once with his solemn visage and more solemn discourse; not only in a room, but in Mr Haydon's "great picture," -though in the latter he differs from that which he is in the former,-being there bowed down with humility. He finds sermons in every thing. Nevertheless, he is "a great personage," and would be greater, if he did not think himself the greatest. The writer of John Woodvil I have known well, and commend me to him for the vigour of his judgment, the nicety of his taste, and the fine severity of his wit. He cuts with his tongue the tumours of men's minds. His discourse amongst that of other men "sticks fiery off indeed." He is a bright little man, the stiletto of conversation. I remember sitting in the same box with Mr Moore at Covent Garden Theatre, on an evening when John Kemble played Zanga in Dr Young's Tragic Sermon upon Revenge. It was just before the publication of Lallah Rookh, when all London was on tiptoe to catch the first flutter of those Arabian leaves, and when the west end of the town stood peeping with an anxious eye (as Justice Metaphor would say) in at the dusty windows and dim warehouse of Messrs Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, to watch the progress towards publication of the Tales of the East. I remember the evening well, for I had rude curiosity enough to listen to the remarks he made to his ladyfriends, and to note his " ways of pleasantness." He will remember Zanga: I saw one who reminded me more of the East; and I remember little of Zanga. His eyes sparkle in his head like two good things, and his heart seems dancing to the music of its own feelings. I have seen Mr Campbell at the Royal Society's House, lecturing in mid-day, on poetry, to powdered heads, clouded canes, extensive bonnets, and flowered pelisses. His intelligent countenance, and slight Scottish accent, gave an interest to his readings from the poets, which I cannot describe; but the time of day was as unfit for poetry in a room, as King John has declared it to be for the deeper accomplishment of murder. Enthusiasm cannot stand a glaring sun through a skylight,-nor are its nerves assured by the "gentle crea tions" of applause, rising lightly from French gloves and green benches. Poetical enthusiasm must hide itself in woods and solitudes by day. It abhors Albemarle Street. The only passage of Mr Campbell's Lecture that seemed to stir the hearts of his audience, in good truth, was his description of his first sight of the Apol lo Belvidere in the Louvre at Paris. It told upon the fashionables before him, because they had all seen, in the common course of their life, the sta tue as he described it, and they now flattered themselves with believing that they had contemplated it with the same poetical idolatry and dreaming wonder of which he spake. The allusion was to a figure in France,where they themselves had often cut one, and that was enough. It was of Apollo, and they believed him to be a god and a gentleman. There was a flutter amongst the ribbons and silks, as though an unexpected gust of poetry had passed through them; and the old gentlemen tapped the floor with livelier canes, and nodded approval with heads of thrice brightened powder. I fear, Mr Editor, I am rather straying from my subject, but it is almost impossible to speak of the " great men of the age," without becoming garrulous and fond over the recollections that attend them. They rise on the memory with attendant lights-I revel in the recollections of many authors. In short, there are few of the modern writers whom I have not seen, at some time or other. And it is my constant custom, as much so as the senior Mr Hamlet's habit of taking an afternoon's nap under the golden pippin and black cherry trees in his orchard at Denmark, to write in a ruled commonplace-book (of a reasonable size, neatly bound, ordered after the method of the great Mr Locke, to be had of two worthy booksellers, yclept Taylor and Hessey, 93, Fleet Street, price only 12s.) my observations of the day, paiticularly of the literary gentlemen whom it is in my good fortune to encounter,-not omitting the cut of their clothes, or the colours of their conversation. I am thus enabled to refresh myself on a wet afternoon, or a chilly Sunday morning, with paying a visit to Mr Rogers,-indulging in the amiable and benevolent re Ape marks of his memorable mind, watching the shifting expressions of his speaking face,-and listening to the prodigious accounts of the flying editions of his first book, given by Messrs Cadell and Davies, and preserved by the inspired author with laudable care and matchless poetical awe. Copyright is with him a real estate: It is not, as with others, a mere personal property, liable to the changes and the chances of the times; -it is "All that piece or parcel of arable land" that never passes away, -that is mowed season after season, and is always green,-that yields aftercrop on after-crop! He may leave it to his children (if he has any) or to his friends, and they will be sure of an estate on which they can live. The writer of this would jump at such a devise, and he would preserve the publishers' returns with scrupulous industry and sacred zeal, in justice to the wishes of the inspired deviser. But you will think, Mr Editor, I am bestriding a dream already, and in sooth I fear I have taken a light canter upon a waking vision. "My uncle Toby dismounted immediately." You will see and acknowledge that the virtues of my common-place-book are great; like the wonderful volume told of in that golden tale of the fairies," The Golden Bough." I can open its leaves, and see living figures moving therein; turn to one part of the book and see feasting, and splendour, and merriment; turn to another and hear intelligent conversation, and see the brightest persons in the world. In truth, Prince Tortocoli's volume could hardly have surprised him, so much as mine delights me. I look into it on high days with earnestness and rapture,—I open it on holidays with superstitious zeal, as a young girl prys into a legend book to know her love-fate. I look in the index, if I happen to be Lockish and Methodical, at the letter B, and against it 1 find " Byron, Lord, page -"I turn to that page, and, lo! there he is!" In his habit as he lives!" There is his low soft voice, like a stormy wind controlled; there is the fine breadth and paleness of his forehead,-the black intense curls of his lordly hair, the haught-lip,-the dark and dreaming blue light of his eye. There is the humility of his manner, the extreme politeness of his carriage: there he abides! He may be chafing his wayward melancholy into anger in a back-room in Albemarle Street, or inditing faithless farewells in his chambers in Piccadilly with his fatal and black pen; or he may be distilling the poison plants of satire to drug the life-draught of a domestic;-but he must arise at my bidding, and walk by me, or sit to me! He must flee from the gondolas and the guitars of Venice,-from the flowery masks of Paris,-if I but say to my book, "Call him, let me see him!" The spell on Manfred was not stronger: the spirit of Lara was not more charmed." To resume, I can turn to the letter O, and under it I find (the letter being a fit forerunner of the person) the name of " Opie, Mrs." I behold her at once, the pride of the Blues,-the gentle sharer of the blue throne with my Lady Morgan,—the Fatima of Mr Murray's Blue Chamber! That Abomclique of books! Her decision upon those luckless authors who do not tread the party-coloured carpets of" the higher circles," is fatal, and unchangeable. It is not, What is the book? it is, "Who is the author?" If the latter be Mr Hazlitt, there is but one line of vituperation to be taken; if Mr Luttrell, (the silken writer of " Advice to Julia,") be the person, he is a charming poet, and his book is pleasant and fanciful indeed. I like this lady's happy, sentimental, one-sided, little criticism prodigiously, and I turn to her leafhome in my book, occasionally to hear her fashionable chimes playing the old established tune. Lady Morgan I have seen, and I have therefore taken a lodging for her in a room at the top of an obscure page. She has her harp there, which she pretends to play, and her books, which she professes to understand; and I leave her alone in her light summer dishabille, of which she is peculiarly fond, to write volumes on countries through which she has ravaged a tour, and to quote ingeniously from languages which she cannot comprehend, but which an ancestor of hers is said to have understood. And, marvellous it is, that in this family learning, she does not hear "ancestral voices prophesying war." But let me not here omit the society of one, whose mind is the storehouse of all deep thoughts and proud imaginations. If his early hopes, from their very ardour, have been broken and frustrated, still the memory of those hopes sheds a melancholy thoughtfulness over his mind, and over his countenance, which awakens in others a fellow pensiveness. He is the first prose writer of the age, and yet of manners simple and modest as a child. The world, by repeated blows, has stricken him into patience. He has learned to endure, in a hard school. His keen, yet ser ous face, encircled by its raven hair, has all the intellect and quiet power of one of Titian's portraits. His prose is lionhearted, and lion-sinewed. His style of writing, however, it must be confessed, is very superior to his style of shaking hands. The first is all eagerness, intensity, and vigour; the last is cold, tame, and indecisive. He appears to abandon a bunch of melancholy fingers to your threatened squeeze, with some hope of their not coming to a shake. His hand strikes you as doubly chill, from its taking no interest in the ardour and nerve of your own. It swoons away. It appears to have something on its mind, or to be of an absent disposition. If Isaac Walton had received such a hand in the way of salutation at twilight after a day's hard fishing, he would have thought some wag had greeted him with four gudgeons and a Miller's Thumb. I wish he would "palpably confirm his grasp" in future, that my own paw may not be disconcerted or lured into the same lifeless habits. But what has this to do with his strong and impressive writings? Nothing. Only I find it recorded in my observant book, and therefore I cannot choose but remember it. He is a good hearted man, as well as a fine minded one,-good hearted still, in spite of rude usage, and the despoiled poetry of his youth ful hopes. May he yet see a happy sunset after all the boisterous gustiness of his morning!' It is a curious fact, that the Indicator (a very clever little periodical work) has written a paper on the "shakings of the hand," and even remarked upon the very individual of whom I have spoken. This is a curious coincidence. I did not see it till long after my own observations were written; and I only notice it now, for the sake of declaring, at the same time, that I am innocent of all literary theft. Having thus stated to you the wonders of my matchless common-placebook, I come to the dream of which I spoke to you at the opening of this paper. I stated that I would account for the poetical colours which illuminated it, which I shall proceed at once to do, previous to giving a detail of the dream itself. I was detained at home the other evening by the harassing showers which at this season of the year fall, as if purposely, at all pleasurable or leisure hours; and being alone in the front of a grate, which, in Spring's despite, clutched its little bars full of bright and burning coals, I took out my book of literary treasures, drew the sofa in front of the fire, married the two boisters together under my head, and plunged heart and soul into the innermost recesses of the volume's leafed chambers. I read, and read, and read, and my eyes became more and more enamoured of their food. I laughed, and revelled, and loved with Moore, and heard his voice again and again. I attended Mr Campbell's lecture, listened to his readings from Homer, and caught with attentive ear his minute criticisms on the Hebrew writers. Hours chased each other with unnoticed rapidity, and still I turned untired to a new page, and read on. The shades of evening now darkened through my window panes, and threw an indistinctness over my book. Still I read on, teazing with earnest eyes the passages from the page, till they were so lost in shade as to baffle all further reading. But even yet my mind's appetite had grown so by what it fed on, that it supplied imaginary food to the eyes, and I therefore still appeared to read on. From this state, (and I know not how long I remained in it,) you will acknowledge that the transition to sleeping and dreaming was natural enough. I know not how I passed to sleep, but my eyes closed in the twilight, and as the evening deepened, I became involved in a romantic and wondrous vision. It was but the poetry of my waking thoughts; it from the hand of memory, and weavwas imagination snatching the flowers ing them into a strange and fantastic garland. I can scarcely describe to you the sweetness of the blooming plants which grew around me in my dream, as I lay on a gentle bank which sloped its easy and springy turf down to a fresh and gallant rivulet. The blossoms were bright and fragrant, and leaned in lustrous beauty towards and over the lively waters. The rapid stream gambolled along, as though it were "sufficient to itself, its own reward;" and it brake the reflected images of the lilies into a million white and green fragments of restless colour. A mountain was in sight, and the sky over my head bent its peaceful blue around, as seeming to bless and protect. Í reclined with my head upon my hand, drinking in the beauty of the world. For ever could I have so reclined; for ever could I have so drunk at that bounteous and noble spring, and still should I have thirsted, still taken the waters of beauty to my heart:-but the inconstancy of dreaming disturbed my fascinated reverie, and forced on me other sounds and other sights than those which so spelled and soothed me. It was evening-a sunny, still, Grecian evening, and suddenly I heard a dim, airy music coming up the valley, stealing along like a summer mist. It seemed to be born of no instrument, to be no decided sound, but rather to be the harmony of the world made audible. I heard this divine music, and lifted up my head to ascertain from what quarter it came, when I saw the water before me trembling and shuddering in redoubled brightness-leaping and moaning like the Lady Christabelle in her sleep-coiling and writhing in its silver lustre, even as a playful fascinated snake in the sun. In a moment a mist arose from the waters, and through it I could dimly distinguish a beautiful female figure, light as the thistle-down when it first quits its parent stalk, radiant as a vase illuminated. She approached me, the mist still continuing to follow and to veil her. Perhaps this was in pity to the poverty of mortal eyes, which might not endure the unshadowed lustre of the immortals. Still, however, the jewels trembled in her hair, and shot their lights around in a thousand fanciful ways. Her bounteous and golden hair ran in glowing waves about her shoulders, and never, methought, had I seen a form so beautiful, so visionary, so light. Her eyes, mercy be praised! were shaded by VOL. VII. soft and drooping lids, and by the sweetest fringe of smoothed lashes that I had ever looked upon; but still they melted a softened light over the countenance, which seemed" to show, yet shade, a forehead more than fair." But I am becoming romantic in my description, and, lest I should be taken to task by old Mr Gifford in the Quarterly Review, in the same way that Lady Morgan was reproved for "writing lies," I shall desist,-merely referring those young ladies who enjoy the poetry of pretty faces, and who love to read tender extravagance in the shape of tumultuous descriptions, to the novels of two worthy booksellers near the East India House, who are celebrated for their five volumes of marble-covered immorality and passionate trash. To proceed The form advanced, in its veil of silvery and transparent mist, towards me, and became more distinct and more beautiful as it approached. I could make out a shape more clearly, and have a perfect perception of the face. While I was gazing with all my soul at this singular and sweet presence, she brake silence, with a voice so soft and charming, that it could scarcely be said to break it. I cannot recollect the precise words she spake to me, for I was so awed and enchanted that I felt plunged in a tenfold charmed sleep. But the purport of her address was, that she had permitted me to approach her sacred stream, of which she was the guardian spirit; that the waters which ran, mad with light and music, at my feet, were the real waters of poetry, of which "so many rave, although they know them not. She informed me, that, on that very evening, and at that very hour, the living poets performed their pilgrimage to fetch water from the stream of inspiration, and, in return for my love of the tribe, she granted me permission to see, myself unseen, the wondrous sight. As she spake, her hair heaved its gentle waves, like the sunny waters of an evening sea, over her shoulders, and her eyes lightened as with glorious poesy. I looked her my thanks as well as I was able, though they took more the semblance of adoration, and bowed my face on the grass before her. I should not forget to state, that she likewise informed me that the poets were compelled to tell her, as they re S ceived the waters, to what use they intended to apply them. I raised my head, looked once more on the stream, and truly it seemed to trip on with a pleasant dactylic motion. Suddenly I heard the sound of approaching feet, and a melodious murmur of mingled voices. The Spirit said to me, Sing to their approach-Welcome them!" And, on the instant, though I had never before ventured on verse, my lips broke silence, and I lifted up my virgin song. I fear that persons awake will not see much meaning in it, but, as it was my first and last attempt, done into English at the inspiration of the moment, and fashioned in the presence of such an awful company, I trust that its beauties, and not its defects, will be sought for and eulogized. branch over me, passed slowly in her mantle of mist to the middle of the stream, over which she now appeared to preside. In a little time the poetical crowd advanced within an ode's length of the water, and then halted. They then chaunted a hymn to the Spirit, written expressly for the occasion by Moore, and set by Sir John Stevenson in his best manner, as I was afterwards informed. I could perceive that each poet held in his hand a vessel to bear away his portion of the inspired waters. The Spirit now beckoned with her laurel branch, and each walked singly from the throng, and dipped his vessel in the blue, wild, Castalian wave. I will endeavour, as well as my recollection will allow me, to describe the manner and words of the most interesting of our living poets on this most interesting occasion. The evening became more joyous-Pegasus might be seen courting the winds in wild rapture on one of the neighbouring mountains-sounds of glad and viewless wings were heard waying and fluttering high above the stream-and "all the air was filled with pleasant noise of waters." And first I saw a lonely and melancholy figure slowly move towards the brink. I knew, by its noble air and peculiar carriage, that it was Lord Byron. He filled a Grecian urn. He bulent and rash hand; but he drew plunged it into the stream with a turit forth with sorrow and cold serenity. He declared he would keep the urn and its contents by him for some years;" but he had scarcely spoken ere he had sprinkled forth some careless drops on the soiling earth. He retired, but did not join the crowd. There then advanced a polite and comely personage, of a pleasant visage, and a northern accent, yet withal very oddly clad. He had a breast-plate on, and over that a Scottish plaid,-and, strange to say, with these, silk stackings and dress shoes. It was Walter Scott, as I guessed. He brought an old helmet, which had been newly gilt and embossed for the occasion, as his vessel. It did not hold enough for a very deep draught, but the water it contained took a pleasant sparkle from the warlike metal which shone through its shallowness. He said he had disposed of his portion on advantageous terms. The Spirit, with a |