"Greater than Brutus," engraved upon it-and in a sort of phrensied en thusiasm invoked her shade from the Elysian fields, where it dwelt with those of the illustrious victims of the Revolution. This brought him the doom to which he aspired. He was thrown into the prison of La Force, and afterwards executed. During confinement, his whole talk was of the heroic object of his affections. Such was the fate of Charlotte Corday-an honour to human na ture and above all, an ornament and an honour to the sex of woman. Had she lived in ancient times, statues and columns would have been erected to her memory; her name would have lived recorded in the annals of time, and she would have stood in the foremost rank of patriots. It was the influence of a lofty and romantic feeling which led her on to the commission of that crime which will immortalize her. Woman is the child of feeling. From this source spring up all her good and bad qualities. It is seldom ambition or policy which leads her on to any enterprise: it is the passions. It is jealousy, or love, or revenge, or pity, which are the stirring spirits of all her deeds." Why else," to use the the language of a modern French writer, is she sometimes that atrocious Cleopatra, presenting a poisoned cup to her rival and her son,-sometimes that sacrilegious Amelia, who wished to immolate her benefactor, or the haughty Roxana, ready to deliver to the dagger of an assassin the heart of Bajazet, because insensible to her charms? Sanguinary and implacable in revenge, she pushes cruelty even to rage, for the same reason that she carries virtue to the most sublime excess! She is Alcesta, dying for her spouse! She is an Indian, throwing herself on the funeral pile which consumes her husband! She is a Lacedemonian, sacrificing her son, shamefully escaped from a defeat! She is Eponina, devoting herself with Sabinus to the long horrors of misery and exile! She is Arria, showing to Poetus the honour of a virtuous death! She again appears in the character of those magnanimous French women, who accompanied in the proscription, in dungeons and punishments, their parents, their sons, and their husbands, through the midst of our Revolutionary torments *." And it was under the influence of such feelings that Charlotte Corday performed that act, which virtuous and generous minds, so far from considering a crime, will look upon as one of the most heroic deeds of recorded history. One of the first acts of the French, after the death of Marat, was to give him a sumptuous funeral. For this purpose, a vast sum of money was raised by public subscription, and his body, followed by crowds of political adorers, was carried to the Pantheon. There it lay in state for many days. The coffin was allowed to remain open, and the body of the regicide was exposed to the view of countless multitudes who thronged to see it. It was at this time the hottest season of the year, and the face of the corpse having become black by the process of decay, it was whitewashed, the better to preserve it in a condition to be seen, till the day of interment arrived. He was at last buried in a place allotted for sages and heroes, regarded by his friends as a martyr for liberty, and by all good men as one of the worst characters who has appeared in modern times. But mark the changes of human opinion! This man, who was interred so sumptuously-this man, whose reputation among the Revolutionists stood so high, was at last denied a grave. His superb coffin was torn from the vault in which it had been placed, and broken in pieces; while his carcase, dragged from it by the mob, was thrown like carrion into one of the public sewers which runs into the Seine. His memory has met with a fate even worse than his body, and will be accursed to the latest posterity. • Virey, de la Femme. THE OMEN. Ir is really quite refreshing, after dull confinement to the sphere of realities, to positive acting, and suffering, and jostling about in the world, to learn that we may have such fine glimpses into the future as this little volume discloses. In perusing it, we are overcome by the most bewitching reveries on things, not past or present, but on events to come; and we seem to acquire a double existence, while we brood over the phantasms of our prescience. So thoroughly satisfied do we find ourselves, after reading the Omen, that the long vista of futurity is unveiled to those who yearn after its mysteries-so imbued are we, since its perusal, with a spirit of superstition, and with faith in the oracles of dreams, and other dark harbingers of destiny, that we are already vain enough to imagine ourselves endowed with powers of vaticination incomparably beyond those of the prophets of the olden times; and, positively, neither Roman augurs nor Highland seers are worthy of standing within ten thousand miles of us. "What dire effects from trivial causes spring!" This