ng the governor to be murdered, he exerted all his power and strength, in liciting his release from the merciless vages, till at length he was wounded by sabre in the forehead, and, falling, was trodden under foot; from which immi nen: danger he escaped to hear that his humane friend had been basely assassinated by the agents of the philosophers and the dake of Orleans.-But to return to Mr. Care. That the Bastile, under the old regime, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, was more tmble in the sound than it was terrific in the interior management, with respect to its conduct to prisoners when under confinement, or in its subsequent consequences, may be de evident from some letters which the writer has in his possession. They were transmited by a friend, who, from the malicions ennduct of a consul of one of the northern powers, who had falsely represented him to the minister of police as a spy, was arrested at one of the sea-ports, where he was settled as a merchant in business, conveyed to Paris, and sent to the Bastile. This was in the year 1781, at the time of the American war, when France was courting the northern confederacy, which were associated under the title of the arued neutrality; and his liberation, therefore, was the more honourable to the French government. His papers were examined; he interrogated; and, after five weeks, was Ferated, and introduced to the Count de Vergennes on his restoration to society. He tes, that although his confinement was itary, he had soon the use of a library, ght choose what books he pleased; and Saving never read Moliere, was so entertained with him that the fits of laughter which seized am, would have made any unfortunate eighbouring prisoner, had there been any, think him mad, and envied him the loss of reason, which had deprived him of the apparent sense of his captivity. He was lowed wine, had three meals each day, and he described the cook as being an excellent se. These circumstances are mentioned, though minute, because from the nature of the fact, they are interesting. His room was an octagon of twenty feet square, with double dants, a fire-place, and a glazed window strongly barricadoed, of course, in all direcLo, and furnished with a bed, two chairs, and two tables. He spent his time, he remarked, cheerfully, as he was conscious of his rectitude, and that his character would be cleared. To such men, neither the Bastile, or any other prison, could have alarms. How different were the prisons under the republican reign of terror! and how opposite are they under the new dynasty! Few men VOL. VI. [Lit. Pan. April 1809.] under the republican rule were incarcerated, however innocent, who did not endure every indiguity and privation, while confined! and when restored to light, it was only to see the guillotine, and bow their necks under its keen stroke; to be submerged, or undergo some dynasty, the prisoners are said to die by their equally fatal catastrophe. Under the new doomed to breathe the pestilential and infecown hands! are deported; or, in other words, tious air of the swamps of Cayenne; condemned, by that measure, to a lingering and almost certain death; or they are made to descend into the oubliettes of the prisons, and all further knowledge of them ceases; they are only remembered to have once lived. Such were the blessings of French republican government, while it lasted; and such are the present advantages of imperial benevolence and humanity! Caledonian Sketches, or a Tour through Scotland in 1807, to which is prefixed an explanatory Address to the Public; on a recent Trial. By Sir John Carr. 4to. pp. 564. Price £2 2s. Mathews and Leigh, London, 1809. As an Sir John Carr has thought proper to introduce this volume by an apology for his action at law against a pamphlet,—or, as he says, the frontispiece to a pamphlet, in which he was treated with very little courtesy. We have never considered the knight's conduct on that occasion as mag-. nanimous or dignified; and the event showed that it was not correct. amusing, and to a certain degree, an instructive, writer, we have done Sir John justice. To be always original, is more perhaps, than should be demanded of a modern traveller. should be important, or profound, is a That his remarks proposition not to be too rigidly enforced. No man can give what he does not possess. A summer expedition cannot afford opportunities for observation equal to those of which a longer residence might take advantage. An occasional guest seldom sees the hoe in a litter: He is treated with civility; and can do no less than make a civil report. The writer before us, has been so far sensible of this, as to study propriety in the title of his work, at least, as we infer from his modesty in calling it "Sketches. We could have wished that the same sense of propriety had induced a more careful revision of his diction in some places, or, D " that the MS. had been submitted to the inspection of a judicious friend-For, though this volume is less abundant in that unwarrantable phraseology, which debased the language of this gentleman's former publications, yet should some wicked wit, intent on finding blemishes, or, on magnifying blemishes into crimes, stumble on such expressions as the following, in a practiced writer, what a "Pocket Book" might he make from a compendium of them! "The admirers of the sublime and beautiful in poetry may be gratified by seeing"-what? an epic poem, perhaps a lock of hair of this illustrious bard at Lord Fitzwilliam's, at Richmond." That a visitant at Cambridge should mention (whether or not he saw them) the MSS. of Comus and other poems, in Milton's hand writing, may be proper enough: but, by what association of ideas is a lock of hair combined with the sublime and beautiful in poetry? "Professor Porson styled a Plato, beautifully written on vellum, a monument of literature."