Sudden his guide whooped loud and high-
• Murdoch! was that a signal cry?'
He stammer'd forth, I shout to scare
Yon raven from his dainty fare.'

He looked-he knew the raven's prey,
His own brave steed:- Ah gallant grey!
For thee-for me perchance-'twere well
We ne'er had seen the Trosach's dell.-
Murdoch move first-but silently;
Whistle or whoop, and thou shalt die.'"

Lady of the Lake, Canto IV. St. 20.

Or again, by similar correspondence with the costume and habits of the period, or of the individual concerned. As in these examples:

'Julian Avenel, enraged at the firmness of this reply, flung from his right hand the cup in which he was about 'to drink to his guest, and from the other cast off the hawk, 'which flew wildly through the apartment. His first mo❝tion was to lay hand upon his dagger. But changing his ' resolution, he exclaimed, 'To the dungeon with this inso'lent stroller!-I will hear no man speak a word for him— 'Look to the falcon, Christie, thou fool-an she escape, I 'will dispatch you after her every man-Away with that hypocritical dreamer! drag him hence if he resist.'

'He was obeyed in both points-Christie of the Clint' hill arrested the hawk's flight, by putting his foot on her 'jesses, and so holding her fast, while Henry Warden was 'led off.'-Monastery, vol. ii. ch. 11.

"In vain! no torrent, deep or broad,
Might bar the bold moss-trooper's road.

R

At the first plunge the horse sunk low,
And the water broke o'er the saddle-bow;
Above the foaming tide, I ween,

Scarce half the charger's neck was seen;
For he was barded from counter to tail,

And the rider was armed complete in mail.”

Lay of the last Minstrel, Canto I. St. 28, 9.

"Here's my brother's son, Dick Grahame'-' he shall 'take a flag of truce and a trumpet, and ride down to the edge of the morass to summon them to lay down their 'arms and disperse.'

"With all my soul, Colonel,' answered the cornet, and 'I'll tie my cravat on a pike to serve for a white flag'the rascals never saw such a pennon of Flanders lace in 'their lives before."-Tales of my Landlord, 1st Series, vol. iii. ch. 2.

In pointing out the faculty which these authors exert, of comprehending at once, in the mind's eye, both the general effect of a scene, and the mutual bearing of its several parts, I should have added, but for interrupting the course of observation, that they possess, in subserviency to this talent, the power of embracing with the same masterly and accurate coup-d'œil, all the external appearances that characterize individual persons. Their scrupulous particularity in the description of physiognomy,demeanour, form, and even dress, often imparts to their stories the air of real memoirs. Where, indeed, the fable treats of personages who have actually existed, such minuteness is not surprising, because we then conclude that the details are copied from some picture, monument, or written record; but it is a distinguishing mark of strong and

original fancy to bestow on an imaginary character, not merely the general cast of countenance and figure which we are accustomed to associate with certain qualities and habits, and the outline of a suitable costume, but also such peculiarities, both of aspect and of external ornament, as oblige us to imagine that we see the copy of an individual, not the abstract of a class.

Any writer, attentive to minute points of tradition, might have represented John Balfour, or the Marquis of Argyle with an oblique cast of vision*; but the scar on BoisGuilbert's stern brow, which had communicated "a sinister expression," and a slight appearance of distortion to one of his eyes †, is the stroke by which an accomplished artist gives his fancy-piece the air of a portrait.

I have, several times, I believe, applied to our novelist and poet expressions drawn from the art of painting. These suggest themselves the more naturally, as the attachment of both to that fascinating study is so strongly evinced, not only by the picturesque character of their descriptions, but by their frequent incidental notice of the most renowned masters. I am not sure that, in some instances, they do not themselves become the worse poets by being too good painters. Occasionally, at least, their descriptions are so conceived as to remind us more of a picture than of a natural scene; not from any want of poetic beauty or propriety in the several images, but from the pictorial taste with which they are selected and combined. Let me offer, as a specimen, the following compositions:

* Old Mortality, ch. iv-Legend of Montrose, last vol. ch. iv. + Ivanhoe, ch. ii.

6

On his course obliquely shone
The narrow valley of Saint John,
Down sloping to the western sky,
Where lingering sun-beams love to lie.
Right glad to feel those beams again,
The king drew up his charger's rein;
With gauntlet raised he screen'd his sight,
As dazzled with the level light,

And from beneath his glove of mail,
Scann'd at his ease the lovely vale,
While, 'gainst the sun his armour bright,
Gleam'd ruddy like the beacon's light."

Bridal of Triermain, Canto I. St. 12.

'Evening again found him,' (the Black Dwarf), 'seated on his favourite stone. The sun setting red, and among seas of rolling clouds, threw a gloomy lustre over the moor, and gave a deeper purple to the broad outline ' of heathy mountains which surrounded this desolate 'spot. The dwarf sat watching the clouds as they lowered ' above each other in masses of conglomerated vapours, and, as a strong lurid beam of the sinking luminary darted 'full on his solitary and uncouth figure, he might well have 'seemed the demon of the storm which was gathering, or 6 some gnome summoned forth from the recesses of the 'earth, by the subterranean signals of its approach. As 'he sate thus, with his eye turned toward the scowling and blackening heaven, a horseman rode rapidly towards him, and stopping, as if to let his horse breathe for an in'stant, made a sort of obeisance to the anchoret, with an ' air betwixt effrontery and embarrassment.-' He wore a 'rusted steel head-piece, a buff jacket of rather an antique 'cast, gloves, of which that for the right hand was covered

'with small scales of iron, like an ancient gauntlet; and a long broad-sword completed his equipage.'-Black Dwarf, Ch. 6.

"And well that Palmer's form and mien

Had suited with the stormy scene,

Just on the edge, straining his ken,
To view the bottom of the den,

Where, deep, deep down, and far within,
Toils with the rocks the roaring linn,"

Marmion, Introduction to Canto II.

If these descriptions have an appearance of being borrowed from the painters, there are many, on the other hand, which seem to have been thrown out as a challenge to that profession. Such for instance is the reception of Waverley by Flora Mc Ivor, at the cascade, her handmaid attending with the harp, and the whole scene being enriched by the beams of a setting sun*. Such, too, is the group of Ellen Douglas, watching Fitz-James's departure, with Allan-bane, reclined against the blighted tree, by her side +. Another, in some respects very similar, is that of Miss Wardour conversing from a window, with Edie Ochiltree, who is basking on the bench in the court-yard ‡. And I think I need not call to your remembrance the pathetic meeting between David Deans and his daughter, at Roseneath; which the novelist expresses so earnest a wish to see sketched by his 'friends Wilkie or Allan §.'

From this pictorial turn of a mind habitually disposed

* Waverley, vol. i. ch. 22.

† Lady of the Lake, Canto ii. St. 4, 5.
‡ Antiquary, vol. i. ch. 12.

§ Heart of Mid Lothian, vol. iv. ch. 5.