Lyrical and Miscellaneous Pieces. IN THE ORDER OF THEIR COMPOSITION OR PUBLICATION. Juvenile Lines. FROM VIRGIL. 1782.-ÆTAT. 11. "SCOTT's autobiography tells us that his translations in verse from Horace and Virgil were often approved by Dr. Adams, [Rector of the High School, Edinburgh.] One of these little pieces, written in a weak boyish scrawl, within pencilled marks still visible, had been carefully preserved by his mother; it was found folded up in a cover, inscribed by the old lady "My Walter's first lines, 1782."-LOCKHART, Life of Scott, vol. i., p. 129. In awful ruins Etna thunders nigh, in the shape of an apothecary's blue-buskined wife, &c. &c. These lines, and another short piece On the Setting Sun,' were lately found wrapped up in a cover, inscribed by Dr. Adam, Walter Scott, July 1783."" Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll, On the Setting Sun. 1783. THOSE evening clouds, that setting ray, Their great Creator's praise; To him his homage raise. We often praise the evening clouds, On a Thunder Storm. 1783.-ÆT. 12. The Violet. 1797. "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 IT appears from the Life of Scott, vol. i., p. 333, that much approved of, until a malevolent critic sprung up these lines, first published in the English Minstrelsy was 1 "It must, I think, be allowed that these lines, though of the class to which the poet himself modestly ascribes them, and not to be compared with the efforts of l'ope, still less of Cowley at the same period, show, nevertheless, praiseworthy dexterity for a boy of twelve."-Life of Scott, vol. i., p. 131. 1 "The reader may be interested by comparing with this ballad the author's prose version of part of its legend, as given in one of the last works of his pen. He says, in the Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 1830:- Thomas of Ercildowne, during his retirement, has been supposed, from time to time, to be levying forces to take the field in some crisis of his country's fate. The story has often been told of a daring horse-jockey having sold a black horse to a man of venerable and antique appearance, who appointed the remarkable hillock upon Eildon hills, called the Lucken-hare, as the place where, at twelve o'clock at night, he should receive the price. He came, his money was paid in ancient coin, and he was invited by his customer to view his residence. The trader n horses followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through several long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's feet. All these men,' said the wizard in a whisper, will awaken at the battle of Sheriffmuir.' At the extremity of this extraordinary depot hung a sword and a horn, which the prophet pointed out to the horse-dealer as containing the means of dissolving the spell. The man in confusion took the horn and attempted to wind it. The horses instantly started in their stalls, stamped, and shook their bridles, the men arose and clashed their armour, and the mortal, terrified at the tumult he had excited, dropped the horn from his hand. A voice like that of a giant, louder even than the tumult around, pronounced these words: "Woe to the coward that ever he was born, That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn." A whirlwind expelled the horse-dealer from the cavern, the entrance to which he could never again find. A moral might be perhaps extracted from the legend, namely, that it is better to be armed against danger before bidding it defiance." 2 This celebrated horn is still in the possession of the chief of the Harden family, Lord Polwarth |