle him
and he will laugh; poison him and he will die; for
he has none of the fervency of imagination to carry
him out of himself or beyond immediate circumstances.
He is fitted neither for the godly fellowship of the The two subjects on which men feel most intensely,
prophets, nor for the noble army of martyrs. If pro- politics and religion, are shut out from the conversa-
phets or martyrs have ever been pleasant fellows, as tion of a pleasant fellow; for there is no sure common-
some are reported, it was that from the vast height place that will suit all sects and parties on either sub-
whence they looked down on the common and ordina-ject; and to hazard an opinion is to speculate with

I HAVE no desire to jostle people out of their good self-opinion, or the good opinion of others, but to ascertain their real worth, to separate their vices from their virtues, and to have a little more equal dealing in our ordinary judgment of men. Steele, I think, in the Tatler, has in his brief way given an able judg-ry passion and turmoil of the world it seemed too puny ment on this very subject; and Mr. Hazlitt, some years since, wrote an Essay expressly on it. Possi

and insignificant to interest or excite them. Who
that is intent on an immortal life, and holds commu-

pathy, no universal fellowship; the establishments of the Holy Alliance, and the Abolition of the Inquisition, were the same to them; let the gall'd jade wince, their withers are unwrung;' let the world go whistle' they have their toast and coffee. I would wager my existence that the man, mentioned by Clarendon, as out hunting in the neighbourhood of Edge-bill on the very morning of the fight, was one of them.

his character, and put his amiability in jeopardy. Yet these men are the soul of mixed company, because their souls are in it; and there is no unpleasant

shadow either of memory or anticipation to overcast their jollity.

without adverting to the rather prolix explanations with which the learned author has thought proper to preface his subject. to every-Lit. Gaz.

Pleasant and unpleasant men are alike the sport of fortune and circumstance; equally subject skiey influence,' but not in an equal degree. The personal suffering of the one has no foil from the greater sufferings of thousands; the other has a measure and proportion, and considers it in relation to what might be, or has been; it is a touch that awakens his humanity :--a pebble does not bruise because it has fallen on him; he remembers the stoning of Stephen ;-a twinge of the rheumatism is borne as one of those natural ills that flesh is heir to,' and rouses him only as he remembers the infliction of the torture and the rack, that so many human beings have been subjected to in all ages for opinion, whether of belief or unbelief. The prick of a pin is painful to the one as it affects bimself; there is more sorrowing at it than at the Battle of Waterloo; to the other it is the prick of a pin.

In Scotland, the guid folk are not the best of archers, since the triangular flints with which the shafts of their arrows are barbed do not always take effect, and are therefore found strewed on the hills;

but the Shetland dwarfs are much more successful, none of their arrows having ever glanced aside, so as to afford a fertile theme of speculation for the northern antiquary, who, if they could have been found in the country, might have assigned their origin to some imaginary Pictish race that had fled from the pursuit of King Kenneth.

