their offering before the image, received a nod from it, and in pious ecstasy retired. Of all this, however, there occurs not a single word; and one, after the perusal of its history, will rise with the most dreamy impression of the gorgeous establishment of the old Papal religion, and with no impression at all of the jolly fathers who gave it a "local habitation and a name.”

Mr. Tytler is a lawyer, and upon his professional theme it becomes us to be silent. At the same time, the general unprofessional reader cannot help regretting, that many of the interesting events connected with the history of our legal institutions have been sunk into oblivion. We might, with advantage, have received some information in regard to those dens of iniquity, termed Ecclesiastical Courts, in which the clergy administered "justice," and gathered their tithes, and taught the learned out of an immense book of laws. The subject could have been made amusing, by a few of the causes célèbres they decided; and the historian would have found, that the history of private morality and oppression, as there exhibited, would have reflected a far brighter light on the condition of the country, than the most horrific murder story he has told us.

By an easy and natural diversion, he could then have introduced us to the Civil Courts, and given us some idea of their constitution and their privileges, rendered interesting by a few anecdotes as to their corruption and venality, so highly prized by the old barons who hated Cromwell's Commissioners, because "they had no natural feeling, and decided all the same, though one of the parties were of their kith and kin.” The nature of the government of Scotland might also have received a passing notice. Some information could have been afforded as to whether there were Officers of the Crown-a Chancellor, a Secretary of State for the Home Department, and one for Foreign Affairs, one for the Borders, and another for the Highland reivers.

Was there not, too, a common people in that perished age, and had they not a history, like the lords and ladies, of whose doings these nine diffusive volumes are the industrious record? They appear, in the historian's estimation, to have been born of oblivion, and destined to oblivion; and their names make no figure in history. Still, it would have been interesting to know, if the blood warmed their hearts, and if they spoke and felt as did the great. In what manner did Donald Maclan Mhor, in the far north, amid the mists of his native hills, wear away the dull monotony of life? Was he clothed in sheep-skins, and did he live by sheep-stealing? Were there wise men, and magicians with the second sight, hard by the Tummell or the Spey, and was that the native land of whiskey then? Farming, too, was in use surely, in these old days; but we cannot extract from Mr.

Tytler, whether our worthy fathers, in the patriarchal style, employed bullocks for the plough, and trod out the corn by the feet of oxen. O! that he had kept in mind the saying of the worthy gentleman, commemorated in the Voyage to Brobdignag, when unravelling his everlasting court intrigues,-" He gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

Or, if we come to the Lowland towns, where dwelt the substantial burghers, plying the busy industry of their respective crafts, why will the historian not tell us something of their quiet happy existence? They courted, surely, and they married; and sometimes they committed crimes, and as often exhibited generous and noble virtues, as the proudest high-born Hidalgo of them all. Were shirts, and shoes, and stockings, among the luxuries, or the comforts merely, of burghal existence? What an interesting story has Guizot, in his history of European Civilization, contrived to rear out of the prosaic existence of the denizens of the cities, who stand amid the gloom of the middle ages, as something superior to the brutality and ignorance of the times; and how admirably does he follow them to their workshops, and to the bosom of their domestic affections, contrasting their happy comforts with the squalid greatness of the roistering baron, whose castle overtopped their city or their hamlet.

The subject is, however, too mean for the Scottish historian, who is above telling us anything of the manners, habits, pleasures, trades, feelings, opinions of this busy, persevering, and intelligent people; nor will he give any information as to their literature. Here, too, a fine chapter has been thrown to the winds. Oppression, weariness, and disgust with the utter abominations of the Romish faith; convictions as to its falsehood, and hatred to its shameless ministers, were the principal causes of its downfall. But the influence of poetry was brought in to excite the fancy; and the ridicule and sarcasm of Lindsay, and ❝ the gude and godlie ballads," and other productions of the same school, rendered ridiculous what had already been declared sinful. It is said that the songs of Béranger overthrew the elder Bourbons; it is unquestionable that the keen wit of the poetasters, who satirized the priests, effected the strongest impression on the popular mind of Scotland. Yet all that is said upon this subject is contained in three lines-more perhaps than might have been expected; and then the author proceeds to the staple subject of his treatise the description of a border excursion-some gross oppression, or exquisitely exciting murder. We can scarcely ascertain from this history of

his country, who was Sir David Lindsay, one of the most illustrious men of letters of ancient Scotland; and the man whose works have delighted many a reader, now shines with an obscure lustre, at the side of some feudal ruffian who had exhibited the superlatives of inhumanity. Gavin Douglas, the Bishop of Dunkeld, the translator of Virgil and part of Ovid-a gentleman—a scholar in the highest sense-a poet who has left descriptive poetry equal to that of any language, is introduced to our notice, not as having immortalized himself by works of genius, but because he had adjusted a squabble between two of the mighty lords. It is, moreover, scarcely conceivable that Mr. Tytler should have spent so many weary pages, in quoting the twaddling scandal of the selfconceited, busy, prying, impertinent English resident, Thomas Randolph, and left unnoticed the labours of William Dunbar, the greatest of the original poets of old Scotland, who, according to Warton, "adorned the present period with a degree of sentiment and spirit, a command of phraseology, and a fertility of imagination, not to be found in any English poet since Chaucer and Lydgate."

