We shall this month be very brief with our numerous friends and Correspondents. The following articles are destined for insertion in our June Number,-or as soon after as possible:-" On the State of America"-"Eben. Anderson's" admirable and humorous visit to " Edmonton Fair"-" What shall I write?"-"The Spring Exhibition at Somerset House"-" On Auto-Biography"-" Hore Seniles"Attitudes, Musings, and Retrospects"-" Scottish Literature, No. I." (the author should send us No. II. without delay)" Characters omitted by Crabbe, No. II."-" A Legend of the Bell Rock*"Reminisences of Auld Langsyne, No. II."-"Schir Rycharde Schawe"-and the Review of Mr Cus ningham's "Sir Marmaduke Maxwell." We have not yet had leisure to peruse "Verses written on Arthur Seat; a Dream, &c. &c."—Ahijah, or the Desolation of Palestine"-together with an array of other Articles just received, and which wil be duly and respectfully attended to. Those who write for us no doubt desire our success, as well a their own fame, and merit our grateful acknowledgments. Actuated by this principle, therefore, and pleased beyond expression, by observing the great improvement, and the more elevated and st tained tone of our Correspondents in general, we shall not this month particularize a single instance in which we have been compelled to exercise that privilege abhorred by all good Catholics; we mean the VETO! Printed by J. Ruthven & Sons. THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY. MAY 1822. THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. BY THE 1822. WE despair of being able to communicate to our readers even a faint impression of the delight which we have experienced in perusing "The Fortunes of Nigel," a work which, if we are not greatly mistaken, is destined to hold a rank co-ordinate with Waverley, Old Mortality, or indeed the happiest efforts of this rare and unrivalled genius. By some, "The Pirate" was considered as a failure, more, we have reason to believe, from the unexplored and unknown scene where the action and the plot are laid, than from any decay of strength, or abatement of power, in the Great Enchanter, who peoples every region of Fiction,-from the gay, resplendent, and gorgeous realms of chivalrous romance, to the common novel of every-day life,-with the delightful creations of his unwearied and exhaustless fancy. That matchless fertility of invention, which imagined the character of Magnus Troil, and Norna of the Fitful-head, and Jack Bunce, and the scene of the election of a leader by the Buccaneers, -which flung such unspeakably pure and spiritualized ingredients into the composition of Minna, and made Brenda Troil all that is affectionate, lovely, and desirable, in woman,could not have been impaired in its native energy, or enfeebled in its actual exertion. But although we 1 did by no means coincide in the opinion which placed "The Pirate" as the counterpart of "The Monastery," and regarded both as the least successful or skilful of the author's works, we confidently venture_to predict, that, after perusing "The Fortunes of Nigel," even those fastidious individuals to whom we have alluded, and whom the very richness of the author's intellectual and imaginative resources have led to undervalue and even despise common displays, will be the first delightedly to exclaim that "Richard is himself again," and that, like Virgil's fame, "vires acquirit eundo." There are indeed some points in the performance before us, in which it will be perhaps allowed to transcend all its kindred predecessors-not excepting Waverley itself. To many serious and intelligent persons, Old Mortality gave great, and, in some instances, just offence; because the heroic Covenanters had been drawn, certainly with no friendly hand in general, and, in not a few instances, in violation of the truth of history; and to the majority of ordinary readers (the whole world cannot be imaginative, and full of poetic fervor and sensibility,) whose minds are more effectually influenced by "realities" than imaginations,' and whose libraries cannot boast those treasures of chivalrous lore for which Don Quixotte's has acquired more distinction than that of the first member of the Roxburghe Club,the splendid pageants in Ivanhoe and Kenilworth, matchlessly as they are got up and described, appear nearly in the same light as the amusing distortions and deformities of a magic lanthorn, which arrest attention only because they are hideous, and tickle our fancy chiefly because "they imitate humanity so abominably." It is in transferring to his canvass the veritable characters of history, shaded, softened, relieved, and harmonized by a pencil, every touch of which is pregnant with grace and expression, that our author excels all other writers of fiction. Even in "The Monastery" we have some of this painting-in "The Abbot," more." Ivanhoe," amidst all its tilts, tournaments, and gorgeous displays, gives us back many of those enduring impressions associated with a gay and brilliant era, when Romance was History, and History Romance; while Queen Elizabeth, Leicester, Raleigh, Surry, and others, form the master-charm of " Kenilworth." "The Fortunes of Nigel" is one great historical picture, impart ing a truer and juster notion of the most interesting period