LITERARY CRITICISM. citous execution. It is like tasting a delicate relish to run over the works of an old favourite, enjoying a dexterous transfusion of them into our own tongue, or in The Iliad of Homer, translated by William Sotheby.creasing our sense of their beauty by contrasting them Two Volumes. 8vo. Pp. 401, 425. London. Mur- with a failure-as we feel more sensibly the elegant ray. 1831. contour of a statue, or the graceful arrangement of a picture, when seen side by side with a bungling copy. We confess that instead of setting ourselves conscientiously to read through Sotheby, we have dipped in here and there at random, comparing him now with the original, and now with Pope-sometimes with both. We have managed to spend in this manner a very agreeable forenoon; and although we do not feel ourselves entitled to pronounce a formal sentence on the book, after such a desultory examination, we can help the reader onwards to an opinion by repeating, as a chemist would say, the experiment in his presence. POETRY, the natural overflowing of the human mind, is the birth of all ages; but, like every other plant, she is modified by the soil from which she springs. Passion, imagination, reason, have been the same through all ge nerations, and their productions have a necessary resemblance, but their features are modified by the peculiar relations of society, theories of science and morals, which have formed the characters of men. In the early stages of society, we find poetry chiefly busied with the appearances of external nature-its moral reflections are brief, terse, and superficial-its meditations rather suggestions than trains of thought. In our days, on the contrary, the metaphysical has gained the ascendency over the material. Narrative and description are mere pegs to hang long and intricate speculative discussions upon. The staple material of poetry is reflection, elevated by devotional, or glowing with amatory feeling. It wants the substantial character of the olden time. It is a kind of gas of paradise, the presence of which can only be detected by the effect it produces upon the person to whom it is administered. We do not say this as holding lightly the genius of modern poetry, or wishing its nature altered. As lofty and sustained flights have been taken in our day as in the best of bygone ages-and the external form of song must be determined by the character of the age in which it is uttered. Our poets are what the eternal necessity has made them. : We suspect that it requires a mind of more than ordinary powers and cultivation, to project itself so far out of its ordinary routine of thought and feeling, as to enter into the beauties of the poetry of another age and we have no expectation that classical literature will ever be come popular. It is, however, of the utmost importance to national taste, that the country should be thickly sown with those whose minds have drunk deeply of its hues and forms. And it is on this account that we adhere to the old system of initiating boys into the classics, by a long course of study. There is truth in Rousseau's remark, that with boys the great object is to lose time, as far as regards their initiation into the practical and mechanical drudgery of life. Nothing more debases the mind than to fill it with technical and mechanical knowledge, before it has learned that it contains within itself higher sources of delight, and worthier subjects of study. The time during which we would leave the soul to ripen into this conviction, cannot be better spent than in mastering the classical languages. Our own and contemporary literature, young men master as an amusement. But the dead languages, whatever modern quacks may say, cannot be acquired by a short road-we must insinuate ourselves into them by years of continuous application. The words, the construction, the outward body of the languages, may be picked up in a very short time, but to comprehend the fine spirit within them is only given to enduring labour. We have no great opinion of translations. The execution of them is an elegant amusement for men of more taste than genius. They are useful always to allure students to the originals. That is all. We know that Milton himself has not disdained to translate fragments -but no man of original mind could task himself to translate a whole work. Pope eluded the trouble dexterously by paraphrasing the Iliad, and committing the Odyssey to journeymen poets, to whose work he gave the finishing hand. But it is time that we were coming to Homer and Sotheby. We suspect that one half of the pleasure a good translation can give, is lost by the unlettered reader, for whose use it is designed the pleasure of feeling its feli Sotheby has come to the task, armed with a knowledge