enemies only to triumph; and these were Irishmen and Catholics. Be just to both, and an inexhaustible army of the best troops in Europe will always be ready and willing to fight your battles, Gratify the Catholics, and rest secure with your spinning jennies and steam-engines; for, keep Paddy in your army and navy, and a foreign foe will never set his foot upon the British isles.

You now see, John, that the Catholic question is not so unimportant as you at first imagined; for it is of such serious magnitude, that the future welfare of the British empire turns upon it. Justice demands that the people of Ireland should be emancipated; and the peculiar situation of these kingdoms renders it absolutely expedient that their claims should be speedily complied with. Delay not the gift until its value is diminished; but give now cheerfully what you may ultimately be glad to give. Never hesitate when you are about doing a God-like act-that of manumitting millions who are in un

profitable bondage. The wisest and best of your countrymen have approved of your intention; for emancipation numbers among its advocates George IV. (God bless him!) Paley, Watson, Johnson, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Grey, Holland, Canning, &c. &c; and has or had for opponents Patrick Duigenan, Sir Thomas Lethbridge, Tom Ellis, the John Bull' newspaper, and Blackwood's Magazine.

I have addressed myself to you, John, because on your favourable opinion depends the success of emancipation. The privileged party in Ireland, being just equal to the number of offices in the kingdom, and being greatly in want of their places, and fearful that the Catholics might supplant them, will never consent to the passing of a measure which they apprehend would go directly to affect their individual interest. To you, therefore, the Catholics look with the utmost anxiety; for your opinion is now the barometer of their hopes and fears. Z. Z.

To that portion of the reading public who have a taste for the horrible this volume will be a highly acceptable present. Since the days of Monk Lewis there has been nothing of so frightful a description produced; and even that great master of terror-he

to whom the world unknown, With all its shadowy shapes, was shown Who saw appalled the unreal scene'never imagined any thing which could be made to hover, with that equal balance which distinguishes this romance, between the extreme limits of the sublime and the ridiculous, but without touching either.

We confess that we have a strong predilection for all tales which have the power of exciting fear or wonder. We know that it is a sort of debauche de la raison; but it is one which leaves no bad consequences from indulging in it. The amusement which is afforded by such writings helps us to while away hours which would be tediously or idly spent-the excita

tion which they supply to the mind is wholesome, for any thing which stirs it is good, as a corrective of that dull stagnation which the ordinary course of daily occupations induces

while the impression is so slight, that it is soon effaced, and the elasticity of the human mind soon shakes off the weight which each strange tale lays upon it, as it springs back to its former position. For this reason we hold such tales to be a thousand times better than the ordinary run of novels in their effects; while, in point of amusement-the first object in all such compositions-their superiority is universally acknowledged. What would the great Scotch novels-the very first works of their description which have been produced in this or any other language, and which, for invention, truth, poetical feeling, and what may be called the eloquence of character, stand only next in English literature to the almost superhuman creations of Shakspeare-nay, what would Shakspeare

himself be without the employment of supernatural agency? The affairs of the world are dull and unchanging; the same beaten track is trodden by the inhabitants of this age as was paced by those of centuries ago. In the same unvarying routine, in the same path, leading from and returning to one point, do the generations of mankind still journey on. Upon them the skill of the poet or the novelist (in a strict sense, are they not the same?) would be in vain practised; but the passions of the human heart-few as they are, and brief as is their duration-contain treasures which can never be exhausted-developments of infinite variety. They are to the poet what the lyre is to the accomplished musician; they contain not only a concord of sweet sounds, but the fierce and strong discords of all those tumultuous sensations which fill the heart of man, and which either dignify or degrade, bless or blast, the human species. Nothing is required but the master hand to awake the song from its slumbers to touch the chords which shall fill the ear with sounds such as every other sense must obey, and which exercise an irresistible sway over all earthly sympathies. Though there be many gifted artists who can strike this instrument, and, even with a feeble hand, make it discourse most eloquent music'-although it is easy to touch those notes which awaken pleasure and utter delightful harmonies-it requires a peculiar and rare force to sweep the strings so as to rouse the wilder passions, and to wield all the thunders of the scene.'