-Are not all ancient copies of classic authors monuments of literature? "Stamford stands upon a rocky soil, so porous, that the inhabitants have only to make a cess pool or deep hole, and every thing thrown into it soon disappears." Why then, we advise them to throw in the two additional bells, of which Sir John complains in the preceding sentence, as overloading St. Mary's church. "The clouds, which rolled heavily and low, as soon as I ascended this desert began to disburthern themselves with the copiousness of a shower bath all the rest of the way." If I had not ascended this desert, would they not equally have dişburthened themselves? The reader will observe, that this beginning extended nearly twenty miles. "Upon his arrival in the Caledonian capital, an English stranger is at first surprised at the following definitions. A square is called scale-stair-a round stair, a turnpike-a court is often called a square. The Parliament house is an exception-its site is sometimes called a close-sometimes a square."-We recollect completely our arrival in the Caledonian capital, but not a word of such definitions was vouchsafed to us, at first. Moreover we defy a Londoner to disentangle the confusion. that arises from the different senses which the word square is used in t passage. Sir John should have said square stair case is called a scale stair a round stair case, is called a turnpike. The Parliament house is not an exceptio for Parliament Close is the passage whi leads from the High Street to Parliame Square. Sir John says, p. 77, south and west sides of the Bank of Sco land appear in the frontispiece"-where the north front is, and must be, one of t two exhibited. Sir John says the do of the Register office is "50 feet diameter and 80 high :" preposterous mensions for a dome! he means t whole apartment which is covered by t dome, is 50 feet in diameter and 80 hig "The men and women, in fine wh mob caps, and without shoes or stocking danced an Iona fandango before Duke."-Does Sir John mean to sa that the men wore white mob caps? the men wore any caps, they were sure blue bonnets. The brevity and force of the inscriptio at Petersburgh on the statue of Peter Petro primo, Catherina secunda,” h misled Sir John into a hapless imitation it. On the obelisk at Glasgow, intend to commemorate our immortal admira he proposed to inscribe," Glasgow Nelson:" but, Glasgow is not of th same genus as Nelson: one being a ci the other a man. The equality implie in this inscription is, therefore, a fallacy and our language refuses to suffer suc violence. The inscription in the Botan Garden at Edinburgh, Linnæo posu lo.Hope. is good: but had it been Liz næo posuit Edinburgh, it had been ba barous unless some person, the Earl Edinburgh, for instance, had been th party intended by the term. : Fine writing should not be expecte from a traveller; but his style and ex pressions should be clear, correct, an legitimate; or, by what power of di vination shall his reader, an utter strange to the subject described, form any notio of it? The respect we bear to our na tive language has induced us to com direct our attention to more pleasing themes. The northern capital of our island ha been so frequently visited by traveller from the south, especially since the in crease of commerce, and the exclusion of English ramblers from the 'Continent, the little which deserves the character of new is to be expected from the obsersations of a summer visitant. Edinburgh has lately been the subject of many "Descriptions;" Perth has published its "Memorabilia ;" and other cities their "Guides;" so that much which a writer remarks in respect to them, has the air of being repetition from these easily-procurable companions. We know not whether this sufficiently accounts for our preference of those chapters of the volume before us which describe Highland manners, and the northern counties of Scotland, in general; But by this preference we do not mean to deay that parts of Sir Jolin's account of Edinburgh, and its vicinity, may be read with pleasure. We cannot, indeed, compliment our traveller on having possessed the very best of qualifications for a Scottish tourist'; since he declares his abhorrence of the bag-pipe in almost insulting terms; although he was fortunate enough to partake of " musical banquet,"-conducted by several highly approved performers." I was pressingly invited to the rehearsal the ancient assembly-room, before the fuges, and informed that it was a great our to be admitted. I shall never forget it! As soon as the prize-judges were seated, the folding-doors opened. A Highland piper tered, in full tartan array, and began to ess from the bag of his pipes, which were deconted with long pieces of ribband, sounds so load and horrible, that, to my imagination, they were comparable only to those of the eterually tormented. In this manner he Strutted up and down with the most stately arch, and occasionally enraptured his audence, who expressed the influence of his instrument by loud and reiterated plaudits. For my part, so wretched is this instrument tomy ears, that I could not discover any difference, in regard to expression, between The Gathering of the Macdonalds" and "Abercrombie's Lament," each sound being to me equally depressive, discordant, borrible. Several, and, as I was inred, highly approved performers, followed, with a few and short, but welcome intervals, fed up by Highland dancers, who favoured us with some reels, in which agility, without the slightest accompaniment of grace, seenied Lament is a sort of dirge, in commemotation of deceased persons of eminence; and ne airs are called ports. the only object of attainment. I observed that these poor fellows had good reason to be jealous of the pipers, as their performances were suffered to be of very short duration, and the attention gladly removed from their nimble activity, occasionally