overstated the force of his objection.

But it is well known, that the peculiar forte of the Great Unknown has never (we ought to except Kenilworth, however,) consisted in a very dexterous evolution of his story. On the contrary, the characters are with him every thing, the fable nothing. He seems to acquire a sort of paternal fondness for them in proportion as he mingles in their society; their energies are incessantly expanding in his hands, and he delights to exhibit them in every variety of light and shadow; till the very last moment, he plays them off in their full vigour and activity, forces them to tread the scene for our amusement, and when at length he is reluctantly compelled to dismiss them, he does it in such an abrupt and summary fashion, that you would swear Bailie Macwheeble had arrived, armed with a caption and horning, and other terrors of the law, to execute ultimate diligence. In the present work, Dr Dryasdust, in five pages, most relentlessly disposes of those whose fortunes had interested us through three volumes; and so unsuccessful had the researches of the venerable antiquary proved, that he makes no mention whatever of him of the umbrageous beaver-Joshua Geddes, to wit-and his worthy sister, to whom we felt more kindly disposed than may seem suitable for us at this present writing to confess.

But to be more particular, as your popular preachers say, we confess we have a prodigious liking for Peter Peebles and his law-suits, and though we think him the oddest compound of knavery and folly that ever existed, or ever was imagined, yet he is drawn so much to the life, and is brought out in such full presentment before us, that we at once recognise him as an individual we have long known, though we never before had such an opportunity for perfecting our acquaintance, and at the same time set him down as the type of a species likely to endure as long as the "law's delay" fosters a litigious spirit among men. The consultation at old Fairford's is quite excellent, and so is the hearing of the great cause, "Poor Peter Peebles against Plainstanes," with young Fairford's debut

as counsel for the crack-brained litigant. Persons whose feelings are in perfect subordination to their interests, and who are utter sceptics as to the innate benevolence of the human heart, will no doubt consider the conduct of young Fairford, in suddenly flying from the great arena of his profession, where he had commenced his career with such eclat, to the succour of his friend Latimer, as grossly improbable and unnatural; and, to say the truth, when we found that his absence had in some measure compromised "the great cause," we ourselves had something like a feeling of chagrin and disappointment; but when we recollected, that, by following this course, the author had an opportunity of exhibiting the best feelings of our nature, as carrying it over views of immediate interest and advancement, in a profession proverbially quick-sighted, where the main chance is concerned, and, above all, when we considered that, by this expedient, the inimitable Peter is again brought on the field in search of his runaway counsel, we really found it impossible to try an incident so fertile in character and amusement, by too severe a rule.

.

Next to Peter Peebles and his law-suits, readers who feel like us will probably be inclined to class Wandering Willie, no unimportant personage in the scene; for as it is often through the intervention of such characters that this author brings about the denouement of his plot, so it is in painting them that he displays his intuitive knowledge of character, and that rare and happy talent for causing it to develope and display itself, in which he is confessedly without a rival. The language which he puts in the mouths of such personages is inconceivably felicitous and characteristic, without the least tinge of meanness or vulgarity, and rich, beyond all parallel, in that broad native humour only to be found among the lower classes of Scotland, and for the expression of which their Doric idiom is so finely adapted.

But the main interest of this "Tale of the Eighteenth Century,"-an interest, by the way, which is confined to the last volume,-arises from the bold expedient of bringing once more

upon the scene the unfortunate Prince Charles Edward. By the ardent zeal and resolute intrigues of Hugh Redgauntlet, some of the Jacobites of the North of England, who basely betrayed the cause they had pledged themselves to support in the Forty-Five, when brave men were in the field, and the chances in their favour, were ready, according to the showing of our author, to lift the standard of revolt, at the distance of more than twenty years thereafter, and, with this view, had agreed to invite the Pretender to repair to England. He lands accordingly, in disguise, of course,-and the chief conspirator, Redgauntlet, presents to him, in an ale-house on a lone moor, the men who had nobly resolved to draw their swords in his cause, when every human chance of success had long since been lost. The scene is altogether so admirable, that we shall extract part of it, which we do the more readily, as the author has brought into full view one, at least, of the hereditary infirmities of the ill-fated race of Stuart. At the small sacrifice of cashiering the harlot, whom he admits he all but detested, and who, his friends were well aware, was in the pay of the existing Go vernment, to which she regularly be trayed every thing he said or did, he is offered another chance (however small) for regaining the crown, of which he was the lawful heir; and, with a truly legitimate abhorrence of controul, he obstinately casts it away after he had arrived at the scene of action, and meanly sneaks off, accepting his personal safety as a boon from one of the ancient enemies of his race-a Campbell, in short. Despicable as we know his character to have been, this was too much even for us: he could hardly have for gotten Culloden, and the injury done to his cause on that fatal day by the Campbells-a clan who were ever bravest when on the strongest side., But let us do justice to our author, or rather let us acknowledge, that the truth of history compelled him, so far at least, to place the character of this unhappy Prince in its true light. That character was, from the first, well known to the Highlanders, though they naturally sought to shelter its vices and infir

