THE AND EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE. CONDUCTED BY JOHN JOHNSTONE. THE SCHOOI.MASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM. No. 10.-VOL. I. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1832. PRICE THREE-HALFPENCF. NOTES OF THE MONTH. OCTOBER. THE year is now in the FALL. The days, already drawn short, are still rapidly "creeping in." The woods are falling into the "sere and yellow leaf," and towards the middle of the month, shew all the variegated shades of reds, warm browns, russets, and yellows, with greater diversity of completely knocked up as a home manufacture,* substituting an expensive, insalubrious, or deleterious mixture, for the sound, wholesome, and potent home-brewed of our ancestors. HARVEST-HOME-THE KIRN-THE MAIDEN. It is often far on in October before this festival of the husbandman is celebrated with us. Though this has been a fortunate year, we not unfre. quently find, that The harvest had been cauld and wat, And corn was unco green; And aye a rantin' kirn we gat, This feast of fat things is known by as many greens than is seen in the vernal months. This is often a charming, tranquil season. The Americans speak with rapture of the FALL, or Indian Summer in their country; when the gorgeous Lues of their vast and magnificent forests become glorious. In the Hebrides and Orcades, the few weeks of fine, serene weather, which frequently occur at this season are endearingly called, The different observances as names; though in substan.. Little Summer. October is, however, often blus-tials it is much the same; everywhere attended by tering and plashy, and the season of high winds mirth, good cheer, hilarity, and gratitude for the and devastating floods. The husbandman is still busily occupied in ploughing the fallows, and preparing the fields for new productions; and the planter and gardener have their hands full. The last lingering young broods of the swallow tribe disappear. Even the twitter of the martlet, which, more snugly sheltered than its congeners, lingers the longest, is, on some soft morning, missed from the eaves. The Royston crow, the teal, and the first "Baltic fleets" of the woodcock, begin to arrive. The squirrels in the woods are yet busy completing their winter hoards, and storing their garners. Many of these spruce, brisk, perkish, lively, and nimble creatures may be seen at this season in the woods on the South Esk, springing from branch to branch, more easily detected than when the trees are leafy.That Sweet Bird! that ever in the haunch of Winter singsThe Robin Redbreast-may now be heard in every quiet, rural scene, trilling his plaintive hymn to the departing year. At this season, the squire and yeoman, the laird and tenant, wont to brew the "stout October" beer, the beverage so congenial to the British Islands, which impolitic and cruel taxation has almost banished from the fireside of the poor, and barn-yard stored-the bounty of the year secured. It is the Saturnalia of the Christian world, uniting master and man, mistress and maiden, in the enjoyment of common blessings. There is, we are sorry to understand, symptoms of this venerable custom falling into desuetude in certain quarters. In others, it is perverted from its true and best use, by being converted into a genteel ball and supper, with which the farmer entertains his city friends. No one should be allowed to partake of the KIRN who does not go to its celebration in the good old spirit, contented to be for one night (under the superintending eye of the master and mistress of the feast,) "hail fellow, well met," with every rustic lad and lass assembled in the barn. THE MALT TAX.-The amount of this tax, including the expense of collection, is about six millions a-year. Now, mark: when the barley is four shillings a-bushel, the malt I would be four shillings a bushel, if there were no tax; because the increase during the malting pays for the malting. As things now-stand, when barley is four shillings a bushel, malt is nine shillings, though the tax is only two and six. pence. The other two and sixpence goes to the maltster to pay for the capital, which he is obliged to employ in the advance of duties, to compensate him for the various injuries he receives from the excise restrictions, and to guarantee him against the perils amidst which he is continually placed by the pains and penalties which surround him; so that this malt-tax, which nominally amounts to six millions a-year, amounts in reality to thirteen millions and a-half a-year.