either at Charlie's or in the Assembly-rooms? Or is it consistent with the pride of Scotsmen to allow the first magistrate of their chief city to be obliged for the display of his brief dignity to John Wells? No, fellow-citizens! Let a coach be commissioned this instant from Messrs Crichton and Co.; let it be a good, thrifty, substantial article, with plenty of room inside, (magistrates are sometimes bulky men ;) and let the large building in the west of George'sstreet, called the Tontine, be immediately purchased, and fitted up as a mansion for our Provosts, where these right honourable gentlemen may do the honours of the city to illustrious strangers, as becomes the modern Athens. The thing is not yet too late. The building above-mentioned may be put in order in less than three months, provided it be immediately set about; and before his Majesty arrives, we may be in a situation to shew that we have a mansion for our Provost, as well as a palace for our Prince. As I am on city politics, I take the liberty of suggesting, that in place of carrying our races in future to Musselburgh, it would be desirable to confine them to our own neighbourhood. For this purpose no place is so well adapted as the parks in the neighbourhood of the Palace, called St Anne's Yards, and the Duke's Walk; and were Comely Garden and the park and garden to the N. E., (now divided from the Duke's Walk by an old dike,) purchased by Government, along with the two old houses, and the wretched cottages and cow-houses at Croftangrie removed, it would not only be a permanent improvement to the palace and city, but afford a racing ground no where to be surpassed. The unrivalled amphitheatre of hills by which this level track is surrounded, including the Calton-Hill and Arthur's Seat, would form a grand feature in the scene, and afford accommodation to twice the population of the capital to behold the races in safety. The tents and stalls for drinking, puppet shows, and all the other little requisites expected by the crowd at a horse-race, might be snugly arranged in the neighbouring valley; and there might our humble fellow-citizens amuse themselves at the rowley powley and quoits, or get tipsey in rural retirement, and sleep without danger of horses and carriages, till the bleating of sheep and the shrill cries of the wild birds aroused them to work and sobriety. But whether or not it were desirable to convert this fine piece of ground into a racing-course, I do insist that the said property be purchased, the dikes levelled, and the old houses removed, for the purpose of making a proper entrance to the Palace, and forming a corresponding lawn. The old flower plot at the back of the Palace must also be removed, its enclosure taken down, and the ground levelled to the bottom of the walls. In this case, what a splendid approach might be formed, connected with the eastern termination of the road over the Calton-Hill, to "our Palace of Holyroodhouse;" and another, still more splendid, might be formed at the other termination of the Park, near to what is now called the Watering-Stane. One or other, or both of these approaches, is absolutely necessary to avoid the long, dirty, and narrow suburb of Canongate, and the still more horrible entrance by Croftangrie. No gentleman of moderate fortune, were such a piece of ground, and such a house, his property, but would adopt something of the kind I have now suggested; and so satisfied am I of even its advantage to increase the beauty and grandeur of " mine own romantic town," that I, for one, shall not advise his Majesty to come to Edinburgh if this be not done; nay, so far as my influence goes, endeavour to prevent the royal visit altogether. It is far better that the King should dream or read of having a fine Palace called Holyroodhouse in the capital of Scotland, where his ancestors, and our native princes, held their royal courts, than that he should come unawares upon us, and find himself obliged to engage a bed at Oman's or the Black Bull, or take up his abode in the neighbourhood of stagnant drains, and next door to a close of cow-feeders. But I hope better things of the public officers, and from the public spirit of the inhabitants; and I have no doubt, now that the thing is suggested, that if it were properly set about, the Barons of Exchequer would give their aid to its speedy completion. The Palace and its environs have been too long ne glected; and I do not flatter myself by saying, that if I, Christopher Columbus, were to be appointed ranger of the King's Park, (and it is my favourite walk,) either with or without a lodging in the Palace, and with any thing of a decentish salary, things would be conducted in quite a different manner. I would, in that case, plant a good deal of the rocky banks; cut many delightful terraces on the acclivities, and strew them with shrubberies; sweep away all the awkward dikes; cover St Anthony's venerable chapel and hermitage with ivy; totally remove the stiles, and replace them with swing-gates where necessary; and put a final stop to the demolition of that superb natural mural crown -Salisbury Crags. No great sum would be required for this purpose; and I am quite sure if his Majesty saw the magnificent grounds round his Palace, or if Mr Williams, or that clever young artist Gasteneaux, would take accurate drawings of them in all their delightful points of view, I should not have to wait long for my appointment. I should then take the liberty of writing to the Duke of Atholl, in my official capacity, as ranger of the park, to request the present of a herd of red-deer; and take measures to let Lord Breadalbane know, that a few scores of fallow-deer would be required to tenant the ornamented lawn. I take it for granted that the chapel royal is to be repaired as projected, and therefore I say nothing on that head; but to compensate the poor owls who would by this reparation be disturbed in "their silent, solitary reign," I would remove them to St Anthony's Chapel, and even, with the broken fragments, build them a kind of belfry for shelter, and furnish them with one year's supply of mice. The hawks, the ancient inhabitants of the precipitous cliffs, to which they have a prescriptive and indefeasible right, I would not remove, but protect; and even, by the introduction of different species, have always at command a sufficient number of these graceful animals, for the noble and kingly sport of falconry. Every morning I should mount my poney to see that things were going on to my mind, and every evening I should I was here interrupted, very much to my regret, by the girl opening my chamber door. "Who's there-What do you want, Betty?"