1870.

SEVERAL CRITICAL NOTICES

OF

“ EDUCATION OF THE RURAL POOR;

WITH A FULL DISCUSSION OF THE PRINCIPLES AND REQUIREMENTS OF

REMEDIAL LEGISLATION THEREON.”

Civil Service GAZETTE. A very able work on a complex subject.

DAILY TELEGRAPH. Contains much sound and earnest counsel, founded apparently on personal knowledge and observation, with respect to the great problem of reaching and surrounding with proper educative influences the children of our agricultural districts.

DUMFRIES STANDARD. We cannot but speak in terms of the highest praise of Mr. Sproat's volume. It is brimful of solid facts and careful reasoning. The author's labour and industry must have been immense, and he has the art of communicating his views clearly and vividly to other minds. The vast range of the volume may be inferred from the following brief sketch. . . . . The book is exceedingly opportune. If our M.P.'s would study it carefully they would gain from it much knowledge.

EDINBURGH Daily Review. The whole question which now agitates society is dealt with by Mr. Sproat in this able work with strength of argument, depth of thought, and comprehensive farseeing penetration.

EDINBURGH EVENING COURANT. An invaluable book on a subject of present and all-engrossing importance. Mr. Sproat, who is well known as an accurate observer and an able author, has published his book in time to supply both information and ideas to the framers and critics of the Education Bill. He writes with the leisurely forecasting and recapitulation of a gentleman of leisure, rather than with the compression of a painfully practised pen. He also writes with the confidence of an author who knows that his book will be considered by those in place and power, whom it concerns to know what he thinks.

SIR WALTER SCOTT AS A POET

BY

GILBERT MALCOLM SPROAT,

AUTHOR OF “SCENES AND STUDIES OF Savage Life :” “EDUCATION OF THE

Rural Poor;" &c. &c.

GAZETTE OFFICE.)

MONTREAL.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Meaning of the centenary celebration - great popularity of the

poems-value of monuments as memorials.

CHAPTER II.
Poems express the yearning for the Past in general—the Past of

Feudalism, and the Past in Scotland-they have much
historic suggestiveness, promote the acknowledgment of
duty on the part of the highly-placed, and appeal to all
minds and hearts by beautiful descriptions of nature.

CHAPTER III.
Scott the type of a South Country Scotchman; his good eye for

colour partly inherited-why should we neglect old English
words now preserved in the Scottish language ?

CHAPTER IV.
Classification of Scott's poetry-very suitable for brightening dim

eras—necessarily presents a series of large sketches, and an
abated delineation of character-reason given for Scott's
abandonment of poetry.

CHAPTER V.
Richness, freedom and force of Scott's illustrations generally-

his fertility and versatility_his joyous metre-fondness for
moonlight-unpoetic passages in the poems—the poems
must be judged, with their subject, as a whole.

CHAPTER VI.
Scott's artistic excellences-his Church scenes,