McEwan, that murdered Andrew Bell. I surrender myself your prisoner.-God told me but this moment that ye would come and find me; for I opened his word, and the first text that my eye fell upon was this.' He seized the officer by the hand, and laid his finger upon the page' See you there?' said he; Do you see the Lord's own blessed decree, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And there,' he added, plucking a pocket book from his bosom there, friends, is Andrew Bell's siller—ye'll find the haill o't there, an be not three half-crowns and a sixpence. Seven-and-thirty pounds was the sum for which I yielded up my soul to the temptation of the Prince of the Power of the Air-Seven-and-thirty pounds!-Ah! my brethren! call me not an olive, until you see me gathered. I thought that I stood fast, and behold ye all how I am fallen!'

t

I saw this singular fanatic tried. He would have pleaded guilty; but, for excellent reasons, the Crown Advocate wished the whole evidence to be led. John had dressed himself with scrupulous accuracy in the very clothes he wore when he did the deed. The blood of the murdered man was still visible upon the sleeve of his blue coat. When any circumstance of peculiar atrocity was mentioned by a witness, he signified, by a solemn shake of his head, his sense of its darkness and its conclusiveness; and when the Judge, in addressing him, enlarged upon the horror of his guilt, he, standing right before the bench, kept his eye fixed with calm earnestness on his Lordship's face, assenting now and then to the propriety of what he said, by exactly that sort of see-saw gesture which you may have seen escape now and then from the devout listener to a pathetic sermon or sacramental service. John, in a short speech of his own, expressed his sense of his guilt; but even then he borrowed the language of Scripture, styling himself a sinner and the chief of sinners. Never was such a specimen of that insane pride. The very agony of this man's humiliation had a spice of holy exultation in it; there was in the most penitent of his lugubrious glances still something that said or seemed to say- Abuse me-spurn me as you will-I loathe myself also; but this deed is Satan's.' Indeed he always continued to speak quite gravely of his trespass,' his backsliding,' his sore temptation!'

I was present also with him during the final scene. His irons had been knocked off ere I entered the cell; and

clothed as he was in a most respectable suit of black, and with that fixed and imperturbable solemnity of air and aspect, upon my conscience, I think it would have been a difficult matter for any stranger to pick out the murderer among the group of clergymen that surrounded him. In vain did these good men labour to knock away the impious and absurd props upon which the happy fanatic leaned himself. He heard what they said, and instantly said something still stronger himself-but only to shrink back again to his own fastness with redoubled confidence. He had

once been right, and he could not be wrong;-he had been permitted to make a sore stumble-This was his utmost

concession.

What a noble set of nerves had been thrown away here! -He was led, out of the dark, damp cellar, in which he had been chained for weeks, and brought at once into the open air. His first step into light was upon his scaffold! and what a moment! In general, at least in Scotland, the crowd, assembled upon such occasions, receive the victim of the law with all the solemnity of profoundest silence ;--not unfrequently there is even something of the respectful, blended with compassion, on that myriad of faces. But here, the moment M'Ewan appeared, he was saluted with one universal shout of horror-a huzza of mingled joy and triumph, and execration and laughter:-cats, rats, every filth of the pillory, showered about the gibbet. I was close by his elbow at that terrific moment, and I laid my finger on his wrist. As I live, there was never a calmer pulse in this world-slow, full, strong;-I feel the iron beat of it at this moment.

There happened to be a slight drizzle of rain at the moment; observing which, he turned round and said to the Magistrates, Dinna come out,-dinna come out, your honours, to weet yourselves. It's beginning to rain, and the lads are uncivil at ony rate, poor thoughtless creatures!' He took his leave of this angry mob in a speech which would not have disgraced a martyr, embracing the stake of glory, and the noose was tied. I observed the brazen firmness of his limbs after his face was covered. He flung the handkerchief with an air of semi-benediction, and died without one apparent struggle.

MACKENZIE.

HENRY MACKENZIE has long outlived the age and the school to which his novels belong; but he has had the satisfaction of seeing them quietly hold their place among the more luxuriant productions of this century; and even unto him have two of the most celebrated of these productions* been gallantly inscribed. He is the last of a race of Scotch literati, more marked for severe investigation in points of moral and practical philosophy than distinguished in the fields of fancy or feeling; and it is refreshing, in surveying the literary history of Scotland during the last half century, to light upon one who stept aside from the track of his compeers, and sought the Arcadian region of sunshine and flowers.

