a careless observer would be disposed to ally him, takes his seat on the bench of the historians of his time and country.  In this proud assembly, and in no mean place of it, we are disposed to rank the author of these works; for we again express our conviction—­and we desire to be understood to use the term as distinguished from knowledge—­that they are all the offspring of the same parent.  At once a master of the great events and minuter incidents of history, and of the manners of the times he celebrates, as distinguished from those which now prevail,—­the intimate thus of the living and of the dead, his judgment enables him to separate those traits which are characteristic from those that are generic; and his imagination, not less accurate and discriminating than vigorous and vivid, presents to the mind of the reader the manners of the times, and introduces to his familiar acquaintance the individuals of his drama as they thought and spoke and acted.  We are not quite sure that any thing is to be found in the manner and character of the Black Dwarf which would enable us, without the aid of the author’s information, and the facts he relates, to give it to the beginning of the last century; and, as we have already remarked, his free-booting robber lives, perhaps, too late in time.  But his delineation is perfect.  With palpable and inexcusable defects in the denouement, there are scenes of deep and overwhelming interest; and every one, we think, must be delighted with the portrait of the Grandmother of Hobbie Elliott, a representation soothing and consoling in itself, and heightened in its effect by the contrast produced from the lighter manners of the younger members of the family, and the honest but somewhat blunt and boisterous bearing of the shepherd himself.

The second tale, however, as we have remarked, is more adapted to the talents of the author, and his success has been proportionably triumphant.  We have trespassed too unmercifully on the time of our gentle readers to indulge our inclination in endeavouring to form an estimate of that melancholy but, nevertheless, most attractive period in our history, when by the united efforts of a corrupt and unprincipled government, of extravagant fanaticism, want of education, perversion of religion, and the influence of ill-instructed teachers, whose hearts and understandings were estranged and debased by the illapses of the wildest enthusiasm, the liberty of the people was all but extinguished, and the bonds of society nearly dissolved.  Revolting as all this is to the Patriot, it affords fertile materials to the Poet.  As to the beauty of the delineation presented to the reader in this tale, there is, we believe, but one opinion:  and we are persuaded that the more carefully and dispassionately it is contemplated, the more perfect will it appear in the still more valuable qualities of fidelity and truth.  We have given part of the evidence on which we say this, and we will again recur to the