of all the previous attempts to render Homer in English, and of all the criticisms that have been uttered upon them. He has also an elegant mind of his own, and a competent knowledge of the original. He has, in consequence, been able to avoid many errors of his predecessors, and to give What deficienus, on the whole, a faithful translation. cies his work has, are owing solely to his want of-something which, had he possessed, he could never have tied himself down to the undertaking-original genius. Now, the gentle reader must not take this as the enunciation of an ex-cathedra opinion, but must understand that we are treading at present in the steps of those princes of infallible reasoners, the mathematicians, and reversing the order of nature, logic, and reason, by placing the conclusion first, and the proof afterwards. The extreme simplicity of Homer's style renders it difficult to translate him into English, without making In the Greek, every word him appear bald and meagre. has its idéa, and presents it graphically; in English, there are either epithets necessary to give the exact shade Besides, our of meaning, or to gratify our spoiled ears. language wants the grand roll of the Greek, and what sounds very grand in it, sounds uniformly very poor in a literal version. Mr Sotheby has been seduced by this circumstance into a frequent use of expletives. It saves the verse from halting for it, but spoils the likeness to Homer. Here is an example. Homer says, Book II. line 182; “Ως φάθ'· ὁ δὲ ξυνέηκε θεᾶς ἔπα φωνησάσης· Βῆ δὲ θέειν, ἀπὸ δὲ χλαῖναν βάλς· τὴν δ ̓ ἐκόμισσε Κήρυξ Ευρυβάτης Ιθακήσιος, ὃς οἱ ὀπηδεί. This Sotheby expands into : "Ulysses heard her voice, the goddess knew, Homer simply says, "he threw off his mantle Earybates the Ithacan, his herald, who followed him, took it up';" but his translator interrupts the rapid narrative to pay a compliment to the herald. It is, however, but justice to Sotheby to say, that he, is as superior to Pope in fidelity as he is inferior to him in energy and eloquent versification. The much-canvassed conclusion of the eighth book brings the question of their Homer says, comparative merits to a fair test. Οἱ δὲ, μέγα φρονέοντες, ἐπὶ πτολέμοιο γεφύρι Πάντα δέ τ' εἴδεται ἄστρα· γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα πιομήν Which Sotheby thus renders : "But Troy elate, in orderly array, All night around her numerous watch-fires lay,- Beam in their brightness round the full-orb'd moon, "The troops exulting sat in order round, And lighten glimm'ring Xanthus with their rays: The long reflection of the distant fires Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires. A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field. Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, The faults of Pope's version have been often enough dwelt upon. Sotheby's gives pretty correctly the tenor and feeling of the passage, although several of the individual images are mutilated. One great fault of Sotheby's version is his use of strained abstractions most foreign to the genius of Homer. Thus, in the simile of the bees, he tells us that the bees' dense nations rise and rise From the cleft rock, and cloud with life the skies." In the thirteenth book, he says of Hector's shield, that it "Flash'd the wide splendour which illumed the field." Sometimes, on the other hand, he violates, in his anxiety to be faithful, the structure of the English language. Is not this awkward?— "The while nine loud-voiced heralds forced their way, Warn'd them to silence, and their kings obey." Or is he intelligible where he represents Pallas silencing the storm? "That all, throughout the host, distinctly heard, Might weigh the wisdom of Ulysses' word." Nor does Homer ever use such an involved and turesque metaphor as to advise his chiefs to "Pamper the steed to turn to flight the field." It would be unfair to Mr Sotheby to point out only his defects. His picture of the descent of Apollo is happy: "The arrows rattling round his viewless flight, Many passages might be cited which he has rendered Destiny; or, the Chief's Daughter. By the Author of "Marriage" and "The Inheritance." In three volumes. Edinburgh: Robert Cadell. London: Whittaker and Co. 1831. WE regard the author of these volumes as standing, among living female writers, second only to Joanna Baillie. She has a grasp of life and its concerns, a power of appreciating and describing character, a variety and reach in her genius, and above all, a knowledge of that wherein human dignity truly consists, shared with her only by the illustrious woman we have named. They differ in kind-Joanna is more masculine and powerful, Miss Ferrier more gentle and feminine; perhaps also in degree the former throws herself more boldly upon the