A FEW WORDS CONCERNING OUR OWN
AFFAIRS.

Our readers would observe among the Advertisements in the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL of last Saturday, the Prospectus of a periodical work, which, it is said, is to commence soon, on a plan somewhat similar to our own. To any thing like a fair, manly, and straight-forward competition, coming from a respectable and efficient quarter, we could have no objection; but, on the contrary, would rather rejoice in it, as it would be the means of keeping us constantly on the alert, and of exciting us to still higher exertion. We are sorry to say that, from all we can perceive, this is not the nature of the opposition now announced. The success which has attended the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL since its commencement is well known. The circulation of every number has considerably exceeded fifteen hundred copies, whilst that of several has extended to upwards of twenty-five hundred. It enjoys this wide and established circulation among a great proportion of the most respectable families both in Edinburgh and throughout the country; and its present prosperity cannot but be considered an evidence that the promises held out in the Prospectus, both with regard to the contributions of authors of celebrity, and the neat and classical appearance of the work in all its typographical details, have not been belied. It may indeed be confidently affirmed, that in none of the periodicals of the day will so many eminent names be found conjoined as have already graced the pages of the LITERARY JOURNAL. The public have not allowed this fact to pass unobserved or unrewarded; and a weekly increase of subscribers has been the result.

PRICE 10d.

extensive, though the reception it had met with had been unusually favourable,-and though its contributors had been so numerous and respectable, yet that theythe Proprietors and Editor of the projected Literary Gazette-looked upon it as a very weak and trashy publication, or as a very dull and heavy one, or as a very superficial and trifling one, or as a very uncandid and ungentlemanly one, the statement would have been straight-forward and distinct; and though we should of course have smiled at its absurdity, we should not have felt contempt for its cunning. We augur nothing generous, or manly, or talented,—we anticipate no honest rivalry and fair emulation from persons thus attempting to deny the existence of the only periodical in Scotland which really stands in the way of their new design, and the established success of which renders theirs comparatively useless.

We have afforded their prospectus, however, the best circulation it could have, by giving it a place in our own columns, and as most of our readers have, no doubt, perused it, we think it right to say a few words concerning it, with the avowed and express purpose of showing that the projected Gazette will be a feeble copy of the LITERARY JOURNAL, which has had the merit of overcoming all the difficulties attending the introduction of such a work into Scotland, and which, having preoccupied the ground, will not be easily driven from its position.

The Prospectus of the projected Gazette is evidently founded on the Prospectus of the LITERARY JOURNAL, which was issued some months ago, and noticed in very laudatory terms by the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine for November. The present composition is divided into nearly the same heads, and several of the phrases used It is disagreeable to speak thus pointedly of our own are precisely similar. This is of little consequence, did success; but we have been induced to do so in order to it not serve as an additional proof that nothing is to be vindicate our readers, our contributors, and ourselves, from attempted in the Gazette which has not been previously a grossly erroneous and most uujustifiable insinuation done in the LITERARY JOURNAL. There is no novelty in the Prospectus to which we have alluded. The first whatever in the plan; and the only question which resentence in that Prospectus is the following ;-" The mains is, how far the resources of the Gazette may be purpose and value of a JOURNAL conducted on the ex- expected to be at all comparable with those of the JOURcellent plan of the London Literary Gazette, containing NAL. This question is very soon answered, and in a critical notices of New Works, and forming a compend manner which puts the projected Gazette in a particuof general literature, are so universally understood, as to larly ludicrous point of view. Though the present be render exposition superfluous." A few lines farther on only our eighteenth Number, the LITERARY JOURNAL it is said," It must be considered rather extraordinary, can already boast of contributions from PROFESSOR that in a city so distinguished, no work of the kind now WILSON-J. G. LOCKHART THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD projected should have hitherto existed." The end meant-WILLIAM TENNANT-PROFESSOR GILLESPIE-ALLAN to be gained by this statement is sufficiently obvious; CUNNINGHAM-JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES-DR but the hopes of success must be slender indeed, when it MOREHEAD-DR MEMES-ROBERT CHAMBERS-WILis thought necessary by the conductors of a new work to have recourse at the very outset to so glaring an attempt to delude the public. Had they chosen to say boldly at once, that, though the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL no doubt existed, though its circulation was said to be

