When for her freeborn rights she strove;
Rights dear to all who freedom love,1

To none so dear as thee !2

XXXVI.

Turn we to Bruce, whose curious ear
Must from Fitz-Louis tidings hear;
With him, a hundred voices tell
Of prodigy and miracle,

"For the mute page had spoke." "Page!" said Fitz-Louis, "rather say, An angel sent from realms of day, To burst the English yoke.

I saw his plume and bonnet drop,

1 MS. "When for her rights her sword was bare, Rights dear to all who freedom share."

2 The fictitious part of the story is, on the whole, the least interesting, though we think that the author has hazarded rather too little embellishment in recording the adventures of the Bruce. There are many places, at least, in which he has evidently given an air of heaviness and flatness to his narration, by adhering too closely to the authentic history; and has lowered down the tone of his poetry to the tame level of the rude chroniclers by whom the incidents were originally recorded. There is a more serious and general fault, however, in the conduct of all this part of the story,—and that is, that it is not sufficiently national - and breathes nothing either of that animosity toward England, or that exultation over her defeat, which must have animated all Scotland at the period to which he refers, and ou, ht, consequently, to have been the ruling passion of his poem. Mr. Scott, however, not only dwells fondly on the valour and generosity of the invaders, but actually makes an elaborate apology to the English for having ventured to select for his theme a story which records their disasters. We hope this extreme courtesy is not intended

The Death-Bier of De Argentine.

Photogravure from Drawing by J. H. Nixon.