times, as it should be, I am aware. ANNE FURNESS. And do the shadow of a tree, only to rise and walk At length you know, Lucy-I don't know whether it has about again after a minute or two. ever happened to you or to Anne-but really in my restless pacings to and fro I came to the and truly, when Miss Cudberry is talking, I glass door of the dining-room, which stood open very often don't know whether it's inside my to admit the sweet summer air, and as I paused, own head or outside! It's a very curious sensa-looking in, grandfather's eyes unclosed and met tion, and I dare say cleverer persons than I am mine, and he beckoned me with his hand. Grandfather," said I, advancing to him, may not feel it. But with me, I assure you that when I have been listening to Miss Cud-"do you know what the 'strange thing' is berry for a little while there comes a great which Donald tells me has happened ?" buzzing in my ears, and my head swims, and I don't understand one syllable she is saying. I suppose," added poor Judith, with a plaintive sigh, "it's his doing." 66 66 "Why," he answered, with a faint smile that "It is nothing painful-nothing that grieves It was close upon our dinner-hour, and we were still discussing Tilly's newly developed "Not at all! not at all! I never knew you He looked at. emancipation from the family traditions, when grandfather came home alone. Donald, he curious before, little Nancy." said, had sent word that he should be detained me more searchingly than he had hitherto done, in the country, and might not be home until and then added, in a graver tone: "It is a queer quite evening. Already, for a long time, Don- business, and may turn out to be all a fond imald had taken on himself the more laborious agination on the part of Dodd; but in any case part of grandfather's practice-nearly all that it is best not to speak of it incautiously. I had lay among the very poor patients, for example, special reasons for saying no word on the subwhom he gratuitously attended. It was, there-ject before your dear mother, for it would have fore, a not infrequent occurrence for Donald to be absent during a great part of the day, and my mother and Mrs. Abram took it as a matter of course. For my own part, I could not help wondering whether Donald's prolonged absence might not be connected with the happening of the "strange thing" to which he had alluded in his note, and whether grandfather I could not help, knew it, and what it was. moreover, watching grandfather's countenance, and I thought I detected on it a certain amount of preoccupation. touched upon the time of her great sorrow, and we can not be too careful not to set that chord quivering." It was, indeed, no overstrained precaution on our part to avoid the least allusion—or, at all A careless events, the least sudden allusion—to that dreadful period in mother's presence. word might at any time have brought back the hysterical convulsions which had so prostrated her strength. "Then," said I, "this 'strange thing' has reference in some way to-" "To that time-to that time, little Nancy. However, my own was, in truth, the only anxious face at table. Mother was cheerful in Don't look so distressed, my child. It is nothher quiet way, and made me repeat all Tillying with which our feelings are much concernCudberry's odd sayings and doings for grand-ed, after all." He bent down to caress the dog that lay at father's amusement. He listened and laughed, and exclaimed at intervals, "What an incred- his feet, and said, as he played with the animal ible woman! What a stupendous woman!" and stroked it, "Now you know, little Nancy, And when poor Mrs. Abram-with a lugubri-how certain people scolded me, and lectured ous reference to "his" adverse influence-dole- me, and strove to show me the error of my fully related the mysterious experience she un-ways, when I professed to have my suspicions derwent during a long spell of Miss Cudberry's of the precious Company' and the precious eloquence, and especially dwelt on her painful uncertainty as to whether the talking were outside or inside her own head, grandfather immensely gratified and relieved her by saying, "My dear Judith, you are quite right. You have aptly described a sensation which Miss Cudberry's conversation has frequently produced in myself-only I have never been able to express it." City gentleman' at the head of it! Well, wait a while! wait a while! Suppose it should turn out that this Mr. Smith- My child, what is the matter?" He had been talking on cheerfully, and in a half-bantering tone, still stroking the dog; but on lifting his eyes to my face his tone changed, "Will Donald and as he took my hand his own hand trembled. "Will they meet?" I cried. After dinner Mrs. Abram retired to her come in contact with this man?" Then in a room; mother had some shawls and cushions moment I was breathlessly pouring out the story carried into the garden, and composed herself of my interview with Gervase Lacer. I told on a rustic bench with a book in her hand, and him every thing-Lacer's profession of repentgrandfather sat in his great chair, and closed ance and his promises of amendment; then his his eyes for his customary after-dinner sleep. jealousy and anger against Donald; and finalGrandfather was very old now, and needed rest. ly my promise not to betray him, if he would I wan- leave our neighborhood and seek to molest me I was painfully restless and ill at ease. It had seemed so unlikely