full of fire and purpose. A dangerous sort of libertine,' | candle, that I had even seen her character becoming thought the lawyer, 'to seem to catch the spark he stronger and more resolved of late. More like her wants from a young lady's eyes.' sisters.' Now, observe Snitchey,' he continued, rising and taking him by the button, and Craggs, taking him by the button also, and placing one partner on either side of him, so that neither might evade him. 'I don't ask you for any advice. You are right to keep quite aloof from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in which grave men like you could interfere, on any side. I am briefly going to review, in half-a-dozen words, my position and intention, and then I shall leave it to you to do the best for me, in money matters, that you can; seeing that, if I run away with the Doctor's beautiful daughter (as I hope to do, and to become another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the moment, more chargeable than running away alone. But I shall soon make all that up in an altered life.' "I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs,' said Snitchey, looking at him across the client. "I think not,' said Craggs-both listening attentively. Well, you needn't hear it,' replied their client. I'll mention it, however. I don't mean to ask the Doctor's consent, because he wouldn't give it me. But I mean to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, because (besides, there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he says) I hope to rescue his child, my Marion, from what I see-I know --she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is the return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so hurried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish, skulk about in the dark, am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds; but that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and Marion will probably be richer-on your showing, who are never sanguine-ten years hence as my wife, than as the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she dreads, (remember that), and in whom, or in any man, my passion is not surpassed. Who is injured yet? It is a fair case throughout. My right is as good as his, if she decide in my favour; and I will try my right by her alone. You will like to know no more after this, and I will tell you no more. Now you know my purpose and wants. When must I leave here?' "In a week,' said Snitchey, Mr. Craggs? "In something less, I should say,' responded Mr. Craggs. 64 6 In a month,' said the client, after attentively watching the two faces. This day month. To-day is Thursday succeed or fail, on this day month I go.' "It's too long a delay,' said Snitchey; much too long. But let it be so. I thought he'd have stipulated for three,' he murmured to himself. Are you going? Good night, sir.' "Good night! returned the client, shaking hands with the Firm; you'll live to see me making a good use of riches yet. Henceforth the star of my destiny is Marion!' 666 Take care of the stairs, sir, replied Snitchey, for she don't shine there. Good night!' "Good night!' "So they both stood at the stair head, with a pair of office candles, watching him down; and when he had gone away, stood looking at each other. What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs,' said Snitchey. "Mr. Craggs shook his head. "It was our opinion, on the day when that release was executed, that there was something curious in the parting of that pair, I recollect,' said Snitchey. "It was,' said Mr. Craggs. Perhaps he deceives himself altogether,' pursued Mr. Snitchey, locking up the fire-proof box, and putting it away; or if he don't, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy is not a miracle, Mr. Craggs. And yet I thought that pretty face was very true. I thought,' said Mr. Snitchey, putting on his great-coat (for the weather was very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one "Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion,' returned Craggs. I'd really give a trifle to-night,' observed Mr. Snitchey, who was a good natured man, if I could believe that Mr. Warden was reckoning without his host; but light-headed, capricious, and unballasted as he is, he knows something of the world and its people (he ought to, for he has bought what he does know, dear enough), and I can't quite think that. We had better not interfere: we can do nothing, Mr. Craggs, but keep quiet,' "Nothing,' returned Craggs. "Our friend, the Doctor, makes light of such things,' said Mr. Snitchey, shaking his head. I hope he mayn't stand in need of his philosophy. Our friend Alfred talks of the battle of life,' he shook his head again, I hope he mayn't be cut down early in the day. Have you got your hat, Mr. Craggs? I am going to put the other candle out.' Mr. Craggs replying in the affirmative, Mr. Snitchey