[A Paraphrase of the civ. Psalme, by David Mvrray. Edinburgh, printed by Andro Hart, 1615, 4to.]

There was a little volume, which comes within our notice, printed at this time, now of rare occurrence, with this title: " The Mindes Melodie. Contayning certayne Psalmes, of the Kinglie Prophete Dauid, applyed to a new pleasant tune, verie comfort able to euerie one that is rightlie acquainted therewith. Edinburgh, printed be Robert Charteris, 1605,' 8vo. These certain Psalmes are fourteen in number; but the "new pleasant tune" spoken of, is as uncertain as the name of the author.

"

This recalls to our mind the curious notice, in the foresaid paper, respecting the gratuitous offer made by Montgomery and other Poets, to versify the Psalms anew. We wish this information had been more particular. The time when, and the names of the Poets who concurred with him in making this offer, are equally unknown. The few Psalms that are known to exist by Montgomery, are composed to peculiar tunes, evidently in imitation of the Wedderburns, whose godly hymns and verses were adapted to the measures of" prophaine sangis." Thus the first Psalm is to the tune of "The Solsequium," and the "2 psal. to the Tone of In thro the To." As some of these Psalms are preserved in the Bannatyne MS., a volume written in 1568, it carries the period of their composision farther back than is generally supposed. Only the 1st and 23d Psalms have yet been printed; these are generally found along with Montgomery's well-known and admired allegorical poem, The Cherrie and the Slae.

VOL. III.

We had intended in this place to bring forward some anecdotes, and make a few observations on the state of sacred music in our country after the Reformation, but find it will be necessary to defer doing so to some future Number, as already, we fear, able bounds; so that the following we have greatly exceeded all reasonwords of the poet may in earnest be applied to us, both by the reader and editor,

"Jam lector queriturque, deficitque, Ohe jam satis est, ohe libelle.-MARTIAL. Jam librarius hoc et ipse dicit! (To be continued.)

LETTER FROM ANDREW FAIRSERVICE, JUN. TO DOCTOR NICOL JARVIE.

MY DEAR DOCTOR,

ALLOW me to congratulate you on the successful termination of your remonstrances regarding the abuses in the management of the University Library. Your spirited epistle, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine a few months ago, put the good folks of the College into a state of violent fermentation, and created a strong and universal interest in this town. The public has ever since been standing on the tiptoe of expectation, looking either for a reply from the able pen of some of the writing Professors, or for their silent acquiescence in the justice of your remarks, testified by the removal of the grievances libelled, and by the adoption of the measures recommended by Dr Nicol Jarvie. The frequent appearance of John Maclaughlan, parading the courts with his mace, and gown, and solemn visage, the busy bustling looks of the Professors,-a report from Archie Cameron's, that the Faculty had been sitting, during several successive days, to a late hour, in deep divan,-all these circumstances were well known in the town, and portended that something was in the wind. At last our anxious curiosity has been satisfied. Your exertions have been crowned with their merited success. The professors have at last unbolted the doors of the library, that the students may enter in. Thanks to your spirited and patriotic mediation.

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We are indebted to you, Sir, for having fought and conquered in our cause. There is now no Student, even the son of the most humble parents, who can plead the want of opportunity as an excuse for his ignorance.

Having deposited the small sum of five shillings (the price of subscription fixed by the wisdom of the Faculty), I now enjoy, in common with my fellow-students, the unspeakable benefit of free access to the fountain of knowledge in these parts,-of sharing, in company with the professors and their families, a benefit which all of us agree in estimating at a very high rate. I have already, Sir, (thanks to your manly exertions,) luxuriated in the pages of the Poet of Order,-travelled the Low Countries with your friend the facetious Professor Muirhead, sucking in the ineffable waggery of his jokes,—and tuned my voice to the expression of all those high, he roic feelings, those most divine afflatus, which characterise and adorn the poetry of our British Tyrtaeus. Mistake me not. I mention not these particulars from any feeling of vanity (at which I spurn), but by way of reply to an accusation frequently brought forward by the worthy but mistaken professors, viz. "That it is useless to open the library to the students, because they read nothing but the trash." When my friend, Professor gave me the account of the new decree of the Faculty touching the library, my heart first beat with gratitude to you, who had the glory of being prime mover in a business so powerfully affecting the state of letters in this part of Scotland. Sir, you stand deservedly at the top of your profession in this place, and are equally distinguished above the herd of practitioners, by the depth and extent of your information, as by your skill in the practice of physic. But, Sir, I believe you now stand higher than you ever did before; and however much you may be envied and calumniated by scurvy wits (for scribes must scribble, and genius must pay its tax), be not discouraged. Pursue the same course which you have begun, and you will never cease to have the noble-spirited and the good to love and admire you.