LIAM KENNEDY-THE AUTHOR of "Tales of A PIL-
GRIM"-JOHN PATERSON-THOMAS ATKINSON-THO-
MAS AIRD-FRANCIS GRANT OF KILGRASTON-DR
AINSLIE, Author of "Materia Indica-ALEXANDER
BALFOUR, Author of " Contemplation," and "Charac-

ters omitted in Crabbe's Parish Register-JOHN PARA Client. I'll oppose to him a
KER LAWSON, Author of the Life and Times of Arch
bishop. Laud—THE AUTHOR OF THE
OPENING OF
THE SIXTH SEAL-MRS GRANT OF LAGGAN and the
AUTHORESSES OF THE ODD VOLUME"" TALES AND
LEGENDS," &c. To these might be added several highly
respectable members of the Church, the Bar, and of the
Medical Profession, but whose names, as they prefer to
write anonymously, it is unnecessary to mention, Such
are the persons who have supported, and who do supt
port, the EDINBURGH LITERARY.

pectus under consideration prNAL; yet, the Pros

ignorance of its very existence, and, of course, an equal ignorance of the contents of Blackwood's Magazine for November, in which is to be found the passage we have copied in the

note below.

Senator.

Who next? A Slave.-Set down a Roman Knight.
Who follows last? The servant of a Questor.
I'll place a Tribune opposite to him!
How stand we now? Which weighs the heavier?
Their Questor's servant, or, my Tribune? Their
Slave, or my Roman Knight?—Their Client, or
My Senator? Now, call your witnesses !latý, 360
oWe shall favour Mr Crichton with a new version of
this passage tuos of 91095 vistnu it' » fliw Mongo
“But, says he, We have witnesses against him.
Naine them!Who stands the first upon the list?
The Opium-Enter:-PII oppose to 1.imod mas
Wilson, Gillespie, Lockhart, and Morehead.
Who next?Delta' of Blackwood's Magazine.-
Set down the Ettrick Shepherd, Tennant, Knowles,
~Malcolm,
who follows last? One Crichton, who has done
, Park, Kennedy, and Cunningham.
Koch into English, and wrote Lives of Converts.-

put a cipher opposite to him! 1

How stand we now? Which weighs the heavier?
Their single Delta, or my band of poets?
Their Opium-liker, or thy opium-haters ? 15

