chief about his neck, which he was in the custom of wearing in the morning. He seemed to look at me with a bow of recognizance. I acknowledge I started; but having paused for a few seconds, I became convinced that it was an illusion, either of the mind or sight; and keeping my eyes fixed upon the object, walked briskly up. It vanished-not by sinking, but seemed to melt away into viewlessair! I brought my hand over the wall on which it had seemed to lean-nothing was there. The thing, doubtless, happened, from the impression previously made on my mind; but how it should have occurred after the subject had been banished, and the mind intent on a different subject, and how the external senses should so readily have aided the deception, especially with one so sceptical as to every thing of the kind, are circumstances which I have never been able satisfactorily to comprehend.

B.

THE PIRATE. BY THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.' THREE VOLUMES POST OCTAVO. CONSTABLE & CO.

WHEN an author, by a series of suc cessful efforts, happens to attain the apex of celebrity and fame, it is no uncommon fashion among literatists, and the literary mobocracy in general, upon the appearance of any subse quent work by the same pen, to make the important discovery, that it is, by many degrees, and in many points, inferior to some or all of its predecessors. Readers of this genus seem incapable of comprehending, that, in whatever channel its exertions may be directed, the same mind will always possess features of selfresemblance that there are trains of thought and association, mental dispositions and aptitudes, capabilities and affinities peculiar to, and inherent in, every individual nature; -and that what, at first, burst upon us in the raciness, freshness, and surprise of a splendid and attractive novelty, has, by recurrence, been converted into something with which we have established a familiarity of knowledge, which, though it be destructive of rude and vulgar wonder, is compatible with the enjoyment of the intensest delight. When we meet

in company, for the first time, a man, for example, like the inimitable Burns, celebrated no less for his genius than for his transcendent conversational talents, the idol and god of every circle, our primary impressions partake more of astonishment than of pleasure; our expectations have been raised, and our fancies have figured to themselves an imaginary being, whom we long to contemplate, and to compare and contrast with the much-boasted reality: we hang on his lips, and dwell on his words; we are prepared to be astonished, and excited; we ascribe to him talents which he does not possess, find meanings for his language which he never dreamt of, discover in every syllable he utters infinitely more than meets the ear, and, in his commonest and feeblest efforts, believe there is a pregnancy of thought, and a richness and beauty of expression, and a peculiarly felicitous adaptation-all which is no more than the ordinary colouring of a fan cy in any degree imaginative, warmed with expectation, and eager to be astonished. But how different does the case become, upon further and more accurate knowledge of the object of our first idolatry and admi ration! Novelty and wonder disappearing together, the mind has time to survey coolly the object of its first enthusiasm ; imaginary attributes immediately vanish, and real talent and genius shine more conspicuously, when no longer encircled by the penumbrous halo thrown off from our own minds. Admiration hence becomes rational, because it is founded on real knowledge! We indeed become familiar with that which we first regarded as the Thibetians do their sovereign Lama; but this familiarity only enhances our real and proper esteem, and value, and reverence; because we now observe, in all the contiguity of immediate observation, what was for merly viewed through a magnifying medium, and encreased in apparent size and dimensions by the awful distance of the observer. Now, it is no more than natural-on the contrary, it is what we might a priori anticipate-that vulgar and indiscriminating minds should be more captivated with their first impressions, than de

lighted with subsequent familiarised knowledge, and that they should prefer the boisterous and rude gratification of excited and expectant curio sity, to the less intense, but more enduring and spiritualized delight which results from a pure and cultivated taste.

But whither, the reader will ask, does all this tend, and what is the exact amount of it? We will answer the question :-The productions of the author of Waverley have now grown so numerous--the public have become so well acquainted with the graces and peculiarities of his manner-his style of delineation is no longer to be guessed at-and his intimate knowledge of the manners, superstitions, antiquities, history, and national character of his country, is so well established, and so generally admitted, that, with the mobocracy of the Blues and the Cotteries, it seems to be taken for granted, that he shall never equal himself that he is now impar sibi-and that, in every succeeding production, there shall be a regular progression of decay, till the great luminary, once the Lord of the Ascendant, and who, by his excessive splendor, eclipsed the lesser glories of the literary firmament, as the sun does the stars when he crosses the meridian, shall sink, like the Parsce in Anastasius, ❝ into everlasting rest." This, to be sure, is very fine, and very pathetic; but, happily for the pleasures which we yet expect to taste from this inexhaustible source of delightful invention, not very true; in proof of which allegation, we would only refer to the last in the series of these astonishing "Novels by the Author of Waverley," Kenilworth-in our estimation, ant we say it boldly and decidedly, the most finished, most dramatic, most splendid, most tragical, and most deeply interesting and instructive of all the progeny of this singular writer. Yet all this, we are well aware, will be no conclusive answer to the sage persons and maiden critics, for whose benefit we are now writing, and who, with their natural consistency, seek what no mortai can achieve-because the thing is impossible-namely, that each successive production from the pen of GREAT UNKNOWN" shall be as

the

entirely sui generis, and as dissimilar to any of its predecessors, as Caleb Williams is to Tom Jones, or the Castle of Otranto to the Abbot or the Monastery. Yet, in despite of all this, we shall not be surprised, nor, let us add, very greatly alarmed, though we hear tea-table and coterie critics, utriusque generis, asserting, with all the dogmatism of conceited imbecility, that Mordaunt Merton is only another Henry Morton, or Rcland Græme that Norna of the Fitful-head is nothing but a new and improved version of the Gipsy Sybil, Meg Merrilies-that Brenda Troil, the affectionate and the sensible, is just Rose Bradwardine rediviva; while the ethereal, sylph-like, romantic, imaginative Minna, may probably, for ought we know, be described as an unhappy compound of the fantastical attributes of Flora MacIvor, and the more retired, but not less extravagant qualities, which distinguish the insipid Edith Bellenden.

