to our own paper upon autographs in the Twenty-eighth Number of the Journal, the sentiments contained in which appear to have met with his approval. The Orientalist; or, Letters of a Rabbi; with Notes. By James Noble, Oriental Master in the Scottish Naval and Military Academy Edinburgh. Oliver and Boyd. 1831. 8vo, pp. 368. THIS is an amusing and instructive work, written somewhat upon the plan of Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World." Under the assumed character of Ishmael Nobilius Oleander, a learned Rabbi, resident in the city of Alexandria, the author communicates, in the familiar and agreeable shape of letters, addressed to " Wilfred Waverley, Doctor of Laws, the great story-telling Rabbi of the Western World," much curious and entertaining information concerning the customs, manners, literature, and peculiarities of different Eastern nations. Though Mr Noble is evidently quite at home on these subjects, he does not affect the pedant, but studies rather the most popular and simple modes of conveying instruction. In addition to many incidental remarks and subjects discussed as they occur, we find in the work an account of a journey to Babylon, observations on the Arabic language, notices of an overland journey to India, a history of a Rajpoot sepoy, or native soldier of India, a full description of the ceremony of the Suttee, a disquisition on the doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, remarks on the characteristics of English, Persian, Hebrew, and Chinese poetry, an account of the funds whence Oriental story-telling is drawn, and finally, an immense Dumber of Eastern stories not hitherto translated into English. Some pieces of poetry are also interspersed, to give the reader an idea of Eastern imagery. Mr Noble, it will thus be evident, enjoys the great advantage of having turned up fresh ground, and that, too, in a manner which reflects much credit on his own talents and discrimi nation. That we may interest our readers still more in the work, we subjoin a few specimens of its contents. The following amusing passage describes THE DUTIES OF A BRAHMIN. "A Brahmin must wear a pair of bright golden rings in his ears; he must not gaze on the sun; nor step over a string to which a calf is tied; nor run whilst it rains; nor look on his own image in the water: by a mound of earth, by a cow, by an idol, by a Brahmin, by a pot of clarified butter or of honey, by a place where four ways meet, and by a large tree well known in the district, let him pass with his right hand towards them. He must not sleep alone in an empty house; nor interrupt a cow whilst she is drinking; nor make any vain corporeal exertion; nor take pleasure in asking idle questions; nor strike his arm, or guash his teeth, or make a braying noise; nor wash his feet in a pan of mixed yellow metal; nor eat from a broken dish; nor sit on a broken seat; nor tear his nails with his teeth; nor break mould or clay; nor cut grass with his nails; nor ride on the back of a bull or cow; nor pass otherwise than by the gate into a walled town, or an enclosed house; nor approach the roots of trees by night; nor play with dice; nor eat whilst he reclines on a bed; nor sleep quite naked; nor go anywhere with a remnant of food in his mouth; nor sleep with his feet wet; nor advance into a place undistinguishable by his eye, or not easily passable; nor pass a river swimming with his arms; nor stand upon hair, ashes, bones, potsherds, seeds of cotton, or husks of grain; nor stroke (or scratch) his head with both hands; nor, after his head has been rubbed with oil, touch with oil any of his limbs; nor receive a gift from a keeper of a slaughter-house or oil-press, nor from a king not born in the military class who is declared to be on a level with the keeper of ten thousand slaughter-houses: he who receives a present from an avaricious king, and a transgressor of the sacred ordinances, goes in succession to twenty-one hells,'-which it is needless at present to enumerate, but which, I recollect, include the hell of iron spikes, the sword-leaved forest, and the pit of red-hot charcoal.' "In the list of the moral duties of a Brahmin occur the following: Let him never oppose priests, cows, or persons truly devout; nor deny a future state; nor throw a stick when angry at another man.' A twice-born man is forbidden to assault a Brahmin, on pain of being whirled about for a century in hell; even smiting him in anger with a blade of grass must be expiated by twenty-one transmigrations into impure quadrupeds; and shedding a Brahmin's blood is punished in a horrible manner. As many particles of dust as the blood shall roll up from the ground, for so many years shall the shedder of that blood be mangled by other animals in his next birth." As still more characteristic of the general spirit of Mr Noble's work, we select, from many more which may be found in it, a few PERSIAN AND HINDOSTANEE STORIES. THE DEAF MAN AND THE PATIENT.