In conclusion, we observe once more, that, in what we have said on this part of our subject, we have not the most remote intention of bringing any insinuation against the Roman Catholics of France, England, or Ireland.-We acquit them of all such principles—we repeat that every word that we have written, has been written in our own defence-and for the purpose of showing, that charges of this kind are not to be whistled away as horrible imputations, as Protestant calumnies, or to be treated as doctrines which never prevailed in the court of Rome. We do not assert that they were even Articles of Faith; nor, to say, the truth, do we care whether they were or not: it appears to us to signify very little, if a person be committed to the flames, whether he is burned on an article of faith or a principle of law. But we must now bring this article to a close. There are many other topics on which we should have wished to speak; but, for the present, we must be silent; and we hope that we have kept the pledge which we gave at the beginning of this article, of refraining from all discourteous expressions, and from every thing that might tend to excite any feeling of irritation. We have explained with what clearness we could, some of the leading tenets of the Roman Catholics, and have assigned our reasons for rejecting them.-But we have brought no charge against those individuals of this empire, who adhere to their ancient faith; we have not willingly imputed to them any tenets they disclaim, or accused them, in any way, of insincerity, dishonesty, or disguise. Our full belief is, that the Roman Catholics of the United Kingdom, from their long residence among Protestants, their disuse of processions and other Romish ceremonies, have been brought gradually, and almost unknowingly, to a more spiritual religion and a purer faith-that they themselves see with sorrow the disgraceful tenets and principles that were professed and carried into practice by their forefathers-and are too fond of removing this disgrace from them by denying the former existence of these tenets, and ascribing the imputation of them to the calumnies of the Protestants. This we cannot allow ; and while we cherish the hope that they are now gone for ever, we still assert boldly and fearlessly that they did once exist.

But, while we allow a great degree of improvement to have taken place both in the principles and practices of the Romanists, there is still enough, and more than enough, left in the doctrines

trà salutem animarum, contrà jus divinum et humanum nullo modo servanda est. Sæpe id à nobis dictum; necesse est, tamen, incessabiliter iterari, et tamdiu non tacere, quamdi pacis illud obtenditur, Simancha de Cathol, Instit. cap. 462, n. 52. ·

of that religion as they are acknowledged and professed to confirm every declaration against them which is contained in the Articles of the Church of England-and to those declarations we adhere firmly and invariably, without restriction, qualification, or disguise.

ART. VIII.-SCOTCH NOVELS.-1. Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, a Selection from the Papers of the late Arthur Austin, 1822.

2.-The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay. By the Author of Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," 1823.

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3.-The_Foresters. By the Author of "The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay," and the " Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," 1825.

THE brilliant example of the Great Unknown has raised such a host of Scottish romancers, that the critics have been fairly thrown out in the chase. Nevertheless, the popularity and importance of these writers is such, that, though we cannot pretend to keep them always in view, it is our duty as the chroniclers and censors of literature, every now and then to select a victim; and here we have overtaken a gentleman who stands accountable for three closely printed octavos. His pretensions are considerable, his merits and success not inconsiderable, and he dedicates to Sir Walter Scott; yet we are bound to declare that, if indeed of the Waverley blood, he is but a cousin very many times removed. His tales are mere poetical visions, and ought to have been in rhyme, for there is nothing of prose about them either in the thoughts or diction. The restraints of metre would have retrenched many unpleasing superfluities of ornament which now encumber his style, and he might have successfully rivalled the pathetic stories of Barry Cornwall.-He seems, however, to have a higher aim than merely to please as a poet; for, though he does not explain his design by preface or advertisement, yet the title of his first work and the subject-matter of them all profess to exhibit traits of national character, a very difficult task to execute well at any time, but undertaken under peculiar disadvantage when the authors of "Waverley" and the "Annals of the Parish" have both exhausted their varied powers upon Scottish subjects.

However, we should be sorry to condemn any one for following such high examples-and all who have read Dr. Currie's elegant dissertation, prefixed to his "Life of Burns," must be grateful to

every Scottish writer who introduces us to a more familiar acquaintance with "his country's high-soul'd peasantry." But we are afraid that our present author is not one of those from whom we may look for any addition to our knowledge of living manners. He paints the romance of life, and not the reality. He seems to be a man of warm feelings, and some eloquence, but either he has never studied living men, or he has not the heart to represent them as they are. In the warmth of his imagination he wings his way back to the golden age, shuts his eyes upon sad reality, and transforms the Land of Cakes into an Arcadian Vale. It has always been the privilege of poets to deck out their imaginary creations in imaginary colours, and every student of epic song knows that when he opens his books he retires from the world. But the philosophic novelist, who professes to portray human and national manners, should awaken from the dreams of poetry. We are aware that nothing is more difficult for an ordinary writer, than to impart novelty and interest to the real affairs of men,-and if our author had merely published his sketches as imaginary studies, without pretending to have drawn them from nature, we should have dismissed him without censure as an elegant trifler. But since half the unhappiness of human life arises from disappointed hope, it is the duty of sober critics, to warn young ladies and gentlemen against those seductive romancers, who represent this world as the abode of good and happy beings.

