enemy, and resolves to escape by death. The gay, smiling Pompeii seems to be the abode of treachery, violence, and

crime.

It is probable that we owe this treatment of the subject to the peculiarities of Sir Edward's genius. It is essentially tragic. He is a great master of the fierce passions, and of the violent action which they produce. But when he describes ordinary unexcited life, when he imitates foibles instead of wickedness, and sprightliness instead of virtue, he is generally heavy and yet exaggerated. We have quoted from 'Night and Morning' some splendid bits of domestic tragedy. Let the reader compare their execution with the following extract from the conversation attributed to a party of the good society of Pompeii :

The warrior sauntered up to the ladies.

'It reconciles me to peace,' said he, 'when I see such faces.' 'Oh! you heroes are ever flatterers,' returned Fulvia, hastening to appropriate the compliment specially to herself.

'By this chain which I received from the Emperor's own hand,' replied the warrior, playing with a short chain which. hung round the neck like a collar, instead of descending to the breast, according to the fashion of the peaceful. By this chain you wrong me! I am a blunt man-a soldier should be so.'

'How do you find the ladies of Pompeii generally?' said Julia.

'By Venus, most beautiful! They favour me a little, it is true, and that inclines my eyes to double their charms.'

'We love a warrior,' said the wife of Pansa.

'I see it; by Hercules! it is even disagreeable to be too celebrated in these cities. At Herculaneum, they climb the roof of my atrium to catch a glimpse of me through the compluvium;

X

the admiration of one's citizens is pleasant at first but burthensome afterwards.'

6

True, true, O Vespius! 'cried the poet, joining the group: 'I find it so myself.'

'You!' said the stately warrior, scanning the small form of the poet with ineffable disdain. 'In what legion have you served?'

You may see my spoils, my exuviæ, in the forum itself,' returned the poet, with a significant glance at the women. 'I have been among the tent companions, the contubernales, of the great Mantuan himself.'

'I know no general from Mantua,' said the warrior gravely: 'What campaign have you served?'

'That of Helicon.'

'I never heard of it.'

Nay, Vespius, he does but joke,' said Julia laughing. 'Joke! by Mars, am I a man to be joked?' (p. 286).

The plot is well constructed. All the important events promote or retard the main action-the marriage of Glaucus and Ione. The episodes are few, and properly subordinate. One of the most striking, is that of Lydon. Sir Edward has made less abuse than is usual to him of coincidences. But there are some flagrant ones. Nydia hears that her mistress is gone to the house of Arbaces. She anticipates danger and follows her. By a happy accident she meets in the streets Glaucus. By another piece of good fortune, they reach the house just before Ione's power to resist Arbaces has failed. Glaucus attacks him. They struggle and fall: Glaucus undermost. Arbaces raises his dagger. The death of Glaucus and the ruin of Ione seem inevitable. The accident called in to rescue them is an earthquake. Sir Edward is so pleased with

this incident, that he has repeated it. Again, at the end of the story, Arbaces attempts to seize Ione; again, Glaucus protects her. And, again, Arbaces is defeated by an earthquake. But this time, the defeat is decisive. The first earthquake shook down on him a bust, and only bruised him; the second shakes down a column, and kills him.

Among the characters, the most distinct are Nydia and Glaucus. Nydia, like Sir Walter Scott's Fenella, is borrowed from Mignon, one of the most poetical creations of its great inventor. Each is highly born and delicately nurtured, stolen in infancy from her parents, sold to a savage taskmaster, and rescued from slavery by the hero. Each repays his kindness with love-unrequited-in fact unsuspected and embittered therefore by jealousy and despondency and each dies when that love becomes hopeless. Each has strong, but ill-regulated affections: but, as Nydia has a more important part to play, Sir Edward has given to her more knowledge and more talent than Goethe thought fit to bestow on Mignon. Her blindness is beautifully managed, never forgotten and never obtruded.

The beauty, the susceptibility of impressions, the sanguine temperament, and the easy good-nature of Glaucus, his wealth which exempts him from labour or care, and the political state of the Roman empire which excludes him from public life, have rendered him, at the opening of the story, an elegant trifler. His passion for Ione excites in him a higher class of emotions; the dangers to which

it exposes both of them, exercise and improve his natural courage. It is raised higher by some long interviews with Olynthus in the cells of the amphitheatre, and by the example of a fortitude supported by hopes unknown to heathens; and, when at length he treads the arena, he is a hero. He is one of Sir Edward's most successful characters. We are much less pleased by Arbaces. He is a compound of great powers, moral and intellectual, and great wickedness; a union rare in real life, but trite in fiction. Apocides and Ione have the points of resemblance and of difference, which are often found in brother and sister placed in circumstances apparently similar. Each has quick feelings and a vivid, susceptible imagination. Each can command, without exertion, a life of tranquil enjoyment. But the feelings and imagination of Apœcides deprived of the natural food of manly ambition, uneducated by rivalry, collision, or contest, unemployed in the invigorating pursuits of political or professional business, seek to vent themselves in religious excitement, and impel him first to superstition, then to scepticism, and at last to enthusiasm. Ione is equally excluded from the toils and pleasures of public life. But, the narrower field of female occupation is open to her, and she finds it sufficient. Literature and society fill her time and satisfy her desires; while she reigns in a triclinium, she has no aspirations for the abstruse mysteries of a diviner wisdom, the companionship of gods, or the revelations of heaven.' Had she been a man, she might have found, like Apocides, the want of more exciting objects and of a wider sphere;

like him she might have felt that she was in a cage, and beaten herself to death against its wires.

On the first introduction of Olynthus, Sir Edward gives us a sketch of the character which he intends to draw:

The Nazarene was one of those hardy, vigorous, and enthusiastic men, by whom God in all times has worked the revolutions of earth, and those, above all, in the establishment and in the reformation of His own religion-men who were formed to convert, because formed to endure. It is men of this mould whom nothing discourages, nothing dismays; in the fervour of belief they are inspired, and they inspire. Their reason first kindles their passion, but the passion is the instrument they use; they force themselves into men's hearts, while they appear only to appeal to their judgment (p. 18).

This bold outline is carefully filled in, and the result is a picture of great force, yet free from exaggeration. The subordinate characters, such as Medon, Burbo, Calenus, and Lydon, are vigorous sketches, and we close the Last days of Pompeii' with more admiration of its author, than is created by any other of his works, except 'The Last of the Barons.'

In 'THE LAST OF THE BARONS,' the persons and events are partly historical and partly invented. In a novel thus constituted, the imaginary characters cannot with propriety influence the historical events. For, as we know who really occasioned those events, the introduction of new actors destroys the plausibility of the story. When Scott attempts to raise his imaginary De Wilton, by ascribing to him the victory of Flodden Field; when he says, that Unnamed by Hollinshed or Hall,

He was the living soul of all;