first elements of nature, the latter clings more fondly and timidly to approved rules and customs. But in this they are alike; that their works are elaborated from the recesses of their own reflection, feeling, and experience. You feel, while you read them, that the materials have existed before they were clothed in words; that the authors have In reading written because they had something to say. the most powerful of the rest of our lady-birds, you can. not help feeling as if they had begun to write before they began to think, and that after they had by long practice attained the power of turning melodious couplets and periods, thought was by God's grace added unto them. Destiny" (although we confess we cannot exactly see why it should be so called) is worthy of the author of "Marriage." It fills up a gap in Sir Walter's works. He has given us pictures of Lowland life, from the time of the Black Douglas down to that of Meg Dods and Lady Penelope Penfeather; but he has broken off his Highland series with the "Forty-five." The death-blow was then given to the characters and feelings which he loved, and he has not had heart to resume the strain. Miss Ferrier has undertaken to supply the deficiency; to paint the Highlands and Highlanders of our own day. And she has performed her task nobly. Her picture is that of an old race clinging to the forms of an earlier state of society, after its life and power have departed. We have the chief deprived of political power, but unable to subside into a country gentleman, fortifying himself in concentrated egotism and self-will. We have the retainers disarmed, but still devoted to their chief. We have a society in which the right of the strong-hand has been manacled, but habits of regular industry and intellectual culture have not yet come to relieve the languor of this constrained inaction. But amid the mental and moral torpor thus engendered, we see everywhere small lambent flames gathering to a blaze of intellectual life; we see young and green branches of promise springing from the sapless stems, and waxing to maturity. The first volume is chiefly devoted to a portraiture of the Chief of Glenroy, and the circle of which he is the sun and centre. The Chief; his English lady; his retainers, Benbowie of the ugly waistcoat, and Mrs Macauley the painter and embroiderer; the moderate parish unpic-minister; the old merchant Inch Orran, so harmoniously dissimilar to the rest of his Highland kith and kin; the am iable Malcolms; the children so diversified in charac ter, aping the feuds of their parents; all are brought out by innumerable delicate touches. It is a Flemish style of painting. We must, however, admit, that in this part of the work, the story flags considerably. The author is so busy introducing her dramatis persona, that the business does not go on. She introduces us moreover to such a set of unredeemed bores, that we almost forget in their tediousness the admirable skill and tact with which they are represented. She is too pertinaciously true to nature. Our Scottish readers, however, we think, will all of them acknowledge the accuracy of this picture : "Lucy was enchanted, but the enchantment fled on approaching the Manse. It was a thin tenement, built of rough grey stone of the usual pattern, a window on each side of the door, and three above. At one side was the garden, with cabbages and marigolds growing pell-mell, and in the rear was the set of condemned offices, partly thatched and partly slated. There were no attempts at neatness in the approach to the house, which was merely a rough jogtrot road, flanked on each side by a dyke. Presently Mr M'Dow was seen hurrying to the door to meet his guests, and there, as they alighted, he was ready to receive them with open hands. "Great was the joy expressed at this honour, as Mr M'Dow led the way to the interior of his mansion, which was just such as might have been expected from its outward aspect. There was a narrow stone passage, with a door on each side, and there was a perpendicular wooden stair, and that was all that was to be seen at the first coup day. But if little was revealed to the eye, the secrets of the house were yielded with less coy reserve to the other senses; for there was to be heard the sound of a jack, now beginning with that low slow mournful whine, which jacks of sensibility are sure to have; then gradually rising to a louder and more grating pitch, till at length one mighty crash, succeeded, as all mighty crashes are, by a momentary silence. Then comes the winding up, which, contrary to all the rules of the drama, is, in fact, only a new beginning, and so on, ad infinitum, till the deed is done. With all these progressive sounds was mingled the sharp, shrill, loud voice and Gaelic accents