to catch a rumour of what was going on within; and communing in muttered curses with each other, as often as the report was wafted to them, that the prophane hand of the Attorney-General was farther withdrawing the veil which had heretofore enveloped the sublime mysteries of their association. But I feel that I have exceeded the boundaries which I had prescribed to myself, and must postpone to some future letter, the detail of the events which took place subsequent to the trial, and which are now passing before my eyes. The Dublin election—the chairing-the conflict between the College and the mob -the beef-steak club-the Chancellor and Sir Charles Vernon, will furnish materials for my next communication. It is probable that further subjects will in the interval start up. The dragons' teeth will never cease to spring from this prolific soil-and every hour will add to the abundance of the disastrous harvest. "Alas! poor Country." CRITO.

PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.

THIS is, to our feelings, the least agreeable of all the productions of its author. We risk something in making this frank declaration, for we believe the opinion is contrary, not only to that of the great mass of readers, but to the judgment of some whose praise is fame. It makes unquestionably more pretension to rank as a complete and well-digested whole; it has more semblance of beginning, middle and end, than several of his later romances. But we have never admired the Scottish novelist for any supremacy in those qualities which give attraction to the tales of ordinary writers: his plots have usually been rambling and ill-connected; and with one remarkable exception, the Bride of Lammermuir, his novels have had little consistency, except that of character. He is the very reverse of Richardson, whose most impressive scenes derive their interest from a thousand minute traits elaborately dwelt on, and are realized to us by a routine of preparation, which compels us to believe in the author as we involuntarily put faith in a circumstantial narrative. His best scenes are lighted up by a few masterly touches; a fine, free, glancing pencil; and each of them has an interest of its own, independent of the links by which they are connected. We think of him, not as associated with a certain succession of events, in the midst of which we seemed to live and have our being, but as the author of a crowd of delightful characters: as the great magician, at whose touch the noblest groups have started from the canvass of history and glowed with present feeling; as the fine detecter of the redeeming qualities of our nature, who has not elicited them by the spade of laborious philosophy, but the divining rod of intuitive genius; as the inventor of grand, heart-stirring scenes, which are not thought of as chapters of Waverley, the Antiquary, or Old Mortality, but of the great book of human life. We mention the names of the works, but it is not of them we speak; it is of Nicol Jarvie, of Elspeth, of Meg Merrilies, of Rebecca, of Rob Roy, and of a hundred more that we are ruminating; and when we recur to the fisher's funeral, to the last moments of Fergus M'Iver, to the dying revelations of Elspeth, to the death of the Smuggler in the glen of Derncleugh, or

to the tremendous situation of Henry Morton, bound before the clock, which visibly announces his doom, they have distinct places in our recollection, and an interest which the context can neither increase nor diminish.

In the work before us, the author has given us less matter with more attempt at art. He would make the show of labour pass for the unlaboured exhibition of characteristic, descriptive, pathetic, and imaginative power. Instead of giving us pictures of nature and manners, hints of terrific superstitions, and glimpses into the inmost grandeurs of the soul, he presents us with facts as facts, and tries to weave a long and ingenious puzzle of events, which he solves very indifferently, and which is not worth solving at all. To this we prefer the lightest and least coherent of his sketches. The Monastery, for example, has the least possible momentum as a story; and yet we would rather have The White Lady of Avenel gleaming delicately in the dubious horizon of literature, than a whole labyrinth of intrigues of the Court of Charles the Second. The "Legend of Montrose" is full of impossibilities, and is entirely without interest as a story; and yet is Captain Dalgetty, or even his horse Gustavus, worth the whole line of the Peverils. Nigel" is very loosely put together, and no one can care for the result; but its vivid description of the tribe of gallant apprentices; its masterly picture of Duke Hildebrod in his Alsatian state; the deeply tragic scenes in the usurer's dwelling; the beautiful pettishness of Margaret Ramsay, her dimpled chin resting in the hollow of her little hand; and the exquisite feminineness of the frail Dame Christie, are not dependent on the light thread by which they are connected for vitality, but will live till Waverley is forgotten. It is, then, because Peveril is not replete with treasures like these that we regard it as inferior, rather than because the attempt to supply their place by an intricate plot has utterly failed in its execution. Let us, before we glance at the demerits of its story, just run over the list of its principal characters.

