A to Rome is infested, even in the daylight, by roving banditti? Surely, if safety were to be found any where in the Papal states, it would be in a spot so close to the seat of authority, and actually within the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See. The Pope's bull penetrates to the most distant points, and is religiously obeyed. Why is not his Holiness's secular power equally influential? union of the sacred office with the desolating functions of the robber is by no means a novelty; one of the most remarkable of the Italian brigands was an abbot a fellow who used to say his prayers with regularity, and who employed with scrupulous propriety the most solemn apostrophes to his faith during the acts of spoliation, and sometimes of murder. When this atrocious hypocrite was at at last apprehended, he had the impudence to remonstrate against the sin of laying rough hands upon a minister of the church! It is a received and generally admitted axiom in political science, that despotisms, however injurious they may be in other respects, are invariably productive of subordination in the body of the people. Indeed, they would seem, a priori, to render such subordination a matter of absolute necessity. In Italy, however, under the domination of Austria, as well as under the still more repulsive sway of Napoleon, the arbitrary principle certainly did not produce, and is not likely ever to produce, such results. Then the absence of sympathy on the part of the rulers has been seized upon as a convenient excuse for the worst excesses on the part of the discontented multitude. Fear evidently never enters into their calculations; abandoning society upon the first provocation which they receive, and which usually springs from some wanton crime of their own, (the murder of a rival in a love affair is the favourite apology for taking up arms against society at large,) they surrender themselves unhesitatingly to a course of criminalities in which neither sex nor condition, nor the ties of blood, nor the common obligations of humanity, restrain their desperate proceedings. Having once yielded themselves up to this, a life of pillage, they rarely return to tranquil and honest occupations; partly, no doubt, because they have lost the confidence of their own order, but chiefly because they have lost their zest for virtue. It is clear, therefore, that despotic institutions are fruitful of other evils besides the reduction of popular rights, and that crime flourishes under them in more rank luxuriance than in any other political atmosphere. If the government of Spain were not distracted by internal feuds-if it were a government founded upon the affections of Spaniards, the prowling assassins who live in its mountain retreats would have been long since extirpated; and but that Italy, ever since the extinction of her proud republics, has been the victim of a succession of invasions, there is no reason to doubt that the ancient spirit of chivalry which still lingers on her soil must have expelled her Vardarellis and her Marco Sciarras from her bosom. Mr. M'Far lane attempts to explain the existence of banditti in particular countries by a reference to the facilities which their geographical circumstances present for retreat and shelter. Thus the Abruzzi, with its vast ranges, its gloomy valleys, and impenetrable forests, is a tempting region for men who live by unlawful exactions upon life and property, one half of whose lives is spent in the toil of escaping from the consequences of the villanies committed in the other half. But this theory, however ingenious, will not hold good. Switzerland, crowning the stormy Alps, full of deep gorges and Cimmerian woods, rocks, cataracts, caverns, and tortuous passages, is almost wholly free from such confederations. Then Mr. M'Farlane suggests that frontier lines are a favourite resort for marauders, because while the authorities are on the alert on one side, the pursued have but to cross over to the other, and so maintain a constant evasion of offended justice. But why do we not find this suggestion realised in France, in Prussia, in Austria Proper, in Holland, and in Belgium? Because, simply, the governments of those countries are too powerful for the alienated masses, who are consequently compelled, for their own sakes, to observe laws that are strengthened by the allegiance of the great body of the people. His The whole subject is well worthy of inquiry, and will yet afford a much more luminous and learned work than this anecdotical volume. Mr. M'Farlane limits himself almost exclusively to Italy, with which he is best acquainted although he professes to include all parts of the world. accounts of the American buccaneers, of the robber associations of the East, of the German freebooters, and even of the Spanish and Portuguese banditti, are exceedingly brief and unsatisfactory. Nor is his history-if it can be so called-of the craft in Italy distinguished by the research which we had a right to expect. It is chiefly confined to our own times, and to such facts as he gathered on the spot himself. There is very little tradition, scarcely any review of the origin and growth of the plundering fraternities, and, indeed, little more than sketches, such as are to be found every day in our periodicals. Nor is the book well written; the style is bald and unfinished, and without attaining the gravity of an historical narrative, it has not even the qualities of a romance. We should perhaps have been induced to have entered more into details, but that the work is a reprint from a book published five years ago; indeed, one of the tales was originally printed in this magazine. The Gambler's Dream. 