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No. 81.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1818.

TALES OF MY LANDLORD. Second Series. Collected and arranged by Jedediah Cleishbotham, &c. Edinburgh,

1818. 4 vols.

The author of this Novel will have no
one to accuse so much as himself, if the
critical judgment passed upon it should
not be so favourable as he wishes. He
has raised the standard by which such Novels are to us the most difficult
productions are tried so high, that it is things to review in a satisfactory man-
not surprising that even he should some- ner. Neither a dry outline of the plot,
times be found to fall short of it. In a nor an extract of any particular part, suf-
word, we think The Heart of Mid-Lo-fice to convey an adequate idea of the
thian, for such is the title of the story subject in hand, and our limits do not
which occupies these four volumes, in- admit of going more at large into illus-
ferior in almost every respect to the pre-tration. As far as we may go we now
ceding works from the same source, in-proceed to analyze The Heart of Mid-
cluding the Waverley series with that Lothian.'
designated as Tales of my Landlord.

6

PRICE 8d.

ever, there are many parts of deep pa- | pital offence by the then laws of Scot-
thos; there is great spirit and truth in land. She is the youngest daughter of
the drawing of most of the characters; David Deans, a cow-keeper, near Edin-
the fabulous portion of the story is ad- burgh, a rigid Dissenter of the sert of
Captain Porteous' death, and its conse-
mirably connected with the history of Cameronians. Reuben Butler, a poor
young schoolmaster in holy orders, and
quences; and the catastrophe is dread-attached to Jeanie Deans, the elder sis-
fully just, though perhaps the moral les- ter, is forced by the mob to officiate as
son instilled by the lives of Euphemia chaplain to Captain Porteous; and it
Deans and George Robertson, is rather turns out that an accomplice of Wilson's,
calculated to produce evil than good. who acted a conspicuous part in this
riot in a female dress, is the seducer of
poor Effie, and the father of her lost
child. To rescue her is one of his in-
ducements to undertake this desperate
exploit, but she refuses to escape when
the doors of her dungeon are opened to
her. Robertson is obliged to fly, and
figures in half a dozen Jonathan Wild sort
of adventures; one of which is to per-
suade Jeanie Deans to swear that her
unhappy sister had not concealed her
pregnancy from her, which would do
away with the capital charge against
her. This perjury the religious and vir-
tuous Jeanie refuses to commit, and
Effie is convicted and condemned to
die. Jeanie now determines to walk to
London, and solicit her pardon from the
Queen; and through the mediation of
the great Duke of Argyle, she obtains an
interview of Her Majesty, and miracu-
lously carries her point. In her journey,
however, she encounters some strange
obstacles. She is made captive by an
old gipsey of the name of Murdockson,
who, with her mad daughter, are the
parties that disposed of Effie's child, out
of revenge for the seduction of the daugh-
ter by Robertson. She also encounters
Robertson himself, who turns out to be
the son of Mr. Staunton, a dignitary of
the Church, and of a very ancient family.
He is now reclaimed and repentant.
Having accomplished her purpose in
London, Jeanie returns, marries Butler,
who is presented to a church by the
Duke of Argyle; and David Deans,
being appointed a kind of overseer at the
same place, the whole family settle com-
fortably on the borders of Dumbarton-
shire. Effie, when released, elopes from
her father's house, and is secretly united
to her lover, who gets her polished by a
few years residence upon the Continent,
and returns to England and to large
property with his wife, whose history is
confined to his own bosom, and that of
her sister. They live in splendid wretched-

