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summary of an introduction of sixty pages, and of 180 pages of the work, a proof of the exceedingly discursive style of our author's composition.

At this period of the narration, the political connection between Louis and his haughty and detested Cousin of Burgundy stands upon the most precarious foundation. The object of Louis is to abridge the power of his vassal, but dreading his martial character, the number of his forces, and, above all, dreading his alliance with his Brotherin-law, Edward IV. of England, Louis's schemes are to prevent an open rupture by every possible finesse of policy, whilst he inflicts the utmost injury upon the Duke, by exciting rebellion amongst his subjects in Flanders, the population of which country having become rich by trade, were impatient of the control and tyranny exercised over them by their feudal sovereign. But all the forbearance and mastery of his passions, by the wily Louis, had been nearly rendered of little avail to him, and war was on the point of being kindled between him and his adversary by the circumstance of the Countess Hameline de Croye and her neice, Isabelle de Croye, having fled from the Court of the Duke of Burgundy, and taken refuge in that of Louis. Isabelle de Croye is the heroine of the piece, but the author scarcely condescends to pay much attention to the developement of her character, and although she is often on the scene of action, and the whole interest of the novel arises from the difficulty of disposing of her hand, and of her large domains, yet she is almost as passive as the heroine of the novel of Ivanhoe; there is no individuality of character given to her, and the whole of the events and every portion of the novel in which she is connected, arise solely out of the casual circumstances in which she is placed, and not from any peculiar features of her character. The novel, indeed, may be said to be without any heroine, or female character of interest; the ladies in this production have been treated discourteously by the Novellist, and, excepting the humorous sketches of the Lady Hame line de Croye, a silly, vain, and talka

tive middle aged lady, whose beauty is on the wane, the novel would lose none of its interest by the total omission of all the female characters. However, Isabelle de Croye has fled the Court of the Duke of Burgundy, in order to defeat the Duke's intentions of forcing her to marry one of his friends and courtiers, and the fugitive Isabelle with her garrulous aunt, and a female attendant, are induced by the intrigues and promises of Louis to throw themselves under the protection of that monarch. They arrived at Plessis, in Tourraine, where Louis then held his court, just at the juncture when the King had fallen in with Quentin Durward. But Louis, dreading the resentment of the Duke of Burgundy, had given these ladies a reception little suited to their rank, or to his professed hospitality, by which they had been induced to make his Court their asylum. He had, in the first instance, received and accommodated them in a paltry inn, in the village. adjoining to Plessis, and, in the character of a merchant, entertaining Quentin with a breakfast, our hero is made to witness the lovely Countess Isabelle de Croye, attend ing upon the disguised monarch, herself in the simple garb and character of a servant. The Countess, however, is at length admitted into the palace of Plessis, but, although her reception has been contrived with apparently the utmost caution, the place of her retreat has been divulged to the Duke of Burgundy, who has sent the renowned Marshal of his Palace, the Count de Crevecœur, peremptorily to declare war against Louis for numerous offences, the climax of which is his encourag ing the flight of these ladies, and his offering them a place of refuge. In this dilemma, the unprincipled and intriguing King contrives a scheme to avert at once the impend ing war, and to gratify his malice against the Duke. He positively and openly denies his having insti gated the Countess to flight, and at the same time he resolves to get rid of this source of contention, by apparently sending her to the Court of her cousin, the venerable Bishop of Liege; but forming, at the same time, a most unprincipled deep-laid

scheme, to have the lady intercepted in her journey by a powerful military marauder, sirnamed the Boar of Ardennes, and who, by forcibly marrying the Lady Isabelle, will rid the King of France of all apprehension of her being united to any vassal of the Duke of Burgundy, who, by the acquisition of her demesnes, may augment the power of his master. The Countess with her aunt is sent on this journey to Liege, under the protection of Quentin Durward, accompanied by three military assistants and a guide. But one of the numerous and endless schemes of the King of France, is to unite his nephew, the Duke of Orleans, to his second daughter. But the young Duke entertains a thorough antipathy against the Princess, and, moreover, falls in love with the Countess Isabelle during her short sojourn at the Court of Louis.

