“ Poetry is spread as widely through the human heart as is electricity through all the works of nature. Man can no more help being poetical, than he can new-model his frame. But what is the love—the passion of poetry—but enthusiasm—enthusiasm which converts everything it looks upon into beauty and sublimity? The man is born desert and lonely: and is there no beauty in solitude—no grandeur in expansion? The mountains are highland, wild, heathy, and tempest-beaten: and is there no sublimity in their cliffs, their scarred fronts, and scarred sides? ”

“ The countess hastened from post to post, inspiring the garrison with words of heroism, and stimulating them with rewards. Even the gentle Madeline showed that her soul could rise with the occasion worthy of a soldier's love; and she, too, went from man to man, cheering them on, and with her sweet and silver tones seemed to rob even death of half its terror. Sir William's heart swelled with delight as he beheld her mild eye lighted up with enthusiasm, and heard her voice, which was as music to his ear, giving courage to the faint-hearted, and heroism to the brave. ”

“ He gazed at Helen, and then at the babe she now held in her arms, in silence; and a deep shade of disappointment clouded his brow. He had stood thus for a minute or two in silence, with a hand of each of the old people grasped in his. Helen felt awkward and abashed at his melancholy and imploring glance, and, turning from it, appeared busy with her son. Willie seated himself, and seemed as if in a fit of abstraction, his eyes still fixed on the object of his early love, and strong emotion depicted on his countenance. ”

“ Evening and morning his simple sacrifice was offered up to the throne of grace with as fervent love and adoration as in the days of his greatest prosperity; while the assiduous and gentle Helen mingled her tears with those of Grizzel, as much for the misery that was around them as their own. The winter of the fifth year had set in with unusual severity, long before its usual time, and all that William had secured of his crop was a few bushels of oats, so black and bitter, that nothing but the extreme of hunger would have compelled a human being to have tasted the flour they produced. ”

“ Or shall ye, Sir Governor, discharge your duty to your sovereign, if ye strike not one blow for England and revenge?"
"Fair sister," returned the knight, "ere an hour after nightfall, and the cry, 'For England and the Rose of Wark!' shall burst as the shout of death upon the ears of our enemies. A troop of forty horsemen wait but my word to become the messengers of vengeance."
"Good, my brother," she replied, while her former frown relaxed into a smile; "and each man who hath done his duty shall, on his return, drink a cup of wine from the hands of Joan Plantagenet." ”

“ There are none to whom the traditions of other days are not interesting. They save from oblivion the memory, the deeds, and the manners, of our fathers. No nation is so sunk in barbarity as to disregard them: the civilised European and the Indian savage alike cherish them; and the poets of every land have wed them with song. Yet, nowhere are traditions more general or more interesting than upon the Borders. Every grey ruin has its tale of wonder and of war. The solitary cairn on the hillside speaks of one who died for religion, or for liberty, or belike for both. ”

“ Ramorgny surveyed this equability of enchanting manner, with the pain of one who, fired with, a strong passion, sees ordinary companions basking in the sunshine of favour which he wishes to be confined to himself. He felt pained, but the pain was an increase of passion, with a diminution of hope. His violent temper hurried him into secret cursing of the day on which he entered in so thankless an expedition; determinations to escape from his duty; and vows that he would secure Elizabeth's love, die, or sacrifice his prince. ”

“ Eight days—eight days, remember!" he repeated, and left them.
"Now you will despise me, Margaret," said Marion; "for my maiden ambition has led us into this trouble. Yet will I rather be an inmate in our uncle's dungeon than be the wife of the boy-husband he would assign me. Sister, will you not upbraid me?"
"Upbraid you!" said the calm and gentle Margaret; "stern as is our uncle, deadly as is his wrath, I fear him not. The other day you spoke to me jeeringly of Sir Patrick Hume—in the same strain I answered you respecting his brother George. ”

“ In vain did nature present her varied beauties to his eyes; he gazed listlessly and vacantly upon all he beheld—he looked as though he saw not, for his heart was elsewhere, and he felt that for him the charm of existence was over. In the meantime, Catherine's father had arrived at Eskhall, and had been informed by Gavin Douglas of Philip's noble struggle with his unfortunately-placed passion, and of the anguish of mind which his resolution had cost him.
"Generous young man!" exclaimed Edward Douglas; "he deserves a happier fate. Would that I could favour his suit! ”

“ A great dinner was got up in honour of the knight, at which Gawin, the earl's son, and Maitland, his nephew, were present, and all endeavoured, by every means in their power, to acquire the good-will of the prince's favourite. It was not these, however, that Ramorgny wished to study or to please. The daughter was his subject; and his knowledge of human nature soon enabled him to form an estimate of her character not far wide of the truth. She was dark, but beautiful; with a clear, burning eye, which occasionally exhibited flashes of the spirit of her ancestor, Black Agnes. ”

“ They are days to which many a mother looks forward, as to the time when she will press an absent son or daughter to her bosom—when a father shall give them the right hand of welcome, and in the fulness of his joy press his teeth upon his lip to conceal his emotion, while a stranger tear steals out, and seeks a home upon his cheek. ”

“ Think ye that, when the King of Little Egypt does an act of humanity or generosity, he is to be rewarded for it by a Scottish knight! Away with ye, man! I spurn your thanks! I am as far above them as the moon is above the glow-worm that glimmers on the ground—ay, as the sun above the fetid matter from which it draws life. Know, then, that Margaret Sinclair and her sister will die unless ye have courage to release them, and that before another Sabbath shine a holiday to you. ”

“ At present I am not the gay son of King Robert; but by the wand of enchantment changed for a season—would it were for ever!—into a sober reasoner on the rights and claims of suffering humanity."
"Report hath not belied thee, good prince, though it hath me; for I have ever heard that thy sentiments were generous—though, excuse my boldness, they were not allowed to be called forth into action by the scenes of common life. Believe a simple maiden, when she taketh the liberty humbly to suggest, that royalty itself may be more ennobled by one act of charity than by a glorious victory." ”

“ Do you see that poor maniac, who is just receiving a visit from his mother in his cell, whose eyes are turned up in wild uproar to the roof of his dungeon, and who, in the damp icicles, is apostrophising sun, moon, and stars, Venus, Jupiter, and Aldubaran? That emaciated form of scarcely twenty years of age, which a weeping mother clasps, and whom a frenzied son convulsively strains to his bare and fleshless breast—that is Ferguson, the poet, the prince of enthusiasts—he at whose genius Burns lighted that torch which has filled the world with light. ”

“ Such was the state of London, when Sir William Montague and Sir John Aubrey arrived from France. In every street they met the long trains of the dead being borne to their grave; but the living had deserted them; and, if they met an occasional passenger, fear and paleness were upon his face. They hurried along the streets in silence—for each would have concealed his thoughts from the other—but the thoughts of both were of Madeline; and the one trembled lest he should find his betrothed, the other his sister, with the dead! They proceeded to the house of the Duchess of Salisbury ”

“ One day, on her returning from Mr Raeburn's, where she had been to an entertainment, and when Henry, who had accompanied her home, had just left the house—
"My dear Fanny," said her brother, addressing her in the blunt way peculiar to him, and taking her affectionately by the hand, "I don't like that fellow Raeburn. I would not willingly or needlessly say any thing harsh of anyone whom you esteem; but you are guileless, Fanny, and ignorant of the ways of the world, still more so of the faithlessness of man, and therefore liable to have your judgment misled by your heart. ”

“ I am right glad on't; for I thought I had no choice—the one being fair, the other ugly; and to have been forced to marry one woman, to the exclusion of the darling liberty of selection, would, though she had been as fair as Venus, have made her like the famed daughter of Phoreus, whose face was as beautiful as that of the sister of Apollo, but whose hair was writhing serpents."
"Thy choice, I fear, is not extended by the beauty of Elizabeth of Dunbar," said Ramorgny; "for what she has, Elizabeth Douglas wants. ”

“ Yes, sir, I say o' posterity; for it is to those men that we are indebted for the blessings and the freedom which we enjoy beyond the people o' other countries; though there are men who dared to call them mere fanatics!—fanatics, indeed!—but, oh, they are fanatics that saved their country—that braved oppression—that defied it even to death, and that wi' their own blood wrote the irrevocable charter o' our liberty! If they were fanatics, they were such as every nation in the world would be proud to call its sons, and would glory to have possessed. ”

“ But it was neither as a soldier, nor as a weaver, that I remember thee with so much interest. It was as the best bait-fisher in the south of Scotland—it was as my first preceptor in that most delightful art. I see thee still, before sunrise, ten miles amidst the mountains, and I hear the plash of the large new-run sea-trout, as it "turns up its silver scaling to the light" amidst the dark-brown flood. ”

“ Darkness began to gather round the turrets of the castle, and on the highest the gentle figure of the countess was still indistinctly visible; now walking round it with impatient steps, and again gazing eagerly to obtain another glance of the Scottish army, or counting the fires which sprung up along the lines where it had encamped for the night, when Sir William and forty of the garrison, mounted on fleet steeds, sallied from the gate of the outer wall.
"Our ladye speed ye, gallant hearts!" said the fair Joan, as she beheld
them sweep past like a dark cloud on their work of blood. ”