of the chef de cuisine, with an occasional clash or clang, at least equal to the fall of the armour in the Castle of Otranto. "Then there issued forth with resistless might asmell which defied all human control, and to which doors and windows were but feeble barriers or outlets; till, like the smoke in the Arabian Nights, which resolved itself into a genie, it seemed as if about to quit its aerial form, and assume a living and tangible substance. "Lucy would fain have drawn back as she crossed the threshold, and, quitting the pure precincts of sunshine and fresh air, found herself in the power of this unseen monster -this compound of fish, fat, peats, burnt grease, kail, leeks, and onions, revelling too amid such scenes, and beneath such a sky! "You see I have brought my sketch-book, Mr M'Dow,' said she, 'so I must make the most of my time, and be busy out of doors.' "You'll have plenty of time for that, Miss Lucy; it's early in the day yet, you've had a long ride, and you'll be the better of a little refreshment; pray sit down, and do me the favour to take a mouthful of something;' and he handed a plateful of short-bread, which, with a bottle of wine, stood ready stationed on a side-table. 'You'll find it uncommonly good, Miss Lucy, it comes all the way from Glasgow; it's made by my mother, now in the 78th year of her age; she sends me always a bun, and half a peck of short-bread for my hogmanay, and it's surprising how it keeps. This is the last farl of it, but it's just as good as the first was!' helping himself to a piece, which would have qualified any body else for six weeks of Cheltenham. And, by the by, that's a picture of my mother, taken when she was a younger woman than she is now,' pointing to an abominable daub of a large, vulgar, flushed-looking, elderly woman, sitting on a garden chair, with a willow at her back, her hands crossed before her, and a large bair ring on her fore-finger. That's reckoned a strong likeness of my mother; she was an uncommon fine woman when in her prime; she measured five feet ten and three quarters on her stocking soles, which is a remarkable heighth for a woman, and she carried the breadth along with it; yet she was the smallest of six daughters. It's told of her fawther, Mr McTavish, (who was a man of great humour,) that he used to say he had six-and-thirty foot of daughters hoch, hoch, ho!-it was very good! very good!' Here Mr M'Dow indulged in another fit of laughter, while his guests turned their eyes to another picture, but it was no less obnoxious to the sight. That again is my fawther, and a most cathough extremely affable, he could assume a great deal of pital picture! there's a great deal of dignity there! for dignity when it was necessary.' "This dignitary was a mean, consequential-looking body, with lowering brows and a bob-wig, seated in an arm-chair, with a flaming Virgil, pourtrayed in red morocco and gold, in his hand. "I am no connyshure myself, but they strike me as being capital likenesses.' Neither Captain Malcolm nor Lucy very good pictures; and I can vouch for their being most could violate sincerity so far as to bestow a single commendation on the pictures; so Mr M'Dow went on- That book which you see in my father's hand, was a present made to him by his scholars when he was master of the Myreside School. I confess I look at it with great pride, as a most prodigious crash from the kitchen, followed by very loud flattering testimony of the honourable and- Here a and angry vociferations, arrested Mr M'Dow's harangue; and, opening the door, he called, in a very high authoritative tone, What's the meaning of this noise? Upon which the tumult ceased. 'Make less noise there, and keep the kitchen door shut!' A violent slam of the door was the only answer returned. I understand it's all the fashion now in great houses, to have the kitchen as near the diningroom as possible,' said Mr M'Dow, wishing to throw an air of gentility over his ménage. But, for my own part, impossible, do what you will, to get servants to be quiet; I must confess I would prefer it at a little distance, for it's and it's really not pleasant, when I have a friend or two disturbed as we were just now. with me, and we are just wishing to enjoy ourselves, to be What I want in my addition is this-I would turn my present kitchen into my drawing-room, or study, just as it shuted, for there's an exceeding good light scullery off it, which I could make my I would throw to the back, with a washing-house, and own closet, and keep my books and papers in. The kitchen small place for the lasses. Then, up stairs, I would have for keeping my groceries within it, besides a press fitted up a pretty good family bedchamber, and a good light closet for my napery, (of which I have a pretty good