which implies a real, or imagined, superiority over those towards whom it is used. When he gave his opinion on any point, it was with that easy tone of confidence used by those superior to their society in rank or information, as if what he said could not be doubted, and was not to be questioned. Mine host and his Sunday guests, after an effort or two to support their consequence by noise and bold averment, sunk gradually under the authority of Mr Campbell, who thus fairly possessed himself of the lead in the conversation. I was tempted, from curiosity, to dispute the ground with him myself, confiding in my knowledge of the world, extended, as it was, by my residence abroad, and in the stores with which a tolerable education had possessed my mind. In the latter respect, he offered no competition, and it was easy to see that his natural powers had never been cultivated by education. But I found him much better acquainted than I was myself with the present state of France, the character of the Duke of Orleans, who had just succeeded to the regency of that kingdom, and that of the statesmen by whom he was surrounded; and his shrewd, caustic, and somewhat satirical remarks, were those of a man who had been a close observer of the affairs of that country. "On the subject of politics, Campbell observed a silence and moderation which might arise from caution. The divisions of Whig and Tory then shook England to her very centre, and a powerful party, engaged in the Jacobite interest, menaced the dynasty of Hanover, which had been just established on the throne. Every ale-house resounded with the brawls of contending politicians, and as mine host's politics were of that liberal description which quarrelled with no good customer, his hebdomadal visitants were often divided in their opinion as irreconcileably as if he had feasted the Common Council. The curate and the apothecary, with a little man, who made no boast of his vocation, but who, from the flourish and snap of his fingers, I believe to have been the barber, strongly espoused the cause of high church and the Stuart line. The exciseman, as in duty bound, and the attorney, who looked to some petty office under the crown, together with my fellow-traveller, who seemed to enter keenly into the contest, staunchly supported the cause of King George and the Protestant succession. Dire was the screaming-decp the oaths. Each party appealed to Mr Campbell, anxious, it seemed, to elicit his approbation. "You are a Scotchman, Sir; a gentleman of your country must stand up for hereditary right,' cried one party. "You are a Presbyterian,' assumed the other class of disputants; you cannot be a riend to arbitrary power.' "Gentlemen,' said our Scotch oracle, after having gained, with some difficulty, a moment's pause, I havena much dubitation that King George weel deserves the predilection of his friends; and if he can haud the grip he has gotten, why, doubtless, he may make the gauger, here, a commissioner of the revenue, and confer on our friend, Mr Quitam, the preferment of solicitor-general; and he may also grant some good deed or reward to this honest gentleman who is sitting upon his portmanteau, which he prefers to a chair: And, questionless, King James is also a grateful person, and when he gets his hand in play, he may, if he be so minded, make this reverend gentleman arch-prelate of Canterbury, and Dr Mixit chief physician to his household, and commit his royal beard to the care of my friend Latherum. But as I doubt mickle whether any of the competing sovereigns would give Rob Campbell a tass of aquavitæ if he lacked it, I give my vote and interest to Jonathan Brown, our landlord, to be the King and Prince of Skinkers, conditionally that he fetches us another bottle as good as the last.'" The timorous traveller discovers that Mr Campbell is notorious for his intrepidity in attacking highwaymen, and he accordingly wishes to exchange his former companion, of whom he had become very suspicious, for this hero as an escort. Campbell, however, gave him no encouragement, and next day they all went different ways, Mr Osbaldistone taking the road for Osbaldistone Hall, in the neighbourhood of which he encounters his uncle's hounds and his cousins, in full chace of a fox. "They were tall, stout young men, well mounted, and dressed in green and red, the uniform of a sporting association, formed under the auspices of old Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone. My cousins! thought I, as they swept past me. The next reflection was, what is my reception likely to be among these worthy successors of Nimrod? and how improbable is it, that 1, knowing little or nothing of rural sports, shall find myself at ease, or happy, in my uncle's