his seat till the dissolution of parliament, he never attempted to address the house. The theatres offered a more attractive field for his genius; and his play of The Castle Spectre, produced in 1797, was applauded as enthusiastically and more universally than his romance. Connected with his dramatic fame a very interesting anecdote is related in the Memoirs and Correspondence of Lewis, published in 1839. It illustrates his native benevolence, which, amidst all the frivolities of fashionable life, and the excitement of misapplied talents, was a conspicuous feature in his character :

"

her non-appearance; having had an opportunity of witnessing your very admirable performance of a far superior character, in a style true to nature, and which reflects upon you the highest credit. I allude to a most interesting scene, in which you lately sustained the character of "The Daughter!" Brides of all denominations but too often prove their empire delusive; but the character you have chosen will improve upon every representation, both in the estimation of the public and the satisfaction of your own excellent heart. For the infinite gratification I have received, I must long consider myself in your 'Being one autumn on his way to participate in debt. Trusting you will permit the enclosed (fifty the enjoyments of the season with the rest of the pounds) in some measure to discharge the same, I fashionable world at a celebrated watering-place, he remain, madam, (with sentiments of respect and adpassed through a small country town, in which chance miration), your sincere well-wisher-M. G. LEWIS." occasioned his temporary sojourn: here also were In 1801 appeared Lewis's Tales of Wonder.' A located a company of strolling players, whose per- ghost or a witch was, he said, a sine qua non ingreformance he one evening witnessed. Among them dient in all the dishes of which he meant to compose was a young actress, whose benefit was on the tapis, his hobgoblin repast, and Sir Walter Scott contributed and who, on hearing of the arrival of a person so to it some of his noble ballads. Scott met Lewis in talked of as Monk Lewis, waited upon him at the Edinburgh in 1798, and so humble were then his inn, to request the very trifling favour of an original own aspirations, and so brilliant the reputation of piece from his pen. The lady pleaded in terms that the Monk,' that he declared, thirty years afterurged the spirit of benevolence to advocate her cause wards, he never felt such elation as when Lewis in a heart never closed to such appeal. Lewis had asked him to dine with him at his hotel! Lewis by him at that time an unpublished trifle, called schooled the great poet on his incorrect rhyme, and "The Hindoo Bride," in which a widow was immo- proved himself, as Scott says, 'a martinet in the lated on the funeral pile of her husband. The sub- accuracy of rhymes and numbers.' Sir Walter has ject was one well suited to attract a country audience, recorded that Lewis was fonder of great people than and he determined thus to appropriate the drama. he ought to have been, either as a man of talent or The delighted suppliant departed all joy and grati- as a man of fashion. He had always,' he says, tude at being requested to call for the manuscript the dukes and duchesses in his mouth, and was pathenext day. Lewis, however, soon discovered that he tically fond of any one that had a title: you would had been reckoning without his host, for, on searching have sworn he had been a parvenu of yesterday; yet the travelling-desk which contained many of his pa- he had lived all his life in good society."* Yet Scott pers, "The Bride" was nowhere to be found, having, regarded Lewis with no small affection. 'He was,' in fact, been left behind in town. Exceedingly an- added he, 'one of the kindest and best creatures noyed by this circumstance, which there was no time that ever lived. His father and mother lived sepato remedy, the dramatist took a pondering stroll rately. Mr Lewis allowed his son a handsome inthrough the rural environs of BA sudden come, but reduced it by more than one-half when shower obliged him to take refuge within a huckster's he found that he paid his mother a moiety of it. shop, where the usual curtained half-glass door in Mat. restricted himself in all his expenses, and the rear opened to an adjoining apartment: from shared the diminished income with her as before. this room he heard two voices in earnest conversa- He did much good by stealth, and was a most genetion, and in one of them recognised that of his thea-rous creature.' The sterling worth of his character trical petitioner of the morning, apparently replying has been illustrated by the publication of his corto the feebler tones of age and infirmity. "There respondence, which, slumbering twenty years after now, mother, always that old story-when I've just his death, first disclosed to the public the calm good brought such good news too-after I've had the sense, discretion, and right feeling which were conface to call on Mr Monk Lewis, and found him so cealed by the exaggerated romance of his writings, different to what I expected; so good-humoured, so and his gay and frivolous appearance and manners. affable, and willing to assist me. I did not say a The death of Lewis's father made the poet a man of word about you, mother; for though in some respects it might have done good, I thought it would seem so like a begging affair; so I merely represented my late ill-success, and he promised to give me an original drama, which he had with him, for my benefit. I hope he did not think me too bold!" "I hope not, Jane," replied the feeble voice; "only don't do these things again without consulting me; for you don't know the world, and it may be thought- The sun just then gave a broad hint that the shower had ceased, and the sympathising author returned to his inn, and having penned the following letter, ordered post-horses, and despatched a porter to the young actress with the epistle.

