not be less indulgent.' I do not think I ever ventured to lead to the discussion of this singular phenomenon again; but you may depend upon it, that what I have now said is as distinctly reported as if it had been taken down in short-hand at the moment; I should not otherwise have ventured to allude to the matter at all. I believe you will agree with me in thinking that the history of the human mind contains nothing more wonderful."" In this volume, the brightest period in Scott's literary history is to be traced, and some of his most characteristic letters, abounding as they do, to a remarkable extent, in that shrewdness, sagacity, and common-sense view of things, which accompanied all his thoughts and doings. For example, respecting the first, Tales of My Landlord," which came so close upon the appearance of the " Antiquary," that the author deemed it necessary to look out for another publisher than Constable, who as purchaser of the latter, might delay the printing of the former-he writes, 666 TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH. Abbotsford, 29th April 1816. "Dear John-James has made one or two important mistakes in the bargain with Murray and Blackwood. Briefly as follows. 66 1stly. Having only authority for me to promise 6000 copies, he proposes they shall have the copyright for ever. I will see their noses cheese first. ་་་ 2dly. He proposes I shall have twelve months' bills: I have always got six. However, I would not stand on that. "3dly. He talks of volumes being put into the publisher's hands to consider and decide on. No such thing; a bare perusal at St. John Street* only. Then for omissions. It is NOT stipulated that we supply the paper and print of successive editions. This must be nailed, and not left to un derstanding. Secondly, I will have London bills, as well as Blackwood's. "If they agree to these conditions, good and well. If they demur, Constable must be instantly tried; giving half to the Longmans, and we drawing on them for that moiety, or Constable lodging their bill in our hands. You will understand it is a four volume touch-a work totally different in style and structure from the others; a new cast, in short, of the net which has hitherto made miraculous draughts. I do not limit you to terms, because I think you will make them better than I can do. But he must do more than others, since he will not or cannot print with us. For every point but that, I would rather deal with Constable than any one: he has always shown himself spirited, judicious, and liberal. Black wood must be brought to the point instantly; and whenever he demurs, Constable must be treated with, for there is no use in suffering the thing to be blown on. At the same time, you need not conceal from him that there were some proposals elsewhere; but you may add with truth I would rather close with him. Yours truly, "W. S.'" "James Ballantyne's dwelling-house was in this street, adjoining the Canongate of Edinburgh." As respects Mr. Lockhart's part of the work in the present volume, we have to speak in terms not less favourable than hitherto. There is, however, an additional attraction about this portion of it which will naturally characterise the remaining volumes, arising from the fact that the biographer paints his hero and many of the described scenes from personal observation and knowledge, thus conveying greater freshness and life to the narrative. Here is a glance into the mighty minstrel's study in his city-residence, with which we take leave of these "Memoirs" for a time. "It had but a single Venetian window, opening on a patch of turf not much larger than itself, and the aspect of the place was on the whole sombrous. The walls were entirely clothed with books: most of them folios and quartos, and all in that complete state of repair which at a glance reveals a tinge of bibliomania. A dozen volumes or so, needful for immediate purposes of reference, were placed close by him on a small moveable frame-something like a dumb waiter. All the rest were in their proper niches, and wherever a volume had been lent, its room was occupied by a wooden block of the same size, having a card with the name of the borrower and date of the loan, tacked on its front. The old bindings had obviously been retouched and regilt in the most approved manner; the new, when the books were of any mark, were rich but never gaudy -a large proportion of blue morocco-all stamped with his device of the portcullis, and its motto clausus tutas ero-being an anagram of his name in Latin. **His own writing apparatus was a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, &c. in silver-the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before. Besides his own huge eldow chair, there were but two others in the room, and one of these seemed, from its position, to be reserved exclusively for the amanuensis. I observed, during the first evening I spent with him in this sanctum, that while he talked, his hands were hardly ever idle. Sometimes he folded letter-covers-sometimes he twisted paper into matches, performing both tasks with great mechanical expertness and nicety; and when there was no loose paper fit to be so dealt with, he snapped his fingers, and the noble Maida aroused himself from his lair on the hearthrug, and laid his head across his master's knees, to be caressed and fondled. The room had no space for pictures except one, an original portrait of Claverhouse, which hung over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target on either side, and broadswords and dirks (each having its own story), disposed star-fashion round them." ART.XVII.