else of it than that such events took place in its course. Few men, in short, are historical characters-and scarcely any man is always, or most usually, performing a public part. The actual happiness of every life depends far more on things that regard it exclusively, than on those political occurrences which are the common concern of society; and though nothing lends such an air, both of reality and importance, to a fictitious narrative, as to connect its persons with events in real history, still it is the imaginary individual himself that excites our chief interest throughout, and we care for the national affairs only in so far as they affect him. In one sense, indeed, this is the true end and the best use of history; for as all public events are important only as they ultimately concern individuals, if the individual selected belong to a large and comprehensive class, and the events, and their natural operation on him, be justly represented, we shall be enabled, in following out his adventures, to form no bad estimate of their true character and value for all the rest of the community.

back-which show a government more base and tyrannical, or a people more helpless and miserable: And though all pictures of the greater passions are full of interest, and a Lively representation of strong and enthusiastic emotions never fails to be deeply attractive, the piece would have been too full of distress and humiliation, if it had been chiefly engaged with the course of public events, or the record of public feelings. So sad a subject would not have suited many readers-and the author, we suspect, less than any of them. Accordingly, in this, as in his other works, he has made use of the historical events which came in his way, rather to develope the characters, and bring out the peculiarities of the individuals whose adventures he relates, than for any purpose of political information; and makes us present to the times in which he has placed them, less by his direct notices of the grea. transactions by which they were distinguished, than by his casual intimations of their effects on private persons, and by the very contrast which their temper and occupations often appear to furnish to the colour of the national story. Nothing, indeed, in this respect is more delusive, or at least more woefully imperfect, than the suggestions of authentic history, as it is generally-or rather universally written -and nothing more exaggerated than the impressions it conveys of the actual state and condition of those who live in its most agitated periods. The great public events of which alone it takes cognisance, have but little direct influence upon the body of the people; and do not, in general, form the principal business, or happiness or misery even of those who a in some measure concerned in them. Even in the worst and most disastrous times-in periods of civil war and revolution, and public discord and oppression, a great part of the time of a great part of the people is still spent in making love and money-in social amusement or professional industry-in schemes for worldly advancement or personal distinction, just as in periods of general peace and prosperity. Men court and marry very nearly as much in the one season as in the other; and are as merry at weddings and christenings- It is this, we think, that constitutes the great as gallant at balls and races-as busy in their and peculiar merit of the work before us. It studies and counting houses-eat as heartily, contains an admirable picture of manners and in short, and sleep as sound-prattle with of characters; and exhibits, we think, with their children as pleasantly-and thin their great truth and discrimination, the extent and plantations and scold their servants as zeal- the variety of the shades which the stormy ously, as if their contemporaries were not fur- aspect of the political horizon would be likely nishing materials thus abundantly for the to throw on such objects. And yet, though Tragic muse of history. The quiet under- exhibiting beyond all doubt the greatest poscurrent of life, in short, keeps its deep and sible talent and originality, we cannot help steady course in its eternal channels, unaf- fancying that we can trace the rudiments of fected, or but slightly disturbed, by the storms almost all its characters in the very first of the that agitate its surface; and while long tracts author's publications.-Morton is but another of time, in the history of every country, seem, edition of Waverley;-taking a bloody part in to the distant student of its annals, to be dark-political contention, without caring much about ened over with one thick and oppressive cloud of unbroken misery, the greater part of those who have lived through the whole acts of the tragedy will be found to have enjoyed a fair average share of felicity, and to have been much less impressed by the shocking events of their day than those who know nothing

The author before us has done all this, we think; and with admirable talent and effect: and if he has not been quite impartial in the management of his historical persons, has contrived, at any rate, to make them contribute largely to the interest of his acknowledged inventions. His view of the effects of great political contentions on private happiness, is however, we have no doubt, substantially true; and that chiefly because it is not exaggerated-because he does not confine himself to show how gentle natures may be roused into heroism, or rougher tempers exasperated into rancour, by public oppression,-but turns still more willingly to show with what ludicrous absurdity genuine enthusiasm may be debased, how little the gaiety of the lighthearted and thoughtless may be impaired by the spectacle of public calamity, and how, in the midst of national distraction, selfishness will pursue its little game of quiet and cunning speculation-and gentler affections find time to multiply and to meet!

