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The Correspondents of the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE AND LITERARY MISCELLANY are respectfully requested to transmit their Communications for the Editors to ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE and COMPANY, Edinburgh, or LONGMAN and COMPANY, London, to whom also orders for the Work should be particularly addressed.

Printed by George Ramsay & Co.

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,

AND

LITERARY MISCELLANY,

AUGUST 1818.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

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should look for a more interesting display of such circumstances, than to the affecting memorials of our own royal line. The peculiar manners and opinions of our countrymen are equally adapted with any of the preceding singularities, to supply to the novelist the materials of his work; and, when we recollect the instances of determined courage, and of wild fanaticism, which, in trying circumstances, they have so often displayed, the ardent zeal which they have always felt for whatever concerns the glory of their nation, their peculiar talent for music and for song,-the poetical fancy which they seem to have derived from the magnificent character of the scenery around them,

WE have long been of opinion, that no country in Europe contains more copiously than our own the materials that are best adapted to serve as the ground-work of fictitious history, Scotland is, in point of natural scenery, one of the most picturesque and striking of European countries. It possesses every variety and character of surface from the majestic grandeur of an Alpine district, to the soft beauty of a pastoral landscape, and the rich cultivation of an agricultural territory. It is finely intersected by and the remarkable superstitions lakes and arms of the sea, which, by which they have always indulged, detaching its districts, and varying and by which not only the more imits aspect, add much to the effect and pressive aspects of nature, but the grandeur of its scenery; and the tra- very detail and privacy of their doveller, in passing from one department mestic occupations, have been investof the country to another, cannot failed with a preternatural and religious to be frequently impressed with the gloom,-we feel as if we were indeed idea so strikingly conveyed in the the inhabitants of that country which words of the novelist, "that the re- is distinguished above all others by gion through which he is passing is its marked adaptation for the purone on which the hand of God him- poses of fiction. To all these circumself has set the stamp of freedom, and stances it ought to be added, in the that the mountains are his seal." last place, that the language spoken The history of this kingdom, not less by the natives of Scotland is pecuthan the appearance of its surface, is liarly suited to the expression of pre-eminently adapted to the pur- whatever is either picturesque in naposes of fiction. The long line of our ture, or kind in feeling,-that, imancient monarchs is consecrated by proved as it has been by the familithe image of that warlike glory which arity of this people with the lanseems ever to shed its radiance around guage used in the sacred writings, it them; and, if either chivalric enter- often displays an eastern richness and prise or unfortunate beauty give in- strength of expression which may be terest to the tale of the times that are of the most important advantage to a ence by, we do not know where we writer of genius,-and that, indepen

108

dent even of this, and of all the further advantage derived from its rich stock of original poetry, there is a naiveté, and picturesqueness, and affection, in its phrases, which the polish of time, and the assiduity of learning have altogether removed from the more fashionable dialect of our southern neighbours.

It were erroneous to imagine that
these precious materials have been
altogether unimproved during pre-
Our national ballads,
eeding ages.
on the contrary, a species of compo-
sition in which Scotland is well known
to be rich beyond all the other coun-
tries of Europe, will ever furnish to
the antiquary and scholar a most va-
luable mine of those early traditions
and manners which constitute the
basis of our hereditary wealth. The
universally admired pastoral of the
"Gentle Shepherd" is an exhibition
of the truest style of rural manners,
as they existed in this kingdom dur-
ing the century before last, and will
ever be regarded as the most perfect
model of that species of writing which
has for its object the description, on a
limited scale, of the peculiar land-
scape and mode of thinking which is
characteristic of this country. The
other poetical works of the author of
this pastoral, and of his two great
compeers in Scottish song, have ex-
tended the notices which our ancient
a still wider
ballads contained to
range of incidents and characters;-
and as Fergusson, by his intimate ac-
quaintance with the peculiarities of
our capital, has, in many of his poems,
given the most correct delineations of
the scenes which it presented,-Burns,
by his better information with respect
to agricultural life, and his unrivalled
skill in the delineation of the warmer
and more impetuous passions, has
blended the representation of those
with traits of national manners and
feelings which will ever be admired
while the language in which they are
embodied is read. Some admirable
specimens of the same peculiarities
are scattered through the valuable
periodical publications which Scot-
land produced during the latter part
of the preceding century, and the ac-
complished and lamented author of

the
Cottagers of Glenburnie," has
concluded this list by a display of
the characteristic habits of our pea-
santry, which every observer of Scot-

tish manners must have recognized
as being executed with most im-
pressive fidelity.

