told with any great force, nor contrasted with any great degree of variety. The author seems to us to have been a little afraid of his subject:-he appears, as Mr. Balwhidder ought in all consistency to be, well inclined to lament the diffusion of vice and misery which attended the diffusion of knowledge; but the editor is evidently alarmed lest he should be represented as an enemy to the progress of light,' and he has therefore left this, the most promising point, we think, of his story in a very unsatisfactory state.

There is a truth and simplicity in the following story of a widow, who, according to the superstition of her country, fancied that she had a warning of the death of her only remaining child, her grandchild we should have said, that is very affecting.

'One evening, as I was taking my walk alone, meditating my discourse for the next Sabbath—it was shortly after Candlemas-it was a fine clear pretty evening, just as the sun was setting-Taking my walk alone, and thinking of the dreadfulness of Almighty Power, and how that if it was not tempered and restrained by infinite goodness, and wisdom, and mercy, the miserable sinner man, and all things that live, would be in a woeful state, I drew near the beild where old widow Mirkland lived by herself, who was grandmother to Jock Hempy, the rampler lad that was the second who took on for a soldier. I did not mind of this at the time, but passing the house, I heard the croon, as it were, of a laden soul, busy with the Lord, and, not to disturb the holy workings of grace, I paused, and listened. It was old Mizy Mirkland herself, sitting at the gable of the house, looking at the sun setting in all its glory behind the Arran hills; but she was not praying-only moaning to herself, an oozing out, as it might be called, of the spirit from her heart, then grievously oppressed with sorrow, and heavy bodements of grey hairs and poverty. "Yonder slips it awa'," she was saying, "and my poor bairn, that's o'er the seas in America, is maybe looking on its bright face, thinking of his hame, and aiblins of me, that did my best to breed him up in the fear of the Lord; but I couldna warsle wi' what was ordained. Ay, Jock! as ye look at the sun gaun down, as many a time, when ye were a wee innocent laddie at my knee here, I hae bade ye look at him as a type of your Maker, you will hae a sore heart; for ye hae left me in my need, when ye should hae been near at hand to help me, for the hard labour and industry with which I brought you up. But it's the Lord's will,-blessed be the name of the Lord, that makes us to thole the tribulations of this world, and will reward us, through the meditation of Jesus, hereafter." She wept bitterly as she said this, for her heart was tried, but the blessing of a religious contentment was shed upon her; and I stepped up to her, and asked about her concerns, for, saving as a parishioner, and a decent old woman, I knew little of her. Brief was her story, but it was one of misfortune. -"But I will not complain," she said, "of the measure that has been meted unto me. I was left myself an orphan; when I grew up, and was married to my gudeman, I had known but scant and want. days of felicity were few, and he was ta'en awa' from me shortly after

Our

my Mary was born-a wailing baby, and a widow's heart, was a' he left me. I nursed her with my salt tears, and bred her in straits, but the favour of God was with us, and she grew up to womanhood, as lovely as the rose, and as blameless as the lily. In her time she was married to a farming lad; there never was a brawer pair in the kirk, than on that day when they gaed there first as man and wife. My heart was proud, and it pleased the Lord to chastize my pride-to nip my happiness even in the bud. The very next day he got his arm crushed. It never got well again, and he fell into a decay, and died in the winter, leaving my Mary far on in the road to be a mother.

"When her time drew near, we both happened to be a working in the yard. She was delving to plant potatoes, and I told her it would do her hurt, but she was eager to provide something, as she said, for what might happen. O, it was an ill-omened word. The same night her trouble came on, and before the morning she was a cauld corpse, and another wee wee fatherless baby was greeting at my bosom-It was him that's noo awa' in America. He grew up to be a fine bairn, with a warm heart, but a light head, and, wanting the rein of a father's power upon him, was no sae douce as I could have wished; but he was no man's foe save his own. I thought, and hoped, as he grew to years of discretion, he would have sobered, and been a consolation to my old age; but he's gone, and he'll never come back-disappointment is my portion in this world, and I have no hope; while I can do, I will seek no help, but threescore and fifteen can do little, and a small ail is a great evil to an aged woman, who has but the distaff for her breadwinner,"

