new."

But before he resolved to lean more than ever towards literature, he weighed the good with the evil of his choice; and did not shut his eyes to the circumstance, that a man of genius has to wage a continual war with captious critics and disappointed authors. It also occurred to him, that several men of the greatest genius, in the avenging of some pitiful quarrel, had made themselves ridiculous during their lives, and objects of pity to future times. I can understand all this better than the conclusion which the poet draws in his own favor, namely, that as he had no pretension to the genius of those eminent sufferers, he was not likely to imitate them in their mistakes. What he felt, however, is one thing; what he did is another: he seemed, on many occasions, to underrate, in a prodigious degree, his own talents:-one resolution is, however, worthy of noting; he determined, if possible, to avoid those weaknesses of temper, which seemed on too many occasions to have beset his eminent predecessors: it need not be told how well he kept this resolution, and with what courtesy he demeaned himself to all mankind. At the same time it may be added, that such gentleness was part of his natural charac

ter, and not assumed for the sake of tranquillity

and repose.

The first fruit of his defection from the weightier matters of the law, was the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,'-a poem of such beauty and spirit, as more than justified his choice, had any one been disposed to censure him for forsaking the law's 'dry musty arts,' and entering into the service of the muse. This I look upon as one of the noblest of his works; there are probably more stirring and high wrought scenes in some of the succeeding poems; but with all their martial ardor, there is a certain wildness which lifts the 'Lay' high into the regions of imagination, and ever and anon are passages of the most exquisite loveliness and repose. There is more quiet beauty about the work, than the great poet indulged in afterwards. The spirit of Scotland acknowledged at once the original vigor and truth of the poem: every paper was filled with the favorite passages-every mouth was filled with quotation and praise; and they who lamented the loss of Burns, and persisted in believing that his place could not be supplied, were constrained to own that a poet of another stamp had appeared, whose strains echoed as truly

and fervently the feelings of their country as the songs of the Bard of Ayr. The history of the rise and progress of this poem, the author has himself related. It chanced that the young Countess of Dalkeith came to the land of her husband; and as she was desirous to become acquainted with its customs and traditions, she found many willing to satisfy her curiosity; amongst others, Mr. Beattie, of Mickeldale, who declared he had a memory for an old-world idle story, but none for a sound evangelical sermon, was ready with his legends, and, with some others of a less remarkable kind, related the story of Gilpin Horner. "The young Countess," said Scott, "much delighted with the legend, and the gravity and full confidence with which it was told, enjoined it on me, as a task, to compose a ballad on the subject. Of course, to hear was to obey; and thus the goblin story, objected to by several critics, as an excrescence upon the poem, was, in fact, the occasion of its being written." How the goblin page could have been spared out of the poem, no critic undertook to say: his presence or his power pervades every part: much that is done in war or love is influenced by him; and we may as well require the sap to be taken

out of a tree in spring, with the hope that it will live, as take away the page and the book

of gramarye: the interest of the poem depends, in short, upon the supernatural; and the supernatural was the belief of the times of which the poet gave so true an image.

Having got a subject from the lips of a lady, the poet says he took for the model of his verse the Christabel' of Coleridge, and immediately wrote several passages in that wild irregular measure, which he submitted to two friends of acknowledged taste: they shook their heads at verses composed on principles they had not. been accustomed to: they looked upon these specimens as a desperate departure from the settled principles of taste, and as an insult to the established maxims of the learned and the critical. They made a full pause at the startling line

Jesu Maria, shield us well!—

took up their hats, and went on their way. It appeared, however, that on their road home they considered the matter ripely, and concluded that, though both the subject and man ner of verse were much out of the common way, it would be best for the poet to go on with

the composition. Thus cheered, the task proceeded; but the author, still doubtful, or perhaps willing, like Pope, to soothe churlish criticism, submitted it to Mr. Jeffrey, who had been for some time distinguished for critical talent. The plan and verse met his approbation; and now, says Scott, "the poem, being licensed by the critics as fit for the market, was soon finished, proceeding at the rate of about a canto a week. It was finally published in 1805, and may be regarded as the first work, in which the writer, who has since been so voluminous, laid his claim to be considered as an original writer." Amongst those who smiled on the poet and his labors are to be numbered Pitt and Fox: but neither of them had much taste for poetry; and I must therefore place their approbation to the account of public opinion.

'Marmion,' the second great work of Scott, followed close-too close, the critics averredon the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' as if a work of genius can be written too fast, when the author's heart and mind are in trim. The poet now left his little cottage on the side of the Esk, for the Ashestiel, on "the pleasanter banks of the Tweed," a place of picturesque