is to bring him to. Mr Banim is almost the only author now alive who possesses the power of keeping our interest anxiously awake by the complexity of his plot. Be the strings of passion, from which he seeks to draw forth his music, jarring or tuneful, their notes excite, at the least, an eager desire to listen to the end. It is not seldom that his subjects are intensely painful. He possesses depth and vigorous feeling: he seeks to extract his materials from the hidden recesses of his own heart; and he clothes them in images taken from the story of his own island. His recluse and self-examining habits have roused his fancy to a state of morbid excitement, and the images which the condition of civil society in Ireland for the last century offer, are but too well suited to foster such a men- | tal tendency. Hence, the essential character of the interest he creates is wild, stimulating, and bordering upon the unhealthy. The story of the Fetches, in the Tales of the O'Hara Family, and that of the Conformists, in the volumes now before us, are cases where, in seeking to move, he has succeeded in becoming oppressive. They sit upon us like nightmares. It is, however, but justice to this ingenious author to add, that this bias never interferes with the clear judgment he brings to appreciate character, nor seduces him into repetition. His heroes, although all Irish, have all a stamp of individuality upon them; and his reflections are sharp and just. He is, in short, an author of power, versatility, and originality; and if he would occasionally look more to the sunny surface of the moral world, and give over groping among the quicksilver damps beneath, he would leave us little to wish for.

In order to redeem this pledge, he repairs, as soon as the treaty of Limerick permits him to leave the army, to the south of Ireland, to seek his young ward, and to convey him to his home in the north. He finds the boy driven, by the devastations of the victorious forces, to seek shelter in the woods along with his foster-father, and an old priest, whose intellects the troubles of the time have somewhat crazed. While with them, Pendergast is surprised by the unexpected approach of the young Baron of Crana, who being relieved from his apprehensions by the treaty of Limerick, is returning to his house, and comes to seek the orphan of his father's friend, and offer him a shelter. The Baron is a brave, high-spirited, rattling, Frenchified Irishman. Young O'Bourke, left to his choice, decides in favour of the friend to whom his father's dying breath had confided him. The Baron takes his leave, after promising a visit to Pendergast-hall as soon as he shall have settled some lawsuits, and brought home his sister from the Spanish convent, where she had found refuge during the late intestine broils. O'Bourke, his foster father, and the old priest, repair with Captain Pendergast to Ulster. All things go on smoothly enough, till O'Bourke reaches the age of five-and-twenty. By this time it has become matter of gossip in the neighbourhood that Pendergast keeps three Catholics upon his establishment; and a low dissipated bully, mayor of the bull-ring in a neighbouring town, and leader of its Protestant rabble, confident that this gentleman, from a consciousness of standing compromised with the penal statutes, will not dare to quarrel with a person of his consequence, intrudes upon his preserves, browbeats the gamekeeper, and frightens the priest. While Pendergast is contriving how to accommodate matters with this dangerous enemy, (John Gernon by name,) an open rupture takes place between the latter, and O'Bourke-in which, after many words on both sides, the dignitary of the ring forbids the young "Papist" to appear at an approaching bull-baiting, and the angry boy declares his intention of bearding him in his own demesne. The long-lost Baron of Crana re-appears at the bull-baiting, leading with him his sister, and a dark lady from that sunny clime in which she had been so long a resident. In the brawl which ensues between O'Bourke and Gernon, and in which the rabble are prepared to take part with their leader, the Baron leaps to the side of his early friend, and both are unexpectedly backed by a man calling himself Johnson, and his faction. The storm is allayed by the appearance of Mr Pendergast in his capacity of magistrate; but it is deemed expedient, considering the irritation of the town's-people, that the Baron and his fair friends should take up their abode at Pendergast-hall. Here it appears that the Baron, who had been annoyed longer than he had anticipated by the chicanery of the lawyers, had been unable, till very lately, to seek his sister in Spain, on their return from which they had been driven by stress of weather on the northern coast. They are disturbed by the approach of John Gernon, who, burning to revenge the indignities of the morning, has hurried down, armed with warrants, at the head of a body of volunteers, to insult Mr Pendergast and his guests, and enforce the payment of the penalties inflicted The first of these tales ("The Last Baron of Crana") by the statute on Papists and their harbourers. His inopens with a spirited description of the close of the battle tentions are, however, once more frustrated by the maof Aughram. This battle, most of our readers will re- chinations of Johnson, who proves eventually to be a celecollect, shortly preceded the surrender of Limerick, and brated Rapparee chief in the neighbourhood. As a collithe final reduction of James's adherents. This tale may sion with the civil powers, however, might prove distherefore be fitly regarded as a continuation of the peep agreeable after such a liberation, the Baron, with the into the state of men's feelings in Ireland, afforded by the ladies and O'Bourke, and a couple of servants who were author's "Boyne Water." The tale itself is briefly this. implicated, set off immediately for the south. On the Miles Pendergast an officer in King William's army-road they again encounter their deliverer, and find him has his life saved at the battle of Aughram by Sir Red-beleaguered by the family whose name he had assumedmond O'Bourke. At the close of the day, however, the a set of self-appointed thief-takers. Crana offers to mearmy of James is defeated, and the Williamite finds his preserver left expiring by his comrades. Under the joint influence of gratitude and pity, he pledges himself to become the parent of Sir Redmond's infant and only son.