family. A vision that passed me interrupted these reflections. "It was a young lady, the loveliness of whose very striking features was enhanced by the animation of the chase, and the glow of the exercise, mounted on a beautiful horse, jet black, unless where he was flecked by spots of the snow-white foam which embossed his bridle. She wore, what was then somewhat unusual, a coat, vest, and hat, resembling those of a man, which fashion has since called a riding-habit. The mode had been introduced while I was in France, and was perfectly new to me. Her long black hair streamed on the breeze, having in the hurry of the chase escaped from the ribbon which bound it. Some very broken ground through which she guided her horse with the most admirable address and presence of mind, retarded her course, and brought her closer to me than any of the other riders had passed. I had, therefore, a full view of her uncommonly fine face and person, to which an inexpressible charm was added by the wild gaiety of the scene, and the romance of her singular dress and unexpected appearance. As she past me, her horse made, in his impetuosity, an irregular movement, just while, coming once more upon open ground, she was again putting him to his speed. It served as an apology for me to ride close up to her, as if to her assistance. There was, however, no cause for alarm; it was not a stumble, nor a false step; and if it had, the fair Amazon had too much selfpossession to have been deranged by it. She thanked my good intentions, however, by a smile, and I felt encouraged to put my horse to the same pace, and to keep in her immediate neighbourhood. The clanour of Whoop, dead, dead!' and the corresponding flourish of the French horn, soon announced to us that there was no more occasion for haste, since the chase was at a close. One of the young men whom we had seen approached us, waving the brush of the fox in triumph, as if to upbraid my fair companion. "I see,' she replied, I see; but make no noise about it; if Phobe,' she said, patting the neck of the beautiful animal on which she rode, had not got among the cliffs, you would have had lit. tle cause for boasting.' "They met as she spoke, and I observed them both look at me, and converse a moment in an under tone, the young lady apparently pressing the sportsman to do something which he declined shyly, and with a sort of sheepish sullenness. She instantly turned her horse's head towards me, saying, Well, well, Thornie, if you wont, I must, that's all-Sir,' she continued, addressing me, I have been endeavouring to persuade this cultivated young gentleman to make enquiries at you, whether, in the course of your travels in these parts, you have heard any thing of a friend of ours, one Mr Francis Osbaldistone, who has been for some days expected at Osbaldistone Hall?' "I was too happy to acknowledge myself to be the party enquired after, and to express my thanks for the obliging enquiries of the young lady. 6 as "In that case, sir,' she rejoined, my kinsman's politeness seems to be still slumbering, you will permit me (though I suppose it is highly improper) to stand But "The features of Rashleigh were such, as, having looked upon, we in vain wish to ba nish from our memory, to which they recur as objects of painful curiosity, although we dwell upon them with a feeling of dislike, and even of disgust. It was not the actual plainness of his face, taken separately from the meaning, which made this strong impression. His features were, indeed, irregular, but they were by no means vulgar; and his keen dark eyes, and shaggy eyebrows, redeemed his face from the charge of common-place ugliness. there was in these eyes an expression of art and design, and, on provocation, a ferocity tempered by caution, which nature had made obvious to the most ordinary physiognomist, perhaps with the same intention that she has given the rattle to the poisonous snake. As if to compensate him for these disadvantages of exterior, Rashleigh Osbaldistone was possessed of a voice the most soft, mellow, and rich in its tones, that I ever heard, and was at no loss for language of every sort suited to so fine an organ. His first sentence of welcome was hardly ended, ere I internally agreed with Miss Vernon, that my new kinsman would make an instant conquest of a mistress whose ears alone were to judge his cause." In this character, and in its charming counterpart, Diana Vernon, our author fully indemnifies himself for the restraint which he has placed upon his imagination in the general tissue of his work. In the refined villany of the one, and in the perfect unreserve and noble-minded epanche ment of the other, he has gone into the regions of fiction indeed, and has departed from the