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laying of the hands upon me was a doing, he could not get near enough to put on his, but he stretched out his staff and touched my head. and said, to the great diversion of the rest: This will do well enough-timber to timber;' but it was an unfriendly saying of Mr. Given, considering the time and the place, and the temper of my people.

After the ceremony we then got out at the window, and it was a heavy day to me; but we went to the manse, and there we had an excellent dinner, which Mrs. Watts of the new inn of Irville prepared at my request, and sent her chaise-driver to serve, for he was likewise her waiter, she having then but one chaise, and that not often called for.

But although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was resolved to cultivate civility among them; and therefore the very next morning I began a round of visitations; but oh! it was a steep brae that I had to climb, and it needed a stout heart, for I found the doors in some places barred against me; in others, the bairns, when they saw me coming, ran crying to their mothers: Here's the feckless MessJohn; and then, when I went in into the houses, their parents would not ask me to sit down, but with a scornful way said: Honest man, what's your pleasure here?' Nevertheless, I walked about from door to door, like a dejected beggar, till I got the almous deed of a civil reception, and-who would have thought it!-from no less a person than the same Thoinas Thorl, that was so bitter against me in the kirk on the foregoing day.

Thomas was standing at the door with his green duffle apron and his red Kilmarnock night-cap-I mind him as well as if it was but yesterday-and he had seen me going from house to house, and in what manner I was rejected, and his bowels were moved, and he said to me in a kind manner: Come in, sir, and ease yoursel'; this will never do; the clergy are God's corbies, and for their Master's sake it behooves us to respect them. There was no ane in the whole parish mair against you than mysel', but this early visitation is a symptom of grace that I couldna have expectit from a bird out of the nest of patronage.' I thanked Thomas, and went in with him, and we had some solid conversation together, and I told him that it was not so much the pastor's duty to feed the flock, as to herd them well; and that, although there might be some abler with the head than me. there wasna a he within the bounds of Scotland more willing to watch the fold by night and by day. Thomas said he had not heard a mair sound observe for some time, and that if I held to that doctrine in the poopit, it wouldna be lang till I would work a change. I was mindit,' quoth he, never to set my foot within the kirk door while you were there; but to testify, and no to condemn without a trial, I'll be there next Lord's day, and egg my neighbours to be likewise, so ye 'll no have to preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.'

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The Ayrshire Legatees' is a story of the same cast as 'The Annals,' and describes (chiefly by means of correspondence) the adventures of another country minister and his family on a journey to London to obtain a rich legacy left him by a cousin in India. Provost' is another portraiture of Scottish life, illustrative of the jealousies, contentions, local improvements, and jobbery of a small burgh in the olden time. Some of the descriptions in this work are very powerfully written. Sir Andrew Wylie' and 'The Entail' are inore regular and ambitious performances, treble the length of the others, but not so carefully finished. The parkie Ayrshire baronet is humorous, but not very natural. The character of Leddy Grippy in 'The Entail' was a prodigious favourite with Byron. Both Scott and Byron, it is said, read this novel three times-no slight testimony to its merits. We should be disposed, however, to give the pre ference to another of Galt's three-volume fictions, Lawrie Todd, or the Settlers,' a work which seems to have no parallel, since Defoe, for apparent reality, knowledge of human nature, and fertility of in

vention. The history of a real individual, a man named Grant Thorburn, supplied the author with part of his incidents, as the story of Alexander Selkirk did Defoe; but the mind and the experience of Galt are stamped on almost every page. In his former productions our author wrought with his recollections of the Scotland of his youth; the mingled worth, simplicity, parkiness, and enthusiasm which he had seen or heard of as he loitered about Irvine or Greenock, or conversed with the country sires and matrons; but in Lawrie Todd' we have the fruit of his observations in the New World, presenting an entirely different and original phase of the Scottish character.

Lawrie is by trade a nailmaker, who emigrates with his brother to America; and their stock of worldly goods and riches, on arriving at New York, consisted of about five shillings in money, and an old chest containing some articles of dress and other necessaries. Lawrie works hard at the nailmaking, marries a pious and industrious maiden -who soon dies-and in time becomes master of a grocer's shop, which he exchanges for the business of a seedsman. The latter is a bad affair, and Laurie is compelled to sell all off, and begin the world again. He removes with his family to the backwoods, and once more is prosperous. He clears, builds, purchases land, and speculates to great advantage, till he is at length enabled to return to Scotland in some style, and visit the place of his nativity. This Scotish jaunt is a blemish in the work, for the incidents and descriptions are ridiculously exaggerated. But nothing can be better than the account of the early struggles of this humble hero-the American sketches of character with which the work abounds-the view it gives of life in the backwoods-or the peculiar freshness and vigor that seem to accompany every scene and every movement of the story. In percepfion of character and motive, within a certain sphere, Galt stands unsurpassed; and he has energy as well as quickness. His taste, how ever, was very defective; and this, combined with the hurry and uncertainty of his latter days, led him to waste his original powers on subjects unfitted for his pen, and injurious to his reputation. The story of his life is a melancholy one; his genius was an honour to his country, and merited a better reward.