-" A certain merchant had an acquaintance, a person who was hard of hearing. By the act of predestination, the merchant became sick. The deaf man went to enquire after him, and, while going along in the way, he made up this discourse :- After having saluted his honour, I will first ask this question,ter;' and I will say, Ameen! may it be lasting!' Then Tell me, sir, how is your health?' He will say,- BetI will ask,- What food do you take?' He will say, Rice pudding;' and I will say,- Good appetite to you!" My next enquiry shall be,- Who is your physician?' He will say,The great Dr Such-a-oue;' and I will say,May God grant a complete cure by his means!' At length, having entirely made up this plan, he arrived at the house, and, having made the usual salam, he sat down near the patient, and began to ask,- Tell me, friend, how is your health?' The patient answered,- Why do you ask ?—I am dying with a fever.' Immediately on hearing this, he exclaimed, Amen, may God cause it to be so! The helpless sick man was in a complete ferment with his disease, and this speech caused him to be even more so. He next asked, My friend, what victuals do you eat?' The patient replied, Dirt. May your appetite be good!" answered he. raged. Again he rejoined,— Pray, tell me, friend, who is On hearing this, he became even doubly enyour physician?' In a most excessive rage, the patient replied,The angel of death!' I give you much joy!' answered he; I hope God will grant a speedy cure by his hand!'" THE YOUTH AND THE OLD CHEAT.-" A certain youth delivered a hundred deenars to an old man, and went on a journey. When he came back, he demanded his deenars. The old man made denial, and said, ' You did not give them to me.' The youth made known his case before the Kazee. The Kazee sent for the old man, and asked him,- Did this youth deliver the money to you?' He replied, No!' The Kazee said to the youth, Have you any witness?" He answered, No!' The Kazee said to the old man, You must take an oath.' The youth fell a-weeping, and said to him, He has no regard at all for an oath; he has many a time taken an oath to a lie.' The Kazee said to the youth, At the time when you delivered the money to him, where were you seated?' He answered, Under a tree.' The Kazee said, Why did you tell me you had no witness? That tree is your witness. Go to that tree, and say to it, The Kazee sends for thee.' The old man gave a smile, and the youth said, O, Kazee! I am afraid the tree will not come for your order. The Kazee said, Take my seal, and say to it, This is the seal of the Kazee. It will assuredly come.' The youth took the Kazee's seal, and went away. After a space of time, the Kazee asked the old man, Will that youth have arrived near the tree yet?' He answered, No! When the youth had gone near the tree, having shown the Kazee's seal, he said to it, The Kazee sends for thee;' but he heard nothing from the tree. He came back sorrowful, and said, 'I showed your seal to the tree, but it gave me no answer.' The Kazee said, 'The tree came, and, after having given its evidence, it went away again.' The old man said, 'O, Kazee! what speech is this?-there was no tree came here.' The Kazee replied, You say the truth, it did not come; but at the time when I asked you, "Has the youth arrived at the tree?"-you gave for answer, "He has not arrived." If you had not got the money from him under that tree, why did you not say, "What tree is it?-I do not know it." From this it becomes evident that the youth says what is true.' The old man got conviction, and gave the money to the youth." THE BANKER ROBBED NEAR THE EMPEROR'S PALACE. "A certain banker was robbed under the very eye of the emperor, beneath the palace-walls. He went to wait on the emperor, and made representation to him. • Protector of the world! robbers have plundered me under the very walls of your highness's palace.' The emperor said to him, Why did you not remain more watchful?' The banker said, It was not known to your slave that travellers were liable to be robbed under your highness's very windows.' The emperor replied, What! have you never heard this common proverb?" It is dark under the lamp.'" THE SICK MAN AND HIS ATTENDANT." A certain Mooselman was sick, and said to his attendant,—' Go to such a physician, and get some medicine for me.' He replied,Perhaps the doctor gentleman may not be in the house at this time.' The master said, He will be in the house-go.' Then answered he,- If I should happen to meet with him, yet he will perhaps not give me the medicine. Then he said,- Take a note with you from me, and he will certainly give it.' The servant answered again, Even although he should give the medicine, yet it will not perhaps do any good.' The master replied,-You base scoundrel! will he give it you as long as you continue to sit here? Will you keep thus making contrivances, or will you go?' He said, Ö, sir! granting that it should even produce the desired effect, yet what is the result? In the end you must certainly die one day. You may just as well die now as die then.' THE MERCHANT'S SON AND THE TYRANT.