Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the overthrow of British authority, we have no one to blame for it but ourselves.

And is there, on the habitable globe, a country that has more to dread from the left-handed policy that we are now pursuing in the Peninsula, than our own? With an empire extending to the extremities of the earth, upon which it may be literally said the sun never sets, we are vulnerable on all sides, in our foreign settlements, while even in the very heart of our dominions we cannot be said to be free from danger. Russia, with a wily ferocity, lies in watch for our possessions in the east; America, in the west, would have no objection, at our expense, to enlarge her borders; and can any one contemplate the condition of Ireland, and say that we are wholly secure against foreign or domestic enemies? Such is the condition of the country, the rulers of which have, as it were, given the initiative to a system of revolutionary intervention, which must excite the alarm, and provoke the indignation of every legitimate government in Europe. We leave the intelligent reader to consider the probable consequences of this, and to say whether, circumstanced as we are, in grasping at the shadow of a free constitution in Spain, we are not taking the most effectual means of destroying the substance of one in the British empire.

And has our interference been effectual in bringing the present contest to a speedy termination? Alas! no. We have only served to protract the miseries of this barbarous and unnatural contest. Our entrance upon the theatre of war, was a signal for repudiating the humanity by which its atrocities were beginning to be tempered; and, without being able to gain any decisive advantage for one party, we have just retarded the complete triumph of the other—a triumph which would have given the Spanish people a sovereign of their choice, who, whatever may be his character, could not, by possibility, be worse than the thousand vulgar scheming tyrants who are at present trampling upon their ancient institutions, and exhibiting, wherever an opportunity presents itself, the insolence of despots, the cupidity of stock jobbers, the manners of profligates, and the ferocity of barbarians.

But it is even doubtful how far the cause of the Queen has been served by our influence, and there are individuals of no mean authority by whom it is VOL. IX.

considered positively injurious. The following passage from the triumphant speech of Sir Robert Peel, is well worthy, on the part of the advocates of interference, of the most grave consideration::

If either

"The noble lord opposite said that if the Spanish government had shown half the energy and activity which had been exhibited by General Evans, the war would long since have been brought to an end. But what was the cause of that inactivity on behalf of the Spanish generals? It might arise from the reliance placed by a nation like Spain, in the aid of a neighbour when that neighbour began to interfere, or it might arise from a jealousy of that interference. of these were the ruling causes of the inactivity on the part of the Spanish generals, it was clear that this country, by her intervention, obstructed the successful termination of this contest, and would preclude the satisfactory establishment of constitutional liberty in Spain. While he would adhere with the most perfect good faith to every obligation-while he would give the assistance of a more effective naval force if it could be supplied, yet he would shrink from the extension of the treaty beyond its legitimate object-he was to contend against the commencement of a system which would bring his Majesty's troops, marine or infantry, into collision with the Spanish people. It was on these grounds that he should support the resolution proposed by his right hon. and gallant friend, and he hoped that those hon. gentlemen who were averse to the ravages of war would well consider what the effect would be if they lent the sanction of their high authority to the extension of the principle. Men of different political opinions might well on this occasion combine in support of the resolution of his right hon. and gallant friend. Those who thought that when a great country like England interfered, it ought forces immediately under its own orders to do so by the application of military and control, and responsible to the government, might protest against the continuance of the British Legion; those who think with the highest military authority in England that the cause of liberty in Spain never will be promoted by foreign interference, may agree to that resolution; those who concur in deprecating the employment of an ill-disciplined army, not subject to the military rules of their own country, may object to the continuance of the British Legion in Spain; those who took higher views and who thought that the subjects of one nation were not justified in destroying the lives of another people to raise a single name, and who

20

held that warfare should be limited to cases of extreme peril, or the necessity for vindicating the national honour, might unite in support of the resolution of his right hon. and gallant friend; those, also, who hesitated as to the justice of this country interfering to correct political errors, and to punish the unfortunate inhabitants of the Basque provinces for their fidelity, which all admired-all these might combine in deprecating the continuance of this species of armed interference with the affairs of Spain, and the extension of the treaty beyond its legitimate objects. There were other powerful reasons for discouraging and terminating this warfare. The violation of a principle hitherto held sacred, which forbade one nation dictating to other countries their legitimate governor or the form of constitution under which they should live. Again, the signal failure of the experiment as to the promotion of the object for which it was intended, and the probable excitation of the jealousies of the Spanish nation, and their fears lest the constitution should be unstable because it was not created by native hands—all these were considerations in favour of the resolution now before the house. Depend upon it the public gorge was rising against

