ignorant as yourself, but not, as it afterwards appeared, blessed by providence with the same genius. Surely, this writer never read your own admirable memoir of yourself; but, as I said be fore, his memory is sorely decayed.

Born in Ettrick, descended from the Covenanters, educated at home, and by such a mother, until the advanced age of seven years, saved from all the evils of school, with a mind crammed with ghost-stories, early sent into servitude, untaught the dangerous and pernicious art of penmanship, and ere long imbued with the higher knowledge of "Hervey's Meditations, and an occasional number of the Scot's Magazine!" we find you at last in a situation which the old gentleman thinks highly favourable for the development of your extraordinary genius. "While his flocks were wandering, or in the bosom of a sequestered glen, he had an opportunity of looking on nature freed from the mists of prejudice or the pedantry of books, where she is seldom seen (for seldom read never) in her original forms and native hues.”

James, you who were so long a shepherd, will laugh at all this. You are well acquainted with the hills and vallies of the south of Scotland, and have looked on them occasionally with a poet's eye. But what is meant by the mists of prejudice? No, no, James, many a mist you have been in, and many a cold shower of sleet; many a blashing day and night has driven in your honest face; many a sore wetting have your good corderoy breeches endured; and many a glass of whiskey has the necessity of your situation forced you to drink, much against your inclination, no doubt. This old gentleman, sitting probably at a good coal-fire, with a tumbler of hot toddy before him, and a number of Constable's and Blackwood's Magazines slun.bering together in peaceful fellowship on his table, talks to James" of the doings of the elements," (and pretty doings they are in a hill country) "mountain phenomena," "shadowy grandeur," "mysterious communings with thunder," (communings in which, from the strength of his lungs, and loudness of his voice, thunder must have a manifest advantage over any man,) and so forth; but he has never pictured to himself, you, James Hogg, commonly called the Ettrick Shepherd, with a great lump of bread and cheese in your fist, under the bleak shelter of a dripping rock, after a rainy night spent, without sleep

in gathering together the lambs, wearied and worn out into more than natural dulness and stupidity; and kept in life not by the spirit of poetry, but of malt, and simply wishing that, the weather would but take up a little.

The old gentleman now takes a new crotchet into his head, and is convinced "that if you were to apply to art as a landscape painter, you would have no rival." I may add, that as you are a man of talents, you might still make an excellent dentist. But painting and poetry, though sisters are very unlike each other, and there is no reason to suppose, that you could become an equal favourite of both ladies. We, who are your intimate friends, indeed know, that you are wholly ignorant of painting, and that you probably would not admire the finest picture of Guido so much as that of the five rampant beasts on the grassgreen cover of the new series of the Scot's Magazine.

I find I shall be too late for the post if I write any more; so good bye, Hogg-and believe me yours, with the sincerest affection, and, if you will have it so, admiration.

South-side, 1 Feb. 1818.

TIMOTHY TICKLER.

P. S. I shall write again when the next number of the Scot's Magazine appears.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.-DR. JOHNSON ON MATRIMONY.

SIR,

LETTER I.

THE following dialogue, between the great Dr. Johnson and myself, I committed to paper on the very day it happened. I am confident it is very accurate, for I have a retentive memory, whatever other talents I may want. The occasion was this:during the first year of my marriage with the best of husbands, finding myself extremely unhappy, and supposing myself cruelly treated by the man, who, I knew, loved me, and of whom I was passionately fond, I paid a visit to Dr. Johnson, in order to consult him on this very extraordinary case. He was reading when I entered the room. I thus began:

"I beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting your studies with so little ceremony; but if I may judge from your writings, you are

good natured and humane. You may refuse me your advice; but, when I tell you I am unhappy, it is not in your power to refuse me your compassion. You may command your tongue; but you cannot command your heart.”—He shook his head, without looking up or speaking a word. I also continued silent about five minutes, I was then going to begin a second apology, and had just pronounced, "I am sorry, Dr. Johnson"—when without raising his eyes from the ground, he said-" There wants no apology. That a woman should seek consolation where it is not to be found, excites neither anger nor surprize. The infelicities of which mankind complain, are generally the offspring of vice or folly. I accuse you of neither; but to-day I am busy. You may recite your story to-morrow morning. I shall be at home till two o'clock. Madam, I wish you a good day."—"Doctor, your servant."--And so ended our first conversation.

