Whether he choose Cervantes serious air, Or shake and laugh in Rabelais' easy chair, &c In all this there is such a fascination, that we should now even be disappointed if he were to appear to us (Shakespeare is the only other writer of whom we can say as much) without his very faults, without the occasional awkwardness of his narrative, his artless and boyish extravagancies, which show a mind that still can return with pleasure to the nursery, and the delight he takes in his own -bad jokes, till he makes his readers as much delighted with them as himself. Nothing, for instance, can be more perfectly useless, cumbersome, and altogether inconceivable, than the ..vehicle in which he lumbers along these three series of Tales-called of My Landlord-as lucus a non lucendo because My Landlord has nothing to do with them; edited by Jedediah Clieshbotham, who is a perfect hound, - totally without merit of any sort in the conception or execution; and composed by Mr Peter Pattieson, who was once, if we are not mistaken, dead, but has started again into life, with all the accompaniment of Miss Buskbody and the other facetious inmates of Gandercleugh, a vehicle so laboriously constructed, and yet so inefficient and incomplete after all, that we will venture to say no man of genius, but this author, would ever have deign ed to frame it; yet such is his genius, so many traits of it are ever shining throughout all this dense fog, so delighted does he himself seem with the invention, and to enjoy it so much more even than some of his most inimitable fictions, that he at last forces us to like it in spite of ourselves; and we will own it was with a feeling of no small satisfaction that we were again introduced to Miss Buskbody, after we thought she had been quite expunged from the imagination of every human mafcerature, in the midst, too, of a fine passage in the history of the Deanses, that we have come actually to feel For refreshed with one of Jedediah's prosing stupid notes, and that, now that the said Jedediah bids us farewell for ever, we are like to shed tear, as if we were parting from an old and much-loved friend. fore, to introduce them to the new Tales. The first, entitled the Bride of Lammermoor, was collected by Mr Peter from a set of notes, partly writ ten, partly in drawing, left him by a village limner of the name of Mr Richard Tinto, whose history is, in the first place, very facetiously narrated, and is one of the most amusing of the Gandercleugh memorabilia which has yet come to us. Upon this, however, we cannot dwell, and must, in general, say of the story, to which it serves as a prelude, that it relates to the fate of the last descendant of the house of Ravenswood, supposed to be the title of an ancient noble family of Scotland, whose estates had chiefly passed away into the hands of a selfish minister of the Crown, who, from the chicanery of the law, had amassed a great fortune, and now, under the title of Lord Keeper, had a large share of the management of Scotch affairs, according to the corrupt state of the administration shortly before the Union. The mansion of Ravenswood, in a glen betwixt Berwickshire and the Lothians, was become the chief residence of this man, Sir William Ashton; the heir of the original family, called by courtesy the Master of Ravenswood, had now no other property than an old castle, called the Wolf's Crag, overhanging the sea on the same coast, and at the beginning of the story we see him from this mansion attending the obsequies of his father.The circumstances of this scene are described with all those characteristic traits of manners by which this author makes us so familiar with the periods into which he carries us. The rites of the Episcopal church were interrupted by an order from the Presbyterian Privy Council; but the friends of the deceased drew their swords, and the service went on Young Ravenswood was furious in his expressions of vengeance. Sir William Ashton, to whom the account of this affair was represented, was in the aet of transmitting it in all its heightenings to the Privy Council, he, however, was accidental ly interrupted, and went out with his daughter Lucy, a beutiful and romantic girl, on a walk into his grourds. Two sons and this young lady.composed his whole family; the eldest an officer, at that time from home, the youngest a lively spoiled boy, who 1 liked everything better than his book, and was at home with a tutor. Lady Ashton, a proud overbearing dame, to whom the Lord Keeper was generally supposed to truckle, was in England with Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, whose favour she courted. In the course of their walk Lucy decoyed her father to the cottage of an old blind woman, Alice, who had been a nurse in the former family, and who was still left on the estate. The scenery in which this sybil appears, and her own figure, are described in Your author's best manner. The cottage was situated immediately 1-under a tall rock, which in some measure theetled over it, as if threatening to drop tosome detached fragment from its brow on the frail tenement beneath. The hut itself was constructed of turf and stones, and rudely roofed over with thatch, much of which was in a dilapidated condition. The thin blue smoke rose from it in a light column, and curled upward along the white face of the incumbent rock, giving the scene a tint of exquisite softness. In a small and rude garden, surrounded by straggling elder bushes, which formed a sort of imperfect hedge, sat near to the bee-hives, by the produce of which she lived, that' woman Hold, whom Lucy had brought her father hither to visit, 86 Whatever there had been which was disastrous in her fortune-whatever there was miserable in her dwelling, it was easy to judge, by the first glance, that neither years, poverty, misfortune, nor infirmity, had broken the spirit of this remarkable woman. 