rapidly, that we may give place to others. Fame keeps her roll apart, and eternally open; but it is by no means free to all. Her children are a privileged order. She sometimes judges by proxy, but, like the Roman Senate, disclaims her instruments if the affair prove not to her taste. The conductress to Fame is Art, which is never decried by those who have genius enough to make use of it. Art is the key that unlocks the treasures of genius, but when a man has but an empty chest, he may well laugh at locks and keys. Among obsolete and obscure writers, nine out of every ten were eccentric contemners of art. Men who trusted that a kind of blind instinct, taking the lead among their perceptions, would operate its effect by a species of plastic power. If man was from the first doomed not to reach simple bread and cheese but by the sweat of his brow, how can he expect that he shall be able, without vast art and labour, to bind up his thoughts into a frame that may be co-lasting with nature herself? It may be well enough for the present to pour forth our ideas in the newest fashion; like pan-cakes, they may require to be eaten hot. But I should like to see Fame's Index Expurgatorius for this century-she would make strange havoc, I am afraid, of our immortality. We go out to war with Time unarmed, or carrying only the sling and stone of fancy; but if our first blow miss, we are undone. The giant rushes on with his scythemows us down like grass-and then tramples us under his feet. Those who have suspended the signs of their triumph round his neck, used far other arts. They came to the trial in impenetrable armour, close as the scales of the crocodile; and withal were able to keep pace with the swift steeds of their enemy. Contemning the treachery of their own camp, they came off with victory; and those who at their outgoing strewed thorns and brambles in their way, have been known to weave a chaplet to adorn their brows at their return. Success is the test of a man's merit to little minds-his deservings are like water sprinkled on the sand.

FROM THE LABYRINTH OF DREAMS (AN Unfinished POEM).
VISION THE ***

Methought I looked upon the burial ground
Of a low church, whose site was on a hill;
It was of ancient structure; the round tower
All ivy-clad, where, year by year, the daws
de Had reared their young; and in the massy porch
JoWere oaken seats, shining, and black, and carved
With uncouth figures and forgotten names;
The stony threshold was worn smooth and low
By the rude steps of generations past;
Around were many graves; the grass grew long,
Save on a few; the stones of some were down,
And hid with brakes, or stained with the green moss,
So that ye could not read the carven rhymes;
And many more had neither stone nor name.
It was the hush of silver-sounding eve,
And the broad disk of the descending sun
Was seen no more, but, like a golden sea,
The clouds were gathered to the molten west,

90

Drinking the mellow beams, till they became 90 113.4 7 39v9uk
A more ethereal substance, and a party bút vodi ko zoad LOV

Of the great Paradise •, that floated down,
Like an enchantment, in the autumnal sky:
The leaves had grown to yellowness, the fields

Were brown, and shadowed o'er with sheaves of corn;
Afar were he bells of the last team,

Distinct as it

heavily round a wood;
And where the peasants' habitations reared
Their lowly roofs, and cattle grazed around,
The bark of dogs, the sounds of rustic sports,
And the glad shouts of children on the green,
Stirred the still air, and softened in the sky;
And then a mingling burst of laughter came,
Borne on the rising breezes of the night,
And voices that grew momentary near;
And soon appeared a motley female troop,
Clad in the homely garb of rustic toil,

With each of them a burthen they were some

Of the last gleaners of the first-swept fields,

And down the churchyard-path they took their way,
And as they went conversed aloud, and cast

The ready jest upon each others' words,

'Till the lone pile re-echoed the shrill sounds;
But of the merry troop one lagged behind,

A girl of lighter figure, whose dark eyes

Seemed springs of mirth, although they now grew sad;
And as the rest passed on, she turned aside,
And stood amid a knot of nameless graves,

Musing o'er one, as if the mossy sod

Had grown o'er something that she could not leave;
And then she stooped, and plucked a small blue flower,
And muttered o'er its leaves, and seemed to listen.
Just then were heard the notes of an old tune,
Trilled in the distance by an unskilled hand,
Which seemed to wind its undulations rude
Like flame around her heart, and wake some pang
That slept within her bosom as a snake;
She started at the sound, and then stood still,
"Till the big drops were glistening in her eyes,
Then turning, brush'd the springing tears away,
And followed onward where the pathway led.

"The Paradise of Clouds" is Lord Byron's expression; but this piece was written before the publication of “ Cain."