mities. His conduct at Gladsmuir, at Clifton, at Falkirk, and at Culloden, proved him a coward of the most ignoble kind; for many constitutional cowards, with his motive and his cue for action, would have planted themselves in the front of the battle, instead of skulking at a secure distance amidst a posse of blackguard Irish Rapparees. Cowardice and heartlessness are as inseparable as bravery and magnanimity. The effeminate and inglorious poltroon subsided into a brawling drunkard and inveterate sot, who was never heard, even in wine, to utter an expression of sorrow, or seen to shed a tear of regret, for the brave men who perished in the field or on the scaffold in his cause. Nay, we have it on the most undoubted authority, that when he had regained the continent, and was of course in safety, he refused to recognise a highly-respectable individual who had sheltered him at his utmost need, and who was wandering an exile, without house or home, shed or shelter, for the generous action which met so base a return. It is high time there should be an end to the absurd romance which has so long been associated with the name of one of the meanest and most worthless of human beings. But we are utterly forgetting our promised extract.

Redgauntlet presented to him successively the young Lord ———, and his kinstrembled as, bowing and kissing his hand, man, Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet, who he found himself surprised into what might be construed an act of high treason which yet he saw no safe means to avoid.

Sir Richard Glendale seemed person. ally known to Charles Edward, who received him with a mixture of dignity and affection, and seemed to sympathize with the tears which rushed into that gentleman's eyes as he bid his Majesty welcome to his native kingdom.

"Yes, my good Sir Richard," said the unfortunate Prince, in a tone melancholy. his faithful friends once more-not, peryet resolved, "Charles Edward is with haps, with his former gay hopes which undervalued danger, but with the same determined contempt of the worst which can befall him, in claiming his own rights and those of his country."

"I rejoice, Sire—and yet, alas! I must also grieve, to see you once more on the British shores," said Sir Richard Glen

dale, and stopped short-a tumult of contradictory feelings preventing his farther utterance.

"It is the call of my faithful and suffering people which alone could have in duced me to take once more the sword in my hand. For my own part, Sir Richard, when I have reflected how many of my loyal and devoted friends perished by the sword and by proscription, or died indigent and neglected in a foreign land, I have often sworn, that no view to my personal aggrandizement should again induce me to agitate a title which has cost my followers so dear. But since so many men of worth and honour conceive the cause of England and Scotland to be linked with that of Charles Stuart, I must follow their brave example, and, laying aside all other considerations, once more stand forward as their deliverer. I am, however, come hither upon your invitation; and as you are so completely acquainted with circumstances to which my absence must necessarily have rendered me a stranger, I must be a mere tool in the hands of my friends. I know well I never can refer myself implicitly to more loyal hearts or wiser heads, than Herries Redgauntlet, and Sir Richard Glendale. Give me your advice, then, how we are to proceed, and decide upon the fate of Charles Edward."

Redgauntlet looked at Sir Richard, as if to say, "Can you press any additional or unpleasant condition at a moment like this ?" And the other shook his head and looked down, as if his resolution was unaltered, and yet as feeling all the deli, cacy of the situation.

There was a silence, which was broken by the unfortunate representative of an unhappy dynasty, with some appearance of irritation. "This is strange, gentle men," he said; "you have sent for me from the bosom of my family, to head an adventure of doubt and danger; and when I come, your own minds seem to be still irresolute. I had not expected this on the part of two such men."

"For me, Sire," said Redgauntlet, "the steel of my sword is not truer than the temper of my mind."

"My Lord's and mine are equally so," said Sir Richard; "but you had in charge, Mr Redgauntlet, to convey our request to his Majesty, coupled with certain conditions."

“And I discharged my duty to his Majesty and to you," said Redgauntlet.

save

"I looked at no condition, gentlemen," said their King with dignity," that which called me here to assert my rights in person. That I have fulfilled at no common risk. Here I stand to keep

my word, and I expect of you to be true to yours."