In Ireland a superstitious belief in the existence of supernatural agency was for many years universal, and even at this moment prevails to a very considerable degree. Its existence is more generally known among the common people, because they are less in the habit of concealing those feelings which the polite dissimulation of higher life prevents from appearing openly. But why do we say in Ireland, why do we make any distinction in classes of society, when every human being is open to the influence of which we speak? We never yet knew any man who, if he were

pressed closely, could give a reason, even satisfactory to himself, why he disbelieved in such matters; we never yet knew a man who was insensible even to the common clumsy stories of supernatural appearances; and, if we ever should, we shall not have, on that account, any better opinion of his moral courage. The fear of which we speak, as a source of excitement which has its delights no less than its terrors, it is hardly necessary for us to say is not that which would induce a man to shrink from affronting any mortal peril, or from doing what honour or duty prompted him to at the hazard of his life; but it is that fear which makes a man shiver under the Torrid Zone-which makes him thoughtful in the stillness of midnight-which withholds him from shouting or singing when he crosses a churchyard path alone; it is that mysterious impulse which makes his heart alive to wild and indescribable sensations, which is one of the sources of poetical inspiration, and which is a cause (we say this again, in particular allusion to Ireland) of that acute and prompt, but sometimes wild and frantic sensibility, which always distinguishes a brave and intelligent people.

To return, however, to the book which has given rise to these observations and which, digressions though they be, are not foreign to the matter in hand- Hans of Iceland' is a romance du plus beau noir possible. The hero is a monster whose genealogy is not very distinctly made out; but, as far as we can learn, (and we have only the demon's own word for it,) he is the offspring of a monster called Ingulphus the Exterminator, and of a witch of Iceland, a country long famous for being peopled with such beings. Hans has a propensity to amuse himself with the commission of such little diversions as murdering travellers, burning churches, cutting down bridges over which travellers are passing, and loosening crags which hang over small villages. All the rewards offered by the Governor of Drontheim, where Hans has recently taken up his abode, and where the scene of the novel lies, have been insufficient to secure his apprehension: no one, indeed, would venture to at

tempt it, so great is the terror which his prowess and his atrocities have spread throughout the country. At the opening of the novel, the Count Schumacker, once the prime minister of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, but who had fallen a victim to Court intrigue, has been a prisoner more than twenty years in the fortress of Munkholm, at Drontheim. His daughter Ethel shares his imprisonment, and is the only consolation left him. The injustice of his sentence has soured the old man's heart, and he has become a settled misanthrope. He has, however, made an effort to convince the king of his innocence, by sending Captain Dispolsen to the seat of government, to procure for him papers which will develop the plot he has fallen a victim to. He is awaiting the return of his messenger, when all his hopes are frustrated by the captain's being assassinated on the beach at Urchtal immediately on his landing. His body is carried to the spladgest, or morgue, where it lies to be identified. Among the spectators who are looking at this and other corpses, is a young man plainly dressed, but having the appearance of a gentleman, who, when he learns from a soldier that the body before him is Captain Dispolsen, hastens to the fortress of Munkholm, to carry the disastrous news to the old man. In describing the course of the romance we are obliged to let out the author's secret, and to tell the readers that this youth is Ordener Guldenlew, the son of the king's chief favourite, who has been educated by the governor of Drontheim for the last two years. Ordener is destined to be married to a lady whom he has never seen, but who is the daughter of Schumacker's greatest enemy, the Count d'Ahlefeld: like a wilful youth as he is, he has, however, fallen in love with Ethel, the daughter of the old prisoner. The father and the daughter are ignorant of his rank. Schumacker hears with dismay of the death of Dispolsen, and is in utter despair when he learns, moreover, that a small steel box, in which the proofs of his innocence were contained, and of which Dispolsen was the bearer, is not to be found. Ordener promises to go in search of it, and hastens to

the spladgest. The hero of the tale, the frightful Hans, has been here before him. The guardian of the spladgest, Spiagudry, has been startled in the middle of the night by hearing a voice too well known to him. He hastens into the chamber in which the dead bodies are deposited, where he sees Hans, who is thus described :

• On

bent body of Spiagudry; on the other a one side appeared the tall little thickset man, clothed from head to foot in the undressed skins of animals, marked with dried blood-stains, stood near the body of Gill Stadt, which, with that of the girl and the captain, occupied the centre distance of the picture. The little man's features expressed a singular ferocity. His beard was red and very thick; and all of his head that could be seen beneath his reindeer-skin cap was covered

with bristling hair of the same colour: his teeth white, long, sharp, and widely his mouth was very wide, his lips thick, apart; his nose hooked like an eagle's beak; and his piercing grey eyes cast upon Spiagudry an oblique glance, in which the ferocity of the tiger was mingled with the spitefulness of the monkey. By his side hung a long sabre; a broad dagger without a scabbard was thrust through his girdle; and he leaned upon the long handle of a flint axe. covered with very large gloves made of

blue fox-skin.'

His hands were

Hans has a son, whose dead body lies before him. This young man, having been jilted, by a girl whom he loved, in favour of a soldier of the Munkholm regiment, went in his despair to the mines of Roeraas, and was there killed by the falling in of part of the rock. For this his amiable father has vowed the destruction of the whole of the Munkholm regiment, and has killed Captain Dispolsen, who belonged to that regiment, in consequence of his oath. Hans cuts off the skull of his son, to serve him for a drinking-cup; and intrusts Spiagudry with the steel box which he has taken from the dead captain, and which contains Schumacker's papers, enjoining him to deliver it to a poor widow, the mother of the dead youth. Spiagudry promises, and Hans retires just as Ordener is knocking at the door. He discovers the mutilation of the body; and, upon taxing Spiagudry with it, he extorts from

the fears of this person, who is painted with considerable humour, a confession that the frightful demon is the perpetrator of the murder as well as of the profanation. Ordener then resolves to go in search of him, hoping to recover from him the steel box, of so much importance to the father of his Ethel. He engages Spiagudry, by the hope of a bribe and by the promise of his protection, to lead him to Hans' retreat. Spiagudry wishes for the destruction of Hans, in which event he intends to keep the steel box which has been intrusted to his care; but, as neither knows the secret of the other, they set out. The journey is made amusing by the terrors of Spiagudry, who has carefully disguised himself in a sort of cento of clothes taken from the various dead bodies of whom he has, from time to time, been the guardian. We cannot afford space enough for all the adventures of the search: in the course of it, however, many horrors are encountered, and Spiagudry receives the reward of his treachery: he is caught by the demon during Ordener's absence, and hurled over a rock into a torrent, where the steel box which he carries with him aids him to sink. Ordener pursues his course alone, and, wholly ignorant of the fate of his companion, he meets with Hans after much trouble. -A long and dreadful fight ensues, which is abruptly broken off. The Count d'Ahlefeld, who is resolved to compass Schumacker's death, and utterly regardless of the means by which it is brought about, has effected a revolt among the miners through his agents, and has used the name of the innocent prisoner for the purpose of implicating him in it, and of bringing him to the scaffold. He wants a leader of the insurrection, and seeks Hans for this purpose, the terror of whose name and supernatural powers, he thinks, would effectually engage the miners to take up arms, while he has prepared a military force sufficient to crush them when they shall have gone far enough for his design. The count, therefore, seeks Hans, whom he finds in a den, accompanied by an immense bear, and feeding on human flesh. The horrors of this scene it would be unVOL. I.-No. I.

just, and indeed impossible, to describe but by an extract, for which we have not room. Hans disdains the count's offers and despises his threats; and when, at length, he is hardly pressed by the soldiers whom the count has brought with him, he effects his escape in a singular manner on the back of his bear. Ordener, soon after the abrupt departure of Hans, who was engaged in mortal combat with him, falls in with the rebels, and, to save his life, is obliged to join their ranks. He is taken prisoner and led to Drontheim, where he is capitally tried; and, although his rank is known, he is condemned, because he refuses the terms on which the Count d'Ahlefeld offers him his freedom namely, to marry his daughter-and because he hopes by his own death to save the life of Schumacker. At length, through the means of Hans, and by an ingenious complication of adventures, the plot is discovered, the lost casket is restored, Schumacker's innocence is proved, the lovers are married, the guilty are punished, and Hans destroys himself and the whole of the Munkholm regiment by setting fire to his cell, which adjoins the barracks.

