Washington Irving's Cottage. issued from his fertile pen-Astoria, a narrative of American adventure; A Tour in the Prairies; Abbotsford and Newstead, &c. The principal works of Mr Irving are his Sketch-Book' and Bracebridge Hall; these are the corner-stones of his fame, and likely to be durable. In all his writings, however, there are passages evincing fine taste, gentle affections, and graceful description. His sentiments are manly and generous, and his pathetic and humorous sketches are in general prevented from degenerating into extravagance by practical good sense and a correct judgment. Modern authors have too much neglected the mere matter of style; but the success of Mr Irving should convince the careless that the graces of composition, when employed even on paintings of domestic life and the quiet scenes of nature, can still charm as in the days of Addison, Goldsmith, and Mackenzie. [Manners in New York in the Dutch Times.] The houses of the higher class were generally constructed of wood, excepting the gable end, which was of small black and yellow Dutch bricks, and always faced on the street; as our ancestors, like their descendants, were very much given to outward show, and were noted for putting the best leg foremost. The house was always furnished with abundance of large doors and small windows on every floor; the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front; and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weathercock, to let the family into the important secret which way the wind blew. These, like the weathercocks on the tops of our steeples, pointed so many different ways, that every man could have a wind to his mind; and you would have thought old olus had set all his bags of wind adrift, pellmell, to gambol about this windy metropolis; the most stanch and loyal citizens, however, always went according to the weathercock on the top of the governor's house, which was certainly the most correct, as he had a trusty servant employed every morning to climb up and point it whichever way the wind blew. In those good days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the universal test of an able housewife; a character which formed the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The front door was never opened except on marriages, funerals, New-Year's days, the festival of St Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker curiously wrought, sometimes into the device of a dog, and sometimes of a lion's head; and was daily burnished with such religious zeal, that it was ofttimes worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops, and brooms, and scrubbing-brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water, insomuch that a historian of the day gravely tells us, that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers like unto a duck; and some of them, he had little doubt, could the matter be examined into, would be found to have the tails of mermaids; but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or, what is worse, a wilful misrepresentation. The grand parlour was the sanctum sanctorum, where the passion for eleaning was indulged without control. In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a-week for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning, and putting things to rights, always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles, and curves, and rhomboids, with a broom, after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fireplace, the window-shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up until the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning day. As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled around the fire, one would have imagined that he was tran sported back to those happy days of primeval simplicity which float before our imaginations like golden visions. The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay, even the very cat and dog, enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a prescriptive right to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half-shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the goede vrouw on the opposite side would employ herself diligently in spinning her yarn or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, and hairbreadth escapes, and bloody encounters among the Indians. In those happy days a well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sundown. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers showed incontestable symptoms of disapprobation and uneasiness at being surprised by a visit from a neighbour on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bonds of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea-parties. As this is the first introduction of those delectable orgies, which have since become so fashionable in this city, I am conscious my fair readers will be very curious to receive information on the subject. Sorry am I that there will be but little in my description calculated to excite their admiration. I can neither delight them with accounts of suffocating crowds, nor brilliant drawing-rooms, nor towering feathers, nor sparkling diamonds, nor immeasurable trains. I can detail no choice anecdotes of scandal, for