But, passing over this very lamentable attempt at ignorance on the part of the conductors of the project ed Gazette, it becomes a subject of rather curious inquiry who their contributors are to be? The Prospectus informs us, very properly, that they will affect no "boastful pretensions of ways or means," and make no empty parade of names; but unfortunately it goes on immediately to betray the secret, that their troops, being mustered, amount to THREE! There is a rush of Their Koch-translating Crichton, or my cipher ? three," as they say, in the green-room when the house is Now call four witlesses 89 99761 903 92 particularly thin. The names of this formidable trio, We recommend this parody to the attentive and serious are, Thomas De Quincey, Delta, and MR CRICHTON! perusal of the conductors and proprietors of the projected Against Mr De Quincey we have nothing whatever to Gazettes que you, ob 970's bas, vinteren say; he is a scholar and a gentleman; but how many In thus exposing the impertinence of these scribblers, columns will he write in the Gazette monthly, and how we are happy to carry the reflection along with us, that long will he continue to write at all? Delta, at times we are making no wanton or ungenerous attack, but only produces very sweet verses. As to Mr Crichton, it will repelling, with what we know will be felt by the public be necessary to inform our readers that his, lucubrations to be proper spirit, an insult they have attempted to cast appear occasionally in a newspaper called, The Satur-upon out contributors and ourselves, and indirectly upon day Evening Post," that he is the translator from the our readers. We eschew personality of any sort, but French (not a very difficult language) of Koch's Revo-we have a pleasure in stifling in the very birth all unlutions of Europe, and that he is the author of Lives of provoked aggressi ression; whilst we know that, throughout Converts from Infidelity, a work which was so univer- the country, it will only have the effect of making our sally disliked, that it wellnigh terminated the existence numerous ous readers stand the fi firmer by mer by us o We hope we altogether of that excellent publication, Constable's Mis-have as yet gone on together not unpleasantly, and we cellany, in which it appeared. It may fafther be added, can assure them that, notwithstanding the exertions we that this Mr Crichton is to be the Editor of the project-have already made for their gratification, we consider ed Gazette, and that he has thou thought it prudent t (not-our labours as comparatively only commencing, and are withstanding his modesty,) to allow his own name to b be every day strengthening our resources, and preparing to introduced into the Prospectus along with those of his bring new reinforcements, into the field odi to VS) » two contributors. The sum total, thus obtained, is a In the Prospectus of the projected, Gazette we are inlist of three, but, casting his eyes from, the pages of the formed that opinions on books will in all cases, be proLITERARY JOURNAL to the yet unborn columns of the nounced with freedom and, impartiality, founded exGazette, Mr Crichton probably felt the full force of the clusively on the merits of the author. This is a highly poet's prayerd is saline Jo no ziv gamiesth proper principle; how far it will be acted on has yet to be proved. Our readers will perhaps recollect, that, in the Prospectus of the LITERARY JOURNAL, a similar pro mise of the "strictest impartiality, was made, "which would give way to no private interests whatever." We venture, without hesitation, to appeal to the critical notices which have already appeared in our pages, as affording undeniable proof that this promise has been kept. We are also able to mention another circumstance which strongly corroborates the fact, that we are, and, we trust, ever shall be, superior to those influential or mercenary ***NORTH.-Here, James, is one of the best, because most t siness-like Prospectuses I ever read of a new Weekly Periodi- considerations which occasionally bias and degrade the cal, about to be published in Edinburgh, in the middle of No-spirit of periodical criticism."On applying, through vember-THE EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL From what I our publishers, a few days ago, (as, is usual with us when know of the Editor, a gentleman of talent, spirit, and perseve- a new work makes its appearance,) to Mr Blackwood, rance, I foretell the book will prosper. for a copy of the " Shepherd's Calendar," by Hogg, we Sugar.-I shall be glad o' that, for ane gets tired of that eternal soun-Blackwood's Magazeen-Blackwood's Magazeen-ler an intimation, in writing, that he could not comply were not a little surprised to receive from that bookseldianin in ane's Tugs, day and night, a' life-long. NORTH One does indeed."-Noctes Ambrosiana in Black with the request, and that he declined sending any wood's Magazine for November 1828. more of his publications, "on account of the use which

Of the THREE HUNDRED grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae quote egroll
In the play of "Caius Gracchus, Vettius is defended
from an unjust accusation by Gracchus, who thus speaks

of his accusers:- !
"But, say they, "We have witnesses against
Name them!Who stands the first upon the list?

4 eded nit-port vIRC

whereas, the advertising department of the EDINBURGH LTERARY JOURNAL is distinctly limited to two pages.

'«' In maiden meditation, fancy free.”

LITERARY CRITICISM.

