pressure of increasing infirmities, ere the seed sown amidst clouds and storms was white in the field. In six years Milton had realized the object of his hopes and prayers by the completion of Paradise Lost.' His task was done; the field of glory was gained; he held in his hand his passport to immortality. In six years Scott had nearly reached the goal of his ambition. He had ranged the wide fields of romance, and the public had liberally rewarded their illustrious favourite. The ultimate prize was within view, and the world cheered him on, eagerly anticipating his triumph; but the victor sank exhausted on the course. He had spent his life in the struggle. The strong man was bowed down, and his living honour, genius, and integrity were extinguished by delirium and death.

In February 1850, Scott had an attack of paralysis. He continued, however, to write several hours every day. In April 1851, he suffered a still more severe attack; and he was prevailed upon, as a means of withdrawing him from mental labour, to undertake a foreign tour. The Admiralty furnished a ship of war, and the poet sailed for Malta and Naples. At the latter place he resided from the 17th of December 1831 to the 16th of April following. He still laboured at unfinished romances, but his mind was in ruins. From Naples the poet went to Rome. On the 11th of May, he began his return homewards, and reached London on the 13th of June. Another attack of apoplexy, combined with paralysis, had laid prostrate his powers, and he was conveyed to Abbotsford a helpless and almost unconscious wreck. He lingered on for some time, listening occasionally to passages read to him from the Bible, and from his favourite author Crabbe. Once he tried to write, but his fingers would not close upon the pen. He never spoke of his literary labours or success. At times his imagination was busy preparing for the reception of the Duke of Wellington at Abbotsford; at other times he was exercising the functions of Scottish judge, as if presiding at the trial of members of his own family. His mind never appeared to wander in its delirium towards these works which had filled all Europe with his fame. This fact is of interest in literary history. But the contest was soon to be over; the plough was nearing the end of the furrow.' About half-past one, P.M.,' says Mr. Lockhart, 'on the 21st of September 1832, Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day-so warm that every window was wide open-and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.'

Call it not vain; they do not err

Who say, that when the poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;

Who say tall cliff and cavern lone
For the departed bard make moan;

That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distil;
Through his loved groves that breezes sigh,
And oaks, in deeper groans, reply;
And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave.

Lay of the Last Minstrel.

The novelty and originality of Scott's style of poetry, though exhausted by himself, and debased by imitators, formed his first passport to public favour and applause. The English reader had to go back to Spencer and Chaucer ere he could find so knightly and chivalrous a poet, or such paintings of antique manners and institutions. The works of the elder worthies were also obscured by a dim and obsolete phraseology; while Scott, in expression, sentiment, and description, could be read and understood by all. The perfect clearness and transparency of his style is one of his distinguishing features; and it was further aided by his peculiar versification. Cole ridge had exemplified the fitness of the octosyllabic measure for romantic narrative poetry, and parts of his Christabel' having been recited to Scott, he adopted its wild rhythm and harmony, joining to it some of the abruptness and irregularity of the old ballad metre. In his hands it became a powerful and flexible instrument, whether for light narrative and pure description, or for scenes of tragic wildness and terror, such as the trial and death of Constance in Marmion,' or the swell and agitation of a battle-field. The knowledge and enthusiasm requisite for a chivalrous poet Scott possessed in an eminent degree. He was an early worshipper of 'hoar antiquity.' He was in the maturity of his powers-thirty-four years of agewhen the 'Lay' was published, and was perhaps better informed on such subjects than any other man living. Border story and romance had been the study and the passion of his whole life. In writing Marmion' and 'Ivanhoe,' or in building Abbotsford, he was impelled by a natural and irresistible im pulse. The baronial castle, the court and camp-the wild Highfand chase, feud, and foray-the antique blazonry, and institutions of feudalism, were constantly present to his thoughts and imagination. Then, his powers of description were unequalled -certainly never surpassed. His landscapes, his characters and situations, were all real delineations; in general effect and individual details, they were equally perfect. None of his contemporaries had the same picturesqueness, fancy, or invention; none so graphic in depicting manners and customs; none so fertile in inventing incis dents; none so fascinating in narrative, or so various and powerful in description. His diction was proverbially careless and incorrect. Neither in prose nor poetry was Scott a polished writer. He looked only at broad and general effects; his words had to make pictures, not melody. Whatever could be grouped and described, whatever was visible and tangible, lay within his reach. Below the surface

