SIR COSMO DIGBT.

Is strength of composition, and that art of delineation which gives an air of reality to images and incidents however unnatural in themselves, Sir Cosmo Digby is an improvement upon Mr. ST. JOHN'S former fictions ; which, Booth to say, were somewhat of the feeblest. In the more important matters of a wellconstructed story, probable events, and persons endowed with vitality, this tale is not greatly in advance of its predecessors. Although there is nothing in the slightest degree immoral in the conduct or execution of Sir Cosmo Digby, the story is based upon events of no very pleasant or healthy morality. The hero is the son of Mrs. Trevor, a married woman seduced by the dear friend of the husband, to whose protection, as to a paragon of honour, she had been intrusted on her voyage from India. To remove the tie which the infant imposed on the movements of the guilty pair in seeking to escape the injured husband, the boy, after the usual fashion of novels, is placed with a Welsh smuggler and peasantfarmer, with abundance of money, jewels, and so forth. But the main end of this infant desertion is defeated : the false friend is overtaken by the husband, and shot dead upon the spot. Mr. Trevor then carries off his wife, who goes mad on seeing him ; and in his own character he vanishes from the scene, till on his deathbed, towards the end of the third volume, he discovers Denzil, the hero, by his mother's miniature, and, after a scene of passion and repentance, makes him heir to a large fortune.

The intermediate parts are in keeping with the beginning and end. After the death of his first protectors, young Denzil is brought up in the same Welsh village by a French servant and humble friend of his father. Introduced, not very probably, to Sir Cosmo Digby, the hero falls in love with the baronet's daughter ; and, what is much less likely, the proud Welsh baronet consents to a match with this unknown and suspected base-born child. He, however, imposes certain conditions ; onc of which is, that Denzil, shall rise in the world to show himself worthy of Isabella Digby : and this engagement closes the first volume. With the second, Denzil and his foster-father, Pierre Ponce, start for London; where the aspirant for distinctions wastes his time in forming acquaintance with Chartists, a mad doctor, and the husband of one of the doctor's female patients, who turns out to be Mr. Trevor himself. In incidents like this the second volume is exhausted. With the third, we are introduced to Mr. Frost's Newport insurrection ; which Denzil, travelling in Wales, is compelled to accompany as a prisoner. By this accident, he is enabled to rescue Isabella and her friends from a Socialist mob ; and though he is obliged to admit that he has broken every one of the conditions imposed by Sir Digby, the baronet finally gives him his daughter.

This general outline furnishes but a slight idea of the incongruity of Mr. ST. JOHN'S novel as a picture of life. In some fictions the incidents may be improbable enough, but, assuming the author's views of-society to be correct, they are coherent, progressive, and necessary. This is not the case with many of Mr. ST. JOHN'S. It is true that by means of them the tale is brought to an end ; but it might have reached the same goal by other ways. Some of the incidents might be expunged, and new ones substituted in their place; those which are more necessary to the catastrophe are often made extravagant for the purpose of effect ; and several scenes are evidently introduced that the author by means of dialogues may exhibit his views on government and other topics. Yet in spite of these improbabilities, and many more in the particular conduct of individuals, Sir Como Digby is readable, and even:interesting, from the mere ars scribendi. The incidents are borrowed from the newspapers or the Minerva press, without being much improved by Mr. Sr. JOHN'S changes ; the views and sentiments are those of an enthusiastic student ; and the principal characters are mere lifeless abstractions: but the author's power of presenting his own conceptions is such, that the better parts have an air of truth, which could not be allowed them if tried by the touchstone of experience ; and even the worst passages are passable.

There are sections, however, entitled to higher praise than this. The descriptions of Welsh scenery are not only powerful in themselves, but are so interwoven with the narrative as to become parts of it, instead of suspending it. Some of the earlier incidents, con sidered by themselves apart from the general story, have an almost breathless interest,—as the discovery of the assassination of Den zil's father, and the subsequent pursuit, the night-attack upon the

smuggler and peasant-farmer's house, with the murder and the chase of the murderers. The scenes in London, exhibiting life

"upon the shift," are not so good as those in Wales ; and the

lengthy account of the outbreak under Mr. Frost is only redeemed from tedium by some striking descriptions. Mr. ST. JOHN appears

to have been misled into a false estimate of the value of the riots

for purposes of fiction, by the opening scenes of Old Mortality. But the events which ended in the battle of Bothwell Brig are

sufficiently remote to admit of alterations adapted to romance ; and the variety and success of the Scotch insurrection were very different from "the Monmouthshire riots."

