WE ARE SEVEN. -A SIMPLE child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair, -Her beauty made me glad. "Sisters and brothers, little maid, How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me. "And who are they? I pray you, tell." She answered, "Seven are we; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. "Two of us in the churchyard lie, My sister and my brother; And two are gone to sea, "Seven boys and girls are we; Two of us in the churchyard lie, Beneath the churchyard tree." "You run about, my little maid, "Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little maid replied, "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side. "My stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the ground I sit, And sing a song to them. "And often after sunset, sir, When it is light and fair, I take my little porringer, And eat my supper there. "The first that died was sister Jane: In bed she moaning lay, Till God released her of her pain; "So in the churchyard she was laid; And, when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I. "And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide, My brother John was forced to go, And he lies by her side.” "How many are you, then," said I, "But they are dead; those two are dead! "T was throwing words away: for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!" AN INCIDENT AT BRUGES. In Bruges town is many a street Whence busy life hath fled; Where, without hurry, noiseless feet The grass-grown pavement tread. There heard we, halting in the shade Flung from a convent-tower, A harp that tuneful prelude made The measure, simple truth to tell, It was a breezy hour of eve; Not always is the heart unwise, If even a passing stranger sighs For them who do not mourn. Such feeling pressed upon my soul, By one soft trickling tear that stole THE SOLITARY REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland lass! Stop here, or gently pass! More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: Such thrilling voice was never heard And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, And o'er the sickle bending. AUTUMN. THE Sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields The mountains looking on. And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove, By love untaught to ring, For that from turbulence and heat This hymn of thanks and praise, And earth's precarious days. But list!-though winter storms be nigh, Uncheck'd is that soft harmony: There lives Who can provide For all his creatures; and in Him, Even like the radiant seraphim, These choristers confide. SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. SHE was a phantom of delight, When first she gleam'd upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; I saw her upon nearer view, A spirit, yet a woman too! A countenance in which did meet And now I see with eye serene A MOUNTAIN SOLITUDE. IT was a cove, a huge recess, That keeps till June December's snow; A lofty precipice in front, A silent tarn below! There sometimes does a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer. The crags repeat the raven's croak In symphony austere ; Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud; And mists that spread the flying shroud, And sun-beams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past, But that enormous barrier binds it fast. SIR WALTER SCOTT. WALTER SCOTT was born in Edinburgh on the fifteenth of August, 1771. "My birth," says he, "was neither distinguished nor sordid; according to the prejudices of my country it was esteemed gentle, as I was connected, though remotely, with ancient families, both by my father's and mother's side." Delicacy of constitution, attended by a lameness which proved permanent, was apparent in his infancy, and induced his removal to the rural residence of his grandfather, near the Tweed, where he remained until about the eighth year of his age. In the introduction to the third canto of Marmion he has graphically described the scenery by which he was surrounded, his interest in its ruins and his sympathy with its grandeur and beauty. The romantic ballads and legends to which he listened here were treasured in his memory, and had a powerful influence upon his future character. From 1779 to 1783 he was in the high school of Edinburgh. He tells us, alluding to this period, that he had a reputation as a tale-teller, and that the applause of his companions was a recompense for the disgraces and punishments he incurred by being idle himself and keeping others idle during hours which should have been devoted to study. In 1783 he became a student in the university, but his education proceeded unprosperously. He had no inclination for science, and was a careless learner of the languages, though he acquired the French, Italian, and Spanish, so as to read them with sufficient ease. In 1786 he entered the law office of his father, and in 1792, being then nearly twentyone years of age, he was called to the bar. He paid little attention to his profession, but was an industrious reader of romantic literature, in his own and foreign languages, especially in the German, with which he had recently become familiar. The position of his family, and his own cheerful temper and fine colloquial abilities, procured him admission to the best society of the city, and led to his acquaintance with a young lady by whose marriage long and fondly-cherished hopes were disappointed. Her image was for ever in his memory, and inspired some of the most beautiful passages in his poetry. In 1797, however, he became acquainted with Miss CHarpentier, the daughter of a French refugee, to whom, in the autumn of that year, he was married. Previous to this time M. G. LEWIS had acquired considerable reputation by his imitations of the German ballads; and conceiving that if inferior to him in poetical powers, he was his superior in general information, SCOTT had undertaken to become his rival. His earliest efforts, translations of BURGER'S Leonore and Wild Huntsman, were published in 1796, and two years afterward appeared in London his version of GOETHE'S Goetz von Berlichingen. Each of these volumes was favourably reviewed, but coldly received by the public. Soon after his marriage Scorr had taken a pleasant house on the banks of the Tweed, about thirty miles from Edinburgh. By the death of his father he had come into possession of a considerable income; his wife had an annuity of four hundred pounds; and the office of sheriff of Selkirkshire, which imposed very little duty, now produced him some three hundred more. At twenty-eight years of age few men were more happily situated, but he had as yet done scarcely any thing toward founding a reputation as a man of letters. His leisure hours were for several years devoted to the preparation of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the third and last volume of which appeared in 1803. This work gave him at once an enviable position. He soon after visited London, where he formed friendships with the leading authors of the day, and in the beginning of 1805 he placed himself in the list of classic writers by the publication of his first great original work, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which was received with universal applause, and of which more than thirty thousand copies were sold in the ensuing twenty years. The limits of this biography forbid any thing more than an allusion to SCOTT's obtaining one of the principal clerkships in the Scottish Court of Session, his quarrel with Constable, partnership with Ballantyne, esta blishment of the Quarterly Review, and early ambition to elevate his social position by acquiring territorial possessions. In 1805 he wrote the first chapters of a novel, but the opinion of a friend to whom the manuscript was submitted prevented its completion. In 1808 he published Marmion, in 1810 The Lady of the Lake, in 1811 The Vision of Don Roderick, in 1812 Rokeby, and in 1813 The Bridal of Triermain. His poetical career closed in 1815 with The Lord of the Isles and The Field of Waterloo; although he subsequently published anonymously Harold the Dauntless and his Dramatic Writings, which were unworthy of his reputation. His range as a poet was limited; it had been all explored; and the greatest of modern poets had in the mean time taken a place with the sacred few who are destined to live immortally in men's hearts. SCOTT was among the first to recognise BYRON's superiority. In every field he would himself be first or nothing. He quitted the lyre for ever. Crusaders in 1825, Woodstock in 1826, First Series of Chronicles of the Canongate and Tales of a Grandfather in 1827, Second Series of Chronicles of the Canongate and of the Tales of a Grandfather in 1828, Anne of Geirstein and the Third Series of Tales of a Grandfather in 1829, and Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous in 1831. In these years the estate of Abbotsford had been purchased and his palace erected. In 1820 he had been made a baronet, and from that time his house had been thronged by the most illustrious of his contemporaries. A change, to ScoTT of all changes the most terrible, awaited him. In 1826 the houses of Ballantyne and Constable stopped payment, and he was involved in their ruin. Though the amount of his debts seemed too great for a hope to exist that they could ever be paid, he refused to be dealt with as a bankrupt. He pledged the exertions of his future life to the discharge of the claims of his creditors. In the two years ending with 1827 he realized from his writings the astonishing sum of forty thousand pounds, and soon after his death his executors completed the payment of all his liabilities. Among his latest works, contributing to this result, were The History of Scotland and The Life of Napoleon. The last of these had an immense sale, and brought a larger profit than any of his previous writ Scorr had already published his admirable editions of SWIFT and DRYDEN; and from this period till 1825 his name was not before the public except in connection with Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk, and a few articles in the Quarterly Review and the Encyclopædia Britannica. But in these ten years he laid the foundation of the highest reputation which the world of letters has furnished in the nineteenthings. Its popularity, however, was transient. century. The composition of the novel which had been commenced in 1805 was resumed, and finished with remarkable rapidity. The work appeared in the summer of 1814 under the title of Waverley, and its success was immediate and unparalleled. The series of novels to which this gave a distinguishing title followed each other in quick succession, and were translated into almost every written language. The Author of Waverley became a part of the existence of mankind, and the discovery of his name the great enigma of the age. Guy Mannering was published in 1815, The Antiquary, Old Mortality, and the Black Dwarf in 1816, Rob Roy and the Heart of Mid-Lothian in 1818, The Bride of Lammermoor and the Legend of Montrose in 1819, Ivanhoe, The Monastery, and The Abbot in 1820, Kenilworth in 1821, The Pirate and the Fortunes of Nigel in 1822, Quentin Durward and Peveril of the Peak in 1823, St. Ronan's Well and Redgauntlet in 1824, Tales of the It is a brilliant chronicle of events, but partial in its views, and executed with too little care and research to add to such a reputation as Walter Scott's. In 1829 Scorr's health had materially declined, and in the following year his intellect began to fail under the weight of his cares and labours. In September, 1831, he sailed, in a ship of war furnished by the government, for Malta and Naples, in the hope that relaxation and a voyage at sea would induce his restoration. After a few months passed in Italy, his mind became a wreck, and his friends made haste to reach home with him before his death. They arrived at Abbotsford on the eleventh of July, 1832; he lingered, with a few intervals of consciousness, until the twenty-first of September, and expired. His remains are buried in the romantic ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, which, like the tomb of SHAKSPEARE, has become a place of pilgrimage for the world. THE TRIAL OF CONSTANCE. In low dark rounds the arches hung, Which served to light this drear domain, Were met the heads of convents three; On iron table lay; In long black dress, on seats of stone, By the pale cresset's ray : The abbess of Saint Hilda's, there, She closely drew her veil; And she with awe looks pale: But, at the prioress' command, And raised the bonnet from her head, In ringlets rich and rare. Whom the church number'd with the dead, For broken vows, and convent fled. . . . Her comrade was a sordid soul, ... Such as does murder for a meed; Who, but of fear, knows no control, Because his conscience, sear'd and foul, Feels not the import of his deed; One, whose brute feeling ne'er aspires Beyond his own more brute desires. And crouch, like hound beneath the lash; To speak the Chapter's doom, Alive, within the tomb: But stopp'd, because that woful maid, At length, an effort sent apart And light came to her eye, It was a fearful sight to see "I speak not to implore your grace; Nor do I speak your prayers to gain; I listen'd to a traitor's tale, |