he had less power. The language of the heart was not his familiar study; the passions did not obey his call. The contrasted effects of passion and situation he could portray vividly and distinctly-the sin and suffering of Constance, the remorse of Marmion and Bertram, the pathetic character of Wilfrid, the knightly grace of Fitz-James, and the rugged virtues and savage death of Roderick Dhu, are ali fine specimens of moral painting. Byron has nothing better, and indeed the noble poet in some of his tales copied or paraphrased the sterner passages of Scott. But even in these gloomy and powerful traits of his genius, the force lies in the situation, not in the thoughts and expression. There are no talismanic words that pierce the heart or usurp the memory; none of the impassioned and reflective style of Byron, the melodious pathos of Campbell, or the profound sympathy and philosophy of Wordsworth.

The great strength of Scott undoubtedly lay in the prolific richness of his fancy, in his fine healthy moral feeling, and in the abundant stores of his memory, that could create, collect, and arrange such a multitude of scenes and adventures; that could find materials for stirring and romantic poetry in the most minute and barren antiquarian details; and that could reanimate the past, and paint the present, in scenery and manners, with a vividness and energy unknown since the period of Homer.

The 'Lay of the Last Minstrel' is a Border story of the sixteenth century, related by a minstrel, the last of his race. The character of the aged minstrel, and that of Margaret of Branksome, are very finely drawn; Deloraine, a coarse Border chief or moss-trooper, is also a vigorous portrait; and in the description of the march of the English army, the personal combat with Musgrave, and the other feudal accessories of the piece, we have finished pictures of the olden time. The goblin page is no favourite of ours, except in so far as it makes the story more accordant with the times in which it is placed. The introductory lines to each canto form an exquisite setting to the dark feudal tale, and tended greatly to cause the popularity of the poem. The minstrel is thus described:

The Aged Minstrel.

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed 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, well-a-day! their date was fled;
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroled, light as lark at morn;

No longer, courted and carressed.
High placed in hail, a welcome guest,
He poured, to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were chang d. old manners gone;
A stranger filed the Stuart's throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.

A wand ring harper, scorned and poor,

He begged his bread from, door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,

The harp a king had loved to hear.

Not less picturesque are the following passages, which instantly be came popular:

Description of Melrose Abbey.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;

When the cold light's uncertain shower

Streams on the ruined central tower;

When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;

When distant Twe d is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,
Then go-but go alone the while-

Then view St. David's ruined pile;

And, home returning, soothly swear,

Was never scene so sad and fair! ...

The moon on the east oriel shone,

Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
By foliaged tracery combined;"

Thon wouldst have thought some fairy's hand
"Twixt poplars straigh, he osier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined;

Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone.

The silver light, so pale and faint,

Shewed many a prophet and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed:
Full in the midst, his cross of red
Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride.
The moonbeams kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.
Love of Country

Breathes there the man, with soul so
dead,

Who never to himself hath said.

This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,

As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him weil:

For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal haud
Can e'er untie the filial band

And thus I love them bette; still,
Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble

way;

Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
Though there forgotten and alone,
The bard may draw his parting groan.

That knits me to thy rugged strand! Still as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems as, to me, of all bereft, [left; Sole friends thy woods and streams were Marmion' is a tale of Flodden Field, the fate of the hero being connected with that memorable engagement. The poem does not possess the unity and completeness of the 'Lay,' but if it has greater faults, it has also greater beauties. Nothing can be more strikingly. picturesque than the two opening stanzas of this romance:

Norham Castle at Sunset.

Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone:
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yeilow Instre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height:

Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.

St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray

Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,

So heavily it hung.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,

The warder kept his guard,
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border gathering-song.

The same minute painting of feudal times characterises both poems, but by a strange oversight-soon seen and regretted by the author→→ the hero is made to commit the crime of forgery, a crime unsuited to a chivalrous and half-civilised age. The battle of Flodden, and the death of Marmion, are among Scott's most spirited descriptions. The former is related as seen from a neighbouring hill; and the progress of the action-the hurry, the impetuosity, and confusion of the fight below, as the different armies rally or are repulsed-is given with such animation, that the whole scene is brought before the reader with the vividness of reality. The first tremendous onset is thus dashed off with inimitable power, by the mighty minstrel :