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There is great skill displayed in the invention of the story, and in the manner in which it is conducted to its catastrophe. The character of Hans is unnatural, but it is kept up with great veracity as regards itself; and, if the reader once believes (as he ought to do) in the reality of the personage, none of the monster's sayings or doings will be found to shock his credulity. He is a sort of free Caliban, but with more intelligence than the island monster. The introduction of Spiagudry is very cleverly managed he is a half-lettered pedant, with wits as meagre as his figure, and his figure presenting a striking resemblance to those emaciated corpses of which he is the keeper. His avarice and his terror are constantly urging him on and drawing him back; and, although he is so amusing, no one regrets when the demon hurls him into the abyss. One of the best scenes is that in which Ordener and Spiagudry are obliged to take shelter from a storm in the wretched

E

abode of the common executioner. The place, and the implements of torture which it contains, as well as the consort of the executioner, are sufficiently alarming to him; but his terrors know no bounds when he sees, sitting down to supper, a short person in the dress of a hermit, whose face is hidden by his cowl, but whose voice leaves him no room to doubt that it is Hans himself. Ordener and his Ethel are noble and heroic person ages, and well contrasted with the base and wicked intriguers who have plotted against the life of the poor aged prisoner. The story, too, is highly interesting; and the anxiety which is so powerfully excited for the hero and heroine never diminishes until the end of the romance.

The engravings which accompany this volume add in a very considerable degree to its value, and to the amusement which it affords. They are from the hands of Mr. George Cruikshank, whose genius is so well known, and who is wholly unrivalled for the fertility of his fancy and for the neatness of his drawing. He has selected four scenes from the romance, each of which he has hit off with great felicity. In one of these he represents the ferocious monster sitting in his cave; another is that in which he visits Spiagudry, and to which the extract we have made relates; the third is that where he surprises Spiagudry on the road, and is about to avenge his perfidy; and the last shows the singular manner of his escape from the guards of the Count d'Ahlefeld. In these, as in all his drawings, Mr. Cruikshank has shown that he has fully appreciated

the intention of the author; that he is imbued with a congenial spirit ; and he has, besides, put, in a manner far more striking than can be expressed by words, the visible and external form of the events which the author describes. This is all that the graphic art can achieve; and all this Mr. Cruikshank does with extraordinary effect and skill. This was that at which Hogarth constantly aimed, and in which he often succeeded so eminently. The more heroic style of painting does not display a wider field for the exercise of that skill in an artist which is exactly kin with the talent of an author, since both are purely creative, and their several merits depend, first, upon the value of the invention, and, next, upon the shape in which it is pre. sented to the eyes and the understandings of others. We have no doubt that the man who can paint grotesque subjects with the high and original feeling that distinguishes all Mr. Cruikshank's drawings can, if he will, essay a higher flight; and that there is no step in the art to which he cannot attain, provided that he will attempt it with the same earnestness and zeal as has enabled him to gain that on which he stands. With the exception of Hogarth, England has not yet produced an artist who can be said to approach Mr. Cruikshank for fertility of invention, and for that keen sense of the ridiculous which is as valuable as it is rare.

The present version of the romance has been, we perceive, compressed, or rather re-written, from the original French. It seems to be executed with ability, and is altogether a highly amusing and interesting volume.

IT was in an evil hour, my dear Editor, (I like to give every man the appellation which belongs to him, and, since you have become the editor of The Dublin,' on the wings of which your fame is to soar to the topmost height of popularity, I renounce all the old familiar epithets by which I have been used to address you, and shall, in future, call you nothing but Mr. Editor,) that you made me promise to write to you during my present visit to London. The mere folly of

it occurs to me at this moment in the most ridiculous point of view. Write letters about London-about London people, and London manners, and London lions!-zounds, man, I can make a book-twenty books-upon the subject, and leave enough for a whole troop of writers who shall come after me. To propose to talk of such things, in a letter, would be like setting the Pigot diamond for a lady's ring; or the attempt at putting your old friend, Bully Egan, or the Hotten