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exciting high and poetical interest, by the gleams of his fancy, the tragic elevation of his scenes, and the fearful touches which he delights to borrow from the world of spirits.

In the vivid description of natural scenery our author is wholly without a rival, unless Sir Walter Scott will dispute the pre-eminence with him; and, even then, we think the novelist would be found to surpass the bard. The free grace

of nature has, of late, contributed little to the charm of our highest poetry. Lord Byron has always, in his reference to the majestic scenery of the universe, dealt rather in grand generalities than minute pictures, has used the turbulence of the elements as symbols of inward tempests, and sought the vast solitudes and deep tranquillity of nature, but to assuage the fevers of the soul. Wordsworth-who, amidst the contempt of the ignorant and of the worldly wise, has been gradually and silently moulding all the leading spirits of the age has sought communion with nature, for other purposes than to describe her external forms. He has shed on all creation a sweet and consecrating radiance, far other than "the light of common day." In his poetry the hills and streams appear, not as they are seen by vulgar eyes, but as the poet himself, in the holiness of his imagination has arrayed them. They are peopled not with the shapes of old superstition, but with the shadows of the poet's thought, the dreams of a glory that shall be. They are resonant-not with the voice of birds, or the soft whisperings of the breeze, but with echoes from beyond the tomb. Their lowliest objects-a dwarf bush, an old stone, a daisy, or a small celandine-affect us with thoughts as deep, and inspire meditations as profound, as the loveliest scene of reposing beauty, or the wildest region of the mountains-because the heart of the poet is all in all-and the visible objects of his love are not dear to us for their own colours or forms, but for the sentiment which he has linked to them, and which they bring back upon our souls. We would not have this otherwise for all the romances in the world. But it gladdens us to see the intrinsic claims of nature on our hearts asserted, and to feel that she is, for her own sake, worthy of deep love. It is not as the richest index of divine philosophy alone that she has a right to our affections; and, therefore, we rejoice that in our author

she has found a votary to whom her works are in themselves "an appetite, a feeling, and a love," and who finds, in their contemplation, "no need of a remoter charm, by thought supplied, or any interest unborrowed from the eye." Every gentle swelling of the ground-every gleam of the water— every curve and rock of the shore-all varieties of the earth, from the vastest crag to the soft grass of the woodland walk, and all changes of the heaven from "morn to noon, from noon to latest eve,"—are placed before us in his works with a distinctness beyond that which the painter's art can attain, while we seem to breathe the mountain air, or drink in the freshness of the valleys. We perceive the change in the landscape at every step of the delightful journey through which he guides us. Our recollection never confounds any one scene with another, although so many are laid in the same region, and are alike in general character. The lake among the hills, on which the cave of Donald Bean bordered- that near which the clan of the M'Gregors combated, and which closed in blue calmness over the body of Maurice—and that which encircled the castle of Julian Avenel-are distinct from each other in the imagination, as the loveliest scenes which we have corporally visited. What in softest beauty can exceed the description of the ruins of St. Ruth; in the lovelily romantic the approach to the pass of Aberfoil; in varied lustre the winding shores of Ellangowan bay; in rude and dreary majesty the Highland scenes, where Ronald of the Mist lay hidden; and in terrific sublimity the rising of the sea on Fairport Sands, and the perils of Sir Arthur Wardour and his daughter? Our author's scene of comparative barrenness are enchanting by the vividness of his details, and the fond delight with which he dwells on their redeeming features. We seem to know every little plot of green, every thicket of copse-wood, and every turn and cascade of the stream in the vale of Glendearg, and to remember each low bush in the barren scene of her skirmish between the Covenanters and Claverhouse, as though we had been familiar with it in childhood. The descriptions of this author are manifestly rendered more vivid by the intense love which he bears to his country-not only to her luxuriant and sublime scenery, but "her bare earth, and mountains bare, and grass in the green field." He will scarcely leave a brook, a

mountain ash, or a lichen on the rocks of her shore, without due honour. He may fitly be regarded as the genius of Scotland, who has given her a poetical interest, a vast place in the imagination, which may almost compensate for the loss of that political independence, the last struggling love for which he so nobly celebrates.

