Bride, and had declared her wishes to pass her days in religious retirement. At the mention of Ronald's suit, a slight blush overspreads her cheek

"Like the last beam of evening thrown

On a white cloud-just seen and gone."

She refuses to listen to his vows, till he shall lay at her feet the bridal ring of Edith, with an absolute release of him from his recent engagements. At these words the orphan page, who had overheard all at a distance, rushed forward and clasped her neck in silent ecstasy, to her no small amazement and confusion. Her brother excuses this conduet, and leaves her resolved to pass her days in the gloom of a cloister.

the

The Fifth Canto opens with a picture of Isabel at her devotions. On raising her head she finds a golden ring, to which a little scroll was affixed, resigning the claims of Edith on the heart of the Island Chieftain. A suspicion now arises in her mind that the mute captive is no other than the Maid of Lorn. Impressed with this idea, she dispatches one of the holy brotherhood to conduct page to the monastery: but Edward Bruce had frustrated this design, by dispatching the gentle youth to the shore of Carrick, with a letter to his brother's friends, ordering them to set the beacon in flames as a signal for invasion. Darkness had already fallen. The expected signal began to blaze, and soon filled the sky like a terrible meteor; the work of no earthly protector. While the army was trembling with awe, the mute page returned with a letter for the King, of a nature the most appalling. The little army resolved, however, to proceed, and either to conquer or perish. Not aware whom he was cherishing, Ronald supports the poor rejected Edith, and covers her with the folds of his mantle. At last overpowered with fatigue, and broken-hearted to hear her unconscious protector speak of his love for Isabel, she sinks upon the ground, and is left in a cave to repose. There she is found by the servants of Lord Clifford, and by him is ordered to be killed, in the very presence of her brother, as a spy. She resolves to meet death in silence, rather than betray Ronald and his heroic companions. The moment of dreadful preparation arrives: in mute agony she waits her fate; when the patriot bands burst from their ambush, rescue her, surprise the castle, and, after a bloody combat, remain victorious in the turrets of Carrick. The mingled emotions which Bruce experienced on occupying again the abode of his childhood, are exquisitely depicted, and the Canto closes with a noble address to his comrades.

The last Canto hurries through the military exploits by which Scotland, with the exception of Stirling, submitted to the domin

ion of her rightful sovereign; during which "spirit-rousing time," Edith remains in disguise at the convent withIsabel. At length a messenger from King Robert requests her presence at the camp, to make yet another trial on the heart of Ronald. She consents; and her yielding is thus tenderly excused:

Oh blame her not! when zephyrs wake,
The aspen's trembling leaves must shake;
When beams the sun through April's shower,
It needs must bloom, the violet flower,
And love, howe'er the maiden strive,
Must with reviving hope revive.
A thousand soft excuses came

To plead his cause 'gainst virgin shame.
Pledg'd by their sires in early youth,
He had her plighted faith and truth-
Then, 'twas her liege's high command,
And she, beneath his royal hand,
A ward in person and in land:
And last, she was resolved to stay
Only brief space-one little day-
Close hidden in her safe disguise
From all, but most from Ronald's eyes:
But once to see him more! nor blame
Her wish to hear him name her name!
Then to bear back to solitude
The thought he had his falsehood rued.

p. 233.

She arrives the evening before the battle, and beholds it from a neighbouring eminence. The terrible scene is described with great vividness and graphic skill; but still it is inferior in richness and coloring to the fight of Flodden Field, in Marmion. The reader is aware that the issue reinstates Bruce on his throne; and no doubt expects Ronald and the Maid of Lorn to be happily united.

Such is the outline of this fine romantic tale. Comparing it with Mr. Scott's former productions, we regard it as better than Rokeby, but somewhat beneath Marmion and the Lay of the Last Minstrel. We are, on the whole, sincerely happy to meet with him again upon his own borders, returned safe from his imprudent incursion into our plains. Our level roads do not present obstacles sufficient to prove the mettle of his fiery Pegasus.

The subject of the work before us-a patriot monarch returning from exile and regaining his throne after a bloody contest, is loftier than any which Mr. Scott had attempted to adorn. He has, we fear, failed in reaching "the height of his great argument;" for few of the noble exploits usually characteristic of such enterprises, are related; and instead of beholding Bruce, in the ardor of dauntless patriotism, leading his bands to perilous achievement, we only find him tête

à-tête with his sister, or moralizing among mountain scenery. In truth, the love of Edith, and the heroism of Isabel, form the principle attraction of the piece; and when they are not in view, the interest always lingers. We readily admit the inspiration of the Abbot to be genuine : but it could not be very great, since it allowed the heroine whom he had known from childhood to attend him without being discovered. But how she contrives to reach the Isle of Sky; what she does there; how she imposed on the pirate the belief that she was dumb, or how, being dumb, she communicated the story he told to the warriors-we are not duly informed. Even an enchanter in the Arabian Nights would have allowed her some kind of conveyance-a dragon, a magical car, or some other equally comfortable carriage; but our author merely exhibits her in her wedding attire at Artornish, and then, in a few hours, she appears in a savage island in male attire, among a race of very civilised pirates. Ronald, too, is rather a singular personage: he consents to a marriage which he dislikes, without assigning any reason for doing so; and finally, after paying zealous court to another lady through five cantos and a half, he transfers his affections to their rightful claimant, in time to conclude the sixth. In one respect, this poem is superior to any the author has produced: we allude to the total absence of the drunken revelries and stupid jests of the subalterns; and the tedious descriptions of blue velvet housings, and harness of approved fabric. We miss, however, the strange witchery which threw so mysterious a shadowing over his earlier poems-and that solemn thrilling voice of the times of old, to whose expiring echoes we can listen with delight.

