7. So serious should my youth appear among So would I seem amid the young and gay That in my age as cheerful I might be THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. I. It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, And by him sported on the green 2. She saw her brother Peterkin In playing there had found; He came to ask what he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round. 3. Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by; And then the old man shook his head, And with a natural sigh, "Tis some poor fellow's skull,' said he, 4. 'I find them in the garden, For there's many here about; The ploughshare turns them out! 5 'Now tell us what it was all about,' And what they fought each other for.' 6. 'It was the English,' Kaspar cried, 7. 'My father lived at Blenheim then, Yon little stream hard by; They burnt his dwelling to the ground, So with his wife and child he fled, 8. 'With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide, And many a childing mother then, And new-born baby died; But things like that, you know, must be At every famous victory. 9. 'They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won; For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must be After a famous victory. IO. 'Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, And our good Prince Eugene.' 'Why 't was a very wicked thing!' Said little Wilhelmine. 'Nay. . nay. . my little girl,' quoth he. 'It was a famous victory. II. 'And everybody praised the Duke 'Why that I cannot tell,' said he, STANZAS WRITTEN IN HIS LIBRARY. I. My days among the Dead are past; Where'er these casual eyes are cast, My never failing friends are they, 2. With them I take delight in weal, And while I understand and feel My cheeks have often been bedew'd 3. My thoughts are with the Dead, with them Their virtues love, their faults condemn, And from their lessons seek and find 4. My hopes are with the Dead, anon Yet leaving here a name, I trust, [WALTER SCOTT, the son of a Writer to the Signet, was born in Edinburgh on August 15, 1771, and was educated at the High School and the College. In 1792 he became an advocate, but soon began to occupy himself seriously with literature, publishing in 1799 a translation of Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen, and in 1802 his Border Minstrelsy. As Sheriff of Selkirkshire he went in 1804 to live at Ashestiel on the banks of the Tweed, and there produced The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805; Marmion, 1808; The Lady of the Lake, 1810; Don Roderick, 1811; Triermain and Rokeby, 1813. At his new house at Abbotsford he wrote The Lord of the Isles, 1815; and Harold the Dauntless, 1817. Before these last two were published Waverley appeared, and henceforth Scott wrote no more poetry, save a few short lyrics, ending with his Farewell to the Muse, 1822. He was made a baronet in 1820, but in 1826 commercial disaster came upon him, and his last years were a time of struggle and overwork. He died at Abbotsford, September 21, 1832.] Walter Scott ranks in imaginative power hardly below any writer save Homer and Shakespeare. His best works are his novels; but he holds a high place as a poet in virtue of his metrical romances and of his lyrical pieces and ballads. He was the first great British writer of the Romantic school, and the first who turned the thoughts and hearts of his countrymen towards the Middle Ages. The author of The Castle of Otranto and the builder of Strawberry Hill was his feeble precursor: Bishop Percy with his Reliques had lighted the way: Ellis with his Specimens of Early English Poems and Romances ministered to the same taste. In Germany the Romantic school prevailed at the same time over the Classical. There is in the poetry of Coleridge an element derived from that school; and Scott's earliest works were translations from the German ballads of Bürger and of a romantic tragedy by Goethe, though the rill of foreign influence was soon lost in a river which flowed from a more abundant spring. |