was made of Mr Ballantyne's work."*It is unnecessary to make any comment upon this conduct. Its evident meaning is, that unless we consent to praise every one of All these things being considered, we feel ourselves Mr Blackwood's publications, we shall receive no sup! most unapproachably secure in the position we have alport from him! Whether correct or not, our strictures ready taken; and having now frankly and fearlessly deupon Mr Ballantyne's book were made honestly and convelopel the system upon which we are determined to scientiously; and surely Mr Blackwood must perceive, proceed, we leave the projected Gazette in the hands of that praise would very soon cease to possess any valde, Mr Crichton, and the worthy Converts who may like were it to be lavished indiscriminately. Mr Blackwood to range themselves under his banner; while, keeping himself will ultimately come to confess, that a laudatory far aloof, we pursue our way notice of any of his publications in the LITERARY JOUR NAL is of infinitely more value than it would have been had we sacrificed for his favour the independence of our own judgment...We feel confident, that publishers in future will not misinterpret our motives, when we deem it necessary to speak severely of any work. Towards them we have the most friendly feelings and the principles upon which we act are those which, in the long run, must redound most to their advantage. Of course, we shall notice Mr Blackwood's publications as as usual, and speak of them invariably as we think they deserve. There is only one other matter to which we wish to allude, before ceasing to talk of our own affairs. The projected Gazette is to be " printed on a sheet equal in size to the largest literary paper in Britain;" and the price of each Number is to be 8d. unstamped, or ls. stamped. This is injudicious, for two reasons. In the first place, Edinburgh is not the head-quarters of British Literature, and therefore does not supply an the same quantity of

editor with

The Shepherd's Calendar. By James Hogg, Author of The Queen's Wake," &c. Two volumes. Edinburgh. William Blackwood. 1829.

terials for a work of this so and really valuable ma- timental and poetical tone is introduced; but it is a thou

as London. If a certain

This book is exactly what it pretends to be. It is a Shepherd's Calendar, or register of all the remarkable scenes and events of agricultural and rural life, set down in plain and homely language, without the most tions. Every thing in these volumes is invested with distant attempt at fine writing or fashionable decorathe, real, substantial, and existing attributes of a shepherd's condition. The picture may not be altogether so pleasing or classical as others into which a more sensand times truer to nature, and is, on that account, size of sheet, therefore, be found sufficiently large in Lon-more vivid and graphic. Hogg has seen what he dedon, a size somewhat smaller will be found equally so in Edinburgh. It is true that any extent of paper may be covered; but some regard ought to be had to the quality as well as to the quantity and a careful selection of what is good is much to preferred to a careless profusion of what is mediocre. But, in the next place, the projected Gazette will have much more the appearance of a newspaper, than of a work n of a work like the LITERARY JOURming dew, with the freshness of the dawn upon her cheek, or, in the holier sunset hour, he may hear her singing like a bird to the stream, that makes a melody as her own; and, giving his thoughts a lo-.

volumes. In a

"

NAL, which is to be bound every half-y year into handsome
newspaper, everyust be of
ephemeral interest; consequently men talent rare
ly choose to entomb their compositions in its columns.
It has, on the
objects of the proprietor all penunta

scribes, and might safely add magna pars fui. He enjoys, therefore, a double advantage. The man of genius may, no doubt, sit down in his closet, and conjure up to his mind's eye a thousand beautiful traits of pas toral society and manners,a thousand lovely valleys sand flocks; he may see the maiden trip forth over the and green hill sides, alive with the bleatings of a thou

cal
the land, to win the applause of many a gentle heart,

as innocen and a name, he may send them forth over

of the L the leading and to beguile the delighted reader into a momentary

forgetfulness of the numerous frailties and imperfections that cling round humanity, whether in the cottage or the palace. But the Ettrick Shepherd, and they who, of a shepherd's life, perceive at once that these are only dike him are personally acquainted with all the phases ales to be told, but they are not things to be seen. the dreaming visions of a willing enthusiast. They are Hogg's strong mind, and more accurate knowledge, reject such illusive colouring; he refuses to dip his penoil in the rainbow, when about to paint the common shapes of earth. Not that he is backward in perceiving many of those finer lights and shades, that are cognizable