suited the action to the word, and they groped their way out of the council-chamber-now as dark as subject, or the law in general. A letter came from Mr. Alfred Heathfield, announcing his intended return. Dr. Jeddler, to sustain his theory, determined to make a good joke" of the arrival, and had a large supper party and a little ball at his old house. The business got on very pleasantly, although on a raging wintry night; and Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs, with their other partners in life, were present. But, at twelve o'clock, just as Mr. Alfred Heathfield arrived, Miss Marion Jeddler was missed. Notes for her sister and her father were found in her room, making it tolerably clear that she had eloped with that dangerous sort of libertine," Michael Warden, Esquire. The company, of course, ran around the orchard in every direction, and And at the moment when her sister did not find her. Grace fainted and fell amongst the snow, Mr. Heathfield came up and seemed to do something of the same kind, for thus Part II. concludes: "The snow fell fast and thick. He (Heathfield, to wit) looked up for a moment in the air, and thought that these white ashes strewn upon his hopes and misery were suited to them well. He looked round on the whitening ground, and thought how Marion's foot-prints would be hushed and covered up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her blotted out. But he never felt the weather and he never stirred.” We naturally concluded that, as "he never stirred," he had died on the old battle-field." This was a mis take; for, on reading Part III., we found him out, comfortably married to Grace Jeddler; "Clemency," turned away for her part in Miss Marion's elopement, married Mr. Britain, and kept a snug country inn, where, one evening, six years after the elopement, Mr. Snitchey Mr. Craggs is dead-recognises his client, Mr. Warden. On the same evening, Marion returns, and tells her sister Grace, that she knew Grace loved Mr. Heathfield, and therefore though she, Marion, loved him too—she determined to elope with Mr. Warden so far as her aunt's, with whom she remained in concealment, while "that dangerous libertine" went a-nursing to the Continent; and this step she had taken from pure sisterly affection. She had never seen Mr. Warden again, who merely accompanied her so many miles on her way. Mr. Warden, however, having been most wonderfully discovered on the same evening-being reformed in estate and character-was, we are led to understand, ultimately married to Miss Marion, Dr. Jeddler discovered th t life was not the sugar, the tea-caddy, the pickles, and other groceries cestors in a hundred thousand battles? "a great farce;" and all parties became, in the end, perfectly satisfied that it is quite a serious transaction. If Mr. Dickens really believes that a modest and discreet young lady could leave a ball-room on a winter night; make off with the greatest rake in the parish; take refree in the old lady's, her aunt's; remain there concealed for a number of years-half-a-dozen-leaving for a long Friod her nearest relatives in anxiety for her fate, and her former neighbours in no doubt regarding her character—from no other motive than merely to give her elder sister an opportunity of marrying her lover; and if his namerous readers imagine the story within the range of probabilities, or the conduct of the heroine worthy of imitation, we have nothing to say between them, except that the engravings of the volume are well executed. We decidedly prefer the rival publication of the sea- "Well, one day last season, I had received from my "Mrs. Perkins's Ball," by M. A. Titmarsh. Mrs. kind and most estimable friend, Mrs. Perkins, of Pockl'erkins is the wife of a stock-jobber in the city, who lington Square (to whose amiable family I had the honour of giving lessons in drawing, French, and the German give a party on the evening of Friday, the 19th Decem-flute), an invitation couched in the usual terins, on ber last, to which The Mulligan of Ballymulligan invited satin gilt-edged note paper, to her evening party, or, Liaiself, and where he figured conspicuously; but it is as I call it, Ball.' Besides the engraved note sent to all her friends, my kind patroness had addressed me priproper that Mr. Titmarsh should tell his own story, which vately as follows:runs thus: "I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did. Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so rocious, and spoke of Saxon curiawsitee' in a tone of sch evident displeasure, that-as, after all, it can matter very little to me whereabouts lies the Celtic principality In question-I have never pressed the inquiry any farther. The hatter MY DEAR MR. TITMARSH,-If you know any very eligible young man, we give you leave to bring him. You gentlemen love your Clubs so much now, and care so little for dancing, that it is really quite a scandal. Come early, and before everybody, and give us the benefit of all your taste and Continental skill. 