Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart..Robert Cadell, Edinburgh. John Murray and Whittaker and Company, London., 1837 |
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admiration alluded amusement ancient appeared Ashestiel ballad Ballantyne beautiful believe booksellers brother Buccleuch Canto Castle CHAP character circumstances connexion considered Constable copy course Court of Session criticism Dalkeith dear delighted doubt Dryden Duke Edinburgh Annual Edinburgh Review edition English favour feelings fortune genius George Ellis give hand Highland honour hope Inchkenneth interest James James Ballantyne James Hogg Jeffrey Joanna Baillie John John Ballantyne kind labours Lady least letter literary London Lord Byron Lord Melville Lordship Marmion ment mind Miss Morritt never occasion opinion party perhaps pleasure poem poet poetical poetry political published reader respect Rokeby Rokeby Park romance scene Scotch Scotland Selkirkshire Siddons soon Southey spirit Staffa story success suppose talents taste thing thought tion Tweed verses WALTER SCOTT Whig whole wish write written young
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Page 313 - Where, as to shame the temples deck'd By skill of earthly architect, Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise A Minster to her Maker's praise ! Not for a meaner use ascend Her columns, or her arches bend ; Nor of a theme less solemn tells That mighty surge that ebbs and swells And still, between each awful pause, From the high vault an answer draws, In varied tone prolong'd and high, That mocks the organ's melody.
Page 81 - ... of men or of individuals. That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this, — that there is not a single image from nature in the whole body of his works ; and in his translation from Virgil, wherever Virgil can be fairly said to have his eye upon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage.
Page 294 - He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.
Page 308 - tis a grand poem — and so true! — true as the 10th of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things — time — language — the earth — the bounds of the sea — the stars of the sky, and every thing * about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself, who has always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal.
Page 154 - For talents mourn, untimely lost, When best employ'd, and wanted most; Mourn genius high, and lore profound, And wit that loved to play, not wound; And all the reasoning powers divine To penetrate, resolve, combine; And feelings keen, and fancy's glow — They sleep with him who sleeps below...
Page 374 - Dutch settlement, was not, as might have been expected, in the best order; the apartment had not been regularly ventilated, and, either from this circumstance, or already affected by the fatal sickness peculiar to Batavia, Leyden, when he left the place, had a fit of shivering, and declared the atmosphere was enough to give any mortal a fever. The presage was too just; he took his bed, and died in three days, on the eve of the battle which gave Java to the British empire.
Page 297 - ... a greater proportion of pleasing and tender passages, with much less antiquarian detail ; and, upon the whole, a larger variety of characters, more artfully and judiciously contrasted. There is nothing so fine, perhaps, as the battle in Marmion — or...
Page 401 - Sir, — I have just been honoured with your letter. I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the evil works of my nonage, as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The satire was written when I was very young and very...
Page 251 - Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, The gibbet or the field prepared to grace ; A mighty mixture of the great and base.
Page 167 - ... of minute finishing, narrow laws, and prejudiced authorities, must have had a powerful effect in nerving Scott's hope and resolution for the wide ocean of literary enterprise into which he had now fairly launched his bark. Like Dryden, he felt himself to be " amply stored with acquired knowledge, much of it the fruits of early reading and application "; anticipated that though, "while engaged in the hurry of composition, or overcome by the lassitude of continued literary labour...