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rna,

anar.'

a

a

as

Cleveland, grasping her hand, and and it is chiefly the discovery of this sing it ardently, said, but so low that mistake which serves to dispossess the

only could hear it, “ Farewell, Minna, unhappy woman of her delusions, and -t not for ever.'

convince her that all her supernatural And now, maiden, begone,' said • and leave the rest to the Reim- dreams of madness. The end of the

power and knowledge were but the "• One word more," said Minna, - and whole is, that Cleveland, being conbey you—tell me but if I have caught veyed for trial to London, escapes the ght your meaning-Is Mordaunt Mer. fate which waits many of his compain safe and recovered ?'

nions, in consequence of a certain act Recovered, and safe,' said Norna, of kindness which he had rendered Ise woe to the hand that shed his blood !' some time before to a Spanish lady of "Minna slowly sought the door of the high rank, who had found means to thedral, and turned back from time to obtain a pardon for him from the king. le to look at the shadowy form of Nor. In this pardon Jack Bunce is also inand the stately and military figure of cluded; and both Cleveland and he eveland, as they stood together in the -pening gloom of the ancient Cathedral. live to serve their country honourhen she looked back a second time, they ably, in the same seas which had re in motion, and Cleveland followed the heretofore been the scene of their utron, as with a slow and solemn step she gụilty distinction “gentlemen ded towards one of the side aisles. When adventurers.” Cleveland is slain in inna looked back a third time, their fi. battle, and Jack is commonly supres were no longer visible. She collected posed to have been the same person rself, and walked on to the eastern door with a certain venerable gentleman in which she had entered, and listened for a fiercely cocked hat and long periwig,

instant to the guard who talked together who was a constant lounger about 3. the outside."

Button's coffee-house, in the reign of But our extracts have been too nu- George I., and told long stories about erous, and we must hasten to the the Spanish Main, under the style and nclusion of the tale. Cleveland gains title of Captain Bounce. Minna Troil e shore in safety, and might easily gradually recovered her serenity, but - ve reached the ship, and sailed im- died a maiden, while Brenda and Mor

ediately; but he caunot think of daunt Mertoun were happy in each -parting without once more seeing other, and inherited in due time the inna, and pronouncing that adieu wealth both of Magnus Troil and his hich he now feels must be for ever. kinswoman Norna. his seals his fate. The ship is de- We shall not trespass upon our ined a night longer than was neces- readers by more than a very few rery; and the king's vessel is seen at marks upon the Romance of which we uybreak, advancing before a favour- have now finished a very scanty, and, g breeze towards the shores of Po- we fear, imperfect outline. In point

of composition, it must rank with the Before its arrival, Cleveland has very best of the preceding works of id farewell; and, heartbroken as he the same author. Indeed, we rather , he is just ready to quit forever the incline to think that his prose is behore on which he can no longer hope coming more and more graceful every or any thing but sorrow, at the very volume he writes. As to the story, it woment when the colours of his ves- is certainly one of great simplicity, I are struck, and all his companions but it affords room for many scenes of inded, under the custody of the king's deep interest, as well as of exquisite roops.

humour; which, to be sure, would be It is discovered the day they reach the case with any story in the world, Kirkwall, in this situation, that old under the same masterly management. lertoun, the father of Mordaunt, is The descriptive passages are throughbe very man who had, in early youth, out of the most bewitching excellence ained and abused the affections of and beauty. The characters are variNorna. She herself had all along ous, strongly drawn, and all of them mown this, and protected Mordaunt, full of life. Cleveland, Bunce, Goffe, under the belief that he was her son ; are beings whom we shall never forget. but it is now discovered that Mordaunt We shall be familiar to our dying day was indeed the son of Mertoun, but with Claud Halcro and the jovial that his mother was not Norna. Cleve- Udaller of Burgh-Westra. Norna will land himself turns out to be her son; be henceforth the guardian sprit of the

a

ona.

rocks anal waves around the desolate cellence. Our language possesses few shores of Thule; and Minna and Bren- things more exquisite than the solemn da will live with the Rebeccas and the antique music which breathes along Juliets, in the imagination of unborn the rhythmical monologues of the poets.