unpoetical simplicity of real existence; but this, so far from hurting, adds to the general effect of his representations. We can scarcely call these wonderful beings natural, but they have nature enough to bear them out in our conceptions, and they move like planets of a malign and benign aspect over the ordinary appearances of the vulgar world beneath them. Rashleigh is not so finished a portrait as the other, his motives and conduct are somewhat obscure and unaccountable, -or perhaps they are so black, that we willingly draw away from examining them; but Diana is altogether glorious and resplendent,-full of truth and ingenuousness and genius; and whether she is shining like the morning star, or Spenser's Belphoebe, amidst the animation of the chase, or is seen gliding like a spirit in the dusk of the evening in the gloom of her favourite library, (the only apartment in Osbaldistone Hall, into which we think we should have had any inclination to enter, and which, though hung round with cobwebs, happily remained undismantled of its books,) we always find her the same lively and powerful being, penetrating into the hearts of men with a glance of her practised eye, and fearless in giving, with all the play and keenness of her wit, the full expression and name to her discoveries. She kindly and actively assists young Osbaldistone in escaping from a difficulty of a very serious nature into which he had unexpectedly fallen.-Mr Morris, the timorous traveller, had not long parted from his companions, when he was attacked and despoiled of his favourite portmanteau, which, it now appears, was filled with supplies which he was conveying, as an agent of government, into Scotland. One of the banditti he heard named Osbaldistone, and of course he has no doubt that this fayour had been done to him by his former associate. He accordingly brought an accusation before Mr Justice Inglewood, against this young man; and had it not been for the penetration of Diana, who immediately suspects the real perpetrators of the delinquency, and her engaging Rashleigh (he was in truth one of the delinquents) to use his mysterious in fluence for the liberation of his cousin, it would have gone hard with him, in spite of the joyous and accommodating temper of the Justice, whose concealed Jacobitism inclined him not to be over strict in any case especially, in which the existing government was the sufferer. The unexpected appearance of Campbell, who professes to have been with Morris at the time of the robbery, and who entirely acquits Osbaldistone, at once makes the Justice throw all the proceedings in the fire. The line of Horace is verified, Solventur risu tabulæ, tu missus abibis ; And a scene of mirth and jollity fol lows, not unlike that in Shakespeare where Sir John Falstaff visits Justice Shallow. The influence of Diana over the mind of the young stranger, becomes every day greater, though some cross circumstances occur, partly from a mystery that hangs over her, and partly from malicious hints of Rashleigh, to awaken his jealousy, and to give him an unfavourable opinion of her. That wicked being, however, at last takes his departure. He was the nephew selected by old Mr Osbaldistone to supply the place of his son in the counting-house, and, although originally designed for a Roman Catholic priest, (the religion of the elder branch of the Osbaldistone family,) his versatile genius easily turned itself to any direction which seemed favourable to his interest. The choice of Rashleigh for this department, soon proved extremely unfor tunate to his employer, for, during the old gentleman's absence abroad, this unprincipled villain makes off for Scotland with large sums of money, and contrives to embroil the whole affairs of the house in such a manner, as to bring it to the very verge of bankruptcy. Young Osbaldistone, strenuously urged by Diana, sets out for Scotland in pursuit of the fugitive, and takes for his guide Andrew Fairservice, his uncle's gardener, a native of that country, and the specimen to which we before alluded, of its worst peculiarities. This worthy man makes his debut in the character of a guide, by making free with a horse of one of the young squires; and he sets out before his master with an unaccountable celerity of motion, "I was so angry at length, that I threatened to have recourse to my pistols, and send a bullet after the Hotspur Andrew, which should stop his fiery-footed career, if he did not abate it of his own accord. Apparently this threat made some impression on the tympanum of his ear, however deaf to all my milder entreaties; for he relaxed his pace upon hearing it, and, suffering me to close up to him, observed, There wasna muckle sense in riding at sic a daft-like