tive. Yet no, Sir Willmott Burrell, I will not,-even if she will, I will it otherwise. Ah! think ye to control me? Didst ever hear of one Cony? or of Maynard Twisden, and Wyndham, his counsel ? What if I imprison ye, Sir Willmott, till this Jewess be found, and compel ye to wed her again, even here in England! What say ye now?"

"Would you have me wed a murderess?" inquired the villain, in a calm tone.

"My child is not that," said the heart-broken father, who had been examining the papers, with overpowering anxiety.

"What! good Manasseh?" inquired Cromwell.

"That which he did call her," replied the Jew.

“There needs no farther parley. Colonel Jones, we will ourself accompany our worthy friend to the Isle of Shepey, and investigate more minutely this most unhappy business. You will take all requisite care of Sir Willmott Burrell, who goes with us-willing or unwilling.-Perhaps he would like to appeal from our decree? To-night we will set forth, so as to arrive at King's-ferry before to-morrow's sun-set; for we must stay an hour at Whitehall, and say a word in passing to Colonel Lilburne, at Eltham."

"How does your Highness travel?”

"As befits our state," replied the Protector. Worthy Rabbi, be not cast down; all may yet be well."

"Your Highness is ever kind: but justice is inflexible My child!that which he called my child, rings in mine ear-pierces it! O Father Abraham! I knew not the curse that fell upon Israel until this day!" "All may yet be well, I say again," observed the Protector; "know ye not what was said by the prophet of old-the prophet of the LordNow thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not!""

May I return and commune with your Highness?" craved Colonel Jones, as he escorted Burrell to the door-" there is much that I would mention, although this is the Lord's day."

Ay, certainly. Gracious Meanwell! I would speak with him who brought this parcel."

A lad was introduced; but he could tell nothing, except that passing along the crags of the Gull's Nest, (the Protector started at the name.) he saw the packet dangling in the air: he pulled at it, and it came easily away in his hand; and finding it directed to his Highness, he had been recommended to bring it forthwith-that he had ridden part of the way in company with some who were coming as far as Gravesend, and had 'lifted' him. He looked like what he was, part oyster-dredger, part smuggler. Cromwell saw nothing in him that would justify detention, and dismissed him with a liberal gratuity.

"We shall solve the mysteries of this Gull's Nest Crag before we leave the island," thought the Protector, and then proceeded to the almost hopeless task of comforting the humbled and afflicted Master in Israel.” ' ―pp. 54-59.

The Protector made his appearance before Cecil Place at the day appointed for his visit, accompanied by his train and body guard. To Constantia, who, with the rest of the family, were terrified by the proceedings which they saw around them, Cromwell behaved with

a degree of politeness, as well as tenderness, which those who best knew him never expected.

The reader will at once conclude, that the mission of Cromwell, the assemblage of all the characters engaged in the business of the plot, and the general disposition of all parties to do justice to each other, were attended by the most happy results, and that the usual termination of such misfortunes as Miss Cecil encountered, was, by the gracious interposition of the Protector, repeated on this occasion. Dalton, the buccaneer, was pardoned; Miss Cecil was married, and all those minor persons, who had any claims from the author, to redress, for the calamities with which she was pleased, out of her own caprice, to afflict them, were bountifully compensated at the close of the third volume, either by marrying their sweethearts, or receiving a handsome pension for life. The mystery however, respecting Walter De Guerre, is yet unexplained, and as the reader must, by this time, have deeply sympathised in the fortunes of the young cavalier, it is only proper that we should inform him of the results of that measure of poetical justice which has been administered to him by the author. Dalton, the buccaneer, was the person who unfolded the secret in which the history of the Cecil family had been hitherto involved. crime of which Sir Robert had been darkly accused by Burrell, and which was hinted at so often by Dalton, consisted, as it was explained, of having murdered his brother, Sir Herbert, and the son of that gentleman. When, therefore, the Protector was proceeding in Cecil-house, to bring the affairs in dispute to a final settlement, Burrell urged his accusation against Sir Robert, and called for an investigation. When the words were uttered, the Buccaneer rose, and energetically exclaimed, 'It is false-as false as hell!-and if his Highness will permit, I shall explain.' Dalton then proceeded

The

I say that Robert Cecil is no murderer! Stand forth, Walter Cecil, and state that within the last two years, you saw your father in a Spanish monastery; and that

"Who is Walter Cecil?" inquired Burrell, struggling as a drowning man, while losing his last hope of salvation.

"I am WALTER CECIL!" exclaimed our old acquaintance Walter; my nom de guerre is no longer necessary."

"

"It needed not that one should come from the dead to tell us that," said the Protector, impatiently; but there are former passages we would have explained. What means the villain by his charge? Speak, Dalton, and unravel us this mystery."

"It is well known to your Highness, that few loved the former powers more than Sir Herbert Cecil; and truth to say, he was wild, and daring, and bad

"Dalton!" exclaimed the young man, in an upbraiding tone.

Well, young master, I will say no more about it. Gold is a great tempter, as your Highness knows; and it tempted yonder gentleman, with

whom God has dealt. He is a different sight to look upon now, to what he was the morning he sought me to commit a crime, which, well for my own sake, and the sake of others, I did not commit. He came to me

"Mercy! mercy! I claim your Highness' mercy!" said Constantia, falling on her knees, and holding her hands, clasped and trembling, above her head." It is not meet that the child hear thus publicly of her father's sin! The old man, your Highness, has not power to speak!"

"Lady," continued Dalton, I he could not deny-But my tale will soon be finished, and it will take a load off your heart, and off the hearts of others. Sir Herbert did not die. I conveyed him to another land; but the papers-the instructions I had received, remained in my possession. Sir Herbert's wild character-his fondness for sea-excursions-his careless life, led to the belief that he had perished in some freak, in which he too often indulged. His brother apparently mourned, and sorrowed; but, in time, the dynasty of England changed, exactly as he would have wished it-the Commonwealth soon gave the missing brother's lands to the man who was its friend, who had fought and laboured in its cause, and seemed to forget that any thing else had any right to the possessions :-but the son of the injured remained as a plague-spot to his sight. I had but too good reason to know how this son of this elder brother was regarded, and I had learned to love the lad: he was ever about the beach, and fond of me, poor fellow! because I used to bring him little gifts from foreign parts-by way, I suppose, of a private atonement for grievous wrongs. I took upon myself the removing of that boy to save him from a worse fate, for I loved him as my own child; and there he stands, and can say whether my plain speech be true or false. I was myself a father but a little while before I spirited him away from a dangerous home to a safe ship. Sir Robert believed they were both dead, and sorrowed not; although he compassed only the removal of the brother, yet the going away of his nephew made his possessions the more secure; for, as he said, times might change, and the boy be restored if he had lived. His disappearance made a great stir at the time; yet there were many went from the land then and were seen no more. I thought to rear him in my own line, but he never took kindly to it, so I just let him have his fling amongst people of his own thinking gentry, and the like--who knew how to train him better than I did. I kept Sir Herbert safe enough until the act came out which gave Sir Robert right and dominion over his brother's land, declaring the other to have been a malignant, and so forth;-but the spirit was subdued within the banished man; he was bowed and broken, and cared nothing for liberty, but took entirely to religion, and became a Monk; and his son, there, has seen him many a time; and it comforted me to find that he died in the belief that God would turn all things right again, and that his child would yet be master of Cecil Place. He died like a good Christian, forgiving his enemies, and saying that adversity had brought his soul to God-more fond of blaming himself than others. As to Walter, he had a desire to visit this country, and, to own the truth, I knew that if Sir Robert failed to procure the pardon I wanted, the resurrection of this youth would be an argument he could not withstand.

"Perhaps I was wrong in the means I adopted; but I longed for an honest name, and it occurred to me that Sir Robert Cecil could be frightened, if not persuaded, into procuring my pardon. God is my judge that I was weary of my reckless habits, and panted for active but legal em

ployment. A blasted oak will tumble to the earth, if struck by a thunderbolt, like a withy. Then my child! I knew that Lady Cecil cared for her, though, good lady, she little thought, when she first saw the poor baby, that it was the child of a buccaneer. She believed it the offspring of pains-taking trader, who had served her husband. She guessed the truth in part afterwards, but had both piety and pity in her bosom, and did not make the daughter suffer for the father's sin. I loved the girl! But your Highness is yourself a father, and would not like to feel ashamed to look your own child in the face. I threatened Sir Robert to make known all-and expose these documents——"

The Skipper drew from his vest the same bundle of papers which he had used in that room, almost on that very spot, to terrify the stricken Baronet a few months before. Sir Robert Cecil had remained totally unconscious of the explanations that had been made, and seemed neither to know of, nor to heed, the presence of Dalton, nor the important communication he had given-his eyes wandering from countenance to countenance of the assembled group,-a weak, foolish smile resting perpetually on his lip; yet the instant he caught a glimpse of the packet the Buccaneer held in his hand, his memory returned: he staggered from his daughter-who, after her appeal to Cromwell, clung to her father's side, as if heroically resolved to share his disgrace to the last-and grasped at the papers.'-pp. 247-253.

The papers afterwards were given up, and Cromwell had the satisfaction of seeing that he was the chief instrument in accomplishing a noble act of justice, as well as in conferring on those whose virtues merited the gift, a durable tenure of happiness.

The reader will see, that though the plot is somewhat complicated, though there are two many incidents, and too many personages, calling for his attention at the same time in these pages, still he cannot deny that the general effect is at once decisive of the master power which pervades the whole production. There are faults, undoubtedly, in the loose and disconnected manner in which the loops, as it were, are resumed, and the web of the narrative continued-but all sense of such imperfections is immediately dissipated when we encounter one of those fine scenes in which the best powers of Mrs. Hall are summoned into exertion, No adequate idea of the variety and effective force of those passages to which we allude, can be conveyed by a mere description; they must be read, they must rather be seen and heard, for Mrs. Hall has made them almost vivid objects of sense, in order to be adequately understood. To the reader, therefore, who has been pleased with the introduction which we have now afforded him, we strongly recommend him the far more entertaining treat of the work itself.

ART. XI.-Lays and Legends of the Rhine. By J. R. PLANCHE. Large 8vo. with plates. London: Tilt. 1832.

THE Consummate acquaintance which Mr. Planche possesses of all the beauties that are to be found in the neighbourhood of the Rhine, under whatever denomination they may be found, has been attested too strikingly to allow of a doubt upon the subject. It is no small merit in any person competent to the undertaking, to wander over distant countries-to investigate their habits and their manners-to contemplate them in all their relations, and to collect all the materials which they can yield, that may be applied to the benefit, the use, or even the amusement of his countrymen. This is the merit which we willingly award to Mr. Planche, though the scale on which his patriotism, if we may say so, has been exercised, presents no very marked characters of importance.

The present volume contains a series of lays and legends, which the author is supposed to have heard either recited or sung by the humble population in the districts through which he had passed in his tour along the banks of the romantic Rhine. The first of the lays is a pretty set of verses, descriptive of the falls of the Rhine near the village of Neuhausen, a little below Scaffhausen. Under the walls of a castle at this point, a huge mass of rock divides the river, which falls with tremendous noise, sending up clouds of spray from the depth of the precipice into which it descends. The story of the Pilgrims,' the title of another of the lays, (we hope not a legend) is not uninteresting as a historical fact:

St. Fridolin, an Irishman of noble birth, preached the Gospel in the sixth century in various parts of Swabia and Switzerland. He was particularly revered and protected by a family living on the banks of the Rhine near the southern extremity of the Black Forest, where he built the church of St. Hilary, round which the town of Sackingen gradually formed itself. Two brothers named Ursus and Landold, presented him with the Canton of Glarus, of which he is still the patron Saint. Sackingen is now one of the four Forest Towns. Some relics of its holy founder are still enshrined in the church of St. Hilary, and an altar outside the town is said to have been erected by him.'-p. 5.

The legend entitled The Mouse Tower,' is a pleasant composition; it is commemorative of a ruin so called, which is situated between the town of Bingen and the castle of Ehrenfels :