stock,) and We wish much to follow up this by the description of the minister's banquet, which would make the hair of Meg Dods stand on end-either in her grave or in James' Square-but "such eternal blazon" must not be in the LITERARY JOURNAL-the Devil points to the foot-rule fore, of the Rev. Mr M'Dow's symposium, we give a with which he has measured this article. In lieu, therepowerful scene between Ronald Malcolm and an old retainer of his family. Ronald had been left an estate, but without the power to touch a penny of it until he was six-and-twenty. He became a sailor, and the report was that he had been lost at sea. His father was his heir according to the terms of the will. The shipwrecked sailor-boy returning, finds his paternal home deserted -but we may now leave Ronald to speak for himself: "At length, in a sharp Highland tone, he received the satisfactory reply of, "Captain Malcolm?-aye! whar should he be but in his ain hooss?" "But this was his house,' said Ronald, reviving at this information, scanty as it was. "Aye, and wha says it's no his hooss, noo? but it's no his dwelling-hooss, if you mean that; he's ower great a man to dwell here noo-aye, that he is!' "The truth now flashed upon Ronald, and with a pang he said, What!-he now lives at Inch Orran, I suppose?' To be sure-whar else should he live? But, sit down, sit down. You maun be a stranger here, it seems, frae the Low Country? Maybe, a friend o' the faamily?' "Thank you; but first tell me, is Captain Malcolm well, and my and all of them, are they all well?" And Ronald's lips quivered as he put the question. "Oo, surely, surely-they're all well. What should ail them?' "Nothing, nothing. And my Ronald's heart fluttered as he thought of his mother; and he could not find voice to name the name dearest to his heart. "The old woman went on. 'No, no, there's nothing ails them noo-they've gotten aw thing they can want. Och aye, God be praised! they are very prosperous noo, an' very happy.' They have met with some good fortune, then, it seems?" said Ronald, trying to speak with composure. "Och aye! 'deed an' they have done that, and well they deserve it. Not but what they paid for it, too, poor craaters! aye, that they did. God knows, their fine fortune cost them sore hearts at the time; but that's past-an' noo, what should they be but pleased an' happy?'' "Ronald's heart heaved, and he was silent a few moments, then said, ' But they have been afflicted-they have suffered ?' "Och! 'deed they were that-they were sore distrest, poor people! at the drooning o' their boy-a fine boy-a pretty boy he was-Och aye!' Here old Nanny groaned, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. "But you say they are happy now-they have forgotten him?" said Ronald, with emotion. "Oh! surely, surely-God be thank't, he's forgotten noo, an' it's time-'deed is it-och aye! And we little know what's for our good in this world; for it was God's merciful providence, after all, that the boy was ta'en, or they tell me they would hae been but a puir needfu' faamily, the day 'deed would they !' A strange pang shot through Ronald's heart. What a vile unfeeling creature,' thought he, to talk in such a manner!' and he was about to leave the house, when old Nanny resumed, he, och aye! he's dead and gone, an' it wouldna do to bring him back again-no, no; wae I was when I heard o' the poor thing's droonin', but I was ignorant then. I did not know that it was God's providence to set up the faamily like by that same mea:is, and make them all so comfortable, and genteel, and happy, och aye!' "And my mother?' said Ronald, faintly, as he covered his eyes with his hand, while his whole frame thrilled with emotion. “✦ The mother?' said Nanny, catching the sound imperfectly. "Aye, his mother-that's the leddy hersell, you'll mean? och, God only knows the mother's sorrow, och aye! But she's a quiet craater, and she knew whose hand it was that was upon ber, aye, that she did, and so she demeaned hersell like a good Christian as she is; but they tell me she has never had her ain colour since.' "Tears forced their way through Ronald's fingers." Rather than reduce his parents again to poverty, he condemns himself to voluntary and perpetual exilesnatches a glance at his loved ones, and flies without discovering himself. The second volume describes the gradual decline of the faculties of the chieftain, and, finally, his death. Much of it is occupied by the love-adventures of his daughter and a young and faithless cousin, who had been educated along with Edith-betrothed to her but had lost his heart, when on his travels, to Lady Waldegrave, the daughter of her father's second wife by a former marriage. The "Och aye! Providence was really kind in that parti-characters of Edith and the