The wall, scarce three feet wide, stood here nearly insulated: and was on the one side bounded by the abyss just described, and on the other by what might have been an inner court-that lay however at least three stories deep below. Nothing but a cross-wall, which rose above the court towards a little tower, touched this main wall. At the extremity of this last, where it broke off abruptly, both stopped. Hardly forty steps removed from them, rose the great tower, which in past times doubtless had been connected with the point at which they stood, but was now divided by as deep a gulf as that which lay to the outside wall. "Further there is nothing," said his guide: "often have I come hither and meditated whether I should not make one step onwards, and in that way release myself from all anxiety about any future steps upon this earth." "But the power and the grandeur of nature have arrested and awed you?" you Right. Look downwards into the abyss before us:-deep, deep below, trickles along, between pebbles and moss and rocky fragment, a little brook: now it is lit up by the moon:—and at this moment it seems to me as if something were stirring; and now something is surely leaping over-but no-it was deception: often when I have stood here in meditation, and could not comprehend what checked me from taking one bold leap, a golden pillar of moonlight has met me gleaming upwards from the little brook_below-(brook that I have haunted in happier days); and suddenly I have risen as if ashamed-and stolen away in silence!" " Vol. II. pp. 34-37. The conversation is broken off by a hot pursuit after Nicholas, for whose apprehension a reward of 5001. had been proclaimed; he escapes, but Bertram is taken, and one of the constables, holding up a torch to his face, pronounces him to be the very Nicholas of whom they were in search. He is rescued by the party under the command of Nicholas, but again apprehended by a party of dragoons, so strong was his resemblance to the offender they were pursuing, and conveyed a prisoner under a charge of high treason to Walladmor castle, the only place in the county strong enough to resist the attempts for his deliverance, anticipated from the numerous smugglers on the coast. Bertram's unlucky resemblance to the real criminal, continues to involve him in embarassment. The magistrates are all convinced of his identity with Nicholas, and he is remanded into confinement. But in the mean while, that mysterious personage appears before Sir Morgan, and what passes betwixt them (for which we must refer to the work) convinces the worthy baronet of Bertram's innocence, and he is accordingly set at liberty. The sad story of Mrs. Godber, the maniac who figures so much in these volumes, is shortly this. Her only and beloved son had been engaged in one or two of the smuggling affairs so common in that part of the country, and in one of these, it happened that a revenue officer had been killed. It was held to be murder; the youth's case, after his conviction, however, came before the privy-council; —the opinion of Sir Morgan was consulted, and it was unfavourable to the convict. The unhappy mother besought him, but he was inexorable, though from honourable motives, to her supplications. The boy was executed, and the total wreck of her mind and her peace ensued. Her moral feelings then gave way to a deep-rooted malignity; and having long brooded over her dreadful project, she was at last enabled to execute it, through the agency of a niece whom she had contrived to introduce as a nursery-maid into Sir Morgan's family. Lady Walladmor's twin children, two fine boys, were stolen away, and carried on board a smuggling vessel, then in the offing;-and thus in one hour, were the hopes and happiness of that ancient family for ever prostrated. The miserable mother sank into a premature grave, and Sir Walter was left alone and desolate, though in some degree solaced with the society of his beautiful niece. Who Edward Nicholas in reality is, may be easily conjectured. He had passed through a variety of fortunes. The captain of a roving vessel, a patriotic leader in South America, again a smuggler, but, in every change of his eventful life, generous, intrepid, and in all respects fitted for a lover in a novel. He had romantically saved the life of Miss Walladmor, and having fallen in love with her after the established laws of romance in such cases made and provided, was accepted as her lover by that heroic young lady; but when his character and conduct became too unequivocal in her eyes to be redeemed by the manly virtues for which she gave him credit, though she remained unalterable in her faith, she told him calmly and firmly, that they must part. On this he fell into desperate courses, reckless of fate and of honour, till he became (for such the author by a most revolting absurdity chooses to make him) a Cato-street conspirator. He is tried and convicted of high treason. It will not be surprising to those who have advanced thus far in the story, to find that Captain Nicholas turns out to be one of the stolen children of Sir Morgan, and Bertram, the other. Thus, Edward Walladmor is restored to his father and the castle of his ancestors as a prisoner within its walls, and sentenced to death. The novel closes with the escape of Walladmor, who is rescued from the castle, and the death of Miss Walladmor, who is accidentally shot in the scuffle. Thus was the old rhyme fulfilled which Gillie Godber had so often chaunted, and in a comprehensive sense that perhaps she had not hoped. "Grief was over at Wailadmor." Her own fate ratified the prophecy and sealed its truth. She also was among the killed some merciful bullet had liberated her from the storm of guilt and sorrow which for more than twenty years had brooded over her brain, and ravaged her heart; and after so long a period of calamity, during which she had been rejected from human sympathy, she was again gathered within the fold of Christian fellowship in the pastoral churchyard of Utragan. On a grey and silent afternoon a funeral was beheld by those who stood upon the mountains above Utragan winding through the valleys to the quiet chapel at their foot, It stopped in a secluded angle of the churchyard at a spot known to all the country. The grave of the "blooming boy," whose filial prayer upon the scaffold for his mother's peace of mind had not been granted, was now opened to receive her; and the mother and the son, after their long separation, once more were reunited. This spectacle brought back forgiving thoughts: the pity, which had once been granted to her, was now restored and the uncharitable thoughts, which had attended her when living, gave way before the affecting memorials of the open grave-suggesting the awful trial which had overthrown her reason before her conscience had finally given way. 