At length the Countess and her aunt and female attendant, with Quentin Durward and his companions at arms, leave the Court and Castle of Plessis for Liege. After a short journey they are pursued by two knights richly caparisoned, in this case of necessity our hero Quen tin finds that of his three well-equip ped companions, two are craven at heart, and he can only induce the third, a brave old Gascon, to assist him in defending the trust confided to his courage and prudence. Quentin and the Gascon encounter these antagonists; Quentin unhorses his adversary, but the Gascon had in the very first onset been laid dead at the feet of his opponent, who now turns to defend his fallen companion from the assault of Quentin. A combat ensues between these parties, when they are interrupted by a body of the king's horse, and the denoue ment exposes to the reader that the assailing knights are no other than the young Duke of Orleans, and his friend the Count de Dunois, then the bravest and most distinguished knight of France. This rencontre terminates by the young Duke and his friend Dunois being led back prisoners by the guard of horse, whilst Quentin Durward and his charge are directed to continue on their road to Liege. We cannot say, that the journey of our hero and the fair Countess is calculated to afford

much of amusement to our readers. After Quentin's sagacity having avoided the snare laid for his interception they arrive at Liege, and, immediately after their arrival, the Castle of the Bishop of Liege, their host, is assailed and captured by the rebellious citizens of Liege, assisted by the redoubtable erratic knight and ruffian sirnamed the Boar of Ardennes. The scene of this contest, and of the conduct of Quentin Durward, the revel after the capture of the Castle, and the murder of the good and venerable Bishop of Liege, are all painted in the author's best style. The mixture of drunken debauch, and the ferocious cruelty displayed at the banquet, at which the Bishop falls a sacrifice, are given with considerable force; but the fact is, that the whole scene is nothing more than a mere modification of the scenes of barbarous revelry which are found in all this author's preceding novels.

In the mean time Louis, instigated by a crafty astrologer, in whom this superstitious monarch was wont to put his trust, resolved to throw himself upon the honor and hospitality of the Duke of Burgundy, and to repair with confidence to his Court, in the hopes of over-reaching the Duke, and obtaining his objects of policy by dint of his superiority of intellect and his tact at intrigue. This extraordinary confidence in an enemy, at an age when the laws of honour and the rights of hospitality were but feeble barriers against the passions and interests of princes, might however have succeeded according to the wishes of Louis, but in the very midst of his entertainment by the Duke, the news arrive of the insurrection of the citizens of Liege, and of the murder of the Bishop, with the capture and sacking of his castle. These events are immediately at tributed to the craft, and intrigues, and manœuvres of Louis, who, in consequence, nearly falls a sacrifice to the resentment of his choleric host the Duke of Burgundy. The interruption of the banquet by the arrival of the news, and the fiery altercation and scarcely pervented contest between the Duke and his guest, are painted with great force; but we doubt whether the Duke's being ultimately pacified, and his allow

ing his guest to depart although a prisoner, are at all in keeping with the extravagant violence of his temper. Louis is confined a prisoner by Burgundy, and in the course of the next day the Countess de Croye, having been rescued from the tumult and dangers at Liege by the prudence and bravery of Quentin Durward, and in her escape from which, she had been captured with Quentin by the Count de Crevecoeur, now arrives at the Court of the Duke of Burgundy. Her examination with that of Quentin Durward tends to exculpate Louis from being the immediate cause of the revolt of the Liegeois. The Duke, however, still imposes hard conditions upon the captive monarch; their enmity is likely to be unabated, until they by chance happen to unite in sympathetic enjoyment at the sufferings of a miserable envoy from the Boar of Ardennes, whom the Duke had ordered to be chaced and torn by the hounds. This sympathy of pleasure at the same object brings about a reconciliation between Louis and the Duke, which otherwise appears to have been hopeless. At length terms of accommodation are settled between the King and the Duke of Burgundy, upon the basis of their uniting their forces to subdue the inhabitants of Liege; and the Duke of Burgundy eventually consents to bestow the hand of the fair Isabelle upon the knight who may succeed in slaying the renowned freebooter, the Boar of Ardennes, then at the head of the revolted Liegois. The armies march against Liege, and Quentin Durward having learnt some intended stratagems of the Boar of Ardennes, by communicating them in time, enables the King of France to frustrate their object, and himself and uncle, the archer of the Scotch guard, succeed in personally vanquishing the freebooter of the Ardennes, and the hand of Isabelle is bestowed upon Quentin Durward.