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THE

LITERARY EXAMINER.

No. XXVI.-SATURDAY, DEC. 27, 1823.

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

The Spaewife. A Tale of the Scottish Chronicles. WHEN the title-page of a story is no way deceptive, and we are honestly given to understand the nature of the work which is placed before us, we know not that we are entitled to set ourselves in battle array against the species at the expense of the individual. Were this not the case, we should be much disposed to protest against so much in the peculiar line of invention under which the Spaewife is to be classed-meaning that mixture of fact and fiction, of verisimilitude and romance, which has been brought into so much currency by the author of Waverley. It is ridiculous, no doubt, to lay down strict and impassable rules for genius in the iron manner of exploded French cri-→ ticism; but, without affecting anything of this kind, we may be allowed to get weary of an eternal succession of crazy prophetesses and mysteriously inspired mad women, resting for acknowledgment upon wornout superstitions, and traditions which are rapidly following them. We must not be mistaken: we cannot recollect Macbeth without bowing to the lofty use which may be occasionally made of such materials; but what should we think of one or two tragedies a season, with an accompaniment of witches? or of a succession of labours, to insinuate that after all there is something in these vulgar notions, for, strange to say, demented old women are precisely the channels through which Providence deigns to communicate a knowledge of futurity? Moreover, it is a very different thing to adopt that, which, in relation to Macbeth, may be termed a Mythology, and to build upon it an hypothetical truth. In this way the Faust of Goëthe, the Manfred of Lord Byron, and many more, are legitimately supernatural; but it is something too much, as in the tale of Guy Mannering, to mix up astrology and second-sight with modern every-day transaction; or, as in the Spaewife, to attribute formal historical event to similar agency. Felicity of execution may, no doubt, cover the discrepancy in a few highly gifted exertions, but the repetition of imitators is sure, sooner or later, to expose it.

In point of fact, we venture to prophecy in our turn, that the minds of the great mass of readers for amusement will very soon be saturated with these misty associations, in which the variety is very bounded. The long received notion that madness is a species of possession, is the foundation of all these creations; and in the correspondent por

VOL. I.

26

traiture there must necessarily be a tedious sameness. We have before had occasion to observe, that the purely imaginative is infinitely more restricted than the really existent, and that the created, or rather the compounded, beings of fancy, are anything but multitudinous. The Meg Merrilies family, for instance, are by no means numerous, or materially various in feature. From the Cumean Sybil down to Mrs. Williams of Store-street, and from Otway's boding old woman in the Orphan to the Spaewife, there is much similitude in the leading features; and, in consequence, nothing in the world is more easy than to have too much of them.

Having written our mind upon this too abundant application of exploded traditions-and the more freely as it seems, connected with a strong desire to foster certain lurking superstitious tendencies in our nature as socially useful-we proceed to the more pleasant part of our labours. Except then, as before excepted, the author of the Spaewife has enbodied the meagre descriptions of the Scottish Chronicles and History with considerable force and dexterity. He doubtless, lacks the lightness of hand and skill at individualization which so much distinguish his great leader, but his elaboration is able, and his skill in narrative still more so, Like his original, however, he is by no means happy in the arrangement of his story, or in that general disposition which de velopes a rising and progressive interest to the close. But sufficient in this strain: proceed we to the story.

Be it therefore known to our readers, that the Spaewife is founded upon the tragical murder of James I. of Scotland, and a light imitation of the manner of the old Chronicles is affected in the way of telling the story. Independently of general history, the notions are chiefly gathered from a MS. contemporary account of the murder, written by one John Shirley, an Englishman, which thus commences :

"The followyng begynnyth a full lamentable eronycle of the dethe and false murdure of James Stuarde, last. Kynge of Scottys, nought long agone prisoner yn Englande, ynne the tymes of the Kynges Hent sye the fifte and Henrye the sixte."

