civil and religious liberty will not be backward on such an occasion.*

But this is not all that is required. If we would wipe off the stain which blots our character as the first Protestant nation in the world, it is necessary to adopt measures for preventing the recurrence of such scenes of persecution, by removing their occasion. Let the practice of turning out the guard and presenting arms to the host, of firing salutes and attending mass,-of joining in idolatrous processions, and doing homage to the bones of saints,-be at once and for ever abolished. This has been at last effected at Malta by the perseverance and decision of two officers. But why is the example to be confined to one of our colonies only? Let every Englishman remember that he himself can do something towards the accomplishment of so desirable an object; that he has a voice in the representation of the country; that, at all events, he has the right of petition; and remembering these things, let him also recollect, that power and privilege are duty and responsibility.'

Art. II. Walladmor, "freely translated into German from the Eng-
lish of Sir Walter Scott," and now freely translated from the
German into English. In 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1825.
THE astonishing popularity and well-earned success of the

class of fictions called par excellence the Scottish novels,' -the unexhausted fertility of the author, who, by the wayward coquetry of making them deeds without a name,' has rendered his identity the more notorious, and their paternity undeniable from the affectation of concealing it, are rare singularities in the history of our light literature. It is also worth remarking, how silently, and how rapidly, the whole brood of compositions which by courtesy had been suffered to usurp the name of novels, the countless, nameless equivocal things that crawled into languid, ephemeral life from the Minerva press and other equally respectable repositories of

* From a Letter in circulation, it appears, that subscriptions are received by Henry Drummond, Esq. Charing Cross; W. Carus Wilson, Esq. M.P.; Benjamin Shaw, Esq. M.P., New Street, Spring Gardens; Joseph Butterworth, Esq. M.P. Fleet Street. And at Messrs. Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly; Mr. Nisbet's, Berner's Street; Mr. Holdsworth's, St. Paul's Church Yard; and Messrs. Hankey's Bank, Fenchurch Street.

amusements,—have, since the dawning of the Waverley luminary, flitted away, as at the crowing of the cock,' into the unsubstantial vapour which gave them birth. The school is completely fixed, the taste universally diffused. Succeeding writers, in their efforts to amuse the public with the same species of reading, have each paid the involuntary tribute to their great prototype, of new-modelling his incidents, tamely copying his landscapes, imitating his dialogues, and paraphrasing his sentiments. Mannerism, indeed, of every kind, even that wherein the Author only abuses his own privilege of resembling himself, is unpleasing; but it is more than offensive, it is hurtful to literature, when it is a systematic mimicry of works of transcendent merit. So many secondhand modellers put us out of humour with the original by their lifeless, dull resemblances. It is a tax, however, which, in spite of the shrugs and frowns of criticism, will continue to be levied upon our patience, in commutation for real and original excellence, Hence it is, that during the intervals of the parturient throes of the great Northern romance-writer, we must put up with the feebler products of the imitators who, with more or less grace, wear his livery, and study, as in a sort of literary high life below stairs, the air, the attitudes, and the manners of their master. How unreasonable would it be, when a new novel is put into our hands, to look for a fiction consisting of chapters without mottoes, scenes laid out of the mountains and morasses of Scotland, dialogue clothed in any other dialect than the Doric of the north, or incidents in which a hag of the true Meg Merrilies breed, muttering her quaint fancies in mystic and prophetic rhyme, should not largely participate?

The extensive popularity of this school of writings (we speak at present of its distinguished founder) is far from being unintelligible. Not to dwell upon the abundant information, sprinkled with no unsparing hand, even upon remote and recondite subjects in every part of these novels, and by means of which they cheat their readers into unexpected instruction, -one of their prominent distinctions is, the good sense which stands centinel, as it were, at every page, to keep off all extravagancies or improbabilities that are at war with reason or nature, and which violate the modesty of both in all the hackney specimens of modern fiction, and this too, without abating one jot of the vivacity and spirit which inform and animate the whole. Not that any preconceived moral is sought to be enforced, any important theory to be recommended. The Author of Waverley rarely, perhaps never, frames his story in subservience to a moral,-content with scattering on

his way, high sentiments of heroic resolve, of calm, or dignified, or active virtue, or of patient endurance, and successively illustrating them in the different characters of his fable, as they march onwards, each to the several purposes for which he has destined them. Above all, we must not overlook, what is in itself one of the necessary results of calling in good sense to the concoction of works from which it had so long been the fashion to exclude her, the subdued tone, the comparatively subordinate agency assigned to the great master-passion of our life, that mighty power to whom, in all preceding fictions, the key which unlocks the sacred source of our sympathies, had been almost exclusively confided. Our credulity is not now insulted by those strange personifications of exaggerated sensibility and romantic affection, which we were as sure of finding in the fictitious world, as it would have been impossible to meet with them in the real one which is supposed to be its archetype. We are now indulged with pictures of what really takes place in life, of which the votaries of the circulating library could formerly entertain no correcter notions, than of the art of perspective, studied only from the landscapes of a China teapot.

We spoke slightingly of the imitators of the Waverley novels; but, in this tribe, we will not class several specimens of the school which have recently attained the highest ranks of that secondary merit.

