if to draw her attention particularly to it. Inspired with the idea that this was the mysterious symbol of some important secret, she immediately quitted the Court and returned to Edinburgh, where, on searching his lodgings, she found a hat, with papers concealed in the lining, of such a nature, that had they been discovered, they might have proved fatal evidence against himself as well as others. She instantly, there fore, destroyed them, and by this well timed resolution anticipated the fearful consequences; for a party came to the house an hour after to search for papers, and finding nothing suspicious, returned with such a favourable report to the Duke, that her brother was immediately liberated; and when the Revolution afterwards took place, he was appointed, chiefly on account of the services he had performed in those secret missions, physician to King William." Here the austere young man paused in his story, and as we were now alongside of the Bass, he took off his hat with great solemnity, as is done at burials when the respected dead is laid in the grave; and we were all so affected thereat, that we did the same in like manner, and passed along in silence, nothing being heard but the sound of the paddles and the mournful cawing of the sea-birds, which spread far and wide over the waters, like the voices of antiquity that admonish the children of remote times to reverence the memory of all departed worthies. In short, such was the effect of the Covenanter's story, and his earnest way of telling it, that we were all in a solemn mood till we reached the Pier of Leith; even the gay and gallant Odontist, forgetful of all his wonted jollity, walked slowly up and down the deck, whistling "The Flowers of the Forest," in a most pathetic and melancholy manner. I inclose a letter, which came to me some time ago, addressed to Mr Blackwood's care. The merits of the composition, and the interest of the topic, entitle it to a place in your Magazine. I am not aware, at this moment, that any other writer has so distinctly described the politico-moral state of the Scottish people, as this "Whig of the Covenant." The view which he opens of the subject, deserves the serious consideration of some of your correspondents. Nothing, indeed, can be more opposite than the Presbyterian and Political Whigs-the Whigs of the country, and those of the town, of the Covenant, and of the Parliament House. The former regard the state of religious sentiment, as the chief and main object of their solicitude; the latter have not been uniformly distinguished for any particular respect towards those hallowed prejudices and affections which enter so deeply into the genuine Scottish character; on the contrary, their talents and speculations have been, in a great measure, entirely devoted to secular interests. But it is less with respect to the difference between them, than with regard to the important fact that the Scottish people, in general, are not at this time politicians, that I would solicit your attention. Because the inference must necessarily be, if the fact be as it is stated, and I do believe it is, that the Political Whigs form a very small body indeed in Scotland, and they, perhaps, derive no inconsiderable portion of their public consequence from identifying themselves with that great and grave portion of the nation, whose opinions, from the period of the Revolution, have ever been treated with attention and respect by the government and the legislature; which opinions are in no essential principle in unison with those of the Whigs of the New School. That there are Presbyterian Whigs who are also Political Whigs, cannot be questioned. But such characters are only to be found in the towns, and în public stations or eminent professions. I do not, however, mean to contend, because I am no politician, that there is any inconsistency in the bifold union in the same bosom of principles which have no common affinity, such as those which have for their object the conservation of sacred institutions as they exist, and those which involve the necessity of change; for I conceive the difference between the principles of the Presbyterian and Folitical Whigs, may be so described. The people of Scotland, as far as the national institutions are concerned, take little interest in public affairs. A few political fanatics and theorists in the manufacturing districts, may, now and then, avail themselves of those occasional periods of distress and privation to which the manufacturers, from the fluctuating nature of trade, are liable, to excite symptoms of commotion and alarm; but it is of great importance to know, that the nation, in general, is still sound and true; that with the frame of their church and state the people are contented, and that their only complaint, where complaint exists, is with respect to the conduct of individuals conspicuous either in the district or in the kingdom. This fact, and every man free from the political typhus of the towns, may easily ascertain its truth and extent-is the more curious and impressive, as shewing the depths and strength of the national feelings; for the social improvements of Scotland, during the last hundred years, have been more striking than those of any other kingdom in Europe; and yet, although it is in some sort the nature of social improvements to engender a contempt for old usages and institutions, the people of Scotland hold theirs in greater veneration than perhaps any other people; and there exists at the present moment, not only a general taste for the preservation of the national customs and antiquities, but even a growing fashion to revive many peculiarities that had either been proscribed or become obsolete. But I am forgetting myself, and the object of addressing you, which was simply to recommend to your notice the inclosed letter. Yours, &c. AUTHOR OF " ANNALS OF THE PARISH." TO THE AUTHOR OF ANNALS OF THE PARISH OF DALMAILING," &c. SIR, I HAVE been an elder of the Establish ed Church for nearly thirty years; and, with abundant opportunities of observation and leisure, I have often employed my fancy in delineations of parish histories, in the way you have done; but indolence, and the want of confidence in myself, kept the pen motionless, and the paper in its primitive whiteness and purity. You have put an end, I fear, to all my nascent projects in this way, but excited my wish to furnish you with such hints as, peradventure, may give you some aid in your parochial visitations. It is of great importance-indeed it is indispensible, to know the secret and prevailing principles that move the great body of a nation or a parish, and to distinguish them from the professed or avowed motives by which the lead ers and retainers of opposing parties pretend to be guided. In the present day, you have two grand divisions of parties, who thrust themselves forward to public view, and call upon the people to follow them implicitly, as leaders, whose perfectibility, they say, may be wholly trusted, and who represent their opponents as stupid, or base, or wicked. One of these parties put on the grave and solemn aspect, or the sheep's clothing of Christian piety, and you might fear that their ribs would all be fractured by the inward swellings of their holy zeal. Another party exhibit themselves in all the golden and gay drapery of honour, purified to as great fineness as the sharpest instruments from the cutler's shop, for dividing the flesh of diseased or wounded limbs. But there is a third party, that numbers in the proportion of perhaps more than a thousand to one, whom those under the cloak of piety and the cloak of honour, like the aneient Pharisees and Sadducees, cordially unite to load with every epithet that denotes vileness and infamy. This third and defamed party bear all the slanders vomited upon them, with much composure, and never shew any symptoms of anger or violence, till hunger and nakedness drive them mad; and the Bible shews, both by precept and example, that even "wise men may be made mad." I would therefore warn you against the leaven of the modern Pharisees and Sadducees; for unless in your future labours as an annalist, you discriminate these from the worthy and upright portion of the community, your exertions will be not only lost, but you may contribute to increase fearfully the evils which unhinge all the sacred bonds that keep society together. There are two parties in the present day, who call themselves Whig and Tory; and if the world were so childishly simple as to believe them, there is no other class except cut-throats and monsters! That there are wise and good men who are classed with the opposing parties called Whigs and Tories, no man of understanding will deny; but that there is one of a thousand of these Whigs and Tories in Scotland, who will fearlessly do what is right, in all cases, or in general, is what no man of sense and experience will believe. The mainspring is manifest to the most rustic but shrewd observation. A sagacious man from among a sober and honest population, ། enters, or, as too often happens, is compelled to enter a court of law, and there he sees and hears two eminent pleaders on opposite sides of a cause, speak, and gesticulate, and contradict, and attack each other, with as much earnestness and regulated bitterness as if they were the real parties, and till their faces are as red with passion as the necks of Turkey cocks, and till the hail of perspiration runs down their cheeks in copious streamlets. The honest countryman admires the sincerity of these eloquent gentlemen; but as an unsound, instead of a sound horse has sometimes been imposed upon him, he suspends his faith a little, for farther observa tion; he follows and watches them; he sees them meet in smiling and cordial kindness, laughing at their mock battle; he observes them depart and dine with one another, and is told that they are most intimate and sworn friends. He is now convinced that the fees-the precious and darling cash, was the sole moving cause of all the theatrical sincerity and pugnacious contention, and that, without the baw bees, they would have been as stationary and mute as lobsters. This unsuspecting countryman has learned what he never forgets as a general rule for estimating verbal sincerity, and his rule is confirmed by the sentence of the Court, who believe neither the one lawyer nor the other, but send them off to seek other and better reasons, or decide the question in a way offensive to both. The conclusion of the rustic is made in coarse but sturdy phrase, which I dare not put down, lest the hysterical Whigs, as well as the silken Tories, should be offended. Common sense is the same among all ranks, but it is prodigiously sharpened, and acute, among those who are put to their wits end, by finding insolence and power combined against reason and conscience. The countryman returns home, and what he saw and heard circulates quietly among his neighbours, who have the same hopes and fears, and who suspect, from the fine patriotic talk, and polite duplicity of the gay and powerful around them, that their superiors are the same every where, and that the safety of their religion, property, and lives, consists in that sullen silence, and fierce vigilance which the American settler, in the wilderness, must maintain against the Indians and wild beasts. When the great body of a people come to be prepared in this way, and with far greater rapidity and effect than by what is vulgarly called the licentiousness of the press, the nominal Whigs, and nominal Tories, sink into utter and universal contempt, and this contempt, with one class, settles down into a rooted and permanent hatred ; and, with another, into merriment or broad laughter. The world sees, that, like lawyer craft, the struggle between these nominal parties, is for the public purse only, for the "filthy lucre." Each of them is calling on the people to support them. The people, if they have food, fuel, lodging, and clothing, stand by with a provoking apathy, or with a ludicrous stare and grin. In the nominal Whigs and nominal Tories are completely of one mind. I intend ed to have given you some short specimens, to show how the Whigs of the purse, and the man-midwives to Par son Malthus, exhibit their political faith in parish affairs. But my letter is perhaps far too long-and therefore I have the honour to subscribe myself A WHIG OF THE COVENANT.* P. S. In the meantime, I recommend to your attentive perusal, the answer of the Kirk-session of Neilston to the Heritors' Publication, against them, printed at Paisley, 1820, in which you will see how the grand principle that alone governs the bastard Whigs and the bastard Tories, shews itself in country parishes, for the edification of his Majesty's subjects, to the astonishment of all wise men, and for the amusement of the infidels. * We should be happy to receive some of the personal observations of THIS WHIG. C. N. HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, DECLINE, AND FALL OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. "It hath once and again been observed by me, in my Notice of the Works of Nature, that there be something like unto a power of chance to be seen therein, in divers instances. For I have often witnessed a tree to spring up on a thin and barren soil, and to rear mighty boughs and overarching, so as well to be deserving of Dan Virgil's ipse nemus. Why so no man knoweth unto a certainty. So likewise fareth it with the same tree in its decay. For it becometh sapless and doddered, one knoweth not well wherefore; and when the sturdy axe is laid unto the root, lo! the heart thereof is mouldered; and it seemeth to have been, even in that its proud flourishing, an unsound and diseased tree. All of which is a wonder, passing a perfect understanding thereof."-Sir Stephen Stanihurst's Prose Works, folio, 343. THE EDINBURGH REVIEW will undoubtedly occupy a distinguished place in the History of Scottish Literature. For the greater part of twenty years no journal was ever more generally read in this country. Some of the French periodical publications may, on account of the diffusion of that language, have distributed more numerous impressions; but it may be confidently averred, that no continental work has excited the same degree of interest. The rise and progress of the Edinburgh Review, while the facts are fresh in the public memory, is therefore an object that merits the gravest consideration; for a series of books, embracing every variety of topic, so much, and so generally read, must, it may be supposed, have pro duced profound and durable impres sions, equally on taste, philosophy, and opinion. And now, when the work has confessedly declined from its original vigour, and fallen into a state of dotage and decay, that oftener awakens sentiments of contempt than compassion towards the contributors, the track of its career ought to be surveyed. The public, with respect to its whole course, now stand, as it were, on the vantage ground of posterity, and can follow its windings and tergiversations, with almost as free a judgment as one traces, on the map of history, the current of some hostile and ambitious tribe or nation. It is a common opinion, that the Edinburgh Review originated among a number of bold and briefless barristers in the northern metropolis, (a) young men, emulous of distinction, some of whom had received the gilding and plating of a short residence at one of the English Universities; and that, eager to obtain distinction more rapidly than it could be obtained by the steady la bours, and patient erudition of their profession, they associated together for the express and coalesced purpose, in all their minds, of exhibiting themselves to the most conspicuous advan tage, by exposing the vulnerable parts in the writings and powers of those (A) The general view taken in the text, considering the comprehensive character of the work in question, has imposed on me the necessity of throwing in a few notes. It was, indeed, not to be expected that the Edinburgh Review, which now amounts to somewhere about six and thirty volumes, could be reviewed either article by article, volume by volume, or critic by critic, in the brief space allowed to our several correspondents; but the force of many of the ob servations in the text would perhaps not receive due attention, were they permitted to pass to the public without illustration. For example, in alluding to the motives which induced the original contributors to associate together, I ought in candour to mention, that they have themselves, in a separate publication, stated the fact differently, but how far more truly they are the best judges. The publication referred to is their "Two-pence half-penny observations on Thelwall's two and sixpence letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review." If there was any wit in the price, it is a pity they did not make it a penny-farthing. "It (the Review) is a secondary object with them, and was undertaken more for the purpose of amusement, and of collecting the scattered literature (literary men, we presume) of the place, than from any other motive," (p. 15.) The Edinburgh Annual Register, for 1809, gives the following account of this matter: "A few young men who had just concluded their studies at the University of Edin burgh, and were united together by a similarity of talents and pursuits, conceived a project, (designed, we believe, to be temporary,) to rescue this province of literature (cri ticism) from the state of degradation into which it had gradually sunk, and to give the world what for many years it had not seen, a fair, but at the same time a bold and impartial review of such works as appeared to merit public attention. The scheme of publication, although deeply laid, contained some staggering preliminaries. The associated critics, while they asserted the most uncontrolled freedom from the influence of their publisher, stipulated, it is well known, a subsidy at more than treble the rate allowed to the best, as well as supplest mercenaries which London could afford." In a pamphlet," Reviewers Reviewed," by John Charles O'Reid, in 1811, I find something more on the subject, in unison with my statement. "This Review is said to have originated with two or three young men, fellow mem bers of a debating society at Edinburgh. At the publication of the first number, it is believed that the age of neither of them exceeded seven-and-twenty; and their names were as yet little known. The honour of being its projector, is generally given to the Rev. Sidney Smith. Mr Francis Jeffrey, its present editor, and Henry Brougham, Esq. were the first who agreed to unite with his their voluntary labours, and to try the experiment for a year. Their success surpassed their expectations. The work took with the public, and it soon became a most profitable adventure. They obtained the active concurrence of Professors Playfair and Leslie; and though all their applications, I well know, were by no means successful, several names of great respectability were added to their muster-roll; among others those of Mr Malthus and Mr Horner. The celebrated Dr Walcot (Peter Pindar) is said to have furnished an article relating to the fine arts; and Mr Bloomfield, and Mr Walpole of Cambridge, and Mr R. P. Knight, have been enlisted to supply the deficiency of classical writers on the north side of the Tweed, and to assist in abusing their countrymen. The last of these gentlemen is the Reviewer of the Oxford Strabo. Such is their poverty in this respect, that some most curious anec dotes might be here introduced, to prove the shifts to which they have been reduced. A Scotch nobleman actually begged for Mr Jeffrey an article on Dr Clark's Greek mar bles, which was written for the Quarterly Review, and rejected by Mr Gifford, the edi tor, even after it was printed, as unworthy of that publication."-P. 37. VOL. X. 4 P |