calm, modest mind, and happy only in diffusing happiness around it.

With what gratification those Epistles were read by the friends to whom they were addressed, it would be superfluous to show. He had, in fact, painted them almost as fully as himself; and who might not have been proud to find a place in such a gallery? The tastes and habits of six of those men, in whose intercourse Scott found the greatest pleasure when his fame was approaching its meridian splendour, are thus preserved for posterity; and when I reflect with what avidity we catch at the least hint which seems to afford us a glimpse of the intimate circle of any great poet of former ages, I cannot but believe that posterity would have held this record precious, even had the individuals been in themselves far less remarkable than a Rose, an Ellis, a Heber, a Skene, a Marriott, and an Erskine.

Many other friends, however, have found a part in these affectionate sketches; and I doubt whether any manifestation of public applause afforded the poet so much pleasure as the letter in which one of these, alluded to in the fourth Epistle as then absent from Scotland by reason of his feeble health, acknowledged the emotions that had been stirred in him when he came upon that unexpected page. This was Colin Mackenzie of Portmore, the same who beat him in a competition of rhymes at the High School, and

whose ballad of Ellandonnan Castle had been introduced into the third volume of the Minstrelsy. This accomplished and singularly modest man, now no more, received Marmion at Lympstone in Devonshire. 66 My dear Walter," he says, "amidst the greetings that will crowd on you, I know that those of a hearty, sincere, admiring old friend will not be coldly taken. I am not going to attempt an enumeration of beauties, but I must thank you for the elegant and delicate allusion in which you express your friendship for myself - Forbes-and, above all, that sweet memorial of his late excellent father.* I find I have got the mal de pays, and must return to enjoy the sight and society of a few chosen friends. You are not unaware of the place you hold on my list, and your description of our committees † has inspired me with tenfold ardour to renew a pleasure so highly enjoyed, and remembered with such enthusiasm. Adieu, my dear friend. Ever yours,

C. M."

His next-door neighbour at Ashestiel, Mr Pringle of Whytbank, "the long-descended lord of Yair," writes not less touchingly on the verses in the 2d

* Mr Mackenzie had married a daughter of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Bart., the biographer of Beattie.

The supper meetings of the Cavalry Club. - See Marmion, Introduction to Canto IV.

Epistle, where his beautiful place is mentioned, and

the poet introduces

"those sportive boys,

Companions of his mountain joys" —

and paints the rapture with which they had heard him "call Wallace' rampart holy ground." "Your

own benevolent heart," says the good laird, "would have enjoyed the scene, could you have witnessed the countenances of my little flock grouped round your book; and perhaps you would have discovered that the father, though the least audible at that moment, was not the most insensible to the honour bestowed upon his children and his parent stream, both alike dear to his heart. May my boys feel an additional motive to act well, that they may cast no discredit upon their early friend!"

But there was one personal allusion which, almost before his ink was dry, the poet would fain have cancelled. Lord Scott, the young heir of Buccleuch, whose casual absence from "Yarrow's bowers" was regretted in that same epistle (addressed to his tutor, Mr Marriott)

"No youthful baron's left to grace
The forest sheriff's lonely chase,
And ape in manly step and tone

The majesty of Oberon."

This promising boy had left Yarrow to revisit it no more. He died a few days after Marmion was published, and Scott, in writing on the event to his uncle Lord Montagu (to whom the poem was inscribed), signified a fear that these verses might now serve but to quicken the sorrows of the mother. Lord Montagu answers "I have been able to ascertain Lady Dalkeith's feelings in a manner that will, I think, be satisfactory to you, particularly as it came from herself, without my giving her the pain of being asked. In a letter I received yesterday, giving directions about some books, she writes as follows: And pray send me Marmion too-this may seem odd to you, but at some moments I am soothed by things which at other times drive me almost mad."" On the 7th of April, Scott says to Lady Louisa Stuart "The death of poor dear Lord Scott was such a stunning blow to me, that I really felt for some time totally indifferent to the labours of literary correction. I had very great hopes from that boy, who was of an age to form, on the principles of his father and grandfather, his feelings towards the numerous families who depend on them. But God's will be done. I intended to have omitted the lines referring to him in Marmion in the second edition; for as to adding any, I could as soon write the Iliad. But I am now glad I altered my intention, as Lady Dalkeith has sent for the book, and

dwells with melancholy pleasure on whatever recalls the memory of the poor boy. She has borne her distress like an angel, as she is, and always has been; but God only can cure the wounds he inflicts."

One word more as to these personal allusions. While he was correcting a second proof of the passage where Pitt and Fox are mentioned together, at Stanmore Priory, in April 1807, Lord Abercorn suggested that the compliment to the Whig statesman ought to be still further heightened, and several lines

"For talents mourn untimely lost,

When best employed, and wanted most," &c.

*

were added accordingly. I have heard, indeed, that they came from the Marquis's own pen. Ballantyne, however, from some inadvertence, had put the sheet to press before the revise, as it is called, arrived in Edinburgh, and some few copies got abroad in which the additional couplets were omitted. A London journal (the Morning Chronicle) was stupid and malignant enough to insinuate that the author had

*

In place of this couplet, and the ten lines which follow it, the original MS. of Marmion has only the following:

If genius high and judgment sound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound,
And all the reasoning powers divine,

To penetrate, resolve, combine,
Could save one mortal of the herd

From error-Fox had never err'd."