from his lethargy by the bold darings of a mountain chief;the Italian, amidst all his refinement, has relished the rude fashions of sunless and barren Scotland: and the Spaniard from the same fountain has imbibed a spirit which may yet free his land from the tyrant's yoke. But it is in France that this magician has been welcomed with a fervour never before excited by an alien. Not only Romance, but Poetry, and even History, must be a la WALTER SCOTT. His name is dragged into every criticism; and his works referred to as the standard of excellence. Casimir de la Vigne, the most popular of their poets, has composed a tragedy founded on his Quentin Durward. Authors of established fame disdain not to sound his praise; while the young and aspiring find, that, in taking him for their model, they se lect the surest path to favour. The national taste seems to have undergone a revolution, and all classes are beginning to take an interest in literature. Authors meet with an encouragement-not, indeed, from the government, but-from the public, which bears us out in saying that England no longer stands alone as a country in which living genius meets its deserved award. In keeping with this enthusiasm is the conduct of a Frenchman on arriving in the Scottish metropolis: for he visits not its public edifices, or its titled inhabitants, till he has first seen, or heard something of, one whose praise has been so widely proclaimed. Quand les étrangers visitaient Athenes, says a late traveller in recording his visit to Edinburgh, ils couraient voir tout d'abord Socrate et Platon: notre premiere visite était due à l'auteur des Puritains et de Waverley.*

Thus universally a favourite, it may well be asked with

-what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic,

hath he wrought upon' the public mind? Favoured alike

* Voyage en Angleterre et en Ecosse: Par Adolphe Blanqui. Paris, 1824, 1 vol. 8vo.

by the peer and the artisan-praised by the statesman who bends a senate to his will, and relished by the insect whose flutterings are limited to a drawing-room :—wherein can lie the secret of his art? He who has known Tasso only as a poet whose beauties can be relished by few of those around him, must listen with singular delight to the gondoliers of Venice as they lighten their toil by the melody of his strains; so, the works of our author must acquire an additional interest with the stranger, when he finds a peasant quoting or referring to them amid scenes thus brought into celebrity :—whence comes it, that, even during his own life, he should thus be familiar to every rank, and in the course of a few short years, acquire that fame aimed at, though scarcely hoped for, by every generous breast? The name of a Conqueror spreads, with rapidity, to the poorest hovel in the remotest corner of an extensive empire; but it is not by the laurels he has won that it there retains an interest. The lonely dweller may have sent forth a son as a kinsman to swell, with his blood, the tide which has drenched the field of his commander's fame: and so long as memory lingers on him whose return is now hopeless, the name of the hero, under whom he fell, will be oft repeated, and his exploits sorrowfully referred to. But, here, we have a conqueror, who, without convulsing a whole people by grief for lost kindred, enjoys a popularity more enviable, if not more extensive, than that which ever attended a Marlborough :-compelling us again to ask-how has this nameless enchanter made captive every heart? To such a question there can be but one reply, and that one is sufficiently obvious:-HE PAINTS FROM NATURE-putting to shame those who would deny the great original' from which he draws to be in every charm-supreme.'

6

Some, however, will tell you that nothing can be more inimical to the best interests of man as the member of a political body, than the popularity of an author, who, say

!

