with any view to complete emancipation. A new slave-trade arose in the centre of Europe during the invasions of the barbarians, of which a sketch is given in the History of the Jews,' vol. iii., as it appears chiefly to have been carried on by that active race, who had little scruple as to the traffic in which they should engage, provided it was lucrative. Yet it cannot be doubted that to Christianity Europe was eventually indebted for the extinction of slavery-or that our modern philanthropists have unwisely neglected the mode of operation in that great example.

On the whole, we recommend this little work to the reader who may be desirous of useful and dispassionate information on a most curious subject. Mr. Blair-the grandson, we are informed, of the author of The Grave,' and the son of the late admirable Lord President of the Court of Session at Edinburgh -is not a writer for effect, or for any temporary purpose. He has no splendid theory to illustrate; no object but that of diffusing the valuable knowledge which his industry has enabled him to collect; and though his reading is both accurate and extensive, he brings it to bear on his subject without the slightest display or parade. If accomplishments such as his be common with the northern bar, that profession may well be a proud one; and its members may be excused for regarding with some jealousy the system which subjects the decisions of their native judges, trained in the study of Roman jurisprudence, to the revisal of persons who have but rarely even a tinge of that species of learning, without which no man can understand anything of the ancient municipal law of Scotland.

The whole history of the servile classes of mankind, of which Mr. Blair's theme is an important chapter, might be made both interesting and instructive. The advantages which legalized slavery has certainly conferred upon mankind, in certain periods of society, in mitigating the atrocities of barbarian warfare, giving a kind of value to human life, which would otherwise be unsparingly mowed down by the exterminating sword; its modifications in the east and west; the singular and (so to speak) premature benevolence of the Mosaic institutes in the mitigation of its sufferings; the difference in its actual effect on both classes in despotic and republican states; all these, and numberless other points connected with its history, might afford very curious subjects for a philosophical mind, which should be superior to all the temporary excitement of the day, and bring to the investigation sound political wisdom, tempered with real Christian benevolence.

ᎪᎡᎢ.

ART. VI.-Trevelyan, by the Author of A Marriage in High Life.' 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1833.

THE

HE heroine of this novel is one of those many young ladies who make shipwreck of all true happiness from the utter incapacity to resist the charm of personal admiration-on whom the gentlest affections, the most generous dispositions, are in vain bestowed, along with the richest endowments of beauty and grace, because of the horse-leech craving of insatiable vanity; who trample on engagements which they have formed freely and leisurely, who break hearts that they know to be warm and devoted, who perpetually place themselves on the verge of ruinous guilt, and, if they escape the gulf, owe their safety to accident, to interference, to anything but their own prudence-and all this because, having no principle, the only foundation of what deserves to be called character, they are before whim, caprice, to say nothing of real passion, as straws and feathers are before the wind.

It is but too easy for poet or romancer to make his reader take part with the energies of passion, however guilty, so it be one-but to give fervent interest to the career of a thorough coquette, is a task not only of obvious, but of infinite difficultyand which we scarcely think has ever been achieved with perfect success, except by the authoress of Trevelyan. We can fancy it possible that the world may see another Manon Lescaut even, sooner than a worthy rival of Theresa Howard.

one:

The mere canvass here, as in almost all ladies' fables, is a poor none of them have ever had the constructive faculty in any very extraordinary degree of development; but materiam superat opus. Theresa is a natural daughter-how much alas! does this circumstance imply!-She is an orphan, bequeathed to the guardianship of a very handsome, gallant, chivalric officer, Colonel Trevelyan, who being absent in India, she is educated and brought up in the profoundest quiet, at Richmond, by his sister, Miss Trevelyan-the most interesting of old maids -humble, gentle, religious, in all things the unworldliest of human beings. The soldier comes home, anno ætatis thirty-four, when his lovely ward is in the blossom of seventeen; his arrival gives life and animation to the sequestered little cottage and garden of the spinsters; he falls passionately in love with Theresa, and she, hitherto treated as a child, returns his affection with what she herself supposes to be deep love. The Colonel is withheld, by a delicate scruple, from asking her hand in express terms he thinks it his duty to defer this until she shall have completed her eighteenth year, at which period her father's will had determined the cessation of the guardian's authority; but there is a complete,

a complete, though tacit, understanding between the parties; nay, in the frankness of her virgin fondness, the innocent charmer has spoken words which could bear no possible interpretation except that most agreeable to Trevelyan. In the midst of this Eden-like existence, their path is suddenly crossed by a younger and airier, though not handsomer swain than the Colonel;-and it soon appears that Theresa's grateful admiration for her guardian could not protect dreamy seventeen against the fascinations of love made in more juvenile style than his, more fantastic, more scenical -more mixed up with enthusiasm about guitars and moonlight barcarollas-visions, early and late, of a graceful stranger on a long-tailed horse, followed by a large Newfoundland dog-in short, all those circumstances of mystery and romance, which hold such indescribable sway over the imagination of a fair damsel, whose notions of what love is, and what lovers ought to be, have been chiefly gathered from Juliet, Corinne, and other less celebrated heroines.

The novelist did well, by the way, to make Miss Howard a devoted student of Corinne ;' there is no book so calculated to strengthen what is perhaps strong enough in every female mind, the taste and appetite for mere admiration; which taste at seventeen mixes itself up so very readily with the working of the senses —and which, by indulgence, so inextricably overtwines every part of the character, that none of Madame de Staël's own readers ever much wondered at her famous confession in the latter years of her life, that she would give up all her genius and all her glory to be for one day a young beauty!