"The Denounced" comprises two tales; "The Last Baron of Crana," and "The Conformists." They are dedicated to the Duke of Wellington, and profess to illustrate the effects of the penal statutes upon Irish society. We have, on previous occasions, expressed our disapprobation of the practice of converting the novel, a work addressed to the imagination, into an indirect moral lecture. We never saw any good result from such practices. We never saw a child deceived, or reconciled to its physic, by the jelly in which it was imbedded; but we have often seen a child deprived, by recollections of physic, of all power to enjoy jelly for the future. Beauty and truth are co-eternal and equi-potent, but they are not the same. They impress and address themselves to different senses. There is a harmony, a fitness in abstract reason, even in stern morality, which wins, while it awes us; but this flows from its self-consistency. Dress it in the robes of its more airy and fascinating sister, and with the loss of its propriety, its charms too are gone. In order to instruct, we must point out what is revolting, as well as what is alluring. In order to please, we must sink the admixture of evil which cleaves to this "sin-worn mould." The attempt, therefore, to convert works of imagination -those pieces of mental music, intended to soften the cares of life, or to raise us for a time above them--into vehicles of sage moral precepts and instructive experiences, is to render necessary the introduction of ingredients, which must jar with and defeat their principal aim. But enough of this.

diate between them, and discovers in the Rapparee chief his elder brother, who, having been attainted, had spread the report of his death with a view to preserve the estate in his family. Johnson, now acknowledged as the real

Baron of Crana, surrenders to the civil powers, on learn- very closely approximating to the character of Article I.; ing that, under the protection of a noble family, who take as does likewise Article IV., on Bigelow's Elements of an interest in him, he runs no danger; and his brother Technology." The fifth article takes for its subject the proceeds to the castle to await the result. There, the "Report of the Secretary of the Navy to the President young men and the two young ladies remaining together of the United States." Although occasionally not a little during a fine autumn, what is to be expected? Why, love | disfigured by attempts at fine writing, and an affectation to be sure. O'Bourke and his friend's sister begin to of profound antiquarian research, this essay contains many think that they were made for each other; and the sis-judicious observations, and much interesting information. ter's friend becomes passionately attached to the brother. The progress of the American naval power is one of deep Disappointed, however, and as she persuades herself made interest to this country. The article which follows-a a mockery of, she flies from the castle in a state of frenzy: review of "Walker's Elements of Geometry"—has noand falling into the hands of Gernon, discovers to him in thing very remarkable about it, either one way or another. her ravings how matters stand with the Crana family. The seventh article treats of no less a subject than the At the head of his volunteers, Gernon immediately pro- "Politics of Europe." It is strange how similar the ceeds to demand the surrender of the castle. By the me- style of political writing is in the democratical Union of diation of Pendergast, who, having been imprisoned for North America, and in the most monarchical states of the transactions in his house, has sold his lands in dis- Europe. The real cause of this is the utter want of gust, and before seeking a new home visits Castle Crana, great practical statesmen in either. The public taste has at this crisis, a treaty is arranged, in virtue of which the no model upon which to form itself. In Europe, the castle is delivered up, and the family allowed to take persons who are called by courtesy statesmen, are their departure in peace. drawn from the diplomatic corps, from the university, The best conceived characters in this work are, the and from the court of the monarch. They are frequentyoung Baron of Crana and the Dark Ladye-the convently intelligent and acute men of business, but they have beauty from Spain, to whom we have already alluded. not been braced on the arena of public life; and it is The outlawed Baron, too, and the effect of his rapparee but rarely they can elevate their minds to view state habits in subduing his feelings to the tone of his asso- transactions in any more dignified point of view, than as ciates, indicates a deep insight into human nature on the a personal concern of their master. In America, on the part of the author who ventured to depict him. other hand, the persons called to guide the reins of empire have most of them been trained in a private station. They bring with them the narrow-or, at the best, the theoretical, views of private life. In both countries, in short, they want a body of men who, to personal independence, add long practice in the duties of statesmanship. To this we attribute the fact, that while in this country our long line of illustrious statesmen-our Somerses, Bolingbrokes, Chathams, Burkes, Pitts, Foxes, and Cannings-is uninterrupted; on the continents of Europe and America, a Metternich and a Washington are the isolated products of at least half a century. And it is to the want of opportunity of listening to the words of such men that we attribute the puerile style of

We have left ourselves no space for entering upon "The Conformists." It shows much of that clear and correct judgment of character which we have attributed to Mr Banim, and is, in many passages, vigorous in a high degree; but its general effect is, notwithstanding sunny glimpses which here and there break in upon us, too uniformly and protractedly painful.

The North American Review. No. LXVII. April, 1830. Boston: Gray and Bowen. Edinburgh :

Adam Black.

The Foreign Quarterly Review. No. XI. June, 1830.

London. Treuttel and Würtz.

The Edinburgh Journal of Science. Conducted by David
Brewster, LL.D. No. V. of New Series. July, 1830.
Edinburgh. Thomas Clark.

THIS is, on the whole, rather a heavy Number of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. A good many of the articles, and particularly those on general science, have apparently been contributed by the junior writers on the establish ment, and are principally conspicuous for an ambitious style, and the want of any apparent ultimate aim. They roll on in good rumbling sentences; but it is impossible to see what they are driving at. We are led blindfold in a circle, and when we stop, we find ourselves, except for the matter of a little giddiness, exactly where we were at first. The leading Article in particular, which professes to treat of the "Diffusion of Knowledge," is obnoxious to this censure. It starts with a just, and rather acute appreciation, of the merits and defects of the Libraries of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge; but this occupies only about two pages, and the remaining nineteen, for so far does the article extend-are filled with a long dissertation, in which the different paragraphs might have been exactly inverted in their order, without either weakening the argument or obscuring the sense. The second article is more interesting, as it contains some extracts from the poems of Sprague; who, if not exactly a Sublime genius, is gifted with a considerable degree of elegant fancy. The reviewer indulges in some humorous remarks on the universal diffusion of the power of verse-writing in these days, and paints with considerable uccess the awful period when not merely every nation, ut every individual, shall manufacture his own poetry. Article III., “Suggestions on Education," strikes us as

political writing which succeeds in countries whose

ent.

tastes and prejudices are in all other matters so differIncontestably, the most interesting Articles in this Number are those on " The Early Diplomatic History of the United States," and on "Jefferson's Correspondence." They lay the foundation of a judicious criticism of those materials which are now treasuring up for the use of the historian of America, whenever he shall appear. They are characterised at once by acuteness, and by a temperate and manly spirit. The only part of this Number of the North American Review that now remains for us to notice, is the list of new publications appended. We have been even more struck, than on former occasions, by the small proportion which the original productions of America bear to the reprints of English works. Setting aside a few reports of Committees of Congress, some books of Travels, Theological Tracts, and Speeches to Temperance Societies, we could have fancied ourselves reading a catalogue of Colburn and Bentley's latest publications. Even the works of American growth have English features; as, for example, the announcement of the " American Comic Annual for 1831."

The FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW for June will support the respectable character of that periodical. It cons tains no paper of very high talent, but much that is novel, instructive, and entertaining The leading article, "On Dæmonology and Witchcraft," is, we believe, from the pen of Mr George Moir. It opens with a splendid, though not very reverential, account of the infernal res gions and their inhabitants; and this is probably the best part of the essay. In what follows, we find, uniformly, that correctness and elegance which characterise Mr Moir's compositions, and not unfrequently traces of vi

ditions to geology. Dr Hibbert's" Inquiry into the circumstances under which the remains of some fossil animals were accumulated in the volcanic soil of the Velay in France;" taken in conjunction with the abstracts from "a memoir regarding the human bones and objects of human fabrication, discovered in solid bed or in alluvium, and upon the epoch of their deposition, by De Serres ;" and with the additional data for conjecturing the minimum age of some soils, afforded in Professor Agardli's essay on "Inscriptions in living trees;" add very considerably to our materials for ascertaining the history of the earth's formation. At the same time we must remark, not so much in reference to the papers in this journal, but rather as a universal truth, that, with the exception of professed antiquaries, we do not know a more illogical and unscientific class of beings than the great body of geologists. They seem utterly incapable of discerning the coincidence or discrepancy of two facts. If they can collect an immense number of observations, and string them together according to some preconceived hypothesis, they are contented. They do not condescend to accuracy of observation themselves, nor do they examine with a judicious criticism the value of the testimony upon which they admit what they have not seen. The truth is, that geology is one of these fatally facile sciences to which every dilettante thinks himself adequate, and into whose details the pawing of that class has introduced a fatal degree of slovenliness. What bucketfuls of rubbish must be thrown overboard before it can be brought to any thing! The translation of Agardli's essay referred to above is by a young and ardent chemist of the name of Johnston, who likewise communicates to this number a paper" on the double chlorides of gold ;" and an abstract of Bergelius' yearly statement of the progress of physical and chemical science. His talents and industry will soon make him better known. We had projected some remarks on Professor Babbage's Observations on National Encouragement of Science, but must defer them to another opportunity.

gorous thought; but he labours throughout under the embarras des richesses. His materials have been more than he could successfully compress into a short paper. Among the multitude of his details, he has seldom succeeded in giving us a good individual portrait. The effect is much the same as if he had gleaned his information, not from the books he quotes, but from their indices. We know that Mr Moir is not one of those who suck their information by this a posteriori practice-who catch a knowledge of books (as Swift somewhere remarks) as children do sparrows, by throwing salt on their tails. But we wish to warn him of the effects of over-condensation, and of the suspicions to which it sometimes gives birth. Articles II. and V. contain specimens of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish poetry. They are not characterised either by much originality or depth; but they afford a good deal of information on a subject little known in England; and to impart this is, as we take it, the chief use of a foreign review. Article IV., on René Caillie's Journey to Timbuctoo, is more to the purpose than any thing we have seen on the subject. The articles on the "English in India," (VII.) and on Fontanier's Travels in Asiatic Turkey, (X.) are extremely entertaining. The criticism, in Article IX., on "La Musique mise à la portée de tout le monde, &c. par M. Fetis," is gentlemanly and impartial, in spite of every temptation to the contrary which the French author's remarks on English music could give. Article III. contains an account of Zittmann's researches into the history of the Amphictionic League. We hope that the Foreign Review will continue to direct its readers' attention to the labours of the German literati in the department of classical antiquities. They are without the superficiality, in classical matters, of our Scotch scholars, and the narrow-minded, verbal pedantry of the alumni of Oxford and Cambridge. Article VIII. is, we suspect, by Professor M'Culloch. It is the continuation of a series of statistical essays on the different countries of Europe, and professes to treat of the state of the wool trade in Germany, with reference to its effect upon our own wool-growers. It by no means comes up to the Professor's first article on the statistical resources of Spain; but it nevertheless confirms our opinion of his peculiar talents-that, next to a good friend of ours at present in Edinburgh, he is the best concocter of a matter-of-fact article now extant. The critical sketches, and miscellaneous literary notices, are to use Ir is a melancholy fact, that some men will think themthe phraseology of that excellent class of society, the sick selves poets, though they are no more poets than they are nurses-as well as can be expected. In the Notes to chin-choppers. Mr Henry Sewell Stokes is one of this Correspondents is contained a somewhat awkward apolo- kidney. He has here published a goodly volume, congy to Lord Holland. In the previous number, his Lord-sisting of three hundred and thirty-two Spenserian stanzas, ship was accused of borrowing, in a speech delivered by him in the House of Lords, the whole of his statements and arguments from the Review's article on Greece, and without acknowledgment. It seems that his Lordship did acknowledge his obligations for all that he took, which was merely one fact! The truth is, that his Lordship, speaking to other matters from documentary evidence, mentioned this fact as having met his eye in the Foreign Quarterly, a source upon which, of course, he could not rely with equal confidence. The previous blustering attempt to puff itself off, on the part of the Foreign Quarterly, was absurd enough; but the apology is worse. Neither Lord Holland, nor the public, remembered the circumstance then, why expose themselves? We notice this trifle, because we are sorry to see a work, which may well rest on its own merits, resort to such quackery. The Foreign Quarterly has risen, and will maintain itself, by its literary merits;-if it seeks notoriety by affording early diplomatic intelligence, it must sink, or be published with a little more punctuality than hitherto.