in those primitive times the simple folk were either too stupid or too good-natured to pull each other's characters to pieces; nor can I furnish any whimsical anecdotes of brag; how one lady cheated, or another bounced into a passion; for as yet there was no junto of dulcet old dowagers who met to win each other's money and lose their own tempers at a card-table. These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or noblesse-that is to say, such as kept their own cows and drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. I do not find that they ever treated their company to iced creams, jellies, or syllabubs, or regaled them with musty almonds, mouldy raisins, or sour oranges, as is often done in the present age of refinement. Our ancestors were fond of more sturdy substantial fare. The tea-table was crowned with a huge earthen dish well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company being seated around the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces of this mighty dish, in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast of an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough fried in hog's fat, and called dough-nuts, or oly koeks; a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in this city, excepting in genuine Dutch families. herds and shepherdesses, tending pigs-with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper tea-kettle, which would have made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was, to suspend a large lump directly over the tea-table by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth-an ingenious expe dient, which is still kept up by some families in Albany, but which prevails, without exception, in Communipaw, Bergen, Flat-Bush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages. At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting-no gambling of old ladies, nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones-no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in their pockets; nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say yah Mynheer or yah ya Vrouw to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things like decent well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed: Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet; and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out of the whale, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire. The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages-that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door; which, as it was an established piece of etiquette, done in perfect simplicity and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that time, nor should it at the present-if our great-grandfathers approved of the custom, it would argue a great want of reverence in their descendants to say a word against it. [A Rainy Sunday in an Inn.] [From 'Bracebridge Hall."] It was a rainy Sunday in the gloomy month of November. I had been detained in the course of a journey by a slight indisposition, from which I was recovering; but I was still feverish, and was obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn! whoever has had the luck to experience one, can alone judge of my situation. The rain pattered against the casements, the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows in quest of something to amuse the eye, but it seemed as if I had been placed completely out of the reach of all amusement. The windows of my bed-room looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting-room commanded a full view of the stable-yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than a stable-yard on a rainy day. The tea was served out of a majestic delft tea-pot The place was littered with wet straw that had been ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shep-kicked about by travellers and stable-boys. In one JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, the biographer of his illustrious father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, and editor of the Quarterly Review, is author of four novelsValerius, a Roman Story, three volumes, 1821; Adam Blair, one volume, 1822; Reginald Dalton, three volumes, 1823; and Matthew Wald, one volume, 1824. The first of Mr Lockhart's productions is the best. It is a tale of the times of Trajan, when that emperor, disregarding the example of his predecessor Nerva, persecuted the small Christian community which had found shelter in the bosom of the Eternal City, and were calmly pursuing their pure worship and peaceful lives. As the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church, the Christians were extending their numbers, though condemned to meet in caves and sepulchres, and forced to renounce the honours and ambition of the world. The hero of the tale visits Rome for the first time at this interesting period. He is the son of a Roman commander, who had settled in Britain, and is summoned to Rome after the death of his parents to take possession of an estate to which, as the heir of the Valerii, he had become entitled. His kinsman Licinius, an eminent lawyer, receives him with affection, and introduces him to his friends and acquaintances. We are thus corner was a