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1822]

Chronology for 1821.

lost in it's second stage, by a majority of 98. 17. Roman Catholic Disabilities' Removal Bill rejected in the House of Lords, upon the motion for the second reading, by a majority of 79.

22. The Patriarch of the Greek Church hung before his Chapel on Easter Day, and Bishops and Greek Christians murdered by the Turks,

MAY.

MAY 1. Baptism of the infant Duke de Bordeaux, at Paris.

-The celebrated Mrs. Piozzi died in her eighty-second year.

4. Bank Cash Payments Resumption Bill passed in the House of Lords.

Legality of Patent Iron Coffins determined.

5. Napoleon Buonaparte died in exile at St. Helena.

8. Cash Payments Resumed by the Bank of England.

-The Discovery Ships Hecla and Fury sailed from the Nore.

11. Messrs. Weaver and Cooper committed to Newgate, for a Libel in their John Bull, by the House of Commons.

14. Revolution in the Cape De Verd Islands.

15. Manchester Meeting in 1819 again debated in the House of Commons.

26. Ferdinand I. proclaimed the Constitution of the Two Sicilies.

28. Mr. John Hunt sentenced to One Year's Imprisonment in the House of Correction, for a Libel on the House of Commons in The Examiner, and to give Securities for Three Years.

- Mr. Thomas Flyndall, Editor of The Western Luminary, sentenced to Eight Months Imprisonment in the County Gaol of Devon, for a Libel on the late Queen.

JUNE.

JUNE 1. Edmonds sentenced to nine months imprisonment in Warwick Gaol; Maddox to eighteen months in the same Gaol; Wooller for 15 months in the same Gaol; and Major Cartwright fined £100; for electing Sir C. Wolesley as Legisla torial Attorney for Birmingham,

2. Messrs. Brougham, Denman, and Dr. Lushington, presented with the Freedom of the City of London.

3. Massacre of the Greeks at Smyrna. 4. Dinner in Commemoration of the Birth-day of his late MAJESTY KING GEORGE the THIRD.

5. Prince Regent displaced by the Military in the Government of the Brazils.

8. Grampound Disfranchisement Bill received the Royal Assent, by which Two Members of Parliament were transferred to Yorkshire.

-Second Report of the Lords' Foreign Trade Committee.

9. Proclamation issued for his MAJESTY'S Coronation.

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9. Intelligence of the Queen's death received by his MAJESTY, in Holyhead Roads, wind-bound.

12. The deceased Queen lay in funeral state.

-Landing of the KING in Ireland, upon his birth-day.

Gates of Vera Cruz opened, and New Spain declared to be independent of Old Spain.

14. Funeral Procession of Queen Caroline from Brandenburgh House; interrupted by riotings; and two men killed.

16. Embarkation of the Queen's body at Harwich.

17. Public entry of GEORGE the FOURTH into the City of Dublin.

20. Royal Levee, first held in Dublin Castle by his MAJESTY.

21. Drawing Room held by the KING at Dublin.

22. The Foreign Ambassadors sailed from Lisbon, in consequence of insult and outrages.

1 23. Corporation of Dublin entertained the KING to dinner.

24. Interment of the Queen's corpse at Brunswick.

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Marquess Wellesley appointed Lieutenant General Governor of Ireland, by the KING in Council; and the Duke of Montrose to be Lord Chamberlain.

11. Opening of the season at the Royal Academy by the President, Sir Thomas Laurence.

12. Perilous situation of their Spanish Majesties at Madrid.

14. Change of Ministers in France. 15. Freedom of the City of Bath presented to the Earl of Liverpool.

20. Bank of England extended their discounts from 65 to 95 days.

27 to 80. Floods and inundations on the banks of the Thames, &c.

THE

LONDON REVIEW,

AND

LITERARY JOURNAL.

JANUARY, 1822.

QUID SIT PULCHRUM, QUID TURPE, QUID UTILE, QUID NON.

The Pirate; by the Author of Waverley, Edinburgh, 1822, 3 Volumes, 8vo.

TH
THE appearance of three new Vo-
lames bearing the imprimatur of
the author of Waverley, is the signal for
activity throughout every class of
that immense host of individuals,
who constitute our reading popula-
tion. Booksellers and circulating Li-
braries are closely besieged by crowds
of curious and clamourous enquirers
for the new Scotch novel!" and as
the first question in all parties for
a long time to come will be," Have
you read the Pirate!"-it is absolutely
necessary for all persons to qualify
themselves for a requisite reply to so
important a demand, previous to ven-
turing into company abroad, or receiv-
ing visits at home. The time has, we
conceive, very long since been gone by,
when criticism of the great unknown,
or, in more intelligible language, of
Sir Walter Scott, would avail with
his readers; almost every one of
whom open his Volumes with the a
priori fixed intention of discovering
beauties, and of being pleased; and
we are not sure, that even pointing
out certain inaccuracies of language,
inelegancies of style, and improbabili-
ties of narrative, would be attended to
in an author, who has thus purchased
the privilege of writing as he pleases.
Omitting, therefore, all such critical
investigation, we shall probably be
considered to have discharged our duty
inch better, by giving an analysis of
the tale, and extracts of it's language;
regretting that our duty compels us to
condense the one, and to restrict the
other within much narrower limits
than we would willingly be confined
in. Ofthe work itself we merely whisper
our private opinion, that it is as infe-