piccionino of a volume is evidently destined to work a mighty revolution in the energies and actions of men; and unless some of our worldly-minded senators introduce a bill to check our wanderings into the next, or remoter centuries, we run a chance of entire ly forgetting the present generation, and expending our lives for the be nefit of our descendants in the fiftieth degree. This, truly, is the age of illumination, in more things than the sciences of boxing and political economy. The spell which has hitherto bound us to the nether parts of old Time-a peep into the vista has just shewn us that we have progressed upwards about as far as the thorax-is, thanks to the Omen, broken for ever. We may now boldly climb to the very crown of his caput, since the secret of our strength is let out. None will be unwilling to attempt the ascent, for curiosity is sharp, and possunt quia posse videntur. No longer shall we grope timidly along the course of life, gathering from the signs of the present times dim glimpses of the future. Behold us snugly adjusting ourselves in our concave fauteuilbeside a slumber-inspiring fire sparkling decanters at our dexter side, and other pertinent conveniences. Thus comfortably disposed, we resign ourselves, with all imaginable complacency, to the direction of those mysterious influences whose province it is to reveal the features of our remotest destiny; and then it is that we feel exalted in the scale of being-that we luxuriate in illimitable existence, as "coming events cast their shadows before us," and the misty clouds of futurity are pictured into forms of definite apprehension and palpable truth. What rewards are due to that author who intimates to us this mighty power, and awakens us to a consciousness of its habitation within us! Surely the payment of the national debt, or Johnstone's ac celeration of the mail at the rate of a hundred miles a minute, is a problem for children, compared with a revelation of the secrets of ages yet unborn. Yet, much as we are disposed to immortalize the discoverer of this great truth, we have our doubts sometimes whether our old friend Dryden has not a preferable claim to the glory of first proclaiming it, if, indeed, the latter be not an imitator himself. How mysteriously sublime and prescient is that excellent poet in the following lines of his Annus Mirabilis! "Then we upon earth's utmost verge will go, And view the ocean leaning o'er the sky; From hence our rolling neighbours learn to know, And on the future world securely pry!" We are not given to disparagement, but we cannot help thinking that the author of the Omen has studied some hints from Dryden ; and we are the more inclined to be The Omen. William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and T. Cadell, London, 1825. VOL. XVIII. 3 1 lieve that he is a second-hand discoverer, from the following accidental circumstance:-We lately chanced to stumble on a very old MS., thickly enveloped with the dust of antiquity. Judge of our surprise, on its proving the indagating reverie of a philosopher of the thirteenth century; in which, to our high satisfaction, we found him roundly announcing, and correctly describing, those glorious inventions, and their wonder-working consequences, which we, in our blindness, had supposed unknown, and undreamt of, till the present century. This ancient author, a poet as well as a philosopher, sings the praises of Captain Parry, and his brave crews, who, threescore generations afterwards, were to push their brazen prows to the very North Pole; and celebrates the rapidity of voyages by steam from his native shores to the Indies. Nay, we veri ly found, after much hieroglyphical decyphering, that this old seer had anticipations of that sublimest of all sciences, Phrenology. We shall probably take an opportunity of soon giving to the world this singular and antique document; but, in the mean time, to placate the phrenologists, who, all the world knows, are curious and impertinent beyond bearing, we favour them with one little passage: "All hail, Phrenology! 'tis thine to cull A world of wonders from a withered To thee, Vienna, be ascrib'd the praise To generate that boast of coming days, Great Doctor Gall! immortal be his name! Long will it fill the future trump of fame. He destin'd is first to reduce to practice (Editor's note-this consonant to fact is) A science drawn from skulls, with wonders fraught, Which all the world hereafter shall be taught; Than Pope's, a swifter process he'll find out, He'll measure brains within by bumps without; He'll lay his hand upon his patient's head, And lo! a light most glorious shall be shed, Brightly illuminating all within, in ! This is really an admirable passage, though unfortunately it has nothing to do with the Omen. But why should we object to the vagaries of any given prelude, however ridiculous or extravagant? There is no