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How Mr. Scott could talk, in the year 1815, of that dark Inn, the Grave,' or write such a verse as

• Respited for a day,'

it is vain to conjecture; or could offend the sense of those who are really susceptible of musical sound in versification, (a much smaller number than it is usually supposed to be,) by such repeated instances of the harshest dissonance as this poem would readily afford; or disgust all scholars with his accustomed violations of grammar in every species of unauthorized ellipsis :-how, we say, these things could be,

"He alone can explain, who alone is the cause."

An observation of a different kind is more important. The story of the personal encounter between Sir Henry de Bohun and King Robert, on the evening before the battle of Bannockburn, is inserted in the text by Mr. Scott from a passage in the notes furnished by the frequently quoted Barbour: but Mr. S. has added a circumstance to the story, as told by the metrical historian, for which he ought to have other and good authority. He makes King Edward order Sir Henry, who is mounted on a powerful war-horse, to attack "The Bruce" on a poor palfrey, as he is riding along the lines of his army. Now, tyrannical and cruel to the Scots as the father of our royal Edward was, so gross a violation of the laws of chivalry and military honour ought not to have been introduced into HIS character, without substantial proof of the accuracy of the charge; and still less into that of his son.-We have before complained of too much mere antiquarianism in the notes to this poem: but we must except from this imputation several curious documents illustrative of the extent of the national losses on both sides, at the great battle which established the independence of Scotland; and many other interesting historical anecdotes. On the whole, indeed, it is but justice to say that the reader is supplied with more instruction and entertainment from the present compilation, than from any similar adjunct to the poems of Mr. Scott.

Much as we dislike the task, however, it may yet perhaps be required of us to perform some portion, at least, of that irksome duty of criticism, the record of verbal and other minute offences. We shall therefore briefly throw together a few of the faults which we could not avoid to notice in our perusal of the poem.

The unfortunate aɛp that gave occasion for the pleasantry on the French play of Cleopatra might itself have produced the following lines, since they biss in the most serpent-like-style; and they have too many sibilant brothers of the like description:

• We

We see the streamer's silken band,

What chieftain's praise these pibrochs swell,

What crest is on these banners wove,' &c. &c.

Such accentuation as the following is offensive, if frequently repeated:

• Proud Edith's soul came to her eye.”

• Douglas leans on his war-sword now.'

The mere prose, not to mention the needless familiarity, of the subsequent couplet, should not be passed over:

So said I, and believed in sooth,

Ronald replied, "I spoke the truth."

Surely, many more than a thousand such pairs of downright doggrel might be patched up in a morning.-The quick recurrence of similar rhymes, prolonged for three and sometimes for four lines, has often a ludicrous effect; and, when they are inaccurate, and concluded by an absolute vulgarism in language, they excite a still less pleasing sensation;

• Mine honour I should ill assert,
And worse the feelings of my heart
If I should play the suitor's part
Again, to PLEASURE Lorn.'

In the same page, (147.) we have the subjoined verse :
Anxious his suit Lord Ronald pled:-'

but

"For us, and for our tragedy !" &c. &c.

Here pause we, gentles! for a space,
And, if our talk has won your grace,
Grant us brief patience, and again
We will renew our minstrel strain,'

is the bona fide conclusion of the first canto!

What the princely dais' is, (page 49.) many of our readers may be unapprized; but a reference to their French Diction. aries will enable them to understand the term.

Some of the Spenserian openings (we allude only to the number of lines in each stanza) of the cantos are as good as they usually are; and the dedication, or rather the intended dedication, to a fair and noble friend of the author, unhappily taken from him and from society before his poem was published, now printed at the end of the work, is a feeling and pathetic tribute. We must, however, except from all praise the celebration of the Morning Post, Morning Herald, and Courier, in the introduction to the sixth canto. We have before condemned (in "The Lady of the Lake") the author's fondness for ministering to the public curiosity concerning

T 4

popular

popular and passing events; and we think that a poet equally degrades, or at all events, misapplies his powers, whether he recalls his reader from the high and heroic scenes of ages past to the great or to the little occurrences detailed at the moment of his composition in the daily papers. The subject, indeed, may be grand, and the versification good, but they are out of time and place; and who can avoid conjuring up the idea of men with broad sheets of foolscap scored with victories rolled round their hats, and horns blowing loud defiance in each other's mouth from the top to the bottom of Pall-Mall, or the Hay-Market, when he reads such a passage as the following?

When breathless in the mart the couriers met,
Early and late at evening, and at prime,
When the loud cannon and the merry chime
Hail'd news on news!'

We actually hear the Park and Tower guns and the clattering of ten thousand bells, as we read, and stop our ears from the close and sudden intrusion of the clamours of some hot and born-fisted patriot, blowing ourselves as well as Buonaparte to the devil! And what has all this to do with Bannockburn? Soft, soft, awhile:

• Such news o'er Scotland's hills triumphant rode,

When,' &c.

This is very like the old sportsman's mode of introducing a pleasant narrative: "Hark! I hear a gun!-that puts me in mind of a good story."

We have now to fulfil the dangerous sort of promise which we made to offer some estimate of the rank which the present poem is likely to hold in the judgment of the public. As that judgment is usually right at last, if what we are about to say be founded in truth and reason, the question of ultimate popularity and of merit may be decided together.

In some detached passages, the present poem may challenge any of Mr. Scott's compositions; and perhaps in the Abbot's involuntary blessing it excels any single part of any one of them. The battle too, and many dispersed lines besides those which we have quoted, have transcendent merit. In point of fable, however, it has not the grace and elegance of " The Lady of the Lake;" nor the general clearness and vivacity of its narrative; nor the unexpected happiness of its catastrophe ; and still less does it aspire to the praise of the complicated,

*

We say general, because occasionally the story of "The Lady of the Lake" is much encumbered and retarded by extraneous matter.

but

but every way proper and well-managed story of "Rokeby." It has nothing so pathetic as "The Cypress Wreath;" nothing so sweetly touching as the last evening scene at Rokeby, before it is broken by Bertrand; nothing (with the exception of the Abbot) so awefully melancholy as much of Mortham's history, or so powerful as Bertrand's farewell to Edmond. It vies, as we have already said, with "Marmion" in the generally favourite part of that poem: but what has it (with the exception before stated) equal to the immurement of Constance? On the whole, however, we prefer it to "Marmion ;" which, in spite of much merit, always had a sort of noisy Royal-Circusair with it; a clap-trappery, if we may venture on such a word. "Marmion," in short, has become quite identified with Mr. Braham in our minds; and we are therefore not perhaps unbiassed judges of its perfections. Finally, we do not hesitate to place The Lord of the Isles' below both of Mr. Scott's remaining longer works; and, as to "The Lay of the last Minstrel," for numerous.common-places and separable beauties, that poem we believe still constitutes one of the highest steps, if not the very highest, in the ladder of the author's reputation. The characters of the present tale we have already discussed. With the exception of "The Bruce," who is vividly painted from history, and of some minor sketches, they are certainly, in point of invention, of the most novel, that is of the most Minervapress, description; and, as to the language and versification, the poem is in its general course as inferior to "Rokeby" (by much the most correct and the least justly appreciated of the author's works) as it is in the construction and conduct of its fable. It supplies whole pages of the most prosaic narrative :but, as we have amply shewn, and shall here conclude by recollecting, it displays also whole pages of the noblest poetry.

ART. V. Travels through Norway and Lapland, during the Years 1806, 1807, and 1808, by Leopold Von Buch, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Translated from the original German, by John Black. With Notes and Illustrations, chiefly Mineralogical, and some Account of the Author, by Robert Jameson, F.R.S. E. F.L.S., &c. Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh. Illustrated with Maps and Physical Sections. 4to. pp. 484. 11. 16s. Boards. Colburn.

1813.

OUR UR seventieth volume, New Series, (App. p. 532.) contained a report of this work in the original: but we then omitted the mineralogical details, to which we shall now advert with all the brevity that is compatible with their importance. We

must,

must, however, previously extract the ensuing passage from the translator's preface, both because it contains a short notice of the author, and because it comprizes, in a few general positions, the substance of many of those remarks which lie scattered through the volume:

To Professor Jameson, of Edinburgh, the translator is under the greatest obligations. He has enriched the work with a number of notes and observations, which the learned will know how to appre ciate. Without the assistance of that gentleman, the mineralogical portion of the work would have frequently been very inadequately executed. It must be highly gratifying to M. Von Buch to find that his book received this degree of attention from one whose name stands so deservedly high in the scientific world as Mr. Jameson.

From the same gentleman the translator obtained the following account of M. Von Buch, with which he will close this preface.

"M. Von Buch, the celebrated author of these travels, is a native of Prussia. He received his mineralogical education in the famous mining Academy at Freyberg, in Saxony, under the ilustrious Professor Werner. Very early he distinguished himself by indefatigable industry, great acuteness, and enthusiastic love of natural history. During his residence in Saxony, he published several interesting papers in the Miner's Journal. His first separate publication was a mineralogical description of Landeck, in Silesia, printed in the year 1797. This little tract (for it did not exceed fifty pages quarto) was at the time of its publication the best mineralogical geography that had appeared in Germany. It was his first essay on quitting the school of Werner, and the work of his early youth. It has been translated into French by an eminent miner and mineralogist, M. Daubuisson, and we possess an excellent English version of it by Dr. Anderson of Leith, printed in 1810.

"His next work, entitled Geognostical Observations. made during Travels in Germany and Italy,' was published in the year 1802. This volume contains a geognostical description of Silesia. From the account given by Von Buch, it appears that the red sandstone of that country contains very important beds of coal. This fact is there well established, and should be known to the coal viewers of Britain, who to a man are of opinion that coal is never to be sought for in districts composed of red sand-stone. In the same volume there are geognostical accounts of the salt countries belonging to Austria; of Berchtolsgaden and Salzburg; a comparison of. the passages over Mount Cenis and the Brenner; and, lastly, observations on the remarkable district of Pergine.

"From this period, until the spring of 1806, when he left Germany for Norway, he was actively employed in examining many of the most curious and interesting countries in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. During his absence in Norway, a second volume of his mineralogical travels was published, and which proved equally valu able with the first. It contains a geognostical description of the strata on which the city of Rome is built, from which it appears that they are entirely of aquatic origin, and that the craters described

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