'After some weeks of illness Sir Morgan Walladmor was restored to a state of convalescence; and, by slow degrees and after many months, to his wonted firmness of mind. He was then able to bear the recital of all which had happened, and the news which had recently arrived of Captain Walladmor's death. Large funds had been sent out to him in South America by Sir Morgan's friends with these he had raised a horse regiment: and at the head of this in the decisive engagement of Manchinilla he had found at last" the death that he was wooing!" With a miniature of Miss Walladmor pressed to his lips, he was discovered lying on the ground of the last decisive charge; and Sir Morgan was satisfied to hear that his son had met the death of a soldier and in a cause which he approved.' Vol. II. pp. 291–293. It is, on the whole, difficult to determine whether the Author is quite in earnest, or whether he has devised this agreeable fiction merely as a solemn banter of the Scottish productions. The imitation in some points approaches almost too nearly to caricature, but it is a clever one. The English Walladmor, however, is not a little indebted, we suspect, to the Translator, who has cut down the three thick volumes of the German Walladmor into two of somewhat meagre proportions. • The German hoaxer,' he says, " was aware that no book could have a chance of passing for Sir Walter Scott's, which was not in three volumes octavo. A Scotch novel from Mr. Constable's press, and not in three volumes, would be as absurd as a novel from any man's press in folio-as ominous as • double Thebes as perverse as Buenos Ayres, though not untranslateable, is more unmanageable. It should have been called Mendoza, from its founder. No part of Spanish America was so much neglected by the mother country, as that which we now call Colombia. It has never been wholly conquered, or, in the conquered parts, regularly colonised. The number of savage Indians (bravos) in Colombia as well as in Guatimala, is considerable. The desert spaces are so extensive, that the traveller may journey for days, and fancy himself in a country which human feet had never trodden. There are no roads, (that to the capital is all but impassable even by mules,) and few bridges; scarcely has a city or town been founded, except where stood a village of the aborigines; mining has been discouraged, agriculture suffered to decline, and the only trade of importance has been contraband. Every thing languished here. The Creoles who could lay claim to being descended from the conquerors, felt it incompatible with their honour to engage in any active occupation, considering the most absolute idleness as their birthright. All handicrafts were carried on by people of colour. On a territory extending over eighteen parallels of latitude, and twenty-two degrees of longitude, and comprising upwards of 113,000 square leagues, there did not exist a population (excluding the unreduced Indians) of three millions. Instead of Spain's deriving any revenues from these countries, the whole receipts were more than consumed by the expenses of administration; and the intendant of Caracas annually received upwards of a miliion of dollars from the treasuries of Mexico and Santa Fe, to meet the deficiencies. The whole exports of the captain-generalship of Caracas in 1807, are stated by Lavaysse to have amounted to only 5,200,000 dollars, including the contraband trade; and the imports were only 6,500,000. The exports of New Granada, prior to the Revolution, are stated by a native writer at 1,350,000 piasters in gold and silver bars, and 1,150,000 in produce; and the imports at not exceeding 2,500,000. Humboldt estimates the total imports of the united provinces of New Granada and Caracas at 11,200,000 piasters; the exports at 9,000,000. The total revenues of New Granada before 1810, never exceeded 3,200,000 dollars; those of Caracas about 1,400,000: the odious alcavala, the customs, and the royal monopoly of tobacco supplied the greater part; the other ways and means were, the sale of bulls and licences, the mint, the Indian capitation tax, and stamps. M. Mollien estimates the total revenues of Colombia at between five and six millions of dollars. One of the greatest difficulties which the new Government has had to contend with, arose from the unsoundness of the financial system and the objectionable nature of some of these sources of revenue. The monopoly on tobacco, which of itself produced a million of dollars under the old system, it is intended to abolish as soon as the exigencies of the State will admit of it. The sale of bulls, the capitation tax, the fifths on gold obtained from washings, the alcavala, and the sale of public offices, have all been abolished, and almost the only certain branch of the present revenue, consists of the Custom-house duties. Such is the state of things, the consequence of three centuries of misgovernment, to which the Republican Government has succeeded. Formidable, it must be admitted, are the difficulties with which. it has to contend, now that, as we confidently hope, nothing is to be feared from foreign invaders. The difficulties which stifle and fetter the commerce of Colombia,' says Col. Hall, ، may be reduced under the following heads; want of population, want of industry, want of capital, want of knowledge, and want of internal commu⚫nications.' ، The necessary consequence of a want of population is, the dearness and scarcity of labour; a disadvantage trebly augmented by the feeble and inert disposition of the people. The Creole labourer will perform badly in a week, a piece of work which a European would do well in a day. Idleness is, in fact, the predominant propensity of all classes: in the rich, it is caused by the want of moral stimulus; in the poor, it is cherished by the facility of subsistence. In Colombia, the little which exists of social luxury is confined to Caracas and two or three sea-port towns. Throughout the whole of the interior, the comforts and even the decencies of life are unvalued, because unknown. The man who can eat beef and plantains, and smoke segars as he swings in his hammock, is possessed of almost every thing his habits qualify him to enjoy, or to which his ambition prompts him to attain. The poor have little less; the rich scarcely covet more.' Commercial capital could scarcely be said to exist in this country. The few capitalists of any consequence were European Spaniards, who have generally emigrated. The business of a Creole merchant is rather that of a first-rate shopkeeper. As a specimen of the want of knowledge, Col. Hall states, that, during the year 1823, the Vice President, one of the most enlightened men in Colombia, urged on most probably by the Creole merchants, issued a decree, prohibiting foreigners * from trading in the country on their own account, and compelling them to consign themselves to the natives.' This, he |