666 Your sincere 66 6 EMILY PERKINS," " "Whom shall I bring? mused I, highly flattered with "I don't know even the Mulligan's town residence.this mark of confidence; and I thought of Bob TripOne night, as he bade us adieu in Oxford-street- I live pett; and little Fred. Spring, of the Navy Pay Office; fare, says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge, with the Hulker, who is rich, and I know took lessons in Paris; big stick he carries ;-so his abode is in that direction at and a half score of other bachelor friends, who might be any rate. He has his letters addressed to several of his considered as very eligible-when I was roused from my Friends' houses, and his parcels, &c., are left for him at meditation by a slap of a hand on my shoulder; and, various taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked looking up, there was the Mulligan, who began, as usual, trowsers, in which you see him attired, he did me the reading the papers on my desk. "What's this," says he, favour of ordering from my own tailor, who is quite as "who's Perkins? Is it a supper ball or only a tay ball " anxious as anybody to know the address of the wearer. The Perkinses of Pocklington Square, Mullila like manner, my hatter asked me, 'Oo was the Ilirish gan, are tip-top people," says I, with a tone of dignity; rent. as 'ad ordered four 'ats and a sable boar to be sent "Mr. Perkins's sister is married to a baronet, Sir Giles to my lodgings? As I did not know (however I might Bacon, of Hogwrsh, Norfolk. Mr. Perkins's uncle was guess), the articles have never been sent, and the MulliLord Mayor of London; and he was himself in Parliaran has withdrawn his custom from the infernal four-ment, and may be again any day. The family are my and-ninepenny scoundthrel,' as he calls him. most particular friends. A tay ball, indeed! Why, Gunter has not shut up shop in consequence. I became acquaintHere I stopped. I felt I was ed with the Mulligan through a distinguished countryman of his, who, strange to say, did not know the chieftain himself. But, dining with my friend, Fred. Clancy, of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the Mulligan came up, inthrojuiced' himself to Clancy, as he said, claimed relaionship with him on the side of Brian Boroo; and, drawing his chair to our table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking to me, was good enough to find out my address and pay me a visit: since which period, often and often, on coming to breakfast in the morning, I have found him in my sitting-room, on the sula, engaged with the rolls and morning papers; and any a time, on returning home at night, for an evening's quiet reading, I have discovered this honest fellow, in the arm chair before the fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars, and trying the quality of such liquors as might be found in the sideboard. The way in which he pokes fun at Betsey, the maid of the lodgings, is prodigious. She begins to laugh whenever he comes; if he calls her a duck, a divvle, a darlin, it is all one. He is just as much a master of the premises as the individual who rents them at fifteen shillings a weea; and as for handkerchiefs, shirt collars, and the like artcles of fugitive haberdashery, the loss, since I have known him, is unaccountable. I suspect he is Eke the cat in some houses; for, suppose the whisky, the cigars, * * committing myself. "Gunter,' says the Mulligan, with another confounded I'll go slap on the shoulder, don't say another word. widg you, me boy. You go, Mulligan,' says I: 'why, really-I-its not my party.' 666 Your hwhawt? hwhat's this letter? an't I an eligible young man ?-Is the descendant of a thousand kings unfit company for a miserable tallow-chandthlering cockAre you joking wid me? for, let me tell you, I don't like them jokes. D'ye suppose I'm not as well baurun and bred as yourself, or any Saxon friend you ever had?' ney? "I never said you weren't, Mulligan,' says I. 'You don't mean seriously that a Mulligan is not fit company for a Perkins? 666 My dear fellow, how could you think I could so far insult you? says I. "Well, then,' says he, that's a matter settled, and we go.' What the deuce was I to do? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins; and that kind lady replied, that she would receive the Mulligan, or any other of my friends, with the greatest cordiality.' Fancy a party all Mulligans! thought 1, with a secret terror." Mr. Titmarsh gives pen and pencil sketches of Mrs. Perkins's party, and all the events of Friday evening, the 19th December, in the family mansion at Pocklington Square. In both departments he has succeeded admirably; and our readers might wish to know more of the guests, as, for example Those three young men are described in a twinkling : Lieutenant Grig of the Heavies; Mr. Beaumoris, the handsome young man; Tom Flinders (Flynders Flynders he now calls himself), the fat gentleman who dresses after Beaumorris. Beaumorris is in the Treasury; he has a salary of eighty pounds a year, on which he maintains the best cab and horses of the season, and out of which he pays seventy guineas merely for his subscription to clubs. He hunts in Leicestershire, where great men mount him; is a prodigious favourite behind the scenes at the theatres. You may get glimpses of him at Richmond, with all sorts of pink bonnets; and he is the sworn friend of half the most famous roués about town; such as old Methuselah, Lord Billygout, Lord Tarquin, and It is to oblige the former the rest a respectable race. that the good-natured young fellow is here to-night; though it must not be imagined that he gives himself any airs of superiority. Dandy as he is, he is quite affable, and would borrow ten guineas from any man in the room in the most jovial way possible. It is neither Beau's birth, which is doubtful; nor his money, which is entirely negative; nor his honesty, which goes along with his money qualification; nor his wit-for he can barely spell-which recommend him to the fashionable world, but a sort of Grand Seigneur splendour, and dandified Je ne sçais quoi, which make the man he is of him. The way in which his boots and gloves fit him is a wonder, which no other man can achieve; and though he has not an atom of principle, it must be confessed that he invented the Taglioni shirt. "When I see those magnificent dandies yawning out of White's, or caracolling in the Park, on whining chargers, I like to think that Brummell was the greatest of them all, and that Brummell's father was a footman. Flynders is Beaumorris's toady; lends him money, buys horses through his recommendation, dresses after him, clings to him in Pall Mall, and on the steps of the clubs, and talks about Bo,' in all societies. It is his drag which carries down Bo.'s friends to the Derby; and his checks pay for dinners to the pink bonnets. I don't believe the Perkinses know what a rogue it is, but fancy him a decent reputable city-man, like his father before him. "As for Captain Grig, what is there to tell about him? He performs the duty of his calling with perfect gravity. He is faultless on parade; excellent across country; amiable when drunk; rather slow when sober. He has not two ideas, and is a most good-natured, irreproachable, gallant, and stupid young officer." Or, in another way, an equally remarkable set"But the most awful sight which met my view in this dance was the unfortunate Miss Little, to whom fate had assigned THE MULLIGAN as a partner. Like a pavid kid in the tallons of an eagle, that young creature trembled in his huge Milesian grasp. Disdaining the recognised form of the dance, the Irish Chieftain accommodated the music to the dance of his own green land, and performed a double-shuffle jig, carrying Miss Little along with him. Miss Ranville and her Captain shrank back amazed; Miss Trotter skirried out of his way into the protection of the astonished Lord Methuselah; Fred. Sparks could LITERARY The Buchanites, from First to Last. By Joseph Train, author of "The History of the Isle of Man," &c. &e. Small octavo. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood & Sons. THE Buchanites, "from first to last," was certainly the most precious piece of humbug that ever disgraced the acuteness and sober-mindedness for which our ancient hardly move for laughing; while, on the contrary, Miss Joy was quite in pain for poor Sophy Little. As Canaillard and the Poetess came up, the Mulligan, in the height of his enthusiasm, lunged out a kick which sent Miss Bunion howling; and concluded with a tremendous Hurroo a war-cry which caused every Saxon heart to shudder and quail." And here is the finish of the Mulligan, at least his end, on Saturday morning, 20th ultimo : "It was too true, I had taken him away after supper (he ran after Miss Little's carriage, who was dying in love with him, as he fancied), but the brute had come back again. The doctors of divinity were putting up their condiments: everybody was gone; but the abominable Mulligan sat swinging his legs at the lonely supper table! Perkins was opposite, gasping at him. "The Mulligan.-'I tell ye, ye are the butler, ye big fat man. Go get me some more champagne. It's good at this house. "Mr. Perkins-(with dignity). It is good at this house; but The Mulligan. 'Bht hwhat? ye goggling bowwindowed jackass. Go, get the wine, and we'll drink it together, my old buck. "Mr. Perkins.