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of the youth like an invisible spell by his agonized master, surprising as they are, arise from causes so natural and so adequate, that the imagination at once owns them as authentic. The mild beauty of Falkland's natural character, contrasted with the guilt he has incurred, and his severe purpose to lead a long life of agony and crime, that his fame may be preserved spotless, is affecting almost without example. There is a rude grandeur even in the gigantic oppressor Tyrel, which all his disgusting enormities cannot destroy. Independently of the master-spring of interest, there are in this novel individual passages which can never be forgotten. Such are the fearful flight of Emily with her ravisher-the escape of Caleb Williams from prison, and his enthusiastic sensations on the recovery of his freedom, though wounded and almost dying without help-and the scenes of his peril among the robbers. Perhaps this work is the grandest ever constructed out of the simple elements of humanity, without any extrinsic aid from imagigination, wit, or memory.

In "St. Leon," Mr. Godwin has sought the stores of the supernatural ;-but the "metaphysical aid" which he has condescended to accept is not adapted to carry him farther from nature, but to ensure a more intimate and wide com

munion with its mysteries. His hero does not acquire the philosopher's stone and the elixir of immortality to furnish out for himself a dainty solitude, where he may dwell soothed with the music of his own undying thoughts, and rejoicing in his severance from his frail and transitory fellows. Apart from those among whom he moves, his yearnings for sympathy become more intense as it eludes him, and his perceptions of the mortal lot of his species become more vivid and more fond, as he looks on it from an intellectual eminence which is alike unassailable to death and to joy. Even in this work, where the author has to conduct a perpetual miracle, his exceeding earnestness makes it difficult to believe him a fabulist. Listen to his hero, as he expatiates in the first consciousness of his high prerogatives:

"I surveyed my limbs, all the joints and articulations of my frame, with curiosity and astonishment. "What!" exclaimed I, "these limbs, this complicated but brittle frame shall last for ever! No disease shall attack it; no pain shall seize it; death shall withhold from it for ever his abhorred grasp! Perpetual vigour, perpetual activity, perpe

future duration.

I was born under

tual youth, shall take up their abode with me! Time, shall generate in me no decay, shall not add a wrinkle to my brow, or convert a hair of my head to grey! This body was formed to die; this edifice to crumble into dust; the principles of corruption and mortality are mixed up in every atom of my frame. But for me the laws of nature are suspended, the eternal wheels of the universe roll backward; I am destined to be triumphant over Fate and Time! Months, years, cycles, centuries! To me these are but as indivisible moments. I shall never become old; I shall always be, as it were, in the porch and infancy of existence ; no lapse of years shall subtract any thing from Louis the Twelfth; the life of Francis the First now threatens a speedy termination; he will be gathered to his fathers, and Henry his son will succeed him. But what are princes, and kings, and generations of men to me? I shall become familiar with the rise and fall of empires; in a little while the very name of France, my country, will perish from off the face of the earth, and men will dispute about the situation of Paris, as they dispute about the site of ancient Nineveh, and Babylon, and Troy. Yet I shall still be young. I shall take my most distant posterity by the hand; I shall accompany them in their career; and, when they are worn out and exhausted, shall shut up the tomb over

my

them, and set forward."

יו

This is a strange tale, but it tells like a true one! When we first read it, it seemed as though it had itself the power of alchemy to steal into our veins, and render us capable of resisting death and age. For a short-too short! a space, all time seemed opened to our personal view-we felt no longer as of yesterday; but the grandest parts of our knowledge of the past seemed mightiest recollections of a far-off childhood:

"The wars we too remembered of King Nine, And old Assaracus, and Ibycus divine." This was the happy extravagance of an hour; but it is ever the peculiar power of Mr. Godwin to make us feel that there is something within us which cannot perish!

"Fleetwood" has less of our author's characteristic energy than any other of his works. The earlier parts of it, indeed, where the formation of the hero's character, in free rovings amidst the wildest of nature's scenery, is traced, have a deep beauty which reminds us of some of the holiest imaginations of Wordsworth. But when the author would follow him into the worldthrough the frolics of college, the dissipations of Paris, and the petty disquietudes of matrimonial life-we feel that he bas

