and to plan the means of establishing his power. Isabel is sent to Ireland under the care of her brother Edward; while the King and Ronald proceed to raise forces in the neighbouring islands. Squally weather obliges them to take shelter in a bay of Skye towards the latter part of the day. To mend their cheer they go on shore, accompanied by Ronald's page, with their bows and bolts, but the scenery is so romantic, bold, and magnificent, that the King forgets his object, and yields himself to the rap tures which all he saw inspired, till he observed five men with a stag which they had just killed.

Nigh came the strangers, and more nigh;
Still less they pleased the Monarch's eye.
Men were they all of evil mien,
Down-look'd, unwilling to be seen;
They moved with half-resolved pace,

And bent on earth each gloomy face."

Bruce sternly bids them tell who they are, or else stand back; though, not liking this salutation, they reply that they are shipwrecked mariners, and offer what hospitality the hut which they had made would afford. This offer is refused, till they are told that their galley had set sail upon the appearance of an English cruiser: they then proceed with their suspicious companions to the hut, where they have the precaution to keep their parties se parate, in consequence of a warning look given by a dumb captive boy, when the proposal of an union is made by their hosts. They agree to keep watch by turns through the night. Lord Ronald and the King, who are the first centinels, find no difficulty in banishing sleep by their meditations on the important subjects which respectively occupied their minds; but the page, though he thinks of all the domestic scenes which engage his affections, and the marvellous stories which had formerly amused his fancy, at last falls asleep, "and a ruffian's dagger finds his heart, before he is roused by the captive's scream.

"Upwards he casts his dizzy eyes,—
Murmurs his master's name and dies!"

The King awakes, and seizes from the hearth a knotted brand, and kills the murderer. Lord Ronald starts up, dispatches, one of the villains, overthrows another; but would himself have fallen, while Bruce was dealing a death blow to a second miscreant, beneath the dagger of the father-ruffian, had not the captive sprung upon the uplifted arm, and stayed the blow. Before her dies, he confesses that he and his companions were retainers of Lorn, and that knowing the king they had endeavoured to free their liege from so dangerous an enemy. After burying the

poor page, and lamenting his untimely fate with much feeling,
they leave this charnel-cell, taking with them the dumb captive,
and proceed to the sea-shore. On their way they are met by
Edward Bruce, who had returned with the welcome intelligence
that Lennox, Stuart, and Douglas, had risen in the royal cause;
that their fleet had reached Brodich-bay with little loss; and that
the King of England, the most deadly and potent of their foes,
had breathed his last on the borders. They once more embark,
and sail through the Northern Archipelago, calling to arms all
the islanders over whom Lord Ronald bore sway.
The voyage
has all the enchantment of fine breezes, diversified scenery,
brightening hope, and exquisite versification. Arriving at Brodich-
bay, they are received with such transports of joy as almost to
touch the boundaries of pain.

"Around their King regain'd they press'd,
Wept, shouted, clasp'd him to their breast,
And young and old, and serf and lord,
And he who ne'er unsheath'd a sword,
And he in many a peril tried,

Alike resolved the brunt to bide,

And live or die by Bruce's side!"

Before the King proceeds to the great objects of his expedition, he visits his Sister, now residing in the convent of St. Bride, and endeavours to forward the suit of Lord Ronald; but she reproves her brother with some severity, for pleading the cause of a person who had basely broken his plighted troth, and declares, if she' were even influenced by those earthly feelings which formerly moved her heart, she would reject him, unless he laid at her feet the ring and spousal contract, together with the full acquittal of his oath to the injured maid of Lorn. Bruce then gave up all hope of success, and retired to his camp with the dumb page, who had heard the conversation with strong emotions. On the following morning the Lady Isabel finds on the pavement of her cell a ring bound to a scroll addressed to her, and containing a renunciation of all claim upon the hand and heart of Lord Ronald by the unfortunate Edith. It is ascertained, upon a strict inquiry, that no one had entered the convent that morning but the King's page, who had suddenly disappeared. The truth at once burst upon Isabel, and she rightly conjectures that the page is Edith's self. An old monk is immediately sent to bring back the stripling; but when he arrives at the bay where the troops were embarking, it is discovered that the page had been sent by Edward to precede the expedition to the Carrick shore with a message to a confidential headsman of the family. The small armament sails with ardent hopes of success, guided in their course by the light of ar

beacon, which is supposed to indicate the strength of their friends and the weakness of their enemies. But as they approach the land, the beacon begins to rise higher, as well as to increase in magnitude.

"The light, that seem'd a twinkling star,
Now blazed portentous, fierce, and far.
Dark-red the heaven above it glow'd,
Dark-red the sea beneath it flow'd,
Red rose the rocks on ocean's brim,
In blood-red light her islets swim

Bewildered in conjecture how this extraordinary light could be produced, whether by sorcery, or by a wily enemy, Bruce orders every leader to marshal his band upon the shore by the light of the moon, which emerges from darkness at the point of their landing.

"Faintly the moon's pale beams supply
That ruddy light's unnatural dye;
The dubious cold reflection lay

On the wet sands and quiet bay."

Here the mute page brings to the King a scroll, conveying the unwelcome intelligence that the English force, which was strong and watchful, had been augmented that morning by the junction of reinforcements brought by Lorn; and that the beacon flame which beguiled them had risen without any discoverable cause. Astonished but not dismayed, they resolve to maintain their ground, and in the obscurity of night to seek the coverture of the woods till the morning, when they may attack the English troops, which held the family castle of Bruce. During the rapid march which ensues, Lord Ronald takes charge, according to the promise which he had sent to Isabel, of the disguised page, and with much encouraging kindness tries to dissipate his fears, and alleviate his toils.

"Half sooth'd, half grieved, half terrified,
Close drew the page to Ronald's side;
A wild delirious thrill of joy

Was in that hour of agony,

As up the steepy pass he strove,

Fear, toil, and sorrow, lost in love!"

But worn out with fatigue, and bereft of all spirit, by the casual avowal of Ronald's love to Isabel, he sinks upon the midnight dews, and is reluctantly left in the cavity of a decayed oak..

In the morning he is found by some hunters, who convey him to the castle, where he is condemned by the governor to be hung as a spy on the tree which had sheltered him, at the suggestion of Lorn. He is directly taken to the place of execution; the dirge is sung; the prayer muttered, and the poor dumb victim eagerly looks for aid, but finds none.

"Cold on his brow breaks terror's dew,

His trembling lips are livid blue;

The agony of parting life

Has nought to match that moment's strife!"

At this awful moment an ambuscade bursts from the surrounding woods on the heedless multitude,

"Half arm'd, surpris'd, on every side

Hemm'd in, hew'd down, they bled and died,"

and the page is again received, with eager joy, under the fostering care of Ronald. By a contemporaneous assault the daring Edward carries the castle, exterminates all its defenders, and wins for Bruce his father's hall.

The last canto, after retransforming the page into the beautiful Edith, now become the mistress of all her brother's extensive domains, settles her in the convent of St. Bride, with Isabel, who had assumed the veil, and records the affectionate friendship which subsisted between these sisters in affliction. The poet then passes over several intermediate years, and introduces again King Robert Bruce, when preparing to meet the shock of England's might fearfully arrayed against him. But before the important day arrived which was to decide the fate of Scotland, Isabel, with considerable difficulty, succeeds in persuading Edith, who had too much cause for jealous suspicion, to believe the accounts which she has received of Lord Ronald's deep repentance for the breach of his plighted faith, and of his ardent desire to renew his former vows to her who had merited all his love. But to satisfy every doubt, and dispel every fear, she urges her friend once more, as the speechless page, to repair to the King, who, ac quainted with her secret, had suggested the plan, that she may witness the change in Ronald's affections, and prove his fidelity, Under the protection of a trusty chief she proceeds on her singular adventure, and arrives at the camp just at the time when Bruce had slain the first knight, who fell the day before the bloody battle of Bannochburn. The monarch receives his blushing visitant with the most delicate courtesy.

"Her hand with gentle ease he took,
With such a kind protecting look,
As to a weak and timid boy
Might speak, that elder brother's care
And elder brother's love were there.”

He then sends her for safety to a distant hill, where all the fol lowers of the army are stationed, to wait the result of the following day. That day has scarcely dawned before the hostile armies engage in a general battle, here sung with an energy congenial to that which fired the hearts and nerved the arms of the gallant combatants. The English at length give way; their cavalry, overwhelmed in pits, prepared by the foresight of Bruce, and their infantry exposed on every side; but a bold rally made by De Argentine so distracts Edith for the safety of Lord Ronald, whose troops she fancies are surrounded, that forgetting her assumed dumbness, she vehemently calls on the unarmed multitude to attempt a rescue. Fired to frensy by this supposed miracle

of the dumb speaking,

To arms they flew,-axe, club, or spear,-
And mimic ensigns high they rear,
And, like a banner'd host afar,

Bear down on England's wearied war."

The appearance of a reserve which had not yet been engaged breaks the spirits of the English, and throws them into a reinediless rout. The prodigy of the dumb page is told by a hundred tongues to Bruce, who hearing that Lord Ronald had knelt to this extraordinary champion, orders the Abbot of Cambuskenneth to deck his church for solemn mass,.

"To pay, for high deliverance given,

A nation's thanks to gracious Heaven:"

and to prepare also, with proper state on the following morning, for the nuptials of the Lord of the Isles with the maid of Lorn.

This outline may suffice to show, that the story is substantially historical, and only admits so much fiction as may fill up the interstices of great public transactions by the tracery of the gentler passions. The leading facts of history are too notorious to be disturbed, even by the poet; but the motives of the agents are so much concealed in obscurity, that he may fairly give some scope to his fancy, and allow the lines of fiction and of truth to play into each other, without producing doubt and confusion. It is no very outrageous liberty to suppose, that heroes, however steadily they run their race of glory, may be fickle in their loves; and that ladies, however high their spirit, may condescend to court those by whom they have been neglected, although no fragment of a record survives to testify against them. Of such liberties Mr. Scott has availed himself, to give a tone of more familiar life, for reasons which we have before assigned, to the heroical nature of his story. But he seems to have felt it a sasrifice, to place at the side of Bruce, the favourite of his muse, even