turn, underwent considerable revision. Burke had all his principal works printed two or three times at a private press before submitting them to his publisher. Akenside and Gray were indefatigable correctors, labouring every line; and so was our prolix and more imaginative poet, Thomson. On comparing the first and latest editions of the Seasons, there will be found scarcely a page which does not bear evidence of his taste and industry. Johnson thinks the poems lost much of their raciness under this severe regimen, but they were much improved in fancy and delicacy; the episode of Musidora, " the solemnly ridiculous bathing scene," as Campbell terms it, was almost entirely rewritten. Johnson and Gibbon were the least laborious in arranging their copy for the press. Gibbon sent the first and only MS. of his stupendous work (the Decline and Fall) to his printer; and Johnson's highsounding sentences were written almost without an effort. Both, however, lived and moved, as it were, in the world of letters, thinking or caring of little else-one in the heart of busy London, which he dearly loved, and the other in his silent retreat at Lausanne. Dryden wrote hurriedly, to provide for the day; but his Absalom and Achitophel, and the beau tiful imagery of the Hind and Panther, must have been fostered with parental care. St. Pierre copied his Paul and Virginia nine times, that he might render it the more perfect. Rousseau was a very coxcomb in these matters: the amatory epistles, in his new Heloise, he wrote on fine gilt-edged card-paper, and having folded, addressed, and sealed them, he opened and read

them in the solitary woods of Clairens, with the mingled enthusiasm of an author and lover. Sheridan watched long and anxiously for bright thoughts, as the MS. of his School for Scandal, in its various stages, proves. Burns composed in the open air, the sunnier the better; but he laboured hard, and with almost unerring taste and judgment, in correcting.*

Lord Byron' was a rapid composer, but made abundant use of the pruning-knife. On returning one of his proof sheets from Italy, he expressed himself undecided about a single word, for which he wished to substitute another, and requested Mr. Murray to refer it to Mr. Gifford, then editor of the Quarterly Review. Sir Walter Scott evinced his love of literary.labour by undertaking the revision of the whole of the Waverley Novels-a goodly freightage of some fifty or sixty volumes. The works of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Moore, and the occasional variations in their different editions, mark their love of the

*"I have seen," says a Correspondent of the Inverness Courier, "a copy of the second edition of Burns's Poems,' with the blanks filled up, and numerous alterations made in the poet's handwriting one instance, not the most delicate, but perhaps the most amusing and characteristic will suffice. After describing the gambols of his 'Twa Dogs,' their historian refers to their sitting down in coarse and rustic terms. This, of course, did not suit the poet's Edinburgh patrons, and he altered it to the following:

'Till tired at last, and doucer grown,

Upon a knowe they sat them down.'

Still this did not please his fancy; he tried again, and hit it off in the simple, perfect form in which if now stands:

'Until wi' daffin weary grown,

Upon a knowe they sat them down.'"

touching. Southey was, indeed, unwearied after his kind—a true author of the old school. The bright thoughts of Campbell, which sparkle like polished lances, were manufactured with almost equal care; he was the Pope of our contemporary authors.* Allan Cunningham corrected but little, yet his imitations of the elder lyrics are perfect centos of Scottish feeling and poesy.-Selected and abridged from the Inverness Courier

JOE MILLER AT COURT.

JOE MILLER, (Mottley,) was such a favourite at court, that Caroline, queen of George II., commanded a play to be performed for his benefit; the queen disposed of a great many tickets at one of her drawing-rooms, and most of them were paid for in gold.

Campbell's alterations were, generally, decided improvements; but in one instance he failed lamentably. The noble peroration of Lochiel is familiar to most readers :

"Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field and his feet to the foe;

And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame."

In the quarto edition of Gertrude of Wyoming, when the poet collected and reprinted his minor pieces, this lofty sentiment was thus stultified :

"Shall victor exult in the battle's acclaim,

Or look to yon heaven from the death-bed of fame."

The original passage, however, was wisely restored in the subsequent editions.

T. C. Savill, Printer, 4, Chandos-street.

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