This document the author gives at length in an appendix, and many will be amused by it, to whom the fiction founded upon it will be of very secondary consideration. It is, in fact, very curious, and what is more, contains the tradition which gives rise at once to the fictitious title chosen by our author, and the personage to which it alludes. The following is the passage :—

"After this the Kyng sodanly avasid made a solempne fest of the Cristynmes at Perth, which is clepid Sant Johns towne, which is from Edenbourgh on that other side of the Scottesh See, the which is vulgarly clepid the Water of Lethe. Yn the myddis of the way thare arose a woman of Ersland, that clepid herselfe as a suthsayer. The which anone as she saw the Kyng, she cried with a lowde voise, sayng thus, My Lord Kyng, and ye pase this water, ye shall never turne ayane on lyve.” The Kyng heryng this was astonyed of her wordis; for bot a litill to fore he had red yn a prophesie, that yn the selfe same yere the Kyng of Scottes skuld be slayne. And therwithall the Kyng as he rode clepid to him one of his knyghtis, and gave hym yn comaundment to torne ayne to speke with that woman, and ask of here what she wold, and what thyng she ment with her lowd cryyng? And she began, and told hym as ye hafe hard of the Kyng of Scottes, yf he passed that water. As now the Kyng askid her how she knew that? And she said that Huthart told her so. Sire, quod he, men may calant y tak non hede of yond womans wordes, for she ys bot a drunkine fule, and wot not what she saith.' And so with his folk passid the water, elepid the Scotisshe See, toward Saynt Johnnes towne, but iiii miles from the

cantreth of the Wild Scottes; where, yn a close of Blakfriars withowt the said towne, the Kyng held a gret fest."

The story commences with a brief

ac

Our task will now be easy. count of the melancholy circumstances which led to the English imprisonment and education of the poetical and literary James, and of his return to Scotland imbued with English notions of government, and entertaining a decided intention to curb the feudal barbarity of his nobles. The peculiar relationship of the Royal Family, which necessarily produced hatred and treason, is well described, and the Spaewife is furnished with as fine materials to make a Macbeth of as need be.* In truth, in generals, the story is the same; the Spaewife, a crazed and unblest fairy changeling, " paltering" with a tempted and deceived traitor" in a double sense," precisely like the witches. This, no doubt, is the weakest part of the story; for the situation of Athol rendered such goading altogether unnecessary, not to dwell upon such palpable imi tation. The cruel execution of his uncle and cousins by James (however well they deserved it), and the escape of one of them, the lover of the tale, lead to the remaining interest of the story, and at the same time bring into play a well drawn Celtic Chieftian, and a few other kindred sketches, not forgetting a portraiture of the undaunted Sir Robert Græme, the immediate assassin of the King. This feudal ruffian is well drawn; but after all, less ably so than in the real Chronicle. Owing to some fatality or other, our author mismanages his catastrophes, otherwise the horrible fate of the conspirators might have produced some excellent dark painting-the torture sustained by Græme, and his deportment under it, in particular. The love-business is very poor, and scarcely holds the story together; and what is worse, with the exception of the dignified widow of the executed Duke of Albany, we are scarcely interested for a single individual from one end of the book to the other. Still it rivets the attention, and we know no greater proof of power. We supply the following passage, which will show the version made by our author of the incident in the Chronicle, as also convey a notion of the affected formality of his narrative :

"The King and the Queen, and their lords and ladies, having departed with all befitting pomp and pageantry from the Abbey of the Holyrood at Edinburgh, came in due time to the South Ferry, where many boats, barges, and mariners were convened to carry them across the Forth. And it happened, while they were standing on the shore, in the bustle and controversy of embarkation-the gallants talking loudly-the gentlewomen fearful-and the mariners and servitors making a great noise with much loquacity, that Anniple of Dunblane was seen coming rushing wildly down the hill-her dishevelled hair and tattered mantle fluttering and streaming behind her arms outspread, and in her right hand the uncouth sapling which served her for a staff, making altogether the apparition of a creature rather of some fantastical element, than of the solidity of this world.

The young and the light-headed, who saw her first, began to laugh at so strange an advent, wondering and marvelling by what insane rapture she was so driven and borne ; but as she drew near, every one became silent; for without heed or hinderance of any impediment, she came on like an arrow from a bow towards the King;

King Robert XI. the grandfather of James, privately married Elizabeth Mure, by whom he had several children, but to please his father he put her away, and publicly wedded Euphemia Ross. On the death of the latter, however, he owned his first marriage, and the children of Elizabeth Mure were declared to stand in the line of succession before those by Euphemia Ross. The Earl of Athol, who brought about the murder of James, was the eldest son of the latter, and hence-aided by the too hasty measures of James in the resumption of Crown Lands---the treason.