poet and a wife and six
children fed now like the prophet Elijah--they are more
likely to be devoured by critics, than fed by ravens. I
cannot hope that Heaven will feed me and mine while I
sing. So farewell to song for a season.

"My brother's[41] want of success has surprised me too.
He had a fair share of talent; and, had he cultivated
his powers with care, and given himself fair play, his
fate would have been different. But he sees nature
rather through a curious medium than with the tasteful
eye of poetry, and must please himself with the praise
of those who love singular and curious things. I have
said nothing all this while of Mrs Hogg, though I might
have said much, for we hear her household prudence and
her good taste often commended. She comes, too, from my
own dear country--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._