necessity for its bearing at all upon the subject in hand. Cicero composed exordiums by the dozen, and tacked them, like heads upon pins, to discourses afterwards concocted. Like the body of a lady's letter, it is lawful to fill such things with every thing but pertinences to the main object. After all, to retire from our digression, it is delightful to pry into futurity. We despise the vulgar creed which holds prescience in mortals to be synonymous with misery. One of the great boons of this foreknowledge is the power of confining our prophetic visions to the bright side of the picture. With such a power, no reasonable man would be so doltish as to stir up the embryo disagreeables of his future state. Antiquity has long been stale as a subject of occupation for thought, and as for the present, we find it such a perfect punctum, without length, breadth, or thickness, that we are generally thrown out in our search for the body of the times. Henceforth let us be engaged, then, in contemplating the future,-in scanning the actions of the tenth generation to come,-in providing for the comfort of a race yet unborn, while we manfully disdain the daily duties of our own age. It is at once wonderful and fascinating, to think that we can repose in our arm-chair, or doze on our pillow, while we review, with the bright reality of truth, and pass judgment on the warriors, philosophers, and poets, of the year of our Lord two thousand. Verily the philosopher's stone is discovered at last -the talisman of immortality: "Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer cloud, Badinage apart, the Omen is a production of rather a novel nature. It professes to be founded on fact, and yet inculcates the absurd doctrine of prescience, and the realization of presentiments suggested by wordly occurrences. The truth or the verisimilitude of this doctrine is attempted to be exhibited in the history of a young man, who is eternally pestered, and reduced to a state of mind bordering on phrenzy, by supernatural intimations of impending horrors in his fate he knows not why or wherefore. The mother of this young man, after his birth, having lapsed into conjugal infidelity,-but this circumstance is unknown to him,-the dark forebodings of his mind, in which he believed as firmly as in his physical existence, are wrought out and verified, by his marrying a lady who proves to be his sister-the fruit of his frail parent's wayward affections, or of her second marriage, after the death of her first husband, the father of this superstitious youth: or we should rather say, that these forebodings, to receive proper effect, should have been so realized in the nuptials of the brother and sister: for our author, as if to refute the gloomy doctrine in which apparently he so much delights, stops short of that consummation, and, by natural agency, reveals the connection of the parties, in time to save them from impending guilt. We cannot approve of such a story. It is at best an unpleasant subject to handle, and there is nothing in the moral, terminating as the story does, to compensate its unpleasing nature. There is much of improbability, too, even in the generation of those incidents which are made the superstitious harbingers of evil; and throughout the whole piece, as may be well imagined, the author deals largely in amphibology and mystery. But we shall proceed to give an outline of the work, taking care to intersperse our narration with extracts of sufficient length, to enable our readers to form some judgment of its merits, in respect both to design and execution. The hero of the piece, if we may be allowed to call him so, was the child of parents who had a sad "tragedy of the hearth to conceal ;" and his genius, as may be gathered from our foregoing remarks, consisted in a sort of hereafter discernment which very much annoyed him. As this young gentleman is nameless in the Omen, we shall, to avoid periphrasis, take the liberty of calling him Henry Oglethorpe. His mother, the frail lady to whom we have alluded, was the sole heiress of her maternal ancestors, from whom she inherited the splendid domain of Beechendale. His father was a gentleman, richer in heraldry than possessions, with whom she had accidentally become acquainted. It appears that this lady's love had been fleeting as it was violent; for scarcely was she blessed with a son-the unfortunate boy whose sorrows are recorded-when her fickle affections withdrew from her husband, and clung to another object. Her infidelity was discovered, and produced, one sad morning at BeechendaleHall," a hideous scene" of strife, between her injured lord and the partner of her guilt. The bloody struggle in which they engaged terminated in the father of young Henry (then a mere child) being left weltering in his blood at the foot of his staircase, while his lady's paramour fled from the house which he had