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upset) of waste land in all the colonies of the southern | ment,) a certain sum for the sole purpose of giving a group-devoting the whole, or a large fixed propor-free passage to that colony to persons of the labourtion of the proceeds of sales, to emigration-author- ing class properly selected-and placing the adminizing the Executive to raise by loan on the security istration of the law in the hands of a special departof the waste lands of each of those colonies separate- ment of the Colonial Office. ly, (and without any other guarantee from Parlia

E. G. WAKefield.

HUMAN SACRIFICES OF THE KHONDS.

The victims, who are named "Merias," are always procured by purchase from a class of Hindus ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, Nov. 20th.-The Secre- called" Panwas," who obtain them from among the tary read a highly interesting paper, by Lieut. S. C. poorer people in the plains, either by kidnapping, or Macpherson, of the Madras survey department, "On purchasing at a lower price than that given by the the religious practices and human sacrifices of the Khonds. These people always keep a few victims Khonds," -a wild race of mountaineers, inhabiting in reserve, to be used in cases of certain emerthe higher ranges of the Gumsoor country, which gencies. The Meria must be "bought with a price" lies between the presidences of Bengal and Madras; by the Khond; or, otherwise, the sacrifice is an ofand who are, according to every probability, descend- fence to the deity. He is brought blindfolded to the ed from those aboriginal tribes who peopled India mountains; and when there, he is lodged in the house before the immigration of the races who brought the of the priest, fettered, if grown up; but if a child, at Brahmin religion and the Sanscrit language from the perfect liberty. He is in all cases revered as a sanorth-west. Two other wild tribes, the Koles and cred being; and is sometimes allowed to marry, and the Sourahs, also inhabit Orissa; but the highest hold land, on the understanding that himself and land, and the most extensive territory, is in the al-children are subject to the usual fate of their class. most undisputed occupation of the Khonds. The religion of the Khonds differs essentially from that of the people of the plains, in having no idols. Like that of the most uncivilized people, it has no reference to the principles of morality. Certain prescribed ordinances only are pleasing to their gods; and neglect of these ordinances is offensive to them; but nothing further is contemplated. It is also to be observed, that, like many other tribes in a very low social state, the Khonds consider their supreme god to be a malignant being, only to be propitiated by cruelties; while the subordinate deities are appeased by adoration alone, or by the sacrifice of cattle. The sun and moon are worshipped by simple reverential obeisance. The god of arms is propitiated by offerings of sheep, pigs, and fowls; the Jugah Pennu, or god of small-pox, by the blood of buffaloes: but the god of the earth, who is their supreme divinity, cannot be appeased without human blood. This earthgod (named by the Khonds, " Bera Pennu,") rules the seasons, sends the periodical rains, and communicates fertility to the earth. He also preserves the health of the people, and watches over the safety of their flocks and herds. All this favour is to be obtained on no other condition than the frequent effusion of human blood; and by this alone will the wrath of Bera Pennu be appeased. A victim must be immolated at the season of sowing. Every farm belonging to the community must bear the cost of providing a proper object; and each of the principal products, such as rice, mustard, and turmeric, requires a separate sacrifice. These bloody rites are to be repeated at the season of harvest; and it is essential that several sacrifices should intervene between these epochs, to prevent the attention of Bera Pennu from flagging. In consequence a greater number of victims are offered when the seasons do not promise well than when appearances are favourable. During the hot months, when agricultural labours are nearly suspended, these sacrifices are not made. In addition to the periodical immolations, more victims are called for when the population is sickly; when any malady breaks out amongst the cattle; when the ravages of tigers have been unusually frequent; when any misfortune happens to the priest or his family; or, in short, whenever the priest declares that such is the will of Bera Pennu.

