the Historian rather cursorily. He promises a fourth volume, with an Index and an Appendix, in which the narrative shall be continued to the present time. Such is a general outline of the history of the Inquisition; a tribunal of which the establishment was the grossest outrage ever offered to reason, religion, and right feeling. We have not, in this place, entered into a minute description of the various modes in which it inflicted personal suffering, because they are of common notoriety; neither have we been solicitous to analyse the different processes which it employed in its visitations of individuals, since they have often been described with competent accuracy, though never with so much precision and detail as in the present volumes. Faithless in all its proceedings, relentless in its persecutions, bent sternly on the condemnation of its victims, this ferocious tribunal refused all the means of establishing innocence, and pushed on its trials through the different stages of deception, privation, terror, and torture, to their termination in a sentence to agonizing death. A remarkable proof of its remorseless tenacity in retaining even its most atrocious usages, is to be found in the infernal ingenuity with which its directors evaded the law which prohibited them from administering torture more than once. When the accused had sustained his allotted term of agony without making the desired confession, the Inquisitors present sent him back to his dungeon with the official intimation that the further application of the torture was suspended! Nor was the spirit of the bloody tribunal,' meliorated by time, though its practice was necessarily altered by the improvement of the public mind. Llorente is guarded upon this point, but enough appears to shew, that though the treatment of prisoners was in many respects bettered, and public executions no more tolerated, yet that the machinery of the Institution was carefully preserved, and that a favourable opportunity of reviving its energies would not have been let slip. So late as 1791, an unfortunate Frenchman was confined in the prisons of the Inquisition; and though we are persuaded that much is kept back, it plainly appears that he was treated with so much treachery and inhumanity, as to drive him to the commission of suicide. After the preceding remarks, it cannot be necessary for us to say more in commendation of the work before us, than that we have been deeply interested by these volumes, and that we regard them as by far the most valuable existing collection of documents on the subject of which they treat. ART. VI. The Autumnal Excursion, or Sketches in Teviotdale with other Poems. By Thomas Pringle. 12mo pp. 136. 1819. E have not seen any descriptive poem since Dr. Leyden's "Scenes of Infancy," that has pleased us much better than the leading piece in this little volume. Its Author is evidently a young poet, but he possesses a delicate and cultivated mind. Born in a part of our Island distinguished by its romantic scenery, his earliest associations have been favourable to the love of poetry, while he appears to be in no small degree indebted to a good classical education for the formation of a correct taste. We do not mean to characterise the volume as containing specimens of first-rate excellence. Mr. Pringle's productions are not marked by force or brilliancy, so much as by delicacy and tenderness. The thoughts, though seldom original, are never unpoetical, and are expressed, we think, in language always appropriate, and versification sufficiently melodious. The scenes of the Autumnal Excursion' are those of the Author's infancy; The scented heath, the sheafy vale, The hills and streams of Teviotdale.' The district of Teviotdale (we give Dr. Leyden's description) takes its name from the river Teviot, which rises in an elevated mountainous tract in the south of Scotland, from a rude rock, termed the Teviot-stone, descends through a beautiful pastoral dale, and falls into the Tweed at Kelso. The vale of the river is above 30 miles in length, and comprehends every variety of wild, picturesque, and beautiful scenery. The first part of its course is confined and overshadowed by abrupt and savage hills, diversified with smooth, green declivities, and fantastic copses of natural wood. Beneath Hawick, the vale opens, and several beautiful mountain-streams fall into the river. As the stream approaches the Tweed, the scenery becomes gra. dually softer, and, in the vicinity of Kelso, rivals the beauty of an Italian landscape. The inhabitants of this frontier district, inured to war froin their infancy, had, at an early period of Scottish history, attained a high military reputation. They devoted themselves to the life of the predatory warrior, and the shepherd; and the intervals of their incursions were often employed in celebrating their martial exploits. Hence this district became the very cradle of Scottish song, in every variety of melody, from the harsh, and simple, but energetic, war-songs of the Liddisdale borderers, to the soft and pathetic love-strains of the bank of the Tweed.' Such is the country through part of which the Autumnal Excursion' is supposed to be made. We present our readers an extract in which the Poet alludes to the persecutions of the VOL. XIII. N.S. 2 P covenanters in Scotland, when Grahame, of Claverhouse, made himself so odiously conspicuous, whose conduct and character have lately become, in consequence of a very certain popular novel, the subject of much warm discussion. Far inland, where the mountain crest The race to whom they owed their crown. Yes-though the sceptic's tongue deride Yet long for them the poet's lyre Shall breathe its notes of heavenly fire; Their names shall nerve the patriot's hand And piety shall learn to burn With holier transport o'er their urn! Oh, ne'er shall he, whose ardent prime Forget his glorious native land!-pp. 10-13. We recon mend to the attention of our readers the Notes on the above extract at the end of the volume. The dream of past times restored, is well painted in the following lines: Even now, far distant fancy leads Through twilight groves and blooming meads, Restores the scenes-the friends of youth! I hear their voices on the breeze, And midst the wild I walk alone!'-p. 41. Of the Miscellaneous Pieces,' the Author says, the greater part are also early productions,-composed amid the scenes they describe, to amuse the Summer solitude of College vacations' They consist of brief effusions on various subjects, and various measures, among which we think there are not a few vourable specimens of lyric writing. His songs, in general, e well conceived, and characterized by chasteness and sweetss of expression. To justify, in some degree, the favourable inion we have passed, we give our readers THE WREATH.' I sought the garden's gay parterre And, first, of peerless form and hue, In some more courtly Wreath than mine. I turn'd and saw a tempting row Bewilder'd 'mid a thousand hues But still, midst all this gorgeous glow Seem'd less of sweetness than of show; While close beside, in warning grew The allegoric Thyme and Rue. There, too, stood that fair-weather Flower, Its breast where golden Phoebus burns- Tir'd of the search, I bent my way And, now, my Mary's brow to braid, |