Minstrelsy, and pointed out to me some lines On a Violet, which had not at that time been included in Scott's collected works. Lord Kinedder read them over in his usual impressive, though not quite unaffected, manner, and said- I remember well, that when I first saw these, I told him they were his best; but he had touched them up afterwards." 14 "The violet in her greenwood bower, 66 Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle, In glen or copse or forest dingle. Though fair her gems of azure hue Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining, I've seen an eye of lovelier blue More sweet through watery lustre shining. "The summer sun that dew shall dry, Ere yet the sun be past its morrow, Nor longer in my false love's eye Remained the tear of parting sorrow!" In turning over a volume of MS. papers, I have found a copy of verses, which, from the hand, Scott had evidently written down within the last ten years of his life. They are headed—“ To Time — by a Lady;" but certain initials on the back satisfy me, that the authoress was no other than the object of his first passion.* I think I must be pardoned for trans A very intimate friend both of Scott and of the lady tells me cribing the lines which had dwelt so long on his memory—leaving it to the reader's fancy to picture the mood of mind in which the fingers of a greyhaired man may have traced such a relic of his youthful dreams: "Friend of the wretch oppress'd with grief, Whose lenient hand, though slow, supplies That wipes her tears that checks her sighs! """Tis thine the wounded soul to heal That hopeless bleeds from sorrow's smart, The barb that rankles in the heart. "What though with thee the roses fly, And jocund youth's gay reign is o'er; And hope's vain dreams enchant no more? "Yet in thy train come dove-eyed peace, "O haste to grant thy suppliant's prayer, that these verses were great favourities of hers—she gave himself a copy of them, and no doubt her recitation had made them known to Scott-but that he believes them to have been composed by Mrs Hunter of Norwich. [1839.] CHAPTER VIII. Publication of Ballads after Bürger-Scott Quarter-Master of the Edinburgh Light-horseExcursion to Cumberland. Gilsland Wells REBELLING, as usual, against circumstances, Scott seems to have turned with renewed ardour to his literary pursuits; and in that same October, 1796, he was "prevailed on," as he playfully expresses it, "by the request of friends, to indulge his own vanity, by publishing the translation of Lenore, with that of the Wild Huntsman, also from Bürger, in a thin quarto." The little volume, which has no author's name on the title-page, was printed for Manners and Miller of Edinburgh. The first named of these respectable publishers had been a fellowstudent in the German class of Dr Willich; and VOL. I. Y this circumstance probably suggested the negotiation. It was conducted by William Erskine, as appears from his postscript to a letter addressed to Scott by his sister, who, before it reached its destination, had become the wife of Mr Campbell Colquhoun of Clathick and Killermont-in after-days Lord Advocate of Scotland. This was another of Scott's dearest female friends. The humble home which she shared with her brother during his early struggles at the bar, had been the scene of many of his happiest hours; and her letter affords such a pleasing idea of the warm affectionateness of the little circle, that I cannot forbear inserting it :— "To Walter Scott, Esq., Rosebank, Kelso. "If it were not that etiquette and I were constantly at war, I should think myself very blameable in thus trespassing against one of its laws; but as it is long since I forswore its dominion, I have acquired a prescriptive right to act as I will-and I shall accordingly anticipate the station of a matron in addressing a young man. "I can express but a very, very little of what I feel, and shall ever feel, for your unintermitting friendship and attention. I have ever considered |