Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][ocr errors]

Foreign Varieties.

in the Egyptian markets, and in India and China its leaves form the principal food of the common people. The Caribbee cabbage thrives best in damp places. It grows up in tufts between four and five feet high; its leaves are two feet long, and about eighteen inches wide.

The Louvre has been enriched with statues, vases, bas-reliefs, and inscriptions, to the amount of about 60,000 francs, from the collection of the late M. de Choiseuil Goutfier.

ITALY.

Lord BYRON still continued at Venice late in September last, pursuing his poetical labours with indefatigable ardour. He devotes his mornings entirely to study, and spends his evenings chiefly at the Theatre, receiving the visits of his friends in his private box.

He

THE STUART PAPERS.-A very extraordinary discovery of curiosities, literary, political, and historical, was lately made at Rome, by Dr. R. Watson, author of the lives of Fletcher and Gordon. This gentleman went to Italy to search for any manuscripts or reliques of the House of Stuart, which might have been left in the hands of strangers by the last survivors of that family.After much trouble, he discovered that the executor of the executor of the Cardinal York, or Henry IX. as he is often called, was in possession of a vast collection of papers, on which he placed so little value, that he suffered them to remain in a garret without windows, exposed to every shower of rain. therefore readily sold the whole to Dr. W. who took possession of them, and removed them in carts to his own apartments, where they were seen by many distinguished English visitors in Rome. Dr. W. employed some time in assorting and arranging them, and he found that they consisted of nearly 400.000 separate articles, of which about 250,000 possessed various degrees of interest. Among these were several original letters of Fenelon, many of Bolingbroke, Pope, Swift, Atterbury, and other English writers, and a series of letters, continued through a period of nearly 100 years, of every potentate and statesman in Europe, and of most of the English nobility. The contents of many of these documents were of the most extraordinary character, developing the plans which were adopted at different times for the restoration of the Stuarts, and the names of the promoters and par

[Nov. 1,

tisans in Britain and abroad. Of course the contents excited much interest at Rome, and the Papal Government took alarm in regard to the exposure of its own projects and policy. Dr. W. was in consequence sent for by the Papal secretary of state, who, from overtures to repurchase, adopted threats; and finally took forcible possession of the whole, and put the owner under arrest. He appealed in vain to the British resident and ministers, who appeared covertly to take part with the Papal Government; and it appears, that after the Pope's ministers had duly examined the whole, they caused a tender to be made of them to the Prince Regent: and a British frigate was actually sent to convey them to England. Accordingly they are now in Carlton-house, and Dr. W. who, on being enlarged at Rome, set off for England to reclaim them, has obtained some temporary recompence. A commission has been appointed to investigate his further claims, and it is to be supposed that, however they were overruled by arbitrary power in Rome, they will be duly respected in England.

A subscription has been opened at Florence, for a monument to be erected in honour of Dante. It is well known that the prince of Italian poets, when in banishment, like Gibelin, was reduced to beg for shelter and a morsel of bread in foreign countries. The monument will be erected in the church of Santa-Croce, the Pantheon of Tuscany.

At Franconi, Circus Paris, Macbeth and Othello are converted into Pantomimes!

"To what base uses may we come at last."

At an exhibition of the Fine Arts at Florence, July 15, were displayed the casts of the Marbles which Lord Elgin brought from the Temple of Minerva at Athens, called the Parthenon. These casts are a present from the Prince Re gent of England. In return for which several of the finest statues of that celebrated gallery are to be modelled and forwarded to England; among them is the group of Niobe and her children.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[graphic][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

1818.]

( 355 )

MEMOIR OF WALTER SCOTT, Esq. (With a Portrait.)

IF biography is difficult when employed upon subjects that have long since been removed to a sphere where popularity has no charm, and envy cannot sting, the task is far more delicate and embarrassing to delineate characters still moving on the theatre of public observation, and whose labours continue to be the object of general inquiry.

While it is extremely natural to indulge a spirit of curiosity with respect to the private history of eminent persons who are coetaneous to ourselves, the gratification of it requires peculiar caution, lest the narrative, instead of contributing to the ends of truth, prove the means of propagating error.

Contemporary biography has beyond all doubt, many important advantages, because it lays in a supply of materials for the future historian of the progress of literature; and through the want of which, in regard to the ages that are past, the researches of the most perspicacious and industrious inquirer are so often spent in vain. Had proper attention been paid to the several leading incidents in the life of Shakspeare, by those who were most intimately acquainted with his personal history, and that of his family, much useless conjecture on his religion and his learning, would have been spared, and the labours of his numerous commentators have been considerably abridged.

But however valuable a living record may be, it can only be so by a scrupulous regard to the verity of facts and the accuracy of dates. Criticism must be left to the test of time, and the sober judgment of posterity. Such is the principle by which we profess to be guided in sketching the memoirs of existing characters, for the gratification of our present readers, and the benefit of future inquirers. It will, therefore, be our care to study precision, rather than diffuseness, and to relate a plain story with the simplicity of honest chroniclers," that they who shall hereafter seek information on matters of fact may not be ashamed to cite the authority of our volumes for what they relate.

[ocr errors]

Thus much we have thought proper to observe by way of apology for a memoir, the length of which may appear in the estimation of many very disproportionate to the importance of the

[ocr errors]

subject, without considering that living excellence seldom furnishes the means of minute detail.

Walter Scott is the eldest surviving son of a gentleman of both the same names, who was an eminent advocate, or writer to the signet at Edinburgh, where the subject of this sketch was born, August 15, 1771. His mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Scott, was the daughter of David Rutherford, esq. writer to the signet, from whom she obtained a handsome fortune. She was a woman of great virtue and accomplishments, with a good taste for poetry, as appeared in some of her productions which were deemed worthy of being printed after her death in 1789. Walter, from the tenderness of his constitution and the circumstance of his lameness, was in a great measure brought up at home, under the immediate care and instruction of this excellent parent, to whom he was much attached through life, and whose loss he sincerely lamented. Of his early pursuits little is known, except that he evinced a genius for drawing landscapes after nature. At a proper age he was sent to the High School of Edinburgh, then under the direction of Dr. Alexauder Adam, a man of more compass of learning than correctness of judgment, who endeavoured to introduce a new grammar into his seminary in the room of Ruddiman's, but had the mortification to find it rejected by the heads of the University. In this school young Scots passed through the different forms, withcut exhibiting any of those extraordinary powers of genius which are seldom remembered till the person to whom they are ascribed has become by the maturity of his talents an object of distinction. We have heard it said, that he was considered in his boyhood as rather heavy than otherwise, and that the late Dr. Hugh Blair had discernment enough to predict his future eminence when the master of the school lamented his dullness; but if this be correct, it only affords another instance of the fallacy of human opinion in pronouncing judgment upon the real capacity of the youthful understanding. BARROW, the greatest scholar of his age, was discarded as a blockhead by successive teachers; and his pupil, the illustrious NEWTON, was declared to be fit for nothing but to

356

Memoir of Walter Scott, Esq.

drive the team, till some friend suc ceeded in getting him transplanted to College.

Having completed his classical studies at the High School, with as much reputation we suppose as others of his standing, Walter Scott removed to the University of Edinburgh, where also he passed the classes in a similar manner. His continuance here, however, could not have been long, for after serving the prescribed terms in the office of a writer to the signet, he was admitted an advocate of the Scotch bar when he had not quite attained the age of twentyone. From this time to the year 1798, his life appears to have passed in a devoted attention to his professional duties, mindful of the advice "not to pen stanzas when he should engross." At the last mentioned date he entered into the matrimonial state with Miss Carpenter, by whom he has four children. At the close of the year following, he received the appointment of Sheriff Depute of the county of Selkirk; and in March, 1806, he was named one of the principal clerks of Session in Scotland. With regard to this last piece of preferment, it should be observed that his warrant, though drawn, had not passed the seals, when the death of Mr. Pitt produced an entire change in the ministry. The appointment of Mr. Scott had been effected through the friendship of Lord Melville, who was then actually under impeachment. This circumstance appeared very ominous against the confirmation of the grant; but so it was, that no objection arose, and, thus as a witty friend remarked, this appointment was the "last Lay of the old ministry."

Released now from the drudgery of professional labour by the acquisition of two lucrative situations, and the possession of a handsome estate through the death of his father, and that of an uncle, Mr. Scott was enabled to court the muses at his pleasure, and to indulge in a variety of literary pursuits without interruption. His first publications were translations from the German language, at a time when the wildest productions of that country were much inquired after in England, owing to the recent appearance of that horrible story the Lenora of Burger. The very year when different versions, and some of them highly ornamented, of that tale came out, Mr. Scott produced two Geranan ballads in an English dress, entitled The Chace' and "William and Helen."

86

[Nov. 1,

These little pieces, however, were not originally intended for the press, being nothing more than exercises in the way of amusement, till a friend to whom they were shewn prevailed for their publication, and at the same time contributed the preface. Three years elapsed before Mr. Scott ventured to appear again in print, when he produced another translation from the German, in "Goetz of Berlinchingen," a tragedy by Goethe. Two years afterwards the late Matthew Gregory (commonly called Monk) Lewis, enriched his tales of wonder, with two ballads communicated to him by our author, one entitled, "The Eve of St. John," and the other "Glenfinlas."

In 1802, came out his first great work, "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," beautifully printed at Kelso, by Ballantyne. This collection immediately arrested general attention, and though the pieces of which it is composed are very unequal, the master-mind and soaring genius of the poet shone conspicuously throughout.

His next publication was "Sir Tristram, a metrical romance of the thirteenth century; by Thomas of Ercildown;" printed in 1804. Still, however, Mr. Scott may be said as yet to have been only rising in fame; but he soon gained enough to have intoxicated an ordinary mind in the applause bestowed upon his "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which appeared in quarto, in 1805. The following year he published a collection of "Ballads and Lyrical Pieces." Shortly after this, public expectation was raised by the promise of a poem, on the perfection of which the bard was said to labour as for immortality. Accordingly in 1808, appeared "Marmion, a tale of Flodden-field;" which the author has himself characterized as " containing the best and the worst poetry he has ever written."

The same year Mr. Scott favoured the world with a complete edition of the works of Dryden, in which he gave a new life of that great writer, and numerous notes. But this was not the only instance of the fecundity of his genius and the rapidity of his pen; for while these volumes were proceeding through the press, he found time also for a quarto of Descriptions and Illustrations of the Lay of the Last Minstrel.”

65

Within a few months after this, he undertook, at the request of the booksellers, the superintendence of a new

« AnteriorContinuar »