mation as to their literature. Here, too, a fine chapter has been thrown to the winds. Oppression, weariness, and disgust with the utter abominations of the Romish faith; convictions as to its falsehood, and hatred of its shameless ministers, were the principal causes of its downfal. But the influence of poetry was brought in to excite the fancy; and the ridicule and sarcasm of Lindsay, and "the gude and godlie ballads," and other productions of the same school, rendered ridiculous what had already been declared sinful. It is said that the songs of Béranger overthrew the elder Bourbons; it is unquestionable that the keen wit of the poetasters who satirized the priests, effected the strongest impression on the popular mind of Scotland. Yet all that is said upon this subject is contained in three lines—more perhaps than might have been expected; and then the author proceeds to the staple subject of his treatise-the description of a border excursion-some gross oppression, or exquisitely exciting murder. We can scarcely ascertain from this history of his country, who was Sir David Lindsay, one of the most illustrious men of letters of ancient Scotland; and the man whose works have delighted many a reader, now shines with an obscure lustre, at the side of some feudal ruffian who had exhibited the superlatives of inhumanity. Gavin Douglas, the Bishop of Dunkeld, the translator of Virgil and part of Ovid—a gentleman—a scholar in the highest sense-a poet who has left descriptive poetry equal to that of any language, is introduced to our notice, not as having immortalized himself by works of genius, but because he had adjusted a squabble between two of the mighty lords. It is, moreover, scarcely conceivable that Mr. Tytler should have spent so many weary pages, in quoting the twaddling scandal of the self-conceited, busy, prying, impertinent English resident, Thomas Randolph, and left unnoticed the labours of William Dunbar, the greatest of the original poets of old Scotland, who, according to Warton, "adorned the present period with a degree of sentiment and spirit, a command of phraseology, and a fertility of imagination, not to be found in any English poet since Chaucer and Lydgate." We need not name others. They have all been contemptuously left in the obscurity of their antiquated phraseology, and their country's historian will not condescend to tell us anything of their language and ours. There never was a history which has acquired such a name as this, so defective upon nine-tenths of the subjects necessary for its construction. Materials, too, lie at hand in inconvenient abundance, for enabling the historian to unroll the history of that world of old, the habits and customs of our fathers, their literature and their religion, their language and their origin, the humble destinies of perished generations, whose hum of busy labour we would hear again, mingling with the chaunt of the monkish miserere. By judicious compression, all this might be contained within such a compass as not to extend the work a single page, provided a number of inhuman atrocities were left out, and only a few retained as examples of the rest; and also under the condition, that two or three hundred of the five hundred pages of dull quotation from State Paper Office correspondence, were consigned to the obscurity from whence it has been dragged. Mr. Tytler expresses his gratitude to Lord Melbourne for allowing him "a full examination of the Scottish correspondence in the State Paper Office," and which he tells us was an event "the most pleasurable in my literary life." -(vol. v. p. 377.) We cannot express the same gratification. There can be no doubt, that several Court intrigues have been thereby divested of their mystery; but, in opposition to that, we have to set a deluge of matter, on uncontroverted points, told with amazing periphrasis of phrase, to the utter exclusion of half our history. To adopt the simile of Burke, the historian seized a handful of grasshoppers, which he presents as the riches of the land, while altogether unmindful of the noble oxen quietly browsing around him. Like any other collection of old correspondence, this book will, however, be useful, and it is needless now to continue our wailings as to its omissions. But if, instead of denominating the four last volumes a history, they were described as a partial biography of Mary Stuart, of Regent Murray, and of Morton, interspersed with sketches of other grandees, and solemn denunciations of the coarse vulgarity and intolerance of Presbyterian ministers, a better idea would be entertained of its character and its object. This is our History! We grudge not the author the pension it has gained him; he will, perhaps, never receive either from his pension or his profits, remuneration for his labour of eighteen years. It is therefore all the more galling to his friends, that we cannot recompense him by our admiration and our gratitude, and are driven to the painful conviction, that the History of Scotland remains to be composed. THE END. EDINBURGH PRINTED BY T. CONSTABLE, |