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An evil principle innate, Contending with our better fate, And oh! victorious still?

Howe'er it be, dispute is vain.

On all without thou hold'st thy reign,
Nor less on all within;

Each mortal passion's fierce career,
Love, hate, ambition, joy, and fear,
Thou goadest into sin.

Whene'er a sunny gleam appears,
To brighten up our vale of tears,

Thou art not distant far;

"Mid such brief solace of our lives, Thou whett'st our very banquet-knives To tools of death and war.

Thus, from the moment of our birth,
Long as we linger on the earth,

Thou rul'st the fate of men;
Thine are the pangs of life's last hour,
And-who dare answer?-is thy power,
Dark Spirit! ended THEN?

"Therefore thus speaks my lady," the fair page he said,
And the knight lowly louted with hand and with head,
"Fling aside the good armour in which thou art clad,
And don thou this weed of her night-gear instead,
For a hauberk of steel, a kirtle of thread:
And charge, thus attired, in the tournament dread,
And fight as thy wont is where most blood is shed,
And bring honour away, or remain with the dead."

Untroubled in his look, and untroubled in his breast, The knight the weed hath taken, and reverently hath kiss'd:

"Now bless'd be the moment, the messenger be blest! Much honour'd do I hold me in my lady's high behest; And say unto my lady, in this dear night-weed dress'd, To the best arm'd champion I will not veil my crest; But if I live and bear me well 'tis her turn to take the test."

Here, gentles, ends the foremost fytte of the Lay of the Bloody Vest.

THE BLOODY VEST.

Chap. iii.

FYTTE SECOND.

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He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit,

He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit;

Through life's utmost peril the prize I have won,
And now must the faith of my mistress be shown:
For she who prompts knights on such danger to run,
Must avouch his true service in front of the sun.

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"I restore,' says my master, the garment I've worn, And I claim of the Princess to don it in turn;

For its stains and its rents she should prize it the more,

Since by shame 'tis unsullied, though crimson'd with gore."

Then deep blush'd the Princess-yet kiss'd she and press'd

The blood-spotted robes to her lips and her breast. "Go tell my true knight, church and chamber shall show,

If I value the blood on this garment or no."

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(2.)-CHAP. XI.

One thing is certain in our Northern land,
Allow that birth, or valour, wealth, or wit,
Give each precedence to their possessor,
Envy, that follows on such eminence,
As comes the lyme-hound on the roebuck's trace,
Shall pull them down each one.
Sir David Lindsay.

(3.)-CHAP. XIII.

You talk of Gaiety and Innocence! The moment when the fatal fruit was eaten, They parted ne'er to meet again; and Malice Has ever since been playmate to light Gaiety, From the first moment when the smiling infant Destroys the flower or butterfly he toys with, To the last chuckle of the dying miser, Who on his deathbed laughs his last to hear His wealthy neighbour has become a bankrupt.

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COME forth, old man-Thy daughter's side

Is now the fitting place for thee:

When Time hath quell'd the oak's bold pride,
The youthful tendril yet may hide
The ruins of the parent tree.

WHILE Scott was engaged in writing the Life of Napoleon, Mr. Lockhart says, "The rapid accumulation of books and MSS. was at once flattering and alarming; and one of his notes to me, about the mid-Now, ye wild blades, that make loose inns your stage,

dle of June, had these rhymes by way of postscript :

When with Poetry dealing

Room enough in a shieling:
Neither cabin nor hovel
Too small for a novel :

Though my back I should rub

On Diogenes' tub,

How my fancy could prance

In a dance of romance!

But my house I must swap

With some Brobdignag chap,

:

(2.)-CHAP. III.

To vapour forth the acts of this sad age,

Stout Edgehill fight, the Newberries and the West,
And northern clashes, where you still fought best;
Your strange escapes, your dangers void of fear,
When bullets flew between the head and ear,
Whether you fought by Damme or the Spirit,
Of you I speak.

Legend of Captain Jones.

(3.)-CHAP. IV.

Yon path of greensward

Winds round by sparry grot and gay pavilion;

Ere I grapple, God bless me! with Emperor There is no flint to gall thy tender foot,

Nap."

Life, vol. vii. p. 391.

There's ready shelter from each breeze, or shower.-
But Duty guides not that way-see her stand,

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Lines to Sir Cuthbert Sharp.

1827.

"SIR CUTHBERT SHARP, who had been particularly kind and attentive to Scott when at Sunderland, happened, in writing to him on some matter of business, to say he hoped he had not forgotten his friends in that quarter. Sir Walter's answer to Sir Cuthbert (who had been introduced to him by his old and dear friend Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth) begins thus:

FORGET thee? No! my worthy fere!
Forget blithe mirth and gallant cheer!
Death sooner stretch me on my bier!
Forget thee? No.

Forget the universal shout1
When "canny Sunderland" spoke out-
A truth which knaves affect to doubt-
Forget thee? No.

Forget you? No-though now-a-day
I've heard your knowing people sav,
Disown the debt you cannot pay,
You'll find it far the thriftiest way-
But I-O no.

Forget your kindness found for all room,
In what, though large, seem'd still a small room,
Forget my Surtees in a ball-room-

Forget you? No.

Forget your sprightly dumpty-diddles, And beauty tripping to the fiddles, Forget my lovely friends the Liddells—

Forget you? No.

"So much for oblivion, my dear Sir C.; and now, having dismounted from my Pegasus, who is rather spavined, charge a-foot, like an old dragoon as 1 am," &c. &c.—Life of Scott, vol. ix., p. 165.

From

Chronicles of the Canongate.

1827.

MOTTOES.

(1.) THE TWO DROVERS. CHAP. II.

WERE ever such two loving friends!-How could they disagree?

1 An allusion to the enthusiastic reception of the Duke of Wellington at Sunderland.-ED.

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