FROM BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

BRACEBRIDGE HALL.* There has sprung up in the present day a set of intolerable talkers, both in and out of print, whom if a man have any regard to fame or fortune, he had best make enemies of at once. We know not a more degrading thing to a literary man, than to find patrons in such animals. Their slander is innocuous and unnoticed; but their praise is a horrible penalty, and the everlasting drivel of their commendation continues to drip, drip, drip, till every man of taste foregoes his old opinions of admiration in order to be at variance with such wretches.

We must confess, that owing to this cause, we had experienced some feelings of alienation from Geoffrey Crayon. We were weary

of hearing “ Aristides called the Just;” and though ourselves had originated the cry, we felt greatly inclined to turn upon the yell of blind gapers at our heels, and put the idle band to the rout. But, alas! what is fame? Before our irksomeness had swelled into any thing like passion, lo! Rumour and all her crew had, of themselves, turned tailhad given over their cheers and huzzas,—and seemed longing and lying in wait for the former object of their applause, that they might cry

him down like over-rated coin. The inferior magazines and journals, too, began to show their spite, and the New Monthly kept haggling month after month at and about Washington Irving, in a manner quite sickening to behold.

Now, the fact is, that the critical works of respectability praised the Sketch Book with justice, but bestowed on it no very extraordinary commendation. It was the talkers, the blues, who took up the theme-elevated it to the skies, and who now seem hugely inclined to precipitate it from its height of fame. Indeed, the “bustling Botherbys,” never patronize an author beyond his first or second attempt. With them, Scott's last novel is sure to be vastly inferior to his former ones, and Byron's muse inevitably loses inspiration as she grows old. They delight in none but a new name—to be puffed for a day, and then abandoned to oblivion—a Cockney dramatist-or a versify. ing peasant. And Washington Irving, they no doubt think to treat after the same fashion. This resuscitated in us our dormant feelings of admiration ;-the tide of our esteem flowed, as that of the vulgar began to ebb, and we opened the volume before us with those old predilections for the author, which, we are happy to find, have not diminished in the perusal.

“ Bracebridge Hall,” certainly does not possess the spirit of the Sketch Book. And the worthy family to whom we are introduced, and whose habits and peculiarities form the chief subject of the work, are on the whole rather dull. The lovers are insipid enough,—the General as tiresome as his own Indian stories, Mr. Simon but a poor

shadow of the famed Will Wimble of the Spectator, and the old Gentleman himself, given as the model of an English Squire of the present day, is as much like one as a courtier in the doublet and hose of Elizabeth's days, with Euphuism in his mouth, is like a modern lord in wait

Bracebridge Hall; or, The Humorists. By Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 2 vols. 8vo. Murray, London, 1822.

ing. The great blemish of the work indeed is, that it is drawn not from life, but from musty volumes, and presents a picture of habits no where to be met with, except among those whom our author has formerly ridiculed as diurnal visitants of the British Museum. He has here fallen under his own ban, and so palpably, that the essay on “ Book-Making,” in the Sketch Book, looks like a prospective quiz upon Bracebridge Hall. The Squire is too much given to falconry and archery for a gentleman of the nineteenth century; he quotes Nashe's “Quaternis,” and Tusser's “Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie;" directs the school discipline to be ordered after Peacham and Roger Ascham; and his sports after Markham's “Gentleman's Academie,” instead of “Beckford on Hunting.” While the young ladies, with a taste equally black-letter, sing “old songs of Herrick, or Carew, or Suckling," instead of Rossini, or Tom Moore.

But for all this, there are redeeming beauties even in the portion of the work we censure. The pictures of English life, though fraught with the defects above mentioned, are at times exceedingly humorous and just." Ready-money Jack” is not bad, although he, as well as the Schoolmaster, &c. are inferior to the “ John Bull,” the “Stagecoachman,' and other characters of the Sketch Book. The Radical is perhaps the best thing of the kind in these volumes.

Wary and timorous as the author evidently is in expressing a political opinion, it is evident that a just view of the dangers and tendencies of the times has not escaped him. Whenever he is betrayed into the discussion of a subject of importance, he writes with such warmth and good sense, that it is only to be regretted he is not oftener serious, and has not devoted his pen to a subject more worthy of him, than amiable and elegant trifling. * On the work are engrafted three tales; the first of which,“ the Student of Salamanca,” is but middling. The last, “Dolph Heyliger," by Diedrich Knickerbocker, is very good, in the style of " Rip Van Winkle,” full of those pictures of North American life and scenery, to us so interesting and so new. The other tale, called “ Annette Delarbre,” is indeed exquisitely beautiful, and displays stronger powers over the pathetic than are evinced even by the Sketch Book. But our limits, we fear, will not allow us to do justice to its merits in the way of extract; and, indeed, such is the popularity of the author, that, like analyses of the Waverley Novels, quotations would be but tautology to a great portion of our readers.

