introduced at supper; and the stranger, after mainland:-And, with the description of this disclosing himself to be "James Fitz-James, feat, the second canto concludes. the knight of Snowdoun," tries in vain to dis- The third canto, which is entitled "The cover the name and history of the ladies, Gathering," opens with a long and rather whose manners discover them to be of high tedious account of the ceremonies employed rank and quality. He then retires to sleep, by Sir Roderick, in preparing for the sumand is disturbed with distressful visions-moning or gathering of his clan. This is acrises and tranquillises himself, by looking out on the lovely moonlight landscape-says his prayers, and sleeps till the heathcock crows on the mountains behind him:-And thus closes the first canto. complished by the consecration of a small wooden cross, which, with its points scorched and dipped in blood, is circulated with incredible celerity through the whole territory of the chieftain. The eager fidelity with The second opens with a fine picture of the which this fatal signal is hurried on and aged harper, Allan-bane, sitting on the island obeyed, is represented with great spirit and beach with the damsel, watching the skiff felicity. A youth starts from the side of his which carries the stranger back again to land. father's coffin, to bear it forward; and having The minstrel sings a sweet song; and a con- run his stage, delivers it into the hands of a versation ensues, from which the reader gath- young bridegroom returning from church; ers, that the lady is a daughter of the house who instantly binds his plaid around him, of Douglas, and that her father, having been and rushes onward from his bride. In the exiled by royal displeasure from the court, mean time, Douglas and his daughter had had been fain to accept of this asylum from taken refuge in the mountain cave; and Sir Sir Roderick Dhu, a Highland chieftain, who Roderick, passing near their retreat in his had long been outlawed for deeds of blood, way to the muster, hears Ellen's voice singbut still maintained his feudal sovereignty in ing her evening hymn to the Virgin. He does the fastnesses of his native mountains. It not obtrude on her devotions, but hurries to appears also, that this dark chief is in love the place of rendezvous, where his clan rewith his fair protegée; but that her affections ceive him with a shout of acclamation, and are engaged to Malcolm Græme, a younger then couch on the bare heath for the night.— and more amiable mountaineer, the companion This terminates the third canto. and guide of her father in his hunting excursions. As they are engaged in this discourse, the sound of distant music is heard on the lake; and the barges of Sir Roderick are discovered, proceeding in triumph to the island. Her mother calls Ellen to go down with her to receive him; but she, hearing her father's horn at that instant on the opposite shore, flies to meet him and Malcolm Græme, who is received with cold and stately civility by the lord of the isle. After some time, Sir Roderick informs the Douglas, that his retreat has been discovered by the royal spies, and that he has great reason to believe that the King (James V.), who, under pretence of hunting, had assembled a large force in the neighbourhood, was bent upon their destruction. He then proposes, somewhat impetuously, that they should unite their fortunes indissolubly by his marriage with Ellen, and rouse the whole Western Highlands to repress the invasion. The Douglas, with many expressions of gratitude, declines both the war and the alliance; and, intimating that his daughter has repugnances which she cannot overcome, and that he, though ungratefully used by his sovereign, will never lift his arm against him, declares that he will retire to a cave in the neighbouring mountains, till the issue of the threat is seen. The strong heart of Roderick is wrung with agony at this rejection; and, when Malcolm advances to offer his services, as Ellen rises to retire, he pushes him violently back-and a scuffle ensues, of no very dignified character, which is with difficulty appeased by the giant arm of Douglas. Malcolm then withdraws in proud resentment; and, refusing to be indebted to the surly chief even for the use of his boat, plunges into the water, and swims over by moonlight to the The fourth begins with more incantations. Some absurd and disgusting ceremonies are gone through, by a wild hermit of the clan, with a view to ascertain the issue of the impending war-and this oracular response is obtained-"that the party shall prevail which first sheds the blood of its adversary." We are then introduced to the minstrel and Ellen, whom he strives to comfort for the alarming disappearance of her father, by singing a long fairy ballad to her; and just as the song is ended, the knight of Snowdoun again appears before her, declares his love, and urges her to put herself under his protection. Ellen, alarmed, throws herself on his generosityconfesses her attachment to Græme-and with difficulty prevails on him to seek his own safety by a speedy retreat from those dangerous confines. The gallant stranger at last complies; but, before he goes, presents her with a ring, which he says he had received from the hand of King James, with a promise to grant any boon that should be asked by the person producing it. As he is pursuing his way through the wild, his suspicions are excited by the conduct of his guide, and confirmed by