Rheimkennar. In one or two of We conclude with remarking, that them, the author seems to have recothese volumes are interspersed with vered all the long-lost inspiration of verse more largely than any of those the old Norse Muse, or at least apthat have preceded them. Some spe- proached as near as any modern imicimens have occurred in the course of tator could do, to the majestic energies our extracts, and we have no hesita- of the songs of the Odins and the tion in saying, that, taken altogether, Lodbroks. The fine Scandinavianism the poetry of the Pirate appears to us of SINTRAM is not more impressive. to be of the very highest class of ex

4124 Cranes

SHETLAND FISHERIES. The situation of the Orkney and Shet- of conducting the business there, and land Islands is so admirably adapted having also got fishermen from the for the prosecution of the British Fish- South, this little adventure commeneries, as well from the vicinity of these ced. Its nets were first wetted in the islands to the best fishing grounds, as month of July, and it is believed, its from the multiplicity of creeks and labours were concluded in the month natural harbours which are so essential of September, after obtaining what is to this trade, that the slow progress considered pretty good success, having which their Fisheries haye hitherto caught as follows, viz:made is not a little astonishing, Few The Experiment 6 manned people, upon examining the map of

Boat

212] Cranes Scotland, would believe that the Her- The Hope 5 manned Boat 1199 ditto ring Fishing has only within these few The Nancy 4 manned Boat 80* ditto years been begun in Orkney, through the spirited exertions of Mr Samuel Laing, of Papdale, and even at this day The great object which the Shetland the natives are almost strangers to the gentlemen have in view, in this infant fishing of Cod and Ling here. establishment, is to give employment

On the other hand, it is no less ex- to their fisherinen in the herring trade, traordinary, that, although the Cod after the ccd and ling season is over, and Ling Fishery has been carried to and by this means, to enable them to so great an extent in Shetland, as to partake of those bounties and encouenable them to export many cargoes ragements so properly bestowed by goto the Catholic countries on the Con- vernment on the fisheries; and thus abtinent, not a herring net has been stract the attention of the lower orspread by the natives of Shetland till ders of these Islands, from an illicit the year 1821, when, Mr Mowat of traffic in foreign spirits, tea, and toGardie, and a few other spirited pro- bacco, which has greatly increased of prietors of these Islands, formed them. late selves into an association, and sub- The profit of the herring fishing at scribed the necessary fund for purchas- its commencement, has, however, afing boats and nets, to encourage the forded more encouragement than could natives to follow the industrious exam- have been expected ; for, besides payple of the Dutch, whose herring busses ing the men a liberal allowance for annually appear in great numbers up- their labour, a small sum has been apon their coast; and, where in fact, all plied towards defraying the expence of the herrings of the Dutch market are the boats and nets.

But what is of caught.

far more consequence to this patrioThe immediate management of this tic association, is the spirit of enterexperimental fishery, was undertaken prize which it is likely to create, by in the most patriotic and disinterest: bringing forward a number of additioned manner by Mr Duncan, the She- al boats in the way of private advenriff-substitute of Shetland. Having ture, which must be attended with the procured three boats, he afterwards best advantage to the Shetland Islands

. visited Orkney, to ascertain the molle

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years.

R.

LETTER FROM PARIS.

MR North,

dirty, mean-looking rag, which we HERE are reputed to be 50,000 Eng- would not wrap cheese in, and certainish in and about Paris ; consequent- ly destined for a more ultimate end y there are 40,000 readers of Black- than reading. With some difficulty, vood's Magazine, all of whom think kowever, one does discover it to be Chemselves strangely neglected in that really a newspaper; but upon falling special article of monthly comfort, the to, it turns out a kind of lady's Album. forwarding of Maga. It is scarcely England takes up ten lines, Germany credible, but literally a fact, that the five, Italy do. Spain do. Turkey fifhew Number is re-printed and sold in teen, French politics five, the Censor's America, ere a glimpse of it is to be blank column, jaunts of the royal fahad here. A voyage of fifteen or six- mily, three columns, and theatrical teen days brings it to New York, and criticism, half the sheet. Your small twenty-four hours see it printed, press- and unconscionable type would wedge zd, dried, stitched, covered, and ready the whole of their monthly news into for delivery, while here the delay and the circumference of two pages. tantalization is horrific. The advertise- Their political writers have been ocment and table of contents in the cupied for the last month in discussing London papers are just sufficient to Guizet's new publication, “ Des moyraise curiosity and eagerness to the ens de gouvernement et d'opposition height,--then our twilight begins, but dans l'etut actuel de la France. The how tedious the days pass on ! how theatrical critics, besides the thousand immeasurable seems the time till the vaŭdevilles that keep their pens in congreat luminary itself makes its appear- tinual motion, have been more seriousance above our horizon !-this month ly employed in estimating the merits not till the 18th:--eighteen days in of Talma in Falkland, a play, like the expectation. Do you think that any “ Iron Chest," taken from the novel Christian subscriber can wait such a of “ Caleb Williams.”

