less were they of the dictates of humanity, that even the parties which were in the act of conveying the wounded from place to place, escaped not without molestation. More than one such party was dispersed by grapeshot, and more than one poor maimed soldier was in consequence hurled out of the blanket in which he was borne. The reader will not doubt me when I say, that seldom has the departure of daylight been more anxiously look ed for by me, than we looked for it now. It is true, that the arrival of a little rum towards evening, served in some slight degree to elevate our spirits; but we could not help feeling, not vexation only, but positive indignation, at the state of miserable inaction to which we were condemned. There was not a man amongst us, who would have hesitated one moment, had the choice been submitted to him, whether he would advance or lie still. True, we might have suffered a little, because the guns of the schooner entirely commanded us; and in rushing out from our place of concealment, some casualties would have occurred; but so irksome was our situation, that we would have readily run all risks to change it. It suited not the plans of our General, however, to indulge these wishes. To the bank we were enjoined to cling; and we did cling to it, from the coming in of the first gray twilight of the morning, till the last twilight of evening had departed. As soon as it was well dark, the corps to which Charlton and myself were attached, received orders to file off to the right. We obeyed, and passing along the front of the hospital, we skirted to the rear of the village, and established ourselves in the field beyond. It was a positive blessing this restoration to something like personal freedom. The men set busily to work, lighting fires and cooking provisions;-the officers strolled about, with no other apparent design than to give employment to their limbs, which had become stiff with so protracted a state of inaction. For ourselves, we visited the wounded, said a few kind words to such as we recognized, and pitied, as they deserved to be pitied, the rest. Then retiring to our fire, we addressed ourselves with hearty good will to a frugal supper, and gladly composed ourselves to sleep. CYRIL THORNTON." THIS is the Story of a Life, and we do not know that we ever read any piece of fictitious biography with a stronger feeling of all its chief transactions being founded in truth. Its power lies in its reality. The reader, every leaf he turns, becomes better and better and better acquainted-not with an abstraction-a shadow-but with a living flesh-and-blood man and gentleman. At the close of the third volume, he is proud and happy to add Cyril Thornton to the list of his friends, and has only to regret that he had not sooner known so very agreeable, accomplished, and gallant a person. The Colonel, no doubt, has his peculiarities; but who worth knowing is without them? And be his faults what they may, he is never tiresome-nor a proser-an arguera logician-a political economist-a critic-a poet-or any other one of those many pests that now so infest civilized society, that not a day passes without a Bore big enough to make a man of sense wish that he had been born a Zimmerman in solitude. Cyril Thornton is an autobiographer, and we cannot too much admire his skill in the use of the first pronoun personal. Not one man in a million has "graced his cause by speaking of himself," from the Confessions of Jean Jaques Rousseau to those of the cele brated English Opium Eater. With them all, it is ever-Ego et Rex meus. But Colonel Thornton is never either egotistical or arrogant, although necessarily the hero of his own tale. He does not exult offensively either in his pleasures or his pains his triumphs or his trials-his virtues or his vices. He seems to have written his Memoirs, chiefly to amuse himself by recalling old remembrances, merry or mourn The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton. 3 vols. post 8vo. W. Blackwood, Edinburgh; and T. Cadell, London. Cyril Thornton. ful, and conjuring up in that tranquil retirement in which he is now an act ing Justice of Peace, some of those troubled, and, indeed, sanguinary scenes, in which his youth was engaged, when serving his Majesty with equal zeal and devotedness as a soldier. There is a charm in his style, so simple and graceful, that carries one along, even when the subject-matter of the Memoirs may not be either very important or very interesting; while, on occasions of passion and peril, it rises into what well deserves to be called eloquence-not that wordy and windy eloquence so prevalent now-adays-but, at its highest elevation, classical and concise, uniting the easy and natural language of the man of the world, with the selected and polished diction of the scholar. In this age of exaggeration, too, it is pleasanter than we can tell to keep perusing away at a book in three volumes, in which there is not a single attempt made, but one-and an eminently unsuccessful one it is-to take the reader by surprise-to overwhelm him by some sudden storm of passion-or some unexpected catastrophe. Sufferings, both of mind and body, are described, manifold and severe; but the misery is never more than mortal man may endure-the sun is rarely a whole day behind a cloud. Cyril, when moralizing, is ordered to marchthe Subaltern on no occasion preaches an absolute sermon-although fighting be his profession, his bravery unimpeachable, and his patriotism thoroughly English, he has no liking to blows and blood, merely for their own sake; as far