of humanity may possibly escape the regards of an author, while he fosters the conceit of the cold and the unfeeling. General happiness may vanish from before the sight of him who fixes his eagle gaze only on the dazzling splendours of literary fame. Not such was the course of him whom I have attempted to present to the reader. His bent of mind was towards the generous and heartfelt charities of life. He reproved and satirized the follies of the great, because they weaken the natural ties of brotherhood, that bind our race together; and he discouraged and ridiculed the attempt on the part of persons in moderate circumstances, to render those follies more generally prevalent. The reader will readily recollect as examples of this raillery, the amusing letters* of John Homespun and his daughter, and those of the ingenious Miss Marjory Mushroom. A deep sense of the value of that practical morality which is founded on just sentiments of piety, is every where apparent in the writings of Mac Kenzie; but we have no prosing lectures on the efficacy of dogmas, or on the value of this or that abstract speculation. He appears to have entertained the rather obsolete notion, that goodness consists in being good. The story of La Roche exemplifies the nature of those principles and feelings, which, according to the views of our author, can give the most certain consolations in adversity and cast into comparative obscurity all the " pleasures of philosophical discovery, and all the pride of literary fame." The humane and generous spirit of this author will be duly appreciated, when it is considered, that he was among the first to invoke the smiles of public favour *See "Mirror" Nos. 12 and 25; also "Lounger" Nos. 17, 98, 53, 36, 56 and 62. upon the early efforts of the poet Burns. At a time when that most extraordinary child of genius was struggling agains the frowns of fortune and of former friends, and when he had by great efforts caused a small edition of his early poetical effusions to be put to press, at a country town in the west of Scotland, in order to raise the means of embarking to a foreign land, where his genius would in all probability have soon gone with his bones to the oblivion of a West Indian charnel house; at that time did the amiable Mac Kenzie immediately invite public attention to the simple, natural, and "truly pastoral strains" of the "Ayrshire ploughman.* " The fact that the poet was soon found in all the circles of taste and refinement within the Scotish capital, where he was "universally admired, feasted, caressed, and flattered;" and that his genius and writings became known and appreciated throughout England, is ascribed, and probably with justice, by one of his biographers, to the timely interference of him, who thus proved that the "man of feeling" was not a mere "creature of the brain." *See Lounger, No. 97. LOVE ASLEEP. BY J. N. BARKER. "Tis said that music is the food of Love, As the bard sings-THE BARD, par excellence- Led to such sad catastrophes. The limners Par parenthese,) in Gobbleton. But who Would think of Cupid, as of one o' the quorum, (Not but that aldermen can love, however,) Dying of calipash and calipee! Yet music is the food of love, nay more, It is the vital air of love, its soul, It's very essence, love is harmony Or nothing; love's the music of the mind (Perhaps that thought is stol'n from Lady Morgan I'm sure belongs to Lady Morgan,) full, Ending where they began their metaphysics, With bow and curtsy! this is called "engagement"❞— Very engaging truly! Here's another, Goes you to church in galliard, and returns In a coranto. One is all adagio, Another naught but jig. All times, all movements, In his capricio: most full of crotchets, So hard, it would not melt at other's woes. Over a sex, which, in all things where love In perfect self-devotedness: in courage To brave the world's barbarity; and patience To bear e'en wrong from him for whom that world In pure, enduring, fond and fix'd affection, And tenderest of women, whose sweet face, Although but in translation, from the copper Was beautiful:-but I had rather not Whom the description suited not. 'Tis dangerous |