."* And the cripolar sun-rise ?--For the love of all tics of general literature have as usual absentees, Mr North, see into this ne- been making strange blunders with glect, stir up Galignani with the long respect to us.

- A notre avis,” says pole, as Lady Morgan says; at least the Constitutionel of the 11th,“ trois smuggle my next number into the am- hommes se sont partagé les mérités de bassador's bag,—it may serve to lighten l'histoire, Tacite, Montesquieu, Walthe dispatches.

ter Scot.” They have also taken to I need not tell you how necessary praise Washington Irving with a most it is to have an antidote for ennui, extravagant zeal. in a book of all weathers, like the one There is no light periodical worth we speak of, but here it is indispensa- mentioning above the rank of a newsble. The palate of the mind is put to paper—the Minerve and Mercure are as strange privations, as that of the --the Revue Encyclopedique is tongue is presented with luxuries; and about the calibre of the Gentleman's unless you try back half a century, -vapid and well behaved. there is nothing worth reading; and If we look to Italy, it is worse, where even then, who would wade through they do nothing but reprint the Quarthe sophistic pond of French philoso- terly. The last number of the Antophy, when we possess the pure sources logia, however, commences with someat home, which first set their fantastic thing more original—the third Book heads a-thinking? You are somewhat of Homer, translated by Ugo Foscolo. of a gastronome, and may fancy your It is a specimen of a complete translaown feelings at having a quart of vin tion, undertaken, seemingly, for the ordinaire (red vinegar,) placed before purpose of competing with his old riyou after dinner, instead of a constitu-, val Monti, whose version of the Iliad tional bottle of old port.-Such to an' has long since been published. This Englishman is a French newspaper, a

received great excitement from the friend Gall-that is, if I can gain adsplendid edition of Annibal Caro's Vir- mittance, the crowd at the door of his gil, lately printed at Rome, at the ex- lecture-room being far more numerous pence of the Duchess of Devonshire. than at that of the opera on the night

There are two literary societies here, of a favourite ballet. Wishing you for instructing subscribers by lectu- over this gloomy month, and begging ring ; the one is the Atheneé of old, of you to take pity on your Parisian celebrated under the name of Lyceé, subscribers, where La Harpe read his famous Believe me, respected Sir, course; the other is a new establish

Yours, ment, presided over by the Viscount

L. de Chateaubriant, and is considered Paris, Nov. 26. rather superior to its rival. For a subscription of six Napoleons, you may P.S.-Louis is said to be something acquire a knowledge of all the sciences ruffled in temper for these some days in a few weeks, and a precious brain back, enraged with the Chambers and you must possess, even to remember the English interest, and resolved to the bare catalogue of the various olo- maintain the Duc de Richelieu in the gies to be learned. It would be too ministry. This nobleman is by gramuch for my weak brain, so I shall titude, as well as by other ties, strongly confine my attendance to your old attached to the interests of Russia.

LYNDSAY's

'S DRAMAS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.* Is our drama ever to be restored ? Why sair as great a devil as Moloch? Is not? But then we must consider with the Pedlar, with all his affability, like ourselves what we mean by its resto- the archangel Raphael? Why, tried ration. If we wonder why this age by such a test, these, the greatest poets does not produce Shakespeares, to be of our time, sink into mere slovenly consistent, we should also wonder why versifiers, as inferior to the Transcendit does not produce Spensers and Mil- ants in natural endowment, as in all tons and Popes. Let us begin then the skill and mastery of art. with demanding no more for the dra- Now, we conceive, that this very matic genius of the nation, than from short and simple statement does very its other power, as exhibited in the much dispel the mystery,—and that if best poetry of our age, and perhaps we we have no great dramatic poetry at shall not be disappointed in our rea- present rising up among us, it is owsonable expectations. We are a most ing to the same causes, whatever these poetical people, unquestionably; and may be, that have prevented us from our poets are, many of them, “ tall producing any great poetry of any kind fellows;" but place those whom we at all. This may sound arrogantly, call giants by the side of the Great of but it is said humbly; We love, deOld, and their altitude will be some- light in, and admire the poetry of this what diminished. We think under a

age, pregnant as it is with passion, delusion. Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, and tinged almost universally with a and Southey, have impressed the pub- pure and beautiful spirit. But till one lic mind vividly and deeply; in our mighty poem is produced in Britain, pleasure and our pride, we forget the we ought to be shy in comparing ourpossibility of our being all dwindleil selves with our ancestors; and were together, and seeing the intellects our eyes brcadly open to the truth, we of these above the ordinary stature, should hear less of cur inferiority in we never think of questioning their the drama, and more of our inferiority title to join the ranks of the immor- in those other departments of poetry, tals. But read a single page of Para- in which we easily imagine ourselves dise Lost-or a canto of the Fairy' to have excelled. Queen, and what becomes of the Lady What then is the wonder? Nothing of the Lake the Corsair-or the Ex- more than this that within these last cursion? Is Helen Douglas to walk twenty years, or thereabouts, a numby the side of Una ? Is the Cor- ber of men, of intellect and genius,

