to the meridian with the utmost solicitude and care. Such was the appearance of that great high priest of Nature: warm from the plough, he burst upon the world like a star of the first magnitude; the wise and the learned beheld him ascend, with sentiments little short of devotion, nor have succeeding ages found it at all necessary to detract from that high veneration paid him, to form a just and merited picture of the effusions of this unrivalled Son of Song,

"Hand facile emergunt, quorum Virtu

tibus obstat

Res augusta domi”

had long been proverbial in the dogmas and disquisitions of the antiquated pedant. Burns was a glorious foil to controvert this opinion, nor are we without numberless and brilliant examples, even in these our days, of innate genius rising superior, by its own exertions, to the storms of adversity, to the critic's frown. Witness a Hogg and a Bloomfield, names stampt with every virtue, elegant and great, who have diffused a lustre, brilliant indeed, round the sphere in which they were destined to move, and have added an unperishable gem to the literary crown of this land of મ High Romance and Minstrelsie."

The fame of the man of science, r of arts, is in general destined to survive only in the history of that particular department to which his studies had been directed; the triumphs of his invention soon became shadowy and imperfect, like the phantoms of a passing dream.But the fame to be derived from minstrelsy, depends not on the fortuitous coincidence of time or place: no, the range of worlds is the stage on which the bard exhibits, and eternity the bound of that fame which he hath so justly laboured to establish. The peasantry of Scotland have generally been acknowledged to possess a degree of intellectual improvement, superior to every nation upon earth;

the very lowest classes of the community can enter more immediately into the beauties of those romances and legends, which give a particular cast to the mind, feelingly alive to the sublime and pathetic descriptions of war and love. Possessed of a degree of curiosity corresponding to the education they have received, they naturally embrace every opportunity of becoming more enlightened. The oral traditions and tales of their forefathers are handed down, and, with the most ardent enthusiasm, chanted to those simple melodies, the characteristic of the Scottish music, and the aboriginal inhabitant of her pas toral and agricultural departments.

The impression (says an accurate and elegant critic) which the airs of Caledonia have made on the minds of the people, is deepened by its union with their national songs, particularly those of a mild and melancholy strain; as several productions in this department are to be met with, which breathe the true spirit of romantic tenderness and affection, unrivalled perhaps by the most chaste and classic composition of modern times.

Having endeavoured, in these prefatory remarks, to shew that Genius is not always to be found in the gloom of the porch, or amongst the dusty cobwebs of the schools; but that she frequently descends to the low abodes of poverty and unadorned virtue; let me now presume to introduce to the notice of your readers, one who, in the humblest walk of life, has yet found leisure to woo the Rural Must, nor hath she disdained to listen to his artless effusions. The person for whom 1 am anxious to procure this notice, is James Thomson, the poeti cal weaver of Kenleith; a man, simple and unaffected in his manner, yet fraught with all that is respectable in the composition of a worthy, honest, and industrious mind. Born to no inheritance but poverty, even in that state he has found the means of

making himself respected and esteemed. During the intervals from his more laborious occupations, he would wander aloof from the noisy sons of dissipation and riot; there, all alone, by the margin of his native rills, or under the shade of his primeval bowers, indulge his mind in culling a few wild flowers from the foot of that visioned mount, and roam, in the extacy of his soul, "from Nature, up to Nature's God.

A few of these his earlier effusions were handed about in MS., and were so well received, that a small volume was got up by subscription, to which a very appropriate narrative was prefixed by his worthy friend and patron the late George Maclaurin, Esq, (himself a poet, and whose productions, together with those of his father, have recently been published.) From the profits arising from the sale of this volume, he was enabled to rear a small neat cottage in the village of Kenleith, in the parish of Currie, about 6 or 7 miles S. W. from Edinburgh, and which he has very appropriately designated by the title of Mount Parnassus.

The scite of Thomson's Parnassus is at once elevated and romantic. To the West, you have one of the most. extensive and finely variegated prospects to be met with in the South of Scotland. Below you, as on a map, is delineated, the well-wooded, and fertile county of West Lothian; a little beyond, is part of Peebles, Lanark, Stirling, and Dumbartonshire, (for, in a clear day, the top of Benlomond is visibly discerned, fading like an azure streak amid the otherwise boundless horizon.) To the North, the eye wanders over the gentle declivities of Fife, Clackmannan, Kincardine, with the distant mountains of Perthshire; the Forth winding along like an inland sea, with the white sail veering to and fro upon its tide. To the East, the whole of Haddingtonshire, a part of Berwick, and the greater

proportion of Mid-Lothian, lie in perspective before you. Edinburgh appears in all her glory, with the Castle and New Barracks, towering, like the crown of this grand Emporium, or justly-denominated Queen of the North. The house itself is fitted up with all the neatness and elegance which art could bestow upon a situation so little susceptible of the gentler beauties of nature. The small Gothic windows embowered with honeysuckle and ivy; parterres of roses, and other sweet-smelling flowers, incircle its walls; and a sopha, such as princes might deem it a luxury to repose upon, is placed upon a gentle declivity at the end of the house, covered with the finest velvet turf, and richly garnished with a covering of the most beautiful evergreens: descending the garden by a rude stair of a serpentine form, thro' bushes and patches of natural wood, you arrive at the brink of a gently purling rill, overhung with hazel and sloethorn : winding a few yards along its margin, you come to what is very aptly called his Helicon. It is a well of the utmost coolness, bubbling up through a stone-bason, to which is chained a small iron ladle, with an inscription in brass sunk into the handle. Over the well is prefixed a large broad stone, with a poetical inscription, inviting the pilgrim to partake of its salutary draught, and warning him against the dangers of inebriety and intemperance. The whole is encircled with a range of romantic rocks, overshadowed with dark embowering trees. Further up in this romantic glen he has form'd

where,

A pool breast-deep,

Between twa birks, out o'er a little lin, The burnie fa's, and mak's a singand din.

