vellist has shewn the Covenanters' character in its darkest shade; and this author has taken a literary revenge on their enemies, by bringing before his reader a band of soldiers, the instruments of their persecution, steeped in the colours of their trade, deaf to the voice of humanity, and ravening, like wolves, in the blood of the harmless peasantry of the West of Scotland. "Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi." In truth, it is a consolation to disbelieve so savage a recital. This is seemingly an imitation of the German school, where poets love to screw the rack of grief as long as, and sometimes longer, than the soul can bear it. But these heart-rending stories are not the best of this volume. The gentler distresses of virtue, or even the sufferings of erring sinners, are much more pleasant exhibitions of the human character; and the author has drawn them with a great deal of feeling. The Sun-set, and Sun-rise, the Lover's last Visit; and last, though not least, in this line of the milder pathetic, the Minister's Widow, are examples of what the author can execute in this way, to melt, not lacerate the hearts of his readers. We have said above, that the scenery, though professedly Scottish, is not always true to this profession of its locality; but we must except from that many particular passages where the landscape, both in its smiling and its dreary garb, is peculiar to our native country, and gives to the imagination the picture of those sequestered districts which every traveller in Scotland recalls in the strong colours of Nature. Such is the opening passage in the tale called Mossside; and such, also, is the beautiful description of the winter life of the moorland cottager, in the tale called the Snow-storm. Nor is the return of the sweet lassie, Hannah Lee, amidst the perils of the snow-storm, less appropriate to the situation in which she is placed at night-fall, when the broad line of light that had lain in the direction of her home, had been swallowed up by the utter darkness, and she saw nothing but the flakes of snow, intermingled and furiously wafted in the air, close to her head, when she heard nothing but one wild, fierce, fitful howl.” We are sorry that the concluding stroke of the author's pencil should have spoiled this natural picture. "So stepped she along, while the snow-diamonds glittered around her feet, and the frost wove a lucid wreath of pearls round her forehead." This is the quaint affected jargon of a milliner's girl, out of place any where, but doubly so amidst a scene of such forlorn distress as poor Hannah's. It is copied, but spoiled in the copy, from Thomson's fine description of the shepherd lost in the snow. As to the style of this work, however, confessing ourselves rather prejudiced in favour of the old, in comparison with the new school, we think it but fair to allow the reader to judge for himself, by laying before him an extract, to show this author's manner of writing. We are sure that in the following quotation we do him rather more than justice, because it is taken from one of the best of his tales, and exhibits a picture of the most natural and touching kind, expressed in language more simple and less ornamental than almost any other passage we could have selected. There was no uncontroulable burst of joy in the soul of Allan Bruce, when once more a communication was opened between it and the visible world; for he had learned lessons of humility and temperance in all his emotions during ten years of blindness, in which the hope of light was too faint to deserve the name. He was almost afraid to believe that his sight was restored. Grateful to him was its first uncertain and wavering glimmer, as a draught of water to a wretch in a crowded dungeon. But he knew not whether it was to ripen into the perfect day, or gradually to fade back again into the depth of his former darkness. But when his Fanny-she on whom he had so loved to look when she was a maiden in her teens, and who would not forsake him in the first misery of that link the sweet freedom of her prime to great affliction, but had been overjoyed to she, now a staid and lovely matron, stood one sitting in perpetual darkness-when before him with a face pale in bliss, and all drenched in the flood-like tears of an insupportable happiness-then truly did he feel what a heaven it was to see! And as he took her to his heart, he gently bent back her head, that he might devour Hora Seniles.-No. I. with his eyes that benign beauty which In came with soft steps, one after another, his five loving children, that for the first time they might be seen by their father. The girls advanced timidly, with blushing cheeks and bright shining hair, while the boys went boldly up to his side, and the eldest, looking in his face, exclaimed with a shout of joy, "Our father sees!-our father sees !"-and then, checking his rapture, burst into tears. Many a vision had Allan Bruce framed to himself of the face and figure of one and all of his children. One, he had been told, was like himself-another the image of its mother-and Lucy, he understood, was a blended likeness of them both. But now he looked upon them with the confused and bewildered joy of parental love, seeking to know and distinguish in the light the separate objects towards whom it yearned; and not till they spoke did he know their Christian names. But soon, soon did the sweet faces of all his children seem, to his eyes, to answer well, each in its different loveliness, to the expression of the voices so long fami liar to his heart. We hope to see this writer again appear in the field of elegant fiction, which we think he cannot fail to cultivate with success. Perhaps he might do well to study less ornament in his style, particularly if he paints Scottish manners and Scottish shepherds, whom we like extremely in their plain grogram, but think them not near so well arrayed in lace or embroidery. [July home in my library, and in a conI can only say, that, when seated at templative humour, it is in such speculations that I most delight,—it is then And crown my soul with happiness," "A thousand pleasures do me bless, as I fly back to that period when, uncramped by the restraint of any particular study, and unrestrained by the fetters of academical regimen, the mind was left to traverse the wide domain of literature, and seek dipping into the driest, and welcomamusement in perpetual