3 vols. London: E. Bull, 1837. A NEW Species of fiction distinguishes these days, when invention seems to be put to its last struggles in the chase of novelty. When Werther was written, the public taste ran upon extravagant portraits of illicit passion; but then they were drawn with unusual refinement; the style at least was elegant, the allusions were in the most poetical spirit, and nothing was wanted to give a tone of elevation to immorality. Now, however, the immorality is presented to us in the coarsest shapes; dialogues quite as remarkable for vulgarity as for pruriency conduct us through narratives of extravagant folly and the worst descriptions of levity; virtue is painted in such excess as to be rendered unnatural, while vice is bared so shamelessly that it cannot be mistaken; and a mocking tone of ribald satire is insinuated through the whole to give it pungency, as cooks spice their dishes to stimulate the palates of gourmands. Of such materials is this work composed. But the reader shall judge for himself. A defeated gambler returns home late at night, stripped of his money, and, sitting down at his fireside to ruminate upon his ill luck, he falls asleep. In his dreams his imagination reverts to the haunt of his daylight visions, and conducts him to Crockford's cellar, where Nicholas the estimable gentleman in black -is carousing with six congenial friends who represent different parts of the world. They entertain each other with various narratives of their several experiences, and their narratives constitute the contents of the volumes. Let the reader create as much diablerie as his fancy can conjure up; let him suppose scenes of levity, of loose wit, and vulgar humour; let him pick from the modern theatres of France some of its most revolting subjects, and then mix up the whole without the slightest regard to probability, propriety of expression, or the respect that is due to the ordinances of society, and he may form a slight notion of the character of this work. If the author of these volumes possessed less ability than these objectionable tales discover, his sins would be of less moment. But he is gifted precisely with that kind of facility in composition, that free and easy turn of expression, which is mistaken by general readers for the type of extensive resources, and an unusual command of language; but which in reality evinces no higher quality than familiarity with the art of writing, or, which is more probable, contempt for its restrictions. The novel will be pronounced at once to be clever by superficial people but when they have read it to the close, they will be convinced that its cleverness consists in tact, and that it is deficient, not merely in moral power and knowledge of human life, but in solid judgment and good taste. The Carthusiasn, No. I. London, 1837. A PRODUCTION of the scholars of the Charterhouse, and, like all works got up by inexperienced persons, a little behind the spirit of the times. The Carthusiasn is intended, we suppose, to be a magazine, but the intervals that are to elapse between the issuing of the numbers-some months -take it at once out of the class to which it appears in shape and design to belong. In the silent intervals of time it will be utterly forgotten. The tone of the articles is that of young and enthusiastic students, with the classical writers fresh in their minds, the heathen mythology at their fingers' ends, and themes faded in the reading world, but new to them, restored to a sort of second birth in their fancies. We need hardly add, that except amongst the immediate connections of the writers, who will, of course, feel an interest in the intellectual progress of their young friends, this magazine cannot succeed. Its price is extravagant for the matter it furnishes, and the matter itself is too deficient in weight to arrest public attention. Tales in Prose for the Young. By Mary Howitt. London: E. Wilson, 1837. means. We wish William Howitt had never committed his literary name to his History of Priestcraft. It was a work of desecration for one who had gained so much upon the affections of the world by gentler We do not condemn that work from any secular or religious objections to its historical statements, into which we should be very reluctant to enter, but we condemn it as the production of a writer who possessed higher and more ennobling modes of influencing the hearts of his readers, and who ought to have left the arena of worldly contention to others. It may all be very true that the clergy is a grasping and oppressive race-that they have betrayed in all ages an inordinate love of power-that the union of church and state is injurious to the spiritual as well as the temporal welfare of the people and, whether we feel inclined to challenge the truth of any one, or of all these propositions, or to admit them, we do not the less regret that William Howitt should have stepped out of the sunshine of poetry and practical morals, to pierce the gloom of party strife and sectarian bitterness. It is as if Charles Lamb had written a book in favour of a penal code. The name of Howitt was associated with such pleasant thoughts, that this deviation from the path in which he excels -read his Book of the Seasons-must always be lamented as a circumstance that diminishes his : But claim upon our attention, by depriving him, more or less, of the charm of his early reputation. we must still try to estimate Mary Howitt as if no such angry book had been written by her husband. She, at least, is all truth, and goodness, and charity, and moral beauty. Her verses have still the same picturesque freshness, the same love of nature, the same relish of virtue; and her tales and essays are still distinguished by the same exquisite simplicity and unaffected pathos. The little book before us is every way worthy of the numerous