stagnant pool of water surrounding an black, and cabbaged at the end, and dimmed the island of muck; there were several half-drowned fowls little light that remained in the chamber. The gloom crowded together under a cart, among which was a that now prevailed was contagious. Around hung the miserable crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life shapeless and almost spectral box-coats of departed and spirit, his drooping tail matted, as it were, into travellers, long since buried in deep sleep. I only a single feather, along which the water trickled from heard the ticking of the clock, with the deep-drawn his back; near the cart was a half-dozing cow chew-breathings of the sleeping toper, and the drippings of ing the cud, and standing patiently to be rained on, the rain-drop, drop, drop-from the eaves of the with wreaths of vapour rising from her reeking hide; house. a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with the rain dripping on it from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered something every now and then between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped backwards and forwards through the yard in pattens, looking as sulky as the weather itself; everything, in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hard-drinking ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over their liquor. I sauntered to the window, and stood gazing at the people picking their way to church, with petticoats hoisted mid-leg high, and dripping umbrellas. The bells ceased to toll, and the streets became silent. I then amused myself with watching the daughters of a tradesman opposite, who, being confined to the house for fear of wetting their Sunday finery, played off their charms at the front windows, to fascinate the chance tenants of the inn. They at length were summoned away by a vigilant vinegar-faced mother, and I had nothing further from without to amuse me. The day continued lowering and gloomy; the slovenly, ragged, spongy clouds drifted heavily along; there was no variety even in the rain; it was one dull, continued, monotonous patter, patter, patter, excepting that now and then I was enlivened by the idea of a brisk shower, from the rattling of the drops upon a passing umbrella. It was quite refreshing (if I may be allowed a hackneyed phrase presented with sketches of the domestic society of of the day) when in the course of the morning a horn blew, and a stage-coach whirled through the the Romans, with pictures of the Forum, the baths, street, with outside passengers stuck all over it, temples, and other marvels of Rome, which are cowering under cotton umbrellas, and seethed toge-At the villa of Capito, an Epicurean philosopher, briefly, but distinctly and picturesquely delineated. ther, and reeking with the steams of wet box-coats Valerius meets with the two fair nieces of his host, and upper Benjamins. The sound brought out from their lurking-places a crew of vagabond boys of the tale-a pure intellectual creation, in which we Sempronia and Athanasia. The latter is the heroine and vagabond dogs, and the carroty-headed hostler, and that nondescript animal yclept Boots, and all of the patrician lady, with the high-souled fortitude see united the Roman grace and feminine sweetness the other vagabond race that infest the purlieus of an inn; but the bustle was transient; the coach again braced the new faith, and is in close communion and elevation of the Christian. Athanasia has emwhirled on its way; and boy and dog, and hostler and Boots, all slunk back again to their holes; the with its professors. Her charms overcome Valerius, street again became silent, and the rain continued who soon obtains possession of her secret; and after various adventures, in which he succours the perseThe evening gradually wore away. The travellers cuted maiden, and aids in her wonderful escape, he read the papers two or three times over. Some drew is at length admitted by baptism into the fellowship round the fire, and told long stories about their of the Christians, and embarks with Athanasia for horses, about their adventures, their overturns, and Britain. The materials of such a story are necesbreakings-down. They discussed the credits of diffe- sarily romantic and impressive. The taste and rent merchants and different inns, and the two wags splendour of ancient Rome present a fertile field for told several choice anecdotes of pretty chambermaids the imagination, and the transition from these to and kind landladies. All this passed as they were the sufferings, the devotion, and dangers of the quietly taking what they called their nightcaps; that early Christians, calls up a different and not less is to say, strong glasses of brandy and water or striking train of feelings and associations. In his sugar, or some other mixture of the kind; after which serious and pathetic scenes the author is most sucthey one after another rang for Boots and the cham-cessful. In the low humour of his attendants, the bermaid, and walked off to bed in old shoes cut down into marvellously uncomfortable slippers. There was only one man left-a short-legged, long-bodied, plethoric fellow, with a very large, sandy head. He sat by himself with a glass of port wine