It is obvious that this plan admits of no diversity of characters. We have an astrologer and gypsies as we have in all this author's works; of the utter inanity of the female characters we have already spoken, the remaining characters are nothing more than a crafty, pliant and unprincipled statesman, a monarch of

the same description, and a feudal Duke of violent temper, with several of the diversities of the military character, with which the reader of this class of novels has long been so thoroughly well acquainted. Added to this, we have reiterations of the old descriptions of chivalrous as well as of less knightly rencontres, of military equipment, of mounting and relieving guard, of donjon keeps, of pallisadoes, and of all the means of defence and security peculiar to the middle ages.

Novels of this description will always acquire popularity for an author from the pleasurable excitement they are calculated to produce by their specific nature, independent of any excellence of execution; and although there are some of the novels of this author, such for instance as Waverly and the Heart of Mid Lothian, that will acquire him lasting fame, we doubt whether many of them will not fade from the public esteem, after having enjoyed a violent but short-lived reputation similar to that which attended the once popular, but now almost forgotten, romances of Horace Walpole, of Mrs. Radcliffe, and others of that class, and to which we may add the poems of this very author, the praises of which were as violent as they were ephemeral. Certain it is, that every publication by this author tends rather to diminish than to increase his reputation with sound judges; for each work is scarcely more than a new arrangement of the materials of his former productions; and even the scenes which do not amount to plagiarism are so closely in association with similar scenes in his preceding novels, that no reader of discernment can go through a new work without experiencing considerable impatience or even irritation. To support these two opinions, we may ask what reader can peruse the military character of Balafré, without immediately recognizing Captain Dalguetty and Michael Lambourne? Or who can read the arrival of the envoy Crevecœur at Plessis, without identifying him with the envoy Campbell, sent by the Duke of Argyle to Montrose, in the novel founded upon the history of the rising of the Jacobite Clans under the latter nobleman 2

Upon the second part of our observation we may ask, will not the playful yet masterly superiority and confidence of the disguised Louis over the sagacious but youthful Quentin Durward, on their first meeting, recall to the reader the meeting of Julian, Peveril and Ganlasse, on the road from Liverpool to Derbyshire? and is not the shooting of the leader of the enemy's patrol by Quentin, at the assault upon Liege, a direct and exact copy of the scene of the highland centinel in the novel of Waverly? But it is almost trifling with the reader to point out such instances of plagiarism and association of characters, and of incidents; they are so numerous and palpable.

It may be observed of Fielding, as it has often been observed of Shakspeare, that there is an exclusive individuality in all his characters, and that, when he had done with one character, we hear no more of him, and no other character resembles him in the least, or in any degree to recall him to our recollection. His parson Adams, Thwackum, and Harrison, are as distinct beings as the mad Lear and the pretended madman Edgar. His Partridge is a character resembling nothing else in his novels, and his heroes Jones, Joseph Andrews, and Booth; his Colonels, James, and Bath; his Squires, Weston and Allworthy, are all as distinctly marked as the most opposite characters in real life; nor is there any one scene in his novels that reminds the reader of any incident in his preceding volumes. In this consists the test of real genius for the creation of diversified characters, and the supporting of them with distinctness through numerous events is the most difficult of all literary labours; and the surprising talent of this description forms the most solid pedestal of the fame of Shakspeare.

Very different is it with the author of these novels; for, as we have already observed, every new work presents us with old faces and old acquaintances in new garbs, and often in garbs that can hardly be called new. The gigantic, furious, and ferocious freebooter; the athletic, sensual, and mechanical captain

of a more disciplined army, and the lordly chief of his panoplied host, are for ever thrown out upon the canvass-et ex uno disce omnes.

