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ed, 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.

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 light

back-which show a government more base else of it than that such events took place in and tyrannical, or a people more helpless and its course. Few men, in short, are historical miserable And though all pictures of the characters-and scarcely any man is always, greater passions are full of interest, and a or most usually, performing a public part. lively representation of strong and enthusiastic The actual happiness of every life depends emotions never fails to be deeply attractive, far more on things that regard it exclusively, the piece would have been too full of distress than on those political occurrences which are and humiliation, if it had been chiefly engaged the common concern of society; and though with the course of public events, or the record nothing lends such an air, both of reality and of public feelings. So sad a subject would importance, to a fictitious narrative, as to connot have suited many readers—and the author, nect its persons with events in real history, we suspect, less than any of them. Accord- still it is the imaginary individual himself that ingly, in this, as in his other works, he has excites our chief interest throughout, and we made use of the historical events which came care for the national affairs only in so far as in his way, rather to develope the characters, they affect him. In one sense, indeed, this and bring out the peculiarities of the individu- is the true end and the best use of history; als whose adventures he relates, than for any for as all public events are important only as purpose of political information; and makes they ultimately concern individuals, if the inus present to the times in which he has placed | dividual selected belong to a large and comthem, less by his direct notices of the great prehensive class, and the events, and their transactions by which they were distinguished, natural operation on him, be justly representthan 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 are 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 amuse-hearted and thoughtless may be impaired by ment 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 christeningsas gallant at balls and races-as busy in their studies and counting houses-eat as heartily, in short, and sleep as sound-prattle with their children as pleasantly-and thin their plantations and scold their servants as zealously, as if their contemporaries were not furnishing materials thus abundantly for the Tragic muse of history. The quiet undercurrent of life, in short, keeps its deep and steady course in its eternal channels, unaffected, or but slightly disturbed, by the storms that agitate its surface; and while long tracts of time, in the history of every country, seem, 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 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!

It is this, we think, that constitutes the great and peculiar merit of the work before us. It contains an admirable picture of manners and of characters; and exhibits, we think, with great truth and discrimination, the extent and the variety of the shades which the stormy aspect of the political horizon would be likely to throw on such objects. And yet, though exhibiting beyond all doubt the greatest possible talent and originality, we cannot help fancying that we can trace the rudiments of almost all its characters in the very first of the author's publications.-Morton is but another edition of Waverley ;-taking a bloody part in

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 sha- On the other point, also, we rather lear. to dowed 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.

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 nas 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 repreread 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 frethe 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.

Such, we are perfectly aware, is the task which we must seem to perform to the greater part of those who may take the trouble of accompanying us through this article. But there may still be some of our readers to whom the work of which we treat is unknown;-and we know there are many who are far from being duly sensible of its merits. The public, indeed, is apt now and then to behave rather unhandsomely to its greatest benefactors; and to deserve the malison which Milton has so emphatically bestowed on those impious persons, who,

One novelty in the present work is, that it is thrown into the form of a continued and unbroken narrative, by one of the persons principally concerned in the story-and who is represented in his declining age, as detailing to an intimate friend the most interesting particulars of his early life, and all the recollections with which they were associated. We prefer, upon the whole, the communications of an avowed author; who, of course, has no character to sustain but that of a pleasing writer-and can praise and blame, and wonder and moralise, in all tones and directions, without subjecting himself to any charge of vanity, ingratitude, or inconsistency. The thing, however, is very tolerably managed on the present occasion; and the hero contrives to let us into all his exploits and perplexities, without much violation either of heroic modesty or general probability-to which ends, indeed, it conduces not a little, that, like most of the other heroes of this ingenious author, his own character does not rise very notably above the plain level of mediocrity-being, like the rest of his brethren, a well-conditioned, reasonable, agreeable young gentleman-not particularly likely to do thing which it would be very boastful to speak of, and much better fitted to be a spectator and historian of strange doings, than a partaker in them.