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The Windy Yule, or Christmas.—From The Procost.'

In the morning, the weather was blasty and sleety, waxing more and more tempestuous until about mid-day, when the wind checked suddenly round from the nor-east to the sou-west, and blew a gale, as if the Prince of the powers of the air was doing his utmost to work mischief. The rain blattered, the windows clattered, the shop shutters flapped, pigs from the lum-heads came rattling down like thunderclaps, and the skies were dismal both with cloud and carry. Yet, for all that, there was in the streets a stir aud a busy visitation between neighbours, and every one went to their high windows, to look at the five poor barks that were warsling against the strong arm of the elements of the storm and the ocean.

Still the lift gloomed, and the wind roared; and it was as doleful a sight as ever was seen in any town afflicted with calamity, to see the sailors' wives, with their red cloaks about their heads, followed by their hirpling and disconsolate bairns, going one after another to the kirk-yard, to look at the vessels

where their helpless bread-winners were battling with the tempest. My heart was really sorrowful, and full of a sore anxiety to think of what might happen to the town, whereof so many were in peril, and to whom no humau magistracy could extend the arm of protection. Seeing no abatement of the wrath of heaven, that howled and roared around us, I put on my big coat, and taking my staff in my hand, having tied down my hat with a silk handkerchief, towards gloaming I walked likewise to the kirkyard, where I beheld such an assemblage of sorrow, as few men in my situation have ever been put to the trial to witness.

In the lee of the kirk many hundreds of the town were gathered together; but there was no discourse among them. The major part were sailors' wives and weans, and at every new thud of the blast, a sob rose, and the mothers drew their bairns closer in about them, as if they saw the visible hand of a foe raised to smite them. Apart from the multitude. I observed three or four young lasses, standing behind the Whinnyhill families' tomb, and I jaloused that they had joes in the ships, for they often looked to the bay, with long necks and sad faces, trom behind the monument. But of all the pitious objects there on that doleful evening, none troubled my thoughts more than three motherless children, that belonged to the mate of one of the vessels in the jeopardy. He was an Englishman that had been settled some years in the town, where his family had neither kith nor kin; and his wife having died about a month before, the bairns, of whom the eldest was but nine or so were friendless enough, though both my gudewife, and other well-disposed ladies, paid them all manner of attention, till their father would come home. The three poor little things, knowing that he was in one of the ships, had been often out and anxious, and they were then sitting under the lee of a headstone, near their mother's grave, chittering and creeping closer and closer at every squall! Never was such an orphan-like sight seen.

When it began to be so dark that the vessels could no longer be discerned from the churchyard, many went down to the shore, and I took the three babies home with me, and Mrs. Pawkie made tea for them, and they soon began to play with our own younger children, in blithe forgetfulness of the storm; every now and then, however, the eldest of them, when the shutters rattled, and the lum-head roared, would pause in his innocent daffing, and cower in towards Mrs. Pawkic, as if he was daunted and dismayed by something he knew not what.

Many a one that night walked the sounding shore in sorrow, and fires were lighted along it to a great extent, but the darkness and the noise of the raging deep, and the howling wind, never intermitted till about midnight; at which time a message was brought to me, that it might be needful to send a guard of soldiers to the beach, for that broken masts and tackle had come in, and that surely some of the barks had perished. I lost no time in obeying this suggestion, which was made to me by one of the owners of the Louping Meg; and to shew that I sincerely sympathised with all those in affliction, I rose and dressed myself, and went down to the shore, where I directed several old boats to be drawn up by the fires, and blankets to be brought, and cordials prepared, for them that might be spared with life to reach the land; and I walked the beach with the mourners till the morning.

As the day dawned, the wind began to abate in its violence, and to wear away from the sou-west into the norit; but it was soon discovered that some of the vessels with the corn had perished; for the first thing seen was a long fringe of tangle and grain, along the line of the high-water mark, and every one strained with greedy and grieved eyes, as the daylight brightened, to discover which had suffered. But I can proceed no further with the disinal recital of that doleful morning. Let it suffice here to be known, that, through the haze, we at last saw three of the vessels lying on their beam-ends, with their masts broken, and the waves riding like the furious horses of destruction over them. What had become of the other two, was never known; but it was supposed that they had foundered at their anchors, and that all on board perished.

The day being now Sabbath, and the whole town idle, everybody in a manner was down on the beach, to help and mourn, as the bodies, one after another, were cast out by the waves. Alas! few were the better of my provident preparation; and it was a thing not to be described, to see, for more than a mile along the coast, the newmade widows and fatherless bairns mourning and weeping over the corpses of those they loved. Seventeen bodies were, before ten o'clock, carried to the desolated dwell

ings of their families; and when old Thomas Pull, the bethereil, went to ring the bell for public worship, such was the universal sorrow of the town, that Nanse Donsie, an idiot natural, ran up the street to stop him, crying, in the voice a cf pardonable desperation: Wha, in sic a time, can praise the Lord!

