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to give us a full view of the valley, and we could observe that the summit of many of the little knolls at a distance, even those beyond the Tweed, were covered with small clusters of rustic gazers, all intent upon a spectacle equally calculated to move persons of every rank and description; and every now and then we found a little knot of spectators assembled by the wayside, whose motionless countenances, and unbroken silence, sufficiently testified the nature of their feelings.

As we approached the neat little village of Darnick, our attention was forcibly arrested by a very striking token of wo. On the top of an ancient tower, one of those, we believe, which Sir Walter has rendered classical, was placed a flagstaff, from which depended a broad black banner of crape, or some other light material. There was not a breath of air to stir the film of a gossamer, so that light as the material seemed to be, it hung heavy and motionless; a sad and simple emblem, that eloquently spoke the general village sorrow. This we found more particularly expressed in detail, as we passed through the little place, by the many minuter insignia of mourning which the individual inhabitants had put on the fronts of their houses and shops; by the suspension of all business; and by the respectful manner in which the young and the old, and people of both sexes, stood silently and reverently before their respective dwellings, wrapt in that all-absorbing sorrow which told how deeply he that was gone had rooted himself in their affections. When the hearse drew near to his own Melrose, the bell tolled sadly from the steeple of the church, and as we entered the street, we saw that here as well as elsewhere, the inhabitants had vied with each other in unaf.. fected and unpretending demonstrations of their individual affliction. In the little market-place, we found the whole male population assembled, all decently dressed in deep mourning, drawn up in two lines, and standing with their hats off, silent and motionless. Grief was deeply impressed upon every honest countenance; but we thought we could observe some, who, from the greater intensity of their feelings, might have had some private cause to claim a title to a greater poignancy of regret. It is easy to notice this little circumstance which occurred in Melrose, but no one who did not witness it can fully appreciate the overwhelming effect it produced on those who were present. For ourselves, we must freely confess, that our manhood was completely overthrown by it; and we do not envy the iron nerves of those, who, forming part of such a procession, could have passed unmoved between those two lines of decent, and decorous, and heart-stricken mourners. We looked with extreme interest towards the Abbey. It seemed in our eyes, that in common with all animated nature, it had been endowed on this occasion with a soul and with intelligence to hail the melancholy pageant which wound away from it, and to grieve that its holy soil was to be denied the sad honour of receiving the ashes of its poet. A mild light streamed over the Eildon hills, and fell softly on the ruined pile. We might have fancied that his spirit was hovering over this his own dearest spot, and smiling a last farewell to it.

The effect of the procession when crossing the Fly Bridge over the Tweed, and still more when winding around that high and long sweep of the road which is immediately opposite to the promontory of Old Melrose, was extremely striking and picturesque; and the view looking back from the high ground towards the Eildon hills and Melrose, over the varied vale of the Tweed, till the eye was arrested by the distant mountains, then seen under a rich Claude effect; and the devious course

of the river, betrayed by fragments of water that sparkled here and there amid the yellow stubbles and green pastures, was exquisitely beautiful. But nothing gave so much interest to this glorious scene as the far-off woods of Abbotsford, then dimmed by the warm haze, and melting, as it were, from their reality, and so reminding us even yet more forcibly of the fleeting nature of all the things of this perishable world. Having descended from our elevation, we entered the grounds of Dryburgh. These occupy a comparatively level space, embraced by a bold sweep of the Tweed, where the house of Dryburgh, and the picturesque ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, standing about two hundred yards distant from it, are surrounded by groups of noble trees of all sorts, rare as well as common; and among them the cedar is seen to throw out his gigantic limbs with that freedom and vigour which could only be looked for on his native Lebanon. The hearse drew up close to the house of Dryburgh; and the company, having quitted their carriages, pressed eagerly towards it. Not one word was spoken; but, as if all had been under the influence of some simultaneous instinct, they decently and decorously formed themselves into two lines. The servants of the deceased, resolved that no hireling should lay hands on the coffin of their master, approached the hearse. Amongst these, the figure of the old coachman who had driven Sir Walter for so many years, was peculiarly remarkable, reverentially bending to receive the coffin. No sooner did that black casket appear, which contained all that now remains of the most precious of Scotia's jewels, than with downcast eyes, and with countenances expressive of the deepest veneration, every individual present took off his hat. A moment's delay took place whilst the faithful and attached servants were preparing to bear the body, and whilst the relatives were arranging themselves around it in the following order:

Head.

