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The Figures between parentheses, thus, (1) refer to Notes at the end of each Pocm; those
marked thus, to Notes at the bottom of the page.

Memoir of Sir Walter Scott.

BY J. W. LAKE.

was declared to be fit for nothing but to drive the team, till some friends succeeded in getting him transplanted to college.

Having completed his classical studies at the High School, with as much reputation, we suppose, as others of his standing, Walter Scott was removed to the University of Edinburgh, where, also, he passed the classes in a similar manner.

His continuance here, however, could not have been long; for, after serving the prescribed terms in the office of a writer to the signet, he was admitted an advocate of the Scotch bar, when he had not quite attained the age of twenty-one.From this time to the year 1798, his life appears to have passed in a devoted attention to his professional duties, mindful of the advice,

Not to pen stanzas when he should engross.

SiR WALTER SCOTT, descended from one of the Just ancient families of Scotland-the Scotts of Haden, is the eldest surviving son of a gentleman of the same name, who was an eminent wrt to the signet at Edinburgh, where the alect of this sketch was born, August 15, His mother, Mrs Elizabeth Scott, was e daughter of David Rutherford, Esq., writer to the signet, from whom she obtained a handsome fortune. She was a woman of great te and accomplishments, with a good taste poetry, as appeared from some of her proactions, which were deemed worthy of being red after her death, in 1789. Walter, from the tenderness of his constitution, and the circonstance of his lameness, occasioned by a fall fr his nurse's arms at two of years age, was a great measure brought up at home, under the immediate care and iustruction of this excelAt the last-mentioned date he entered into the parent, to whom he was much attached matrimonial state with Miss Carpenter, by whom tagh life, and whose loss he sincerely lament- he has four children. At the close of the year Of his early pursuits little is known, except following, he received the appointment of sheat he evinced a genius for drawing landscapes riff-Depute of the county of Selkirk; and in nature.-At a proper age he was sent to March, 1806, he was named one of the principal High School at Edinburgh, then directed clerks of Session in Scotland. With regard to Dr Alexander Adam. In this school, young this last preferment, it should be observed that at passed through the different forms with-his warrant, though drawn, had not passed the exhibiting any of those extraordinary ers of genius, which are seldom rememred till the person to whom they are ascribed become, by the maturity of his talents, an dect of distinction. It is said, that he was conSered in his boyhood rather heavy than other, and that the late Dr Hugh Blair had disterment enough to predict his future eminence, when the master of the school lamented his dul; but this only affords another instance of the fallacy of human opinion in pronouncing the real capacity of the youthful underBanding Barrow, the greatest scholar of his was discarded as a blockhead by successive teachers; and his pupil, the illustrious Newton,

seals when the death of Mr Pitt produced an entire change in the ministry. The appointment of Mr Scott had been effected through the friendship of Lord Melville, who was then actually under impeachment. This circumstance seemed very ominous against the confirination of the nomination; but, fortunately for Mr Scott, the new ministry consisted of such men as the late Mr Fox, Sheridan, Lord Erskine, and the Marquis of Lansdowne, with several others attached to literature and philosophy; and, in a manner that did them infinite honour, they made no objection to the advancement of their poetical opponent. Thus, as a witty friend remarked, this appointment was the last Lay of the old Ministry.» attention to young Scott. Dr Paterson thought it was the youth's stupidity that engaged the doctor's notice, and said, «My predecessor tells me, that boy has the thickest skull in the school.» «May be so,» replied Dr Blair, «<but through that thick skull I can discern many bright rays

The prediction of Dr Blair, here alluded to, arose out the following circumstances. Shortly after Dr Paterson eded to the grammar-school, Musselburgh, where Water Scott was a short time a pupil, Blair, accompanied me friends, paid him a visit; in the course of which examined several of his pupils, and paid particular of future genius.»>

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Released now from the drudgery of profes-1 Minstrel,, which appeared, in quarto, in 1805.— sional labour, by the acquisition of two lucrative The following year he published a collection of situations, and the possession of a handsome es- Ballads and Lyrical Pieces. Shortly after this tate through the death of his father and that of public expectation was raised by the promise of a an uncle, Mr Scott was enabled to court the, poem, on the perfection of which the hard was Muses at his pleasure, and to indulge in a va-¦ said to labour as for immortality. Accordingly riety of literary pursuits without interruption.- in 1808, appeared Marmion, a tale of Flodder His first publications were translations from the Field, which the author himself has characGerman, at a time when the wildest productions terised as containing the best and the worst of that country were much sought after in Eng-poetry he has ever written. land, owing to the recent appearance of that The same year Mr Scott favoured the world horrible story of Lenora of Burger. The very with a complete edition of the Works of Dryden. year when different versions of that tale came in which he gave a new life of that great writers out, and some of these highly ornamented, Mr and numerous notes. But this was not the only Scott produced two German ballads in an Eng- instance of the fecundity of his genius and the lish dress, entitled, The Wild Huntsmen, and rapidity of his pen, for, while these volumes were William and Helen.. proceeding through the press, he found time for a quarto of Descriptions and Illustrations of the Lay of the Last Minstrel.

These little pieces, however, were not originally intended for the press, being nothing more than exercises in the way of amusement, till a friend, to whom they were shown, prevailed upon the author to publish them, and at the same time contributed the preface. Three years elapsed before Mr Scott ventured to appear again in print, when he produced another translation from the German, « Goetz of Berlichingen,» a tragedy, by Gothe. Two years afterwards the late Matthew Gregory (commonly called Monk) Lewis, enriched his « Tales of Wonder with two ballads communicated to him by our author, one entitled The Eve of Saint John," and the other « Glenfinlas.»