fascinating but heartless wocular, for the droonin' o' the boy, poor thing, (that ever I man of the world are beautifully contrasted. The seene should say't!) has been the savin' o' that whole faamily, where Edith at last awakes to a sense of her lover's false"deed has it! And weel they deserve it, for they're a wor-hood is beautiful. It was during a storm at sea that his thy well-doin' faamily; and Inch Orran himself is a good man, and does a deal o' good, that he does; and he is a reall blessin' to the country-that he is!' "But he might have been a blessing to the country although his son had not been drowned,' said Ronald. "No, no-they tell me not. That if the boy had lived, he would have keepit his father a poor man a' his days; and wouldna that have been a sin and a shame? No that it wad hae been the poor boy's fault, poor thing, but the fault o' them that would have made him keep his father's head below the water; Och! it was God's providence to tak the boy out of his worthy father's way; and noo a' thing's as it should be, and he has gotten his ain, honest man; and long, long may he enjoy it!' - and "And you say they are all quite well, happy?' said Ronald, his heart swelling, in spite of the contempt he tried to feel for the unfeeling narrator. exclusive care of Lady Waldegrave brought conviction to her mind. Here is the consequence : "There was no contesting the point any longer. He remained, and the night was passed in a state of gloomy restlessness by him-of sleepless anguish by Edith-griefs differing in kind as in degree; for even amid the reproaches of conscience, and the struggles of remorse, as gratitude, tenderness, and pity filled his heart, still the idol passion had erected, maintained its sway, and in his imagination shone forth fair and beauteous, even amid the wreck it had made. No "But with Edith all was dimness and desolation. star shed its light in her path-in her existence there was no object which even hope could for an instant illume. Amid the darkness that brooded in her heart, heaven and earth, the present and the future, were alike an undistinAye, aye! they are that. Happy they are, and happy guishable chaos, and only one dreary hope was hers-the may they be; and shouldna they be happy when there's hope of despair. She felt it was impossible she could long But gawn to be a grand marriage amang them? Miss Lucy, exist under such a weight of woe as had overwhelmed her; that's her that's the eldest o' the faamily, isna she gawn to soon, very soon she should pass away, and be at rest. get a husband, and a braw one, too-no less than the young she knew not the capacity of the human heart for suffering Laird of Dunross? No but what Miss Lucy is well wor--she knew not those depths profound, where sorrow, unthy of him and the best in the land-aye, by my troth she seen, unsuspected, dwells through many a long life. Nous is; but she wadna hae gotten him wantin' the tocher; for ne connoissons l'infini que par la douleur! All the faith of her early days-all the cherished feelings of a lifetimethe auld Laird's ower fond o' the siller to let his son tak a tocherless lass. Och aye, shame till him!-Wasna poor all the fond gatherings up of woman's love and tenderness, Miss Lucy maist broken-hearted because he wouldna let which she had deemed were treasured in her lover's heart, his son get her when she was the poor man's daughter? had been rudely cast from him as slighted, priceless things; And the Captain wouldna let him tak' her wantin' his and for an instant her pale cheek glowed at the indignity, father's will; and the poor young creatures were just beside But bitter as these feelings were, they were rendered still themselves, like; and so the young man went into the more so by the thoughts of the disappointment and sorrow army, and has been in the Indies, but noo he's come back; that awaited her father. All his proud imaginations to be and they're so happy, and the Captain-that's Inch Orran thus cast down-his hopes laid in the dust, where his own is to give her five thousand gold guineas on her weddin'- grey head would soon be brought low by the hands which day, they tell me, forbye this hooss that they're comin' to ought to have smoothed the pillow of his old age! And yet dwell in; and him paintin' it all from top to bottom, and it must be! Nought remained for her but to sever the last makin' every thing so genteel for them; and all comes o' feeble link of those ties which, entwined as they were with the droonin' o' the bonny laddie! Och aye!' every feeling of her heart, hung only as a galling yoke on the breast of her false lover. With the courage of despair, she drew from her finger the ring of betrothment-that ring which his faithless hand had placed there, with the vow of eternal