rior to some of the great author's former novels, as it is superior to others; leaving it to all our readers to name in both cases whichever of his many Volumes they think most deserving of such classification. We come to the point at once then by stating, that an advertisement prefixed to the work informs us, that the story is founded on the following facts:

"In the month of January 1724-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearing twenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by John Gow, or Goffe, or Smith, came to the Orkney Islands, and was discovered to be a pirate, by various acts of insolence and villainy committed by

the crew. These were for some time sub

mitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands not possessing arms nor means of resistance; and so bold was the Captain of these banditti, that he not only came ashore, and gave dancing parties in the village of Stromness, but, before his real character was discovered, engaged the affections and received the troth-plight of a young lady, possessed of some property. of Clestron, formed the plan of securing A patriotic individual, James Fea, younger the buccaneer, which he effected by a mix ture of courage and address, in consequence chiefly of Gow's vessel having gone on shore near the harbour of Calfsonnd, on the Island of Eda, not far distant from a house then inhabited by Mr. Fea."

"Gow, and others of his crew, suffered by sentence of the High Court of Admiralty, the punishment their crimes had long deserved. He conducted himself with great audacity when before the Court; and, from an account of the matter, by an eye-witness, seems to have

been subjected to some unusual severities, in order to compel him to plead. The words are these:John Gow would not plead, for which he was brought to the bar, and the Judge ordered that his thumbs should be squeezed by two men, with a whip-cord, till it did break; and then it should be doubled, till it did again break, and then laid threefold; and that the executioners should pull with their whole strength; which sentence Gow endured with a great deal of boldness.' The next morning (27th of May, 1725,) when he had seen the preparations for pressing him to death, his courage gave way, and he told the Marshal of Court, that he would not have given so much trouble, had he been assured of not being hanged in chains. He was then tried, condemned, and executed with

others of his crew.

"It is said, that the lady whose affections Gow had engaged, went up to London to see him before his death, and that, arriving too late, she had the courage to request a sight of his dead body; and then touching the hand of the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed. Without going through this ceremony, she could not, according to the superstition of the coun try, have escaped a visit from the ghost of her departed lover, in the event of her bestowing upon any living suitor, the faith which she had plighted to the dead."

Such is the matter of fact tale on which the author of Waverley has built his Pirate story; embellishing it with all the charms which his prolific fancy offered, enriching it with all the stores which his intelligent mind suggested, and throwing a glowing and original interest over it, by the potent machinery of Scandinavian mythology, and the legends of the ancient Norse Sagas. Our Readers will, however, soon perceive that the Romance before us varies toute au contraire from the preceding narrative, it being "compiled from materials to which the Author of Waverley alone had access."-To proceed then,-On Sumburgh Head, the south-east promontory of the Mainland at the close of the 17th century, stood a ruined mansion called Jarlshof, having been in former times the residence of a Norwegian Earl of Orkney, and now belonging to Magnus Troil, a descendant from the Norse lords of these isles, proud of his ancestry, and holding the Scotch intruders in contempt, Magnus, in con

sequence of his birth, is held in high estimation by the natives; and, as the representative offormer independence, is styled the Udaller, or the Fowd of Burgh-Westra, the name of his own abode, distant about twenty miles from Jarlshof, in a more sheltered quarter

of the island. The Udaller is a character responsive to his lineage; frank, choleric, liberal, convivial, rude, aud hospitable. To him all strangers are welcome, and his ever-open house upholds the honours of his race for generosity to the unfriended, and kindness to the unknown. Of the latter description is Mr. Basil Mertoun, a arrived in a Dutch vessel, and settled person above the middle age, who had in that wild region, himself as sepa

rate from the usual cast of civilization. He has fortune enough for his wants, and might be or rich or poor for aught the Zetlanders can learn from the repulsive intercourse of a gloomy misanthrope. He is accompanied by his son, Mordaunt, a handsome boy of fourteen; and both are frequent guests at the house of Magnus Troil, where the father's fits of despondency are overlooked, and the son's lively disposition renders him the loved companion of Minna and Brenda, the two daughters of the jolly Udaller.

