THE poetry of Scott has been eclipsed by his prose. He had the singular fortune to see his poetic fame diminished by a cause which carried with it its own consolation,-the vast success of those prose romances which came after his metrical ones,-prose in outward form, but abounding in all the elements of poetry, in such force and extent as gave him no mean claim to the title of the second Shakspeare. 'Twas a proud circumstance, and one which can happen rarely in the

history of literature, that the gloom cast upon his poetry, after it had placed him by acclamation in the chair of cotemporary supremacy, was the mighty shadow of his own growing form, as he ascended higher and still higher up the mountain of Fame, and towards the sun of universal favour. There was indeed another cause which operated collaterally to put down his romantic lays below their just position, and that was the novelty, and consequent great popularity of Byron's Eastern Tales. This cause could, however, have produced merely a temporary effect; for the exaggerated and unhealthy spirit of the Giaour and Mazeppa school could not long maintain its hold upon the public mind. The very effect of Byron's other productions tended to destroy their influence; for it was impossible for the same mind to feel the philosophic depth and spiritual beauty of Childe Harold, or of Cain, or to enjoy the wit, the humour, the sarcasm, the graphic painting of human life, the alternating mockery and poetic feeling which characterize the equally wonderful and reprehensible Don Juan, and still to admire the stilted and hectoring style of those Turkish tales. Byron was himself the first to laugh at the public which had swallowed his mock-heroic for the true sublime. Between the other poetry of Byron and that of Scott there could be no direct comparison, and therefore no unjust disparagement; for, though no one would contest the question of Byron's superiority, as a poet, to Scott, no intellect which could feel the greatness of the one could be insensible to the real merit of the other in any of his productions. It could only be the

fascination of the prose romances of Scott which could draw away the public from his poetical ones, and make it for a time unjust in its estimate of them; for, after all, in their particular class and department, they are amongst the most delightful poems in the language. They are not poetry of the grade of Shakspeare's Hamlet or Lear, of Milton's Paradise Lost, or some of the writings of Wordsworth or Coleridge; they do not fix us in deep astonishment as does the stern majesty of some of these, nor lead us down into the deepest regions of the human heart as do the others; yet they are, in their way and of their kind, as real poetry. They are transcripts of nature in her most beautiful scenery, of human life in its most picturesque and romantic shape. Who would wish for ever to be borne along by the city crowd, to live amid the fiercest political agitations, within the sound of the most trenchant or patriotic eloquence, whether of senate or of bar, and would not delight to steal away to the domestic fireside-to home peace and affection, to the voices of children, wives, sisters, and friends? There are none but feel the delicious charm of such retreat from the excitement and exasperation of those public stimulants, and none therefore but who must love the poetry of Scott. The epistles prefatory to each canto of Marmion are some of the most interesting peeps into a heart, strong in its tastes and warm in its affections, with which the world was ever favoured. It is an old truth, that we may have too much of a good thing; and to climb Alps, however magnificent,—to wander amid the stunning roar of an ocean, however sublime,

to run bareheaded through tempests and darkness, however exciting, can be only the wild delights of a moment,—acts of youth, of passion, or romance; but, to stroll out for a summer evening, amongst beautiful hills, by streams rapid and clear; through forests hoary with years, yet green and musical with spring; these are refreshments which every day and every stage of life have enough in them of weariness and annoyance to render most welcome, and all who love them must love the poetry of Scott. He himself knew, as well as any man, the genuine character and claims of his poetry. He took down from the crumbling wall of the feudal castle, the disused harp of the old metrical romancer, and strung it again to feudal strains in the improved harmony of modern language, and with the wider views of modern society. If the field was old, the mode of its occupation was new: he engrafted on the old Anglo-Norman stock, a germ of poetry novel and peculiar. Chivalrous life, as seen not from its own living centre, but from the modern distance, was beheld again with a quick delight which proved the original power and fresh feeling of its restorer. And had it no high and heroic excitement? The life and character of the Gael and the Borderer, till then nearly overlooked; the adventures of Bruce, Wallace, and the fourth and fifth James; the contentions of England and Scotland; the beauty of the highland hills and lochs, and the stern picturesqueness of many a mouldering castle, both in highland and lowland,— all had a newness, a piquancy, and a spirit in them, that was felt throughout the kingdom. It is true that, as to heroic story

and human character in all its varieties, the abandonment of rhythmical restraint subsequently enabled him to sketch more broadly, and fill up more freely and fully; but after all, when that reaction takes place, which assuredly will, it will be found that there is no poetry so thoroughly imbued with that species of beauty which every summer leads so many thousands to the Scottish highlands, as that of the man whose very name seems to designate him, par excellence, THE SCOTT. His poetry actually smells of the heather. I never read it, or think of it, but I hear the very rustle of the crimson heath-bells in the gale. I see the beautiful birches dipping their pensile boughs in summer waters as beautiful. Around me are moss and ferns, where the roebuck couches in secret; before me, scattered over the brown waste, little brown huts, part and parcel of the scene, sending abroad the odour of their peat-fires; and my imagination is haunted by shapes of highland warriors, watching to accomplish some stern design, or fairies that still take a peep at this steam-engine world from the hidden entrance to their pleasant subterrane.

So much for a passing tribute to the poetry of Scott, which, like that of Southey, has for a time been underrated, because we had got the metaphysical fit upon us, and could not condescend to be pleased except with what required reading twice over. Happy is the man whose taste is not so exclusive, but who has eyes for beauty wherever it is to be found, in all fields and schools, whether pleasant or profound!

The poem of Marmion has always been reckoned the highest