as I may say my dearest friend, is unhappy, though she had as good a purpose as I myself. She has married in my absence; but had I been present, I might, it may be, have been mistaken in her husband as well as she. "How long a letter is this again! But I can write no short ones to you. Compliments from my husband, &c. &c. 66 Hamburg, August 27th, 1758. "Why think you, dear Sir, that I answer so late? I will tell you my reasons. But before all, how does Miss Patty, and how do yourself? Have not you guessed that I, summing up all my happinesses, and not speaking of children, had none? Yes, Sir, this has been my only wish ungratified for these four years. I have been more than once unhappy with disappointments: but yet, thanks, thanks to God, I am in full hope to be mother in the month of November. The little preparations for my child and child-bed (and they are so dear to me) have taken so much time that I could not answer your letter, nor give the promised scenes of The Messiah.' This is likewise the reason why I am still here, for properly we dwell in Copenhagen. Our staying here is only a visit (but a long one) which we pay my family. I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a little voyage alone to Copenhagen! He is absent-a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return.-But what does that help? He is yet equally absent!-We write to each other every postbut what are letters to presence ?—But I will speak no more of this little cloud; I will only tell my hap piness! But I cannot tell how I rejoice! A son of my dear Klopstock! Oh, when shall I have him? It is long since I have made the remark, that geniuses do not engender geniuses. No children at all, bad sons, or at the most lovely daughters like you and Milton. But a daughter or a son only, with a good heart, without genius, I will nevertheless love dearly. "I think that about this time a nephew of mine will wait on you. His name is Winlhem, a young rich merchant, who has no bad qualities, and several good, which he has still to cultivate. His mother was, I think, twenty 'years older than I, but we other children loved her dearly like a mother. She had an excellent character, but is long since dead. "This is no letter but only a newspaper of your Hamburg daughter. When I have my husband and my child I will write you more (if God gives me health and life). You will think that I shall not be a mother only but a nurse also; though the latter (thank God that the former is not so too) is quite against fashion and good breeding, and though nobody can think it possible to be always with the child at home. "M. KLOPSTOCK.” This was the last letter from this sweet creature. The next in the series is from a different hand. "As perhaps you do not know that one of your fair correspondents, Mrs. Klopstock, died in a very dreadful manner, in child-bed, I think myself obliged to acquaint you with this most melancholy accident. "Mr. Klopstock, in the first motion of his affliction, composed an ode to God Almighty, which I have not yet seen, but I hope to get by-and-by. "I shall esteem myself highly favoured by a line or two from any of your family, for I presume you sometimes kindly remember "Your most humble servant, "And great admirer, "L. L. G. MAJOR." A subsequent letter contradicts the fact of the ode's being composed at this time. But a comparison of the dates of Mr. Major's communication and of Mrs. Klopstock's last interesting letter, still brings this poetising a great calamity far too near the time of its occurrence, to be satisfactory to those who have read and sympathised with the quick feelings of the devoted wife. It is pleasanter to remember that Klopstock never married again, till, in his old age, a few years before his death, he had the ceremony performed between himself and a kinswoman, who lived with him, in order to entitle her, as his widow, to the pensions he enjoyed from different Courts. XI. FINE SINGLE POEMS. SIR WALTER SCOTT, &c. NOTHING seems stranger amidst the strange fluctuations of popularity, than the way in which the songs and shorter poems of the most eminent writers occasionally pass from the highest vogue into the most complete oblivion, and are at once forgotten, as if they had never been. Scott's spirited ballad, "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee," is a case in point. Several persons (amongst the rest Mrs. Hughes, the valued friend of the author) have complained to me, not only that it is not included amongst Sir Walter's ballads, but that they were unable to discover it elsewhere. Upon mentioning this to another dear friend of mine, the man who, of all whom I have known, has the keenest scent for literary game, and is the most certain to discover a lost poem, he threw himself upon the track, and failing to obtain a printed copy, succeeded in procuring one in manuscript, taken down from the lips of a veteran vocalist; not, as I should judge, from his recitation, but from his singing, for it is no uncommon thing with singers to be unable to divorce the sense from the sound, so that you must have the music with the words, or go without them altogether. At all events this transcript is a curiosity. curiosity. The whole ballad is written as if it were prose: no capital at the beginning of the lines; no break, as indicated by the rhyme, at the conclusion; no division between the stanzas. All these ceremonies are cast aside with a bold contempt for vulgar usages, and the entire song thrown into one long paragraph. I think it is Cowper who wrote a rhyming letter upon the same principle; but the jingle being more obtrusive, and the chorus a wanting, the effect of the intentional pleasantry is far less ludicrous than that produced by this unconscious and graver error. I endeavoured to restore the natural divisions of the verse; and having since, discovered a printed copy, buried in the Doom of Devorgoil, where of course nobody looked for it, I am delighted to transfer to my pages one of the most spirited and characteristic ballads ever written. To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claverhouse who spoke, Come follow the bonnets of Bonny Dundee. Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can; Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, |