9i superiority to those of her own rank. It scarce seemed possible that a face, deprived of the advantage of sight, could have expressed character so strongly but her eyes, which were almost totally closed, did not, by the display of their sightless orbs, mar the countenance to which they could add posture, soothed, perhaps, by the murmurs nothing. She seemed in a ruminating of the busy tribe around her, to abstraction, though not to slumber." pp. 88-90. This old woman, though professing her devotion to the ancient family, advises my Lord Keeper to be on his guard against the vengeance of the heir. Thus warned, Sir William Ashton returned thoughtfully home, but on the way his daughter and he were on the point of being destroyed by a wild bull of the old Caledonian breed, of which a herd were roaming in his forest. Just as the creature was rushing upon them, it was overtaken by a and fell dead at their feet. Sir Wilshot from the neighbouring thicket, liam called to a man who at the same instant appeared, and left his daughter under his charge, while he himself went for farther assistance, as she was in a faint. He left her in the hands of her deliverer, who carried her away to a neighbouring well, concerning which a romantic legend is told, and which was of disastrous omen to the Ravenswood family. Here the young lady recovered, and found herself in the presence of a young man of a striking countenance and demeanour, to whom, on his returu, the Lord Keeper, after expressing his gratitude, said, Permit us to request' There was a dead pause of surprise, not unmixed with less pleasing feelings. The Master wrapt himself in his cloak, made a haughty inclination towards Lucy, muttering a few words of courtesy, as indistinctly heard as they seemed to be reluctantly uttered, and turning from them was immediately lost in the thicket. q She occupied a turf seat, placed under weeping birch of unusual magnitude and age, as Judah is represented sitting under her palm-tree, with an air at once of majesty and of dejection. Her figure was tall, com. manding, and but little bent by the infir-Request nothing of me, my lord,' mities of old age. Her dress, though that said the stranger, in a stern and peremptory of a peasant, was remarkably clean, form tone; I am the Master of Ravenswood." ing in that particular a strong contrast to those of her rank, and was disposed with an attention to neatness, and even to taste, equally unusual. But it was her expression of countenance which chiefly struck Fiche spectator, and induced most persons to address her with a degree of deference and tiivility very inconsistent with the miserable State of her dwelling; and which, neverdertheless, she received with that easy compoinsure which showed she felt it to be her due. 01 She had once been beautiful, but her beau hty had been of a bold and masculine cast, such as does not survive the bloom of youth; yet her features continued to express strong sense, deep reflection, and a character of sd sober pride, which, as we have already said od" of her dress, appeared to argue a conscious "The Master of Ravenswood !' said the Lord Keeper, when he had recovered his momentary astonishment. • Hasten after him-stop him--beg him to speak to me for a single moment.' p. 123. The Master, however, would not return; but the result of this interview was, that the Lord Keeper made his dispatch to the Privy Council quite. in a different tone from what he first proposed, and the lenity and forbearance which it exhibited were very unaccountable to that high body. What was the result upon the mind of Lucy, we suppose there is no young lady new from the boarding-school who has not already perfectly conjectured, and who has not, indeed, a pretty good glimpse of a great part of the remainder of the story. We are now introduced to two new characters. The first of these is a soldier of fortune, or rather a cowardly cunning adventurer, who lived by practising on the weaknesses of others, and was ambitious of being a political agent for the exiled Stuart family, to whom he knew he would do a great service if he could associate young Ravenswood in their cause. The other, Bucklaw, was one of his dupes, -had been almost reduced by him and his own extravagance to beggary, but now began to see pretty thoroughly into his character. Craigengelt (for so he was called) had urged Ravenswood to have an interview with the Lord Keeper, which he was pretty sure would end in personal violence, perhaps bloodshed, and had prepared a vessel for his escape in such an event. For his arrival this precious couple were now in waiting at a small ale-house on the coast. He returned, however, gloomy and sullen, and cut their inquiries very short by answers which Craigengelt found it convenient to pocket, but which exasperated his companion. The Master took horse for his solitary tower, but was pursued by Bucklaw, with whom he had a rencontre, which ended with his giving his opponent his life, and inviting him to accompany him to Wolf's Crag, as there was a quest out against him which might have brought this young gentleman into trouble if he had been taken. It was a late hour when they reached the melancholy tower, into which an old domestic admitted them with great