""

*Of this weakness Byron records an amusing instance :

that when people said anything kind to him it affected him

Lewis, at Oatlands, was observed one morning to have his eyes red and his air sentimental: being asked why? he replied, deeply," and just now the Duchess (of York) has said something so kind to me, that-" here tears began to flow. "Never mind, Lewis," said Colonel Armstrong to him, "never mind don't cry-she could not mean it." Lewis was of extremely diminutive stature. I remember a picture of him,' says Scott, by Saunders, being handed round at Dalkeith house. The artist had ingeniously flung a dark folding mantle around the form, under which was half hid a dagger, a dark lantern, or some such cut-throat appurtenance. With all this, the features were preserved and ennobled. It passed from hand to

hand into that of Henry Duke of Buccleuch, who, hearing the general voice affirm that it was very like said aloud, "Like Mat. Lewis! Why, that picture's like a MAN!" He looked,

went through life with him. He was a child, and a spoiled

and lo! Mat. Lewis's head was at his elbow. This boyishness Ichild--but a child of high imagination, and so he wasted himself on ghost stories and German romances. He had the finest ear for the rhythm of verse I ever met with-finer than Byron's.'

"Madam-I am truly sorry to acquaint you that my Hindoo Bride has behaved most improperly in fact, whether the lady has eloped or not, it seems she does not choose to make her appearance, either for your benefit or mine: and to say the truth, don't at this moment know where to find her. I take the liberty to jest upon the subject, because I really do not think you will have any cause to regret

At midnight, four times in each year, does her sprite, chiefly from lameness, led to his being placed under
When mortals in slumber are bound,
Arrayed in her bridal apparel of white,
Appear in the hall with the skeleton knight,
And shriek as he whirls her around!

the charge of some relations in the country; and
when a mere child, yet old enough to receive im-
pressions from country life and border stories, he
resided with his grandfather at Sandy-Knowe, a

While they drink out of skulls newly torn from the romantic situation a few miles from Kelso. The ruined tower of Smailholm (the scene of Scott's ballad, the Eve of St John) was close to the farm, and beside it were the Eildon Hills, the river Tweed, Dryburgh Abbey, and other poetical and historical objects, all enshrined in the lonely contemplative boy's fancy and recollection. He afterwards resided with another relation at Kelso, and here, at the age of thirteen, he first read Percy's Reliques, in an antique garden, under the shade of a huge platanus, or oriental plane-tree. This work had as great an effect in making him a poet as Spenser had on Cowley, but with Scott the seeds were long in germinating. Previous to this he had indeed tried his hand at verse. The following, among other lines, were discovered wrapped up in a cover inscribed by Dr Adam of the High School, Walter Scott, July 1783.'

grave,

Dancing round them the spectres are seen; Their liquor is blood, and this horrible stave They howl: To the health of Alonzo the Brave, And his consort, the Fair Imogine!'

The Helmsman.

Hark, the bell! it sounds midnight! all hail, thou new heaven!

