kind-hearted soul, of a more tranquil temperament than his dame, has not energy enough to enforce upon his children any practical attention to the precepts which his own good sense suggests. The consequences of this disobedience, which a weak and misplaced parental fondness had disabled him from correcting, are exibited in this narrative by some very interesting and pathetic pictures of domestic misery. Mrs. Mason, notwithstanding the ill appearance of things, determined at all events to make a few months' trial of her relation's dwelling; she flattered herself with the hopes of introducing order and neatness where confusion and filth had so long prevailed. One morning she heard a violent dispute between the farmer and his eldest sor: the voices stopped, and proceeding, she saw the farmer hastily unsaddling a horse, and t! e sen at the same moment issuing from the door, but pulled back by his mother who held the skirt of his coat saying, "I tell ye Sandie, ye manna gang to anger your father." "But I sall gang," cried Saudie in a sullen tone. "I winna be hindered." "I'll no' stay frae the fair for nobody; a' the folk in the glen are gang; and I'll gang too say what ye wull." He set off with a sullen and determined step, followed by his mother's eye, who exclaimed "Hegh me! ye're an unco laddie!" "The farmer appeared to feel more deeply, but he said nothing. Grasping the mane of the mare, he turned to lead her down the road to his fields, and had advanced a few steps, when his wife called after him, to enquire what he was going to do with the saddle, which he carried on his shoulders?" Do wi' it !" repeated he, "I have naething to do wi' it!" Then dashing it on the ground, he proceeded with quickened pace down the steep. "Wae's me!" said Mrs. Mae Clarty, the gudeman taks Sandie's doorness mickle to heart!" This is an admirable picture of intense thoughtfulness on a single subject rendering a man inaccessible to the impression of all external objects. S ndie goes to the fair, and in the evening of the same day news is brought that he had enlisted as a soldier. The mother's feelings are those of unmixed agony: the father's sorrow is for one short moment alleviated by the gratification of his anger. But soon he takes pity on the boy, and sets off in haste to the village to learn with more certainty his fate. "He's gane said the farmer, as he opened the cottage door. It is just as I kent it wou'd be. They enticed him wi' drink; and then, when his senses wat gane, they listet him.' "And sal Inever see him mare!' cri ed his wife. Wull ye no try to get him aff? maun my bairn gang wi' they loons and vagabonds, and do at their bidding, what he ne'er wad do at oors! O! it will break my heart!' think o' it! I maun try. Garg, Rob, and "No," says the farmer, I canno saddle the mare. I canna' ride lang at a time for this rhumatic; but whan it comes, I'll light and walk. It is a fine night, and I may be there lang before the break of day. O Mrs Mason! little do our bairns think o' the sorrow they bring upon our hearts!" The farmer, having provided himself with what money he thought necessary, departed with a heavy heart: on the morrow at noon-time he was expected home, evening came, but the tramp of the "gudeman's" horse was not heard. Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Mac Clarty, after a vain consultation how to obtain intelligence of him, went to bed; and after passing a watchful and sleepless night arose to fresh anxiety. In the course of brought home in a cart, ill and the day, the poor wretch was severely beaten. His story was that as he had reached within half a mile of the town, he was met at a lonely part of the road by two men, habited like sailors, and who had been begging at the fair pretending to be lame. They seized the bridle of his horse and robbed him on his hesitation to give them all the money which he had about him, and which he had intended for his son's relcase, they knocked him down and beat him dreadfully, leaving him senseless on the ground. He so far recovered himself in the morning as to reach the town, where he learnt that the sergeant and his recruits had set off at midnight for head-quarters, and of course all hopes of obtaining his son's dismis sal were at an end. He was, however, advised to send in pursuit of the robbers, and for that purpose lent his mare to the constable: in the mean time, feeling himself grow worse and worse, he resolved to return home, but his strength failed him as he approached the glen, and by the kindness of one of the farmers he was carried home in a cart. His fever increases, becomes infectious, and is communicated to his wife; to shorten the story, at length he dies. We have a fine death-bed scene. The good old man calls his children together, and addresses them with feeble accents. "My dear bairns, it is God's will that I should be taken frae but God can you; never be taken frae you, if you learn by times to put your trust in him; and pray for his spirit to subdue the corrupt nature in your hearts. I have grievously wranged you, I maun confess; the thoughts of it is heavy on my heart. For though I weel knew the corruption that was in your natures, I did not teach you to subdue it, so as to put you in the way of God's grace, which is promised to the obedient. It has pleased God to punish me for this neglect. Through the mercies of the Saviour I hope for pardon; but I cannot die in peace till I warn you of the consequences of continuing in a contentious and disobedient spirit. If it pleases God to spare my dear wife here his feelings overpowered him, and his voice was so choked by sobs, that it became quite inarticulate. All remained profoundly silent; and at length the dying man so far recovered as to be about to proceed, when the door, which at his desire had been shut, flew suddenly open; and Sandie, with hasty and trehide me, mother! for God's sake find mulous