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THREE DAYS AT CLOVENFORD.

THE FISHING.

Ir is no joke to be obliged, under any circumstances, to rise at six o'clock. Some people would make you believe that it is easy, and a habitual practice of theirs; but we know better. They think because no rational being is awake at that hour, and able to contradict them, they may indulge in what bounces they please. It is all very well to speak of the beauties of morning; but if it be our nature to be asleep at that time, it is not pleasure, but pain, that is best fitted to shake, us out of our slumbers. A good rumbling earthquake would be more efficacious than all the matin larks in the world, or even the fresh breeze of morning blowing in at your open window. "Blessed be the man who invented sleep; it wraps one all round like a blanket." Sleep! give me sleep! Let it "Over my sense gently, oh! gently slide, And kiss me into slumber like a bride." Slumber was, however, out of the question when Alfred, finding all other means inefficacious, tumbled the whole contents of the water-ewer upon us. It did not mingle frightfully with our dreams, and make us start up in the agony of drowning, shipwreck, tumbling over the Falls of Niagara. We were not quite asleep, but lying most amiably and perversely determined not to awake. We were on the confines of the dreaming land, its tepid gales played wooingly round our forehead, the leaves of its woods rustled in our ears, but we were not in it. We heard the threatened shower-bath, we believed most potently that it would come; for, dozing as we were, we knew Alfred to be a man of his word, and we heard a clattering among the china on the wash-hand-stand. Our emotion was therefore wrath, not terror. We started up to kick the intruder out of the room, but he had already effected his escape.

We looked at the bed, but our pillow, soaked in water, had lost half of its attractions. We made a merit of necessity, and began to dress—although in no very placid humour. It was not merely that we had been so rudely startled out of the most delicious state incident to humanity; he "who hath been long in city pent," feels, on the morning after a first day's long walk, a certain uncomfortable stiffness in his joints, and feverish play of his blood. Our ill-humour, however, gradually dispersed under the soothing influence of the labours of the toilet, and we joined our friends at breakfast with an unruffled brow. Our new-born equanimity was, however, put to a sore test, for we were received in the parlour with a most uproarious peal of laughter. We felt our choler mounting up our throat, but, like Lady Townly, we gave a great gulp, and swallowed it.

The repast was no sooner ended, than a council of war was held before the door of the inn, to determine the operations of the day. Elbow-room is as indispensable to a fisher as a cobbler. It is not that the best angler does not leave enough of trouts in the most sedulously fished stream for his successor, but, somehow or other,

Price 6d.

one never feels comfortable at seeing another take his
"pick and wale" before one. And then, as to each fish-
ing the alternate streams first, this is just offering a man
a bonus to pass over every break, in order to have the
first whip at the one beyond. It is deferring our amuse-
We therefore most ami-
ment till the Greek Calends.
cably partitioned the Tweed for five miles above, and as
many below, Clovenford, into three equal divisions, and
each appropriated one, much in the manner that the first
settlers in America shared the lands of the Indians among
them. There is an exquisite mockery of justice in men's
calling the principles of equity to their aid, while dividing
what not one of them has any right to. Our usurpation,
however, had the merit of being less violent and less last-
ing than that of our prototypes.

The lowest division fell to our lot, because, not being.
very confident of success, we were not very confident of
our perseverance, and wished to have an agreeable walk
before us, should we soon grow tired of fishing. Abbots-,
This
ford and Melrose were thus within our reach.
season is perhaps the best fitted for conveying an impres-
sion of the peculiar charms of the scenery of the upper
Its abrupt, but not craggy hills, stretch in
Tweed.
beautiful undulations up and down the river, receding at
intervals, so as to leave space for green holms, and groves
The surface of the braes is dingy.
of venerable trees.
from the long dry grass, to which the mosses some-
times lend a richer die, the tone warming at times in,
long stripes of a deep brown from the stalks of the
heather, or cooling down to the grey of the schistus,
where it rises above the soil. The clouds, though broken
at present, hang low of a sober grey in the distance;
clinging in the foreground like scattered fleeces of mist
to the brows of the hills. The sun breaks through at
intervals, varying the rippling surface of the stream with
An uncer-
alternate spots of yellow and brown topaz.
tain breeze is coquetting with such leaves and blossoms
as are already out. The air is mild. The liquid note
of the cuckoo fills the valley-a universal and pervading
sound, that seems to be everywhere, and to come from
nowhere.