There is, we have sometimes thought, a resemblance between the genius of Henry Mackenzie and his countryman Thomas Campbell. Pathos-pure and thrilling pathos—is the great characteristic and excellence of both. They have the same delicacy of taste the same refinement of feeling the same leaning towards all that is dear and beautiful in domestic life. They are both cautious writers, and neither of them voluminous; yet they have written what is worth a thousand volumes: and if we were required to name two works of our age that were sure of a lasting reputation that can be read again and again with undiminished enjoyment-that can never fail to be relished by the good, the intelligent, and the sensitive-we should name the Julia de Roubigné' of the one, and the Gertrude of Wyoming' of the other.

6

* WAVERLEY and REGINALD DALTON.

In their smaller productions, they are both equally successful, and betray equally their distinguishing excellences. The Story of La Roche is a fair specimen of Mackenzie's best manner; and the remark may be made of it that has been made of The Soldier's Dream' of Campbellthat it is one of those heartfelt and domestic appeals, from which the fancy, after dwelling on their tenderness, is suddenly glad to escape.'

LA ROCHE.

MORE than forty years ago, an English philosopher, whose works have since been read and admired by all Europe, resided at a little town in France. Some disappointments in his native country had first driven him abroad, and he was afterwards induced to remain there, from having found in this retreat, where the connections even of nation and language were avoided, a perfect seclusion and retirement highly favourable to the development of abstract subjects, in which he excelled all the writers of his time.

Perhaps, in the structure of such a mind as Mr H ***; s, the finer and more delicate sensibilities are seldom known to have place, or, if originally implanted there, are in a great measure extinguished by the exertions of intense study and profound investigation. Hence the idea of philosophy and unfeelingness being united has become proverbial, and in common language the former word is often used to express the latter. Our philosopher has been censured by some, as deficient in warmth and feeling; but the mildness of his manners has been allowed by all; and it is certain, that if he was not easily melted into compassion, it was, at least, not difficult to awaken his benevolence.

One morning, while he sat busied in those speculations which afterwards astonished the world, an old female domestic, who served him for a housekeeper, brought him word, that an elderly gentleman and his daughter had arrived in the village the preceding evening, on their way to some distant country, and that the father had been suddenly seized in the night with a dangerous disorder, which the people of the inn where they lodged feared would prove

mortal; that she had been sent for, as having some knowledge of medicine, the village-surgeon being then absent; and that it was truly piteous to see the good old man, who seemed not so much afflicted by his own distress, as by that which it caused to his daughter.--Her master laid aside the volume in his hand, and broke off the chain of ideas it had inspired. His night-gown was exchanged for a coat, and he followed his gouvernante to the sick man's apart

ment.

On

'Twas the best in the little inn where they lay, but a paltry one notwithstanding. Mr H*** was obliged to stoop as he entered it. It was floored with earth, and above were the joists not plastered, and hung with cobwebs. a flock-bed, at one end, lay the old man he came to visit ; at the foot of it sat his daughter. She was dressed in a clean white bed-gown; her dark locks hung loosely over it as she bent forward, watching the languid looks of her father. Mr H * * * and his housekeeper had stood some moments in the room without the young lady's being sensible of their entering it.' Mademoiselle !' said the old woman at last, in a soft tone. She turned, and showed one of the finest faces in the world. It was touched, not spoiled, with sorrow; and when she perceived a stranger, whom the old woman now introduced to her, a blush at first, and then the gentle ceremonial of native politeness, which the affliction of the time tempered but did not extinguish, crossed it for a moment, and changed its expression. 'Twas sweetness all, however, and our philosopher felt it strongly. It was not a time for words; he offered his services in a few sincere ones. 'Monsieur lies miserably ill here,' said the gouvernante; 'if he could possibly be moved any where'- If he could be moved to our house,' said her master. He had a spare bed for a friend, and there was a garret room unoccupied next to the gouvernante's. It was contrived accordingly. The scruples of the stranger, who could look scruples, though he could not speak them, were overcome, and the bashful reluctance of his daughter gave way to her belief of its use to her father. The sick man was wrapped in blankets, and carried across the street to the English gentleman's. The old woman helped his daughter to nurse him there. The surgeon, who arrived soon after, prescribed a little, and nature did much for him; in a week he was able to thank his benefactor.

By that time his host had learned the name and character