inclined to say, that the respective situa tions, and action employed by the "Pronuba," and by the " Paraninfo;" the first evidently drawing the bride forwards, and the latter assisting in compelling her to obey, do not simply denote the celebration of a first marriage, but that of the second on one side, at least; and, perhaps, indeed, of two widowed persons. It is clear, that the apparent unwillingness of the lady, in case of her first marriage, arises rather from the circumstance of her espousing a man formerly married, than from the usual timidity and bashfulness of a girl. Or, supposing her to be a widow, her fears are accounted for, by the recollection of her vows of fidelity given to a former husband; or from doubts, whether her second nuptials may prove as fortunate; and whether for "better or worse,' the memory of the former must recur to her mind at such a moment with very lively force.

وو

We may also gather, that Apollo and his sister, while they appear under happy

auspices, and support the bride by their presence, do, in some degree, reproach her for her hesitation. And we cannot but notice the singular apparel of the lady engaged in conversation with the husband; nor suppose her intent on the usual biting gibes and jests, so much as on a particular discourse naturally suggested by a seriouslooking personage of forty years of age; if, indeed, we are not to believe him farther advanced, as his thick black beard and his spear, indicating a military life, point out the widower going to his second nuptials, either with a virgin who can hardly flatter herself with meeting with the ardent attachment of youth, or with a lady already accustomed to the hymeneal yoke.

But we have no further space to discuss the authorities of poets, philologers, and ancient historians, which might confirm our conjectures: therefore, we must content ourselves with referring the matter to those more deeply versed in this species of erudition.

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Dr. JONATHAN STOKES, of Chesterfield, has favoured us with the following observations, on an article in our last Number:

"The English Flora and its author may have their faults, but the Flora is a good one, and Sir Jas. S. a good observer. The booksellers may have told him it would not sell without detailed generic descriptions, a certain admixture of a natural system, and a little irrelevant matter to enliven the driness of pure botany, to the amateurs, or rather would-be-thought botanists. But farther in favour of Sir James, I must allege, that, in his Flor. Brit., he regularly cites Juss. and the great carpologist. I think your reviewer could not have known that the author is out of health; but he will now have learnt from the public prints that his state of health prevented him attending the Linnæan anniversary, and will, I hope, abstain from any remarks which might give pain to him who gave name to Smithia Sensitiva.

"I do not object to an examination of the comparative merits of deceased authors, as, for instance, whether Jacq. Curt. Halle or Linnaeus wrote the best Flora; but such comparisons of living authors can only tend to excite bad passions, or to misguide the application of talents, instead of leaving them to the natural tendency of the mind and surrounding circumstances. Let some draw, others describe, and others distinguish."

* We fear, that, in the gratuitous distribution of the 5000 Numbers, between the first and fifth of June, many irregularities and disappointments arose. The fault was not in the Proprietors or Publishers, for they rendered every facility in their power; but in many cases, country booksellers neglected to send special and separate orders; and in others, the wholesale booksellers objected to pack a work, which yielded no immediate profit! Against such inadvertencies and sinister feelings it was impossible to guard; and to these and similar causes must be ascribed the disappointment of many well-wishers to the plan. We hope, however, that our interest will not be essentially thwarted, and that the public, and the booksellers in town and country, will cordially assist in promoting the circulation of a work so interesting and important to all.

THE

MONTHLY

CRITICAL GAZETTE.

AUGUST 1, 1824.-No. 3.

BIOGRAPHY.

Lady Murray's Memoirs. Second Edition.-Edinburgh. 8vo. pp. 165. THE opinions of Sir Patrick Home (afterwards Lord Marchmont) and of Robert Baillie, of Jerviswood, on the subjects of civil and religious liberty, are familiar to every one who takes an interest in the affairs of Scotland, as they stood during the 17th century. To Lady Murray, grand-daughter of these two great men, known as the brilliant friends of the brilliant Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and celebrated by Gay in a congratulatory ode to Pope, as the "sweet-tongued Murray," the public is indebted for the above interesting Memoirs.

