Magarlaa, the Indian Chief, to his Torturing Foes. At last you've, by a crafty turn, Magarlaa clutched all alone; And roast the flesh from off the bone. Then bave you got your pinchers hot; Now you begin, take time, take time, And do not let me go too soon; The other leg and arm then take, For these you burn I do not feel; And prick my heart with burning steel. And back I shall not come-no, no.” This is in the true "Ercles' vein," in the true "clash, crash, conclude and quell" style of Billy Bottom; and if spoken in character by Quinton, or his biographer, in a country-barn, could not fail to draw tears from the groundlings. The host of poetasters whom we have thus drawn up in array, formidable as it may appear, amounts to but a small fraction of their innumerable tribe. That the number of poems which are constantly poured out upon the country, by such riff-raff gentry, will have a most pernicious effect in debasing the taste, and undermining the morality of the lower orders, is very obvious. But the subject connects itself with another of scarcely inferior importance; namely, the character of Scottish literature: Burns, and, after him, the Author of the National Novels, have generated in our southern neighbours a passion almost extravagant for whatever is Scotch. Their writings have effected a moral revolution, quite unprecedented and wonderful. The hatred felt for us, at no very remote period, by honest John Bull, has only been equalled in intensity by the present fervour of his love, which is even more than brotherly; and Peg seems determined to take advantage of the fond fit, so long as it lasts, by indulging in the most unreasonable liberties, rather than to confirm and rivet the attachment by a moderate and modest display of her attractions. We have become intolerably self-conceited and vain ;-a nation, not of gentlemen only, but of literati; and to gabble Scotch, no matter how imperfectly, in the hearing of Englishmen, is supposed to confer classical distinction upon the gabbler. No decent Scotchman, at the present day, can enter a Coffee-room in London but with the certainty of being put to the blush, by hearing some senseless Sawnies slavering about their country, over their cups, imagining, in the vanity of their hearts, that they are actually lustrous with the rays of their country's glory. Such fellows are a pest and disgrace to Scotland-the shallowest, basest, and most worthless of her sons. It was to be expected, that, as Burns had his crowd of imitators, so would the Author of Waverley; and deeply indebted as the country has been to those eminent writers, for dispelling a cloud of national dislikes and antipathies, the benefit is likely to be rendered valueless by those who have presumed to tread in their footsteps. The love of lucre, more than honourable ambition, is the great incentive to modern Scotch composition. Every thing Scotch is greedily devoured; and nothing so stale or poor can be brought to the market, provided that it bears the national stamp, which does not find a purchaser. It is the fashion to admire the dialect, and pretend to understand it; but the misfortune is, that, to the great majority of English readers, the dialect, and every charac teristic of the country, is enveloped in a haze, and they cannot well discriminate between what is genuine and what is adulterated or spurious. Of this fact there cannot be a stronger proof than the publication of the volume before us-a work which every Scotchman must blush for, but which we have actually seen quoted by one of the most respectable of the metropolitan journals. Most of the minor works in the Scotch dialect, which have been published of late, are the variest trash possible,-deficient in invention, in character, in keeping,-in short, in every one requisite. If novels, the plot or story is uniformly as simple as possible; and this story, meagre at the best, is hammered and beat out to the thinness of tinfoil, of which substance it has no more than the dim and deadly lustre. The whole scope of any one work, is the developement of a single character, (always a most insignificant one,) which a writer of real genius could dispose of by one or two graphic touches;-every sentiment, however mean, is wire-drawn over the surface of whole chapters; and it may truly be said, that the chapters outnumber the ideas. In exploring a grovelling thought or affection, the author shows the most indefatigable patience; and with his tiny rush-light, conducts the reader through all the sinuosities, and into all the crannies of some very common or vulgarly-constituted mind. And it invariably happens, that the discovery affords no recompence for the labour bestowed upon the making it. It may be true, that there is some fidelity in the sketching; but then the originals are perfectly familiar to every one; and we hold that a novelist, if he cannot produce something original or extraordinary, and yet in keeping with nature, is bound, at least, to excite interest, by the variety of his incidents, and the ingenuity of his fable. In the writings of the Author of Waverley we can afford to dispense with a regular plot; there is so much of the soul of poetry embodied in them, such a crowding of persons, so rapid a succession of spirit-stirring adventure, and so perfect a vraisemblance in respect both of national and individual character, that defects in the manner of conducting a plot are absolutely unimportant. But, with the writers to whom we allude, the plot and the leading character are every thing; and, as already remarked, the first is so simple, and the second so insignificant, that one feels no anxiety regarding the denouement of the one or the destiny of the other. Another characteristic of those bastard compositions is, that the prevailing sentiment of each is as simple and unique as the fable. There is no variation of mood in the writer,-no alternations of joy and sadness, of moralizing and mirth, of the sublime and the ridiculous; but all is spiritless, tame, and flat, as a Dutch swamp or a sandy desart. One writer affects the silliness of infancy or dotage,-occasionally of downright idiocy. Another throws over his works the sombre shroud of methodism, dealing largely in cant, both