gate.' which the circumstance of the theft, theft-The thing stands this gate, ye sechowever, at last explains. Squire Thorncliff borrowed ten punds o' me to gang to York races-deil a boddle wad he pay me back again, and spake o' raddling my banes, as he ca'd it, when I asked him but for my ain back again-now I think it will riddle him or he gets his horse ower the Border again-unless he pays me plack and bawbee, he sall never see a hair o' her tail. I ken a canny chield at Loughmaben, a bit writer lad that put me in the way to sort him-Steal the mear! na, na, far be the sin o' theft frae Andrew Fairservice I have just arrested her jurisnie writer words amaist like the language dictionis fandandy causey. Thae are bono' huz gardners and other learned menit's a pity they're sae dear-thae three words were a' that Andrew got for a lang law-plea, and four ankers o' as gude brandy as was e'er coupit ower craig-Hech sirs! but law's a dear thing."" And what did you mean by doing it at all, you scoundrel ?' replied I, for I was in a towering passion, to which, by the way, nothing contributes more than the having recently undergone a spice of personal fear, which, like a few drops of water flung on a glowing fire, is sure to inflame the ardour which it is insufficient to quench. "What's your honour's wull ?' replied Andrew, with impenetrable gravity. “My will, you rascal?—I have been roaring to you this hour to ride slower, and you have never so much as answered me-Are you drunk or mad to behave "An it like your honour, 1 am something dull o' hearing; and I'll no deny but I might have maybe ta'en a stirrup cup at parting frae the auld bigging whare I hae dwalt sae lang; and having naebody to pledge me, nae doubt I was obliged to do myself reason, or else leave the end o' the brandy stoup to thae papists, and that wad be a waste, as your honour kens.' "The pale beams of the morning were now enlightening the horizon, when Andrew cast a look behind him, and not seeing the appearance of a living being on the moors which he had travelled, his hard features gradually unbent, as he first whistled, then sung, with much glee and little melody, the end of one of his native songs: "Jenny lass! I think I hae her Ower the moor amang the heather; He patted at the same time the neck of "I'll no say but she may aiblins hae been his Honour's, Squire Thorncliff's, in her day, but she's mine now.' "You have stolen her, you rascal.' They all at last arrived in Glasgow, where Mr Osbaldistone expected to find Owen, his father's principal clerk, engaged in the same pursuit with himself. The locale of that city,-the puritanical manners of the times, and the character of Andrew, are all happily exhibited in the following striking passage: "In the western metropolis of Scotland, my guide and I arrived upon a Thursday morning. The bells pealed from the steeple, and the number of people who thronged the streets, and poured to the churches, announced that this was a day of worship. We alighted at the door of a jolly hostler-wife, as Andrew called her, the Ostelere of old father Chaucer, by whom we were civilly received. My first impulse, of course, was to seek out Owen, but, upon enquiry, I found that my attempt would be in vain, “until kirk time was ower." Not only did my landlady and guide jointly assure me that there wadna be a living soul in the countinghouse of Messrs MacVittie, Macfin, and Company, to which Owen's letter referred me, but, moreover, far less would I find any of the partners there. They were serious men, and wad be where a' gude Christians ought to be at sic a time, and that was in the Barony Laigh Kirk.' 6 "Andrew Fairservice, whose disgust at the law of his country had fortunately not extended itself to the other learned professions of his native land, now sung forth the praises of the preacher who was to perform the duty, to which my hostess replied with many loud amens. The result was, that I determined to go to this popular place of worship as much with the purpose of learning, if possible, whether Owen had arrived in Glasgow, as with any great ex pectation of edification. My hopes were exalted by the assurance that, if Mr Ephraim Mac Vittie (worthy man) were in the land of life, he would surely honour the Barony Kirk that day with his presence; and if he chanced to have a stranger within his gates, doubtless he would bring him to the duty along with him. This probability determined my motions, and, under the escort of the faithful Andrew, I set forth for the Barony Kirk. "Upon this occasion, however, I had litthe occasion for his guidance; for the crowd which forced its way up a steep and rough paved street to hear the most popular preacher in the west of Scotland, would of itself have swept