MY DEAR SIR,-The kind reception which you gave me on my arrival in Scotland, with but a slender claim on your acquaintance, and the high opinion which I formed of your liberality of sentiment in the course of much delightful communication with you, both in Buchanan House and elsewhere, encourage me to address you on a subject, from which I should otherwise have studiously abstained, as involving many delicate and perhaps disputable questions. Our mutual friend Hhad partially prepared me for finding, in the Christopher North of private life, a still more enlightened and engaging old man than the pages of his published writings present to us; but, independently of other qualities, my anticipations were far short of that courteous hospitality, that wide-spread fellow-feeling, and that mild toleration for honest differences of opinion, which I soon found him to possess. I am aware, that, in sending you this packet, I am trespassing on your time, and perhaps trying your temper; but the extent of your indulgence to me on former occasions must plead my excuse, however imperfectly, if I seem to overtax it now.

You are aware that, though speaking the language of Britain, and bearing British blood in my veins, I cannot boast of having been born in this country. Yet no man, I believe, entertains towards her soil a more fond or filial affection. My father was a native of England; my mother of Scotland. I feel an interest and a pride in all that concerns either part of the United Kingdom; and perhaps, as earliest impressions are the strongest, my predilections are rather in favour of the northern than of the southern division. I well remember, when yet a child, and when the first pulsations of taste and feeling were awakening within me, the sad but pleasing sympathy with which I listened to my mother, while, with tears in her eyes, and her sweet voice faltering with emotion, she sung to her children, the nurslings of a distant and destructive climate, those soft and simple strains which had delighted her

own childhood in the cool glens, and by the prattling streamlets of her native land. Her favourite melodies were the pastoral songs of Scotland, of which the peculiar imagery never failed to affect her with the tenderest longings of attachment, and produced in the expanding minds of her little nursery an involuntary desire to know and to see the objects that could excite so strong a devotion in one whom we so much loved and venerated. In advancing years, I retained for Scotland, and all that was connected with it, much of that instinctive affection which had thus been implanted in me. But various circumstances attending the course of life on which I entered, prevented me from visiting my maternal country until a recent period, when, among other advantages, I enjoyed the pleasure and profit of making your acquaintance, and I hope I may add, of acquiring your friendship.

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In most respects, my visit to Scotland has not disappointed me. mountains and valleys were all, or more than all, that I had fancied or desired. I found her institutions wisely framed, and ably administered. Her people generally impressed me with a high conviction of their virtues and good sense; and those with whom I have had a more familiar intercourse, have laid me, by their civilities and cordialities, under obligations that I can never either forget or repay. But allow me, my dear sir, to say, that in one particular, the conduct or manners of your countrymen gave me considerable pain, and seemed to me to leave room for considerable amendment. .

The fault that I have to find with them lies in an excessive, and I think superfluous display of national feeling, particularly in matters of learning and literature. Since I came among you, I have been present at a good many meetings and entertainments, more or less of a literary or public nature; and while there has been no lack of laudation bestowed on merit of home growth, I have been struck with the almost entire absence of any allusion, and certainly of any adequate tribute, to the literary excellence even of your nearest

neighbours. I was for some time delighted to have the privilege of sharing in the just enthusiasm excited by the names of those great men, whether living or dead, who have raised the honour of Scotland so high. Burns, Scott, Campbell, Wilson, North, Jef. frey, Chalmers,—seemed to me, in their several spheres, most proper and pleasing objects of admiration, and sources of honest pride. I read with delight in every countenance the feelings of self-gratulation which filled my companions at the sound of those distinguished names. I set my features by the same glass, and cheered and clap. ped with the loudest and lustiest among them. I began more than ever to claim a part in your national treasures, and said, after Correggio, "Anch' io son Scozzese." But after several repetitions of the same diet, it began to pall. I longed for variety-I longed for truth: for though what I heard, for the most part, was the truth, and nothing but the truth, it was not the whole truth. It was not the suggestio falsi, but it was the suppressio veri. I asked myself the question, but without receiving an answer favourable to the practice of my excellent friends here, whether genius now, and in time past, was really confined to Scotland, or whether only the optics of those about me were too shortsighted to discover it beyond the Scottish border. I speculated whether this so very limited enthusiasm was prompted by a love of literature, or proceeded merely from a love of self, amiable indeed, and intelligible, yet erroneous in fact, and indefensible in principle. Burns, thought I, is indisputably an admirable poet, who will live as long as his language can be understood; yet "it may be dooted," as M'Leod said in other cases, though he probably would not have said it of a countryman, whether his poetry is of a very ethereal or elevated kind, and whether its reputation has not sometimes been endangered, not by faint but by injudicious praise. Scott we all love and delight in: but is it quite clear that he is as great as Shakspeare; that his prose fictions can, in wisdom, beauty, and sublimity, be matched with the poetry of the chief of poets?