The Heart of Mid-Lothian, then, is It appears to us that this new publi- the Tolbooth, or Newgate of Edinburgh, cation has less of the portraiture of na- and it is facetiously declared to be a sad tional manners than the best of its pre-heart, a close heart, a wicked heart and cursors, while it has more of the un- a poor heart, a strong heart and a high common incidents common to the class of heart. At the execution of one Wilson, writings to which it belongs. It pro- in Sept. 1736, for robbing a Customduces an inferior effect from delineating, house officer, some tumult arose, and and that in a fainter manner, the charac-Porteous, captain of the town guard, teristics of a sect (Cameronians) neither fired among the mob, by which several so important nor so interesting as the persons were killed. For this offence he Covenanters, personified in Balfour of was tried, and condemned to death, but Burley, old Mrs. Headrigg, and their reprieved by Queen Caroline on the day teachers and partisans. Its actors are of appointed for his doom. The populace too low an order, and the scene of a were infuriated by this baulk on justice, gaol, with the adventures of its inmates as they considered it, and at night the of thieftakers, prostitutes, rogues, rob- extraordinary spectacle was seen of an bers, and murderers, does, we conceive, organized multitude disarming the solfurnish a bad foundation for a narrative diery, securing the gates, breaking open of this length. The law with which the prison, dragging forth the prisoner, the volumes abound, though sometimes and hanging him near the usual place witty and generally whimsical, is by far for carrying into effect the sentence of too prolix; and the endless definitions of the law. No disorder of any kind acMr. Saddletree, an artisan prone to at-companied this tumultuous rising, in tending the Court of Session, become really tedious, especially when superadded to pleadings and opinions of counsel as long and minute as if the case, instead of a fiction, were really one of life and death. To conclude our objections, there are more evident symptoms of carelessness in this composition than we remember in any of the former; and though the author cannot write ill, nor The fiction woven upon this real inciwhat would fail to be entertaining, he dent is thus managed. In the Tolbooth, has upon the whole permitted as much at the period of Porteous' mob, is a girl alloy to creep into these pages as we named Effie Deans, accused of childcould have anticipated at his hands. murder, and at least of concealing the Notwithstanding these defects, how-birth of a natural child, which was a ca-ness, while the humbler branches of the

VOL. II.

which politics were deeply concerned.
But the murder of Captain Porteous is
too generally known to require further
elucidation; and while we give the author
credit for having detailed the whole affair
in an animated way, we conceive he
might advantageously have abridged it,
so as not to occupy, as it does, almost all
the first volume.

they suld pay it to me that equals aquals. Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be uye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping. My father tauld me sae forty years sin, but I ne'er fand time to mind him.-Jock, ne'er drink brandy in the morning, it files the stamach; gin ye take a morning's draught, let it be aqua mirabilis; Jenny there makes it weel. Doctor, my breath is growing as scant as a broken-winded piper's, when he has played for four-and-twenty hours at a penny wedding Jenny, pit the cod aneath my head-but it's a' needless! Mass John, could ye think o' rattling ower some bit

Deans' connection enjoy comfort and hap-cow, when we know there is an enpiness. Mrs. Murdockson being very chanter who can bring him to life again, properly hanged at Carlisle, her confes- or cause the quadruped to cast him up. sion affords reason to believe that Effie's Before copying out a specimen of the infant had not been murdered; and Ro-work, we must protest against the vulbertson, alias Sir George Staunton, with garism lay, vol. I. p. 32-"you lay enhis lady, visit Scotland, in order to trace tirely at our mercy," instead of " you him if possible. In his search he lands lie," is unworthy of the author. We now at an island near Butler's residence, proceed to make a few extracts. The where he is attacked by a desperate death of an old griping rascal, the elder smuggler and his associates, and killed, laird of Dumbiedikes, is well painted. it is believed, by a young lad, one of the He was about to distress his tenants, gang. This savage is his own son, who Deans, and the mother of Butler. had been sold by Murdockson to these On the very term-day, when their eject-short prayer, it wad do me gude maybe, and banditti. He perishes soon after, and Lady Staunton is converted to Catholic- ment should have taken place, when all keep some queer thoughts out o' my head. their neighbours were prepared to pity, and -Say something, man." ism, and retires to a Convent. Old Da- not one to assist them, the minister of the "I cannot use a prayer like a rat-rhyme,' vid Deans is gathered to his fathers, and parish, as well as a Doctor from Edin- answered the honest clergyman; and if the Butlers live beloved and die la- burgh, received a hasty summons to attend you would have your soul redeemed like a mented. the Laird of Dumbiedikes. Both were sur-prey from the fowler, Laird, you must prised, for his contempt for both faculties needs shew me your state of mind.' had been pretty commonly his theme over an extra bottle, that is to say, at least once every day. The leech for the soul, and he for the body, alighted in the court of the little old Manor-house, at almost the same time; and when they had gazed a moment at each other in some surprise, both in the same breath expressed their conviction that Dumbiedikes must needs be very ill indeed, since he summoned them both to his presence at once. Ere the servant could usher them to his apartment, the party was augmented by a man of law, The Doctor, who had received some inNichil Novit, writing himself procurator formation in the meanwhile from the housebefore the Sheriff-court, for in those days keeper on the state of his complaints, asthere were no solicitors. This latter per-sured him the medical art could not proson was first summoned to the apartment long his life many hours. of the Laird, where, after some short space, the soul-eurer and the body-eurer were invited to join him.

