their pains to do this; but it will be much indeed if one reader in twenty will remember or care to turn back, at the conclusion, to peruse the omitted interlopers, as all interest in the book itself will expire with the hero from whom it is denominated. We are sorry to notice so palpable a piece of book-making, (and so miserably managed too, that the very artifice by which it is attempted to be concealed only exposes it the more to observation) in the work of an author who has no occasion to resort to any tricks of trade to acquire sufficient fame and profit by his labours.

We do not complain of the publication of the "Epistles" in the same volume with "Marmion," but of the pitiful device to make them go down with it, under the pretence that they are essentially connected with the story: when it is nearly self-evident that they were written without any specific reference to the piece, on which they are now most aukwardly botched by a few lines at the end of each, in some instances absolutely deteriorating their own, and we presume their original, effect; while whatever forced alliance is made between them and the grand poem, the poem has not in a single case the slightest dependence on them. If the writer was really bound to furnish a certain quantity of verse for a certain sum of money, why could he not have printed the epistles distinctly, either at the beginning or at the end of the volume?-Or why did he not chuse subjects for his preambles from the Cantos of the poem to which they are given as preludes? For with suitable themes arising out of the story itself (particularly from the scenes of action and the manners of the time) he might have been abundantly supplied, as every one may perceive on reading over the following heads, annexed to each Canto: "The Castle;-the Convent; the Hostel or Inn;-the Camp;-the Court;-the Battle." As they now stand confounded together, what congeniality of feeling, or coincidence of circumstance, can possibly be imagined, between the interment of Pitt and Fox in Westminster Abbey, and the magnificent feasting of Lord Marmion at Norham Castle? or between a facetious description of Christmas gambols, and a terrific display of Flodden Field covered with contending armies? We should have preferred it, however, had the author lengthened his tale, or rather had he unfolded it more amply through ten or twelve Cantos, instead of six. This he might easily and advantageously have done; for his fable is so rich in materials, powerful in interest, various and intricate in incident, and animated with characters so strongly contrasted, that instead of having exhausted his subject on his present plan, we are inclined to complain that he has not sufficiently brought forward and relieved the scenes

and the figures which he has here sketched with the hand of a master. There are many things of which we wish to know more, and few on which we can justly say that the author, who has the rare talent of never being dull, has dwelt too long. Perhaps no modern poem could be so much improved by expansion, (not in description, but in narrative,) as the piece before us. We will not acknowledge that we have, in any instance, been wearied with antiquarian minuteness and border garrulity; but we could very well have spared many exquisite details of the pageantry of dress, the fashion of flags, and the devices of arms, to have been compensated with further information concerning Constance, Clara, and De Wil ton; and we should have been better pleased, if, with less of the pantomimical magnificence of heraldry, we had found more of human actions and passions exhibited in very strange and heroic situations.-Were the subject worth a conjecture, we should suspect that the Epistles were written with immediate reference-to certain political events-to the author's private habits of study and amusement-to the peculiar style and subjects of his poetry-and in memory of former feelings and friendships. The union of these with Marmion was an afterthought, and was unworthy of a skilful writer, for each might have stood alone to greater advantage. Interwoven as they are, they will be read in comparison with each other, by the few who peruse both; and we are confident in predicting that the majority of these will pronounce the epistles to be much inferior, both in energy and elegance, to the main poem. They will form this decision for a very plain, if not a very just reason; because Mr. Scott in his own style appears inimitable, but when he writes in the language of his contemporaries he immediately becomes one of them, and must then be placed in the rank which belongs to him, a high rank we acknowledge, but certainly not the highest. In Marmion the expression and cadence of verse are varied and irregular to suit the thoughts and the subjects; the occasional meanness of phraseology, ruggedness of metre, vulgarity of allusion, frivolity, feebleness, or superfluity of sentiment and description, are scarcely felt as faults, because the reader is carried back to an antiquated age, and imagines himself not only hearing the story of obsolete personages, but hearing it from the lips of a minstrel who records what occurred within his own memory. Now as in Mr. Scott's_romantic poems the beauties outweigh the blemishes, as much as, in the lays of the bards whom he assumes to imitate, the blemishes outweigh the beauties, his good natured readers, (for the readers of other poets are seldom so good natured,) feel continually more disposed to relish the excellencies of these compositions, than to nauseate their defects. But when, as in the

epistles, he relinquishes his factitious style, and casts away his antique attire, he is listened to only as a minstrel of the present day; then are his uncouth and languid lines, his barbarous and tramontane rhymes, insufferable on, this side of the Tweed, as readily detected and condemned, as severely, as if they were found in the pages of any other living bard. We do not mean to charge Mr. Scott with negligence in these epistles; on the contrary, we are persuaded that some of the weakest passages in them have cost him more hard labour than the noblest flights that occur in the Lay of the last Minstrel, and the metrical romance of "Marmion.' Hence indeed we conclude, that with more credit and facility to himself, and with more delight to the public, he might have extended his great work to twelve cantos, than he has compounded the heterogeneous volume now before us.