me along with it. Upon attaining the summit of the hill, we turned to the left, and a large pair of folding doors admitted me, amongst others, into the open and extensive burying place which surrounds the Minster or Cathedral Church of Glasgow. The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; but its peculiar character is so strongly preserved, and so well suited with the accompaniments that surround it, that the impression of the first view was awful and solemn in the extreme. I was indeed so much struck, that I resisted for a few minutes all Andrew's efforts to drag me into the interior of the building, so deeply was I engaged in surveying its outward character. Situated in a populous and considerable town, this solemn and massive pile has the appearance of the most sequestered solitude. High walls divide it from the buildings of the city on one side; on the other, it is bounded by a ravine, through the depth of which, and invisible to the eye, murmurs a wandering rivulet, adding, by its rushing noise, to the solemnity of the scene. On the opposite side of the ravine rises a steep bank, covered with firtrees closely planted, whose dusky shade extends itself over the cemetery with an appropriate and gloomy effect. The churchyard itself had a peculiar character; for though in reality extensive, it is small in proportion to the number of respectable inhabitants who are interred within it, and whose graves are almost all covered with tomb-stones. There is therefore no room for the long rank grass, which, in the ordinary case, partially clothes the surface in these retreats, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. The broad flat monumental stones are placed so close to each other, that the precincts appear to be flagged with them, and, though roofed only by the heavens, resemble the floor of one of our old English churches, where the pavement is covered with sepulchral inscriptions. The contents of these sad records of mortality, the vain sorrows which they record, the stern lesson which they teach of the nothingness of humanity, the extent of ground which they so closely cover, and their uniform and melancholy tenor, reminded me of the roll of the prophet, which was written within and without, and there were written therein lamentations and mourning and woe.' "The Cathedral itself corresponds in impressive majesty with these accompaniments. We feel that its appearance is heavy, yet that the effect produced would be destroyed were it lighter or more ornamental. It is the only metropolitan church in Scotland, excepting, as I am informed, the cathedral of Kirkwall in the Orkneys, which remained uninjured at the Refor mation; and Andrew Fairservice, who saw with great pride the effect which it produced upon my mind, thus accounted for its preservation. Ah! it's a brave kirk— nane o' yere whig-maleeries and curliewur lies and open-steck hems about it—a' solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it. It had amaist a doun-come lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun the kirks of St Andrews and Perth, and thereawa, to cleanse them o' Papery, and idolatry, and image worship, and surplices, and sic like rags o' the muckle hoor that sitteth on seven hills, as if ane was na braid aneugh for her auld hinder end. Sae the commons o' Renfrew, and o' the barony, and the Gorbals, and a' about, they behoved to come into Glasgow ae fair morning to try their hand on purg. ing the High Kirk of Popish nick-nackets. But the townsmen o' Glasgow, they were feared their auld edifice might slip the girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae they rang the common bell, and assembled the train bands wi' took o' drum by good luck, the worthy James Rabat was Dean o' Guild that year-(and a gude mason he was himsell, made him the keener to keep up the auld bigging,) and the trades assembled, and offered downright battle to the commons, rather than their kirk should coup the crans, as they had done elsewhere. It was na for luve o' Paperie-na, na !-nane could ever say that o' the trades o' Glasgow-Sae they sune cam to an agreement to take a' the idolatrous statues of sants (sorrow be on them) out o' their neuks-And sa the bits o' stane idols were broken in pieces by Scripture warrant, and flung into the Molendinar burn, and the auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are caimed aff her, and a'body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk say, that if the same had been done in ilka kirk in Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en now, and we wad had mair Christian-like kirks; for I hae been sae lang in England, that naething will drive't out o' my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone |