In a

These passages, we think, will bear out the general eulogy we have bestowed upon Mr Tennant's powers, at the commencement of this article. But we must, nevertheless, be just, and candidly tell the author of "The Thane of Fife," that we consider the design of the present poem as fundamentally vicious; that is to say, if he meant his poetry to please, and to instruct the enlightened part of society. We are quite clear, that the introduction of supernatural machinery into a serious poem-a poem, too, which professes to record the achievements of our gallant forefathers, and in which their high chivalry, and generous self-devoted patriotism, would have borne through a poet of meaner name is a defect for which no degree of skilful execution will possibly atone. burlesque poem, such as the Rape of the Lock, or Anster Fair, we can tolerate the introduction of the mythological personifications of any form of superstition, provided they are made, in conformity to their supposed character, to accelerate the action of the piece. The reason of this is plain; no demand is made on our belief. We laugh at the ingenious fiction of the poet, and the felicitous adaptation of the different parts of his imaginary machinery, and self-created beings-and there is an end of the matter. Mr Tommy Puck caracoles and curvettes in Maggy Lauder's mustard-pot, and, finally, after playing a tune on his tiny bagpipe, rehearses to the solitary and spouse-seeking maiden the part she has to act, in order to attain the consumption of her wishesa man! and in the Rape of the Lock the Sylphs and the Gnomes are in continual war about the fair-one's person; but would either Pope or Mr Tennant have ventured to introduce the same beings into a serious poem? Mr Tennant, we know, will answer in the negative; and Pope's taste was too refined, and his judgment too correct and severe, to permit the supposition for a moment. No supposition, we believe, will be more readily granted than this, that a fictitious composition ought to be probable, not to say possible. It ought not to shock our belief, or exeite our disgust or contempt, by the

VOL. X.

extravagance, the horror, or the absurdity of its imaginings. But every fictitious composition that aspires to interest and please, and which borrows its imagery from an exploded superstition, will inevitably fail of attaining the desirable object. Whatever is exploded is necessarily disbelieved; and what is disbelieved is improbable, and can never be rendered interesting. The gods of Homer were the gods of Greece, and, therefore, proper for his purpose: yet even Longinus objects to them, that they are deficient in that dignity which commands belief and reverence, and that they display the worst of human passions. To what does Paradise Lost owe its fearful and unutterable power and fascination, but to the implicit faith which we repose in the Christian mysteries, and in the glorious immortality which has been disclosed to our hopes? Suppose that Milton had availed himself of the exploded mythology of Greece or of Scandinavia, would his poem have been remembered at the expiry of the century in which he was born? We confidently aver that it would not; and, farther, that neither Mr Tennant, nor any one else, can produce an instance of success founded upon the principle which we now oppose. Manfred is the least known and the least relished of Lord Byron's works. The fiction of the White Maid of Avenel was, we confidently believe, injurious to the popularity of the Monastery. In a word, extravagance and absurdity can interest nobody, not even the extravagant and absurd. We do regret that Mr Tennant has exposed himself to this censure; but we feel constrained, by a sense of duty, to tell him our mind freely and honestly. What, for example, can be more absurd, than delivering Hungar from the sword of Macduff, by Niord spreading darkness around the combatants? We are well aware, that Mr Tennant may plead the example of Homer, and cite the darkness in which Ajax was involved, when he uttered the fine prayer which Longinus has so highly eulogised, as an instance in point: but this cannot serve him; for Ajax, as we have already shown, acted under the impression of the reliL

