ruinous to esteemed friends. I hurried there, and at last heard the welcome sound of the mill-stream rushing through the works. I rejoiced; but it was not the only sound, for dogs barked loudly. Pshaw! a cautious step will avoid those chained up, and all others must be beaten off. Such was the instant determination that echoed to their barkings. A hedge and ditch proved trivial obstacles-a field was quickly traversed. And now, after cautiously examining the windows of the premises belonging to this mill, I approached a kind of stile, where art had contracted the water, and increased the rapidity and power of the current, which alone prevented its freezing. The dogs were still, if there they were, but which is doubtful. The romantic gloomy murmurs of the stream not only pleased my ear, but doubly relieved the anxiety of my mind, already wound up by so many adventurous obstacles. The black silk handkerchief was now tied as a bandage over my eye to disguise me; my foraging-cap was put on, and after dipping with my hat for water into the stream, which I had nearly fallen into, I threw the crystal supply high above me, that, falling in many a pearly drop, and like a shower-bath, it might give me the appearance of having been exposed to real sea spray. Although a cold sort of an amusement, it was cheerfully repeated even four or five times, when, lo! I found myself all over sand!" The reader will be lamentably disappointed if he expect to find the whole ground like this-this is a sunny spot: murky clouds hang over nearly all the rest, and inspire melancholy-occasionally relieved by sleep. He concludes with Mr. C. Johnstone's inducing him to attempt to quit the country, to which he consents, receives £90, fixes his bail, and leaves his other creditors in the lurch. Like a dying swan, he sings at last, and closes with a copy of verses, of which the first characteristic line will suffice. "O may I steal."-p. 308. The Baron, we all know, is famous at inventions, and in an appendix of 93 pages, he has given us a list of his discoveries. Amongst others, we find this which very aptly follows his muse: Co an improved method of preparing hemp," &c. p. 34. ART. IV.-The Fair Isabel of Cotchele; a Cornish Romance, in Six Cantos. By the Author of "Local Attachment," &c. 12mo. pp. 12mo. pp. 371. Law and Whittaker. In the early periods of English literature, the wild flights of romance were wont to receive additional interest from the charms of poetry; and that writer stood a doubtful chance, No.XVII.-VOL.III.-Aug. Rev. S either for fame or for profit, who was unable to clothe the offspring of his invention in the "trim array" of poetic decoration. There is, indeed, a natural affinity between poetry and fiction; and hence the tales of Chaucer, Gower, Spenser, and others, are still read with eagerness and interest, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they labour, of obsolete phraseology, inharmonious numbers, harsh inver sion, and frequent allusion to circumstances now hidden in the impenetrable night of oblivion. We did not wonder, therefore, at the great success which attended an author of the present day, in his attempt to revive a taste for this style of composition; and we may be allowed to say, that the general admiration in which the productions of the Scottish bard are held, is the best proof of the existence of that taste which in the days of our forefathers was so prevalent. With Mr. Scott it is the boast of the author of The Fair Isabel to be intimately acquainted: he expresses it as his only unsatisfied wish, "To hold, though o'er the grave I bend, "That heart my meed, and Scott my friend." We learn, too, from a note, that Mr. Scott had read the Cornish Romance, in manuscript, and expressed himself highly gratified by the perusal. From these circumstances it was to be expected that in the versification, and in the general arrangement of this poem, much respect would be paid to the model of the Caledonian bard: the imitation, however, far from servile. A short advertisement informs us, that "the poem is founded on a family-incident in the reign of Queen Mary, which the existing contest between Protestants and Papists must render peculiarly interesting in the present day. The scene of the poem is chiefly laid at Cotchele, the ancient residence of the Edgcombes, on the west bank of the Tamar: in the sixth canto, it shifts to Mount Edgcumbe." The author has displayed considerable judgment in the choice of his subject, his scenery, and his characters.