"Well, he's an industrious fellow. Carry the fish up to Monkbarns." "That I will--or I'll send little Jenny, she'll rin faster; but I'll ca' on Miss Grizzy for the dram mysel, and say ye sent me."

A nondescript animal, which might have passed for a mermaid, as it was paddling in a pool among the rocks, was summoned ashore by the shrill screams of its dam; and having been made decent, as her mother called it, which was performed by adding a short red cloak to a petticoat, which was at first her sole covering, and which reached scantly below her knee, the child was dismissed with the fish in a basket, and a request on the part of Monkbarns, that they might be prepared for dinner.' ―vol. i. PP. 250-255.

Our other quotation shall be the funeral of this 'fish-wife's' son, who within a few days after the foregoing conversation, afforded a melancholy illustration of his mother's forcible expression, that it was not fish but men's lives that the Antiquary was buying.-He had been drowned, and the body, washed ashore, was now to be buried after the fashion of the country. It is a scene,' says the author, which our Wilkie alone would have painted with that exquisite feeling of nature that characterizes his enchanting productions; but the author is too modest, and too unjust to his own art. Wilkie, with all his enchanting qualities, could not, the pencil cannot, paint this scene with such touching strokes of nature as we find in the dramatic narration of our author. It is too long to be extracted in extenso, but, at the risk of diminishing its effect, we shall venture to put together some detached sentences.

The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the father, whose rugged weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day.' The old man had made the most desperate efforts to save his son, and had only been withheld by main force from renewing them at a moment, when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he must himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin, as to an object on which he could not stedfastly look, and yet from which he could not withdraw his eyes.'

In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which was flung over it, sat the mother, the nature of her grief sufficiently indicated, by the wringing her hands, and the convulsive agitation of the bosom which the covering could not conceal.'

The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and wine, which the poorest peasant, or fisher, offers to the guests on these mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother's death was almost already lost in admiration of the splendour of his funeral.' But the figure of the old grandmother was the most remarkable of the sorrowing group. Seated on her accustomed chair, with her usual

air of apathy, and want of interest in what surrounded her, she seemed every now and then mechanically to resume the motion of twirling her spindle-then to look towards her bosom for the distaff, although both had been laid aside. She would then cast her eyes about as if surprised at missing the usual implements of her husbandry, and appear caught by the black colour of the gown in which they had dressed her, and embarrassed by the number of persons by whom she was surrounded— then, finally, she would raise her head with a ghastly look, and fix her eyes upon the bed which contained the coffin of her grandson, as if she had at once, and for the first time, acquired sense to comprehend her inexpressible calamity. These alternate feelings of embarrassment, wonder, and grief, seemed to succeed each other more than once upon her torpid features. But she spoke not a word, neither had she shed a tear; nor did one of the family understand, either from look or expres sion, to what extent' she comprehended the uncommon bustle around her. So she sat among the funeral assembly like a connecting link bes tween the surviving mourners and the dead corpse which they bewailed -a being in whom the light of existence was already obscured by the encroaching shadows of death.'

When Oldbuck entered this house of mourning, he was received by a general and silent inclination of the head, and, according to the fashion of Scotland on such occasions, wine and spirits and bread were offered round to the guests. Elspeth, the old grandmother, as these refreshments were presented, surprised and startled the whole company by motioning to the person who bore them to stop; then, taking a glass in her hand, she rose up, and, as the smile of dotage played upon her shrivelled features, she pronounced with a hollow and tremulous voice, "Wishing a' your healths, sirs, and often may we hae such merry meetings."

All shrunk from the ominous pledge, and set down the untasted liquor with a degree of shuddering horror, which will not surprise those who know how many superstitions are still common on such occasions among the Scottish vulgar.'

As the general amazement subsided, Mr. Oldbuck, whose heart bled to witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the clergyman that it was time to proceed to the ceremony. The father was incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of the undertaker, to proceed in his office. The creak of the screw-nails presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in the act of being secured above its tenant. The last act which separates us for ever, even from the mortal reliques of the person we assemble to mourn, has usually its effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and hardhearted. With a spirit of contradiction, which we may be pardoned for esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish kirk rejected, even on this most solemn occasion, the form of an address to the Divinity, lest they should be thought to give countenance to the rituals of Rome or of England.'

'The

The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon handspikes by the nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support the head, as is customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he only answered by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal. With better intention than judgment, the friends, who considered this as an act of duty on the part of the living, and of decency towards the deceased, would have proceeded to enforce their request, had not Oldbuck interfered between the distressed father and his well-meaning tormentors, and informed them, that he himself, as landlord and master to the deceased," would carry his head to the grave." In spite of the sorrowful occasion, the hearts of the relatives swelled within them at so marked a distinction on the part of the Laird; and old Ailison Breck, who was present among other fish-women, swore almost aloud, " His honour Monkbarns should never want sax warp of oysters in the season, (of which fish he was understood to be fond,) if she should gang to sea and dredge for them hersel, in the foulest wind that ever blew."

The procession to the church-yard, at about half a mile's distance, was made with the mournful solemnity usual on these occasions,-the body was consigned to its parent earth,-and when the labour of the grave-diggers had filled up the trench, and covered it with fresh sod, Mr. Oldbuck, taking his hat off, saluted the assistants, who had stood by in mournful silence, and with that adieu dispersed the mourners.'— vol. iii. pp. 32-49.