similar productions which have proceeded from the same pen. It consists of fifteen tales-short, adapted to the capacity of young persons, and insinuating in each a little moral through a medium so agreeable as to impress it vividly upon the mind. Perhaps the first is the best, although by no means the most vraisemblable, or the most ambitious. As a true description of poverty, it is excellent. The drama of "The Two Boys of Florence" inculcates so noble a sentiment that it may be recommended as a study for a private play: and "The Three Wishes" deserves equal praise for the wholesome truths it enforces. The Outcast. London, 1837. THE Irishman, who went to Paris for the purpose of teaching the English language, is the only parallel we can find for the author of the Outcast. The Irishman, who undertook to teach English to the French, forgot that he was totally ignorant of the French language; and the author of the Outcast, when he undertook to write a poem, appears to have been equally ignorant of the fact, that he knew nothing whatever of the nature and constitution of poetry. He might as well have undertaken a voyage to the moon. The work is an outrage upon English grammar, common sense, and mere metrical propriety. It is difficult to conceive, that any human creature should have been organised with so defective an ear for the common music of the commonest measure in verse. Here are two examples : Thither my way I led-as I drew So on the canvas we may see An indistinct imagery Then her-my sister-all at once They rushed upon my remembrance. Of the prosaic, one specimen will be quite enough : More wildly glared his eye, and his There are a multitude of such lines as these, in which the author having found a jingle for the fag end of the line, believes that he has fulfilled the whole demands of the verse. Vulgarity of expression is another characteristic of this production. Doubting, I've paused amid her reign To calm my raging thoughts, and know A picture of a horrible catastrophe that happened to the hero-why, or wherefore, is a matter of no moment-will give a tolerably accurate notion of the poet's powers in the delineation of the fiercer emotions. My joints grew weak-my eyes grew dim: A palsy shook my every limb The flesh upon my back grew dead! The lashes fell with weight of lead! A fiery throe of pain would dart, A living corse !-for me, no pain, No pride, no hope, did now remain. Recited by such an eminent actor as old Grimaldi, these lines would produce an irresistible effect upon the stage. We recommend the author to try his skill in tragedy; slaughter comes natural to him, and these vigorous convulsions would obtain immortality at Sadler's Wells. The Monk of Cimiés. By Mrs. Sherwood. London, 1837. We WE have some doubts whether this Monk is not quite as bad in one way, as his more celebrated predecessor was in another. Mrs. Sherwood's object in this story, is to establish the purity of the Protestant faith by one revolting example of the errors of Popery; and to vindicate the doctrines of original sin and justification by faith alone through a fictitious narrative which contains so many improbabilities, that, in point of fact, it proves nothing at all-except the ardent zeal of the writer. should be glad to see Protestantism defended by means less open to objection, and better sustained by a logical foundation. Mrs. Sherwood's Monk is a creature of her own invention-a man who, after a life of iniquity in the Roman Catholic church, returns to his early faith, and becomes an earnest disseminator of Gospel truth. What is all this worth in the discussion of controverted doctrines? Does it lead us one step nearer to truth to find an imaginary hypocrite outraging all laws human and divine under the disguise of the cowl? May not the offended Roman exclaim that the Monk of Cimiés is a preposterous libel upon his faith, which he leaves exactly as he found it? We agree upon all points with Mrs. Sherwood, in her estimate of the purity of the reformed faith: we repudiate, as strongly as she does, the convenient doctrine of "good works," although we are bound to admit that it has its utility in its influence over the majority of its professors: we condemn as unsparingly, the vices that are committed under the impunity of the sacred office-but we desire to see our own faith sustained, not by recriminations against an antagonist church, but by proofs of its own sufficiency. These proofs are abundant-they may be traced, if needs be, through the writings of the early fathers they are to be found in the reluctant acknowledgments even of distinguished Roman Catholic prelates, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Ganganelli; and, above all, they may be seen in the imperishable spring of truth-the Scriptures, from which all Christians alike derive their creeds. Why then adopt a less decisive method of asserting them—a method objectionable in spirit, and conceived in a vicious taste? Spartacus; or, the Roman Gladiator. A Tragedy in Five Acts. By Jacob Jones, Esq., Barrister at Law. London, 1837. THIS is, in all points, a better tragedy than Dr. Bird's founded on the same subject, and is more effective in its construction than the Longinus of the same author. The story of the insurrection of the gladiator's is very clearly told; the dialogue is energetic and true to nature, the more prominent features of the event are skilfully drawn out, and the conclusion of the whole is replete with a wild grandeur which, however tumultuous and doubtful it might appear upon the stage, fills the imagination of the reader with a sense of greatness worthy of the subject. It must be observed, however, that Mr. Jones seriously hurts the dignity of the play by frequent references to the action, which interrupts the