Colonel Trevelyan is a true preux chevalier. He tramples on, though he cannot extinguish, his own love, and consoles himself, as he may, with the belief that he has done everything for the happiness of Theresa, still dearer to him than life, when he has given her in marriage to Lord Herbert Leslie. The 'happy pair' go abroad-are numbered among the detenus of 1803-are lost sight of for six or seven years, and only heard of from time to time in uncertain rumours. Meanwhile Colonel Trevelyan, in consequence of the deaths of a cousin and an uncle, succeeds to the title and great estates of his family; and as Earl of Launceston unites himself in marriage with his late uncle's orphan daughter, the Lady Augusta-a handsome and well-meaning, but cold and dull woman, who makes him as good a wife as a cold, dull woman ever can be to a man of ardent feelings and high intellect. Children are born to them-and he is the fondest of fathers-he mixes in public life-is an active and distinguished member of the House of Lords-a model of worth and propriety in all his relations-and as happy as any man whose heart of hearts

hearts has once been stabbed by disappointment can ever be :unconscious that when he wedded his frigid cousin the old flame had still lain smouldering beneath its ashes-chilled more and more every day to his wife by her even dogged stubbornness about little things, and her total incapacity to sympathize with him as to anything of a higher sort-but guarded both by a strong sense of honour and religious duty, and, in some degree, perhaps, by the sad expériences of his earlier days, from even dreaming of the fashionable flirtations of London. Such is his position, when one evening in the summer of 1808, he happens to look in at a grand assembly in Manchester-square; and then follows a scene of which we must extract a considerable portion, for it appears to us not second to any one that could be quoted from the whole body of recent romance :

Trevelyan remained for some time in the recess of a window, engaged in interesting political conversation relative to the recent debate, totally unheeding the crowd which buzzed around. His companion being at length called away, he was left alone, but feeling no particular interest to attract him further, he continued at the same spot, his eyes wandering carelessly over the moving mass, hardly conscious whom or what he saw. At last his attention was caught by a group of persons at a little distance, who appeared to be collected round some object of peculiar interest, and for lack of other occupation he for some time watched the party, although unable to discover any particular cause for the seeming general attraction.

'As it was now getting late, he was about to leave the room, when suddenly, by the moving of some of those who formed the crowd, he beheld a figure which immediately riveted his attention.

'She was dressed in the fashion of revolutionary France, a costume which, from the total separation of the countries during the last five years, had been little seen, or at least was not then generally adopted in England. Her shoulders, of most dazzling beauty, were naked nearly to the waist, and the lines of her graceful figure were scarcely concealed by the statue-like drapery which hung over it, and which appeared to be secured around her merely by her girdle. Long dark glossy ringlets hanging down on each side of her cheeks and throat, at the moment, entirely hid her features; but the general contour of her head, rivalling the beauty of a Grecian bust, gave full promise of perfection in the averted face.

'Trevelyan beheld all this with mixed feelings of admiration and disgust; but on a sudden-a strange, mysterious presentiment took possession of his soul-he again gazed at the figure before him breathless with fear, hope, and anxiety. She at last moved-she turned towards him! At once every pulse in his frame ceased to beat; -he wildly looked again. She now on a sudden caught his glance, and instantly her eyes were earnestly riveted upon him! Those who have been separated by fate from the object of their ro

mantic

mantic affections, and have, perhaps, for years dwelt on the dear recollection until it has become a sort of dream of the imagination, well know that when at last that visionary form is suddenly realized before the eyes, it bursts upon the senses with the awfulness of a phantom. Such were Trevelyan's bewildered feelings, when he again beheld Theresa!

On her part, to recognize him-to fly to his side-to seize his hand with rapture-to pour forth the most vehement expressions of delight, was the affair of a moment. But still Trevelyan continued to stare wildly at her, as if he had lost all power of speech or motion. Observing how much her abrupt appearance had agitated him, (for Theresa needed no one to assist her in reading the passions of the soul,) she, pressing his hand in her's, said, in a low voice, "Come with me into the next room-it seems nearly empty, and we may there talk more quietly, for this is no place for saying all we both have to ask and to tell; "and putting her arm within his, she led him into the outward apartment. When there, seated on a couch by her side, his hand still pressed in her's, and once more actually hearing the accents of her beloved voice, Trevelyan in some degree recovered from his emotion. He then ventured again to raise his eyes towards her indeed, it was now. only that he actually saw her, for all before had

been confusion.

At five and twenty, Theresa was still more beautiful than at eighteen; her figure, the principal charm of which had before consisted in the slim airiness of youth, was now beautifully rounded into a woman's form; her complexion was still more brilliant, her eyes still more sparkling. But Trevelyan withdrew his from their glance with a sort of mental shudder, for they had in them an expression which turned his very heart sick, although he could not-would nothave described it :-they told him of scenes to which they had probably been witness, and which appeared to have left upon them a stamp of their lawlessness!

6

"And is it really you, Colonel Trevelyan?" said Theresa, looking at him with most unfeigned pleasure; "I can hardly believe it is not all a dream! for you can form no idea of the happiness of this meeting to me to me who have been so long an exile, and who have lived in such total ignorance of the existence even of every creature I loved, that I positively did not dare make inquiries after any one. Judge, therefore, of my delight on seeing you so unexpectedly! But I have so much to learn, I hardly know where to begin. First, however, tell me, may I venture to ask after dear, dear Treevy?" and Theresa looked with painful anxiety in her companion's face for his reply. My sister still lives," said Trevelyan, who had now at last recovered the power of utterance; "but well I cannot say she is." "And do you still live with her?-at Richmond?" inquired Theresa. "No," replied Trevelyan, with embarrassment,-“ Î live—I—am married!' "Married! good Heavens! tell me quickly to whom !" said Theresa, with increased eagerness. Trevelyan, with some hesi

tation