the musical warnings of a mad woman, who sings to him about the toils that are set, and the knives that are whetted against him. He then threatens his false guide, who discharges an arrow at him, which kills the maniac. The knight slays the murderer; and learning from the expiring victim that her brain had been turned by the cruelty of Sir Roderick, he vows vengeance on his head; and proceeds with grief and apprehension along his dangerous way. When chilled with the midnight cold, and exhausted with want and fatigue, he suddenly comes upon a chief reposing by a lonely watch-fire; and, though challenged in the name of Rod-vent the combat, by announcing that both erick Dhu, boldly avows himself his enemy. Sir Roderick and Lord Douglas are in the The clansman, however, disdains to take ad- hands of their sovereign. vantage of a worn-out wanderer; and pledges himself to escort him safe out of Sir Roderick's territory; after which, he tells him he must answer with his sword for the defiance he had uttered against the chieftain. The stranger accepts his courtesy upon those chivalrous terms; and the warriors sup, and sleep together on the plaid of the mountaineer. The sixth and last canto, entitled "The Guard Room," opens with a very animated description of the motley mercenaries that formed the royal guard, as they appeared at early dawn, after a night of stern debauch. While they are quarrelling and singing, the sentinels introduce an old minstrel and a veiled maiden, who had been forwarded by Mar to the royal presence; and Ellen, disclosing her countenance, awes the ruffian soldiery, into respect and pity, by her grace and liberality. She is then conducted to a more seemly waiting-place, till the King should be visible; and Allan-bane, asking to be taken to the prison of his captive lord, is led, by mistake, to the sick chamber of Roderick Dhu, who is dying of his wounds in a gloomy apartment of the castle. The high-souled chieftain inquires eagerly after the fortunes of his clan, the Douglas, and Ellen; and, when he learns that a battle has been fought with a doubtful success, entreats the minstrel to sooth his parting spirit with a description of it, and with the victor song of his clan. Allan-bane complies; and the battle is told in very animated and irregular verse. When the vehement strain is closed, Roderick is found cold; and Allan mourns him in a pathetic lament. In the mean time, Ellen hears the voice of Malcolm Græme lamenting his captivity from an adjoining turret of the palace; and, before she has recovered from her agitation, is startled by the appearance of Fitz-James, who comes to inform her that the court is assembled, and the King at leisure to receive her suit. He conducts her trembling steps to the hall of presence, round which Ellen casts a timid and eager glance for the monarch; But all the glittering figures are uncovered, and James Fitz-James alone wears his cap and plume in the brilliant assembly! The truth immediately rushes on her imagination :The knight of Snowdoun is the King of Scotland! and, struck with awe and terror, she falls speechless at his feet, clasping her hands, and pointing to the ring in breathless agitation. The prince raises her with eager kindness-declares aloud that her father is forgiven, and restored to favour-and bids her ask a boon for some other person. The name of Græme trembles on her lips; but she cannot trust herself to utter it, and begs the grace of Roderick Dhu. The king answers, that he would give his best earldom to restore him to life, and presses her to name some other boon. She blushes, and hesitates; and the king, in playful vengeance, condemns Malcolm Græme to fetters-takes a chain of gold from his own neck, and throwing it over that of the young chief, puts the clasp into the hand of Ellen! They rouse themselves by dawn, at the opening of the fifth canto, entitled "The Combat," and proceed towards the Lowland frontier; the Highland warrior seeking, by the way, at once to vindicate the character of Sir Roderick, and to justify the predatory habits of his clan. Fitz-James expresses freely his detestation of both; and the dispute growing warm, he says, that never lover longed so to see the lady of his heart, as he to see before him this murderous chief and his myrmidons. "Have then thy wish!" answers his guide; and giving a loud whistle, a whole legion of armed men start up at once from their mountain ambush in the heath; while the chief turns proudly, and says, those are the warriors of Clan-Alpineand "I am Roderick Dhu!"-The Lowland knight, though startled, repeats his defiance; and Sir Roderick, respecting his valour, by a signal dismisses his men to their concealment, and assures him anew of his safety till they pass his frontier. Arrived on this equal ground, the chief now demands satisfaction; and forces the knight, who tries all honourable means of avoiding the combat with so generous an adversary, to stand upon his defence. Roderick, after a tough combat, is laid wounded on the ground; and FitzJames, sounding his bugle, brings four squires to his side; and after giving the wounded chief into their charge, gallops rapidly on towards Stirling. As he ascends the hill to the castle, he descries the giant form of Douglas approaching to the same place; and the reader is then told, that this generous lord had taken the resolution of delivering himself up voluntarily, with a view to save Malcolm Græme, and if possible Sir Roderick also, from the