124 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



will give of the same country ; in many cases not so much from wil- 

 ful misrepresentation as from the difference in their own cerebral 

 organization. The one will blame every thing and every body, 

 while the other, falling into the opposite extreme, will see precisely 

 the same persons and things in a favourable point of view. Of 

 course the latter state of feeling is beyond comparison the more envi- 

 able, and, if into either, into this latter extreme is our traveller often 

 disposed to fall. It cannot be denied that the Highlanders abound in 

 that true politeness springing from benevolence, and though rough in 

 exterior, they are certainly far from wanting in the gentler and nobler 

 faculties of human nature. But, at the same time, we are occasion- 

 ally inclined to suspect that the reverend tourist's affability may have 

 led him to overlook many faults, both in men and country, and also 

 that his mild deportment may have induced others to conduct them- 

 selves more courteously and hospitably towards him than might other- 

 wise have been the case. Be this, however, as it may, the volume, 

 which has afforded us considerable amusement in the perusal, may be 

 considered, on the whole, as forming a correct portraiture of the 

 Highlands. The style is engaging, and the manner of description 

 such as will be calculated to interest all classes of readers. The book 

 appears to consist of notes taken at the end of each day, of course re- 

 touched prior to publication. 



Previous to presenting our extracts, we must notice one blemish 

 which ought not to be overlooked. It is the misplacement of the 

 commas in numerous places, frequently wholly subverting the sense 

 or turning the passage into nonsense. We would fain have believed 

 that the fault was chargeable to the " printer's devil," but the cir- 

 cumstance occurs far too often to admit of its being accounted for in 

 that way. 



The following quotation, though not relating to the Highlands, 

 will interest our readers. Our author is writing at the Argyle Arms, 

 Inverary. 



"In the evening I found the coffee-room filled with a very noisy set of 

 people—' bit Glasgow bodies, awa' on a pleasuiin' tour.' There was one so- 

 litary man with a weatlier-stained countenance, who, when I took my seat 

 near him, addressed a few ordinary words to me. I was soon after called 

 away to another table, where tea was placed for me, and the weather-beaten 

 man was again left alone. He seemed so utterly abandoned bj' his kind, that 

 I could not refrain from speaking to him again ; on which he immediately 

 drew his chair to my table, seeming delighted to have a human being to asso- 

 ciate with. He said he was just returned from Canada, where he had been 

 residing for the last four years. The Government he described as being in a 

 very unsettled state, on account of the animosity existing between the Eng- 

 lish" and French population. In their House of Assembly some of the 

 speeches are delivered in French and some in English. He resided within 

 gun-shot of the American frontier, and spoke in no very measured terms of 

 the American character. It is a frequent practice \v\ih them, he says, to get 

 into debt upon the Canada side, and then step over the frontier and defy 

 their creditors. Mrs. Trollope's book is very little exaggerated, for they 

 have no manners and no feeling. They speak of attending an execution as 

 ' taking a day's jileasure !' They are utterly selfish, even within the pale of 



