556 ReirospecHve Criticism, 



P.S. I trust you will not adopt Professor Henslotv's recommendation, 

 and send Mr. Stephens's reply to me for approval : I have no wish to see 

 it till it appears in your pages. — A. H. D. 



Agronome's Replif to the Animadversions of B, and J. S.y p. 77, 78. 81. — 

 Agronome supplied us with this communication immediately after our pub- 

 lication of the animadversions alluded to, and we have kept it back thus 

 long from deeming the early part of it not perfectly congenial to the tenor 

 of the Magazine. Still, however, there is so much of natural history in 

 the latter part of it, and we find it so perfectly impossible to alter or deduct 

 any portion of the early part of it, without marring the unity of the whole, 

 that we feel constrained to give it entire ; and we are also desirous of doing 

 this out of our sincere regard for Agronome himself, whom we are as anxious 

 to allow to justify himself as any other contributor. Determining, then, to 

 publish his reply, we do so ere we close the volume in which the animad- 

 versions on his previous article have appeared. — Cond. 



Dear Sir, I feel sorry that you have been obliged to apologise for insert- 

 ing my letter of May, 1830. (Vol. III. p. 507.), on the blowing up of Stobs's 

 powder-mill ; and it well becomes me to apologise to you for writing it. I 

 assure you. Sir, that letter contained nothing but the truth, though not a 

 tenth part of the whole truth. The substance of it was in all the news- 

 papers at the time, but there were many circumstances connected with the 

 event not known to the public. 



You must know. Sir, that very many of my relations lived at that time 

 on the spot. My brother-in-law, William Allan, was the first and only man 

 who dragged the live sufferer from the burning mass ; and he also assisted 

 in collecting the fragments of the other. I was at that time a journeyman 

 gardener with the Earl of Hopetoun, Hopetoun House, but I was near 

 the place of explosion, on a visit, in the week following. John Paterson, the 

 smith, who, I believe, is still alive there, will point you out the spot where 

 he picked up great part of the man's bowels, and brought them home in 

 his leather apron. Several of my friends attended on the dying sufferer 

 till he breathed his last, and his groans and exclamations made a deeper 

 impression on their memories than could the most sublime description of 

 the direst torments. Instead of treating the subject with levity, as one of 

 your critics says, I never think of it without horror and awe ; else how 

 should it be retained so fresh in my memory for above twenty-eight years ? 



I can say, with the Ettrick Shepherd, " I have great reason to be thank- 

 ful that I never told a deliberate lie in my life." The only falsehood in the 

 letter arises from a mistake of your own, in placing Stobs's powder-mill in 

 Peeblesshire ; it being in Mid-Lothian, only three miles from Dalkeith, and 

 nine from Edinburgh. I am sorry you have been obliged to insert two 

 miraculous stories, in order to ridicule my marvellous one ; but your re- 

 viewer has not given my letter a fair reading. The stone which struck 

 Mr. Hunter killed him stone dead in a moment, some of the bones of his 

 shoulder being driven clean into his lungs, though the people imagined he 

 was only in a swoon at first. I have no objection to believe a marvellous 

 story if told by a respectable person ; but I despise a miraculous story, 

 even if told by the pope. I was sixteen years of age before ever it came 

 into my head to doubt of the existence of ghosts, witches, brownies, or 

 fairies ; it took seven years more to convince me that there were no such 

 creatures in ancient times ; and for the last twenty years of my life I have 

 believed that there never was, nor ever, will be, any thing supernatural in 

 nature. It is upon this ground that I have presumed to think or call 

 myself a naturalist, because I endeavour to find a natural cause for every 

 phenomenon in nature. I do not believe in the miracles of Prince Hohen- 

 lohe, however well authenticated : what is more, I do not believe in the 

 miracles of the great Signor Blitz, although performed right before my 

 eyes ; even when I see him not only bring the dead to life, but fairly put 



