neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Let us obey the voice that calls us thither; let us "seek the things that are above," and no longer cleave to a world which must shortly perish, and which we must shortly quit, while we neglect to prepare for that in which we are invited to dwell for ever. Let us follow in the track of those holy men, who have taught us by their voice, and encouraged us by their example, " that, laying aside every weight, and the sin that most easily besets us, we may run with patience the race that is set before us." While everything within us and around us reminds us of the approach of death, and concurs to teach us that this is not our rest, let us hasten our preparations for another world, and earnestly implore that grace which alone can put an end to that fatal war which our desires have too long waged with our destiny. When these move in the same direction, and that which the will of Heaven renders unavoidable shall become our choice, all things will be ours,-life will be divested of its vanity, and death disarmed of its terrors.

66

VI. SIR WALTER SCOTT.

SIR WALTER SCOTT was born at Edinburgh in 1771, and educated in his native town. His father was connected with the law, and the future novelist was, of course, educated for the bar, and followed the legal profession while he at the same time indulged his literary tastes. His reading lay chiefly among our older writers; and it was supplemented and enlivened by visits to the most famous localities in his native land, and personal intercourse with simple but not ignorant peasants, whose minds were stored with the accumulated traditions of centuries. The result of such a self-education was soon evident in his writings: he had acquired the ability to resuscitate into life and reality ages that seemed removed from all human sympathy, and his early writings had thus, in addition to their other numerous merits, all the charms of novelty to recommend them. The popularity of his Lay of the Last Minstrel," Marmion," and "Lady of the Lake," was unbounded; and though his subsequent poems, "Don Roderick," Rokeby," and "Lord of the Isles," were not quite so successful, yet even their comparative failure was greater than the success which most poets obtain. His genius now found a different outlet: in 1814 appeared, anonymously, "Waverley," a tale of the rebellion of '45, and its reception was such as to show that the world had recognised the author's claim to rank among the greatest writers of fiction. It is unnecessary to mention the magnificent series of novels which issued, with scarce any intermission, from his pen, and which have been ever since a source of unfailing pleasure to the greater part of the civilized world. Unhappily, in an evil hour, he had become involved as a partner in a printing-firm, which, under the pressure of the general commercial distress in 1825, became bankrupt, and Scott found himself encumbered with a debt of more than a hundred thousand pounds. With

66

SHERWOOD FOREST IN THE TIME OF KING RICHARD I. 437

noble resolution he determined to wipe off this immense debt by the labours of his pen, and by ceaseless toil he all but succeeded in accomplishing his aim. The effort, however, was too great for his physical strength his health began to give way; a voyage to Italy was unsuccessful in restoring it; and after lingering for some months in a state of almost total insensibility, he died at Abbotsford in 1832.

In delineating character, Scott is allowed to be inferior to Shakspere alone; and he possessed in perfection every qualification of a successful writer of fiction,-boundless fancy, great power of description, extensive acquaintance with mankind in every position in society, and a memory whose stores were unlimited. His language was by no means studiously selected, and is often careless; but he had a fine ear for the harmony of words, and his poetry, in fine flexibility and variety, has been excelled, if excelled at all, only by Homer.

1. SHERWOOD FOREST IN THE TIME OF KING RICHARD I.

The sun was setting upon one of the rich glassy glades of the forest. Hundreds of broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed, perhaps, the stately march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled arms over a thick carpet of the most delicious green-sward; in some places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of various descriptions, so closely as totally to intercept the level beams of the sinking sun; in others they receded from each other, forming those long, sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye delights to lose itself; while imagination considers them as the paths to yet wilder scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun shot a broken and discoloured light, that partially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy trunks of the trees; and there they illuminated, in brilliant patches, the portions of turf to which they made their way. A considerable open space in the midst of this glade seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the rites of Druidical superstition; for on the summit of a hillock, so regular as to seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough, unhewn stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been dislodged from their places, probably by the zeal of some convert to Christianity, and lay, some prostrate near their former site, and others on the side of the hill. One large stone only had found its way to the bottom, and, in stopping the course of a small brook which glided smoothly round the foot of the eminence, gave, by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to the placid and elsewhere silent streamlet.

The human figures which completed this landscape were in number two, partaking, in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic character which belonged to the woodlands of the West Riding of Yorkshire at that early period. The eldest of these men had a stern, savage, and wild aspect. His garment was of the simplest form imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves, composed of the tanned skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally left, but which had been worn off in so many places that it would

have been difficult to distinguish, from the patches that remained, to what creature the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the throat to the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes of body-clothing. There was no wider opening at the collar than was necessary to admit the passage of the head, from which it may be inferred that it was put on by slipping it over the head and shoulders, in the manner of a modern shirt or ancient hauberk. Sandals, bound with thongs made of boar's hide, protected the feet, and a roll of thin leather was twined artificially around the legs, and, ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish Highlander. To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was gathered at the middle by a broad leathern belt secured by a brass buckle, to one side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn, accoutred with a mouth-piece, for the purpose of blowing. In the same belt was stuck one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives, with a buck's-horn handle, which were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and bore, even at this early period, the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man had no covering upon his head, which was only defended by his own thick hair, matted and twisted together, and scorched by the influence of the sun into a rusty, darkred colour, forming a contrast with the overgrown beard upon his cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber hue. One part of his dress only remains; but it is too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a brass ring, resembling a dog's collar, but without any opening, and soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed excepting by the use of the file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon characters, an inscription of the following purport:-"Gurth, the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood."