How soft sleep the stars on their bosom of night; While o'er the full moon, as they gently are driven, Slowly floating, the clouds bathe their fleeces in light. The warm feeble breeze scarcely ripples the ocean,

And all seem so hushed, all so happy to feel;
So smooth glides the bark, I perceive not her motion,
While low sings the sailor who watches the wheel.
'Tis so sad, 'tis so sweet, and some tones come so
swelling,

So right from the heart, and so pure to the ear,
That sure at this moment his thoughts must be dwelling
On one who is absent, most kind and most dear.
Oh! may she, who now dictates that ballad so tender,
Diffuse o'er your days the heart's solace and ease,
As yon lovely moon, with a gleam of mild splendour,
Pure, tranquil, and bright, over-silvers the seas!

The Hours.

Ne'er were the zephyrs known disclosing

More sweets, than when in Tempe's shades They waved the lilies, where reposing,

Sat four-and-twenty lovely maids.

Those lovely maids were called 'the Hours,'
The charge of Virtue's flock they kept;
And each in turn employed her powers

To guard it while her sisters slept.

False Love, how simple souls thou cheatest!
In myrtle bower that traitor near
Long watched an Hour-the softest, sweetest-
The evening Hour, to shepherds dear.

In tones so bland he praised her beauty;
Such melting airs his pipe could play,
The thoughtless Hour forgot her duty,

And fled in Love's embrace away.
Meanwhile the fold was left unguarded;

The wolf broke in, the lambs were slain; And now from Virtue's train discarded,

With tears her sisters speak their pain.
Time flies, and still they weep; for never
The fugitive can time restore;

An Hour once fled, has fled for ever,
And all the rest shall smile no more!

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

:

WALTER SCOTT was born in the city of Edinburgh (mine own romantic town') on the 15th of August 1771. His father was a respectable writer to the signet his mother, Anne Rutherford, was daughter of a physician in extensive practice, and professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. By both parents the poet was remotely connected with some respectable ancient Scottish families-a circumstance gratifying to his feelings of nationality, and to his imagination. Delicate health, arising

On the Setting Sun.

Those evening clouds, that setting ray,
And beauteous tints, serve to display
Their great Creator's praise;

Then let the short-lived thing called man,
Whose life's comprised within a span,

To him his homage raise.

We often praise the evening clouds,
And tints so gay and bold,

But seldom think upon our God,

Who tinged these clouds with gold.

The religious education of Scott may be seen in this effusion: his father was a rigid Presbyterian. The youthful poet passed through the High School and university of Edinburgh, and made some proficiency in Latin, and in the classes of ethics, moral philosophy, and history. He had an aversion to Greek, and we may perhaps regret, with Bulwer, that he refused to enter into that chamber in the magic palace of literature in which the sublimest relics of antiquity are stored.' He knew generally, but not critically, the German, French, Italian, and Spanish languages. He was an insatiable reader, and during a long illness in his youth, stored his mind with a vast variety of miscellaneous knowledge. Romances were among his chief favourites, and he had great facility in inventing and telling stories. He also collected ballads from his earliest years. Scott was apprenticed to his father as a writer, after which he studied for the bar, and put on his gown in his twenty-first year. His health was now vigorous and robust, and he made frequent excursions into the country, which he pleasantly denominated raids. The knowledge of rural life, character, traditions, and anecdotes, which he picked up in these rambles, formed afterwards a valuable mine to him, both as a poet and novelist. His manners were easy and agreeable, and he was always a welcome guest. Scott joined the Tory party; and when the dread of an invasion agitated the country, he became one of a band of volunteers, brothers true,' in which he held the rank of quarter-master. His exercises as a cavalry officer, and the jovialties of the messroom, occupied much of his time; but he still pursued, though irregularly, his literary studies, and an attachment to a Perthshire lady (though ultimately unfortunate) tended still more strongly to prevent his sinking into idle frivolity or dissipation. Henry Mackenzie, the Man of Feeling,' had introduced a taste for German literature into the intellec