the honest but somewhat blunt and boisterous
bearing of the shepherd himself.

The second tale, however, as we have remarked, is more adapted to the
talents of the author, and his success has been proportionably
triumphant. We have trespassed too unmercifully on the time of our
gentle readers to indulge our inclination in endeavouring to form an
estimate of that melancholy but, nevertheless, most attractive period in
our history, when by the united efforts of a corrupt and unprincipled
government, of extravagant fanaticism, want of education, perversion of
religion, and the influence of ill-instructed teachers, whose hearts and
understandings were estranged and debased by the illapses of the wildest
enthusiasm, the liberty of the people was all but extinguished, and the
bonds of society nearly dissolved. Revolting as all this is to the
Patriot, it affords fertile materials to the Poet. As to the _beauty_ of
the delineation presented to the reader in this tale, there is, we
believe, but one opinion: and we are persuaded that the more carefully
and dispassionately it is contemplated, the more perfect will it appear
in the still more valuable qualities of fidelity and truth. We have
given part of the evidence on which we say this, and we will again recur
to the subject. The opinions and language of the _honest party_ are
detailed with the accuracy of a witness; and he who could open to our
view the state of the Scottish peasantry, perishing in the field or on
the scaffold, and driven to utter and just desperation, in attempting to
defend their first and most sacred rights; who could place before our
eyes the leaders of these enormities, from the notorious Duke of
Lauderdale downwards to the fellow mind that executed his behest,
precisely as they lived and looked,--such a chronicler cannot justly be
charged with attempting to extenuate or throw into the shade the
corruptions of a government that soon afterwards fell a victim to its
own follies and crimes.

Independently of the delineation of the manners and characters of the
times to which the story refers, it is impossible to avoid noticing, as
a separate excellence, the faithful representation of general nature.
Looking not merely to the litter of novels that peep out for a single
day from the mud where they were spawned, but to many of more ambitious
pretensions--it is quite evident that in framing them, the authors have
first addressed themselves to the involutions and