POPPING THE QUESTION.

THERE is no more delicate step in life than the operation designated by the elegant phrase I have selected for the title of my present lucubration. Much winding and caution, and previous sounding, is necessary when you have got a favour to ask of a great man. It is ten chances to one that he takes it into his head to consider your request exorbitant, and to make this the pretext for shaking off what he naturally considers a cumbersome appendage to his statea man who has a claim upon his good offices. But this hazard is nothing in comparison with the risk you run in laying yourself at the mercy of a young gipsy, fonder of fun and frolic than any thing in life. Even though she love you with the whole of her little heart, she possesses a flow of spirits, and woman's ready knack of preserving appearances; and though her bosom may heave responsive to your stammering tale, she will lure you on with kind complacent looks, until you have told "your pitiful story," and then laugh in your face for your pains.

It is not this either that I meant to express. Men are not cowards because they see distinctly the danger that lies before them. When a person has coolness sufficient to appreciate its full extent, he has in general either self-possession enough to back out of the scrape, or, if it is inevitable, to march with due resignation to meet his fate. In like manner, it is not that poor Pillgarlick, the lover, has a clear notion (persons in his condition are rarely troubled with clear notions) of what awaits him, but he feels a kind of choking about the neck of his heart, a hang-dog inclination to go backwards instead of forwards, a check, a sudden stop in all his functions. He knows not how to look, or what to say. His fine plan, arranged with so much happy enthusiasm, when sitting alone in his armchair, after a good dinner, and two or three glasses of wine, in the uncertain glimmering of twilight, with his feet upon the fender, proves quite impracticable. Either it has escaped his memory altogether, or the conversation perversely takes a turn totally different from that by which he hoped to lead the fair one from indifferent topics to thoughts of a tenderer complexion, and thus, by fine degrees, (he watching, all the time, how she was affected, in order to be sure of his bottom, before he makes the plunge,) to insinuate his confession, just at the moment that he knows it will be well received.

The desperate struggles and flounderings by which some endeavour to get out of their embarrassment are amusing enough. We remember to have been much delighted, the first time we heard the

history of the wooing of a noble lord, now no more, narrated. His lordship was a man of talents and enterprise, of stainless pedigree, and a fair rent-roll, but the veriest slave of bashfulness. Like all timid and quiet men, he was very susceptible and very constant, as long as he was in the habit of seeing the object of his affections daily. He chanced, at the beginning of an Edinburgh winter, to lose his heart to Miss -; and as their families were in habits of intimacy, he had frequent opportunities of meeting with her. He gazed and sighed incessantly-a very Dumbiedikes, but that he had a larger allowance of brain; he followed everywhere; he felt jealous, uncomfortable, savage, if she looked even civilly at another; and yet, notwithstanding his stoutest resolutions—notwithstanding the encouragement afforded him by the lady, a woman of sense, who saw what his lordship would be at, esteemed his character, was superior to girlish affectation, and made every advance consistent with womanly delicacy-the winter was fast fading into spring, and he had not yet got his mouth opened. Mamma at last lost all patience; and one day, when his lordship was taking his usual lounge in the drawing-room, silent, or uttering an occasional monosyllable, the good lady abruptly left the room, and locked the pair in alone. When his lordship, on essaying to take his leave, discovered the predicament in which he stood, a desperate fit of resolution seized him. Miss sat bending most assiduously over her needle, a deep blush on her cheek. His lordship advanced towards her, but, losing heart by the way, passed on in silence to the other end of the He returned to the charge, but again without effect. last, nerving himself like one about to spring a powder-mine, he stopped short before her-" Miss "" will you marry me?"— "With the greatest pleasure, my lord," was the answer, given in a low, somewhat timid, but unfaltering voice, while a deeper crimson suffused the face of the speaker. And a right good wife she made to him.

room.

At

Some gentlemen, equally nervous, and unaided by such a discriminating and ingenious mamma, have recourse to the plan of wooing by proxy. This is a system which I can by no means recommend. If a male agent be employed, there is great danger, that, before he is aware, he begins to plead for himself. Talking of love, even in the abstract, with a woman, is a ticklish matter. Emotions are awakened, which we thought were lulled to sleep for ever, and we grow desirous to appropriate to ourselves the pretty sentiments which she so well expresses. A female go-between is less dangerous; but I cannot conceive with what face a man can ever address a woman as his wife whom he had not courage to woo for himself.

Day, the philosopher, had a freak of educating a wife for himself. He got two orphan girls intrusted to his care, on entering into recognizances to educate and provide for them. One proved

too mulish to make any thing of. The other grew up every thing he could have wished. And yet he gave up the idea of marrying her, because she one day purchased a handkerchief more gaudy than accorded with his philosophical notions. Of course, it never came to a declaration. I wish it had, that one might have seen with what degree of grace a man could divest himself of the grave and commanding characters of papa and pedagogue, to assume the supple, insinuating deportment of the lover.

There are a set of men, whose success in wooing-and it is unfailing—I cannot comprehend. Grave, emaciated, sallow divines, who never look the person in the face whom they address-who never speak above their breath-who sit on the uttermost edge of their chairs, a full yard distant from the dinner-table. I have never known one of these scarecrows fail in getting a good and a rich wife. How it is, Heaven knows! Can it be that the ladies ask them?