'I did all that I could to bid her be of good cheer, but the comfort of a hopeful spirit was dead within her; and she told me, that by many tokens she was assured her bairn was already slain. "Thrice,” said she, "I have seen his wraith-The first time he was in the pride of his young manhood, the next he was pale and wan, with a bloody and a gashy wound in his side, and the third time there was a smoke, and when it cleared away, I saw him in a grave, with neither winding-sheet nor coffin."

'The tale of this pious and resigned spirit dwelt in mine ear, and when I went home, Mrs. Balwhidder thought that I had met with an o'ercome, and was very uneasy; so she got the tea soon ready to make me better, but scarcely had we tasted the first cup when a loud lamentation was heard in the kitchen. This was from that tawpy the wife of Thomas Wilson, with her three weans. They had been seeking their meat among the farmer houses, and, in coming home, forgathered on the road with the Glasgow carrier, who told them, that news had come in the London Gazette, of a battle, in which the regiment that Thomas had listed in was engaged, and had suffered loss both in rank and file; none doubting that their head was in the number of the slain, the whole family grat aloud, and came to the Manse, bewailing him as no more; and it afterwards turned out to be the case, making it plain to me that there is a farseeing discernment in the spirit, that reaches beyond the scope of our incarnate senses.'-p. 170-175.

We

We have not room for any more extracts, and some of our readers, perhaps, may think that we have already allotted to this little volume quite as much space as its merit strictly justifies; we therefore omit a number of other passages not inferior to those which we have quoted, and shall not even allude to the variety of characters which successively appear on the narrow stage of Dalmailing. We do not profess to be very intimate with the several states of society which the reverend annalist describes, and perhaps our northern readers may discover incongruities and inconsistencies in the manners which have not shocked our southern inexperience; but, upon the whole, we honestly confess that we have been pleased and affected by the Chronicle of Dalmailing, and think ourselves obliged in candour to recommend its excellent morality, sober pleasantry, and unassuming simplicity, both of matter and manner, to such readers as may prefer this quiet kind of merit to the glare, brilliancy, and hurry of a modern novel.

One or two less favourable observations justice obliges us to make. Some of the expressions put into the mouth of Mr. Cayenne, the refugee American, who introduced the cotton manufacture into Dalmailing, are of brutal and shocking impiety, and altogether out of character in a man who, though hasty in his temper and worldly in his principles, was at bottom honest, well-intentioned, and not likely to give such blasphemous offence to his sober neighbours. We allude more particularly to the horrid exclamation quoted in page 280, which no gentleman could have uttered and which no Christian minister should have recorded.

We also object to the introduction of the unhappy story of the tenth Earl of Eglintoun, who was killed, as our readers know, by Mungo Campbell, the exciseman, in a scuffle, in the year 1769. The author veils the real names under those of Lord Egglesham and Mungo Argyll, and places the date some years later; but such melancholy realities are not fit subjects for a work of this nature, particularly as there is no merit nor novelty in the telling of the story and no moral inculcated by the result. The revival of such recollections can only give pain, and is neither amusing nor instructive.

We should also take the liberty of advising the author against the unhappy practice of dreaming allegorical dreams, which the Spectator brought into repute, and which each subsequent periodical publication has contributed to bring into discredit. In the beginning of the year 1793, the Rev. Mr. Balwhidder dreams a dream about PUBLIC OPINION, &c. &c. annunciative, to the inspired Micah, of the murder of the King of France, but which to us seems communicative of nothing but nonsense, and unites a more than visionary folly to a more than political dullness.

ART.

ART. VIII.-The History of Greece. By Wm. Mitford, Esq. Vol. V. 4to. London.

