glimpse of the Taunus and Haardt ranges. There are many grander scenes, but this has a beauty of its own, and poor must be the soul that does not feel as he looks down on the dense, dark forests becoming blue in the distance, that nature is in its own way here singing praise to God, and that in order to be in full harmony with it, man ought to lift up his voice in one of those hymns of which words and melody alike, with their melancholy touched with the gladness of worship, seem to have welled up spontaneously from the sad but reconciled heart of humanity.

S.

SONNET.

THE TRAITS OF KINDNESS.

K

INDNESS hath many aspects—I have seen

Her generous hand the welcome food bestow
Upon the famished wanderer, and throw

The well-spared garment o'er the shivering, lean,
Starved shoulders of the outcast, or assign

The free subscription in a mood benign

To aid some needy friend and intervene

Betwixt despair and death; such deeds have been
Her genial habit; even yet the tear

That woe calls up from her wrung bosom's core,
In sympathy, doth equally endear.

For when through poverty material cheer

She hath not for bestowal-love betrays

Her cordial presence in a thousand ways.

C.

THE SONGSTER'S SALUTE.

1866.

ACH sunny morn on sleek brown wings
There comes a bonny bird that brings
Blithe greeting to me, and it sings

From out the leafy tree-boughs near
My chamber window, till the clear
Sweet anthem charms my waking ear.

Arise! it seems to say, the sky
Grows bright for fair-faced day is nigh,
Behold how night's dull shadows die.

Astir are all the birds and bees,
The cattle crop the dewy leas,

The breath of health is on the breeze.

Come to the meadows and the woods,

Come to the sylvan solitudes,

Come where the streamlet's flashing floods,

Enamoured of the vanished moon,
Prate of her witching charms, and tune
Their praise to many a purling rune.

Nature, in fairest fashion drest,
To her green lap and scented breast
Invites thee as a titled guest.

It shall be thine to rid thy soul
Of plaguy Care's malign control,
To make thy faltering spirit whole.

Come, then, and taste a brief content
Before the toilsome hours prevent,
And ere the sweet-breathed morn be spent.

The ploughman's carol cheers the sky,
The hunter's jovial horn winds nigh,
To my expectant mate I fly

Tra-la, tra-loi-good bye, good bye.

C.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE LAND OF SCOTT.

"A

3IFTY years have elapsed since, on the morning of September 21st, 1832, Sir Walter Scott was numbered with the dead. beautiful morning," we are told by one who was in the death chamber, "so warm that every window was wide open, so perfectly still that the sound of all others most pleasant to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed, was distinctly audible in the room, as one by one the last hours of his life ebbed away."

It has been the lot of few great writers to win from their cotemporaries that full recognition of their genius which was so amply accorded to Scott; and after the lapse of fifty years, time has detracted but little from his fame. The reputation he enjoyed during his life was so great that it was hardly possible for succeeding generations to add to it.

It was the happiness of Scott to touch with something of his genius all with which he came in contact, so much so that the places and scenes made famous by his works have come to be indissolubly associated with his name.

During his life-time, his home was invaded by admirers from all parts of the world; and outside the circle of his own friends, the names of the visitors to Abbotsford included all the celebrities of the time. With lavish hand and generous hospitality he kept open-house to all comers, and it was not until the sudden reverses in his fortunes came that the constant stream of visitors ceased. Since his death, Abbotsford has been the shrine of his many admirers, and the personal affection felt towards one who left the world so largely his debtor, has invested the places identified with his personal life with a charm altogether unique. That part of Scotland which is now described as "The Land of Scott," is the valley through which the Tweed flows from Ashestiel to Kelso, and as the crow flies would reach from thirty to forty miles. Within an hour's journey from Edinburgh, by rail, it is readily reached; and as the iron road runs through the whole distance, the places of most interest can be seen within three or four days.

The district includes Sandy-Knowe, and Smailholm Tower, where his childhood days were spent ; Kelso, the haunt of his youth, Ashestiel, where he wrote the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, the Lady of the Lake, and part of Waverley; Melrose so identified with his name, Abbotsford, and Dryburgh. To mention these is to call to mind but a small number of the places which now possess an interest gained, it must be

admitted, as the result of the charm with which the imagination of Scott invested them. He saw everything with a poet's eye; the distant hills had been the scene of some battle, the towers, unsightly as some are, had been the centre of valorous deeds, the very streams and shallow burns struggling for existence were haunted with the spirit of the past. He found legends in stones, fairy stories in running waters, and beauty in all.

