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after morning, only to overwhelm with reproaches and abuse one who never gave me cause to reproach her, even through inadvertence.

"As a natural consequence upon the kind of life which I had led, my affairs became deeply involved. Creditors were importunate; and the very Jews refused to furnish me with money, except on terms such as even I perceived to be ruinous. At last an execution was threatened; my furniture, plate, horses, carriages, were all about to be seized. What was now to be done I neither knew nor cared.

"My wife, though the daughter of a country clergyman, was connected, both by the father and mother's side, with several families of distinction. One of her maternal uncles had held some high situation in India, and her cousin now enjoyed the fruits of his toil, which he himself never lived to enjoy. He mixed with the best circles-supported a splendid establishment-and withal was regarded, by those who knew him, as a person of singularly kind heart and correct morals. Of course he visited his cousin when she appeared in the hemisphere of London as the wife of an M.P.; and as she liked his society we saw a good deal of him. Only conceive, sir, I became jealous, madly jealous, of that man. I contrasted his frank, open, and affectionate manner, with my own pettish and inconsistent deportment. I could not deny that the first was far more attractive than the last, and I came to the conclusion that it must be so regarded by my wife. There want ed but some decided act of friendship on his part towards Lucy to convince me, that a criminal passion subsisted between them.

"When the execution above referred to actually occurred, Lucy, worn out with irregular hours, and broken in spirit by my unkind treatment, was exceedingly ill;-the effect of the seizure of our furniture was to increase her illness to an alarming degree. I was not within when the bailiffs arrived, otherwise I should have probably done some deed which might have been the means of cutting short my course, as it deserved to be cut short. The news was brought to me at a moment when my last guinea was staked upon the turn of a die. The throw was against me, so I rushed forth with the firm

determination of committing suicide. First, however, I resolved to see with my own eyes how matters stood at home: for which purpose I flew towards Harley Street. I was met at my own door by Mr Blake, Lucy's relative.

"For God's sake go in and comfort your wife, St Clair,' said he; 'she is very ill. I am now on my way for a physician.'

"I passed him without speaking a word. The bailiffs were gone; the furniture and effects all stood as I had left them in the morning. I believed that I was in a dream. I ran up stairs to my wife's apartment, and found her lying upon a sofa in violent hysterics. Her maid was attending to her as well as she could, but I desired her to leave the room, and she did so.

"How is this, Lucy?' said I, affecting to be calm. 'Have done with these airs, and tell me how it comes about that there are no bailiffs in the house. I thought that an execution had been going on.'

"And so it was,' cried she, struggling to subdue her emotions: 'We were indeed ruined; but Blake,good, kind Blake,-discharged the debt, and we are still left in possession of our house. Oh, Charles, I will never, never upbraid you with the past; but let us change our mode of living. How happy were we at Claremont, till

"Till what?' exclaimed I, madly; 'Till I took into family, and to my bosom, a wretch that has dishonoured me !-Blake, Blake, eternally Blake! -He paid the debt, and how was he paid?'

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Charles,' replied Lucy, rising, and with dignity, 'this is the worst of all. Neglect, harshness, cruelty, I could bear; but to hear you insinuate aught against my honour, or that of my cousin, to whom you are so deeply indebted

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My brain was on fire. I replied not; but struck her violently in the face with my clenched fist. She fella corner of the fender entered her temple-and she never moved again!

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mon than erroneous. I have been the inhabitant of a cell for six long years, -mad, raving, outrageously mad,and there occurred not an event, either to myself or others, of which I was not perfectly aware at the time, and of which I retain not now the clearest recollection. I saw numbers of wretches, the slaves indeed of a wayward fancy, but I never saw one who felt not that he was not where be ought to be, or where nature designed him to be. For myself I had no fancy. My sole desire, it is affirmed, was to destroy all who came within my reach, or to destroy myself.-How was this prevented? You shall know.