On either side, bowers, sacred to Love, to Friendship, and to Hospitality are reared with all the nicety of taste and truth. In the largest of these is placed a rural table, where the

Century.

Sketches of the State of EDINBUrgh.

(Concluded from page 582.) FTER having attempted a brief account of the state of Scotland, I now propose to give a short sketch of Edinburgh as it was in the Seventeenth century. In doing this, it will be readily perceived that our abservations must be confined to very general topics, and that the chief Sources of our information arise, either from those authors who have composed treatises upon the subject, or, what is sometimes a more certain guide, incidental hints in the works of contemporary writers. I call the latter more certain in general, because they are less swayed by passion, having seldom any particular theory to establish, a circumstance which, without limitation, cannot be affirmed of the former.

The precise period at which the city of Edinburgh was founded, is, like that of most other cities, involved in great obscurity. The situation of the ground upon which it stands, leads directly to the conclusion that the spot was chosen in consequence of its vicinity to the castle. This fortress, previous to the invention of gunpowder, was esteemed impregnable, and even after its discovery was looked upon by the citizens of the town as capable of affording considerable protection, which arose from the art of gunnery being then in its infancy. This sentiment, however, together with the circumstance of its being built originally on one hill, whose declivity on both sides is very great, gave a peculiar cast to the taste of the inhabitants with respect to the style of the buildings which they erected, as well as to the geometrical figure (if I may so express myself) which the city assumed. These also, much more than any imitation of Paris, as a model, were the causes of Sept. 1813.

un

Edinburgh was for many ages confined within nearly the same limits This proceeded from various causes; manufactures and trade were known. The inhabitants were exposed to the incursions of the English; and at one time so terrified do they seem to have been of an attack from their southern neighbours, that, in 1385, Robert III. granted them the priviledge of building houses in the castle. Though parliaments were frequently held in it, it was not till about the middle of the sixteenth century that it began to be considered as the capital of the kingdom. The tumultuary state of Society, and the constant warfare in which they were engaged, also discouraged settlers from repairing to it. In proportion, however, as the operation of these causes subsided, Edinburgh increased in size and in population.

certain

It has been already observed, that, from the nature of the ground, the city necessarily assumed a figure; this was that of a rectangle. Disliking, no doubt, a northern exposure, but principally from the difficulty of access to the town in consequence of the intervening marsh, called the North Loch, the nobility and gentry preferred erecting houses for their residences while attending parliament, &c. upon the South side. This gave origin to the street called the Cowgate, a name which has given rise to many conjectures, but which seems to be obviously derived from the ground upon which it is built, having been formerly laid out in pas

ture.

How insignificant soever this street appears to be, and really is, when compared with others, that are now to be found in Edinburgh and in other European cities, yet it ought to be remembered, that our ideas of every

* Arnot, page 9.

every thing of this kind are only formed from comparison. This accounts sufficiently for (what appears to us,) the hyperbolical language employed by those early writers who have given an account of it. Thus we are informed by an author who wrote in the early part of the Sixteenth Century, "That the nobility and senators of the city dwell in the Cowgate, and that the palaces of the chief men of the nation are also there, and that none of the houses are shabby or vulgar, but, on the contrary, all magnificent" Every one who has spoken of Edinburgh at that time, has enlarged at great length upon the materials of which those buildings were com posed. Being accustomed to behold only such as were made of brick, they seem to have been astonished at what they called our square stones."

Notwithstanding that in process of time the houses were raised to a height, of which no similar example is to be found, as far as we know, in ancient or modern times, yet this was not always the case. In James I.'s time, who was murdered at Perth in 1437, the houses were not above twenty feet high, and were generally covered with thatch or broom t. At what precise time the introduction of tiles for covering of houses took place has not been ascertained. It was probably contemporary with the introduction of the manufacture of earthen ware into Scotland. If we are to credit tradition, one of the first of these manufactories was erected where the street called the Potter-row now is, and from which indeed it derived its name. Be that as it may, it is well known, that, in 1621, the

use of thatching was prohibited within the borough by act of parliament. The application of schistus, or slate, to a similar purpose, tho' much more permanent and elegant, is comparatively a modern invention. In regard to the stile of building which was generally adopted during the early part of the seventeenth century, little can be said. We must not form our opinions from any of the great public works which were then erected, nor even from the houses in the streets of Edinburgh, which were necessarily so crouded together. On the south side of the town there are still to be seen houses which were erected both before and after the time of which we treat. Immediately opposite to Hope-Park end, and on the east side of the road, stands the house which, according to tradition, was inhabited by George Heriot. Further south, in the Siennes, the town-house of the Johnstones of Westerhall still remains, and in the same close, or court, there was a house (which within these few months only has been pulled down) that was formerly inhabited by a Provost of Edinburgh. This I imagine to have been Sir Patrick Johnstone, whom we shall have occasion hereafter to notice: further south still, on the road to Libbertoun, several buildings are to be observed of a similar construction: they all resemble one another in this, that there is no communication between the low and the second storey. The Highstreet of Edinburgh had even originally been a noble street; but during the whole of the seventeenth, and nearly two thirds of the eighteenth century, its appearance was exceedingly injured, in consequence of the citizens being empowered, by an act of council, to extend the fronts of their houses seven feet into the street on each side. The Magistrates had cut down all the wood on the Burrowmoor, and being unable to dispose of it in any other manner, they thus

opened