condescended, too far. He is no graceful rifler, he cannot work in these frail and low materials. There is, how ever, one scene in this novel most wild and fearful... This is where Fleetwood, who has long brooded in anguish over the idea of his wife's falsehood, keeps strange festival on his wedding-day when, having procured a waxen image of her whom he believes perfidious, and dressed a frightful figure in a uniform to represent her imagined paramour, he locks himself in an apartment with these horrid counterfeits, a supper of cold meats, and a barrel-organ, on which he plays the tunes often heard from the pair he believes guilty, till his silent agony gives place to delirium, he gazes around with glassy eyes, sees strange sights and dallies with frightful mockeries, and at last tears the dreadful spectacle to atoms, and is seized with furious madness. We do not remember, even in the works of our old dramatists, any thing of its kind comparable to this voluptuous fantasy of despair. * Mandeville" has all the power of its author's earliest writings; but its main subject the developement of an engrossbring and maddening hatred-is not one which can excite human sympathy. There is, however, a bright relief to the gloom of the picture, in the sweet and angelic disposition of Clifford, and the sparkling loveliness of Henrietta, who appears "full of life, and splendour and joy.” All Mr. Godwin's chief female characters have a certain airiness and radiance a light, visionary grace, peculiar to them, which may at first surprise by their contrast to the robustness of his masculine creations. But it will perhaps be found that the more deeply man is conversant with the energies and the stern grandeur of his own heart, the more will he seek for opposite qualities in woman.

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"on Sepulchres." Here his philosophic thought, subdued and sweetened by the contemplation of mortality, is breathed forth in the gentlest tone. His " Political Justice," with all the extravagance of its first edition, or with all the inconsistencies of its last, is a noble work, replete with lofty principle and thought, and often leading to the most striking results by a process of the severest reasoning. Man, indeed, cannot and ought not to act universally on its leading doctrine-that we should in all things seek only the greatest amount of good without favour or affection, but it is at least better than the low selfishness of the world. It breathes also a mild and cheerful faith in the progressive advances and the final perfection of the species. It was not this good hope for humanity which excited Mr. Malthus to affirm, that there is in the constitution of man's nature a perpetual barrier to any grand or extensive improvement in his earthly condition. After long interval, Mr. Godwin has announced a reply to this popular system-a system which reduces man to an animal, governed by blind instinct, and destitute of reason, sentiment, imagination and hope, whose most mysterious instincts are matter of calculation to be estimated by rules of geometrical series! Most earnestly do we desire to witness his success. To our minds," indeed, he sufficiently proves the falsehood of his adversary's doctrines by his own intellectual character. His works are, in themselves, evidences that there is power and energy in man which have never yet been fully brought into action, and which were not given to the species in vain. He has lived himself in the soft and mild light of those pure and unstained years, which he believes shall hereafter bless the world, when force and selfishness shall disappear, and love and joy shall be the unerring lights of the species.

A PEDESTRIAN TOUR THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS.

BY DR. MEISSNER.

Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,

These Northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O'er a winding dale and painful steep,
many
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious I pursue. ——Burns. *

1 SET out on my journey at the most favourable season for visiting the Highlands of Scotland, namely, the latter end of July. The Highlands, particularly those parts which border on the NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 78.

1

T. D.

Atlantic Ocean, are, during the greater portion of the year, visited by continual rains and fogs, and it is only in the summer season that a traveller can truly enjoy the sublime scenery of the north

VOL. XIV.

I

of Scotland. During the five weeks which I spent on this interesting tour, I had the good fortune to be enabled to journey at the rate of between twentyfive and thirty-four miles every day. But even in this favourable season, a visit to the Highlands is attended by some inconveniences; for instance, a traveller may expect to be enveloped in what is called a Scotch mist at least twenty times a-day, to be frequently obliged to wade through bogs and rivulets, or to travel upwards of fifteen miles without the possibility of procuring any better refreshment than a glass of whiskey and a piece of oat-cake. During the last twenty years, however, many excellent roads have been made in various parts of Scotland, and the English, who were compelled by the war to limit their excursions to the boundaries of their own island, have done so much for the security of comfort, even in these northern regions, that the difficulties now attendant on a visit to the Highlands are trifling in comparison with what they were at a former period. But these improvements, of course, tend, in some measure, to banish the poetic associations naturally excited by such a journey:good inns are now to be met with in abundance, and the traveller has seldom occasion to trust to the hospitality of the Highlander in his hut, where light and air are admitted through the same aperture which serves for a chimney. The English language is almost universally understood, and the period is probably not very distant when the Scottish Highlanders will lose those peculiar characteristics which their language and national pride have enabled them to preserve longer than any other European people. The task which Macpherson executed forty-five years ago, in compiling Ossian from detached and chiefly incorrect fragments, would not be easily effected at the present day, so rapidly is the Gaelic language falling into disuse, and the English gaining ground.

I very much wished to have travelled on foot through England; but in my little excursions from London to Windsor, Richmond, Epsom, &c., I had experienced so much rude staring and derisive laughter from the people,, and such insolence on the part of the tavernkeepers, that nothing could have tempted me to endure such treatment for the space of several weeks. Add to this, a pedestrian traveller incurs a greater risk of being robbed or murdered in England

than in Italy. In Scotland, on the contrary, nothing of the kind need be apprehended; in the month of August, hundreds of students from Edinburgh and Glasgow set out to visit the uninhabited regions of the Highlands, provided with no other weapons of defence than their umbrellas.