-The Widow's Offering; a Selection of Tales and Essays. By the late WM. PITT SCARGILL, Author of "Truckleborough Hall, ་ The Usurer's Daughter," "The Puritan's Grave," &c. 2 Vols. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1837. THESE papers are here collected and published under the auspices of the widow of their author,-the whole, or nearly so, having formerly appeared in various periodicals. It is more than hinted that those who may patronize the publication will "meet their reward in the blessing of Him who defends and provides for the fatherless children and widows;" but even although no such appeal were made to our readers, not one of them who has luxuriated over any of the lamented author's enumerated works, can possibly require to be invited to the feast that is here provided for the heart and for the imagination. We unhesitatingly assert that not one of these Tales or Essays are feeble or common-place. All of them are above mediocrity, and deserving of repeated republication. There is not among the number a paper, which every person of feeling, taste, and sound judgment must not desire to reperuse many times, and whom every reperusal will not benefit. Mr. Scargill's delicate satire, graceful wit, and elegant fancy had ever truth, nature, and wisdom for their passport, and their crowning excellence; while his master-knowledge of his own powers, as well as of the stores of precious thought in others, and as treasured in literature, seem to have commanded for him the most apposite illustrations and the greatest facility in expressing himself beautifully. We know not a late or a living author whose productions surpass the pieces now before us, for purity of style and thought, or for the humorous and pathetic lessons which they convey in reference to the history of human life. In the "Widow's Offering," the very titles of the "Tales and Essays" smack of tact and talent, but they are by far too multitudinous to be here recounted. The two or three from which we cite a few broken portions will support the whole of our statement. For example, in the article on "Grumbling," it is said, "If it be not part of the English constitution, it is certainly part of the constitution of Englishmen to grumble. They cannot help it even if they tried; not that they ever do try, quite the reverse, but they could not help grumbling if they tried ever so much. A true-born Englishman is born grumbling. He grumbles at the light, because it dazzles his eyes; and he grumbles at the darkness, because it takes away the light." He grumbles at every thing that is to be grumbled at; and when there is nothing to be grumbled at, he grumbles at that;" "How badly are all matters in government and administration conducted! What very bad bread do the bakers bake! What very bad meat do the butchers kill! In a word, what is there in the whole compass of existence that is good? What is there in the human character that is as it should be? Are we not justified in grumbling at every thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth? In fact, gentle reader, is the world formed or governed half so well as you and I could form and govern it?" There is a capital tale, that has for its title " Old Maids," which sad and touching though it be, opens in a manner peculiarly characteristic of some of the writer's beauties. The paragraph ought to entice every one of our readers to the entire story which it with remarkable playfulness and amiability of sentiment introduces. It runs thus, "I love an old maid; I do not speak of an individual, but of the species;-I use the singular number, as speaking of a singularity in humanity. An old maid is not merely an antiquarian, she is an antiquity; not merely a record of the past, but the very past itself; she has escaped a great change, and sympathizes not in the ordinary mutations of mortality. She inhabits a little eternity of her own. She is Miss from the beginning to the end of the chapter. I do not like to hear her called Mistress, as is sometimes the practice, for that looks and sounds like the resignation of despair, a voluntary extinction of hope. I do not know whether marriages are made in heaven, some people say that they are, but I am almost sure that old maids are. There is something about them which is not of the earth, earthy. They are Spectators of the world, not Adventurers nor Ramblers; perhaps Guardians; we say nothing of Tatlers. They are evidently predestinated to be what they are. They owe not the singularity of their condition to any lack of beauty, wisdom, wit, or good temper; there is no accounting for it but on the principle of fatality. I have known many old maids, and of them all not one that has not possessed as many good and amiable qualities as ninety and nine out of a hundred of my married acquaintance. Why then are they single? It is their fate! "On the left hand of the road between London and Liverpool, there is a village, which-" and so on. A not less discriminating, or entertaining, though loftier tone, pervades the effusion on "Chivalry." It thus begins,-"The age of chivalry is not yet past, nor will it ever be gone while humanity retains its characteristics. One modification of chivalry is no more. Gentlemen no longer ride about the country in tin pantaloons and coal-skuttle bonnets, poking one another's ribs with bed-posts, and shouting cock-a-doodle-doo at the gates of their neighbours' castles. Knighthood is now a