Star.
London, England, 1829-06-12 00:00:00

PRICE SEVENPENCE•

in the shipping department by the kite 51u!erntnesit •
were not made merely for the sake of chatige. .
The Earl of HARROWBY suggested 'that all the
returns should commence from the year:lBl4.
The Duke of WELLINGTON saw no. objection to
the production of those returns. He thought the coon.
try would feel sensibly grateful to the Noble Lord who
had moved for them. It was not surprising that the
country should be much interested in the question, and
he was sure the result of the proposed inquiry would
be such as the Noble Lord anticipated.
The motion was the; agreed to.
00301217[11 or IMUVILIOSIII
The Committee reported that the Duke of Cumberland had
made good his claim to vote fur the Irish Representative Peers, as
End of Armagh.
Lord BERICSFORD moved that the Standing Orders Nos. 24
and 125 should be taken into consideration on Monday net.
Their Lordships adjourned at half past sir o'clock.
THE FIVE NIG-1113 OF Si. ALBANS.

The lovers of the mysterious, the appalling, and the
supernatural, have a great treat prepared for them in
this extraordinary production, which comprehends a
succession of wonders that could have • procee.'ed only
from en invention of the most inexhaustible character.
The work, as the preface observes, 41 is one 'of pure
fiction; founded upon no tradition—derived born no
legend; but altogether a creation of the imagination.
In estimating, therefore, its pretensions, they cahoot
very easily be adjusted by any recognised standard.
The question is, not whether such things ever did take
plice, but whether, conceding at the outset the thing
to be accomplished, the means employed have a cor-
responding congruity? He would be a sorry reader of
I The Rape of the Lock.' who should pause to a k
himself whether there ever were such things as sylphs
or gnomes; or of the Midsummer Nights D tam,'
who should display his critical sagacity by demonstrat-
ing the fabulous existence of Titania, Oberon, and Ro-
bin Goodfellow."

In furtherance of the Author's argument, we may
observe, that "The Five Nights of St. Alban's" is a tale
of the Sixteenth Century—of a period when the disco•
veries of science had not dissolved the visions of fancy.
We recollect having been much amused, five or six years
ago, at the Royal Institution, when Campbell, in one
of his elegantand admirable lectures, expostulated with
the " hard-hearted" philosophers of the present day, for
having explained every extraordinary appearance in
nature, and for having thereby deprived the Poet of his
most available materials. For such hard-hearted phi-
losophers it is evident that " The Five Nights of St.
Alban's" has not been written. A grave matter offact
man may. like the good Bishop who criticised " Gal-
liver's Travels," say that he does net believe the story to
be true. - But it is mach more interesting than many
stories that are true. Nay, in one sense of the expres-
sion, it is true. There is a truth of imagination, as well
as a truth of reason. Once admit the possibility of un-
earthly agency, and then the occurrence-, marvelloni
as they are, which are related in 41 The Five Nights of
St. Alban's," become perfectly credible ; and readers,
who peruse the work with thisqualification, besidestrie
entertainment which they will derive from the nice
discriminations of character, and sagacious reflections
on huitan life by which it is pervaded, will be kept in
a state of suspense, with ie,gard to its catastrophe, so
awful that it would be oppressive, were it not for the
knowledge that by perseverance it may be terminated.
It is difficult to separate any of the incidents from the
main story, without disadvanorge, but we extract the
following description of a scene of midnight incantation,
as a specimen of the power of the author's styie :
" The bell had ceased tolling, but its deafening
alarum still echoed through the Abbey in crashing
peals, whose mingling tones, at times, resembled the
howling, screaming, and yelling of every savage ani-
mal that ranges the forest or the desert. At others,
low, mournful,' melancholy sounds were heard; soft la-
mentations, gentle wailiogs, and stifled groans, as if
all the miserable varieties of human suffering were there
gathered together. Then voices struck upon the ear—
some blaspheming—some uttering exclamations of de-
spair—some praying—some beseeching—some, in an-
guish, crying aloud, pardon ! pardon ! With these were
blended, ever and anon, shouts of laughter, which
seemed to burst, in horrid vollies, from infernal throats.
One of these shouts—a loud and lengthened. one—was
heard to follow a dismal shriek, as from a living crea-
ture in more than mortal agony : and then, for a mo-
ment, all was hushed, and still as death.
"They here in utter darkness—darkness so prof und,
that though each one touched the other, to have &min-
i
1 guished form or feature were as impossible as though
divided by the space of a thousand miles. But dreadful
were the visions that thronged about them. Above, be-
low, around, the world of shadows presented itself. On
the sable pall of gelid air that encompassed them, what
hideous phantoms grew, es it were. and straight vanish-
ed. to make room for others still more hideous! Hover.
ing over them grim Death appeared, clutching in his
bony hand the fatal arrow that never flies but once to
its mark—'tis held in threatening poise—while the fell
monarch seems to glare from.his eyeless sockets, with
conscious triumph, at his peey ! .
" Death's terrific revels burst on the sight in every
shape—hom new born it fancy, that dies in the very
portals of life, to calm expiring age. There writhes the
murdered traveller—his crammed bags rifled of their
tempting store. There gapes the gory throat of the
butchered father, whose caitiff son, impatient to, be rich,
had held the knife. There hangs the felon, strangled
by the award of justice—his straining eyes bursting
from their spheres, and his livid features swollen with
o'circharged blood. There the incest-engendered babe,
whose guilty dam, frantic with shame at her unnatural
lust, had smothered it in the dark, not daring to look
upon her foul butchers; and there the violated virgin,
the imprecations upon her ravisher still warm upon her
lips, as they were arrested there by the_ stroke that
pierced her heart!
0 These vanish, and legions of grisly phantoms take
their place ; things without form or name, but horrible,
most horrible, to the eye. Floating on the murky va.:
pour, they pass and repass, till olerwrouglit terror rises
to agony. Sometimes they almost seem to fan you
with their enormous wings—at others to shed blistering
venom down ; and then—cataracts of fire, as it were,
spout from hissing serpents, which twine and coil round
lthem. Reptiles of all loathsome kinds—the adder and
the blind worm—gthe speckled toad, and the huge
*wed spider—the fierce scorpion, and the gilded
slake, whirl and eddy about; and so close withal, that
the Sub ali their bosses shrinks from the dreaded coa-
fwet r . .