ntry--a good assurance of a capital wife
and an affectionate mother. My wife and I send her and
you most friendly greetings. We hope to see you both in
London during the summer.

"You have written much, but you must write more yet.
What say you to a series of poems in your own original
way, steeped from end to end in Scottish superstition,
but purified from its grossness by your own genius and
taste? Do write me soon. I have a good mind to come and
commence shepherd beside you, and aid you in making a
yearly pastoral _Gazette_ in prose and verse for our
_ain_ native Lowlands. The thing would take.

"The evil news of Sir Walter's losses came on me like
an invasion. I wish the world would do for him now what
it will do in fifty years, when it puts up his statue
in every town--let it lay out its money in purchasing
an estate, as the nation did to the Duke of Wellington,
and money could never be laid out more worthily.--I
remain, dear James, your very faithful friend,

"Allan Cunningham."

One of the parties chiefly aggrieved in the matter of the Chaldee MS.
was Thomas Pringle, one of the original editors of _Blackwood_. This
ingenious person had lately returned from a period of residence in
Southern Africa, and established himself in London as secretary to the
Slave Abolition Society, and a man of letters. Forgetting past
differences, he invited the Shepherd, in the following letter, to aid
him in certain literary enterprises:--

"London, _May 19, 1827._

"My dear Sir,--I wrote you a hasty note some time ago,
to solicit your literary aid for the projected work of
Mr Fraser. I now address you on behalf of two other
friends of mine, who are about to start a new weekly
publication, something in the shape of the _Literary
Gazette_, to be entitled _The London Review_. The
editors are Mr D. L. Richardson, the author of a volume
of poems chiefly written in India, and a Mr St John, a
young gentleman of very superior talents, whose name
has not yet been (so far as I know) before the public,
though he has been a contributor to several of the
first-rate periodicals. I have no other interest in the
work myself than that of a friend and contributor. The
editors, knowing that I have the pleasure of your
acquaintance, have requested me to solic