caution. He is a very absurd and humorous character, and a great part of the drollery of the tale turns upon his ludicrous devices to support the respectability of the family. This is carried to a prodigious extreme, and, as has been well remarked to us, is much more in the taste of some of the extraordinary instances of extravagance and caricature painting that are to be found in Beaumont and Fletcher, and other old dramatists, than in a novel which has any pretence to be an imitation of real life. Here, again, is another instance of our author's delight in any vein of bumour upon which he happens to strike, and he at last fairly forces us to pursue it with a relish resembling his own. There is much, however, of Caleb Balderstone that is exceedingly good. Nothing better, perhaps, than his debut, which will give our readers a notion of him. "I fear,' said the Master to his companion, your supper will be a poor one; I hear the matter in discussion betwist Caleb and Mysie. Poor Balderstone is something deaf, amongst his other accomplishments, so that much of what he means should be spoken aside is overheard by the whole audience, and especially by those from whom he is most anxious to conceal his private manœuvres-Hark! mestic's voice in conversation with Mysie "They listened, and heard the old do to the following effect. Just mak the best o't, mak the best o't, woman; it's easy to put a fair face on ony thing.' But the auld brood-hen?-she'll be as teugh as bow-strings and bend-leather." 666 Say ye made a mistake—say ye made a mistake, Mysie,' replied the faithful sevoice; tak it a' on yoursel; never let the neschal, in a soothing and undertoned · credit o' the house suffer." LE "But the brood-hen,' remonstrated Mysie, ou, she's sitting some gate aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared to gae in in the dark for the bagle; and! if I did nae see the bogle, I could as ill see the hen, for it's pit-niirk, and there's no: another light in the house, save that very blessed lamp whilk the Master has in his ain hand. And if I had the hen, she's to pu' and to draw, and to dress; how can I do that, and them sitting by the only fire we have? 1 bide ye there awee, and I'll try to get the “Weel, weel, Mysie,' said the butler, lamp wiled away frae theni. 66 Accordingly, Caleb Balderstone entered the apartment, little aware that so much! of his bye-play had been audible there. Well, Caleb, my old friend, is there ang. chance of supper?' said the Master of Ravenswood. "Chance of supper, your lordship ?' said Caleb, with an emphasis of streng scorn at the implied doubt, How should H there be ony question of that, and we in your lordship's house?Chance of supper, indeed!-But ye'll no be for butcher-meat? There's walth o fat poultry, ready either I for spit or brander-The fat capon. Mysie he added, calling out as boldly as if suda thing had been in existence. Poor Bucklaw passed his time in but a dismal way in this old chateau, where there was literally nothing to eat or drink, and no one loved better agood bottle of claret. Heamused himself with cleaning his horse's bridle and bit, Caleb found employment in rubbing up the old pewter pots,-and the master passed much of his time in thinking of Lucy. At last, one morning, to Bucklaw's infinite joy, a cry of hounds was heard,-and forth he would venture whatever might be the risk. The master accompanied him, →a young lady and an elderly gentleman, both masked, were of the company; a thunderstorm obliged them to take shelter, infinitely to Caleb's horror, in the tower, who, when his master and they were housed, shuts out, without any ceremony, Bucklaw and the rest of the party, who like wise came for admittance, and this made the hot Bucklaw again seek to pick a quarrel with the master, as he thought the insult had been offered by him. The two strangers turn out to be the Lord Keeper and his daughter. A change in administration was hanging over the head of the wily politician, and if the Marquis of A~ were to get into power, to whom young Ravenswood was related, he foresaw a likelihood of a reversal of those decisions by which he had got posses sion of most of the master's estates. He contrived to ingratiate himself with his host while he remained in the tower,-explained away many of the bad appearances in his conduct, and even seemed rather to encourage the attachment, which was all but spoken out, between the young people. The Master goes so far as to agree to accompany him to his chateau, once the seat of his own father, although Caleb, whose ingenuity had been put to tremendous shifts during this visitation: warns him before he goes, of an old prophecy which hung over his head, come by his passion, that he fairly owns it to Lucy, whom he meets at the fatal mermaid's well, nor is she backward in plighting her troth to him in return. But now-nothing but disäster follows. Lady Ashton arrives upon the young couple, and chases the Master from the castle. She had a plan of uniting her daughter to Bucklaw, who succeeded to a good estate on the death of an aunt,-and notwithstanding a total revolution in politics, by which Ravenswood's estates are on the point of being restored to him, she persists in her opposition,-works upon the mind of her poor daughter by every means of deceit and superstition,—and at last she brings her, more dead than alive, to the hateful act of signing the contract which is to consign her to Bucklaw. Ravenswood was abroad on a political mission, and all letters were intercepted between the lovers,-one, however, from Lucy found its