1831.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



675 



lative proposes to Glenroy to betroth his 

 daughter to Ronald, the son of a poor 

 cousin, and bequeath his large estate to 

 them ; but Glenroy, who has himself been 

 looking eagerly to the succession, refuses. 

 Nevertheless, the estate is finally left 

 to llonald, but in trust to strangers 

 and lawyers till he is twenty-six. The 

 boy goes to sea, is wrecked, believed to 

 be dead, and his father takes the estate. 

 The boy, however, returns, but finding 

 how matters are, and that his re-ap- 

 pearance will derange every thing, and 

 be productive of nothing but misery 

 he can have no command over the pro- 

 perty himself till of the age fixed by the 

 will he generously resolves to seek his 

 own fortunes, till he is old enough to 

 secure his father in the possession of the 

 property for his life. In his absence, 

 the cousins, Reginald and Edith, grow up 

 and are betrothed, to the great delight of 

 Glenroy, to be married as soon as Regi- 

 nald is of age. Meanwhile he goes to 

 Oxford, an'd then travels ; but unac- 

 countably lingers beyond the day ap- 

 pointed for the marriage. The chief's son 

 dies suddenly, and Reginald, on the sum- 

 mons, hastens home ; but he returns dis- 

 trait, cold, constrained, yet still professing 

 to prosecute the contract with his lovely 

 cousin Edith. Suddenly the chief's wife, 

 whom he had not seen for years, comes 

 on a visit, professedly of condolence, 

 and brings with her the young countess, 

 blooming in beauty and brilliant in man- 

 ners. The cause of Reginald's gloom 

 is too soon cleared up he had met with 

 the countess abroad, was fascinated by 

 her charms, but still desperately resolved 

 to fulfil his engagement, unless he could 

 force Edith to a voluntary relinquish- 

 ment. The real state of his affections is 

 accidently discovered to poor Edith, and 

 she resolutely renounces him, though 

 brought almost to the grave by the 

 shock. In a few years the old chief dies, 

 and leaves his daughter penniless, for the 

 estate is entailed upon Reginald. She 

 becomes dependent on relations, and goes 

 to London, where she again comes in 

 contact with the insidious Florinda and 

 her perfidious lover, now the husband of 

 the countess who are as miserable as 

 any two fashionable spendthrifts, of un- 

 congenial tempers, can possibly be. But 

 in London also she encounters a youth 

 a stranger to every body, but a great 

 favourite with some naval commander, 

 for his distinguished gallantry in the 

 Greek service who makes a deep im- 

 pression upon Edith, and who finally 

 proves to be the long lost Ronald. The 

 result is obvious. But the value of the 

 novel consists in the full development of 

 the characters and nothing but the 

 perusal can convey an adequate impres- 



Wavertey Novels. The Pirate. The 

 scene of the Pirate, as every- body knows, 

 is in Zetland, and Sir Walter Scott, in his 

 preface to the new edition, details the 

 occasion on which he made his personal 

 acquaintance with the country. In 1814 

 he accompanied a party of the commis- 

 sioners for the Northern Light-House 

 service, in a voyage round the coast of 

 Scotland. Among the commissioners the 

 sheriff of each maritime county of Scot- 

 land holds a place, ex officio, at the 

 Board ; but though Sir Walter was him- 

 self sheriff of Selkirk, that county has 

 not, he observes, like the kingdom of 

 Bohemia in Corporal Trim's story, a 

 sea-port, nor its magistrate of course a 

 seat at the Board of Commissioners. 

 Nevertheless, he was invited to accom- 

 pany the party on the expedition, which, 

 though he had no public business with it, 

 he could readily turn to account. He 

 was, at the time, desirous of discovering 

 some localities that might be useful in 

 the " Lord of the Isles," on which poem 

 he was then engaged, and which was 

 published, he adds, soon afterwards 

 " without any remarkable success." But 

 at the same time, Waverley was work- 

 ing its way to popularity, and the author 

 already augured the possibility of a 

 second effort. He saw much in the wild 

 islands of the Orkneys and Zetland that 

 might be made good use of, should he 

 ever make them the scene of some ficti- 

 tious narrative. Sir Walter learnt, it 

 seems, the story of Gow the pirate from 

 an old sibyl on the spot, whose principal 

 subsistance was earned by selling favour- 

 able winds to the sailors at Stromness. 

 Norna was regarded by the critics of the 

 day, as a copy of Meg Merrilies a little 

 to the author's surprise and annoyance ; 

 and he still thinks that there may be traced 

 in Norna, the victim of remorse and in- 

 sanity, and the dupe of her own impos- 

 ture her mind too flooded with all the 

 wild literature and extravagant super- 

 stitions of the North something dis- 

 tinct from the Dumfries-shire gipsy, 

 whose pretensions to supernatural powers 

 are not beyond those or a Norwood pro- 

 phetess. 



The Music of the Church, c., ly the 

 Rev. John Antes La Trobe, M. A." Next 

 to divinity no art is comparable to music," 

 was Luther's declaration upon some oc- 

 casion grounded, apparently, on Satan's 

 invincible and equal antipathy to both 

 good sermons and good tunes. Rowland 

 Hill, therefore, must have been under 

 some illusion when he talked of cheating 

 the devil by taking from him some of his 

 best tunes. Whatever may be Mr. La 

 Trobe's motive, he is as zealous as either 

 of these divines for the reformation of 

 church music, which he finds to be vil- 

 4 R 2 