Campbell is sweet and touching, and something more; but is it true that he has surpassed the excellencies of those English worthies, whom his own criticisms have so justly exalted? Wilson is a true and delightful poet, whether in prose or rhyme; but, to say the least, he has a formidable rival in Wordsworth: yet Wilson's name is ever in your mouths, and Wordsworth's ye never utter. Jeffrey in his day was pretty and pleasant; but can we safely affirm that he was a greater than Johnson? Chalmers is eloquent, earnest, and energetic; but even on his disc there are a few spots discernible by the telescope of truth; and there are luminaries in the sister church that could make him pale his beams when at the brightest. North, I admit, is unapproached and unapproachable, but one swallow does not make a summer; and you have no right to claim pre eminence in every thing, because in some single department, those who are otherwise your equals or superiors, have hitherto failed to surpass you. Why, then, do such excellent and penetrating persons as you are, thus exclusively dwell on the glories of Scottish writers, and either wholly withhold, or but rarely and reluctantly allow, to the men and the memories in which England abounds, that share of sympathy and admiration which is so justly their due?

Such, my dear North, were my internal expostulations with those whom yet I ardently love and respect, and by whom I earnestly desire to be es teemed, not only as a friend but as a countryman. Now, tell me whether, in the idea that I thus adopted, I was or was not mistaken. Perhaps I have been hasty in admitting the impression that was thus formed. I may, by mere accident, have been thrown among persons, or have been present on occasions, that do not exhibit a fair sample of the national feeling in Scotland on this subject. If so, I am sincerely sorry for my mistake, and shall be most happy to see it corrected. But if I am not here in error, nay, if there is any foundation whatever for my opinion, even though it be less than I suppose, I must humbly submit that

this state of things ought not to be, and that every true friend of Scotland is interested in its reformation.

If the extreme and exclusive partiality for Scottish merit which is thus exhibited in our countrymen (permit me so to speak of them in the rest of this letter), were called for by any unwillingness in our southern neighbours to do us justice, I should be the last to find fault with even an exaggerated assertion of our claims. Let the honour or the fame of Scotland be attacked, and I will allow you to bristle up your spines, like the armed plant that forms the emblem of your nation, and to prove that aggression shall never escape punishment. Nay, in such a case, I would wag my tongue or my claymore in her defence, with the best of you! But why at present these laboured and one-sided panegyrics? What has made it necessary now, for years past, to dwell specially and solely on the literary praises of Scotland? Quis vituperavit? Her merits, in all departments, have long been fully acknowledged by the world, and by England among the rest. We need not, therefore, display that Yankee-like itch for praise, that springs from a morbid soreness within; we need not resort to this perpetual bolstering up of our pretensions, of which the natural explanation is, that it indicates insecurity of position.

The course that I thus take the liberty of lamenting, appears to me to be objectionable on these several grounds: 1. It is unjust; 2. It is ungrateful; 3. It is foolish; 4. It is injurious.

1. It is unjust. Scotland has, indeed, done much for literature. But what she has done, cannot, without violence to truth and reason, be held as paramount or equal to the contributions of the rest of the empire. Count up the names which she has added to the list of literary classics, and compare them with those of England, and either we must confess our great inferiority, or we must allow our principles of criticism or veracity to be perverted by our patriotism.