:

We have read, or heard repeated, or dreamed of a legend, not altogether alien to this scene, and as it may amuse the reader, we will tell it to him while we are arranging our fishing-tackle. It is

A FAIRY TALE.

A short time before the rising of the Presbyterians, which terminated in the rout at Pentland, a young gentleman of the name of Elliot, had been called by business to Edinburgh. On his way homeward, he resolved to pay a visit to an old friend of the name of Scott, whose residence was either upon the banks of the Tweed or some of its larger tributaries, for on this point the tradition is not very distinct. Elliot stopped at a small house of entertainment not far from Scott's mansion, in order to give his parting directions to a servant he was dispatching home with some commissions.

The signs of the times had not altogether escaped the notice of our hero. The people were quiet, but reserved,

and their looks expressed any thing but satisfaction. In Edinburgh there were musterings and inspections of troops, and expresses to and from London were hourly departing and arriving. As Elliot travelled along, he had more than once encountered small parties of military reconnoitring the country, or hastening to some post which had been assigned them. Fewer labourers were to be seen in the fields than was usual at the season. The cottars lounged before their doors, and gazed after the passing warriors with an air of sullen apathy. There was no violence or disturbance on the part of the people there had as yet been no arrestments-but it was evident to the most careless that hostile suspicion was rapidly taking the place of that inactive dislike which had previously existed between the governors and the governed.

that he would explain his meaning, and he in compliance narrated "his whole course of wooing."

"I was detained abroad, as you well know, for some years after his majesty's restoration, partly on account of the dilapidated state of my fortunes, and partly because I wished to prosecute the career of arms I had commenced. It is now about nine months since I returned to my native country. It was a gloomy day as I approached home. You remember the footpath which strikes, across the hill behind the house, from the bed of the stream which mingles, about a mile below us, with that on whose banks we now are. Where it separates from the public road, I gave my horse to the servant, intending to pursue the by-path alone, resolved that no one should watch my emotions when I again beheld the home of my fathers. I was looking after the lad, when I heard the tread of horses close behind me. On turning, I saw a tall, elderly gentleman, of commanding aspect, and by his side a young lady upon a slender milk-white palfrey. I need not describe her, you have seen her today. I was struck with the delicacy of her features, the sweet smile upon her lips, and the living fire that sparkled from her eyes. I gazed after her until a turning of the road concealed her from my view.

It was natural that in such a state of the national temper, affairs of state should form the chief subject of gossip around the fireside of a country inn. Elliot was not surprised, while sitting at the long deal table, giving directions to his servant, to hear the name of his friend frequent in the mouths of the peasantry. It was a matter-of-course that at such a period the motions and inclinations of a wealthy and active landholder of old family should be jealously watched. But it struck him that "It was in vain that I enquired among my relations Scott's name was always uttered in a low hesitating tone, and acquaintances. No person was known in the neighas if the speakers were labouring under a high degree of bourhood such as I described her. The impression she awe. He continued, therefore, some time after he had left upon me, vivid though it was at the moment, had dismissed his attendant, sitting as if lost in thought, but died away, when one day, as I was walking near the turn anxiously listening to the desultory conversation drop-of the road where I had lost her, she again rode past me ping around him, like the few shots of a distant skirmish. with the same companion. The sweet smile, the glance The allusions of the peasants were chiefly directed to his of the eye, were heightened this time by a blush of recogfriend's wife. She was beautiful and kind, but there nition. The pair were soon lost to me round the elbow was an unearthly light in her dark eye. Then there was of the road. I hurried on, but they had disappeared. a dark allusion to a marriage on the hill-side-far from The straggling trees which obscured the view, ceased at human habitation-to the terror of the clergyman who a bridge which stood a couple of gunshots before me. officiated, at meeting so lovely a creature in so lonely a Before I could reach it, I caught a glimpse of the complace. The Episcopalian predilections of the family of panions. They were at the edge of the stream, a little Scott were not passed unnoticed. And it seemed uni- way above the bridge-their horses were drinking. I versally admitted, that the house had been given over to pressed onward, but before I cleared the intervening trees the glamour and fascination of some unearthly being. and reached the bridge, they had disappeared. There The power of a leader so connected, in the impending was a small break in the water immediately beneath the strife, was the subject of dark forebodings. place where they had stood. For a moment, I thought that I must have mistaken its whiteness for the white palfrey, but the glance I had got of them was too clear to have been an illusion. Yet no road led in that direc tion. I examined the banks on both sides of the river, but that on which I saw them was too hard to receive a hoof-print, and the opposite bank was loose shingle, which refused to retain it when made. The exceeding beauty of the maiden, the mysterious nature of her disappearance, the irritable humour into which I had worked myself by conjectures and an unavailing search, riveted her impression upon my memory. I traversed the country, telling my story, and making incessant enquiry. In vain! No one knew of such a person. The peasants began to look strangely on me, and whisper in each other's ears. I had been deluded by some Nixy. And God knows what old prophecies regarding my family were remembered, or manufactured for the occasion.