We need not name others. They have all been contemptuously left in the obscurity of their antiquated phraseology, and their country's historian will not condescend to tell us anything of their language and ours. There never was a history which has acquired such a name as this, so defective upon nine-tenths of the subjects necessary for its construction. Materials, too, lie at hand in inconvenient abundance, for enabling the historian to unroll the history of that world of old, the habits and customs of our fathers, their literature and their religion, their language and their origin, the humble destinies of perished generations, whose hum of busy labour we would hear again, mingling with the chant of the monkish miserere. By judicious compression all this might be contained within such a compass as not to extend the work a single page, provided a number of inhuman atrocities were left out, and only a few retained as examples of the rest; and also under the condition, that two or three hundred of the five hundred pages of dull quotation from State Paper Office correspondence, were consigned to the obscurity from whence it has been dragged. Mr. Tytler expresses his gratitude to Lord Melbourne for allowing him "a full examination of the Scottish correspondence in the State Paper Office," and which he tells us was an event "the most pleasurable in my literary life."-(Vol. v., p. 377.) We cannot express the same gratification. There can be no doubt, that several Court intrigues have been thereby divested of their mystery; but, in opposition to that, we have to set a deluge of matter, on uncontroverted points, told with amazing periphrasis of phrase, to the utter exclusion of half our history. To adopt

the simile of Burke, the historian seized a handful of grasshoppers, which he presents as the riches of the land, while altogether unmindful of the noble oxen quietly browsing around him. Like any other collection of old correspondence, this book will, however, be useful, and it is needless now to continue our wailings as to its omissions. But if, instead of denominating the four last volumes a history, they were described as the biography of Mary Stuart, of Regent Murray, and of Morton, interspersed with sketches of other grandees, and solemn denunciations of the coarse vulgarity and intolerance of Presbyterian ministers, a better idea would be entertained of its character and its object.

This is our History! We grudge not the author the pension it has gained him; he will, perhaps, never receive either from his pension or his profits, remuneration for his labour of eighteen years. It is, therefore, all the more galling to his friends, that we cannot recompense him by our admiration and our gratitude, and are driven to the painful conviction, that the History of Scotland remains to be composed.

ART. II.-The Entire Works of the Rev. Robert Hall, A.M., with a Brief Memoir of his Life, by Dr. GREGORY, and Observations on his Character as a Preacher, by JOHN FOSTER. Published under the superintendence of OLINTHUS Gregory, LL.D., F.R.A.S. London, 1832.

We do not think the method that was at first adopted to perpetuate the memory and the fame of Mr. Hall by any means judicious. We have a memoir by Dr. Gregory, a character of him as a public man by Mr. Foster, several distinct sketches in pages and half pages by Anderson and others, and subsequently a more elaborate life by Morris, reminiscences by Greene, and various minor contributions, having more or less of merit; consequently, everything relating to him is given in such a piecemeal and fragmental way, that we have neither the pleasure nor the instruction of one masterly and continuous narrative. gory's is pleasant, Foster's profound, Morris's heavy, and Greene's frivolous. Scattered and various as these performances are, after the lapse of many years it seemed to us desirable to recall the image of departed greatness in a condensed form, with such new circumstances as personal knowledge might enable us to record, and affection embalm, assured that contemporaries will

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never be weary of a subject so cherished, and that the coming age cannot be furnished with many of more instructive and enduring value. What is most truly characteristic often vanishes with the life, which, like the setting sun, leaves only the radiant twilight for a time. To perpetuate these traits, and imprint them for contemplation on the page of a faithful, however abbreviated, narrative, is a grateful task, and not, we trust, unprofitable.

Men of great talent are said seldom to have clever sons; but to this rule the present instance furnishes an exception. The father of Robert Hall was a distinguished minister of the Baptist persuasion at Arnsby, a small village near Leicester; and the more than ordinary resemblance between them, both in the conformation of the head and features, and the order of their mental faculties, might afford some assistance to the dubious in the verification of physiognomical science. Robert (born at Arnsby May 2, 1764) was the youngest of fourteen children, and, in infancy, the feeblest, though afterwards his frame and constitution bordered on the athletic. He was once given up for dead in the arms of his nurse; and it was long after the average time for children before he could walk or talk. In the former faculty he was never a proficient-in the latter he soon became remarkable. Even at a very early period, as we have been informed by those who had the means of knowing, he would frequently entertain the haymakers in the hours of toil, and during their meals, by a conversation rich in sensible observations and sportive sallies, which secured their admiration and love. Happily the precocity of his talent was exempt from the usual fatality of premature extinction. Even at nine years of age he could not be restricted to the narrow limits of village school instruction, but had read and reflected on Butler's Analogy, and Jonathan Edwards's Treatises on the Affections and the Will. This metaphysical bias he himself attributed to an intimate acquaintance with a humble tailor at Arnsby, whom he represented as a very well informed acute man. From our knowledge of him in after life, we should rather be inclined to say that the dialectical skill and tendencies were in the child, for whom it was sufficient to find a willing listener in the tailor; for it is often characteristic of great and generous minds, to attribute to others as native excellence what in fact is only seen as reflections of their own.

His first tutor informed his father, when his son was only eleven years of age, that he was unable farther to instruct his pupil; and accordingly, after a short interval, he was taken to the boarding-school of the Rev. John Ryland of Northampton, with whom he remained only a year and a-half. The genius of Ryland (the father of the late Dr. Ryland) was of a kind