The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-19 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

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ADVENTURES OF ARISTON.—LoNnox, 1830.

A very promising little tale, after the manner
of the travels of Anac•harsis. The author is a
young Etonian, only 15 years of age, by name
Percy Severn ! He has here' shown consider-
able reading for his age. Alistun will doubtless
amuse his young Etonian cotemporaries.

THE GARLAND.—LosnoN, 1830.

This is a very agreeable collection of Poems,
from the pen of Mr. H. Brandeth, author of
" Field Flowers." The volume has been pub-
lished in the cause of charity, for the benefit of
the Spanish and Italian Refugees; and on this
account, therefore, deserves recommendation.—
But besides this, it has other claims on public
favour : it is an intelligent and elegant little vo-
lume, full of feeling and fancy. The subjoined
lines, which we annex as a sample of its merits,
are terse and vigorous :

THE DEATH SONG OF KORNER.
On to the fight, proud spirits on,
'Tis Lfitzau's banner wares?
Is freedom's torch for ever gone,
Is tie a land of slaves ?
Shall we obey a Foreign Lord ;
To tyrants bend the knee?
Forbid it Liitzau's, Korner's sword,
Forbid it, Liberty!
By thee, thou glorious Sun, I swear,
By Him who gave thee birth ;
By all a warrior hopes to share
In Heaven, e'en as on earth ;
By all that's past, by all that is,
I swear, or may yet be,
No peace of mind shall e'er be his
Who hails not Liberty.
Throbs there one coward bosom here
Where caves and rocks surround?
Hush ! lest some mountain-echo near
Receive th' accursed sound.
For if there be a sight, a word,
That mountain-maid should fly,
'Tis when the coward sheaths his sword,
Nor strikes for Lberty.
Then, father, by thine honoui'd name,
Withhold not Freedom's spear;
Then, mother, by thy son's fair fame,
Oh ! weep not o'er my bier.
And thou, the sister of my love,
Check thou the rising sigh ;
For live they not, in realms above,
Who die fur Liberty ?
Thou too—but hark! what hear I now?
'Tis hostile bands that clash ;
Down from the mountain's misty brow
Gaul's eagle(' banners dash.
Well—band and banner, let them came;
Who fears their eagle cry?
Yon torrent-tide shall be their tomb
Who war 'gainst Liberty.
Then to the fight, prowl spirit, on,
'Tie Liazates banner waves;
Is freedom's torch for ever gene,
Is this a land of slaves?
But ha !—'tis o'er—that winged hall
Yet one shout ere I die,
. One shout befitting warrior's fall—
Liitzau and Liberty.

FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, No. XL
LONDON, 1830.

The varied ability with which, from its com-
mencement up to the present time,
.this work has
been conducted—the range of information—of
thought—of sentiment that it has uniformly dis_
played, entitles it to the highest praise from the
lovers of genuine Lterature. The Editor is ma-
nifestly a man of very general research, and that
not in the common and confined acceptation of
the word, but in its most comprehensive mean-
ing. His present number is admirable. The
opening article on " Dminonology and Witch-
craft" alone would redeem it, were there not
another readable paper in the number. We
know not who may be the author of this very
clever, amusing, and intelligent essay, its subject
would seem to point out Sir W. Scott, i f so, it adds
a fresh lustre even to his spendid reputation. That
it will be generally read we have no doubt, and
that it will be generally admired we have as
little. Of the remaining articles, our necessarily
limited columns merely allow us to state that
they each furnish their quantum of entertain-
ment, and of what is better still, of instruction.
That on " Caillie's Travels into the Interior of
Africa" discusses the subject in a very rational,
temperate, and conclusive spirit. The French
traveller is just rated at his proper worth ; nei-
ther unduly praised on the one hand, nor unduly
depreciated on the other. The following is an
extract from the masterly treatise on Deemono-
logy and Witchcraft, to which we have before
alluded
From the commencement of the Records of the Scot.
tish Justiciary Court, down to the reign of Mary, no trial
properly for witchcraft appears on the record. For th nigh in
the case of the unfortunate Countess of Glammie, executed
in 1536, during the reign of James V., on an accusation
of treasonably conspiring the King's death by poison,
some hints of sorcery are thrown into the dittay, probably
with the view of exciting a popular prejudice against one
whose personal [panty and high spirit rendered her a fa-
vourite with the people, it is obvious that nothing was
really rested on this charge. But with the introduction
of the Reformation novus rerum naseitur ordo.' Far
from divesting themselves of the dark and bloody supersti-
ions which Innocent's bull had systematized and propa-
gated, the German reformers had preserved this, while
they demolished every other idol, and moving
In dismal dance around the furnace blue,'
had made even children piss through the fire to Moloch.
Their Scottish brethren, adopting implicitly the creed of
their. Continental prototypes, transplanted to our own
country, a soil unfortunately but too will. prepared for suet.
a seed, the whole doctrine of Satan's visible agency on
earth, with all the grotesque horrors of his commerce with
mankind. The aid of the sword of justice was imme-
diately found to be indispensable to the weapons of the
spirit; and the verse of Moses which declares that a witch
shall not be suffered to live, was forthwith made the
ground-work of the Act 73 of the ninth Parliament of
Queen Mart•, which enacted the punishment of death
against witches or consulters with witches.

" The consequences of this authoritative recognition of
the creed of witchcraft became immediately obvious with
the reign of James which followed. Witchcraft became
the all-engrossing topic of the day, and the ordinary accu-
sation resorted to whenever it was the object of one indi-
vidual to ruin another, just as certain other offences were
during the reign of Justinian, and during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries in It dy. In Scotland the evil was
not less busy in high places, than among the humbler
beings, who had generally been professors of the art of
magic. A sort of relation of clientage seems to have
been established between the operative performers, and
those noble patrons (chiefly, we regret to say, of the fair
sex) by whom their set vices were put in requisition. The
Lady Buccleugh, of Branxbohn Hall, whose spells have
furnished our own Northern Wizard with some of his most
striking pictures; the Countess of Athol, the Countess of
Huntly, the wife of the Chancellor Arran, the Lady Ker,
wife of James, Master of Requests, the Countess of Lo-
thian, the Countess of Angus (more fortunate in her gene-
ration than her grandmother Lady Glammis), were all, if
we ate to believe the scandal of Scotstarvet, either pro-
tectors of witches or themselves dabblers in the art.
Even Knox himself did not escape the accusation of witch-
craft; the power and energy of mind with which Provi-
dence had gifted him, the enemies of the Reformation at-
tributed to a darker source. He was accused of having
attempted ti raise some sanctes' in the churchyard of St.
Andrew's, but in the course of this resuscitation upstarted
the devil himself, having a huge pair of horns on his head,
at which terrible sight Knox's secretary became mad with

rear, and shortly after died. Nay, to such a height had
the Mania gone, thit Sent; of Scotitarvet, mentions that.
Sir Lewis Rallantyne,; Lord Ju,tiee Clerk of Scotland,
by curiosity- dealt with a 'warlock sailed • Richard Gra-
hame' (the same person whu figures in the trial of AlisOn
Balfour, as a confederate of Bothwell's) raise the devil,
who Laving raised Lim in his own yard, in -the Canon-
e;ate, he was thereby so terrified that be took sickness and
thereof died.' This was a 'staggering state of Scots
statesmen' indeed, when even the Supreme Criminal Judge
of Scotland was thus at the head of the delinquents."