- My name, sir, is Perkins.' "The Mulligan. Well, that rhymes with gerkins and Jerkins, my man of firkins; so don't let us have any more shirkings and lurkings, Mr. Perkins.' Mr. Perkins-(with apoplectice nergy) Sir, I am the master of this house; and I order you to quit it. I'll not be insulted, sir; I'll send for a policeman, Sir. What do you mean, Mr. Titmarsh, Sir, by bringing this beast into my house, Sir?' "At this, with a scream like that of a Hyrcanian tiger, Mulligan, of the hundred battles, sprang forward at his prey; but we were before-hand with him. Mr. Gregory, Mr. Grundsell, Sir Giles Bacon's large man, the young gentleman, and myself, rushed simultaneously upon the tipsy chieftain, and confined him. The doctors of divinity looked on with perfect indifference. That Mr. Perkins did not go off in a fit is a wonder. He was led away Somebody smashed heaving and snorting frightfully. Mulligan's hat over his eyes, and I led him forth into the silent morning. The chirrup of the birds, the freshness of the rosy air, and a pennyworth of coffee that I got for him at a stall in the Regent Circus, revived him somewhat. When I quitted him, he was not angry, but sad. He was desirous, it is true, of avenging the wrongs of Erin in battle line; he wished also to share the grave of Sarsfield and Hugh O'Neill; but he was sure that Miss Perkins, as well as Miss Little, was desperately in love with him ; and I left him on a door-step in tears." We wish that the twenty-one illustrations in the book, like its letterpress, were transferable, for in that case we might borrow largely. There is no work of the season more replete with broad and genuine humour and Mrs. Perkins's Ball" is vastly supepointed sarcasm. rior to "The Battle Field," as a story for Christmas, or for any other season of the year; and if the latter reach a forty-fourth edition, the former should, naturally, and on its merits, arrive at eighty-eight. REGISTER. Scottish nation claims distinction, and has its claim very generally allowed. Johanna Southcote, Ann Lee, Jemima Wilkinson, the Maid of Kent, nay, Canterbury Thom himself, and their disciples, must give place, in hypocrisy and impudence, to Mrs. Buchan, and, in absurd credulity, or downright idiotcy, to her followers. We are glad to find, in looking into the very circumstantial narrative * of Mr. Train, that this folly had spread less far than the | in the person of the Reverend Hugh White, minister of The leader, much as Mr. Train depreciates her, intellectually as well as morally, must have possessed a certain sort of talent, though never prophetess had disciples more easily duped. At her first outset, the stimulus of a little persecution was not wanting. The narrative, though spun out and overloaded, is instructive, as exhibiting the depths of absurdity into which fanaticism and distempered imagination may carry persons assumed to be rational; for had poor Edward Irvine or any one of his prophetesses chosen to have gone forth into the wilderness, there is no question that they would, for a season, have ob tained many more followers, "number and value," than did Elspat Buchan. Her history is edifying, among other points, from her glibe use, in her letters and conversation, of the blasphemous slang which forms so formidable a weapon in the hands of inspired persons of her cast, in carrying on their business of imposition and delusion. Mr. Train has given us quite as much of his heroine as can well be endured. His work is, however, likely to be popular in Scotland; and it may furnish materials for a good chapter in any future history of popular religious delusions. White was the most infatuated of her followers; and yet he had been one of the most popular of the Relief ministers of the west of Scotland. Scandal took freedom with their names, and the tenets promulgated by Whito regarding their faith and practice, gave countenance to evil reports : "In the Divine Dictionary, said to have been indited by Holy Inspiration, and published by Mr. White, as containing the faith and practice of the Buchanites, we find these words: This world has vexed themselves in vain abont our views of marriage; accordingly, to all denominations we make the following information:- "The same law that finished the carnal service at the altar, and bestial sacrifices, put an end to carnal mar riages. It is devilish to think that merely refraining from women and certain meats constitutes salvation. Where the Holy Spirit of God occupies all the person and reigns throughout the flesh, it matters not whether they marry or not. * to embrace our faith and practice, and that because we Burns, the poet, gave an account of this new sect and its founders, which confirms the worst that has been alleged of them. Mr. Ayton of Hamilton, who remembered their going forth into the wilderness, graphically describes their departure from Irvine, in a communication made to Mr. Train : Elspat Simpson, afterwards "Luckie Buchan," was the daughter of a cottar in Banffshire, and in her orphaned childhood, like Joan of Arc, herded cows. She afterwards was taught to read and