When the Trows are so successful as to shoot one

THE Dwarfs of Shetland, (says Dr. H.) who dwell among the hills, are to be considered as the same malevolent beings who are to be found in the Scandinavian Edda; and as it is deemed dangerous to offend them by any terms of obloquy, however well merited, they are also named the guid folk, words of similar import being used at the present day for the self-same of the best fatlings that is to be met with, they delude reason in the Feroe Islands, as well as in other places. the eyes of its owner with the substitution of some It does not appear that the popular belief in the vile substance possessing the same form as that of the and Trows has much varied, since, as objects of semblance of its sudden death, as if it were produced personal appearance, habits, and influence of these animal which they have taken away, and with the Pagan worship, they were enumerated by pious Ca- either by natural or violent means. It is on this actholics among the list of fallen angels: for the Shetcount that the bodies of animals which have perished lander still sains or blesses himself, as he passes near by accident are condemned as unlawful food. A Shettheir haunts, in order to get rid of his fearful visit-lander at the present day affirms, that he was once ́ants. Although, according to the theory of the early taken into a hill by the Trows, when the first object Divines of Scotland, the light of the Reformed Reli- that he saw was one of his own cows brought in for gion ought to have long ago expelled from the land the purpose of furnishing a savoury supply for a banthese agents of heathenism and popery, yet they are quet. So precarious at the same time was the man's individual preservation, that he considers himself as scarcely less seen than formerly, and cannot be considered as in the act of emigrating to climes where indebted for it to the gracious protection of a fairy they will be more cherished. They are described, at lady, under whose special favour he had been admitthe present day, as a people of small stature, gaily ted within the cave. On returning to his friends dressed in habiliments of green. BRAND, however, whom he had left on the earth's surface, he learned says, that in his days they were often seen in Orkney, that at the very moment when, with his own organ of clad in complete armour. They partake of the nature vision, he had observed the cow conveyed into the of men and spirits, yet have material bodies, with interior of the hill, other earthly eyes had beheld the the means, however, of making themselves invisible. animal in the act of falling over the rocks. In this In our estimate of unpleasant people, we all give They have also the power of multiplying their spe- instance, then, the real cow had been abstracted, and cies thus a female of the Island of Yell, who some an illusory image left in its place, lacerated and dead. weight enough to their disagreeable and palpable deyears ago died at the advanced age of one hundred As the Trows are not altogether secure from disfects, but are not so ready to make the just deduction years, or more, once met some fairy children, accomeases, they possess among themselves medicines of from a pleasant fellow, because his are neither so ob-panied by a little dog, playing, like other boys and as invaluable efficacy as those which, in the seventrusive, nor so likely to affect ourselves. There girls, on the top of a hill. At another time, whilst teenth century, immortalized the name of Anne Jefin bed, she had occasion to stretch herself up, when feries of Cornwall, who, with salves derived from would be more equality in our commendation or dispraise, and consequently more justice in the decision, seeing a little boy, with a white nightcap on his head, fairies, performed many special miraculous cures. sitting at the fire, she asked him who he was. I There was, for example, a good man in the Island of if we balanced the general virtues of the one against am TRIPPA's son,' answered he. Upon hearing Unst, who had an earthen-pot containing an unguent his palpable faults, and the indifference and moral in- which, the good woman sained herself, that is, called of infallible power, which he alleged was obtained by on GOD to be about her, and TRIPPA's son immedi-him from the hills, and, like the widow's craise, it significance of the other against his pleasant virtues. ately vanished. It is in this spirit that the selfish hardness and callosity with which pleasant people shake off care and sorrow, and are made insensible to any deep or lasting passion, is mistaken so often for elasticity of spirit.

Pleasant fellows are indifferent, cold, heartless, unintellectual people; there is no engrossing passion, no oppressive thought, no prejudice, and therefore, possibly no partiality or strong friendship; for friendship is but a partiality, founded on something real, which it tricks up into something unreal. We are none of us what our friends fondly believe.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE

SHETLAND ISLANDS,

Comprising an Account of their Geology, Scenery,
Antiquities, and Superstitions.

By Samuel Hibbert, M. D. F. R. S. E. &c.

was never exhausted of its contents.

These sprites are much addicted to music and dancing, and, when they make their excursions, it is generally with an imposing effect, being accompanied by the most exquisite harmony:

"Like Fairy elves

Whose midnight revels, by a forest side,
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while over head the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearest to the earth
Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear."

Several Shetlanders, among whom are warlocks and witches, have enjoyed a communion with the guid folk, and, by a special indulgence, have been transported in the air, whenever occasion served, from one island to another. In their visits to Trolhouland, or any other knoll of a similar description, they have been allowed to enter the interior of the hill at one side, and to come out of it at the other; and, in this subterraneous journey, have been dazzled with the splendour exhibited within the recesses through which they have passed. They report that all the interior walls are adorned with gold and silver, and that the domestic utensils of the place, peculiar to Fairy-land, resemble the strange implements that are sometimes A Shetlander, while lying in bed, heard one morn→ found lying abroad on the hills, which sceptical anti-ing before day-light the noise of a large company of quaries ascribe to an early race of inhabitants who Trows passing his door, accompanied by a piper. peopled Shetland. Thus there are innumerable sto- Having a musical ear, he readily learnt the air that ries told of Trows, who, in their rambles, have care- was played, which he would afterwards repeat, callessly left behind them utensils of a shape unknown ling it by the name of the Fairy-tune. The site where to human contrivance. Sometimes the dairy-maid the dances of the guid folk are held, is, as in other observes a fairy woman in the act of clandestinely countries, to be detected by the impressions in the We are led to believe that Dr. Hib-milking the cows in the byre, upon which she sains form of rings which their tiny feet make on the grass; bert's work was originally geological; and herself, when the evil spirit takes so precipitous a and within such unholy precincts it is hazardous for a that the publication of The Pirate induced flight, as to leave behind her a copper pau, of a form him to superadd the descriptions of the manners and customs of Shetland. However this may be, we are sure that the grafts are likely to be more popular than the stem; and therefore to these we shall at once turn our readers' attention, without fastening them on the Rocks, and breaking their hearts with stratifications (just as if they were so many Prometheuses, and we only Critical Vultures), and

never before seen.

The Trows of the hills have a relish for the same kind of food, that affords a sustenance to the human race, and when, for some festal occasion, they would regale themselves with good beef or mutton, they repair to the Shetlander's scatholds or town-mails, and employ elf-arrows to bring down their victims.

"There ev'ry herd by sad experience knows

How wing'd with fate these elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,
Or stretch'd on earth the heart-smit heifers die."

Christian to enter.

"Their nightly dancing ring I always dread,
Nor let my sheep within that circle tread;
Where round and round all night, in moonlight fair,
They dance to some strange music in the air."

The Trows are addicted to the abstraction of the human species, in whose place they leave effigies of living beings named Changelings, the unholy origin of whom is known by their mental imbecility, or by some wasting disease. Although visits for such a purpose are to be particularly dreaded at midnight

and at noon, yet to childbed-women who may be designed for wet-nurses to some fairy infant of quality, the latter hour is, as in certain Asiatic countries, by far the most formidable. On this account, it is still a point of duty not to leave, in so fearful an hour, mothers who give suck, but, like pious St. Basil, to pray that the influence of the demon of noon may be averted. Children also are taken away to the hills, in order to be play-fellows to the infant offspring of the Trows; on which occasion, all the lamentable effects have been produced that have been so well depicted by an elegant poet of Scotland, in his address to the muse of the Highlands.

When an impression prevails that any childbedwomen or infants, pining away with disease, or betraying a mental fatuity, are beings of a "base elfin breed," substituted by the Trows, in the place of those whom they may have taken into the hills, no inducement can persuade a family, labouring under such a persuasion, to afford the objects of commisseration entrusted to their care, the attention which their situation demands. Nor, on such melancholy occasions, are there wanting persons who pretend to the power of entering the caves of the fairies, and of restoring the human beings who may be immured in them, to their friends. A warlock of the parish of Walls is said to have amassed a considerable sum of money by assuming such an influence over the demons of the bills; his success being denoted by the apparent recovery of childbed-women or children from the diseases under which they had laboured.

dustry of these Papists would resemble that of the
holy freres of England, so well described by Geoffrey
Chaucer :

"That serchen every land and every streme,
As thikke as motes in the sonne-beme,
Blissing halles, chambres, kitchenes and boures,
Citees and burghes, castles high and toures,
Throps and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries."

THE DRAMA.

MANCHESTER DRAMATIC REGISTER.

polis became very soon satiated with the puny, Tom Thumb representative of heroes.

Miss Fisher's conception of character, is, certainly, not her own, as her delineation of passions, unknown to a child, will amply demonstrate to a critical spectator. Her chief merit consists in a retentive memory, and considerable powers of imitation, which, by assiduous cultivation, have enabled her to produce performances, which few children of her age can rival: but even these, in their greatest perfection, are poor substitutes for that excitation of the feelings, and intensity of interest, which the representation of full grown Actors, (when masters of

Monday, Feb. 4th.-Hamlet: Ophelia, Miss Wens- their art) so powerfully produce.
ley; with X. Y. Z.

The whining of a child in Richard or Hamlet, can
Tuesday, 5th.-Adrian and Orrilla: Orrilla, Miss only produce laughter, from its obvious inadequacy,
Wensley;-with Monsieur Tonson.

Wednesday, 6th.-Sons of Erin Lady Ann Lovel,
Miss Wensley; with Monsieur Tonson.
Friday, 8th.-Belle's Stratagem; with The Blind
Boy: Letitia Hardy and Edmund, Miss Wensley.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR, The success of one wonder naturally produces another, and the line will 'stretch out till the crack of doom;' Young Betty has caused various Roscii and Roscia to arise, and now we have one produced at six years old; and I do not despair of seeing Richard and Hamlet performed by an infant of two years old; if I should live a few years longer.

Now this, though it may set on a quantity of barren spectators to laugh,' must 'cause the judicious to grieve; and will most certainly lead to the ultimate degradation of the stage, by substituting the wonderful for the natural, and by exciting astonishment at the exhibition of powers out of the common course of nature, instead of cultivating the taste, and gratifying

I have spoken, as if the exhibition of infantile talents on the stage, were a novelty; but on the contrary, we find that the experiment has been repeatedly tried, in the earlier times of the British Stage, and Shakespeare himself has recorded and lamented the practice.

When the limb of a Shetlander is affected with paralysis, a suspicion often arises that it has been either touched by evil spirits, or that the sound member has been abstracted, and an insensible mass of matter substituted in its place. A tailor now living reports, that he was employed to work in a farm-the judgement. house where there was an idiot, who was supposed to be a being left by the Trows, in the place of some individual that had been taken into the hills. One night when the visitor had just retired to his bed, leaving the changeling asleep by the fire-side, he was startled by the sound of music; at the same time, a large company of fairies entered the room, and began to bestir themselves in a festive round. The idiot suddenly jumped up, and in joining their gambols, showed a familiarity with the movements of the dance, that none but a supernatural inhabitant of the hills could be supposed to possess. The observer grew alarmed and sained himself; upon hearing which, all the elves immediately fled in most admired disorder; but one of the party, a female, more disconcerted than the rest at this inhospitable interruption to their sports, touched the tailor's big toe as she left the room, when he lost the power of ever afterwards moving that joint.

Such are the details which I was enabled to collect, relative to the Trows that inhabit the interior of the Shetland hills. In no country are there more habitations remaining of unclean spirits than in Thule. All these had their origin in the mythology of the ancient Scandinavians; and when Christianity was introduced into Shetland, a belief in the existence of gods, giants, or dwarfs, still remained, with this qualification only, that they were fallen angels of various ranks belonging to the kingdom of darkness, who, in their degraded state, had been compelled to take up their abode in mountains, springs, or seas. These were tenets conveniently subservient to the office of exoreism, which constituted a lucrative part of the emoluments of the inferior Catholic clergy, with whom Orkney and Shetland were in ancient times overrun. We may, therefore, reasonably expect, that the in

There is, Sir, an aiery of children,-little eyases that cry out on the top of the question, and are most tyrannically clapp'd for't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages, (so they call them) that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither.'

'Do the boys carry it away?
Ay, that they do, my Lord.'

HAMLET.

Let the stage be kept to hold the mirror up to nature;' which certainly cannot be done by the whining representation of Richard by a girl of ten. Let powerful and vigorous illustrations of the poet's fancy be encouraged, and do not let us be satisfied by merely wondering how a child could be so well taught, or could have so retentive a memory.

Miss C. Fisher's success has not (in spite of puffing) been any thing to compare with that of young Betty; and, although play-bills might declare that she filled the theatre 17 nights at Drury-Lane, the managers found their treasury not much benefitted for some of the concluding nights; and the metro

to produce any dangerous consequences, when it pretends to threaten, stamp, and look big. And in Falstaff, when laughter should be excited, by the cunning, wit, and humor, of the fat greasy knave, it is excited by the absurd contrast between the bulky Lilliputian, and the figures of the rest of the Dramatis Personæ.

We have enough of wonders on the stage to share the applause with the Actors, without calling in the aid of children.-Elephants, Horses, Dogs and Monkies, have trod the classical boards of Covent Garden Theatre, and those of most of the provincial houses; let us be content with them: and banish the inhabitants of the nursery to more congenial pursuits, than murdering Shakespeare, and exposing themselves to precocious infamy, as well as disease; for both are the too frequent results, of such improper and premature exposures.

The greatest poet of the present day said, when speaking of young Betty

"Now thank heaven the Rosciomania's o'er, "And full grown Actors are endur'd once more." And I, Mr. Editor, heartily join in his gratulations. JACK BUNCE.

TO CORRESPONDENTS. The Correspondents to the Iris, are respectfully requested to send their communications on, or before, the Wednesday preceding the day of publication.

The Memoir of Wm. Aikman is unavoidably postponed.

Poetical communications have been received from S. T. T.—T. H.-G.-B.-S.-Anon.-Jenkins, and Juvenis.

The Heraldric query in our next.

D's suggestions shall have our attention.
The Letter of Discipulus came too late for insertion,
it shall appear in our next.

T. W. A. will perceive that he was anticipated. We
shall feel obliged by his future favours.
Queries intended for the Iris should be accompanied
with the solutions.

Letter-Box in the Door.

Manchester:

Printed, Published, and Sold,

BY HENRY SMITH AND BROTHERS,
14, St. Ann's-Square.
Sold also by the Booksellers.

rina, whose grief shews itself in unfeminine taunts, | inflexible despair, or a boisterous, declamatory sorloud boisterous declamation, and sarcasms on the row, mixed with invectives against destiny. misrule of this world; by which, though his lordship may delight in it, certainly the interest and the beauty of the female character, cannot be heightened.

18

'I feel athirst-will no one bring me here A cup of water?'

After this he becomes faint, and dies on attempt- | Clerk, of Pennycnick, Bart. His birth occurred in The Doge his father is the year 1681 or 2, and eventually he was designed ing to leave his prison. deposed, and on hearing the tolling of the bell for by his parents for the bar, being a youth of brilliant his successor, he becomes violently agitated, and intellect. However, the bent of his genius and ap plication lay in painting, and he first sought improveafter walking a few steps, stops and says ment by repairing to London, to study under Sir John Medina, a painter of high reputation at the commencement of the last century. After which he took a tour, first visiting Rome, where he made some stay to perfect his practice. He then visited Constantinople and Smyrna, and again arrived in London, and shortly after returned to his native country, with the patronage of John Duke of Argyle, and other Scottish Noblemen.

Loredano gives him one, on which he talks of an 'that if aught of venom old legend, which says, touches Venetian crystal it will burst;' certainly a very inconsistent remark from one who believes religion to be a cheat, and whose previous character had been principally marked by general scepticism.

His agitation encreases, and thus is terminated.

In the course of three years, after painting many portraits with an ability highly reputable, he returned to London to pursue his professional avocations; at He sinks !-support him!-quick-a chair-sup- the same time he embraced the study of the sister port him!

DOGE.

Arts of Poetry and Music, and became with ardour
the Muses' friend. Mr. Aikman brought Allan Ram-

The bell tolls on!-let's hence-my brain's on fire! say into notice at Edinburgh, and James Thomson in

(The DOGE drops down and dies.)

And so ends the last tragedy, his lordship has written, and I hope that he ever will attempt to write. The last and greatest piece in this volume, is Cain,' a dramatic poem, containing greater beauties and greater defects than either of those which precede it; but as I have already exceeded my limits I shall postpone my remarks on Cain until next week.

BIOGRAPHY.

TO THE EDITOR.

NEMO.

"Dear to the good and wise, disprais'd by none,
Here sleep in peace, the Father and the Son,
By virtue, as by nature, close ally'd
The painter's genius, but without the pride.
Worth unambitious, wit afraid to shine,
Honour's clear light, and friendship's warmth divine.
The son, fair rising, knew too short a date;
But oh! how more severe the parent's fate,
He saw him torn untimely from his side,
Felt all a father's anguish-wept and died."

John Aikman has etched two or three plates which consist of three or four busts introduced into each plate; some of these are selected or copied from touched in with spirit, and evince an emulation to prints or etchings by Vandyke. These essays are attain to the perfections of that renowned artist from which they are borrowed.

Manchester, Feb. 1822.

SEA STORIES;

No. I.

T. D.

London, introducing the latter, not only to the first
wits in England, but, to the Minister Walpole. A Or, the Voyage and adventures of Cyril Shenstone, Esq.
cordial friendship also subsisted between Aikman and
the poet Somerville. His death (greatly accelerated
by grief at the loss of his only Son) occurred in the
year 1741, at his house in Leicester fields, in the
sixtieth year of his age.

The sails are filled-the anchor weighed,
The vessel on her way proceeds.'-OLD SONG.

In the summer of the year-I took my passage in the Squalldriver; we were bound forlightfully. and I spent the first part of my voyage most de

The view of the vast and boundless expanse of waters, may, to many, be tiresome and monotonous, but with me it has quite the contrary effect. Hours could I linger luxuriously reclining over the keel, which was rapidly ploughing it's way through the foaming waves, gazing upon the tumultuous billows as they sparkled and foamed up, and then sunk again, as the vessel cut through them. There is nothing more delightful, nothing which renders the mind so pleased and satisfied with itself, as the view of this mighty element in it's peaceful mood; and nothing more awful and terrific than to see it raging in all the wild and grand majesty of a storm.

Many excellent portraits of eminent characters of the day, and more particularly of contemporary poets and persons of high distinction emanated from his pencil. Mr. Vertue highly commends the portrait of Gay the poet. From this picture a print has been engraved in mezzotinto by Francis Kyte.-In addition, portraits of the following persons have been engraved from Mr. Aikman's pictures; of Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun; etch'd by the Earl of Buchan: of Wm. Carstairs, S. T. P. Edinburgh; by Richard Cooper of John Duke of Argyle, in Birch's lives; by J. Houbraken: of Charles Lord Cathcart, in armour; by W. Werdler: of Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Haddington'; in mezzotinto, by John Smith; a singular inscription is prefixed to this fine print, namely, "Simon the Dutch Skipper:" of Sir Heu Dalrymple of North Berwick, President of the Court of Session; by R. Cooper of Allan Ramsay, the poet; in mezzoOne evening, as I was carelessly reclining over the tinto, by G. White: of James Thomson, the poet ; by Basire: of Wm. Kent, the architect; by Ra-side of the ship, I witnessed a most lovely and pleasing scene. As far as the eye could extend, all was calm and still, and the tiny undulating waves played and rippled (as if in disport) round the almost motionless ship. The last faint quivering rays of the sun shone upon the clouds, which appeared reluctant to part with them, and the moon, the usurper of his station, sat encircled with her bright companions shining around her, and shed her purest beam of beauty upon The light soft evening breeze which had now arisen, and whose coolness (for it had been a very A portrait of W. Aikman is in the celebrated work sultry day) was inexpressibly grateful, began to crisp entitled Museum Florentinum.'

venet.

SIR, If it should prove in any way interesting to the perusers of your Miscellany to introduce documents connected with Arts and Artists, I shall feel happy occasionally to furnish you with a few BiograOf Mr. Aikman's practice in the calcographic art, phical notices of such persons, and more particularly the only existing example that can be traced, is an those, who have in any way exercised their genius or professional talent in the Calcographic Art. Engrav- etching of the portrait of George Edwards, a celeing is an art in which its fruitful resources do interest brated naturalist. This portrait is within an oval, in a greater or less degree, persons of every quali-encompassed with feathers, birds, &c. &c. and is fication in society; who seek in this mirror of nature, signed W. A. fe.-Small 4to. those subjects that tend either to heighten or cultivate their refinement, or to add to their intellectual amusements; by which the most pleasing and durable reflections are impressed on the faculties of those who seek the gratifying results of its communication. For the present I shall present you with a BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WILLIAM AIKMAN,

And notice his Son John.

Wm. Aikman was the only Son of Wm. Aikman, of Cairnes, Esq. by Margaret, daughter of Sir John