706 



Monthly Review qfi Literature, 



[JUNE, 



Bouricnnc's magnanimous retort upon 

 some receiving personal insult is perfectly 

 amusing. Upon some occasion Bonaparte 

 was in high, wrath, and, on Bourienne' s at- 

 tempting to soothe him, flung the door in 

 his face. 



He accompanied this action, says Bourienne, 

 which was almost convulsive, with an appellation 

 not to be borne; he exclaimed, in the presence of 



M. de Talleyrand, Leave me alone ; you are a 



fool. At an insult so atrocious, I confess that an- 

 ger, which had already mastered the first consul, 

 suddenly seized on me. I thrust the door forward 

 with as much impetuosity as he had used in at- 

 tempting to close it; and scarcely knowing what I 

 said, exclaimed, You are a hundred times a greater 

 fool than I am ! 



On some other occasion, when urged by a 

 messenger from Bonaparte for an answer on 

 some disagreeable subject, Bourienne bade 

 the man tell Napoleon he might go to the 

 devil ! 



One little anecdote of Bonaparte, imme- 

 diately after being appointed consul. 



Before taking possession of the Tuilleries, we 

 had frequently gone there to see that the repairs, or 

 rather the plastering, which Bonaparte had directed 

 to be done, was executed. On our first visit, see- 

 ing a number of red caps of liberty painted on the 

 walls, he said to Le Compte, at that time the archi- 

 tect of the Tuilleries, Brush all these things -out: 

 I do not like to see such rubbish. 



Traits of Scottish Life, and Pictures of 

 Scenes and Character, 3 vols. I2mo. So 

 familiar have we been made of late years 

 with the dialect of Scotland, and the pecu- 

 liarities of the wilder natives of the country, 

 that we seem now almost to the " manners 

 born," and as much at home with them 

 (perhaps more) as with those of many di- 

 stricts of England, and especially of Wales. 

 They come to us of the south recommended 

 by all the graces of description, and our ac- 

 quaintance with them is wholly through 

 books ; they are stript of all the coarseness 

 of reality, and produce none of the disgust 

 which attends the encounter and contact with 

 the rudeness of our own rough peasantry. 

 The writer of these volumes is a new vo- 

 lunteer in the old field, well qualified by 

 close acquaintance with the country to cope 

 with his predecessors ; but he must sharpen 

 his manner and quicken the pace of his in- 

 cidents, if he hopes to come up and keep 

 abreast with them. He is far too prosing 

 for narrative : he claims at the outset, it is 

 true, th3 privilege of digressing as he pleases, 

 but that is not the same thing with the 

 claims being allowed ; and, besides, it is not 

 of digressing we complain, but of stretching 

 and wire-drawing. He keeps sufficiently to 

 the point, but he does not despatch he 

 trusts nothing to the reader's imagination, 

 who, while he would gladly give him full 

 credit for the power of multiplying phrases, 

 is compelled to leap over page after page of 

 moralizing. The principal tale, occupying 

 one whole volume, is the most intolerable in 

 this respect it almost completely smothers 



the little interest the story might otherwise 

 possess. It is entitled The Secret Marriage. 

 A Scotch clergyman, a gentleman in manner, 

 and a scholar in acquirement, is living on 

 terms of great intimacy with a family in 

 his neighbourhood who have two beautiful 

 daughters : in the education and conduct of 

 both he is deeply interested, especially the 

 eldest. The narrator and a young friend meet 

 the old minister and visit his manse, where 

 they are struck by the extraordinary sym- 

 ptoms of affection on the part of the old gentle- 

 man towards the young lady, and particularly 

 with her resemblanceto a picture in the manse. 

 With this charming girl the narrator's friend 

 becomes enamoured, and their mutual at- 

 tachment is warmly promoted by the mi- 

 nister, when he at length is taken suddenly 

 and dangerously ill, and a discovery takes 

 place. The young lady is his own daughter, 

 and she all at once finds herself thrown into 

 new relations, with the loss of those she had 

 cherished in ignorance. The ground of this 

 concealment ? a very addled one. The mi- 

 nister had married the daughter of a man of 

 family, to whose brother as well as herself 

 he had been tutor a dangerous position, 

 by the way, for a young man always. The 

 enraged father renounced his daughter for 

 her degenerate taste, and she, unhappily, 

 'died of her first child. The bereaved hus- 

 band was paralyzed, and his establishment 

 was falling to ruin, when an old friend came 

 to console him, whose own wife had just lost 

 a new-born child. Arrangements were made 

 for his friend's wife to take his little orphan, 

 and himself to reside in the neighbourhood. 

 There he obtained the living, and superin- 

 tended his child's education, without dis- 

 closing his parental relationship, for one mo- 

 tive or another, till his deathbed, &c. The 

 "Death of the Laird of Craigwold" is a 

 mixture of second-sight with a little diable- 

 rie. The laird, a hard master and a griping 

 landlord, finally meets with his deserts by 

 being plunged down a precipice in his car- 

 riage, conducted to the fatal spot by an ap- 

 parition visible only to the coachman, and 

 foreseen or dreamed of by an old woman 

 who had still less to do with the laird's guilt 

 than the coachman. 



The family of Glenhowan consists of an 

 unlicked laird and his two unmarried sisters. 

 The laird suddenly marries, to the great an- 

 noyance of the old maids, who harass the 

 poor wife till she is compelled to take 

 flight. The young cub of an heir is hu- 

 morously described. Some of the smaller 

 pieces in the third volume are well sketched, 

 particularly Glenmannow, a tenant on the 

 Duke of Queen sbury's estate a century ago, 

 remarkable for his herculean proportions and 

 strength. Attacked by a party of six troopers, 

 sent by the duke for the fun of the thing, he 

 laid hold of one of them, and made use of him 

 as a club to batter down the rest with. The 

 Rock of the Dead is a painful tale of two 

 brothers, who were rivals, one of whom in a 

 fit of jealous rage strikes the other to the 