impending danger. As he draws near to the castle, he sees the King and his train descending to grace the holyday sports of the commonalty, and resolves to mingle in them, and present himself to the eye of his alienated sovereign as victor in those humbler contentions. He wins the prize accordingly, in archery, wrestling, and .. pitching the bar; and receives his reward from the hand of the prince; who does not condescend to recognise his former favourite by one glance of affection. Roused at last by an insult from one of the royal grooms, he proclaims himself aloud; is ordered into custody by the King, and represses a tumult of Such is the brief and naked outline of the populace which is excited for his rescue. the story, which Mr. Scott has embellished At this instant, a messenger arrives with with such exquisite imagery, and enlarged tidings of an approaching battle between the by so many characteristic incidents, as to clan of Roderick and the King's lieutenant, have rendered it one of the most attractive the Earl of Mar; and is ordered back to pre-poems in the language. That the story, Such a subject, we are persuaded, has very great capabilities, and only wants to be introduced to public notice by such a hand as Mr. Scott's, to make a still more powerful impression than he has already effected by the resurrection of the tales of romance. There are few persons, we believe, of any degree of poetical susceptibility, who have wandered among the secluded valleys of the Highlands, and contemplated the singular people by whom they are still tenanted-with their love of music and of song-their hardy and irregular life, so unlike the unvarying toils of the Saxon mechanic-their devotion to their chiefs upon the whole, is well digested and happily | the same sovereign-the same manners-the carried on, is evident from the hold it keeps same ranks of society-the same tone, both of the reader's attention through every part for courtesy and for defiance. Loch Katrine, of its progress. It has the fault, indeed, of indeed, is more picturesque than St. Mary's all stories that turn upon an anagnorisis or Loch: and Roderick Dhu and his clan have recognition, that the curiosity which is ex- some features of novelty:-But the Douglas cited during the first reading is extinguished and the King are the leading personages; and for ever when we arrive at the discovery. the whole interest of the story turns upon perThis, however, is an objection which may be sons and events having precisely the same made, in some degree, to almost every story character and general aspect with those which of interest; and we must say for Mr. Scott, gave their peculiar colour to the former poems. that his secret is very discreetly kept, and It is honourable to Mr. Scott's genius, no most felicitously revealed. If we were to doubt, that he has been able to interest the scrutinize the fable with malicious severity, public so deeply with this third presentment we might also remark, that Malcolm Græme of the same chivalrous scenes; but we cannot has too insignificant a part assigned him, con- help thinking, that both his glory and our grati sidering the favour in which he is held both fication would have been greater, if he had by Ellen and the author; and that, in bring- changed his hand more completely, and acing out the shaded and imperfect character tually given us a true Celtic story, with all its of Roderick Dhu, as a contrast to the purer drapery and accompaniments in a correspondvirtue of his rival, Mr. Scott seems to have ing style of decoration. fallen into the common error, of making him more interesting than him whose virtues he was intended to set off, and converted the villain of the piece in some measure into its hero. A modern poet, however, may perhaps be pardoned for an error, of which Milton himself is thought not to have kept clear; and for which there seems so natural a cause, in the difference between poetical and amiable characters. There are several improbabilities, too, in the story, which might disturb a scrupulous reader. Allowing that the king of Scotland might have twice disappeared for several days, without exciting any disturbance or alarm in his court, it is certainly rather their wild and lofty traditions-their naextraordinary, that neither the Lady Margaret, tional enthusiasm-the melancholy grandeur nor old Allan-bane, nor any of the attendants of the scenes they inhabit--and the multiat the isle, should have recognised his person; plied superstitions which still linger among and almost as wonderful, that he should have them,-without feeling, that there is no existfound any difficulty in discovering the family ing people so well adapted for the purposes of his entertainers. There is something rather of poetry, or so capable of furnishing the ocawkward, too, in the sort of blunder or mis- casions of new and striking inventions.