As we have mentioned the skilful interweaving of description with narrative, and the interest given to some of the separate incidents, we will take a scene of this kind; though, from the space at our disposal, it may not be one of the best.

A WELSH NIGHT-MARCEL The travellers proceeded in the direction of the fishermen. They skirted the broad sheet of water as they had been directed ; and coming up to the stake, around which a quantity of sea-weed had gathered, rendering it a sort of directing post, they entered the first channel of the river, and easily traversed it But, as ill-luck would have it, they had now reached that hour of the night at which, through all seasons of the year, a dense white mist pours down along the streams of Wales, presenting a most striking spectacle to those who view them without danger and at their ease. Long columns of vapour, issuing forth from between the foldings of the distant hills, move down slowly towards the sea, not clearing away behind as they advance, but expanding themselves till they cover the whole length of the river.

As they are never broader, however, than the surface of the water, you may, where the river flows through numerous channels, frequently count six or seven of these columns, now meeting, now separating, according to the course of the water below ; and when, as on the present occasion, the moon shines brightly upon them, they appear like so many ridges of snow stretching along the summits of the Alps. Under one of these columns the fishermen were now concealed; and Denzil and Pierre Ponce found themselves on a broad sand-bank, surrounded on all sides by thick walls of mist, which concealed from their view every thing but the sky and the moon. They therefore knew not which way to proceed ; but, directing their course almost at random, traversed another channel of the river, and emerged out of the fog into a second island, still surrounded by curtains of white vapour as before. Supposing themselves to be in the neighbourhood of the persons of whom they were in search, they now raised their voices together, and shouted with all their might. No answer, however, was returned. They began, in consequence, to be considerably perplexed. In almost whatever way they moved, they found their footing so tremulous and insecure, that it was clear they were surrounded by no little danger. Under any other circumstances, they might have admired the prospect. The whole surface of the sand, as far as they could see, was ribbed or variegated by innumerable little wavy lines, and sprinkled thick with shells of different colours, in some places dry, in others filled with water, which reflected the moonlight like so many fragments of a mirror. Here and there were small, shallow, pellucid ponds, through which shoals of diminutive fiehes darted hither and thither like shadows.

Upon the sinuous and fleecy summits of the vapour columns as they rolled past them, they observed a phwnomenon of singular beauty : the wreaths of mist, pervaded and impregnated, as it were, by the moon's rays, assumed Occasionally the appearance of a lunar rainbow, when one limb only of the arch meets the eye. But neither the strangeness nor the beauty of these phienomena could extort more than a passing thought from our traveller,; who, penetrated by the cold; and beginning to entertain some apprehensions for their safety, would have considered nothing so charming at that moment as the faces of the Welsh fishermen peering from the mist. Completely bewildered, as it seemed extremely dangerous to move in any direction, they once more raised their voices to the utmost pitch ; and this time imagined they heard an answering shout ; but no assistance arriving, they concluded it must be a sand-echo. They then cautiously approached the river on another side, and entering the water, forded it with considerable ease. But on emerging from the fog, they found themselves in the island they had previously quitted, as they discovered by their own footsteps. Meanwhile, the cold of the night was intense. Their hands were so benumbed, that they could scarcely grasp their sticks; and their bare feet felt, as they fell upon the sand, as if literally scorched by the cold.

Their voices, however, were still loud; and they did not spare them, more especially as, from a certain sound in the river below, they began to imagine the tide was coming in. The fact was as they feared. Numerous sea-birds, which follow the motions of the sea, careered landward over their heads, screaming joyously as they flew.

Mr. Sr. Joint seeks to give variety and a romantic character to his novel by the introduction of popular customs and superstitions. Sometimes—as where two young ladies of education and family go out to sow hemp in a cross-road on All-hallow's eve—there is not only failure but absurdity. But generally he is successful. Here is a sketch of

WELSH CHURCHYARDS.