Rather amused to find his old crony become a person of such consequence, Elliot discharged his reckoning, mounted his steed, and on reaching Scott's residence, was warmly and cheerfully welcomed. He was immediately introduced to the lady, whom he regarded with a degree of attention which he would have been ashamed to confess to himself was in some degree owing to the conversation he had lately overheard. She was a figure of a fairy size, delicately proportioned, with not one feature or point of her form to which any objection could be urged. Her rich brown hair clustered down her neck, and lay in massive curls upon her bosom. Her complexion was delicate in the extreme, and the rich blood mantled in her face at every word. Her eyes were a rich brownish hazel, and emitted an almost preternatural light, but there was nothing ungentle in their expression. The honey-moon had not elapsed, and she stood before the admiring traveller in all the beauty of a bride-the most beautiful state of woman's existence-when, to the unfolding delicate beauty of girlhood, is superadded the flush of a fuller consciousness of existence, the warmth of affection which dare now utter itself unchecked, the first half-serious, half-playful assumption of matronly dignity. After a brief interchange of compliment with her guest, she left the apartment, either because "the house affairs called her thence," or because she wished to leave the friends to the indulgence of an unrestrained confidential conversation.

"A perfect fairy queen," said Elliot, as the door closed behind her. "So you have already heard that silly story?" answered his host. "Well! I have no right to complain, for I have only myself to thank for it." Elliot requested

"Five months passed away in vain pursuit. My pertinacity was beginning to relax, when one evening, returning from a visit to our friend Whitelee, I heard a clashing of swords on the road before me. Two fellows ran off as I rode hastily up, leaving a gentleman, who had vigorously defended himself against their joint assault. 'Are you hurt, sir?' was my first enquiry.—' I fear I am,' replied the stranger, whom I immediately recog nised as the companion of the mysterious beauty. I assist you?'-He looked earnestly at me, and with an

'Can

⚫ Henry expression of hesitation on his countenance. Scott, you are a man of honour. He paused, but immediately resumed. I have no choice, and I dare trust a soldier. Lend me your arm, sir. My dwelling is not far from here. I accompanied him, he leaning

The

heavily upon me, for the exertion of the combat had rising in the west, he joined the royal forces at the head shaken his frame, and the loss of blood weakened him. of his tenantry. During his absence, and while the We followed the direction he indicated for nearly half an storm of civil war was raging over the land, his cherished hour round the trackless base of a hill, until we came in one was seized with the pangs of premature labour. She sight of one of those old grey towers which stud our lay in the same grave with her child, before her husband ravines. There,' said my companion, pointing to the could reach his home. The remembrance of what she ruin. I recognised it immediately. It stood not far had undergone, her loneliness amid the tempests of windistant from the place where he and his fair fellow-tra-ter, her isolation from all friends, had so shaken her veller had disappeared, and had often been examined by frame, that the first attack of illness snapped the thread me, but always in vain. of life. Her sufferings were comparatively short. But the widower! He sought to efface the remembrance of his loss in active service. Wherever the spirit of insubordination showed, he prayed for employment. Presbyterians learned at last to consider him as the embodied personification of persecution. The story of his mysterious marriage got wind. He was regarded as one allied to, and acting under, the influence of unholy powers. He knew it, and, in the bitterness of his heart, he rejoiced to be marked out by their fear and terror, as one who had nothing in common with them. His own misery, and this outcast feeling, made him aspire to be ranked in their minds as a destroying spirit. The young, gallant, and kind-hearted soldier became the most relentless persecutor of the followers of the covenant. Even yet does his memory, and that of his fairy bride, live in the peasant's memory like a thunderstorm, gloomy and desolating, yet not without lambent flashes of more than earthly beauty.