-" One day, an Emperor, who was a tyrant, went to the outside of the city by himself. He saw a man sitting under a tree, and asked him,—' What sort of a person is the Emperor of this country? Is he a tyrant, or a just man?' The man answered, He is a great tyrant.' The Emperor said,- | Do you know me? The man said, No.' The Emperor answered, I am the Sultan of this country.' The man was frightened, and asked in reply, Do you know me? The Emperor said, No.' The man replied, 'I am the son of a certain merchant; every month, during the space of three days, I become mad! To-day is one of those three days.' The Emperor laughed, and said nothing to him." THE HUNGRY MAN AND THE ARAB.-" A person was walking along hungry, and saw an Arab who was eating victuals by the side of a pond. He went up to him, and said, I am just come from the neighbourhood of your dwelling.' The Arab asked him, Are my wife, my child, and my camel, all in good health?' The man said, Yes.' The Arab became quite contented, and paid no regard to that person farther. The man then began to say, 'O Arab! this dog which is now sitting before you, if your own dog were still alive, it would be just such another. The Arab raised up his head, and said to him, My dog! how did it die?' The man replied, It ate too much of the flesh of your camel.' He enquired, How did my camel die? The man answered, Your wife died,-and then there was no one to give it grain or water.' The Arab asked, 'How did my wife die? The man replied, In lamentation for your son, she wept excessively, and beat her head and breast with stones.' He asked, How did my son die?' The man said, The house fell upon him.' On hearing this account of the ruin of his house, the Arab threw dust upon his head, and, leaving his victuals as they were, went off in the direction of his dwelling. The man, by this device, got the victuals." THE EMPEROR AND THE JESTER.-" An Emperor one day went out a-hunting along with the Prince. When the weather became hot, the Emperor and the Prince put their cloaks upon the back of a jester. The Emperor fell a-laughing, and said to him, O, jester! you have there the load of an ass.' The jester replied,- Nay, I have, in fact, the load of two asses.' Our concluding extract affords a very favourable specimen of Mr Noble's abilities as a poetical translator. It is a fable from the "Goolistan" of Sadee : THE CLAY AND THE Rose. A Fable from the Persian of Sadee. Came to me from the hand of a friend; When its odour delicious around me it threw, And its pleasant appearance enraptured my view ; A kind of unctuous clay, which the Persians perfume with essence of roses, and use in the baths instead of soap. Was join'd as you see, And soon all the qualities he can disclose Were drawn and united thus into my frame : If not, I had still been only the clay, Which, as useless and vile, would be soon thrown away.” There may be an impression on the minds of some people, that there are not a sufficient number of persons in this country interested in Oriental literature to secure an extensive circulation for this work. But we can scarcely coincide in this opinion, for the Orientalism introduced in the "Letters of a Rabbi," does not lead to deep study or severe thinking, but is communicated in so light and playful a manner, that like a boy with a gingerbread alphabet, we have eat the whole before we are aware that we have been performing any task whatever. This being the case, surely the general scholar and cultivator of the belles lettres will be glad to avail himself of so useful and agreeable a volume. WE find that we have so many new works to overtake to-day that we think it expedient again to postpone our more detailed observations on this volume. In the meantime, however, we have made a selection, with some care, of a number of detached passages from the Letters and Journals, which, as tit-bits of considerable interest, our readers will be glad to see. Without farther preface, here they are: BYRON FAINTING." This evening on the lake in my boat slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my with Mr Hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail legs-the worst, luckily-as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to faint-a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost Mr Hobhouse some apprehension and much sprinkling of water to had but two such before,-once from a cut on the head from The sensation was a very odd one: I never a stone several years ago, and once (long since also) in falling into a great wreath of snow ;-a sort of grey giddiness first, then nothingness, and a total loss of memory on beginning to recover. The last part is not disagreeable, if one did not find it again." recover me. DOMESTIC SORROW." In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days,) I have been very fortunate-fortunate in a companion (Mr Hobhouse)-fortunate in our prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays pointing. I was disposed to be pleased-I am a lover of which often render journeys in a less wild country disapnature, and an admirer of beauty. I can bear fatigue and in the world. But in all this, the recollection of bitterness, welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity, in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and