-" Sir, Mrs Columbus bids me say that she has been waiting supper for you this hour. The eggs are useless already, and the het water's cauld!"-This interruption broke the thread of my ideas; and though I had a great deal more to say on the subject, yet, so difficult is it to recover a train of thought dispelled by other associations, that I must postpone what I have further to urge till another opportunity. TREASON. Treason doth never prosper-what's the reason? We have discovered a plot. Not a dark-lantern business of gunpowder and matches, like Guy Fawkes's, nor of hand-grenades and sabres, like the Cato-street atrocity-nevertheless it is a treasonable conspiracy, having, fortunately, one point of resemblance to the two plots above-mentioned-that it has been discovered and defeated in time. It was directed against ourselves, it aimed at the subversion of our supremacy in the periodical world, and was intended to bring into contempt us, the contributors' Sovereign Lord the Editor, our Magazine, and dignity. Readers cannot have forgotten an absurd Round-Robin from a shallowpated junto of disappointed correspondents, who had cockered themselves up by a give-and-take system of selfeulogy, till they fancied themselves constrained by an unanimous feeling of their own surpassing merit, to prescribe to us what we ought to insert. We published their appeal, and added notes, by our own individual self, of the most soothing and kindly quality. These gentlemen and ladies, however, are so sore in the chest, with catarrhs, brought on, we presume, by the puffs of flattery, with which they are in the inveterate practice of ventilating one another, that even the emulsion of our notes, soft and tranquillizing, as if dulcified by oil of almonds, could not be swallowed by them without causing strong symptoms of exacerbation in their disordered breasts. Here, however, it is right that we make a distinction-we must not accuse the whole of those who joined in the petition before declared ; some were found still bearing true allegiance to us,-to Us, their lawful potentate in matters critical, as long as they claim the privileges of that respectable body literate, the contributors to Maga. We do not divulge how many out of the fourteen adhere to their loyalty, because we believe that one or two are in a wavering state, and will probably, when they see the disgrace which the rebels incur, quit the debateable land, and come over and entrench themselves on the right side, where they shall enjoy all the advantages of a plenary amnesty. One of the band, however, was so pre-eminently true to his original fealty, that it was by his means that we were made acquainted with, and enabled to frustrate, the machinations of the evil-disposed. He boldly rushed into their conclave, seized upon their papers, and transmitted the pestiferous bale to us, shewing himself a very Abdiel, Faithful found, Among the faithless, faithful only he. (But this we qualify according to the statement above; nevertheless, he deserves to be reported of as)— Among innumerable false, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zealand perhaps it is solely through him, that we, at this present moment, are sitting on the throne of these realms of Maga, (scilicet, the great-chair in Ebony's back-shop,) and in undisturb ed control over demi-gods, angels, devils, and men.-Our demi-gods are those Titans of wit and learning, Odoherty, Wastle, Kempferhausen, and Co.-Our angels are the ladies, whose crow-quills indite delicate articles on pink-edged Bath wove, and very pretty reading they are. Our devils flit on sooty pinions around the presses of Messrs Ballantyne ;-and our everyday subjects are the myriads in the three kingdoms, whose half-crowns are, without grumbling, paid monthly into our exchequer. Yes, to Abdiel, (for in compassion to some of his party he wishes not to be named,) we are indebted for all this; and to a discerning public we commit our vindication and defence; so to the end that the community at large may see the vil lainy of the designs of these conjura, tors, (not conjurors-we acquit them of all expertness in that way,) we shall hereunder pillory some of the documents in our possession; thus giving over to utter scorn the railing invectives of these foul-mouthed chaps, their futile imprecations, and their other impotent attempts against our peace. It appears that the lever by which these Round-Robin men, this Archimedes corporate, meant to move the world of Christopher North's renown, was to be a book. By means of a desperate jerk of this paper lever, prop ped on the fulcrum of public opinion, these our dominions in fame were to be tilted up and sent→→→ Ten thousand leagues away Into the devious air-upwhirl'd aloft, The sport of winds. So that we, (who, vanity apart, are without controversy Editorum facile princeps,) were to be left as bare of literary reputation, as Jeremy Bentham for instance, or any other unreadable, and ergo unread, writer of the present day. It is not quite clear what was to be the title-page designation of this declaration of war, and its authors seem to have tampered with a good many. As far as we can make out from some blurred sheets, it looks as if "Vindi. ciæ Asinine" had been submitted by a