LETTER II.

SIR,

According to my promise, I now send you the dialogue between Dr. Johnson and myself. I presume you will think it worth your acceptance, as it is a curiosity of which none of his biographers are possessed. I told you in my last letter that the Doctor, when I first waited on him, was busy, and that he promised to give me audience the day following. I found him in his parlour with a thick book before him. As he continued his study, I had an opportunity of observing a singularity in his manner of reading. As often as he came to the end of a line, he brought his eyes back again to the beginning of the next, by turning his head, which seemed to move so regularly upon a pivot, that his nose swung seconds like the pendulum of a clock.

Doctor. Well, Madam, what is your pleasure with me?

Lady. From your writings I conclude you are a friend to the unhappy.

Doctor.

Your conclusion may be false. Women are bad logicians; but proceed.

Lady. I am married-well married. I love my husband, and think, nay, I am sure, that, his affection equals mine; yet I am unhappy, very unhappy.

Doctor. A very common case. Felicity depends less on circumstances, than on dispositions. How long have you been married?

Lady. Two years.

Doctor. You expected the honey-moon would never wane. Lady. No, no; but I did not expect that I was to be contradicted, put out of temper, nay, even commanded; that my husband would ever prefer any other company to mine; that he would leave me to spend whole evenings alone. I thought we were to be always of the same opinion; that there was to be no command on either side; that we were to enjoy the same amusements; that he should neither praise nor converse with other women. I thought neither

Doctor. You have thought and said enough to convince me, that the cause of your infelicity is in yourself. You have been educated by maiden aunts, or by other silly women at a boardingschool. You are unacquainted with the institution of marriage, the laws of your country and with human nature. Women, when married, are in a state of absolute subjection and dependence. The laws of your country have deprived you of all pretensions to control, power, or authority; but human nature, hath, in recompense, given you that which, if discreetly used, secures to you the dominion of the world. Arguing with your husband only serves to convince him of your incapacity to reason justly. Your jealousy provokes his resentment, and your upbraidings drive him to the conversation of men or women who receive him with more complacency and good humour."-Dr. Goldsmith entered the room, and here ended our dialogue.

Yours,

MARIA S

VANITY.

THOSE Whom their virtue restrains from deceiving others, are often disposed, by their vanity, to deceive themselves.

When any one complains of the want of what he is known to possess in an uncommon degree, he certainly waits with impatience to be contradicted.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.-THOMSON ON CHEMISTRY.

A System of Chemistry, in four volumes. By Thomas Thomson. M. D.

F. R. S. &c. &c. From the fifth London edition, with notes by Thomas Cooper, M. D. Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in the faculty of Arts in the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1818. 8vo: 4 vols.

THE facts in chemical science have accumulated so rapidly within these few years, that a new digest of them, including the new discoveries since the last editions of Thomson and of Murray, the standard chemical systems, had become extremely desirable. Of these compilations, Dr. Thomson's elaborate work certainly has acquired a high reputation, and a new treatise on this most important and very fashionable science from his pen, is sure to be well received. Accordingly we hailed with much delight the appearance of the present edition, persuaded of its necessity, and hoping also for some additional facts and illustrations from the pen of the American editor. In giving an account therefore, of the present work, we have to notice it under two aspects; 1st, the improvements introduced by Dr. Thomson himself in the present edition: and, 2dly, those of the American edition.

In what respect the author's improved edition has claims to novelty, will best appear from his own account.

"I thought it necessary, in consequence of these great changes and improvements, to new model this edition entirely. Indeed almost the whole of the first two volumes, which contain the elementary part of the science, has been written anew.

"I have been at great pains to introduce every new fact as far as I was acquainted with it, and to present the science to my readers in its most recent state."

It appears, then, from this extract, and from the author's preface generally, that we are now presented with a system of chemistry, the most perfect that can be formed from the present state of the science.

The various nomenclatures, the variety of which, all founded on the chemical theories adopted by their respective authors, are certainly great obstacles to the student. Dr. Thomson has given into them, by adopting sir H. Davy's theories of chlorine, iodine, and fluorine, as supporters of combustion. We are surprised that he has not noticed the elegant hypothesis of that illustrious che