constancy, and which, like a talisman, had ever guarded her heart against all fears and suspicions of his fidelity. Even this inanimate object, associated as it was with all the hopes and the joys of her life, it was anguish unspeakable to part with; her heart recoiled from the deed, and again and again she relinquished the attempt. But then the thought, that Reginald might for an instant suppose she still retained her claim upon his hand, even when convinced that his affections were given to another, that was not to be endured! She hastily folded and sealed "Many little circumstances that had taken place before he left home, here darted into Ronald's mind, in confirmation of old Nanny's words. Young Dunross and Lucy had been lovers even then, and want of fortune on her part had been the only obstacle to their union; and now that was removed, and he had returned only to blast their happi ness! "But what if he has not been drowned-what if he should yet return?' said he, with agitation. "Och, sorrow bit he'll ever return noo, poor bairn; and it wouldna do for him to come back in the body noo deed, an' he wad be but a black sight-no, no, that it would not-he's been owre lang dead to come back noo'deed has the ring in a small packet; and when Mrs Malcolm at an early hour entered her apartinent, she put it into her hand, and, with forced composure, requested that she would convey it to its destination. Ronald Malcolm, and the renewal of their young attachment-his reception at his father's house when the period had elapsed, during which he, as merely nominal proprietor of the estate, must have beggared his family by his volumes the story moves on with sufficient rapidity; and even the tedium of which we complained in the first is only felt during the perusal-the characters with which we are there made acquainted, are stamped indelibly on the memory. "Mrs Malcolm was not deceived by this assumed fortitude-she saw it was the result of excitement, not of resig-return-and his union with Edith. In the two last nation; it was easy to guess at the contents of the packet, and she said, 'I will do any thing-any thing for you, my love, that can be for your good, but-must this be?" "It must,' replied Edith, still retaining her composure. "May there not be some mistake, which a mutual friend might assist you in clearing up? Dearest Edith, do not entirely cast away your own happiness, and that of others.' "Edith could not speak, and she buried her face in her hands, while her heart heaved with strong emotion. "Mrs Malcolm tenderly embraced her. Edith,' she said, I have known and loved you from a child, both for your own sake, and that of our dear Ronald, to whom you were dearer, if possible, than his own sisters. I cannot then be silent, and see you thus; if you will not confide to me the cause of your distress, will you allow me to hint to you what, I fear, has happened?' Edith gasped for a few moments, as if for utterance, then, by a strong effort, said, We are parted, and for ever! Oh, do not ask me more-take that,' pointing to the ring, in mercy take it from my sight!' and Miss Ferrier, we add, is its best historian. Woman's world, we are told, is the domestic circle; The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Esq., M.A., R.A., Keeper and Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy of London, Member of the First Class of the Academy of St Luke at Rome. The former Written and the latter Edited by John Knowles, F. R.S., Corresponding Member of the Philosophical Society_at Rotterdam, his Executor. In three vols. 8vo. Pp. 439, 391, 408. London. Colburn and Bentley. 1831. able reviews, one of Cowper's Homer, the other of Roscoe's Lorenzo de Medici-he has reprinted verbatim the catalogue of the Milton Gallery, with all the quotations, and without adding one word in explanation of his motives for so doing. His language is good enough, but his remarks are puerile, and his anecdotes selected without taste or discrimination, if indeed any selection has been made. We knew that the Royal Society, like misery, brought men acquainted with "strange fellows," but we were not quite prepared for Mr John Knowles. THIS awkward, lumbering, and pedantic title-page is "Mrs Malcolm, too wise to persist where she saw such extreme agitation ensue, refrained from urging the topic no unapt representative of the blockhead to whose works any farther; but shocked and distressed as she was, she it is prefixed. It is full of pompous pretension and irrestrove to soothe Edith into greater composure, and then left levant matter-clumsy, and inaccurate. Verily, if he be her, to seek Sir Reginald, for the purpose of executing her indeed what he gives himself out for, a Corresponding commission. On viewing the packet, he hastily tore