wiseacre, but had been struck out by a more clear-sighted colleague-it would however have been very appropriate. Another Latin prefix was Northius Obsessus," but probably, as all did not understand it, it met with the luck of the preceding. One wag had put down A rod for the back And there is reason to believe that this might have been adopted, had not the snake been scotched, before it was ready to issue from its hole. After all, the prosaic enunciation of "Christopher's Downfall, or Northern Stolidity in disgrace," may have had their votes, for it is written in a conspicuous hand. What was to come first in the farrago, and what last, we do not know, because the capture of the rebels' goods was made before they were duly disposed in order-so we must put forth our specimens quite at random. We first then give the misdoings of Omieron, who (it will be in the recollection of our friends,) was the fabricator of a "Celestial Tour." He still has a hankering after preterhuman powers, and here assumes the magical influence of Kehama, making us the Ladurlad of the occasion. He is, however, but a sorry imitator of that wholesale dealer in phlogistic curses, as his imprecations do not take effect-for, (be it known to him, and we thank him,) we have felt our rheumatism rather less troublesome this autumn than usual. Notwithstanding, hear what cruel things he would accomplish, if he could. "THE CURSE OF OMICRON. "I DOOм thy foot To the torment of gout, In tone more emphatic, Of a visit rheumatic,- Fits hot and fits cold- So that when thou goest forth Keep in, then, KIT NORTH, Damp feet make thee shrug, Neither carpet nor rug. And Editors woo me, So appalling the view! It shall ne'er wear a Shoe Don't your teeth chatter with horror and trepidation, like Corporal Trim's, or Harry Gill's, our pitying Public? But, to relieve your apprehensions for our foot's welfare, (put up your white pocket-handkerchiefs, dear readers of the gentler sex! your sympathy is overpowering, and withal, needlessly excited,) we can assure you, and we call on Mr Blackwood to corroborate our declaration, that we have both our good, serviceable, thick-soled leathern shoes upon our feet at this very epoch of being calumniated; so what becomes of his condemnation of us to the crippled state of being only able to wear half a pair at a time? Nay, we possess a pair of boots, which we scorn to leave behind whenever we jog over to Glasgow, and which, indeed, have incased these legs, and done good service, within the last three weeks. So you see, deeply-interested and partlytearful audience, how wretched a performer Omicron is in the part of Kehama, being his first appearance in that character. But I see, righteous Public, what your opinion is, and what is his destiny,-you are determined to hiss him off the stage,―he is slinking away, well he is done for. The next production is by a conspirator of a very white-livered complection, who signs himself Domesticus. It is entitled "A Familiar Essay on the Character and Conduct of Blackwood's Magazine, with especial reference to No. LIV." It opens in this lack-adaysical tone:-"I was sitting at tea, on the second of September-a balmy evening, and we had the window open, so that a box of mignonette blended its fragrance with that of the nine shilling hyson. This was extremely pleasant; but I cannot say that I think it altogether so comfortable as tea-time in winter, when one nudges close into the corner of the sofa, and has the toast kept hot on the fender; indeed, we do not have toast to tea in the summer, which omission alters the whole features of the thing; however, in spite of all this, it was agreeable enough, and so I expressed myself to KateBut there is no end to this. In brief, after wallowing in an ocean of sentimental small-talk, he tells us that the Nos. for August arrive: he falls into a wonderment at not meeting with his "Hearth-Rug Promptings;" then he simmers in a warm-watery transport of rage and grief at discovering the note which indicates our will that they shall not appear at all; after which he cools down into a fit of the sullens, in which he attempts to pick holes in No. 54, complaining of " that eternal Steam-boat," whining over the strangeness of our admitting the "Travels of Columbus," while his own superfine compositions are black-balled. În fine, what with lifting up his hands in consternation, shewing the whites of his eyes in amazement, and drawing down the corners of his mouth in affected reprobation of all he finds, he works himself into a little heat again, and thus bursts out: "This Magazine is fated to be the destruction of all that is lovely and engaging in the literature of this remarkable era. If infant genius, with the tottering step, and mantling blush of diffidence, ventures to approach, it is mercilessly strangled,-if buds of talent shew promise of bloom in its neighbourhood, they are rapaciously plucked and trampled upon,-if a gem is disclosed, which, in proper setting, and worn on the finger of beauty, would refract the aerial light most charmingly, it is smashed to atoms by Christopher North's heavy hammer, and mingled with the dust. Oh! sickening thought, said I, as I rose and looked out at the open window, and saw not a leaf stirring upon our three poplars, and all nature, indeed, as tranquil as if this domineering Editor did not infest the earth with his hated presence, Oh, my poor heart! I ejaculated, nature truly has bowels of sensibility, but man has none!" These are riddles; but if our refusal to print his articles be kept steadily in view, the halfmeaning of the shadowy nothings is discoverable: but really we can devote no more space to the spooney and his maudlin lamentations. In consideration of his imbecility, we shall deal leniently with him. The galvaniser of frogs comes next, and he endeavours to give us a shock with a sonnet, but his battery is a poor one. "TO BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, NO. LIV. |