1829.] 



Dwnestic and Foreign. 



333 



the one before U8 — Is certainly, as may be sup- 

 posed, indeed, agracefulandnotuninteresting 

 narrative. But surely there is something 

 " too much of this !" The writer, in- 

 deed, is making money by the illusion ; and 

 who can blame him for taking advantage of 

 the tide ? But tlie gaping curiosity of peo- 

 ple about what we must think essentially 

 indifferent matters — at least in nothing dis- 

 tinguishable from the experiences of every 

 writer of fiction — is manifestly, the greater 

 part of it, mere idle fashion and gregarious 

 imitation, where one runs after another, hke 

 a flock of sheep, without knowing why or 

 wherefore. It is getting already all but 

 ridiculous, and, we prophesy, will be com- 

 pletely so, long before the series is ex- 

 hausted. 



Sir Walter was indebted, it seems, for the 

 basis of Guy Mannering to a legend of old 

 John MacKuilay — an honest highlander, 

 and a servant of his father's. According to 

 John, an elderly gentleman lost his way 

 somewhere in the county of Galloway, and 

 sought shelter for the night in the house of 

 a country laird, where the family were in a 

 state of bustle and distraction from the im- 

 pending accouchement of the lady. After 

 partaking of the laird's hospitalities, and re- 

 ceiving his apologies for any lack of due at- 

 tention under the peculiar circumstances, 

 with a view of making the best return in 

 his power, he begged to be informed of the 

 precise instant of the birth, and, in the 

 meanwhile, set about drawing the coming 

 infant's horoscope. While intently gazmg 

 upon the stars, he observed something 

 alarming in the approaching conjunctions, 

 and eagerly desired the birth, by all means, 

 to be retarded, if but for five minutes. Na- 

 ture, however, was peremptory ; and the 

 cliild came into the world at the critical mo- 

 ment which tlie stranger had most desired 

 to avert. What was the foreboding ? That 

 the child, on coming to the age of discretion, 

 would be exposed to some formidable temp- 

 tation ; — if he firmly resolved, happiness 



would ensue; if he succumbed The 



alarmed parent — (what better could he do ?) 

 — resolved to be guided imphcitly by the 

 stranger's advice, which was to seclude him 

 wliolly from the world, dedicate him exclu- 

 sively to religious services, and, on his ap- 

 proaching twenty-one, send him to encoun- 

 ter the pern at his (the stranger's) house. 

 So rigorously was this advice adhered to, 

 that, as he grew up, the youth's intellects 

 were in some danger of flitting before the 

 severity of the regimen. Luckily, however, 

 they survived ; and, as the hour of doubtful 

 event approached, he wa.s dispatched to the 

 old gentleman — now, of course, very old — 

 by whom, after due examination and abun- 

 dance of injunction, he was shut up, with 

 bin bible, in a study ; and, precisely at the 

 completion of his majority, another old gen. 

 tlenian — Old Nick, in profiria pcrminu, 

 horns and daws — presented himself, full of 

 siiiiles and wiles, altiniating with frowns 



and terrors. The reader anticipates the con- 

 clusion. By the aid of the sacred volume, 

 which the youth clasped with a pious com- 

 pression, he baffled the demon, and returned 

 victorious home. 



Such was John's tale. In the course of 

 printing what he had built upon it, the au- 

 thor changed his purpose,and abandoned the 

 astrology. This, it seems, must account for 

 the appearance of certain passages in the 

 earher sheets, wliich have nothing in consis- 

 tence, or in prosecution of them, in the latter 

 ones. These are still left, though confessed 

 to hang an imsightly incimibrance on the 

 neck of the story. Notwithstanding his re- 

 jection of the astrological machinery, he 

 reluctantly lets go his hold of the subject, 

 and cannot withhold us a marvellous tale — 

 though how far it came within his own 

 knowledge, does not appear. Here it is : 



One of the most remarkable believers in tliat 

 forgotten and despised science, was a late emi- 

 nent professor of the art of legerdemain. One 

 would have thought that a person of this descrip- 

 tion ought, from his knowledge of the thousand 

 ways in which human eyes could be deceived, to 

 have been less than otliers suhjectto the fantasies 

 of superstition. Perhnps the habitual use of 

 those abstruse calculatlnns, by which, in a man- 

 ner surprising to the artist himself, many tricks 

 upon cards, &c., are performed, induced this gen. 

 tleman to study the combination of the stars and 

 planets, with the expectation of obtaining pro- 

 phetic communications. 



He constructed a scheme of his own nativityi 

 calculated according to such rules of art as lie 

 could collect from tlie best astrological authors. 

 The result uf tlie past he found agreeable to what 

 had hitherto befallen him, but in the important 

 prospect of the future a singular difficulty occur- 

 red. There were two years, during the course of 

 wliich he could by no means obtain any exact 

 knowledge, whether the subject of the scheme 

 would be dead or alive. Anxious concerning so 

 remarkable a circumstance, he gave the scheme 

 to a brother astrologer, who was also baffled ia 

 the same manner. At one period he found the 

 native, or subject, was certainly alive ; at another, 

 that he was unquestionably dead ; but a space of 

 two years extended between these two terms, du- 

 ring which be could tind no certainty as to his 

 death or existence. 



The astrologer marked the remarkable circum- 

 stance in his diary, and continued his exhibitions 

 in various parts of the empire until the period was 

 about to expire, during which bis existence bad 

 been warranted as actually ascertained. At last, 

 while be was exhibiting to a numerous audience 

 his usual tricks of legerdemain, the hands, whose 

 activity bad so often baffled the closest observer, 

 suddenly lost their power, the cards dropped from 

 thcni, and he sunk down a disabled paralytic. In 

 Ibis state the artist languished for two years. 

 when he was at length removed by death. It ia 

 said that the diary <tf this vioJcrn astrologer 

 will soon It given, to the public. 



Meg Merrilies, it a])pears, was an ac. 

 quaintance of the author's father, though he 

 himself dimly rcmeiiibcrs to have seen a 

 grand-duughter of hcr's^n woman of the 



