Where with the rock's wood cover'd side
Were blended late the ruins green,
Rise turrets in fantastic pride,

And feudal banners flaunt between:
Where the rude torrent's brawling course
Was shagged with thorn and tangling slac,
The ashler buttress braves its force,

And ramparts frown in battled row.
"Tis night-the shade of keep and spire
Obscurely dance on Evan's stream,
And on the wave the warder's fire

Is chequering the moon-light beam.'

The description of the chase that follows, is very animated, as a few stanzas will shew.

Through the huge daks of Evandale,

Whose limbs a thousand years have worn,
What sullen roar comes down the gale,
And drowns the hunter's pealing horn!
Mightiest of all the beasts of chace,
That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,

The Mountain Bull comes thundering on.
Fierce, on the hunter's quivered band,
He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow,
Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand,
And tosses high his mane of snow.
Aimed well, the chieftain's lance has flown;
Struggling in blood the savage lies;
His roar is sunk in hollow groan—

Sound, merry huntsmen! sound the pryse

Thus far in the story, which relates to the assassination of Murray by Bothwellhaugh, one of the Hamiltons, the poet has truly made the past the present; but here suddenly, either from negligence or weariness, he breaks the spell of his own enchantment, and continues his song in the past tense, not as an event now transacting on the spot, but as a tale of other times, which he is telling Lady Hamilton on her morning-ride. It is indeed a tale of dreadful interest, and therefore we feel the more indignant in not being permitted to see but only to hear the sequel, though our Minstrel with most poetical inconsistency occasionally recurs to his original idea, and asks questions which restore the delightful illusion, in spite of all the idle pains which he has taken to destroy it. We cannot enter into the particulars of this narrative; at the end, however, he happily recollects himself, concluding with four stanzas, the counterpart to the first passage that we copied.

* Pryse. The note blown at the death of the game.

Of the Grey Brother," a fragment, we will say nothing, lest Mr. Scott should not rank us among his friends. The three ballads of Thomas the Rhymer," the first of which is ancient, the other two principally parodies of the reliques of Thomas's prophecies, are interesting both in a poctical and antiquarian light. "The Fire-king, Frederick and Alice, and the WildHuntsman,' are stories of unmingled and unmitigated horror, more worthy of Monk Lewis, for whom the two former were written, than of Walter Scott, who probably now regrets the expense of time and talents unprofitably lavished upon them. Of the remaining songs, &c. the last, intitled "Helvellyn,” is the best. We cannot close this article with more credit to the author, and advantage to the reader, than by transcribing the whole poem, of which it is difficult to say whether it be more pathetic or picturesque.

HELLVELLYN.*

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right. Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
'Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather,
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, .
The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber;
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start;
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, oh! was it meet, that,-no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him,--

Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart?

* In the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a mostamiable dispositon, perished by losing his way on the mountain Hellvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier-bitch, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnght, the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb;
When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.
And more stately thy couch by this desart lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the grey plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

Art. III. Ensor's Independent Man, (concluded from p. 297.) THE next division of this work, which is of considerable length, relates to Manners and Morals. The part on manners is full of good observations, on respect to parents, cleanliness, and dress, mode of address, conversation, and choice of company. They indicate an extensive acquaintance with society..

The part on morals begins with a forcible reprobation of sexual vice, especially when it involves the dishonour of married women. And regarding the seduction of an unmarried woman, the author has these expressions.

No action is more monstrous than affecting love with a design to estrange a woman from her innocence. A man is hanged who steals a purse; a ruffian professing endearment corrupts purity itself; and our law (except under peculiar circumstances and under a pitiful pretext) disregards the enormity. Earth has no monster like him who preys on the affectionate credulity of a lovely girl. Let no woman believe that her fate will contradict all experience: he who insinuates a dishonourable proposal cannot love her to whom it is made. It is impossible that the tenderest regard should be disposed to effect the greatest ill.' P. 173.

This contrasts somewhat unaccountably with a paragraph, which occurs a page or two before.

Suppose a female hitherto of unimpeached character, through affection is satisfied to live with you; suppose that you have used no artifice to inveigle, no promises to dispose her to your purpose; this seems to be the most inoffensive fault that in this case man can commit. But what are the consequences if this woman becomes abandoned? Her sins' are visited on you; had she not acceded to you, she might have remained honest. 'p.171.

Mr. E. illustrates the artifices, the consequences, and the miseries, of seduction, by a fiction of Charles and Charlotte, which contains strong description, but ends in the most extravagant absurdity. Charles has throughout proved himself a most

execrable villain, and has left her to vice, poverty, and death; notwithstanding which, "Charles was her only, love. God's mercy her only hope. Expiring she exclaimed, Charles, Charles, implore Almighty God that he forgive me!" The hateful miscreant is the person that the dying victim is likely to think of, for the office of supplicating the mercy of God for her!