sew, through the kindness of a relative; but being of idle, and, it is said, dissolute habits, she wandered from the north, and at Ayr, "trepanned" Robert Buchan, a working potter, into being her husband. Her notions of matrimony, according to her biographer, were of the kind now called Socialist. The part she was to play-"her mission". '-was coming on the way to the New Jerusalem.' municated to her by special revelation. She was a constant attendant at revivals and fellowship meetings, going, as she said, "from sea to sea, seeking the Word of the Lord, but could not find it." At last the time "I have been,' says he, an attentive observer of the freaks and feelings of mankind for the last seventy years; and I was not surprised to see a considerable portion of the Relief congregation of Irvine leave their homes, and set out, as they said, to heaven, under the direction of a hypocritical old woman and a wrong-headed priest, sing came : "Several old people still remember seeing the Buchancloak, the discarded minister, and one or two of her ites on this occasion. Mrs. Buchan, attired in a scarlet higher dupes, were seated in a cart, while the remainder of the company followed on foot. These were, for the most part, Clever chiels, and bonny, spanking, rosycheeked lassies, many of them in their teens. They were "In the year 1774, the power of God wrought such a generally dressed in the simple garb of peasant maids of wonderful change on my senses, that I overcame the flesh the Lowlands of Scotland. Over their dark petticoats so as not to make use of earthly food for some weeks, they wore short gowns, reaching from the chin half way which made all that saw me conclude that I was going to down the thigh, and fitted close to the bosom. They depart this life; and many came to hear me speak, which were bare-headed; and their locks, permitted to grow was all about God's love to mortals. Had unusually long, were restrained from falling in a fleece there been a gallows erected at every door where I had an over the back and bosom by small buckling combs.' opportunity of speaking of Christ, or of hearing him spoken of, I would not have stayed from going there; and the more any sought to keep me back, it only tended the more to stir me up to run the faster." But we must make brief work with this absurd woman. The progress of these enthusiastic visionaries is thus described by our native bard, Allan Cunningham:-Some were in carts, some were on horseback, and not a few were on foot. Our Lady (so they called Mrs. Buchan) rode in front on a white pony, and often halted to lecture them on the loveliness of the land, and to cheer them with drink from a large cup, called the comforter.'"' She gave herself out to be the Third Person in the God-food from what she called the garden of mercy, and with head, and pretended not only to be immortal herself, but to confer immortality on whomsoever she breathed on:"She also personified the woman described in the Revelation of St. John, as being clothed with the Sun and the Moon; and pretended to have brought forth the Man-child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, After such refreshments, the "Friend Mother" would light her cuttie-pipe and regale herself with a smoke of tobacco. The subsequent adventures of the party of pil grims, in their wanderings through Dumfries-shire and Galloway, are almost incredible. But disunion crept into the body. Mr. White fell away from his original faith in "the divine woman," but he still attempted to keep up the delusion with which his interest and vanity were identified; and, as Mrs. Buelian, instead of being translated, expired, like other mortals, he clandestinely threw her corpse into a hole to conecal the failure, which might have shaken the faith of the devotees. We may repeat, that, as a picture of the folly and crime into which fanaticism may lead beings, claiming to be rational, there is instruction and warning in the memoirs of the Buchanites. | ing, or peculiar object is, to elucidate the harmony that exists between true geological science and revelation.The work is recommended, in a prefatory note, by the Rev. Mr. Alexander, of Edinburgh, which was not in the least required. My Youthful Companion. By the Author of “My ANNUALS FOR 1847. A Catholic History of England. By William Bernard MR. MACCABE thinks that there is no true History of England; and he proposes to supply the want. We have Hume's History, and Lingard's History, and half a dozen more, but no history in which the reader is permitted to judge for himself. The historians descant upon the value of their authorities, but the authorities themselves are excluded from their pages; and this is to be remedied by the publication of all manner of obsolete stuff; for Westminster Hall might be piled with these rude materials-chronicles, legends, and saints' lives,-which Hume at once discarded, and which even Lingard has scarcely used. Mr. MacCabe has, therefore, commenced the publication, not of a History of England certainly, but of a very curious antiquarian miscellany, on which he has expended much labour. Some have doubted if there was anything worth recording in the history of England prior to the reign of Henry VII., when civil government began to take form and solidity, and if it would not be as idle to write the history of earlier periods, as to restore the Heptarchy or renew the wars of the Roses. Many will think that the philosophical historian, Hume, ascends far enough, but Mr. MacCabe, at the close of his first volume, has not reached the period from which Hume starts.