When a sacrifice is about to take place, a large concourse of people assemble; and three days are passed in feasting, drunkenness, riot, and obscenity. On the second morning, the victim is washed and clothed in a new dress, and led forth in solemn procession towards the sacred grove, where he is tied to a stake, and anointed with oil, ghee, and turmeric, and adorned with flowers. During the whole day he is revered with much solemnity; and the slightest relic of his person, or of the turmeric-paste with which he is smeared, is looked upon as a valuable possession. On the third morning, the brutal orgies, which fatigue had somewhat diminished during the night, are loudly renewed, and continued until noon. The horrid sacrifice is then to be consummated. The Meria's arms and legs are broken in several places to prevent his resistance at the place of sacrifice, as he must there appear to be a voluntary, unbound offer ing. He is then borne to the fatal spot, which is some accidental cleft in the earth, through which the god is supposed to manifest his presence. The riven branch of a tree is put over his throat or chest, and then tightened by ropes, until the wretched victim expires. The assembly immediately rush upon his body, exclaiming, "We have bought you with a price!"-tear his flesh from his bones; and each one carries away a bleeding shred to his own fields. For three days the inhabitants of the village which have offered the sacrifice remain mute, and communicate only by signs. At the end of this time a buf falo is sacrificed, and tongues are loosened.

It is not possible to estimate the annual number of victims thus slaughtered; but in the village of Borogucha, about two miles in length, and three-quarters of a mile in breadth, the party which attended Lieut. Macpherson on a survey of the localities, discovered seven victims, whose slaughter had been determined upon, and would have taken place but for their presence in the vicinity. It was intended by the Khonds to consummate the horrid sacrifice as soon as the troops departed; though this we trust was prevented.

We understand that Lord Elphinstone's government has evinced the most zealous determination to put an end to the practices detailed in this paper; and that Lieut. Macpherson is again despatched to the Khond country in furtherance of this object.Literary Gazette, Nov. 27.

From the Westminster Review.

The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, A. M.,
Principal of the University of Glasgow, 1637-1662.
Edited from the Author's Manuscripts, by David
Laing, Esq. In 3 vols. (vols. 1 and 2.) Robert
Ogle, Edinburgh, 1841.

EARLY in the seventeenth century of our era, a certain Mr. Robert Baillie, a man of solid wholesome character, lived in moderate comfort as parish minister of Kilwinning, in the west of Scotland. He had comfortably wedded, produced children, gathered Dutch and other fit divinity-books; saw his duties lying tolerably manageable, his possessions, prospects not to be despised; in short, seemed planted as for life, with fair hopes of a prosperous, composed existence, in that remote corner of the British dominions. A peaceable, "solid-thinking, solid-feeding," yet withal clear-sighted, diligent, and conscientious man, alas! his lot turned out to have fallen in times such as he himself, had he been consulted on it, would by no means have selected; times of controversy, of oppression, which became explosion and distraction; instead of peaceable preaching, mere raging, battling, soldiering; universal shedding of gall, of ink, and blood: very troublous times! Composed existence at Kilwinning, with rural duties, domestic pledges, Dutch bodies of divinity, was no longer possible for a man.

amid revolt and its dismal fluctuations, the worthy man lived agitated indeed, but not unprosperous. Clearly enough, in that terrible jostle, where so many stumbling fell, and straightway had their lives and fortunes trodden out, Baillie did, according to the Scotch proverb, contrive to "carry his dish level" in a wonderful manner, spilling no drop; and indeed was found at last, even after Cromwell and all sectaries had been there, seated with prosperous composure, not in the kirk of Kilwinning, but in the Principalship of Glasgow University; which latter he had maintained successfully through all changes of weather, and only needed to renounce at the coming in of Charles II., when, at any rate, he was too old for holding it much longer. So invincible, in all elements of fortune, is a good natural endowment; so serviceable to a man is that same quality of motion, if imbedded in a wholesome love of rest,-hasty vehemence dissolved in a bland menstruum of oil!

Baillie, however we may smile at him from this distance, was not entirely a common character: yet it must be owned that, for any thing he of himself did, or spoke, or suffered, the worthy man must have been forgotten many a year ago; the name of him dead, nonextant; or turning up (as the doom of such is) like the melancholy mummy of a name, under the eye of here and there an excavator in those dreary mines,bewildered, interminable rubbish-heaps of Cromwellian Histories; the dreariest, perhaps, that any where exist, still visited by human curiosity, in this world. But his copious loquacity, by good luck for him and for us, prompted Baillie to use the pen as well as tongue. A certain invaluable "Reverend Mr. Spang," a cousin of his, was Scotch minister at Campvere, in Holland, with a boundless appetite to hear what was stirring in those days; to whom Baillie, with boundless liberality, gives satisfaction. He writes to Spang, on all great occasions, sheet upon sheet; he writes to his wife, to the moderator of his presbytery, to earls and commoners, to this man and to that; nothing loath to write them when there is matter. Many public papers (since printed in Rushworth's and other Collections) he has been at the

but what to us is infinitely more interesting, he had taken the further trouble to make copies of his own Letters. By some lucky impulse, one hardly guesses how,-for as to composition, nothing can be worse written than these Letters are, mere hasty babblements, like what the extempore speech of the man would be,

