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 I.]

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His wither'd cheek, and tresses grey,
Seem'd to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the Bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry;
For, welladay! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppress'd,
Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He carolled light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caress'd,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He pour'd, to lord and lady gay,

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 begg'd his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

He pass'd where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:
The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye-
No humbler resting-place was nigh:
With hesitating step at last,

The embattled portal arch he pass'd,

Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft roll'd back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess' mark'd his weary pace,
His timid mien, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell
That they should tend the old man well:
For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride;
And he began to talk anon,

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter3, rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;

And how full many a tale he knew
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch ;

And, would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,
That, if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtain'd;

The aged Minstrel audience gain'd.

But, when he reach'd the room of state,
Where she, with all her ladies, sate,

1 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.

2 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:
For, when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please;

And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain-
He tried to tune his harp in vain!
The pitying Duchess praised its chime,
And gave him heart, and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee

Was blended into harmony.

And then, he said, he would full fain
He could recall an ancient strain,

He never thought to sing again.

It was not framed for village churls,
But for high dames and mighty earls;

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
The long-forgotten melody.

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,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot:
Cold diffidence, and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied:
And, while his harp responsive rung,
'T was thus the LATEST MINSTREL sung.

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:
Hill, brook, nor dell, nor rock, nor stone,
Lies on the path to me unknown.
Much might it boast of storied lore;
But, passing such digression o'er,
Suffice it that their route was laid
Across the furzy hills of Braid.
They pass'd the glen and scanty rill,
And climb'd the opposing bank, until
They gain'd the top of Blackford Hill.

Blackford on whose uncultured breast,
Among the broom, and thorn, and whin,
A truant-boy, I sought the nest,
Or listed, as I lay at rest,

While rose on breezes thin,
The murmur of the city crowd,
And, from his steeple jangling loud,
Saint Giles's mingling din.

Now, from the summit to the plain,
Waves all the hill with yellow grain;
And o'er the landscape as I look,
Nought do I see unchanged remain,

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,
Since Marmion, from the crown
Of Blackford, saw that martial scene
Upon the bent so brown: