Scott continued, this year, his care for the Edinburgh Annual Register--the historical department of which was again supplied by Mr. Southey. The poetical miscellany owed its opening piece, the Ballad of Polydore, to the readiness with which Scott entered into correspondence with its author, who sent it to him anonymously, with a letter which, like the verses, might well have excited much interest in his mind, even had it not concluded with stating the writer's age to be _fifteen_. Scott invited the youth to visit him in the country, was greatly pleased with the modesty of his manners and the originality of his conversation, and wrote to Joanna Baillie, that, "though not one of the crimps for the muses," he thought he could hardly be mistaken in believing that in the boyish author of Polydore he had discovered a true genius. When I mention the name of my friend William Howison of Clydegrove, it will be allowed that he prognosticated wisely. He continued to correspond with this young gentleman and his father, and gave both much advice, for which both were most grateful. There was inserted in the same volume a set of beautiful stanzas, inscribed to Scott by Mr. Wilson, under the title of The Magic Mirror, in which that enthusiastic young poet also bears a lofty and lasting testimony to the gentle kindness with which his earlier efforts had been encouraged by him whom he designates, for the first time, by what afterwards became one of his standing titles, that of The Great Magician. "Onwards a figure came, with stately brow, And, as he glanced upon the ruin'd pile A look of regal pride, 'Say, who art thou' (His countenance bright'ning with a scornful smile, He sternly cried), 'whose footsteps rash profane The wild romantic realm where I have willed to reign?' "But ere to these proud words I could reply, How changed that scornful face to soft and mild! A witching frenzy glitter'd in his eye, Harmless, withal, as that of playful child. And when once more the gracious vision spoke, I felt the voice familiar to mine ear; While many a faded dream of earth awoke, Connected strangely with that unknown seer, Who now stretch'd forth his arm, and on the sand A circle round me traced, as with magician's wand," etc. Scott's own chief contribution to this volume was a brief account of the Life and Poems (hitherto unpublished)[13] of Patrick Carey, whom he pronounces to have been not only as stout a Cavalier, but almost as good a poet as his contemporary Lovelace. That Essay was expanded, and prefixed to an edition of Carey's Trivial Poems and Triolets, which Scott published in 1820; but its circulation in either shape has been limited: and I believe I shall be gratifying the majority of my readers by here transcribing some paragraphs of his beautiful and highly characteristic introduction of this forgotten poet of the seventeenth century.