perhaps in English story, than is to be formed from all the Histories that have been, or ever will be written on the subject. But while Fiction has invested, with her peculiar enchantments and embellishments, the characters who figured at the period when the action is supposed to have happened, the truth of history is not sacrificed, nor probability violated, by incidents or conduct abhorrent to our received knowledge of the times, and the characters for which they were celebrated. In truth, the future historian will resort to "The Fortunes of Nigel" for a faithful, honest, and penetrating sketch of one of the most mixed and difficult characters in all history-we mean James I. of England. Now this we conceive to be the infallible criterion of talents of the first order in this department of writing, Lord Chatham is said to have studied the History of England in the pages of Shakespeare-the finest compliment, if the statement be true, as we be lieve it is, that was ever paid to the immortal Bard of Avon; and it is not asserting too much, that the future historian of Great Britain, and especially of Scotland, will be compelled to hold up the torch of Romance to light him on his intricate and tortuous way, to the discovery of historical truth. But we must abandon generalities, and, without farther proëm, plunge “ in medias res.” The story commences with a description of the London shops, and London apprentices, subsequent to the accession of James VI., and of the desperate riots which often arose between them and the Templars, when any youths connected with the aristocracy conceived themselves insulted. We are also introduced to a worthy countryman, Master David Ramsay, originally from the good town of Dalkeith, but who, like many of his countrymen at that period, and since, had emigrated southward, in search of fame and fortune. David was by profession a horologer, or, to speak scientifically, a chronometer-maker; a man deeply versed in, and intensely devoted to the sciences of number and quantity, and much more neglectful of his secular concerns than his countrymen are generally believed to be. The world, however, smiled upon honest David. He became a thriving citizen-had a shop, stocked with time-pieces of various sorts-two apprentices, Jenkin Vincent (familiarly called Jin Vin) and Frank Tunstall, whose business it was, according to the fashion of the period, to salute every passenger with the incessant cry, "What d'ye lack?"-and withal, a very beauti ful, modest, and somewhat romantic daughter, of whom the reader will hear more by and by. To the other dignities of honest David, for which he had reason to bless Napier's bones, was added that of "Constructor of Horologes to his Most Sacred Majesty James I." The 'prentices had not been long in the exercise of their vocation, when they espied a long, raw-boned Scot, whom they forthwith assailed with the coarse waggery and abuse peculiar to their class, and envenomed, too, by the general hatred then entertained against the Scots,-ancient antipathies being still deeprooted, and rather embittered than allayed by the recent union of the crowns, and the consequent influx of whole legions of the enterprising children of the North. Poor Sawney, or Jockey, as he was then called, is marked out as a fit subject for a broken pate, and the usual cry of "pren tices, 'prentices-clubs, clubs!" resounded with potent effect on every side. The single Scot is assailed by a whole host; but the generous apprentices who had raised the rout, seeing such numbers pouring in from all sides against a single man, instantly made common cause with their antagonist, who, nothing apalled by the "fearful odds," fought manfully, till an unlucky blow on his dunder-head brought him to the earth in a state of insensibility. In this condition he was carried into the house of David Ramsay, and an apothecary sent for, to perform the needful operation of breathing a vein. The wounded Scot regains the use of his faculties, at the expence of a little blood; and, after a good deal of circumlocution, and some embellishinent, announces himself as Richie Moniplies, the sole and only follower of Mr Nigel Olifaunt, otherwise Lord Nigel, heir and representative of the ancient house of Glenvarloch," that stood by king and country five hundred years." This information, how ever, is wrung from him with much difficulty, by the interrogatory pertinacity of a visitor of David Ramsay's, when Richie had been brought in insensible, after the 'prentices had given him his quietus, and who is no Jess a personage than Master George Heriot, goldsmith to his most Sacred Majesty King James. The young Lord Glenvarloch was at this time living in the closest retirement at the house of one Christie, a ship-chandler and countryman, and had come to London to present a memorial and supplication to the King, for payment of monies advanced by his father Lord Glenvarloch, to his Majesty in his distress, without which his paternal cstates must go to the hammer, in order to pay off some pressing incumbrances. To account for Heriot's anxiety to learn the residence of Lord Glenvarloch, it is necessary to mention, that his father, the late lord of that name, had been Heriot's early patron; and the grateful jeweller, aware