literature. But they hold the tenure of their existence by the existence of the poetry which they sought to illustrate or obscure; from the "golden urns of those Poets" did he "draw light"-the light in which he is himself conspicuous-and were it extinguished, his literary life. would be a blank. But if the name of Francis Jeffrey will not be forgotten, till those of Scott, Crabbe, and Wordsworth, and Byron, and the rest are dark or dead, he may be assured of immortality; nor, without ingratitude, can he assert present, or predict future oblivious doom to luminaries, who, whatever be its own native lustre, have certainly showered over his genius no small portion of the brilliance with which it now burns.

Nothing that blockheads are so proud of as to retail the paradoxes of some distinguished man. T'other evening we allowed one to bother a company for some minutes with a preachment of the above; and having got him fairly to entangle himself in the net, out of which Mr. Jeffrey would have nibbled himself in a moment, and made his escape with all the agility of a squirrel, we wrapt it so round his body from snout to tail, that he literally seemed one bunch of small twine, and had not left in him so much as the squeak of a mouse. On being let out of the toils, he took his toddy in silence during the rest of the evening, and prated no more about the oblivion of Byron.

Two living poets, however, it seems there are, who, according to Mr. Jeffrey, are never to be dead ones—two who are unforgetable, and who owe their immortality— to what think ye?-their elegance? That "Gracilis Puer," Samuel Rogers, is one of the dual number. His perfect beauties will never be brought to decay in the eyes of an enamoured world. He is so polished, that time can never take the shine out of him-so classically correct are his charms, that to the end of time they will be among the principal Pleasures of Memory. Jacqueline, in her immortal loveliness, seeming Juno, Minerva, and Venus all in one, will shed in vain "tears such as angels weep" over the weeds that have in truth "no business there," on the forgotten grave of Childe Harold! Very like a whale. Thomas Campbell is the other pet-poet-"the last of all

the flock." Ay-he, we allow, is a star that will know no setting; but of this we can assure the whole world, not excluding Mr. Jeffrey, that were Mr. Campbell's soul deified, and a star in the sky, and told by Apollo, who placed him in the blue region, that Scott and Byron were both buried somewhere between the Devil and the Deep Sea, he the author of Lochiel's Warning, would either leap from Heaven in disdain, or insist on their being instanter one triple constellation. What to do with his friend Mr. Rogers, it might not be easy for Mr. Campbell to imagine or propose at such a critical juncture; but we think it probable that he would hint to Apollo, on the appearance of his Lordship and the Baronet, that the Banker, with a few other pretty poets, might be permitted to scintillate away to all eternity as their-tail.

TREES.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1828.)

TREES are indeed the glory, the beauty, and the delight of nature. The man who loves not trees-to look at them -to lie under them-to climb up them, (once more a schoolboy,)-would make no bones of murdering Mrs. Jeffs. In what one imaginable attribute, that it ought to possess, is a tree, pray, deficient? Light, shade, shelter, coolness, freshness, music, all the colours of the rainbow, dew and dreams dropping through their umbrageous twilight at eve or morn,-dropping direct,-soft, sweet, soothing, and restorative, from heaven. Without trees, how, in the name of wonder, could we have had houses, ships, bridges, easy-chairs, or coffins, or almost any single one of the necessaries, conveniences, or comforts of life? Without trees, one man might have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but not another with a wooden ladle. Tree by itself tree, "such tents the patriarchs loved,”Ipse nemus,- the brotherhood of trees," the grove, the coppice, the wood, the forest,-dearly, and after a different fashion, do we love you all!—And love you all we shall, while our dim eyes can catch the glimmer, our dull ears the murmur, of the leaves, or our imagination hear at midnight, the far-off swing of old branches groaning in the tempest. Oh! is not merry also sylvan England? And has not Scotland, too, her old pine forests, blackening up her highland mountains? Are not many of her rivered valleys not unadorned with woods,-her braes beautiful with their birken shaws?—And does not stately ash or sycamore tower above the kirk-spire, in many a quiet glen, overshadowing the humble house of God, "the dial-stone

aged and green," and all the deep-sunk, sinking, or upright array of grave-stones, beneath which

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep?"

We have the highest respect for the ghost of Dr. Johnson; yet were we to meet it by moonlight, how should we make it hang its head on the subject of Scottish trees! Look there, you old, blind, blundering blockhead! That pine forest is twenty miles square! Many million trees, there, have at least five hundred arms each, six times as thick as ever your body was, sir, when you were at your very fattest in Bolt Court. As for their trunks-some straight as cathedral pillars-some flung all awry in their strength across cataracts—some without a twig till your eye meets the hawk's nest diminished to a black-bird's, and some overspread, from within a man's height of the mossy sward, with fantastic branches, cone-covered, and green as emerald-what say you, you great, big, lumbering, unwieldy ghost you, to trunks like these? And are not the forests of Scotland the most forgiving that ever were self-sown, to suffer you to flit to and fro, haunting unharmed their ancient umbrage? Yet-Doctor-you were a fine old Tory every inch of you, for all that, my boy-so come glimmering away with you into the gloom after us-don't stumble over the roots-we smell a still at work-and neither you nor I-shadow nor substance (but, prithee, why so wan, good Doctor? Prithee, why so wan?) can be much the worse, eh, of a caulker of Glenlivat?

Every man of landed property, that lies fairly out of arm's-length of a town, whether free or copyhold, be its rental above or below forty shillings a-year, should be a planter. Even an old bachelor, who has no right to become the father of a child, is not only free, but in duty bound to plant a tree. Unless his organ of philoprogenitiveness be small indeed, as he looks at the young, tender plants in his own nursery-garden, his heart will yearn towards them with all the longing and instinctive fondness of a father. As he beholds them putting forth the tender buds of hope, he will be careful to preserve them from all blight, he will "teach the young idea how to shoot,"

and, according to their different natures, he will send them to different places to complete their education, according as they are ultimately intended for the church, the bar, or the navy. The old gentleman will be surprised to see how soon his young plants have grown as tall as himself, even though he should be an extraordinary member of the Six Feet Club. An oak sapling, of some five or six springs, shall measure with him on his stocking-soles, and a larch, considerably younger, laugh to shake its pink cones far over his wig. But they are all dutiful children,-never go stravaiging from home after youthful follies,—and standing together in beautiful bands, and in majestic masses, they will not suffer the noonday sun to smite their father's head, nor the winds of heaven to "visit his face too roughly."

People are sometimes prevented from planting trees by the slowness of their growth. What a mistake that is! People might just as well be prevented from being wed, because a man-child takes one-and-twenty years to get out of his minority, and a woman-child, except in hot climates, is rarely marriageable before fifteen. Not the least fear in the world, that Tommy and Thomasine and the tree will grow up fast enough-wither at the top-and die! It is a strange fear to feel-a strange complaint to utterthat any one thing in this world, animate or inanimate, is of too slow growth; for the nearer to its perfection, the nearer to its decay.

No man, who enjoys good health, at fifty, or even sixty, would hesitate, if much in love, to take a wife, on the ground that he could have no hope or chance of seeing his numerous children all grown up into hobbledehoys and Priscilla Tomboys. Get your children first, and let them grow at their own leisure afterwards. In like manner, let no man, bachelor or Benedict, be his age beyond the limit of conversational confession, fear to lay out a nurserygarden, to fill it with young seedlings, and thenceforward, to keep planting away, up hill and down brae, all the rest of his life.

Besides, in every stage, how interesting, both a wood and sap tree, and a flesh and blood child! Look at pretty, ten-year-old, rosy-cheeked, golden-haired Mary, gazing, with all the blue brightness of her eyes, at that large dew