118 
went, for the first day or two, were so 
great, as to create a fear that the old 
building would fall. 
Just behind the Olympic Theatre, 
and issuing into Drury-lane, is Craven- 
buildings, occasioning precisely simi- 
lar remembrances with those produced 
by Norfolk-street, &c. 
J. M. Lacey. 
—»—— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR 
HE author or authors of “ Wa- 
verley,” &c. &c. still continues, 
as you perceive, to uphold his charac- 
teristic attribute of fertility. The 
press was scarcely cold from the rapid 
production of the four volumes of 
“‘ Peyeril of the Peak,” when its la- 
bours were again demanded for three 
more, under the title of ‘ Quentin 
Durward.” I know not how the case 
may stand with you and your readers, 
but, for my part, I had begun to bea 
little tired of this voluminous author, 
‘maugre the stimulating mystery with 
which it is affected to invest his iden- 
tity, and the empirical cognomen of 
“the Great Unknown.” Whether in 
verse or prose, I have always found 
him Jess entertaining on this than on 
the other side of the Tweed; and, in 
proportion as he advanced southward, 
he scemed to lose the keen and vivify- 
ing spirit inhaled from his northern 
mountains. His hardy Scots (so 
thought I, as I read his “ Nigel,”) 
dwindle in the atmosphere of our 
southern metropolis, as the myrtles of 
Devon might if transplanted to the 
bleak wilds of the Highlands. Even 
in the midway region of Derbyshire, 
either his imagination flagged from a 
lack of his native stimulus, or he lack- 
ed acquaintance with the romantic 
beauties of the country by which the 
patrimonial castle of his hero is sur- 
rounded. 
“Peverel of the Peak?” It might 
as well have been Frogbelly of the 
Fens, for any use that is made either 
in characteristic scenery, or eharac- 
teristic incident, to which that scenery 
is so inviting. Did Sir Walter Scott, 
—f beg his pardon, he says he is not he, 
or. at least, his mask says so for him, 
—did the author of ‘“‘ Waverley,” 
then, not even know that from Peverel 
Castle there is still a subterranean 
communication with the awful won- 
ders over which it-nods?—with ‘the 
Peuk-caverns of infernal Loe!” Or 
The Scotch. Novel Family. 
[Sept. I, 
could his imagination have suggested 
no use to which so inviting a circum- 
stance might have been applied? Be 
this as it will, I suspect that not a. 
reader acquainted with the Peak of 
Derbyshire, has travelled through the 
four volumes, to which it furnishes a 
title, without fecling some degree of 
mortifying disappointment, at not 
catching one single glance of its de- 
lightful and romantic scenery in all 
that length of way. Nor was this my 
only source of dissatisfaction: I felt 
that the subject of Cavaliers and 
Roundheads was already exhausted, 
that the wine had been already drain- 
ed from the.cup, and that little but the 
lees were presented to usin this di- 
luted draught. ey 
Nor did the sort of apologetic por- 
trait of that indolent and selfish pro- 
fligate, Charles the Second, or even 
the splendid imcoherencies of his 
equally profligate favourite, Bucking-.- 
ham, atone for the comparative want 
of interest in the generality of the 
other characters; while the merry- 
andrew exploits of Finella, and the 
pantomime impossibilities exhibited by 
itinerant courtiers at country ale- 
houses, outraged all credulity ; and the 
tedious prosings of Sir Geoffrey Hud- 
son, to me, at Jeast, were utterly 
unreadable. 
If we were, therefore, to have more 
acquaintance with this “ Great Un-~ 
known,” I was glad to find that he had 
shifted his ground, and chosen a scene 
of action, and a period of history, that 
promised something like novelty. The 
hero, Quentin Durward, is indeed a 
Scot; and, to say the truth, althougha 
Scot, he is, upon the whole, a very 
interesting sort of character,—not at 
all unfit for a high-born dame of chi- 
valry to fall in love with ; whichis not 
always the case with the heroes of 
this author. They are, in truth, not 
unfrequently the most common-place 
personages of the whole drama. But, 
if Quentin have the good luck to be at 
once the hero of the tate and of the 
reader, he is not such of the author. 
That honour he reserves for the noto- 
rious Louis the Eleventh of France ; 
upon the glossorial delineation and 
sustainment of whose detestable cha- 
racter he lavishes all his art; while 
poor Quentin and his adventures are 
sometimes almost lost sight of,—for 
more than half of the third yolume in 
particular. ; 
The 
