he was to be exiled might not be amongst infidels.-3 Inst. 115.

By the Act of 21 Jac. c. 28, s. 7, it is enacted, that no sanctuary, or privilege of sanctuary, shall be admitted or allowed in any case. By which Act, such abjuration as was at the common law founded (as hath been said) upon the privileges of sanctuary is wholly taken away. But the abjuration by force of the statutes of 35 Eliz. c. 1, and 35 Eliz. c. 2, in the case of recusants, remaineth still, because such abjuration hath no dependency. upon any sanctuary.-3 Inst. 115, 116.

"And the law was so favourable for the preservation of sanctuary, that if the felon had been in prison for the felony, and before attainder or conviction, had escaped, and taken sanctuary in the church or church-yard, and the gaolers or others had pursued him, and brought him back again to prison, upon his arraignment he might have pleaded the same, and should have been restored again to the sanctuary.-3 Inst. 217. Eccl. Law, vol. i page 365

PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.

WE are again summoned to the consideration of a work of varied character; not of uniform excellence, for several minute defects in the composition, and some deformities in the moral action of the novel, must preclude unqualified praise; while, on the other hand, that peculiar richness of inven tion, and vigour and vivacity in embodying his conceptions, that originality of thought, and power of language, which distinguish most of the other compositions of this extraordinary writer, are too conspicuous in Peveril of the Peak to suffer it to be dismissed with the cold approbation of its being merely an agreeable or successful effort of genius. We know, indeed, of no novel written by our author, which, generally speaking, offers to the reader a more extensive variety, or a happier opposition, of characters and situations; a greater abundance of singular but artfully

connected events'; a narrative more compli cated, but natural in its details; and a conclusion more regular or satisfactory in its management: and if, in the conduct of such an involved and intricate machine, the artist should occasionally be found to have committed some trifling mistakes, he may not only shelter himself under the protecting axiom of humanum est errare, but fairly urge, that the blemishes are so minute as to be imperceptible, were they not rendered conspicuous by the exquisite manufacture of the great body of the work. Upon this principle he may plead for pardon (and it must in justice be awarded to him) for describing his heroine's eyes as of two different colours at two different periods of her life; for converting Stephen into Diccon Ganlesse, and aunt Ellesmere into aunt Whitaker; for making Major Bridgnorth act and speak like a maniac, in his interview with Lady Peveril in the avenue, and cloathing him, before and after, with the character of a staid and consistent, though wrong-principled, man; and for attributing to Finella or Zarah, circumstances

of education, and action, and peculiarities of physical and moral constitution, which even the wish to believe all that is told us will not render probable. That he has thrown less of originality, also, into some of his characters, than we find in his earlier productions, is not a matter of surprise, and ought not to be an occasion of blame. Bridgnorth, it is true, is drawn after Balfour of Burley, but with milder colours; and Finella, Sir Geoffry Hudson, and other personages, have their prototypes in the novels which have preceded Peveril of the Peak; but it must be recollected, that the difficulty of designating the varieties of the same species by a series of particulars appropriately and exclusively their own, is to be mastered only by a genius of the mightiest stature; and that, in the modern world, Shakespeare alone can claim a a comparison with the Kaleidoscope, which throws the same few simple materials into an infinite variety of beautiful forms; or assert a right to apply to himself the praise of Horace,

Ille profecto

Reddere personæ scit convenientia cuique.

With respect to one class of his characters, however, we could wish that he had deviated a little more than he has done from his original general conception of them. In describing Flibbertygibbet, in Kenilworth, he lays it down as a principle, that all such unfortunates in exterior form must necessarily be malignant, from their envy of those who have been more favourably dealt with by nature than themselves; and, upon this principle, has attributed a mischievous and spiteful cast of character to one and all of these busy agents in his several novels. As a sweeping principle, however, this view of the personages in question is decidedly a false one; contradicted, we will venture to say, by the experience of every one who has seen much of human life. But, even were it sanctioned by the results of common obser vation, we would strenuously contend, that it would not be a fact proper to be recog nised in works of fancy. The deformed in person, and diminutive in figure, are commit. ted by that Providence, who ordained those deficiencies, to the benevolence of their