But in this novel before us, there are many scenes of distinguished brilliancy, and some passages of considerable humour, but there is not the slightest attempt at pathos or at moving the feelings; every thing is addressed to the imagination of the reader. But there are to be found, interspersed in various parts of the novel, isolated passages containing important moral truths, acute observations on life and manners, or caustic satire, expressed with great smartness and dazzling brilliancy.

Perhaps it is hardly fair to judge by too high a standard an author, who supplies the book-market with such a bulk of matter, and with such prodigious rapidity. Taking Quentin Durward as an aspirant to the supremacy of the novel season of the year, we do not think its pretensions can be disputed, at least if we allow that amusement and not knowledge is the legitimate object of this species of composition; but, viewing it as a candidate for permanent celebrity, its pretensions we think are by no means as high as many of the author's previous works, and certainly not higher than many of those novels that are now known to the world, rather by the fame of their former days than by any present circulation amongst novel readers, or by any recurrence to them by the learned or by people of intellect. We must repeat an observation that we have before made upon this author, that it is rather lamentable that a person so highly endowed with imagination and sagacity, should not condescend to subject himself to more patient thoughts and his works to more careful revision. "To bridle in the struggling muse," as Addison terms it, is a very difficult, but a very necessary task, and this author's works, with all their merit, often compel us to reflect upon the well-known couplet

"Ev'n copious Dryden wanted or for

got The last, the noblest art-the art to blot."

The Innkeeper's Album, arranged for Publication, By W. F. Deacon, 8vo. pp. 429.

The unprecedented success of the "Sketch-Book" has produced, within a few years, a herd of imitators, some few of whom have attained the humour, others the pathos, but none the refinement of their master spirit. Indeed the mantle of the prophet is not to be caught by every star-gazer. The public attention has in consequence been directed to those pleasant ephemerides, better known by the name of essays, which, as they require little thought to compose, and still less to read, are admirably calculated to suit the meridian of a "reading public." Master Geoffry Crayon has much to answer for at the tribunal of literature. Not only among a certain class of readers has he introduced a style of writing popular, both from its facility to author and reader, but, "like Casar's spirit raging for revenge," he has called "havoc and let slip the dogs of war" in the shape of innumerable witlings, who have drugged the town even to satiety with volumes of miscellaneous matter.

But while we thus contumeliously designate the countless imitators of the American artist, we would not be supposed to include all in so sweeping a censure. Some few there are who, captivated by the surpassing delicacy of their original, have merely condescended to borrow his most striking felicities of thought and expression, which they have remodelled in the graceful impress of their own style and intellect. Now such a species of imitation is not only liberal but laudable. The sole object of reading is to gain ideas, and hence the master spirits of every age have (with few exceptions,) been those who have been the most devoted to study. Had the divine writers of Greece and Rome never existed, Ben Johnson would never have composed

his Alchemist, that glorious reflection of the light of other times-and if the early Italian poets on the restoration of literature in the south had descended in obscurity to the tomb, the Paradise Lost would have been shorne of its most splendid beams. Nay, even in our own days we see from experience, how much of an Ovid, Catullus, and Anacreon is necessary to constitute a Moore, and how the dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher serve to excite the emulation of Barry Cornwall. Of this species of imitation then we profess ourselves not merely tolerators but admirers, and it is this enlarged species of imitation that has led us to the consideration of the "Innkeeper's Album."

This miscellaneous volume professes to be the composition of an author, who from certain pecuniary exigencies (no unusual phenomenon) has been compelled to deposit it with the grasping Innkeeper of a Welsh village by him it is destined to see the light, and the schoolmaster of the hamlet is, with some difficulty, induced to undertake the editorship. Mr. Deacon accordingly hastens to London for the combined purposes of profit and publication, and, in a preface remarkable for its characteristic quaintness, details the explanatory intelligence which we have thus simply abridged. From the desultory nature of the volume, it will be impossible for us to give it a methodical review.

The "Coachman" is a very lively characteristic sketch, and evidently drawn from the remembrance of one particular individual. The tale of Twm. John Catty is a very interesting and spirited sketch.It is principally discriptive of the freaks of this Welsh Rob Roy; who was at last overpowed in his strong holds at Cardigan. The death of his newly betrothed wife Elinor, the Lady of Llandisent, is strikingly affecting.

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