The fifth number of the EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF SCIENCE is worthy of its editor. Besides many excellent articles on the severer sciences, it contains some valuable ad

The Lay of the Desert. A Poem, in two Cantos. By
Henry Sewell Stokes. London. Hurst, Chance, and
Co. 1830. 8vo. Pp. 221.

and a quantum sufficit of notes, although his brain is, in point of fact, as barren of poetry as the desert about which he writes. The theme was an unpromising one to commence with. The "Desert" alluded to turns out to be Dartmoor, a subject pretty well exhausted already by Carrington's poem. But this does not frighten Master Harry Stokes, who, feeling himself pretty considerably inspired, progresses slick right away into the moor, and there sits himself down on a dry heathy spot, and rails and moralizes through the rest of his book. Like most of our great poets now-a-days, Mr Stokes is a terrible misanthropist, having, no doubt, been very ill used in some way or other at some time or other. He hints as much in the following fine verse:

"I to thee hie, because my soul is sick,—

Sick with mankind and their disgusting ways;
Although but lately kindled my life's wick,
And but now gathering into manhood's blaze,
Much hath it felt the world's foul murky days;
Ay,-I have lived quite long enough to tell,

That Love, Truth, Virtue, in the world's wild maze,
Perish, they cannot bide the boisterous swell-
Corruption's mighty surge that roars their funeral knell.”
The world being in this very shocking condition, al-
though the candle of Mr Henry Sewell Stokes' life has

not yet burned to the doup, it is no wonder that he can-
not find any thing in the dull present, and is obliged to
have recourse for a few pleasant reminiscences to the past:
"The past tense use I! wherefore?-reason sad-
Most lamentable reason, so to do

There is:-for where, oh where, may now be had
Examples of the rare illustrious few-
Children of genius-never once untrue?
In bygone days there were who firm withstood
All worldly overture most stanchly, who
Held fast the faith, and battled for the good;

But where can now be found men of such hardihood ?"
Mr Stokes is not only of opinion that no such men now
exist, but most especially, that Dr Southey is not one of
them. Against the Westminster Reviewers also, he in-
dulges in a small hit. Our readers will recollect the recent
dispute upon the greatest happiness principle. Mr Stokes
rather smashes the bread-basket of the Benthamites:
"What is expediency?-an idiot's dream,—

A drunkard's judgment, in his torpor reeling,-
A maniac's wisdom 'neath the moon's pale beam-
Unless when sanction'd by the vivid feeling
Within the soul implanted, ever sealing,
With stamp of good or evil, every act,

And thus Heaven's high and righteous will revealing;
A full obedience striving to exact,

By anger or approval that doth ne'er retract."

But no wonder that Mr Henry Sewell Stokes hates the Westminster Review, since his admiration for the character of Canning is such, that it tempted him to write the following stanza to his memory :