Let us take a hasty review of the poetry which has been produced in each country, leaving out, necessarily, the inferior names on both sides of the question. One eminent poet of early date Scotland can boast of Dunbar ; one to whose merit you have

yourself done no more than justice by a noble criticism. Admirable, indeed, he is, alike for fancy, tenderness, and humour; yet he is surely a paler and a lesser light than the morning-star of English song. Chaucer, too, we must remember, had the precedence in point of time by fully a century; and Dunbar, doubtless, drew much from his example, both in language and in thought. From Dunbar to Ramsay how wide a space in our history-more than two centuries-yet how few names of any consideration can we number to fill it up! How much of our sky is dark and vacant, while that of England is a glittering galaxy! Three glorious orbs of song may be there discovered at no great interval from each other - Spencer, Shakspeare, Milton; each, indeed, not a star but a sun, dazzlingly bright, and not more bright than beneficent; not coldly shining with beams of idle beauty, but diffusing to all the world the light of truth and the warmth of virtue. With these must be associated many luminaries of secondary dignity, that elsewhere would appear conspicuously brilliant, but here are made dim, partly by the surpassing lustre of those greater lights, and partly by the very frequency with which they are themselves clustered together. In later times, indeed, Scotland has more to show. the author of the Gentle Shepherd receive his due meed of praise for that native simplicity and genuine tenderness which his English rivals failed either to seek or to attain ;-let Thomson be reverenced as a great and worthy high-priest of Nature, and a glorious restorer of her true worship, when it had been either for.. gotten or corrupted ;-let Beattie Tetain all the praise that he has ever received-he well deserves it, as a genuine poet, who knew and taught that the love of beauty and of goodness must go hand in hand ;-and let Burns conclude the century, a noble product of his country's character and institutions, unrivalled in all the qualities of lyric tenderness, of manly force, or of homely humour, that his genius or position were calculated to inspire. But let us not forget that, during this later period, our neighbours, too, have a list to show, which we must not boast of surpassing. Pope, Young, Goldsmith, Gray, Collins, and Cowper, are names never to be uttered

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without love and gratitude, as having inestimably contributed to the delight and instruction of mankind. The poetry of Cowper in one respect resembles that of Burns, as it is a fruit of which the form and flavour are eminently characteristic of the soil that gave it birth. English scenery, English habits, the calm and cheerful pleasures of English homes, the independence, philanthropy, and devotion of English hearts, are delineated in Cowper's verses with a truth and beauty that ennoble at once the poet and the theme, and present a social picture of sober wisdom and solid happiness that cannot elsewhere be equalled.

If we come down to our own day, I suspect that all the poetry we can muster in Scotland, and it is not inconsiderable, will not turn the balance against the opposing weight of Crabbe and Wordsworth.

If I were to take a similar survey of miscellaneous literature, I believe that I should reach nearly the same result, at least until that period of our annals which records the auspicious birth of Maga. The name of Samuel Johnson would alone be sufficient to immortalize the nation that produced him. Why, sir, have you never, in all your lucubrations, done justice to the genius and virtues of that great and good man? You carp sometimes at his criticisms on poetry, and I allow that his poetical, like his physical vision, had some natural defects. Yet even in criticism he was often sound and just, able and admirable and in some departments of no trifling value, he was not only a good judge, but a true poet. To those hap ply constituted minds in which the love and worship of nature are both a part of their frame and an article of their religion, it is difficult to think of Johnson's purblind perceptions with sympathy or toleration. But the regions of moral loveliness were to him in the place of rocks and valleys, flowers and forests; and his reverence for piety and justice, truth and fortitude, may be allowed to compensate for the coldness and almost sullenness against nature with which he regarded the forms of physical beauty. Who can remember his struggles with poverty and disease-his ever-increasing aspirations after knowledge and wis dom-his scrupulous pursuit of duty,

whether real or supposed-his rigid self-examination-his heartfelt humility-his enduring affection-his sincere devotion ;-who can remember these virtues, and reflect that they were combined with one of the most powerful intellects that ever animated a human frame, without willingly paying to him the tribute so justly due to those who nobly use the noble gifts of their Maker? We shall never, my dear sir, have another book of equal wisdom and delight with the biography of Johnson till Gurney publishes his full notes of the Private Conversations of Christopher North. Of Addison, I presume it would be unfashionable now-a-days to speak in terms in praise! But ought it to be so? Will any impartial examiner of literary history refuse to that excellent and eminent writer the tribute that belongs to the man who makes wit and gaiety subservient to wisdom and goodness-elegance of style to purity of life? Addison contributed, perhaps more than we can tell, to diffuse through general society the taste and knowledge that had been locked up in cloisters and libraries; and his simple and unostentatious communication of his stores of thought and scholarship might be well imitated at the present time by many who, with much less to exhibit, make an infinitely greater flourish in the display. Scotland, I fear, has as yet no names to show that can match with the two I have here mentioned.