In the hands of our author Scotland is a land flowing with milk and honey, a very garden of Eden before the fall; and Scottish life is charmingly bright and virtuous, with a very slight sprinkling of sin and sorrow. The women are all "beautiful as the houries, and as wise as Zobeide,"-uniformly remarkable for golden tresses, beaming eyes, ivory teeth, and irresistible smiles. Even the shepherdesses have snowy arms, and rose and lily complexions; and what is more important still, their love affairs are in general both judicious and happy. The climate is that of Paradise before Milton's angel pushed aside the axis of the earth. The summer sun warms without scorching by day, and the moon

"Pours all the Arabian heaven upon their nights."

The winters are exceedingly mild and genial, save occasionally a picturesque storm, to afford amorous and heroic shepherds an opportunity of rescuing lovely shepherdesses from the snow. Such is the world beyond the Tweed; and if Rasselas had only found his way thither, he would never have returned to Abyssinia.

The "Lights and Shadows" consist of twenty-four pastoral stories or sketches, after the manner of Geoffry Crayon, but far below him in every quality of merit. There is no variety, no humour, no nice discrimination of character. The author draws entirely upon his fancy. He borrows no aid from history or tradition, or even from the legendary lore of a land of poetical superstitions. He never refers to books, or real men, dead or living; but he dreams a dream, and straightway commits it to paper in language flowery as the meadows of May, and sweet as murmuring zephyrs.

"The country all around rang with the beauty of Amy Gordon; and although it was not known who first bestowed upon her the appellation, yet now she bore no other than the Lily of Liddesdale. She was the only child of a shepherd, and herself a shepherdess. Never had she been out of the valley in which she was born; but many had come from the neighbouring districts just to look upon her as she rested with her flock on the hill-side, as she issued smiling from her father's door, or sat in her serener loveliness in the kirk on sabbath-day. Sometimes there are living beings in nature as beautiful as in romance; reality surpasses imagination; and we see breathing, brightening, and moving before our eye-sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep.

"It was thus that all felt who looked on the Lily of Liddesdale. She had grown up under the dews, and breath, and light of heaven, among the sclitary hills; and now that she had attained to perfect womanhood, nature rejoiced in the beauty that gladdened the stillness of these undisturbed glens. Why should this one maiden have been created lovelier than all others? In what did her surpassing loveliness consist? None could tell; for had the most imaginative poet described the maiden, something that floated around her, an air of felt but unspeakable grace and lustre, would have been wanting in his picture. Her face was pale, yet tinged with such a faint and leaf-like crimson, that though she well deserved the name of the Lily, yet she was at times like unto the rose. When asleep, or in silent thought, she was the fairest of the lilied brood; but when gliding along the braes, or singing her songs by the river side, she might well remind one of that other brighter and more dazzling flower. Amy Gordon knew that she was beautiful. She knew it from the eyes that in delight met hers, from the tones of so many gentle voices, from words of affection from the old, and love from the young, from the sudden smile that met her when in the morning she tied up at the little mirror her long raven hair, and from the face and figure that looked up to her when she stooped to dip her pitcher in the clear mountain well. True that she was of lowly birth, and that her manners were formed in a shepherd's hut and among shepherdesses on the hill. But one week passed in the halls of the highly-born would have sufficed to hide the little graceful

symptoms of her humble lineage, and to equal her in elegance with those whom in beauty she far excelled. The sun and the rain had indeed touched her hands, but nature had shaped them delicate and small. Light was her footstep on the verdant turf, as through the birch-wood glades and down the rocky dells she glided or bounded along, with a beauty that seemed at once native and alien there; like some creature of another clime that still had kindred with this: an oriental antelope among the roes of a Scottish forest."

Now this (which we have taken from the first two pages of the book) is a specimen of the author's most chastised style of description, for, florid and redundant as it is, it really comes as near to the level of sober prose as ever he condescends to

stoop.

1

From such an introduction the discerning reader will readily surmise that a love-tale is in preparation, and doubtless it would be out of nature if so exquisite a shepherdess did not speedily make conquests. She gets, indeed, as far as nineteen herself without even a scratch from a random arrow of Cupid, but she has unconsciously captivated the heart of a rustic cousin, who, after bearing the flames as long as it was possible, rather abruptly pops the question one sunny afternoon while the Lily is sitting in a delightful glen among her lambs. The Lily is somewhat chill upon the occasion, talks to her swain as her brother, can never think of being his wife, yet to save him from desperation, very magnanimously vows never to marry at all. It is not long, however, before she feels the consequences of rash vows; for she meets among the hills Mr. George Elliott of the Priory, a high-born, rich, and romantic young 'squire, with a great many beautiful sisters, and a very proud mother. He makes honourable, but violent, love to her on the spot, and after another interview she is so completely over head and ears, that she goes home, falls into a deadly fever, and, in her delirious ravings, unconsciously reveals the secret in the ears of her father and her enamoured cousin. But, after some time, she grows calmer, awakes from the dream of that high alliance, and seeing her cousin hanging over her, vows, if she recovers, to be his after all. She does recover both her health and beauty, and resumes her pastoral occupations; but another trial waits her constancy: she meets again with George Elliott, who, during her illness, had been in France, attending the death-bed of his father. He now urges her to instant wedlock, and whisks her off on horseback, in a swoon, to a cottage on his estate, where one of his beautiful sisters appears to back her brother's suit. The Lily is very near giving way, but recollects herself in time, and in a long speech of most extravagant humility, urges her inferiority of birth, her