Such is the general outline of this Novel; but there are subordinate characters of considerable originality, who fill up the canvas, and often stand on the foreground. Of these the chief are, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, a selfish Natural, and a suitor to Jeanie Deans, though his mode of courtship is exceedingly curious and taciturn. Bartholine Saddletree, the law-devoted artisan, of whom we have already spoken, and his wife, Mrs. Glass, a snuff-seller in London, and Scotch cousin to the Deans. The Queen,

Lady Suffolk, the Duke of Argyle and his family. Madge Wildfire, alias Miss Murdockson, a crazy Ophelia in low life, singing snatches of old songs, and conversing with fancied ghosts and goblins. Ratcliffe, a police officer, compound of thief and traitor; together with sundry villains, such as adorn the Beggar's Opera, and a due proportion of Edinburgh lawyers and gossips, who are brought in more or less to take a share in the business going forward.

lady's death. It was to these attendants
that Dumbiedikes addressed himself pretty
nearly in these words; temporal and spiri-
tual matters, the care of his health and his
which was never one of the clearest:
affairs, being strangely jumbled, in a head

Dumbiedikes had been by this time transported into the best bed-room, used only upon occasions of death and marriage, and called, from the former of these occupations, the Dead-Room. There was in this apartment, besides the sick person himself and Mr. Novit, the son and heir of the patient, a tall gawky silly-looking boy, After perusing this epitome, we ima- of fourteen or fifteen, and a housekeeper, gine our readers will coincide with our a good buxom figure of a woman, betwixt opinion, that the dramatis personæ are a forty and fifty, who had kept the keys and little too far degraded in the scale of hu-managed matters at Dumbiedikes' since the manity; and that some of the main incidents border too closely upon the improbable of romance. Robertson's hairbreadth scapes, and the subsequent elevation of Effie to be a leader of fashion at Court; the perilous travels of Jeanie, her incar"These are sair times wi me, gentlemen ceration in a gipsy cavern, and her and neighbours! amaist as ill as at the confabulation with the Queen; and the aughty-nine, when I was rabbled by the violent finale, are all objectionable in collegeaners. They mistook me mucklethis point of view: and when events so they ca'd me a papist, but there was never like miracles are resorted to in order a papist bit about me, minister. Jock, to disentangle the intricacies of plot, ye'll take warning-it's a debt we main a' pay, and there stands Nichil Novit, that it is astonishing how it diminishes the will tell ye I was never gude at paying interest we take in the fate of the par-debts in my life.-Mr. Novit, ye'll no forties implicated. We don't care for Tom get to draw the rent that's due on the Yerl's Thumb's dying, or being swallowed by a band-if I pay debt to other folk, I think

"And shouldna ye ken that without my telling you?" answered the patient. "What have I been paying stipend and teind, parsonage and vicarage for, ever sin' the aughty-nine, an' I canna get a spell of a prayer for't, the only time I ever asked for ane in my life ?-Gang awa' wi your whiggery, if that's a' ye can do; auld Curate Kiltstoup wad hae read half the prayerbook to me by this time-Awa' wye! Doctor, let's see if ye can do ony thing better for me."

"Then damn Mass John and you

baith!" cried the furious and untractable
"Did ye come here for naething
patient.
but to tell me that ye canna help me at the
pinch? Out wi' them, Jenny-out o' the
house! and, Jock, my curse, and the curse
o' Cromwell gae wi' ye, if ye gie them either
fee or bountith, or sae muckle as a black
pair o' cheverons.

The clergyman and doctor made a speedy retreat out of the apartment, while Dumbiedikes fell into one of those transports of violent and profane language, which had procured him the surname of Damn-medikes" Bring me the brandy bottle, Jenny, ye b-," he cried, with a voice in which passion contended with pain. "I can die as I have lived, without fashing ony o them.