There is another individual who has exerted himself with zeal like yours in defending the cause of the students. His name I cannot pass over in silence. Need I mention that of the represen

tative of the illustrious Millar. He, as you well know, had always been incensed against the abettors of the system of depriving the students of their just rights, and he dexterously took advantage of the tide of popular opinion, excited by your letter; and which, in a country like ours, must, ever in the long-run, bear down all the obstacles which the selfishness and barbarity of individuals, or of bodies of men, may raise in opposition to what is calculated to cherish the spirit of free inquiry, and of literary enthusiasm. By his prudence and zeal he has brought about that revolution, which you, and all of us, had so much at heart. He has, in one word, approved himself worthy of that truly great man, whose blood flows in his veins; and I trust that we shall never fail to pay our humble tribute of respect and gratitude to one who has fought and conquered in our cause.

I trust that the victory now gained is the earnest of great things yet to come, the earnest of more liberality in the general management of University concerns on the part of the Professors, and of a more watchful eye on the part of the Students, and of more spirited opposition from them to every semblance of eneroachment on their rights. The Students (if they are not stark-blind), must now perceive, that although deprived of many of those privileges in which they were vested by the founder of the college, still, in the present day, if they have one soul and one mind, nothing detrimental to their interests can be firmly established. The Professors, although living within walls of their ownbreathing an atmosphere of their own

exercising a jurisdiction of their own-enjoying funds of their ownwriting books of their own-although possessing all the essentials of a distinct and chartered community, are still amenable to the tribunal of public opinion.

Rumours are afloat at present with respect to certain intended innova tions as to the college garden. The same hand, I feel convinced, which has opened the library, will prevent the field of recreation from being converted into a suburb of soapworks and cotton-mills. When you are so near its site, may I hope that you will perhaps vouchsafe a single visit, en passant, to the Hunterian Mu seum. -Adieu! sir; there has not

THE attack on Mrs Grant's literary character in the Glasgow Chronicle, and the defence in your Magazine, are calculated to give a degree of painful publicity to the name of an individual who has for some time past withdrawn from public notice.

It may be satisfactory to her friends at a distance to know, that her personal character was no way implicated in this attack. It was merely a blundering attempt at discovery in the Terra Incognita of Literature. The Chronicler had first attacked the "Tales of my Landlord," in a most acrimonious criticism, and then, with all the certainty of self-conceit, assured the public that the lady in question had all the demerit of their imputed impiety and indecency.

Such charges that lady should never have thought of repelling, considering them as equally unfounded in themselves and inapplicable to her. Fearing, however, that entire silence might be considered as acquiescence, and disdaining, even from folly and ignorance, credit for a performance so greatly above her powers, she refuted the assertion in strong terms.

The Chronicle still continued the complimentary process of filling daily columns with specimens from Mrs Grant's writings, opposed to parallel columns from "The great unknown," to shew that there was a "river in Macedon, and a river in Monmouth, and, doubtless, salmon in both." Captain Fluellin, however, will be allowed by all good judges of geography and literature, to have produced a more happy and complete resemblance than the Chronicler. The reflections on her acknowledged writings are easily forgiven, and the friends of the object of all this criticism will be pleased to know, that it is only in the character

of an author that she has been the subject of the critic's animadversions.

To make this point clear is the intention of the friend who thus at once puts an end to the mystery implied in a defence which leaves the nature of the attack unexplained. A LADY. Edinburgh, 12th May 1818,

Note by the Editor.

The above was handed to us by a lady who is in habits of intimate friendship with the distinguished person, a wanton attack upon whose character gave rise to the statement which it has been her wish to explain. The delicate expressions under which she has veiled her indignation, cannot prevent our readers from perceiving what the nature of the assault on Mrs Grant's character really was. It is true, as our correspondent says, that the literary character alone of her friend was professedly the object of the Glasgow critic's animadversions. But those who have perused his tedious and vulgar paragraphs on the subject in question (which we ourselves have this day done for the first time), will have no difficulty in observing, that the blow aimed apparently at the authoress alone, was in fact insidiously intended to fall also upon the lady. We have neither leisure nor inclination to enter at present into the minutiae of this deservedly obscure controversy. There are not many papers in Scotland which make any pretence to literary character at all. A few exceptions, and one or two happy ones, may be found. The Glasgow Chronicle is not one of these. It seems to be a paper conducted on principles not widely different from those of the lowest engines of the mob-party in London. It is a humble provincial imitation of the Statesman, proceeding upon the absurd mistake, that a small town, abounding in intelligence, where every body is known to every body, and every scandal is at once searched to the bottom, can possibly be a fit place for the same foolish misrepresentations, and the same malicious virulencies, which are found so well adapted to the endless crowds and tumults of an overgrown capital. Like those of its prototype, its criticisms are full of all manner of affectation, ignorance, and insolence. To be

