was heard, intimating the death of a perfon of that nation-but that was rather a mifcalculation on the part of thofe who directed this machinery, for I was not only not a native of England, having been born at Florence, but I had never been naturalized. This, however, the graunie did not know; though it helped me to reprefs fuch fears as might have arifen from the cry of an english ghaift*!" "The old highlander, who had the care of the boats by which the lady Kilbrodie fupplied her houfe with fifh, never went down to the fea but he returned with a tale of kelpies of the maift eldritch kind, which fhreeked around him-and thefe ftories were fometimes repeated in my prefence as if by accident, and fometimes told to me with great appearance of concern by the old witchlike looking woman, who was, I found, engaged by the lady to attend me. This frightful creature boasted of poffeffing the gift of fecond fight, or at least a degree of prefcience nearly approaching to it; and I foon was given to understand that the forefaw fome great calamity was about to befal me. "These presentiments of evil are often the caufes that evil really arrives, efpecially to perfons in my circumftances, even when furrounded with every convenience, and affured of every affiftance. On me, however, the cruel impreffions thus endeavoured to be made would have had little effect, had I not known that the perfons who prophecied, had the means of affuring the truth of their predictions. I now too clearly understood the reafon of lady Kilbrodie's officious zeal, which I had at firft but imperfectly comprehended. I remembered an history I had read of the cruel machinations used to deprive a counters de + Guiche of her child; and I faw in lady Kilbrodie the fame motive as influenced the perpetrators of that crime, with more eafy means of effecting it. "The horror which feized on my mind is not to be defcribed. Sometimes I fo yielded to the influence of this dread, as hardly to have any other confcioufnefs of my exiftence than that which fear impreffed-and I refufed to quit my bed to fee the light, or to take any nourishment but what Menie gave me, first tafting it herself; then, roufed by the ftill active principle of felf-prefervation, I tried to affume fome degree of apparent chearfulness, and went out with Menie, meditating on the poflibility of efcaping. But, alas! whither could I go? From the caftle of Glenmorris could I have taken fhelter there, the fame pretence, and the fame ufurped power, might again have compelled me. I had neither money to procure the means of removal, by any carriage which could be obtained in that remote country, or ftrength to feek on foot a place where fuch might be hired. I now thought of writing to my father, and imploring his pity and forgiveness; now of throwing myself on the mercy of lady Mary, and then of trying to intereft my fifter, and Dr. Johnson relates, in his Journey to the Hebrides, that in his paffage from one place to another, one of the highland boatmen declared he heard the cry of an english ghoft." Related in Les Caufes célébres.' her her lord, in my deplorable fate. But I doubted whether any letter of mine would ever reach my father, and even the mercy of my mother I thought of with terror. My fifter might perhaps fcorn and negle&t me; and to her husband I was almoft a ftranger. And far from affifting me, they might fear my restoration to my father's favour as likely to be injurious to themfelves. It was in vain I confulted with Menie. She was a fcotch girl, who had never left the highlands, and was totally ignorant of any mode of life beyond them. All fhe could do was to weep with me, and to promise that nothing should induce her or force her to leave me. Every obfervation I made, every word that fell from lady Kilbrodie, now ferved to confirm my apprehenfions. To fecure to her fon the fucceffion of Glenmorris, it was neceffary my child fhould perifh; for that reafon only, had it appeared to lady Kilbrodie worth her while to take me from my own houfe; that we fhould die together, was probably a yet greater object, and that we might indeed do fo was the next wish I formed, after thofe that perpetually tempted me to try to escape were evidently fruitless. "To a young mind, to one yet uninformed by fad experience, of how much wickedness avarice may render a human being guilty, it is hard to believe that fuch atrocity could exift, as I now imputed to this old woman. But her whole conduct, as well as that obferved by her people by her orders, the dark hints and myfterious phrafes of old Meggy Macgregor, the howdie who was to attend me; the continual endeavours, that were evident, to imprefs my mind with ideas of impending danger; and the anger lady Kilbrodie expreffed, if any mention was made of the poffibility that Glenmorris might furvive; the fatisfaction which lightened in her eyes when fhe faw me finking, and crushed beneath the weight of my miferies; all thefe, and many other circumftances, left not a doubt remaining, either of what her expectations were, or of her being equal to any deteftable action that might render thofe expectations not ineffectual. "No dreary defcription, drawn from imagination of tombs and caverns haunted by evil fpirits, could equal the gloomy horrors of the place, where I was doomed to linger out the few and wretched days of my remaining existence. The long, narrow, and only partially glazed windows of my cell, looked upon the fragments and half fallen arches of the ruined convent.-Caverns yawned in many places beneath them; among which echoed only the howling of the hunting dogs, that were kept, (or rather half itarved) by the lady Kilbrodie, to procure her game from the mountains and muirs, which they perhaps purfued more fuccefsfully, as the entrails of what was taken, was almost the only food they ever got, unless the fea, to which they frequently reforted, afforded them a repast of dead fish. "Often has the little reft I could obtain, been broken by the cries and yells of thefe wretched animals "And loud and long the dog of midnight howl'd f." *Howdie, a midwife.' + I fufpect this to be a line of mifs Seward's.' 'On "On fuch occafions Meggy Macgregor, the howdie, never failed to affure me, that" quhan the collies gan fcrachin and makin croon, dule wad befa." ART. XVI. Henry Willoughby, a Novel. 2 vols. 12mo. Price 75. fewed. Kearfley. 1798. THIS production, written by a young man, the greater part of whofe life has been paffed on the ocean, in a profeilion eminently hoftile to the cultivation of the understanding,' bears marks of thinking, and of an active, obferving mind. But a novel without either love or murder, that fails to intereft the ftronger paffions, will have but little attraction for the more numerous clafs of readers. Memoirs would have been a more appropriate title to the prefent performance. The adventures of Henry Willoughby carry with them ftrong evidence of real, though, probablý, fomewhat difguifed, fact, and individual obfervation and experience. The work does credit rather to the good fenfe and moral feeling, than to the imagination of the writer. A. G. ART. XVII. POETRY. THE DRAMA. Malvern Hills: A Poem. By Jofeph Cottle. 4to. 71 pages. Price 2s. 6d. Longman. 1798. IN our laft volume, p. 610, we had occafion to review a poem by Dr. Booker, on the fame fubject with the prefent. It is not our inten tion, for it is not neceffary, to enter on the unpleafing task of eftimat ing the comparative merits of thefe two performances. Amongst the various reflections which muft arife from furveying the fcenery round fuch an afpiring eminence as Malvern Hills, there will be fome which are common to every contemplative mind: to poetical imaginations this number will confiderably increase: we are not furprized, therefore, to find some points of fimilitude in the work before us, and that which we noticed on a former occafion. Mr. Cottle has introduced his poem by a preface, explanatory of thofe references to the ftate of the poor which he has occafionally made. This preface is excellent: to felect any particular portion of it for an extract would be unjuft to the remainder: we must be content to ftate, in general terms, that the fentiments of Mr. C., on the penury and ignorance by which a large portion of our fellow-creatures are degraded, do the highest honour to his heart; and we give full credit to his affertion, that in commenting both here and in the poem on the effects of extreme poverty, he has been influenced by no other motive than a define of finding a cure, by exciting dormant feelings in the minds of the good, and not from a querulous difpofition to detect evils which cannot be removed.' Mr. C. afcends the Malvern Hills at early morning: • 'Tis fweet to breathe at this neglected hour The mount's pure air! to trace the landscape wide. And And feem as never anguish pafs'd them near: Midway the afcent, the poet paufes to contemplate a familiar object, the folitary and unfheltered fituation of which fuggests the following very beautiful fimile: P. 19. There ftands an aged Thorn; at this lone hour Look'ft ever to the earth, difconfolate : 'Till fome rude tempeft shake the mountain's brow, Their conflict with the ftorm, and down the steep Whom Genius burdens, whose diviner mind Low, like the MOUNTAIN THORN, he bends his head, ́ And thinks, with calm confolement, when his head Afcended to the lofty fummit of the Malvern Hills, and loft in luxurious contemplation of the order, the harmony, the beauty, the magnificence of nature; fudden, the poet feels Compaffion wring his heart, to think that men Should fpend their few fhort days, in heaping wealth For unknown heirs! The evils which attend on commerce are descânted on, and the auri facra fames, that curfed luft of gold, which fills our cities with a fickly and a miferable population : P. 44. For this the merchant toils his life away, Contend Contends with dangers in heart-harrowing fhapes, Mercator metuens, otium et oppidi Soon his timidity fubfides, "Mox reficit rates Quaffas, indocilis pauperiem pati." To this part of the poem, which treats of commerce, Mr. C. has annexed fome notes, relative to thofe large manufacturing towns, ⚫ which receive annually a fupply of young men from the furrounding. country to make up for the deficiencies of thofe, who have come to a premature death from the unwholesomeness of their occupations. Unthinking youths, from the fuperior wages offered them, are induced to try thefe dangerous experiments. They commence their new employments with complexions that indicate health, but, in a year or two, their countenances commonly become pallid, their minds difpirited, and their bodies weak.' Alas! this ftatement is too true. has also commiferated in poetic numbers that infant throng' of fatherlefs and forfaken beings, who are contracted for by manufacturers at the different parish workhoufes throughout the kingdom, and, like other merchandize, fent off by waggons full, to foul unwholesome places of depofit! Mr. C. It would give us pleasure to accompany our author ftill farther in his meditations: but we truft enough has already been faid, to infpire our readers with a defire to fee the poem itfelf, which, together with the preface and the notes, will be perufed by moft, as well with profit as with pleasure. Mr. C. has added an Elegy on the Death of a beloved Sifter;' it is beautiful and affectionate. ART. XVIII. Windermere: a Poem. By Jofeph Budworth, Efq. Author of a Fortnight's Ramble to the Lakes.' 8vo. 28 pages. Price Is. Cadell and Davies. 1798. IN the former production of Mr. B., who then wrote anonymously, were fome few poetical attempts which we fcarcely confidered as rifing to the point of mediocrity. The Fortnight's Ramble to the Lakes,' (fee Anal. Rev. vol. xv, p. 37,) was a lively and amusing little volume, and we are forry, that Mr. B. fhould not be content with his talents for plain and familiar profe-writing; his poetical abilities are certainly of an inferiour order. ART. XIX. Saint Guerdun's Well, a Poem. By Thomas White, Mafter of the Mathematical School at Dumfries. 4to. 40 pages. Price 2s. Second Edition, greatly enlarged. Edinburgh, Creech; London, Robinfons. No Date. In this ifland are many wells, or fprings, which a ruftic never paffes without an oblation. For the fource of this custom, the writer of the following little piece has made no fearch. Fiction fupplied |