"Turning an angle of the building we approached a heap of debris, which in one part encumbered its base. Putting aside some tangled briers which clustered around, he showed me a narrow entry between the ruins and the wall. Passing up this, he stopped before a door, and gave three gentle knocks; it opened, and we were admitted into a rude narrow vault. It was tenanted, as I had anticipated, by his fair companion. As soon as her alarm at seeing her father return exhausted, bleeding, and in company with a stranger, was stilled, and the old man's wound dressed, he turned to explain to me the circumstances in which I found him. His story was brief. He was of good family; had killed a cadet of a noble house, and was obliged to screen himself from its resentment by darning in ruins and holes of the earth. In all his wanderings his gentle daughter had never quitted his side.

And now let us turn from these sad thoughts, and address ourselves to the living stream. The class of fishers to which we have the honour to belong, are not utterly inefficient. We do not possess the hand and eye of him who strikes the trout inevitably even on those days when he merely leaps to tantalize us. But when the "generous rage" of hunger is upon the fish, and they rise with serious intentions upon the fly, we do not always succeed in missing them. Still our delight is not the tranquil confidence of the real angler. We miss frequently, and

"I need not weary you with the further details of our growing acquaintance. It is the common story of a young man and woman thrown frequently into each other's company in a lonely place. But oh! tame though it may appear to others, the mere memory of the three months of my life which followed is ecstasy. I saw her daily-in that unfrequented spot there was small danger of intrusion, and she dared range the hill-side freely. We walked, and sat, and talked together in the birchen wood beneath the tower, and we felt our love unfold itself as their leaves spread out to the advancing summer. There was no cheek in the tranquil progress of our affections no jealousies, for there were none to be jealous of. Un-then an interval succeeds, during which, not one rascal marked it overpowered us both. It swelled upon us like the tide of a breathless summer day, purely and noiselessly.

"A few weeks ago her father took me aside, and prefacing that he had marked with pleasure our growing attachment, asked me if I had sufficient confidence in my own constancy to pledge myself to be for life an affectionate and watchful guardian of his child? He went on to say, that means of escaping from the country had been provided, and offers of promotion in the Spanish service made to him. Your own heart will suggest my answer; and I left him, charged to return after nightfall with a clergyman. Our good curate is too much attached to the family to refuse me any thing. To him I revealed my story. At midnight he united me to Ellen, and scarcely was the ceremony over when Sir James tore himself away, leaving his weeping child almost insensible in my

arms.

will look at our flies, and a shuddering prospect of returning with an empty creel creeps over us. We grow angry and fretful, and as we look earnestly at our fly, the visible rushing of the stream makes us giddy, and we grow confused and helpless. Still we persevere in thrashing the water, for who knows but a trout may be lured up at next cast. But a truce to these forebodings, for I have hooked one. He sucked down the fly instead of rising, which is a good augury. There he comes nearer the top, curving himself like a horseshoe, a huge yellow-boy. Give him line, and away he goes, making the handle of the reel spin round till it looks like a flat surface. Now pirn him up; he is getting weaker; make for the bank. Where is there a good landing-place? These perpendicular turf banks are a very plague. D-n him! he's off.

1

Notwithstanding this disappointment-this jilting, as it were, of our first love-we persevered. We certainly "Two gentlemen, who accompanied Sir James to the had sad misgivings that no such trout would fall to our coast, were witnesses of the marriage. It was therefore lot again that day; and yet the occurrence looked as if unnecessary to let any of the household into the secret. we were beginning to learn the art. In about half an You may guess their astonishment, therefore, when, hour, we had managed to bag-no, to basket a couple of having seen the curate and me ride up the solitary glen | dozen, large and small; and having thus secured a sufalone under cloud of night, they saw us return in the ficient stock, not to redeem our character as an angler— course of a few hours with a lady who was introduced to that is past praying for-but to entitle us, on turning the them as their mistress. Great has been their questioning, contents into a plate, to say, with an air of nonchalance, and great has been the delight of our jolly priest to mystify" it is strange! there was really no possibility of catching them with dark hints of ruined towers, hill-sides opening, a trout to-day," we buckled up our apparatus, and set off and such like. The story of the Nixy has been revived on a pilgrimage to Abbotsford and Melrose. too, and Ellen is looked on by many with a superstitious awe. I rather enjoyed the joke at first, but begin to fear, from the deep root the folly seems to have taken, it may one day bear evil fruits for my delicate girl."