* Dramas of the Ancient World. By David Lyndsay. Edinburgh: Printed for William Blackwood ; and T. Cadell, London.

have, in this country, devoted them- all modern poetry, while gentlemen selves to poetry, with very great suc

with cracked voices and no ears, did cess, but that they have not hitherto join in chorus. We forget the causes made many attempts in dramatic com- assigned for the dearth—but they were position. There is nothing surprising supposed perfectly adequate. Nothing in this, any more than there would could be held coarser than the cant of have been, had dramatic composition the first Critic of the age; and for some been all the rage. There are not al- years, almost eleven millions of people ways deep, predisposing causes, for believed the poetry which they read, every thing that occurs in the his- not to be poetry, because it was proved tory of literature; and of all cants, not to be so by intellect; and of course,

; the cant of philosophical criticism is the mere testimony of the senses was the most contemptible. The Schle- held to be fallacious. But we now gels are the great critical canters of confess, that if not poetry, it is somemoslern Europe. They account for thing so extremely like it, that we are every thing. An idiot cannot drivel willing to let it pass for such ; and the out an elegy, but they will give you a greatest Critic of the age hiinself, gives reason for it in the juncture of the way to the popular delusion, and contimes. Nor, according to them, could tentedly cheers the events which he the idiot have drivelled his elegy, but formerly would have thrown to the at the very era in which he flourished canine race. his pen. But the truth is, that idiots No conclusion, therefore, it is maof all kinds are to be found at all nifest, can be drawn by any sensible times, in the literature of all nations, person, either for or against the dra--though we are willing to grant to matic genius of this age, from the prethe Schlegels, that there may be sea- sent state of our literature. We have sons and scones peculiarly favourable no noble acting play produced among to their production.

us lately. But Baillie, Byron, ColeWould it appear miraculous, and ridge, Wilson, and Milman, have all subversive of all certainty in moral written dramas—in which as much reasoning, if, during the next twenty power is shewn, as perhaps in any years, all our poetry was to be drama- other department of poetry. Baillie tic? Certainly not. We take hold of is a woman, and thence weak in many a little bit of time—and surely twenty things; but her Basil may be read years is a mere patch-and are insen- with as little dissatisfaction after a : sibly brought to consider it as a great play of Massinger's, as Rokeby after cycle. But twenty years is but as an the Fairy Queen. Byron's Manfred hour in the literature of a people, whe- is a magnificent drama and his Doge ther it be progressive or stationary; is stately and austere. Coleridge's Reand how like a huge dunce would the morse is full of the deep metaphysics of Public appear, if, during its blubber- passion. Wilson's City of the Plague, ing bewailment over the exhibition of though lax and inartificial, is in the dramatic genius, up were to leap a highest possible degree dramatic, and seore of play-wrights, each with a do- full of terrorand pathos-and Milman's zen deep tragedies in either hand ? Fall of Jerusalem, though laboured and The great dunce would in five minutes cumbrous, possesses the soul with a aver, that he had never said that dra- mournful and elevating interest. Now, matic genius was extinct--but that it all these poets-more or less dramatic had merely been taking a protracted -more or less poetical-more or less siesta-and that she always had ex- passionate-do exhibit just as close an pected to see it taking to its legs again, approach to the spirit and virtue of after such a comfortable nap. Sup- the Drama of England, in its days of pose twenty years ago, some speculator glory, as the best poetry of the same, had announced his belief that all poe- or other writers, does to the spirit and tical genius whatever was dead in this virtue of the great poetry of England. country; and that he had given suffi- Lest this should be denied-we beg cient reasons for adopting that creed. leave to qualify this supposition-by The truth is, that such speculators saying, that if there be a difference in

their mouths, and lustily bray the two cases, it is a difference of deout to that effect. The Edinburgh 'gree not of kind and certainly not Review did stretch its leather sides such a difference as leaves any imalmost to bursting, in vituperation of pression of wonder on the mind.

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