we

Still, however, much remained to be done in this wide field of naThe authors tional literature. have already mentioned had only given incidental notices, or described particular scenes of the great landscape that was spread before them; they were almost all of them much better acquainted with the manners of rural life than with the more varied incidents, and more complicated passions of polished society,and none of them pretended to be in possession of that extensive learning and acquaintance with life which could enable them to venture, with any probability of success, beyond the limited sphere of their own immediate observation. An author, therefore, was still wanted who should possess all the qualifications in which we have now stated his predecessors to have been deficient ;-a man intimately acquainted with all the varieties and classes of life,-who had looked with keen interest, and a discriminating eye, upon every thing that belonged to the land of his nativity,-who possessed, at the same time, those stores of varied and recondite learning which might enable him easily to transport himself into past times and distant scenes,-and who, with all these qualifications, could spread before him a wider canvass for the display of the scenery and manners of our country than had ever been employed by any former artist. All this, accordingly, as every reader knows, is what has been done by the author whose works have given occasion to these observations. We had sometimes thought, indeed, that, faithful as his representations both of scenery and of manners most undoubtedly are,-strong as has been their effect upon the public mind in both departments of this island, and well as we recognize in his individual portraits the countenances and attitudes of many of our oldest acquaintances and most intimate companions, there was yet wanting, in the general spirit of this author's exhibitions, that peculiar tone which, from our acquaintance with former compositions of the same kind, we had been accustomed to consider as especially and exclusively Scottish,-that interesting

naiveté, and picturesque simplicity, that delightful air of tenderness and innocence,-that accordance with the character of our native landscape, --that something which every Scotchman perfectly understands and feels the moment he sees it, though it is the most difficult of all things to express in words, but which he at once pronounces to be expressive of the true style of the scenery and manners of his native land. "The Cottagers of Glenburnie," inferior as it no doubt is in the genius which it displays, to any of the productions of the author before us, we have yet always considered as perfectly in the style to which we are now alluding; and we had sometimes imagined, that, with all their unequalled excellencies, the descriptions of this far greater artist, having missed the truly Scottish spirit, could scarcely be considered, however much they might deserve admiration in other respects, as perfect representations of what they were chiefly intended to exhibit. We are convinced, however, that this idea was, to a certain extent at least, unfounded, and that it originates, in fact, in the more comprehensive object which this author has in view, and in the more varied accomplishments which he has brought to its completion. His object is not, like that of all his predecessors, to exhibit merely single objects, or detached scenes, but to represent every variety and attitude of his subject, from the simple beauty of a Clydesdale cottage, seen in the fine light of an autumn evening, to the hoary majesty of a baronial castle, frowning sternly upon its subject territory, and begirt with all the ensigns of its former grandeur,-to pourtray the blunt sincerity of our familiar rustics, and the sly roguery of the inhabitants of our cities,-to exhibit famous generals in all their glory, and the miserable receptacles of the lowest of the abandoned,-to display all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, and all the uproar and tumult of popular insurrection,-to depict the wild extravagances of religious fanaticism, and the low knavery of legal science,-to unroll before us, in short, the whole map of the country as it existed in times previous to our own, with all its varieties of village, country town, burgh, and metropolis,-with all its changes of po

pulation, and operations of war,-with the exact costume, and characteristic features of all the great, the good, the wonderful, or the mean, that formerly lived and gave animation to its scenes. In the accomplishment of such a work, it is evident that one common air and spirit of feeling, such as we recognize in the simple scenes and detached pictures of former authors, could not be maintained,-the work must have all the bustling activity, and rapid motion, and varied attitude of the objects it describes ; and we are satisfied, therefore, that while we have every reason to admire the wonderful talent which our author has displayed, and the exact likeness of his individual portraits, we have not the slightest reason to imagine that his work has suffered by the comprehension of its plan, as a correct delineation of the true spirit of our former manners.

We meant to have extended these observations to much greater length, and to have pointed out more particularly both the peculiarity of talent which these tales display, and their comparative excellence, when considered in relation to those other narratives whose popularity and effect they have so successfully eclipsed. We are afraid, however, that we have already too long detained our readers from an account of the work which is now more immediately under review, and we must, therefore, in the hope that this shall not be the last of our author's productions, defer the prosecution of our more general observations till another opportunity. In the mean time, without stopping to give any analysis of a work which all our readers may be supposed to have perused for themselves, we proceed to offer a few reflections on some of its leading incidents and characters.

None of our readers can have forgotten the keen feeling which was awakened by the publication of the first series of the "Tales of my Landlord." The characters and exploits of the heroes of the Covenant, had long formed one of those consecrated subjects which, in this country at least, could not be approached but with the most reverential emotion. The persecutions which these devoted martyrs had undergone seemed to be amply compensated by the love and veneration which were paid to their memo.

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