Bewcastle brandishes high his broad scimitar, Ridley is riding his fleet-footed gray, Hedly and Howard there, Wandale and Windermere, Lock the door, Lariston, hold them at bay. Thy foes are relentless, determined and nigh. Jock Elliot raised up his steel bonnet and lookit, His hand grasp'd the sword with a nervous embrace; "Ah, welcome, brave foemen, On earth there are no men More gallant to meet in the foray or chase! Little know you of the hearts I have hidden here, Little know you of our moss-trooper's might, Lindhope and Sorby true, Sundhope and Milburn too, Gentle in manner, but lions in fight! "I've Margerton, Gornberry, Raeburn, and Netherby, Old Sim of Whitram, and all his array; Come, all Northumberland, Teesdale and Cumberland, Here at the Breaken Tower end shall the fray." Scowl'd the broad sun o'er the links of green Liddisdale, Red as the beacon-light tipp'd he the wold; Many a bold martial eye Mirror'd that morning sky, Never more oped on his orbit of gold! Shrill was the bugle's note, dreadful the warrior shout, Lances and halberts in splinters were borne; Halberd and hauberk then Buckler and armlet in shivers were shorn. While the Scots' shouts ascend, "Elliot of Lariston, Elliot for aye!" THE AULD HIGHLANDMAN. Hersell pe auchty years and twa, Ayont the reefer Spey, man. I've feucht in Scotland here at hame, In France and Shermanie, man; An' cot tree tespurt pluddy oons, Beyond te 'Lantic sea, man. But wae licht on te nasty cun, Tat ever she pe porn, man; Ae tay I shot, and shot, and shot, Te powter wadna purn, man. Resolvt to to me harm, man; And wi' te tirk upon her nose, Ke me a pluddy arm, man. I flang my cun wi' a' my micht, My oons pe nae tiscrace, man; GANG TO THE BRAKENS WI' ME. I'll sing of yon glen of red heather, An' a dear thing that ca's it her hame, Wha's a' made o' love-life thegither, Frae the tie o' the shoe to the kaime; Love beckons in every sweet motion, Commanding due homage to gie; But the shrine o' my dearest devotion Is the bend o' her bonnie e'ebree. I fleech'd an' I pray'd the dear lassie "Dear lassie, how can ye upbraid me, An' try your ain love to beguile? For ye are the richest young lady That ever gaed o'er the kirk-stile. Your smile that is blither than ony, The bend o' your cheerfu' e'ebree, An' the sweet blinks o' love they're sae bonny, Are five hundred thousand to me!" She turn'd her around and said, smiling, I'll gang to the brakens wi' thee!" There's joy in the bright blooming feature, The yellow hair, the bosom fair, A bramble shade around her head, Our bed the swaird, our sheet the plaid, Our canopy the sky, O. An' here's the burn, an' there's the bush Around the flowery green, 0, An' this the plaid, an' sure the lass Wad be my bonnie Jean, O. Hear me, thou bonnie modest moon! That roam athwart the sky, O! BONNIE JEAN.1 Sing on, sing on my bonnie bird, My blude ran prinklin' through my veins, My heart play'd deep against my breast, O weels me on my happy lot! The laverock on the green, 0; I'll wad your love sits in the bush That gars ye sing sae cheerie. She may be neat and clean, O, If love would open a' her stores, An' a' her blooming treasures, An' bid me rise, and turn and choose, 1 The heroine of this song was Jane Cunningham, wife of John Sibbald of Borthaugh, near Branksome Castle, Roxburghshire. FLORA MACDONALD'S FAREWELL.2 Far over yon hills of the heather sae green, An' down by the corrie that sings to the sea, The bonny young Flora sat sighing her lane, The dew on her plaid, and the tear in her e'e. She look'd at a boat wi' the breezes that swung, Away on the wave, like a bird of the main; An' aye as it lessen'd she sigh'd and she sung, Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again! Fareweel to my hero, the gallant and young, Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again! The moorcock that craws on the brows of BenConnal, He kens of his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs of Clan-Ronald, Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelve of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, But, ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, Nor house, ha', nor hame in his country has he: The conflict is past, and our name is no moreThere's nought left but sorrow for Scotland and me! The target is torn from the arm of the just, The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave. The claymore for ever in darkness must rust, But red is the sword of the stranger and slave; 2 Flora Macdonald's Farewell was composed to an air handed me by the late lamented Neil Gow, junr. He said it was an ancient Skye air, but afterwards told me that it was his own. When I first heard the song sung by Mr. Morrison, I never was so agreeably astonishedI could hardly believe my senses that I had made so good a song without knowing it. Loyal true Highlanders, down wi' them rarely! Sweet land of the bay and the wild-winding deeps, Ronald and Donald, drive on, wi' the broad clayWhere loveliness slumbers at even, While far in the depth of the blue water sleeps Thou land of the valley, the moor, and the hill, more, Over the necks o' the foes o' Prince Charlie! WALTER SCOTT. BORN 1771- DIED 1832. SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart., was born Aug. 15, 1771, in one of the duskiest parts of Edinburgh, then called the College Wynd, and now known as Chambers' Street. His father, the first of the race who was not either sailor or soldier, was a highly respectable Writer to the Signet -his mother, a worthy woman who was well acquainted with the poetry of her day, particularly that of Burns and Ramsay. In infancy, by a sudden illness Walter Scott was lamed for | life, the unformed strength of an infant having been stricken by a malady of old age. He, however, attained a good stature and great strength, and either at walking with the aid of a stick, or on horseback, he found few superiors. The Ettrick Shepherd, in his "Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott," says, he "was the best formed man I ever saw, and, laying his weak limb out of the question, a perfect model of a man for strength. The muscles of his arms were prodigious." After various remedies had been tried without any good result, he was sent from Edinburgh to Sandy-knowe, the residence of a relative, where the country air which invigorated his tottering frame wrought manifestly on his genius. Here his education began, his first teacher being an illiterate shepherd, and his school the rough ground of a Scottish sheepfold. When the old man with his shepherd dog went forth to tend his flocks, the lame child accompanied him, and found delight in rolling "the lee lang day" among the herbage and heather of the hill sides. The fellowship he thus formed with dogs and with sheep impressed his mind with an attachment towards them which was a strong characteristic through life. Scott says that his consciousness of existence dated from Sandy-knowe, and how deep and indelible were its impressions we need not remind the reader of "Marmion," nor of his "Eve of St. John." On the summit of the crags which overhang the farmhouse stands the ruined tower of Smaylho'me, the scene of the fine ballad just alluded to, and the Avenel Castle of The Monastery. At a short distance is Mertoun, the principal seat of the Scotts of Harden, celebrated in a hundred Border ballads; across the Tweed, Dryburgh Abbey, surrounded with yew-trees as ancient as itself, and containing within its hallowed walls the remains of the GREAT MINSTREL and his gifted son-in-law Lockhart; the purple peaks of the Eildon Hills; the bleak wilderness of Lammermoor; the broom of the Cowdenknowes; Melrose, clasped amid the windings of the Tweed; Hume Castle, in its desolate grandeur; and in the back-ground the hills of the Gala, Ettrick, and Yarrow, and many other scenes celebrated in Border song and story,—such were the objects that painted the earliest images on the eye and in the heart of Walter Scott. At a proper age he was sent to school, where he did not attain a very high grade, occupying, notwithstanding his lameness, a much higher position among his fellows in the playground. During his vacations he resided with an uncle -a farmer on the Tweed-where he devoted himself to reading everything that came in his way, peopling his mind with old romances and legendary poetry—with the fantastic creations of oriental fiction, the gorgeous gallery of the "Fairie Queen," the miniature world of Shak spere, and the solemn majesty of Milton. An interesting evidence of Scott's early readings and remarkable memory may be illustrated by a pleasant anecdote. When Robert Burns paid his first visit to Edinburgh, Walter Scott was a tall lad of fifteen, and was present on one occasion when the peasant bard was entertained by the literary magnates of that city. There happened to be a print in the room representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his widow with a child in her arms on one side, on the other his faithful dog; underneath was written these lines: "Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future yearsThe child of misery baptized in tears." Burns was deeply affected by the print, and inquired after the author of the inscription. None could tell, when Scott whispered to a friend that they were written by Langhorne, and occurred in a neglected poem called the "Justice of Peace." Burns rewarded the future minstrel of Scotland "with a look and a word," which in after days of glory and renown were remembered and cherished with pride. After an education at various schools, in which, among other things, he acquired a considerable amount of classical information, he entered his father's office as an apprentice, and led the life common at that time among young men of his age and rank. Soon after attaining his majority, Scott was called to the bar, where he made no great figure; for although he could speak fluently, his intellect was not of a forensic cast. He failed to win his first love, whom he has celebrated as Matilda in his poem of "Rokeby," and who married his friend Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo. Soon after her marriage Scott met Charlotte Charpentier, the daughter of a French royalist who had died in the beginning of the Revolution, and whose wife escaped to England with her son and daughter. Scott was in his twentysixth year when they were married. They spent their winters in the polished circles of Edinburgh—their summers in a beautiful cottage at Lasswade on the banks of the Esk, near the famous abbey and castle of Roslyn. Hisappointment as Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of £300, together with Mrs. Scott's income, compensated for his want of practice at the bar, and enabled him to devote his time to more congenial pursuits. In their little cottage, surrounded by a beautiful garden, in which Scott delighted to cultivate shrubs and flowers, with its rustic archway overgrown with ivy, they spent many summers, receiving the visits of their chosen friends from the neighbouring city, and wandering at will among some of the most romantic scenes of Scotland. It had long been Scott's delight to collect the ancient ballads of his native land as they fell from the lips of his companions and acquaintances, or from persons whom he sought out for that purpose. This harvest, which he gleaned at first without any ulterior object, was storing his imagination with the wealth which, at a future day, he was to pay back a thousand-fold increased. The accumulation of these relics at length led to the conception of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and the success of that work decided his future career. In January, 1802, the first two volumes of the Minstrelsy appeared, which may be said to have first introduced Walter Scott to the world as an author. Three years later the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which naturally grew from the Minstrelsy, was published, and at once placed its author in the front rank of the poets of the nineteenth century. With its publication began a career of prolific and prosperous authorship unexampled in the annals of literature. In the history of British poetry perhaps nothing has ever equalled the demand for the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." The circulation of the work in Great Britain in its first flush of success was nearly thirty thousand copies. It must be remembered that at that day the reading community was not one-half what it is at present that books were expensive, and that the great mass of readers resorted to public libraries, unable to indulge in so expensive a luxury. Next came "Marmion," which met with the same kind reception that greeted his first poem, and a few years after the " 'Lady of the Lake" was published. This charming story, the most successful of Scott's poetical works, in which he peopled the glades and islands of the Perthshire lakes with blue-eyed maidens and | gallant warriors, and combined a faithful transcript of the natural beauties of the scenery with a romantic tale, gave an interest to this part of Scotland which otherwise it would probably never have attained. Thousands and tens of thousands visited Scotland, before unknown to the greater part of Europe and America, and made pilgrimages to the wild and picturesque Trossachs. Rocks and caves were pointed out as the spots described by the poet, pathways identified as those traversed by the chivalrous Fitz-James, and "fair Ellen's isle" almost denuded of flowers and ferns by enthusiastic tourists. In 1806 Scott was appointed a clerk of the Court of Session, which sat at Edinburgh about six months in the year; it was an honourable position, which he could hold conjointly with the sheriffdom, and was worth about £800 per annum. After the publication of the "Lady of the Lake," a poem unequal in many respects to "Marmion," but far dearer to the great mass of youthful readers, Scott found his popularity as a poet waning. This discovery set him to work upon an old unfinished manuscript which had lain for years in one of his drawers. That MS. was the first volume of Waverley. There is nothing finer in literary biography than the composure, the magnanimity with which the last of the Border minstrels, aware that he was being supplanted in popular favour by Byron, tranquilly turned his genius into another channel, in which he reigned supreme. The novel which had been thrown aside as a failure was completed, the last two volumes being written in twenty-six summer afternoons, and published. Its success was wonderful. There never had been such a sensation book since literature began. Although, except from a few, he preserved a strict incognito, there were not many persons among the literary circles of Edinburgh who did not at once recognize the hand of Walter Scott. fessor Wilson asked if people had forgotten the prose of the Minstrelsy, and the Ettrick Shepherd had his copy rebound and lettered Waverley, by Walter Scott. A month after the publication of Guy Mannering, the second of the series, written in six weeks, he made his second visit to London. "Make up your mind to be stared at only a little less Pro |