beneath me." CANOVA'S HELEN." The Helen of Canova-a bust which is in the house of Madame the Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I know-is without exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution. "In this beloved marble, view, What Nature could but would not do, And beauty and Canova can! "Beyond imagination's power, Behold the Helen of the heart !" BYRON'S INTENTIONS." If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me-I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other-the times and fortune permitting-that, like the cosmogony or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt whether my constitution will hold out I have at intervals exercised it most devilishly." ANECDOTES." I'll tell you a story: the other day, a man here, an Englishman-mistaking the statues of Charlemagne and Constantine, (which are equestrian,) for those of Peter and Paul, asked another, which was Paul of these same horsemen?-to which the reply was, I thought, sir, that St Paul had never got on horseback since his accident. I'll tell you another:-Henry Fox, writing to some one from Naples the other day, after an illness, adds, " and I am so changed that my oldest creditors would hardly know ine." BYRON'S OPINION OF THE POETRY OF HIS DAY.-" With regard to poetry in general, I am convinced, the more I think of it, that he and all of us,-Scott, Southey, Words. worth, Moore, Campbell, I,-are all in the wrong, one as much as another; that we are upon a wrong poetical system or systems, not worth a damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free; and that the present and next generations will finally be of this opinion. I am the more confirmed in this, by having lately gone over some of our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this way, -I took Moore's poems and my own and some others, and went over them side by side with Pope's, and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne's man and us of the lower empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly. Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject; and is retired upon halfpay, and has done enough, unless he were to do as he did formerly." as his soi-disant poetry. But Leigh Hunt is a good man, and a good father-see his Odes to all the Masters Hunt; a good husband-see his sonnet to Mrs Hunt; a good friend-see his epistles to different people; and a great coxcomb, and a very vulgar person in every thing about him. But that's not his fault, but of circumstances." THE FUN AND GRAVITY OF DON JUAN." But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend P-, who objects to the quick succession of fun and gravity, as if, in that case, the gravity did not-in intention, at least-heighten the fun. His metaphor is, that we are never scorched and drenched these questions about scorching and drenching.' Did he at the same time.' Blessings on his experience! Ask him' never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather? Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? Did he never swim in the sea at noon-day, with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool? Did he never draw his foot out of too hot Did he never tumble into a river or lake fishing, and sit in water, ding his eyes and his valet's? his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank, afterwards 'scorched and drenched' like a true sportsman? Oh, for breath to utter!'-but make him my compliments; he is a clever fellow for all that a very clever fellow." EPIGRAM." If for silver or for gold, * You could melt ten thousand pimples MOORE'S LAST NIGHT AT VENICE.-" To return, however, to the details of our last evening together at Venice. After a dinner with Mr Scott at the Pellegrino, we all went, rather late, to the opera, where the principal part in the Baccanali di Roma was represented by a female singer, whose chief claim to reputation, according to Lord Byron, lay in her having stilettoed one of her favourite lovers. In the intervals between the singing, he pointed out to me different persons among the audience, to whom celebrity of various sorts, but, for the most part, disreputable, attached ; and of one lady who sat near us, he related an anecdote, which, whether new or old, may, as creditable to Venetian facetiousness, be worth, perhaps, repeating. This lady had, it seems, been pronounced by Napoleon the finest woman in Venice; but the Venetians, not quite agreeing with this opinion of the great man, contented themselves with calling her La Bella per Decreto'-adding, (as the Decrees BYRON'S OPINION OF LEIGH HUNT.