-Cobbett MEMORABILIA OF THE MONTH. comes swarming upon the memory as we wande in the woods! The gallant knights and beautifu dames, the magical castles, and hippogrifs of the Orlando: the enchanted Forest, the Armida, and Erminia of the Gerusalemma Liberata, Fair Una, with her milk-white Lamb, Pan, and the Satyrs, Ar This month was named by the Saxons Wyn Monath, Wine Month, and also Winter-futteth. Antiquaries say, that although they made no wine, they procured it at this season of the closing vintage, from neighbouring countries. Is it not as probable that it was so named from their Barley-chimages, the fair Florimels, and false Duessas of wine their stout OCTOBER. The 25th of the month is St. Crispin's Day, ever memorable as that on which the Battle of Agincourt was fought, in 1415; when the English beat the French, six to one! the Fairy Queen; Ariel and Caliban, Jaques and his motley fool in Ardennes, the fairies of the Midsummer Nights Dream, Oberon, Titania, and that pleasantest of all mischief-makers, Puck—the noble spirits of the immortal Comus. With such company, woods are to us any thing but solitudes, they are populous and inexhaustible worlds. TREES. What can be more beautiful than trees? Their lofty trunks august in their simplicity, asserting to the most inexperienced eye, their infinite su periority over the imitative pillars of man's pride; their graceful play of wide-spreading branches; and all the delicate and glorious machinery of buds, leaves, flowers, and fruit, that with more than magical effect burst forth from naked and N.B. In this month 'Squires run mad after rigid twigs, with all the rich, brilliant, and unima foxes. THE WOODS OF OCTOBER. RATIONALE OF THE COLOURING OF THE WOODS that the leaves change their colour. However varied the It is at the end of summer, or in the course of autumn, ginably varied colours under heaven; breathing delectable odours, pure and fresh, and animating pouring out spices and medicinal essences; and The glory of this month, is the gorgeous splen- making music from the softest and the most medour of wood-scenery. Woods have, in all ages, lancholy undertones, to the full organ-peal of the vividly impressed the human mind: they possess tempest. I wonder not that trees have commanda majesty and sublimity, which strike and charmed the admiration of men in all nations, and pethe eye. Their silence and obscurity affect the riods of the world.-Howitt. imagination with a meditative awe. They sooth the spirit by their grateful seclusion, and delight it by glimpses of their wild inhabitants; by their novel cries, and by odours and beautiful phenomena peculiar to themselves. In remote ages, their fearful solitudes, and ever-brooding shadows fostered superstition, and peopled them with satyrs, fauns, dryads, hamadryads, and innumerable spirits of dubious natures. The same cause consecrated them to religious rites. It was from the mighty and ancient oak of Dodona that the earliest oracles of Greece were pronounced. The Syrians had their groves dedicated to Baal, and Ashtorath the Queen of Heaven; and infected the Israelites with their idolatrous customs. In the heart of the woods the Druid cut down the bough of misletoe, and performed the horrible ceremonies of his religion, The philosophers of Greece resorted to groves, as spots the most august and befitting the delivery of their sublime precepts. In the depths of the woods did Anchorites seek to forget the world, and to prepare their hearts for the purity of heaven. To lovers and poets, they have ever been favourite haunts; and the poets, by making them the scenes of their most beautiful fictions and descriptions, have added to their native charms a thousand delightful associations. Ariosto, Tasso, Spencer, Shakspeare, and Milton, ing principle of the leaf is a substance which is name have sanctified them to the hearts of all genera-chromule. If a yellow leaf is allowed to remain som tions. What a world of magnificent creations time in potassa, it becomes of a beautiful green. Ammoni parts of plants absorb oxygen during the night, and es and all the alkalies produce the same effect. On the other hand, when a green leaf is left in an acid, it becomes yellow or red, and potash restores the green colour. As the green chromule is frequently seen to pass through the yellow hues, before arriving at the red, it might naturally be concluded that the latter is at a higher degree of oxygenation. The autumnal change in the colour of the chromule might therefore depend upon the fixation of new doses of oxygen, which would continue to be absorbed without being exhaled. This would account for the phenomena presented by certain leaves which exhibit the three colours, red, yellow, and green at once. BOOKS OF THE MONTH. AUGUST and SEPTEMBER are proverbially the heaviest dical. The Howdie could not have been written by any one save the author of the Annals of the Parish, and the Ayrshire Legatees. This new autobiography exhibits all his quaint humour and rich, homely pathos. We are glad to see that it is to be a series. The adventures of the Howdie must be an exhaustless subject: all life lies before her. Of the politics of this