Surely all this is very beautiful; like a picture of Boccaccio's: the ideal of a country life in our time. Why could it not last? Income was not wanting: Scott's official permanent income was amply adequate to meet the expense of all that was valuable in it; nay, of all that was not harassing, senseless, and despicable. Scott had some 2,000l. a year without writing books at all. Why should he manufacture and not create, to make more money; and rear mass on mass for a dwelling to himself, till the pile toppled, sank crashing, and buried him in its ruins, when he had a safe, pleasant dwelling ready of its own accord? Alas, Scott, with all his health, was infected; sick of the fearfulest malady, that of Ambition! To such length had the King's baronetcy, the world's favour and "sixteen parties a-day," brought it with him. So the inane racket must be kept up, and rise ever higher. So masons labor, ditchers delve; and there is endless, altogether deplorable correspondence about marble-slabs for tables, wainscoting of rooms, curtains, and the trimmings of curtains, orange-colored or fawn-colored. Walter Scott, one of the gifted of the world, whom his admirers call the most gifted, must kill himself that he may be a country gentleman, the founder of a race of Scottish lairds.

It is one of the strangest, most tragical histories ever enacted under this sun. So poor a passion can lead so strong a man into such mad extremes. Surely, were not a man a fool always, one might say there was something eminently distracted in this, end as it would, of a Walter Scott writing daily with the ardor of a steam-engine, that he might make 15,000l. a year, and buy upholstery with it. To cover the walls of a stone house in Selkirkshire with nicknacks, ancient armor, and genealogical shields, what can we name it but a being bit with delirium of a kind? That tract after tract of moorland in the shire of Selkirk should be joined together on

parchment and by ring-fence, and named after one's name,why, it is a shabby, small-type edition of your vulgar Napoleons, Alexanders, and conquering heroes, not counted venerable by any teacher of men!

"The whole world was not half so wide

To Alexander when he cried,
Because he had but one to subdue,

As was a narrow paltry tub to
Diogenes; who ne'er was said,

For aught that ever I could read,

To whine, put finger i' the eye and sob,

Because he had ne'er another tub."

Not he and if, "looked at from the Moon, which itself is far from Infinitude," Napoleon's dominions were as small as mine, what, by any chance of possibilty, could Abbotsford landed-property ever have become? As the Arabs say, there is a black speck, were it no bigger than a bean's eye, in every soul; which, once set it a-working, will overcloud the whole man into darkness and quasi-madness, and hurry him balefully into Night!..

Our last extract shall be a very tragical one. Tragical, yet still beautiful; waste Ruin's havoc borrowing a kind of sacredness from a yet sterner visitation, that of Death! Scott has withdrawn into a solitary lodging-house in Edinburgh, to do daily the day's work there; and had to leave his wife at Abbotsford in the last stage of disease. He went away

silently; looked silently at the sleeping face he scarcely hoped ever to see again. We quote from a diary he had begun to keep in those months, on hint from Byron's Ravenna Journal: copious sections of it render the Sixth Volume more interesting than any of the former ones:

"Abbotsford, May 11 (1826).— . . . It withers my heart to think of it, and to recollect that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence and counsel from that ear, to which all might be safely confided. But in her

present lethargic state, what would my attendance have availed? - and Anne has promised close and constant intelligence. I must dine with James Ballantyne to-day en famille. I cannot help it; but would rather be at home and alone. However, I can go out too. I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness which struggles to invade me.

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Edinburgh,- Mrs. Brown's lodgings, North St. David Street· May 12. I passed a pleasant day with kind J. B., which was a great relief from the black dog, which would have worried me at home. quite alone.

a clergyman, and,

He was

"Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with Touchstone, When I was at home I was in a better place;' I must, when there is occasion, draw to my own Baillie Nicol Jarvie's consolation — 'One cannot carry the comforts of the Saut-Market about with one.' Were I at ease in mind, I think the body is very well cared for. Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, despite his name, said to be a quiet one. 66 May 14. -A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who are shining so brightly on these dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were looking as bright on the banks of the Tweed; but look where you will, Sir Sun, you look upon sorrow and suffering. — Hogg was here yesterday, in danger, from having obtained an accommodation of 100l. from James Ballantyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I am unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged to borrow myself."

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May 15.- Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at Abbotsford."

"Abbotsford, May 16. — She died at nine in the morning, after being very ill for two days-easy at last. I arrived here late last night. Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics, which returned on my arrival. Her broken accents were like those of a child, the language as well as the tones broken, but in the most gentle voice of submission. 'Poor mamma -never return again - gone forever a better place.' Then, when she came to herself, she spoke with sense, freedom, and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. It would have been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger - what was it then to the father and the husband? For myself, I scarce know how I feel; sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, sometimes as weak as the water that breaks on it. I am as alert at thinking and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast what this place now is, with what it has been not long since, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family-all but poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer of my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk-down my sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the heart that must bear them

alone-Even her foibles were of service to me, by giving me things to think of beyond my weary self-reflections.

"I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not my Charlotte — my thirty years' companion. There is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic —— but that yellow mask, with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression? I will not look on it again. Anne thinks her little changed, because the latest idea she had formed of her mother is as she appeared under circumstances of extreme pain. Mine go back to a period of comparative ease. If I write long in this way, I shall write-down my resolution, which I should rather write-up, if I could."

"May 18. . . . Cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth must have her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not the bride of my youth, the mother of my children, that will be laid among the ruins of Dryburgh, which we have so often visited in gaiety and pastime. No, no."

"May 22.

Well, I am not apt to shrink from that which is my duty, merely because it is painful; but I wish this funeral-day over. A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be doing and talking."

May 26. Were an enemy coming upon my house, would I not do my best to fight, although oppressed in spirits; and shall a similar despondency prevent me from mental exertion? It shall not, by Heaven!"

"Edinburgh, May 30.- Returned to town last night with Charles. This morning resume ordinary habits of rising early, working in the morning, and attending the Court. I finished correcting the proofs for the Quarterly; it is but a flimsy article, but then the circumstances were most untoward. This has been a melancholy day - most melancholy. I am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. I do not know what other folks feel, but with me the hysterical passion that impels tears is a terrible violence- -a sort of throttling sensation - then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte can actually be dead."

This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other scenes must come, which will have no beauty, but be tragical only. It is better that we are to end here.

And so the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott is with us no more. A possession from him does remain; widely

scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said of him, When he departed, he took a Man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity, and goodness, when we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it;-ploughed deep with labor and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell.

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

O GREAT and gallant Scott,

True gentleman heart, blood and bone,

I would it had been my lot

To have seen thee, and heard thee, and known.

EASY TO MATCH WHAT OTHERS DO.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

EASY to match what others do,

Perform the feat as well as they;

Hard to out-do the brave, the true,

And find a loftier way.