Scott followed his translations from Bürger with other efforts in the same direction. The first book, indeed, which bore his name, was a prose rendering of Goethe's tragedy of Goetz von Berlichingen, published in 1799, and he translated near the same time, but did not publish till thirty years later, the House of Aspen, a free adaptation of Der Heilige Vehmé, by a pseudonymous German author of the day. The Germanic influence was curiously blended with an antiquarian zeal which had an early birth and now sent him eagerly abroad among Scottish legends and half-mythical tales for subjects. Moreover, he was drawn into the service of Monk Lewis, who persuaded him to contribute to his collection of Tales of Wonder, themselves touched with the prevailing temper of eeriness imported freely from Germany. But the most substantial result of his labors in these experimental years was the publica THE VIOLET These slight verses have an interest derived from the fact that they were written by Scott in 1797 in connection with that suppressed passion for Williamina Stuart which never found direct expression to her, but remained 200 tion in 1802 and 1803 of the three volumes of Minstrelsy of The Scottish Border. Scott had now become so enamored of the native legends, so skilful as an imitator, and, much more, so informed with the spirit of the old ballads, that his own contributions harmonized with the antiquities he had gathered, and these showed in every line, as well as in the rich apparatus of notes with which they were illustrated, a mastery of the ballad literature, and a mind thoroughly at home in material which was soon to be the quarry for the author and editor's most noble edifices in verse. The present group contains, in as nearly exact chronological order as is practicable, Scott's experiments and performances in original verse, with scattered translations and initations, before he leaped into fame with The Lay of the Last Minstrel. riage to Sir William Forbes, and Scott's to Miss Carpenter; so that thirty years later Scott could write in his Journal, just after waiting on Lady Jane Stuart, the aged mother of Williamina: 'I went to make another visit, and fairly softened myself like an old fool, with recalling old stories, till I was fit for no deep in thing but shedding tears and repeating verses for the whole night. This is sad work. The very grave gives up its dead, and time rolls back thirty years to add to my perplexities. I don't care. Yet what a romance to tell, and told I fear it will one day be. And then my three years of dreaming and my two years of wakening will be chronicled, doubtless. But the dead will feel no pain.' The story of this disappointment is told without names in the eighth chapter of Lockhart's Life, and has recently been repeated with greater explicitness by Miss Skene in The Century for July, 1899. THE violet in her green-wood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle, May boast itself the fairest flower In glen or copse or forest dingle. Though fair her gems of azure hue, Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining; I've seen an eye of lovelier blue, More sweet through watery lustre shin- The summer sun that dew shall dry Remained the tear of parting sorrow. for hold, The Erl-King has seized me so cold!' - his grasp is Sore trembled the father; he spurred thro' the wild, Clasping close to his bosom his shuddering child; He reaches his dwelling in doubt and in dread, But, clasped to his bosom, the infant was dead! WAR-SONG OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS In 1797 Scott's ardor led to the formation of the Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons, and he served in it as quartermaster. In 1798, when a French invasion was threatened, Mr. Skene was one day reciting the German Kriegslied 'Der Abschied's Tag ist Da,' and the next morning Scott showed the following piece which was adopted as the troop-song. To horse! to horse! the standard flies, From high Dunedin's towers we come, Our casques the leopard's spoils surround, Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown mourn; Though gallant Switzers vainly spurn, Oh! had they marked the avenging call Nor patriot valor, desperate grown, Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head, Or brook a victor's scorn? No! though destruction o'er the land For gold let Gallia's legions fight, If ever breath of British gale III RHEIN-WEIN LIED What makes the troopers' frozen courage muster? The grapes of juice divine. Upon the Rhine, upon the Rhine they cluster: Oh, blessed be the Rhine! Let fringe and furs, and many a rabbit skin, sirs, Bedeck your Saracen ; He'll freeze without what warms our heart within, sirs, When the night-frost crusts the fen. the fair seducers, continued to play upon a trump, or Jew's harp, some strain, consecrated to the Virgin Mary. Day at length came, and the temptress vanished. Searching in the forest, he found the bones of his unfortunate friend, who had been torn to pieces and devoured by the fiend into whose toils he had fallen. The place was from thence called the Glen of the Green Women. 'Glenfinlas is a tract of forest-ground, lying in the Highlands of Perthshire, not far from Callender, in Menteith. It was formerly a royal forest, and now belongs to the Earl of Moray. This country, as well as the adjacent district of Balquidder, was, in times of yore, chiefly inhabited by the Macgregors. To the west of the Forest of Glenfinlas lies Loch Katrine, and its romantic avenue, called the Troshachs. Benledi, Benmore, and Benvoir But on the Rhine, but on the Rhine they lich, are mountains in the same district, and cluster, The grapes of juice divine, That makes our troopers' frozen courage muster: Oh, blessed be the Rhine! GLENFINLAS; LORD RONALD'S CORONACH This ballad, written in the summer of 1799, and first published in Monk Lewis's Tales of Wonder, was provided by Scott with a preface which is here reproduced because of the suggestion that Scott, in making thus his first use of native, Scottish material, was affected by his German studies and translations. The prose preface, it has been held, where he speaks in his natural voice, is more affecting than the lofty and sonorous stanzas themselves; that the vague tenor of the original dream loses, instead of gaining, by the expanded elaboration of the detail. Be that as it may, here is Scott's preface: : The simple tradition, upon which the following stanzas are founded, runs thus: While two Highland hunters were passing the night in a solitary bothy, (a hut, built for the purpose of hunting,) and making merry over their venison and whiskey, one of them expressed a wish that they had pretty lasses to complete their party. The words were scarcely uttered, when two beautiful young women, habited in green, entered the hut, dancing and singing. One of the hunters was seduced by the siren who attached herself particularly to him, to leave the hut: the other remained, and, suspicious of at no great distance from Glenfinlas. The River Teith passes Callender and the Castle of Doune, and joins the Forth near Stirling. The Pass of Lenny is immediately above Callender, and is the principal access to the Highlands, from that town. Glenartney is a forest, near Benvoirlich. The whole forms a sublime tract of Alpine scenery.' |