This, it will be confessed, is fine moral painting, the father unable to look at or yet away from his son's coffin, is a touch of nature not inferior to Madame de Sévigné's famous description of Madame de Longueville's inquiry after her son;-the Grecian painter's veil' is not so natural and touching as the poor fish-woman's apron; the divided sensations of the children and the involuntary motion of the poor old woman's hands, from which the implements of spinning had been removed, are admirable; and the creak of the screws' produces an effect on us almost equal to the sound of Clarissa's coffin on the narrow stairs.

We hope we have now said enough to induce our readers to think this novel well worth reading, and we shall only add, that it is impossible to read it without feeling the highest respect for the talents, both gay and pathetic, of the author, for the bold impartiality of his national delineations, and for the taste and discrimination with which he has rescued, from the overwhelming march of time and change of manners, these historical representations of a state of society, which even now is curious, but which in no long period will become a tale of other times;' and be examined not merely by the listless reader of novels but by the moralist and the antiquary. It may be useful to apprise our readers (a circumstance which we unfortunately did not discover till we had got to the end of the third volume,) that there is there to be found a glossary, which is

indeed almost indispensable to the understanding of nine-tenths of the work. Those ingenious persons, therefore, who begin to read novels by the latter end, have had, in this instance, a singular advantage over those who, like us, have laboured regularly on through the dark dialect of Anglified Erse.

If, as we expect, new editions of Waverley, Guy Mannering, and the Antiquary, should be required by the public, we suggest that the glossary should be placed conspicuously at the beginning of the first volume of the series.

ART. VI. 1. Mémoire sur la Nécessité et les Moyens de faire cesser les Pirateries des Etats Barbaresques. Recu, considéré, et adopté à Paris en Septembre―à Turin le 14 Octobre, 1814à Vienne durant le Congrès. Par W. Sidney Smith.

2. A Letter to a Member of Parliament on the Slavery of the Christians at Algiers. By Walter Croker, Esq. of the Royal Navy. London: 8vo. 1816.

3. Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli, in Africa, from the original Correspondence, in the possession of the Family of the late Richard Tully, Esq. the British Consul; comprising authentic Memoirs and Anecdotes of the reigning Bashaw, Sedi Useph, his Family, and various Persons of distinction; an Account of the Domestic Manners of the Moors, Arabs, and Turks, &c. 4to. London: 1816.

4. Travels in Europe and Africa; comprising a Journey through France, Spain and Portugal, to Morocco, with a particular Account of that Empire, &c. By Colonel Keatinge. 4to. London: 1816.

1811.

5. An Account of Tunis, of its Government, Manners, Customs, and Antiquities; especially of its Productions, Manufactures, and Commerce. By Thomas Macgill. Glasgow. Svo. AT the conclusion of a war, unparalleled in its character and duration, and on the much-wished-for return of a general peace, it was not likely that the maritime powers of Europe would continue to tolerate the system of piracy so long carried on by the Barbary States against the flag of every nation which could not either purchase or command their forbearance. It was, however, a nice question to determine what measures were most prudent to be adopted against those States, if they should hesitate to abandon at system so abhorrent from every feeling of humanity, and so justly regarded with universal indignation.

The result appears to have been that of employing a British admiral, with a squadron of adequate force, to demand, in the first

place,

place, the liberation of all the Christian slaves; and then to negociate, on behalf of the minor powers in the Mediterranean, treaties of peace and amity, leaving the great maritime powers to defend themselves, as they had hitherto done, against any insult that might hereafter be offered to their respective flags. The mission, as might be expected from the known character of the officer employed, was completely successful; the release of every Christian slave was procured; treaties were concluded; and a declaration was obtained from Tunis and Tripoli, that no Christian slaves should in future be made by either of these powers; but that the prisoners taken in legitimate warfare should be exchanged according to the usages of war among European nations.

This arrangement, apparently so satisfactory to all parties, has not met with that general approbation to which it would appear to be entitled; on the contrary we hear an absurd clamour, deprecating all treaties with the Barbary states, bellowing for war and extermination, and exciting to another crusade, by a holy alliance of all the knights of Christendom,' against those infidels. We hardly think that England will be forward to commit her character in so hopeless a scheme-if Europe is again to be visited by another fit of enthusiastic insanity, bis Most Christian Majesty is the proper knight-president' to stand forward as the champion of Christendom, and he will, we doubt not, be found at his post.* The cry, however, is for England to take the lead in this new crusade-and it is quite edifying to observe, in some of the documents appended to the Mémoire of the President of the Society of Knights Liberators of the White Slaves in Africa,' with what easy complacency the grandees and ministers of foreign powers impose this quixotic enterprize on England, who of all nations in the western hemisphere should be the last to trouble herself about it. One of the president's correspondents observes, that if the commercial interests of England be against it, the sentiments of the nation and the conduct of the parliament with respect to the blacks, leave no room to apprehend that those interests can form any obstacle to a measure which humanity and religion, as well as the knowledge and civilization of the times, demand;'-that fon Great Britain, who has contracted the honourable and holy engagement, by occupying Malta, once the bulwark of Christendom, the obligation strictly devolves;'-that, in short, England is responsible for every thing that is done on the seas.'-Another tells him, that England having succeeded to the inheritance of Saint

10 We will not believe a word of what the Paris Journals say about the fraterual embrace given by the Dey of Algiers to the Consul-General of his Most Christian Majesty, or of the good understanding between those two potentates; it would be a libel on Louis XVIII. even to suppose such a thing at this moment.

John