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In Reikie sounds the town-guard's drum no

more,

Nor cadie plies, nor "wha wants me" is near, Her Luckenbooths now choak the common shore,

And" Gardeloo" but seldom meets the ear. Those days are gone-but wenches still are here:

Lands fall, flats empty-nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Reikie once was dear,
With her cheap clarets' bright festivity,
Revel of tappet-hen, high-jinks, and mut-
ton-pie!

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her lands of fourteen stories, long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms des-
pond

Above the Provostless city's waning sway:
Ours is a trophy which will not decay,
With all the Bailies-Brodie, Thomas

Muir,

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Girdles it in—a space that may be smelt !
So we go on, I fear to little good-
Meanwhile the rivals one another pelt!
Oh, for one hour of him who knew no feud,
Th' octogenarian chief, the kind old Sandy
Wood!

Notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
CANTO V.

Chiefly Written by MR H.
STANZA 1.

"I stood, Edina, on thy bridge of sighs, For who that passes but has sighed or bann'd," &c.

The reason given in the text for affixing the appellation of "bridge of sighs" to the bridge commonly called the North Bridge, which joins the old and new town of Edinburgh, may be the true one; for the hideous building alluded to, which, like Satan's Pandemonium, lately 66 rose like an exhalation" out of the North Loch, has been more sighed over and execrated by the good people of Edinburgh, than any thing which has happened in our day, if we except the publication of that unparalleled piece of blasphemy and scurrility called the Chaldee MSS. A more accurate investigation, leading to a very curious historical illustration, will, however, point out a more probable explanation of this term. It is perhaps not generally known to the inhabitants of this renowned city, that there are certain dungeons called "pozzi," or whatever other delicate name you may choose to give them, sunk in the thick walls of the bridge, which, from the groans that issue from them, may well get the name of the Bridge of Sighs. You descend to them by a narrow trap-stair, and crawl down through a passage half-choked by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the level of the street. If you are in want of consolation for the general extinction of Cloacinian patronage in Edinburgh, perhaps you may find it there, though scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells; and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A small hole in the lower wall admits the damp air from the loch below, and serves for the deposition of the prisoners' food. A wooden cross bar, raised about two feet from the ground, is the only furniture. There are many cells in the same line; but there are some beneath the others, and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only one

prisoner was found when the Magistrates descended to inspect these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen minutes. But the inmates of the dungeons had left traces of their repentance, or of their despair, which are still visible, and may perhaps owe something to recent in

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This line alludes to a very curious old rhyme which the author of Childe Harold and another English gentleman, the writer of this notice, heard when they were rowed to Pettycur with two singers, one of whom was a chairman, and the other a fisherman. The former placed himself at the bow, the latter at the stern of the boat. A little after leaving the pier of Leith they began to sing, and continued their exercise until we arrived off Inchkeith. They gave us, among other essays, "The Death of Sir Patrick Spence," and Wat ye wha's in yon town," and did not sing English but Scotch verses. The chairman, however, who was the cleverer of the two, and was frequently obliged to prompt his companion, told us that he could translate the original. He added, that he could sing almost three hundred stanzas, but had not spirits (fuirntosh was the word he used) to learn any more, or to sing what he already knew. A man must have idle time

on his hands to acquire or to repeat; "and, said the poor fellow," look at my breeks and at me; I am starving." This speech was more affecting than his performance, which habit alone can make attractive. The recitative was shrill, screaming, and monotonous, and the fisherman behind assisted his voice by plugging his finger into one side of his mouth, and making his cheek sound "buck" as he drew it out. The chairman used a quiet action, something like the regular jolt of a chair; but he became too much interested in his subject altogether to repress his yehemence. The verses to which my noble friend so elegantly alludes are the following: Glasgow for bells,

66

Linlithgow for wells,

Edinburgh for writers and wh-es."

Many, amongst the lower classes, these men informed us, are familiar with this interesting and most comprehensive stanza, which, for rapid sketching, is equal to any thing in our language.

STANZA 4.

