ART. IV. The Spaewife; a Tale of the Scottish Chronicles. By the Author of "Annals of the Parish," &c. 12mo. 3 Vols. 17. 1s. Boards. Whittakers. 1823.

WE E may at any rate congratulate the author of the “ Annals of the Parish" on the fecundity of his talents, which in three short years have brought into literary life six thriving chopping bantlings. We may add, too, that while he is a fertile he is also an improved writer: though he is still somewhat of a proser, and detains us too long by petty circumstances on the threshold of greater events; as also an inventor of new words, and a dealer in affected and mawkish sentiment.

The Spaewife' is thrown back to the time of James of Scotland, who in his youth was so long detained a prisoner in England. One of his ancestors, Robert, having had children by Elizabeth Mure, a young lady of good family, afterward espoused the daughter of the Earl of Ross, by whom he had also several children, and among them Walter Earl of Atholl, the principal personage in the novel. Robert having, however, towards the close of his father's life, repented of his infidelity to Elizabeth, acknowleged her as his wife, and obtained the papal dispensation to legitimatize her children: thus giving them, when he ascended the throne, the hopes of inheritance, in preference to his issue by Lady Euphemia Ross. In the next reign, that of James, violent dissensions broke out; and, when the story opens, the Duke of Atholl, returning to his castle, is stopped by a sort of Meg Merrilies, (for a novel of the Scotish manufactory is nothing without a Meg Merrilies,) who offers to tell him for money some bodings of his ascent to the crown. He despises the omens' of this poor insane creature (Anniple the Ta'en-away) and returns home. His nephew Lord Robert Stuart, however, attaches more importance to the mystic warnings of the poor woman, and sets off on horseback to consult her.

Next morning, by break of day, Stuart was mounted, and was, with but a single groom, on the road to Dunblane, to consult Anniple the Ta'en-away concerning his future fortunes. On reaching the town, which he did early the day following, conceiving himself unknown there, he inquired freely for her dwelling at a band of children whom he saw playing in the street; and they conducted him to the back of the Abbey church-yard wall, where they pointed to a hovel constructed of sticks laid loosely against it, and rudely covered with turf and straw, a grousum den for a human creature. "There," said a boy, "ye'll see her sitting like a clocking hen, wi' a wee de'il in the shape o' a green-e'et cat on the one

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side,

side, and a muckle black ane like a kankry colley-dog on the ither."

The children then ran off as if they had been terrified; and Stuart dismounting, gave his horse to his groom, and walked alone to the hovel, from which, as he approached, a colley-dog, to all appearance in voice and gesture, came ragingly forth, and seemed, for a time and season, resolved to debar him from advancing nearer towards his mistress; who hearing the barking, and having a sentiment therefrom that a stranger was coming, looked out, and commanded the dog to be still; which it not only forthwith was, but ran back towards her in a very cowed and remarkable

manner.

Stuart, seeing the way thus cleared, went boldly forward and beheld Anniple sitting under her inclement shed, with her limbs deep buried among straw, and a ragged blanket drawn shiveringly over her head, and round her unclad body. As he came forward, she began to laugh in an eldritch manner, and to chatter with her teeth; a joy whereof to witness the outward demonstration was to endure a sight that may not be pictured.

"Hey, Robin Stuart," she exclaimed, “ ye hae come far afield the day to get your fortune spae't. For ony good that I can tell you, ye might just as weel hae bidet wi' the auld de'il's bargain in the towers of Atholl. He'll rue the day he didna pay me for the braw dream I dreamt for him."

Stuart stood aghast to find that she knew him so well, and was almost afraid to look at the malicious satisfaction with which she enjoyed the anticipation of some ill fortune that was hatching for his uncle. The solemnity of his dread was also enhanced, by the way in which she seemed to recollect the incident that had so provoked her spleen, notwithstanding the long period which had elapsed. He wished, at the moment, that he had never come near her, and was on the point of returning to his horse, when she looked up to him with a peculiar glance of her eye, that fixed him to the spot.

