ILLUSTRATIONS, &c.

Ir is to be regretted that Mr Galt's own remarks on "The Entail"-that work in which the force and variety of his peculiar talents are the most prominently exhibited-are so few and short. They are simply these:

"The Entail is founded on an anecdote related to me by the present Lord Provost of Glasgow, [Robert Grahame, Esq. of Whitehill.] The sunny summer storm was introduced to allow of a description of the northern coast of Scotland, which I very vividly received from Miss Sinclair, a daughter of the distinguished baronet. The work is considered among my best, and has been honoured by the particular approbation of two distinguished men, to whose judgment the bravest critic will defer. I was told by a friend that Sir Walter Scott thought so well of it as to have read it thrice-a tribute to its deservings that any author would be proud of; and the Earl of Blessington not only wrote to me that Lord Byron had also read it three times, but, when we afterwards met, reported his lordship's opinion still more flatteringly."

The Earl of Blessington's note was as follows:—

"Montjoy Forest, Omagh, County Tyrone, "August 8, 1823.

"MY DEAR GALT,-Yours followed me here, where, if you do come to Ireland this month, I shall be truly happy to see you, and give the best accommodation this poor cottage will afford.

"Lady B is at Naples, and, I believe, pursuing her account of what she sees, and marks, and inwardly digests.

"I got a copy of Ringhan Gilhaize,' mais, entre nous, je ne l'aime pas.-Ever yours most truly,

"Lord Byron read The Entail' three times."

"B.

"There is more in this little (French) expression," adds Mr Galt, "than appears. To me, however, it is very plain. The Earl of Blessington was, in my opinion, one of the politest men— taking as my standard, respect for the feelings of others; indeed, for delicacy I never met with his equal. In such a matter as this, a genuine man of the world would have been civilly complimentary; an honest man used sterling English; and a Sir John Brute have said that the book was d-d bad. His lordship's tact was in employing the medium of a foreign language to convey an opinion I am sure was sincere.

"But it was not the favourable sentiments of the two first geniuses of the age that made me think 'The Entail' not a failure. One day, when dining with the Earl of Ripon at Leamington, he remarked that Leddy Grippy was like an acquaintance. His expression was, 'One thinks one knows her.'"

Part of the opinion reported by the Earl of Blessington as having been given by Lord Byron, and to which Mr Galt has above alluded, although his modesty has prevented him quoting it, was, that "the portraiture of Leddy Grippy was perhaps the most complete and original that had been added to the female gallery since the days of Shakspeare."

It is also to be lamented that Lord Jeffrey did not give, as in the cases of "The Annals "and "The Provost," a particular review of "The Entail." His remarks are confined to the following few sentences:

"The piece that follows, although in three volumes, is of a far higher order than The Steam-Boat;' and though in many points unnatural, and on the whole rather tedious, is a work undoubtedly of no ordinary merit. We mean 'The Entail.' It contains many strong pictures, much sarcastic observation, and a great deal of native and effective humour, though too often debased by a tone of vulgarity. The ultimate conversion of the entailer himself into a sublime and sentimental personage, is a little too romantic. The history of poor Watty, the innocent imbecile, and his Betty Bodle, is perhaps the best full-length narrative, and the drowning of honest Mr Walkinshaw the most powerful single sketch in the work. We can afford to make no extracts."—Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxix., p. 178.

In the present republication of Mr Galt's select works, we have

been enabled to give a critique from some of the foremost reviewers of our age in the department of literature-from Gifford, Jeffrey, Mackenzie, and Scott. We are luckily enabled, in the case of the work before us, to add the equally illustrious name of Professor Wilson. His remarks have evidently been written currente calamo; but they are full of truth, wit, humour, and keen discrimination.

Review of THE ENTAIL, from Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. XIII., January 1823.

"When a man gets the right sow by the ear, we think he does wisely to pull away at it as long as the animal appears to trot will. ingly in hand; and therefore the author of the 'Entail' shows his sense in thus lugging along the public. For many years Mr Galt was not a very successful writer, although all his works that we have seen exhibit no ordinary grasp and reach of thought. But the truth is, that unsuccessful authors are a numerous race, and this gentleman, if he ever belonged to the clan, had many clever and acute persons to keep him in company and countenance. It is only when a man becomes distinguished, that we wonder why he was so long rather obscure. Many are those of whom we think very highly, and who, without delusion, think very highly of themselves, who will continue obscurish writers all their born days. But who is entitled to scorn them on that ground? Of those who proudly, and even judiciously and ably criticise, how few could create ? There is more absolute talent, knowledge, invention, required to write a book that shall only be tolerable, than to deliver the best oral critique that ever charmed a coterie, or to scribble a leading article for the Edinburgh Review. We who have written many books only tolerable (two or three first-rate) and many articles fit for insertion even in this Magazine, know by experience the truth of this assertion. But to write a good book-an excellent booka genuine book-there comes the rub; and he who can do so, may turn up his nose, or his little finger, ad libitum, at all the critics that ever snarled, from Aristarchus to Mr Jeffrey.

