Review of Literature. 
epochs of history: and, assuredly, this. 
species of composition is. not Jess, calcu- 
lated to convey, in the. most..pleasurable 
shape, the kind of information. which we 
seek for (sometimes with much labour and 
little profit) in the expensive quartos and 
ponderous octavos of travellers and naviga- 
tors, than it is to bring us acquainted with 
the habits and characters of such of our ances- 
tors of the olden times, as figure in Scot- 
tish record, or in black-letter annals. But 
then, the writer of such romances should 
have an advantage which the decorators of 
the historical romance cannot possibly at- 
tain: he should have seen, with his own 
eyes, fle customs, characters and incidents 
(or their parallels, at least) which he de- 
scribes: Thatis to say, to give them their 
highest interest and. yalue, he should so 
have seen. The inyention (however skil- 
ful) by which. he weaves them into a con- 
nected story, and gives them an epic, or 
dramatic shape, should be subservient to 
the purposes of original and authentic infor- 
mation. . The fiction should be only in the 
machine :—a vehicle for the conveyance of 
truth. Such, in a very considerable degree, 
are the actual qualifications of. the author 
of the present work; and his delineations 
have accordingly a stamp of authenticity— 
a yerisimilitude, .which gives to his narra- 
tive itself anappearance of reality whichaug- 
ments the interest, and deepens the sym- 
pathies of the reader. We wish we could 
‘ speak with equal approbation of the style in 
which the work is written. But, in this 
there is asad want of genuine narrative 
simplicity—a. mixture of. almost puerile 
efflorescence, with an affectation of biblical 
simplicity, and of the quaint and accumula- 
tive construction of obsolete writers, with 
the strained inversion of bombastic prose, 
and the common-place poetic of the day. 
ies The breeze blew soft—the mariners sung their 
evening hymn most cheerily—pathos at every close; 
but yet most happy was the sound. 
Meaning, we suppose, that it was a sound 
of happiness: for, really, we know not 
how to congratulate a sound upon its own 
felicity; nor do we suspect that it would 
retain ourgratulation with asmileanda bow! 
Again, ” 
* To me the sight gave food for wan«lering thought.” 
N.B. This is not quoted as a line of 
verse... It is tendered by the author as a 
sentence of original prose ; as will be seen 
anon. , Of the biblical, in this. strange 
patchery of style, we present the following 
specimen, | It relates. the catastrophe of a 
horrible instance. of impalement, inflicted 
upon a relapsed heretic: that.is to say, of 
a christian renegade, who, repenting, his 
apostacy, resolutely persists, in subjecting 
himself to: martyrdom, as an atonement for 
the former desertion of his faith. 
“ Then the esptain of the Turkish gunrd was 
moved; ant he spoke kind to them, and askedthem 
for one minute only toturn aside, and he gave the 
639 
signal to dispatch him ; so they took their mallets, 
and knocked off from the stake the transverse sticks; 
and it pierced and broke through his white breast, 
and he bowed his head upon it and died, with a loud 
(and, it sounded, a happy) sigh.” : 
The parenthesis mars the fidelity of the 
imitation, but does not disguise the affecta- 
tion of it. The following is a description of 
the execution (not martyrdom) of another 
renegade, whose apostacy had been pre- 
ceded by the most atrocious crimes— (“ it 
was the Lisbon robber—the violator—he 
that murdered the fair girl:’?) but who 
meets his fate for what the pirate crew, 
with whom he is associated, consider as an 
ebullition of mutinous sacrilege. It pre- 
sents a curious instance of accumulatiye 
construction. We do not remember eyer 
to have met with a passage, in which the 
simple conjunction was so unmercifully run 
out of breath. 
«© There was a sudden tumult, and loud cries, and 
all-hurried off ;—and they dragged with them the 
renegade. He had struck, it seemed, the black 
cook, and had overset the food, and insulted the 
serang. Again, all was silence, as, amid the hushed 
crowd, the tivo accusers told their tale; a muttered 
something fell from the prisoner, but the dead 
silence awed him, and he felt fear, and the savage 
eye looked apprehension. The Rais drew up’ his 
smoke calmly and slow, and the long gurgle echoed 
loud ; and then astill smile just passed along his) 
face, and he gave a motion with his hand, and they , 
tied the prisoner’s arms behind him, and pressed him 
into a kneeling posture; and a large African came 
forward, and his eyes rolled white, and he raised the 
shining blade, and the hideous head fell to the death- 
stroke, and sea-water was thrown upon the bloody- 
spot, and the huge body was cast into the ocean, and 
the fierce head stuck upon a fixed spike on the deck, 
and all dispersed, and washed their hands, and 
gathered round the mats and trays, and dipped their 
hands into their messes, ard laughed as they looked 
up at the grisly warning.” 
The reflections that ensue are no les* 
illustrative of that affected species of bas- 
tard rhythmus, or bombast, to which Sheri- 
dan condescended to give a sort of sanction 
in his clap-trap pantomime “ Pizarro”’—in 
which the style is neither verse nor prose; 
but a perpetual struggle’ between both— 
stumbling from one to the other. 
«Tome the sight gave food for wandering thought, 
Justice had been delayed, but the eye of heaven had 
followed the shedder of blood. Punishment had, 
like a blood-hound with a wounded 'limb, tracked 
him unceasingly, and found him in a den among 
violent and cruel spirits, like his own, where he had 
thought himself secure. Nothing had more asto- 
nished me than the suddenness of the execution :— 
scarce two. minutes elapsed from the wave of.the 
Rais’ hand to the death—and there was no imploring, 
no struggle! Still as a forest-beast encircled by 
dreaded fire, he kneeled mechanically to the pressing 
hand, and gave his bowed neck to the expected 
sword |” ’ : mes sebuah 
To. those, however, whose, taste is not 
so refined as to, be repelled by the affecta- 
tions we have noticed, these volumes wi!l 
be highly interesting. They may | afford 
information to all, eh Weiie 
ADJOURNED 
