the past. But it is now time to proceed from the design of the work, to give some account of its execution.

66

In a publication like the Retrospective Review, it is evident there is little room for flashy or witty writing. The common artifices of other periodical publications, which seize hold of some reigning chimera f the day-some Cynthia of the minute, to draw down interest upon themselves, the pungent seasoning of personality, and the vehement outrages of political invective, cannot contribute to the notoriety of a work like this. Its path is too even and straight forward-its progress too steady and sure, ever to excite that breathless impatience, and keen interest, which dwell upon what is associated with the occurrences moving before us. Its pages, to use the words of the Reviewers, can only derive assistance from the innate truth and beauty of literature." And yet it has many attractions which no other periodical work can lay claim to,- -we love occasionally to steal from the "busy hum of men," the restlessness and inquietude of active life, to the calm and sequestered shade; and not unsimilar is the gratification which the Retrospective Review presents, after the glittering novelties which rise up and vanish around us. It will afford, too, many of the "pleasures of memory." ranging through its pages, we have recognized many an old acquaintance, whose appearance has raised up an host of recollections, of that sort which perhaps most contribute to sweeten the bitterness of human life.

In

We are inclined, upon the whole, to believe, that the Review has in creased in interest since its commencement. We have, however, no intention to enter into a discussion on the merits of the various articles which have appeared in it. There is, besides, a general even respectability in most of them, which would render such an attempt highly unnecessary. Ferhaps, as a class, the biographical, and autobiographical articles, are the best. The reviews of the Lives of Cardan and Lilly we think excellent. Rousseau's Confessions would be ably handled by the Reviewer of Cardan. The articles on Oriental Literature, and on the Poetry of Spain, display some research and acuteness; the former, however, are too much devoted to lengthy discussion, and the latter, if they have

much of the merit of an accurate compilation, have also much of its dulness. We except the part relating more particularly to the Moors, which is treated with some enthusiasm. Indeed, this work is generally happy when history is the subject of review. The articles on Tovey's Anglia Indicata, and Wynne's History of the Gwydir Family, are both highly interesting. That in the last Number on the Knights Templars we read with considerable eagerness, but were by no means convinced by it. The reluctance it displays to admit any thing to the prejudice of that noble Order, seems as far removed from sound judgment, as the extreme hastiness with which other writers have used the language of condemnation. We were grievously disappointed by the review of Bacon's Novum Organum ;-it is little more than a mere abstract of that work, without any of that enlarged criticism, or comprehensive philosophical survey, which such a production seemed calculated to call forth. Much remains to be said on that greatest work of the greatest man of his age, even after Dugald Stuart, or his able successor, the Philosophical Conveyancer ;-and surely, in a review of the Novum Organum, we have a right to expect more than such an analysis as every student can produce. We hope this will be the only instance where the Retrospective fails most where most is expected. We must notice, however, a long article on the Writers on Mystical Devotion, which, besides that it is as dull as need be, seems hardly adapted for the work. It had appeared before, either in part or whole, and was destitute of any other recommendation than helping to fill the requisite number of pages.

The series on the Old English Drama has hardly done justice to the subject. There is a want of accuracy, both in the details and the criticisms. It has too much the marks of being hastily huddled up. The writer does not seem in possession of sources sufficiently ample for his researches. Thus in the review of Marlowe's Plays, we have long extracts from, and diffuse observations upon the dramas which are in every body's hands, while "Dido," which he wrote in conjunction with Nash, is hastily passed overviewer evidently had not seen it. We are, notwithstanding, inclined to think

-the Re

this the most agreeable series which has yet appeared in the work. The subject, indeed, is so interesting, that the writer must have ill performed his task, had it been otherwise. There are parts, however, of these sketches which we think ably and spiritedly written. The character of Chapman is correct and judicious; and that of Lilly the Euphuist has high merit. The review of Ben Jonson's two plays, besides the "Jew," with which it appears to be entered upon, and the particularity of its criticisms, has little to recommend it. Lee's plays are reviewed in better taste. The article on Dryden's dramatic productions has the merit of bringing together the most valuable parts of those ill digested compositions.

The Reviews of English poetry are, where the fondness for the author does not interfere with sound judgment, generally just and correct. The reviewers are too much given, we must observe, to the vice of quoting passages. which but possess the quiet charm of mediocrity. In the article on Glover's Atheniad, about 20 pages are occupied with extracts, none of which has any great merit. Some of these reviews are likewise rather heavy, and we need not say that the union of middling poetry with heavy criticisins, is a conjunction which does not bode much good to any book. Nevertheless, there is much in this department highly valuable, and the reader will find much to interest him, who is yet unacquainted with the fanciful beauties of Chamberlayne, the pastoral pictures of Browne, the rich conceit of Heath, the vigorous sentiments of Davenant, the voluptuous richness of Fletcher, the gay sprightliness of Lovelace, the kindly gentleness of Chalkhill, and the devotional warmth of Crashaw, Herbert, and Southwell. The review of Southwell's works in the last Number is one of the best.

Many of the miscellaneous reviews will well reward a perusal. The article on Sir John Mandeville's Travels is extremely curious Few subjects are more interesting than the History of the early European Travellers, and this is here handled with considerable

ability. We have yet never met with a more faithful critical description than the character of Defoe's manner of writing, in the review of his Memoirs of a Cavalier. It is drawn to a hair, and the nicety does not detract from the spirit of the pourtraiture. The View of the Imitations of Butler is valuable for its information. Some of the shortest articles, and even those of a bibliographical kind, are very amusing, and agreeably diversify those of more elaborate descriptions.

Upon the whole, there seems to be much industrious-some clever, but perhaps hitherto no very masterly or splendid writing in the Retrospective Review. If this, however, be wanting, no work can better afford to spare it than this. And, speaking for ourselves, we should hardly like to see the writers themselves too much in the foreground. They are foragers for the Body-Literary, and the chief requisites of their office are, patience and industrious investigation. It is to the sterling value of the treasures they bring before us, and not to their own skill in polishing or setting them, that their best welcome will be due. Nothing can surely be a more gratifying spectacle than to see the great minds of our own period doing homage to the great ones of yore; and yet we must not forget, in our zeal for the past, that the present has still a higher claim on their exertions.

Before we conclude, we must notice, that the Review does not always keep exactly to the point proposed. In the preface it was stated, that their strictures should be confined exclusively to bygone literature, without deviating to the topics of the day. This rule has been broken in two instances, and in neither with success. We allude to the reviews of Dennis's Works, and Wallace's Prospects of Mankind. The first is a flighty and enthusiastical protest against the present system of criticism, apparently well meant and amiably intended, but characterized by a spirit of raw inexperience which is not very likely to do credit to the Work. In the second, the writer rambles, without any reason that we can see, from the theory of Mr Malthus, and the Population of Mankind, to

a review of the poetry and poets of the present era, in which, after running over the gamut in the Cockney style, he surprisingly pronounces Mr Hazlitt incomparably the most original of modern critics. We should be inclined to say, "Aut Hazlitt, aut Diabolus,' were we not fully persuaded that the Work is too respectable to countenance any such vulgar methods of self praise. All we shall say is, that this worthy lecturer has got a most flourishing imitator and pupil.

These are blemishes, and others might be pointed out in particular parts of this publication, were we disposed so to do. It is not, however, a task in general very pleasing, and in the present case, we feel still less inclined to perform it. To conclude, then, we think the design of the Re

trospective Review is admirable, and frequently the execution so good, that we cannot but recommend it very strongly to the attention of our readers. Presenting, as it does, so rich a feast for the gratification of the literary palate, a repast so various and so delightful, we think that lover of literature ill advised who does not make it one of the staple articles of his library. Whatever may have dropped from us in the rapid review which we have here taken of its merits, we believe our readers can hardly consider our opinion of it otherwise than favourable, when we declare that we think it even an honour to the celebrated University from which it originated, and that its encouragement or failure will decide, in our opinion, the healthiness or corruption of the national taste.

THE author of Waverley has taken the field this season in a new and unknown territory, and with forces of a novel description, but with as much skill, boldness, vigour, and, we may add, with as much certainty of success, as ever distinguished him at any preceding era of his career. Having already shewn himself the unrivalled master of Scottish manners and Eng lish character, he has now transferred the scene to the Isles and the deep; and the beautiful lines of Shakespeare, which he has partly applied to his hero, may be applied, without mutilation and without alteration, and every way with much greater propriety, to him self:

Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. The encounter of new and untried difficulties has, as in the case of Ivanhoe, served only for an additional spur of his imagination; and if the Pirate be, from the nature of its story and subject, a less splendid, it is, we venture to say, not a less delightful effort of the first genius of our age, than even Ivanhoe itself.

