reignty. But he had come into the world at a perverse time for this kind of ambition. Half a century later might have given him his choice of half the thrones of Europe, and extinguished the fortunes of Napoleon in the splendours of his own.

His first idea was to erect Courland into a monarchy, and to make himself king. In this he failed. He then had a nobler object in his grasp and flung it away, nothing less than the crown of Russia. In 1726, the Duchess-dowager of Courland had fallen in love with him, and he might have married her. But his negligence was too palpable, and she finally abjured the too general lover. But in 1730, the Duchess, who was niece to Peter the Great, was called to the Russian throne. Her lover then flew back, but it was too late, and, with his repulse, dreams of conquest that included Turkey, Persia, India, and all the world besides, vanished into the air.

This warlike visionary then lowered his imaginations, and thought of collecting the Jews into a sovereignty! He next projected a kingdom in the Brazils, then thought of Corsica, and finally died a subject, and a victim to experiments, which the foreign manners and more than feminine knowledge of the Margravine allow her to hint at in surprisingly explanatory terms.

An encomium by Burke on a poem of Mr. Jerningham's is recorded here. "I have not seen any thing so well finished a long time," said Burke: "he has caught fire by approaching in his perihelion so near the sun of our poetical system." Her Ladyship adds, that she never liked Burke's conversation: it was too flighty.' We will allow, that if it was all like this Her Ladyship's aversion was perfectly justified.

Of

." Mr.

Her Highness mixes together, with infinite ease, Wilkes, Thurlow, Scipio, Cicero, Pitt, Christina of Sweden, Oliver Cromwell, and Horne Tooke. She throws them up with the promiscuousnes, of an earthquake, and treats them with as little ceremony. the last individual she tells, that on his trial he baffled Thurlow and Kenyon, which is true enough, for he had more acuteness than either. Kenyon, we are told, never forgave this discomfiture. But Thurlow, who probably had no objection to see his professional brothers made ridiculous, called on Tooke in 1802. Tooke," said he, "I have but one recollection which gives me pain." Tooke, with his habitual bile, answered, "You are a fortunate man, my Lord, for you have been Attorney-General, Lord Chancellor, and Keeper of the King's Conscience." The conversation was not broken off by this sneer, for which Thurlow was of course prepared. "As Attorney-General," replied he, "I must confess to you, that I was prevailed on to act against you, and against my own feelings, for I had always an esteem and friendship you !" "I am aware of it, my Lord," was Tooke's answer. "I was with you the day before the prosecution against me for a

for

"I

libel on the King's troops in America, and at that time you made me a promise to perform your duty with impartiality, and without rancour. Notwithstanding this, you laboured with all your might to convict me." "It is true, Mr. Tooke," said Thurlow. acknowledge it, and I lament it. So now, good morning, and farewell.""Stay my Lord," said Tooke: "if I could not escape then, you shall not escape me now."—" What is it you mean ?" exclaimed Thurlow: "I fear no man on earth, nor shall you threaten me with impunity."-" I mean, my Lord, that you shall stay and dine with me."- "No; I will come to-morrow."' kept his word, and they remained friends during life.

you

He

How much of this curious rencounter may be true, we cannot say, but it has the merit of being characteristic. Her Highness was certainly not led by any personal partiality to give Tooke credit even for the humble honours of repartee.

She describes him as one whose rancour was dreaded and abhorred; who took a peculiar delight in looking for errors and blemishes, and enlarging them by his fertile imagination into every kind of mental deformity. The singularity of his disposition made him neither an enemy to vice, nor a friend to virtue.' He would see the one oppressed, and the other extolled, without any sensations but those which might create an occasion for him to take advantage of either.'