that Dondered about the shrubbery, or seated myself in no more. ald should cross his path in any way that I had hoped Lacer might depart without seeing him. But now an unforeseen circumstance appeared to threaten the evil I so dreaded. Grandfather turned on me a face of wonder, but he did not interrupt me by a single word. When I had finished he said, smoothing my hand re-assuringly: He then ordered that the pony should be harnessed, and the groom told to make ready to accompany his master at once. His orders were habitually obeyed with promptitude, but on this occasion an unusual degree of speed was infused into the groom's movements. "What will you say to me if I can get rid of this fellow at once? Get rid of him so that he shall never more trouble Horsingham? I be "No, no; no, no, my child; don't fear for Donald. The scoundrel's threats make no im-lieve there is a way!" said my grandfather. pression on me. Such rascals don't talk of it beforehand when they mean mischief. It was all said to frighten you. What a despicable villain it is!" He uttered the last exclamation with sudden heat and violence. He had been speaking before in a pondering tone, with his head bent down. But I was far from feeling re-assured. "Oh," I cried, "I would give the world that Gervase Lacer were fairly away from this place! I can not breathe freely while he is lingering here. And for mother's sake, too-" Grandfather suddenly rose up from his chair with more vigor of movement than I had seen in him for many a day, and rang so peremptory a peal at the bell as brought Eliza to the dining-room door much quicker than was her wont. And then, without waiting for a reply, he hurried into the hall, where he stood impatiently pulling on his driving gloves. The chaise was brought round so quickly that I had scarcely had time to ask any questions before grandfather stepped into the little vehicle. In reply to my hurried word or two of inquiry he merely said: "I believe there is a way, little Nancy. Tell your mother I am gone on business. When Donald comes back-if he returns before I do-say the same to him, and ask him to await my return for an explanation. Let no one be uneasy if I am late. God bless thee, child; good-by!" I heard him say to the groom, "Take the nearest way to Market Diggleton ;" and then the chaise rolled away. Editor's Easy Chair. "The way was long, the wind was cold; HIS was the strain which sixty-six years The ballads in Lewis's "Tales of Wonder." next year the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," and in 1804 "Thomas of Ercildoune's Sir Tristram," with a dissertation and glossary; and in 1805, when he was thirty-four, the “Lay of the Last Minstrel." In this same year a large part of "Waverley" was written and announced, but it was thrown Tings wasght the rear and touched the heart aside at the suggestion of some discriminating of England and America; and the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," of which these were the opening lines, was the first famous work of what was probably the most remarkable literary career in history. For twenty-five years Walter Scott was the literary chief of his time. Even Byron did not disturb his supremacy, although the superiority of his poetic genius was not denied. But Byron did not rival Scott in creative imagination; and "Childe Harold" and "The Corsair" can hardly expect to survive with the "Antiquary" and Jeanie Deans. Scott was not first known, however, by the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." After nourishing his youth upon the libraries into which early ill health and natural inclination threw him, feeding his imagination upon the romantic traditions of the most romantic of Northern lands, and instinctively recoiling from the profession of the law, for which he had prepared himself, he began his career by publishing, when he was twenty-five years old, some translations from the German. That of Bürger's Leonore" is still familiar from its two lines. "Tramp, tramp, across the land they go, When he was thirty he published his first original friend until eight or nine years afterward, when Scott found it by chance and finished it. Another discriminating friend begged him not to endanger the fame he had gained by "Marmion" by publishing another poem, which was the "Lady of the Lake." But Scott was wiser than his friends. The other poems-not, indeed, of an equal excellence-followed rapidly until 1814, when the "Lord of the Isles" appeared, and in the same year "Waverley; or, "Tis Sixty Years Since." For seventeen years longer the wonderful series begun by "Waverley" con tinued; and in 1832, in a cloud of misfortunes, and with the tender pity of the world, the man who had done more to delight his fellows, and who was more universally beloved than any of his contemporaries, died. His impression was so profound upon his own generation that there are men still-'tis sixty years since they were young-who feel as if a large part of human genius perished with him. They admit no peer, no rival, of Scott. He and Shakespeare are to them the great glories of the English name; for Scott, although a Scotchman in the truest sense, yet belongs to English literature. The late Professor Ticknor was one of those EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. who belonged to the prime of the Scott epoch. | the blood of that old system ran in his veins. His last aye; Sir WALTER SCOTT, of Branxholm, Knight. The