way to him, in which she seemed to release him from his engagement, he instantly returned to his own country, and rushed in a distracted state into the room in the very moment when she was signing the fatal contract, 1979 5.8 In the engagement between Ra venswood and Lucy, they had broken between them, according to the usage of the times, a piece of gold, one-half of which she hung around her neck, and the other half he wore next his heart. After a long altercation with her mother, (the poor girl herself could not speak,) he becomes cou vinced that she had deserted him, and in his rage he demands back the piece of gold, which Lady Ashton detached from her daughter's neck and gave to him. And she could wear it thus,' he said speaking to himself could wear it ind her very bosom-could wear it next to her heart-even when but complaint avails not,' he said, dashing from his eye the tear which had gathered in it, and resum strode to the chimney, and threw into the ing the stern composure of his manner. He fire the paper and piece of gold, stamping upon the coals with the heel of his boot, as if to insure their destruction. I will be no longer,' he then said, an intruder here -Your evil wishes, and your worse offices, Lady Ashton, I will only return, by hop. ing these will be your last machinations! against your daughter's honour and hap piness.--And to you, madam,' he said addressing Lucy, I have nothing farther I L to say, except to pray to God that you may not become a world's wonder for this act of wilful and deliberate perjury.'-Having uttered these words, he turned on his heel, and left the apartment." pp. 83, 84. 19 Feverish and sick as poor Lucy was after this dreadful scene, the marriage still went on, the description of it is one of the most striking that even this great painter has ever given. There are a set of old women, who were vulgarly supposed to be witches, sitting in the church-yard, whose conversation in particular is quite inimitable. The bride rode to church behind her youngest brother. The boy was placed in the centre of the gallant train, At the time he was too full of his own appearance, his sword, his laced cloak, his feathered hat, and his managed horse, to pay much regard to any thing else; but he afterwards remembered to the hour of his death, that when the hand of his sister, by which she supported herself on the pillion behind him, touched his own, it felt as wet and cold as sepulchral marble. "Glancing wide over hill and dale, the fair bridal procession at last reached the parish church, which they nearly filled; wtor, besides domestics, above a hundred gentlemen and ladies were present upon the occasion. The marriage ceremony was performed, according to the rites of the Presbyterian persuasion, to which Bucklaw of late had judged it proper to conform. "On the outside of the church, a liberal dole was distributed to the poor of the neighbouring parishes, under the direction of Johnny Mortheuch, who had lately been promoted from his desolate quarters at the Hermitage, to fill the more eligible situation of sexton at the parish-church of Ravenswood. Dame Gourlay, with two of her contemporaries, the same who assisted at Alice's late-wake, seated apart upon a flat monument, or through-stane, sate enviously comparing the shares which had been allotted to them in dividing the dole. Johnny Mortheuch,' said Annie Winnie, might hae minded auld lang syne, and thought of his auld kimmers, for as braw as he is with his new black coat.. I hae gotten but five herring instead o' sax, and this disna look like a gude saxpennys, and I dare say this bit morsel o' beef is an ounce lighter than ony that's been dealt around; and it's a bit o' the tenony hough, mair by token, that your's, Maggie, is out o' the back-sey.': Mine, quo' she?' mumbled the paralytic hag, mine is half banes, I trow. grit, folk gie poor bodies ony thing for coming to their weddings and burials, it "Their gifts," said Ailsie Gourlay, are dealt for nae love of us nor for respect for whether we feed or starve. They wad gie us whinstanes for loaves, if it would serve their ain vanity, and yet they expect us to be as gratefu' as they ca' it, as if they served us for true love and liking, "And that's truly said,' answered her companion. "But, Ailsie Gourlay, ye're the auldest o' us three, did ye ever see a mair grand bridal?' "I winna say that I have, answered the hag; but I think soon to see as braw a burial.' A Joold cat worse." That's right, Annie,” said the paralytic woman: God send us a green Yule and a fat kirk-yard ! "But I wad like to ken, Lucky Gourlay, for ye're the auldest and wisest amang us, whilk o' these revellers' turns it will be to be streekit first," "D'ye see yon dandilly maiden,' said Dame Gourlay, a glistenin' wi' goud and jewels, that they are mounting on the white horse behind that hare-brained callant in scarlet, wi' the lang sword at his side ? But that's the bride said her com panion, her cold heart touched with some sense of compassion; that's the very bride hersell! Eh, whow sac young, sae braw, and sae bonnie--and is her time sae 100 short? I tell ye her winding sheet," said the sybil, is up as high as her throat already, believe it wha list. Her sand has but few grains to run out, and nac wonder-they ve been weel shaken. The leaves are withering fast on the trees, but she'll never see the Martinmas wind gar them dance in swirls like the fairy rings. pp. 92–96. A ball followed at the castle, in which dance, the bride retired, the brideLady Ashton herself led down the groom soon followed. mode |