Till the advent of Laud's Service-book into the High Church of Edinburgh (Sunday the 23d of July, 1637,) and that ever-memorable flight of Jenny Geddes's stool at the head of the Dean officiating there, with "Out, thou foul thief! wilt thou say mass at my lug?"-till that unexpected cardinal-movement, we say, and the universal, unappeasable riot, which ensued thereupon over all these Kingdoms,-Baillie, intent on a quiet life at Kilwinning, was always clear for some mild middle course, which might lead to this and other blessings. He even looked with suspicion on the Covenant when it was started; and was not at all one of the first to sign it. Sign it, however, he did, by and by, the heat of others heat-pains to transcribe for his esteemed correspondents; ing him ever higher to the due welding pitch; he signed it, and became a vehement, noteworthy champion of it, in such fashion as he could. Baillie, especially if heated to the welding pitch, was by no means without faculty. There lay motion in him; nay, curiously, with all his broad-based heaviness, a kind of alacrity, internal swiftness, and flustering-he took this trouble; and ungrateful posterity reaps impetuosity, a natural vehemence, assiduous swift eagerness, both of heart and intellect: very considerable motion; all embedded, too, in that most wholesome, broad-based love of rest! The eupeptic, rightthinking nature of the man; his sanguineous temper, with its vivacity and sociality; an ever-busy ingenuity, rather small perhaps, but prompt, hopeful, useful; always with a good dash, too, of Scotch *As in this Museum transcript, otherwise of good shrewdness, Scotch canniness; and then a loquacity, authority, the name of the principal correspondent is not free, fervid, yet judicious, canny; in a word, natural "Spang," but "Strang," and we learn elsewhere that vehemence, wholesomely covered over and tempered Baillie wrote the miserablest hand, a question arises, (as Sancho has it) in "three inches of old Christian Whether Strang be not, once for all, the real name, and fat,"-all these fitted Baillie to be a leader in Gene-Spang, from the first, a mere false reading, which has now become inveterate? Strang, equivalent to Strong, ral Assemblies and conclaves, a man deputable to is still a common name in those parts of Scotland. Spang the London Parliament and elsewhither. He became (which is a Scottish verb, signifying leap violently, leap a prominent, and so far as the Scotch Kirk went, distractedly, as an imprisoned, terrified kangaroo might pre-eminent man; present in the thick of all nego-ere! "The Reverend Mr. Leap-distractedly," laleap) we never heard of as a Christian person's surname tiations, Westminster Assemblies, Scotch Commissions, during the whole Civil War. It can be said, too, that his natural faculty never, in any pitch of heat or confusion, proved false to him; that here,

the fruit. These Letters, bound together as a manuscript book, in the hands of Baillie's heirs, grew ever more notable as they grew older; copies, at various times, were made of parts of them; some three copies of the whole, or almost the whole, whereof one, tolerably complete, now lies in the British Museum.

bouring in that dense element of Campvere, in Holland? We will hope not, if there be any ray of hope! The Bannatyne Club, now in a manner responsible, is adequate to decide.

Another usefuller copy came into the hands of Wood- always suffice. It is an enigma you might long row, the zealous, diligent historian of the Scotch guess over, did not perhaps indolence and healthy Church, whose numerous manuscripts, purchased instincts premonish you that, when you had it, the partly by the General Assembly, partly by the Ad- secret would be worth little. vocates' Library, have now been accessible to all inquirers, for a century or more. Baillie, in this new position, grew ever notabler; was to be seen quoted in all books on the history of that period; had to be read and searched through, as a chief authority, by all original students of the same. Half a century of this growing notability issued at last in a printed edition of Baillie; two moderate octavo volumes, published, apparently by subscription, at Edinburgh, in 1775. Thus, at length, had the copious outpourings, first emitted into the ear of Spang and others, become free to the curiosity of all; purchasable by every one that had a few shillings, legible by every one that had a little patience. As the interest in those great transactions never died out in Scotland, Baillie's "Letters and Journals," one of the best remaining illustrations of them, became common in Scottish libraries.