the cause, and interchanging high offices of generosity with his political opponents.Claverhouse has many of the features of the gallant Fergus.-Cuddie Headrigg, of whose merits, by the way, we have given no fair specimen in our extracts, is a Dandie Dinmont of a considerably lower species;-and even

the Covenanters and their leaders were shadowed out, though afar off, in the gifted Gilfillan, and mine host of the Candlestick. It is in the picture of these hapless enthusiasts, undoubtedly, that the great merit and the great interest of the work consists. That interest, indeed, is so great, that we perceive it has even given rise to a sort of controversy among the admirers and contemners of those ancient worthies. It is a singular honour, no doubt, to a work of fiction and amusement, to be thus made the theme of serious attack and defence upon points of historical and theological discussion; and to have grave dissertations written by learned contemporaries upon the accuracy of its representations of public events and characters, or the moral effects of the style of ridicule in which it indulges. It is difficult for us, we confess, to view the matter in so serious a light; nor do we feel much disposed, even if we had leisure for the task, to venture ourselves into the array of the disputants. One word or two, however, we shall say, before concluding, upon the two great points of difference. First, as to the author's profanity, in making scriptural expressions ridiculous by the misuse of them he has ascribed to the fanatics; and, secondly, as to the fairness of his general representation of the conduct and character of the insurgent party and their opponents.

As to the first, we do not know very well what to say. Undoubtedly, all light or jocular use of Scripture phraseology is in some measure indecent and profane: Yet we do not know in what other way those hypocritical pretences to extraordinary sanctity which generally disguise themselves in such a garb, can be so effectually exposed. And even where the ludicrous misapplication of holy writ arises from mere ignorance, or the foolish mimicry of more learned discoursers, as it is impossible to avoid smiling at the folly when it actually occurs, it is difficult for witty and humorous writers, in whose way it lies, to resist fabricating it for the purpose of exciting smiles. In so far as practice can afford any justification of such a proceeding, we conceive that its justification would be easy. In all our jest books, and plays and works of humour for two centuries back, the characters of Quakers and Puritans and Methodists, have been constantly introduced as fit objects of ridicule, on this very account. The Reverend Jonathan Swift is full of jokes of this description; and the pious and correct Addison himself is not a little fond of a sly and witty application of a text from the sacred writings. When an author, therefore, whose aim was amusement, had to do with a set of people, all of whom dealt in familiar applications of Bible phrases and Old Testament adventures, and who, undoubtedly, very often made absurd and ridiculous applications of them, it would be rather hard, we think, to interdict him entirely from the representation of these absurdities; or to put in force, for him alone, those statutes against profaneness which so many other people have been allowed to transgress, in their hours of gaiety, without censure or punishment.