natural progress of the scene, and shatters the dialogue into fragments. We can hardly venture to judge how this accumulation of melodramatic effects would succeed in the theatre; but all experience in such compositions would lead us to suspect that it would lower the tone of the piece considerably, and reduce it much below the level of legitimate tragedy. The subject was, in itself, sufficiently exciting and picturesque without these numerous accessories of the bye-play; and the labour of the author ought to have been directed, not to heighten the irrepressible bustle of the plot, but to subdue it by a larger infusion of mind. Spartacus was susceptible of a more dignified character than he has received either from Dr. Bird or Mr. Jones; both of whom have described him as a hero of muscles, animated by the pride of freedom and courage-but little more. The passion of liberty might have been more nobly expressed in his person, and his wife would have been better employed in the exercise of her feminine and softening influences, than in directing the course of his ferocious passions. The contrast would have given increased beauty and power to the entire conception. As it is, the surface of the play is agitated, from the beginning to the end, by the convulsions of the civil war; there is no interval of repose -no gleam of tenderness or remorse-the stage is filled with clamour-and a vivid colouring falls over the whole. That Mr. Jones possesses decided requisites for dramatic composition-that he has little more to do in order to secure success, than to cultivate a turn for tranquillity in his muse-is apparent throughout this piece; which, whatever may be its faults on the score of rigid taste, is constructed with tact, and written with ability. The characters are boldly individualised-the sentiments are forcible and just-the transitions are sternly marked and striking, both morally and pictorially; and the general impression which the perusal of the drama leaves upon the mind, is that of high power somewhat superabundantly displayed, and requiring to be restrained and regulated for higher efforts in the difficult pursuit which the author has selected. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. By J. G. Lockhart. Vol. i. Edinburgh: Cadell. 1837. THERE is no man of our century, except Napoleon, about whom so much has been written, and is likely yet to be written, and concerning whom so much may be written, as Sir Walter Scott. From the highest periodical to the lowest-from the Quarterly Review to the Mirror-from the VOL. X.-NO. IV.—APRIL, 1837. Times to the Police Gazette-he has already filled a larger space than any other individual to whom attention was attracted simply by the force of his own merits. Yet the subject is not yet exhausted, and there remains behind the fullest and most circumstantial biography, which is now in course of publication, and into which, no doubt, all the scattered memoranda of his contemporaries will be collected. It is worthy of observation, that the facilities which exist for procuring materials of this nature in the present state of literature, exhibit a remarkable contrast to the obstacles that impeded all such inquiries, even so lately as fifty years ago. When any distinguished person dies now, every body who has any thing to relate of him, if it be only an incidental conversation, or a day spent in his society, hurries forward to contribute it to the general stock: there is always a newspaper or a magazine open to receive the precious reminiscences, and so a multitude of details are brought out that, half a century back, would have been altogether lost to the world. Then the biography of a celebrated individual was undertaken with great diligence, as a work beset with impediments, and it was usually executed after all with an indifferent mastery of the subject; so extremely difficult was it to obtain the necessary information. Take, for instance, "Murphy's Life of Garrick," a work written by one who was intimately acquainted with his hero during the best part of his life, who was interwoven with his profession, and who possessed excellent opportunities, we have reason to suppose, for collecting data. That book hardly deserves to be called a biography of Garrick. Any person who had been in the habit of frequenting the theatres might have written it from the play-bills. It contains nothing more than a record (by no means a full one either) of the pieces brought forward by Garrick from time to time, with occasional criticisms of a very inferior order upon the performances. Then take a contemporary of Garrick's-the inimitable Goldsmith. Bishop Percy was expected to have undertaken his biography, but he postponed it day after day, and it was not until the indefatigable Mr. Prior, with great disadvantages, and after a considerable lapse of years, devoted himself to the task, that the public obtained the long desired memoir. Mr. Lockhart is, perhaps, the most competent person living to write the Life of Scott. His connection with him not only gave him constant access to his privacy, but afforded him unlimited power to make use of all his papers, and to institute such necessary enquiries amongst his immediate relatives and friends, as might be useful to the purpose in hand. He is in fact his literary executor. So far as this volume goes, he appears to have dedicated himself industriously to his labour of love, and we are satisfied, from the specimen it affords of the whole, that the work will abundantly repay the curiosity of the public. Fortunately for the world, Sir Walter Scott put together a short sketch of his own life, which Mr. CC Lockhart discovered in time to insert in the opening of this volume. The autobiographical fragment was written in 1808, but