To all which unhappy qualities we are to add, that this same edition of 1775 had, in late times, become in the highest degree difficult to get hold of! In English libraries it never much abounded, nor in the English book-markets; its chief seat was always its native one. But of late, as would seem, what copies there were, the growing interest of whatsoever related to the heroes of the Civil War had altogether absorbed. Most interesting to hear what an eye-wit ness, even a stupid eye-witness, if honest, will say of such matters! The reader that would procure himself a Baillie to pore over, was lucky. The price in oldbook shops here in London had risen, if by rare chance any copy turned up, to the exorbitancy of two guineas! And now, under these circumstances, the Bannatyne Club, a private re-union of men who devote themselves expressly to the rescue and re-printing of scarce books and manuscripts, with or without much Unfortunately, this same printed edition was one value, very wisely determined to re-edit Baillie; first, of the worst. A tradition, we are told, was once for their own private behoof; and secondly, as is their current among Edinburgh booksellers that it had wise wont in some cases, and as in every case is easy been undertaken on the counsel of Robertson and for them (the types being already all set, and the Hume; but, as Mr. Laing now remarks, it is not a printer's "composition" accomplished, as it were, credible tradition. Robertson and Hume would, gratis,) for the behoof of the public that will buy. there is little doubt, feel the desirableness of having Very wisely, too, they appointed for this task their Baillie edited, and may, on occasion, have been Honorary Secretary, the Keeper of the Edinburgh heard saying so; but such an edition as this of 1775 Signet Library, Mr. David Laing, a gentleman well is not one they could have had any hand in. In fact, known for his skill in that province of things. Two Baillie may be said to have been printed on that oc- massive octavos, in round legible type, are accordcasion, but not in any true sense edited at all. The ingly here; a third and last is to follow in a few quasi-editor, who keeps himself entirely hidden in months; and so Baillie's "Letters and Journals," the back-ground, is guessed to have been one "Mr. finally in right reading condition, becomes open, on Robert Aiken, schoolmaster of Anderton,"-honour easy terms, to whoever has concern in it. In right to his poor shadow of a name! He went over Baillie's reading condition; for notes and all due marginal manuscripts in such fashion as he could; "omitted guidances, such as we desiderated above, are furmany letters on private affairs;" copied those on pub-nished; the text is rectified by collation of three lic matters, better or worse; and prefixing some brief, vague "Memoir of Baillie," gathered out of the general wind, sent his work through the press, very much as it liked to go. Thanks to him, poor man, for doing so much; not blame that, in his meagre garret, he did not do more! But it is to be admitted, few books were ever sent forth in a more helpless condition. The very printer's errors are numerous. Note or comment there is none whatever, and here and there some such was palpably indispensable; for Baillie, in the hurry of his written babblement, is wont to designate persons and things, often enough, in ways which Spang and the world would indeed understand at the time, but which now only critics and close investigators can make out. The narrative, watery, indistinct, flowing out in vague diffusion, at the first and best, fades now too frequently into the enigmatic, and stagnates in total obscuration, if some little note be not added. Whom does the letter-writer, in his free and easy speed, intend to designate by such phrases as "his Lordship," It remains now only to be added, critically as well "the Lord Marquis," "his Grace," "precious Mr. as historically, that Mr. Laing, according to all apDavid," "the Reverend Mr. H. of N."? An editor pearance, has exhibited his usual industry, sagacity, ought to tell; and has not tried there to do it. Far correctness in this case, and done his work well. The from doing it, he has even mistaken some of the ini- notes are brief, illuminative, ever in the right place; tials themselves, and so left the natural dimness and, what we will praise withal, not over plenteous, changed into Egyptian dark. Read in this poor An- not more of them than needed. Nothing is easier derton edition, Baillie, in many passages, produces than for an antiquarian editor to seize too eagerly any the effect, not of a painting, even of the hugest sign-chance or pretext for pouring out his long-bottled an post painting, but of a monstrous, foamy sinear re- tiquarian fore, and drowning his text, instead of re semblance of no created thing whatever. Additional freshing and illustrating it; a really criminal prooutlays of patience become requisite, and will not ceeding! This, we say, the present editor has vir