negus and a spoon, sipping and stirring, and meditating and sipping, until nothing was left but the spoon. He gradually fell asleep bolt upright in his chair, with the empty glass standing before him; and the candle seemed to fall asleep too, for the wick grew long and to rain on. vulgar display of the rich widow, and the servile pedantry of the stoic tutor, there appear to us many sins against good taste. Some of the satirical touches and phrases are also at variance with the purity and elegance of the general strain of the story, and with the consummate art with which the author has wrought up his situations of a tragic and lofty nature, where we are borne along by a deep and steady feeling of refined pleasure, interest, and admiration. One of the most striking scenes in the novel is a grand display at the Flavian amphitheatre, given by the emperor on the anniversary of the day on which he was adopted by Nerva. On this occasion a Christian prisoner is brought forward, either to renounce his faith in the face of the assembly, or to die in the arena. Eighty thousand persons were there met, from the lordly senators on their silken couches, along the parapet of the arena, up to the impenetrable mass of plebeian heads which skirted the horizon, above the topmost wall of the amphitheatre itself.' The scene concludes with the execution of the Christian. In another scene there is great classic grace, united with delicacy of feeling. It describes Athanasia in prison, and visited there by Valerius through the connivance of Silo, the jailer, who belongs to the Christian party : I had hurried along the darkening streets, and up the ascent of the Capitoline, scarce listening to the story of the Cretan. On reaching the summit, we found the courts about the temple of Jupiter already occupied by detachments of foot. I hastened to the Manimertine, and before the postern opened to admit us, the Prætorian squadron had drawn up at the great gate. Sabinus beckoned me to him. Caius,' said he, stooping on his horse, 'would to Heaven I had been spared this duty! Cotilius comes forth this moment, and then we go back to the Palatine; and I fear-I fear we are to guard thither your Athanasia. If you wish to enter the prison, quicken your steps.' We had scarcely entered the inner-court ere Sabinus also, and about a score of his Prætorians, rode into it. Silo and Boto were standing together, and both had already hastened towards me; but the jailer, seeing the centurion, was constrained to part from me with one hurried word: Pity me, for I also am most wretched. But you know the way; here, take this key, hasten to my dear lady, and tell her what commands have come.' Alas! said I to myself, of what tidings am I doomed ever to be the messenger! but she was alone; and how could I shrink from any pain that might perhaps alleviate hers? I took the key, glided along the corridors, and stood once more at the door of the chamber in which I had parted from Athanasia. No voice answered to my knock; I repeated it three times, and then, agitated with indistinct apprehension, hesitated no longer to open it. No lamp was burning within the chamber, but from without there entered a wavering glare of deep saffron-coloured light, which showed me Athanasia extended on her couch. Its ominous and troubled hue had no power to mar the image of her sleeping tranquillity. I hung over her for a moment, and was about to disturb that slumber-perhaps the last slumber of peace and innocence-when the chamber walls were visited with a yet deeper glare. 'Caius,' she whispered, as I stepped from beside the couch, why do you leave me? Stay, Valerius.' I looked back, but her eyelids were still closed; the same calm smile was upon her dreaming lips. The light streamed redder and more red. All in an instant became as quiet without as within. I approached the window, and saw Cotilius standing in the midst of the court, Sabinus and Silo near him; the horsemen drawn up on either side, and a soldier close behind resting upon an unsheathed sword. I saw the keen blue eye as fierce as ever. I saw that the blood was still fervid in his cheeks; for the complexion of this man was of the same bold and florid brightness, so uncommon in Italy, which you have seen represented in the pictures of Sylla; and even the blaze of the torches seemed to strive in vain to heighten its natural scarlet. The soldier had lifted his sword, and my eye was fixed, as by fascination, when suddenly a deep voice was heard amidst the deadly silence-Cotilius!