THE HE history of ancient Greece has been frequently written, but never, we think, in a manner worthy of the splendour and importance of the subject. Great industry and considerable talent have indeed been displayed; but no author, with whose works we are acquainted, has given such a comprehensive exposition of Grecian transactions, literature, philosophy, morals and society as fully to satisfy the curiosity of the speculative student. Political occurrences have been accurately detailed, contradictory dates reconciled, the exact position of places ascertained, motives of action explained (or at least divined) by several of the modern. historians of Greece, but a picture of the mind and genius, of the reason and imagination of the most extraordinary people which the world ever saw, has never, we believe, been attempted. Rollin is a writer of merit; he possesses the art of agreeable narration, and his work is therefore well calculated for the perusal of youth; but he is in general a mere chronicler of events; and, content to move with the current of undisputed facts, rarely disturbs the calm surface of his narrative by plunging beneath, and fathoming the depths of those thoughts and opinions which influenced the actions he describes. The authors of the Universal History deserve a large share of commendation for diligence, but no one will accuse them of much philosophy. Dr. Gillies gives us a little insight into the state of literature and art during the period which we are now considering; but, though his information and erudition be respectable, his reflections seldom rise above the level of an ordinary capacity, and his style is more distinguished for its ambition than its power.

Mr. Mitford, the last in time, is certainly not the least in merit amongst the modern compilers of Grecian annals. He has brought to his task acuteness and patient investigation, and by the aid of these valuable qualities he has generally been successful in unravelling the intricate web of Grecian politics: yet in the higher faculties and accomplishments of an historian, and particularly an historian of Greece, he is, we lament to say, singularly deficient. In his writings we find no trace of that philosophical comprehension which can seize remote allusions and disjointed facts, and combine them into irresistible proof or powerful illustration; we regret the absence of that lofty eloquence which can describe, in language worthy of its theme, the triumphs of heroism and of genius, and we look in vain for the expression of that noble enthusiasm which kindles at the recollection of ancient glory, and communicates

to

to the reader the warmth of sympathy and the aspiration to excellence. Mr. Mitford has rejected all those collateral investigations by the introduction of which, modern history has rendered such important service to the philosophy of mind and the knowledge of human nature. He confines himself entirely to a narration of the actions of men, he gives us a recital of what they did, but never informs us how they thought; he describes the working of the animal machine, but does not attempt to dissect its structure and lay open to our view the complicated organization which sets it in motion. He seems to imagine that the sole business of history is to narrate the prominent and obvious deeds of public men, and that the whole annals of our race are comprised in the achievements of conquerors and the intrigues of statesmen. His mind is acute and his patience unwearied in investigating the probable truth or falsehood of an asserted event; but it does not possess that enlargement of inquiry and that vividness of imagination which can present the results of its researches in one luminous point of view, and collect the scattered rays of insulated facts till they converge into an image of truth for the delight and in

struction of mankind.

Of the style which Mr. Mitford has adopted in his work it is scarcely possible to speak in terms of too severe reprobation. It is obscure, inharmonious and ungrammatical. It is obscure not from negligence but by system, and inharmonious not by chance but upon principle. It is extremely artificial in its construction, and yet has all the defects which the grossest ignorance of the first rules of composition could stamp upon it. Paragraph follows paragraph with strange consistency of distortion, and the long, meagre, nerveless, and disjointed sentences, grate on the ear and chill the imagination with one unvaried strain of discord ancy. These faults are not to be ascribed to inexperience, they are not the first errors of an unpractised writer; no-they are the deliberate and premeditated deeds of an author who, by his own confession,* has been engaged for forty years in composition, and who has written a treatise expressly to instruct mankind where they are to discover the principles of the harmony of language, The harmony of language!-We entreat our readers to attend to the following development in practice of Mr. Mitford's theory of 'the harmony of language.'

The actual crisis for the people of Macedonia who, by their late king's successful career of twenty-four years, had been established in a state of civil security, perhaps hardly at that time known elsewhere, the prospect could not but be anxious and awful.'-p. 113.