BEAUCHAMP; OR, THE ERROR.* WHAT reader of the New Monthly Magazine has not followed the fortunes of the ill-fated Henry Beauchamp with the liveliest interest and anxiety? The fatal error of his youth clinging to him with the pertinacity of a gnome, in the shape of a female persecuting fiend! How fearful the catastrophe to which her unmitigated malignity leads her; but which at the same time sets Henry free from the most miserable of ties! Ned Hayward is one of those fine characters, faithful and courageous, which Mr. James is so particularly felicitous in delineating; indeed that gentleman has seldom succeeded in placing upon the stage a group of characters more clearly defined one from another, and yet working more admirably together. His old manor-houses, his way-side inns, his tit-bits of rural scenery, and even his interiors, are, also, all sketched off in his happiest vein, and it is not because this admirable novel first appeared in the pages of the New Monthly Magazine that we say it is one of his best, but because it is the general opinion of all who have read the latest of Mr. James's works. THE SCOTTISH CHURCH.† THE object which his grace, the Duke of Argyll, had in view in publishing this well-digested tome, so modestly designated an "essay," was to give a comprehensive sketch of the principles and tendencies of the Scottish reformation, to distinguish those which are primary and essential from those which, being the growth of accidental circumstances, are local in their origin, and as local in their meaning; and especially to point out the value of the former in the existing controversies of the Christian church. This was a noble task to undertake, and it fills the heart with gladness to think in how different a spirit that task has been undertaken to what would have actuated the noble duke's ancestor, Duncan, first Baron Campbell, or have influenced parties in the by-gone days of a persecuting church and of stern unyielding Covenanters. The noble lord speaks with a moderation and good sense upon the subject, that rivets, at once, both the reader's attention and his confidence, and we cannot but hope-it may be said in a somewhat latitudinarian spirit, but which we cannot help thinking is a Christian one-that this work will assist in the great cause of overthrowing prejudices. We are certain that both from its own great merits, the labour that has been bestowed on the work, and its moderate and sensible tone, as well as the quarter from whence it emanates, that it will meet with a most favourable reception. DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.+ THE principal points of historical importance in the third volume of this delightful, gossiping publication, relate to the Plague and the Fire, and the more amusing passages are those relating to Mrs. Knipp, the actress, and to the courtship and marriage of Sir George Carteret's son and the daughter of the Earl of Sandwich. When we add that the new matter fills nearly half the volume, some idea will be formed of the superiority of this edition to the old and now obsolete one. Elder. Beauchamp; or, the Error. By G. P. R. James, Esq. 3 vols. Smith and † Presbytery Examined; an Essay, Critical and Historical, on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland since the Reformation. By the Duke of Argyll. Edward Moxon. Diary of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Lord Braybrooke. Vol. III. Henry Colburn. TICK; OR, MEMOIRS OF AN OLD ETON BOY. BY CHARLES THE CASTLEREAGH MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE A GLIMPSE AT REPUBLICAN PARIS LAST MONTH Orders received by all Booksellers and Newsmen. AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE. A NEW AND REVISED EDITION OF CRICHTON: An Historical Romance, BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, ESQ. IS NOW PUBLISHING IN AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE. ILLUSTRATED BY HABLOT K. BROWNE. CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. AN ADVENTURE ON A WEDDING TOUR. BY DUDLEY COSTELLO. THERE is a rapid stream, passing, indeed, for a river in Wales, which finds its source in a hollow amid the dreary mountain moors above Tregaron, and in its descent to the sea forms the boundary for many miles between Cardiganshire on one side, and Carmarthenshire and Pembroke on the other. This stream, or river, is called the Teifi. It has been celebrated in song, from the days of Cadwallon to our own, for the romantic beauty of its shores-and it also boasts a celebrity of a more substantial nature, the excellent trout and salmon, the finest in the principality, which are caught in its waters. The angler who throws his fly in the favoured haunts above Lampeter,-the privileged fishermen of the weir at Cilgerran, or those who glide in light coracles beneath the shadow of the dark woods which in so many places overhang the stream, know full well the value of the produce of the Teifi, and rate their spoil accordingly. Royalty even has testified to the excellence of the Teifi salmon, for when the "sick epicure," George IV., passed through South Wales, he acknowledged it had given him a new sensation, and that none other was comparable to it. It might have been for the purpose of