Steam-boats sail daily from Edinburgh to the different towns on the Firth of Forth. On the 29th of July I engaged a passage on board one of these boats, to proceed to Alloa. In elegance and convenience this boat was vastly superior to those which I had seen on the Thames. Besides the general cabin, there was an apartment for the ladies, and another for the gentlemen; the table was covered with the latest newspapers, and the passengers were allowed the use of a small library. There was a large party on board, and from the number of portmanteaus I could perceive that many besides myself were prepared for the Highland tour. In about four hours we reached Alloa, the favourable state of the tide having contributed to the swiftness of our passage. To sail along the Firth of Forth is the most interesting thing imaginable; the shore on either side presents an endless variety of beautiful and luxuriant scenery, while the majestic chain of the Grampian Hills, forming, as it were, the bulwark of the Highlands, gradually appears in view. I proceeded from Alloa to Stirling, a fortress celebrated in Scottish history. The situation of the town, with the castle overlooking it, presents, in some measure, a miniature of Edinburgh. According to popular opinion, the real Scottish thistle grows wild only on the three fortresses of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton; and it is presumed to be as impossible to root it out from its favourite soil as to destroy the laurel on Virgil's tomb. I should imagine this to be a rare species of thistle, for I sought for it in vain among the basalt rocks on my way to the Highland town of Callander. During the first day of my journey I had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the peculiar changeable climate of the Highlands. Immense

Among the other cruelties which the Doctor suffered from the English savages, it is plain that he underwent the operation called a hoax. Ed.

+ A sovereign has compared the coast of Fife to a mantle edged with gold fringe.

veils of thick fog descend from the naked hills, and fill the valleys with vapour and obscurity; and no sooner are these fogs dispersed by the rays of the sun, than they are succeeded by others. Pursuing my course through a most romantic district, I arrived in the evening at Callander. This little town is, for three months of the year, the rendezvous of thousands of travellers, who throng to this part of Scotland to visit Loch Katrine, to which Walter Scott's poem, the "Lady of the Lake," has given such extraordinary celebrity. In the little inn at Callander I found copies of all Scott's poems, maps of those districts which the bard has rendered classic ground, and a little description of the scenery about Loch Katrine, prepared by the landlord of the inn, and which consisted of quotations from the "Lady of the Lake." I soon made acquaintance with a young student from Edinburgh, in company with whom I promised to visit the Lake on the following day. When I informed him how far I had walked in the course of one afternoon, he remarked that I did not travel after the fashion of the students of Oxford and Cambridge. As we were about to sit down to supper, we were much amused by the entrance of two Oxford men, who had just returned from the Lake. The distance they had walked could not exceed twenty miles, yet the signs of extreme fatigue which they evinced were truly ludicrous. On entering the room, the first thing they did was to throw off their shoes, which, as we afterwards discovered, were stuffed with wool.

There are days in human life in which the abundance of novel intellectual pleasures produces the same exhaustion on the mind as physical enjoyments occasion to the body. During the moment, the operation of the one as well as of the other almost perishes; but throughout life, the fancy retains the happy power of reproducing their images, at least to ourselves, though perhaps not satisfactorily to others by the aid of mere words. All who have visited Naples must have experienced such days; and the vertigo of the first day spent in the Gulf of Baia, or of the morning when a traveller first ascends Vesuvius, or visits Pompeii, cannot fail to create lasting impressions. For my own part, I shall ever number among these happy days the first which I spent in the Highlands of Scotland, where the natural

scenery is as peculiar to the country as the language and manners of its inhabitants. In Scotland, the peculiarities of nature consist not only in the singular contours of the hills, whose naked summits are hidden amidst the descending clouds, or in the contracted glens, interspersed with lakes, but also in the continual variation of the atmosphere, and the sudden transitions from sunshine to rain. This is not, I believe, the case in any other country, and consequently it is only in Scotland that the spirit of the Ossianic poetry can be truly understood; for nowhere else do the clouds produce such phamtom-like appearances, or the penetrating rays of the sun such magical effects. When Ossian compares a beautiful virgin to a sunbeam, his real meaning can only be understood in the native country of the bard; and such is the case with nearly all his comparisons.