"There was, or should have been, something more than that in our proposal, please your Majesty," said Sir Richard. "There was a condition annexed to it."

"I saw it not," said Charles, inter. rupting him. "Out of tenderness towards the noble hearts of whom I think so highly, I would neither see nor read anything which could lessen them in my love and my esteem. Conditions can have no part betwixt Prince and subject."

"Sire," said Redgauntlet, kneeling on one knee," I see from Sir Richard's countenance he deems it my fault that your Majesty seems ignorant of what your subjects desired that I should communicate to your Majesty. For Heaven's sake! for the sake of all my past services and sufferings, leave not such a stain upon my honour! The note, Number D., of which this is a copy, referred to the painful subject to which Sir Richard again directs your attention."

"You press upon me, gentlemen," said the Prince, colouring highly, "recollections, which, as I hold them most alien to your character, I would willingly have banished from my memory. I did not suppose that my loyal subjects would think so poorly of me, as to use my depressed circumstances as a reason for forcing themselves into my domestic privacies, and stipulating arrangements with their King regarding matters, in which the meanest hinds claim the privilege of thinking for themselves. In affairs of state and public policy, I will ever be guided as becomes a prince, by the advice of my wisest counsellors; in those which regard my private affections, and my domestic arrangements, I claim the same freedom of will which I allow to all my subjects, and without which a crown were less worth wearing than a beggar's bonnet."

66

May it please your Majesty," said Sir Richard Glendale, " I see it must be my lot to speak unwilling truths; but believe me, I do so with as much profound respect as deep regret. It is true, we have called you to head a mighty undertaking, and that your Majesty, preferring honour to safety, and the love of your country to your own ease, has condescended to become our leader. But we also pointed out as a necessary and indispensible preparatory step to the achievement of our purpose and, I must say, as a positive condition of our engaging in it-that an individual, supposed,→I presume not to guess how truly,to have your Majesty's more intimate confidence, and believed, I will not say on absolute

proof, but upon the most pregnant suspicion, to be capable of betraying that confidence to the Elector of Hanover, should be removed from your royal household and society."

"This is too insolent, Sir Richard!" said Charles Edward. "Have you inveigled me into your power to bait me in this unseemly manner?-And you, Redgauntlet, why did you suffer matters to come to such a point as this, without making me more distinctly aware what insults were to be practised on me ?"

"My gracious Prince," said Redgauntlet, "I am so far to blame in this, that I did not think so slight an impediment as that of a woman's society could have really interrupted an undertaking of this magnitude. I am a plain man, Sire, and speak but bluntly; I could not have dreamt but what, within the first five minutes of this interview, either Sir Richard and his friends would have ceased to insist upon a condition so ungrateful to your Majesty, or that your Majesty would have sacrificed this unhappy attachment to the sound advice, or even to the over-anxious suspicions, of so many faithful subjects. I saw no entanglement in such a difficulty, which on either side might not have been broken through like a cobweb."

"You were mistaken, Sir," said Charles Edward," entirely mistaken-as much so as you are at this moment, when you think in your heart my refusal to comply with this insolent proposition is dictated by a childish and romantic passion for this individual. I tell you, Sir, I could part with that individual to-morrow, without an instant's regret that I have had thoughts of dismissing her from my court, for reasons known to myself; but that I will never betray my rights as a Sovereign and a man, by taking this step to secure the favour of any one, or to purchase that allegiance which, if you owe it to me at all, is due to mejas my birth-right."

"I am sorry for this," said Redgauntlet; "I hope both your Majesty and Sir Richard will re-consider your resolutions, or forbear this discussion, in a conjuncture so pressing. I trust your Majesty will recollect that you are on hostile ground; that our preparations cannot have so far escaped notice as to permit us now with safety to retreat from our purpose; inso-much, that it is with the deepest anxiety of heart I foresee even danger to your own royal person, unless you can generously give your subjects the satisfaction, which Sir Richard seems to think they are obstinate in demanding.'

circumstances of personal danger in which you expect to overcome a resolution, which is founded on a sense of what is due to me as a man or a Prince? If the axe and scaffold were ready before the windows of Whitehall, I would rather tread the same path with my great-grand. father, than concede the slightest point in which my honour is concerned."