— Though his work is, therefore, as far as it has gone, not to be viewed as a History of England, in the ordinary sense of the term, it is an entertaining compilation of Monkish Chronicles and Saints' Lives, which will be highly acceptable to Black Letter and to Roman Catholic readers, and in which every reader may enjoy a few choice morsels. Bohn's Standard Library, in the passing month, gives us, in the Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, by his wife, one of the most instructive and captivating historical biographies in the language; and this we obtain for about the sixth part of the price of the first edition, which the warm panegyric of the Edinburgh Review brought into notice thirty years since, and which has ever since maintained its popularity by intrinsic merit. Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, the heroine of the Puritan party, was no ordinary person; and her Memoirs are fully as valuable as Clarendon's History, with which they have many common topics and characters, though the most dissimilar views and sentiments on all of them. The Mosaic Creation, viewed in the light of Modern Geology. By George Wight. Glasgow: Maclehose. Norton. LAST year we affirmed, and in the present year confirm the assertion, that had England over been searched, no fitter or equal successor could have been found to L. E. L.. than Mrs Norton. High expectations were raised; but Expectation is often a hasty and inconsiderate exactor of it does not well know what. All is accomplished that could reasonably have been looked for, whether by the Editress or the publishers; and "the Drawing-Room Scrap-Book” holds its place as the best and cheapest of the Annuals, as in all respects unrivalled. The plates are as numerous, as good, and tastefully-selected to give interest and variety. The external shows are as tasteful, and the literature, we shall not say how superior to that which has of late furnished forth fashionable works of this kind.-At the opening, Mrs. Norton, as a matter of duty, has dedicated a string of verses to a portrait of the Queen—an over-dressed picture-thrown into the shade by the queenly portrait with which it is neighboured. The lines are, of course, appropriate to the golden age of Queen Victoria. The note appended to them is, however, of more consequence than the text. Mrs. Norton, having herself suffered and keenly felt some of the Wrongs of Woman, that "favourite of the English law!'' calls attention to the Rights of Woman, and to woman's anomolous position in a country where a woman sways the sceptre over countless thousands of men and women. "A short time since," she observes, "a case of felony was quashed by an error in the indictment, which stated the money stolen to have been the property of a married woman, whereas a married woman could not have half-a-crown of her own; on which principle the thief was acquitted." Mrs. Norton upbraids Lord Brougham, who, some years back, volunteered to be the legal champion of women, defrauded by the laws of England of their civil rights, with having by one enormous Breach of Promise' deceived the whole sex; aware, Mrs. Norton humourously remarks, that he could not be sued on general grounds, and that no particular fair one could establish "special injury" against him. Perhaps this appeal may rouse Lord Brougham to a sense of his duty, and the reign of Queen Victoria may be distinguished for a Reform greater than that which glorified the reign of William IV.; one which shall secure to women, married and single, the same legal protection and redress, whether in matters of property, reputation, or social rights, which every male subject of her Majesty is entitled to claim-provided he can afford to pay well for it! In Lady Dufferin, Mrs. Norton has, this season, found a sprightly coadjutor, or assistant. Her lively THIS volume contains the substance of a series of Lectures delivered by the author, and now addressed to a wider circle, through the press, at the solicitation of friends-solicitations which he could not resist. Its lead-ladyship's compositions, which are generally in the mirth |
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