Mr. E. inculcates industry, temperance in eating and drinking, and early rising. In relation to this last article we shall transcribe a passage, which affords a favourable specimen of his manner of describing, and an instance of the ungracefulness of his phraseology.

There is something so dull and vegetative in that yawning, dreaming, state, that I wonder shame does not prevent men from submitting to it. He who does not experience the bracing, or inhale the balmy breath of the morning, but half enjoys his existence. How rich and charming appears now all nature! In the east the source of light and life displays its own triumphant coming; the horizon is burnished gold; the ardent atmosphere graduates with saffron tints a vast expanse of purest æther; dews condense into clouds: thus, flying the valleys, and purpling as they ascend from the earth, the illuminated summits of the loftiest hills are seen; and as the sun peers above the line which separates night from day, the landscape opens wide; the birds resume their song; the herds arise; the husbandman proceeds to labour, and carols as he goes ;-while the sluggard is dead to all these scenes of nature and of life; a prey to oppressive dreams, sickening as he sleeps, and nurturing those diseases which waste the frame, or lead to stupor and apoplexy.' pp. 184, 185.

He recommends a vegetable diet, maintains the principle of Pythagoras respecting the slaughter of animals, and pronounces a severe and just condemnation of sportsmen. He censures anger and duelling, but not, as it should seem, every form and degree of revenge; for, citing a maxim of the Indians," that it was not lawful to do an injury, nor suffer one," he says, "This has something brave and magnanimous

in its command."

Wealth is the next topic, and he justly ridicules the affected philosophical cant of unconditionally despising, what, in the possession of a wise and good man, would be the source of many genuine pleasures, and the instrument of great usefulness. Zeno, he observes, could have served a mendicant much better by an obolus, than by many maxims of self-denial. Throughout the book, however, he has little respect, and, as things are, too little he cannot have, for the opulent, luxurious, and powerful classes of society. The last topic under the head of morals, is friendship; a thing so rare, that he might have been pardoned for omitting to notice it, if the following be a true account of it.

A friend is as self: he and you are as bodies inspired by one soul. Far be it from a friend to act like those birds of passage which approach our coasts with the vernal warmth, and fly to other climes when the season is VOL. IIE Hh

passed. You espouse him through all changes and periods: if he be in want, your property is at his service. He who could enjoy affluence while his friend was destitute, knows not the meaning of friendship. A man should sacrifice for his friend, his fortune, his exertions, and even his health.' p. 233.

A more imperfect scheme of morals was perhaps never exhibited, in a work designed, and sufficiently amplified, to comprehend the outlines of whatever is indispensable to the formation of a character of exalted excellence. It totally omits or rejects some of the highest virtues according to the Christian scheme: this is a matter of course; but it also places the virtues which it does enjoin on a treacherous basis, and under the feeblest sanctions. The presence of the all-seeing Governor and Judge of the world, and the infinite importance of his approbation, were considerations too mean, vulgar, or fanatical, to be recollected by our philosopher, among the motives to virtue. And as to the disapprobation of that power, he expressly and vehemently protests against the inculcation of any such barbarous idea on the youthful mind.

• At all events, do not require the child to fear God. The pagans, Seneca and Varro taught this, and even Ovid, a versifier of pagan fables, writes, The Supreme Ruler forbids fear. To require human beings to fear God, blasphemes the benignity of nature's Lord toward his creatures.'— Perhaps it would not be prudent to speak to the child of God's omnipotence; as power and its abuse are so connected in this world, that to re present him all-powerful is to associate a belief that he is unlimited in executing his humours.' pp. 22. 23.

The pupil of our sage is to be abandoned, for his chance of virtue, in such a world as this, to the hopeful guardianship of a certain factitious sentiment, which affects to despise the meanness of vice; of the persuasion that virtue is happiness whether he feels it so or not; and of a most unaccountable mystical instinct, a conscience which is merely its own authority, and is to be childishly terrified when there is nothing to fear. It is in this last article, fantastic as it may seem, that philosophy rises to its most exalted pitch of superiority over religion. According to religion, a guilty conscience must tremble because there is a righteous and omnipotent judge; according to philosophy, it must tremble purely because it must, and it knows not why. Here is a contrast to put down the dreaming fanaticism of "the believers!" If any thing were necessary to be added to the self-evident reasonableness of the notion, the authority of great names will never be wanting; for Lucretius has taught this principle, and Mr. Ensor has sanctioned it. "He (Lucretius) concludes with that consummate morality,' that, though crimes be concealed from gods and men, the torments of conscience avenge the injuries of the world."