felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a poet. For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which I once heard a recruiting serjeant give to a numerous, if not a respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock :-— "Gentlemen, for your further and better encouragement I can assure you, that our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for preferment." V. p. 99, 100. It would have been as well if Mr. Cromek had left out the history of Mr. Hamilton's dissensions with his parish minister; Burns's apology to a gentleman with whom he had a drunken squabble; and the anecdote of his being used to ask for more liquor, when visiting in the country, under the pretext of fortifying himself against the terrours of a little wood he had to pass through in going home. The most interesting passa¬ ges, indeed, in this part of the volume, are those for which we are indebted to Mr. Cromek himself. He informs us, for instance, in a note : "One of Burns's remarks, when he first came to Edinburgh, was, that between the men of rustick life and the polite world he observed little difference that in the former, though unpolished by fashion, and unenlightened by science, he had found much observation and much intelligence; but a refined and accomplished woman was a being almost new to him, and of which he had formed but a very inadequate idea." V. p. 68, 69. He adds also, in another place, that "the poet, when questioned about his habits of composition, replied: "All my poetry is the effect of easy composition, but of laborious correction." It is pleasing to know those things, even if they were really as trifling as to a superficial observer they may probably appear. There is a very amiable letter from Mr. Murdoch, the poet's early preceptor, at p. 111; and a very splendid one from Mr. Bloomfield, at p. 135. As nothing is more rare, among the minor poets than a candid acknowledgment of their own inferiority. we think Mr. Bloomfield well entitled to have his magnanimity recorded. "The illustrious soul that has left amongst us the name of Burns, has often been lowered down to a comparison with me; but the comparison exists more in circumstances than in essentials. That man stood up with the stamp of superiour intellect on his brow; a visible greatness: and great and patriotick subjects would only have called into action the powers of his mind, which lay inactive while he played calmly and exquisitely the pastoral pipe. traordinary man. "The letters to which I have alluded in my preface to the Rural Tales,' were friendly warnings, pointed with immediate reference to the fate of that exRemember Burns,' has been the watchword of my friends. I do remember Burns; but I am not Burns! I have neither his fire to fan or to quench! nor his passions to control! peaceful voyage on a smooth sea, and Where then is my merit, if I make a with no mutiny on board?" V. p. 135, 136. 1 The observations on Scottish songs, which fill nearly 150 pages, are, on the whole, minute and trifling; though the exquisite justness of the poet's taste, and his fine relish of simplicity in this species of composition, is no less remarkable here than in his correspondence with Mr. Thomson. Of all other kinds of poetry, he was so indulgent a judge, that he may almost be termed an indiscriminate adınirer. We find, too, from these observations, that se veral songs and pieces of songs, which he printed as genuine antiques, were really of his own composition. The common-place book, from which Dr. Currie had formerly selected all that he thought worth publication, is next given entire by Mr. Cromek. We were quite as well, we think, with the extracts; at all events, there was no need for reprinting what had been given by Dr. Currie-a remark which is equally applicable to the letters of which we had formerly extracts, Of the additional poems which form the concluding part of the volume, we have but little to say. We have little doubt of their authenticity; for, though the editor has omitted, in almost every instance, to specify the source from which they were derived, they certainly bear the stamp of the author's manner and genius. They are not, however, of his purest metal, nor marked with his finest die. Several of them have appeared in print already; and the songs are, as usual, the best. This little lamentation of a desolate damsel, is tender and pretty. 'My father pat me frae his door, My friends they hae disown'd me a' And silken snoods he gave me twa; We now reluctantly dismiss this subject. We scarcely hoped, when we began our critical labours, that an opportunity would ever occur of speaking of Burns as we wished to speak of him and therefore, we feel grateful to Mr. Cromek for giving us this opportunity. We shall conclude with two general remarks the one national, the other critical. The first is, that it is impossible to read the productions of Burns, along with his history, without forming a higher idea of the intelligence, taste, and accomplishments of the peasantry, than most of those in the higher ranks are disposed to entertain. Without meaning to deny that he himself was endowed with rare and extraordinary gifts of genius and fancy, it is evident, from the whole details of his history, as well as from the letters of his brother, and the testimony of Mr. Murdoch and others to the character of his father, that the whole family, and many of their associates, who have never emerged from the native obscurity of their condition, possessed talents, and taste, and intelligence, which are little suspected to lurk in those humble retreats. His epistles to brother poets, in the rank of farmers and shopkeepers in the adjoining villages; the existence of a book society and debating club among persons of that description, and many other incidental traits in his sketches of his youthful companions; all contribute to show, that not only good sense, and enlightened morality, but literature, and talents for speculation, are far more generally diffused in society than is generally imagined. And that the delights and the benefits of these generous and humanizing pursuits, are by no means confined to those whom leisure and affluence have courted to their enjoyment. That much of this is peculiar to Scotland, and may be properly referred to our excellent institutions for parochial education, and to the natural sobriety and prudence of our nation, may certainly be allowed: but we have no doubt that there is a good deal of the same principle in England, and that the actual intelligence of the lower orders will be found, there also, very far to exceed the ordinary estimates of their superiours. It is pleasing to know, that the sources of rational enjoyment are so widely disseminated; and, in a free country, it is comfortable to think, that so great a proportion of the people is able to appreci ate the advantages of its condition, and fit to be relied on in all emer gencies where steadiness and intelligence may be required. Our other remark is of a more limited application; and is addressed chiefly to the followers and patrons of that new school of poetry, against which we have thought it our duty to neglect no opportunity of testifying. Those gentlemen are outrageous for simplicity; and we beg leave to recommend to them the simplici ty of Burns. He has copied the spoken language of passion and affection, with infinitely more fidelity than they have ever done, on all occasions which properly admitted of such adaptation but he has not rejected the helps of elevated language and habitual associations; nor debased his composition by an affectation of babyish interjections, and all the puling expletives of an old nursery maid's vocabulary. They may look long enough among his nervous and manly lines, before they find any "Good lacks!"-" Dear hearts!" or, 'As a body may say," in them; or any stuff about dancing daffodils and sister Emmelines. Let them think, with what infinite contempt the powerful mind of Burns would have perused the story of Alice Fell and her duffle cloak; of Andrew Jones and the half-crown; or of little Dan with out breeches, and his thievish grandfather. Let them contrast their own fantastical personages of hysterical schoolmasters and sententious leechgatherers, with the authentick rus ticks of Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night, and his inimitable songs; and reflect on the different reception which these personifications have met with from the publick. Though they will not be reclaimed from their puny affectations by the example of their learned predecessors, they may, perhaps, submit to be admonished by a self-taught and illiterate poet, who drew from Nature far more di rectly than they can do, and produ ced something so much liker the admired copies of the masters whom they have abjured. FROM THE MONTHLY REVIEW. Le Siege de la Rochelle, &c. &c. i. e. The Siege of Rochelle, or Misfortune and Conscience, by Madame de Genlis. 12mo. 3 vols. Paris, 1808. OF this third effusion of Mad. DE GENLIS'S fertile pen, in which we expected to find nothing but characters and events notorious in the civil wars that long divided France between Catholicks and Hugonots, we were agreeably surprised to discover that the title and about twenty additional pages formed the whole historical portion. Instead of implicating the subject of the story, the title only fixes the epoch at which it is supposed to have taken place; and instead of being introduced to the councils of ministers and party-leaders, and detecting the secrets of camps and cabinets, we are presented with a wild and extravagant romance, which is devoted to the unmerited sufferings, the various adventures, and the extraordinary destiny, of a beautiful and persecuted female. Clara de Montalban was betrothed to Valmore, a rich and amiable widower of high rank, who had an only son by his former marriage. His estates were so settled, that the greater part of them was destined to be long to the young Julius; whose father was consequently unable to provide, as amply as he would have wished, for his intended second wife. The father of Clara, a remorseless, mercenary man, whose individual interests were considerably affected by this circumstance, formed the horrid project of murdering the child, and accidentally carried it into effect at such a time and in such a situation, that the suspicion fell entirely on his innocent and unhappy daughter. Without detailing the circumstantial evidence which ap peared to amount to proof positive against her, it is enough to state that the judges, before whom she was tried, considered themselves as bound to condemn her to an ignominious death. The monster Montalban had the audacity to upbraid her with the crime, though she had the power of bringing it home against him, if * piety had not prevented her from ransoming herself by the sacrifice of ber unworthy father. Valmore, who, notwithstanding his sorrow and indignation, continued still to feel a warm affection towards her, and had rescued her from the fury of the populace when the bloody deed was first discovered, succeeded in procuring a pardon for her, on condition of her being confined for life in a penitentiary convent, the asylum of vice and infamy. In this miserable abode, her mind was sustained by a sense of duty, and the exhortations of her confessor; who was alone, of all mankind, convinced of her innocence and the guilt of Montalban, though he approved too highly of her resolution of screening her father, to denounce the real criminal. When the consolations of religion and the force of habit had in some degree reconciled her to this mode of life, she suddenly received a dreadful order to place herself under the protection of her father, who designed to carry her to his lonely castle on the banks of the Rhone; and she had scarcely time to write a short billet to father Arsene, when Montalban's servant, a phlegmatick German who could speak no