We should not have expatiated so much on this monstrous connection between Marmion, and the "Six Epistles from Ettrick Forest," (which were announced in the literary journals for speedy publication, long before there was any rumour of such a poem as the former being in embryo,) had it not afforded us an opportunity of distinguishing and contrasting their respective characters and pretensions to public favour, We shall have no further occasion to consider them in contact, or rather in opposition, with each other; but shall briefly point out a few of the prominent features of each, dispatching the epistles first.

The first epistle is addressed to W. S. Rose, Esq. the ingenious versifier of Amadis de Gaul. It appears to have been written in November, 1806; and after a good winterpiece of description, the poet, by an easy transition, recurs to his country's wintry state, and takes occasion to eulogize the memory of Lord Nelson, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Fox, all recently lost to the nation. Though patriotism is inspiration to every true poet, yet personal and party politics in general furnish meagre and miserable subjects for the lyre; none but the muse of satire being ever genially kindled by those flames that consume the domestic tranquillity of governments. Mr. Scott, it is true, praises and mourns the dead with all his might; but we have been more affected by ten lines on the Love of Country in the Lay of the last Minstrel, than with all the "fine frenzy" of panegyric on departed statesmen, that rages through as many pages of this epistle. Ought not the awful reflection, that Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox are reposing till the day of judgement under the same roof, almost in the same grave, to have awakened some sentiment more sublimely affecting than can be found either in the prettiness of the first four, or the common-place of the six last lines in the fullowing extract?.

'Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,

"Twill trickle to his rival's bier;

O'er PITT's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,-

"Here let their discord with them die;
"Speak not for those a separate doom,
"Whom Fate made brothers in the tomb.
"But search the land, of living men,

"Where wilt thou find their like agen?"

But if the poet transgressed his own boundaries in his first epistle, in the second he is entirely and most happily at home. The prospect of Ettrick Forest, now shorn of its trees and dispeopled of its savage inhabitants, as compared with its ancient glories, is admirably delineated; the ramble and the brownstudy on the border of St. Mary's Lake are finer than any thing

of the kind that we have hitherto met with in Mr. Scott him-
self. Even the additional scene of contrasted horror, intro-
duced purely for the sake of connecting this epistle with the
second canto of Marmion, gives no offence, though it does
not heighten the effect of the preceding descriptions. The
simile, toward the conclusion, of a rivulet-cataract to a
cc grey
mare's tail" though sanctioned it seems by vulgar usage, and
dignified with uncommon pump of versification, is too low
and ludicrous to please in the passage where it occurs.
give the following beautiful specimen from this epistle.

• Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a 'foe
Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,
Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passion's strife,
And Fate had cut my ties to life,

Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain's cell,

Like that same peaceful hermitage,

Where Milton longed to spend his age.
"Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died,
On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
To say, "Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;".
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruined tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded flower;

We

And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings,
'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust
From company of holy dust;

On which no sun-beam ever shines

(So superstition's creed divines,)

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore,
And mark the wild swans mount the gale,
Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,
And ever stoop again, to lave

Their bosoms on the surging wave:
Then, when, against the driving hail,
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire,
And light my lamp, and trim my fire:
There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,
And, in the bittern's distant shriek,
I heard unearthly voices speak,

And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range,
To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I cleared,
And smiled to think that I had feared.'

The third epistle contains a sprightly and ingenious vindication of the writer's peculiar poetical pursuits. There are in it some picturesque allusions to romantic scenery, which in early youth warmed his imagination with the enthusiastic love of Border-themes. An author is seldom so eloquent as when he talks of himself, and perhaps never more pleasing than when he recals his infantine feelings and amusements.

In the fourth epistle we find many charming recollections, awakened by the occurrence to his mind of the simple expression of an "ancient minstrel,"

Where's now the life which late we led?' The reader will sympathize delightfully with the author, if he should find some dear remembrances of his own past days renewed in the perusal of this retrospective poem.

The fifth epistle celebrates the praises of Edinburgh, in which the introduction of Britomarte, the heroine of Spenser, is very lively and appropriate. The sixth and last epistle describes Christmas gambols: the tale of the demon who keeps the chest of treasure at Franchemont is neither well told nor