Rather belonging to the same school than to that of Burns, though never degrading itself by Elliott’s ferocity, is that extraordinary poem, “The Purgatory of Suicides,” by Thomas Cooper.  As he is still in the prime of life, and capable of doing more and better than he yet has done, we will not comment on it as freely as we have on Elliott, except to regret a similar want of softness and sweetness, and also of a clearness and logical connection of thought, in which Elliott seldom fails, except when cursing.  The imagination is hardly as vivid as Elliott’s, though the fancy and invention, the polish of the style, and the indications of profound thought on all subjects within the poet’s reach, are superior in every way to those of the Corn-Law Rhymer; and when we consider that the man who wrote it had to gather his huge store of classic and historic anecdote while earning his living, first as a shoemaker, and then as a Wesleyan country preacher, we can only praise and excuse, and hope that the day may come when talents of so high an order will find some healthier channel for their energies than that in which they now are flowing.

Our readers may wonder at not seeing the Ettrick Shepherd’s poems among the list at the head of the article.  It seems to us, however, that we have done right in omitting them.  Doubtless, he too was awakened into song by the example of Burns; but he seems to us to owe little to his great predecessor, beyond the general consciousness that there was a virgin field of poetry in Scotch scenery, manners, and legends—­a debt which Walter Scott himself probably owed to the Ayrshire peasant just as much as Hogg did.  Indeed, we perhaps are right in saying, that had Burns not lived, neither Wilson, Galt, Allan Cunningham, or the crowd of lesser writers who have found material for their fancy in Scotch peculiarities, would have written, as they have.  The three first names, Wilson’s above all, must have been in any case distinguished; yet it is surely no derogation to some of the most exquisite rural sketches in “Christopher North’s Recreations,” to claim them as the intellectual foster-children of “The Cottar’s Saturday Night.”  In this respect, certainly, the Ettrick Shepherd has a place in Burns’s school, and, in our own opinion, one which has been very much overrated.  But the deeper elements of Burns’s mind, those which have especially endeared him to the working man, reappear very little, or not at all, in Hogg.  He left his class too much below him; became too much of the mere aesthetic prodigy, and member of a literary clique; frittered away his great talents in brilliant talk and insincere Jacobite songs, and, in fine, worked no deliverance on the earth.  It is sad to have to say this:  but we had it forced upon us painfully enough a few days ago, when re-reading “Kilmeny.”  There may be beautiful passages in it; but it is not coherent, not natural, not honest.  It is throughout an affectation of the Manichaean sentimental-sublime, which God never yet put into the heart of any brawny, long-headed, practical Borderer, and which he therefore probably put into his own head, or, as we call it, affected, for the time being; a method of poetry writing which comes forth out of nothing, and into nothing must return.