He spoke these words with a detertermined accent, and looked around him on the company, all of whom (excepting Darsie, who saw, he thought, a fair pe riod to a most perilous enterprise) seemed in deep anxiety and confusion. At length, Sir Richard spoke in a solemn and melancholy tone:

"If the safety," he said, "of poor Richard Glendale were alone concerned in this matter, I have never valued my life enough to weigh it against the slightest point of your Majesty's service. But I am but a messenger-a commissioner, who must execute my trust, and upon whom a thousand voices will cry, Curse and woe, if I do it not with fidelity. All of your adherents, even Redgauntlet himself, see certain ruin to this enterprizethe greatest danger to your Majesty's person-the utter destruction of all your party and friends, if they insist not on the point, which, unfortunately, your Majesty is so unwilling to concede. I speak it with a heart full of anguish-with a tongue unable to utter my emotions but it must be spoken—the fatal truth— that if your royal goodness cannot yield to us a boon which we hold necessary to our security and your own, your Majesty with one word disarms ten thousand men, ready to draw their swords in your behalf; or, to speak yet more plainly, you annihilate even the semblance of a royal party in Great Britain."

"And why do you not add," said the Prince, scornfully," that the men who have been ready to assume arms in my behalf, will atone for their treason to the Elector, by delivering me up to the fate for which so many proclamations have destined me? Carry my head to St James's, gentlemen; you will do a more acceptable and a more honourable action, than, having inveigled me into a situation which places me so completely in your power, to dishonour yourselves by propositions which dishonour me.”

"By your leave, Sir Richard," said the young nobleman, "not till we have learned what measures can be taken for his Majesty's personal safety."

"Care not for me, young man," said

Charles Edward; "when I was in the society of Highland robbers and cattle drovers, I was safer than I now hold my self among the representatives of the best blood in England.-Farewell, gentlemen! I will shift for myself."

"This must never be," said Redgauntlet. "Let me, that brought you to the point of danger, at least provide for your safe retreat."

So saying, he hastily left the apart ment, followed by his nephew. The Wanderer, averting his eyes from Lord

and Sir Richard Glendale, threw himself into a seat at the upper end of the apartment, while they, in much anxiety, stood together, at a distance from him, and conversed in whispers.

We fairly confess, that we have given the above extract for a special purpose; certainly not because we deem it the happiest or best we could have culled; but it would be the very climax of absurdity to quote largely from a work which must be perused by all the world, ere our desultory remarks see the light.

Though somewhat too furious a Jacobite, everybody will, of course, admire the gallant bearing and intre pid self-devotion of Hugh Redgauntlet. It was one of the characteristics of that unhappy party, and reflects immortal honour on their memory, whatever may be thought of their principles, that never men acted from motives more perfectly generous or disinterested.-Disinterested did we say? Nay, in the very teeth of every thing which interest, in its broadest and most comprehensive sense implies; and it appears to have been the author's object to give, as it were, a complete impersonation of that devoted and self-sacrificing spirit of loy. alty which, had it been directed, in the first instance, even by ordinary talents and courage, must have been crowned with success. In this he has fully succeeded. The contempt we may feel for Charles will never lessen our admiration of Redgauntlet.

Among the secondary characters, the psalm-singing scoundrel Turnpenny and Nanty Ewart, the skipper of the smuggling lugger, are drawn with the freest and boldest pencil; the latter being a personage of a totally different cast from that Dutch-built brute Dick Hatterick. Joshua Geddes and his sister are quite inimitable in their way, and sketched by so delicate and kindly a hand withal, that the Society of Friends, could they be persuaded to countenance an act of such venial idolatry, ought incontinent to cause a bust of the author of Waverley to be erected in their places of spiritual converse. The hero is, as usual, an absolute ninny, drifted about by every wind that blows, and, in point of real importance, is not a tenth-rate person in the scene. His friend, young Fairford, is also a common-place lad, not much above the ordinary calibre of the togati, with which the OuterHouse is now, thanks be to the gods, so plentifully stocked; while his father, with a full share of the stiffness and formality of the last age, and not a little of the worldly wisdom for which his profession generally get credit, exhibits at the same time so much shrewdness, mingled with an unique sort of bonhommie, that we consider him a very favourably-drawn, but faithful representative, of the well-employed Lawyer of the Eighteenth Century.

But we must now draw these hasty remarks to a close. From what we have said, it will be apparent that we do not consider "Redgauntlet" as equal to the best, and as certainly not the worst of this author's productions. It bears certain marks of carelessness and haste, which we will not stay to particularize, though they will be obvious enough to an attentive reader; but it also contains scenes of such overmastering power, as to atone for all these and a thousand other faults; and, which is most wonderful of all, adds several new characters to the magnificent gallery already furnished out by the genius of the Author of Waverley.