Not hope, in all thy gay charms arrayed, Can one heavy hour now beguile. "How sad is the poor convict's sorrowful lot, When torn from those that are nearest his heart, "The beauties of morning now burst on my view, When contentment sat smiling, and happy my lot— "Now fled are the hours I delighted to roam And with rapture would list to the songs of her bards, "Nought but death now awaits me; how dread, but how true! How ghastly its form does appear! Soon silent the muse that delighted to view And sing of the sweets of the year. "You are the first gentleman I ever sent my poems to, and I never corrected any of them, my mind has been in such a state. I remain, Sir, your grateful unfortunate servant, ANDREW STEWART." It appears that Scott, and his good-natured old friend, Mr Manners, the bookseller, who happened at this time to be one of the bailies of Edinburgh, exerted their joint influence in this tailor-poet's behalf, and with such success, that his sentence was commuted for one of transportation for life. A thin octavo pamphlet, entitled, "POEMS, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, by Andrew Stewart; printed for the benefit of the Author's Father, and sold by Manners and Miller, and A. Constable and Co., 1809," appeared soon after the convict's departure for Botany Bay. But as to his fortunes in that new world I possess no information. There seemed to me something so striking in the working of his feelings as expressed in his letters to Scott, that I thought the reader would forgive this little episode. In the course of February, Mr John Ballantyne had proceeded to London, for the purpose of introducing himself to the chief publishers there in his new capacity, and especially of taking Mr Murray's instructions respecting the Scotch management of the Quarterly Review. As soon as the spring vacation began, Scott followed him by sea. He might naturally have wished to be at hand while his new partner was forming arrangements on which so much must depend; but some circumstances in the procedure of the Scotch Law Commission had made the Lord Advocate request his presence at this time in town. There he and Mrs Scott took up their quarters, as usual, under the roof of their kind old friends the Dumergues; while their eldest girl enjoyed the advantage of being domesticated with the Miss Baillies at Hampstead. They staid more than two months, and this being his first visit to town since his fame had been crowned by Marmion, he was of course more than ever the object of general curiosity and attention. Mr Morritt saw much of him, both at his own house in Portland Place and elsewhere, and I transcribe a few sentences from his memoranda of the period. 66 "Scott," his friend says, more correctly than any other man I ever knew, appreciated the value of that apparently enthusiastic engouement which the world of London shows to the fashionable wonder of the year. During this sojourn of 1809, the homage paid him would have turned the head of any lessgifted man of eminence. It neither altered his opinions, nor produced the affectation of despising it; on the contrary, he received it, cultivated it, and repaid it in its own coin. • All this is very flattering,' he would say, ' and very civil; and if people are amused with hearing me tell a parcel of old stories, or recite a pack of ballads to lovely young girls and gaping matrons, they are easily pleased, and a man would be very ill-natured who would not give pleasure so cheaply conferred.' If he dined with us and 6 found any new faces, Well, do you want me to play lion to-day?' was his usual question 'I will roar if you like it to your heart's content? He would, indeed, in such cases put forth all his inimitable powers of entertainment - and day after day surprised me by their unexpected extent and variety. Then, as the party dwindled, and we were left alone, he laughed at himself, quoted-Yet know that I one Snug the joiner am -no lion fierce,' &c. and was at once himself again. - "He often lamented the injurious effects for literature and genius resulting from the influence of London celebrity on weaker minds, especially in the excitement of ambition for this subordinate and ephemeral reputation du salon. It may be a pleasant gale to sail with,' he said, but it never yet led to a port that I should like to anchor in;' nor did he willingly endure, either in London or in Edinburgh, the little exclusive circles of literary society, much less their occasional fastidiousness and petty partialities. "One story which I heard of him from Dr Howley, now Archbishop of Canterbury (for I was not present), was very characteristic. The Doctor was one of a grand congregation of lions, where Scott and Coleridge, cum multis aliis, attended at Sotheby's. Poets and poetry were the topics of the table, and there was plentiful recitation of effusions as yet unpublished, which of course obtained abundant applause. Coleridge repeated more than one, which as Dr H. thought, were eulogized by some of the company with something like affectation, and a desire to humble Scott by raising a poet of inferior reputation on his shoulders. Scott, however, joined in the compliments as cordially as anybody, until, in his turn, he was invited to display some of his occasional poetry, much of which he must, no doubt, have written. Scott said he had published so much, he had nothing of his own left that he could think worth their hearing, but he would repeat a little copy of verses which he had shortly before seen in a provincial newspaper, and which seemed to him almost as good as anything they had been listening to with so much pleasure. He repeated the stanzas now so well known of Fire, Famine, and Slaughter.' The applauses that ensued were faint - then came slight criticisms, from which Scott defended the unknown author. At last a more bitter antagonist opened, and fastening upon one line, cried, This at least is absolute nonsense.' Scott denied the charge- the Zoilus persisted until Coleridge, out of all patience, exclaimed, For God's sake let Mr Scott alone I wrote the poem.' This exposition of the real worth of dinner criticism can hardly be excelled.* * It may amuse the reader to turn to Mr Coleridge's own stately account of this lion-show in Grosvenor Street, in the Preface to his celebrated Eclogue. There was one person present, it seems, who had been in the secret of its authorship Sir Humphrey |