It is not impossible that if this character should be true, it was like most characters, chiefly the result of the painful circumstances in which Tooke had placed himself in the beginning of his career. An unlimited passion to be a public man, inconsistently with the habits and purposes of his sacred profession, a sense of superior acuteness, and a consciousness that all the avenues of that ambition which he loved, were naturally closed upon him, made him peevish in private life, and fierce, hazardous, and revolutionary in his more general and ostensible career. An accomplished scholar, a dexterous sophist, and a ready and pungent conversationist, Horne Tooke undoubtedly made the great and common mistake of conceiving that the talents of the table were the talents for the noble requisitions of public eminence.

His first experiment on that wider scale proved to his associates, if the conviction came more slowly to himself, that he was not made to be a national champion. He wanted comprehensiveness, power and dignity of mind: he would have found it more congenial to him to make his way by sap than by storm. In the presence of such men as Burke and Pitt, Fox and Sheridan, his light would have been not merely rivalled, but cast into utter and disastrous eclipse: the minute adroitness of the sophist would have been beaten down, and trampled by the magnificent march and athletic weight of the great champions; and his criticisms and repartees would have been forgotten in his extinction. His effort in the House of Commons was altogether contemptible: it threw

his associates into dismay; but it surprised no one who had reflected on the infinite difference between dexterity and vigour, between the pungencies of familiar conversation and the stern and lofty demands of debate in national council.

That Horne Tooke was a remarkable man is not to be denied; that he must have become superior, in debate, at one time or other, to nine tenths of that miscellaneous and most ineloquent assemblage who settle the affairs of the land, will be readily conceded. But it is no less unquestionable, that he would have been to the last only a third-rate figure. Even before the mob he was feeble: the verbal keenness and minute ingenuity of his mind were the direct opposite of those large and vigorous faculties which impress great bodies of men; and on the hustings, beside Fox and Sheridan, he shrank into sneer, sarcasm, pun, nothingness!

Even his literature, on which his only hope of legitimate fame must stand, was narrow, diminutive, and hypercritical. His "Diversions of Purley," palpably the work of a subtle mind, is also, as palpably, the work of a perverted judgment. Its mixture of politics and philology not merely detracts from the usefulness of the performance, but throws ridicule on the understanding of the writer. It has, of course, nearly passed away from all sober study; and is now looked into chiefly for the amusement of those who can be diverted with the definitions and divisions of exploded faction; with the laborious burlesque of serious things, and with the eccentric abuse of talent and time.

The latter part of these volumes is a pasticcio of anecdotes of Napoleon, Desaix, the Margrave, and every body in the range of Her Highness's hearsay.

We had known that the late King of France was a scholar and a bel esprit. But we are here let into the arcana of his royal authorship. When Monsieur, he wrote a comedy, in three acts, "Le Mariage Secret," which was, we believe, a translation from the "Clandestine Marriage," and which he wished to have represented under the mask of his Secretary Ducis, the imitator of Shakspeare à la Française. But Ducis, secretary and Frenchman as he was, was too nervous about his reputation to let it take its chance on the same vessel with a Bourbon. He declined the honour; another less scrupulous secretary was found; the play was performed, and "Monsieur" was hissed by deputy.

Under the name of Morel, he had two operas performed: "Paminga," and the "Caravane du Caire," to which Gretry contributed that pleasant music, which was all-popular with the French parterre. He also penned politics, which were published in the Journal de Paris; and criticised in the other journals as keenly as if the name of the whole blood royal were subscribed to them. But to criticise kings, or those who may be kings, is among the hazards of journals, and some of them are supposed to have fallen

under the displeasure of Louis XVIII. for having observed on the lucubrations of Monsieur le Comte de Provence.