The tracing of the private history of individuals opens to us sources of interest of a different nature, and takes a stronger hold of our sympathies, than broad pictures of national manners, since it concentrates our attention on a smaller circle of actors-actors with whose feelings we consequently acquire a more prolonged and intimate acquaintance. Again, whatever befalls a race of persons exalted, and placed aloof from the common crowd of mankind, is seen distinctly, both in reference to its causes and its results; while the catastrophes which overwhelm more obscure individuals, appear insulated and unprepared; and are less interesting, because we cannot have so long a retrospect into the fatal ramifications of circumstances which led to them. The fortunes of an individual (a circumstance of which the Greek tragedians availed themselves) likewise impress the imagination much more strongly when we have to consider him not at liberty to choose his own situation, but as succeeding to ancestors in whose steps he must tread, and who have left him a complicated and difficult part to play. This was particularly the case among the feudal barons of Scotland, at the time of that persecution from which the subjects of the Memoirs under review suffered for a time, and over which, at the establishment of the Orange family on the throne, they finally triumphed. The following is a striking picture of the harassing results of persecution.

"After persecution began afresh," says Lady Murray, "and my grandfather Baillie was again in prison, her father thought it necessary to keep concealed; and soon found he had too good reason for so doing; parties being continually sent out in search of him, 2 C

Crit. Gaz, Vol. 1. No. 3.

and often to his own house, to the great terror of all in it. The frequent examinations and oaths put to servants were so strict, that they durst not run the risk of trusting any of them (except one man, a carpenter, named James Winter, who used to work in the house.) By the assistance of this man, they got a bed and bed-clothes carried in the night to the burial-place, a vault under ground, at Polworth Church, a mile from the house; where he was concealed a month, and had only for light an open slit at one end, through which nobody could see what was below. She went every day by herself, at midnight, to carry him victuals and drink, and staid with him as long as she could, to get home before day. In all this time my grandfather shewed the most constant composure and cheerfulness of mind. Often did they laugh heartily in that doleful habitation at different accidents that happened. She had at that time a terror for a churchyard, especially in the dark, as is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories. But, when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled over the graves every night alone, without fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but for soldiers and parties in search of him, which the least noise or motion of a leaf put her in terror for. The minister's house was near the church: the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking, as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery; but my grandfather sent for the minister next day, and, upon pretence of a mad dog, got him to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals to carry to him without the servants suspecting it; and the only way it was done, was by stealing off her plate at dinner into her lap. As the gloomy habitation my grandfather was in was not to be endured long, but from necessity, they were contriving other places of safety for him: amongst the rest, particularly, one under a bed, which drew out in a ground floor, in a room of which my mother kept the key. She and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in the earth after lifting the boards; which they did by scratching it up with their hands, not to make any noise, till she left not a nail upon her fingers; she helping the man to carry the earth as they dug it, in a sheet on his back, out at the window into the garden. He then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air. When all this was finished, for it was long about, she thought herself the most staid happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for a month, her father returned home; but, after being at home a week or two, one day, on lifting the boards, the bed bounced to the top, the box being full of water. In her life, she was never so struck, and had nearly dropped down, it being, at that time, their only refuge. Her father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they must tempt Providence no longer; and that it was now fit and necessary for him to go off and brave them; in which he was confirmed by the carrier telling, by news he had brought from Edinburgh, that the day before, Mr. Baillie had his life taken away from him at the Cross. They immediately set about preparing for my grandfather's going away. My mother worked night and day in making some alterations in his clothes for disguise; and, my grandfather getting out at a window to the stables, they set out in the dark.

"After a very narrow escape from a party of horsemen sent to take him, Sir Patrick Home got to London through bye-ways, 'passing for a surgeon, as he could bleed, and always carried lancets. From that he went to France, and travelled on-foot from Bourdeaux to Holland, where he sent for his wife and ten children.".

The following passage of Lady Murray's domestic biography is the more interesting, because there is reason to believe, that a similar moody and imaginative turn of mind caused a like early separation after marriage between the late Lord Byron and his lady. Sir Alexander was undoubtedly a man of genius and fancy, though selftormented by all the irritable waywardness of his tribe.

Georgiana Baillie, the eldest daughter of George Baillie, of Jerviswood, Esq. and the Lady Grevill Home, daughter of Patrick, first Earl of Marchmont, was born in the year 1693. By the death of an only brother in early infancy, she became the presumptive heiress of her father's ample fortune. In the month of August, 1710, at the age of seventeen, he was married at Edinburgh to Mr. Alexander Murray, the son and heir of Sir David Murray, of Stanhope, Bart. by the Lady Anne Bruce, daughter of Alexander, Earl of Kincardine.

"Mr. Murray had been educated at a foreign university, and had lately returned to his own country, where he paid his addresses to Miss Baillie, and succeeded in gaining her affections from rivals of much higher rank and pretensions. His appearance and manner in common society are said to have been prepossessing and specious; but it was

soon discovered, that, under a pleasing exterior, there lurked a dark, moody, and ferocious temper, or what ought rather to be described as a certain degree of constitutional insanity, which discoloured all his views of the character and conduct of those about him, and made him the helpless victim of groundless suspicions, and of the most agonizing and uncontrollable passions.

On the very first day after their union, his behaviour began to give the greatest alarm, as well as offence, to the lady and her family; and, after many months of the most patient endeavours to soothe and cure his distempered imagination, the family were driven to the painful necessity of instituting a "process of separation," on the ground that his wife could not safely live with him. To this proceeding, Mr. Murray made an obstinate resistance, and instituted a "counter-process of adherence;" but a formal decree of separation was at length pronounced by the Commissary Court of Edinburgh, on the 5th of March, 1714.

"In the course of these proceedings, the only evidence produced to establish the necessity of a separation, consisted of several letters, written by Mr. Murray in the year 1713, and addressed to Mr. Baillie; in which he entered into a long and laboured, but most incoherent and ineffectual apology for his own conduct. From these strange, desultory, and most humiliating compositions, it appears that, at his marriage, he had been attended by an intimate friend and companion of his own, (a Mr. Hamilton,) who was, till then, unknown to the family of Jerviswood; and whom they appear never afterwards to have seen or met with; that, on the second evening after their marriage, there was music and dancing, and Mr. Hamilton had danced several times with the bride; when Mr. Murray suddenly felt himself overpowered by an appalling apprehension that she had transferred her affections from himself to his friend; that he had drawn Mr. Hamilton aside, and besought him not to dance any more; but he had made light of the request, and had proceeded to finish the dance, when supper was announced; that during supper, he laboured to suppress his feelings, but on retiring to his room they had burst forth in a way very deeply to offend Mrs. Murray, and to call for the immediate interposition of her mother; that in the conduct of his wife, at that or any other time, there had not been the slightest impropriety, and that in her purity of mind he retained the fullest confidence; but, after that fatal night, he had been haunted at intervals with the torturing conviction that he had lost her love, and incurred her inward and unalterable displeasure; that he was attached to her as passionately as ever, and was anxious to atone for his conduct towards her, but was perpetually overmastered by the apprehension that he never could regain her affection.

