LORD ROBERTSON'S POEMS.
ANY one who has visited Edinburgh from ten to twenty years ago, and been conducted to the Parliament House among other lions—or recep- tacle of lions—must remember an advocate of rotund proportions, whose pbogaetude was to him a burden, as the grasshopper to the seer of old. But
"His eyen twinkeled hi his lied aright,
As don the sterres in a frosty night." The spirit within was not slumberous. A deft and well-trusted coun- sellor was he, and well-employed at the bar. But to see the man in his glory, you must meet him after dinner, or, by our Lady, nearer hearing of "the chimes at midnight." Within his portly body seem encased the combined spirit of all high-jinkers since the time of Pleydell. Speeches he could make in which there was no mean- ing—perhaps no wit; and yet the most saturnine were compelled to Join in the roar they provoked. Gaelic sermons he would say, and Gaelic songs he would sing; though of the knowledge of Gaelic he was inno- cent; and bewildered Celts listened and could not tell whether it was or was not their own language that fell so glibly from his lips. Italian bra- vuras he could troll, albeit Italian was to him an unknown tongue and Natine had denied him a musical ear ; De Begnis listening the while to his improvisation with delight, and Tamburini with blank astonishment. When the acute indefatigable advocate slipped out of his wig and gown and away from his multitudinous briefs, he could seem a very incarnation of one of Shakspere's clowns. And, though he served no nobleman or potentate in that capacity, yet was he liegeman to an order. In those merry days, Edinburgh had its Guelphs and Ghibellines—its Dandasites and its believers in the old "Blue-and-yellow "—(perhaps still has, for in provincial circles such feuds are nursed with an inveterate pertina- city, to metropolitan circles inconceivabled " Peter " was a stanch Tory. At a Circuit-dinner in Jedburgh, some small Border laird grew angry because our hero marched out of the room before him, (unthink- ingly, it may be, though in strict etiquette the precedence was his right,) and valorously demanded, "Who are you, Sir?" "Who am I, Sir?" responded the imperturbable Peter; "don't you know me, Sir ? I am buffoon-general to the Tories of Edinburgh, Sir." To an observant beholder there was something anomalous in the face of Mr. Patrick Robertson. His mouth was finely formed, and had are expression of delicate sentiment; and they who knew the man were aware that in the innermost recesses of his mind there was really a rich vein of fine thought and feeling. Generous he was, both in the more vulgar acceptation of readiness to assist the poor and needy, and in an uncontrollable sympathy for worth that had suffered wrong. He could not even bear to see a blackguard treated worse than was absolutely necessary to keep him in order. His favourite books (and though few imagined he ever opened one, they were daily consulted) were poems deep-read he is in Shakspere and Milton; and Wordsworth's and Hunt's poetry are familiar to him. This trait in his character explains the volume of downright serious poetry which he has just given to the world Inpart it may be believed to have been prompted by the irrepressible desire he felt to utter aloud the feelings awakened in him by the novel and striking objects with which he found himself encompassed during a tour in Italy, in the long vacation last autumn. Perhaps a desire to let the world know that better and deeper feelings lurked below the outer ease of the professed jester may have had its influence. Viewed in this light, the fragments of verse in the volume now before us do no discredit to their author. Poetry it would be gross flattery to call them. The "Address to the Queen" reminds one—tant soit peu—of a speech on "the general question"; the attempt to impersonate Galileo and Milton has none of the novelty Lord Robertson flatters himself it possesses, and, what is worse, is a dead failure ; while "The Dishonest Dealer", and "The Pirate" are mere versifications, the one of a speech in opposition to an application for the benefits of the cessio bonorunt, and the other of a Crown counsel asking a jury to return a verdict against some freebooter of the sea. But the Leaves front a Journal are replete with a feeling of poetry, if not with poetical ideas. And thus much at least may be said in favour of all the verse in the volume—if the ideas are prosaic, and not unfrequently commonplace, (as will be the case even with men of talent, when, accustomed only to express themselves in prose, they rashly take upon them the fetters of rhythm,) they are always the ideas of a man of sound sense and healthy generous feelings ; if the metre halts at times and is always stiff, it at least shows that the writer has perused and reperused Milton until the cadence of the poet's verse has become familiar to him. Lord Robertson may hold up his head among his brother and sister amateur versifiers, confident that he is as good as most of them.
Yet will his volume give rise to a world of mystification. All the small fry of Scotch Tories—and all who at Offiey's or the Cider Cellar have caught a transient glimpse of Peter before he was raised to the bench—will read on and on, ever expecting that next page the joking ia to begin. His brethren on the seat of judgment will be fluttered as by "an eagle in a dovecot." The President will bluster, and the Justice Clerk look grave, thinking this publication of poetry by a Lord of Sessioe irtfra dtgnitatent ; Lord Jeffrey will pick out some felicitous turn of expression and compliment him upon it; Lord Murray will hesitate be- tween reluctance to give pain and incapacity to be insincere, and remain silent ; and Lord Cockburn will say, that "whereas the Muse of his country found Barns at the plough and cast the mantle of her inspiration over him, she found Lord Robertson on the bench and dropped on him a double gown' after Government had ceased to bestow such honours,"
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