The Brobdignagian next to Clare, overtopping him by the whole head and shoulders--a physical “Colossus of Literature,” the grenadier of our corps--is Allan, not Allan Ramsay, “no, nor Barbara Allan neither,” but Allan Cunningham,--“a credit,” quoth Sir Walter Scott (he might have said a long credit) “to Caledonia.” He is often called “honest Allan,” to distinguish him, perhaps, from one Allan-a-Dale, who was apt to mistake his neighbours’ goods for his own--sometimes, between ourselves, yelept the “C. of Solway,” in allusion to that favourite “Allan Water,” the Solway Sea. There is something of the true moody poetical weather observable in the barometer of his face, alternating from Variable to Showery, from Stormy to Set Fair. At times he looks gloomy and earnest and traditional--a little like a Covenanter--but he suddenly clears up and laughs a hearty laugh that lifts him an inch or two from his chair, for he rises at a joke when he sees one, like a trout at a fly, and finishes with a smart rubbing of his ample palms. He has store, too, of broad Scotch stories, and shrewd sayings; and he writes--no, he wrote rare old-new or new-old ballads. Why not now? Has his Pegasus, as he once related of his pony, run from under him? Has the Mermaid of Galloway left no little ones? Is Bonnie Lady Ann married, or May Morison dead? Thou vast formed for a poet, Allan, by nature, and by stature too, according to Pope-- “To snatch a grace _beyond the reach_ of Art.” And are there not Longman, or Tallboys, for thy Publishers? But alas! we are fallen on evil days for Bards and Barding, and nine tailors do more for a man than the Nine Muses. The only Lay likely to answer now-a-days would be an Ode (with the proper testimonials) to the Literary Fund! The Reverend personage on the Editor’s right, with the studious brow, deep-set eyes, and bald crown, is the mild and modest Cary--the same who turned Dante into Miltonic English blank verse. He is sending his plate towards the partridges, which he will relish and digest as though they were the Birds of Aristophanes. He has his eye, too, on the French made-dishes[12]. Pity, shame and pity, such a Translator found no better translation in the Church! Is it possible that, in some no-popery panic, it was thought by merely being Dragoman to Purgatory he had _Romed_ from the true faith? A very pleasant day we “Londoners” once spent at a Chiswick parsonage, formerly tenanted by Hogarth, along with the hospitable Cary, and, as Elia called them, his Caryatides![13] The last time my eyes rested on the Interpreter (of the House Beautiful as well as of the Inferno), he was on the Library steps of the British Museum. Ere this, I trust he hath reached the tiptop--nay, hath perhaps attained, being a Literary Worthy, even unto a Trusteeship, and had to buy, at Ellis’s, a few yards of the Blue Ribbon of Literature!