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The first of these, and intended manifestly to be the most prominent, is Major Bridgnorth, the Presbyterian gentleman of the age of Charles the Second. To say that this picture has not the vigour of Balfour of Burley, or even of the humbler Covenanters, would not be censure; for the enthusiasm of the English Puritans had rarely the military fierceness, and never the traits of wild grandeur which rendered the folly of the Scottish sectaries romantic. But the character is not only comparatively feeble, but inconsistent: it is exhibited in three different aspects without any intermediate gradations; first, it is reasonable, though scrupulous; then it changes, without any assignable cause, to a ferocious bigotry; and at last it degenerates into absolute madness. The Major, too, is perpetually introduced as a mere agent to push on the story, and yet frequently makes long speeches, which seem to have no object but to retard it. Sir Geoffrey Peveril, the stout supporter of church and king, is well imagined, but faintly drawn; and there are no very good fellows (though we might reasonably expect them) among his servants. Lady Derby, who affects to play the queen in the Isle of Man, and shews her decision by ordering á brave man to be shot dead without lawful authority, is to us exceedingly revolting. We can endure Helen Macgregor, in the moment of agony and rage, directing a wretched exciseman to be thrown into the Highland lake; for she

makes no pretensions to humanity, and acts consistently as an infuriated savage. But Lady Derby, the mild, the motherly, the courteous, is not to be borne; her softness shocks, and her gentleness sickens us. Julian Peveril, the hero, is described by the author as "agallant and accomplished youth," and he certainly does nothing to discriminate himself from the mass of such brave and amiable heroes. Alice Bridgenorth, the playmate of his infancy and the mistress of his riper years, is scarcely more distinguishable from the crowd of the fair and the faithful. There is scarcely a trait of the Puritan about her, except a taste for making long and elaborate speeches, which she freely bestows on her lover. Would it be believed, that any one of our author's heroines could, in a most critical moment, frame her lips (we can say nothing of her heart) to give such a reason as the following for not eloping with her lover?" If hereafter in your line there should arise some who may think the claims of the hierarchy too exorbitant, the powers of the crown too extensive, men shall not say these ideas were derived from Alice Bridgenorth, their Whig grand-dame." Is not this prudent foresight for a beautiful girl in the spring-time of youth and love? Jenny Deans, though she refused to equivocate to save her sister (which was a fault), would never have talked such washy trash to poor Reuben Butler!

The characters of Christian and his daughter, which are very elaborately drawn, seem to us little short of monstrous. It is easy to conceive a man burning passionately to revenge the death of one who was near and dear to him; or to imagine a degraded wretch, more vile than even the Hypocrite of Molière, assuming the garb of sanctity to betray the daughter of his friend to infamy, in order to obtain the gratification of his own desires for wealth and power. But to suppose the union of these, is to conjecture a grosser impossibility than if heroic virtue were linked to groveling sensuality; for the vices are more opposite to each other than either is to virtue. Such a being must be at once the most disinterested and the most selfish of men; he must be ready to seek wild justice for himself at the risk of all worldly advantages, yet willing to inflict studied injustice on others to secure those very benefits; and while thus thirsting for luxury and for blood, must be able to mask the hero and thre pander under the forms of the straitest of sects! Fenella is, in her way, no less a prodigy. A creature almost dwarfish in form, whom yet Buckingham might love; capable of acting the part of a deaf and dumb child for years, yet subject to violent irritations of mind; doating with impotent passion on a man who is attached to another, and forcing herself perpetually on his notice-is scarcely worthy to deface the noble humanities of the author of Waverley. And this being is the mysterious agent to the piece, who works its miracles, glides into an inmost cell of Newgate at midnight, is present every where moving the parties like puppets, and baffles the Duke of Buckingham by jumping from a high window! Is she, after all, a supernatural agent? No; there is an explanation of her conduct and powers on the most intelligible principles: she has acquired her versatility and skill as a rope-dancer's apprentice, and has been placed by her father in the family of Lady Derby, in order to betray its secrets! Surely it is better to deal in mighty magic, than to resort to such feeble extravagances within the dreary confines of the possible. We would

believe in witchcraft, alchemy, and the Cock-lane ghost, before we would put faith in the human Fenella!

