But no-what here we call our life is such, Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast So thou with sails how swift! hast reach'd the shore, And now, farewell-Time unrevoked has run His wonted course, yet what I wish'd is done. By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, And, while the wings of Fancy still are free TO MARY. The twentieth year is well nigh past, Ah would that this might be the last! My Mary! Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow― 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, My Mary! Thy needles once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, Now rust disused, and shine no more: My Mary! For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil The same kind office for me still, My Mary! But well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary! Thy indistinct expressions seem Like language utter'd in a dream; Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme, My Mary! Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, Are still more lovely in my sight My Mary! For could I view nor them nor thee, My Mary! Partakers of thy sad decline, Thy hands their little force resign; Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st, My Mary! My Mary! And still to love, though press'd with ill, In wintry age to feel no chill, My Mary! But ah! by constant heed I know Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe, And should my future lot be cast With much resemblance of the past, Thy worn-out heart will break at last, My Mary! My Mary! SCOTT. SIR WALTER SCOTT. Born 1771; Died 1832. Scott was born in Edinburgh, but was reared in the country, where he imbibed from infancy the poetry of the Border legends of Scotland. To this source of inspiration at a later time he added a thorough knowledge of the Highlands and their traditions. He began with a succession of poems in which the metrical romance was revived. These, with Lives of Swift and Dryden, occupied him until Waverley in 1815 began his novels. It is upon these, which, taken as a whole, are the grandest body of fiction in this, or in any language, that his fame chiefly rests. OLD MORTALITY. "Most readers," says the manuscript of Mr. Pattieson, "must have witnessed with delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of a village-school on a fine summer evening. The buoyant spirit of childhood, repressed with so much difficulty during the tedious hours of discipline, may then be seen to explode, as it were, in shout, and song, and frolic, as the little urchins join groups in their play-ground, and arrange their in matches of sport for the evening. But there is one individual who partakes of the relief afforded by the moment of dismission, whose feelings are not so obvious to the eye of the spectator, or so apt to receive his sympathy. I mean the teacher himself, who stunned with the hum, and suffocated with the closeness of his school-room, has spent the whole day (himself against a host) in controlling petulance, exciting indifference to action, striving to enlighten stupidity, and labouring to soften obstinacy; and whose very powers of intellect have been confounded by hearing the same dull lesson repeated a hundred times by rote, and only varied by the various blunders of the reciters. Even the flowers of classic genius, with which his solitary fancy is most gratified, have been rendered degraded, in his imagination, by their connection with tears, with errors, and with punishment; so that the Eclogues of Virgil, and Odes of Horace are each inseparably allied in association with the sullen figure and monotonous recitation of some blubbering schoolboy. If to these mental distresses are added a delicate frame of body, and a mind ambitious of some higher distinction than that of being the tyrant of childhood, the reader may have some slight conception of the relief which a solitary walk, in the cool of a fine summer evening, affords to the head which has ached, to the nerves which have been shattered, for so many hours, in plying the irksome task of public instruction. "To me these evening strolls have been the happiest hours of an unhappy life; and if any gentle reader |