pire, From their dark sides there bursts the glowing fire;

At other times huge balls of fire are tossed,
That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost;
Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions
torn,

Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne
With loud explosions to the starry skies,
The stones made liquid as the huge mass flies,
Then back again with greater weight recoils,
While Etna thundering from the bottom boils.

ON A THUNDER-STORM

'In Scott's Introduction to the Lay, he alludes to an original effusion of these "schoolboy days," prompted by a thunder-storm, which he says" was much approved of, until a malevolent critic sprung up in the shape of an apothecary's blue-buskined wife; she affirmed that my most sweet poetry was copied from an old magazine." Lockhart, Chapter iii. The lines were written in 1783.

LOUD o'er my head though awful thunders roll,
And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Yet 'tis thy voice, my God, that bids them
fly,
Thy arm directs those lightnings through the
sky.
Then let the good thy mighty name revere,
And hardened sinners thy just vengeance fear.

ON THE SETTING SUN

'These lines, as well as the foregoing, were found wrapped in a paper with the inscription, by Dr. Adam, "Walter Scott, July, 1783."' - Lockhart, Chapter iii.

--

THOSE evening clouds, that setting ray,
And beauteous tints, serve to display
Their great Creator's praise;
Then let the short-lived thing called man,
Whose life's comprised within a span,
To Him his homage raise.

We often praise the evening clouds, And tints so gay and bold,

But seldom think upon our God, Who tinged these clouds with gold.

II. MOTTOES FROM THE NOVELS

'The scraps of poetry, which have been in most cases tacked to the beginning of chap ters in these novels, are sometimes quoted either from reading or from memory, but, in the general case, are pure invention. I found it too troublesome to turn to the collection of the British Poets to discover apposite mottoes, and in the situation of the theatrical machinist, who, when the white paper which represented his shower of snow was exhausted, continued the shower by snowing brown, I drew on my memory as long as I could, and when that failed, eked it out with invention. I believe that in some cases, where actual names are af fixed to the supposed quotations, it would be to little purpose to seek them in the works of the authors referred to. In some cases I have been entertained when Dr. Watts and other graver authors have been ransacked in vain for stanzas for which the novelist alone was responsible.' Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate.

'It may be worth noting that it was in correcting the proof-sheets of The Antiquary that Scott first took to equipping his characters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particu

'BE brave,' she cried, 'you yet may be our guest.

Our haunted room was ever held the best:
If then your valor can the fight sustain
Of rustling curtains and the clinking chain,
If your courageous tongue have powers to talk
When round your bed the horrid ghost shall
walk,

f you dare ask it why it leaves its tomb,
I'll see your sheets well aired and show the
room.'

True Story. SOMETIMES he thinks that Heaven this vision sent,

And ordered all the pageants as they went; Sometimes that only 't was wild Fancy's play, The loose and scattered relics of the day.

BEGGAR!

the only freemen of your Commonwealth, Free above Scot-free, that observe no laws, Obey no governor, use no religion

But what they draw from their own ancient

customs

Or constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels. Brome.

HERE has been such a stormy encounter
Betwixt my cousin Captain and this soldier,
About I know not what! - nothing, indeed;
Competitions, degrees, and comparatives
Of soldiership!-

A Faire Quarrel.

IF you fail honor here, Never presume to serve her any more; Bid farewell to the integrity of arms, And the honorable name of soldier

us;

Then in our lair, when Time hath chilled our joints

And maimed our hope of combat or of flight, We hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all Of wrath and woe and punishment that bides

us.

Old Play.

STILL in his dead hand clenched remain the strings

That thrill his father's heart-e'en as the limb, Lopped off and laid in grave, retains, they tell

us,

Strange commerce with the mutilated stump,
Whose nerves are twinging still in maimed ex-
istence.
Old Play.

LIFE, with you, Glows in the brain and dances in the arteries; 'Tis like the wine some joyous guest hath quaffed,