persons of whom we speak read Scott with aggressive exclusiveness. The Easy Chair 'Antiquary" knew one who used to read the " and some others once a year. It was apparent-"In world is naught Nature has wrought what shall ly a religious act, a solemn pleasure; and nothing was more entertaining than the impatient curtness with which this gentleman used to disclaim any familiarity with the later story-tellers. Dickens was merely a farceur; Thackeray a But he was Tory through his imagination and gentlemanly sort of author; Bulwer-ah, yes, Bulwer had something of the grand style. But his heart. So in his stories, while the old order is No, unquestioned, and all the pomp and pride of birth the others, and especially the womenit was really impossible: one page of Scott was and blood and rank have their full traditional valworth all their chapters. His conversation ue, his broad human sympathy, and the humor teemed with "Waverley" allusions, and it gave a which is the natural corrective of conservatism, fresh impression of the fertility and catholicity of opened to him the most generous range of porScott to observe how his characters and his hu- traiture. Jeanie Deans, the noblest woman in litmor seemed to fit every circumstance of contem-erature since Shakespeare, is a daughter of the And in this instance, as in all the porary life. others of what might be called the High-Church of Scott believers, it was beautiful to see that love of the man was an essential part of the admiration. The simple heartiness, the shaggy sincerity, the ample and sweet humor, the satisfactory simplicity of the man deepened and confirmed the enthusiasm for his genius. And, indeed, to be so loved, and still loved so after a generation to die amidst more genuine sorrow in two worlds than ever waited upon the death of a king in any country, was a final test of the real quality of the man. When the monument was finished at Edinburgh the orator said that, except Shakespeare, no one had ever given so much innocent pleasure to so many people as Scott. It is, however, probable that Scott is much more familiarly known and has actually given very much more pleasure than Shakespeare. For in English literature it is necessary always to except Shakespeare, as in American history Washington is always excepted. Yet there is an immense number of persons in both countries who are like Thackeray's good lady, who declared that she "adored Mrs. Hemans, and said she liked Shakespeare, but didn't." Nobody merely pretends to like Scott. Both the familiarity with him and the love of him are genuine. Yet no man can escape his temperament, his instinctive sympathies, and in Scott's stories, as in his life, the natural bent of the man is evident. As he came of age the French revolution began. While he, an invalid lad, was reading romances in quiet libraries the thunder of that terrible tempest was angrily muttering. Fascinated by the tragical or poetical legends of Scotland, he did Vernot hear the women of Paris marching upon sailles, nor comprehend that the uproar in France was the fierce death-throe of a social system. Yet people, who will not tell a lie to save a sister's life. Perhaps his interest in his figures was not as 66 yes, the old régime was imperfect, perhaps in some points culpable; but was its worst estate so appalling as this?" Injustice binds a man's legs until they almost wither under him, and then when the gyves are cut, and the liberated victim staggers and reels, the tyrant remarks, "Ceralways apparent to tainly; I told you that he could not walk." But if Scott's Toryism reflection, it is surely not obtrusive nor even observable by the fascinated reader. The boy sit 66 useless. "I was born so, mother," is the conclusive reply. The praise is that Walter Scott did not abuse his great faculty by any sophistry. There is no wire-drawn, speculative morality in his stories. They have all the heartiness and health of their author. "He was the last man who believed in shoulders," groaned a critic, who declared that he was smothered by the sentimental licentiousness or sickly goodishness of the modern novel. ting in the blossoming apple-tree and swinging' his foot as he follows entranced the fortunes of Ivanhoe; the girl in her chamber, with locked door, poring with streaming eyes over the betrothal of Lucy Ashton; the boy and girl, with aching heart, hearing the parting words of Rebecca to Rowena; the man and woman poring over the Antiquary," the "Legend of Montrose," the "Heart of Mid-Lothian," or "Waverley," are wholly satisfied, nor ask nor think of any thing beyond. It is the master power. The orator, Even now, when he has been so long at rest, the statesman, the singer, the philosopher-they and a new generation has arisen, and new fames are all feeble and limited beside the story-teller. fill the world, it is impossible to think of the How deeply Thackeray felt this of his own voca- tragedy of Scott's last years without a poignant tion! He spent a large sum of money once to and personal sorrow as over the fate of a dear get into Parliament: "And, Sir," he said, aft- friend. Suddenly the misfortune came - the erward, when speaking of it, "thank God, I enormous losses and debts-and he put the great failed, and fate is welcome to the money." In-heart and the great shoulders to the tremendous deed, few story-tellers have ever moralized so much upon the story-teller. In one of the essays in "Sketches and Travels in