French, arrived, and conveyed her to the place of her imprisonment, which she was firmly persuaded would prove also the scene of her speedy death. Her father, she understood, would follow after a short delay. On the second night of her solitary and alarming residence in this dismantled castle, "Exactly at ten o'clock, she distinctly heard a coach enter one of the courts of the castle, and immediately an extraordinary bustle throughout the house,-a climbing of staircases, an opening of doors with noise, and a walking in all the galleries. Oh exclaimed Clara, this time it is not an illusion: he arrives: it is he.' Half an hour afterward, Frikmann appeared. He seemed agitated, and nothing could be more striking than a trace of emotion on his naturally cold countenance. He approached Clara, took her hand, and dragged her along. Clara, frightened, opposed resistance, and Frikmann pre VOL. II. Not pared to carry her off by force. of the soul have a marvellous connexion and found themselves on a terrace. There thunder and the profound darkness, rendered rolling unceasingly at a distance, more striking by the rapid flashes of lightning, all appeared to the eyes of Clara in unison with the horrour of her thoughts. It seemed to her that all nature revolted at a crime which violated all her laws. Suddenly, Frikmann stopped; and in a strong and gloomy voice, he said, in German, five or six words which were repeated by the echoes of both the shores. A minute afterward, a whistle was three times sounded; and Frikmann, opening a door, found himself on the bank. He proceeded about thirty steps along the shore. Then a dazzling flash of lightning discovered to Clara a boat close to her, in which was a man alone, wrapped in a mantle that entirely concealed his figure. 'Tis he said Clara to herself, shuddering. She saw him! she knew him! D she already felt the deadly blow; for she believed that she should be poignarded, and then plunged into the river. Her hair rose on her head. Frikmann placed her almost dying in the arms of this man, and fled with rapidity. Clara, motionless and frozen, voluntarily shut her eyes, that she might not once see the assassin. Her shrinking heart had no longer the power to beat. She ceased to breathe, yet she preserved sensation and consciousness. She remained thus a moment suspended between life and death; when, on a sudden, oh surprise! oh inexpressible ecstacy! -she felt the arms which supported her gently pressing her! She heard sighs and groans! It is no mistake-tears are shed upon her! O God! can the murderer of Julius, the unnatural father who so sacrificed his daughter, can he be capable of an emotion of pity? does outraged nature reclaim her rights, and will she triumph over so much barbarity? "Meanwhile, the clouds which concealed the moon dispersed, and her mild light revived. The wind was hushed, and the violent tossing of the boat fastened to the bank was moderated. At this instant, the arms which supported Clara lifted her and placed her on a seat, and she found herself opposite to the object of her melancholy fears.-Clara raised towards him a sad and timid eye; but scarcely had she perceived him, when she recovered all her faculties and all her sensibility, and, prostrating herself, exclaimed with transport not to be described, 'O my deliverer! She recognised her venerable friend, and embraced the knees of father Arsene." Her worthy Confessor now conveyed her to a place of safety at a farm-house near Rochelle, which became the head quarters of the general who commanded the besieging army. This general was a more; who, though he could not see her face, which she had the precaution to keep constantly veiled, was reminded of his former love and sorrow by her figure and appearance. He passed the night in a room divided from her only by a thin partition; and she had the melancholy satisfaction of hearing him express those feelings of an unextinguished affection, which she could never be permitted to return, while labouring under the load of infamy that had been heaped on her. Concealment becoming daily more difficult, she prevailed on father Arsene to change her retreat for the house of an aged widow in the capi tal of one of the German electorates; where she was accidentally introduced to the elector's daughter, and entirely won her confidence and affection. This amiable princess, whose spirits were depressed by a secret affliction, opened her whole heart to her young favourite, and related her melancholy history. She had been betrayed into a private marriage with one of her father's ministers, who treated her with coldness, and appeared to have lost all affection for her. Here, the suspense of the story is in a great measure destroyed; for the reader sees at once that Clara is the daughter of the princess. Her father, Ro. senberg, who at an early age had intrusted her to Montalban, returned about this time; and having been convinced that she was guilty of the murder, he threatened her with immediate detection and exposure unless she left the place. She returned, therefore, to her refuge near Ro. chelle; where, after various adven tures, which are not always of the most probable kind, her innocence was manifested to the world. Mon taban died confessing his guilt. Valmore was united to his beloved Clara; and Rosenberg (who had very fortu nately brought some German auxi liaries to the assistance of the be sieged Hugonots) blessed their auspi cious marriage. The story, though very striking in particular scenes, is tedious and unequal; and it is eked out by a num ber of episodical narratives which neither assist the progress of the main argument, nor have much intrinsick merit. We would not rashly charge Madame De G. with descending to the arts of book-making: but really the stories of the hermit and the old woman answer no purpose besides that of swelling the work. The latter, however, is introduced by a description of a maritime village, so lively, original, and picturesque, |