the towne be meaned the magistrats, they did show no countenance either welcoming them, eating or drinking with them. If by the town be meaned the bodie, welcomes were so farre, that we wish to God the voice of such joy be never heard in the streets of Edinburgh; we may boldly say, in the face of anie, will say the contrarie, that consider the number, and our weeping was as great as lamentings of Achor's valley. Wee will be bold to say, it was the saddest day that ever the town did see; and that enemie the saddest sight, nay, it was to them as the verie sight of the executioner on the scaffold. If by the town be meaned particular men, wee can not bee answerable for everie man's particular carriage. If anie be found, let these be tried and punished for being so unnaturall. The hearts of none we know, but the outward carriage of all our towne was humble, demisse, sadd, sorrow full, verrie farre from the expressions of anie joy. Two things are proposed to be considered: 1, Whether the rendring of the towne, or the field was most disgraceful and prejudiciall to the cause and countrie. The towne was rendred, not being able, for the former reasons, to stand out, upon honest and honorable capitulations. The field was rendred having two to one, of which many horse, ane (and) good cannon, by a shameful groundless tergiversation. 2. The town's rendring, being unable to stand out, saved the effusion of much blood; for being unable, and yet stand out, wee should have been accessarie to our owne massacree; but the fields' render was the cause of much blood, ten only being killed standing, and all the rest fleeing, so that being able to stand, and yet fled, they seeme to have been accessarie to much blood, they might have saved. 3. The town's rendring was the very immediate necessarie effect of the field's rendring; let anie man having considered this inferne the conclusion. Againe, let the events of rendring and not rendring the towne be compared, and see which should have been most heartful to the cause and countrie, By rendring (not being able to stand) wee keeped our cause and covenant inviolate. Wee keeped our citie, -wee keeped our lives, and our meenes for manteenance of the cause and countrie in time coming. By not standing (being so unable) the countrie had losed a citie, a number of poor soules, men, women, and babes, with all their fortunes and means. Was it not better than to have rendred with such honestie, as to have resisted with such certaintie of danger. They who would have had us in Perth, offer ourselves a bloodie sacrifice for our countrie, and with more honest terms could save ourselves for our countrie's service, and, in the mean time, had not the contrair [carnage?] for their countrie to withstand the force of sworne enemies themselves, to say no more they are to uncharitable cruell against us, and to partialie lovers of themselves. As for that the town held in their friends to be captived, its true for a little while they were detained; but how soon we saw it impossible to stand out; we let all our boats passe, and Fyfe men with other men, so thronged, that sundrie were drowned, both horse and foot. Our boats passed that night till elleven hours at evening. Our port we could not open, neither could they passe. For the cruell dogs were even hard at the inch,and had a company between that and the budge waiting the massacre of such as we should let out. apparant if we should let out the Fyfe men, and they beene killed between our towne and the bridge, that they should have said in Fyfe, that wee would not harbor them, but chase them out to the slaughter. God judge us according to the charitie some of us shew to them. Its THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. Many of the casts and qualities of human character have been so frequently described, and are so obviously subject to every common observation that they can no longer have the power to interest in a drama, an Epic poem, a novel, or even in the faithful narrative of true history. Thus, after Homer, Virgil, Tasso, and Milton, it is no longer easily possible to confer interesting peculiarity on the character of a hero without violating its natural propriety; and hence comes it that the heroes in our modern Epic poems so slightly command our sympathy or fond enthusiastic admiration. Indeed, it would be folly to suppose, that there can be any person of native genius which, without culture, observation, and experience, can in any department of writing produce those speciosa miracula which alone have power to astonish, or interest to charm. In the whole furniture of our circulating libraries, we have not a single novel written by a raw unexperienced youth of either sex that exhibits any happy and vigorous delineations of character. What a deep insight into human nature must there not have been necessary to enable Cervantes to imagine and develope a character so natural yet so inimitably singular as that of Don Quixote? How much must Le Sage have read and observed to be able to paint so many faithful, yet happy touches, as the characters in his novel of Gil Blas? How carefully must Fielding have observed, at least the superficies of both vulgar and fashionable life, before he could be qualified to present those genuine displays of the humor of English manners which are diffused throughout his novels? Smollet looked deep into the human mind, and often as it should seem, with a malignant suspicious inspection, before he drew the characters of Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clink er. How much of real knowledge, the result of keen observation, and of deep thought, appears in the single character of Zeluco, by Dr. Moore? Of all our more modern novelists, Charlotte Smith is one whose writings afford the most faithful, the happiest, and the most various pictures of character. Her experience, her affections, and the fluctuating course of her life, have evidently contributed not less than the nature, strength, and vivacity of her genius, to enable her to make her works to a degree so remarkable, a great exhibition of the varieties in human nature, and of genuine English life. We would not here be understood, let it be observed, that mere reading and experience in the world will endow any person with the power of happily inventing characters for a novel :-there must be something The novelist is not to copy his characters from real life and books with the servility of a plagiarist he is to take thence only the elements-the composition of these elements into one substance; and the moulding of that into new forms, must be the work of his own genius. more. The novelist, of all the writers who address themselves to the heart, appears to have a superior sway over the attention of his reader; or perhaps it were better to say that there is no species of writing for which the generality of readers shew such a rooted predilection, as for romance. We are fond of examining a moral painting. We are curious to mark the modifications, the diversities, and shades of human nature. This passion is universal and wherever a character is faithfully delineated, it is instantly observed and appreciated by all ranks of people. Now there are points of view without number from which interesting sketches of human character can be taken: and wherever there is a moral painter who, to a quick conception, and a playful fancy, joins acuteness of observation, we take it to be almost impossible that, until he ceases to write, he should ever cease to please. The very uncommon, and very deserved success of the Romances which have been supplied us of late years from the pen of the distinguished author of Waverley, shews that there is something more than speculation or hypothesis in this remark; and we will add, that the curiosity already alluded to, to survey the different aspects and phases of character, is, together with the great merit of these publications, a very good ground on which to argue, that they shall retain in after times the popularity which they have acquired in our own. The author of Waverley has contributed a vast stock to the fund of imaginative felicity; he has evinced a consummate knowledge of nature and the workings of the human mind, in many of his vigorous and, perhaps, unrivalled delineations of character; the creations of his fancy are pregnant with enjoyment. He has exhibited such a rare combination of mingled qualities, good and evil, as even tend to throw a charm on vice itself. However difficult it may be to preserve the truth of nature, our author, however, has fallen into the best side of the general error of his predecessors-he has made his readers in love only with vice, on account of the splendid talents and virtues with which it appears inseparably allied. WAVERLEY PLOT. To those who have not previously read this interesting novel, the following esquisse will be an acceptable morceau by way of prelude, and such as have already been gratified by the perusal will immediately |