Magazine we need not speak. They are those of Radical reformers, (reform to the root,) and able, bold, and uncompromising. This number contains the second part of the article on Parliamentary Candidates, to which we gave such unqualified praise last month. It is written, we have reason to believe, by a favourite liberal candidate, who, we hope, will soon, in ParWe months of the year for books. They are few and far be-liament, act on the doctrines he here lays down. tween; and the great hits are reserved for what is techni- should be glad to see this paper reprinted in a cheap form, cally called the publishing season. Periodicals, accordingly, form the staple of the dead months; for works publish ing in a series or in numbers are only matter of concernment to those unfortunate persons who are too generally wondering if that Encyclopedia, that Dictionary, or that Biographical or Historical work, is to have any end. MAGAZINES FOR SEPTEMBER. THE NEW MONTHLY contains nothing by the Great Editor, Mr. Bulwer, save, perhaps, a short introductoTMy political article. Lady Blessington's Recollections of Lor Byron are continued in this number. They are acute, penetrative, and written in a just but kindly spirit. We fear that this most impatient of all worlds is beginning to tire even of his Lordship, and to feel his memory somewhat of a bore. There is at present Lord Byron in the New Monthly, Lord Byron in Murray's New Edition, Lord Byron in the Athenæum, and altogether too much Lord Byron. The business part of the New Monthly is always well, and most industriously managed. Nothing is forgotten which may enable the superficial to talk, and the thoughtful to learn, about whatever is going forward in Literature, Art, Science, and Inventions. BLACKWOOD is chiefly remarkable for two things; a Noctes without a Shepherd, and a Number without one line from the prolific pen of Christopher North. Yet it is a fair number, of the ordinary staple. and distributed by tens of thousands among electors. Sir H. on practical Political Economy.. From The Life and Tait is the only October Magazine we have yet seen. The October Number supports the high station this periodical at once took, and so skilfully maintains. The Minisry and the People speak out severe but necessary truths. Inousseau and Shelley we have literature and philosophy combined. Rose Blanche is a tale of high-toned chivalry. Night-Burial at Sea, a wild and romantic Coleridgian poem; and in the Elegy of the King of the Gipsies, whose death we announced last week, a piece of fresh, spirited, and stirring verse. In poetry, it is not a little remarkable, that the Utilitarian Magazine has, since its commencement, immeasurably outstripped all the elder periodicals. It has contained the first sprightly runnings of several young and gifted minds. POETRY. About this still autumnal season, the minor bards are heard chirruping like as many grasshoppers; like them also to disappear with the first frost. Save the NATURAL SON, the first part of a strange story in verse, there is nothing lately worthy of notice in this way. NEW NOVELS. FRASER, which steers the same course in politics as Blackwood, contains one good paper-The Schoolmaster in Newgate—a shocking picture, and, we fear, too correct a The NEW GIL BLAS is written by Mr. Henry David one, of the way in which the cruel criminal law of England The New is made more cruel by haste and injustice in the adminis-Inglis, the author of Travels in Spain, &c. tration. Fraser's Magazine has discovered that the way the Press is so universally inimical to the Church, is, that the wicked lives of editors and newspaper writers are reproved by the sanctity of the clergy! We give it credit for the discovery. THE BRITISH MAGAZINE.-This is a recent publica tion got up to prop the Church, and take its defence, in these awful times, out of the profane and rough hands of such friends as Blackwood and Fraser. Well-meaning people seem to be connected with it; but hitherto it is, in a literary view, a wishy-washy concern. The Church would do well to retain her old corners in her old sinful organs, if she wish to have her voice heard through the Press in any tone above the cheep of a sick chicken. TAIT'S Magazine for September is especially welcome to us, for the re-appearance of John Galt in a Scottish perio Gil Blas is a rascally modern Spaniard, who runs away with a variety of improbable adventures, and, his wild oats from his native village, wanders about a few years, meets being sown, returns home with his plunder, marries and settles for life. We get over three volumes without knowing much more about Spain, or of men or women any where, than when we begin. The book is nearly a string tedious. The hero is a paltry rogue, tricky and selfish, a of episodes; and though never very interesting, is never disgrace to the ancient family of