and coral for our playthings, and the monsters of the deep for companions. But there is nothing of all this: throughout the three volumes we are never once out of sight of shore. Nor do we find any of those wild darings, those desperate exploits of the freebooters of the ocean, which we anticipated from its name. The pirate Cleveland is a flinching sentimental person, who does only one thing for which he deserves to be banged,-when he draws a knife and stabs an unarmed man who is struggling fairly with him—which is not a very heroic crime. All the preparation made for some extraordinary disclosure respecting him ends in nothing. We are led to expect some glowing passion nurtured in the spicy groves of tropical islands--some strange intermingling of bravery, luxury, and crime; but he is merely commonplace, faint-hearted, and repenting.

The love of Minna, the lofty sentimentalist,towards the anomalous Cleveland, is elaborately defended by the author on the principle of contraries. This theory does not shine in the argument, and is falsified by the result of the story. Cleveland's spirit does not "shine through him" so as to justify the damsel's passion: nor does the discovery of the particulars of his trade seem sufficient to account for her refusal to share his distresses. She loves him as a pirate; but she has some fine notions of pirates as sea kings, and cannot endure to find them only tolerable, but erring mortals. If the theory were true-if it were natural for the most delicate maidens to be fascinated by outlaws, it would be natural for them to cleave to these objects of their love more strongly in danger, not to forsake them at their utmost need. The pictures of Minna, and her livelier sister Brenda, are drawn with a skill which enables us in our mind's eye to see their diversified loveliness; in the earlier part of his career our author would have been contented if we felt it. There are one or two scenes between the sisters of exquisite tenderness, most delicately and beautifully touched, where the alienations which love produces between those who have had but

8 ATHENEUM VOL. 11.

one heart from their childhood, are pourtrayed with the finest feeling and truth. Magnus Troil, their father, the jovial stout-hearted Udaller, is excellent in his way; a perfect pillar of the olden time. The lover of Brenda, Mordaunt Mertoun, is a fine spirited lad, in the opening of the romance; gay, buoyant, full of life and joy; but he subsides into a mere machine towards its close. Triptolemus Yellowley, the classical and speculative farmer, is a mere patchwork part, like some of the characters made up of all oddities and inconsistencies, in the plays of Morton and Reynolds, a sort of lifeless curiosity not worth inspecting. Claud Halcro, the rhymer, who lives upon one glimpse of the "glorious John Dryden," with his prattle about Russellstreet, Covent-Garden, is as much out of place amidst pirates and savages as the figure of a courtier in full dress on the wings of cherubim. But the great attempt and failure of the whole is the part of Norna of the Fitful-head, who is evidently intended for a sublimated Meg Merrilies. She is unquestionably, in some respects, better furnished with appliances and means; instead of being a wandering gipsy queen, without father, mother, or descent, she is confessedly allied to a noble family; instead of trusting wholly to her enchantments, or to her loftier human energies, she has a large income, which she spends in procuring the appearance of wonders; and, instead of roaming alone over hill and valley, she has a hideous dwarf to do her bidding. But her life has no "magic in the web of it." She has not one old affection sustaining an exhausted heart-no terrific energies-no deep, lone com mune with nature, by which she has learned its mysteries. Her maternal instinct is a cheat, her prophetic power a delusion; she awakes to the melancholy consciousness that her whole life has been a lie, and becomes soberly sad at last. This is for an author to turn the tables on those whose blood he has made curdle, and whose hair he has made stand on end at these worn-out superstitions with a vengeance!

The work abounds in descriptions

of great excellence; but, for the most part, they are little animated with breathing life. There is, indeed, one picture of a whale-fishing, which is an exception to this remark; and reminds us of the most vivid and mighty delineations of our author. We can only make room for its close.

"Magnus Troil, who had only jested with the factor, and had reserved the launching the first spear against the whale to some much more skilful hand, had just time to exclaim, 'Mind yourselves, lads, or we are all swamped,' when the monster, roused at once from inactivity by the blow of the factor's missile, blew, with a noise resembling the explosion of a steam-engine, a huge shower of water into the air, and at the same time began to lash the waves with its tail in every direction. The boat in which Magnus presided received the shower of brine which the animal spouted into the air; and the adventurous Triptolemus, who had a full share of the immersion, was so much astonished and terrified by the consequences of his own valorous deed, that he tumbled backwards amongst the feet of the people, who, too busy to attend to him, were actively engaged in getting the boat into shoal water, out of the whale's reach. Here he lay for some minutes, trampled on by the feet of the boatmen, until they lay on their oars to bale, when the Udaller ordered them to pull to shore, and land this spare hand, who had commenced the fishing so inauspiciously.

