A correspondent writes from the United States, “I send you below an attempt I made twenty-three years ago to parody an illegitimate poem of Kingsley’s, and to show that even a foreigner having a moderate familiarity with Scott’s novels, can write as good a piece of bad Scotch poetry as an Englishman:―― NEW YORK CORRESPONDENCE. NEW YORK CITY, June 21, 1862. DEAR PRESS,――I saw in your Poet’s Corner some time since a poem by Charles Kingsley about a beast termed an Oubit. What is it? I was vexed at the poem. What business has Kingsley to be writing fraudulent Scotch poetry? He can’t do it well. It makes him look as ridiculous as the old philosopher in the story, trying to put his toe in his mouth, because he saw a baby do it. Besides, anybody can do it as well as Kingsley. I can. _Exempli gratia_: THE DIRDUM. It was a fearfu’ Dirdum, ae morning in the spring, He hirpled down the brae his lane, a sair and grewsome thing. The muckle buirdly dirdum, wi’ pawky glarin een, And couched himsel amang the grass, whare he could na be seen. Wee leein’ Jamie Nagle cam daunderin’ up the glen; A fusionless camsteary chiel, aye answering back again. And when auld Jock the cadger tauld him where the dirdum lay, And warned him aff, he leugh, and sware he’d surely gang that way. Sae on he went, and up he gat, and lang, fu’ lang, he staid―― For naebody saw Jamie e’er come back the gate he gaed. But mony an eldritch screech was heard within the lonesome glen, Though what the dirdum did wi’ him, I’m sure I dinna ken. There. And yet I don’t think myself an eminently――scarcely a moderately――successful Scotch poet! _Ne sutor_ I say. [Illustration] Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans, (_Née_ BROWNE) _Born_ 1794. _Died in Dublin, May_ 16, 1835. THE HOMES OF ENGLAND. The stately Homes of England! How beautiful they stand! Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O’er all the pleasant land. The deer across their greensward bound Through shade and sunny gleam; And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream. * * * * * THE DONKEY-BOYS OF ENGLAND. (_A Song for the Sea-Side,_) The Donkey-Boys of England, how merrily they fly, With pleasant chaff upon the tongue and cunning in the eye. And oh! the donkeys in a mass how patiently they stand, High on the heath of Hampstead, or down on Ramsgate’s sand.