almost unerring taste and judgment, in correcting.[10] Lord Byron was a rapid composer, but made abundant use of the pruning-knife. On returning one of his proof sheets from Italy, he expressed himself undecided about a single word, for which he wished to substitute another, and requested Mr. Murray to refer it to Mr. Gifford, then editor of the _Quarterly Review_. Sir Walter Scott evinced his love of literary labour by undertaking the revision of the whole of the _Waverley_ Novels--a goodly freightage of some fifty or sixty volumes. The works of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Moore, and the occasional variations in their different editions, mark their love of the touching. Southey was, indeed, unwearied after his kind--a true author of the old school. The bright thoughts of Campbell, which sparkle like polished lances, were manufactured with almost equal care; he was the Pope of our contemporary authors.[11] Allan Cunningham corrected but little, yet his imitations of the elder lyrics are perfect centos of Scottish feeling and poesy. The loving, laborious lingering of Tennyson over his poems, and the frequent alterations--not in every case improvements--that appear in successive editions of his works, are familiar to all his admirers. [10] "I have seen," says a Correspondent of the _Inverness Courier_, "a copy of the second edition of Burns's 'Poems,' with the blanks filled up, and numerous alterations made in the poet's handwriting: one instance, not the most delicate, but perhaps the most amusing and characteristic will suffice. After describing the gambols of his 'Twa Dogs,' their historian refers to their sitting down in coarse and rustic terms. This, of course, did not suit the poet's Edinburgh patrons, and he altered it to the following:-- 'Till tired at last, and doucer grown, Upon a knowe they sat them down.' Still this did not please his fancy; he tried again, and hit it off in the simple, perfect form in which it now stands:-- 'Until wi' daffin weary grown, Upon a knowe they sat them down.'" [11] Campbell's alterations were, generally, decided improvements; but in one instance he failed lamentably. The noble peroration of Lochiel is familiar to most readers:-- "Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field and his feet to the foe; And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame." In the quarto edition of _Gertrude of Wyoming_, when the poet collected and reprinted his minor pieces, this lofty sentiment was thus stultified:-- "Shall victor exult in the battle's acclaim, Or look to yon heaven from the death-bed of fame." The original passage, however, was wisely restored in the subsequent editions. * * * * * JOE MILLER AT COURT.