The

the continuance of this system. people of England saw men returning without pay, in distress and destitution; visible appeals to the sympathies of their countrymen, appeals much more powerful than any argument that could be offered, and calculated by such an exhibition of the British uniform to raise a prejudice. It would, therefore, be no shame to discontinue a system which could only bring discredit on this nation, and would terminate with no benefit to Spain. The house had been told that there would be bonfires at St. Petersburgh, and rejoicings in the camp of Don Carlos; but let not the house be scared by such considerations. Better that those bonfires should be seen,

and those acclamations heard, than that hon. members should be upbraided by the remorse of their own consciences for lending themselves to a course of policy, which experiment had proved futile beyond the possibility of a doubt."

And now, we, for the present, take our leave of this important subject. To the vulgar cant, of advocating the cause of despotism, because we freely express our objections to the course that has been pursued for the purpose of giving a foreign and factious support to a revolutionary throne that is merely a masque to cover a sanguinary democracy, we deign no reply. Suffice it to say, it is known, by those who utter it, to be utterly and absolutely false, and can now impose upon no one who is not desirous of being deceived. We enter not into the domestic concerns of a country with whose internal regulations we have nothing to do. We would rigidly practise towards others the same rule which we desire to be observed towards ourselves ; and as long as our neighbours continued peaceably disposed towards us, and as long as their form of government did not threaten us with any immediate peril, so long we would hold ourselves unjustifiable in preventing them from moulding and fashioning their institutions in the manner most agreeable to themselves. That our rulers have not done so, in the case of Spain, we deeply regret; and our regret would be the same, if, instead of interfering in support of a wild and impracticable democracy, they had interfered for the opposite purpose, and sought, by force of arms, to impose an obnoxious legitimate sovereign, upon a people ripe for and desirous of constitutional freedom.

HIGHLAND RAMBLES. *

We believe it was Sir John Malcolm who sensibly observed that "he who desires to be well acquainted with a people, will not reject their popular stories, or local superstitions."

The

rude traditions which from father to son have been transmitted through, perhaps, a decade of generations, contain, we may safely assert, in every clime, some true indications of national history and character; and though encumbered with the additions of each successive narrator, obscured by the failing memory, or distorted by the patriotic vanity or superstitious ignorance of their depositaries, furnish often most valuable and sometimes the only -guides to discovering the habits, religion, and origin of those to whom they relate, and with whose characteristic traits it is no illogical or strained inference to believe them strongly impressed. We are, therefore, well disposed to consider the wanderer, who goes about from hut to hamlet, through wilds and glades, and the less crowded haunts of mankind, noting down the ancient stories and marvellous tales of village sages, and sylvan chroniclers, as a labourer by no means contemptible in the great field of literature. The grave historiographer, it is true, who, in the dusty nook of some dimlit and antique library, pores over the written memorials of past times, may not as readily admit this fact as we do; and yet we believe that the man of legends will be found to furnish, upon the whole, his due quota of value in historic investigation, and like the gaze-hound, who runs upon the more obvious and rapid sense of sight, often. recovers the object of their common search, when it has baffled by distance the slower sagacity of the other.

Scotland is peculiarly rich in traditionary lore, more especially in relics of a comparatively recent period. She has had, in addition, the good fortune to have her tales of border warfare, and feudal chivalry, of mailed barons and kilted lairds, recorded by the ablest pens, and drest in all the attractions which the inspiration of romance and poetry could throw around them, till at the present day little of her soil is without some hallowing recollection,

and the foot of the traveller can tread no glade, or crag, or highland moor, that heroic feat, or stern revenge, or tender love-tryste has not sanctified. And yet that somewhat is still left for the sedulous gleaner to collect, even amidst the storied Highlands of Scotland, the appearance of the volumes now before us evidences.

Sir Thomas Dick Lauder has already more than once solicited, and obtained, the approbation of the literary world as a philosopher, a novelist, a man of taste and erudition; and we confess the fault, if fault it be, of taking up his "Highland Rambles," not with a predisposition to be pleased with what we should find in them, but certainly with a presentiment that we should find much to be pleased with; and, indeed, though we can lay no claim to the second-sight of his own gifted compatriots, yet we can now assert that our presentiment has not deceived us.