But there's a fearful thing hings about my heart, and an anker of brandy winna wash it away-The Deans at Woodend! I sequestrated them in the dear years, and now they are to flit they'll starve-and that Beersheba, and that auld trooper's wife and her oe, they'll starve - they'll starve! Look out, Jock; what night

is't?"

sair throat, or sair banes, there's a dozen
o' our city-folk, baith waiters, and officers,
and constables, that can find out naething
but a wee-bit skulduddery for the benefit of
the Kirk-treasurer. Jock Porteous, that's
stiff and stark, puir fallow, was worth a
dozen o' them; for he never had ony fears,
or scruples, or doubts, or conscience, about
ony thing your honours bade him.'

-but I'll be het eneugh, gin a tales be
true."
This last observation was made under
breath, and in a tone which made the very
attorney shudder. He tried his hand at
ghostly advice, probably for the first time
in his life, and recommended, as an opiate
for the agonized conscience of the Laird,
reparation of the injuries he had done to
these distressed families, which, he observ- He was a gude servant o' the town,"
ed by the way, the civil law called restitu- said the Baillie, " though he was an ower
tio in integrum. But Mammon was strug-free-living man. But if you really think
gling with Remorse for retaining his place this rascal Ratcliffe could do us ony ser-
in a bosom he had so long possessed; and vice in discovering these malefactors, I
he partly succeeded, as an old tyrant proves would insure him life, reward, and promo-
often too strong for his insurgent rebels. tion. It's an awsome thing this mischance
"I canna do't," he answered, with a for the city, Mr. Fairscrieve. It will be very
voice of despair. "It would kill me to ill tane wi' abune stairs. Queen Caroline,
do't-how can ye bid me pay back siller, God bless her, is a woman-at least I judge
when ye ken how I want it? or dispone sae, and its nae treason to speak my mind
Beersheba, when it lies sae weel into my sae far-and ye maybe ken as weel as I do,
ain plaid-nuik? Nature made Dumbie- for ye hae a housekeeper, though ye are
dikes and Beersheba to be ae man's land- nae married man, that women are wilfu',
She did by *** Nichil, it wad kill me to part and downa bide a slight. And it will sound
ill in her ears, that sic a confused mistake
suld come to pass, and naebody sae muckle
as to be put into the Tolbooth about it."
If y
f ye thought that, Sir,' said the Pro-
curator-fiscal, <
we could easily clap into
the prison a few blackguards upon suspi-
cion. It will have a gude active look, and
I hae aye plenty on my list, that wadna be
a hair the waur of a week or twa's impri-
sonment; and if ye thought it no strictly
just, ye could be just the easier wi' them
the neist time they did ony thing to deserve
it; they arena the sort to be lang o' geeing
ye an opportunity to clear scores wi' them
on that account.'

them."

But ye maun die, whether or no, Laird,' said Mr. Novit; and maybe ye wad die easier-it's but trying. I'll scroll the disposition in nae time."

"Dinna speak o't, Sir, or I'll fling the stoup at your head-But, Jock, lad, ye see how the warld warstles wi' me on my deathbed. Be kind to the puir creatures the Deanses and the Butlers. Dinna let the warld get a grip o' ye, Jock-but keep the gear thegither! and whate'er ye do, dispone Beersheba at no rate. Let the creatures stay at a moderate mailing, and hae bite and soup; it will maybe be the better wi' your father where he's gaun, lad."

After these contradictory instructions, the Laird felt his mind so much at ease that he drank three bumpers of brandy continuously, and " soughed awa," as Jenny expressed it, in an attempt to sing De'il stick the minister."

When Ratcliffe asks for a place as the reward for betraying his associates, the colloquy among the city officers is humorously satirical.

"A bonny sort of a scoundrel," replied the Magistrate," to expect a place under the city!"

Begging your honour's pardon,' said the city's procurator fiscal, it is just sic as Ratcliffe that the town needs in my (the police) department; an' if sae be that he's disposed to turn his knowledge to the city's service, ye'll no find a better man.-Ye'll get nae saints to be searchers for uncustomed goods, or for thieves and sic like ;-and your decent sort of men, religious professors, and broken tradesmen, that are put into the like o' sic trust, can do nae gude ava. They are feared for this, and they are scrupulous about that, and they are na free to tell a lie, though it may be for the benefit of the city; and they dinna like to be out at irregular hours, and in a dark cauld night, and they like a clout ower the croun far waur; and sae between the fear o' God, and the fear o'man, and the fear o' getting a

to me than the Sun-the Sun's ower het, and ken ye, cummers, my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a callar kail-blade laid on my brow; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell."