"From the same letters, as well as from the pleadings of the parties, it appears that, after his marriage, Mr. Murray had continued to live for several months in the family of Mr. Baillie; during which, he had frequently relapsed into the same sullen, moody, and savage humour which had attended the first exposure of his insane jealousy; but he asserts, and the contrary is not alleged, that he had never been guilty of any violence to the person of his wife, although it could not be disguised that his conduct and demeanour, when under the influence of his malignant star, had been such as to fill her with terror. This, he treats, of course, as having been vain and unfounded; and, among the circumstances to which he alludes as having excited her alarm, but which he affects to speak of as altogether accidental and unmeaning, was his having one day put into her hands a paper of the Tattler, desiring her to read it, in a way that seemed to her very significant, and which she found to be that containing the story of the murder of Mrs. Eustace by her husband. The resemblance in the situation and character of the parties to her own case, had evidently made a deep impression on Mrs. Murray's mind; yet she and her family seem to have been willing to run every risk, in the hope of at last restoring this unhappy man to their affection and confidence. After he had withdrawn himself from their society for more than a year, he was, on his own earnest entreaty, invited to return; but, after a few days, he again relapsed into the same causeless distrust of every one about him, and on again quitting the family in sullen resentment, he wrote the last of those letters which were produced in evidence against him, and which certainly exhibit a state of mind that left to Mr. Baillie and his daughter no alternative but that which they reluctantly adopted."

Such are the metaphysical refinements which blast the splendid summits of society with perpetual barrenness, satiety, jealousy, and discomfort. That primitive law of nature which exacts physical labour from all men, will either be obeyed, or compensated by the self-preying labours of the unemployed mind. How little is every worldly pros

perity compared to happiness! high birth, wealth, ease, distinction, the confluence of all physical goods, with friends, relatives, and admirers, are all insufficient to fill that aching wound-a discontented heart. When every thing which, in prospect, seems most desirable, conspires to make a mortal happy, there is still a waking demon within, to conjure up imaginary ones, to create constructive miseries, to subtilize and sophisticate, to magnify and distort, to exaggerate expectation, and to manufacture disappointment. Let not the philosophical mortal, triumphant in his own composure, say that this is nervousness, ingratitude, fretfulness unworthy of sympathy, or folly beneath compassion. Ideal miseries are not to be less miseries because they proceed from within; nor is hypochondriasis a less painful disease, because it creates its own symptoms. Perhaps it is impossible for beings of exalted sensibilities, to carry into the grave the delusions of life, and to avoid a conviction of the worthlessness of mankind, and of the insipidity of the bulk of existence. A contented disposition is the gift of Nature; and it should seem that it is a boon often bestowed as a compensation for the absence of splendid talents and native genius. It occurs at least too frequently that, when the imaginative faculties take the lead, Fancy delights to dip her pencil in the gloomiest colours.

HISTORY.

Venice under the Yoke of France and of Austria: with Memoirs of the Courts, Governments, and People of Italy. By a Lady of Rank. Written during a Twenty Years' Residence in that Country.-2 vols. 8vo. pp. 711.

THERE is a story of a certain lady creeping into St. Peter's chair, under papal garments. The disguise in this work is of an inverse description: the author is neither a lady nor a Joan, and is certainly no Joseph. It would be a libel on the ladies, to suppose them capable of publishing such gross indecencies and vulgarities as are to be found in this work. We will cite a few instances: Mr. J. Williams, the counsel, is called "a vigorous little bantam-cock." Napoleon is said to have married Maria Louisa to gratify "his sensual inclination.” The Bonaparte family are kicked by the ass's-hoof throughout; and Lucien, on one occasion, is represented as giving Napoleon a tremendous blow between his mouth and nose.

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"Josephine's real name," says our elegante of rank, "was Take-alland-pay-none." It is said, that, when queen of Italy, she "forgot her pot-companions;" that she was enamoured of a castrato, after her marriage with Bonaparte:" and perpetual allusion is made to the same class of beings in the vulgarest phraseology. We shall plunge at once in medias res, and begin our extracts:

"In Venice, and throughout the Venetian States, all criminal proceedings are entirely carried on in writing; so that a man may be accused, tried, condemned, and even executed, without ever beholding the face of his judge, or being confronted with his accusers. Many of these judges are totally ignorant, not merely of the jurisprudence, but even of the language, of Italy: it being the practice of Vienna, when any one of the clodhopping gentry from the Tyrol happens to come to the capital, and be out of employ,