To the first part of its title, our author's work can lay little claim, and in so far we are bound to admit we felt some disappointment. There are, indeed, many excellent descriptions of local scenery throughout, yet they have the impress rather of feelings which arise from the memory of past contemplation, than of present survey, and suggest not to our minds the idea of one who speaks with a full heart of what his eye is then dwelling upon. Besides, we meet few travelling incidents, or the circumstances and vitalities, if we may so say, of a real tour; so that it would not be very difficult to persuade us that the worthy baronet -as was once insinuated of Brydoneperformed his "Ramble" within the precincts of his own study, or even upon the cushions of his easy chair, with, it may be, now and then a snatch of slumber, to suggest some romantic accident, or heighten the coloring of a ghost story-the rather as the locale, if our memory serves us, lies in the neighbourhood of his own mansion, and every inch of the ground well known

to

our intelligent author. Yet it would not be just to refuse altogether his own explanation of the matter, as "the brown heaths, and black plashy bogs" that stretch away from the ro

Highland Rambles, and Long Legends to shorten the Way. Dick Lauder, Bart. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh: Adam and Black.

By Sir Thomas 1837.

mantic Valley of the Findhorn towards Grantown-for such was the extent of the tour-afford little for the pen to record, either of romantic scenery, or way-faring adventure; and we fully admit that Sir Thomas has chosen the best possible substitute for those general accessories of touring, and we give our award that the "long legends" of himself and his pleasant companionsbe they fictitious or real personages— have quite reconciled us, as they did, or might have reconciled them to the dreariness of their moorland journey.

We have said there are many and excellent descriptive scenes in these volumes, and we will now offer one from amongst them, though it may almost seem to put in hazard the correctness of our opinion on this subject, and the propriety of the inference we have drawn from it. It is full of the true perceptive feeling of the beautiful in nature a sweet picture of the repose of still life, with just so much animation as by contrast deepens that repose, till it sinks with double tenderness into the heart :

"The sun had not yet disappeared behind the mountains on the western side of Loch Lomond, and the unruffled surface of the lake was gleaming with his parting rays, when the Laird of Macfarlane, as he was returning from the chase, looked down from the ridge of a hill over the glorious scene that lay extended beneath him. His eyes travelled far along the calm expanse of the waters, till they lost themselves in the distance, amid the tufted and clustering islands, which lay glittering in the fleeting light like gems on the bosom of Beauty, he then recalled them along the romantic undulations and irregularities of its shores, to dwell with peculiar pride and inward satisfaction on the wide stretch of those rich and smiling pastures which he could call his own, and on the numerous herds of cattle which his vassals were then driving to their home-grazings for the night. All was still and silent around, save when the quiet of the balmy evening air was gently broken by those rural sounds which, when blended together and softened by distance, as they then were to Macfarlane's ear, never fail to produce a musical harmony, that thrills to the very heart of the true lover of nature. The lowing of the cattle-the occasional prolonged shouts of the herdsmen-the watchful bark of their attendant dogs, careful to permit no individual of their charge to stray from the main body-the shrill and solitary scream of

the eagle, coming from the upper regions of the sky, as he soared to his place of repose amid the towering crags of Ben Lomond-and, lastly, the mingled cawing of the retreating army of rooks as they wheeled away in black battalions, to seek for undisturbed roost among the branches of that forest which then filled the whole country, from Loch Lomond to Glen Urchay, with a dark and interminable sea of foliage."

This is really good, and, if not poetry is strongly tinctured with the true poetic spirit. Why there be those we wot of-but "comparisons are odious"-who write themselves down poets and flourish in certain little gaudy, gold and satin clad tomes (whose periodic times are the same as our own planet) that would think such a morsel a valuable stock in trade. Nay, let them have such stuff for material, with a ten foot rule to snip it into lengths by, and Walker's Rhyming Dictionary (the blessings of unbitten nails, and unbeaten walls, rest for ever on that dear head) to set the lines a jingling, and, our life upon it, they will trick you out as pretty a piece of descriptive pastoral withal, as ever gladdened the ears of a cockney, even on a May morning, when Bow-bells were ringing.

Sir Thomas, too, is no unskilful hand at a darker scene, where suffering, and mortal anguish, and the deep despair of unflinching hearts are to be depicted. See how, with a few touches, he sketches the outline of such a picture, a youth's pencil may fill in the coloring of the piece.

[ocr errors]

They rolled themselves into the shallow pool, and wallowed together in a knot. They gasped like dying men, and their eye-balls glared and started from their sockets with the agony they endured; and in their utter despair they sucked the muddy water of the lochan in which they lay, to cool their burning mouths and throats. Macfarlane felt as if they had been already consigned to the purifying pains of that purgatory through which, as his religion told him, their guilty souls must pass. Their bewildered brains spun round, and strange and terrific shapes seemed to pass before their eyes.