steps, ran in, crying, Hide me, out some place to hide me in!? "Sandie!' exclaimed the dying man, is it indeed my son, my son Sandie? Thank God, I al see him ere I die, to gie him my blessing. Come, Sandie, winna ye come to me? Dinna be frightened. Ye have cost me sair; but God kens how truly I forgie you: come and my blessing.' tak "Sandie ut ered a deep groan; and hiding his face wan both his hands, fell prostrate at his father's bed-side. The mihister raised him up, and bade him take comfo.t. "Comfort!' cried he, Oh, there's nae comfort for me; I have been the death of my father: is it not me that has brought his gray hairs wi' sorrow to the grave?' "But your father has forgiven you, said the minister; he is ready to give you his blessing.' die, "O my father, I dinna deserve your "And will you bless me !' said Sanblessing; but let me anes mair hear your voice."' "God Almighty bless you, my son, and give you a heart to serve him, and to walk in his ways. Is it not Sandie that I hear,' cried his mother, rushing to the bed-side, and clasping her son in her arms; 'O Sandie, what have ye brought upon us a'?' "There was no time to answer, for the exertion was so much beyond her strength, that she would have fallen lifeless on the ground, had not her son prevented it, by clasping her to his breast. My mother! Have I killed my mother too!' exclaimed the affrighted youth, hanging over her with a look of inexpressible horror. voice from behind, you would rather Yes,' uttered a loud and rough kill twenty mothers than fight the French; but (swearing a horrid oath) you shan't find it so easy to get off next time, my lad.' Two others sprung forward at the same moment, and laid hold of their prisoner, who was too much stupified by the variety of emotions to make any resistance, or even to utter a single word. "Gentlemen,' said the minister, gently laying his hand upon the hand of the foremost, as it eagerly grasped the young man's shoulder, there is no occasion to use any violence. You are, I suppose, in the performance of your duty; and I give you my word, you shall here meet with no resistance; but in the name of the parents who gave you birth, I conjure you to act like men, and not like savage brutes.' On the assurance that most of our readers will feel, like ourselves, an interest in these descriptions, we have indulged largely in quotation. The funeral ceremony is detailed in the same solemn, pathetic, and illustrative manner. Mrs. Mac Clarty after a time recovers from her illness and her grief jealous of the new-fangled ways of cleanliness and order introduced by Mrs. Mason, her friend and benefactress became the object of her dislike and aversion, a feeling which was encouraged by all her neighbours. "Aye!' exclaimed the wife of auld John Smith, who happened to visit the widow the first evening she was able to sit up to tea, aye, alake! its weel seen, that whar there's new lairds there's new laws. But how can your woman and your bairns put up wi' a' this fashery?' "I kenna, truly,' replied the widow; but Mrs Mason has just sic a way wi' them, she gars them do ony thing she likes. Ye may think it is an eery thing to me, to see my poor bairns submitting that way to pleasure a strainger in a' her nonsense.' "An eery thing, indeed;' said Mrs. Smith;'gif' ye had but seen how she gard your dochter Meg clean out the kirn! outside and inside! ye wad hae been wae for the poor lassie. I trow, said I, Meg, it wad ha' been lang before your mither had set you to sic a turn Aye, says she, we have new gaits nowe and she looket up and leugh.' "New gaits, I trow cried Sandy Johnstone's mother, who had just taken her place at the tea table; 'I ne'er kend gude come o' new gaits a' my days. There was Tibby Bell, at the head o' the Glen, she fell to cleaning her kirn ae day, and the very first kirning after, her butter was burstet, and gude for naething. I am sure it gangs to my heart to see your wark sae managed. It was but the day before yesterday, that I cam upon madam, as she was haddin' the strainer, as she called it, to Grizzy, desiring her a' the time she poured the milk, to beware of letting in ane o' the cow's hairs that were on her goon. Hoot! say's I, cow's hairs are canny, they'll never choak ye.' The fewer of them that are in the butter the better !' says she. 'Twa or three hairs are better than the blink o an ill ee,' says I. The best charm against witchcraft is cleanliness,' says she; I doubt it muckle,' says I; auld ways ' are aye the best!' "Weel done!' cried Mrs Smith. “I trow ye gae her a screed o' your mind! But here comes Grizzy frae the market; let us hear what she says to it.' " Grizzel advanced to her mistress, and with alacrity poured into her lap the money she had got for her cheese and ing, that it was more by some shillings butter; proudly at the same time observthan they had ever got for the produce of one week before that lucky day. What say you?' cried the wife of auld John Smith; are the markets sae muckle risen? That's gude news indeed!' "I did na say that the markets were risen,' returned the maid; but we never got sae muckle for our butter, nor our cheese, by a penny i' the pund weight, as I got the day. A'the best folks in the town were striving for it. I cou'd ha seld twice as muckle at the same price.' "Ye had need to be weel paid for it,' said Sandy Johnstone's mother, for I fear ye had but sma' quantity to sell.' "We never had sae muckle in ac week before,' said Grizzy; for you see,' continued she, the milk used aye to sour before it had stood half its time; but noo the milk dishes are a' sae clean, that it keeps sweet to the last." After having completed at Mrs. Mac Clarty's cottage her probatio pary time, and having found that every effort to improve the management of the household was abortive, Mrs. Mason determines on quitting this filthy and ill regulated family. She searches not long in vain for