"Ye'll no gang away, Robin Stuart; it's no me that ye need to fear, there's a winsome dame in a bonny bower that i'll maybe wise you to mair wae;" and then she began to sing

Gae scour the silver basin,

And scour it bright and fine,
For it maun kep the gentle blood,

That's red red like the wine."

The very spirit of Stuart was frozen by her dismal cadence. At the conclusion she again looked up at him with the corner of her eye and laughed, crouching her shoulders fainly, and rubbing her hands as she said,

"But birl your bodles, Robin Stuart, or ye'll get na spaeing frae me."

Stuart, scarcely aware of what he did, took his purse from his belt and flung it into her lap. She snatched it with a childish shriek of glee, and pouring the contents into her hand, flourished She then the empty purse round her head as it were in triumph.

counted

counted' the money, and finding an odd piece, she paused, and said to herself, "That's no canny.'

Then she restored the money into the purse, and gave it to the dog, and he immediately carried it into the far corner of the hovel and lay down.

After a short pause, during which she looked steadily at Stuart, the tear shot into her eye, and she began to weep and sob, saying to herself, with her hands clasped,

"He's a braw lad, o' a leil nature. Tyke, bring back the siller."

The dog instantly returned and laid down the purse on her lap. "Hae, Robin Stuart," said she, "take back your bodles, I'll spae no fortune to you;" and holding up the purse, she sang with a wild and careless freedom,

Dives wanted Death to take the physic, that he might grow better, but Death took him away to the ill place, Robin Stuart. It's well for me I have nae soul to be flesh for the de'il's brimstane broth."

'Stuart shuddered.

"Take back your purse," said Anniple again.

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Nay, it is yours. I have given it, and it must abide with you," replied Stuart.

"Then, Tyke, take it ben the house again."

'The dog obeyed, and his mistress began to churme in a musical manner to herself, and to toss the straws which covered her lap, first with the fore-finger of the left hand, and syne with the similar finger of her right, taking no farther heed of the young prince, who stood wondering and fearful beside her.

After the lapse of several minutes, she looked up and said, "Are ye aye there yet, Robin Stuart ?" and then, seemingly wholly occupied with her own fancies, she turned from side to side, pulling here and there a straw, and twirling it, as she sung:

"O waes me! O waes me! O waes me, Mary!

I had a joe, and he loved me weel,

And he danced at Castle Cary,

But his rosy cheek, rosy cheek, rosy cheek, Mary,

And the blithe blue eyne that won my heart

Lie buried at Castle Cary."

"Were I to guess by your reluctance, and these snatches of old ditties," said Stuart, "what you could tell is, that I am to be short-lived. Now, as I hope never to account life a thing that a true man should set any store by, say if I shall prosper as a lover ?"

Anniple smiled and replied, "There's nae doubt about that;" and she added significantly, "If the lady's kind:" in a moment after she subjoined with solemnity, "Your fortune hangs upon a maiden's honesty."

"But how? in what way?" cried Stuart eagerly. Anniple, however, instead of making him any answer, took up the corner of the blanket which hung about her shoulders, and began to imitate the gestures of one busily sewing.

""Ye see," said she, "that I'm very thrang; my kirtle needs clouting; dinna fash me ony mair wi' your speerings.'

"Why have you told me so much, since you refuse to tell me more ?" exclaimed Stuart impatiently.

"O weel, weel," replied Anniple peevishly, "come when that poor silly shavling gabbit body Duke Murdoch has got his reward, and then maybe I'll hae mair time for clavers."

"When Duke Murdoch has got his reward! What do you mean ?"

'Instead, however, of making any reply, she called her dog, and began to caress him, saying, "My kind messin, my brave messin, that barks away the ill-deedy brats that pelt me wi' stanes;" and she turned up the corner of her eye towards Stuart, and laughing immoderately, said, "I redde ye, Robin Stuart, hae hae meuse, for Tyke can bite."

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"The creature's insane, a mere born-fool," said Stuart angrily to himself, and was moving away; - but before he had left the hovel ten or twelve paces, she started out, and drawing the blanket-mantle close around her with one hand, she ran after him, and seized him by the skirt of the surcoat with the other, addressing him with a soft and earnest solicitude,

"There's a cross and cloud in thy lot, Robin Stuart,
There's a light in a bower to beguile, Robin Stuart;
There's deaths ane and three, and a ship on the sea;
But the flower in the ha' I would fain wise awa',

For the dule it will bring upon thee, Robin Stuart."

The slow and tender pathos with which she delivered this mystical jargon moved him to regard her with a compassionate contrition, and he said, with much gentleness in his voice,

"Poor thing; it is ill to redd thy ravelled fancies; but I will order thee to be better heeded hereafter."

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"It's kindly thought and softly said," replied Anniple; "but who should care for me? When the fairies made me up o' a benweed, and laid me among the tow for the weaver's wife's bonny lassie bairn, I was a thing made to suffer aversion. Therefore it is that all Christian creatures hate me ; that folks flee frae the sight o' me; that wives draw in their weans and shut the doors when I gang by;-that I maun eat beans frae the shawp, and corn frae the stalk; - that the wicked rain pursues me, and the cruel hail pelts me; that the cold wind bites me, and the fire-flaughts flash on me. There was a wee white lambie playing beside its mother, on a bonny green knowe. It was an innocent thing, and I thought it looked kindly at me, which never man nor womankind

had

had done; but when I gaed to warm it in my arms, it too was frightened, and ran bleating away. All living creatures see and ken, that I'm a thing the holy Heavens had no hand in the making o'. I wish that the weaver's wife's wean were dead in the fairy-land, that I might lie on the loan what I am, a weed to be trampled on."

⚫ Stuart was melted to sadness by the wailing simplicity of this complaint of her abject estate; for though he could never think that a creature with so much sweet blood in her bosom was a thing so fantastical as she reported herself to be, he was yet so filled with awe and strange wonderment by her prophetic breathings, that he could not but own that she had qualities above the common faculties of the human world, and was indeed a being conceived in some mysterious eclipse of nature. He stood in consequence doubtful and irresolute what to say or do; but she relieved him speedily from his perplexity, by darting away, and huddling herself down beneath the litter in her hovel."

It will be seen immediately that this is a painting in the style, though not exactly with the pencil, of the great Waverley artist. Imitation, however, does not always imply the absence of merit; and, judged by this standard, we must allow the sketch to be well executed. The storm of royal displeasure now burst on the house of the Duke of Albany, the King's uncle, who had been regent of Scotland, and instrumental to the ransom and restoration of James; and the three princes, the Duke, and his sons Walter and Alexander, were arrested and taken away prisoners on a charge of treason. The other son, Lord James, made his escape to the castle of his maternal grandfather, the Earl of Lennox, then in custody, whose retainers and friends were assembled there to defend the place against the King. Here we find a Bishop Finlay, an episcopal bon vivant, who is thus introduced to us:

Bishop Finlay had been raised by the patronage of Duke Murdoch to the dignity which he then held, but less for his lore and piety than for other qualities, which were thought in that age to be of an account as good in the management of the Highland schores. Being, therefore, so much beholden to the house of Albany, and on terms of strict amity with the Earl of Lennox, he gave the Lord James a better welcome than good cheer. Not that there was ever any lack in that particular, where a bishop had obtained the howff; and to speak the verity of Bishop Finlay, he was without question a blithe and hearty priest, of a jocose countenance, somewhat carbuncled with the rubies of a jovial temperament. Well read he was in the virtues of all sort of wines, and he could tell by his rosarie, whether Rumney or Malmesyne was best in cold weather; that Hippocras was excellent in a frosty night; and that Vernage from Vernon, in Touraine, was a sovereign remedy against the east wind; that Algrade was a Spanish liquor