His augury of evil was well founded, but the blight fell upon his own heart, As soon as he heard of the

The banks of the river, after you pass Yair Bridge, have a much less romantic appearance. And Abbotsford, before Sir Walter laid out his plantations, must have been a singularly bare-looking sort of a place. The house reminded me very much of his own appearance. It is heavy and substantial, not particularly elegant, and yet,

in the neat trimness of every thing around its huge and (tant soit peu) fantastic bulk, there breathes a quiet spirit of happy superintending vigilance. We asked at a woman who was near, whether she had heard any accounts that day of the state of her Sir Walter's health, and there was an air of blitheness about her as she replied “Oh, sir! he's a hantle better."

There is something curious in the growth of Sir Walter's reputation. For universality of fame, he is second to no man in Europe. Yet, until within these few years, this fame, which rests almost exclusively upon his novels, was bestowed from an instinctive consciousness that no man but himself could be their author. Not one of the many who loved and revered him, could have given any better ground for his belief, than hints and surmises. And yet, who in his senses ever doubted the paternity of these glorious works? We would give something to be able to read the riddle of Sir Walter's feelings in preserving this public incognito. He kept his countenance well, but he was once nearly driven off his guard. Mr Scott, as he was then designated, and Mr (now Baron) Hume, the distinguished Professor of Scotch Law, were coaching it, one day, to the Parliament House, in company with another gentleman. All at once Mr Hume, assuming a face of the utmost gravity, addressed his companions :-" There is something, gentlemen, that has long weighed upon my mind. I do not think that I have acted quite correctly in concealing from such old and intimate friends a matter of considerable interest to myself. I AM THE AUTHOR OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS." Mr Scott sat for a moment like a man about to swear or laugh, but checked himself with a kind of convulsive gasp, and looked in silence out of the coach window.

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by grain-merchants and farmers, and of great stores of
grain garnered up for exportation. As a natural conse-
quence of all these circumstances, serious disturbances
took place in more than one burgh,
The town of —, in which I then resided, had
hitherto been spared, but a riot was, in the temper of the
poor, daily to be expected. Numbers of special consta-
bles were sworn in. The commander of the military
party then in the barracks was warned to hold himself
in readiness. Such members of the county yeomanry
corps as resided in or near the town, were requested to
lend their aid, if need should be.

I was sitting comfortably by my fireside, one dark cold evening, conversing with a friend over a tumbler of toddy, when we were both summoned to officiate in our capacity of constables. The poor fellows who fell at Waterloo sprang from their hard curtainless bed with less reluctance. We lingered rather longer than decency allowed of, buttoning our greatcoats, and adjusting our comforters. At last, casting a piteous look at the fire, which was just beginning to burn gloriously up, we pressed our hats deeper over our eyes, grasped our batons, and sallied forth.

The mischief had begun in the mills at the town-head, and as the parties employed in the mob went to work with less reluctance than we had done, the premises were fairly gutted, and the plunderers, or, more properly speaking, devastators, on their way to another scene of action, before a sufficient posse of our body could be mustered. We encountered the horde coming down the main street. The advanced guard consisted of an immense swarm of little ragged boys, running scatteredly with stones in their hands and bonnets. These were flanked By the time we had satisfied ourselves with a long and followed by a number of dirty draggle-tailed drabs, earnest gaze at Abbotsford, the idea of proceeding to most of them with children in their arms. Upon them Melrose was out of the question. The rain, which had followed a dense mass of men of all ages, many of them for some time back fallen at brief intervals, in smart in the garb of sailors, for the tars had learned that the showers, seemed now to have set in for a night of it. soldiery were likely to be employed against the people, And, as Sir Walter recommends the very reverse of a and there is a standing feud between the salt-waters and rainy day for the inspection of the ruins, we resolved not the lobsters. There was also a vague and ill-regulated to disobey him in his own immediate neighbourhood. sympathy for the suffering they saw around them, workThere might be another reason co-operating-the con- ing at bottom. All this array we half saw, half conjec. sciousness that the trip would, under existing circum-tured, by the dim light of the dirty street lamps. The stances, afford little pleasure. But that was a trifle when compared with the other consideration. We struck across the hill to Galashiels, and walked pensively along the highway to Clovenford.

body was silent but for the incessant pattering of their feet as they moved along.

