We love Allan's "Maid of Elvar." It beats with a fine, free, bold, and healthful spirit. Along with the growth of the mutual love of Eustace and Sybil, he paints peasant-life with a pen that reminds us of the pencil of Wilkie. He is as familiar with it all as Burns; and Burns would have perused with tears many of these pictures, even the most cheerful--for the flood-gates of Robin's heart often suddenly flung themselves open to a touch, while a rushing gush--wondering gazers knew not why--bedimmed the lustre of his large black eyes. Allan gives us descriptions of Washings and Watchings o' claes, as Homer has done before him in the Odyssey, and that other Allan in the Gentle Shepherd--of Kirks, and Christenings, and Halloweens, and other Festivals. Nor has he feared to string his lyre--why should he?--to such themes as the Cottar's Saturday Night--and the simple ritual of our faith, sung and said "In some small kirk upon the sunny brae, That stands all by itself on some sweet Sabbath-day." Ay, many are the merits of this "Rustic Tale." To appreciate them properly, we must carry along with us, during the perusal of the poem, a right understanding and feeling of that pleasant epithet--Rustic. Rusticity and Urbanity are polar opposites--and there lie between many million modes of Manners, which you know are Minor Morals. But not to puzzle a subject in itself sufficiently simple, the same person may be at once rustic and urbane, and that too, either in his character of man or of poet, or in his twofold capacity of both; for observe that, though you may be a man without being a poet, we defy you to be a poet without being a man. A Rustic is a clodhopper; an Urbane is a paviour. But it is obvious that the paviour in a field hops the clod; that the clodhopper in a street paces the pavé. At the same time, it is equally obvious that the paviour, in hopping the clod, performs the feat with a sort of city smoke, which breathes of bricks; that the clodhopper, in pacing the pavé, overcomes the difficulty with a kind of country air, that is redolent of broom. Probably, too, Urbanus through a deep fallow is seen ploughing his way in pumps; Rusticus along the shallow stones is heard clattering on clogs. But to cease pursuing the subject through all its variations, suffice it for the present (for we perceive that we must resume the discussion another time), to say, that Allan Cunningham is a living example and lively proof of the truth of our Philosophy--it being universally allowed in the best circles of town and country, that he is an URBANE RUSTIC. Now, that is the man for our love and money, when the work to be done is a Poem on Scottish Life. We can say of Allan what Allan says of Eustace,-- "Far from the pasture moor He comes; the fragrance of the dale and wood Is scenting all his garments, green and good."