the foregoing extract, and in which he attempts to neutralize the effect of the little credit he had reluctantly and very quaintly given to him. In short, we think M. A. B. has completely mistaken the Viceroy's character, and we are still willing to believe all that has been said of him by the two travellers before mentioned. We would fain hope, indeed, that we are correct in this notion of the Pasha's character, because we cannot help cherishing an expectation, that if he lives to witness a little more of the success of the Greeks, he may be encouraged to bestir himself to exertion in the same cause. It is a fact well known, that he has gone as far as he could well go in freeing himself from the dominancy of the Porte, and indeed he is now almost independent of it, his subjection to its authority being little more than what a nominal vassalage would be in a feudal country. His means, too, are considerable, viewing the condition in which Egypt remained under the rude policy of his immediate predecessors; or, rather, they are considerable, when contrasted with the now enervated state of the Ottoman Government. Joined with the effective forces which the Greeks can send into the field, therefore, an army of Egyptian Arabs would prove a most formidable obstacle in the way of any attempt on the part of the Porte to re-subjugate the land of Socrates and Plato; and in estimating the united strength of the Grecian and Egyptian armies, there is no occasion to view them as thoroughly organized, for though numerous enough, they are, it must be confessed, defective in point of military discipline and skill. The Turks, however, are not, in this respect, a whit their superiors, nor are they more amply provided with financial means; and it is to be at least presumed, that they do not surpass either Arabs or Greeks in military enthusiasm. In short, we believe that Greece and Egypt could, hand in hand, crush the feeble power of the Turks. But we are forgetting what is more particularly our present business.

In speaking of other Egyptian matters, M. A.B. does not shew much of the characteristic erudition and research of the generality of British

VOL. XV.

travellers. Perhaps this ought not, in his case, to be accounted a fault, for, after what has come from the pens of the numerous sçavans of all nations, who have visited and described the antiquities and curiosities of the country, little new light could have been expected to be thrown upon them by so cursory an observer as our author. The epigrammatic sketches of the manners of modern Egyptians, however, are interesting, though far too hasty and superficial to satisfy a shrewd, censorious reader.

We intended to follow our author in his excursion to Italy also, but we find our room is already occupied. We regret this the more, as the part of the volume which is devoted to his travels in that country is perhaps the most amusing and valuable: the shortness of his stay at the different places he visited did not permit him to describe them with a travellerlike minuteness and accuracy, but his advertisements of what he saw at Malta, Syracuse, Mount Etna, and Naples, are all written with spirit, and occasionally with force. We were a little struck with the following awkwardly-expressed, though impressive reflections on Rome:

Ascend the tower of the Capitol, and look around over the stately columns, and the pointing obelisks, the temples, porticoes, the arches of triumph! What ages flit, with their crowding shadows, past you! What voices sound, sober and sad, of those who thought and wrote like men worthy the name-men, an undiscovered scroll of whose true thoughts would be prized as a nobler relic than these grand, though ruined shrines of gods and victors, about whom we are now disenchanted.

The greatest pleasure derived from wandering among these noble remains, is a consideration of the surprising power Beneath such a magnificent of man. ruin as the forum of Nerva, under the columns of a Trajan and an Antoninus, before that stupendous block the obelisk, brought from Heliopolis, and, above all, in that glorious temple the Pantheon, which has been the model for all after-time, you feel, if you are a common man, one without the bright attainments of that scientific knowledge, which is true power, without even the strength or skill to raise the stone, or shape the common brick; you feel all the advantages and blessings of

society doubly; you shrink to think of the littleness and helplessness of solitary man; you startle at his power and daring, where minds and bodies aid each other, and fill the world with wonders of a creation within, and from its fair self,

which, to the eye of the untutored savage,

would all be miracles.

I like the black and monumental cypresses, which on the hills round this city seem to grow as mourners, and darkly wave their spiral tops above this spot, this grave of glory and of empire. How strange mirth seems in Rome! yet here it is loud, healthy, happy. Beneath a lofty mound of broken sherds and ancient pottery, without the city, there are some rustic taverns, and there are trees near, and grass grows round them: here you may see the people. The women in their black hats, with flowers in them, and bouquets in their hands and bosoms, and the laced corset, and the velvet jacket, nine crowded in one open carriage, all smiles and glowing with rude health,

arrive and sit down with men of their own class, at open tables, and feast and dance to the lute and tambourine, and spend the long holiday in merriment. The forms and features of the Roman women are very handsome; they are all

on the large scale, but have astonishingly fine profiles, and eyes of the brightest lustre. They still call these festivals Bacchanalian, and crowd to them, if the weather is fine, in great numbers.

occupied with cursory descriptions of the principal cities through which he passed in his rout home, particularly Florence, Bologna, Padua, Venice, Verona, and Milan, from which one ignorant of the state and character of these places would certainly derive some useful information, but to those already familiar with their history, local curiosities, and the manners of their inhabitants, we fear these descriptions would add but little to their stock of knowledge.

The remainder of the volume is

It must be allowed, however, that observer of men and manners; and our author is an accurate and shrewd it is obvious, from the general character of his writings, that he possesses a heart fitted to sympathise with their feelings and fortunes, and a head capable of communicating to others what he has felt and seen.

Of crystal, flowing rapidly away,
Or ling'ring to bathe the daisy on its way.
The pale white weed, whose flow'ry
cov'ring hides

Thy shallows, when thy shrunken cur-
rent glides

A stream of Summer, laughing to the day That gilds thee, and so sweetly o'er thy bed

Mosaic murmuring, becomes thee well. The fairest maid, that seeking, where remote,

The primrose, on thy bank, and violet, shed

Their odour, looks into thy silvery swell

Of waters, each sweet line of beauty there may note.

Such streams as thine of old Diana lov'd To bathe in with her nymphs; but these are fled

From earth the etherial bands that nightly led

The dance by moonlight on the sward,

THIS day came on, before the Lord Chief Commissioner, Time, a trial, in which Shakespeare was pursuer, and the Author of Waverley defender. As the case excited considerable interest in the literary world, the court was unusually crowded. On the bench, beside the Judge, we observed Homer, Sophocles, Esehylus, and the laughter loving Aristophanes. The Earls of Essex and Southampton, the munifi

cent patrons of the bard of Avon, were present, and seemed to interest themselves much in the proceedings. The jury was composed partly of the gentlemen of former days, and partÏy of those of the present. Counsel for the pursuer, Lord Chancellor Bacon, &c.; for the defender, Dr Dryasdust, Messrs Gifford, Jeffrey, and the other celebrated critics of the day. Among the various personages who crowded, or, we may say, liter

ally crammed the court, we observed, in a corner, the Author of the Curiosities of Literature, busily engaged taking notes, from whose papers the following account of the proceedings has been chiefly taken.

The points at issue were: Whether was the pursuer or defender the greater genius? And whether the defender, by his productions, had not innovated upon the fame of the pursuer?

An objection was made to the trial going forward, on the ground that the parties did not come before the court on an equal footing; in respect that the one was a writer of dramatic works, and the other of novels, or prose tales and histories; and that therefore a comparison could not properly be drawn between the two. But it was argued, that the two species of composition bore a close resemblance to each other. That both depicted natural incidents and manners, and both dealt in the passions, and feelings, and foibles of humanity. That, in Shakespeare's time, the spirit of the age, and the habits and tastes of the public, had, perhaps, an effect in directing his attention to dramatic works; that the spirit of chivalry, then in its height, made the people delight in tournaments, public shows, and theatrical spectacles: whereas now the sentiments of the public had changed, and their amusements were diverted into other channels. They still retain their taste for the spirit of such works, but their habits have become more domestic, more retired and sedentary, and their minds less enthusiastic, stirring, and chivalrous: they now prefer reading in their closets such works as the novels in question where the dialogues are so interspersed with description, as to bring the scene in a pleasing manner before the fancy-to witnessing all the pomp and circumstance, and the action and expression of a mimic representation. That, under these circumstances, the Author of Waverley had but adapted his productions to the prevailing taste; and that it is probable, had he written in Shakespeare's time, his pieces would have assumed a similar form to his.