good or great man in any department, is sufficient to draw upon your

head the abuse of these Plebeian wits. They may sell a few more copies of their journal than they would otherwise do, by means of their personalities. But we suppose, after all, their success is not great, as there are few places so devoid of all taste or feeling, as to swallow mere malevolence and vulgarity, unsweetened by the smallest admixture either of wit, humour, or sense. shall have an opportunity of returning to this subject at considerable length, in an Essay which we hope soon to lay before our readers, "On the History and Principles of the present Scottish Newspapers." EDITOR.

We

ON SOME POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS IN

WALES.

MR EDITOR,

THE Popular superstitions of the Scotch Highlanders have been often and ably treated of,-and many are the singular and striking stories on record, illustrative of their imaginative character. In Wales, the popular superstitious creed cannot but be poetical, and probably similar, in many striking points, to that of Albyn. I am but little conversant with the history of the Welsh, and am unable to supply you with much authentic information on the subject of their popular superstitions; but now I venture to throw out a hint to the zealous natives of the Principality, that some detailed philosophical account of their ghosts, spirits, demons, fairies, &c. could not but participate of deep and universal interest.

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I lately laid my hands upon a curious enough little book, entitled, Relation of Apparitions of Spirits, in the County of Monmouth, and the Principality of Wales;" By the late Rev. Edmund Jones of the Tranch.The worthy Divine maintains, in a prefatory Vindication of his Treatise, That they are chiefly women, and men of weak womanish understanding, who chiefly speak against the account of spirits and apparitions. In some women it comes from a certain proud fineness, excessive delicacy, and a superfine disposition, which cannot bear to be disturbed with what is strange and disagreeable to a vain mind. But why should the daughters of mother Eve be so averse to hear of the adversary Satan, with whom she

first conversed, and whom she first believed, and was deceived by him?”

With the Rev. Edmund Jones, a disbelief in ghosts is equivalent to a disbelief of immortality, and all incredulous persons are by him uniformly called Sadducees. He has collected a great number of well-authenticated ghost-stories to overwhelm the Sadducees with confusion, more particularly those who are such thorough-paced infidels as to despise, not only corpsecandles and Kyhirraeths, but itinerant preachers and baptist meetings. Yet I suspect, that in his work, silly, and absurd, and ill arranged as it is, we can discern the leading features of the Welsh superstitions. As Mr Jones' book is circulated only among the lower orders of his own countrymen ; as few copies of it have ever penetrated into England, and probably none at all into Scotland, I have thought that a few selections from a work so little known, may perhaps amuse many of your readers more than any original dissertations with which I could have favoured them. Perhaps, too, they may be the means of directing the attention of your more learned contributors to a new field of inquiry, alike interesting to the philosopher and the antiquarian, as to those who seek, in their reading, for nothing more than amusement, I have classed my extracts under different heads. In Mr Jones' book no attempt at any sort of arrangement is made. The fears with which his mind was agitated, were too powerful to leave him either power or wish to distinguish dogs of hell from fairies, or demons from witches.

I.-Witch Stories.

"At one time two gypsies came to the house of Lewis Thomas, son of Mr Thomas Lewis of Lanharan in Glamorganshire, when he was not at home, and seeing his wife by herself, began to be bold and very importunate for this and that which for those kind of people, commanded them they wanted; but she having an aversion to be gone, which they refused to do, till she took down a stick and threatening to beat them (being a strong courageous woman), at which the gypsies went away muttering and threatening revenge. Some night after, they heard like a bowl rolling above stairs, from the upper end of the chamber to the middle of the room-stopfoot of the stairs; upon which Lewis Thoping a while then rowling down to the mas said to his wife, I believe the old gypsey is come to give thee a visit." Next

morning when she arose, she saw on the floor the print of a bare foot without a toe, dipped in soot! and gone from the foot of the stair toward the door! The next day when they went to churn, the cream soon began to froth as if it was turning to butter, but it did not, though they churned much; they at length poured it into a vessel, where, after it had stayed some time, came a thick slímy cream above, and underneath it was water coloured with a little milk. They boiled the cream, having a notion it would torment the witch, and they were no more disturbed that way."