* The understanding (for it is no more) which gives great and continued popularity of Macpheroccasion to Sir Roderick's Gathering and all son's Ossian (though discredited as a memorial its consequences; nor can any machinery be of antiquity, at least as much as is warranted conceived more clumsy for effecting the de- by any evidence yet before the public), proves liverance of a distressed hero, than the intro- how very fascinating a fabric might be raised troduction of a mad woman, who, without upon that foundation by a more powerful or knowing or caring about the wanderer, warns judicious hand. That celebrated translation, him, by a song, to take care of the ambush though defaced with the most childish and that was set for him. The Maniacs of poetry offensive affectations, still charms with occahave indeed had a prescriptive right to be sional gleams of a tenderness beyond all other musical, since the days of Ophelia down- tenderness, and a sublimity of a new characwards; but it is rather a rash extension of this ter of dreariness and elevation; and, though privilege, to make them sing good sense, and patched with pieces of the most barefaced plato make sensible people be guided by them.giarism, still maintains a tone of originality Before taking leave of the fable, we must be permitted to express our disappointment and regret at finding the general cast of the characters and incidents so much akin to those of Mr. Scott's former publications. When we heard that the author of the Lay and of Marmion was employed upon a Highland story, we certainly expected to be introduced to a new creation; and to bid farewell, for awhile, to the knights, squires, courtiers, and chivalry of the low country-But here they are all ters of Waverly, seems fully to justify this sugges upon us again, in their old characters, and tion; and makes it rather surprising that no other nearly in their old costume. The same age-great writer has since repeated the experiment. which has recommended it in every nation of the civilised world. The cultivated literati of England, indeed, are struck with the affectation and the plagiarism, and renounce the whole work as tawdry and factitious; but the multitude at home, and almost all classes of readers abroad, to whom those defects are less perceptible, still continue to admire; and The Tartan fever excited in the South (and not yet eradicated) by the Highland scenes and charac few of our classical poets have so sure and regular a sale, both in our own and in other languages, as the singular collection to which we have just alluded. A great part of its charm, we think, consists in the novelty of its Celtic characters and scenery, and their singular aptitude for poetic combinations; and therefore it is that we are persuaded, that if Mr. Scott's powerful and creative genius were to be turned in good earnest to such a subject, something might be produced still more impressive and original than even this age has yet witnessed. It is now time, however, that we should lay before our readers some of the passages in the present poem which appear to us most characteristic of the peculiar genius of the author; and the first that strikes us, in turning over the leaves, is the following fine description of Sir Roderick's approach to the isle, as described by the aged minstrel, at the close of his conversation with Ellen. The moving picture-the effect of the soundsand the wild character and strong and peculiar nationality of the whole procession, are given with inimitable spirit and power of expression. "But hark, what sounds are these? "Far up the lengthen'd lake were spied The wave ascending into smoke! See the proud pipers on the bow, From their loud chanters down, and sweep, 'Ever, as on they bore, more loud The clan's shrill Gath'ring they could hear; Ere peal of closing battle rose, "The war-pipes ceas'd; but lake and hill "Hail to the chief who in triumph advances! The more shall Clan-Alpine exult in her shade. Moor'd in the rifted rock, Proof to the tempest's shock, Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow; Echo his praise agen, 'Rod'righ Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!' "Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands! Stretch to your oars, for the ever-green Pine! O! that the rose-bud that graces yon islands, Were wreath'd in a garland around him to twine! O that some seedling gem, Worthy such noble stem, Honour'd and bless'd in their shadow might grow! Loud should Clan-Alpine then Ring from her deepmost glen, 'Rod'righ Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'"' pp. 65-71. The reader may take next the following general sketch of Loch Katrine : "One burnish'd sheet of living gold, And mountains, that like giants stand, High on the south, huge Benvenue Down to the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd The fragments of an earlier world! A wild'ring forest feather'd o'er His ruin'd sides and summit hoar; Ben-an heav'd high his forehead bare."-pp. 18, 19. The next is a more minute view of the same scenery in a summer dawn-closed with a fine picture of its dark lord. "The summer dawn's reflected hue Her chalice rear'd of silver bright; The lark sent down her revelry; Her notes of peace, and rest, and love. "Then Rod'rick, with impatient look, 4 From Brian's hand the symbol took : Speed, Malise, speed!' he said, and gave The crosslet to his henchman brave. The bubbles, where they launch'd the boat, Speed, Malise, speed! such cause of haste The wounded hind thou track'st not now, 48 The following reflections on an ancient field of battle afford one of the most remarkable instances of false taste in all Mr. Scott's writings. Yet the brevity and variety of the images serve well to show, as we have formerly hinted, that even in his errors there are traces of a powerful genius. "a dreary glen, Where scatter'd lay the bones of men, And bleach'd by drifting wind and rain. And he was answer'd from the hill! Watching their leader's beck and will, Full on Fitz-James-" How say'st thou now? "Fitz-James was brave :-Though to his heart |