We now take our leave of Mr. Scott, with a pretty sure presentiment of soon having the pleasure to see him again. Most sincerely do we wish that he would follow the loftier dictates of his genius; that he would think more, print less, and be content to secure a title to draw, not on his booksellers and bankers, but on posterity. He ought, for a while at least, to retire satisfied with the general and cordial applause with which he has been honored.

ART. II. Charlemagne, ou L'Eglise Délivrée. Poème Epique. Par Lucien Bonaparte. 2 Vols. 4to. London, Longman. 1814. WHEN We consider the circumstances under which this has been composed and published, together with the obscure birth, acquired rank, elevated connexion, and political pursuits, of the author, the latter seldom allowing to the mind leisure or compo

sure for literary employments, we cannot but view Charlemagne as a phænomenon of considerable interest; especially since we have had the opportunity of ascertaining from an undoubted source, that every line of the four and twenty cantos was actually written by Lucien Bonaparte, who had not been assisted in the structure of the poem by any of the Savans, who formed a part of his fifty retainers during his retreat at Thorn-grove. We cannot withhold the local compliment of observing, that the pensive spirits, which may be supposed to fit through the classic shades of Hagley and the Leasowes, have had no reason to start from the approximation of their poetical neighbour; the Membre de l'Institut de France has the same poetical sight of nature, and his muse sustains a loftier flight with an unwearied wing.

CHARLEMAGNE has been composed during an exile, if not voluntary, at least chosen by Lucien as a less evil than that of being subservient to the ambition of a brother, whose ability and ready exertion of the means adapted to the end, had placed him upon the steps which led directly to the imperial throne of France. Lucien has never displayed any taste for the pageantry of courts, and that game of playing at kings and queens, at which his brother has gambled away so much human life and human happiness. Not choosing to be, like Jerome, divided from the wife of his choice, and married to a princess for the good of the grande nation, or, on refusal, to be treated like Luke in the City Madam, by the Emperor whom he made First Consul, Lucien Bonaparte came un-compelled and uninvited to England, the asylum and sanctuary of Europe.

Although, while a Commissioner of the French government in Portugal, the Prince of Canino had shewn himself sufficiently ready to seize and bear away every thing valuable which came within his grasp and his rapacity has not been un-noticed by the biographers of the day-in England he was liberal and punctual in his expendi ture, and rejected, with all the repugnance of an independent mind, the notion of having his wants supplied by the government of a country, to which, though in fact a prisoner, he chose to consider himself on a visit. He was extremely averse from availing himself of the privilege of bringing his immense cargo of pictures and other effects to England, free of custom-house duties; and when, having tendered payment for the occupation of Percy Castle, where he resided previous to his removal into Worcestershire, he was informed that he was to be lodged at the expence of government, he immediately distributed the money among the different parishes of Ludlow.

However he might choose to palliate or disguise to himself the fact, Lucien Bonaparte, while writing his epic poem, was certainly a prisoner. It was in prison that the immortal BACON composed

those works, which contain the seeds of half that has been written since. It was in prison that Galileo pursued his scientific re searches, with a zeal unquenched by prejudice and persecution. Ignatius Loyola formed the plan of the society of Jesuits, while immured in a Spanish fortress. Madame de Roland was a prisoner under the constant expectation of the order for execution when she wrote her eloquent Appeal to Posterity, and the entertaining memoirs of Madame de Stael are dated from the Bastile. Numberless are the instances which might be adduced of the elastic energy by which strong minds rise above the pressure of misfortune, and while shut out from the world and forced upon themselves, elicit the flashes of genius from the clouds of adversity.

The details of what Lucien Bonaparte has hitherto performed on the stage of public life, of his residence at Rome, of his favor with the Pope, &c., are in the hands of the public; what part he may in future act, we presume not to predict; it is of his literary not political existence that we now feel ourselves called upon to speak; and we turn from the consideration of the writer to the investigation of his labors.

A French serious epic poem of considerable length may claim at once the advantage of novelty, and the merit of enterprize, since, while the presses of England swarm with cantos and duans, and tales in verse, whose divisions are distinguished by the modest appellation of books," scarcely any work of the kind has been attempted by our Gallic neighbours since the days of Voltaire, whose Henriade, in comparison with the other productions of that uni versal genius, has been but little read, and coldly commended. Lord Chesterfield has indeed said, "the Henriade is a finer epic poem than the Iliad, the Æneid, or Jerusalem Delivered," but the decision of the noble Lord has not been confirmed by the public. Whether the temper of the people, or the structure of the language, present the greater obstacle to the attainment of success in the higher departments of the Epopee, we venture not to decide; among poems of sportive satire, the voice of the public, which, as Madame de Sevigné says, "is neither stupid nor unjust," has transmitted to the admiration of posterity the Lutrin of Boileau, the Ververt of Gresset, and many other minor productions, but the attempts to attain the loftier flights of solemn poetry have most frequently encountered the fatal word "heavy." Of the Henriade, not all the "Esprit de corps," and "Esprit de pays" of a literary Parisian, could prevent him from saying, that although it was "tres beau," it was "tres ennuyeux," Whether either, or both of these epithets will apply to "CHARLEMAGNE, ou l'Eglise délivrée,” we will not detain our readers from some imperfect means of judging for themselves.