-The following is an outline of the poem: Sir Richard Edgcombe, father of Isabel, having lost his lady, sets off from Cotchele, in obedience to the mandate of bis bigot queen, to combat the Protestant rebels under Tre vanion, leaving the young Isabel to the care of her sister (Mawd), a prioress (Jacqueline) who had taken refuge in the castle on the dissolution of her nunnery-and a monk (father Nicholas); all distinguished, as appears in the sequel, by the worst crimes that too commonly disgraced those lazy drones who battened on the hive of Roman Catholic credulity, in the most splendid days of papistical usurpation. Isabel, wandering in the wood of Cotehele, is accosted by a gipsey, in whom she recognizes her lover Edward Trevanion, who had been left, when an orphan, to the care of his uncle Sir Richard Edgcombe; but the latter, jealous of the growing attachment between the young "heretic" and his daughter, had sent him abroad. From the relation of his adventures, given by the youth, it appears that on his return from France he found Sir Richard and Trevanion, at the head of their respective forces, engaged in battle; the various turns of which he is describing-when his narrative is interrupted by several strange songs, in the Oriental style, and some mysterious appearances; on which the lovers hastily part. The unseasonable minstrel is discovered to be Erisey, a youth strongly tinctured with the superstitions of the Catholic church, and who, with many others, on the banishment of Edward, had aspired to the hand of Isabel. Erisey, having obtained an inadvertent promise from Isabel, on condition of his performing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, had now returned from his travels to claim its fulfil ment. He is accompanied by Callimachi, a young Greek, who is also smitten by the charms of Isabel. The fair heroine, refusing either to marry Erisey, to give up Trevanion, or to go to a nunnery on the Continent-notwithstanding the threats of the prioress and the monk-is secretly conveyed to the vault of her mother, there to be immured alive. Callimachi, interposing in her behalf, is assassinated by the priest; who, with his accomplices, deceives Sir Richard, by informing him that his daughter is drowned in the Tamar. The knight institutes a search for the body, and whilst the prioress is relating the circumstances of the pretended accident, a boat passes on the river below, filled with "shadowy figures," who intimate darkly, in songs, the guilt of the prioress and Mawd; upon which these abandoned characters, stung with shame and despair, clasp each other, leap over the precipice, and perish in the flood below. It subsequently appears that the "ancient bard" of the house of Cotchele, having overheard a part of the conversation of the prioress and the monk relative to Isabel, had repaired, by a private and unobserved way, to the family-vault, which lay near the sea, for the purpose of counteracting their intens tions. There he found the Lady Alice awaking from a trance, in which she had been prematurely interred; and had scarcely had time to afford her the assistance necessary to the recovery of animation, when Isabel was let down into the vault. The party escaped in a boat belonging to William, (the lover of Jesse, Isabel's confidante,) and were conveyed to Mount Edgcombe, whither Sir Richard repairs. Several interesting explanations ensue; and poetical justice is done to all parties, by the death of the priest ;-by the discovery that Mawd was the daughter of the prioress, and not of Lady Edgcombe, (an exchange of children having been accom. plished through the subtilty of the former);-by the reco very of the real daughter;-the reconciliation of Sir Richard and Trevanion;-the union of Isabel and Edward, and of William and Jesse; and the festivities of Christmas, observed according to the ancient rites of English hospitality, and to which the wonderful adventures of the preceding days could not fail to give a peculiar zest. Such is the ground-work on which Mr. Polwhele has raised the superstructure of his Romance. It abounds with incidents, many of which are peculiarly striking, and are told in a style that cannot fail to add to their dramatic effect, as will be seen from the following quotations: "Isabel, with hurried gaze, Again : Through the wreathed window high, And, through their fleecy fragments white, A smoky, fiery light; When, quick as vision, trail'd afar, And, shooting to the earth its blaze, Burst into myriad sparks, a star. Hark to the voices in the blast! 'See-see that spirit-thy sire-it pass'd It is his winding-sheet! his shroud!' She thought she saw a lifted cowl; She thought she saw a demon-scowl! 'What means,' (she cried) for mercy say! p. 62, 63. "She stopped and trembled. And he cried- Though yester was a bloody day!' And a radiance from the sun, aslant p. 112, 113. Some of the delineations from nature are very beautiful; as in the following lines : "Arising in the moody blast, The sleety storm had well-nigh pass'd Still was the sullen hour and dark: Than they were gone In the elemental crash.”~ P. 24. From the preceding extracts, our readers will perceive, that The Fair Isabel is a poem not without merit. Passages might be cited from it equal to any in Mr. Scott's poems. It is, however, evident, that the result of a general comparison between the two writers would be very unfavourable to the former. Scott appears to have laboured diligently to give all his lines the highest degree of polish of which they were susceptible: in Mr. Polwhele's poem, instances of inattention or haste are continually occurring. The following lines, amongst others, ought to be carefully revised. "Sail'd down the wood, and brush'd the ice-drops." |