cannot, indeed, be his; for discovery is precluded by incessant knowledge." The intellectual soil may even be naturally fertile; the utmost, however, that it can do, is to indicate a capacity for the reception of knowledge—the forms of experience, though aching to be filled, are yet empty. The measures of abstract intelligence exist, but all thought must have an object; and the instinctive craving, the yearning appetite, only speak more plainly of the unsatisfied void within. Nature astonishes with her grandeur, and overwhelms with her might, the mind that looks on the greatness of her majesty without being able to interpret her mysteries, or identify any single spot with the endearing recognition of individual consciousness. Certain, however, it is, that the waste and the waters teem spontaneously—produce spontaneously a numerous progeny; and thus, also, the inward sources of thought and feeling may put forth bud and blossom with equal readiness and vigour. Add to which, even the most savage tribes have probably a tale to tell, where the "gleaming warrior thinned the shade, and harshly grated human discords." But the sources of thought lie deep-they are fountains sealed, and where the occasions are few and uncertain, can but seldom flow abroad. Solitary sensations are obscure, and the combinations of an untutored mind few and feeble. The memory, also, of the doer of violence is but brief: "He passes unheeded when the storm is over, and leaves no measured ravage." The cultivated mind, on the other hand, has, in its native land, many precious stores of memory; and even in foreign regions, or traversing uninhabited deserts, has, in the resources of philosophy and science, a magic influence, to compel the spirits of the spot into companionable association.

Such power possesses the genius of Sir Walter Scott, rich in treasures of all kinds as it is, whatever region of fancy it enters, or whatever period of time it traces. The appearance of a new series of the Tales of My Landlord, and announced not only as the last of them, but perhaps also of the Waverley Novels, induces us to devote a paper to his new work, which, after some brief notice of the same, shall pass on to a general dissertation concerning historical romance, and the manner in

which it has been lately illustrated by the "Ariosto of the North"-for which only, in fact, the subject is undertaken at all. It will extend, we find, to more than one article.

The date of the tale, entitled Count Robert of Paris, is laid in the reign of Alexius, emperor of Constantinople, and founder of the Comnenian dynasty, whose daughter, the Princess Anne, is celebrated as the historian of her father, whose exploits she immortalised in a style too obvious to Gibbon's censure of being affected-a fault, however, from which this great writer himself was not quite free. Both of the characters just mentioned perform prominent parts in Sir Walter's new novel. "The three great nations of the world," says Gibbon, "the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy." And it is into this state of things that the descendant of Michael Scott has transported the unreluctant reader. In the character of Alexius Comnenus mingled " a mixture of sense and weakness, of meanness and dignity, of prudent discretion and poverty of spirit-which last, in the European mode of viewing things, approached to cowardice." Such was the Emperor of Byzantium, "at a period when the fate of Greece, and all that was left in that country of art and civilisation, was trembling in the balance, and likely to be saved or lost, according to the abilities of the emperor for playing the very difficult game which was put into his hands."

No wonder that, at such a crisis, conspiracies, and between the nearest connexions, were abundant. To such Alexius was exposed. Agelastes, a pseudo-philosopher and buffoon of the court, and Achilles Tatius, the commander of the Varangian guard, with Nicephorus Briennius, the emperor's son-in-law, are engaged in treasonable confederacy against the emperor, and, at the same time, each slily circumventing the other, alike aiming at the imperial purple. "There," says Agelastes, of Achilles Tatius, "goes a fool, whose lack of sense prevents his eyes from being dazzled by the torch which cannot fail to consume him. A halfbred, half-acting, half-thinking, halfdaring caitiff, whose poorest thoughts -and those which deserve that name must be poor indeed - are not the produce of his own understanding. He expects to circumvent the fiery,

haughty, and proud Nicephorus Briennius! If he does so, it will not be by his own policy, and still less by his valour. Nor shall Anna Comnena, the soul of wit and genius, be chained to such an unimaginative log as yonder half barbarian. No, she shall have a husband of pure Grecian extraction, and well stored with that learning which was studied when Rome was great and Greece illustrious. Nor will it be the least charm of the imperial throne, that it is partaken by a partner whose personal studies have taught her to esteem and value those of the emperor."

Such is the state of parties when a new descent of the western nations is feared in Constantinople. All that

wide Europe possessed of what was wise and worthy, brave and noble, were united by the most religious vows in the same purpose. Various independent armies, by different routes, were approaching the vicinity of the empire, headed by independent chiefs, and announcing the conquest of Palestine from the infidels as their common object. Of these, Hugh of Vermandois, called from his dignity Hugh the Great, who had set sail from the shores of Italy, attended by the flower of the French nobility, bearing the blessed banner of St. Peter; Bohemond of Antioch, son of the celebrated Robert of Apulia, so renowned among his countrymen, who raised himself to the rank of grand duke from a simple cavalier, and became sovereign of those of his warlike nation, both in Sicily and Italy; Godfrey, duke of Bouillon, a name which requires no enlargement; and Robert, duke of Normandy,principally demand the reader's attention.

Alexius takes counsel how to treat with these enormous and dreaded hosts. Five officers alone, the highest in the state, had the privilege of entering the sacred recess where the emperor held council. These were, the grand domestic, who might be termed of rank with a modern prime minister-the logothete, or chancellor-the protospathaire, or commander of the guards -the acolyte, or follower, and leader of the Varangians, the aforesaid Achilles Tatius-and the patriarch. An attempt to chastise the audacity and unheard-of boldness of the millions of Franks, who, under the pretence of wresting Palestine from the infidels, had ven

tured to invade the sacred territories of the empire, is out of the question, as the imperial forces upon the western side of the Bosphorus could not be counted at more than twenty-five thousand men, or thirty at most. The only hope, therefore, is in so negotiating with the crusaders, that they shall pass through the country by armies of fifty thousand at once, which the emperor will cause to be successively transported into Asia; and by using fair words to one, threats to another, gold to the avaricious, power to the ambitious, and reasons to those who are capable of listening to them, prevail upon the Franks, met as they were from a thousand points, and enemies of each other, to acknowledge him as their common superior.