"The author of Waverly" is, however, chiefly distinguished by the number, the spirit, and the individuality of his characters. We know not, indeed, where to begin or to end with the vast crowd of their genial and noble shapes which come thronging on our memory. His ludicrous characters are dear to us, because they are seldom merely quaint or strange, the dry oddities of fancy, but have as genuine a kindred with humanity as the most gifted and enthusiastic of their fellows. The laughter which they excite is full of social sympathy, and we love them and our nature the better while we indulge it. Whose heart does not claim kindred with Baillie Nichol Jarvie, while the Glasgow weaver without losing one of his nice peculiarities, kindles into honest warmth with his ledger in hand, and in spite of broad-cloth grows almost romantic? In whom does a perception of the ludicrous for a moment injure the veneration which the brave, stout-hearted and chivalrous Baron of Bradwardine inspires? Who shares not in the fond enthusiasm of Oldbuck for black letter, in his eager and tremulous joy at grasping rare books at low prices, and in his discoveries of Roman camps and monuments which we can hardly forgive Edie Ochiltree for disproving? Compared with these genial persons, the portraits of mere singularity-however inimitably finished—are harsh and cold; of these, indeed, the works of our author afford scarcely more than one signal example-Captain Dalgetty-who is a mere piece of ingenious mechanism, like the automaton chess-player, and with all his cleverness, gives us little pleasure, for he excites as little sympathy. Almost all the persons of these novels, diversified as they are, are really endowed with some deep and elevating enthusiasm, which, whether breaking through eccentricities of manner, perverted by error, or mingled with crime, ever asserts the majesty of our nature, its deep affections, and undying powers. This is true, not only of the divine enthusiasm of Flora Mac Ivor-of the sweet heroism of Jeannie Deans—of the angelic tenderness and

fortitude of Rebecca, but of the puritanic severities and awful zeal of Balfour of Burley, and the yet more frightful energy of Macbriar, equally ready to sacrifice a blameless youth, and to bear without shrinking the keenest of mortal agonies. In the fierce and hunted child of the mist-in the daring and reckless libertine Staunton-in the fearful Elspeth-in the vengeful wife of M'Gregor-are traits of wild and irregular greatness, fragments of might and grandeur, which show how noble and sacred a thing the heart of man is, in spite of its strangest debasements and perversions. How does the inimitable portrait of Claverhouse at first excite our hatred for that carelessness of human misery, that contempt for the life of his fellows, that cold hauteur and finished indifference which are so vividly depicted;—and yet how does his mere soldierly enthusiasm redeem him at last, and almost persuade us that the honour and fame of such a man were cheaply purchased by a thousand lives! We can scarcely class Rob Roy among these mingled characters. He has nothing but the name and the fortune of an outlaw and a robber. He is, in truth, one of the noblest of heroes-a Prince of the hether and the rock-whose very thirst for vengeance is tempered and harmonized by his fondness for the wild and lovely scenes of his home. Indeed the influences of majestic scenery are to be perceived tinging the rudest minds which the author has made to expatiate amidst its solitudes. The passions even of Burley and of Macbriar, borrow a grace from the steep crags, the deep masses of shade, and the silent caves, among which they were nurtured, as the most rapid and perturbed stream which rushes through a wild and romantic region bears some reflection of noble imagery on its impetuous surface. To some of his less stern but unlettered personages, nature seems to have been a kindly instructor, nurturing high thoughts within them, and well supplying to them all the lack of written wisdom. The wild sublimity of Meg Merrilies is derived from her long converse with the glories of creation; the floating clouds have lent to her something of their grace; she has contemplated the rocks till her soul is firm as they, and gazed intently on the face of nature until she has become half acquainted with its mysteries. The old king's beadman has not journeyed for years in vain among the hills and woods; their beauty has sunk into his soul; and

his days seem bound each to each by "by natural piety which he has learned among them.

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That we think there is much of true poetical genius—much of that which softens, refines, and elevates humanity in the works of this author-may be inferred from our remarks on his power of embodying human character. The gleams of a soft and delicate fancy are tenderly cast over many of their scenes-heightening that which is already lovely, relieving the gloomy, and making even the thin blades of barren regions shine refreshingly on the eyes. We occasionally meet with a pure and pensive beauty, as in Pattieson's description of his sensations in his evening walks after the feverish drudgery of his school-with wild yet graceful fantasies, as in the songs of Davie Gellatly-or with visionary and aërial shapes, like the spirit of the House of Avenel. But the poetry of this author is, for the most part, of a far deeper cast;flowing from his intense consciousness of the mysteries of our nature, and constantly impressing on our minds the high sanctities and the mortal destiny of our being. No one has ever made so impressive a use of the solemnities of life and death of the awfulness which rests over the dying, and renders all their words and actions sacred-or of the fond retrospection, and the intense present enjoyment, snatched fearfully as if to secure it from fate, which are the peculiar blessings of a short and uncertain existence. Was ever the robustness of life-the mantling of the strong current of joyous blood-the high animation of health, spirits, and a stout heart, more vividly brought before the mind than in the description of Frank Kennedy's demeanour as he rides lustily forth, never to return ?—or the fearful change from this hearty enjoyment of life to the chillness of mortality, more deeply impressed on the imagination than in all the minute examinations of the scene of his murder, the traces of the deadly contest, the last marks of the struggling footsteps, and the description of the corpse at the foot of the crag? Can a scene of mortality be conceived more fearful than that where Bertram, in the glen of Dernclugh, witnesses the last agonies of one over whom Meg Merrilies is chaunting her wild ditties to soothe the passage of the spirit? What a stupendous scene is that of the young fisher's funeral-the wretched father writhing in the contortions of agony-the mother silent in

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