about the year 1826, Sir Walter added a few elucidatory notes to it here and there, that enhance its value in no slight degree. It is much to be regretted that this sketch is so short, for the candour and bonhommie it evinces are so delightful as to make us feel that nobody else could have compiled a memoir of Scott with so much fidelity as he would have done it himself. There is more of the character of the man in this brief paper, than there could be in a thousand volumes from the pen of the ablest, and best informed of his contemporaries. Mr. Lockhart's narrative, however, is valuable on account of the great number of particulars it includes its pains-taking research into all matters connected with Scott's first steps in life-his first love and disappointment-his marriage-his progress at the bar-his translations from the German -his first play-his Border Minstrelsy-his contributions to the Edinburgh Review-and the publication of his Tristrem, with which event this volume terminates. As it would be impossible for us in the limited space to which we are unavoidably confined, to enter into details with any advantage either to our readers or ourselves, we must dismiss the work with this general indication of its character, postponing, until the whole shall have been issued, such observations as the subject may suggest. But we cannot close the book without commending it earnestly to our readers. It promises to afford a complete review of the life of our northern Ariosto; not merely a correct and circumstantial account of incidents, but a development of the progress of his studies, his projects, and his literary proceedings. Mr. Lockhart has performed his arduous labour with a skill and assiduity commensurate to its demands, and the work is fairly entitled to take its place amongst the best biographies in our language. Ermangarde, a Tale of the twelfth century. Royalist Lyrics; and other poems. By Eliza Heywood, Cheltenham, 1837. If there be nothing else curious in the poem of Ermangarde, the story at least is of an uncommon kind. The scene is the Rhine:-one of the turretted crags is assailed by a robber chieftain, one of that fierce band whose depredations led to the formation of the Hanseatic league (at least we presume so, for the narrative is not very clear upon that point): the castle is burned, and its master perishes in the affray; but an infant son is saved, aud he lives to go to the wars himself, and become a count of the empire :-he falls in love with Ermangarde, the daughter of his patron; they exchange vows, and he goes to the Holy Land; but in a few months she learns that he has proved unfaithful, and married a Jewish girl, under very dishonourable circumstances, that he died in battle, and bequeathed his wife and son to her care. This rather extraordinary legateeship Ermangarde discharges with exemplary kindness. A year and a half elapse, during which time the wife and son reside with the ill-treated lady; when the forsworn knight suddenly appears. The report of his death was erroneous, and he has returned to thank the good Ermangarde for her bounty to his wife. Some time passes away very pleasantly, all three living together as happily as possible but at last the wife becomes jealous, (not, we suspect, before she had good cause), and Ermangarde pines sadly, and at last dies in the act of saying her prayers before her father's tomb. Such is the tale, the versification of which is in all respects worthy of the singular incidents it records. We looked through the volume for the Royalist Lyrics, announced in the title-page, but could not find them. We perceive, however, that Eliza Heywood, who, of course must know more about the matter than the governments of France and England, recognizes Don Carlos as King of Spain, and that she is strongly opposed to the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill. These are the principal points of interest in this lady's volumeas to the verses they come for the most part within the description of that happy species of composition, called "nonsense verses.' The History of Party, from the rise of the Whig and Tory factions in the reign of Charles II. to the passing of the Reform Bill. By George Wingrove Cooke, Esq., Barrister at Law, author of "Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke," &c. Vol. II. London: J. Macrone, 1837. THE period embraced in this volume of Mr. Cooke's work is one of considerable interest in our domestic history; it includes the eventful interval between 1714 and 1762, from the accession of George I. to the celebrated administration of Lord Bute under George III. The public men who flourished during those fifty years would be enough in themselves to give importance to the record; but the struggle of principles, and the political changes that took place, are even of still higher moment. Mr. Cooke exhibits a very impartial review of facts, and a just estimate of the characters of the principal politicians of the time; he dissects with ability the intrigues of both parties, and traces with clearness and without prejudice those influences that led, year after year, to that complete change of sides which renders the history of the Whigs and Tories a practical homily upon the corruption of human nature. But it must not be supposed that this work introduces the reader to the progress of public opinion, and the formation of distinct parties amongst the people at large. It gives no more than the history of the leaders, of the political cliques, of the ignoble contention of the few to appropriate to themselves the offices of emolument and power. He shows the machinery behind the curtain-how certain effects were produced upon the stage, the squabbles of the greenroom, the casting of the parts, the malicious jests |