-look up, Cotilius!' Aurelius, the Christian priest, standing at an open window not far distant from that at which I was placed, stretched forth his fettered hand as he spake :-Cotilius! I charge thee, look upon the hand from which the blessed water of baptism was cast upon thy head. I charge thee, look upon me, and say, ere yet the blow be given, upon what hope thy thoughts are fixed? Is this sword bared against the rebel of Cæsar, or a martyr of Jesus? I charge thee, speak; and for thy soul's sake speak truly.' A bitter motion of derision passed over his lips, and he nodded, as if impatiently, to the Prætorian. Instinctively I turned me from the spectacle, and my eye rested again upon the couch of Athanasia-but not upon the vision of her tranquillity. The clap with which the corpse fell upon the stones had perhaps reached the sleeping ear, and we know with what swiftness thoughts chase thoughts in the wilderness of dreams. So it was that she started at the very moment when the blow was given; and she whisperedfor it was still but a deep whisper- Spare me, Trajan, Cæsar, Prince-have pity on my youth-strengthen, strengthen me, good Lord! Fie! fie! we must not lie to save life. Felix-Valerius-come close to me Caius Fie! let us remember we are Romans 'Tis the trumpet-' The The Prætorian trumpet sounded the march in the court below, and Athanasia, starting from her sleep, gazed wildly around the reddened chamber. blast of the trumpet was indeed in her ear-and Valerius hung over her; but after a moment the cloud of the broken dream passed away, and the maiden smiled as she extended her hand to me from the couch, and began to gather up the ringlets that floated all down upon her shoulder. She blushed and smiled mournfully, and asked me hastily whence I came, and for what purpose I had come; but before I could answer, the glare that was yet in the chamber seemed anew to be perplexing her, and she gazed from me to the red walls, and from them to me again; and then once more the trumpet was blown, and Athanasia sprung from her couch. I know not in what terms I was essaying to tell her what was the truth; but I know, that ere I had said many words, she discovered my meaning. For a moment she looked deadly pale, in spite of all the glare of the torch beams; but she recovered herself, and said in a voice that sounded almost as if it came from a light heart-ʻ But, Caius, I must not go to Cæsar without having at least a garland on my head. Stay here, Valerius, and I shall be ready anon-quite ready.' It seemed to me as if she were less hasty than she had promised; yet many minutes elapsed not ere she returned. She plucked a blossom from her hair as she drew near to me, and said, 'Take it: you must not refuse one token more; this also is sacred gift. Caius, you must learn never to look upon it without kissing these red streaks-these blessed streaks of the Christian flower.' I took the flower from her hand and pressed it to my lips, and I remembered that the very first day I saw Athanasia she had plucked such a one when apart from all the rest in the gardens of Capito. I told her what I remembered, and it seemed as if the little circumstance had called up all the image of peaceful days, for once more sorrowfulness gathered upon her countenance. If the tear was ready, however, it was not permitted to drop; and Athanasia returned again to her flower. Do you think there are any of them in Britain? said she; or do you think that they would grow there? You must go to my dear uncle, and he will not deny you when you tell him that it is for my sake he is to give you some of his. They call it the passion-flower-'tis an emblem of an awful thing. Caius, these purple streaks are like trickling drops; and here, look ye, they are all round the flower. Is it not very like a bloody crown upon a pale brow! I will take one of them in my hand, too, Caius; and methinks I shall not disgrace myself when I look upon it, even though Trajan should be frowning upon me.' I had not the heart to interrupt her; but heard silently all she said, and I thought she said the words quickly and eagerly, as if she feared to be interrupted. The old priest came into the chamber while she was yet speaking so, and said very composedly, 'Come, my dear child, our friend has sent again for us, and the soldiers have been waiting already some space, who are to convey us to the Palatine. Come, children, we must part for a moment-perhaps it may be but for a moment-and Valerius may remain here till we return to him. Here, at least, dear Caius, you shall have the earliest tidings and the surest.' The good man took Athanasia by the hand, and she, smiling now at length more serenely than ever, said only, Farewell then, Caius, for a little moment!' And so, drawing her veil over her face, she passed away from before me, giving, I think, more support to the ancient Aurelius than in her turn she received from him. I began to follow them, but the priest waved his hand as if to forbid me. after them, and I was alone. The door closed on the main coast of the Palatinate, and then pursued their course leisurely through a rich and level country, until the groves of Grypherwast received them amidst all the breathless splendour of a noble sunset. It would be difficult to express the emotions with which young Reginald regarded, for the first time, the ancient demesne of his race. The scene was one which a stranger, of years and experience very superior to his, might have been pardoned for contemplating with some enthusiasm; but to him the first glimpse of the venerable front, embosomed amidst its Old contemporary trees,' was the more than realisation of cherished dreams. Involuntarily he drew in his rein, and the whole party as involuntarily following the motion, they approached the gateway together at the slowest pace. for the hall of Grypherwast had been reared long The gateway is almost in the heart of the village, of dignity to have no humble roofs near their