fore" one of the moods of my own mind." But Mr Wordsworth should reflect, that the life and character of Burns had, long before Dr Currie's edition, been the theme of universal discussion; that he had lived in the eye of the world; that innumerable anecdotes of his conversation, habits, propensities, and domestic economy, were floating through society; that thousands existed who knew him and the general tenor of his life; and that therefore, had his biographer preserved that strict silence regarding his personal character which Mr Wordsworth recommends, he would thereby have seemed to sanction the world's belief in all the false or exaggerated stories in circulation about that extraordinary man,-to have shrunk from the relation of facts which he could not justify, and to have drawn a veil over enormities which he could not but condemn.

But let us turn from this part of the Letter, which we are confident every liberal mind must peruse with disgust and indignation, to the purely absurd and ludicrous matter contained in the concluding ten pages. Much has been written, and well written, on the genius of Burns; but all other critics must hide their diminished heads on the advance of Mr Wordsworth. He has somewhere told us that he is a water-drinker; and we believe him, for surely there never was so strange and awkward an eulogist of intoxication.

"His brother can set me right if I am mistaken, when I express a belief that, at the time when he wrote his story of Death and Dr Hornbook,' he had very rarely been intoxicated, or perhaps even much exhilarated by liquor. Yet how happily does he lead his reader into that track of sensations! and with what lively humour does he describe the disorder of his senses and the confusion of his understanding, put to test by a deliberate attempt to count the horns of the moon!

But whether she had three or four
He couldna tell.'

Behold a sudden apparition that disperses this disorder, and in a moment chills him into possession of himself! Coming upon no more important mission than the grisly phantom was charged with, what mode of introduction could have been more efficient or appropriate ?"

Really Mr Wordsworth's poetry is less absurd than his criticism.

We had hoped, after all, to part with Mr Wordsworth in tolerably

good humour, and with a smile on our faces; but what follows is too deplorable to be laughed at; and if he will make a fool of himself, he cannot well blame us for recording his folly. The secret cause of all his intemperate zeal in the needless vindication of Burns now betrays itself; and, as if maddened by a sudden sense of intolerable wrong, he falls foul of the Editor of the Edinburgh Review with a violence that must discompose the nervous system of that learned and ingenious person. It seems that Mr Peterkin, in his very heavy and dry Essay, had made several quotations from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. The last of these articles is far more severe on Burns' failings than the first. But Mr Wordsworth passes the Quarterly Review quietly over; and, with the voice and countenance of a maniac, fixes his teeth in the blue cover of the Edinburgh. He growls over it-shakes it violently to and froand at last, wearied out with vain efforts at mastication, leaves it covered over with the drivelling slaver of his impotent rage.

But what will be thought of Mr Wordsworth, when he tells us that he has never read the offensive criticism in the Edinburgh Review! He has only seen the garbled extract of Mr Peterkin. What right, then, has he to talk big of injustice done to the dead, when he is himself so deplorably deficient in justice to the living? But Mr Wordsworth must not be allowed to escape that castigation which his unparalleled insolence deserves. The world is not to be gulled by his hypocritical zeal in the defence of injured merit. It is not Robert Burns for whom he feels,—it is William Wordsworth. All the while that he is exclaiming against the Reviewer's injustice to Burns, he writhes under the lash which that consummate satirist has inflicted upon himself, and exhibits a back yet sore with the wounds which have been in vain kept open, and which his restless and irritable vanity will never allow to close.

We shall not disgrace our pages with any portion of the low and vulgar abuse which the enraged poet heaps upon the Editor of the Edinburgh Review. It is Mr Wordsworth's serious opinion, that that gentleman is a person of the very weakest intellects that his malignity is neutralized

by his vanity that he does not possess one liberal accomplishment-and that he is nearly as imbecile as Buonaparte! Mr Wordsworth's friends should not allow him to expose himself in this way. He has unquestionably written some fine verses in his day; but, with the exception of some poetical genius, he is, in all respects, immeasurably inferior, as an intellectual being, to the distinguished person whom he so foolishly libels.

We wish to have done with this lyrical ballad-monger. But before taking our leave of him, we beg to point out a passage in the very Critique which he has abused;—a passage which we cannot help thinking he may have seen, though he never reads reviews, and of which we fear we may say, "Hinc ille lachrymæ."

“Our other remark is of a more limited application, and is addressed chiefly to the followers and patrons of that new school of poetry, against which we have thought it our duty to neglect no opportunity of testifying. Those gentlemen are outrageous for simplicity; and we beg leave to recommend to them the simplicity of Burns. He has copied the spoken language of passion and affection, with infinitely more fidelity than they have ever done, on all occasions which properly admitted of such adaptation; but he has not rejected the helps of elevated language and habitual associations, nor debased his composition by an affectation of babyish interjections, and all the puling expletives of an old nursery-maid's vocabulary. They may look long enough among his nervous and manly lines, before they find any Good lacks !' Dear hearts!'or As a

The reader will, from this quotation, judge with what propriety Mr Wordsworth accuses the Edinburgh Reviewer of injustice to Burns. It appears that the Reviewer thinks much more highly of Burns than Mr Wordsworth does, for we see that he places him far above the author of the Excursion.

In conclusion, one word to all those gentlemen who are now so idly bestirring themselves in the revival of an obsolete subject. The world are agreed about the character and genius of Burns. None but the most narrowminded bigots think of his errors and frailties but with sympathy and indulgence; none but the blindest enthusiasts can deny their existence. It is very possible that his biographers and critics may have occasionally used epithets and expressions too peremptory and decisive,-for why should Messrs Wordsworth and Peterkin clain a monopoly of error?-but, on the whole, the character of the bard has had ample justice. There is no need for us to say what Burns was,-or what he was not: This he has himself told us in immortal language; and the following most pathetic and sublime stanza ought to silence both his friends and his enemies-if enemies there can indeed be to a man so nobly endowed. For while, with all the proud consciousness of genius and virtue, he there glories in the gifts which God had bestowed on him, there too does he, "with compunctious visitings of nature,” own, in prestration of spirit,

dancing daffodils and sister Emmelines. Let them think, with what infinite contempt the powerful mind of Burns would have perused the story of Alice Fell and her duffle cloak,

of Andrew Jones and the half-crown,-or of Little Dan without breeches, and his thievish grandfather. Let them contrast their own fantastical personages of hysterical schoolmasters and sententious leech-gatherers with the authentic rustics of Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night, and his inimitable songs; and reflect on the different reception which these personifications have met with from the public. Though they will not be reclaimed from their puny affectations by the example of their learned predecessors, they may perhaps submit to be admonished by a self-taught and illiterate poet, who drew from Nature far more directly than they can do, and produced something so much liker the admired copies of the masters whom they have abjured."

Edin. Review, No 26, p. 276.

was not always "light from heaven."

"The poor Inhabitant below
Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And aft had felt the kindly glow,
And safter flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stained his name.'

INTRODUCTION TO A MEDICAL REPORT OF EDINBURGH.

THE city of Edinburgh, situated upon an eminence consisting of three parallel ridges, about two miles distant from the Frith of Forth, and about 250 feet above its level, bounded on the west by its venerable Castle built on a high and precipitous rock, and overhung on the east by Arthur Seat and its crags, and by the Calton Hill,-forms, from every part of the

The principal streets in the ancient part of the town, with the exception of the Cowgate, which, placed in the hollow betwixt the middle and southern ridge, is narrow and confined, are spacious; and the whole of the New Town, occupying the northern ridge, and the modern part of the Old Town, both chiefly built within the last half century, and forming now the greater part of the city, are remarkable for the grandeur of their streets and the uniform elegance and substantialness of the houses. From the elevated position of the town,-the irregularity of the surface of the surrounding country, and vicinity of the Forth, it is exposed to currents of wind even in the calmest weather; and the numerous lanes, very properly denominated closes, running from the High Street and Canongate, down the sides of the middle ridge of the town, between rows of high and irregular houses, though in appearance confined and ill aired, have frequently a draught of air passing through them. This complete and steady ventilation, and the high situation and declivity of almost all the streets, in a great measure prevent the possibility of dampness, and afford advantages for cleanliness seldom to be found in any other large

town.

The population of Edinburgh is calculated to be above 80,000 souls; but as it is not a place of trade, or of extensive manufactures, the number of the labouring classes, and of the poor, is small in proportion to that of the middling classes, and of the rich ;among the labouring classes, too, as they are chiefly mechanics employed in supplying the wants of the inhabitants of the town and surrounding country-porters for the use of the town, and labourers employed in the operations of building, and in agriculture in the vicinity, their employment is in general steady; and though they do not obtain the high wages and luxuries sometimes enjoyed by manufacturers, they are not

exposed to the same fluctuations in their circumstances, nor to the frequent extremes of poverty and misery, to which the latter are so liable. Amid the universal distress, however, which has prevailed in all parts of the country during the last year, the poor of Edinburgh could not fail to suffer amongst others; but the extent and degree of this suffering has been very materially diminished by the assistance so seasonably afforded by their richer fellow citizens, by the sums subscribed in order to give them employment. The circumstances in the state of the poor in this town, already mentioned, made it much more possible to render effectual service to those in want than in most other large towns; and there can be no doubt, that the money laid out has afforded the means of employment and subsistence to many who must otherwise have pined in wretchedness and starvation; while, from the mode in which it has been applied, in extending and repairing the walks in the neighbourhood, it must add to the healthfulness and comforts of the city.

There is nothing perhaps in which luxury and comfort have so much increased, within the last fifty years, as in the style of the houses occupied by the different classes of the community. Since the period of the extension of the town, which was begun about the middle of the last century, it has increased much more in extent than in population, and a great and progressive improvement has taken place in the plans of the houses. The lower classes of the community now occupy, as habitations, the apartments on the flats of the lofty houses of the Old Town, which have been deserted by the richer for the more commodious and splendid houses of the modern part of the town. From this circumstance, the artisans and labourers are provided with more substantial and dry habitations than usually fall to the lot of this class; but the height of the stairs, and the num ber of families residing under each roof, contribute in some degree to occasion that want of cleanliness and neatness, which but too generally prevails.

The climate of Edinburgh being very variable, cannot be said to be pleasant, but it is temperate, and is not liable to any continued extremes of heat, or cold, or moisture. The con

stant prevalence of wind frequently from the north, or from the east, renders it, during the greater part of the year, chill, and in the summer cool. The winter, which may be said to last four months, is, as might be expected from the neighbourhood of the sea, generally open and variable, frosts or storms of snow seldom lasting longer than a few days. The wetness and sudden changes in the weather during spring are proverbial; and during the month of May, which in more southern countries is so delightful, damp easterly winds too generally prevail during the day, with frosts in the night, destroying the blossoms and prospects of fruit, which a continuance of fine weather in April not unfrequently produces. At this period of the year, there is a striking difference in climate between the north and south sides of the town, often of material consequence to invalids; the latter lying exposed to the south, sheltered from the east wind by Arthur Seat, and from the north by the high ridge of the town, is considerably warmer than the northern part; not only an evident difference in the sensation of heat being felt in passing from the one to the other, but, during the day, a difference of two or three degrees in the thermometer being frequently observable. The summer is usually agreeable, as the heat is seldom oppressive, or the drought continued; and the weather, in the months of September and October, is generally steady, fair, and temperate. The changes in the barometer and thermometer, particularly in the latter, are frequent, and often great and sudden. The average annual temperature of Edinburgh is about 474, and the thermometer seldom stands above 75° in summer, or falls below 20° in winter. Showers of rain are frequent at all times of the year, but wet weather is seldom long continued. In spring a drizzling mist from the east frequently occurs. The observations lately made at Edinburgh, from rain gauges, shew that the quantities of rain which fall, indicated by that instrument, are much modified by its position; and therefore, that the correctness of the results which have hitherto been obtained from its use, is not much to be depended on. By the gauge belonging to the Astronomical Institution, placed on the top of Nelson's mon

ument, at a considerable height above the surface of the earth, and not exposed to eddies of wind, the annual quantity of rain, averaged from the observations of the years 1814 and 1815, is indicated to be 15.29 inches; and last year, an unusually wet season, not less than 18.15 inches. By the gauges in the immediate neighbourhood, but placed near the ground, the quantities indicated are much greater. The country around Edinburgh is drained and highly cultivated, affording rich crops of wheat, turnips, and potatoes. An abundant supply of coals, for fuel, is brought at a reasonable price from the neighbouring country.

The spring of this year has been remarkable for the steadiness and dryness of the weather, and most favourable for the advancement of the operations of husbandry. The month of February was open and mild; and during March, though there were frequent frosts and showers of snow, and of rain, there was much fine weather. In the latter end of the month, after some days of warmth, an intense cold suddenly came on, which continued for three days, the thermometer, during the night, standing seven degrees below the freezing point, and a sharp dry wind blowing from the north. During April a westerly wind prevailed, and the weather, though not warm, was steady and remarkably dry, only a few slight showers of rain having fallen during the month. With May the east winds set in, and have continued with little variation during the month, but they have been less chill and damp than usual, and the frost in the night less severe. In the latter end of the month frequent seasonable falls of rain took place, which had become desireable for the advancement of vegetation.

The markets of Edinburgh are well and regularly supplied with the necessaries of life; and abundance of fish of various kinds, particularly of cod, haddocks, and at certain seasons of herrings, is to be procured at a very moderate price. All the luxuries and indulgences of the table are easily obtained by the rich, but the diet of the labouring classes, whose mode of liv

the meteorological report of the Magazine, It will be observed, from examining that the average of the temperature of this spring has been about 50 higher than that of the last.

ing is necessarily much limited by their circumstances, is chiefly composed of oatmeal porridge, bread, potatoes, and milk. Even among them wheaten bread has now in a great measure displaced that of oatmeal or barley meal. Their means enable them but seldom to procure butcher meat; but for dinner they frequently make a broth, with barley and green vegetables, in which beef bones, or a portion of butter, of which they consume a considerable quantity, have been boiled, if not with the effect of adding to its nutritive qualities, at least with that of rendering it more palatable. During the season, the fresh herrings afford them a cheap and excellent food; and they at all times consume, with their potatoes, a considerable quantity of salt herrings and salted fish. Fresh white fish, though often cheap, they seem little in the habit of using in their families. The harmless and refreshing luxury of tea is very generally enjoyed; and the number of public houses, and the quantity of spirits consumed, but too plainly prove the extent to which the more pernicious one of dram-drinking is indulged in. It were much to be wished, both on account of the morals and health of the people, that the money expended in this destructive use of ardent spirits, were laid out on the more nutritive and wholesome beverage of malt-liquor. Though, along with whisky, a considerable quantity of inferior ale is consumed in the public houses, it is but little used as a regular article of diet.

During the last winter, from the difficulty of procuring employment, and the low rate of wages, joined with the high price and inferior quality of bread and corn, and particularly of oatmeal and potatoes, the food of the poor must have been less nutritious, as well as diminished in quantity; and while we cannot but admire the patience with which they have sustained them, it is melancholy to reflect on the privations which the labouring classes of the community must have borne in their fare, which is at all times plain and so little abundant.

With all the advantages which this otherwise favoured town possesses, it is deficient in the most indispensable necessary and luxury of life. It is supplied with excellent water, convey ed from springs near the Pentland Hills, to two reservoirs, from which VOL. I.

it is distributed to the older part of the town by means of public wells in the streets,-and to the more modern by pipes to each house, or to their areas. As of late years the population has greatly increased, and pipes have been furnished to the new houses, which, from their size, require a large quantity of water, while no effectual means have been taken to provide for this increased consumption, the supply of this essential article is never abundant, and, in dry seasons, extremely deficient. In order, therefore, to observe a due and proper economy in its use, it is supplied to the public wells only at times, and it flows to the cisterns of the houses at considerable intervals. To all classes of the community this deficiency occasions a very great privation; but to the poor, when the time and labour which they expend, and the exposure they have to undergo in procuring their scanty supply are considered, it is obvious that it must be an evil of serious magnitude. To this scarcity of water there can be little doubt that the offensive state of the streets, particularly in summer, so long the opprobrium of Edinburgh, is in some degree to be attributed; and while it continues, it must oppose a serious obstacle to the improvement in the cleanliness of their persons and their habitations, which is so desireable among the poor.

The degree to which the scarcity of water was felt during the dry summer of 1815, and the threatening of it which has already been perceived this spring, has drawn the attention of the Magistrates and of the public to it in a particular manner; and it is now to be hoped, that the town will ere long enjoy the benefit of the advantages which it possesses from its situation, of obtaining a supply of water even to profusion, of which an abundance is so essential to the cleanliness of the city, and to the comfort and health of its inhabitants.

There is no disease which is peculiar to Edinburgh, neither can any of the diseases of this country be said to be particularly prevalent or severe in this. town. On the whole, it is remarkably healthful; and I believe that it may be stated, that the mortality in it is small in proportion to the population, though I have not before me, indeed I do not know if there exist, documents on which an accurate opinion 2 M