But, dismissing these tea-sipping wittols and self-constituted dispensers of immortality-of all colours, blue included-we shall proceed to give our readers such glimpses of insight into the internal machinery of 66 THE PIRATE," a ,"as is consistent with the condensation and compression necessarily imposed on us by the nature of this work.

The facts on which the author has woven this fine fiction are stated by himself in an advertisement:-"In the month of January 1704-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearing twenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by John Gow, or Goffe, or Smith, came to the Orkney Islands, and were discovered to be pirates, by the various acts of insolence and villainy committed by the crew. These were for some time submitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands not possessing arms or means of resistance; and so bold was the captain of these banditti, that he not only came a-shore, and gave dancing-parties in the village of Stromness, but, before his real character was discovered, engaged the affections, and received the troth-plight of a young lady pos sessed of some property. A patriotic individual, James Fea, younger of

Clestron, formed the plan of securing the buccaneer, which he afterwards effected by a mixture of courage and address, in consequence chiefly of Gow's vessel having gone a-shore near the harbour of Calfsound, on the island of Eda, not far distant from a house then inhabited by Mr Fea." That this matter-of-fact story is, toto cœlo, different from the ingenious fiction of" THE PIRATE," 'compiled from materials to which he alone had access, by the author of Waverley," will appear by the following imperfect analysis:—

After some general remarks as to the position and physical character of Zetland, the first personages introduced to the reader's acquaintance are Magnus Troil, "the true Udaller* of Zetland," and a Mr Basil Merton, one whom, at first, we take for the most supercilious, anomalous, and repulsive, of all possible Cynics; and who appears to have sought an asylum, in this remote and tempestuous region, from the communion, persecutions, and vices, of his own species. On the mainland, as it is called, of Zetland, Magnus Troil was a person of great importance, both from his acting as Fowde, or Provincial Magistrate, and from his blunt, frank, hospitable, and generous manners.Sprung from the ancient Norwegian Rovers, who, in former days, had effected a settlement on the stormy rocks of Zetland; proud of his descent from the Norsemen, whose laws and customs he, was anxious to maintain and inculcate to the utmost; and peculiarly jealous of every thing that savoured of Scotland, by which he regarded his native rocks as held in vile and degrading subjection; the jolly Udaller, to all the fire and bravery of his ancestors, added a degree of passionate attachment to their customs, institutions, and superstitions; an abruptness of manner, and a bluffness of address, natural to the inhabitants of a region where the people are, in some degree, amphibious; and an impatience of temper,

"The Udallers are the allodial possessors of Zetland, who hold their possessions under the old Norwegian law,

instead of the feudal tenures introduced among them from Scotland." Author.

reso

and a proneness to resent the least approach to improper familiarity, which impart to his general character something to excite our ridicule, but infinitely more to command our esteem and regard. He is hospitable to excess-fond of convivial pleasureshonest-open-generous-tenderhearted-decisive-bold-and lute;-the best of husbands, though early deprived of his partner-the best of fathers, his heart being bound up in his daughters, of whom we shall speak immediately-and the patriarchal friend and protector,`esteemed and loved, of every inhabitant of the island. This generous and high-spirited old man had two daughters, Minna and Brenda Troil, whose characters are finely conceived, and no less successfully and felicitously discriminated:-Minna, the eldest, dark-complexioned, stately in her form, with "finely-pencilled eyebrows;" endowed with that excessive sensibility which is the invariable accompaniment of lofty minds, imbued with the unction of geniusimaginative-serious-possessed of great mental energy-somewhat romantic, the natural consequence of the retired manner in which she had been educated-and capable of cherishing feelings deep and permanent. Not less beautiful, though her beauty was, of a less haughty and commanding complexion, was Brenda Troil, the younger daughter of the Udaller, who, to great gentleness, good sense, delicacy, and everyday sensibility, united a number of those homely qualities of the heart, which, if they do not conspire to form great, at least produce useful characters, adapted to the bosom scenes of domestic life, and better fitted to make respectable and amiable wives and mothers, than romantic mistresses or heroines.

Basil Mertoun, the knight of " the dark hour," whom we have already named, had a son, Mordaunt, who felt no disposition whatever to imitate his father's example, and bury himself alive. The youth, possessed of that love of enterprise and society peculiar to his years, and, even among the bold youth of these islands, distinguished for the fearless intrepidity with which he suspended himself on the face of the perpendicular cliffs,