several MSS., among others, Baillie's own, of the "evil handwriting" of which an appalling fac-simile gives evidence; the various Letters relating to private affairs are not excluded in this edition, but wisely introduced and given in full, as deserving their paper and ink perhaps better than the average. On the other hand, public papers, if easily accessible elsewhere, are withheld, and a reference given to the Rushworth, Hardwicke, Thurloe, or other such Collection, where they already stand; if not easily accessible, they are printed here in appendixes; and indeed not they only, but many more not copied by Baillie, some of them curious enough, which the editor's resources and long acquaintance with the literature of Scotch history have enabled him to offer. This is the historical description, origin, and genesis of these two massive octavos named "Baillie's Letters and Journals," published by the Bannatyne Club, which now lie before us; thus are they, and thence did they come into the world.

tuously forborne. A good index, a tolerable biography, are to be looked for, according to promise, in the third volume. Baillie will then stand on his shelves, accessible, in good reading condition: a fact which, since it is actually a fact, may with propriety enough be published in this journal, and in any and all other journals or methods, as widely as the world and its wants and ways will allow.

to lie at. A picture does struggle in him; but in what state of development the reader can guess. As the image of a real object may do, shadowed in some huge, frothy, ever-agitated vortex or deluge,-everagitated cauldron, boiling, bubbling, with fat vehemence!

Words

Yet this too was a thing worth having: what talk, what babblement, the minister of rural Kilwinning, We have no thought here of going much into criti-brought suddenly in sight of that great World-transcism of Baillie or his book; still less of entering at action, will audibly emit from him. Here it is, fresh all on that enormous Business he and it derive their and fresh,-after two centuries of preservation: how interest from, that enormous whirlpool on which, that same enormous whirlpool, of a British nation all the fountains of the great deep suddenly breaking up, torn from its moorings, and set in conflict and selfthe pacific, broad-based minister sees himself launched conflict, represents itself, from moment to moment, in forth from Kilwinning kirk, and set sailing, and episto- the eyes of this shrewd-simple, zealous, yet broadlizing! The book has become curious to us, and the bottomed, rest-loving man. On the whole, is there man curious; much more so on a riper acquaintance not, to the eager student of History, something at than they were at first. Nevertheless our praise of once most attractive and yet most provoking in all him, hearty enough in its kind, must on all sides be Memoirs by a Contemporary? Contemporaneous limited. To the general, especially to the uninformed words by an eye-witness are like no other. For every or careless reader, it will not be safe to promise much man who sees with eyes is, approximately or else afar ready entertainment from this book. Entertainment off,-either approximately and in some faint degree doos lie in it, both amusement and instruction do; decipherable, or too far off, altogether undecipherable, but rather for the student than the careless reader. and as if vacant and blank,-the miraculous DaguerPoor Baillie is no epic singer or speaker, the more rotype-mirror, above mentioned, of whatever thing is the pity! His book is like the hasty, breathless, transacts itself before him. No shadow of it but left confused talk of a man, looking face to face on that some trace in him, decipherable or undecipherable. great whirl of things. A wiser man-would have The poor soul had, lying in it, a far stranger alchemy talked more wisely! But, on the whole, this man than that of the electric-plates: a living memory, too has a living heart, a seeing pair of eyes; above namely, an intelligence, better or worse. all, he is clearly a veracious man; tells Spang and by an eye-witness! You have there the words which you the truest he has got to tell in such a bustling a son of Adam, looking on the phenomenon itself, hurry as his. Veracious in word; and we might saw fittest for depicturing it. Strange to consider; say, what is a much rarer case, veracious in thought it, the very phenomenon itself, does stand depictured too; for he harbours no malignity, perverse hatred, there, though under such inextricable obscurations, purposes no wrong against any man or thing; and short-comings, perversions,-fatally eclipsed from indeed, at worst, is of so transparent a nature, all us forever: for we cannot read it; the traces are so readers can discern at all times where his bias lies faint, confused, as good as non-extant to our organs : and make due allowance for that. the light was so unfavourable,-the electric-plate was so extremely bad. Alas, you read a hundred autograph holograph letters, signed "Charles Rex," with the intensest desire to understand Charles Rex, to know what Charles Rex was, what he had in his eye at that moment; and to no purpose. The summary of the whole hundred autographs is vacuity, inanity; like the moaning of winds through desert places, through damp empty churches: what the writer did actually mean, the thing he then thought of, the thing he then was, remain forever hid from you. No answer; only the ever-moaning, gaunt, unsyllabled woo-woo of wind in empty churches! Most provoking, a provocation as of Tantalus; for there is not a word written there but stands like a kind of window through which a man might see, or feels as if he might see, a glimpse of the whole matter. Not a jolt in those crabbed angular sentences, nay not a twirl in that cramp penmanship, but is significant of all you seek. Had a man but intellect enough,-which, alas, no man ever had, and no angel ever had,-how would the blank become a picture all legible! The doleful, unsyllabled woo-woo of church-winds had become intelligible, cheering articulation; that tragic, fatallooking, peak-bearded individual, "your constant assured friend, Charles Rex," were no longer an enigma and chimera to you! With intellect enough, alas, yes it were all easy then; the very signing of his name were then physiognomical enough of him!

