The treacherous Charles IX. had only made peace with the protestants to lull them into security, and thinking that all was ripe to accomplish their destruction, he commenced with the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in which Coligny and the principal Huguenots were assassinated. Bernard, during that dreadful night, was with his fair mistress, who concealed him till the slaughter was over. The war recommenced, and the two brothers, true to their different religions, found themselves in the opposite armies at the siege of Rochelle. One of the most dreadful events resulting from civil war, and historically true, is described by the author.

"A captain, with about fifty soldiers, were lodged in the mill. The officer, in his night-cap and drawers, holding a pillow in one hand, and his sword in the other, opened the door, and came out to see what was the matter: far from suspecting an attack, he thought the noise proceeded from a quarrel among his own men. He was soon undeceived, by a stab from a pike, which stretched him, bathed in his blood, on the ground. The soldiers had time to secure the doors of the mill within, and defended themselves with courage, firing through the windows; but around the building, was piled a heap of hay and boards, intended for the construction of gabions; the protestants set fire to it, and, in an instant, the whole tower was enveloped in flames. Dreadful cries were heard within; the roof was burning as well as the door, which had been so strongly barracaded, that it could not be opened even by the unfortunate catholics themselves. If they endeavoured to leap from the window, they fell into the flames, or were received on the points of pikes. A horrible circumstance now occurred. An ensign, clad in complete armour, endeavoured to leap out of a narrow window, as the rest were doing. To the lower edge of his cuirass was attached, according to custom, a kind of iron skirt, covering his thighs, made somewhat in the shape of an inverted funnel, so as to allow full liberty in walking. The window was not large enough to allow the passage of this part of his armour, and the ensign, in his confusion, had thrown himself forward, with so much force, that he remained fixed and motionless, as if held in a vice. The flames reached him, heated his armour, and he was burnt slowly, as in a furnace, or in the famous bull of Phalaris. The poor sufferer uttered the most frightful shrieks, and tossed about his arms, imploring assistance. There was a mo

ment's pause among the assailants, then altogether, and seemingly by common consent, they gave a loud shout, to prevent themselves from hearing the groans of the burning man. He disappeared in a vortex of flame and smoke, and was seen to fall amid the ruins of the tower, with his helmet red-hot." p. 270.

In one of the rencounters during the siege, Captain George was mortally wounded by a ball fired from the troops under the command of Bernard. The abuses that the clergy used VOL. VII.-NO. 14.

47

to exercise in the functions of their different creeds, at that time, is related by the author with great spirit and truth; and although we have lengthened our extracts more than we first intended, still we think the dying scene worth selecting,

"A minister appeared with a bible under his arm.

66 6

"My son,' said he, now that you are

"Enough. I know all you are going to say, but it is no use to waste your breath I am a catholic.

"A catholic!' exclaimed Beville, are you no longer an atheist ?' "You were brought up in the reformed religion,' said the minister, and at this solemn and terrible moment, when you are soon to appear before the supreme judge of the thoughts and actions "Let me alone. I am a catholic, I tell you.'

"But-'

you.

Let me

Captain Dietrich, will you not take pity upon me? You have already rendered me one service, let me beg another of be permitted to die without any more exhortations., "Retire, Sir,' said Nornstein, to the Minister. that he is in no humour to hear you?'

Do you not see

"La Noue beckoned the Monk, who approached directly.' "There is a priest of your own religion,' said he to George. We impose no restraint upon the consciences of men.'

Monk or Minister, let them both go to the devil,' cried George. "The Monk and the Minister each took a side of the bed, and seemed determined to dispute the possession of the dying man.

"The gentleman is a catholic,' said the Monk.

"But he was born a protestant, and belongs to me,' said the Minister. "But he was converted.'

"He is determined to die in the faith of his fathers.'

"Confess your sins, my son.'

"Repeat your creed.'

"Will you not die a good catholic?'

"Take away this agent of Antichrist,' shouted the Minister.' finding that most of the bystanders were on his side.

A Huguenot soldier seized the Monk by his girdle and pulled him away, crying'get out, you bald-pated gallows bird. We sing no more masses in Rochelle.'

"Hold,' said La Noue. If this gentleman chooses to confess, I swear no one shall prevent him.'

66 6 Thanks, la Noue, but — -,' said the expiring man. "You are all witnesses,' interrupted the Monk, he wishes to confess.'

"No-the devil take me if I do.'

"He has returned to the faith of his ancestors,' cried the Minister. "No, No; Mille tonneres! leave me alone both of you. Am I already dead, that the ravens are fighting for my carcass? I believe neither in your masses nor your psalms.'

Blasphemy,' bawled each of the rival priests at once.

"Damme! a man must believe something,' said Captain Dietrich, with the utmost phlegm

"No. Peste! neither in God nor Devil, so get away and let me die like a dog.'

"Die then like a dog,' said the Minister, leaving him. The Monk crossed himself, and went up to Beville." p. 280.

We shall end the story with the author's own words.

"Did Mergy ever recover his spirits? Did Diane find a new lover? I leave the answers to both these questions to the ingenuity of the reader.' p. 286.

For thirty years or more Pigault Lebrun has kept all France alive with his inexhaustible gayety. He does not pourtray very natural characters, nor excel in the probability or consistency of his plots. But there is no end to the fertility of his invention, and the oddity of his incidents. The critic may condemn but he cannot help laughing. All his works are amusing, but the best are the "Child of the Carnaval," "My Uncle Thomas," the "Barons of Felsheim," the "Spanish Folly," &c. The work at the head of this article has less humour and more decency than is common with him. As he writes with a careless and unequal pen, though clear and graphic, his productions cannot be well judged from mere extracts.