Blas of Santillane. ZOHRAB THE HOSTAGE is a Persian historical novel. Persian tales were given up thirty years since. Persian novels have little more attraction for British people now, unless they can let us deeper into the Persian character and manners than does Zohrab. We print in advance to be able to supply distant places. OUR VILLAGE, was so pleasant, really so charming, that one regrets seeing it run to the lees in this new and last volume. It is one got up of shreds and patches, from annuals, &c., and shows us that even Miss Mitford's sprightly fancy has its seamy side, and fag end. We are glad that she is to break cover in new ground. This volume is not worthy the authoress of Ellen, which we give to-day. THE REFORMER is a novel written to expose the awful dangers of reforming tenets. This is done by the original plan of the author painting Radicals either as wild visionaries, or ruffians and infidels. This candid manner of describing political opponents, is now so familiar among the Tories that it requires no exposure from us. The DOUBLE TRIAL is a book composed by some righthearted, if not quite right-headed, old person of the noble gender, who, twenty years ago, would have called those lucubrations Essays, which here he interweaves with a story, which, after all, does not connect them together very neatly, Novel-readers of the elderly and patient cast will find this book amusing. It abounds in material of one kind or other. LEGENDS OF THE RHINE: BY THE AUTHOR OF HIGH WE always liked Mr. Grattan's books, his early ones espe- MEMOIRS OF THE DUCHESS OF ABRANTES. ANOTHER Volume of Madame Junot's Memoirs has appeared, and is on the whole less interesting than the former. Still a work that has Napoleon for a hero, and is written by a clever Freachwoman, who possessed such opportunities of close observation of the First Consul and Emperor, and all the leading men and women of his Court and Camp, Cannot want entertainment. To us it is truly wonderful how tenacious the memories of ladies are, when they sit down to write domestic histories. They might almost tempt one to believe also, that the curious faculty of second-sight cannot be exclusively confined to the Highlands of Scotland. It would, however, be ungracious to quarrel with a power which makes their writings so much more amusing than they would otherwise be. After the Memoirs of the Duchess comes PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF A WOMAN OF FASHION. To small Book Clubs in the country we should imagine this a desirable volume. It forms part of the SELECT LIBRARY, and is to be followed by more volumes on the same subject. This one contains the Memoirs of Eliot, the American evangelist; of Swartz, the Indian apostle; the history of the Moravian Mission to Greenland; and of some other missions. The great fault to us in this volume is, that, save Eliot, we have no British missionary. Some of the sketches may be drawn rather en beau; but simple, unadorned truth has lost its relish. We have read the volume with interest and pleasure, and can safely say, it is calculated both to delight and edify. It is adorned with a portrait of Swartz, and a picture of an interview between Eliot and the Indians, to whom he first addressed himself as a preacher. TER. LIFE OF ANDREW MARVELL. A LIFE of this pure patriot and useful Member of Parlia "I told you at our last meeting, the winter was the fit- "MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, “I can bear my straits with patience; but My Lord Treasurer does protest to me, that the revenue, as it now stands, will not serve him and me too. One of us must pinch for it, if you do not help me. I must speak freely to service, my reformado concubines lie heavy upon me. you; I am in bad circumstances, for besides my harlots in have a passable good estate, I confess; but God's-fish, I have a great charge upon it. Here is my Lord Treasurer guards must, of necessity, be applied to the next year's crad can tell, that all the money designed for next summer's dles and swaddling clothes. What shall we do for ships then? I hint this only to you, it being your business, not lived ten years abroad without and never had my health mine; I know, by experience, I can live without ships. I better in my life; but how you will be without, I leave to yourselves to judge, and therefore hint this only by the bye: I do not insist upon it. There is another thing I must press more earnestly, and that is this: it seems a good part WHETHER this work be spurious or genuine, written by lady or gentlewoman, makes not much difference. It includes a portion of the domestic history of England for seven years, beginning with the victory of Waterloo, gained by the Duke of Wellington, and ending with the victory of the British nation gained by Mr. Brougham seven years afterwards in the House of Peers, and at