own. before English gentlemen conceived it to be a point A beautiful stream runs hard by, and the hamlet is almost within the arms of the princely forest, whose ancient oaks, and beeches, and gigantic pine-trees darken and ennoble the aspect of the whole surround'Adam Blair,' or, as the title runs, Some Passages herds in those deep and grassy glades, the fishermen, ing region. The peasantry, who watch the flocks and in the Life of Mr Adam Blair, Minister of the Gospel who draw their subsistence from the clear waters of at Cross-Meikle, is a narrative of the fall of a Scottish the river, and the woodmen, whose axes resound all minister from the purity and dignity of the pastoral day long among the inexhaustible thickets, are the character, and his restoration, after a season of deep sole inhabitants of the simple place. Over their cotpenitence and contrition, to the duties of his sacred tages the hall of Grypherwast has predominated for profession, in the same place which had formerly many long centuries, a true old northern manorwitnessed his worth and usefulness. The unpleasant house, not devoid of a certain magnificence in its nature of the story, and a certain tone of exaggera- general aspect, though making slender pretensions tion and sentimentalism in parts of it, render the to anything like elegance in its details. The central perusal of the work somewhat painful and disagree-tower, square, massy, rude, and almost destitute of able, and even of doubtful morality. But Adam windows, recalls the knightly and troubled period of Blair' is powerfully written, with an accurate con- the old Border wars; while the overshadowing roofs, ception of Scottish feeling and character, and pas- carved balconies, and multifarious chimneys scattered sages of description equal to any in the author's other over the rest of the building, attest the successive inworks. The tender-hearted enthusiastic minister of fluence of many more or less tasteful generations. Cross-Meikle is hurried on to his downfall by fate Excepting in the original baronial tower, the upper and metaphysical aid,' and never appears in the parts of the house are all formed of oak, but this with light of a guilty person; while his faithful elder, John such an air of strength and solidity as might well Maxwell, and his kind friends at Semplehaugh, are shame many modern structures raised of better matejust and honourable representatives of the good old rials. Nothing could be more perfectly in harmony with the whole character of the place than the 'Reginald Dalton' is the most extended of Mr autumnal brownness of the stately trees around. Lockhart's fictions, and gives us more of the gene- The same descending rays were tinging with rich ral form and pressure' of humankind and society lustre the outlines of their bare trunks, and the prothan his two previous works. The scene is laid injecting edges of the old-fashioned bay-windows which England, and we have a full account of college life in Oxford, where Reginald, the hero, is educated, and where he learns to imbibe port, if not prejudice. The dissipation and extravagance of the son almost ruin his father, an English clergyman; and some scenes of distress and suffering consequent on this misconduct are related with true and manly feeling. Reginald joins in the rows and quarrels of the gownsmen (which are described at considerable length, and with apparently complete knowledge of similar scenes), but he has virtue enough left to fall in love; and the scene where he declares his passion to the fair Helen Hesketh is one of the most interesting and beautiful in the book. A duel, an elopement, the subtlety and craft of lawyers, and the final succession of Reginald to the patrimony of his ancestors, supply the usual excitement for novel readers; but much of this machinery is clumsily managed, and the value of the book consists in its pictures of English modern manners, and in its clear and manly tone of thought and style. The following is a description of an ancient English mansion:- Scotch rural classes. They halted to bait their horses at a little village they sheltered; and some rooks of very old family were cawing overhead almost in the midst of the hospitable smoke-wreaths. Within a couple of yards from the door of the house an eminently respectablelooking old man, in a powdered wig and very rich livery of blue and scarlet, was sitting on a garden chair with a pipe in his mouth, and a cool tankard within his reach upon the ground. The tale of Matthew Wald is related in the first person, and the hero experiences a great variety of fortune. He is not of the amiable or romantic school, and seems to have been adopted (in the manner of Godwin) merely as a medium for portraying strong passions and situations in life. The story of Matthew's first love, and some of the episodical narratives of the work, are interesting and ably written. There is also much worldly shrewdness and observation evinced in the delineation of some of the scenes and characters; but on the whole, it is the poorest of Mr Lockhart's novels. The awkward improbable manner in which the events are brought about, and the carelessness and inelegance of the language in many places, are remarkable in a writer of critical |