quiet, harmless kind of thing, shedding no blood but that of birds, beasts, and fishes, not killing more than it can eat, and in many cases not quite so much. But the spirit of chivalry is not riding on horseback, or living like a lobster in an inseparable shell, or making vows, or kicking up rows. The spirit of chivalry is a generous impatience of wrong, an active sympathy with the oppressed, an unquenchable fury against the oppressor, a desire to do justice beyond the reach or the will of the law, and a general protection of the innocent and weak against the guilty and the powerful, with peradventure, a little tinge of absurdity, and a small spice of extravagance." According to these views, the writer holds, that the spirit of chivalry burned strongly in the breasts of Whitfield and Wesley,-that Thomas Clarkson entertained chivalrous notions, when he devoted himself to the cause of the African slaves, although the West India planters called it Quixotism,— and that chivalrous thoughts dictated Burke's arousing language, when, "he talked of ten thousand swords starting from their scabbards to avenge the slightest insult offered to Marie Antoinette." These are some of the gems which we have at random plucked from the "Widow's Offering," and surely an offering so rich and variously beautiful will be received and cherished by many a gentle and ingenuous bosom. We would fain go on at the same rate, and string together numerous passages from the Tales, as well as from the Essays: but the former necessarily would thereby lose much of their point and continuity, in such limited space as we could alone afford them, seeing that, it is only a disjointed specimen taken here and there from the latter, that can afford any thing like an adequate idea of the author's several powers and peculiarities. Illustrative of these diversified powers, we add one sample more. The theme naturally. calls for deeper musings and reflections than any we have yet quoted. Its title is "The First Sleep," meaning thereby the first sleep of the first man; but it is only a part of it that we extract. "The dream of the first sleep was compacted purely of the elements of the sensations of the first day; thus by a wonderful arrangement, the past became present again, and the mind had sensations without the help of the senses. Thus was man led to thought and meditation, and by the apparent infirmity of sleep, which for a while seemed to place him on a level with the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, he was elevated to the rank of intellectual, and advanced to a communion with the spiritual and invisible. When his body first slept, his mind first woke, and an impulse was given to the internal spirit. "While, during the hours of his first day, his senses were pleasingly occupied and agreeably filled with surrounding external objects; with shapes, sounds, and colours, there was nothing but the animal consciousness awake, a pleasing wonder absorbed every feeling-a wonder too pleasant to require or invite analysis. It was the quiet change from day to night, and the shadowy state of things placing them, as it were in a double point of view, that gave man an introduction into the mysteries of thought, and taught him reflection. "That which is seen once by the eye is seen merely by the animal part of our nature-that which is seen by the mind's eye is seen intellectually. So man's first sleep awakened the powers of his mind; a pause was given to his senses, but none to his mental consciousness; even in sleep he felt himself to be living, and there was a seeing of sights not present to the eye, a hearing of sounds not physically audible to the ear. Hence, then, sprang up at first the hardly recognised inquiry,-what sees if the eye sees not, or what hears if the ear hear not? So, by a beautiful and striking arrangement, the night was caused to cast light upon the day. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth forth wisdom.'' " * * * * "If there was a curious and interesting awakening of the mind by the first falling asleep of the bodily frame, there was a still more interesting excitement of the thinking powers by the waking again from sleep. When man first woke from his new made being, it was of course without reflection, for he was unconscious of the state from which he rose; but when he woke from sleep, it was from a weaker to a stronger sense of being, and his waking was as gradually devoloped as his sleeping had been. The mystery of sleep was not revealed till the sleep was over, nor its beauty apprehended till the frame was awake again, even as the riddle of life itself is not solved till life be ended. "Waking from sleep was beautiful, both from its novelty and for the sweet refreshment which it brought. It seemed to make the world anew, for with Adam's first waking the world itself was waking again; the morning song of the birds sounded more gay; there was a livelier look of the trees as their leaves trembled in the morning breeze, and gleamed to the glancing of the sun's earliest rays; the little flowers, which had folded up for the repose of the night at the departure of yesterday's sun, now opened their beauties to the light, and by the gladness of their graceful forms looked to the day a welcome which they could not speak ; the very air felt new and fragrant, and there was an especial source of wonder in the newly risen sun. Thus, a fresh and pleasant impulse was given to thought; and a new topic of adoration to the invisible Creator. VOL. II. (1837.) No. iv. S S |