political and religious, which he seasons occasionally with some highly carnal allusion ;-like a horse yoked to a hearse, and adorned with the trappings of woe, he drags his mortal lumber after him at a solemn pace, and with a most lugubrious air; and as his eyes are bent upon the ground, imagines that he hears groans and sobs proceeding from the sorrowing spectators. These, and similar affectations, are bad enough; but what most disgusts us, in all such writings, is the abominable jargon made use of. It is neither Scotch nor English, but a sort of piebald dialect, composed of the very worst specimens of both corrupt Scotch and pedantic English, and as opposite to the Doric simplicity of the one, and the polished dignity of the other, as it is possible to imagine. It is the style of a country pedagogue, who cannot speak English perfectly, but must needs approve his scholarship by liberally sprinkling his discourse with the most recondite words and phrases. In some of those works, which, by a fiction of the author, are supposed to have been written centuries ago, we find words put into the mouths of rustics, that peculiarly belong to sciences the foundations of which were laid within the last fifty years. Then, we have certain crack words, which obtrude themselves every where. One writer cannot convey a notion of still sublimity, without introducing the word sough," (a favourite word, by the bye, of our friend Mac ;) and then we have egging on, wyse, jelouse, and an infinity of other west-country barbarisms, which are as foreign to us as pure Cornish. Scotch composition, hitherto, has been so far successful, that any one may safely adventure upon it. It obviously requires no expenditure of mind; and the gullibility of the English public insures the publisher against possible loss. We have felt it our duty to expose the secrets of this species of writing, and its utter worthlessness, as practised by a few impostors; and, for the sake of our national reputation, and of good taste, we sincerely trust that the appearance of The Gallovidian Encyclopedia will bring it into utter and irretrievable discredit. ESTIMATE OF CLASSICAL LEARNING," WITH A VIEW TOWARDS A NEW ARRANGEMENT OF THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS, AND OF EDUCATION IN LETTERS FROM A PLAIN MAN TO THE EDITOR. THEREIN. SIR, Letter II. In my last letter, I reminded your readers of our little village club, and told them generally of the topics of our discussion in it. I mentioned that Classical Learning, and its value and import, had attracted our attention; that we had been particularly inquiring, whether, out of our shorter leases of life, of a couple or three nineteens, or even our longer tacks, of three-score and ten, or four-score years, (the longest sets in the Psalmist's rent-roll,) we could reasonably spare seven or eight of them in getting driven into us, "with labour dire, and weary woe," an imperfect knowledge of a dead language or two; and that, even supposing the game to be worth the candle, and that the object is of some consequence, we have next been asking, whether or not the object might not be attained by some shorter method than that which has been hitherto followed. In general affairs, Sir, there are certain periods when mankind are inclined to overhaul matters, and, in the progress of the species, to survey, not only the road which they have already passed over, but that which they are about to travel, finding, in the experience of the past, a lesson for the future, and, without any radicalism, reforming what has been wrong, and amending what has been deficient. It is on this principle that our Government has altered the arrangement of the Revenue Boards; -that our Senatus Academicus are thinking about changing their mode of examining candidates for medical honours; and that the old tenement, the College of Justice, is about to undergo many alterations, and a thorough repair. Now, Sir, the same kind of juncture has arrived regarding Classical Learning and Grammar Schools; and the matter came before us at our club, if I may use the expression, by a side wind, leaving some more distinct member than the introducer of it to put the argument, afterwards, into more logical order. Our friend Mr Tawse, the schoolmaster, had just been in town, burying his father-in-law; but as he got a good penny by the event, he was not so affected by the loss he had sustained, as to be rendered indifferent to what was passing around him; and he joined us at the Harrow, where we happened to be met at supper when the coach arrived which brought him. His face was full of importance, but he soon got vent. "What think you," said he, "o' their braw new Academy which they have opened in the north side of the New Town of Edinburgh? I suppose it is mostly supported by Indians, for the great object there is to keep the casts separate from one another; and there are such things as these in Scotland, as well as Hindostan. The manners and customs of the East, Sirs, are to be brought into the West: high cast men are to be kept away from the contamination of Pariars, and men of rank will no longer be troubled in having shabby fellows hung round their necks through life, constantly boring them (as they allege they have been wont to do) for kirks, and custom-house appointments-all for no other reason, forsooth, but because the young gentlemen, in the days of yore, got fun with the buffers, or skaited and fished with them. But what shall I tell you further about it? The youngsters are not to be taught there to pronounce the Greek and Latin tongues in the same broad, manly, and proper manner as Demosthenes and Cicero did, and as is actually adopted in every country on the face of the earth, except in the southern part of our own little island. No, Sir; though resident in Caledonia, they are to be instructed to nap and Englify it in such a manner, that if those great ancients, and our renowned countryman, Buchanan, were to raise their august heads from their tombs, they could not understand a word of it. Oh !" added he, "what would our old friend Professor Dalzell say to all this, could he also look up and witness it? Well do I remember his sonsey face beaming with literary enthusiasm, as if