"Having tried every other method in vain having torn my back with the whip-subjected me to the restraint of a strait waistcoat-chained me down for days together to my crib -and finding, as it was affirmed, that I possessed craft enough to be calm till I was released, and only till then, the tyrants Vented their spleen upon me thus. I recollect the occasion well. I had been for some time fastened by a long chain, which, passing through a hole in the partition, enabled the keeper, by going into the next cell, to draw me close against the wall at plea sure. This he was in the habit of doing several times a-day, and then lashed me till the exercise wearied his arm. If I had been violent before, such treatment of course increased my violence. I no sooner felt the chain tightened than I roared like a wild beast; and when the brute appeared, armed as he invariably was, with a heavy cart whip, I gnashed my teeth upon him in impotent fury.But I had my revenge. With the

straw allowed me in lieu of a bed, I so stuffed the chain, that it could not be forced through the aperture. One morning the wretch strove in vain to draw me up as usual; he failed, and trusting, I suppose, to the effect of habitual terror upon my mind, ventured to come within my reach. Ha, it was a glorious moment! I shrunk up as I had been wont to do, into the corner, for the purpose of deceiving he followed, brandishing his whip, and prepared to strike. One bound brought him within my clutch. Sir, I had no weapons but my hands and feet, but they were sufficient. I caught him by the hair, dashed him

him;

on his face to the ground, and then planting my knees strongly upon his shoulders, I tore his head back till the joints of the neck began to give way. Fortunately for him, the struggle had been overheard, and assistance arrived just in time to save his worthless life.

"It was in consequence of that act that a new mode of restraint was exercised upon me. An iron collar was rivetted round my neck, to which was attached a massive chain, only twelve inches in length. This was again made fast to a ring in a strong iron pillar, so formed as that it could slide upwards or downwards; the pillar itself being built into the wall, and of the height of six feet. Round my body another iron girdle of vast strength was soldered, about two inches in width, attached to which were two circular projections, one on each side, for the purpose of pinioning and restraining my arms. To keep the girdle in its place again, other bars crossed my shoulders, and were rivetted to it both before and behind; whilst a couple of a links, connecting the collar with the shoulder-straps, and a couple of chains fastening the backbars to the pillar,-all power of moving head, hands, and arms was taken away from me. Thus was I kept for four whole years. I could lie down, it is true, because my trough was placed close to the wall, and the ring in the pillar being made to slide, permitted me to stoop or stand upright. when I did lie, it was only on my back, the sharp points in the girdle effectually hindering me from resting on my sides. Nor were the miscreants contented with this. They chained my right leg to the trough, in order, as they said, to guard against violence from kicking. Standing and lying were accordingly the only changes of posture; I could not walk, for the chain which held me to the wall measured no more than twelve inches. My garments rotted from my back, and were replaced by a blanket; my food was half-dressed lumps of beef without salt, and potatoes; and then for my amusement-music, I had musicbut it was the music of damned spirits-the howls and execrations of the furious-the laugh and shriek of the idiot-these were the only sounds to which I listened by day and by night,

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till my beard had grown to my chin, and the nails of my fingers were like the talons of an eagle.

"Thus was it till a change took place in the arrangement of the asylum. How it came about, I know not; but after enduring this treatment for a series of years, I was one day set at liberty, and furnished with proper clothing. Whether my mind was ever in a state of chaos, I cannot tell. There are moments when I believe it. There are others when I believe it not; perhaps it may be the case still.

"I was set free as one cured. They told me that my wife died from accidentally falling upon the fender, and that my grief for her decease turned my brain. Poor fools, they knew not that it was I who killed her.

"My affairs had, during the period of my confinement, in some degree re

covered themselves; but I was still an embarrassed man. To help me out of my embarrassment, an appointment in India was procured for me. There I have spent the last ten years, and with the mode of my return you are acquainted."

Thus ended a tale as wild and extravagant as any which I ever perused. The impression left upon my own mind was, that the poor gentleman laboured under a derangement of intellect when he compiled it. I believe it is no uncommon matter for insane persons to fancy themselves stained with a thousand crimes which they never perpetrated, and the victims of a thousand evils which they never endured; and I am strongly disposed to hold that opinion in the case of my shipwrecked guest.

ON THE DRAMATIC POWERS OF THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.