of the embarrassments of the son of his benefactor, of the large debt due to his family by the crown, and of the purpose for which Lord Glenvarloch had come to London, though he had never before been able to discover his retreat,-availed himself of the opportunity chance threw in his way to find out the young lord, and offer him his influence in attaining the object of so much consequence to his family and name. Richie, after being absent a whole night, returned to his impatient master. But it is necessary to inform the 'reader wherefore the serving - man had been sent abroad. Lord Nigel, educated at Leyden, and by nature reserved and distant, had few friends, and was utterly ignorant of the etiquette of a court. He could, therefore, devise no better means of attaining his object-the presentation of his memorial to the King-(who, by the bye, like all men in debt, mortally abhorred duns)-than committing it to his worthy servant and follower, Moniplies, the son of a flesher at the West Port of Edinburgh, who, to use his own phrase, " banged right before the King, just as he mounted (to set out on a hunting expedition, of which amusement, though one of the worst horsemen, and most arrant cowards on earth, he was immoderately fond) and crammed the sifilication into his hand." This was taking the bull by the horns with a vengeance; nor need we wonder that James dashed the "sifflication" to the earth; especially when we add, that Moniplies had taken care to give precedence for a bit "sification" of his own, craving the payment of fifteen merks or thereby, due by his Majesty's late gracious mother to the "honourable house of Castle Collop, weel kenn'd at the West Port of Edinburgh." On the day following the adventure with Moniplies, George Herict waits on the young Lord Nigel, by whom he is very coolly received, but, nothing disconcerted, perseveres in his benevolent object, namely, to get King James to listen to reason, and grant an order on the Scotch Exchequer for the sum due to the late Lord Glenvarloch. He riot lays the true state of the case before the young lord, shows him, that those who held bonds of mortgage over his estate were merely the creatures of the Chancellor of Scotland, whose object, if possible, was to get possession of the patrimony of Lord Glenvarloch; and that the utmost caution and prudence would be required, in prosecuting a suit opposed to such powerful interest. The citizen ends, by asking his lordship to dine with him on the following day; and leaves him, to wait on his Majesty with a splendid piece of gold plate, wrought at Florence, from a design by Benvenuto Cellini.-We cannot refuse enriching our transitory pages with the exquisite portraiture of this pedantic, and, in some respects, incomprehensible monarch. The King's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof, which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured night-gown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His highcrowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carkanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet night-cap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the King wore this highly-honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that and of himself, to the most unworthy favour ites; a big and bold assertor of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negociations, in which he was always outwitted; and a fearer of war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglect ing it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform, and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he shewed the spirit of his ances tors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too of ten profane in his language; just and be neficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly pro fuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which display. ed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, shewing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully-that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of a piece as his cha racter, he, certainly the least able of the Stuarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne. And, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the King's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. In the course of the interview, Heriot, who had possessed himself of Lord Nigel's Memorial, contrives, with almost matchless address, to slip it into the King's hand, while his Majesty, little thinking of such a thing, was, according to his fashion, lecturing honest George, in the ceremony to be observed in approaching Royalty on such occasions, and actually condescending to put the favoured goldsmith through a whole series of "sifflication"-manœuvres. But Master Heriot proved himself an apter pupil than the royal pedagogue had counted on; and the sooth to say, King Jamie had reason on his side, when he exclaimed, "What means this, ye fause loon? Ha'e I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?" Heriot, however, appeases the evanes cent choler of the most easy-minded and placable of sovercigns; and procured an order on himself for twohundred pounds, to be presently paid to Nigel Olifaunt, Lord of Glenvarloch, for advancing which sum, |