other day under the shadow of his Edinburgh monument, with the glory of a rich September afternoon bathing the city which Scott loved so well, we thought that we had too long regarded him as a mirror of national manners and peculiarities, and that his true mission had been misunderstood. That was of a cosmopolitan and Christian character. And even as that splendid monument is now pointing to the most magnificent of landscapes, overhung by the most golden and benignant of skies, united together into one grand whole, his genius seemed to predict in its all-sided character a nobler harmony, a more thorough reconciliation of the jarring elements in society and human nature, than we can at present conceive of, and leads us-undisturbed by the sad events of the time to anticipate, though faintly and far off, that of which this beautiful day seems a prophecy and a pledge: 'The bridal of the earth and sky.' DUNDEE, September 1870. |