On the other point, also, we ratner !ear to the side of the author. He is a Tory, we think, pretty plainly in principle, and scarcely disguises his preference for a Cavalier over a Puritan: But, with these propensities, we think he has dealt pretty fairly with both sides-especially when it is considered that, though he lays his scene in a known crisis of his national history, his work is professedly a work of fiction, and cannot well be accused of misleading any one as to matters of fact. He might have made Claverhouse victorious at Drumclog, if he had thought fit-and nobody could have found fault with him. The insurgent Presbyterians of 1666 and the subsequent years, were, beyond all question, a pious, brave, and conscientious race of mento whom, and to whose efforts and sufferings, their descendants are deeply indebted for the liberty both civil and religious which they still enjoy, as well as for the spirit of resistance to tyranny, which, we trust, they have inherited along with it. Considered generally as a party, it is impossible that they should ever be remembered, at least in Scotland, but with gratitude and veneration-that their sufferings should ever be mentioned but with deep resentment and horror-or their heroism, both active and passive, but with pride and exultation. At the same time, it is impossible to deny, that there were among them many absurd and ridiculous persons-and some of a savage and ferocious characterold women, in short, like Mause Headriggpreachers like Kettledrummle-or desperadoes like Balfour or Burley. That a Tory novelist should bring such characters prominently forward, in a tale of the times, appears to us not only to be quite natural, but really to be less blameable than almost any other way in which party feelings could be shown. But, even he, has not represented the bulk of the party as falling under this description, or as fairly represented by such personages. He has made his hero-who, of course, possesses all possible virtues of that persuasion; and has allowed them, in general, the courage of martyrs, the self-denial of hermits, and the zeal and sincerity of apostles. His representation is almost avowedly that of one who is not of their communion; and yet we think it impossible to peruse it, without feeling the greatest respect and pity for those to whom it is applied. A zealous Presbyterian might, no doubt, have said more in their favour, without violating, or even concealing the truth;but, while zealous Presbyterians will not write entertaining novels themselves, they cannot expect to be treated in them with exactly the same favour as if that had been the character of their authors.

With regard to the author's picture of their opponents, we must say that, with the exception of Claverhouse himself, whom he has invested gratuitously with many graces and liberalities to which we are persuaded he has no title, and for whom, indeed, he has a foolish fondness, with which it would be absurd to deal seriously-he has shown no signs of a partiality that can be blamed, nor exhibited

many traits in them with which their enemies' palliation: and the bloodthirstiness of Dalzell, have reason to quarrel. If any person can and the brutality of Lauderdale, are repre read his strong and lively pictures of military sented in their true colours. In short, if this insolence and oppression, without feeling his author has been somewhat severe upon, the blood boil within him, we must conclude the Covenanters, neither has he spared their opfault to be in his own apathy, and not in any pressors; and the truth probably is, that never softenings of the partial author;-nor do we dreaming of being made responsible for hisknow any Whig writer who has exhibited the torical accuracy or fairness in a composition baseness and cruelty of that wretched gov- of this description, he has exaggerated a little ernment, in more naked and revolting de- on both sides, for the sake of effect—and been formity, than in his scene of the torture at carried, by the bent of his humour, most fre the Privy Council. The military executions quently to exaggerate on that which afforded of Claverhouse himself are admitted without the greatest scope for ridicule.

(February, 1818.)

Rob Roy. By the author of Waverley, Guy Mannering, and The Antiquary. 12mo. 3 vols. pp. 930. Edinburgh: 1818.

THIS is not so good, perhaps, as some others | ed-the same dramatic vivacity-the same of the family;-but it is better than any thing deep and large insight into human natureelse; and has a charm and a spirit about it and the same charming facility which distinthat draws us irresistibly away from our graver guish all the other works of this great master; works of politics and science, to expatiate and make the time in which he flourished an upon that which every body understands and era never to be forgotten in the literary history agrees in; and after setting us diligently to of our country. read over again what we had scarce finished reading, leaves us no choice but to tell our readers what they all know already, and to persuade them of that of which they are most intimately convinced.