variety; ing the most unpromising topics. With what renewed gust did I range rary, from Rabelais to the fathers; over the contents of a well-fed liband from Coriat's crudities to the sums of Aquinas and the theological works of Boethius! With what keenness of antiquarianism did I turn over the dusty volumes of Holinshed and Stowe, or linger over the uncouth cuts and thrilling details of Fox's and Clarke's Martyrology! How I delighted to immerse myself in "all such reading as was never read," and neglect the more common and customary paths of everyday reading for the huge folios and quartos, which the sons of this degenerate age can hardly lift, for the miracles of industry which our forefathers have achieved! How happy if I could get into a corner with was I, when only a boy of fifteen, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, or Sir Walter Raleigh's History, and pounce upon the contents, as a kite pounces upon a sparrow! The writers of the Augustan age I left to the perusal of others, for they were read by every body; solacing myself, in stead, with Sidonius, Apollinaris, and Prudenthe poetry of Claudian, Ausonius, tius; and the prose of Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, and Ammianus Marcellinus. tions of declining Rome were more To me the producvaluable than the glories of her zenith. How refreshing to my view of commentaries, which the era of were those bulky and endless tomes the Scaligers and Causabons poured forth! The text of a writer, without its due modicum of annotation, a plain without a tree. The fathers was to me as arid and ungrateful as were my boon companions; through them I ranged from Hermes to Saxon Bede, passing ever and anon from the pure latinity of Sulpitius Severus, to the sharp and caustic epistles of St. Isidore, and the hard and imbrowned quaintness of Tertullian. How light of heart was I, if at some of those dinners which my father used to give to the reverend sons of the Church, I could amaze them, by hedging in some quotation from the Cassandra of Lycophron, or the Dyonisiaca of Nonnus, and procure the appellation of the Learned boy! What delightful visions of young hope then presented themselves, never, alas! to be realized! Quas premit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo." One subject, which at that time formed the principal part of my study, and for which I still feel a partiality, which only grows stronger by a lapse of time, was the Old English Drama. At that time, the productions of our Early Dramatists did not excite as much attention as they do at present, and Mr Lamb's specimens had not been the means of introducing them to public notice: I therefore feel some degree of pride in having, as I may truly say, been the first to discover the inexhaustible mine of literary riches, which was concealed in their truly exquisite compositions. The first circumstance which drew my attention to this class of writers I well remember, and if your readers will excuse the egotism which occurs in such frequent reference to myself, I will simply state it: Passing one vacation in the country with an old maiden lady, a distant relation, when I was yet very young, among the treasures which her library, none of the most capacious, by the bye, afforded, I by chance met with an old copy of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, a personage whose name had no small attraction to me, from the eager interest with which, in my younger days, I had devoured the adventures of his most extraordinary life and exit. I immediately took possession of it, and carried it with me, for my own private reading, into a small room, which was a kind of sanctum sanctorum, and from which I excluded, without mercy, the profane inmates of the house. This little room, which I remember with feelings of fondness and affection, is still present to my mind's eye. Well do I recollect its antique casements and the view it presented into the thickest shrubbery or labyrinth, in which I used to construct my fortifications and retreats, when I assumed the part, and no mean part did I think it then, of the captain of banditti. The soft green hue of the trees, forming a pleasing contrast to the neat and unsullied whiteness of the wainscotting, and the kind of fairy prospect which was visible through the boughs of a large oak, which overshadowed this part of the building, I never can forget. To hear the wind gently rustling through the waving branches, "the swallow twittering from her straw-built shed"-it was irresistibly touching! Alas! now that that room and mansion are the property of another, I can almost say to it "O Domus antiqua quam dispari dominaris dominâ." But pardon me for this digression-young as I was, I was able to perceive that the Faustus of Marlowe was a little different from the account of his exploits which had formerly attracted my attention. There was a something of undefined and breathless interest attached to it, which seized a firm hold on my mind, and communicated to it a kind of excitement, which did not cease with the bare perusal of the work that caused it. The continual appearance of the good and bad angels, to exercise their powers of persuasion on the unhappy Faustus; his internal and heart-rending struggles, or, as they may be termed, his agony and bloody sweat; the exultation which he feels, and the consciousness of his own super-human power, and which but lifts him on high for a while, like the waves of a troubled sea, to sink him to the lowest abyss of misery; and the last scene of agonized and maddened humanity, had so deep an impression upon my feelings, that I have not at this time forgotten their intensity. I have since read the Faustus of Goëthe, but whether it be from the influence of Hora Seniles.