it Member of the Philosophical Society at Rotterdam, he open, and at sight of the ring turned pale; tears sprung must be of opinion that that worthy body still judge of from his eyes; he struck his forehead with his hand, and the value of works as did their ancestors of old; for he at length, unable to control the emotion he was unwilling to avow, he rushed from the room. The sight of the ring has striven hard to make his book "as big as dat cheese." had awakened a train of remembrances that had long slum- In the most remorseless manner has he squeezed into the bered in his heart. The fair image of Edith, tender, inno-" Life of Fuseli" not only two long, and not very readcent, and true, rose to his mind's eye. That gentle, loving being-the playfellow of his childhood-the companion of his youth-his once beloved-his betrothed-oh, had he wronged her, and had she renounced him, without one word of reproach! "There are moments when even the master passion of the soul is overcome by stormy and sudden emotion. And so it was when this mute remembrancer of sweet and happy days reminded him, more eloquently than words could have done, of the vows he had broken, of the joys he had blighted. In the anguish of self-condemnation, it was a relief to him to give utterance to his feelings, by writing to Edith, and with his usual impetuosity, he poured them forth in a strain too agitated and contradictory to meet the eye of any but her to whom it was addressed. While he reviled and denounced himself in the bitterest terms, he, at the same time, sought to extenuate and vindicate his conduct; and while he declared that her happiness was a thousand times more precious to him than his own, he pleaded the overwhelming force of his passion for another, as the excuse for his apostasy from her. He returned her the ring-he besought her to keep it, at least for the present; he could not, he would not receive it from her now. A time might come when it might cost them both less to part; but now it must be with breaking hearts. Fuseli was not merely an artist, he was a man of letters, and took almost as active a share in the literary as in the pictorial exertions of his time. We shall defer the consideration of the artist and the author till next week, and confine our attention at present to the man. Henry Fiessli (this is the family name, which, in mercy to English organs of pronunciation, he changed, after his arrival in this country, into Fuseli) was born at Zurich, in Switzerland, in the year 1741. His father was a portrait-painter, a man who had seen much of the world, and had even in his time played the courtier's part, but of blunt and abrupt manners. He was an author, too, and his house was the resort of most of the literary characters of Zurich. The mother of Fuseli was a wo "Edith's emotion, at reading the letter, was not less than that with which it had been written; but her part was taken with the courage of a wounded heart.' She answer-man of retired habits, who divided her time between the ed it. "The time has come when we must part-when we have parted, and for ever. No human power can ever again unite us no separation can be more complete than that which has already taken place. You cannot recall the past -do not then, I beseech you, by vain remonstrance, seek still more to embitter the present. Yet, in one thing, you can gratify me, and it will be my last request. Go to my poor father, bear with him, soothe him for my sake. From me he shall never learn what has passed-he need never hear it from any one else. And when I die-Oh, Reginald-by the love you once bore me, do not desert my father in the hour of affliction! be to him all, and more, than I could ever have been! so shall my last prayer be for your happiness. E. M.'" The third volume narrates Edith's adventures, after ber father's death, as a dependent upon her relations in Scotland and in England her meeting with her cousin, care of her family and the perusal of religious books. Her son was indebted to her for much of his education, and till the end of his life he rarely spoke of her without tears in his eyes. Fuseli's father destined him to the clerical profession, notwithstanding the love and aptitude for art, which he displayed at a very early period. The youth was accordingly placed, as soon as he attained the proper age, in the Caroline College at Zurich, where he studied under Breitinger and Bodmer, and along with Lavater, and others, who have since attained a name in Germany. It is curious enough, that from under the tuition of these patriarchs of the Swiss school of criticism, (as it has been termed in Germany, in opposition to that of which Leipzig was the headquarters,) men eminently distinguished for strong practical sense and want of poetical feel |