they, possessed of unparalleled influence over public opinion, prostitutes his talents to the basest of purposes. History, our safest instructor, is said to be perverted in his pages. Crouching subserviency to those in power,-unquestioning devotion to the tyrant who may wear a crown,-unresisting submission under the most slavish lot, if an attempt to regain privileges which are the birthright of man may cause one moment's uneasiness to the sacred' despot,-are said to be the doctrines inculcated in these works.-As to the charge of poisoning the well-springs of knowledge,' we would ask, whether, if it could be established against any individual work, an ample apology be not furnished in its titlepage? The reader is not, as by the Biographer of Charles XII. duped into a belief that the book about to be perused conveys a faithful narration of any historical events in which the hero may be made to act a part. But, it will be urged, though Novel,' Tale,'' Romance,' be expressed in its title, the young and the indolent will long retain an impression received from the work of an author beyond whom he proposes not to extend his inquiries. His very populariity, however, counteracts the dreaded result: for all become anxious to know the real events which form the groundwork of such interesting performances. We venture to assert that thousands who might otherwise have known little of the struggles made for liberty in Scotland, during the 17th century, have been led, after perusing the exaggerations in Old Mortality, to consult authorities more likely to give an unvarnished account of the period referred to. Deep as is the sympathy felt for our Mary Queen,' Dr Robertson's account of her reign has passed as a tale unheeded with many who, since the appearance of The Abbot, would blush at the apathy with which they formerly perused his interesting narrative. To give other instances must be unnecessary. Few who can recall the stimulus given by these works to their own researches into the history of particular periods,

will urge such an objection: but its existence furnishes

another proof, that merit

-hath as oft a slanderous epitaph

As record of fair act; nay, many times,

Doth ill deserve by doing well.

The objection which regards the alleged political tendency of these works, evidently proceeds from the kindly feelings with which its supporters regard the party favoured by the AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY'S other self. That he is an Aristocrat is indisputable. That he is blindly wedded to established systems, however, or an advocate for non-resistance,' 'the divine right of kings,' &c. would never have been inferred from his works, had he been able to remain undetected. But, in addition to those already received, every person can favour his neighbours with one proof more that the Author of Marmion and the Author of Waverley are convertible designations. Now, say those whom we are opposing, SIR WALTER SCOTT is a Tory and a Placeman; ergo, (for they pause not to invent a middle term to their syllogism, but leap at once to the foregone conclusion,' that) the AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY is an illiberal, and an enemy to innovation. Surely logicians who reason thus profoundly, could point out the passages where the doctrines above mentioned are so sedulously inculcated as they would have us to believe. We are so ignorant of their existence as to imagine that it were dishonouring our author seriously to answer calumnies amply refuted in every page of his works. Of him we would ask, as has been asked of Shakspeare,-Who has furnished more instructive lessons to the great upon the insolence of office,' the oppressor's wrong,' or the 'abuses of brief authority'? or who has so severely stigmatized those who 'crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, where thrift may follow fawning'? Holding, moreover, that these Novels have done more for the advancement of liberality in matters both civil and religious, than has been effected by the eloquence

of the most enlightened Premier who ever sat in the British Cabinet, we will be pardoned, in the present imperfect state of our knowledge, for believing that posterity, adopting the language of a grateful servant, will apply to the AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY the words of the immortal bard, who has at last found a rival to his fame :

-Alas!

There are no more such masters: we may wander
From east to occident, cry out for service,

Try many, all good, serve truly, yet ne'er
Find such another.

Cymbeline, Iv. 3.

THE REV. JOSIAH CARGILL.

THE Rev. Josiah Cargill was the son of a small farmer in the south of Scotland; and a weak constitution, joined to the disposition for study which frequently accompanies infirm health, induced his parents, though at the expense of some sacrifices, to educate him for the ministry. They were the rather led to submit to the privations which were necessary to support this expense, because they conceived, from their family traditions, that he had in his veins some portion of the blood of that celebrated Boanerges of the Covenant, Donald Cargill, who was slain by the persecutors at the town of Queensferry, in the melancholy days of Charles II. merely because, in the plenitude of his sacerdotal power, he had cast out of the church, and delivered over to Satan by a formal excommunication, the King and Royal Family, with all the ministers and courtiers thereunto belonging. But if Josiah really derived himself, from this uncompromising champion, the heat of the family spirit which he might have inherited was qualified by the sweetness of his own disposition, and the quiet temper of the times in which he had the good fortune to live. He was characterized by all who knew him as a mild, gentle, and studious lover of learning, who, in the quiet prosecution of his own sole object, the acquisition of knowledge, and especially that connected with his profession, had the utmost indulgence for all whose pursuits were different from his own. His sole relax