Apollo and all the Muses, or, as Burns says, as if Phoebus and the famous Nine had been glowering o'er him when he was every day repeating to us his favourite lines in Ho race, 'Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo Musa loqui.' Alas! where, in that crack seminary, would he find the os rotundum; the true, deep, sonorous classical intonation, which was wont (as Sir Philip Sydney, according to the Spectator, said of the song of Chevy Chace) to rouse our young hearts like the sound of a trumpet?" So said our worthy Thwackum, with all his esprit de corps, when Dr Pilmore took up the debate." Festina lente, Domine," said he; "hooly and fairly; you spoke of Buchanan, but there has been a great change of market-days since his time. Jingling Geordy Herriot, his friend, when he formed rules for his hospital, directed his boys not to be taught English, but braid Scotch; and it is weel kent, that our great Latin historian and poet took a guid wide mouthful of both Scotch and Latin. We had our ain Parliament, and there was nae pleading our appeals then before Judges who had never had foot on the north of the Tweed; nor sending up to London steam-boat. fu's of our advocates, with their wigs in band-boxes, to quote the Pandects to them. But, as the auld song o' Turnumspike says, Scotland's turned to England now'—tempora mutantur-and we must accommodate oursel's to the change." Here Mr Plowshare stepped forward, in a derisive tone: "What!" said he, "Doctor, because half-adozen lads go to London yearly, from the whole Scotch bar, to plead appeals, would you really depart from the language of our forefathers, as to the pronouncing of the Latin tongu in all matters whatever, more particularly when the method adopted by our venerable ancestors was, as I understand, that which was sanctioned by all other nations except England, and was therefore that which was used by the Romans themselves? Is it necessary, for the accommodation of these blades, that all others should be incommoded, and that every thing should be thrown topsy turvy? Must Mr Mein's or Mr Manduhop's shop-boys nap their drugrecipes?-and because a few lawyers might find it convenient to have their true pronunciation contorted, must the same evil happen to all others, (for all are taught Latin here,) whe ther they are preachers or procurators, taylors or tide-waiters, watchmakers, wire-workers, or writers to the signet?-No, Sir; such a thing would be quite intolerable. Let our nation-I mean the general body of it-retain their ancient, their right mode of pronouncing the learned languages, and what young gentlemen soever may find it convenient to be taught it otherwise, that they may appear more graceful, as they may think, in another place, let them take a few lessons in it, just for the same reason, as I have heard, that these grown-up persons return again to the dancing-school to be taught quadrilles." Here the Minister reminded us how much we were wandering from, or rather that we had never yet reached the proper subjects of our intended discussion. That discussion then commenced, but my room being again out, your readers must still have a little patience, and they shall get it in my next letter. In the meantime, I am, Sir, Your humble Servant, EVENTUAL DISUSE OF WAR-RETROSPECTIVE CIVILIZATION. (Continued from page 293.) Book I. Part I. Retrospective View of Civilization. This Part includes six separate eras or stages. Each of these stages possesses more than one distinguishing mark. We shall here, however, only note the most prominent, and reserve for the following Chapters such amplification as the subject may appear to require. 1. The tendency to settled habits of Industry. 2. Division of Labour. 3. Internal Commerce. 4. Foreign Commerce. 5. Establishment of Christianity. 6. Improved Religious Practice, and Civil Liberty. Chapter I. THE FIRST STAGE.-Cultivation of the Soil-Erection of permanent Habitations-Fabrication of Implements. THE transition from barbarism to civilized life is, at its commencement, so imperceptible, as generally to escape the observation of cultivated nations. Savages occasionally lend their aid to the productive powers of Nature, shelter themselves from the inclemency of the weather in rudely-contrived cabins, and acquire the art of fabricating implements to facilitate the purveyance of food, or for purposes of defence or aggression. They are not strangers to the value of society, and are susceptible of some of the virtues which are usually supposed to be peculiar to ages of refinement. The great characteristic of the savage is the want of sufficient forethought, that first fruit of manly reason; and hence all his arrangements are bereft of stability, and are, consequently, useful only in a very imperfect degree. The surest test, therefore, of incipient civilization is permanence in the industrious habits of the people, rather than the superior ingenuity or energy with which their labours may be conducted. As soon as the principle of the exclusive right of the cultivator is in some degree, however remote, applied, not only to the produce, but to the soil,-when his habitation is so constructed as firmly to withstand the ravages of repeated storms, and when the implements fabricated are contrived for subservience to the purposes of agriculture, as well as for the destruction of life, the industry of the community has assumed a permanent character, and the threshold of the first stage of civilization has been passed. Chapter II. THE SECOND STAGE.-Division of Labour-Improved Implements-Barter. A rude simplicity pervades all the arrangements of the first stage; with the second, commence those remarkable displays of ingenuity, which, in the contemplation of the powers of the human mind, so frequently excite our admiration. The classification of the innumerable objects of industry, and their individual appropriation by distinct portions of the community, are important results of the operations of reason, all the valuable fruits of which can only be reaped in times of very superior refinement. When the principle, however, is sufficiently understood, as, in a certain degree, to have been adopted as a general guide, society has made a marked step in the progress of |