THOMAS HOPE.

THOMAS HOPE (1770-1831), the author of 'Anastasius,' was one of the merchant-princes whom commerce led to opulence, and who repaid the compliment by ennobling his origin and pursuits with taste, munificence, and genius. He was one of three brothers, wealthy merchants in Amsterdam. When a young man, he spent some years in foreign travel, visiting the principal places in Europe, Asia, and Africa. On his return he settled in London, purchased a large house and a country mansion (Deepdene, near Dorking), and embellished both with drawings, picture-galleries, sculpture, amphitheatres for antiques, and all other rare and costly appliances. His appearances as an author arose out of these favourite occupations and studies. In 1805, he published a folio volume of drawings and descriptions, entitled Household Furniture and Decorations.' The ambitious style of this work, and the author's devotion to the forms of chairs, sofas, couches, and tables, provoked a witty piece of ridicule in the Edinburgh Review; but the man of taste and virtù triumphed. A more classical and appropriate style of furniture and domestic utensils gained ground; and with Mr. Hope rests the honour of having achieved the improvement. Two other splendid publications proceeded from Mr. Hope, The Costume of the Ancients' (1809), and 'Designs of Modern Costumes' (1812), both works evincing extensive knowledge and curious research.

In 1819, Mr. Hope burst forth as a novelist of the first order. He had studied human nature as well as architecture and costume, and his early travels had exhibited to him men of various creeds and countries. The result was 'Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek, written at the close of the Eighteenth Century,' in three volumes. The author's name was not prefixed to the work-as it was given forth as a veritable history-but the secret soon became known, and Mr. Hope, from being reputed as something like a learned upholsterer or clever draughtsman, was at once elevated into a rivalry with Byron as a glowing painter of foreign scenery and manners, and with Le Sage and the other masters of the novel, in the art of conducting a fable and delineating character. The author turned from fiction to metaphysics, and composed a work On the Origin and Prospects of Man,' which he did not live to see through the press, but which was pub. lished after his decease. His cosmogony is strange and unorthodox ; but amidst his paradoxes, conceits and abstruse speculations, are many ingenious views and eloquent disquisitions. He was author also of an Essay on Architecture,' not published till 1835-an ingenious work, which went through several editions. Mr. Hope died on the 3d of February, 1831, and probate was granted for £180,000

personal property. Mr. Beckford and 'Vathek' are the only parallels to Mr. Hope and Anastasius' in oriental wealth and imagination.

He

Anastasis is one of the most original and dazzling of modern romances. The hero is, like Zeluco, a villain spoiled by early indulgence; he becomes a renegade to his faith, a mercenary, a robber, and an assassin; but the elements of a better nature are sown in his composition, and break forth at times. He is a native of Chios, the son of Greek parents. To avoid the consequences of an amour with Helena, the consul's daughter, he runs off to sea in a Venetian vessel, which is boarded by pirates and captured. The pirates are in turn taken by a Turkish frigate, and carried before Hassan Pasha. Anastasius is released, fights with the Turks in the war against the Araonoots, and accompanies the Greek dragoman to Constantinople. Disgrace and beggary reduce him to various shifts and adventures. follows a Jew quack-doctor selling nostrums-is thrown into the Bagnio, or state-prison-afterwards embraces the Turkish faith-revisits Greece-proceeds to Egypt-and subsequently ranges over Arabia, and visits Malta, Sicily, and Italy. His intrigues, adventures, sufferings, &c. are innumerable. Every aspect of Greek and Turkish society is depicted-sarcasm, piquant allusion, pathos and passion, and descriptions of scenery, are strangely intermingled in the narrative. Wit, epigram, and the glitter of rhetorical amplification, occupy too much space; but the scene is constantly shifting, and the work possesses the truth and accuracy of a book of travels joined to those of a romance. The traveller, too, is a thorough man of the world, has a keen insight into human weaknesses and foibles, and describes his adventures and impressions without hypocrisy or reserve. The most powerful passages are those in which pathos is predominant-such as the scenes with Euphrosyne, whom Anastasius has basely violated-his sensations on revisiting Greece and the tomb of Helena-his reflections on witnessing the dead Araonoot soldier whom he had slain-the horrors of the plague and famine-and, above all, the account of the death of Alexis, the child of Anastasius, and in whom were centered the only remains of his human affection, his love and hope. The gradual decay of this youth, and the intense anxiety and watchfulness of his father, constitute a scene of genuine grief and tenderness. We forget the craft and villainy of Anastasius, thus humbled and prostrate. His wild gaiety and heartless jests, his degeneracy and sensualism, have passed away. They had palled upon himself, but one spring of pure affection remained to redeem his nature; and it is not without the strongest pity and kindred commiseration that we see the desperate adventurer reduced to loneliness and heart-broken despair. The scene is introduced by an account of his recovering his lost son in Egypt, and carrying him off to Europe:

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