Ere we part with the author, we would change a word with him as to the exertions he is making to produce amicable feelings between his native land and its parent country. Mr. Irving is evidently an amiable and a well-meaning man; and we like him the better for the goodnatured vanity which he betrays, in asserting that his philanthropic labours have been crowned with success. That England has of late evinced friendly sentiments towards America, there can be no doubt; but as those sentiments were chiefly marked by the reception of the Sketch Book, it is evident that they preceded that certainly talented work, and that the success of Mr. Irving's book was more owing to our Jiberal feelings, than our liberal feelings to Mr. Irving's book. “The primum mobile of the day," as Byron says, “is cant; and the exist ing species most prevalent and most disgusting, is the cant of lib lity. There is not a puny whipster that has paid his half-guinea to c

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to the single purpose of endeavouring to secure his decease also in the parish which gave him birth. He first drew breath in the year 1763. His father was a pocket-book maker, and a marshal's man; not fortunate in his business, but of unblemished character. It was from his mother that the peculiar tastes which marked all the children were more immediately derived.

Three sons and one daughter were the issue of this alliance, and the dispositions and pursuits of each were thoroughly german to the other. The eldest, John, was bred a law stationer; but instinct soon led him to a more liberal profession. In 1807 he was tried at Stafford for stealing a parcel from the Edinburgh mail, and forging indorsations on and negotiating four bills of exchange. In 1810 he published a book, intitled Abuses of Justice, in which he announced that he had “ relinquished all criminal pursuits.” This frank declaration was not received at Bow-street with the credit which its author expected; and he was so frequently repulsed in his attempts to enter places of public amusement, that he was compelled in self-defence, on one occasion, to address the following Bill of Health to the sitting Magistrates.

“GENTLEMEN-I beg leave to inform you, that I am, with my wife, gone to the theatre, Covent Garden. I take this step in order to prevent any ill-founded, malicious construction. Trusting that I am within the pale of safety, and that my conduct will ever insure me the protection of the magistracy, I remain, Gentlemen, with all due respect, “Your most obedient very humble servant,

" John MACKCOULL." The career of a family man is very like that of a courtezan, and, in middle life the thief, for the most part, finds it his interest to become informer. In this honourable calling John spent some of bis meridian years; and, having acquired sufficient funds to open a public house, first at Lewisham, and afterwards at Hayes, he played the tapster, till the numerous daring burglaries which were committed in the neighbourhood deprived him of his license. In this difficulty he resorted to the no less profitable trade of letting lodgings in London ; and the occupation of three houses, all of which, he says, “were conducted in the most discreet and orderly manner,” soon enabled him to establish the Apollo Library, which he still keeps at Worthing, in conjunction with a widely different institution in the purlieus of Fleetmarket.

The youngest brother, Benjamin, was a youth of infinite promise, but less fortunate than the elder scions of the house of Mackcoull. In his boyhood he was the darling hope of his mother, and among his professional competitors was acknowledged to be facile princeps. A robbery at the theatres in 1786 occasioned his early removal; and the Judge before whom he was convicted, when applied to to extend mercy to Brace, the companion of Benjamin's final achievement, delivered a sufficient testimony in favour of the latter's just claim to the honours which he reaped at the debtor's door-“ Brace,” said the learned Judge, “ deserves to be hanged, were it for no other crime than that of being in company with Ben Mackcoull.”

Nor did the blood of the Mackcoulls degenerate when it rolled in female veins. Mrs. Ann Wheeler, the daughter, was a frequent visiter of the several houses of correction: and it was not an unusual sight

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to see two generations of this distinguished family employed on the same block at the same moment. The robbery of Messrs. Foulden and Stratton led Mrs. Wheeler (or Mrs. Green as she was then called) to two years imprisonment: and after her enlargement she did not long outlive her venerable dam. The old lady, Wor, as she was playfully designated by her son James, old Gunpowder) was noted for her dexterity in shoplifting: and, as she approached the term of ninety years, employed herself in a branch of business more adapted to the slowness of foot which resulted from her advanced age, but which still required no little quickness of eye, and niceness of fingering—the kitten rig, or stealing pots from public houses.

Peculiar interest always attaches to the early acts of those who in after times are to be trumpeted by fame: and we are glad to present our readers with the first recorded success of the immediate subject of this volume, to whom we now approach. A canvass bag of halfpence attached to a cat's meat barrow, attracted James Mackcoull's notice while yet a boy, and, by blowing snuff

' in the owner's eyes, he effected a transfer of the property. This snuff rachet with clicking and twitching (stealing hats from gentlemen's heads and shawls from ladies' shoulders) continued for some years to form the chief amusements of Jim's pubescence, and perfected him in the minor branches of Newgate education. The robbery of an undertaker in St. James's Park, which was executed with more daring than prudence, compelled him to retire from London. His father, in order to secrete him from the pursuit of the police, gladly placed him on board the tender; and he served in the navy for nine years, if not without offence at least without detection.