These and other-no very creditable -arrangements being so far made to the imperial satisfaction, the business of the novel commences. The crusaders were, as Alexius' policy dictated, occasionally and individually received with extreme honour, and their leaders loaded with respect and favour; while, from time to time, such bodies of them as sought distant or circuitous routes to the capital, were intercepted and cut to pieces by light-armed troops, who easily passed upon their ignorant opponents for Turks, Scythians, or other infidels, and sometimes were actually such, but in the absence of the Grecian monarch. Often, too, it happened that while the more powerful chiefs of the crusade were feasted by the emperor and his ministers with the richest delicacies, and their thirst slaked with iced wines, their followers were left at a distance, where, intentionally supplied with adulterated flour, tainted provisions, and bad water, they contracted diseases, and died in great numbers, without having once seen a foot of the Holy Land, for the recovery of which they had abandoned their peace, their competence, and their native country. Alexius, nevertheless, kept his ground, and made peace with the most powerful chiefs, under one pretence or other. An accident, too, which the emperor might have termed providential, reduced the high-spirited Count of Vermandois to the situation of a suppliant. By a fierce tempest driven on the coast of Greece, many ships destroyed, and the troops who got ashore obliged to surrender themselves to the lieute

nants of Alexius, the Count of Vermandois was sent to the court of Constantinople, not as a prince but as a prisoner. In this case, the emperor instantly set the soldiers at liberty, and loaded them with presents. Others, such as Godfrey, and Raymond of Toulouse, were determined by better principles, and considered with what scandal their whole journey must be stained if the first of their exploits should be a war upon the Grecian empire, which might justly be called the barrier of Christendom. The chiefs of the crusaders, accordingly, had come to the famous resolution, that, before crossing the Bosphorus, to go in quest of that Palestine which they had vowed to regain, each chief of crusaders would acknowledge individually the Grecian emperor, originally lord paramount of all these regions, as their liege lord and suzerain. Such were, then, the politics of the time and place, and of the expedition referred to by the novelist.

An

This acknowledgment the emperor determines shall be made publicly, and with all suitable display. extensive terrace, one of the numerous spaces which extend along the coast of the Propontis, was chosen for the site of the magnificent ceremony, which, however, we have no space to describe, and with which all parties were not equally contented: for, of the great number of counts, lords, and knights, under whose variety of banners the crusaders were led to the walls of Constantinople, many were too insignificant to be bribed to this distasteful measure of homage. The emperor, therefore, had to struggle with his feelings of offended pride, tempered by a prudent degree of apprehension, in his endeavour to receive with complacence a homage tendered in mockery.

"An incident shortly took place of a character highly descriptive of the nations brought together in so extraordinary a manner, and with such different feelings and sentiments. Several bands of French had passed, in a sort of procession, the throne of the emperor, and rendered, with some appearance of gravity, the usual homage. On this occasion they bent their knees to Alexius, placed their hands within his, and in that posture paid the ceremonies of feudal fealty. But when it came to the turn of Bohemond of Antioch, already mentioned, to render this fealty, the emperor, desirous to shew every species of honour to this

wily person, his former enemy, and now apparently his ally, advanced two or three paces towards the sea-side, where the boats lay as if in readiness for his

use.

"The distance to which the emperor moved was very small, and it was assu med as a piece of deference to Bohemond; but it became the means of exposing Alexius himself to a cutting affront, which his guards and subjects felt deeply, as an intentional humilia. tion. A half-score of horsemen, attendants of the Frankish count who was next to perform the homage, with their lord at their head, set off at full gallop from the right flank of the French squadrons, and arriving before the throne, which was yet empty, they at once halted. The rider at the head of the band was a strong herculean figure, with a decided and stern countenance, though extremely handsome, looking out from thick black curls. His head was surmounted with a barret cap, while his hands, limbs, and feet were covered with garments of chamois leather, over which he in general wore the ponderous and complete armour of his country. This, however, he had laid aside for personal convenience, though in doing so he evinced a total neglect of the ceremonial which marked so important a meeting. He waited not a moment for impropriety of obliging Alexius to hurry the emperor's return, nor regarded the his steps back to his throne, but sprung from his gigantic horse, and threw the reins loose, which were instantly seized by one of the attendant pages. Without a moment's hesitation, the Frank seated himself in the vacant throne of the emperor, and extending his half-armed and robust figure on the golden cushions which were destined for Alexius, he indolently began to caress a large wolfhound which had followed him, and which, feeling itself as much at ease as its master, reposed its grim form on the carpets of silk and gold damask, which tapestried the imperial footstool. The very hound stretched itself with a bold, ferocious insolence, and seemed to regard no one with respect, save the stern knight whom it called master.

"The emperor, turning back from the short space which, as a special mark of favour, he had accompanied Bohemond, beheld with astonishment his seat occupied by this insolent Frank. The bands of the half savage Varangians who were stationed around, would not have hesitated an instant in avenging the insult, by prostrating the violator of their master's throne even in this act of his contempt, had they not been restrained by Achilles Tatius and other officers, who were un