No. 112.

New Year's-Bap

AND THE

Edinburgh Literary Journal.

A DIALOGUE.

NEW-YEAR'S-DAY. Ah! my dear JOURNAL, I was sure that you would receive me with a smiling face. There are many persons who look suspiciously on me, and when I offer to shake hands with them, they hold out the tips of their forefingers in a way so cold and repulsive, that they wound my feelings deeply; for I have feelings, however little I may look like it.

EDIN. LIT. JOUR. "The cold in clime are cold in blood;" but we are not so. We were so intimately acquainted with your elder brother, 1830, that we should consider ourselves acting very strangely indeed, were we to refuse to acknowledge any member of his family. Poor 1830! he was one of the best fellows we ever knew,-passionate, to be sure, and with an immense bump of destructiveness, as witness several dynasties which he broke up, as a child breaks up its toys; but in his domestic and social moods, and with his own friends -and we held one of the first places in his regard-he was full of gentle feelings, pleasant fancies, and quaint devices.

NEW-YEAR'S-DAY (much affected, and pulling out a cambric handkerchief.) Your praise of my brother touches me the more that I never saw him. He went forth into the world before I remember any thing, and, until his recent death, my relations insisted on my living a very retired and solitary life. One word of praise from you is worth a thousand homilies.

EDIN. LIT. JOUR. We are certainly not much given to flatter; and when we say that we and 1830 enjoyed many a delightful day together, you may believe that we are sincere. It was at the period when he was in the summer of his life that our friendship was drawn together by the closest links. Many a time and oft did we spend long hours together among the woods and streams; and to some of these hours we look back with emotions that can never be altogether obliterated from our heart. It is, indeed, melancholy to think that they should have fled so fast, and that he to whom we were mainly indebted for their enjoyment, should now lie buried in the tomb of all the Capulets. Peace to his ashes! It is possible that we may never look upon his like again.

NEW-YEAR'S-Day (wiping his eyes.) It is needless to indulge in unavailing grief. I am a scion of a noble and an ancient house; and the more my predecessors have distinguished themselves, the more does it become me to exert myself also.

EDIN. LIT. JOUR. You say right; and if, as Lord Chesterfield has remarked, a pleasant countenance be as good as a letter of introduction, we are happy to inform you that yours has prepossessed us in your favour. Though your features have still somewhat of a boyish look, and are not yet quite so fully developed as they will

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be, there is dignity and power in them. Many meanings lurk in the depths of your expressive eyes, and on your ample forehead a phrenologist would gaze with rapture; for he would there discover organ towering above organ, like Pelion heaped on Ossa.

NEW-YEAR'S-DAY (blushing.) Indeed, indeed, you compliment my personal appearance more than it deserves.

EDIN. LIT. JOUR. Not a jot; and you will not long have mingled in society, before that ingenuous blush at the sound of your own praises will cease to mantle on your cheek.

NEW-YEAR'S-DAY. Pardon me, but I hope not. I am resolved to avoid, if possible, the contamination arising from the indulgence in the fashionable vices of the day; and I have thus early visited you, of whom I had often heard even in my seclusion, to request, that in all matters connected with morals, and the attendant handmaids of Virtue-Literature, Science, and the Arts, you will act as my Mentor, my adviser, my guide. I know of no one in whose judgment I place greater confidence, or to whose opinions I shall ever be disposed to listen with greater deference. The nucleus, as you are, that draws towards one common centre a host of the most eminent persons that Scotland and England can produce, your society must always be valuable, your conversation always varied and delightful.

EDIN. LIT. JOUR. Pleased as we are with the favourable sentiments you entertain for us, it would be folly to affect to deny, that we certainly enjoy opportunities of bringing together as pleasant literary assemblies as are to be met with anywhere. It was but a short time before your brother's death, on last Christmas Day, that we took occasion to ask a few friends to meet with him, and he declared when be left us, which was not till a very late hour, that he had never enjoyed so admirable a party before. And no wonder, for among the ladies we had Mrs S. C. Hall, with her warm heart and pleasant humour, ever fresh and new; Miss Landon, with her deep feeling and beautiful fancy; the authoresses of the "Odd Volume," with their lively and natural imaginations; and though last not least, Gertrude, with her fine genius, every day springing out into riper luxuriance ;-then among the men, we had the Ettrick Shepherd-the only Ettrick Shepherd in the world; Allan Cunningham, one of the most universally esteemed of all the Scottish writers of the day; Tennant, the bard of "Anster Fair," in his own departments of classical literature and grotesque Scottish humour unequalled; Sir John Sinclair, the venerable baronet who has done more for statistics and agriculture-two of the most important subjects to which the intellect can be directed—than all his contemporaries put together; Malcolm, the poet-soldier, he who has dreamt fair dreams upon the tented fields of Spain; Macdonald, the poet-sculptor, who carves out of marble, thoughts that would be but dimly seen through the haze of words; Knowles, with his original and enthusiastic mind; Carne, and Chambers, and S. C. Hall, and Kennedy, and Thomson, and Weir, and Atkinson-` all good men and true; we had these, and how could they fail to make the hours fly past on wings of enchantment?