1714. The young gentleman having been played the extraordinary taient of being true educated among the muses abroad, testifies to nature, even in the representation of im a decided aversion to the gainful vocations in possible persons. which his father had determined that he The serious interest of the work rests on should assist aud succeed him;-and as a Diana Vernon and on Rob Koy; the comic punishment for this contumacy, he banishes effect is left chiefly to the ministrations of him for a season to the Siberia of Osbaldistone Baillie Nicol Jarvie and Andrew Fairservice, Hall, from which, he himself had been es- with the occasional assistance of less regular tranged ever since his infancy. The young performers. Diana is, in our apprehension, a exile jogs down on horseback rather merrily, very bright and felicitous creation-though it riding part of the way with a stout man, who is certain that there never could have been was scandalously afraid of being robbed, and any such person. A girl of eighteen, not meeting once with a sturdy Scotchman, whose only with more wit and learning than any resolute air and energetic discourses make a man of forty, but with more sound sense, deep impression on him.-As he approaches and firmness of character, than any man the home of his fathers, he is surrounded by whatever-and with perfect frankness and a party of fox hunters, and at the same mo- elegance of manners, though bred among ment electrified by the sudden apparition of boors and bigots-is rather a more violent a beautiful young woman, galloping lightly fiction, we think, than a king with marble at the head of the field, and managing her legs, or a youth with an ivory shoulder. In sable palfrey with all the grace of an Angelica. spite of all this, however, this particular fieMaking up to this etherial personage, he tion is extremely elegant and impressive; soon discovers that he is in the heart of his and so many features of truth are blended kinsfolks-that the tall youths about him are with it, that we soon forget the impossibility, the five sons of Sir Hildebrand; and the virgin and are at least as much interested as by a huntress herself, a cousin and inmate of the more conceivable personage. The combinafamily, by the name of Diana Vernon. She tion of fearlessness with perfect purity and is a very remarkable person this same Diana. delicacy, as well as that of the inextinguishThough only eighteen years of age, and ex-able gaiety of youth with sad anticipations quisitely lovely, she knows all arts and sciences, elegant and inelegant—and has, moreover, a more than masculine resolution, and more than feminine kindness and generosity of character-wearing over all this a playful, free, and reckless manner, more characteristic of her age than her various and inconsistent accomplishments. The rest of the household are comely savages; who hunt all day, and drink all night, without one idea beyond those heroic occupations-all, at least, except Rashleigh, the youngest son of this hopeful family -who, having been designed for the church, and educated among the Jesuits beyond seas, had there acquired all the knowledge and the knavery which that pious brotherhood was so ong supposed to impart to their disciples.— Although very plain in his person, and very epraved in his character, he has great talents ad accomplishments, and a very insinuating address. He had been, in a good degree, the instructor of Diana, who, we should have mentioned, was also a Catholic, and having lost her parents, was destined to take the veil in a foreign land, if she did not consent to marry one of the sons of Sir Hildebrand, for all of whom she cherished the greatest aversion and contempt.

Mr. Obaldistone, of course, can do nothing but fall in love with this wonderful infant; for which, and some other transgressions, he incurs the deadly, though concealed, hate of Rashleigh, and meets with several unpleasant adventures through his means. But we will not be tempted even to abridge the details of a story with which we cannot allow ourselves to doubt that all our readers have long been familiar and indeed it is not in his story that this author's strength ever lies; and here he has lost sight of probability even in the conception of some of his characters; and dis

and present suffering, are all strictly natural, and are among the traits that are wrought out in this portrait with the greatest talent and effect. In the deep tone of feeling, and the capacity of heroic purposes, this heroine bears a family likeness to the Flora of Waverley; but her greater youth, and her unprotected situation, add prodigiously to the interest of these qualities. Andrew Fairservice is a new, and a less interesting incarnation of Cuddie Headrigg; with a double allowance of selfishness, and a top-dressing of pedantry and conceit-constituting a very admirable and just representation of the least amiable of our Scottish vulgar. The Baillie, we think, is an original. It once occurred to us, that he might be described as a mercantile and townish Dandie Dinmont; but the points of resemblance are really fewer than those of contrast. He is an inimitable picture of an acute, sagacious, upright, and kind man, thoroughly low bred, and beset with all sorts of vulgarities. Both he and Andrew are rich mines of the true Scottish language; and afford, in the hands of this singular writer, not only an additional proof of his perfect familiarity with all its dialects, but also of its extraordinary copiousness, and capacity of adaptation to all tones and subjects. The reader may take a brief specimen of Andrew's elocution in the following characteristic account of the purgation of the Cathedral Church of Glasgow, and its consequent preservation from the hands of our Gothic reformers.

