346 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[SEPT. 



humble individuals, whose little all was 

 swept away. Sir Thomas has traced 

 the whole line of the rivers, and de- 

 scribed the successive scenes of desola- 

 tion, gathering the details from the lips 

 of the surviving sufferers; and nume- 

 rous are the marvellous escapes, and 

 touching are often the generous efforts 

 of bravery to rescue the miserable vic- 

 tims. Many of them are detailed in the 

 vernacular, and have all the interest of 

 a romance. 



"And how did you escape?" demanded. I, with 

 the greatest anxiety. " Ou, troth, just upon a 

 brander," replied the widow Cameron. " A 

 brander," exclaimed I, with astonishment, aris- 

 ing from my ignorance that the word was applied 

 to any tiling else than to a Scotch gridiron, and 

 thinking that the riding to the moon on a broom, 

 or the sailing in a sieve to Norway, were nothing 

 to this '< a brander, what do you mean by a 

 brander?"" Ou, just a bit float," replied the 

 widow ; " a bit raft I made o' thay bit palins and 

 bits o' moss-fir that war lyin' aboot." " What! 

 and your children too?" exclaimed I." On what 

 else ?" replied she, amused at my surprise ; ' what 

 could I have done wi' them else? nae horse could 

 hae come near huz. It was deep eneugh to droon 

 twa horses." " And how did you feather your- 

 self over?" inquired I. "Troth, Sir, I hae nae 

 feathers," replied Mrs. Cameron, very simply ; 

 *' I'm no a dewk to soom. But, ye see, I sat on my 

 hunkers on the middle o'the brander, wi' my 

 bairns a' about me, in a knot ; and the wund, 

 that was blawin' strong eneugh frae the north, 

 justteuk us safe oot to the land." " And how did 

 your neighbours get out ?" " Ou, fat way wad 

 they get oot, but a' thegither Hpon branders ?" 



Let the reader fancy to himself this 

 fleet of branders, with their crews of 

 women and children, floating gallantly, 

 vent en poupe, towards the land, and he 

 will have before his mind's eye a scene 

 fully as remarkable as any which this 

 eventful flood produced. 



This county of Moray is a very rug- 

 ged district, and till the beginning of 

 the present century had felt little of the 

 benefits of civilization. It was, how- 

 ever, rapidly advancing in amendment 

 the roads were improving mansions 

 rebuilding lands draining and all 

 looked smiling. It had always been 

 subject to floods, but great pains had 

 been taken in many places to guard 

 against their devastations. But the 

 very process of cultivation and improve- 

 ment, in some measure, contributed to 

 make matters worse. Anv given quan- 

 tity of rain, says Sir T., must now pro- 

 duce a much greater flood than it could 

 have done before the country became so 

 highly improved. Formerly the rain drops 

 were either evaporated on the hill side, 

 or were sucked up by an arid or a 

 spongy soil, before so many of them 

 could coalesce as to form a rill. But 

 when we consider the number of open 

 cuts made to dry hill pastures the nu- 



merous bogs reclaimed by drainage the 

 ditches of enclosure recently constructed 

 and the long lines of roads formed with 

 side drains, and cross conduits, we shall 

 find, that of late years, the country has 

 been covered with a perfect net-work of 

 courses, to catch and to concentrate the 

 rain-drops as they fall, and to hurry 

 them off in accumulated tribute to the 

 next stream. So much for human fore- 

 sight. 



The Deliverance of 'Switzerland, a Dra- 

 matic Poem, by H. C. Deakin.'- Tell' 

 again ! but Mr. Deakin assures us he 

 has not read the dramas on this eter- 

 nal subject neither Schiller's, nor 

 Knowles's, nor indeed anything but a 

 fragmental piece in 1825, published by 

 Barker and Fletcher, in Finsbury -place, 

 and that was not of the slightest service 

 to him, except in suggesting a name 

 (two, he thinks) for the characters of 

 his own drama. " I was perusing," says 

 he, " Nayler's Helvetia, and was so 

 deeply interested, nay agitated, by the 

 contents of his fifth chapter, that my 

 brain became, as it were, a haunted 

 mansion. The visioned forms of the 

 Helvetic heroes were incessantly sweep- 

 ing through it ; my very dreams were 

 caparisoned with the glories of those 

 majestic patriots ; nor was it until I 

 had seized my pen, and tranquillized 

 my spirit by emptying my heart, that 

 sapience returned, and made me feel 

 what an ass I'd been, to make so much 

 ado about nothing !" 



The story is told plain as a pike-staff; 

 but mighty little skillhas the author shewn 

 in developing his own plot. Tell not only 

 refuses to bow down before the famous 

 hat, but dashes down the pole on which 

 it hangs is dragged before Gesler, and 

 forthwith condemned to shoot the apple 

 on his boy's head, without the slightest 

 hint being given of any association likely 

 to suggest such an out of the way sen- 

 tence. But more glaring faults offend 

 the reader the characters are all alike 

 all, men and women, and Tell's boy 

 too, are all given to soliloquizing and 

 ranting. The sentiments drop from the 

 lips of all fluently, and often eloquently, 

 but they are also all of the overstrained 

 and extravagant stamp. 



One of the most successful solos, 

 though much of it is mere parody, is 

 Rudolph's 



Is there a joy one half so sweet as hate? 



Music, they say, is sweets and so is hate ! 



Beauty enchants ; and so enchanteth hate I 



The stars are beautiful ; and so is hate! 



Wine's a delicious poison : so is hate I 



Hope is most fascinating ; so is hate ! 



But wine, stars, music, beauty, hope, and all, 



Mingled together in one cup of joy, 



Can never match revenge or quick-pulsed hate ! 



Revenge is the heart of hate ! O gentle heart f 



