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ART. VIII. St. Ronan's Well. By the Author of "Waverley," “ Quentin Durward," &c. 3 Vols. Post 8vo. ll. 11s. 6d. Boards. Edinburgh, Constable and Co.; London, Hurst and Co. 1824.

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A s our readers may doubtless remember, the shield of the learned Martinus Scriblerus, when its coat of venerable rust was indiscreetly removed by his hand-maid, was discovered to be nothing more than a barber's basin. Now, although we are far from contending that the two cases are analogous in every point, yet we cannot but think that the Author of Waverley,' in rubbing off that fine arugo with which his former works were encrusted, and attempting to give his productions a modern polish, has incalculably diminished their value. Previously to the appearance of the volumes before us, we had heard, among other table-talk, that the scene of the new novel was to be laid in the Orkney islands; and we anticipated high gratification in following the great luminary of the north through scenes, and amid characters, suited to his peculiar and splendid genius. The disappointment which we experienced was grievous, when we discovered that the author of Waverley and Quentin Durward' had descended into the annalist of a Spa! That the master of chivalry and romance should have consented to become the chronicler of a supposed modern watering-place, and of common love-scenes, drinking bouts, and tea-sipping parties, affected us somewhat in the sanie manner as a picture of the Black Prince might be supposed to do, if he were arrayed in a morningcoat manufactured by Stultz, and in a pair of Hoby's neatest jockey-boots. What sympathies can the writer, whose imagination has embodied the characters of Flora M'Ivor, of Rebecca, of Minna Troil, and of Jeannie Deans, have in common with the rattles, the prudes, and the precieuses of a Spa; and how can the pen which has narrated the exploits of Cœur de Lion, of the valiant Templar, and of Montrose, condescend to detail the gallantries of mincing petit-maitres, and the adventures of dissolute gamesters? Yet such is the case. The author of Waverley' has come down from the lofty and honorable eminence to which his genius had raised him, and has mingled with the crowd of nameless novelists who edify the public with "Six Weeks at Long's" and "A Fortnight at Brighton." He has forsaken his knights and warriors for horse-racers and bullies, his Covenanters for card-playing curates, and his high-minded heroines for blue-stocking ladies. Tired of "mounting barbed steeds," he is determined to try how nimbly he can "caper in a lady's chamber."

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The attempt was rash, and the result is natural. The production before us must be regarded as a failure, when we

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remember the former efforts of its author; and we cannot refrain from comparing it with other novels of the same class, of which we possess so many excellent specimens. In the representation of every-day life, and of domestic scenes, the Scotch writer has to contend with numerous and powerful adversaries; and in the fidelity and accurate truth of these delineations, we do not hesitate to say that he must yield to Madame D'Arblay, to Miss Edgeworth, and to Miss Austin. He does not, nor can it be expected that he should, possess. the nice and discriminating tact which distinguishes the writings of those ladies; and the sketches of all his characters. at the Well' are drawn rather in the broad style of a caricaturist, than with the accuracy of a portrait-painter. It was a fatal error when "the child of the Mist" deserted his wild vallies, and seated himself in the public room at the Fox 'hotel.'

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Independently of such an unfortunate choice of subject, we have other and heavy objections to this work. The plot is worse, if possible, than that of any of the former novels by the same author. The idea of it appears to have been suggested by Otway's well known tragedy of The Orphan; for, as in the drama, two brothers are candidates for the affections of the heroine, and the one clandestinely personates the other. On this foundation, the novelist has endeavored to build a story which, in our apprehension, is very deficient in coherence and probability. We are willing, in reading the wild fictions of the "Arabian Nights," to surrender our logical powers and to subdue the revolts of our reasoning faculties; so as to entertain no more doubt that the prince was borne through the air in a chariot drawn by hippogriffs, than that Sir Charles Grandison was hebdomadally dragged to church in the familycarriage by six black long-tailed horses. Yet, when we are called to listen to a tale, the scene of which is no farther removed than the border of Scotland, and the time no more distant than the present century, we must be excused if we demur a little on the question of probabilities. We cannot patiently stand by, and witness a number of good people remorselessly rendered miserable by a despotic novelist, who assigns no cause adequate to the production of so much wretchedness. A writer of fiction is bound so to combine the circumstances of his narrative, that his hero and heroine shall not be involved in perplexity without some sufficient causa causans, so as at once to satisfy the reader that he is not cheated out of his commiseration and sympathy; and, though this neglect to assign a probable cause for the griefs and distresses of their personages be an error common both to novelists

novelists and dramatists, it is not the less open to reprehension. In the present tale, we are unable, after a patient consideration of the subject, to discover a single valid reason for the misery which the hero and heroine endure. Lord Etherington, personating his half-brother Francis Tyrrel, is married to the heroine Clara Mowbray, but the deception is discovered immediately after the marriage-ceremony has passed. Now the supposed author of " Waverley" is too good a lawyer not to be aware that such a marriage is clearly invalid; and if any of our readers should entertain a doubt on that subject, we beg to refer them to the decision of "a late learned Chief Justice:" who, in a case in which a man had been married under an assumed name, for which reason the validity of the marriage had been questioned, made use of the following words: "If this name had been assumed for the purpose of fraud, in order to enable the party to contract marriage, and to conceal himself from the party to whom he was about to be married, that would have been a fraud on the marriage-act; and the rights of marriage and the court would not have given effect to any such corrupt purpose." What, then, we ask, was there to prevent the hero and heroine from marrying and being happy as soon as they pleased? What but that truculent disposition common to all novelists, who delight in the miseries of the beings whom they have created.

Even supposing the marriage of Clara to have been valid, the plot of the novel is still exceedingly imperfect. If valid, it was clearly a work of supererogation in his Lordship to trouble the lady with his subsequent addresses as a lover, when he was intitled to exercise over her the authority of a husband; if, on the contrary, it was invalid, it was no impediment, as we have shewn, to the union of Tyrrel and Clara. Thus, quacunque via data, the plot is bad, and the writer is placed between the horns of a dilemma.- We have, however, heard it suggested, and we admit that some passages favor the supposition, that there were other causes from which the heroine's griefs arose; and that certain "love-passages” had occurred in the history of her youthful attachment to Tyrrel, the remembrance of which preying on her heart had partially affected her intellects. These suspicions are founded chiefly on the heroine's own confession to her brother, which certainly appears to be an admission of her guilt. Yet, granting that fact, which still appears exceedingly problematical, it ought only to have operated as an additional reason for the marriage of Tyrrel with his early love. In every view of the case, therefore, the plot is improbable and unsatisfactory.

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We must now make a few observations on the characters who figure at St. Ronan's Well, and in whom we have discovered little novelty. The warniest admirers (among whom we desire to be classed) of the author of Waverley' have long ceased to expect any thing heroic in his heroes or his heroines. Francis Tyrrel, like many of his predecessors, is a very respectable personage, and walks through his part with a dignity befitting his station, but is miserably left in the lurch" at the end. Of the heroine we see and hear not much; and the interest excited for her is the result merely of the painful circumstances in which she is placed. Her character is slight, undefined, and, in the language of an artist, sketchy. Indeed, in most of the Waverley novels, the author bestows the greatest pains on some of the inferior personages. So in the present tale, the character of Mr. Peregrine Scroggie Touchwood is the most labored and most successful effort in the whole work. He is an amusing compound of the traveller, the gourmand, the meddier, and the philanthropist, and is certainly a new imagination of the author's brain. The remaining characters, with little exception, are modifica tions of the same elements which are scattered through the former novels. Captain Hector M'Turk (who, by the way, changes his name in the course of the work, possessing in the earlier part of it the appellation of Mungo,) is a species of Captain Dalgetty, with the monomachic qualities of Sir Lucius O'Trigger superadded. In the Rev. Josiah Cargill, the minister of St. Ronan's, we clearly discover our much-respected friend Dominie Sampson, (and something of our still older friend Parson Adams,) although, for some reasons of conveniency probably known to the author, he appears at present under an alias. Mrs. Margaret Dods, the landlady of the Cleickum inn, has some new points about her, and is on the whole a well drawn and amusing character: yet still she makes us recollect old Meg Merrilies. Mowbray, who is intended to be a Scotch sportsman and buck, has few distinguishing national characteristics, and would adorn with equal grace any county in England, Ireland, or Wales. Of the rest of the characters we have little to say: they are the usual furniture of a Spa; Lady Penelope Penfeather, an affected precieuse; Lady Binks, a sullen beauty; her husband Sir Bingo, a booby baronet; Mr. Winterblossom, a grey-headed beau; and Mr. Chatterley, a polite young divine. We must not, however, omit Lord Etherington, the anti-hero of the novel, who is a sort of Lovelace in his worst phasis. He is a polite and accomplished villain, who commits all kinds of enormities with a grace and nonchalance peculiarly his own, until he is shot through

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through the heart (if he had one) by Mowbray. Captain Jekyl is his Belford; and his Lordship's letters to him, which are somewhat unskilfully made the vehicles for detailing a great part of the plot, very much resemble those of Lovelace to his friend.

It now remains for us to present our readers with a few extracts. The following is the first interview between Mr. Touchwood and the minister of St. Ronan's, at the Manse:

Amid a heap of books and other literary lumber, which had accumulated around him, sat, in his well-worn leathern elbowchair, the learned minister of St. Ronan's; a thin, spare man, beyond the middle age, of a dark complexion, but with eyes which, though now obscured and vacant, had been once bright, soft, and expressive, and whose features seemed interesting, the rather that, notwithstanding the carelessness of his dress, he was in the habit of performing his ablutions with eastern precision; for he had forgot neatness but not cleanliness. His hair might have appeared much more disorderly, had it not been thinned by time, and disposed chiefly around the sides of his countenance and the back part of his head; black stockings, ungartered, marked his professional dress, and his feet were thrust into the old slip-shod shoes, which served him instead of slippers. The rest of his garments, so far as visible, consisted in a plaid nightgown wrapt in long folds round his stooping and emaciated length of body, and reaching down to the slippers aforesaid. He was so intently engaged in studying the book before him, a folio of no ordinary bulk, that he totally disregarded the noise which Mr. Touchwood made in entering the room, as well as the coughs and hems with which he thought proper to announce his presence. No notice being taken of these inarticulate signals, Mr. Touchwood, however great an enemy he was to ceremony, saw the necessity of introducing his business, as an apology for his intrusion.

"Hem! Sir Ha, hem!-you see before you a person in some distress for want of society, who has taken the liberty to call on you as a good pastor, who may be, in Christian charity, willing to afford him a little of your company, since he is tired of his own."

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Of this speech Mr. Cargill only understood the words "distress" and "charity," sounds with which he was well acquainted, and which never failed to produce some effect on him. looked at his visitor with lack-lustre eye, and, without correcting the first opinion which he had formed, although the stranger's plump and sturdy frame, as well as his nicely-brushed coat, glancing cane, and, above all, his upright and self-satisfied manner, resembled in no respect the dress, form, or bearing of a mendicant, he quietly thrust a shilling into his hand, and relapsed into the studious contemplation which the entrance of Mr. Touchwood had interrupted.

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