Beside the swine-herd-for such was Gurth's occupation-was seated, upon one of the fallen Druidical monuments, a person about ten years younger in appearance, and whose dress, though resembling his companion's in form, was of better materials and a more fantastic appearance. His jacket had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon which there had been some attempt to paint grotesque ornaments in different colours. To the jacket he added a short cloak, which scarcely reached half-way down his thigh. It was of crimson cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined with bright yellow; and as he could transfer it from one shoulder to the other, or, at his pleasure, draw it all around him, its width, contrasted with its want of longitude, formed a fantastic piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets upon his arms, and on his neck a collar of the same metal, bearing the inscription, " Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood." This personage had the same sort of sandals with his companion; but instead of the roll of leather thong, his legs were cased in a sort of gaiters, of which one was red and the other yellow. He was provided also

THE FISHERMAN'S FUNERAL.

439 with a cap, having around it more than one bell, about the size of those attached to hawks, which jingled as he turned his head to one side or other; and as he seldom remained a minute in the same posture, the sound might be considered as incessant. Around the edge of this cap was a stiff bandeau of leather, cut at the top into open work resembling a coronet; while a prolonged bag arose from within it, and fell down on one shoulder, like an old-fashioned night-cap, or a jelly-bag, or the head-gear of a modern hussar. It was to this part of the cap that the bells were attached, which circumstance, as well as the shape of his head-dress, and his own halfcrazed, half-cunning expression of countenance, sufficiently pointed him out as belonging to the race of domestic clowns or jesters maintained in the houses of the wealthy, to help away the tedium of those lingering hours which they were obliged to spend within doors. He bore, like his companion, a scrip attached to his belt; but had neither horn nor knife, being probably considered as belonging to a class whom it is esteemed dangerous to entrust with edge-tools. In place of these, he was equipped with a sword of lath, resembling that with which Harlequin operates his wonders upon the modern stage.

The outward appearance of these two men formed scarce a stronger contrast than their look and demeanour. That of the serf or bondsman was sad and sullen; his aspect was bent on the ground with an appearance of deep dejection, which might be almost construed into apathy, had not the fire which occasionally sparkled in his red eye manifested that there slumbered, under the appearance of sullen despondency, a sense of oppression, and a disposition to resist ance. The looks of Wamba, on the other hand, indicated, as usual with his class, a sort of vacant curiosity and fidgetty impatience of any posture of repose, together with the utmost self-satisfaction respecting his own situation, and the appearance which he made. The dialogue which they maintained between them was carried on in Anglo-Saxon, which was universally spoken by the inferior classes, excepting the Norman soldiers and the immediate personal dependents of the great feudal nobles.

2. THE FISHERMAN'S FUNERAL.

The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-Crag. They now had, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats were all drawn up on the beach; and, though the day was fine and the season favourable, the chant which is used by the fishers when at sea was silent, as well as the prattle of the children, and the shrill song of the mother as she sits mending her nets by the door. A few of the neighbours, some in their antique and wellsaved suits of black, others in their ordinary clothes, but all bearing an expression of mournful sympathy with distress so sudden and

unexpected, stood gathered around the door of Mucklebackit's cottage, waiting "till the body was lifted." As the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made way for him to enter, doffing their hats and bonnets as he passed with an air of melancholy courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same manner.

In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could have painted with that exquisite feeling of nature which characterizes his enchanting productions. The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the father, whose rugged, weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was apparently revolving his loss in his mind with that strong feeling of painful grief peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into hatred against the world and all that remain in it after the beloved object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate efforts to save his son, and had been withheld only by main force from renewing them at a moment when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he must himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin, as to an object on which he could not steadfastly look, and yet from which he could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which were occasionally put to him were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His family had not yet dared to address to him a word either of sympathy or consolation. His masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress of the family, as she justly boasted herself on all ordinary occasions, was, by this great loss, terrified into silence and submission, and compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of her female sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not daring herself to approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate artifice, employed the youngest and favourite child to present her husband with some nourishment. His first action was to push it from him with an angry violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up the boy, and devour him with kisses. Such was the disconsolate state of the father.

In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which was flung over it, sat the mother, the nature of her grief sufficiently indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitations of her bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips, officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavouring to stem the grief which they could not console. The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and wine, which the poorest peasant or fisher offers to the guests on these mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother's death was almost already lost in admiration of the splendour of his funeral.