Some short ejaculations for mercy were breathed, but not a groan, nor a word, nor a sound of complaint, was permitted to escape from any one of their manly breasts, even although the pool, their last frail hope, was now fast drying up from the intensity of the heat"

The legend of "Big John the Renter" is in itself admirable, and admirably narrated, abounding in passages of unforced and felicitous humour, depicting so naturally the generous simple-mindedness of the giant highlander, that we cannot resist the temptation of epitomising some of its incidents, though we are conscious that, in so doing, we must in no small degree infringe on the excellencies to which we have alluded, and diminish the force of the whole.

Ian More Arrach, as he was called from his lofty stature and his occupation of renting cows for their milk, was a man of great symmetry and surprising strength, who led a simple homadal life among the hills of his native Ross-shire, save when an occasional fair brought him to the villages to dispose of his cheeses. On one of those visits it was his fortune to be attracted by "the red, and tinsel, and silk, and wool and feather glories" of a recruiting serjeant, to whom he soon, in his turn, became an object of anxions speculation. The warrior, as might be expected, resolves on a conquest; his party are halted opposite to where Ian stood; one or two shrill shrieks of the fife and a roll of the drum are succeeded by a martial oration, and the delighted Ian is inveigled to enter a tent and drink bumpers to the king's health. All the customary allurements are put in operation, but the rustic's head is made of less excitable material than

the serjeant had calculated, and, having drained the ale-can to the bottom, he quietly remarks,

"Troth she maun be goin' her ways home; she has a far gate to traivil.”

"Stuff," cried the serjeant; "surely you cannot have forgotten you have taken the king's money."

Our hero, with downright simplicity and the most amusing gravity, mildly denies the inference that he has voluntarily enlisted. The man of war replies; Ian rejoins, and is making for the door when the serjeant arrests him. "Troth, she wudna' be wussin' to hort her,' said Ian, lifting up the serjeant like a child, before he knew where he was; 'but sit doon tere, oot o' ta way, till her nainsell redds hersel of ta lave, and wuns awa'.'

"Making two strides with his burden towards a large cask of ale that stood on end in one corner of the place, he set the gallant hero down so forcibly on the top of it, that the crazy rotten boards gave

way, and he was crammed backwards, in a doubled up position, into the yawning mouth of the profound, whilst surges of beer boiled and frothed up around him. Ian would have charitably relieved the man from so disagreeable a situation, which was by no means that which he had intended him to occupy; but, ere he wist, he was assailed by the whole party like a swarm of bees. The place of strife was sufficiently narrow, a circumstance much in favour of the light troops, who now made a simultaneous movement on him, with the intention of prostrating him on and nothing could budge him; whilst, at the ground, but he stood like a colossus, the same time, he never dealt a single blow as if at all in anger, but ever and anon, as his hands became so far liberated as to enable him to seize on one of his

assailants, he wrenched him away from his own person, and tossed him from him, either forth of the tent door, or as far at least as its bounds would allow, some falling among the hampers and boxessome falling like a shower upon the poor owners of the booth-and some falling upon the unfortunate serjeant. The rednosed priestess of this fragile temple of Bacchus, shrieked in sweet harmony with the groans of the knock-kneed and broken down tailor, and in the midst of the melee, one unhappy recruit, who was winging his way through the air from the powerful projectile force of Ian More, came like a chain-shot against the upright poles of the tent-the equilibrium of its whole system was destroyed-down came the cross beam-the covering blankets collapsed and sank--and, in a moment, nothing appeared to the eyes of those without but a mighty heap, that heaved and groaned underneath like some volcanic mountain in labour previous to an eruption. And an eruption to be sure there was--for, to the great astonishment of the whole market people, Ian More Arrach's head suddenly appeared through a rent that took place in the rotten blanket, with his face in a red hot state breath. After panting like a porpus for of perspiration, and his mouth gasping for. a few seconds, he made a violent effort,

reared himself upon his legs, and thrusting his feet out at the aperture, which had served as a door to the tent, he fled away with all the effect of a fellucca under a press of sail, buffetting his way through the multitude of people and cattle, as a vessel would toss aside the opposing billows; and then shooting like a meteor up the side of the mountain that flanked the strath, he left his flowing drapery behind him in fragments and shreds adhering to every bush he passed by, bounded like a stag over its sky line,

« AnteriorContinuar »