nanza, or levy en masse, who, fired with revenge or desire of plunder, had armed themselves to harass the French detached parties. At length in a low glen he heard, with feelings that may be easily conceived, the distant sound of a Highland bagpipe playing 'The Garb of Old Gaul,' and fell into the quarters of a Scotch regiment, where he was most courteously received by his countrymen, who assured 'his honour he was just come in time to see the pattle.' Accordingly, being a young man of spirit, and a volunteer sharp-shooter, he got a rifle, joined the light corps, and next day witnessed the Battle of Busaco, of which he describes the carnage as being terrible. The narrative was very simply told, and conveyed, better than any I have seen, the impressions which such scenes are likely to make when they have the effect (I had almost said the charm) of novelty. I don't know why it is I never found a soldier could give me an idea of a battle. I believe their mind is too much upon the tactique to regard the picturesque, just as the lawyers care very little for an eloquent speech at the bar, if it does not show good doctrine. The technical phrases of the military art, too, are unfavourable to convey a description of the concomitant terror and desolation that attends an engagement; but enough of this bald disjointed chat,'* from ever yours, W. S."

*

Hotspur 1st K. Henry IV. Act I. Scene 3.

There appeared in the London Courier of September 15, 1810, an article signed S. T. C., charging Scott with being a plagiarist, more especially from the works of the poet for whose initials this signature had no doubt been meant to pass. On reading this silly libel, Mr Southey felt satisfied that Samuel Taylor Coleridge could have no concern in its manufacture; but as Scott was not so well acquainted with Coleridge as himself, he lost no time in procuring his friend's indignant disavowal, and forwarding it to Ashestiel. Scott acknowledges this delicate attention as follows:

"To Robert Southey, Esq.

"My Dear Southey,

"Ashestiel, Thursday.

"Your letter, this morning received, released me from the very painful feeling, that a man of Mr Coleridge's high talents, which I had always been. among the first to appreciate as they deserve, had thought me worthy of the sort of public attack which appeared in the Courier of the 15th. The initials are so remarkable, and the trick 'so very impudent, that I was likely to be fairly duped by it, for which I have to request Mr Coleridge's forgiveness. I believe attacks of any sort sit as light upon me as they can on any one. If I have had my share of

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them, it is one point, at least, in which I resemble greater poets--but I should not like to have them come from the hand of contemporary genius. A man, though he does not wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at,'* would not willingly be stooped upon by a falcon. I am truly obliged to your friendship for so speedily relieving me from so painful a feeling. The hoax was probably designed to set two followers of literature by the ears, and I daresay will be followed up by something equally impudent. As for the imitations, I have not the least hesitation in saying to you, that I was unconscious at the time of appropriating the goods of others, although I have not the least doubt that several of the passages must have been running in my head. Had I meant to steal, I would have been more cautious to disfigure the stolen goods. In one or two instances the resemblance seems general and casual, and in one, I think, it was impossible I could practise plagiarism, as Ethwald, one of the poems quoted, was published after the Lay of the Last Minstrel. A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed Detector, proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there was so strong a general resemblance, as fairly to authorize Detector's suspicion.

Othello, Act I. Scene 1.

"I renounced my Greta excursion in consequence of having made instead a tour to the Highlands, particularly to the Isles. I wished for Wordsworth and you a hundred times. The scenery is quite different from that on the mainland—dark, savage, and horrid, but occasionally magnificent in the highest degree. Staffa, in particular, merits well its far-famed reputation: it is a cathedral arch, scooped by the hand of nature, equal in dimensions and in regularity to the most magnificent aisle of a gothic cathedral. The sea rolls up to the extremity in most tremendous majesty, and with a voice like ten thousand giants shouting at once. I visited Icolmkill also, where there are some curious monuments, mouldering among the poorest and most naked wretches that I ever beheld. Affectionately yours, W. SCOTT."

The "lines of VIDA," which "Detector" had enclosed to Scott as the obvious original of the address to "Woman" in Marmion, closing with

"When pain and anguish wring the brow,

A ministering angel thou!"

end as follows; and it must be owned that, if Vida had really written them, a more extraordinary example of casual coincidence could never have been pointed out

"Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio!"

Detector's reference is "VIDA ad Eranen, El. II. v. 21;"—but it is almost needless to add there are no such lines -and no piece bearing such a title in Vida's works. Detector was no doubt some young college wag, for his letter has a Cambridge postmark.