accompanied by a peculiar shrill whoop, to the dismal drone of the pipes, which Butler has so well and s● wittily described : Then bagpipes of the loudest drones, HUDIBRAS. Most of the pipers were very fine men, and looked to great advantage in their full costume. Many of them had gained prizes; and, in the hope of procuring further honours, had come from very distant parts. One came from Mull, and another from Sky. I believe it might have been three hours that common politeness compelled me to endure the distraction of this preliminary trial of skill; and I left the room with nearly the same sensations with which I should have quitted a belfry on a royal birth-day. The Highland pipe is blown with the mouth, and the Lowland with a small bellows. The Highland pipe requires a prodigious power of breath to sound it, and is loud to a deafening degree when performed in a room. It plays only the natural notes, and is incapable of variation by flats or sharps. Yet the pipers frequently force it to play tunes requiring higher notes, an attempt which produces the most horrid discord. The bagpipes are said to be of great antiquity. In Rome was discovered a most beautiful bas relievo, of Grecian sculpture, representing a piper playing upon his instrument, in the dress of a modern Highlander. Sir John also found a bag-pipe among the musical instruments played on by angels in the basso-relievos of Roslin Chapel: yet, even this celestial authority, cannot persuade him, that the instrument was brought from Heaven. We have better arguments, however, in behalf of the harp; and-no offence, to the maidens of Erin, or the bards of the principality, we give ad libitum permission to the cultivation of Caledonian skill on this truly pleasing instrument. How much it is to be regretted that in the Highlands there is not now one harper to be found, although the harp was once cultivated with great success from a very early age. That it ever had been used has till lately been much doubted. In 1460, a lady of the family of Lamont brought a Caledonian harp from Argyleshire to the house of Lude, upon her marriage into the family of Robertson, of Lude, where it has ever since remained. When the lovely, but unfortunate, queen Mary made a hunting excursion into the Highlands of Perthshire, she carried a harp with her, which is now also in the family of Lude. And there is scarcely a poem which is either sung or recited in the Highlands in which the harp is not celebrated. Every person of taste and feeling must regret the decline in Scotland of this exquisite and affecting instrument, and be shocked at its having been succeeded by the bagpipes. The Arts are certainly improving in Scotland yet much remains to be done, before their general state will rival that in the south and, we conceive, that the south will, for a long while to come, hold out superior attractions to distinguished genius in this branch of polite study. Sir John's account of Wilkie, merits attention. I have peculiar pleasure in mentioning Mr. David Wilkie, a young artist, who, without the advantage of having visited Italy, has almost imo et altu arrested the public attention, and whose works have acquired its unqualified admiration. As this distinguished artist has awakened so much interest, it may gratify my readers to mention something of his history, which will show by what trivial accidents the predominant powers of the mind are frequently brought into expanded and successful exercise. I cannot do this more agreeably than by using the modest language. of this meritorious artist, which I do with his permission. "I was born," says he, “at a small and obscure village, of the name of Cults, near Cupar, in the county of Fife. My father is a clergyman, and pastor of that village. The first inclination I showed for painting was, I believe, at a very early period of my life, when I used to spend my mornings with an old woman in the neighbourhood, who frequently gave me a piece of chalk to amuse myself with, which I used to do by drawing the figures of men and women on a board. Having from this time shown a strong propensity towards the art, my father sent me to an academy at Edinburgh, where after studying for five years, under the direction of Mr. Graham (a painter of considerable emipence), I came to London." The character of the inhabitants of Edinburgh is correctly drawn by our author. Although my stay in Edinburgh was short, yet, from being much in society, I had a tolerable opportunity of making my remarks upon the people. Amongst the tradesmen I observed punctuality, sobriety, industry, and much natural civility. In their domestic manners they are said to be much improved, and to resemble those of their own class in England. In the higher walks of society, I observed, united to a more punctilious re gard to family rank than is observed in Eng land, a genuine politeness, unmingled with the frippery and affectation of character, which are frequently the associates of those in the same social scale in the south. Amongst the men this trait is rendered peculiarly attractive by the uncommon degree of literary attainment and general information which they possess the former the result of that expanded system of education which abounds in Scotland; and the latter the fruits of that spirit of emigration which induces the Scotchman, perhaps more than the native of any other country, to transport his talents, and carve his fortune and his honours in different regions. A Scottish gentleman is a highlyfinished character. He is well bred, yet moral; brave, yet courteous; highly cultivated, but unassuming. Having seen many countries, he still prefers his own, to which he returns with a inind more expanded, but not less pure, than when he left it. Amongst the ladies there is a frankness of character which forms the happy medium between the frequent reserve of an English lady