High in the minor class, we place the pleasing and delightful fictions of Scottish life, which have flowed from the prolific pen of Mr. Galt. If he falls much below his master, it is not in scenes of simple and pathetic description, in the home-felt, natural delights of cottage tranquillity, the silent, unobtrusive sufferings of a wounded spirit, sustained in its struggles with penury or mischance, by the sweetly-whispered consolations of religious hope, nor in the spirited pencillings of Scottish scenery, which diversify and embellish his narrations. But it is in the whole, the vast scope and bolder surface traversed by his predecessor, the more assured step with which he walks through paths he first opened, and treads the region he first discovered, -the greater variety of his incidents, the fresher impress of his characters;-in a word, the almost boundless extent and variety of his plan, and the genius with which it is compressed into regularity, and smoothed into uniformity. It is the relation of a miniature painter to the historical artist, who blends into one great purpose, multifarious groupes, earth, ocean, and. all that peoples the living, or fills the inanimate creation.

We scarcely know whether the Writer of Walladmor can be legitimately ranked amongst the imitators of the Waverley

school. The plan and sketch bear evident traces of resemMance, but, in the filling up of his outline, he is original and inventive, far beyond the aspirings of an intentional copyist. In truth, some slight degree of parody was smarochable, for Walladmoor appears to have been, at first, cerised as a playful piece of waggery upon the Scottish novels. But, as the author proceeded, his own powers became impatient of the restraint, and gradually unfolded themselves in a spirited fiction, which displays no ordinary talent of composition. The original made its appearance in Germany, as a work of Sir Walter Scott, being a soi-disant translation from a novel of that Author, furnished for the annual exigencies of the Leipsic fair, by some obliging proxy who forged it in his name ;—it being an object of much importance, that all books which found any 'part of their interest upon their novelty, should be brought ⚫out at this time, and something or other is generally looked ⚫ for from the pen of every popular writer, as a means of giving ⚫ zest and seasoning to the heavy Mess-Catalog.'

• The Easter fair offered a favourable opportunity for such an attempt, from the circumstance of there being just then no acknowledged novel in the market from the pen of that writer which was sufficiently recent to gratify the wishes of the fair, or to throw suspicion upon the pretensions of the hoaxer. These pretensions, it is asserted, for some time passed unquestioned; and the good people of Germany, as we are assured, were universally duped. A work, produced to the German public, and circulated with success under such assumptions, must naturally excite some curiosity in this country; to gratify which, it has been judged proper to translate it.' Advertisement, pp. viii, ix.

It was not to be expected, that a fiction written with any real or apparent allusion to Sir Walter Scott, should be without a Meg Merrilies. Bertram, the hero, is ship-wrecked by the explosion of a steam-vessel on the coast of North Wales, having struggled to keep hold of a floating rum-cask with a fellowsufferer who was a competitor for the same means of safety,— a wild, reckless being, who, as his powers were deserting him, confided to his charge a pocket-book containing a letter for a lady to whom the poor fellow was attached. Bertram, having generously endeavoured to rescue him at the risk of his own life, is washed ashore, and first opens his eyes in a hut which, with its hideous tenant, is thus picturesquely described.

• The cottage was of that humble order which in this kingdom are found only at the extremities of the Scotch Highlands, and tenanted by a race of paupers who gain a scanty subsistence from the limpits and other marine products which they take at low water. The framework of the hovel was rudely put together of undressed pine-boughs;

the walls were a mixed composition of clay, turf, sea weed, muscleshells, and flints; timbers had been laid for the main-beams of a ceiling; but they were not connected by joists, nor covered in; so that the view was left open to the summit of the roof, which being com posed of sedge and moss allowed a passage to the wind and rain. In the little room were hanging all kinds of utensils, but in so confused an arrangement and in so dubious a light that Bertram could make out but little of what he saw. The sole light in the hut proceeded from a fire in the corner. But this fire was so sparingly fed, that it seldom blazed up or shot forth a tongue of flame except when a draught of wind swept through; which however happened pretty often. The smoke escaped much less through the chimney than through the chinks of the wall; enveloping every object in a dusky shade, and deepening the gloom. Perfect silence reigned in the house; and no living creature appeared to be present. But once, when the fire happened to shoot forth a livelier gleam, the clouds of smoke parted and discovered a female countenance-old, and with striking features, and fixing a pair of large dark-grey eyes upon a pan or cauldron which hung over the fire. Sometimes, when a cloud of vapour arose from the pan, and collected in a corner into fantastic wreaths, she pursued it with her eyes, and a smile played over her withered cheeks; but, when it dispersed or escaped through the chinks, a low muttering and sometimes a moaning might be distinguished. She had, as Bertram observed, a spinning-wheel between her feet but busy as her hands seemed, and mechanically in motion, it was evident that she did little or no work. At intervals she sang: but what she sang was more like a low muttered chaunt, than a regular song: at least Bertram understood not a word of it, if words they were that escaped her.

After one of these chaunts, the old woman rose suddenly from her seat, wrung her hands, seemed to trace strange circles in the air, and then scattered some substance into the fire which raised a sudden burst of flames that curled over the cauldron, lit up the house for a few moments, and then roaring up the chimney left all in greater darkness than before. During these few moments however Bertram had time to observe the whole appearance of the woman with some distinctness. She seemed to have the stature of a well-grown man ; but her flesh had fallen away so remarkably that the red frieze gown which she wore hung in loose folds about her. Much as Bertram was shocked at first by the spectacle of her harsh bony lineaments, her fiery eye, and her grey disheveled hair,-he yet perceived in her face the traces of former beauty. She raised her bony arms, as if in supplication, to that quarter of the room where Bertram was lying; he perceived however that it was not himself, but some object near him which drew her attention. To his great alarm he now discovered close to himself a chair-the only one in the room, and sitting upon it some motionless figure in the attitude of a living man. The old woman stretched out her hands with more and more earnestness to this object, as though she looked for some sign from it: but, receiving none, she struck her hands violently together; in a transport of VOL. XXIV. N.S.

C