lapsed into a closet description, as in saying of the buttresses of Melrose in the moonlight that they seem framed alternately of ebon and ivory. Many of his pictures, such as that of Coriskin, are examples of pure landscape painting without the aid of historical accessories. In a nature so warm, feeling for colour was sure not to be wanting; the best judges have pronounced that Scott possessed this gift in an eminent degree; and his picture of Edinburgh and the Camp in Marmion has been given as an example. He never thought of lending a soul to Nature like the author of Tintern Abbey, to whose genius he paid hearty homage across a wide gult of difference. But he could give her life; and he could make her sympathise with the human drama, as in the lines at the end of the Convent Canto of Marmion and in the opening of Rokeby, which rivals the opening of Hamlet in the cold winter night on the lonely platform of Elsinore. : Of the ballads and lyrical pieces some were Scott's earliest productions; among these is the Eve of St. John, in which his romantic imagination is at its height. Others are scattered through the romances and novels. In the ballads, even when they are most successful as imitations of the antique, there is inevitably something modern but so, it may be said, there is in the old ballads themselves, or they would not touch us as they do. Edmund's song in Rokeby is an old ballad, only with a finer grace and a more tender pathos. There is nothing in Scott's lyrical poetry deep or spiritual; the same fresh, joyous unphilosophising character runs through all his works: but in 'County Guy' he shows a true lyrical power of awakening by suggestion thoughts which would suffer by distinct expression. GOLDWIN SMITH. THE LAST MINSTREL [From The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Introduction to Canto 1.j The way was long, the wind was cold, The unpremeditated lay: Old times were changed, old manners gone, A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time. Had call'd his harmless art a crime. A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor, He pass'd where Newark's stately tower The embattled portal arch he pass'd, Whose ponderous grate and massy bar The Duchess' mark'd his weary pace, Though born in such a high degree; When kindness had his wants supplied, Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone, And how full many a tale he knew Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak, He could make music to her ear. The humble boon was soon obtain'd; The aged Minstrel audience gain'd. Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, representative of the ancient Lords of Buccleuch, and widow of the unfortunate James, Duke of Monmouth, who was beheaded in 1685. 'Francis Scott, Earl of Buccleuch, father of the Duchess. 'Walter, Earl of Buccleuch, grandfather of the Duchess, and a celebrated warrior. Perchance he wish'd his boon denied: And scenes, long past, of joy and pain, Was blended into harmony. And then, he said, he would full fain He never thought to sing again. It was not framed for village churls, He had play'd it to King Charles the good, When he kept court in Holyrood; And much he wish'd, yet fear'd, to try Amid the strings his finger stray'd, And an uncertain warbling made, And oft he shook his hoary head. But when he caught the measure wild, The old man raised his face, and smiled; And lighten'd up his faded eye, With all a poet's ecstasy! In varying cadence, soft or strong, He swept the sounding chords along: The present scene, the future lot, THE CAMP. [From Marmion, Canto IV.] [Marmion and Sir David Lindesay survey the Scottish Camp from Blackford Hill.] Early they took Dun-Edin's road, And I could trace each step they trode: Blackford on whose uncultured breast, While rose on breezes thin, Now, from the summit to the plain, And o'er the landscape as I look, Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook To me they make a heavy moan, Of early friendships past and gone. But different far the change has been, |