-" Hunt's letter is always begin with the word Considerando,')' Ma senza il probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry you might ex-considerando.' From the opera, in pursuance of our agree pect from his situation. He is a good man, with some poetical ment to make a night of it, we betook ourselves to a sort of elements in his chaos, but spoilt by the Christ-Church hos- cabaret, in the Place of St Mark; and there, within a few pital and a Sunday newspaper-to say nothing of the Surry yards of the palace of the Doges, sat drinking hot brandyjail, which converted him into a martyr. But he is a good punch, and laughing over old times, till the clock of St Mark man. When I saw Rimini' in MS., I told him that I struck the second hour of the morning. Lord Byron then deemed it good poetry at bottom, disfigured only by a strange took me in his gondola, and, the moon being in its fullest style. His answer was, that his style was a system, or upon splendour, he made the gondoliers row us to such points of systen, or some such cant; and, when a man talks of sys- view as might enable me to see Venice, at that hour, to adtem, his case is hopeless. So I said no more to him, and vantage. Nothing could be more solemnly beautiful, than very little to any one else. the whole scene around; and I had, for the first time, the Venice of my dreams before me. All those meaner details, which so offend the eye by day, were now softened down by the moonlight into a sort of visionary indistinctness; and the effect of that silent city of palaces, sleeping, as it were, upon the waters, in the bright stillness of the night, was such as could not but affect deeply even the least susceptible imagination. My companion saw that I was moved by it, and, though familiar with the scene himself, seemed to give way, for the moment, to the same strain of feeling; and as he exchanged a few remarks, suggested by that wreck of human glory before us, his voice, habitually so cheerful, sunk into a tone of mournful sweetness, such as I had rarely before heard from him, and shall not easily forget. This mood, however, was but of the moment; some quick turn of ridicule soon carried him off into a totally different vein, and at about three o'clock in the morning, at the door of his own palazzo, we parted, laughing, as we had met,-an agreement having been made, that I should take an early dinner with him next day, on my road to Ferrara." EPIGRAM." In picking up your bones, Tom Paine, Will. Cobbett has done well; You visit him on earth again, He'll visit you in Hell." "He believes his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be old English; and we may say of it as Aimwell says of Captain Gibbett's regiment, when the captain calls it an old corps'-'the oldest in Europe, if I may judge by your uniform. He sent out his Foliage' by Percy Shelley, and of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love upon a nightmare, I think this monstrous Sagittary the most prodigious. He (Leigh Hunt) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded himself into his own impostures, and talks Punch in pure simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said of himself in the Morning Post) for Vates in both senses, or nonsenses, of the word. Did you look at the translations of his own, which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and says so? Did you read his skimble-skamble about being at the head of his own profession, in the eyes of those who followed it? I thought that poetry was an art or an attribute, and not a profession; but be it one; is that at the head of your profession in your eyes? I'll be curst if he is of mine, or ever shall be. He is the only one of us (but of us he is not) whose coronation I would oppose. Let them take Scott, Campbell, Crabbe, or you, or me, or any of the living, and throne him; but not this new Jacob Behmen, this whose pride might have kept him true, even had his principles turned as perverted . Though we do not intend to enter upon the subject at present, we may as well warn our readers, that we look upon the second volume of this work as decidedly inferior in interest to the first; our reasons for so thinking, it will not be difficult to point out next Saturday. Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. Part VIII. August 28, 1616, to Nov. 1624. Edinburgh. William Tait. 1831. THIS Number brings to an end the Record of Criminal Trials during the reign of James VI. The contents are pretty much alike in character with those which have preceded it. The black list of slaughters and oppressions, deadly feuds, and superstitious cruelties, is any thing but diminished. If there is aught new in this history of crime, it is the revolting confirmation of the heartless cruelty of James, afforded by the trial and execution of the poor maniac Thomas Ross, for a libel against the Scottish nation. Of all tyrants, we confess we have least patience with this monarch. There is something so paltry and grotesque intermingled with all his acts of oppression. When we read of a Herod or a Richard III., the fierce sway of their passions, their conscious pride of superior intellect, afford a spectacle poetically, if not morally, beautiful; which, against our better judgment, softens the asperity of our indignation at their criminality. But in the character of James we find no such redeeming feature. His anger is in its origin and nature essentially ludicrous. It is awakened by trivial and burlesque occasions; it is in itself cold, feeble, and impotent. The tyrannical actions to