"Now, Mr Galt has written many such books-books that do not lie torpid upon counters or tables, or doze away their lives upon shelves, but that keep circulating briskly as the claret bottle at one of our monthly meetings at Ambrose's. Thousands of people

delight in them-thousands admire them-thousands like themthousands undervalue them out of spite-and thousands despise them out of pure stupidity. This is to be a popular author. His name comes to the ear with a sort of fillip. Ah! Galt? ay, he is a clever, famous fellow that Galt; his Sir Andrew Wheelie is rich, sir: why, in some things he treads on the heels of the Great Unknown.' 'He tread upon the heels of the Great Unknown! no such thing: I hate Wylie, he is a cursed bore; but his 'Annals of the Parish,' if you had spoken of them, I would have been your man-so natural-so humoursome-so pathetic even. I knew old Micah Balwhidder perfectly well; I attended his funeral one snowy day in February, and I remember we dined at Widow Howie's on corned beef and greens.'-' You might have dined on stewed polecat, with tobacco-stuffing, my man; but the Provost for my money; auld Tam Pawkie. If that cunning cadger had gone southwards in his youth, he would have been Lord Mayor of London.'-' But what sort of stuff is this Entail? I suppose, the same eternal stuff over and over again, like a seventh-day task. I am weariedperfectly worn out with Galt and his everlasting volumes.'

"Since this gentleman or lady, and many others beside, wish to know what sort of a book is this 'Entail,' we shall tell them; so, meanwhile, Molly, my dear, make me another tumbler, and hoist that half-hundred-weight of a lump of coal from the hearthstone on the fire. Take your knitting, my love; hold your tongue, if you can, for one hour; if not—I think I hear the children crying -so take a look into the nursery.

"These volumes, then, contain the history of the Walkinshaws, a family in the West Country;' and without any attempt at fancy or imagination, either in the contrivance of incidents or the delineation of passions, that history affords many vividly and strongly drawn pictures of human life. Perhaps, if our eyes could penetrate thoroughly into the domestic economy of any one family whatever, of human beings, we should see much to agitate and interest. The personages here are all merchants; and, in the exhibition of the mercantile mind, in its intensest or milder states of money-wishing, with all the accompanying affections, and enjoyments, and sufferings, which they necessarily bring along with them, Mr Galt gives us such insights into the constitution of human nature, as are at once interesting and useful, and enlarge our know

ledge of its original tendencies and powers, acted upon and modified, and varied by the pursuits and plans, and institutions of civil society.

"It is not very easy, in a work picturing human life, not upon any simple and classical theory of representation, but by fragments, and, as it were, large piecemeals of existence, to say who is the principal character-the chief hero. In the works of the Author of Waverley, accordingly we find no one leading spirit influencing and stamping the destinies of all, towards one great consummation. Each does his own work, and sometimes the work of each is the most important and dignified. The want of a hero, therefore, is, we think, a great excellence in all works of this kind; for thereby, they are liker reality, and keep us among our own experiences. Where every thing is to be bent and moulded to meet our ideas of proportion, fitness, beauty, and so forth, in a composition, our mind is apt to feel that art and nature are two different things, and that the latter is sacrificed to, the formerthe stronger to the weaker-that of which we care little, for that of which we care every thing. This is the case (to speak of smaller works, though not small, with the very greatest) with the 'Entail.' It has many leading characters, according to the disposition of the mind that reads it; and while one person will think old Claud the hero, another may, perhaps, fix upon poor Watty the Natural.

"However, old Claud Walkinshaw is, if not the hero, certainly a hero in his way, and a very original hero. He was the sole surviving heir of the Walkinshaws of Kittlestonheugh. His grandfather, the last laird of the line, having been deluded by the golden visions that allured so many of the Scottish gentry to embark their fortunes in the Darien expedition, sent his only son, the father of Claud, in one of his ships, to that ruinous isthmus. He perished; the old man was ruined; the wife of the young adventurer died; Kittlestonheugh was sold; and infant Claud was taken, by his grandfather, to the upper story of a back house in Aird's close, in the Drygate, Glasgow.

"Claud Walkinshaw, therefore, was the poor, almost the beggar son of an old family; and he is described as having been supported in his boyhood by an old female servant. As he grew up he came to know of what blood he was sprung, and that, if it had not been for