We had composed, with infinite pleasure and no pain, a New-Year'sDay Address to our beloved friends, and were glancing over it in type, with eyes unstartled by the most extraordinary errata, when a bulky parcel, directed by the well-known hand of our much respected Mr Rees himself, was deposited by a young gentleman in black on the Board of Green Cloth, with a thud that made the ink sparkle from the mouth of the Dolphin. Our first sheet is always the last to go to press; and our manuscript had so nicely filled the measure, that, like the Thames, or any other first-rate river, the article was, "without o'erflowing, full," and we need not say so translucent, that we could have seen the silver gravel shimmering in the depth, had it not been for the reflected imagery of heaven. With a sure presentiment of the delightful, we seized our ivory paper-folder, sharp as a case knife, and cut asunder the cords that confined the treasure. Strong sunshine was at the moment streaming through the old painted glass, that usually lets in a dim religious light upon us, sitting like a saint in his sanctum, and fell upon three volumes of dramas by Joanna Baillie! We shoved the sheet aside, almost with scorn, and lifting one of them from the illumination, we pressed it to our heart, and then fell to such

perusal of its face, that our eyebeams, after dancing a while, became concentred in a focus that seemed as if it would burn a hole in the boards. Erelong that passionate fit subsided; and well pleased to know that age had not deadened our enthusiasm, in sobered mood and solemn, we set ourselves, with all our soul, to enjoy, after the lapse of so many years, a continuation of the series of Plays on the Passions. All the sense, and all the nonsense that had been so well and so ill spoken and written about the theory of the illustrious poetess, we knew had long sunk in the waters of oblivion; here was the completion of a plan which only the noblest genius could have conceived; and on laying down Volume First, which we read through, from beginning to end, at one reclination, we felt that Scott was justified in linking her name with that of Shakspeare.

Nay, do not start with supercilious brow; for Shakspeare was but a man-though of men the most wonderful-and what woman's name would you, in poetry, place above that of Joanna Baillie? What the Mighty Minstrel has said of her, let no inferior spirit gainsay; and be assured that his judgment, rightly understood, is the Truth, and has been confirmed by all the Poets. She has "worshipped at the Temple's inner shrine;" and her revela

Longman, &c. 1836. Three Volumes. VOL. XXXIX, NO. CCXLIII.

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