Truly, it is pity the good man had not been a little wiser, had not shown a little more of the epic gift in writing: we might then have had, as in some clear mirror, or swift contemporaneous Daguerrotype delineator, a legible living picture of that great time, as it looked and was! But, alas, no soul of a man is altogether such a mirror; the highest soul is only approximately, and still at a great distance, such. Besides, we are always to remember, poor Baillie wrote not for us at all; but for Spang and the Presbytery of Irvine, with no eye to us! What of picture there is, amid such vaporous, mazy indistinctness, or indeed quite turbulent, weltering dislocation and confusion, must be taken as a godsend. The man gazes as he can, reports as he can. His words flowing out bubble-bubble, full of zealous broad-based vehemence, can rarely be said to make a picture; though on rare occasions he does pause, and with distinctness, nay with a singular felicity, give some stroke of one. But rarely in his loquacious haste has he taken time to detect the real articulation and structure of the matter he is talking of,-where it begins, ends, what the real character and purport, the real aspect of it is: how shall he in that case, by any possibility, make a portrait of it? He talks with breathless loquacity, with adipose vehemence, about it and about it. Nay, such lineaments of it as he has discovered and mastered, or begun to discover (for the man is by no means without an eye, could he have taken time to look,) he, scrawling without limit to Spang, uses not the smallest diligence to bring out on the surface, or separate from the as yet chaotic, undiscovered; he leaves them weltering at such depth as they happen

Or, descending from such extreme heights and rarefactions,-where, in truth, human nature cannot long breathe with satisfaction,-may we not here deduce once more the humble practical inference, How extremely incumbent it is on every reader to

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read faithfully with whatever of intellect he has; on ried it two hundred years ago, becomes audible again every writer, in like manner, to exert himself, and in those pages: an old dead time, seen alive again, write his wisest? Truly the man who says, still as through a glass darkly. Those hasty chaotic remore who writes, a wise word on any object he has cords of his, written down off hand from day to day, seen with his eyes, or otherwise conie to know and are worth reading. They produce on us something be master of, the same is a benefactor to all men. like the effect of a contemporaneous daily newspaHe that writes unwise words, again,-especially if per; more so than any other record of that time; on any great, ever-memorable object, which in this much more than any of the Mercuries, “Britannic,' manner catches him up, so to speak, and keeps him "Aulic," "Rustic," which then passed as newspamemorable along with it,-is he not the indisputa-pers, but which were in fact little other than dull-hot blest malefactor? Yes; though unfortunately there objurgatory pamphlets,-grown cold enough now. is no bailiff to collar him for it, and give him forty Baillie is the true newspaper; he is to be used and stripes save one; yet, if he could do better, and has studied like one. Taken up in this way, his steamy not done it, yes! Shall stealing the money of a indistinctness abates, as our eye gets used to the man be a crime; and stealing the time and brains of steamy scene he lives in; many a little trait disinnumerable men, generation after generation of men, closes itself, where at first mere vacant confusion was be none? For your tenebrific criminal has fixed him- discernible. Once familiar to the time, we find the self on some great object, and cannot perhaps be for- old contemporaneous newspaper, which seemed mere gotten for centuries; one knows not when he will be waste paper, a rather interesting document. Nay, entirely forgotten! He, for his share, has not as we said, the Kilwinning minister himself by debrought light into the world according to his oppor- grees gets interesting; for there is a strange homely tunity, but darkness; he is a son of Nox, has treach- worth in him, loveable and ludicrous; a strange erously deserted to the side of Chaos, Nox, and Ere- mass of shrewd simplicities, naiveties, blundering bus; strengthening, perpetuating, so far as lay in ingenuities, and of right wholesome vitalities withal. him, the reign of prolixity, vacuity, vague confu- Many-tinted traceries of Scotch humours, such as a sion, or in one word, of stupidity and misknowledge Galt, a Scott, or a Smollett might have rejoiced over, on this earth! A judicious Reviewer,-in a time lie in this man, unobliterated by the Covenant and when the "abolition of capital punishments" makes all distance of time. How interesting to descry, such progress in both hemispheres, would not will- faintly developed, yet there and recognizable through ingly propose a new penalty of death; but in any the depths of two dead centuries, and such dense reasonable practical suggestion, as of a bailiff and garnitures and dialects all grown obsolete, the induforty stripes save one, to be doubled in case of re- bitablest traits of Scotch human-nature, redolent of lapse, and to go on doubling in rigid geometric pro- the "West country," of the kindly "Salt market," gression till amendment ensued, he will cheerfully even as this day still sees it and lovingly laughs over it! Rubicund broad lineaments of a Nicol Jarvie, sly touches, too, of an Andrew Fairservice; nay sputterings, on occasion, of the tindery tragic fire of an adust Lieutenant Leshmahago,-fat as this man is, and of a pacific profession! We could laugh much over him, and love him much, this good Baillie; but have not time at present. We will point out his existence; advise all persons who have a call that way to read that same contemporaneous newspaper" of his with attention and thanks. We give it small praise when we say, there is perhaps no book of that period which will, in the end, better reward the trouble of reading. Alas, to those unfor tunate persons who have sat, for long periods, obstinately incurring the danger of locked-jaw, or suspension at least of all the thinking faculties, in stubborn perusal of Whitelocke, Heylin, Prynne, Burton, Lilburn, Laud, and Company,-all flat, boundless, dead and dismal, as an Irish bog,—such praise will not seem too promissory!

concur.

But to return. The above considerations do not, it is clear, apply with any stringency to poor Baillie; whose intellect, at best, was never an epic one; whose opportunities, good as they look, were much marred by circumstances; above all, whose epistolary performance was moderately satisfactory to Spang! We are to repeat that he has an intellect, and a most lively, busy one of its kind; that he is veracious, what so few are. If the cursory reader do not completely profit by him, the student of history will prosper better. But in this, as in all cases, the student of history must have patience. Every where the student of history has to pass his probation, his apprenticeship; must first, with painful perseverance, read himself into the century he studies,-which na turally differs much from our century; wherein, at first entrance, he will find all manner of things, the ideas, the personages, and their interests and aims, foreign and unintelligible to him. He as yet knows nobody, can yet care for nobody, completely understand nobody. He must read himself into it, we say; make himself at home, and acquainted in that repulsive foreign century. Acquaintance once made, all goes smoother and smoother; even the hollow-sounding "constant assured friend Charles Rex" improves somewhat; how much more this headlong, warm-hearted, blundering, babbling, “sagacious jolter-head" of a Baillie! For there is a real worth in him, spite of its strange guise ;-something of the Boswell; rays of clear genial insight, sunny illumination, which alternate curiously with such babblement, oily vehemence, confused hallucination, and sheer floundering platitude! An incongruous, heterogeneous man; so many inconsistencies, all united in a certain primeelement of most turbid, but genuine and fertile radical warmth.

Poor Baillie! The daily tattle of men, as the air car-
APRIL, 1842.-MUSEUM.
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But it is time to let Baillie speak a little for himself; readers, both cursory and studious, will then judge a little for themselves. We have fished up, from much circumambient indistinctness and embroiled babblement, a lucid passage or two. Take first that clear vision, made clear to our eyes also, of the Scotch encamped in warlike array under FieldMarshal Alexander Lesley, that "old little crooked soldier," on the slopes of Dunse Law, in the sunny days of 1639. Readers are to fancy that the flight of Jenny Geddes's stool, which we named a cardinal movement (as wrongs long compressed do but require some slight fugling-signal,) has set all Scotland into uproar and violent gesticulation: the first slight stroke of a universal battle and wrestle, with all weapons, on the part of all persons, for the space of twenty years or so,-one of the later strokes of which severed a king's head off! That there were

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