308 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MARCH, 



she comes forth and that will not be long 

 first with her Confessions, will prove, we 

 doubt not, far too knowing ; and the " Old 

 Man," in like manner, will forget he has 

 never seen forty. 



The writer is too apt to run into carica- 

 ture his description of the person and qua- 

 lifications of the Schoolmaster is mere ex- 

 travagance, with no smartness to redeem it. 

 The pic-nic party in the forest, very little 

 better. He is best when he is serious, and 

 warmed into argument ; and even then it is 

 questionable, whether he is not really quiz- 

 zing. The writing has frequently all the 

 air of n piece of magazine embroidery 

 mistaking flippancy for vivacity. 



Take a specimen of his serious remarks 

 whether he be serious or not no matter 

 we are. Speaking of improvements, he says, 



1 fancy 1 know as much about the merits of 

 modern and ancient times, as those who pretend to 

 be more knowing : but let me tell them this ; let 

 me tell those impertinents, who brag of their 

 modern improvements, that they may do so with 

 a little more justice, when they have rectified the 

 various evils of the present day. Yes, when 

 wretched, bleeding, and lovely Ireland is pacified, 

 by whatever means that object may be effected ; 

 when the present fluctuations in the price of pro- 

 ductions have been smoothed down to a fixed and 

 level standard ; when a general reformation has 

 been made in the laws, both civil and criminal, in 

 substance and in practice ; and a new code has 

 been framed ; when something like uniformity has 

 been established between the east and west sides of 

 Northumberland House, which will only be, when 

 the prejudices of cockney proprietors is overcome ; 

 when the projected quay is erected on the banks 

 of our noble river ; when quiet people can walk by 

 the side of the docks without being kidnapped, 

 under the pretext of legal impressment and public 

 expediency ; when the sale of game has been le- 

 galized, to the entire abolition of poaching, (for 

 what tradesman will not sooner buy game, brought 

 him by the proprietor, than purloined for him by 

 the nightly marauder?) when sweeping boys are 

 able to wash the soot from their faces, and heal 

 the wounds of their raw and festering knees ; 

 why then, I say, when all this has been done, 

 people may indeed talk, with reason, of improve- 

 ment ; I shall then be willing to listen to them 

 with a little more patience. When all this has 

 taken place, why then why then there will be, 

 comparatively, nothing left to be hoped for, but 

 the apotheosis of the Lord Chancellor Eldon. 



The Wolfe of Badenoch, an Historical 

 Romance of the Fourteenth Century, by 

 the Author of" Lochandu." 3 vols. 12mo. ; 

 1827. Of "Lochandu/' we never before 

 heard. If the reader have any curiosity, the 

 writer, we are assured on "good authority," 

 is another Scotch Baronet, and not one of 

 recent creation, but one who can count 

 transmissions of the title, six or seven, through 

 a distant line of ancestors. The name itself, 

 though already known to some few, and to 

 ourselves too, happily among that favoured 

 few, is not yet to be bruited to the vulgar'; 

 and decorum forfend (hat we should indis- 



creetly, or ungratefully break the sacred 

 silence. 



We love a preface, and therefore we 

 glanced at the writer's preface we beg 

 pardon of his superior taste the writer's 

 " preliminary notice." It is at once decla- 

 rative and exculpatory. The "Wolfe of 

 Badeuoch," it seem?, was advertised in June 

 1825, at which time it was ready for the 

 press. Since then, certain circumstances, 

 easily guessed at meaning perhaps it is 

 only a guess of ours Constable's bank- 

 ruptcy have subjected it, with many a more 

 important work, to an embargo, tfec. The 

 author himself had forgotten it, until now 

 that it has been unexpectedly called for ; 

 and this must be his apology, <fec. Now 

 what silly affectation is this ? Does he not 

 know that no man of common, or uncom- 

 mon sense, will give him credit for the truth 

 of this declaration ? Then why, whether true 

 or not, does he make it ? 



" But he has been accused," he says, " of 

 being an imitator of the Great Unknown. 

 He is not so wilfully, " &c. What then ? His 

 subjects are the same, his scenes, his charac- 

 ters. His more elaboratedescriptions bear upon 

 the same topics fires, floods, sieges, battles, 

 escapes, scarcely intelligible and utterly in- 

 credible; rocks impassible, and precipices 

 unsaleable, by limbs and sinews of mortal 

 mould detailed indeed with some vigour of 

 fancy, and intensity of conception, but with 

 a particularity, and labour, and length, that 

 not one reader in fifty ever peruses or 

 perusing, surmounts their intricacies. Of 

 difficulties and embarrassments by flood and 

 field, Mrs. Rat cliff e treated us with abund- 

 ance ; and Godwin, with miraculous escapes, 

 that every witling thinks to parallel ; but Sir 

 W. Scott it is that riots in these and similar 

 scenes ; and this author of u Lochundu'' 

 does the same. All his energies are re- 

 served for these momentous descriptions, 

 and nothing else seems deserving of his exer- 

 tions. We do not say that he imitates, in 

 his sense of the word; but Sir Walter has 

 been pre-eminently successful in these mat- 

 ters, and this second Sir Something Some- 

 body must try his powers on the same 

 topics ; and this is all we presume that is 

 meant by the charge of which he complains. 

 But is not this imitation ? He follows Sir 

 Walter; and but for his predecessor, he 

 would never have gone over the ground he 

 has gone. If he wishes to escape the offen- 

 sive charge, he must originate. 



The " Wolfe of Badenoch" is a good 

 taking title; but the Wolfe of Badenoch is 

 not the subject of the romance. The inci- 

 dents of the Wolfe are strictly an episode, 

 and connected with the main story by the 

 slenderest threads. This " Wolfe'' was the 

 noun de guerre of the third son of Robert 

 the Second of Scotland, and flourished, as 

 the chronologers have it, of course, in the 

 Fourteenth Century. He must be made to 

 merit his ferocious " addition," and all rage 

 and violence, and vehemence, we find him 