On his return to England he renewed his youthful pursuits with great success: and at twenty-eight years of age he entered into the bands of marriage with a lady who kept a lodging-house. This house soon became a celebrated depôt for stolen goods; and its notoriety at length induced its proprietor to try a temporary retreat. The minor clergy (as the juvenile thieves were then called) used to bring all their booty to Mackcoull; and the property thus obtained was disposed of in a recess, formed by shutting up a window, (hence, in allusion to the tax, facetiously denominated Pitt's picture) so curiously covered in, pannelled over, and papered, that it long defied the Argus-eyed officers. Hamburgh was the spot selected for Mackcoull's delegation ; and there in the spring of 1802, having assumed the name of Moffat, he contrived not only to support himself by the gaming table, but to remit large bills to his wife in London. After twelve months residence he took out a burger brief, or burgess ticket, and nominally established himself as an agent for goods intended for Leipzig fair. In 1804 he decamped from Hamburgh, being suspected of a robbery at the theatre. At Rotterdam he spent nine months, but with unusual ill fortune: losing his money at play, and incurring a load of debt, which obliged him, after a second passing visit to Hamburgh, to embark again for England. London was too hot a residence for more than a few days; and he resolved to enter upon untried ground in the northern districts of the kingdom.

In Edinburgh he lived in retirement till he was detected, in 1806, in picking pockets at the theatre. He escaped, but bore about him for life the mark, of a blow on his head received in the scuffle.

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of the Paisley Union Bank, which was dismissed. Next he brought a second action against Mr. Penton and Baillie Johnston, in which the first was assoilized, and farther proceedings were required as to the second ; thirdly, he raised actions against Mr. Cockburn, who had granted the warrant for delivering the draft, and the cashier who had received them; and fourthly, he instituted a suit, by the magnanimous name of a Multiplepounding, to determine the right of parties to the bills in question.

The forms of the Scotch courts, sorely against his will, brought on the necessity of a judicial examination, notwithstanding the forcible objection urged by his counsel, against a proceeding which appears to us, in every view of it, to be most inequitable, It was well said of the defenders (the Paisley Bank) that though the process had now lasted three years,

“« They had not, up to that hour, been able to procure the slightest evidence of any one of the numerous allegations they had presumed to make against him; but were compelled at last to refer to him, whom they had designated a thief and a robber, to determine, by his judicial declaration, WHETHER THEY THEMSELVES HAD NOT BEEN GUILTY OF THEFT AND ROBBERY!!!!” P. 146.

The examination occupied three days, during which, though frequently hard pressed, he fenced most dexterously with the interrogatories of the defenders' counsel. He stated, among other things, that his fictitious friend, James Martin, had lodgings in Swallow-street, London; but that he had forgotten the number of the house. This answer was truly artful, for the greater part of Swallow-street had already been pulled down to make way for Mr. Nash's alterations. He complained that some of the questions “ might lead to rude inquiries, disagreeable to the feelings of those at whom they were addressed:” he spoke of the injustice which he had suffered from the Paisley Bank: and at length refused, without hearing the opinion of the Lord Ordinary (which was given in his favour) to answer any other question, after“ an examination so tedious and so little to the purpose.' The session rose on the day after his final examination; and he returned to London in high spirits, confident of gaining his cause, quite assured that he had said nothing to criminate himself, and that, at so great a distance of time, the bank could never establish his guilt.

In 1819, he addressed a letter to Lord Sidmouth, which Mr. Grey Bennet might take as a general model for all the petitions which he is in the habit of presenting from injured individuals, and oppressed innocence. It speaks of the inordinate and dangerous power of the procurator fiscal, an officer of the crown. It complains of the torture of unexampled persecution, to which the writer, though an Englishman, had been exposed by this officer. That by a prostitution of his public duties, he (Mackcoull) had been illegally imprisoned, stripped of his property, and subjected to a six years' litigation of abuse, irrelevancy, and calumny. Then follow some remarks on the saleable nature of the procurator's office, and his unconstitutional nomination.

“The high and extravagant price given, almost monthly, by culprit offenders, and Scottish bankers, to the police of Bow-street, for furnishing and sending down into Scotland some ill-fated Englishman, whose supposed guilt shall, with the operation and abuse of Scottish law, prevent detection in their more legitimate channels, has, I suspect, rather generated than suppressed these crimes. No crime haş, of late, become so frequent as that of robbery of the Scottish banks; and