Lyndsay conceives situations very finely and originally; his diction is often magnificent, and his imagery striking and appropriate; he seems to write in a sort of tumult and hurry of young delight, and therefore is often insensible to the monotony and even dulness of long passages, which sorely try the reader in a calm and composed perusal; he pitches his tone too high, and walks too much on stilts; his bad passages, accordingly, are extravagant, bombastical, and not to be read at all; but when the situation of his personages is pathetic or sublime, Mr Lyndsay is often most effective; and we have no doubt that we have quoted enough to prove, that if a young writer, which can scarcely be doubted, high hopes may be justly formed of him who, in a first attempt, has produced so much poetry true to nature, and belonging to the highest province of imagination.

Prefixed to this volume, we find the following Advertisement:

"It may be necessary for me to say something respecting the singular coincidence of my having chosen the same subjects as Lord Byron for two of my Dramas. I entreat permission to assert, and credit when I do assert, that it is entirely accidental that my Dramas were written long before Lord Byron's were announced, before I could have had any idea that his brilliant pen was engaged upon the Drama at all. The inferiority of the execution of mine may perhaps lead me to regret that I have selected the same subjects, otherwise I never can lament any coincidence with the admired Author of Manfred and Childe Harolde."

The coincidence certainly is very singular; and the overpowering influence of Byron's name may prevent full justice being done to Mr Lyndsay. But we are greatly mistaken if his Lordship himself will not admire many things in these first productions of a youthful muse, at once modest and ambitious. Our extracts have been wholly from one Drama-not because we think it absolutely the best, but that the public might judge of the force of the poet's mind in its continuous flow. The conception of the state of Cain is beyond doubt very terrible and poetical, and has occupied the writer's mind almost to the exclusion of all other permanent thoughts or feelings. But perhaps readers, according to their peculiar tastes, will prefer some of the other pieces. The

Deluge is conceived in a very awful mood of the imagination;—vast and dark images of horror and crime, like the shadows and the gloom of storms, move around the scene, and suggest associations of terror, far more thrilling than the most distinct portraiture of individual character. The Plague of Darkness, and the Last Plague, have already adorned our pages. Rizpah, as a delineation of the craze of grief, is full of strong and affecting touches of pathos. The description of the silent spirit of Saul hovering round the bodies of his sacrificed children, cannot be thought on without painful sentiments of sympathy and sorrow.

In Sardanapalus, the author will again be brought into comparison with Byron. In his conception of the situation, we doubt if the noble poet will be found to have surpassed him. In the appropriate expression of passion, Mr Lyndsay is not so successful, though here and there he darts gleams of the intensest feeling, and at times puts of Sardanapalus, that his soul appears such energy into the kindled heroism sparkling and glowing beneath the falling of his fortunes like the thunderbolts under the hammers of the Cyclops.

But Sardanapalus is here a full formed hero,—already he has been the Hector of battles, and the young voluptuary is almost forgotten in the stern and gallant soldier. The interest is in consequence weakened -we can anticipate from the first, that he will perish gloriously; and he is introduced to us as claiming and meriting our sympathy.

would have been to have shewn him What a triumph of dramatic art it in his state of abasement, and to have exhibited the first stirrings of his lahis powers, till the whole splendour tent energy, gradually developing all and pride of his nature had burst out into that conflagration of spirit, with which he at once met and avenged his doom. We know not, indeed, in the whole range of human passion, any incident so calculated to produce the noblest stage-effect, than the moment when Sardanapalus, awakened to the danger and greatness of his situation, roused himself, and bade

"The weak wanton Cupid -Unloose his amorous fold, And, like a dew drop from the lion's mane, Be shook to air."

reached the Baikal (in perfect health) on the 123d day after leaving St Petersburgh; having traversed 8000 versts of country. This was at the rate of about 43 miles a-day, which the Quarterly must allow somewhat to exceed any thing hitherto recorded in the annals of pedestrianism.

At first, it was Captain Cochrane's intention to have wintered at Irkutzk, but he saw reason to change his mind, and embarking on the Lena on the 14th of September, he reached Jakutzk on the 16th of October. Here he found 16 degrees of frost by Réaumeur, which obliged him to exchange the nankeen jacket he had hitherto worn for a warmer covering. Quitting Jakutzk on the 30th of October, he held north-eastward, till on the 30th of December, he reached Nijnei Kolyma, in long. 164, where he met the Russian Expedition proceeding to the Pole. The frost now ranged from 35 to 42 of Réaumeur. During this journey Captain C. travelled upwards of 400 miles without meeting a human being.

Leaving Nijnei Kolyma, (or Kovyma, as it is written in some of the maps,) Captain C. proceeded to Tchutski fair, where he gained much satisfactory geographical information respecting the north-east of Asia. He ascertained the existence of the N. E. Cape. "All doubts," he says, "being now solved, not by calculation, but ocular demonstration. Its latitude and longitude are well ascertained, and its mineralogical specimens are now by me."

Having returned from Kolyma, he set out for the town of Ochotzk, situated on the sea of that name, where he arrived, after a most laborious journey of 75 days. In his last letter, which is dated from Otchozk, he mentions his intention of setting out in a few days for Kamchatka, traversing that peninsula from south to north, till he reach Ijigink; from whence, he says, he will return to Europe through Asia by a different route from that he came. He adds, that he will not go to America, as it is quite unnecessary." He expects to be in St Petersburgh in the fall of next year.