London," containing the wisdom and experience of Mr. Brown, the elder, in that metropolis, there is a description of the club and of what the elder and younger Mr. Brown see there. They pass from room to room, the cicerone, who is a preliminary study of Major Pendennis, commenting as they go, and at last they enter the library. Mr. Brown, the elder, proceeds: "What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the bawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never any body here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon after they begin to shave, or never look at any thing but a newspaper. How pleasant this room is, isn't it? with its sober draperies and long, calm lines of peaceful volumes-nothing to interrupt the quiet, only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies asleep upon one of the sofas! What is he reading? Hah! 'Pendennis,' No. VII.-hum! let us pass on. Have you read 'David Copperfield,' by-the-way? How beautiful it is!-how charmingly fresh and simple! In those admirable touches of tender humorand I should call humor, Bob, a mixture of love and wit-who can equal this great genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over the writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words go forth to vast congregations of mankind-to grown folks, to their children, and perhaps to their children's children-but must think of his calling with a solemn and humble heart! May love and truth guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer may Heaven further its fulfillment! And then, Bob, let the Record revile him See, here's Horner waking up.-How do you do, Horner?" But Scott was his own last minstrel. The story-teller in his view was part of the baronial household. He was to sit below the salt and entertain the guests after dinner. In speaking of Fielding, he says that it is the business of the novelist to amuse; and Carlyle's pathetic regret that Scott was content to do no more was refreshed in the reader's memory by the affectionate tribute to the bard of Abbotsford, in the last number of this Magazine. The regret is struggle. The beneficent genius that had so long gayly played only to delight the fascinated world was in a moment desperately wrestling with death for honor and existence. He owed nearly six hundred thousand dollars; and of this vast sum, by strenuous and relentless toil, breaking his heart and consuming his brain, he paid within four years considerably more than half. Alas! he paid with his life and with his mind. The cloud fell thicker and more heavily. His wife died; every thing failed but his own heroism, and the love and pity of mankind. There are glimpses in the memoirs of that time-glimpses inexpressibly sad-of the dying man in Italy, at Naples, upon the Campagna. It is only the shadow of the stalwart Scott. He sits for hours gazing upon the sea; he moves restlessly about; he repeats, in a tone so mournful that the heart breaks to hear, snatches of the old, old ballads that his youth loved, and which are dear to all men who speak his language because he loved them. Then he comes home to die. Gentle as a child, he has been unspoiled by the flattery of a world. Through the mists of the fast-fading mind looks out that true and tender manhood which is forever memorable. "Be a good man, my dear," he whispers to his son-in-law, Lockhart, and on a soft September afternoon, thirtynine years ago, with all the windows wide open, and the gentle ripple of the Tweed murmuring upon the air, while his children knelt around the bed, Walter Scott died, "and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes." In his case that prayer which we quoted of one of his successors was fulfilled-"May love and truth guide such a man always!" For of any man who ever held so large a place in the heart of his contemporaries and of their children, and who had so great a power, could it be more truly said than of Sir Walter, that he was guided always by love and truth? MR. EASY CHAIR-for so this venerable piece of furniture was styled-was recently invited to attend the exhibition of the New Traveling Panorama in Arcadia. To that pleasant village among the hills the traveling exhibitions seldom come, both because of the very slight promise of a remunerative audience, and because of the neighborhood of the vigorous little village of Rocky River, where the "works" are, and there is a thriving population with nothing to do in the evening. Sometimes a conjuror strays into Arcadia, and we all sit with our mouths open, "Just Heavens!" he exclaimed; "where did you come from?" intent to discover how the money slips from one | ways see fairy-land under the maples, because hand to the other, where the ball goes to in the they know how and where to look. One day cup, and where the rabbits and ribbons and when some of us had made up a party for candy are concealed that he pulls out of Mr. Symmes's Hole and were returning, who should Easy Chair's hat, who, in secret, subsequently we see but General Brown, standing in the door vainly tries to pull any thing as valuable out of of the hotel near the Hole. For his part, he it. For we know in Arcadia that the artful could not believe his eyes. magician does not actually find squirrels and baby linen in hats taken at random, although at the present price of hats in the city it might be fairly presumed that they are articles of a gift enterprise distribution, in which, somewhere under the lining, vast treasures would be discovered. One of the hat waggerics of the last conjuror who came to Arcadia is still told with relish. He took the hat of Mr. Easy Chair, and after pulling out of it live and fancy stock of various kinds, he held it up and showed that it was empty. "The truth is, that is its normal state," said Signor Diabolus, as he glanced gravely at the owner of the hat: "there is generally nothing in this hat; and now," he exclaimed, as he suddenly brought it down and covered the head of Deacon Bladder, the most solemnly self-important man in the village-" now there is less than ever." Deacon Bladder goes no more to see the show of a wandering conjuror. He says there's nothing in it. Upon which the boys who hear him run out and yelp in the street, "Just what Signor Diabolus said!" "From Arcadia," we shouted, in chorus. "How do you get to Arcadia ?" asked he. "Nobody knows," answered we. But the next year General Brown came trotting tranquilly into town one evening upon his horse. And he was welcome; for any body who can find the way to Arcadia unaided is instantly presented with the freedom of the village in a cup of spring water. And when he sits reading, on some warm summer morning, hearing only the rustle of the maple leaves, and the musical clink of the blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil, in his shady nook beyond the yellow barn, ringing across the tobacco field-for Arcadian tobacco is the best of all-he has a deep and thankful sense of rest and vacation that possibly even Newport and Long Branch could not afford. The coming of the New Traveling Panorama into such a land of drowsihead is, therefore, an awakening sensation. The forerunning handbills, which are nailed up in the shop, at the post-office, and at the hotel, and which are dropped into every yard in the village, produce such an excitement among the children as the announcement of a world-famous singer or actor may produce among older people elsewhere. And once there came a horse-tamer, who drove from the next town without reins, guiding his horse by the whip; and in the afternoon we all went into the doctor's barn, and every body who had a vicious horse brought him, and he There was one of these modest bills pasted was tamed as effectually as Rarey could have upon our soldiers' monument, but the sacrilege tamed him. The Arcadians understand horses, was instantly punished by its indignant removal. and he would be an extremely clever gentleman The modest handbill had what it called a procwho should be able to take them in. There was lamation paragraph, in which it was proclaimed plenty of fun in the barn that afternoon; for in to mankind that the old system of immense illusArcadia every body knows every body else, and trated placards was "played out," and that the nobody is afraid to say a good thing if he hap-more convenient and portable bills, which brought pens to think of it, which is usually the chief difficulty. There was one very forlorn animal, whose especial vice was kicking, and who seemed to have kicked all his tail away. When the horse-tamer came to him he turned blandly to the audience upon the haymow, and said, with an air of great interest, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you see this horse-" "But thereby hangs no tale!" said 'Bijah; and after the little volley of laughter that followed, the horse-tamer, or The Bucephalic Conqueror, as he preferred to call himself, proceeded to tame the kicker without further preface. But these are rare delights in Arcadia. The quiet monotony of the life there is seldom broken. Sometimes a temperance lecturer or even a bishop comes, and must be surprised to find himself so far away from the world, and in a society so shrewd and natural. But the only excitement upon which we can surely count is the daily departure and arrival of the stagecoach. That is still the event in Arcadia-as it used to be in other places forty years ago-and that fact explains why the bishop and the temperance lecturer are likely to be surprised. They did not know, probably, that there were still stage-coach towns. But the right eyes can al the glad tidings of the New Traveling Panorama home to every man's business and bosom, were much preferable and more comme il faut. In "Blast the French lingo!" said 'Bijah; "small bills are cheaper; that's the reason: cheap and nasty.' And it is to be suspected that the want of the large, enlivening posters cast a prejudice upon the promised entertainment. In Arcadia we have plenty of time to contemplate all the preliminary details of the enterprises and exhibitions which appeal to our sympathies and purses, and we are, therefore, very exigent. Like the man going to execution, we are very particular to have the nosegay in our button-hole. deed, we should hardly consider ourselves properly hanged without it. A "show," therefore, which entered our street without a band of music in a gorgeous triumphal car drawn by six fiery dapple-gray steeds in resplendent trappings, would fall into lamentable discredit as an attempt at amusement under false pretenses. We still remember, in Arcadia, the imposing alliteration of the shrewd manager of the wax-work collection, who entered the village with peals of music and the thunder of a cannon, justifying, to the letter, his promise that "This appeal to the patronage of the enlightened public of Arcadia will not be preceded by any preliminary parsimony of prep |