The distance from Callander to the Trossachs is about 10 miles, and the road runs in the direction of two beautiful lakes. The Trossachs are a cluster of low conical hills, covered with heath and thickets--they present a most curious picture to the eye of the geologist. Behind them lies Loch Katrine, which in a great measure owes its celcbrity to Walter Scott's poem, the “Lady of the Lake." Never has any poetic production, in modern times, excited such enthusiasm in the inhabitants of the country in which it was written. Travellers are seen wandering about Loch Katrine and referring to the poem, as it is customary to visit Lake Averno in company with Virgil: whenever a person is seen strolling up and down with a book in his hand, one may be pretty certain that he is perusing the "Lady of the Lake;" as a king of Spain observed, on seeing a man walking about with his eyes fixed on a book and laughing heartily, that he must either be mad, or reading Don Quixote. Boats are kept in readiness to row visitors across to the little island which Scott has made the refuge of his Ellen. Those events which had no reality, save in the imagination of the Poet, are here almost regarded as historical facts, for the people point out the spot in the valley where James V. lost his gallant grey, the point at which he approached the lake, the old oak beneath which Ellen concealed her boat, and the point where she landed to conduct the stray hunter to the island. Werner says, "what is in the mind,

has been;" and the people of Scotland have converted into reality that which is merely poetic. This little island, which is scarcely 200 feet from the shore, was once, however, the scene of an extraordinary act of female heroism. The country people had placed their wives and children on this island for security, at the time when Cromwell's troops were pouring in upon this part of Scotland. A party of soldiers resolved to plunder the island, to carry off the women, and murder the children. They had no boats with them, and the boldest of the party swam across the little lake to secure a wherry which was lying in an inlet of the island. The soldier had already reached some shelvy rocks adjoining the island, when one of the women, who had concealed herself for the purpose, suddenly sprang up behind him, and with one stroke of a sword, severed his head from his body, in the view of his companions, on the opposite shore. The rest of the party immediately relinquished their design, and retreated; the great grandson of this heroic woman still resides in the neighbourhood of the lake.

I spent the whole of the day on this romantic spot, and at sunset ascended the mountain called Benvenue. However, after all the trouble and fatigue I had endured in wading over bogs, I was disappointed of the prospect I expected to enjoy on reaching the sum mit, for every object around me was obscured by fog.

I wished on the following morning, to have had a view of Loch Katrine in its full extent, by taking the most interesting, though certainly not the easiest road to Loch Lomond. This is a course not generally pursued by travellers, for besides the necessity of wading through rivulets and bogs, there is not any thing like an inn for the space of 25 miles, and consequently one must be content with a breakfast at the Trossachs, and a supper in Rowardennam. The distance to the western extremity of the lake is about 10 miles, and the district has the appearance of a perfect desert, with the exception of a few stone huts. The boatman who rowed me over to Portnellen on the opposite side, at my request sang me a Gaelic song, which was the first I had heard. The road from hence to Loch Lomond leads over a lofty hill covered merely with heather. The first view of Loch Lomond is uncommonly grand and imposing; it is the largest of the Scottish lakes, and

those who do not prefer the wildness of Loch Katrine will probably consider it the most beautiful. My journey along the eastern bank was extremely fatiguing: for the distance of 10 miles I was obliged to leap from one stone to another, or to wade through rivulets swollen by heavy rains. But for this I was amply recompensed by the noble prospect presented by the lake and its islands; of the latter there are thirty, and the largest is about two miles in circumference. It is a well known fact that Loch Lomond was violently agitated during the earthquake at Lisbon.

I passed the night at Rowardennam, a little town at the foot of Ben Lomond.* This mountain, like a king, overlooks the surrounding country, and though in height it is inferior to some hills of the Highlands, yet the prospect from its summit is universally acknowledged to be finer than any other. Ben Nevis is the loftiest hill in Great Britain and Ireland; it is said to be 4283 feet, but according to other calculations 4370 feet above the level of the sea: the height of Ben Lomond is calculated at 3240 feet. I know of nothing in Switzerland or Tyrol at all comparable to the grandeur of the prospect from the top of Ben Lomond : while a countless number of lakes glisten like mirrors on every side, the view is bounded by the Atlantic ocean on the west, and I could plainly discern the hills on the islands of Bute and Arran. But still more imposing is the prospect on the north, where lofty clusters of hills tower one above another in the most astonishing way, partly in light, and partly shaded by huge clouds, and in the background Ben-Nevis rears his head above the whole. I sat for a whole hour on the top of Ben Lomond admiring the surrounding scene, when at length I was joined by four young men, residents of the neighbouring country, who had been induced, by the unusual fineness of the morning, to take their breakfast on the hill. Even before the basket of provisions and the whiskey bottle had arrived, I was invited with hearty greetings to partake of their meal. They told me the names of the principal hills; and where the ocean mingled with the horizon, pointed out as the coast of Ireland what I had previously mistaken for a line of mist. We descended the

* Ben is the Gaelic word for Mountain, as Loch is for Lake.

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