"He died: -and died he by a death not due him;
Martyr of principle unwavering,
Victim of envy-it was faction slew him;

the political world, to introduce the levelling system into literature and science, for the purpose of reducing the technicalities and mysteries of particular professions to the understanding of that miscellaneous class of the community included under the designation of popular readers. Yet, although we are so far aristocratical in our doctrines, we are aware that there are certain elementary principles and facts connected with some professions, which ought not only to be known as matters of interest to every well-educated individual, but the practical application of which, by non-professional persons, is often imperatively required in society. The stream of medical literature, for example, carries down into oblivion, annually, a series of little tributary works, professing to be all unerring guides to the temple of Hygeia; and we think it strange, that in this age of condensation and compilation,—an age which is so especially characterised by the dwindling down of the noble folios and quartos of antiquity, even as the human race itself is said to have done, into dwarfish octavos and pocket duodecimos,—no practical digest of the laws of Scotland has appeared, which might be consulted as a book of reference, by those who, to ascertain the most simple facts, must at present have recourse to learned and elaborate tomes, in which almost every information that is sought for is found shrouded ingeniously in a style and phraseology which renders it as unintelligible as the most mystical hieroglyphics that ever puzzled and baffled the skill of an Egyptian antiquary. We are not, indeed, of opinion, that, even to our own beloved subscribers, all the arcana of the outer and inner courts of justice should be revealed, nor do we entertain any treasonable design of depriving the fifteen of a particle of their dignity, or one conscientious advocate of a single fee; but we hesitate not to declare, that we agree entirely with the observation of the learned Blackstone, that "it is incumbent upon every man to be acquainted with those laws, at least, with which he is immediately concerned, lest he incur the censure, as well as inconvenience, of living in society, without knowing the obligations it lays him under." We accordingly commend the object of the present work, which is to explain, in plain and familiar language, such of the laws of Scotland as are the most frequently consulted, and of the greatest practical importance. If a merchant wish to consult the laws relating to partnership, cautionary obligations, insurance, bills of exchange, insolvency, sequestration, trustdeeds, assignations, recovery of debts, he will here find, in very simple and brief propositions, all the legal information he can require ;—if a married couple, unhappily united in an evil hour, wish to cut the gordian knot, and divide the links which still bind them to each other, they will here find the circumstances under which such separation can be accomplished ;-if some excellent housewife sees herself and family plagued by an unruly servant, she will here find detailed the circumstances and conditions upon which she will be justified in discharging him or her; and when, in addition, we state that chapters will be found explanatory of the game laws, laws of succession, maritime laws, and almost every other law which can in civil life be appealed to, with the forms of affidavits, codicils, bills, and account of law expenses, &c., subjoined, we think we have made out a strong case in favour of "The Pocket Lawyer." We have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending this volume to the attenThe Pocket Lawyer; a Practical Digest of the Laws of contains is borne out by references to law authorities, it tion of our readers; and as the information which it Scotland, reducing all the most Important Branches of cannot fail to prove also a useful auxiliary to the memthose Laws to Short and Familiar Propositions, sup-bers of the legal profession. ported by References to Approved Authorities; with an Appendix of Forms of Writings, Law Expenses, &c. By a Member of the Faculty of Advocates. Edinburgh. Oliver and Boyd. 1830.

Kill'd by a stab, and poison'd with a sting,
Was he, in dawn of promise, freedom's spring.
Great man and good! on thy untimely bier
Did thy destroyers even flowers fling;
Nature would out, and out the unwieldy tear,

And e'en detraction cried-Oh! what a man was here!"

It is dreadful to think that Canning was

"Kill'd by a stab, and poison'd with a sting;"

no wonder our author shed an "unwieldy tear" on the occasion.

How long Mr Sewell Stokes might have continued to pour forth Spenserian stanzas, it is impossible to say; but fortunately, just after he had written the hundredth and ninety-third of the second canto, a thunder-storm came on, which drove all the sublime thoughts out of his head, and left him time to compose only one stanza more, which is

as follows:

"Hark! Nature too yields most sublime response!
Great God of Justice! 'tis thy voice-I kneel-
'Tis No-a deep, tremendous No, at once

A host of thunders in loud concert peal:
Stunn'd, the huge tors seem in the clouds to reel,
While every echo from its rocky dell

The din rebellows with a rival zeal :
But, lo! the crag 's on fire!-quick burst, pell-mell,
A thousand thunder-claps! I fly-Dartmoor! farewell!"
Exit Mr Henry Sewell Stokes in a tremendous fright,
his wig falling off by the way.

We do not wish to advocate any innovation on the oundaries of either of the learned professions, nor do we vish, like the champions of "liberty and equality" in

The British Naturalist.

Volume second.
London. Whittaker and Co.

Small 8vo. 1830.

In announcing the first volume of the "British Naturalist" some few months ago, we informed our readers