_Blackwood's Magazine_.

* * * * *




NEW BOOKS.


LIVES OF SCOTTISH WORTHIES, VOL. II., [Or the 34th volume of the
_Family Library_, is rife with interesting details of the proudest
areas of Scottish history; but more especially of the chivalric courses
of Robert Bruce and James the First. We quote half-a-dozen vividly
written pages, from the former, describing the memorable Siege of
Berwick, in 1319.]

Considering the importance of Berwick, and the care and expense with
which it had been fortified by the king, it was natural that any attempt
against it should be viewed with much interest; and when it was known
that the son-in-law of Bruce,--a young warrior, whose high rank was
rendered more conspicuous by the services he had already rendered to the
country,--had been selected as its governor, and that the whole army of
England, headed by king Edward, and under the command of the flower of
the nobility, had invested it by sea and land, the intense interest with
which the siege was watched by both countries may be easily imagined.
It concluded, however, in the complete triumph of the steward, and the
repulse of the English army; yet not before every device then known in
the rude engineering of the times had been essayed by the besiegers,