The objection was over-ruled, and Lord Bacon rose to open the case for

the pursuer. He felt considerable diffidence, he said, considering the high merits of the subject, to appear before such a learned and venerable assembly as the champion of his celebrated client in the present case, more especially, as his pursuits and studies might seem to have lain in a different tract. "But I consider, my Lord," he continued, "that the man who unfortunately has not a relish for, or he who lets other occupations entirely alienate his taste from such productions, is deprived of many of the most delightful and exhilarating pleasures of a refined mind. I reflect with singular complacency on the many times, when, unbending my mind from severer studies, I have luxuriated on the vivid sallies of imagination, the touching pathos, the poignant wit, and pure morality, contained in the volumes of my illustrious client. I need scarcely enlarge on the fame of this celebrated author; he has received the united and enthusiastic admiration of his own countrymen, and of all those of other countries who are capable of approaching his excellencies. It has been beautifully observed by one of his admirers, that if it should so happen that the race of men became extinct, a being of another species would have a sufficient idea of what human nature was, from Shakespeare's works alone. Every shade of character,-every amiable propensity,-every dark, gloomy, and turbulent passion, is pourtrayed with such singular truth and minuteness

Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,

Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd

new:

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,

And panting Time toil'd after him in vain!'

Thus has his name floated down the stream of public opinion, emblazoned by the applauding voice of successive ages, without a rival, or even an approach of a competitor; till at last one has arisen, who, similarly gifted in many respects, treads close in his path, and in the eyes of many seems to proceed with equal footsteps. Far be it from me to at

tempt to underrate the merits of the defender. I admire and honour his genius; but still that genius may be great, without being the greatest; he may shine a star of the first magnitude, without rivalling the sun in his splendour. In fertility and vigour of imagination, in felicity of painting to the life, in simple and natural pathos, and almost in humour and wit, he is little, if at all, inferior to his rival. He paints a variety of characters with true consistency and originality; so distinctly are they brought out, that we seem to recognise them as individuals, and in time come to reckon them in the list of our acquaintances. So far as he depicts, he does so with life, and the pictures please and amuse us. But we in vain look for those awfully-deep portraitures of humanity, those sympathetic delineations of feeling, and gradual risings, insidious changes, and tempests and whirlwinds' of passion, coming so closely home to men's business and bosoms, which are to be found in Shakespeare. If we come to consider the language in which the respective authors clothe their ideas and descriptions, we will find an immense superiority on the side of the dramatist. There is an indescribable charm in the flow and harmony of measured lines, which much enhances the sentiments they express; together with a dignity and conciseness of expression, which prose can never equal, and never approach. Shakespeare's volumes teem with passages of beauty, in which are crowded and concentrated maxims, reflections, and turns of expression, which have become incorporated with our very thoughts, and which we borrow like a second language, on all occasions, either of seriousness or levity. His works can bear to be perused again and again, and always with renewed or additional pleasure."

The illustrious counsel, after observing that it was almost needless to call any witnesses on the part of his client, although hosts of them were in attendance, concluded a learned and eloquent speech, by craving from the jury a verdict in his favour.

The counsel for the defender now rose. When the question was first agitated, he said, it was not with the

view of making invidious comparisons. His client had not the presumption to attempt to be thought to excel the great master-spirit of his age, Shakespeare. The present discussion was forced upon him, and he hoped it would not be considered as arrogance on his part if he attempted to defend his client. Comparisons of all kinds, but especially of literary merit, were often very vague and inconclusive. Of two persons attempting the same walk, one might excel in qualifications of one kind, and one in another, and it was a matter of much nicety to adjust the balance between them. The noble and learned counsel on the other side, with much candour, had admitted, that in what must be considered the essentials of genius, the author of Waverley was little or nowise inferior to his great prototype-in imaginative power, in felicity of description, and in depth of feeling. That he had not pourtrayed many of the passions and feelings, which are most remarkable, and most prevalent in humanity, may perhaps be owing to the circumstance that Shakespeare lived before him. The great minds of the days that are past have seized upon the most striking and most important subjects, and have left little to their successors but imitation and amplification. There is no farther room to paint the workings of ambition, leading on to guilt and cruelty, after the characters of Macbeth and King Richard. Groundless jealousy, revenge, and the love of malice, purely for its own sake, is already depicted in Othello and Iago, the melancholy wreck of a noble and sensitive mind in Hamlet,-and youthful passion in the loves of Romeo and Juliet. It may perhaps be said, that, striking out new paths, and seizing on incidents not obvious to the common eye, and therefore not suspected to exist, is a principal characteristic of genius. But human nature, though diversified, is not inexhaustible,-the general properties, and primitive passions and affection, have already been sufficiently pourtrayed. The Author of Waverley then, to be original, had to take these general passions of our nature, and represent them when under peculiar circumstances, situations, and states of ci