the trial of Queen Caroline. These affairs are related, as if by an eye witness, and in a lively, gossiping, pleasing style. Whether the original letters bear any post mark, either of Brussels, regard for truth, or so much as to the appearances of it; and was an London, or Brighton, we have strong doubts. "The person," says Burnett," who was appointed to succeed Lord Clifford as treasurer, was Sir Thomas Osborn, a gentleman of Yorkshire, whose estate was sunk. He was a very plausible speaker, but too copi ous, and could not easily make an end of his discourse. He had been always among the high cavaliers; and missing preferment, be opposed the court much, and was one of Lord Clarendon's bitterest enemics. He gave himself great liberties in discourse, and did not seem to have any implacable enemy; but he had a peculiar way to make his friends depend on him, and to believe he was true to them. of my revenue will expire in two or three years, except you “First, I tell you so, and you know I never break my word. "Secondly, My Lord Treasurer says so, and he never told a lie in his life." The press was as hateful to a certain party after the Restoration as now. "The doleful evils" it brought upon the country are thus happily lamented : MEMOIR OF AN EDINBURGH TRADESMAN. We like the teaching which is given by living example; and therefore conceive ourselves fortunate in being able to produce one so excellent, and greatly obliged to the respectable tradesman, who, in compliance with our request, has furnished us with the subjoined history. The name we do not publish, from motives that will be easily intelligible; but it is no secret, and we vouch for the authenticity of a narrative which enables us emphatically to say to the young of the same numerous class, "Go ye and do likewise." The story, and we wish it had been more circumstantially told, is given in the simple words of the writer: "I was born in 1770, in the north part of the kingdom, of very poor parents, who came to reside in Edinburgh My father soon lost his health by living in about 1774–5. a town; of my three elder brothers, one went to sea and two into the army, and therefore could give no assistance to our father and mother. In December 1780, I was put ap "The press, (that villainous engine) invented much about the same time with the Reformation, hath done more mis-prentice to a most respectable tradesman, who finding that chief to the discipline of our church than the doctrine can make amends for. It was a happy time, when all learning was in manuscript, and some little officer, like our author, did keep the keys of the library. When the clergy needed no more knowledge than to read the liturgy, and the laity no more clerkship than to save them from hanging. But now, since printing came into the world, such is the mischief that a man cannot write a book, but presently' he is answered. Could the Press but at once be conjured to obey only an imprimatur, our author might not disdaine, perhaps, to be one of its most zealous patrons. There have been wayes found out to banish ministers, to find not only the people, but even the grounds and fields where they assembled, in conventicles; but no art yet could prevent these seditious meetings of letters. Two or three brawny fellows in a corner, with meer ink, and elbow grease, do more harm than a hundred systematical divines, with their sweaty preaching. And, what is a strange thing, the very spunges, which one would think should rather deface and blot out the whole book, and were anciently used for that purpose, are become now the instruments to make them legible. Their ugly printing letters, which look but like so many rotten tooth drawers; and yet these rascally operators of the press have got a trick to fasten them again in a few minutes, that they grow as firm a set, and as biting and talkative as ever. O, printing! how hast thou disturbed the peace of mankind! that lead, when moulded into bullets, is not so mortal as when formed into letters! There was a mistake, sure, in the story of Cadmus; and the serpent's teeth which he sowed, were nothing else but the letters which he invented. The first essay that was made towards this art, was in single characters upon iron, wherewith, of old, they stigmatized slaves, and remarkable offenders; and it was of good use, sometimes, to brand a schismatic; but a bulky Dutchman diverted it quite from its first institution, and contriving those innumerable syntagmes of alphabets, hath pestered the world ever since, with the gross bodies of their German divinity. One would have thought in reason, that a Dutchman might have contented himself only with the wine-press." MEMOIRS OF LA FAYETTE AND OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1830. By M. Sarrans, Secretary to La Fayette.-This my education had been entirely neglected, did what he could We |