During one of his visits to BurghWestra, Mertoun proposes himself as a tenant for Jarlshof, and is accepted. There, he indulges in all the moodiness of his soul, his "dark hours," as they are rightly called, are undisturbed by his only domestic, Swertha, an aged female; or by his son, who finding that his presence but encreases the malady, while these periods of abstraction last, pursues his own course, and becomes a deserved and universal favourite on the Mainland of Zetland. His imagination is naturally inflamed by the romantic traditions which have pervaded this remote region; and if his understanding, zealously cultivated by his father, though he seems never to have loved the boy, rejects the superstitious creed so firmly believed by those around him, he is so far impressed with the mystic and supernatural, as to give a tinge to his thoughts, and a tone to his actions, differing from those of more cultivated association.

This feature of his mind is also pro

minent in that of Minna, the eldest daughter of the Udaller, of whom, and of her sister Brenda, the one about 18, and the other 17, when Mordaunt was 20 years of age, we have this finely contrasted portraiture:

"The mother of these maidens had been a Scottish lady from the Highlands of Sutherland, the orphan of anoble chief, who, driven from his own country during the feuds of the seventeenth century, had found shelter in those peaceful islands, which, amidst poverty and seclusion, were thus far happy, that they remained unvexed by discord, and unstained by civil broil. The father (his name was St. Clair,) pined for his native glen, his feu dal tower, his clansmen, and his fallen authority, and died not long after his arrival in Zetland. The beauty of his orphan dacghter, despite her Scottish lineage, melted the stont heart of Magnus Troil. He sued and was listened to, and she became his bride; but dying in the fifth year of their union, left him to mourn his brief period of domestic happiness.

"From her mother, Minna inherited the stately form and dark eyes, the raven locks and finely-pencilled brows, which shewed she was on one side at least, a stranger to the blood of Thule. Her cheek,

O call it fair, not pale,

was so slightly and delicately tinged with the rose, that many thought the lily had an undue proportion in her complexion. But in that predominance of the paler flower, there was nothing sickly or languid; it was the true natural complexion of health, and corresponded in a peculiar degree with features which seemed calculated to express a contemplative and high minded character. When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of injustice, it was then her blood rushed to her cheeks, and shewed plainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the generally serious, composed, and retiring disposition, which her countenance and demeanor seemed to exhibit. If strangers sometimes conceived that these fine features were clouded by melancholy, for which her age and situation could scarce have given occasion, they were soon satisfied, upon further acquaintance, that the placid, mild quietude of her disposition, and the mental energy of a character which was bat little interested in ordinary and trivial occurrences, was the real cause of her gravity, and most men, when they knew that her melancholy had no ground in real sorrow, and was only the aspiration of a soul bent on more important objects than those by which she was surrounded, might have wished her whatever could add

to her happiness, but could scarce have desired that, graceful as she was in her natural and unaffected seriousness, she should change that deportment for one more gay. In short, notwithstanding our wish to have avoided that hackneyed simile of an angel, we cannot avoid saying there was something in the serious beauty of her aspect, in the measured, yet graceful ease of her motions, in the music of her voice, and the serene purity of her eye, that seemed as if Minna Troil belonged naturally to some higher and better sphere, and was only the chance visitant of a world that was scarce worthy of her.

"The scarce less beautiful, equally lovely and equally innocent Brenda, was of a complexion as differing from her sister, as they differed in character, taste, and expression. Her profuse locks were of that paly brown which receives from the passing sun-beam a tinge of gold, but darkens again when the ray has passed' from it. Her eyé, her mouth, the beautiful row of teeth, which in her innocent vivacity were frequently disclosed; the fresh, yet not too bright glow of a healthy complexion, tinging a skin like the drifted snow, spoke her genuine Scandinavian descent. A fairy form, less tall than that' of Minna, but even more finely moulded into symmetry,-a careless, and almost childish lightness of step,- -an eye that seemed to look on every object with pleasure, from a natural and serene cheerfulness of disposition, attracted even more general admiration than the charms of her sister, though perhaps that which Minna did excite, might be of a more intense as well as a more reverential character.

"The dispositions of these lovely sisters were not less different than their complexions. In the kindly, affections, neither could be said to excel the other, so much were they attached to ther father and to each other. But the cheerfulness of Brenda mixed itself with the every-day business of life, and seemed inexhaustible in it's profusion. The less buoyant spirit of her sister appeared to bring to society a contented wish to be interested and pleased with what was going forward, but was rather placidly carried along with the stream of mirth and pleasure, than disposed to aid it's progress by any efforts of her own. She endured mirth rather than enjoyed it; and the pleasures in which she most delighted, were those of a graver and more solitary cast."

Mordaunt's affection for the fine Enthusiast, and the lovely Blonde, is that of a brother,without a preference ; while the idle rumour of the island

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