and the almost unrestrained freedom of a French woman of fashion. With a Scottish lady a stranger is not puzzled to devise new stratagems, every time he meets her, to draw her into an intimacy. Her acquaintance seems impregnated with friendship, and is guarded by a natural modesty, which gives a purity to her conversation, and fills the person to whom she addresses herself with equal esteem and respect for her. The Scottish women are in general accomplished, though I do not think that they cultivate music either so much or so successfully as my own countrywomen; but it is to be remembered that they have not their advantages in this respect. In England almost every young lady plays and sings with tolerable excellence, and many are perfect mistresses of music, owing to the liberal, and perhaps extravagant, encouragement given to the first masters in that delightful science. Indeed the Scottish ladies very liberally allow the superiority of the English in elegant female education, and consider it a great advantage. The Scotch excel in learning languages; and the strong literary turn, so visible in the character of the Scottish gentlemen, is, in a milder manner, communicated to the fairer Their conversation is always more sen sible than playful; and they manage a point of intellectual disputation with equal talent and delicacy. I am well informed that the winter parties in Edinburgh partake very sex. We are vexed to see this disposition to divorce encrease: few as these numbers are, yet they are nearly doubled in the short space of two years! The characters of the inhabitants farther north meets with equal favour from our knight. Speaking of the Highlanders, he has brought together many of their most commendable features. We certainly prefer the man, and the traveller, who chooses to behold men and things with cheerfulness rather than with gloom and Sir John may honestly be congratulated on this disposition, since he will not only find himself a more welcome guest from his vivacity, in his travels, but even in the journey of life he will find this quality a recommendation. The present Highlanders, says our author, appear to unite sentiment to serious habit; they are inquisitive, thoughtful, and intelligent, and they have a sort of melancholy sensibility, tempered with much natural courtesy, which renders them highly interesting. Their noble form and pensive mind finely correspond with the wild and sublime scenery in which they move. This may perhaps have aided in forming that part of their character. In the course of my Highland ambles I had frequent intercourse with the natives who spoke English, and I was always surprised to find the great intellectual curiosity which the Highlanders displayed in their inquiries after our own manners and customs: they have frequently walked by the side of By carriage, or of my horse, for miles together, during which I had many a shrewd interrogatory propounded to me. la talking of the English, they always spoke of us as a separate people. An old Highlander once told an English gentleman that the expedition to Ferrol would certainly fail, as there were so many foreigners engaged in it. Foreigners!" exclaimed the gentleman, "what do you mean?" "Why, there are only Englishers and Irishers employed," replied the Scotchman. I was also much struck with the natural ease, perfectly free from vulgarity, as well as the social turn, of these people. I saw an unaffected dignity of deportment, which I should think splendour could not dazzle into that mean sheepishness and conscious inferiority frequently observable in the peasantry of other countries. A Highland farmer presents to me the figure of a Roman one. The Highlander seems to measure man by a noble standard. When you look at his face and form, you will naturally say, Nothing sordid or selfish can be cherished there." Lord Moira, in an affecting speech upon the interests of Ireland, eloquently observed, "That that man walked safely who walked uprightly, as he who moved in the Grotto del Cano, by carrying himself erect, avoided the deadly atmosphere which clung to the earth below, and destroyed the baser animal that crawled." Thus it is with the Highlander; in the midst of poverty and privation, such as the south never exhibits, he is, by a powerful moral sense, more than by reflection and education, preserved from mean and unworthy actions. Although in a rude period the Highlanders. had no very correct notions of the sanctity of property, many are the instances which might be adduced of Highland integrity, which grew with the growth of civilization. The following little anecdote will shew how widely the uprightness of the Highlander is respected:-Whilst Corsica was in our possession, the butler who had the care of the Governor's plate, upon fetes, and great public occasions, used to request that some of the men without breeches, meaning some soldiers of a Scottish regiment on service in the island, might have the charge of it during the entertainments. In battle the Highlanders have repeatedly covered themselves with glory in various parts of the world. They are temperate; and society is so thinly and widely dispersed, that they have seldom an opportunity of assembling to indulge in gratifications that are violent to sobriety. Their hospitality, as well as that of the Scottish peasants in general, is a subject of merited admiration: they have but little to offer, but what they have they cheerfully give: it is generally an Arcadian banquet of milk and cream, and oaten cake. This noble quality their exquisite poet, Burns, has celebrated with epigrammatic point: "When Death's dark stream I ferry o'er, (A time that surely shall come,) In Heav'n itself I'll ask no more Than just a Highland welcome." I was much pleased to find that hospitality in the Highlands had assumed an appearance of high civilization. Amongst the Highland |