Masonic Poets Of Scotland—No. Ii.

hue , though our soul's mysterious cord had not yet been touched by that Avhich opens afresh the fount of feeling . Those of us Avhose hairs are becoming gray and scanty may wish that we were a boy or a girl agaiu . Vanished faces , cheerful voices , loved and loving eyes , seemed to hauut us as Ave speak : it may

be , too , broken resolutions , unsuccessful struggles , high purposes never wrought out . Scott's childhood was essentially , for the most part , a healthy training . His boyhood was energetic . Many pilgrimages he made to explore the romantic or storied scenery of his native laud , treading each battle-field and

wandering by each stream to which old tradition attached . An anecdote is told , which Ave must not omit . It was a favourite recreation with Scott , to stroll over Arthur ' s Seat or to the top of Blackford Hill ; when scrambling up with a companion to some rocky nook , the two Avould recite legends connected with the

times of chivalry , grotesque it may be , and embracing an endless variety of strange and astounding incidents . Here we find a germ of the " Waverley Novels . " This period of health was followed by a long and dangerous illness . It occurred when Scott had but commenced

college studies , and during this space his chief occupation Avas the perusal of novels of novels , plays , Scottish chronicles , & c , helping to store his mind Avith incidents and thoughts , afterwards turned to good account . He was all along a devoted , if not a passionate lover of nature : shrewd , intelligent , Avith

a quick appreciation of the humourous . At this time , too , he was attracted by the poetry aud romantic traditions of German literature—then , in Scotland , a fountain but recently unsealed . By connections , and also AA'hen engaged in his father ' s oflice ( a douce , most respectable , and decorous man , residing in the

then aristocratic region of George Square , a glimpse of which life AVO have in the opening chapters of " Eedgauntlet , " ) Scott was led to make various excursions among the Highlands , then a region comparatively unknown , but the fairy and majestic beauties of Avhich he was afterwards to celebrate Avith

the minstrelsy of the mountain-harp . At this period , as subsequently , Scott stored up a variety of curious relics , to each of AA'hich some legend was attached ; a passion which greAv upon him in succeeding years , until its beau-ideal was at last realised in the " romance of stone and lime" which he built at

Abbotsford , on the artistic embellishment of AA'hich almost lordly riches were expended . Hard , common-sense man of the Avorld as , under some aspects , Scott might seem , it ivas a disappointment of the tender passion that made him seriously turn to literature—a first fruit of Avhich Avas the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish

Border . " "Where the lonely border fastness , Avith its ruined Avails , looked over from its hei ght the storied stream—above which the glinting rays of moonlight

lias p layed on moss-troopers' steel helmets and breast plates—besides which lovers' vows had been breathed —his genius recalled the storied traditions of the past . There came another time—a rustic cottage at LassAvade ; a wife , all affection aud tenderness ; and

there are no passages in fiction so affecting as those in which , amidst sinking fortunes , Scott writes in his diary of his lost partner , his " Charlotte ; " who , with a true wife ' s feeling , resented so strongly Jeffrey ' s criticism on one of her husband ' s poems—talking of " dat body , " the minute Aristarchus of the literary

Avorld . His babes were growing up around him there , or at Ashiestiel , so feelingly spoken of in the introduction to one of the cantos in "Marmion . " Between his babes and his dogs Scott ' s affection seemed to be divided . It was external sunshine with him then ; step by step , his worldly fortunes

prospered ; a sheriffship and a clerkship of session imposed duties neither grievous in themselves nor incompatible with literary work , which was , to Scott , a p leasure . But the rising of another luminary—of a . star that shone with broad , if brief , effulgence , the " comet of a season " —that of the lame boy at

Aberdeen—the traveller in Greece , the pilgrim by the Rhine , the illustrator of buried Italy—the dying hero at Missolonghi—the sinning aud the sinned againstthe asceudencv of Byron , Scott has told us , led him .

into a more congenial and natural vein . For this he had been prepared , alike by varied reading , by study of the past , and by large intercourse with all classesof his countrymen . In the " Lady of the Lake " —next to " Marmion , " Scott ' s most successful poem—the scene was chiefly

laid amidst Highland braes and forests . He describes the swift course of the fiery cross , calling the clans to the field—the romantic ride in the stirring chase Avhen King James' horse , his "gallant gray , " sunk exhausted—his adventures by that beauteous lake ,, hitherto unvisited—the appearance of the damsel ,.

Avhose boat shot out from " Ellen ' s Isle "¦—the mustering of the clansmen of Roderick Dhu . The scenery is described Avith the grace of a poet and thecorrect eye of a painter ; each cliff , each tree , with its Avaving branches , seems to be placed before us ;

rock , dark ravine , and SAA'eeping torrent , complete the p icture . The human beings , moreover , by Avhoin thisscene is peopled , are not abstractions : his Highlanders have the boldness of feature , the agility of form , the Avildness of air , the blended bravery and courtesy

which mark the Celtic race , who , " Leaving in battle no stain on their name , Look'd proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame . " The whole poem is redolent of the breath of spring ,, and suits that time of life when most things Avear a roseate hue . We have seen the chief spot described