the gentleman in question was one of the mildest and most unpretending of men, and the most ready to do a real kindness, even to those who might suffer from his critical severity. This is not much to complain of, after all; but when Moore is made to say, as we are confident he did, that the character of O'Connell was stained by grovelling cowardice, ruffian bullying, and sordid beggary, Mr. Willis was doing, not Mr. O'Connell, but Mr Moore, a severe injury. What was said among gentlemen, all friends of the poet, except the penciller himself, at the table of a lady where he had been long a distinguished ornament, was uttered in the full confidence that it was not to be carried to the ears of the demagogue of Derrynane. In the miserable position of the party to which Mr. Moore, most unhappily for himself, is linked, it is indispensably necessary that this man should be lauded and incensed by all who have the vitality of the Whig gang at heart; and we are sure, that while Mr. Moore was speaking contemptuously behind his back, he was adulating him to his face. He was exhibiting, in fact, in his individual person, the respectable conduct which at this moment characterizes Brookes's, as a body. O'Connell will never heartily forgive Moore; and, when, as will inevitably be the case, he lets loose the bloodhounds of Irish faction against the bard, it will be but a poor excuse for Willis to say that he had no evil intention in repeating his conversations, being actuated by no other motives than those of earning an additional dollar, and explaining to his tuft-hunting countrymen that he had dined with a Countess. The Edinburgh Reviewer well knows, that the harm which may result to Moore from being exposed to the rancor of the Tail and its wearer, is a far different thing from any injury that could possibly accrue from literary strictures, were they of tenfold the severity of those put into the mouth of Professor Wilson. We take leave to observe, that the closing sentence of the Review is sad twaddle. It is mere 66 stuff to say that the Edinburgh Review, in its present somnolent state, can give “a more extended circulation,” calculated to produce the slightest effect on the public mind, to "reprehensible and mischievous passages," which have been printed in every newspaper of the empire. ANOTHER CAW FROM THE ROOKWOOD.*TURPIN OUT AGAIN. Ovк εs коρакαs атоp0ɛρɛι μov.-ARISTOPHANES, Clouds, 789. FEW novels run to the third edition: that would seem to constitute, in the race of such like publications, a sort of pons asinorum ; which, generally speaking, Bentley's stud of broken-winded donkeys passeth not. Puffing, they gasp out their last breath long ere they reach it; but a steed of the true mettle (like our immortal highwayman's Black Bess) gets over the echoing arch in a rattling canter. When this point is gained, an author may laugh at critics and reviewers; they may pursue him thus far, but no further ;;—non datur ultrà. So striking a bibliographical truth need hardly be announced as a discovery of our own. There is a Scotch allegory by Robert Burns, in which the matter is delightfully adumbrated; and to us, whose eye can quickly detect the recondite wisdom of what to the vulgar seemeth trivial and homely, the interpretation of his parable reveals itself at once. Arrayed on each side of the road to literary eminence, that truly wonderful poet mystagogically represents the scribes of the periodical press: "Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted- *Rookwood, a Romance. By William Harrison Ainsworth. Third Edition, complete in one volume, with Illustrations by George Cruikshank and a Portrait of the Author, engraved from a painting, by Daniel Maclise, Esq., A. R. A. London, Macrone. A garter, which a babe had strangled — The gray hairs yet stack in the heft." But your real man of genius (whom Burns chooses to designate under the mystic name of Tam O'Shanter), undismayed by the ghastly spectres that beset his progress, runs the gauntlet unterrified, dashes on full of confidence and usquebah (con spirito), until having cleared in gallant style the keystane of the brig,” "There at them He his tail may toss A running stream they dare no' cross,”—K. r. λ. We were among the first to predict the rapid and successful career of Mr. Ainsworth as a novelist; when Turpin first did ride abroad, we were there to see, to admire, and to applaud: at this stage of his popularity, now that he has kicked up such a cloud of Olympic dust, and gained such dog from all voices, our encouraging cheer is drowned in the general shout of acclamation. Yet needs must we confess, that our REGINA takes still a quasimaterial interest in this young author; and we should probably dwell here on the precise nature of her feelings, had not Homer done the very thing for us, in depicturing the heart of Andromache as swelling with joy at the anticipated triumphs of Astyanax: with this difference, however, that, according to history, they were never realized— "Hers was a fiction, but this is reality." We recur therefore with manifest complacency, to our original opinions in this gentleman's favor. We knew well what we spoke of; and it has given us much more gratification than surprise thus to find the public ratifying our verdict and verifying our vaticination by demanding, in a voice of thunder, a third edition of his romance. Perhaps we would be more correct in our phraseology by calling it a fourth, for it is right to acquaint our author's admirers in Great Britain, that in the United States he is a decided favorite-a stray copy of Rookwood lying, at this moment, on our table, ex prælo Yankeyano, printed by Carey and Lee of Philadelphia. Some weak-minded creatures have questioned the possibility of Turpin's grand equestrian achievement at the conclusion of the story; they have industriously computed the milliaria between the modern metropolis and the ancient Eboracum, showing, in this case, by their low attempts at landmeasurement, the truth of Burke's remark: "the age of chivalry is gone; and that of calculators has succeeded!" What will such nincompoops say to an extension of his "RIDE" to "New YORK," "Per siculas equitavit undas ?"—Lib. iv. od. 4. It is by such facts that calumny is struck dumb. When Scipio Africanus was accused of a miscalculation in the public accounts, by some peddling Joe Hume of that remote day, how did he act? Did he exhibit his balance-sheet? Not he! He talked of the anniversary of some glorious triumph over the water, and by that gentlemanly and dignified reference he got rid of what Theodore Hook would call a troublesome complaint in the chest. For our part, we expect to hear of new editions in the eastern as well as the western hemisphere: we anticipate Tartar translations and Arab commentaries. We see no reason why this romance should not be read as eagerly on the plains of Mesopotamia as on the banks of the Potomac. The Cossacks on the river Don have, no doubt, already sent their orders to No. 3 St. James's Square. Fortunate author! "Tu lætum equino sanguine Concanum Vises et pharetratos Gelonos Et Scythicum inviolatus amnem !"-Lib. iii. od. 4. It was imperfectly said by (leaden) penciller Willis, of Captain Marryat's nautical novels, that they could scarcely be entitled to rank as works of literature, "being read chiefly about Wapping." We need not dwell on the recent results of that choice bit of criticism, the readers of the Times newspaper having been treated to a belligerent correspondence thereanent; from which all rational folks have concluded, that, though the New Yorkian had plenty of disposable lead in his pencil, paper pellets sufficed for his pistol. We are happy to record a better proof of the taste and judgment of the Americans (in their predilection for Rookwood) than is afforded by the melancholy specimen of an homme as is at present daily done by the liberal journals of the liberal Louis Philippe. Two and a half more useless volumes than the opening portions of Willis's work can not be conceived. The most commonplace road-book has told us every thing of the picture-galleries in Italy, the wonders of Pompeii, the glories of Naples, the splendors of Constantinople, the cafés of the various towns of the Continent, the Simplon, the Domo D'Ossola, &c. &c.; and all these hacked and hashed matters of all manner and kinds of tourists, are here again narrated in a style as creeping as a guide-book, and, at the same time, as affected as that of a namby-pamby writer in twaddling albums, kept by the mustachoed and strong-smelling widows or bony matrons of Portland Place or Curry Row. Pleasant it is to know that Bonconvento is "the place where Henry VII. of Germany (not of England, be it observed) was poisoned by a monk, on his way to Rome" (vol. i. p. 47)—that the ancient Volscinium was the capital of the Volscians (p. 49)—that Montefiascone contains the epitaph of Est, Est, Est—that the tomb of Nero is one side of the road before crossing the Tiber-that Cicero arrested the Catilinarian conspirators on the Pons Æmilius on their way to join Catiline-that Constantine saw his famous vision on the same spot-that- And so forth, through page after page of wearisome drivelling "Nota magis nulli domus." We have had all these things told us over and over again. We have had every picture described, every museum catalogued, every point of scenery sketched every spot where famous or remarkable deed was done depicted, long before Willis was born, in all the countries where his pedlar course was cast, by poets, by sages, by critics, by scholars-by men of genius, of taste, of learning, of research. His chambermaid gabble is tedious to the last degree. It has not even the piquancy of personal adventure to relieve it. He appears to have shown off as a ninny of the first magnitude throughout all his tour, and to have been treated accordingly. We request any reader who has the patience-nay, we request Willis himself— to count up how often he has used the words "noble" and "beautiful," as applied to what he has seen, and to wonder at his utter sum |