which it impels him, do not terrify, for they leave no impression of energy and power upon the mind-they are simply revolting as indicative of callousness to human suffering on the part of the monarch, and cold-blooded, reckless sycophancy and self-seeking on the part of his tools. We have met, however, in the Number now before us, with one gratifying instance of the progress of reasonof the growth of a manly and dignified policy among the magnates of Scotland. The indictment against John Brown, a Burntisland shipmaster and his crew, tried for piratical murder, is, with the exception of some few rude phrases, an eloquent and impressive document. It is like the voice of a solitary human feeling crying aloud in a moral wilderness. We present our readers with a modernised copy of it; retaining, however, its naïveté of expression, wherever we could do so with any prospect of being intelligible. "John Brown, &c.-You are indicted and accused: Forasmuch as the traffic and commerce between merchant and merchant, in exporting commodities from one country to another, has, in all well-governed kingdoms and commonwealths, been esteemed the ground and fundamental cause, not only of great wealth and riches to the inhabitants, but also a great help and furtherance to entertain friendship and correspondence between princes; on which account, many laws, upon ripe reflection and deliberation, have been published and set forth by them and their states for advancement of their trade, the equipping of vessels, and the better preservation of them; and the art of navigation, and the persons expert in it, have become famous throughout the world, as well for skill and dexterity in sailing, as for fidelity in the safe conduct of merchants and passengers with their merchandise and goods committed to their trust: And, moreover, the sailors of this kingdom being, for their skill and fidelity, nothing inferior to any other country or nation, have commonly been so respected by strangers, that they, with their ships, have been preferred for that service to those of any other people whatever: Notwithstanding, it is true and of verity, that you, and each of you, shaking off all fear of the Almighty God, regard to the ancient good fame of this country and kingdom of Scotland, whereof ye are namet most unworthily to be inhabitants and native born people; as also to the great obloquy, shame, and reproach, and open discredit of the whole sailors of this realm, resorting to foreign parts, prejudice of all lawful trade and commerce with the merchants there, and employment of our sea-faring men with their ships and barks, in all time coming, being about a year ago in St John's, a seaport, within the kingdom of Spain, together with the ship called of which you were respectively owners and master, freighted by one G. F. a Spaniard, to pass to Calais with a loading of chestnuts, walnuts, and Spanish iron; and having taken in the said lading, together with three young Spaniards, who were to act as supercargoes; you, before your coming aboard, plotted, contrived, and devised the cruel and barbarous murder of the said three strangers, and the appropriation to yourselves of the whole goods and merchandise within your ship; and drew up a bond to that effect, to which all of you put your hands; and thereafter coming aboard, you hoisted sail, and passed to the sea: And being in the middle of the sea, far from any land, you, set purpose and forethought felony, foolishly deeming that instigated by shameful and dainnable covetousness, with the all-seeing eye of God did not look down, nor would bring to light your most horrible and detestable murder and piracy, cruelly and unnaturally, against the laws of nations, having the said three strangers in your power, violently, and without pity or cominiseration, threw them overboard, one after another, into the middle of the raging seas; and thereby, under trust, credit, and assurance, bereft them of their natural lives: Which being done, you, in plain mockery and scorn of the Almighty, as if his divine majesty had approved of your horrible deed, made a prayer, and sung a psalm: And thereafter diverted your course from Calais," &c. &c. If, however, there is a sameness in the matter of which this fasciculus treats, such is not the case with the manner. The pleadings, and indeed the whole form of process, is much more fully developed and recorded than in the trials formerly reported by Mr Pitcairn. The work, in other words, has reached a period when it may be studied with advantage by the mere lawyer, who, anxious to obtain more than a meagre and practical knowledge of his profession, seeks to trace its rise and progress. Το this subject we propose reverting, as soon as Mr Pitcairn's concluding Number has appeared. One word at present as to the encouragement which Mr Pitcairn's spirited and meritorious undertaking has met with. He has, we may premise, been employed for several years by the Commissioners on the Public Records of the kingdom, to form a regular chronological digest of the entire register of the great seal, commencing with a. D. 