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gion which he believed, and therefore his action is probable. But this is absolutely nothing to the prodigious monstrosities which follow. The Scots are routed, not by the Danes, but by an array of seahorses and sea-calves, marching up the hill, against their lines, at the pas de charge! "Horrible, most horible!" And the hero is led off on an amorous chase, in the very heat, fury, and delirium of the battle, when no man, born of woman, ever thought of love; and this because, forsooth, Alvilda was an enchantress, and she was aided in her captivating" trick, as the Americans would say, by "the crafty son of Odin !" Verily this is the worst of all. A hero, and he too "Fife's blameless Thane," in the heat of battle, and after he had achieved wonders against the invaders of his country, and established a claim to favour of his prince, and the gratitude of his fellow-subjects-to quit the fight!-to forget his God, his honour, and his country!-to chace in amorous eagerness one of the daughters of his mortal enemy, the Dane!-and, to complete the whole, to mount the vessel, and wait patiently till they had weighed anchor, and put to sea, after he must have seen, if not absolutely stultified, the trick that had been played off upon him, to separate him from his brave associates in arms! These things surely are not well; and it is no very redeeming answer to inform us, that the daughter of Edebrand was an enchantress, and that the man was bewitched. We think it much more likely, that the poet is bewitched by some false theory of poetical beauty, which, unless he put from him anon, with rites of expiation, we prophesy that he will never attain that high reputation in the poetical world, to which his great learning, his fertile invention, and fine imagination, so well entitle him.

in that of the original words of which they are the derivations, thus:"Exciting kings to arm and vindicate his throne." p. 30. And again :

"Came obvious to the battle and the

broil." p. 72. (Venit obviam hosti.)

The following line appears to be tautological:—

"Far in th' horizon's rim first peep of land afar." p. 5.

We think "tilting keel" a violent metaphor ; and "he begun" does not appear to us grammatical. The following is surely a misprint :

"For a great feast is toward on the earth." p. 19.

In the following stanza, the Greek is strangely jumbled with the Scandinavian Mythology:

"Yet must we not permit these men of ours,

Hungar and Hubba, and that valiant race, To fight unaided by those heav'nly pow'rs Wherein their hope and confidence they place:

Thine be it, Thor, to-morrow, when the Hours

Yoke Titan's horses in their silvery trace, From heaven's eternal revels to descend, On embassage of love, our people to defend.".

We have made these remarks from no propensity to hypercriticism, or severity. We think Mr Tennant a highly-gifted man, and revere him as exhibiting a rare union of profound learning, with a most active and vigorous imagination. We know, moreover, that he is capable of very great things indeed; and we would fain persuade him not to circumscribe the range of his powerful faculties within the limits of a fanciful and delusive theory. Truth and nature are the basis of all poetry, as well as of all philosophy. This Mr Tennant knows better than we can tell him; but still we hope he will excuse us for calling his attention to what is so indispensable to his future success. His diction is rich, mellow, terse, variegated, and Miltonic; would that we could equally eulogise the fable of his poem! He appears, too, either to be deficient in pathos, or, which is more likely, never to have attempted the delincation of any si

tuation where powerful passions are evolved. But we must draw these hasty, but well-meant remarks, to a conclusion. We take leave of Mr Tennant, grateful for the pleasure he has afforded us, and entertaining a reverence for his genius, which we would do injury to the truth of our feelings were we to conceal, and which being real and sincere, has prompted us to read him the long lecture which we are now happy to bring to a conclusion.

MARY ALLAN: A TALE.

Oh! thou, who sleep'st where hazel bands entwine

The vernal grass with paler violets drest: I would, sweet girl! thy humble bed were mine,

And mine thy calm and enviable rest; For never more, by human ills opprest, Shall thy soft spirit fruitlessly repine!

Charlotte Smith.

THE interest which every sensitive mind feels in Highland scenery, does not arise merely from the bold and striking features which inert matter assumes in mountain-landscapes. There is doubtless much that is fascinating in the outlines of natural scenery of the wildest kind-in the long lines of hill and upland, and the rich variety of wood and waterin the dark frowning masses of bare mountain cliff, which bound the view on every side and the picturesque variety of flood, and lake, and plantation, which fill up the deep and beautiful straths. The feeling, how ever, has a deeper foundation. When we step on Highland ground, we feel that we are treading a land which is consecrated by the recollections of love and heroism-we breathe, as it were, the fresh air of freedom-and our imaginations dwell on the nameless majestic deeds which have signalised, from immemorial time, the "land of the mountain and the flood." I never ascend a Highland eminence, without being irresistibly oppressed with a load of high and indefinite feelings of power and awe. Hill and dale, and rock and stream, seem pregnant with the images of sublime and stirring antiquity; and those very fields, from which every trace of "other times" has long departed, appear yet haunt

ed by a dim and majestic shadow of former renown. Different minds necessarily feel these impressions with different degrees of vivacity; but that mind must have very scanty resources of deep and solemn thoughtfulness within itself, which can derive no warm and glowing lessons from our high hills and our deep glens, or which can reflect upon them the beautiful association of no sweet or romantic legend.

The simple tale which I am now to relate is one of those which sheds a consecrating light on the scene which witnessed it; and though its simple incidents happened within the memory of man, they breathe so much of the spirit of the "olden time," that to me, at least, they are invested with a considerable portion of that sacredness, which only remote antiquity can, in its widest extent, bestow.

Strath-Almond is one of the most lonely of these mountain defiles which intervene between the high grounds of the north of this kingdom. The summits of the hills which encircle it are covered over entirely with black moss and heath, and their sides, except in a few plots, where some hardy evergreens contrive to struggle out a melancholy existence, are nothing but successive ridges of bare rock. The only spots where the hand of cultivation is at all visible, are here and there on the banks of the wild brawling stream, which rambles along the bottom of the defile; and these are rare, being only a few acres of arable ground around the pastoral huts which are scattered, at long intervals, at the bottom of the hills.

Mary Allan was an only daughter of one of the inhabitants of this mountain retreat, and was considered, as well from her superior education, as from the grace and beauty of her person, the female ornament of the valley. John Allan, her father, was the wealthiest and most respectable shepherd, or rather farmer, in the Strath, and Mary, therefore, was not neglected by the rustic gallants, who were at all aware of the value of a beautiful wife and a bountiful dowry. The only youth, however, who had made any impression on Mary's heart was William Lee,

then a farm-servant of her father's, but who latterly exchanged "Following the plough upon the mountain-side," for the more heroic occupation of following the arms of his native country, in the plains of the new world. The cause of this change was his aspiring to the hand of the Highland maiden, who was so generally beloved. The marked civilities paid by Mary to the lowest of her father's servants, could not fail to attract the attention, as well as to excite the alarm of the youthful suitors, who had an eye to John Allan's flocks, as well as his daughter's person; and long time did not elapse before this unfortunate young man became the object of the resentment of all the wealthy youth of the glen. His situation was at last rendered so irksome, that he determined to leave the place of his nativity, and taking the opportunity of a recruiting party, who paraded a neighbouring town, without taking leave of his mistress, he accepted the king's bounty, and set sail for the destination of his regiment, from which, it is believed, he never afterwards returned.

The grief of Mary for this sudden and unexpected departure of her lover was almost insupportable; but she was obliged to cherish it in silence and secrecy. Her suitors having got so easily rid of their dangerous rival, lost no time in plying all their efforts to get her fettered in the bonds of matrimony. Her father, fond of her to distraction, was too anxious to see his daughter well settled in life to be long in complying with the unremitted solicitations of so many lovers; and at last she was united, at his wish, and contrary to her own inclinations, to one of the young men who was considered rather opulent, and who had been most active in persecuting the unhappy William Lee. Many of the old women in the glen still remember the bridal of Mary Allan; and often have I heard its ceremonies dolefully chaunted over by a venerable grandame, for the instruction of a group of little urchins, who were eagerly crowding round a wintry ingle side, with gaping earnestness, to listen to them.

"I ne'er could think it a gude sign," said old Margaret Alison to me, the last time I went to enquire respectin

Mary's only surviving child, "I ne'er could think it was owre gude a sign,” said she, assuming a look of mysterious solemnity, that seemed put on for the purpose of impressing her auditor with an idea of her superior sagacity, "when the salt tears streamed down frae the bonny bride's face, on the green graves i' the kirk-yard." "And that," continued Elspeth Mathers, in the same solemn tone, on the very first Sabbath she was kirkit-and a bonny sunny Sabbath it was.'

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"Wha but kens," said a third gossip, "that cauld tears and newopened graves are nae mair canty than winding-sheets and death-signs --and weel I wat, Mary Allan, that's now dead and gane, kens the truth o't!"

Mary certainly felt comfortless and unhappy with her husband; but either from motives of prudence, or from simple and artless notions of married life, she never expressed, by her conduct, any of her regrets and grievances. The affection which she showed towards her husband was, however, merely assumed. Her heart, in spite of herself, was still with William Lee, beyond the Atlantic, fighting the battles of his country; and often has she been surprised in tears, with no mortal beside her, on the banks of the lorn stream, where William and she first plighted their youthful vows.