JOURNAL, to give the contents of their work a standing v value and importance, by throwing them into a form, which combines a facility of weekly birdulation with the half-yearly pub lication of a handsome volume, rendered valuable by containing articles of permanent interest, from a considera ble proportion of the most celebrated men of the day. An exceedingly convenient shape and price are the result of this arrangement; and if the size is somewhat less than the London periodicals of a similar kind, the rate of charge is comparatively lower. The London Literary Gazette contains, in 14 pages, (allowing the remaining 2 pages to go for advertisements,) 25,200 words, which, of only to the eye of genius. Throughout the whole two volumes we are continually meeting with divided by 8d., (the price of the Gazette,) gives 3150 touches of nature, and little accidental pieces of pathos, words for each penny. The EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL contains, in 14 pages, (allowing the remaining 2 pages to go for advertisements,) 19,600 words, which, divided

and sentiment, and sublimity, and piety, which prove that the writer has a soul within him, and which lift his pages far out of the ranks of the vulgar and the un

by Bd., (the price of the Journal,) gives 3200 or inspired.

7

the

each penny, or 116 words more for each penny
London Literary Gazette. It should also be noticed,
that although only two pages of advertisements are set
aside in each of these above statements, the London Li-
terary Gazette contains frequently three or four pages,
which, of course, reduces the quantity of literary matter;

The leading characteristic of the work is a strong and racy, delineation of all the cares, pleasures, anxie tions of the shepherd life. In many of the sketches ties, comforts, occupations, amusements, and superstithere is a great deal of dry broad humour; and the chief merit of all of them is, that the reader is made to feel that in every page is set down, forcibly and well, what

tent to what was gaun, too; and troth, I'm wae to see you altered to the waur.'

I kenna how I might chance to be lookin', but I hope I was listening as weel as you, or ony that was there!-Heighow!It's a weary warld this!"

What has made it 'siccan a weary warld, Wat? I'm sure it wasna about the flls o' life that the minister was preaching that day that has gart ye change sae sair? Now, Wat, I tented ye weel a the day, and I'll be in your debt o à toop lamb at Michaelmas, gin ye'll just tell me 'ae distinct sentence o' the sermon on Sabbath last. Y atout, Jock, mar: 'ye ken I dinna want to make saucred thing and as for your paulie

toop lamb, what care I fort pos
Ye needna think to
to win aff that gate, callant. Just
confess the truth, that ye never heard a word the good
man said, and that baith your heart and your ee were
fixed on some object in the contrair direction. And I
may be mistaken, but I think I could guess what it
was.Pets

shepherds actually do, say, think, and believe. It is true, that there is occasionally a good deal of vulgarity and coarseness in the style, which, by fastidious critics, will, perhaps, be considered excessively disagreeable; but to us it seems to be a natural part of the subject, for the Ettrick Shepherd has no idea of putting white kid gloves on a swain who has been holding the plough all day, or of sending for some of Gianetti's rouge, or Clireheugh's French fronts, for the behoof of those sturdy damsels who officiate as ewe-milkers, hayworkers, and harvest-shearers. The Shepherd is not afraid to call things by their right names. He disdains the fopperies of fashionable society, but he is not indelicate;-vulgar he may be, if vulgarity is to be judged of by the standard established at Almack's. It strikes us, indeed, that Hogg has a much greater respect for a man, than for a gentleman, which is, to be sure, a terribly democratical notion, but in a shepherd and a poet may, perhaps, be forgiven. In one word, if all the young ladies who read "Kilmeny," take up the Shepherd's Calendar," in the ardent hope of hearing of nothing but purling streams and shady groves, they Whisht, lad, and let us alane o your sinfu' surwill be most grievously disappointed. The book is made meeses. I might turn my back on the minister during of sterner stuff; it has more of the Shakspearian quality the time o' the prayer, but that was for getting a lean of reality about it, the good and the evil, the prose on the seat ; and what ill was in that p and the poetry of life. There is no such thing as any 7113 Ayland ye might likewise hirsell yoursell up to purely ideal character in the whole, or any high-sound- the corner o' the seat a the time o baith the sermons, ing attempt at magnificent conceptions or lofty thoughts and lean your head on your hand, and look through which may dazzle weaker intellects, but have no prac- your fingers too. Can ye deny this? or that your een tical tendency or result. There is the vigour of Allan were fixed the hail day in ae particular place. Ramsay, with scarcely any of the didactic tediousness Aweel, T'winna gie a friend the lee to his face. of Thomson, or the Arcadian mawkishness of Shenstone. Men who like to see character developed, without caring much for the conventional rank which circumstances may have allotted to God's creatures, will peruse this book with no mean interest, and will find that, like the oak under the rude and unpolished bark, there