eating salmon only-for gastronomers, like lovers, little heed the space which separates them from the object of their desires,-or for the simple purpose of enjoying some of the finest scenery in South Wales, or, possibly, for both these reasons combined, that two travellers, a lady and a gentleman, directed their steps, in the early part of last summer, towards the course of this picturesque and pleasant river. We will not separate the fish from the waters in which they floated, and say that the gentleman solely admired the one and the lady the other, for the former had taste as well as a good appetite, and his fair companion was not so exclusive an admirer of the beauties of nature as to slight the creature-comforts which are usually rendered doubly welcome by the fatigues of travel. At the risk, then, of repetition, we may say, that the fame of the Teifi, in its most extended sense, had lured them, on this, their wedding tour, to cross the bare Carmarthen hills, and leave behind them the lovely vale of Towy, with all its countless beauties and enduring poetical associations. The picturesque character of Welsh scenery is a fact universally acknowledged, but there is nothing picturesque in the Welsh towns. For the most part they possess a ruined castle, but nothing beyond that to induce the traveller to linger long; -one or two inns, a bank, a markethouse, a town-hall-the houses of half-a-dozen solicitors and medical men, whose callings are emblazoned on the brass plates which decorate their doors, form the principal edifices that meet his eye-the rest are a mere heap of whitewashed cottages, mean in appearance, and not too pleasant on a closer inspection. Nov.-VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CCCXXXV. T Sights such as these are soon disposed of, and the newly-wedded couple of whom we have spoken-we may as well give them their names -Captain and Mrs. Howard-were more impatient to pursue their journey than loiter in Carmarthen, in spite of its being, as the Reverend Emilius Nicholson says, 66 one of the most polite towns in Wales." They travelled leisurely with their own light equipage, and it is the pleasantest way of travelling, especially in Wales, where the public conveyances are not of the first order-at least, those that cross the country. To all appearance, the four-in-hand mail-coach, which drew up in front of the Ivy Bush at Carmarthen, as Captain and Mrs. Howard were preparing to start, was a most orthodox and legitimate turn-out; but whoever trusted himself to the care of John Watkins, the driver, a merciful man to his beasts in one sense of the word, inasmuch as he rarely urged them beyond four miles an hour, would discover, at the close of a long summer's day, that in journeying from Carmarthen to Cardigan he had only accomplished a distance of thirty miles-a most humiliating fact to a traveller of any spirit. There were several reasons for this slowness of motion, the principal of which were the heaviness of the road across the hills, the enormous weight the horses had to drag, the roof of the coach as well as the inside being invariably crowded with sputtering red-faced natives, in light blue short-tailed coats, and plated silver buttons; but the chief cause was the extreme unwillingness of the aforesaid John Watkins to take leave of the roadside alehouses which, few and far between, it is true, were scattered on his way. It must, at the same time, be confessed, that the generality of the passengers of the "Pride of the Mountain," (as the coach was called, with a strong accent on the last syllable), were quite as fond of Crw dda as the Cambrian Jehu himself, and quite as willing as he to postpone business to pleasure. While his own horses were being put-to, Captain Howard was a good deal amused in watching the movements of the incongruous load of the Pride of the Mountain, but without entertaining any desire to form one of the party. Glowing with heat and-(as it seemed to him, in his ignorance of the uncouth language of the principality)-boiling over with passion, the choleric mountaineers rent and tore and clambered and gesticulated like beings possessed, until they had fought their way into their seats on the roof, when their rage seemed suddenly to subside, and they all began to talk together with so much vehemence, that had he even been a perfect master of the Welsh tongue, he must have owned himself at fault in his attempt to discover the subject of their conversation. It would scarcely have been more difficult to have tried to interpret the cawing of a whole rookery, or the screaming of a cloud of puffins and cormorants when they rise before the fowler's gun, so he gave up the vain endeavour. The Pride of the Mountain was at length ready to start, the last Welshman had climbed to his place, John Watkins had taken his seat, the reins were gathered up in his left-hand, and the whip in his right was circling with an ominous flourish, when another claimant appeared to share the vicissitudes of the journey. He spoke English-after a fashion-and in a loud voice, as he came panting and puffing up the street, called upon the coach to stop. "Mr. Wat-kins-Mr. Wat-kins! My heart to good-ness!-Mr. Wat-kins!—I am com-ing-I am com-ing!" |