The secret evil which preyed at Mary's heart was not, however, always to lurk concealed. Her spirits began gradually to deepen into a settled melancholy, and her health at last to exhibit a visible alteration. Instead of the light-hearted, smiling girl, that was wont to be seen tripping to the kirk on a spring Sabbath, tricked out in all the gaudy finery of rustic life, you might now witness a pale and wasted figure, clothed in the simplest attire, and exhibiting the most chastened deportment; and she, who heretofore had been always foremost at the May-day sport, or the harvest merry-making, was now never seen but sitting lonely in the chimney-corner, or wandering, like a disconsolate and broken-hearted widow, by the unfrequented banks of the brook, or among the desolate and melancholy heather.

This alteration could not long escape the penetration of Mary's husband; and, instead of softening, it had the effect of rendering still more unendurable his naturally sour and unamiable disposition. It would be needless, and it would be endless, to attempt recounting the different ways in which this savage and merciless ruffian betrayed his coarse illhumour. Suffice it to say, that it grew to such excess, that at last the meek and passive Mary could no longer bear it.

The sun had set in a chill and drizzling evening of spring, when this brutal monster came home in a state of intoxication. His natural temper, in addition to being stimulated by the strong liquors of which he had drank copiously, was rendered tenfold more caustic and irritable by the news which had been brought him, during the day, of the unexpect ed death of John Allan, without any legacy in his favour. In the most unfeeling manner he told Mary of the death of her father; and, in the same breath, upbraided her with the disappointment he had suffered in not falling heir to his property. This was too much for the already broken-hearted Mary; and she decided upon taking that resolution, which had often occurred to her, but which, till then, she had never seriqusly determined to carry into execution. Cold and comfortless as the night was, she sallied forth; and, clothed almost in rags, bade an eternal adieu to the detested scene of her connubial misery. That long night the hapless Mary Allan never closed her eyes in slumber. Alone and unprotected-labouring under a decline -without clothes-without sustenance, she pursued, at the cheerless dead of night, a wild, unfrequented path, which she would in other circumstances not have ventured to tread alone in summer and in sunshine. Not a human step once in a twelvemonth crossed that howling wilderness; and, in the minds of a simple pastoral people, it was associated with the personifications of a wild and romantic superstition. Surely some power more than human watched that livelong night over the gentle traveller, and ministered that strength and courage, with

out which she must have sunk on the desolate moor. Mary's strength, however, had not long to undergo so flinty a probation. The last shade of evening which she was to witness in this world, had already closed around her; and, with another setting sun, she was to sink into her long last slumber, and to mingle with the clods over which her wearied limbs now scarce supported her.

I shall never forget the incidents of that day which closed this hapless female's humble history. At the boundary of that dreary extent of heath over which Mary Allan wandered, there is a neat cottage, connected with some plots of cultivated ground, then possessed by a David Laidlaw, with whom I was intimately acquainted. The traveller will easily distinguish it from the other cottages, which, like gems in a desart, people this interminable solitude, and give animation to the lonely moor, by its being built upon a green sloping upland, from which it commands a fine prospect of the Almond, as it widens into the loch of the same name. To that beloved house I was wont to go on a tour every annual spring-tiine; and many a gleesome holiday have I spent, in roaming, with its happy inmates, over the long moor, when gaudy with all the garish bloominess of spring, seeking for the nest of the greenlinnet among the resplendent broom and the scented whins. The day to which I allude was devoted to one of these boyish rambles. We had left the cottage, after an early breakfast, with the intention of visiting a mountain cataract that was distant among the hills. The aspect of the morning was enchanting. There had fallen, during the night, a considerable quantity of rain; and the vapour, which was streaming from the tepid earth, under the radiance of the morning sun, had formed itself into a soft and silvery wreath of mist, which hung like a rich mantle over the face of the landscape. There was scarcely a breath of air; and, as we turned off into the wide common, the birds on the neighbouring furze were beginning to chant sweet hymns to the sunshine; and the smell of the moistened furze came mellowed to us from the glens, on which the