Unfortunately it is not possible for the many to see as Scott saw. Even while he lived he must have been rather vexed at times at the want of enthusiasm for his famous haunts which was manifested by some of his best friends. In the charming account of his visit to Abbotsford, Washington Irving gives an admirable sketch of the neighbourhood as it appeared to him-" Our ramble," he remarks, "took us on the hills commanding an extensive prospect. 'Now,' said Scott, 'I have brought you, like the pilgrim in the Pilgrim's Progress, to the top of the Delectable Mountains, that I may show you all the goodly regions hereabouts. Yonder is Lammermuir, and Smailholm; and there you have Galashiels, and Torwoodlee, and Gala Water; and in that direction you see Teviotdale and the Braes of Yarrow, and Ettrich stream winding along like a silver thread to throw itself into the Tweed.' He went on thus to call over names celebrated in Scottish song, most of which had recently received a romantic interest from his own pen. In fact, I saw a great part of the Border country spread out before me, and could trace the scenes of those poems and romances which had in a manner bewitched the world.

"I gazed about me for a time with mute surprise, I may almost say, with disappointment. I beheld a mere succession of grey waving hills, line beyond line as far as my eye could reach, monotonous in their aspect, and so destitute of trees that one could almost see a stout fly walking along their profile; and the far-famed Tweed appeared a naked stream, flowing between bare hills, without a tree or thicket on its banks, and yet such had been the magic web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it had a greater charm for me than the richest scenery I had beheld in England. I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. Scott hummed for a moment to himself and looked grave; he had no idea of having his muse complimented at the expense of his native hills. It may be pertinacity,' said he at length; but to my eye, these grey hills, and all this wild border country, have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not see the heather, at least once a year, I think I should die! The last words were said with an honest warmth, accompanied by a thump on the ground with his staff, by way of emphasis, that showed his heart was in his speech. He vindicated the Tweed, too, as a beautiful stream in itself; and observed that he did not dislike it for being bare of trees, probably from having been much of an angler in his time;

and an angler does not like to have a stream overhung by trees, which embarrass him in the exercise of his rod and line."

The country is hardly as bare now as it must have been when Irving saw it. Woods, especially about Abbotsford, have been extensively planted since then, but they are for the most part meagre. They have the plantation appearance, and certainly are not sufficiently extensive to break the monotonous lines which the distant hills present at first sight. It is strange that Scott with his keen love for natural beauty, should have chosen the particular place he did for Abbotsford.

A feeling almost of surprise will be excited by a visit to Sandy-Knowe where Scott passed his earliest years. In his autobiography he gives an extremely interesting account of his remembrances of this place, and dates to this visit his love, not only for early ballad romance, but of nature also. Anything less likely to inspire the latter cannot well be imagined; a square and very solid looking tower standing upon the brow of a low hill, here and there bleak and barren crags starting out of the ground, the hill bare of wood from its base to its summit, and the district lying immediately around as bare as the hill itself. A very eloquent description of the scenery visible from the tower, might be written, but the impression would remain that when Scott was writing about the place, long years after his childhood had passed by, distance had lent its usual enchantment to the scene.

Unfortunately little remains to recall the quaint characteristics of the people who lived in the neighbourhood eighty years ago. Times have changed since then. No military gentlemen of the good old school are now to be found, who are willing to amuse children by crawling on the floor and dragging their watches about as an inducement to the youngsters to crawl also. The thoughtful shepherd with his fund of rugged rhymes, stories of wars and tales of valour, has disappeared, and the truth is forced home to the most casual observer that honesty and romance do not travel together. The history of the Scottish peasant who lived by stealing his neighbour's cattle, and, if need be, cutting his neighbour's throat, was far more romantic than that of his successor is likely to be, who has to get his rent ready by quarter-day, or seek fresh fields and pastures new. Unpleasant it is, no doubt, to discount the tales of border romance which Scott heard when young, but he afterwards threw such a mystic glamour over the lives of the Border Chiefs and their deeds of prowess, which he so loved to celebrate, that his readers have looked upon them as heroes. It is rather hard on these old Chieftains to say that at best they were but brigands, men whose skill was exercised in sheep stealing, and despoiling neighbours of their land and goods, and whose valour was only displayed in acts of plunder and cruelty, and yet such is the sober truth.

To continue our pilgrimage to the places associated with the last Scottish Minstrel, we should journey on to Kelso, where may still be found the house in which Scott lived. "The small house with the large garden," where Miss Janet Scott also resided; a lady who added not a little to the future poet's stock of romance.