"Ah! it's a brave kirk-nane o' yere whigmaleeries and curlie-wurlies and open-steek hems about it-a' solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as long as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it. It had amaist a doun-come lang kirks of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa, syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun the 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 behooved to come into Glasgow ae fair morning to try their hand on purging the High Kirk o' 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' Paparie-na, na!-nane could ever say that o' the trades o' Glasgow-Sae they sune cam to an agreement to take a' the idolatrous statutes of sants (sorrow be on them) out o' their neuks- And sae 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 Scot. land, 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 it out o' my head, that the dogkennell at Osbaldistone-Hall is better than mony a house o' God in Scotland.'''

(January, 1820.)

1. Ivanhoe. A Romance. By the Author of Waverley, &c. 3 vols. Edinburgh, Constable & Co. 2. The Novels and Tales of the Author of Waverley; comprising Waverley, Guy Mannering, Antiquary, Rob Roy, Tales of My Landlord, First, Second, and Third Series; New Edition, with a copious Glossary. Edinburgh, Constable & Co.: 1820.

own satisfaction, that heaven knows how many of these busy bodies have been beforehand with us, both in the genus and the species of our invention!

SINCE the time when Shakespeare wrote his thirty-eight plays in the brief space of his early manhood-besides acting in them, and drinking and living idly with the other actors -and then went carelessly to the country, The author before us is certainly in less and lived out his days, a little more idly, and danger from such detections, than any other apparently unconscious of having done any we have ever met with; but, even in him, the thing at all extraordinary-there has been no traces of imitation are obvious and abundant; such prodigy of fertility as the anonymous and it is impossible, therefore, to give him the author before us. In the period of little more same credit for absolute originality as those than five years, he has founded a new school earlier writers, who, having no successful of invention; and established and endowed it author to imitate, were obliged to copy directwith nearly thirty volumes of the most ani- ly from nature. In naming nim along with mated and original compositions that have Shakespeare, we meant still less to say that enriched English literature for a century- he was to be put on a level with Him, as to volumes that have cast sensibly into the shade the richness and sweetness of his fancy, or all contemporary prose, and even all recent that living vein of pure and lofty poetry which poetry-(except perhaps that inspired by the flows with such abundance through every part Genius or the Demon, of Byron)-and, by of his compositions. On that level no other their force of colouring and depth of feeling-writer has ever stood-or will ever standby their variety, vivacity, magical facility, and living presentment of character, have rendered conceivable to this later age the miracles of the Mighty Dramatist.

though we do think that there is fancy and poetry enough in these contemporary pages, if not to justify the comparison we have ventured to suggest, at least to save it, for the first time for two hundred years, from being altogether ridiculous. In saying even this,

view the prodigious variety and facility of the modern writer-at least as much as the quality of his several productions. The variety stands out on the face of each of them; and the facility is attested, as in the case of Shakespeare himself, both by the inimitable freedom and happy carelessness of the style in which they are executed, and by the matchless rapidity with which they have been lavished on the public.

Shakespeare, to be sure, is more purely original; but it should not be forgotten, that, in his time, there was much less to borrow-however, we wish to observe, that we have in and that he too has drawn freely and largely from the sources that were open to him, at least for his fable and graver sentiment;-for his wit and humour, as well as his poetry, are always his own. In our times, all the higher walks of literature have been so long and so often trodden, that it is scarcely possible to keep out of the footsteps of some of our precursors; and the ancients, it is well known, have stolen most of our bright thoughts-and not only visibly beset all the patent approaches to glory-but swarm in such ambushed multitudes behind, that when we think we have gone fairly beyond their plagiarisms, and honestly worked out an original excellence of our own, up starts some deepread antiquary, and makes it out, much to his

Such an author would really require a review to himself-and one too of swifter than quarterly recurrence; and accordingly we have long since acknowledged our inability to keep up with him, and fairly renounced the task of keeping a regular account of his successive publications; contenting ourselves with gree: