both in fewer and in more pointed words. The judicial,
financial, (Blackwood.)—Both the subject of this poem and the niailner in and legislative arrangements of Switzerland are, however, stated which it has been treated, remove it out of the category of ordi- with great clearness, and with a sufficiency of detail. Mr. Moses's nary Scotch verse. Lady Middleton—hitherto better known, volume is also of special value for the frequent comparisons which perhaps, as Mrs. Willoughby—describes her work as " a tale of are instituted in it between the American and Swiss political tradition and romance ;" and it is because The Story of Alastair systems. These the students of constitutionalism will find very Bhan Comyn bears this character, and because it deals with a
valuable. more or less historical episode, which has always had an attraction
Wallace. By Charles Waddle. (James Gemmell, Edinburgh.) for the inhabitants of the North of Scotland, that it deserves to —The author of this " historical play in five acts," who, it may be singled out for comment from works of the class to which it be noticed in passing, is, on the testimony of Emeritus Professor belongs. The prose which it contains is at least as important as Blackie, the leading spirit in the Scotch Home Rule movement of the poetry, for into it there is condensed a large amount of the day, has had an almost tragic literary experience. Wallace archteological and historical information relating to feuds and was written upwards of thirty years ago, has been twice accepted families in the North of Scotland. Some of this information, by managers of theatres, and yet has not been produced. What indeed, is old, and would have been the better for rationalistic wonder, then, that Mr. Waddle should moan that "there is not a riddling. For example, is Lady Middleton quite justified in single Resident Dramatic Company in Scotland," and that " our saying (p. 145) of Comyn, who deserted Wallace at the Battle of theatres are simply the home of the passing stroller, who, with his Falkirk, that he " nobly redeemed his fault afterwards, defeating latest London SUWON (?), usurps the place that should be dedicated the English at Roslin in three battles in one day, with Wallace to native art." At the same time, we cannot profess to be and Fraser " ? It is very doubtful whether Wallace was greatly surprised at the decision come to by the theatrical present at this battle, although Dr. Rogers, the latest historian managers who have had Wallace submitted to them. Mr. of the patriot, gives him really, though not nominally, the first Waddle has not inherited the mantle of Shakespeare, or even position as a commander on the Scotch side. Lady Middle- of Mr. Sheridan Knowles. He is a patriot, no doubt, and is ton tells her ghastly story of lovers who belong to families dominated almost as much by " Wallace's undaunted soul" as Burns that are separated by a feud, and who come to an end which himself. He can also render patriotic sentiment in fairly gram- is tragic, but yet has an element of the grotesque in it, in matical prose, to which he can give the form of blank verse, almost all sorts of verse, blank and other. In it there are many although he should beware of such a conjunction of personal pro- passages of beauty and passion : the description of the doings of nouns as is presented in " And thou, fair Moon, how can you look the wehr-wolf, or woman with a wolf's face, who all too late so calm ? " But it is impossible to go further in praise of Mr. destroys the chief villain of the story, is undoubtedly powerful. Waddle. What can one say of such lines as these thundered by But far too much of Alastair Bhan Comyn is written in a style of
Whose piercen broideries let Heaven through,"
That all the damned shall shrink away from thee," are only too fair a specimen. As already hinted, Lady Middleton
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