1424, when James I. returned from his captivity in England. This work he is to carry down, at all events, to the period of the Union, possibly to the present reign; and it is to be printed for public use, as a Parliamentary work. Yet, amid the drudgery of this laborious and fatiguing avocation, has he found time to commence, and almost to finish, a truly national work, which will extend, when completed, (and one number more will do so,) to three large quarto volumes. It is at present exactly a year and a half since we reviewed the first number. We call it a national work, for we have had occasion to remark before, and we now repeat it, that Mr Pitcairn's "Criminal Trials in Scotland, during the reign of James VI." throw more light upon the moral and intellectual condition of our country at that period, than any book that has yet been published. To the disgrace of a nation and age which make great pretensions doubt he will lose money as well as labour by his pubto science and literature, we must add, that there is no lication. ever for the inherent difference of disposition which might exist. The spirit of the boy was thus broken, and, in self-defence, he was taught duplicity. When at length he is sent to college, and freed from the immediate surveillance of his parent, he runs into courses and commits extravagancies which he would otherwise have avoided; and to escape from the indignation of his father and the reproaches of his own conscience, he finally alienates himself entirely from the paternal roof, and, entering the army as a volunteer, proceeds to the peninsula. Some of the most interesting scenes in the narrative are laid in Spain. It is here that Earnshaw is driven into the necessity of fighting a duel with the brother of her he loves most, and shoots him dead on the spot. When at length he returns, a heart-broken man, to his native land, he finds his father in the grave, and the girl of his heart wedded to another. He retires into a distant county, to ruminate over the bitter lessons which experience has taught him, and to learn to moralize his lot. The narrative, as a whole, is interesting and wellsustained, and many passages indicate talents of a high order. We like Mr Kennedy in his reflective and philosophical moods. He is no surface thinker. We intended to have quoted his disquisition concerning courage and cowardice, but abstain from doing so in order to make way for the following fine observations on THE HORRORS of war. blood. Before I could recover, the door of the apartment whither we were hurrying, opened, and two soldiers of my own company discharged their muskets at us, slightly blinded the ruffians, and frustrated their murderous intenwounding one of the gallant Scots. Intemperance had tions. We felled them to the ground, and penetrated into the chamber. There I had a hair-breadth escape from falling, by the fury of another of the desperadoes. Parrying his bayonet, which he aimed at my breast, I could not prevent it taking a less dangerous course, and lacerating my left cheek, nearly from the lip to the eye. The gash, though ugly scar. Surgical knowledge enabled me to perceive this, frightful, threatened no consequences more serious than an as well as to apply the remedies within reach. It was a light matter, compared to the accumulated wretchedness visible around me. "The room wherein we stood had been devoted to the festivities of a retired family of moderate fortune. It contained the remnants of those decent elegancies that properly appertain to the strangers' apartment' in a dwelling of the middle class. Mutilated pictures, and fragments of expensive mirrors, strewed the floor, which was uncarpeted, and formed of different kinds of wood, curiously tesselated. An ebony cabinet, doubtless a venerable heir-loom, had suffered as if from the stroke of a sledge. Its contents, consisting of household documents and touching domestic memorials, were scattered about at random. An antique sideboard lay overturned; a torn mantilla drooped on a sofa ripped and stained with wine. The white drapery, on which fingers steeped in gore had left their traces, hung raggedly from the walls. Pinioning our prisoners, we barricadoed the doors against intrusion, and proceeded to offer all the assistance and consolation in our power to the inmates of the desecrated mansion. "Happy in her insular situation, England knows not by experience the multitudinous calamities of the devoted territory on which kings and conquerors celebrate their sanguinary revels. Perhaps she had been morally wiser "On investigation, the sergeants found the dead body of and better for receiving one fearful lesson from the dea domestic, whose fusil and dagger showed that he had stroyers. Peace might then have been to her a word of fought for the roof which covered him. His beard had holier import. Yet I cannot, from any hope of ulterior been burnt in derision with gunpowder. One of his ears was cut off, and thrust into his mouth. In a garret recess good, wish her the possession of knowledge at so heavy a price. Fancy shudders at the thought of foreign legions