Why does not the Author of Waverley write a play? The question has been often asked, but I do not know that I have ever heard it fully and satisfactorily answered. No less an authority than Sir Walter Scott, has given his opinion, that the habits of narration unfit a novelist for a species of composition which consists altogether of dialogue; and of dialogue from which the narrative and the descriptive must be wholly banished. This is nothing else than saying, that the novelist requires larger and more varied powers than the dramatic writer. Dialogue, choice of character and incident, are common to both. The difference lies in narrating and describing, in the novel, what is not written in the drama, but represented in the scenery, or done by the actors on the stage. The triumph of the drama is in the incidents which develope passion, and the language which gives it utterance; and it is the power which the Great Unknown possesses, of throwing his characters into those situations in which the human heart works the strongest, and suffers the deepest, and of giving to the keenest anguish, and the most stormy passion, language of terrible fidelity, that has placed his writings upon a level,

scarcely ever approached but by him, with the wonders of Homer and Shakspeare. In mere description, it is true, he yields to no poet, not to the highest, of ancient or modern times. The landscape almost lives in his page. It is truer than painting. There is an extent in the grouping, and a minute variety, which no pencil could picture. We tremble at the brink of a precipice, and listen for the voice of the waters that are raging and roaring below. We shudder at the approach of a devouring flood, and at the rapid ruin which it spreads as it advances. We are hurried along in the tumult of the battle; and see, not posture, but action; not the struggle of a single moment, but a succession of dangers and achievements. In no other writings, except those of the great poets I have just mentioned, and perhaps the productions of the great Athenian orator, (for eloquence, in its highest state, differs little from pure poetry,) do we find so many passages, in which we are prone to forget, that we are not beholders or hearers, but readers only, in which we grow unconscious that our conceptions are awakened merely by the magic which genius can lend to language.

But it is surely too much to say,

that

from his violence. Never did dramatic poet imagine a situation more intensely agitating. Never did any poet conceive a more lofty instance of the moral sublime; the love of purity, the dread of dishonour, the intrepid dignity of habitual virtue, joined to a high sense of what she deemed due to the ancient faith of her fathers-a faith which she cherished with a spirit unbroken by fatigue, captivity, soli

because description is more diffuse than dialogue, that he who excels in both combined, may not succeed in either separately. Still more inconsistent is it to maintain, that the writer whose grandest feats are performed by exhibiting the passions through the language of those they agitate, and by means of such situations as best unfold them, could not excel in a kind of composition, confined to that work only. It is easy to show by reference,tude, and insult-all urging weak woboth to particular parts of the novels of the Author of Waverley, and generally to those of his tales which have been most popular, that his most successful efforts have been in passages essentially dramatic. I shall select but two of these passages, both of which shall be from Ivanhoe; and I select from that tale, chiefly because, highly dramatic as it is throughout, its descriptions have been often deemed the principal cause of its great popularity.

The first is the interview between Rebecca and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, in the chamber of her confinement in Front-de-Bouf's castle. Bois-Guilbert, a Templar, sworn to celibacy by the vows of his order, had taken Rebecca and her father prisoners, in an excursion from the castle. He enters her apartment, and after confessing his rank and calling, and seeking in vain to win her by persuasion to his desires, threatens her with violence by the right of the conqueror over his captive. The situation, even at this moment, is fraught with harrowing interest. A woman, young, lovely, and a captive, of a degraded caste, yet with a loftiness of soul that never left her for a moment, through danger or debasement, stands, alone and defenceless, under the licentious gaze, and within the grasp, of a lawless and remorseless ruffian, come with the avowed purpose of violating her honour. Escape is impossible; supplication is useless; resistance vain. The ruin of the victim seems inevitable. The next instant, by one prompt and decisive act of heroic fortitude-that act her own-she is snatched from the sacrifice. But it is only to encounter another peril, scarcely less horrible. Opening a latticed window, she springs upon the battlement, and exulting in the alternative of the dreadful death which the precipice offers to her, she taunts the ravisher with her security VOL. XIX.

man to brave the King of Terrors in one of his most appalling forms. One might well expect that language would faint under the effort to give expression to the emotions which, at such a crisis, must agitate such a being. The author tries the experiment; and the success is, if possible, more wonderful than the previous work which made success so hazardous. The sentiments that burst from his heroine, are those which alone could sustain her at the elevation to which he had raised her; defiance to her brutal foe; an appeal to her religion, which she was saving from pollution in her own person; an expression of horror at the fate from which, by her own high courage, she is thus rescued, mixed with triumph at the dreadful means of refuge to which she resorts. Dramatic poetry furnishes not a speech of sublimer pathos than that comprised in these brief words:-" Submit to my fate !-And sacred Heaven! to what fate?-embrace thy religion! and what religion can it be that harbours such a villain?-Thou the best lance of the Templars!-craven Knight!

forsworn Priest!-I spit at thee, and I defy thee. The God of Abraham's promise hath opened an escape to his daughter-even from this abyss of infamy."

Nor is this all. The whole dialogue which follows is held to the same elevation; nor, to the conclusion of this wonderful scene, does it descend for one moment. It is rather enhanced by the final conquest gained by an unprotected Jewish maiden over the haughty Templar, a warrior, and a conqueror, cowed by the fearless valour of mere unaided virtue, into an involuntary homage to its purity. I may observe here, that this is a kind of contrast, which is, in all works of the imagination, especially those of the dramatic kind, of infinite power. It is when moral strength, coming in

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aid of physical weakness, wins an unexpected victory over mere brute physical force, which seemed, and was believed, to be above resistance.

The other passage which I shall notice, is that of Rebecca's trial for pretended witchcraft. The Templar has borne her off from Front-deBouf's castle when it was stormed and burned, and has concealed her in the establishment of his order, at Templestowe. She is discovered by the Grand Master; and the Warden, a friend of Bois-Guilbert, persuades him, as the only means of escaping the punishment incurred by a Templar convicted of an intrigue with an infidel, to sanction a charge, preferred against Rebecca, of having employed sorcery to seduce him. Before the whole body of the Templars, assembled in their hall with all the pomp of the order, with the Grand Master, a weak and austere bigot, at their head, she is brought forth, without an advocate or an attendant, to answer a charge in establishing which the pride of the order, anxious that the frailty of a brother should be proved not to have flowed from human corruption-the universal belief in the existence and efficacy of witchcraft-and the detestation in which the age and country held her race-conspired to overwhelm a beautiful Jewess, whose loveliness was considered as the instrument, and therefore taken as a proof, of her guilt. Here again she was alone, a woman, and defenceless; before adverse and interested judges-an armed tribunal-an ecclesiastical courtclothed with the triple terrors of arms, religion, and law; from whose judgment, in those bigoted and forceful times, appeal was hopeless. Can any addition be conceived possible, to the sympathies arising from this subjection of innocence unprotected, and beauty made a crime, before interested guilt, brandishing a stern, remorseless, and resistless power? The author finds a circumstance to make pity still more deep and painful, by enhancing our sense of the purity of the victim, and of the heartless rigour of her enemies. She is ordered to unveil. She pleads in excuse the customs of her people, that a maiden should not stand uncovered "when alone in an assembly of strangers." At the stern mandate of the Grand Master, the guards are about rudely to unveil

her." Nay, but for the love of your own daughters," she cried, addressing the senior judges;—" alas, you have no daughters!--but for the remembrance of your mothers-for the love of your sisters, and of female decency, let me not be thus handled in your presence. It suits not a maiden to be disrobed by such rude grooms.-I will obey you," (and she withdrew her veil.) "Ye are elders among your people, and at your command, I will show you the features of an ill-fated maiden." The scene did not require this last exquisite touch of nature, the excuse which the poor persecuted Jewish maid, forced to forego the decent customs of her race, thus makes to her own wounded modesty, when she tells her judges that she will obey them, because they are elders among their people.

But in a few moments the character of the scene changes. Pity gives way to admiration. Rebecca appears again, cool, collected, fearless in the midst of danger, as when before she looked down without a shudder upon death, and stood with an eye that “quailed not," and a cheek that "blanched not," upon the brink of the battlement. She is condemned to die the death of a sorceress-to be burnt alive. Yet her spirit bends not. She supplicates no mercy from her judges, nor intercession from her accuser; but with the boldness and pride of conscious innocence, indignant at a charge, not against her piety merely, but against the purity of her maiden honour, she turns to Bois-Guilbert and cries,-"To himself yes, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, to thyself I appeal, whether these accusations are not false?-as monstrous and calumnious as they are deadly?" There is a pause: all eyes turn to Bois-Guilbert; he is silent. Speak," she says, "if thou art a man-if thou art a Christian, speak! I conjure thee, by the habit which thou dost wear-by the name thou dost inherit by the knighthood thou dost vaunt-by the honour of thy mother-by the tomb and the bones of thy father-I conjure thee to say, are these things true ?"

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The group and the situation in this scene, to say nothing now of the astonishing powers of language displayed in it, have, for dramatic effect, been seldom equalled. The place, the assemblage, are imposing. The cha

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