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Within a few months after this he undertook, at the request of the booksellers, the superintendence of a new edition of Lord Somers's collection of Historical Tracts; and at the same time edited Sir Ralph Sadler's State Papers, and Anna Seward's Poetical Works. Yet the very year in which these last publications appeared witnessed the birth of another original offspring of his prolific muse. This was « The Lady of the Lake, the most popular of all his poems, though, in the opinion of many, inferior in several respects to his « Lay of the Last Minstrel.»

The Vision of Don Roderick appeared in 1811, and was intended by its author to commemorate the achievements of the Duke of Wellington and the British army in Spain. This poem is considered a complete failure.

In 1802 his first great work, « The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, came out, beautifully printed at Kelso, by Ballantyne. This collection immediately arrested general attention, and though the pieces of which it is composed are Rokeby was published in 1812-13. It comvery unequal, the master-mind and soaring ge-prises, in an eminent degree, all the beauties and nius of the poet are conspicuous throughout. all the defects of our poet's muse.

The studies of our author at this time were entirely antiquarian. He lived and breathed only among the knights, the heroes, the monks, and robbers of olden time; the feats of chivalry, and the rough heroism of northern warfare and border feuds, were the scenes in which his soul delighted to dwell. He drank deeply of the stream of history as it darkly flowed over the middle ages, and his spirit seemed for a time to be imbued with the mysteries, the superstitions, and the romantic valour which characterised the then chieftains of the north countrie.

His next production was « Sir Tristram, a metrical romance of the thirteenth century, by Thomas of Ercildoun,» printed in 1804. Still, however, Mr Scott may be said as yet to have been only rising in fame: but he soon gained enough to have intoxicated an ordinary mind in

use bestowed upon his « Lay of the last

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1:

Sold of The Lady of the Lake,» from June with which they frequently describe great events

ad to September 22, 1810,

2,000 quarto, at 2l. 28.

.

6,000 octavo, at 125.

4,200l.
3,60ol.

1,000

7,800l.

-and the lively colouring and accurate drawing by which they give the effect of reality to every scene they undertake to delineate. In executing this arduous task, he was permitted to avail himself of all the variety of style and manner which had been sanctioned by the ancient practice, and

Sold of Rokeby, in three months (Jan. 14th bound to embellish his performance with all the

April 14th, 1813),

3,000 quarto, at 2l. 28. (less

....

120 remaining). 6,0481. 5,000 octavo, at 14s. 3,500l.

8,000

9,5481.

We shall now attempt to offer a few critical observations on the three most deservedly popupoems of Walter Scott, viz. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and The Lady of the

Labe.

The LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL is an endeavour transfer the refinements of modern poetry to the matter and the manner of the ancient metriromance. The author, enamoured of the lofty visions of chivalry, and partial to the strains in ch they were formerly embodied, employed the resources of his genius in endeavouring to real them to the favour and admiration of the public, and in adapting to the taste of modern readers a species of poetry, which was once the deight of the courtly, but which has long ceased tepladden any other eyes than those of the schoand the antiquary. This is a romance, therecomposed by a minstrel of the present day, ad a romance as we may suppose would have written in modern times, if that style of position had been cultivated, and partaken, quently, of the improvements which every ach of literature has received since the time és desertion.

graces of diction and versification which could be reconciled to the simplicity and familiarity of the minstrel's song.

The success which attended Mr Scott's efforts in the execution of this adventurous essay is well known; -he produced a very beautiful and entertaining poem, in a style which might fairly be considered as original, and the public approbation afforded the most flattering evidence of the genius of the author. Perhaps, indeed, his partiality for the strains of antiquity imposed a little upon the severity of his judgment, and impaired the beauty of his imitation, by directing his attention rather to what was characteristic, than to what was unexceptionable in his originals. Though he spared too many of their faults, however, he improved upon their beauties, and while it was regretted by many, that the feuds of border chieftains should have monopolized as much poetry as might have served to immortalize the whole baronage of the empire, yet it produced a stronger inclination to admire the interest and magnificence which he contrived to communicate to a subject so unpromising.

MARMION has more tedious and flat passages, and more ostentation of historical and antiquarian lore, than its predecessor, but it has also. greater richness and variety, both of character and incident; and, if it has less sweetness and pathos in the softer passages, it has certainly more vehemence and force of colouring in the loftier and busier representations of action and emotion. pon this supposition, it was evidently the au- The place of the prologuizing minstrel is but ill or's business to retain all that was good, and supplied, indeed, by the epistolary dissertations la reject all that was bad, in the models upon which are prefixed to each book of this poem ; but vih he was to form himself; adding, at the there is more airiness and spirit in the lighter time, all the interest and the beauty which delineations, and the story, if not more skilfully old possibly be assimilated to the manner and conducted, is at least better complicated, and exit of his original. It was his duty, therefore, tended through a wider field of adventure. The rform the rambling, obscure, and intermina- characteristics of both, however, are evidently the arratives of the ancient romancers,—to mosame; - a broken narrative-a redundancy of Serate their digressions,-to abridge or retrench minute description-bursts of unequal and enertheir prolix or needless descriptions, and to ex-getic poetry—and a general tone of spirit and ge altogether those feeble and prosaic pas- animation, unchecked by timidity or affectation, the rude stupidity of which is so apt to and unchastened by any great delicacy of taste, te the derision of a modern reader: at the or elegance of fancy. e time he was to rival, if he could, the force and vivacity of their minute and varied repreatations-the characteristic simplicity of their tates of manners — the energy and conciseness

THE LADY OF THE LAKE is more polished in its diction, and more regular in its versification, than the author's preceding poems; the story is constructed with infinitely more skill and address;

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