-No. II. temporary associations, or from the real inequality of the work, I must say, that it did not operate upon me in any thing like the same powerful degree; and I cannot but think, that the love-adventure which is there introduced, has the effect of dissipating the peculiar, strange, and extraordinary interest which the fate of Faustus excites; it throws more of the appearance of earthliness upon the doomed and devoted subject of the prince of hell. In Marlowe, the mind is kept more closely to the hero of the drama ; there is a kind of environing circle around him, which seems to cut off all hope of assistance or escape. The very farcical means themselves have the effect of deepening the horror of the story. The burlesque is like the laugh of a maniac, resounding in the Golgotha, or place of sculls. This dreadful supremacy is only misery carried to an unnatural pitch, and appears, like Luke's iron crown, made to burn the temples on which it reposes. Marlowe has been called no poet: but if there be poetry more surpassingly beautiful than the address of Faustus to Helena, and the noble concluding chorus, which almost puts one in mind of the best of Grecian dramatic writers, I have never had the luck to meet with it. From the delight which I received in the perusal of this old drama, I was naturally led to seek for others of the same kind. I got possession of Dodsley's Collection of Plays, and went through them with a most laudable diligence. The most tedious and tiresome of them all did not serve to dispirit my resolution; and at the age which I then was, I cannot help giving myself some credit for such an exertion. After all this, it is perhaps needless to say, that what formed the amusement of my boyhood, has continued till the present hour a source of unintermitted pleasure. Your readers will perhaps excuse these egotistical details, and impute them to the chartered garrulity of old age. To be able to forget the present in the past, is a principle which nothing earthly can outweigh; and those trains of feeling which call forth delight in one, may strike a sympathetic chord in the heart of [July another, and recal distant prospects which look from afar, like the sungilt pinnacles and steeples of some magnificent city. Happy shall I be, if any thing which I have here written may serve to lead to retrospects which will always certainly be productive of pleasure, and, as such, cannot but be conducive to good. HORE SENILES. CRITO. For him was lever han' at his beddes hed, Chaucer's lene clerk, that a well-filled the times when customs and princiI am sometimes inclined to regret ples, now old and unfashionable, were the current coin of the day; ladies of romance were substantial when the gallant knights and lovely personages, who might be seen without its being considered that a wonder was abroad, or that the marble sepulchre had yielded up its deadthose times when, if people had not perhaps all the wisdom, or, to speak more properly, the knowledge of the present erudite generation, the deficiency was counterbalanced by more substantial and comfortable havings. Then the populace were a merry, unlearned, shrewd body, who attended to their business on common days, and rejoiced and played at their accustomed sports on Sundays and holidays. Then each class knew its own station, and hastened not to tread on the heels of the next in rank. Then a yeoman was a yeoman, a gentleman a gentleman, and a nobleman a nobleman; instead of the universal intermingling of ranks -the hotch-pot of precedency, which prevails in these enlightened days. After all, I should not a whit wonder if our ancestors have been much more favourably pourtrayed than is their due. Notwithstanding my reverence for antiquity, I can imagine a mob of Elizabeth's times, rioting in the streets of London after dark, knocking out the windows of the houses, as the lights of their heads became darkened with liquor when some event had taken place which did not suit their humours; and I can fancy with tolerable spirit, the appearance of the thieves, bullies, pick-pockets, and rascals of all kinds and sorts, which were wont to parade up and down Paul's Walk, or top the dice, or handle the dagger, as occasion offered, in Whitefriars. Alas! for the glorious days of good Queen Bess! There are three things in this world which, like a certain king, I do more particularly relish-old books to read-old wine to drinkand old friends to converse with. Indeed the first and the last are in one view the same, for I attach an individual interest to each volume from which I have collected information or amusement; but I would here speak of them separately. I have, then, in that white-washed recess, with the black oak groins supporting its roofs, sat with friends whom I loved-some of whom I have lived to mourn for; yet it is still the same. There are the stained panes meant to represent saints and martyrs; there still the old chesnut waves its branches, and their solitary nestlings bring back, with more vivid intenseness, those happy days and happy hours, the memory of VOL. XI. which, when the realities are things but of memory, comes back upon our hearts with softened, reflected lustre. The old black tables and shining chairs are the furniture of two centuries since; the inanimate materials are the same; but the soul of friendship and mirth, which gave light to the moments, and wings to the hours, is fled, and I look upon the place, and feel I am alone. Yet there is plea sure in these retrospections, though mournful; and here it is that I resort, when the cares of the world press heavy upon me, and feel myself lightened of half the load, by the sympathy, the association of the spot where Peaceful Memory loves to dwell, What have we here? Ah! my old companion and once daily inti mate and adviser, Sir Thomas Browne. Shame on me, that I have suffered thee to lie here untouched and unopened. Let me see-seveneight-'tis nine months this most excellent volume has lain here-ever since the day I read it with L-: what a crowd of recollections rush upon me! It was the latter end of August when L visited me; he had been on his annual journey to see his sister, and he had passed a week in her cottage, for he was one of the kindest and most affectionate sons or brothers; and when he had paid the tribute of affection to his kindred, his friends were next in his thoughts. Towards evening, we rambled into the library, and taking up our old friend Sir Thomas, we sat down in the recess. The sun was setting, and his rich mellow beams fell upon the floor and table, tinged with the hues of the painted window, and dancing about as the branches of the old chesnut waved to and fro, intercepting part of the light, and throwing about grotesque shadows. We had a bottle of ancient port before us,-it was something more than quadrimum merum. We had sat thus twenty times before, and the remembrance of those past times gilded the present with a lovelier tinge of sociality. Then there was the dignified, beautiful, and heart-touching sentiments, and language of the most philanthro I |