1831.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



88 



physician," the medicines you have given 

 me through my illness have fully an- 

 swered the purpose intended," &c. But 

 enough ofthis — who can doubt but every 

 one become a king as long as he lives 

 must have every virtue under heaven. 



Next to the Duke and Duchess figure 

 the royal sisters of his royal highness's 

 " august family," the I^andgravine of 

 Hesse Romberg and the Queen of AVir- 

 temberg. Of the former the doctor 

 affirms, as of his own knowledge, that 

 she " has done more for the happiness 

 and prosperity of the inhabitants than 

 all the combined events of the last cen- 

 tury ;" and of the Queen of Wirtem- 

 berg he makes a perfect divinity ; of 

 her—" the whole country worship her." 

 Her liveries are bright orange with 

 black facings ; and every body goes to 

 court in boots. A Princess of Wirtem- 

 berg was going to be married to Duke 

 ^Michael of Russia, and a patriarch of 

 the Greek church had arrived charged 

 with the duty of initiating the young 

 lady in the mysteries of" that religion." 

 " He is a venerable personage," says 

 Dr. Beattie, " justly proud of his holy 

 task." Similar foppery pervades the 

 volumes. Now and then he presents us 

 with a specimen of the sentimental. 

 At some royal supper the windows were 

 thrown open, and a lot of bats Hew in, 

 which the Queen of Wirtemberg would 

 not allow to be driven out. Wnen she 

 quitted the room, however, they were 

 forthwith expelled without ceremony, 

 and one that was obstinate was killed. 

 " Pauvre malheureux !" sighed a beau- 

 tiful young lady, " how readily would 

 the royal hand have interposed even in 

 thy behalf, had she suspected the 

 smallest design against thy little sum- 

 mer existence. I heard the crush (!) as 

 he placed his iron heel upon thy late 

 happy and defenceless breast. I wit- 

 nessed and cannot forgive the act. Thy 

 little roost under my window will be 

 empt^' to-morrow. I shall have one 

 fewer in the evening to welcome me in 

 my forest walk. This brief life was 

 thy immortality — the blow, therefore, 

 doubly cruel -ah, surely nothing dies 

 but something mourns." The girl 

 might be silly, or smile while she uttered 

 the rhapsody, but the doctor repeats it 

 gravely, and can be nothing but a 



Bogle Corbett, by J. Gall, Esq. 3 vols. 

 12/no. — We have had some difficulty in 

 wading through Bogle Corbett. It is 

 too literally and severely a copy of reali- 

 ties — it has nothing of the beau ideal 

 about it, and is relative to a class of life 

 which has few charms for general readers 

 to contemplate. Merely to go over the dull 

 detail of every-day measures too nuich 

 within every body's experience, is like 

 living over again one's own annoyances. 



We do not, of course, wish to depreciate 

 such a writer as Mr. Gait, who, beyond 

 any man of his day, perhaps, can enter 

 into assumed characters and make an- 

 other's feelings his own. He does so — 

 not too intensely for truth — but too mi- 

 nutely for pleasure, because his subjects 

 are seldom of the agreeable caste, and 

 often essentially coarse. Certainly he 

 does not contrive to convey pleasurable 

 impressions — nay, he may be said often 

 to labour studiously to leave nothing 

 but discomfort behind him. The hero 

 is a man of common education, , brought 

 up as a weaver, and in due time in busi- 

 ness as a manufacturer. For the sake 

 of capital he enters into partnership with 

 a fool, and by a succession of difhculties, 

 to which mercantile matters are subject, 

 occasionally from the political condition 

 of the times, and by the blunders and 

 rashness of his partner, becomes a bank- 

 rupt. The dealings of the firm had 

 been a good deal with the West Indies, 

 and through the influence and favour of 

 his friends, he procures a West India 

 agency. By degrees West India in- 

 terests also decay from one cause or 

 other, and he loses his agencies, chiefly 

 because he cannot make money-ad- 

 vances, and the whole connection is 

 rapidly slipping through his fingers. 

 Meanwhile he makes a love marriage, 

 and the lady dies in child-birth ; he 

 makes a second for convenience, and 

 marries a good sort of woman, honest 

 and active, but coarse and of little or no 

 congeniality, of whom we have a vast 

 deal too much, unless a dash of humour 

 could have been thrown into her. Be- 

 fore ruin quite overtakes Bogle Corbett, 

 he emigrates to Canada, where, of 

 course, M r. Gait is quite at home, and 

 we have the relics of gatherings, during 

 his own residence there, and already 

 communicated in Lowrie Todd. The 

 story terminates abruptly, with the 

 second year of Bogle's residence, when 

 matters are beginning to settle into 

 something like order and combination. 

 An opportunity is thus left for a new 

 story, to trace the subsequent career of 

 the new colonists. 



Life and Correspotidence of Sir Thomas 

 Lawrence, Knt., by D. E. Williams. Esq., 

 2 vols., 8vo. — All depends upon the book- 

 sellers, and a man is to flourish or fade 

 with posterity, precisely according to 

 the publisher's chance of making money 

 of his memory. No sooner does a man 

 die, whose name has, in any way, been 

 much in ora virum, than some stirring 

 bookseller bargains with a manufacturer 

 for a brace ot^ octavos— one is scarcely 

 worth his consideration, for it is as cheap 

 to puff two volumes as a single one, and 

 the gain, within certain limits, is pro- 

 portioned to the bulk. AVith him one 