6

At length, the Margrave died. He was in his seventieth year. His relict's description of him is not the most brilliant of all conceptions; but he had merits not unworthy of the sovereignty of any little Germany principality. His complexion was fair, his hair brown, his eye blue.' He fenced, rode, danced, and was a good shot, played well at billiards and all games,' and, besides, played the violoncello.' This was an extensive round of accomplishments, and worthy of his native throne. The Margravine pleasantly enough adds, after an inspection of so many years, that had he been in a class of life to have chosen a profession, she would have advised the stage! She was probably quite in the right. We are told that the late King of Prussia executed a bond to the Margravine of 2000l. a year to be paid to her after the Margrave's decease. This bond was ratified by the present King. Nothing could appear more liberal. But, unfortunately, not a shilling has ever been paid!' The Margravine's first idea was to take an action in the English courts, and bring His Majesty of Prussia into the hands of Mr. Scarlett. But she had a due horror of law. Rothschild, who is ready with a contract for any thing, offered to contract with her for the arrears, but, after some negotiation, she declined the offer, relying on the Prussian exchequer. We consider Her Highness as ill advised on this occasion. She. appears to have lived in a state of great discontent with those important things, the newspapers, and to have been married, by report, over and over again, on the first notice of her widowhood, to all kinds of persons from princes down to private individuals.' But the event proved their error, and she now continues oscillating between Italy and England, enjoying life with the pleasantry of a foreign belle, and we hope with the comforts of an English lady. She has had her day: it was an amusing, and certainly not a very innocent one. She has now turned her life to its best account by writing it; and, though it contains many exceptionable passages, indeed so many as to render it unfit to be admitted into any familycircle, which is yet free from the contamination of foreign manners, we cannot deny to the author the merit of having written a work in other respects highly entertaining.

6

ART. VIII. The Songs of Scotland, ancient and modern; with an Introduction and Notes, Historical and Critical, and Characters of the Lyric Poets. By Allan Cunningham, Author of "Sir Marmaduke Maxwell," &c. 4 Vols. 8vo. London, John Taylor. 1825.

THE

HE interesting as well as the useful part of an enquiry into the ancient lyrics of any country appears to us to begin at that era, when they first assume those peculiarities by which they are afterwards permanently distinguished. We need no antiquarian in

dustry to affirm, that songs have been coeval with the existence of every society. At least, there is no historical fact determined by more abundant proof than this, that songs were familiarly known to the Celtic and Teutonic communities long before they undertook their western migrations. We are not, however, disposed to speculate much as to the primitive state of poetry among those tribes; and when Mr. Cunningham assures us in the opening of his introduction, that the greatest lover of Scotland will be unable to find the wild flowers of her lyric verse floating farther up the stream of history than the reign of Robert Bruce,' we adopt the figurative statement, as the candid testimony of one who would have been nationally proud of tracing those wreaths to a more remote part of the stream, if he could have found any authority to support him.

We also believe that we avoid an unnecessary part of this enquiry when, in defiance of Mr. Cunningham's example, we abstain from the controversy, as to the existence of native English minstrels, which Percy broached, and which Ritson learnedly discussed. The same reason would induce us to pass over those occasional lyrics which a temporary impulse, either of a political or a religious kind, has added to the poetical literature of Scotland from time to time; and to this motive we sacrifice the consideration of those songs, which the Reformation in Scotland had violently engrafted on the stock of its national poetry. After we get rid of the warlike and the religious effusions, we shall see a tendency in Scottish song to form itself into the entertainment of a purely domestic people. Love is always welcome to the national muse of the country, but never more so than when he is accompanied by Hymen. Every amorous swain is a professed suitor : in all his fondest speculations he has an eye to marriage; he praises the personal beauty of his mistress, the penetration of her eye, the gloss of her hair, -the unrivalled proportion of her form,—he dwells on these subjects only to enhance his anticipations of the post-nuptial felicities of a warm fire-side, and a race of "bonnie bairns." When the "Gaberlunyie Man" of King James had induced the daughter of the gudewife who had sheltered him to accompany his wanderings, the royal poet has not forgotten to give the sober enjoyments of domestic life a prominent place in his narrative. The first glimpse we catch of the fugitives discovers them in the homely employment of eating,

Fu' snug in a glen, where nane could see,
The twa, with kindly sport and glee,

Cut frae a new cheese a whang.'

if

The strains of gallantry are numerous enough in the Songs of Scotland; but even these irregular effusions draw their materials from, and tend strongly to support a preference for, the habits of domestic life. In the representations of that enduring mutual