Harlequin's magic.-The scenery of this Pantomime is extremely beautiful, and consists chiefly of natural views of the country in which the scene is laid.

The Pantomime at Drury-Lane is indifferent. It commences with the nursery story of Jack the Giant Kil ler-but it soon deserts that, and runs into the usual Steeple-race. The scenery, too, is equally common-place; and the drollery (such as it is) consists of practical puns, which one half of the audience cannot relish, and the other half (for whom chiefly the Pantomime is produced) cannot understand.-It is really a little too bad, that these enormous houses, which are fitted only for the representation of Spectacle, should give us so few tole rable examples even of that.

talents, has not lowered it. There not carried away by those who bring were two very fine things in it ;-his. it in, but disappears by the aid of reply to the tribunes of the people when they decree his banishment. "I banish you!" and his quarrel with Aufidius in the last scene, where he reiterates the word "boy!" We have seldom witnessed any thing more nobly dignified than his manner of giving the first of these speeches; and the last was highly energetic, powerful, and natural: but it must be admitted that they both wanted the merit of originality.-This first was a fac-simile of Mr Kemble's voice and manner in the same part. So much so, indeed, that the resemblance actually startled us. The latter part of the last scene was performed exactly in the manner of Mr Kean. We do not say in the manner that he will perform it, for he is an actor that baffles all anticipation.-In saying that we have not seen any thing in the late performances of Mr Macready which has raised our opinion of his talents, nothing can be farther from our intention than to detract from the reputation which he now enjoys and deserves. The only point in which we differ from the public on the subject is, that we think the popularity which he enjoys now, he deserved to enjoy before. Undoubtedly he is the second actor on the English stage, but it is equally certain that he is at a very great distance from the first: as far as talents are from genius.

The Pantomimes. The Covent Garden Pantomime, this year is better than usual, because it is less extravagant and unnatural: For nature should be respected to a certain degree, even in that least natural of all things-a Harlequinade. This story consists of a selection from the adventures of Don Quixote, and Sancha Panza; and it is a happy thought to make Harlequin's wand take the place of the knight's heated imagination, and bring about in reality those changes which he only fancied. Thus the windmill is changed into a giant the flock of sheep into a company of soldiers, &c. In the island of Baratraria, too, Sancha's dinner is

Miss O'Neil.

And so we are never again to see Miss O'Neil! never again to watch her eyes, those "fountains of sweet tears," till we forget ourselves and all the world! Never again to listen to her voice, till we become enamoured of" dainty sweet melancholy!" Never again to- -But we are getting foolish, and, indeed, impertinent-for this lady is no longer a subject for publie notice. We now take leave of her for ever-convinced that the stage will never see her like again, as it never did before. The very qualities which made her what she was, would, in the natural course of things, have kept her from publicity. It is difficult to conceive what train of circumstances could have made an actress of such a woman: And we cannot help feeling a secret compensation for the loss of her, in the reflection, that she has only now crowned and completed the conceptions we had always formed of her nature, by thus willingly resigning the enthusiastic idolatry of a whole people, for the quiet comforts of home, and the eompany of her own happy thoughts. She will now fulfil her true destiny-for she was made to be a Desdemona or an Imogen, but not to act them.

LETTER FROM THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

DEAR CHRISTOPHER,

Glen-Wastle, January 1st, 1820.

A THOUSAND merry new-years to you and all your dear Divan-I mean, what of them remains in Auld Reekie; for here are three of us-three of your best Contributors, that have been curling, skating, shooting larks, and drinking het-pints together for a week-often thinking of you as a friend, but never dreaming of obeying your commands as an Editor. Tickler and I walked over the hills from Altrive eight days ago, and found the Laird in excellent preservation-indeed, looking rather larger than life, owing to the quantity of trappings and happings he sports during this terrible frost. The glass was down at nine as I was going to bed. But in spite of all that, we contrive to spend our time very merrily with our worthy old landlord: nay, I do not think I ever saw this place looking more beautiful-no not even in "the leafy month of June." When one looks down in the morning from the Queen's Tower, you cannot picture to yourself a more lovely phenomenon than the tops of the trees. They are all spread over with a coating of frost-work-every little twig is feathered as delicately as if it had cost a fairy milliner a night's hard work to adorn it. The tall black trunks rise like ebon pillars, amidst and beneath glorious canopies of alabaster; and the water being hard bound, and the mill silent, no sound is heard all around, except the eternal cawing of the rooks, from those innumerable nests on which my window looks down. The minister is well, and desires his compliments. He is in raptures with the Radical's Saturday Night, which Tickler read aloud one night in his loftiest tone of pathos; and says, it is a shame, if a certain queer fellow does not ere long, give the world the finest treat they have had for some time, by publishing his long promised poem of the Manse.

The Laird has become very lazy of late, and says, Don Juan has put him quite out of conceit with the Mad Banker, which, I now fear, he will never conclude. Don Juan and Anastasius may be abused by those that like, but Wastle thinks them two works likely to produce greater effects on the public mind than almost any things that our time has put forth. There is no question, he says, that the author of the Novel has borrowed a great deal of his matter, and his manner both, from Faublas; but as I am not very powerful in the French department, I cannot judge of the propriety of the apophthegm. Surely Anastasius ought to have been split into two or three tales-a single volume of it is more than the whole of the Brownie of Bodsbeck. The want of continued interest will probably prevent the work from being so great a favourite among the ladies; but surely individual parts of it will always live among the most exquisite ornaments of English literature. The description of his brothers and sisters at the beginning the picture of Constantinoplethe visit to the grave of Helena-the whole of the Egyptian part, above all the flight of Hussan, and the Bridal Scene-and the close of the third volume which is written in the truest spirit of Romance-these are things which do honour to the genius of Byron, if Byron wrote them, or Mr Hope, if Mr Hope wrote them, and that is saying enough. As for the Jackall, I feel satisfied he never wrote one line-not even the worst one in the whole book.

I had a letter from Dr Scott this morning, full of all his characteristic kind of fun. It is dated from the guard room of the Glasgow Yeomanry Hussars, in which corps the Dentist is cutting a conspicuous figure, and for whom he has written a noble war song, which he is to send you next month. Their dress uniform, he says, is red breeches and yellow boots-and he is getting his mustachios to grow but I think the worthy doctor is more likely to serve the good cause, by writing a few more of his loyal songs, than by disguising his portly outward man in this remarkable manner. As for us in Ettrick, we are to have a new regiment of Yeomanry Sharpshooters-and I am to be a corporal. I never saw a finer set of fellows than the most of them-but I remember how you admired our horse Yeomanry-and we are of the same breed.

In case you should be in want of a few of Wastle's verses, I send you a fragment of one of his cantos, which I found in his drawer this morning, but the beginning of it is a-wanting, having been torn off. I heard him read it all over, but I remember nothing of the exordium, except that it was awfully severe upon poor Mr Terrot. That young lad is very rash, and knows nothing whatever of what he is meddling with, but you should spare him for this time. There was also a dedication to Tickler, which went on thus:

"Oh, Timothy! we true old Bachelors

Should dedicate our strains to one another :
What though our doings all the world abhors,
Especially the womankind-my brother,
While this bright flame up one's own chimney roars,
Why should we all our satisfaction smother-
Nor shew what mints of unpartaken pride
Grace lone Glenwastle and serene Southside?
"I hear with much regret this rife report,
That Hogg's about to be a married man-
I fear the change will spoil a world of sport,
Half-banishing the Bard from our divan," &c.

I cannot recollect the rest of it, but as usual, I was treated with slender ceremony. He has been, as I have hinted, abusing poor "Common-place Terrot," as he calls him,-and then off he goes with this beginning of the fragment. Some verses, you will observe, are quite illegible in this sad scrawl of the old

man.

XII.

Oh! for some Schmidt, that trumpet note to blow
That stirs the blood, if any blood there be
Ascending clearly with that silver flow
Melodiously, magnificently free;
Kindling the air above, and earth below,

With one resistless flame of harmony;
High above pealing choir and echoing ring
Ascending, like the mandate of a king.
XIII.

Oh! for some trumpet of triumphant call
To bring some knightly foe for knightly sporting!
For you, ye caitiff crew, we scorn you all,

There is a sort of shame, 'faith, in consorting,
Even at the weapon-point, with the base thrall
Of mean Plebeian passion-Yet if, courting
Your ruin, come ye will-we would not choose
Such spoils as you can yield-but sha'n't refuse,

* Who that was at our last musical festival can have forgotten Mr Schmidt?

*They seem to have been written when the Persian Ambassador was in Edinburgh.

+ The fashionable Upholsterer of the North.

You will see from this, that the Laird is not going to be married any more than the Shepherd. We still sing in chorus (Tickler, Wastle, and I), every evening, our old song.

I wish, from my soul, you were here, to join your fine bass in the stave, and to taste the best hock ever the Laird had in his cellar, of which he gives us a long-necked bottle or two every day. You never licked your lips over the like. He got it from Mr Thomas Hamilton, the famous Glasgow wine-merchant, by way of particular favour, and he says it is more than a hundred years old. There never was the match of it on Yarrow before. Grieve and Laidlaw were pretty well when I heard from them.-Ever your affectionate Contributor, JAMES HOGG.

ANNALS OF PETERHEAD.

* Annals of Peterhead, from its Foundation to the present Time; including an Account of the Rise, Progress, Improvements, Shipping, Manufactures, Commerce, Trade, Wells, Baths, &c. of the Town: Also, a Sketch of the Character of the Inhabitants, their Civil and Ecclesiastical State: An Excursion to the Bullers of Buchan, Slains Castle, &c. with their Description-the Scenery of the country round-Remarks on Dr Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides, &c.: Biographical Notices of men of learning and genius, among whom are, George Earl Marischal, founder of Peterhead, and Marischal College, Aberdeen; with a number of Curious Articles hitherto unpublished; with Plates, Engraved by the Author; by P. Buchan, author of the Recreation of Leisure Hours, &c, Peterhead, Printed at the Auchwedden-press, by the Author; Sold by him, the Book sellers in Peterhead, and the principal Booksellers in Scotland. 1819.