The whole picture, I say, of this gloomy fortress and its inhabitants carries us back far into the past. It is so instinct with the Homeric spirit, that I believe if, by some necromantic artifice, such as is resorted to in the second part of 'Faust,' these verses could have been made known to the Homerida, as judges of poetry, they would have at once discerned in their sound a likeness to the tones of their great ancestor, and would have unanimously voted to our Northern rhapsodist the freedom of Chios in a golden box. When, however, we get beyond these first paragraphs, I confess that, whilst I am reading the dialogue between the river spirit and the mountain spirit, a certain chill comes over me. This part of the poem strikes me as being written in a falsetto tone, and I miss the natural Walter Scott. It is not that he is weak in that most important element of genius, the power of dealing adequately with the supernatural-with the half-heard voices and fitful shadows that encompass the imagination, if not the life of man. Far from it, so far, that if the

poet who wrote of Shakspere—

Within that circle none durst walk but he

were now among us, the line would either not have been written at all, or would, at least, have been qualified by some reference to Walter Scott. The reason why we miss the ring of the true metal here, I take to be the temporary admixture with Scott's genius of a German alloy. He had been attracted by Monk Lewis, and, through him, by Goethe into Teutonic mythology. These outlandish legends are, I daresay, excellent of their kind and in their proper place, but they do not suit our Northern wolds. They do not harmonise with the brown man of the moors, or Lord Cranstoun's goblin page.

Each country has its own appropriate form of mystery-its collection of fables, half awful, and half attractive; but they will not always bear transplanting. I think, therefore, that Scott might have found among the treasures of his native folk-lore, or might even have invented, some form of Border superstition

more homely and impressive, than these exotic mountain spirits and river spirits. They are phantoms which bring us into companionship with the printer's devil rather than with the genuine prince of darkness-with the imitator rather than with the real poet. To me, at any rate, it is a relief when I escape from these thin spectral voices to middle earth, and William of Deloraine:

A stark moss-trooping Scot was he,

As e'er couch'd Border lance by knee;

Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,
Blindfold, he knew the paths to cross;

By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds;
In Eske or Liddel, fords were none,
But he would ride them, one by one;
Alike to him was time or tide,
December's snow, or July's pride;
Alike to him was tide or time,

Moonless midnight, or matin prime :
Steady of heart, and stout of hand,

As ever drove prey from Cumberland.

It is not, however, till the Second Canto that the young writer, when he has ascertained his latent power, and measured his energies, begins to put forth his full strength. If the account of Deloraine's appearance before the walls of the moon-lighted abbey, if his interview with the aged monk, and his return to Branksome, with the mysterious book heavy upon his breast, be not fine poetry, I know not where, nor under what conditions, fine poetry is to be found. Let us, if you please, examine this part of the story a little in detail. The Knight starts on his mission, as an iron-hearted moss-trooper, a rider thoroughly trained up in all the ruthless lore of those Border wars. He is rough and indifferent to human life, though neither ungenerous nor revengeful; he is a man, in short, with the hard heart and unsleeping craft of the Red Indian, although, thanks to a sort of chivalrous and Christian instinct, without his meanness and cruelty. You would have thought him as inaccessible to all

influences that press upon the nerves of weaker men, as coldly impervious to fear as his sword-but he has a human soul and a living imagination beneath this iron crust; so that, no sooner has he passed into a region where the power of crossing Solway sands, and of baffling Percy's best blood-hounds, becomes a useless accomplishment, than this Border Samson weakens at once, and is as another man.

Often had William of Deloraine

Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,
And neither known remorse nor awe;
Yet now remorse and awe he own'd;
His breath came thick, his head swam round;
When this strange scene of death he saw,
Bewilder'd and unnerv'd he stood,

And the priest pray'd fervently and loud :
With eyes averted prayed he :

He might not endure the sight to see,

Of the man he had loved so brotherly.

And when the priest his death-prayer had pray'd,
Thus unto Deloraine he said :—

'Now, speed thee what thou hast to do,

Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue;

For those, thou may'st not look upon,

Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!'
Then, Deloraine, in terror, took

From the cold hand the Mighty Book,

With iron clasp'd, and with iron bound :

He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown'd;
But the glare of the sepulchral light,

Perchance, had dazzled the warrior's sight.

It is a shame to quote such a passage piecemeal; one breath of inspiration runs through it, from beginning to end, and the whole scene ought to be before the hearer's imagination at once, but it is impossible, in a lecture like this, to recite whole cantos. There is, however, one paragraph, to which I would call your particular attention. Scott, as we all know, does not rank among the poets of thought, he is sneered at as superficial, commonplace, homely, and so on. These supposed demerits

of his are then contrasted with the exquisite subtleties and delicacies, with the deeper and rarer forms of the imagination, that have superseded his clumsy fluency, in the good graces of our professed critics. Yet, if we are satisfied with just thinking, which puts forward no metaphysical pretensions, and has nothing transcendental about it, we cannot fail to be struck by the sure-footed sagacity with which be tracks men's emotions home to their birth-place, and photographs, so to speak, a passing mood of the mind with an infallibility like that of the sun acting upon the artist's plate:

Again on the Knight look'd the Churchman old,

And again he sighed heavily;

For he had himself been a warrior bold,

And fought in Spain and Italy.

And he thought on the days that were long since by,
When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high:

Now, slow and faint, he led the way,

Where, cloister'd round, the garden lay;

The pillar'd arches were over their head,

And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead.

Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright,

Glisten'd with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor floweret, glisten'd there,

But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair.
The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon,
Then into the night he lookèd forth;
And red and bright the streamers light
Were dancing in the glowing North.

So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start;
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart.

He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light.

For three score years he has been wearing out with his knees the flint pavement of the Abbey cloisters, in bitter and possibly unavailing remorse; for three score years the outside world has been unseen and unthought of, just as if it had ceased to exist.

I

If, during those three score years, he had ever looked out, from the monastery garden, upon former northern lights, they would have played before his eyes idly, and without a meaning—they would have awakened no memories of the past, no buried touches of association with the gallant knights and warlike exercises of Castile; but the iron clang of Deloraine's armour, and the stately bearing of the dauntless cavalier, broke upon the dreamy torpor that had gathered round his heart, the dreary mists of the cloister fled away like a vision of the night, and he was again the ardent youth, who

In Paynim countries had far trod,

And fought beneath the cross of God.

This, to me, is the true kind of poetry; I, at least, prefer it, as a rule, to what is known and admired as the Poetry of Thought. There is also a night piece in Marmion,' that has always delighted me, for the like reason; I may perhaps be allowed to refer to it here, though somewhat out of its proper place, in order that we may avoid needless repetitions. You all of you recollect, I doubt not, how Marmion rode forth to encounter the phantom on Gifford Moor :

So sore was the delirious goad,

I took my steed and forth I rode,

And, as the moon shone bright and cold,
Soon reach'd the camp upon the wold.
The southern entrance I pass'd through,
Then halted, and my bugle blew.
Methought an answer met my ear,—
Yet was the blast so low and drear,
So hollow, and so faintly blown,
It might be echo of my own.

Thus judging, for a little space

I listen'd, ere I left the place;
But scarce could trust my eyes,
Nor yet can think they served me true,
When sudden in the ring I view,
In form distinct of shape and hue,

A mounted champion rise.—