CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON THE "SPECTATOR." [To rue Emma or van
..Brserovon....1
Ern,-.1.21 glancing recently over the inimitable series of imaginary colloquies, entitled Nodes Ambrosianae, by Christopher North—the late Professor Wilson—which were the charm of my youth, and the popularity of which, when they appeared in Blackwood's Magazine between the years 1822 and 1835, was said to be then unprecedented in the annals of .periodical literature, I came across, in an article referring to the chief papers of that time, the following references-to yam• journal "Recent—There, James, lies the Spectator, a new weekly paper of some half-year's standing or so, of the highest merit, and I wish I had some way of strenuously recommending it to the reading public.. The editor (Mr. Bintonl) is, indeed, Whiggish and a Pro-Catholic, but moderate, steady, and consistent in his politics. Let usbave.no tarn-coats. His precis of passing politics is always admirable . . the literary department is equal, on the whole, to that of any other weekly periodical. I nowhere see better criticism on poetry. Some critiques there have been, in that department, superior, in exquisite truth of fact, to anything I remember—worthy of Elia himself, though not apparently from Elia; and in accounts of foreign literature . . I have seen no periodical at all equal to the Spectator.
SHEPHERD.—The numbers you sent out-by deserved a' that ye say o' them. It's a maist enterteenin and instructive—a moist miscallawnewas Miscellany.
Rearm—And without being wishy, washy-
Saseasan.—Or wersh-
Nowrix.—The Spectator is impartial. It is a fair, open, honest, andtattnly periodical" For nineteen years a friend has lindly sent me every week the Spectator, and in my judgment it is still remarkable for the qualities Christopher North claimed for it. Its politics are not mine. As you will see from a leaflet I herewith enclose on the Disestablishment of the -Welsh Church, I am a Nonconformist minister.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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