One thing is certain, that I myself have never been able to " "pop the question." Like the inspired writer, among the things beyond the reach of my intellect, is "the way of a man with a maid." By what witchery he should ever be able to induce her, "her free unhoused condition" to "bring into circumscription and confine," is to me a mystery. Had it been otherwise, I should not have been at this time the lonely inmate of a dull house-one who can scarcely claim kindred with any human being-in short,

[Edin. Lit. Jour:]

SONG.

AN OLD BACHELOR.

HERE'S to thee, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee,
For thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so firm and free;
For all thine artless elegance, and all thy native grace,

For the music of thy mirthful voice, and the sunshine of thy face;
For thy guileless look and speech sincere, yet sweet as speech can be,
Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee!

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie!--though my glow of youth is o'er ;
And I, as once I felt and dream'd, must feel and dream no more;
Though the world, with all its frosts and storms, has chill'd my soul at last,,
And genius, with the foodful looks of youthful friendship past;

Though my path is dark and lonely, now, o'er this world's dreary sea,→ Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee!

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie!--though I know that not for me
Is thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so firm and free ;
Though thou, with cold and careless looks, wilt often pass me by,
Unconscious of my swelling heart, and of my wistful eye;

Though thou wilt wed some Highland love, nor waste one thought on me,—
Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee!

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie! when I meet thee in the throng
Of merry youths and maidens, dancing lightsomely along,
I'll dream away an hour or twain, still gazing on thy form,

As it flashes through the baser crowd, like lightning through a storm;
And I, perhaps, shall touch thy hand, and share thy looks of glee,
And for once, my Scottish lassie! dance a giddy dance with thee.

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie !-I shall think of thee at even, When I see its first and fairest star come smiling up through Heaven; I shall hear thy sweet and touching voice, in every wind that grieves, As it whirls from the abandoned oak, its withered autumn leaves;

In the gloom of the wild forest, in the stillness of the sea,

I shall think, my Scottish lassie! I shall often think of thee.

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie !-in my sad and lonely hours,
The thought of thee comes o'er me, like the breath of distant flowers ;-
Like the music that enchants mine ear, the sights that bless mine eye,
Like the verdure of the meadow, like the azure of the sky,
Like the rainbow in the evening, like the blossoms on the tree,

Is the thought, my Scottish lassie! is the lonely thought of thee.

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie !-though my muse must soon be dumb
(For graver thoughts and duties, with my graver years, are come,)
Though my soul must burst the bonds of earth, and learn to soar on high,
And to look on this world's follies with a calm and sober eye;
Though the merry wine must seldom flow, the revel cease for me,→
Still to thee, my Scottish lassie! still I'll drink a health to thee.

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a parting health to thee;
May thine be still a cloudless lot, though it be far from me!
May still thy laughing eye be bright, and open still thy brow,
Thy thoughts as pure, thy speech as free, thy heart as light as now!
And, whatsoe'er my after fate, my dearest toast shall be,-
Still a health, my Scottish lassic! still a hearty health to thee!

[Friendship's Offering ]

MOULTRIE.

ROBERT BURNS.

THERE is probably not a human being come to the years of understanding in all Scotland, who has not heard of the name of Robert Burns. It is indeed a household word. His Poems are found lying in almost every cottage in the country-on the "window-sole" of the kitchen, spence, or parlour; and even in the town-dwellings of the industrious poor, if books belong to the family at all, you are sure to see there the dear Ayrshire Ploughman, the Bard of Coila. The father or mother, born and long bred perhaps among banks and braes, possesses in that small volume a talisman that awakens in a moment all the sweet visions of the past, and that can crowd the dim abode of hard-working poverty with a world of dear rural remembrances that awaken not repining but contentment. No poet ever lived more constantly and more intimately in the heart of a people. With their mirth, or with their melancholy, how often do his "native wood-notes wild" affect the sitters by the ingles of low-roofed homes, till their hearts overflow with feelings that place them on a level, as moral creatures, with the most enlightened in the land; and more than reconcile them with, make them proud of, the condition assigned them in life by Providence! In his poetry, they see with pride the reflection of the character and condition of their own order. That pride is one of the best natural props of poverty; for, supported by it, the poor envy not the rich. They exult to know and to feel that they have had treasures bequeathed to them by one of themselves-treasures of the intellect, the fancy, and the imagination, of which the possession and the enjoyment are one and the same, as long as they preserve their integrity and their independThe poor man, as he speaks of Robert Burns, always holds up his head, and regards you with an elated look. A tender thought of the "Cotter's Saturday Night," or a bold thought of "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," may come across him; and he who in such a spirit loves home and country, by whose side may he not walk an equal in the broad eye of daylight as it shines over our Scottish hills?

ence.

This is true popularity. Thus interpreted, the word sounds well, and recovers its ancient meaning. No need of puffing the poetry of Robert Burns. The land" blithe with plough and har

From a Review in Blackwood's Magazine of Lockhart's Life of Burns. The reader will at once recognise this and the article on "Trees," given in a previous part of the volume, to be by the same eloquent author.