any

-"with senseless base ingratitude, Cram, and blaspheme their feeder." -nothing, we fear, being more common, than to see the bounty of its too lavish providers repaid by increased captiousness at the quality of the banquet, and complaints of imaginary fallings off-which should be imputed entirely to the distempered state of their own pampered appetites. We suspect, indeed, that we were ourselves under the influence of this illaudable feeling when he wrote the first line of this paper: For, except that the subject seems to us somewhat less happily This discreet hero, then, our readers will chosen, and the variety of characters rather probably have anticipated, is not Rob Royless than in some of the author's former pub- though his name stands alone in the title-but lications, we do not know what right we had a Mr. Francis Osbaldistone, the only son of to say that it was in any respect inferior to a great London Merchant or Banker, and them. Sure we are, at all events, that it has nephew of a Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, a the same brilliancy and truth of colouring-worthy Catholic Baronet, who spent his time the same gaiety of tone, rising every now in hunting, and drinking Jacobite toasts in and then into feelings both kindly and exalt- Northumberland, some time about the year

played the extraordinary taient of being true to nature, even in the representation of impossible persons.

The serious interest of the work rests on Diana Vernon and on Rob Koy; the comic effect is left chiefly to the ministrations of Baillie Nicol Jarvie and Andrew Fairservice, with the occasional assistance of less regular performers. Diana is, in our apprehension, a very bright and felicitous creation-though it is certain that there never could have been any such person. A girl of eighteen, not only with more wit and learning than any man of forty, but with more sound sense, and firmness of character, than any man whatever-and with perfect frankness and elegance of manners, though bred among boors and bigots-is rather a more violent fiction, we think, than a king with marble legs, or a youth with an ivory shoulder. In spite of all this, however, this particular fiction is extremely elegant and impressive; and so many features of truth are blended with it, that we soon forget the impossibility, and are at least as much interested as by a more conceivable personage. The combina tion of fearlessness with perfect purity and delicacy, as well as that of the inextinguish able gaiety of youth with sad anticipations 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

1714. The young gentleman having been educated among the muses abroad, testifies a decided aversion to the gainful vocations in which his father had determined that he should assist aud succeed him;-and as a punishment for this contumacy, he banishes him for a season to the Siberia of Osbaldistone Hall, from which he himself had been estranged ever since his infancy. The young exile jogs down on horseback rather merrily, riding part of the way with a stout man, who was scandalously afraid of being robbed, and meeting once with a sturdy Scotchman, whose resolute air and energetic discourses make a deep impression on him.-As he approaches the home of his fathers, he is surrounded by a party of fox hunters, and at the same moment electrified by the sudden apparition of a beautiful young woman, galloping lightly at the head of the field, and managing her sable palfrey with all the grace of an Angelica. Making up to this etherial personage, he soon discovers that he is in the heart of his kinsfolks that the tall youths about him are the five sons of Sir Hildebrand; and the virgin huntress herself, a cousin and inmate of the family, by the name of Diana Vernon. She is a very remarkable person this same Diana. Though only eighteen years of age, and exquisitely 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 a family likeness to the Flora of Waverley; 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 long supposed to impart to their disciples.Although very plain in his person, and very depraved in his character, he has great talents and 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

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 whig maleeries and curlie-wurlies and open-steek hemis 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.

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, and lived out his days, a little more idly, and apparently unconscious of having done any thing at all extraordinary-there has been no such prodigy of fertility as the anonymous author before us. In the period of little more than five years, he has founded a new school of invention; and established and endowed it with nearly thirty volumes of the most animated and original compositions that have enriched English literature for a centuryvolumes that have cast sensibly into the shade all contemporary prose, and even all recent poetry-(except perhaps that inspired by the Genius or the Demon, of Byron)-and, by their force of colouring and depth of feeling by their variety, vivacity, magical facility, and living presentment of character, have rendered conceivable to this later age the miracles of the Mighty Dramatist.

Shakespeare, to be sure, is more purely original; but it should not be forgotten, that, in his time, there was much less to borrow 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

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!

The author before us is certainly in less danger from such detections, than any other we have ever met with; but, even in him, the traces of imitation are obvious and abundant; and it is impossible, therefore, to give him the same credit for absolute originality as those earlier writers, who, having no successful author to imitate, were obliged to copy directly from nature. In naming him along with Shakespeare, we meant still less to say that he was to be put on a level with Him, as to the richness and sweetness of his fancy, or that living vein of pure and lofty poetry which flows with such abundance through every part of his compositions. On that level no other writer has ever stood-or will ever standthough 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, however, we wish to observe, that we have in 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.

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 greet

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