In the department of history, our countrymen have done well: better perhaps, comparatively, than in any other. Our leading historians have gained a high place in a very difficult and honourable contest; but we must not say that we have yet thrown Clarendon and Gibbon into the shade.

In philosophy, we have done something, but not so much as is sometimes alleged. We have produced two distinguished men, Hume and Reid-the one to set us wrong, and the other to set us right again. Beyond these, I suspect we have few whom we can boast very highly of, or whom we could place in competition with Bacon, Hobbes, Cudworth, Locke, or Berkeley. The Scotch have sometimes been praised for their metaphysical talent, but I own I am not of opinion that we are in this respect superior or equal either in subtlety or soundness to our

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Southern neighbours, among whom very high examples of this power of analysis may be traced in many writers even of inferior note. country that produced Shakspeare, and that still holds him in reverence as her worthiest son, cannot be deficient either in genius or in taste for mental philosophy; and her ability in this branch of science can only be overlooked from her general pre-eminence in other and nobler acquirements.

In divinity, what shall I say? The Church of Scotland deserves a warmer eulogium than I am able to pronounce upon her, as the trusty guardian of sound doctrine, and the diligent instructress of her people in piety and virtue. We cannot feel too much either of gratitude or pride towards her early reformers, whose efforts set us free from papal tyranny, from error, ignorance, and vice; and we cannot now reflect on the number of devout and laborious men, scattered among her secluded valleys or fertile fields, over her barren wastes, or in the worse wildernesses of her crowded cities, without rejoicing that so many fit and faithful teachers are thus provided to proclaim the truth, both from their lips and in their lives. But as a literary church, in the best sense of the term-as the able and accomplished champion of Christian and Protestant doctrines in the arena of public discussion, I fear that she must be ranked in a lower class than her friends would desire. Some eminent theologians she has produced; but her catalogue must be short and slender compared with that which contains the names of Hooker, Taylor, Chillingworth, Barrow, South, Tillotson, Clarke, Butler, Warburton, and Paley. In the volumes of these great men, and of others resembling them, though differing from each other in dignity, and some of them not exempt from error, there is to be found, as in a ready and well-arranged armoury, a store of sharp and shining weapons, with which in all time the adherents of truth may be supplied to secure the victory over her opponents. It has never been explained to my satisfaction why the Church of Scotland has not sent to the field at least a fair contingent of combatants in the same sacred cause. I cannot allow that the poverty of her livings can alone ac.count for it. The poorest of our

clergy are not worse off than Hooker was, when he was visited at Draiton by his old pupils, Sandys and Cranmer; where, we are told, "they found him with a book in his hand (it was the Odes of Horace), he being then tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field, which he told his pupils he was forced to do, for that his servant was then gone forth to dine, and assist his wife to do some necessary household business." Again, "when his servant relieved him, his two pupils attended him into his house, where their best entertainment was his quiet company, which was presently denied them, for Richard was called to rock the cradle; and the rest of their welcome was so like this, that they staid but till next morning, which was time enough to discover and pity their tutor's condition." It was amidst these privations, however, and with the additional trial of a termagant wife, that Hooker matured those profound opinions and lofty meditations which have made his name immortal in the Ecclesiastical Polity. I cannot think that many of our Scotch ministers are worse provided for, and I trust that most of them are better married; yet no work comparable to Hooker's has yet been produced in the Scottish Church. Perhaps the fault is to be found in the absence of dignities or sinecures -perhaps in the want of discipline and endowments in our schools and colleges. Whatever may be the cause of our inferiority, I trust it may be one day removed, and that the Scottish Church may approach in learning and in written wisdom more nearly to that fair level with her Anglican sister, which she may boast of having attained in orthodox belief and in practical piety.

In general learning, I doubt if we have any very great name, except that of him whose effigy adorns the title-page of Maga, to oppose to the countless swarms of scholars who have issued from the seminaries of English erudition, and who, taking wing to every quarter of the heavens, have gathered treasures from the whole region of literature to enrich the pleasant hives which they have made their homes, and from which the sweet and sustaining food of sound instructionmay be again dispensed to all who hunger to obtain it. Compared with these happy