"While this was doing, the other boats had also pulled off to safer distance, and now, from these as well as from the shore, the unfortunate native of the deep was overwhelmed by all kinds of missiles-harpoons and spears flew against him on all sides--guns were fired, and each various means of annoyance plied which could excite him to exhaust his strength in useless rage. When the animal found that he was locked in by shallows on all sides, and be came sensible, at the same time, of the strain of the cable on his body, the convul sive efforts which he made to escape, accompanied with sounds resembling deep and loud groans, would have moved the compassion of all but a practised whale-fisher. The repeated showers which he spouted into the air began now to be mingled with blood, and the waves which surrounded him, assumed the same crimson appearance.

Meantime the attempts of the assailants were redoubled; but Mordaunt Mertoun and Cleveland, in particular, exerted themselves to the uttermost, contending who should display most courage in approaching the monster, so tremendous in its agonies, and should inflict the most deep and deadly

wound upon its huge bulk.

"The contest seemed at last pretty well over; for although the animal continued from time to time to make frantic exertions for liberty, yet its strength appeared so much exhausted, that, even with the assistance of the tide, which had now risen considerably, it was thought it could scarce ex tricate itself.

"Magnus gave the signal to venture upon the whale more nearly, calling out at the same time, Close in, lads, she is not half so mad now-Now, Mr. Factor, look for a winter's oil for the two lamps of Harfra— Pull close in, lads.'

"Ere his orders could be obeyed, the other two boats had anticipated his purpose; and Mordaunt Mertoun, eager to distinguish himself above Cleveland, had, with the whole strength he possessed, plunged a half-pike into the body of the animal. But the leviathan, like a nation whose resources appear totally exhausted by previous losses and calamities, collected his whole remaining force for an effort, which proved at once desperate and successful. The wound last received, had probably reached through his external defences of blubber, and attained some very sensitive part of the system, for he roared aloud, as he sent to the sky a mingled sheet of brine and blood, and snapping the strong cable like a twig, overset Mertoun's boat with a blow of his tail, shot himself by a mighty effort, over the bar, upon which the tide had now risen cousiderably, and made out to sea, carrying with him a whole grove of the implements which had been planted in his body, and leaving behind him, on the waters, a dark red trace of his course."

After all, "The Pirate" contains much matter, for which we are thanknot to reflect honour on its author. ful. It is good enough to please us if Let him then write on; he will never equal his first works; but these have rendered it impossible that he should ever be written down--even by his own pen.-N. Mon. Feb.

Blackwood, Jan.

THE

HE kingdom of Russia, until the ascent to its throne of the Emperor Alexander, has been from the remotest period of its history continually the theatre of civil discord and intestine commotion. From the reign of Alexey Michailovitch, to the accession of its present illustrious ruler, so many pretenders have arisen to urge their claims to the imperial diadem of that vast empire, that more calamitous events have resulted to Russia from the contentions to which these circumstances have naturally given birth during the last century, than have befallen the princely house of any other nation in Europe in a much longer space of time.

Upon the demise of the Empress Anne, in 1740, Ivan Antonovitch, her nephew, then an infant, was proclaimed her successor; and Biren, a man of a fierce and ambitious spirit, regent of the kingdom, until the baby sovereign should arrive at an age sufficiently mature to take upon himself the reins of government. If frequent usurpations of the imperial crown had been aimed at, while it circled the brows of those who were capable of defending their right to it, it may easily be imagined that no very considerable period was permitted to elapse without a renewal of those attempts which were, at this juncture, so much more likely to be attended with success. Thirteen months only had rolled over the cradle of the infant Emperor, when a conspiracy broke out which hurled the helpless Ivan from the throne, and raised Elizabeth to the imperial power.

The first object of this ambitious woman was the seizure of Ivan, who was accordingly torn from his cradle by

a band of barbarian soldiers, and transported to the fortress of Schlusselburg*, situated on a small island where the river Neva issues into the Lake of Ladoga. From this place, accompanied by his mother, the royal infant was soon after conveyed to the citadel of Riga, where they wore away eighteen months of captivity. The monotony of imprisonment was in some measure alleviated by the circumstance of their place of exile being so frequently varied. From Riga they were removed to the fortress of Dunamunde, and subsequently to Orianenburg, a town situated in the South-eastern extremity of European Russia. Hitherto the captivity of the mother of Ivan had been softened and rendered less galling by the presence of her child; but in 1746 the mandate of the Empress separated them for ever, and Ivan was left under the superintendance of an amiable monk, who, attached from early years to the family of Antonovitch, and compassionating his fate, made an attempt to escape with him to Orianenburg, and thence into Germany, with a view to his ultimate re-establishment on the throne of his ancestors. In this object, however, the worthy man was defeated. Their flight was betrayed, and they were overtaken at Smolensko, whence they were conveyed to a monastery in the Valdai, not far from the road that leads from Petersburg to Moscow. Here they were detained for ten years ; at the end of which time, the youthful Ivan, then sixteen years of age, was brought back to Schlusselburg for greater security, and there lodged in the casemate of the fortress, the very loophole of which was immediately bricked