POOR HERO · AND TOO INACTIVE. 101 this-all the humours and oddities of the sovereign are exhibited in rich and splendid detail. He is obliged to take refuge for a day in Whitefriars- and all the horrors and atrocities of the Sanctuary are spread out before us through the greater part of a volume. Two or three murders are committed, in which he has no interest, and no other part than that of being accidentally present. His own scanty part, in short, is performed in the vicinity of a number of other separate transactions; and this mere juxtaposition is made an apology for stringing them all up together into one historical romance. We should not care very much if this only destroyed the unity of the piece-but it also sensibly weakens its interestand reduces it from the rank of a comprehensive and engaging narrative, in which every event gives and receives importance from its connexion with the rest, to that of a mere collection of sketches, relating to the same period and state of society. The character of the hero, we also think, is more than usually a failure. He is not only a reasonable and discreet person, for whose prosperity we need feel no great apprehension, but he is gratuitously debased by certain infirmities of a mean and somewhat sordid description, which suit remarkably ill with the heroic character. His prudent deportment at the gaming table, and his repeated borrowings of money, have been already hinted. at; and we may add, that when interrogated by Heriot about the disguised damsel who is found with him in the Tower, he makes up a false story for the occasion, with a cool promptitude of invention, which reminds us more of Joseph Surface and his French milliner, than of the high-minded son of a stern puritanical Baron of Scotland. These are the chief faults of the work; and they are not slight ones. Its merits do not require to be specified. They embrace all to which we have not specially objected. The general brilliancy and force of the colouring, the ease and spirit of the design, and the strong touches of character, are all such as we have long admired in the best works of the author. Besides the pro King and Richie Moniplies, at whose merits we have already hinted, it would be unjust to pass over the digious strength of writing that distinguishes the part of Mrs. Martha Trapbois, and the inimitable scenes, though of a coarse and revolting complexion, with Duke Hildebrod and the miser of Alsatia. The Templar Lowestoffe, and Jin Vin, the aspiring apprentice, are excellent sketches of their kind. So are John Christie and his frail dame. Lord Dalgarno is more questionable. There are passages of extraordinary spirit and ability in this part; but he turns out too atrocious. Sir Mungo Malagrowther wearies us from the beginning, and so does the horologist Ramsay- because they are both exaggerated and unnatural characters. We scarcely see enough of Margaret Ramsay to forgive her all her irregularities, and her high fortune; but a great deal certainly of what we do see is charmingly executed. Dame Ursula is something between the vulgar gossiping of Mrs. Quickly in the Merry Wives of Windsor, and the atrocities of Mrs. Turner and Lady Suffolk; and it is rather a contamination of Margaret's purity to have used such counsel. We have named them all now, or nearly and must at length conclude. Indeed, nothing but the fascination of this author's pen, and the difficulty of getting away from him, could have induced us to be so particular in our notices of a story, the details of which will so soon be driven out of our heads by other details as interesting and as little fated to be remembered. There are other two books coming, we hear, in the course of the winter; and by the time there are four or five, that is, in about eighteen months hence, we must hold ourselves prepared to give some account of them. SECONDARY SCOTCH NOVELS. 103 (OCTOBER, 1823.) 1. Annals of the Parish, or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder. Written by Himself. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 400. Blackwood. Edin. 1819. 2. The Ayrshire Legatees, or the Pringle Family. By the Author of "Annals of the Parish," &c. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 395. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1820. 66 3. The Provost. By the Author of "Annals of the Parish," Ayrshire Legatees," &c. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 360. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1820. 4. Sir Andrew Wyllie of that Ilk. By the Author of " Annals of the Parish," &c. 3 vols. 12mo. Blackwood. Edin. 1822. 5. The Steam Boat. By the Author of " Annals of the Parish," &c. 1 vol. 12mo. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1822. 6. The Entail, or the Lairds of Grippy. By the Author of "Annals of the Parish," "Sir Andrew Wyllie," &c. 3 vols. 18mo. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1823. Blackwood. 7. Ringan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters. By the Author of 8. Valerius, a Roman Story. 3 vols. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1820. Blackwood. 9. Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life. 1 vol. 8vo. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1822. 10. Some Passages in the Life of Mr. Adam Blair, Minister of the Gospel at Cross-Meikle. 1 vol. 8vo. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1822. 11. The Trials of Margaret Lindsay. By the Author of "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life." I vol. 8vo. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1823. 12. Reginald Dalton. By the Author of "Valerius," and "Adam Blair." 3 vols. 8vo. Blackwood. Edinburgh, 1823.* Lark We have been sometimes aecused, we observe, of partiality to the writers of our own country, and reproached I have retained most of the citations in this article: the books from which they are taken not being so universally known as those 104 SECONDARY SCOTCH NOVELS. with helping middling Scotch works into notice, while far more meritorious publications in England and Ireland have been treated with neglect. We take leave to say, that there could not possibly be a more unjust accusation: and the list of books which we have prefixed to this article, affords of itself, we now conceive, the most triumphant refutation of it. Here is a set of lively and popular works, that have attracted, and very deservedly, a large share of attention in every part of the empire-issuing from the press, successively for four or five years, in this very city, and under our eyes, and not hitherto honoured by us with any indication of our being even conscious of their existence. The causes of this long neglect it can now be of no importance to explain. But sure we are, that our ingenious countrymen have far greater reason to complain of it, than any aliens can have to impute this tardy reparation to national partiality. The works themselves are evidently too numerous to admit of our now giving more than a very general account of them and indeed, some of their authors emulate their great prototype so successfully in the rapid succession of their performances, that, even if they had not been so far ahead of us at the starting, we must soon have been reduced to deal with them as we have done with him, and only to have noticed their productions when they had grown up into groups and families as they increased and multiplied in the land. In intimating that we regard them as imitations of the inimitable novels, which we, who never presume to peep under masks, still hold to be by an author unknown, — we have already exhausted more than half their general character. They are inferior certainly (and what is of Sir Walter Scott-and yet deserving, I think, of being thus recalled to the attention of general readers. The whole seem to have been originally put out anonymously:- But the authorship has been long ago acknowledged; so that it is scarcely necessary for me to mention that the first seven in the list are the works of the late Mr. Galt, Valerius and Adam Blair of Mr. Lockhart and the Lights and Shadows, and Margaret Lindsay, of Professor Wilson. MOVE IN THE ORBIT OF WAVERLEY. 105 not?) to their great originals. But they are the best copies which have yet been produced of them; and it is not a little creditable to the genius of our beloved country, that, even in those gay and airy walks of literature from which she had been so long estranged, an opening was no sooner made, by the splendid success of one gifted Scotsman, than many others were found ready to enter upon them, with a spirit of enterprise, and a force of invention, that promised still farther to extend their boundaries—and to make these new adventurers, if not formidable rivals, at least not unworthy followers of him by whose example they were roused. There are three authors, it seems, to the works now before us;-so at least the title-pages announce; and it is a rule with us, to give implicit faith to those solemn intimations. We think, indeed, that without the help of that oracle, we should have been at no loss to ascribe all the works which are now claimed by the author of the Annals of the Parish, to one and the same hand; But we should certainly have been inclined to suppose, that there was only one author for all the rest, -with the exception, perhaps, of Valerius, which has little resemblance, either in substance or manner, to any of those with which it is now associated. In the arduous task of imitating the great novelist, they have apparently found it necessary to resort to the great principle of division of labour; and yet they have not, among them, been able to equal the work of his single hand! The author of the Parish Annals seems to have sought chiefly to rival the humorous and less dignified parts of his original; by large representations of the character and manners of the middling and lower orders in Scotland, intermingled with traits of sly and sarcastic sagacity; and occasionally softened and relieved by touches of unexpected tenderness and simple pathos, all harmonized by the same truth to nature and fine sense of national peculiarity. In these delineations there is, no doubt, more vulgarity, both of style and conception, and less poetical invention, than in the corresponding passages of the works he aspires to imitate; but, |