"About the end of the sixth century, there lived in the valley of Sirhowy, in this parish, David Ziles, an honest substantial freeholder; his house was often troubled by night with witches, who were very mischievous, destroying the milk, &c. In process of time, Hopkin David, a quaker, by trade a turner, came there to work: one night when he was there, those witches made a disturbance, which he supposed was moving his tools; he rose from bed and went down stairs, there he saw them like so many cats, and knowing what they were, spoke to them, and asked one, Who art thou, and what is thy name?' to which she answered, Ellor-Sir-Gare,' (Carmarthenshire Elenor). He then asked another, Who art thou ?" the answer was, Mawd Anghyvion,' (Unrighteous Mawd); and the other answered, ⚫ Isbel Anonest,' (Unjust Jesebel); to which he answered, Unjust is thy work in medling with my tools.' He severely reproved and threatened them. As they betrayed themselves, and knew they were in danger of punishment, they did not trouble the house afterwards. This good the honest quaker did to an innocent honest family."

"Llanhyddel mountain was formerly much talked of, and still remembered concerning an apparition which led many people astray both by day and by night, upon this mountain. The apparition was the resemblance of a poor old woman, with an oblong four-cornered hat, ash-coloured clothes, her apron thrown across her shoulder, with a pot or wooden can in her hand, such as poor people carry to fetch milk with, always going before them, sometimes crying out wow UP. Whoever saw this apparition, whether by night or in a misty day, though well acquainted with the road, they would be sure to lose their way; for the road appeared quite different to what it really was; and so far sometimes the fascination was, that they thought they were going to their journey's end when they were really going the contrary way. Sometimes they heard her cry wow UP, when they did not see her. Sometimes, when they went out by night to fetch coal, water, &c. they would hear the cry very near them, and presently would hear it afar off, as if it was on the opposite mountain, in the parish of Aberystruth, and sometimes passing by their

ears.

The people have it by tradition, that

it was the spirit of one Juan White, who lived, time out of mind, in these parts, and was thought to be a witch; because the mountain was not haunted with her apparition until after her death. When people first lost their way, and saw her, they thought it was a real woman which knew the way; they were glad to see her, and endeavoured to overtake her to inquire about the way; but they could never overtake her, neither would she ever look back to see them; so that they never saw her face."

II.-Stories of Ghosts, Evil Spirits, Demons, &c.

"John Jenkins, a poor man, who lived near Abertilery, hanged himself in an hayloft; his sister presently after perceived him hanging, she cried out with a loud voice; upon which Jeremiah James, who lived in Abertilery-house, looking towards the place where John Jenkins lived, saw the resemblance of a man coming from the hay-loft, and violently turning upwards and downwards topsy-turvy towards the river; which was a dreadful sight to a serious godly man, who saw the catastrophe, and was very impressing; for it could be no other but an evil spirit going with his prey, the self-murderer, to hell."

"The Parish of Mynydduslwyn.-Some years since, John, the son of Watkin Elias Jones, a substantial man of this parish, after his father's death, ploughing in a field, when the oxen rested, sent the lad which drove the oxen to fetch something which he wanted, and before the lad came back, he saw a cloud coming across the field towards him, which came to him, and shadowed the sun from him; and out of the cloud came a voice to him, which asked him, which of these three diseases he would chuse to die of,-the fever, the dropsy, or the consumption, for one of them he must chuse in order to his end. He said he would rather die of the consumption. He let the lad go home with the oxen, and finding himself inclined to sleep, he laid down and slept; when he awoke he was indisposed, and fell by degrees into the consumption whereof he died; yet he lived more than a year after he had seen the apparition in the cloud, and heard the supernatural voice out of it. Some say that he saw the similitude of a venerable old man in the cloud speaking to him, and I believe it was so, and that it was the disembodied Spirit of some good man, likely one of his ancestors, and not an angel; for angels do not appear like old men, nor is it proper they should, because there is no decay in them as in men subject to mortality."

"Mary M. living near Crumlin Bridge, and standing on the Bridge one evening, heard a weak voice like a person in distress going up the river, saying, O Duw beth y wnat fi? O Duw beth y wnaf fi?-(0 God what shall I do? O God what shall I do?) At first she thought it a human voice of one