as we remember, he does not kill one Frenchman with his own hand, nor does the regiment to which he has the honour to belong, always, like the Forty-second, decide the victory by a charge of bayonets. On the contrary, he is more than once wounded and taken prisoner; and his company occasionally cut to pieces. He does not, in good truth, throughout his whole professional career, exhibit any very extraordinary skill, discretion, or enterprise; and yet we feel assured all the while that he was an excellent officer-pleasant at mess formidable in the field-and honourably mentioned, even, in one of Lord Wellington's dispatches. We really could not point to any [July, book of the kind, in which, with equal power exerted, there is so little appearance of effort. We never see him (sad sight) straining at up-hill work, much less attempting to fly. There is here no hammering. When puts it to death. Cyril Thornton, aca chapter threatens to be tiresome, he cordingly, is one of the few books that may be read aloud to unsleeping auditors; perused in bed without danger of setting fire to the curtains. in one-two-three-or four volumes, To write even an indifferent novel it requires to be a man or woman considerably above the common run. Ladies and gentlemen, who are clever circle, have no notion what bad books in conversation, and the oracles of a they would write. Their sharpest Their sketches of character, so sarcasthings would be pointless in print, tic and true to nature over the silver tea-pot or china punch-bowl, would they are on the conduct of other not do at all in boards. Severe as people's stories-and to hear such critics talk in company, there never was they could not keep their own. a well-conducted story in this world hero or heroine from falling into the ly exchanging sexes. fire for six chapters, or from apparentflections on human nature, life, and Then their remanners! deeply versed as you are in all the No, no, Miss Peggygossip of Glasgow-No, no, Miss Meggy-mistress though you be of neither the one nor the other of you all the tittle-tattle of Modern Athens, (shake not your carroty locks at us) Minerva Press. Yet your letters to could furnish manuscript even for the private correspondents are said to conNovels and Romances of the Great tain passages equal to anything in the Unknown. We are sorry to say it ;but a slight and slender stock of sense, if accompanied with a natural gift of cient to set up in the critic trade any vulgarity and impertinence, is suffielderly spinster or bachelor, in metropolitan city, provincial town, or rural clachan. But, we repeat it, to write anything, however poor or insipid, in chapters, all following one another, the shape of a novel-divided into according to a sort of scheme in the author's head-and we ask no more rior order indeed to those of the emis -demands abilities of a very supe nent persons above alluded to, and such as justly entitle their possessors to considerable affection and respect. Now if such credit be due to anything, male or female, in the shape of an author at all, what shall we say of those gentlemen or ladies who produce novels that are absolutely first-rate? Why, that they deserve to live for ever. Is Cyril Thornton a work of this description? We think it is-and that more genius, talent, and knowledge have gone to the composition of it than would be necessary to make the three cleverest unpublishing elderly maiden ladies in the United Kingdoms-one English, one Irish, and one Scotch, the three most promising young men at these bars,-the three best preachers under thirty in our protestant establishments,-flinging in, to boot, several well-informed and able country gentlemen, and a few superior persons of no particular profession about town. We hope that we have too much sense and feeling to give an analysis of any work. A book, we presume, is written to be read-but in itself, not in a Magazine. A book, especially, of which the charm and fascination are in its progressive movement of incident and passion, must, on no account whatever, be analysed—unless, indeed, you are a private enemy to the author-in which case we recommend a minute and masterly analysis. It is the business of a critic in a periodical work, not to deaden, but excite-not to murder, but keep alive the interest of the public in a good novel. And this he best does, not by publishing chapters of contents of all the three volumes-but by adverting to a striking scene here an original character there -by amusing, or even enchanting the reader with little remarks and discussions of his own, as they naturally arise out of the work under review and above all, by-copious extract. Even in a critical article of Mr Jeffrey's, we begin with the extractsand having enjoyed or suffered them, we then indulge ourselves-and to us they are always a treat,-in a few of that ingenious gentleman's opinions. Being no respecter of persons, we do the same with Mr Lockhart. We either have, or imagine we have, a pretty good guess at the general tenor or drift of that very elegant and acute critic's observations on any new work of divinity, or the belles lettres,-so leaving them alone for a few minutes, without fearing that they will cool, we eat up the elegant extracts. As we act to others, so would we wish them to act towards us-and therefore trust that Mr Jeffrey and Mr Lockhart, in perusing our Magazine, will imitate Christopher North's mode of travelling through the Edinburgh and Quarterly. Perhaps it might not be much amiss if these justly distinguished critics were likewise to imitate our mode of writing, as well of readingBut we are deviating from the line we had chalked out for ourselves in this article-so let us return from our episode. Cyril Thornton is well-born. "The stock of which I have the honour to be a scion, is one of ancient descent and spotless blazon. Though untitled, its dignity had always been baronial; and the frequency with which the names of my ancestors occur in the county records, as filling offices of trust and dignity, shows their influence to have been considerable. While it is due to truth and my progenitors to state this much, I am quite ready to confess that our familytree has produced no very distinguished fruit. Its branches have never been pendent with the weight of poets, heroes, statesmen, or philosophers. If they have writ our annals right,' births, marriages, and deaths, the sale or purchase of lands, the building of a house, or a donation to the parish church or county hospital, were generally the only events sufficiently salient to afford footing even for the partial eloquence of a family historian. But if I have little reason to boast, I have certainly none to blush for my ancestors. They were English gentlemen, fulfilling with propriety the duties of their situation, generally respectable in their relations to society, and leaving, when dead, nothing either to point a moral or adorn a tale." The simplicity and spirit of such an opening paragraph augurs well of a book. We like Cyril on our first introduction, and know at once that he is a scholar and a gentleman. It is pleasant for people to think on their own genealogics, provided there be written evidence of their ever having had a grandfather; but it is tiresome to climb any other Family-Tree so we leave Cyril Thornton to enjoy his own descent. He favours us, too, with characters of his father and mother, which we have no doubt are well and truly drawn, especially the former who must have been a very painful old gentleman; nor do we wonder that his son, although by nature affectionate, regarded him with little filial love. Some of the early chapters, however, in which the miserable cause is stated of their mutual alienation, and, on the unhappy father's part, of strong dislike, and even aversion, are to us somewhat repulsive; nor can we help wishing that they had been altogether different. Such things have been, and may be again; but why, from the wide range of nature's affections, and of this life's fates and fortunes, select such as cannot be dwelt on with sympathy, and that, instead of softening or elevating, shock and almost degrade our being? Cyril, when a mere boy, accidentally shoots his brother; the lamentable event not only turns his father's heart away from the survivor, but changes love into hate; and thenceforth the wretched youth is odious to the very eyes of his parent. There is no want of power in these delineations; but it is power, in our opinion, grievously misapplied; nor does it appear to us that this rueful catastrophe was in any sense necessary; for it is not made very deeply to colour Cyril's after-life,-and the author, feeling, we suppose, the difficulty of dealing with such a cause of distraction, or with its effects, scarcely ever alludes to it afterwards, and then on occasions of no great interest or importance. Parental and filial affection are too, we think, such sacred things, that it is a pity wilfully to do them any-the slightest wrong; and although there are some touches of pathos in the vain efforts of the son to feel as a son, in spite of all the cruelty and injustice of which he is the victim, it is not possible to regard the father, in his sullen, and stubborn, and inflexible hatred of his own flesh and blood, without such feelings of repug nance and disgust as should never be excited in any bosom. Their excitation is in direct hostility to the end of all fictitious narrative. Feelings of a very different kind are awakened by poor Cyril's visit to Glasgow. He is sent to the celebrated University of that city, to be under the immediate tuition, and to live in the house of that excellent man and ingenious writer Professor Richardson, whose Essays, by the by, on some of the characters of Shakspeare are among the best in our language, and prove the Professor to have been indeed a Philosopher. Cyril's first impressions on looking out of the window of his bed-roomin the Black Bull we have reason to believe-are thus briefly described : gazed from the window of my inn, on the "And this,' said I to myself, as I crowd and bustle in the street below this is Glasgow!-this the chosen seat of Science and the Muses--this the academic quiet, in which the mind of youth is to be nursed in the calm abstractions of philosophy! There was, indeed, rather a ludicrous contrast between the ideas I had conjured up, and the scene before me; and I could scarcely regard it without smiling. In the centre of the street, waggons, loaded with merchandize of different sorts, passed without intermission; and on the trottoirs, two opposing torrents of passengers were pouring along with extreme rapidity, and with looks full of anxiety and business. Of these some would occasionally stop for a and vulgar laugh mingled anon with the moment's conversation, on which a loud prevailing dissonance, and added unnecessarily to the general cacophony. Their gait and gestures, too, were singularly awkward and ungainly, and differed not only in degree, but in character, from anything I had before seen.” He soon finds his way to the College. "At length, the appearance of an ancient and venerable building, informed me that I stood in presence of the University. There is certainly something fine and imposing in its proud and massive front. It seems to stand forth in aged dignity, the last and only bulwark of science and liscience is regarded but as a source of terature, among a population by whom profit, and literature despised. On passing the outer gate, I entered a small quadrangle, which, though undistinguishty, yet harmonized well, in its air of Goed by any remarkable architectural beauthic antiquity, with the general character larger dimensions, of features not dissiof the place. This led to another of milar; and having crossed this, a turn to the left brought me to a third, of more appropriated to the residence of the Promodern construction, which was entirely fessors. There was something fine and impressive in the sudden transition from the din and bustle of the streets which surround it, to the stillness and the calm which reign within the time-hallowed precincts of the University. I seemed at once to breathe another and a purer at mosphere; and I thought in my youthful enthusiasm, that here I could cast off the coil of the world and its contemptible realities, and yield up my spirit to the lore of past ages, where I saw nothing round me to intrude the idea of the present." The term or session of the College had not commenced, and Cyril was advised by the Professor to lose no time in waiting on his uncle Mr Spreul. Nothing can be better than everything relating to this old gentleman. His housekeeper, Girzy, too, is a perfect jewel. The two figure through a considerable part of the first volume, and throw fine strong Rembrandtish light on each other's appearance, manners, and character. We understand them both thoroughly-we feel them both intensely-and we almost venture to flatter ourselves that the first germ of Girzy may be found in an early number of this Magazine. But Mr David Spreul is perfectly original—and his picture alone is sufficient to give him who drew it a high character as a portrait-painter. Cyril mixes freely with the best society in the city of Glasgow-and enjoys himself largely in its many fascinations-not neglecting, however, his academical studies, and making a more than respectable figure in the Logic Class. The following is his description of a dinner-party in the house of the chief Magistrate of the Second City of the Empire: "On the day, and precisely at the hour indicated, I was at the door of the Lord Provost. His house was situated in a small square, of a sombre and dreary as pect, the centre of which, instead of being as usual laid out in walks and shrub bery, was, with true mercantile sagacity, appropriated to the more profitable purpose, of grazing a few smoky and dirtylooking sheep. It was certainly not pleasant to approach the house of feasting amid the plaintive bleatings of these miserable starvelings; but there was no time to be sentimental, and, like the Lady Baussiere, I passed on. On being admitted into the hall, I was received by two servants in the Royal livery, a circumstance of magnificence for which I was certainly not prepared. The truth 87 was, however, as I have since discovered, that a male domestic formed no part of the ordinary establishment of the Lord City Guard, or, as they were more geneProvost, and these were a couple of the rally called, Town's Officers,' admitted, pro loco et tempore, to assume the functions of livery servants. I was in the act of divesting myself of my hat and greatcoat, when I heard the following question put in a bawling voice from the landing place of the stair above. "Hector, what ca' ye him?' "Iettle he's a young Englishman frae the College,' answered Hector. "I carena whare he's frae,' returned the other, but I want his name. Didua I tell baith you and Duncan, to cry oot a' the names to me, that they may be properly annoonced?' mistake, and I speedily heard my name "Hector lost no time in rectifying his reverberated, in a voice like thunder, through every corner of the mansion. The person from whose lungs this ima large stout man, with a head like a bull's, mense volume of sound proceeded, was and a huge carbuncled nose. bespoke him to belong to the same corps His dress with his brethren below, and he was in fact no other than the person who offici. ated as town-crier, commonly known by the familiar soubriquet of Bell Geordy. His duty of announcing the guests being somewhat analogous to his usual avocation, he appeared to discharge it con amore, and proclaimed every successive arrival in the same monotonous and stentorian tones, in which he was accustomed to give public intimation of the arrival of a cargo of fresh herrings at the Broomielaw. Bell Geordy, too, was a wit, and did not scruple occasionally to subjoin in an under tone, some jocular remark on the character or person of the guests as he announced them. "The drawing-room into which I was ushered, was evidently an apartment not usually inhabited by the family, but kept for occasions of display. The furniture it contained was scanty, but gaudy; the chairs were arranged in formal order against the walls; and there were flowerstands in the windows, displaying some half-dozen scraggy myrtles, and geraniums, with leaves approaching to the colour of mahogany. The room was cold; for the fire, which had evidently been only recently lighted, sent up volumes of smoke, but no flame; and when I looked on it, I remembered to have passed a dirty maid-servant on the stair, with the kitchen bellows in her hand. On my entrance, I found I was the first of the |