who could scarcely be persuaded that they had nothing to for the storage of fruit, two female servants were hidden, polluting our domestic sanctuaries, recklessly converting whatever is most dear to virtuous tranquillity to the black fear. Having flown thither at the approach of the ferocious purposes of havoc and spoliation. We refuse to admit the intruders, they had suffered neither injury nor insult. They horrid possibility of our churches being turned into loop-came to the room where I lingered over an object, unconholed defences, or ruinous shelters for the drowsy soldiery; choked by sobs, called upon Donna Clara! I pointed to scious, alas! of my commiseration, and, in accents half our spacious highways, noble bridges, and magnificent the alcove where the heart-broken lady had flung herself streets, broken and blown up in the retreat or the siege; our fruit-trees and ornamental shrubs cut down for watchfires; might have had a sheltering-place, could her filial piety on the bleeding corpse of her grey-haired father. She, too, our hoarded treasures prodigally scattered among the ruf- have permitted her to remain there when her high-spirited fian followers of the camp; the privacy of our most hallow-sire feebly strove to repel the violators of his hearth. ed retirements laid bare to every ribald musketeer; the sacred hearth, where the embers have shed their cheerful light on honoured ancestral faces, flooded with kindred blood; the recesses to which wives, sisters, and daughters have flown in the tremendous hour of the assault, burst open by wretches veiling the passions of hell under the features of humanity: we arm the spirit against the intrusion of such hideous imaginings; but we contemplate without regret, not unfrequently with satisfaction, our agency in bringing the scourge of war upon other nations, and read of the extermination of thousands of our fellow-creatures with an interest as inconsiderate as that excited by the perusal of the fantastic combats in a poetic tale." To this passage we shall subjoin an episodical story, which admirably illustrates the sentiments stated above. It is written with the graphic force of a soldier who had seen, and of a poet who had fell, the incidents it describes : A SCENE AT THE STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. "Passing through a narrow street with two Scottish sergeants, I heard the shriek of a female. Looking up, we saw at an open lattice, by the light of a lamp she bore, a girl about sixteen, her hair and dress disordered, the expression of her olive countenance marked by anguish and extreme terror. A savage in scarlet uniform dragged her backward, accompanying the act with the vilest execrations in English. We entered the court-yard, where the hand of rapine had spared us the necessity of forcing a passage. My companions were humane, conscientious men, with the resoluteness that in military life almost invariably accompanies these qualities. Armed for whatever might ensue, they kept steadily by me, until we arrived at a sort of corridor, from the extremity of which issued the tones of the same feminine voice, imploring mercy, in the Spanish tongue. Springing forward, my foot slipped in a pool of "Master of a few Spanish phrases, I used them in addressing some words of comfort to the ill-starred girl. They despair. Her sole return was a faintly recurring plaint, that were to her as the songs of the summer bird, carolled in seemed to say, 'Let my soul depart in peace!' beloved source of her unutterable sorrow. "I motioned to her attendants to separate her from the comply without the application of force, bordering upon They could not violence. Bidding them desist, I signified a desire that they should procure some animating restorative. A flask the women held the lamp; the other gently elevated her of wine was brought. The sergeants withdrew. One of mistress's head. Kneeling by the couch in the alcove, I poured a little of the liquor into a glass, applied it to her lips, then took it away, until I had concealed my uniform beneath the torn mantilla. "Affliction, thou hast long been my yoke-fellow! Thou hast smitten to the core of my being with a frequent and a heavy hand; but I bless an all-wise, an all-merciful God, who tries that he may temper us, that I have not a second time been doomed to witness aught so crushing to the soul, so overwhelming in woe, as the situation of the young creature over whom I watched on the baleful midnight of our victory! "She had battled with a might exceeding her sex's strength, against nameless indignities, and she bore the marks of the conflict. Her maiden attire was rent into shapelessness; her brow was bruised and swollen; her abundant hair, almost preternaturally black, streamed wildly over her bosom, revealing in its interstices fresh waving streaks of crimson, which confirmed the tale of ultra-barbarian outrage; her cheek had borrowed the same fatal hue from the neck of her slaughtered parent, to whom, in her insensibility, she clung with love strong as death." Daughter of Spain! well was it for thy sire that he was gone |