The Holy League or the Spy (La Sainte Ligue ou la Mouche) commences a little after the period of the "Chronicle of Charles IX." Many names from history are introduced, but the principal characters are fictitious, nor is there any attempt to give a picture of the times. In short, it is a novel of the old school. We have not room to give a sketch of it.

The character of the philosophic Andrew is well drawn and sustained. Poussainville is happily hit off, and we know not why he is so soon killed. Though Colombe is much like Lord Byron's females, with very little strong individuality, she possesses a simplicity and purity, that are attractive. The rascality and double dealing of the political parties are exhibited with life and humour, and are admirably contrasted with the downright honesty and blind bigotry of Mouchy's early career. The two last volumes seem to be written without any other design than to lengthen out the book, and to increase the price. The scenes are without interest or connexion.

A lubricity in morals, is a most glaring defect in the novels of Pigault Lebrun. In the "Child of the Carnaval," the hero, notwithstanding his great love for a wife, far above him in family and education, to whom he owed every thing, commits various little infidelities which, in the bland nar

ration of our author, would seem to be the inevitable results of the frail temperament of human nature. That human nature is frail, and that such things do occur, is too true. True it is, too, that we lie and steal. But is an author, for this, excusable in bringing forward these aberrations, and expressing them in such smooth and pleasant phrases, as if, instead of being ashamed of our forgetfulness of principle, we should comfort ourselves with viewing them as natural and excusable consequences of our organization?

Taste.

ART. IV.-Essay on the Theory of Association in matters of Read before the Royal Society of Great-Britain. By Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE, Bart. F. R. S.

THIS subject, of the effect of Association in matters of Taste, has been so ably treated by the Edinburgh critics, in their review of Mr. Alison's work on Taste, that we should not have ventured to renew its discussion, did not the Essay of Sir George Mackenzie, by labouring to enforce the theory of the absolute beauty of objects, in opposition to that of Association, seem to call for an attempt at setting both theories in what we conceive to be their true light, by pointing out their respective errors. Before entering more immediately upon the subject in hand, it may not be amiss to offer a few preliminary observations upon the "Inquiry into the sources of the Sublime and Beautiful." As that celebrated work was the first philosophical treatise of modern times, professedly devoted to the subject which we are about to consider, it has a claim, independent of its merits, upon the attention of all inquirers into the nature and the principles of Taste. The sole end and aim of the in

Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, speaks of the principles of Custom and Fashion-which appears to ns to be a misconstruction, as well as a misapplication of terms.. Principles, properly speaking, are fundamental laws, or rules; and as such, are necessarily uniform. They cannot vary, unless that of which they are the foundation, whether art or science, vary along with them; and we are not to be told, we hope, that art and science are one thing to-day, and another to-morrow. The application of these principles may be varied; but the principles themselves must forever remain the same. Now, is it not another and a different thing with regard to Custom and Fashion? Are they not-the latter, at leastas mutable as human life, or April weather, and quite as precarious? Their sta

troductory remarks to that work, seem to be to prove that there are certain fixed principles in the mind, agreeably to which, all persons are alike influenced in their feelings and perceptions; and which govern and direct all their decisions in matters of Taste. We are, by no means, prepared to assent to this proposition, as we do not conceive it to be warranted by the knowledge-such as it is-or the common experience which we possess upon this subject. Burke, as the Edinburgh critics remark, is so very "adventurous" in all that he has advanced in elucidation of the nature and mode of operation of this faculty, that we have found it a somewhat difficult task, to trace his wanderings amidst the mazes of one of the most fanciful disquisitions upon a philosophical subject with which we have ever chanced to meet. The consequence of this has been, that his very able, and, in some respects, highly ingenious work, has become almost a dead letter in literature; seldom resorted to by any, save the student curious in the matter of which it treats. Notwithstanding its occasional power and spirit--its copiousness of illustration, often new and striking-its ingenious developments of some of the most curious and complicated phenomena of mind-and, above all, the power it possessesthe peculiar privilege and distinction of genius-of leading the mind of the reader almost insensibly into a train of interesting thought, that not unfrequently results in the discovery of truths, the celebrated Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, leaves us, on closing its pages, as much in the dark as ever upon the subject it professes to investigate, and dismisses us with ideas as to the nature and principles of Taste, utterly fluctuating and indeterminate. Burke, however, evidently contends for a standard upon this subject; but his error appears to us to consist in confounding the natural with the acquired powers of the mind; and in restricting, as he does, the application of the term to "works of Imagination, and the elegant arts." In the first place, this standard-if there be, in fact, any such thing-does not resolve itself into any original principles or powers of the mind. At all events, whether there be or be not any such constitutional principles implanted in the mind, one thing, at least, seems certain, that out of any bility consists in change; they would cease to exist, were they not variable-and of that which is forever varying, how is it possible to detect the principles? When Mr. Alison speaks, therefore, of the principles of Taste, the terms which he employs, appear to us to be liable to the same objection. Custom and Fashion are, perhaps, quite as much entitled to the 'honor of a theory,' as Taste; and, indeed, in assuming association as the foundation of Taste, Mr. Alison himself has laboured apparently to identity them. And, yet, people of fashion are one of the three classes of persons whom Lord Kaims has expressly excluded from all perception of, and relish for the Sublime and Beautiful!-Elements. Vol. ii.