than "The Gray
Brother,"--none has been more spoiled in its progress by the
introduction of minute description. We pass from the high altar of Saint
Peter to the bank of the Eske, and there we are regaled with a catalogue
of the modern seats and villas, utterly out of place and inconsistent
with the solemn nature of the theme. But "The Gray Brother" is a mere
fragment which Scott never would complete--owing, perhaps, to a secret
consciousness, that he had already marred the unity of the poem by
sketching in a modern landscape behind his antique figures. Give him,
however, a martial subject--let his eye but once kindle, and his cheek
flush at the call of the trumpet, and we defy you to find his equal.
Read--O ye poetasters who are now hammering at Crecy--read the "Bonnets
of Dundee," and then, if you have a spark of candour left, you will
shove your foolscap into the fire. Or tell us if you really flatter
yourselves that, were your lives prolonged to the perpetuity of the
venerable Parr, you ever would produce ten stanzas worthy of being
printed in the same volume with these:--

"The Coronach's cried on Bennachie,
And down the Don and a',
And Hieland and Lawland may mournfu' be,
For the sair field of Harlaw.

They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,
They hae saddled a hundred black,
With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
And a good knight upon his back.

They hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
A mile, but barely ten,
When Donald came branking down the brae,
Wi' twenty thousand men.

Their tartans they were waving wide,
Their glaives were glancing clear,
The pibrochs rung frae side to side,
Would deafen you to hear.

The great Earl in his stirrups stood,
That Highland host to see;
'Now here a knight that's stout and good,
May prove a jeopardie.

'What would ye do, my squire so gay,
That rides beside my rein,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl this day,
And I were Roland Cheyne?

'To turn the rein were sin and shame,
To fright were wondrous peril:
What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'

'Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide,
And ye were Roland Cheyne,
The spear should be in my horse's side,
The bridle upon his mane.

'If they hae twenty thousand blades,
And we twice ten times ten,
Yet they hae but their tartan plaid