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gant engraving of this doorway, with the old St. Mary's ivied ailes peeping through it. St. Moden's Chapel, on the south, is quite entire, having the altar at the east, and a window beautifully ornamented with stained glass. A fine statue of Sir Isaac Newton is here also, at the foot of which is the locus sepulture of the Earl of Buchan. In the cloister adjoining, at the upper end, are beautifully intersecting arches, forming both Norman and Pointed.

In his " I Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," Sir Walter relates the following anecdote of a poor female who tenanted one of the many vaults beneath the abbey. It is appended as a note to the ballad of "The Nun who never saw the day."

"About the year 1745 an unfortunate -female wanderer took up her residence in a vault in Dryburgh Abbey, which, during the day, she never quitted: when night fell, she issued from her miserable retreat to the houses of some charitable families in the neighbourhood, from whom she obtained such necessaries as she .could be prevailed upon to accept.

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"At 12 each night she returned with her lighted candle to her vault; assuring her friendly neighbours that, during her absence, her habitation was arranged by a spirit to whom she gave the uncouth name of Fatlips,' describing him as a little man wearing heavy iron shoes, with which he tramped her vault to dispel the damps. The circumstance caused her to be viewed by the well-informed with compassion, and by the vulgar with terror. The cause of her adopting this extraordinary course of life she never would explain-it was however believed to have been occasioned by a vow that during the absence of a man to whom she was attached, she had resolved never to behold the light of day, which she faithfully kept for many years. Her lover never returned; it was supposed he fell in the civil wars of 1745-6."

Gower the poet, the friend and contemporary of Chaucer, was a visitor of Dryburgh Abbey. Here also Chaucer passed some time on a visit to Ralph Strode, a distinguished poet and philosopher, who in the early part of his career devoted himself to literary pursuits in this Abbey. Chau,cer, at the conclusion of his "Troilus

and Cresseide," inscribes that poem to the "moral Gower," and to "the philosophical Strode." It was at Dry -burgh also that Thomson composed his beautiful poem of Winter, the first

of his classical Seasons, during his residence with the Haliburtons, Sir Walter Scott's ancestors.

The face of the country around Dryburgh is extremely beautiful. On the adjoining hill of Bamerayde, on a natural terrace, may be seen the beautiful windings of the Tweed, through herds, and flocks, and corn fields, and the country sloping with ascent to the Scottish Parnassus, the three Ealdon hills or Trimontium of the Romans. From the adjoining hill (Wallace hill, on which the statue of that great and ill-requited Chief is placed), the beautiful river winds towards Kelso, and a fine champagne country feasts the delighted eye to the horizon, bounded by the Cheviot hills, checquered in their undulating distance by Rubers Law and the Crags of Minto,

The Abbey, as well as the modern mansion-house, inhabited by Sir David Erskine, is completely embosomed in a wood. Around this sylvan spot the Tweed winds in a beautiful crescent form, and the scene is interesting to excess, embracing both wood and water, mountain and rock scenery, by which the picturesque ruins of the Abbey are surrounded. The variety

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of the forms is very striking, and the whole scene gives rise to the most pleasing sentiments of religious tranquillity. The ruins are overgrown with foliage, and everywhere nature usurps the place of art. In one roofless apartment a fine spruce and holly are to be seen flourishing in the rubbish; in others the walls are completely covered with ivy, and even on the top of some of the arches, trees have sprung up to a considerable growth, and there, clustering with the aspiring pinnacles, add character to the Gothic pile.

Dryburgh is now consecrated to all time by the ashes of the great Novelist. Many a pilgrim foot will bend its steps to this hallowed spot; and, unenticed by the meretricious lures of monkish idolatry, the willing votary will seek with pious solicitude the shrine where genius reposes, and drop a tear on it to the memory of WALTER SCOTT.

I.

* A distant view of Dryburgh Abbey, from a drawing by Mr. Wathen, is in our vol. xc. ii. p. 297; and a plan and two good views of it, drawn and engraved by Lizars, will be found in Morton's account of the Monasteries of Teviotdale.

Oct. 23.

Mr. URBAN, MY opinion having been asked respecting the Fragment of the Baccha of Euripides, printed in your last Number, I have just read it; and now sit down to write you a few hasty remarks which have occurred to me in its perusal. I must premise, however, that my observations can be of very little value, as, although I was formerly a diligent reader of Euripides, many years have elapsed since I bade farewell to such studies; nor have I at this time leisure to look into a single book which a person who pretends to criticize a Greek passage ought to inspect. It rests with you, therefore, to determine whether you will make any use of remarks written under such circumstances.

The inspection of almost every part of this production will, I think, be sufficient to satisfy your learned readers, that it is a lusus of your Correspondent; who having amused himself with an attempt to supply the lacuna in the last scene of the Bacchæ, chooses to try what reception it will meet with, when it appears in your pages pretending to come from the genuine hand of Euripides. I should be very sorry to insinuate that there is any intention of committing a fraud upon you or upon your readers: but as it is, I believe, certain that many persons were imposed upon by the pretended Shakspeare Manuscripts, and that the late Dr. Parr not only declared, but subscribed his full belief in them, your Grecian friend X. Y. may have thought it fair to try what degree of credulity may exist among your learned readers. Whoever may be the author of these iambics, I beg leave to pay my humble tribute to the scholarship and spirit of the composition, and the intimate acquaintance which it displays with the works of the Tragedians, at the same time, that it is free from servile imitation.