another, where her advice would be attended to. She now takes up her residence at a still poorer hut, the inhabitants of which, however, are all tractable and docile. Mrs. Mason has not long been a resident, before the plates and dishes are put in their right places, the windows cleaned, the hearth swept, the dunghill removed, and the garden, which had before been choaked with nettles and over-run with briars, put into such neat spruce order, that the neighbours in passing to and from church stopt to admire the beauty of the crocuses, primroses, and violets which embroidered the grass-plot. Mrs. Mac Clarty, in great disdain, 615 asked auld John Smith's wife "what a' the folks were glowering at?" and received for answer that they were "leuking at the boniest sight in a'the town," pointing to Morison's garden. "Eh," returned Mrs. Mac Clarty, "I wonder what the world will come to at last, since naething. can serve the pride o' William Morison but to hae a flower garden wha' gude Mr. Brown's middenstead stood sappy for mony a day! He's a better man than will ever stand on William Morison's shanks." "The flowers are a hantel bonnier than the midden tho', and smell a hantel sweeter too I trow," returned Mrs. Smith. This striking indication of a change of sentiment in the most sturdy stickler for the gude auld gaits foreboded the improvements that were speedily to take place in the village of Glenbournie. ART. XI. The Knights; Tales Illustrative of the Marvellous. By R. C. DALLAS, Esq. 12mo. 3 vols. ON more occasions than one we have paid Mr. Dallas that tribute of praise to which we conceived his novels entitled him. Why he should have quitted those sober narratives, those quiet pictures of human life, and engage in the mad species of writing which is exhibited in these is more than we can acpages, count for. The metamorphoses of Ovid, and even the fictions of the Arabian Nights, are tame and flat to the marvellous events and ex ploits recorded in the Knight of Tours. Spectres, ghosts, and hob goblins, witches, devils, dragons, and all the paraphernalia of romance, are brought forward to be wilder the senses and confound the judgment. Individual scenes are Individual scenes are sometimes very well managed, but the succession of wild objects is so rapid that one's brain seems to turn round, a sort of vertigo supervenes, and the reader shuts the book that he may no longer be haunted with the spectre of this "The marvellous being, in itselfan evi- On this we must observe that the satire is oftentimes obscure and tame, though occasionally more obvious and pungent. ART. XII. Romantic Tules; by M. G. LEWIS, Author of the Monk, Adelgitha,&& 4 vols. 12mo, IF the person whose name is affixed to the title page of these volumes acknowledges that he cannot himself point out precisely what portion of the work is his own individual property; if he acknowledges that where he has most freely borrowed from other writers he has male so many alterations from his original, so many omissions and interpolations, that it would have been less trouble to have written an entire new work; and of course so many alterations, omissions, and interpolation, that the features of the originals would scarcely be recognized by the authors themselves; if tuis be the case, it is not very likely that they should be recognized by other people, even if it were thought worth while to trace and detect the resemblance. Some of the earlier publications of Mr. Lewis were tainted with a licentiousness which, it may be inferred from the unexceptionable language of more recent works, in his maturer years he has himself condemned. There is certainly nothing in thes volumes to excite animadversion on the score of immorality or lice tiousness: an hour or two may be whiled away in the perusal of them innocently enough, and to persons who delight in this sort of reading, agreeably enough. The first story, "Blanche and Osbright," which occupies the greater part of the first volume is, like many of the others, of German origin: it inculcates the evil consequences of je dousy and mistrust. The two rival houses of Orrenburg and Frankheim, by the indulgence of these feelings, had imbibed against each other a mortal hatred. Čount Rudiger, at least, the head of the Frankheim family, had conceived such an unutterable antipathy against Gustavus, of Orrenburg, that every disaster which befel him chinations of his fancied foe. Gus was suspected to have been the matavus, though himself a man of unsuspicious temper, mild in his manners, and warm in his affections, is instigated by his wife Ulrica to believe that the violent Rudiger is even working the destruction of the whole house of Orrenburg. Blanche is of the latter family, and Osbright of the house of Frankheim. The deadly feuds of the parents are insufficient to guard the bosoms of the children against the impression of a reciprocal passion. The interviews of the lovers are carried on clandestinely, but the last of them is attended with the most tragical consequen ces. Some of the scenes are work ed up with a striking effect, the "The Anaconda" is one of the best stories: the opening is remarkably spirited and characteristic, and many of the descriptions in Everard Brook's narrative are wrought up we think, have availed himself of with great skill. Mr. Lewis might, the fabied powers of fascination in the serpent to introduce another victim to his deadly spell. He may think of this nereafter. four Facardins is a translation from The first part of the tale of the the French of count Antoine Hamilton, author of that more lively of all lively books, "Memoires de Grammont.' tale, which was probably a quiz By the count, this upon the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and which by the way has two or three incidents not unlike some in the three Calendars, was left unfinished. Mr. Lewis has the boldness to undertake its comple |