The spot selected for the grave of Colonel Mildmay was a small level patch of green sward, lying on the left hand as you enter the church-porch. A yewtree of gigantic dimensions threw forth its funereal branches over it ; and so eomplete was the shelter which their dense foliage afforded, that you might sit there snug and dry during shard rain of several hours. On all sides, to a considerable distance, stretched rows of graves and tombstones, extremely varied in. age, form, and dimensions. Generally throughout Wales, a reverence for the dead is among the most prominent feelings of the people ; and this sentiment develops itself in symbolical practices sometimes of the most touching beauty. Lilies, for example, and other flowers of unmixed and delicate hues, are planted over the graves of virgins, to signify the unsullied purity of the forms beneath; while to express the Christian's Lope of immortal and unchangeable existence, the narrow house is overshadowed by ever-verdant laurel or juniper, or the tree of life. At the festival of the Resurrection, the bands of filial or paternal love are busy about the mounds of the departed, whitewashing or painting the head and foot-stones, renewing the embankment of turf, or adding fresh varieties to the rich odoriferous flowers, which distil at night their fragrant dews upon the ashes of the dead. Few scenes, therefore, during spring and summer, are more beautiful than a Welsh churchyard. Shaded by every variety of tree known in the Principality, but chiofly by the favourite yew, between rows of which the classical cypress sometimes rears its dusky obelisk, it resembles externally one of the sacred groves of antiquity, while it has within it a beauty unknown to them in those numerous records of faith and Lope which friend has erected over friend, and which religion sanctifies with all its holiest and most powerful influences. In the seclusion of those delicious groves most persons experience a hushed tranquillity of mind indescribably sweet. The ardour of the sun's rays is excluded by a dense canopy of foliage, or

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tempered by those airs which seem to reside n the covert of woods; though here and there, perhaps, small patterns of sunshine chequer the ground, or glow upon the gray and yellow lichens adorning the tombs which have survived the families that once kept them in repair.

The character of Pierre Ponce, the political refugee and enthusiast in favour of revolutions, is the best in the book, and perhaps the only one that is consistently sustained. The opinions which Pierre upholds seem more natural in the mouth of a foreigner ; and his broken English, though without a foreign idiom—good English disguised by bad spelling, as if made from books or the stage—helps to render the style of his discourse amusing. Here are Pierre Ponce's ideas of the English as revolutionists, given at a dinner of Chartist politicians.

"Dere is von ting," cried Pierre Ponce, vich vid permission I shall say. It is dis. Dat de people of die coetce are too tam fond of dere money, to give up deir minds to de emente ita de insurrection. Ab, say dey, vat shall re get, vat shall ye lose? Anettlen deg know nothing of fighting by de science. Yen you catch von pefgabl and carry him to de armee and drill him, and pummel him vid de cane; you make of him von fine soldier. But at de same time, you beat out.5.49Tin his notion of de liberty. He is change his place altogeder in de libel He is make part of von new machine, rich is not only unlike de old machine out of vich he step, but is de enemy of it, and crush it venever it move out of de direct vay. Dis man is now lost to de people and de people's cause. He is become de slave, de gladiator of de oligarchie; and for de twentyfour BOOS vich every day dry give him, he vill fight his broder or his fader who stay behind on de farm. Dat, if I see right, is de cause vy de people of die contree do not much change their institution."

The book does not exhibit much acquaintance with society, or power of depicting manners ; but some of the reflections are those of an observer who has looked upon life rather to analyze than paint. Such is this picture of

AN ADVENTURER IN LONDON.

Haunted by the recollection of Isabella, and determined to use his utmost exertions to secure her hand, Denzil yet found himself absolutely stunned and bewildered by the movements of the vast machine of society, in which he found himself placed. He contemplated it again and again, from all possible points of view, and could discover no opening by which he might emerge from his present obscurity. Every thing appeared to be in its place ; every man but himself seemed to have his part to play : he found himself like an actor who comes upon the stage when the whole piece is filled up, and is compelled to retreat and mingle insensibly among the spectators. From time to time, opportunities seemed to float before him ; but ere he could examine them and ascertain their value, some other band had put in the sickle and reaped the harvest. He examined all the professions; he looked again and again over the whole map of human life: he saw there were many things, by applying himself to which, he might, in a long course of years, work his way upwards; but the period allotted to him was limited, and he already began to fear be had undertaken an impossibility.