The word was given to clear the street, and we advanced with right ill-will upon them. The first ranks Our companions were not returned. We anticipated gave back, but there arose immediately a universal and as much. It wanted three full hours of the late dinner-deafening hooting, groaning, yelling, and whistling. The time we had fixed upon, and we knew that such invete-shrill and angry voices of women were heard above all, rate anglers would not flinch until the last moment. So having arrayed ourselves in mine host's Sunday coat, and decked our nether extremity with inexpressibles, concerning the proprietor or proprietrix of which we instituted no enquiry, cordially detesting all prying into family secrets, we seated ourselves cosily beside a rousing fire, and proceeded to inspect the letters and parcels which had been left for us by the Edinburgh mail.

We learned from our private letter, as the newspapers would say, that there had been a mighty riot in our good town, and plenty of broken heads and windows. And, as we perused our correspondent's glowing accounts of constabulary valour, the feats of our youth came back to us, and we remembered the days of

THE MEAL MOB.

During the winter of the year 18-, there was a great scarcity of grain in the western districts of Scotland. The expediency of the corn laws was then hotly discussed, but the keen hunger of wives and children went further to embitter the spirits of the lower orders. The abstract question was grasped at as a vent for ill-humour, or despairingly, as a last chance for preservation. As usual, exaggerated reports were caught up and circulated by the hungry operatives, of immense prices demanded

mingled with the wailing of their terrified babes. "We
maun hae meat ;" "Fell the gentle boutchers;" "Tread
their livers and harns out ;""Blast your eyes! give it
'em roundly;" "Belay, there! spank him with your pole;"
resounded on every side, in the screaming tones of women,
and the deep voices of sailors, garnished and enforced with
oaths too dreadful to mention.
Nor was this all: a
shower of stones came whizzing past our ears from the
boy-tirailleurs, mentioned above, levelling some of our
companions, jingling among the windows, and extinguish-
ing the lamps. Some of the boldest of the men next at-
tempted to wrest the batons from the constables who
stood near them.
In this they were assisted by the wo•
who crushed into our ranks, and prevented us giving
our cudgels free play. The stones continued to fly in all
directions, hitting the rioters as often as the preservers of
the peace. The parties tugged and pulled at each other
most stubbornly, while the screams of pain and anger,
the yell of triumph, and hoarse execrations, waxed mo-
mentarily louder and more terrific.

men,

At last the constables were driven back, with the loss of all their batons and most of their best men. The mob rushed onward with a triumphant burra, and turned down a side street leading to a granary, in which they believed a great quantity of grain was stored up.

The

proprietor's house stood beside it. A volley of stones was discharged against the latter, which shattered every window in the house, and the missiles were followed by

a thunder growl of maledictions, which made the hair of

the innocent inmates rouse on their heads, and their
hearts die within them. The crowd stood irresolute for
a moment. A tall athletic sailor advanced to the door
of the granary.
"Have you never a marlinspike to
bouse open the hatchway here?" A crow-bar was handed
to him. "A glim! a glim!" cried voices from different
parts of the crowd. It was now for the first time dis-
covered that some of the party had provided themselves
with torches, for after a few moments' fumbling a light
was struck, and immediately the pitch brands cast a lurid
light over the scene. The state of the corn-merchant's
family must now have been dreadful. The multitude
stood hushed as death, or as the coming thunder-storm.
All this time the sailor of whom we spoke had been
prising away with his bar at the granary door.

At this moment a heavy-measured tread was heard indistinctly in the distance. It drew nearer, and became more distinct. Some respectable burghers, who had gathered and stood aloof gazing on the scene, now edged closer to the crowd, and addressed the nearest women in a low voice: "Yon's the sodgers." The hint was taken, for one by one, the women gathered their infants closer in their arms, and dropped off. First one and then another pale-faced consumptive-looking weaver followed their example in silence. The trampling sounded now close at hand, and its measured note was awful in the hush of the dark night. The panic now spread to the boys, who flew asunder on all sides, like a parcel of carrion flies when disturbed by a passenger, squalling " Yon's the sodgers." So effectual was the dispersion that ensued, that when the soldiers defiled into the wider space before the granary, no one remained except the door-breaker, and one or two of the torch-holders.

LITERARY CRITICISM.

Bogle Corbet; or, The Emigrants. By John Galt, Esq.
In three vols. London. Colburn and Bentley. 1831.
WOULD that Galt had never published his history of
Lord Byron! But we will think of it no more.

