"Ah! why do fabling poets tell

That thy fleet wings outstrip the wind? Why feign thy course of joy the knell, And call thy slowest pace unkind?

"To me thy tedious feeble pace

Comes laden with the weight of years; With sighs I view morn's blushing face, And hail mild evening with my tears."

CHAPTER VIII.

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Publication of Ballads after Bürger — Scott Quarter - Master of the Edinburgh Light - horse Excursion to Cumberland. Gilsland Wells Miss Carpenter - Marriage,

1796-1797.

REBELLING, as usual, against circumstances, Scott seems to have turned with renewed ardour to his literary pursuits; and in that same October, 1796, he was "prevailed on," as he playfully expresses it,

66

by the request of friends, to indulge his own vanity, by publishing the translation of Lenore, with that of the Wild Huntsman, also from Bürger, in a thin quarto." The little volume, which has no author's name on the title-page, was printed for Manners and Miller of Edinburgh. The first named of these respectable publishers had been a fellowstudent in the German class of Dr Willich; and

VOL. I.

Y

this circumstance probably suggested the negotiation. It was conducted by William Erskine, as appears from his postscript to a letter addressed to Scott by his sister, who, before it reached its destination, had become the wife of Mr Campbell Colquhoun of Clathick and Killermont-in after-days Lord Advocate of Scotland. This was another of Scott's dearest female friends. The humble home which she shared with her brother during his early struggles at the bar, had been the scene of many of his happiest hours; and her letter affords such a pleasing idea of the warm affectionateness of the little circle, that I cannot forbear inserting it: :

"To Walter Scott, Esq., Rosebank, Kelso.

"If it were not that etiquette and I were constantly at war, I should think myself very blameable in thus trespassing against one of its laws; but as it is long since I forswore its dominion, I have acquired a prescriptive right to act as I will—and I shall accordingly anticipate the station of a matron in addressing a young man.

"I can express but a very, very little of what I feel, and shall ever feel, for your unintermitting friendship and attention. I have ever considered

you as a brother, and shall now think myself entitled to make even larger claims on your confidence. Well do I remember the dark conference we lately held together! The intention of unfolding my own future fate was often at my lips.

"I cannot tell you my distress at leaving this house, wherein I have enjoyed so much real happiness, and giving up the service of so gentle a master, whose yoke was indeed easy. I will therefore only commend him to your care as the last bequest of Mary Anne Erskine, and conjure you to continue to each other through all your pilgrimage as you have commenced it. May every happiness attend you! Adieu!

"Your most sincere friend and sister,

M. A. E."

"The

Mr Erskine writes on the other page poems are gorgeous, but I have made no bargain with any bookseller. I have told M. and M. that I won't be satisfied with indemnity, but an offer must be made. They will be out before the end of the week." On what terms the publication really took place, I know not.

It has already been mentioned, that Scott owed his copy of Bürger's works to the young lady of Harden, whose marriage occurred in the autumn of 1795. She was daughter of Count Brühl of Mart

kirchen, long Saxon ambassador at the Court of St James's, by his wife Almeria, Countess-Dowager of Egremont. The young kinsman was introduced to her soon after her arrival at Mertoun, and his attachment to German studies excited her attention and interest. Mrs Scott supplied him with many standard German books, besides Bürger; and the gift of an Adelung's dictionary from his old ally, George Constable (Jonathan Oldbuck), enabled him to master their contents sufficiently for the purposes of translation. The ballad of the Wild Huntsman appears to have been executed during the month that preceded his first publication; and he was thenceforth engaged in a succession of versions from the dramas of Meier and Iffland, several of which are still extant in his MS., marked 1796 and 1797. These are all in prose like their originals; but he also versified at the same time some lyrical fragments of Goethe, as, for example, the Morlachian Ballad,

"What yonder glimmers so white on the mountain,"

and the song from Claudina von Villa Bella. He consulted his friend at Mertoun on all these essays; and I have often heard him say, that, among those many "obligations of a distant date which remained impressed on his memory, after a life spent in a constant interchange of friendship and kindness,"