So far as yet appears, Capt. Cochrane seems to have acquitted himself well, and deserves to have his name placed on the list of those of his countrymen who have contributed to the stock of geographical science. As for

ourselves, we never entertained any doubt of the termination of Asia at Cape North-East. Many have doubted however, even Russians; and it is gratifying to think that the doubt is now solved, and by one of that country which has done, and is doing, so much for the advancement of geographical knowledge.

From what we have learnt, the remote countries through which Captain Cochrane has passed are highly inte resting in a geological point of view; but we are not aware how far his education has fitted him for observation in this department of science. It is certain, however, that he acquired an extensive and valuable collection of specimens during his stay at Irkutzk; and it is confidently reported at St Petersburgh, that he intends making a magnificent present of minerals to the Museum of the University of Edinburgh.

Captain Cochrane expresses himself most gratefully towards the Russian government for the truly liberal manner in which he has been treated. Everywhere the authorities vied with each other in shewing him attention. This is as it should be, and we feel pleasure in making it universally known.

The

Captain C.'s personal habits must have contributed not a little to lessen the irksomeness of a journey necessarily attended with many and severe hardships. Wherever he went, he seems easily to have accommodated himself to the habits of the people, however rude and disgusting. With the Kalmacks, he eat horse-flesh, elks, and wolves; and with the Tchutski he found as little difficulty in pasturing upon bears, rein-deer, and raw frozen fish; the last of which, indeed, he calls a great delicacy! Few of our scientific men could stomach these cates. stoutest hearted of them are too old, or (fortunately for themselves, if not for science,) "have other fish to fry." There is no saying, however, what may happen. If Professor Jameson could meet with a pupil of bodily strength, and zeal for the advancement of science equal to his own, the young man might possibly (after four geological campaigns with the Professor in Lord Reay's country,) be found qualified for discharging the duty of a scientific missionary, even at Tchutzkoy Noss.

B.

treme. Now an amanuensis has ever been our abhorrence. A great greasy gawpus, + squat on his posteriors at your elbow, fixing on you during your intervals of exhaustion, a pair of eyes in their sockets, gravy as the openings of putrid oysters, and then putting down into his scrawl, with red hairy fingers tipped with a circle of earthy horn, your lucubrations, in which the happiness or misery of so large a portion of the Christian population of the world may be involved, is an infliction which we would fain spare even our dearest foe. We never, therefore, shall dictate to any individual. But besides this evil, our rheumatism had attacked us in the tenderest point. We felt the most excruciating pain whenever we sat down ;-just as if it had been on a cushion of cats. If Ebony, or a printer's devil, came in upon us at such moments, we had great difficulty in preventing ourselves from flinging at his head the first article that came to hand. It is impossible for us to express the horror and disgust which such intrusions, at other times so pleasant, then excited in our breast. The world thought us blest -measuring our happiness by our merits,-while, on the contrary, we would have paid handsomely to have got Ballantyne's printing office blown up, and our worthy publisher put to the Apoplexy.

Now there is a mixture of motives in all human conduct. In sending in our resignation, we were partly swayed by the conviction that we had placed our country in a condition in which she might be able to take henceforth care of herself, and partly by those feelings now alluded to, which seemed to us a fundamental objection to our occupying any longer the seat of government. We tendered our resignation on the 24th of November. Then was the moment to have put Mr Blackwood to death. And heaven forgive us, but the idea shot across our brain! Remembering, however, that he had a large and increasing family, and that the lives or the happiness of upwards of twenty thousand subscribers were linked with his, we relented; and instead of inflicting instant death, by the sudden communication of an unconditional resignation in propria persona, we worded it in such a way as to

bring a knowledge of his calamity slowly upon him, and by merciful degrees; so that on finishing the perusal of our letter, he should be able faintly to distinguish whether he had read it on his head or his heels, and to perceive a glimmering of hope through the gloom of despair. The letter was also humanely sealed with black wax, to prepare his mind for something funereal, and delivered to him not by young Mr Steele, in his usual modest and polite style, but by a sauley with an aspect most especially cadaverous, as if sent into the world for the express purpose of being a messenger of evil tidings.

On going into the back shop for the letters to the London post, about four o'clock in the afternoon, it appears that John Lesslie found our worthy publisher extended five feet seven inches upon the floor. The consternation that immediately spread all along Prince's-street, as far as St John's chapel, across the Mound and the Bridges, up the Castlehill, and down Leith Walk, is more easily imagined than described. We had some sort of presentiment of what might happen-and looking from the window of our pensive citadel, with an excellent spy-glass which we purchased some years ago at Whitehaven from the old half-pay naval officer described by Mr Wordsworth in his Lyrical Ballad, The Thorn, we beheld all the people in Edinburgh running about to and fro, like bees on a board when they have lost their queen. We felt in a moment that THE PROPRIETOR was no more. Still watching the scene below, through a tear, we saw Odoherty issue like a gleam of lightning from the menagerie on the Mound, where he had been engaged, we have since understood, in a study for his "Great Picture of the Seven Lions," and disappear in No. 17. While all around were stupified with grief, the Adjutant forced his way to the body of his friend, and raising it up, placed our Publisher on his usual stool at his accustomed desk. The Standard-bearer was not long in ascertaining that the vital spark was by no means extinct, and calling the Odontist, whose presence of mind had wholly forsaken him, and who was standing in a corner blubbering like a child, the right vein was opened, and our Publisher at last, but with great difficulty, was made to bleed freely. He opened