It is justly remarked in your Magazine, that this pretended fragment of the Bacchæ does not present such faults in prosody as those which mark the spurious addition to the Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Fragment of the Danaë: but had these verses been taken from an old Palimpsest manuscript, as hinted by X. Y. it is probable that they would have exhibited many metrical errors similar to those which are found in most manuscripts, arising from the ignorance of the suc

cessive copyists, respecting the true laws of the tragic metres.

The first line is from Euripides. In v. 10, there is either a false quantity, or an anapæst for the second foot; Μὴ δριμυτέραν τῷ συμφορὰν συσσκευάσῃ. In v. 15. Εἰ νεκρὸν ὀρθοῖς σῶμ ̓ ὁρᾷν ὄσσοις φέροις. Euripides would rather have written, Εἰ νεκρὸν ὀρθοῖς ὄμμασιν λεύσσειν ἔχοις.

V. 22. I do not recollect the adverb σpodpis in the Tragedians.

V. 23. ἄπιστ ̓ ἄπιστα, καινὰ καινὰ δέρκομαι. This verse is borrowed from a play of Euripides; I think the Hecuba, but am not quite sure, and have no time to look for it. The line however is certainly taken from the melic parts of the Tragedy. Two such repetitions would not have been found in a line constituting part of the regu lar iambic dialogue.

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V. 31. is here only inserted for the metre.

V. 32 and 33. I have met with these two lines elsewhere, unless my memory greatly deceives me.

V. 42. καθ', οἳ ἂν ἦν ἐλεινὰ Διονύσῳ y, exe. This seems an imitation of the Latin, miseranda vel hosti: but the Greek words do not accurately express their intended meaning.

V. 48. βλέπειν σέ γ ̓ οὐ φέρω. Should it not rather have been οὐ σθένω ?

V. 49. τῶν χειλέων, Οτοις. The last word should rather have been οἷσπερ.

V. 56. οἴσομαι βλέπειν, and ν. 62, pépovoa Bérew. These translations of the English bear to see, by pépw Bénew, four times within a few lines, would have detected your new Euripides, even had his mask been better than it is.

There are many other remarks of a similar nature which I could make, (though I trust I bave advanced sufficient to substantiate my opinion,) but have not time; and must conclude with begging you to excuse the haste with which these are written, and assuring you that I am, with much respect for yourself, and no disrespect for your Correspondent, your very humble serE. G.

vant,

Another learned correspondent observes, "The Greek Iambics, which are printed as a fragment of the Bacchæ, are written by some scholar of the present day, who is betrayed, amongst other signs, by some Anglicisms. The preliminary notice signed X. Y. is of itself sufficient to discredit the pretended Fragment."

Mr. URBAN,

Bath, Oct. 20. YOU will confer a favour on a constant reader and occasional correspondent, by allowing a place to the Letter which I now inclose. It is quite unnecessary for me to add one word in corroboration of what Mr. Bright has stated in it. Most true it is that many years ago he did me the favour to admit me an acquaintance with this long-concealed and most curious truth; and that I have from time to time taken the liberty of suggesting to him that it was due to his own literary reputation, and due to other inquirers in this department of literary history, not to withhold the public communication of the fact, and of the curious and most recondite researches by which he had first established and then illustrated it. I may add that not only the fact itself, but the evidence was submitted to me, and the many important conclusions also which follow on the establishment of the connection between Lord Pembroke and the Poet: the whole disquisition being an admirable specimen of inductive reasoning, from the comparison of facts which could be found only by deep research, equally creditable to the diligence and the power of combination of its author. JOSEPH HUnter. [Copy.]

MY DEAR SIR,-The communication of J. B, respecting the person to whom Shakespeare addressed his Sonnets, which occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine of this month, and to which you have so kindly directed my attention, occasions, I am half ashamed to confess, some selfish regrets.

It is now more than 13 years ago, in 1819, I think, since I detailed to you the progress of the discovery I had then made, that William Herbert the third Earl of Pembroke was undoubtedly the person to whom Shakepeare addressed the first 126 Sonnets, Another friend, Dr. Holme of Manchester, had been informed of my secret a year earlier; and from both, as ever since from time to time I have spoken or corresponded on the subject, I have received warnings, that by delaying to give the result of my researches to the public, I was putting to hazard an honourable opportunity of securing to myself some literary reputation. The truth is, I have in the long interval been much and actively engaged in matters more immediately

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Under these circumstances, and before J. B. actually announces his discovery, I thus put in my claim. I readily acknowledge that he who unnecessarily hoards information of any kind, rightly loses the privilege of first communicating it; and I anticipate with my best philosophy the interesting conclusion of J. B.'s very excellent and original paper.

When I can again apply myself to the subject, I will come before the public as a fellow-labourer, and it shall be in the spirit of one who, whilst he feels-for human nature— somewhat jealously of his own longtreasured discovery, recollects that the claim he is now preferring may be the cause of similar feelings in another, who has much more justly appreciated what is due to himself, and what the interests of literature demand from all its worshippers.

I am, my dear Sir, your obliged friend, B. HEYWOOD Bright. Stone-buildings, Lincoln's Inn, Oct. 16, 1832. Rev. Joseph Hunter.

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YOUR description of the old Hungerford Market, and the former connexion of the estate with the Hungerford family, has reminded me of an old mansion in Wiltshire, once the seat of some of that ancient name.

Behind the church of White Parish, situated on the road between Romsey and Salisbury, was a house of no mean size, appearing to have been erected at different periods. On a narrow projecting part of this building, composed of flint, and said to have been erected by Edward St. Barbe, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and who died in 1616, are three windows of the fashion of that day, one above the other; between the uppermost and middle one, on a square stone tablet, a rose surmounted by a crown and encircled with the garter, and usual motto of " Honi soit qui mal y pense."

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