Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast,
Burst down like torrent from its crest;
With short and springing footstep pass
The trembling bog, and false morass;
Across the brook like roebuck bound,
And thread the brake like questing hound;
The crag is high, the scar is deep,
Yet shrink not from the desperate leap:
Parched are thy burning lips and brow,
Yet by the fountain pause not now;
Herald of battle, fate, and fear,
Stretch onward in thy fleet career!

The wounded hind thou track'st not now;
Pursuest not maid through greenwood bough,
Nor pliest thou now thy flying pace
With rivals in the mountain race;
But danger, death, and warrior deed,
Are in thy course; speed, Malise, speed!
Fast as the fatal symbol flies,

In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland brown,
They poured each hardy tenant down.
Nor slacked the messenger his pace;
He showed the sign, he named the place,
And pressing forward like the wind,

Left clamor and surprise behind."

The funeral wail of Duncan is finely conceived and executed. Reading it, one can fancy the dead warrior on his torch-lit bier, and can hear "the funeral yell, the female wail," toned down to this sad, sweet rhythm.

"He is gone on the mountain,

He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.

The font, reappearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

"The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing

When blighting was nearest.

"Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!"

In "Rokeby"-a tale of the English Cavaliers and Roundheads Scott has his foot off his native heather; and though the poem displays the utmost art and power in the delineation of character and passion, it is considered a failure. "Don Roderick," "Harold," and "Triermain," have no higher degree of merit. "Bannockburn," as a tale, has little of sustained interest. Its chief excellence consists in the truth and beauty of the descriptive passages of the poem. "The Lord of the Isles " a Scottish story of the days of Bruce-has more of Scott's characteristic fire and animation. In childhood, youth, and early manhood, the old ballad songs were to Walter Scott "meat and drink." Before he was ten years old he had collected and bound up several volumes of them. His genius, indeed, has some points of resemblance to that of the old ballad-makers themselves, who simply give the words and actions of their heroes and heroines, and never venture to analyze motive or character. In his lyrics he is gay, arch, tender, warlike, or romantic; and all bear

evidence of that spontaneity which also characterizes the old songs. It has been happily observed that "there are lyrics that, however polished and fine, seem to have been made piecemeal, like the Coral Islands." Scott's are emitted rather than shaped, and given free and easy, as the author should say, "Take it, and welcome; there's plenty more where this came from."

The best known, and perhaps the best, is "Young Lochinvar," from "Marmion; "Hail to the Chief," from the "Lady of the Lake," is almost equally good; and "Pibroch of Donald Dhu" no mortal but Scott could have written. In another and less characteristic style is this dainty serenade of Minna Troil's pirate lover:

"Love wakes and weeps,
While beauty sleeps!

O for music's softest numbers,

To prompt a theme

For beauty's dream

Soft as the pillow of her slumbers!

"Through groves of palm
Sigh gales of balm;
Fireflies on the air are wheeling,

While through the gloom

Comes soft perfume,

The distant beds of flowers revealing.

"O wake and live!

No dreams can give

A shadowed bliss the real excelling;

No longer sleep,

From lattice peep,

And list the tale that love is telling!"

From poetry Scott retreated into the wider field of prose fiction. It is enough to say that there he takes his undisputed seat among the masters of the art, both British and

foreign. Modern criticism, it is true, has gone so far as to assert of Walter Scott's novels that on account of their conspicuous high Toryism, their frequent divergence from historical fact, and their extreme romanticism, they are unsafe reading for the rising generation. However this may be, it is safe to conclude that the "Wizard of the North" will still continue to charm and elevate mankind.

IN

CHAPTER XVII.

BYRON AND MOORE.

N the epoch under consideration Byron and Moore alone may be especially designated as poets of the passions. Byron, at least, is eminently so; singing, as he did, from a law and necessity of his nature, he dared the heavenreaching heights, which to Moore were unattainable. Yet Moore, on feebler wing, has soared high enough to warble catches of melody graceful and tender as the singing of birds, - strains which the world will not willingly let die. Moore's friendship for Byron appears to have been sincere and lasting; and though sneering at "little Tommy's love of lords," Byron honored him with the gift of his personal memoirs, intended for publication, but generously withdrawn from the press by Moore at the request of the family of Byron, though "Little Tommy" sustained thereby a loss of two thousand guineas which Murray had paid him for the manuscript.

Thomas Moore was a native of Dublin, and born in 1779. At fourteen he commenced rhyming. In 1793 he was sent to the university, where he distinguished himself by his classical acquirements, and at nineteen proceeded to London to study law. Moore's life affords little matter of deep interest; for the most part, it was sunny as his poetry and bright and gay as his wit. The poet was of humble and unpromising birth, his father being but a respectable grocer and liquor-dealer, and a strict Roman