polluted. It It is at this epoch that the narrative of the tale commences. is told by our hero, when about to sink into a premature grave at the vigorous period of life, and comprehends the troubled course of his existence up to that time, from the eventful morning of which we have spoken. The earlier passages of his life commencing with the struggle, he treats as matters of clouded reminis cence, neither recollected with the vivid distinctness of remembered facts, nor yet so feebly impressed on his mind as to seem altogether visionary. • Even my childhood was joyless, and a mystery overshadows all my earliest recollections. Sometimes, on the revisitations of the past, strange and obscure apparitional resemblances leave me in doubt whether they are indeed the memory of things which have been, or but of the stuff that dreams are made of. The vision of a splendid mansion and many servants makes me feel that I am, as it were, still but a child, playing with an orange on the carpet of a gorgeous room. A wild cry and a dreadful sound frighten me again; and as I am snatched up and borne away, I see a gentleman lying bleeding on the steps of a spacious staircase, and a beautiful lady distractedly wringing her hands. Whilst yet struggling in the strangling grasps of that fearful night-mare, a change comes upon the spirit of my dream, and a rapid procession of houses and trees, and many a green and goodly object, passes the window of a carriage in which I am seated, beside an unknown female, who sheds tears, and often caresses me. We arrive at the curious portal of a turretted manorial edifice :-I feel myself lifted from beside my companion, and fondly pressed to the bosom of a ve nerable matron, who is weeping in the dusky twilight of an ancient chamber, adorned with the portraits of warriors. A breach in my remembrance ensues; and then the same sad lady is seen reclining on a bed, feeble, pale, and wasted, while sorrowful damsels are whispering and walking softly around. * ... She laid her withered hand upon my head, as I stood at her pillow. It felt like fire, and, shrinking from the couch, I pushed it away, but with awe and reverence; for she was blessing me in silence, with such kind and gentle eyes! My tears still flow afresh, whenever I think of those mild and mournful eyes, and of that withered and burning hand. I never beheld that sad lady again; but some time after the female who brought me in the carriage led me by the hand into the room where I had seen her dying. It was then all changed; and on the bed lay the covered form of a mysterious thing, the sight of which filled my infantine spirit with solemnity and dread. The poor girl, as she looked on it, began to weep bitterly; I, too, also wept, but I knew not wherefore; and I clung to her, overwhelmed with the phantasma of an unknown fear. The lady who thus died was young Henry's grandmother. On her death, he was consigned to the care of Mrs Ormond, an aged gentlewoman of a serene and benign countenance," who formerly had been the governess of his mother. The unvisited and solitary house of this ancient dame, to which he was now removed, stood on a rising ground overlooking a bay, skirted on one side by a scattered hamlet of fishermen's huts, and on the other by a rugged promontory of tall cliff's and beetling rocks. It was here that, while yet a child, he for the first time met Mr Oakdale, the destroyer of his father's domestic peace, and the hastener of his death. One cool suminer evening, as Mrs Ormond and Henry were walking on the beach, -a gentleman, who was sitting on a rock, started up, as we came unexpectedly upon him, and hastily retired. Some. thing in his appearance arrested my attention; and I followed him with my eyes till he disappeared behind another jutting fragment of the precipice. He had lately become the inhabitant of a little cottage, which stood in a niche of the cliffs. No one could tell whence he had come: all that was known con cerning him was in the ravelled circumstances of an uncredited tale told by a poacher, who, being abroad in the night, on his unlawful vocation, saw a black boat passing athwart the disk of the moon, (then just emerging from the sea,) and making towards a vessel under sail. A solitary man was at the same time seen coming from the beach-one who had doubtless been landed from that vessel. Next morning, about break of day, the gentleman whom he had disturbed applied at the cottage for some refresh. ment, and finding in the only inmate the needy widow of a fisherman, he persuaded her to take him for a guest, and with her he had continued to lead a companionless life. again fell in with Mr Oakdale. The Several years afterwards, Henry former, no longer an attended child, was now a careless boy, allowed to range alone, in the freedom of the hills and shores. I was returning homeward along the brow of the cliff's which overhung his |