The trial scene of Effie Deans is extremely affecting, but its length forbids extract: the previous meeting of the sisters in the prison, is also touching in a powerful degree; we can only give a very brief example of it :

O, Effie," said her elder Sister, "how could you conceal your situation from me! O, woman, had I deserved this at your hand? had ye spoke but ae word-sorry we might have been, and shamed we might hae been, but this awfu' dispensation had never come ower us,"

And what gude wad that hae dune?' answered the prisoner. Na, na, Jeanie, a' was ower when ance I forgot what I promised when I faulded down the leaf of my Bible. See (she said, producing the sacred volume) the book opens aye at the place o' itsell. O see, Jeanie, what a fearfu' scripture.'

Jeanie took her sister's Bible, and found that the fatal mark was made at this impressive text in the book of Job: "He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone. And mine hope hath he removed like a tree."

"Isna that ower true a doctrine ?" said the prisoner" Isna my crown, my honour Near St. Anthony's Well, in the envi- removed? And what am I but a poor wastrons of Edinburgh, there is a place of ed wan-thriven tree, dug up by the roots, horrid celebrity, called Muschat's Cairn, and flung out to waste in the highway, that from the heap of stones thrown together thought o' the bonny bit thorn that our faman and beast may tread it under foot? I where a man of the name of Muschatther rooted out o' the yard last May, when murdered his wife. Madge Wildfire, in it had a' the flush o' the blossoms on it; one of her raving fits, thus dreadfully and then it lay till the beasts had trod them describes it:a' to pieces wi' their feet. I little thought, when I was wae for the bit silly green bush and its flowers, that I was to gang the same gate mysel."

"I hae sat on the grave frae bat-fleeing
time, till cock-crow, and had mony a fine
crack wi' Nicol Muschat and Alie Muschat,
that are lying sleeping below.
A's forgotten now-Ye seel spoke to them
mysell, and tauld them byganes suld be
byganes-her throat's sair misguggled and
mashackered though; she wears her corpse-
sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that
canna hinder the bluid seiping through, ye
ken. I wussed her to wash it in St. An-
thony's Well, and that will cleanse, if ony
thing can-But they say bluid never
bleaches out o' linen claith-Deacon San-
ders' new cleansing draps winna do't-I
tried mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame,
that was mailed wi' the bluid of a bit skirl-
ing wean that was hurt some gate, but out
it winna come -Weel, ye'll say that's
queer; but I will bring it out to St. An-
thony's blessed Well some braw night just
like this, and I'll cry up Alie Muschat, and
she and I will hae a grand bouking-wash-
ing, and bleach our claise in the beams o'
the bonny Lady Moon, thats far pleasanter

-

O, if ye had spoken a word,' again sobbed Jeanie.

She then explains that the consequence would have been to clear her of the capital crime, and a dialogue resembling that between Florio and Isabella, in Measure for Measure, ensues, in which the wretched Effie implores her sister to do a little wrong to save her life, and avows her unchangeable love for her seducer.

The interview with the Queen is one of the happiest efforts of the author. Jeanie commits several blunders, such as besides Scotland, where mothers were observing, that there were many places unkind to their own flesh and blood(the disputes between the King and Prince of Wales were then at their height, and the blame was pretty gene

rally laid upon the Queen ;) explaining | little from his advice to Harold but that the use of the stool of repentance for he warns him to beware of imitating the light life and conversation, and for moderns, to polish his versification, and breaking the seventh commandment, to to recoil upon Homer, Horace, and the Lady Suffolk, the King's mistress, &c. ancient masters of the lyre, as classic But her beseeching mercy made amends models, superior to the irregular flights for all, and with that passage we shall of the newer Muse. conclude our observations. Speaking of Captain Porteous, in answer to a remark of Her Majesty, she exclaims,

to be little arrangement. It is never a pitched battle, but altogether a series of skirmishes, and the same ground is reoccupied and recontested many times over. And this in so straggling and desultory a manner, that though we may Childe Harold's Monitor; or Lines occaperceive that the admiration of Lord sioned by the last Canto of Childe Byron is the key to the position, we can Harold: including Hints to other Con-hardly see that it is the pivot on which the operations turn. temporaries. London 1818. Anonymous. pp. 97.