We said on a former occasion that Galt had stumbled upon the first conception of his novels by a lucky accident. We have been taken to task for this expression; but we abide by it. It was not our intention to speak lightly-nor did we speak lighty-of their merits; but we were, and are of opinion, that it was accident that first led Galt to attempt that style of composition, and moreover, that to this day he does not feel how materially and exclusively his fame rests upon these productions. Take him beyond the enchanted circle of the imaginative world, which he has been the first to call into existence, and although no one will deny that he is a shrewd man, and of a vigorous intellect, yet none, we suspect, will rank him high as an author. He is but an indifferent poet, and a worse critic. His sentiment has that excess which betrays weakness. There is a pedantic stiffness and constraint in his language from which he cannot free himself-he moves as if in fetters.

But take his novels-from the Ayrshire Legatees down to Bogle Corbet-you find the most unequivocal traces of original and nervous genius. His range is narrow--it is almost exclusively confined to the manufacturing districts of the west of Scotland, and to the present century. His characters are parish ministers, weavers, and mastermanufacturers, bonnet-lairds, provosts of small burghs, and maiden ladies living upon small annuities. He narrates the histories of these individuals with quiet sly humour. Like the Dutch painters, he represents the whole by painfully and minutely finishing each detail; and, like the same meritorious class of artists, he not unfrequently emits flashes of intensest energy. His language is akin to his subjects; it is a strange mixture of burlesque and impressive earnestness. It is quaint, sometimes ludicrous, always powerful.

The latter threw down their brands and scampered. The lights were snatched up before they were extinguished by some of the boldest constables. Of all the rioters only one remained the tall sailor, whom we may term their ringleader. The foremost rank of the soldiers were nearly It is amazing what Galt has contrived to elicit out of up to him, and others were defiling from behind to intercept the seemingly barren field which he has selected for the him should he attempt to reach the side streets. He stood scene of his own especial labours. By close and anxious still, watchful as a wild beast when surrounded by hunt- scrutiny, he has enabled himself to trace the currents of ers, but with an easy roll of his body, and a good-human passion, where they run, like the waters of Styria, humoured smile upon his face. "Yield, Robert Jones," in subterraneous channels, beneath a barren and stony eried the provost, who feared he might meditate a des- surface. He shows us the desolating workings of ambiperate and unavailing resistance. But instead of answer- tion, self-will, and malignity-not in the deeds of arms, ing, Robert sprung upon a soldier who was forming and dark excesses of feudal chiefs, or warlike monarchs, into line at his right side, struck up the man's musket, but in the even, pertinacious, onward course of the lawtwisted off the bayonet, and making it shine through the conforming, money-making merchant. We scarcely air in the torchlight light a rocket, tripped up his heels. know a display of more overpowering strength than he "Not yet, lobster," he exclaimed-as the bayonet of the has evinced in his Entail. The unrelenting eagerness fallen hero's left-hand man glanced innocuously past him with which the Laird of Grippie presses onward to the --and disappeared down a dark lane. gratification of his pride and avarice, is portrayed with the utmost energy. That part of the tale in which the old man is described as bending his steps, day after day, to a little eminence whence he could command a view of his broad lands, although, from the shattering of all his domestic ties, he found himself alone and disappointed, despite of his gratified ambition, and took no longer any pleasure in the sight, is an awful picture. No less intense is the mania of revenge expressed in the character of Ringan Gilhaise.

Indulging in these reminiscences, and occasionally dipping into a letter from one or other of our numerous and well-beloved correspondents, the time wore insensibly away. We were reading some beautiful lines by Brydson, which shall see the light ere long, when the door opened, and in stepped our two anglers, bending beneath their load of trouts, but rigid as two icicles, their faces purple, and their fingers of a milk-and-water blue. Such, said we internally, are the pleasures of your out-and-out angler; but, checking our sarcastical tendency, we merely advised them to shift their clothes while we ordered in the dinner; and thus closed the labours of the day, as we here close this portion of our Clovenford adventures.

But Galt's chief mastery lies, after all, in his persp cacity to discern those transient and evanescent feelings of attraction and repulsion which bind and dissever men— the fantastic suspicions and jealousies which bring, as old Middleton calls it, "a scurf over life." In painting men's mutual misapprehensions of each other-in showing how each puts his own construction upon, and draws such differing inferences from the same event, he is unrivalled. It is impossible for one who has not read his works to conceive his naive portraitures of a knot of friends, each,

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