But this T will say, that an you had been geeing a' the attention to the minister that ane should do wha takes it upon him to lecture his neighbours at this rate, ye wadna hae teen sae well aveesed with respect to my behaviour in the Kirk. Take that for your share o' blame. And mair

is far more valuable stuff in it than at first sight meets neither am I wahan that, if I'minae waur than you,

other folk; for an ye had lookit as weel at a the rest as it seems you did at me, ye wad hae seen that a' the men' in the kirk were looking the soivle ym sa same gait.'

An'a'at the same object too? An' a' as deeply interested in it as you ? Isna that what yo're thinkin'? All, Wat, Wat, love winna hide! I saw a pair o' slaeblack een that threw some geyan saucy disdainfu' looks up the kirk, and I soon saw the havoc they were ma king, and had made, in your simple honest heart. Wow, man but I fear me, you are in a bad predickiment.'.

The "Shepherd's Calendar" is divided into chapters, of which there are eleven in the first volume and ten in the second, every chapter containing some distinct tale, sketch, or subject. Although no particular arrange. ment is observed, they may be appropriately classed under three heads, the first of which treats of the pastoral concerns of the shepherds and their out-of-door life, the second, of their domestic affairs, the internal economy of their families, their likings and dislikings, friendships, feuds, courtships, marriages, sick-beds, and burials, eff Weel, weel, murder will out, and I confess, between and the third, of their superstitions, remarkable as these twa friends, Jock, there never was a lad in sic a preare, often highly poetical, and as often prodigiously dickiment as I am. I needna keep aught frad you, but ludicrous. These subjects are not illustrated by dry for the life that's your buik, dinna let a pater about disquisitions, but by placing the actors themselves be. it escape frae atween your twa dips. I wadna that it were fore us, and introducing them to us propriis personis.kenned how deeply I am in love, and how little it is like Under the first head we have mentioned, we would par- to be requited, for the haill warld; but I am this day as ticularly direct attention to the powerfully written sketch miserable a man as breathes the breath of life. For entitled Mr Adamson of Laverhope, and also to the like yon lass as man never likit another, and a' that exceedingly interesting and entertaining chapters on the I get is scorn,wand gabes, and mockery in return. O habits of "Sheep," on the Shepherd's Dog," and on Jock, I wish I was dead in an honest natural "Snow-storms." "In the second class we were much that my burial day were the morn pleased with "Window Wat's Courtship," and the -00 Week, after a', I daresay that is the best way o' chapter on Odd Characters." The former, more es-winding up a hopeless doves concern; but only it ought pecially, is a sketch of rustic manners, drawn with a strength, and a breadth, and an accuracy, which no man living but Hogg could infuse into it. It is like a canto of Anster Fair," in prose. We are sorry it is in our power to present our readers only with the opening scene, which we shall entitle

LOVE AND COURTSHIP.

666 Wat, what was the matter wi' you that you never keepit your face to the minister the last Sabbath day? Yon's an unco unreverend gate in a kik, man." I hae een you keep a good ee on the preacher, and take good

and

surely to be the last resource. Now, will ye be candid,
sand tell me gin ye have made all lawful endeavours to
preserve your own life, as the commandment requires us
to do, ye ken ? Hae ye courted the lass, as a man ought
to court her, who is in every respect her equal.
Potts Oh yes,id have I have told her all my love, and
a' my sufferings; but it has been only to be mockit, and
dismissed about my business.'

"And for that ye whine and make wry faces, as you are doing just now ?-Na, na, Wat, that's no the gate o't; a maid must just be wooed in the same spirit she shows; and when she shows sauciness, there's naething for it, but taking a step higher than her in the same