Lightfoot, and Castel, brought forwards their vast stores of oriental learning, to explain the difficulties, clear the obscurities, and illustrate the beauties, of the sacred writings; that Cudworth unfolded his "True Intellectual System;" and, that the pious and benevolent Sherlock (uncle to the truly evangelical Bishop Wilson) pourtrayed in his "Practical Christian," and exemplified in his useful life, the proper fruits of faith, the beauty of holiness, and the happiness of virtue. To the lasting credit of our Church be it spoken, that the labours of these pious, sincere, and able divines, and their immediate followers in the same glorious path, were blessed with complete success; atheism was overwhelmed, infidelity silenced; and profligacy shamed; and the impress of religion, morality, decency, and sobriety, so deeply stamped upon the English character, as, we trust, will render these graces its peculiar distinguishing marks, to the latest future ages.

NOTE OMITTED." So prone to be imaginative," page 181, vol. ii. The visionary appearances, which, like Banquo's ghost present themselves, not unfrequently, to the roused and wounded conscience, have furnished rich materials for the poet's purposes, both in ancient and modern times. But, we do not recol. lect, that any bard of the present day has made a more happy use of these "accusing spirits," than the Rev. W. L. Bowles, in his beautiful "Ellen Gray, or Dead Maiden's Curse," oct. Archibald Constable, Edinburgh, 1823. The following extract, we conceive, will be thought to justify this remark :

In foreign lands, in darkness and in light,
The same dread spectre stood before his sight.
If slumber came, his aching lids to close,
Funereal forms in sad procession rose.
Sometimes he dream'd that every grief was pass'd,
Ellen had long been lost-was found at last,
And now she smiled as when in early life-
The morn was come, when she should be his wife :
The maids were dress'd in white, and all were gay;
And the bells rang for Ellen's wedding-day!
Then, wherefore sad? A chill comes o'er his soul—
Hark! the glad bells have sunk into a toll!
A slow, deep toll-and lo! a sable train
Of mourners, moving to the village fane!-

A coffin now is laid in holy ground,
That heavily returns its hollow sound,
When the first earth upon its lid is thrown:
The hollow sound is changed into a groan:
And rising with wan cheek, and dripping hair,
And moving lips, and eyes of ghastly stare,
A figure issues! ah, it comes more near!
'Tis Ellen! and that "book" with many a tear
Is wet, which, with her fingers long and cold,
He sees her to the glimm'ring moon unfold!
Her icy hand is laid upon his heart!
Gasping, he wakes-and, with convulsive start,
He gazes round-moonlight is on the tide-
The passing keel is scarcely heard to glide—
Ah! there the spectre goes-with frenzied look
He shrieks, Oh, shut, dear Ellen, shut the book.'
Now to the ocean's verge the phantom flies!
And hark! far off the lessening laughter dies.

CONCLUSION.

OUR "Illustrations" of Novels by the Author of Waverly are now closed. All that remains for us, is, to make some slight observations on those stories which have not been the subjects of our particular notice; and to venture a few general remarks on the works at large, and on the nature of that influence which they are calculated to exercise on public taste, feeling, and sentiment.

It is no very easy task to determine, on principles of criticism, to which of our author's various novels the highest praise should, in justice, be awarded. They evince so much splendour of genius, fertility of invention, copiousness of diction, and richness of comparison and simile, that, as those of higher cast are successively read, each appears to deserve a preference over its fellows. If