"It can't be a jewel," said Mike, the servant boy, who was courting slumber in a low chair before the blazing fire-" It can't be a jewel, when there was only one shot."

"But it isn't long from 'em, I'll be bail, till they'll fire another, if they don't be hindered; for 'tis shot for shot with 'em. Run in, eroo.'

The servant stretched his limbs out lazily, and rubbed his eyes. "Well," said he, "fair play all the world over. If one fired, you wouldn't have the other put up with it, without havin' his fair revinge?" "But maybe one of 'em is kilt already!" observed Nancy.

E'then, d'ye hear this? Sure you know well, that if there was any body shot, the master would ring the bell!"

This observation was conclusive. Old Nancy proceeded with her gloomy toil in silence, and the persuasive Mike, letting his head hang back from his shoulders, and crossing his hands upon his lap, slept soundly on, undisturbed by any idle conjectures on the cause of the noise which they had heard.'

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The tales called The Rivals,' and 'Tracey's Ambition,' though containing many good passages, are inferior, and perhaps scarcely worthy of the author of The Collegians.' The latter tale, which depicts the struggles and misfortunes of a man who has sacrificed his independence for the hope of advancement, is the best. The Rivals,' though abounding in clever sketches, violates probability too grossly. Part of its plot is an awkward parody of Romeo and Juliet,' omitting the circumstances which give some colour of likelihood to the incidents of the play. Here one of the Rivals, who had been absent many years, and supposed dead, returns opportunely on the very day of his mistress's intended and half-compulsory marriage with the other, and of her reported death and burial, which latter ceremony actually takes place, and with a haste that is rather unusual. Our Irish Romeo immediately entertains the singular idea of exhuming his mistress, and enters at night into the vault where she is deposited, breaks open her coffin, takes out the body, intending to bury it again in another place—and carries it off to a cottage, where he and an attendant watch over it. Then comes an exquisite incident-the lady, it seems, was only in a trance; she revives, and they marry. It is a pity that the author should have been at the trouble of inventing such fictions, for he has talent enough to create interest and amusement with materials of a simpler kind.

In conclusion, we strongly recommend the perusal of the works above mentioned-of some of them for their intrinsic merits of the others, for the sake of the country where the scene is laid. Even the most superficial view of the outlines of Irish life-an attention even carelessly turned thitherward for mere amusement, is better than that deep ignorance and callous

indifference respecting all that was Irish, with which the English public was once too justly chargeable. Ignorance and indifference on that subject are not among the prevailing sins of the present day; but still it cannot be otherwise than desirable that, in the intervals of attention to the present realities of Ireland's weal and woe, fiction should recall the warning picture of its past miseries, and of the misgovernment which caused them.

ART. IX.-1. The Life of Reginald Heber, D.D., Lord Bishop of Calcutta. By his Widow. With Selections from his Correspondence, Unpublished Poems, and Private Papers; together with a Journal of his Tour in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Hungary, and Germany, and a History of the Cossacks. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1830.

2. The Last Days of Bishop Heber. By THOMAS ROBINSON, A.M., Archdeacon of Madras, and late Domestic Chaplain to his Lordship. 8vo. Madras and London: 1830.

3. Essays on the Lives of Cowper, Newton, and Heber; or an Examination of the Course of Nature being interrupted by the Divine Government. 8vo. London: 1830.

THERE is a chapter in Ferguson's Institutes of Moral Philosophy, on the diversity of opinions concerning the morality of external actions, and on the difference of choice which obtains among the parties interested. The widow in Europe,' he observes, desires to have a good settlement made by her deceased husband; in India, she desires to be burnt on his funeral pile.' It may be observed, however, that loosely as the Eastern nations hang to life, (so that suicide is rather a Chinese vice than a Roman virtue,) nevertheless, the individual ladies of Hindostan are not always purely volunteers. Women are substantial members of the Western public; and the two publics of the East and West are principally answerable for this supposed variance in female taste. At the same time, this contrast, striking as it is, will hardly justify the inference of any positive dislike in European husbands to sacrifices and martyrs on these occasions. It is the capital part of the sentence only, against which a prejudice exists among us. Indeed, even this distinction might easily be in danger. The sex has itself recently manifested so much honest female fanaticism upon this very point, that we are convinced the slightest encouragement on the part of our Bramins was alone wanting. In which event the lex loci would have been construed to have followed the widow of our Indian bishop

from the Ganges to the Thames; and the New Police could hardly have prevented the celebration of a compulsory Suttee in front of the great entrance to St Paul's. On this occasion, instead of the old combustible materials, (the twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt,' which have been long the appropriate burnt-offering to a profaner Cupid,) a very sufficient Koorh, it is imagined, might have been constructed out of the unsold copies of the two ponderous quartos which Mrs Heber has substituted in consecration of her husband's memory.

We are far from meaning to insinuate, that these volumes are fit for nothing but to be burnt. At the same time, when reduced to a tenth of their actual bulk, they will be rendered infinitely more useful, as well as interesting. In their present size and structure, they would have been, under the most favourable circumstances, a rather unreasonable attempt on the pockets and patience of the public. A considerable portion of their substance is so much mere addition to weight and price, and nothing else rather encumbering than embalming the memory which they overlay. This determination to regard the quantity more than the quality of the contents, can also alone account for the indiscriminate publication of so much ordinary correspondence; the greater part of which, (however sensibly and amiably written, and what could Heber write otherwise?) it would have been no injury to his fame, to have left within the privileged circle of private friendship. In one or two instances, a more serious objection applies. About some feelings of a retired domestic nature, there is a reserve and a sanctity which allow the veil only to be lifted up on solemn occasions, and with a trembling hand. Among these letters, one is, we perceive, indorsed To my dear wife, in case of my 'death. It requests her to be comforted concerning him, to 'bear his loss patiently, and to trust in the Almighty to raise up friends, and give food and clothing to herself and children.' Any one who had seen an advertisement to this effect, must surely have exclaimed, An enemy hath done this! or would interpret the notice into a scandalous expedient for extorting money by purchasing suppressions. The greater the importance which we attach to private letters, as constituting the only basis of by far the most valuable kind of biography, and as being in themselves one of the most delightful species of composition, (the family circle, the undress and confidential part of literature,) so much the more strongly do we feel called upon to protest against an example which might bring the publication of almost all original correspondence into disrepute. The imprudence of executors, or something worse, in such as have had more of the

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vulture than the jackdaw in their nature, has already compelled many a man of genius, when upon his deathbed, to burn without reserve every scrap of paper within his reach. There is only one additional precaution, (and this Lord Chesterfield probably would have taken, could he have foreseen what happened,) that of calling in his letters. If the public should be once revolted by indiscretions arising from want of judgment or of feeling in cases of this description, the delicate and right-minded relations of eminent men cannot be long trusted to rely on their own impressions. They will become discouraged and alarmed; and finally shrink from encountering a prejudice which, like most other prejudices, is not likely to take the trouble of distinguishing. Thus we shall be all losers. The observer who delights in the moral and metaphysical anatomy of man, as well as the enthusiast, who loves to draw nearer and nearer to the presence of that excellence, which though dead yet speaketh,' will find themselves deprived of the most natural opportunities of studying the noblest specimens of the human heart in our public schools. A delicate sensibility, or at least forbearance, is expected from individuals. It will never do for private persons to follow the precedent of that prudent corporation, the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, and convert the mausoleum of the dead into a panorama for raising money.

The other work, The Last Days of Heber, consists of extracts from a private journal kept by Mr Robinson, the present Archdeacon of Madras-a chaplain worthy of such a master. It extends over the few months during which he accompanied the missionary Bishop on an Episcopal visitation, or rather pilgrimage, to Ceylon and the southern part of this imperial diocese. Accordingly, it is in close connexion with, and indeed forms a most affecting supplement to, Heber's own journal of his earlier tour through the northern provinces. It is by no means creditable to the discernment, taste, or charity of our religious exclusives, that their criticisms on the tone of the Bishop's personal narrative, made this second publication necessary, for the sake both of truth and of rational piety. In vain had the general reader been delighted to find at last, a book on India, which he could read and understand. Its lively and familiar sketches of scenery and manners were in some degree what the journey itself would have been-a journey over the most classical part of India, made in the company of Heber. The sense of this sweet companionship was the charm of every page, and atoned at first even with ex-collectors and retired judges, forsuch deficiencies in knowledge as a long civilian residence only can supply. In the meantime, a considerable portion of the serious world was

heard murmuring their disappointment in no very under tone. They recognised there the hundred talents, attainments, and endearing qualities of the scholar and the gentleman. But, finding few traces of the peculiar colouring,—that 'dim religious 'light' in which they insist that every subject, at all seasons, and in all places, should alike be clothed,-they broadly intimated their apprehensions, that the overflowing accomplishments both of his heart and understanding, were little better than brilliant weaknesses, if not splendid sins.

The

There are times when any man whose opinions are thought worth enquiring about, must embrace a party, or expect to lead the life of a flying-fish, which, as exclusively attached to neither element, the albatross pursues if it ventures into the air, and the dolphin is watching for in case it drops into the sea. tactics of church politics are in this respect not one whit more charitable than lay. Heber had the misfortune (to a man of unaffected piety it is a great one) to live in an age when a friend to religion was in less estimation and request than a religious partisan. What could our jealous factions do with a divine, who, whilst he was elevated by a true heavenly-mindedness above any possible prevaricating subjection of religious to mere ecclesiastical considerations, remained at the same time so far master of himself, as never, in the fervour and fever of the most excited devotion, to forget either benevolence and moderation, or simplicity and good taste? Under these circumstances, the only approximation in his behalf, on which the fanatics of both sides could meet, was a sort of neutral position, of mixed admiration and suspicion, whence he was occasionally lauded, and occasionally fired upon, by both. His remark on the dilemmas among which he had to pilot, in writing a review of Southey's Life of Wesley, shows that he was not insensible to the personal disadvantage of being less fierce and foolish than the greater part of his profession. It is no easy matter to give Wesley his due praise, at the same time that I am to distinguish all that ' was blameable in his conduct and doctrines; and it is a very 'difficult matter indeed to write on such a subject at all, with'out offending one or both of the two fiercest and foolishest parties that ever divided a church-the High Churchmen and 'the Evangelicals.' Accordingly, he was at different times equally misunderstood and misrepresented in opposite directions. As often as either party discovered that he would not go all lengths with them, they concluded he must of course be in the interest of their opponents. An ingenuous simplicity of purpose left him in this perplexity none of the ordinary evasions of more crafty politicians, either by nominal compromise, or in

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