Much of the heaviness of this work arises from the period of time which its author has chosen. There is no period of history more barren of exalted virtue; more replete with disgusting and heartless profligacy; more destitute of generous error, or noble obstinacy, than that which succeeded the restoration of Charles to the English throne. A worldly-minded, yet infatuated populace;-a timid and luxurious court, gratifying the rage of the people, even when it cried for blood;— fraudulent, cunning, and ferocious judges;-with the indescribable villains who invented the plots which kept the nation in feverish and fatal action-form but unpromising materials for a fresh and liberal spirit to work on. Oates, Bedlowe, and Dangerfield, execrable as they were, may rather be regarded as the virtual representatives of the general character of the time, than as individuals monstrous for their groveling ambition and climbing infamy. The great distinctions of party in politics and in religion were broken down; sturdy prejudices were clipped away, and petty interests substituted in their room; and the ostensible objects of contention were strangely reduced in magnitude, while the fury of the combatants was kept alive by baser stimulants. There was no such thing as a deep-rooted attachment or an honest quarrel. Hence the season, though prolific in crime, presents little scope for an historical novelist, who must produce his effects by seizing on the prominent features of the age, and succeed by strength of contrast and by breadth and richness of colouring. The opposition of Claverhouse and Burley is striking; it is a fair battle between two great causes, headed by appropriate champions, which forms a noble spectacle; but there is no pleasure in tracing out the internal disorganizations of a party, in seeing how gallant spirits may suffer from the neglect of those who should reward them, or in watching the petty game of intrigue played off at a court by mistresses and sharpers. In Peveril we have not only Oates and Dangerfield, but the pander Chiffinch, and his odious associates, from whose unalloyed villainy we seek relief in the goodnature of the King, who seems to throw a redeeming grace into the scene when he instructs his lord chief justice to procure the acquittal of his friends. The introduction of Buckingham is well contrived, and his voluptuous irresolution is fairly portrayed; but nothing can surpass in absurdity the idea of his plot, the machinery by which it is detected, and the facility with which it is forgiven. Our author's Kenilworth discloses a group of unamiable characters; but they belong to a statelier age, are associated with more intellectual power, and are set off by a finer varnish than the courtiers of Charles, who have their exits and their entrances in "Peveril."

The plot of this novel may be divided into three portions ;-the first comprising the infancy of Julian, and the first intercourse and quarrel of Bridgenorth and Sir Geoffrey; the second embracing the scenes in the Isle of Man; and the last pursuing Julian's journey to London, and the occurrences in court and prison, to the winding up of the tale. Of these, the first is the best written; the second the most interesting; and the last, in all respects, the worst. There is a great deal of promise in the opening chapter: a strong interest is excited for the house of Peveril, and the ground seems laid for a series of affecting

incidents, arising from the matured love of the children and the opposite sentiments of the fathers. There is something very real in the account of Sir Geoffrey's visits to his desolate neighbour, and of the manner in which they rouse him from his grief; and Bridgenorth's recurrence to them long after, when his fanaticism has taken a gloomier colouring, is one of the most affecting of our author's touches. In excuse for his regard to Julian he says, "The spirit of his mother looks from his eye, and his stately step is as that of his father, when he daily spoke comfort to me in my distress and said 'The child liveth.'" This recognition of the same step which he had waited for day by day in the beginning of his loneliness, and the sound of which had never died away from his heart, is, in the best sense of the term, pathetic. Again, Bridgenorth refusing the challenge is a fine sketch, and might supply a good subject for a painter. Of the elaborate description of the procession of cavaliers and puritans to the Feast, we do not think highly: the antithesis is absolutely painful; and the violent attempt at effect defeats its own object, by placing all the characters in violent and unnatural attitudes.

There is no romantic air cast over any part of these volumes, except that which we have called the second division. The description of Holm Peel Castle is given with great appearance of truth; Julian's fishing excursion is well imagined, and the sudden introduction and unexpected courtesy of Bridgenorth excite no small curiosity in the reader. All the situations in which the lovers are placed are excellent, but the conversations are woefully didactic.

We are now come to that part of the novel where " light thickens." The clinging of Fenella to Julian is very strange and tiresome, but it awakens no desire to arrive at the truth of the minikin mystery. In the scenes where Julian meets with Chiffinch and Christian, there is much lightness of touch and grace of manner, but the villainy of the parties is absolutely oppressive, and makes their joviality sickening. There is some power in the description of the Puritanic supper at Bridgenorth's house, whither Julian is carried; but the subsequent attack of the minors is very inefficiently given for so masterly a portrayer of sieges and skirmishes. Nor is the meeting of the son and his parents, under the terrible circumstances in which they are placed, at all wrought up to the pitch of expectation; it does not suspend the breath of the reader, or dwell on the memory. Almost all which takes place after the parties arrive in London is utterly unworthy of the author. There are one or two redeeming traits-as the intense recollection of Bridgenorth, to which we alluded, and the recognition of Julian by his mother from a window in a tower, whence she drops a handkerchief wet with her tears and there is a degree of life and pleasantry about the scenes where Buckingham gives scope to his humour; but the rest is only written to sell. We have Fenella dancing Julian into an interview with the king-Alice rushing out from a room in the apartments of Chiffinch, followed by Buckingham into the presence of Charles, and there meeting her lover, who walks off with her in sullen dignity-an affray in the street, in which the lady vanishes by one of those provoking chances from which the sufferings of Miss Burney's heroines arise-and the commitment of the hero to Newgate. Here an incident occurs which is absolutely farcical; Julian entreats that he may be lodged with his father, and he is gravely introduced to the dwarf, Sir