"Provostless city,"

Vates, I remember being taught at Harrow (I owe all to the benevolent birch of Dr Joseph Drury), signifies a prophet as well as a poet. It is in the former character that I speak here. Edinburgh has still her Provost and her Bailies, but how long?" All the law proceedings on this interesting question, as well as every scrap that has been spoken or written on the subject of the new buildings on the Bridge of Sighs, shall appear in the historical illustrations.

"Brodie."

Thanks to the acumen of the Scotch, we know as little of Brodie as ever. The hypothesis which carried many along in its current, viz. that he is still alive, is run out ; and we have thus another proof that we can never be sure that the paradox, the most singular, and therefore having the most agreeable and authentic air, will not give way to the established ancient prejudice.

It seems however certain, in the first place, that although Brodje was born, lived, and was hanged, we have no proof that he was buried. The Grey-friars and the Westkirk may indeed resume their pretensions, and even the exploded Calton-hill may again be heard with complacency. That deliberate duties were performed round a carcase deposited in one of these three places of interment, twelve hours after the execution, we have incontestible proofs,-but who knows whether it was not the body of one who died of the plague, or of the typhus fever? Did any one see the mark of the rope round the neck? There was indeed a false key and a forged note thrown into the grave along with it; but that may have been done out of mere malice. It does not appear that even Bailie Johnston could bring ocular proof (though he were to produce the skeleton) that this was the identi cal Brodie.

Secondly, Brodie was very tender of his life, and very prudent in his schemes; and it is well known that he had contrived some little machinery, by which the alternate risings and fallings of the rope might be obviated, and even the first hangman of the age be deceived. Brodie's love of life was certainly not Platonic. The happiness which he longed to possess did not lie in another world, and that he looked upon any such vain expectation as either too shadowy, too much of mind, and too little of matter, for his taste, may be perhaps detected in at least six places of his own letters. In short, his love for life was neither Platonic nor poetical, and if, in one passage (he understood Italian, for he lived much with fiddlers) he speaks of " amore veementissimo ma unico ed onesta," he confesses, in a letter to a friend, that it was guilty and perverse, that it absorbed him quite, and mastered his heart.

"Thomas Muir."

Thomas Muir retired to Fontainbleau immediately on being carried into France, after his unsuccessful attempt to escape from Botany Bay to America, and, with the excep

tion of his celebrated visit to Paris in company with Tom Paine, he appears to have passed his last years in that charming solitude. He was in a state of great pain from his wound for some months previous to his death, but was at last, one morning, found dead in his library chair, with his hand resting upon The Rights of Man." The chair is still kept among the precious relics of Fontainbleau; and from the uninter

rupted veneration that has been attached to every thing relative to this great man, from the moment of his death to the present time, it has a better chance of authenticity than even the chair on which the great Napoleon, at the same place, signed his first abdication, and which has been waggishly termed his

Elba-chair.

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The reader will recollect the exclamation of the Highlander, "Oh, for one hour of Dundce!"-Sandy Wood (one of the delightful reminiscences of old Edinburgh) was at least eighty years of age when in high repute as a medical man, he could yet divert himself in his walks with the "hie schuil laddies," or bestow the relics of his universal benevolence in feeding a goat or a raven. There is a prophecy of Meg Merrilies, in which these ancients are thus alluded to. "A gathering together of the powerful shall be made amidst the caves of the inhabitants of Dunedin,-Sandy is at his rest: they shall beset his goat, they shall profane his raven, they shall blacken the buildings of the infirmary: her secrets shall be examined: a new goat shall bleat until they have measured out and run over fifty-four feet

nine inches and a half."-After having reigned more than thirty years at the head of his profession, he died full of years and honours, and was buried. Strangely enough must it sound, that though there are still many excellent medical practitioners in Edinburgh of the name of Wood (not to mention the rebel quack apothecary who migrated to Manchester, and called himself Dr Lignum), there is not one Sandy among them.

As these notes would run out to much too great a length for the poem to which they are appended, it is proposed to publish the remainder in two large quarto volumes, on the model of Dr Drake's Shakspeare and his times.

H.

SOME REMARKS ON W'S ACCOUNT OF THE KRAKEN, COLOSSAL CUTTLEFISH, AND GREAT SEA SERPENT.

MR EDITOR,

I AM a sea-faring man, and have, in my time, seen sights, the mention of which would appear incredible to a mere landsman, but I confess that your learned correspondent W. makes me stare at his apparently well-authenticated stories of sea monsters, hitherto supposed to have only lived in the imagination of poets, or the superstitious fancy of ancient historians.

And first, If such a sea monster as the kraken do really exist,— -a monster resembling a floating island, with numerous arms, equal in length and size to the masts of ships,-of such immense size that the Norwegian fishermen, (but no other,) do constantly endeavour to find out its resting place, (which they know, it is said, by the shallowness of the water,) to catch the fishes that lie round it, as a bank,

I

say, if such a monster has been playing its accustomed pranks, during unnumbered years, is it not able, that not one out of seven hunremarkvery dred British ships, (exclusive of foreigners,) which have crossed and recrossed every part of the North Sea, even to polar regions, perhaps four, or even six, times in one year, should have all been so extremely unfortunate, (or, I ought rather to say, forships run upon this mass, it would tunate; for, had any one of these have been fatal as a rock,) as never to have seen one of such sea monsters. This is of itself, in my opinion, a sufficient refutation of all the narratives of early voyagers,—the fictions record

ed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or the inconsistent vagaries of Norwegian fishermen.

Indeed, Mr Editor, it is a happy circumstance for our country, that if such an animal as the kraken do exist, their numbers are not great, nor are they capable of any great exertion. If this species had an existence when Pliny flourished, (which your correspondent seems to prove,) there either must have been no propagation since that period, or the passage over the German Ocean (at least between Shetland and Norway,) must have been rendered, many years ago, impracticable, by their natural mortality. The general depth of that channel is from 60 to 80 fathoms; and in no part, even up to Spitzbergen, deeper than 6 or 700 fathoms. Now, allowing that when Pliny wrote, there existed ten couple of these animals-that they propagated only one male and one female in sixty years-that they never were killed by accident, nor by the hand of man, (for so it appears,) but died a natural death at the good round age of two hundred years, what must be the aggregate number lying dead, or now roaming at large on the northern ocean? As this question, however, involves much nicety of calculation, I shall at present leave it to the determination of our worthy professor of Mathematics.

The whale, which is the largest sea animal, except the one in question, that we know of, is generally supposed to have young every second or third year; and the Greenland fishers, aware of this fact, always make sure of the mother, (for the maternal affection is here exhibited in a very striking point of view, which I have more than once witnessed,) by killing her young first. Allowing, however, that the whale had been originally constituted like the kraken, at least so far as never to appear on the surface but in calm weather, (which is seldom the case in these climates,) nor any of the species to have been killed by man, and that the usual term of their existence was two hundred years, is it at all probable, or consistent with reason, to suppose, that out of one hundred and fifty-seven thousand whales, (about the average number killed by Europeans since 1660,) not one of this multitude should ever have been seen by ships passing and re

passing on their respective voyages, floating dead or alive on the sea, or driven, by various causes, either on the coast of Scotland, its isles, or that of Norway. On the contrary, seldom a year passes but there are numerous instances of whales losing themselves, and running on some of the abovementioned coasts. I shall not agitate this question farther; and therefore proceed to the examination of the colossal cuttle-fish, which shall not detain us long.

The cuttle-fish, though, according to Pennant, Shaw, and others, enormously large, bears no comparison to the mighty kraken; nor can I well see, from the description given of the two monsters, how they can be identified as the same species; the one being an inhabitant of the Indian Ocean, the other of the North Sea.

The only thing like evidence in support of the existence of the colossal cuttle-fish, (and that is of a most suspicious kind,) is an account given by a Captain Dens, recorded in the works of Denys Mertfort, and made use of by subsequent authorities, that the Captain, while in the African Seas, lost three of his men by an attack from this monster, whilst employed in cleaning the ship's sides; and he adds, "that its arms were the thickness of a mizen mast, with suckers of the size of pot-lids.' Pennant, it appears, only affirms, "that he was well assured by persons of undoubted credit, that in the Indian Seas it has been found of such a size as to measure two fathoms in breadth across the central part," &c. &c.-the remaining part of the passage is too absurd to merit attention. Dr Shaw appears to have made Captain Dens' account of this sea monster a subject of lecture, without the support of ocular demonstration, or other testimonies sufficient to impress us with any belief of its actual exist

ence.

Now, Mr Editor, I was fifteen years afloat in the Indian Ocean, and, during that eventful period, visited almost every island, capital, creek, and course, from the Cape of Good Hope to the confines of the Molucca Islands, but never saw nor heard of this monster, nor any of the ravages of its ferocity. It may, however, be asserted, and with some justice, that the evi dence of seamen, relative to the wonderful productions of nature, or other

subjects peculiar to the countries they have visited, is often unaccountably exaggerated; or, if near the truth, so perplexed with ignorance, that it is extremely difficult to gather truth from such authority. I conceive, however, that if the ravages committed by the colossal cuttle-fish were nearly as frequent as the horrid ferocities of the shark, alligator, &c. its name and terror would have been as frequently in our mouths and minds, as the names and terrors of these enemies of the human race; but, so far from this being the case, I do not recollect ever having heard, during the long period I was in those seas, of the name ever being mentioned.

Whilst in the Red Sea, watching the motions of Bonaparte, I remember often observing, as did also every officer and man in the ship, an enormous sea monster; but so far from being ferocious, like the cuttle-fish, when we made any attempt in our boats to approach it, it continually disappeared. This fish (the name of which I never ascertained,) was always to be discovered in the Red Sea, by vast flocks of gulls hovering over the spot where it lay. When perfectly calm, which was there frequently the case, particularly in the mornings, we used to be highly amused by looking at this monster lying basking in the rays of the sun, with the upper jaw of the mouth, which had some resemblance to the great porch door of an old cathedral, but probably much larger, hove back to the angle of 45° from the perpendicular, whilst the lower jaw lay extended on the surface of the sea. In this position, while thousands of gulls (whether attracted by the odour of its breath, or some other cause, I know not) were flying immediately over the throat, making a dreadful noise, which was heard at a great distance, the upper and lower jaws were brought together like lightning, with a clap resembling the report of a great gun, by which means some hundreds of the feathered tribe were entrapped into the stomach. This operation was repeated about every ten minutes, until satisfied, when the animal disappeared.

After what I have advanced against the existence of the kraken and cuttlefish, it may be expected I should say something about the great sea serpent. I have often witnessed, both in the

East and West Indies, as well as in the southern parts of the coast of America, many sea snakes, as they are called, from six to twelve, and even fourteen feet in length, but very harmless in their nature. In the year 1792, while at anchor at St Johns, Antigua, one of these snakes, which was about six feet, as well as I remember, in length, got on the ship's deck by means of the cable, through the hawsehole, which was taken up in the naked hand, and heaved into its own element.

Had your correspondent repressed Paul Egede's absurd and irreconcileable fiction (for it deserves no other term), and a few others of the like cast, our belief would have been greatly strengthened by the information given by our transatlantic brethren; but when we see so many absurdities mixed with facts, I really do not well know what to think of the whole, when deliberately called on to give credit to such a fable as, " A hideous sea monster was seen, July 6th," but no year mentioned," which reared itself so high above the water, that its head overtopped our mainsail," which must have been at least forty feet above the surface of the sea. "It had a long pointed nose, out of which it spouted like a whale. Instead of fins, it had great broad flaps like wings; its body seemed to be grown over with shell-work," perhaps in masonic order; " and its skin was very rugged and uneven. It was shaped like a serpent behind; and when it dived into the water again, it plunged itself backwards, and raised its tail above the water a whole ship's length from its body."

I shall only observe again, that it is a most fortunate circuinstance, that these sea monsters are so very scarce as not to be seen more than once or twice in a whole century; for if more numerous, the consequence would have been most fatal to a great maritime nation, like Great Britain. Our seamen, undoubtedly the most superstitious part of the whole community, would very soon have lost all that ardour and enterprise with which this brave and heroic body of men are so universally characterised; our eminence, foreign and domestic, would soon have been annihilated, government bankrupt, and the nation a prey to famine and civil discord. These

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