The essential fable of this romance

is very simple, and, indeed, very slen: der-so that a very few words may serve to give as full an account of it as is necessary for our present purpose. Availing himself of a true story, well known to many of his Scottish readers, (and shortly told in his preface), he undertakes to frame a romantie narrative out of the partly real, partly imaginary, adventures of a set of pirates, apprehended among the Orkney Islands during the reign of George I., though the author has chosen to throw the date of his fiction as far back as the end of the 17th century. Goffe, the captain of these pirates, and the hero of their tale, occupies, however, but a secondary place in the representation of the Novelist, who has thought fit to concentrate the chief interest of his fiction on the character and fortunes of a purely imaginary personage, that figures, at the opening of the romance, under the name of Clement Cleveland. The reader has, without doubt, remarked, that when the author avails himself of historical materials, he seldom fails to follow the same rule which is exemplified here. Young Milnwood, and Serjeant Bothwell, and Waverley, and

Ivanhoe, are instances which must immediately recur to one's recollection; and if we may presume to hint what the author himself is no doubt quite aware of, this is much the best course he, or any author who converts such materials to such purposes, can pursue. In order to bend the historical character of Leicester so as to furnish out the hero of a romance, the author of Kenilworth found himself obliged to commit faults of a sort which he had previously avoided with great caution and great felicity. He was not only obliged to falsify dates and distort events which are or should be well known to the reader of English history; but, what was much worse, to give, in many respects, a discoloured view of the historical being, the great Earl of Leicester himself. Now, Captain Goffe might, no doubt, have been dealt with after this fashion without exciting any such feelings of dissatisfaction as marred and diminished our delight in perusing the exquisite romance of the days of Queen Bess; but there is no occasion to take any liberties of that nature even with such a personage as Captain Goffe; and, therefore, the author has done wisely in refraining from them. We hope he will always follow the same rule in future; and for this reason as much as for any other, that it is a rule of his own establishing-a rule, the adherence to which has stamped a value on his writings, which, if it had been neglected, even his genius could not have done-a rule, by observing which he has in fact made himself one of the greatest of national historians, as well as of national novelists. For who, after all, can doubt, that, when the manners of Britain, (which express the soul of Britain much more forcibly than even the events of British history,) shall have passed away, it will be from his pages, and such as his, that the students of after generations will collect their best and truest lights? Cervantes, not Mariana, is the true historian of Spain-and there is more to be learned of Scotland from three of this author's novels, than all the industry of all the Chalmerses could ever extract from all the folios and quartos, printed and MS., that are or ever have been in existence.

Captain Cleveland and Captain Goffe command two pirate ships, which, after a successful cruise in the

Spanish Main, find it necessary to sojourn for a little among the Shetland Isles before they make for the English port where they hope to deposit their booty. The navigation of the stormy seas in that region is, however, less familiar to them than that of the Atlantic, and the ship of Cleveland, who cannot prevail on his crew to obey all his orders, is lost off Sumburgh-head, a fearful promontory, with a no less fearful description of which the romance commences. The whole crew are lost, except Cleveland himself, who drifts ashore with the wreck of the vessel, while the sailors, who had? abandoned their ship, and their duty, and their captain, go down, within his sight, in the long boat. The violence of the surf, however, had exhausted his last exertions, and he is about to die on the very threshold of safety, when his situation is observed by a young man who is walking with his father on the summit of the cliff, many hundred feet above that perilous and foaming beach on which the relics of Cleveland's ship have just been dashed. Trained to the dangerous sports of the islanders, young Mordaunt Mertoun, although himself a stranger, and the son of a stranger, fearlessly descends the precipitous rock, and saves Cleveland's life at the imminent risk of his own. The father of Mordaunt, a melancholy refugee, who had for some time tenanted a lonely mansion-house on a sequestered extremity of the island, has habits which prevent the rescued mariner from being carried home by his gallant preserver; but Cleveland, who has nothing of the bearded buccaneer in his aspect, is conveyed to a cottage in the neighbouring village, where he personally receives every sort of kindness, although it is by no means an easy matter to protect any part of his shipwrecked property, even the chest containing his clothes, from the rapacious hands of these islanders, who, it is scarcely necessary to add, were not without some share, at that period, in the inhospitable_reproach of Cornwall, where, according to the old song,

2