Major Sir WALTER SCOTT, eldest Son of the Deceased.

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WILLIAM KEITH, Esq. of Edinburgh.

When all were in their places, the bearers moved slowly forward, preceded by two mutes in long cloaks, carrying poles covered with crape; and no sooner had the coffin passed through the double line formed by the company, than the whole broke up, and followed in a thick press. At the head was the Rev. J. Williams, Rector of the Edinburgh Academy, dressed in his canonicals as a clergyman of the Church of England; and on his left hand walked Mr. Cadell, the well-known publisher of the Waverley Works. There was a solemnity as well as a simplicity

in the whole of this spectacle which we never witnessed on any former occasion. The long-robed mutes; the body with its devotedly attached and deeply afflicted supporters and attendants; the clergyman, whose presence indicated the Christian belief and hopes of those assembled ; and the throng of uncovered and reverential mourners, stole along beneath the tall and umbrageous trees with a silence equal to that which is believed to accompany those visionary funerals which have their existence only in the superstitions of our country. The ruined Abbey disclosed itself through the trees; and we approached its western extremity, where a considerable portion of vaulted roof still remains to protect the poet's family place of interment, which opens to the sides in lofty Gothic arches, and is defended by a low rail of enclosure. At one extremity of it, a tall thriving young cypress rears its spiral form. Creeping plants of different kinds, "with ivy never sere," have spread themselves very luxuriantly over every part of the Abbey. These, perhaps, were in many instances the children of art. But, however this may have been, Nature had herself undertaken their education. In this spot especially she seems to have been most industriously busy in twining her richest wreaths around those walls which more immediately form her poet's tomb. Amongst her other decorations, we observed, a plum-tree, which was, perhaps, at one period, a prisoner, chained to the solid masonry, but which having long since been emancipated, now threw out its wild pendant branches, laden with purple fruit, ready to drop, as if emblematical of the ripening and decay of human life.

In such a scene as this, then, it was, that the coffin of Sir Walter Scott was set down on trestles placed outside the iron railing; and here that solemn service, beginning with those words so cheering to the souls of Christians, "I am the resurrection and the life," was solemnly read by Mr. Williams. The manly, soldierlike features of the chief mourner, on whom the eyes of sympathy were most naturally turned, betrayed at intervals the powerful efforts which he made to master his emotions, as well as the inefficiency of his exertions to do so. The other relatives who surrounded the bier were deeply moved; and, amid the crowd of weeping friends, no eye, and no heart, could be discovered that was not altogether occupied in that sad and impressive ceremonial which was so soon to shut from them for ever, him who had been so long the common idol of their admiration, and of their best affections. Here and there, indeed, we might have fancied that we detected some early and longtried friends of him who lay cold before us, who, whilst tears dimmed their eyes, and whilst their lips quivered, were yet partly engaged in mixing up and contrasting the happier scenes of days long gone by, with that which they were now witnessing, until they became lost in dreamy reverie, so that even the movement made when the coffin was carried under the lofty arches of the ruin, and when dust was committed to dust, did not entirely snap the thread of their visions. It was not until the harsh sound of the hammers of the workmen who were employed to rivet those iron bars covering the grave to secure it from vio.. lation, had begun to echo from the vaulted roof, that some of us were called to the full conviction of the fact, that the earth had for ever closed over that form which we were wont to love and reverence; that eye which we had so often seen beaming with benevolence, sparkling with wit, or lighted up with a poet's frenzy; those lips which we had so often seen monopolizing the attention of all listeners, or heard roll

NO. VIII.-VOL. II.

ing out, with nervous accentuation, those powerful verses with which his head was continually teeming; and that brow, the perpetual throne of generous expression, and liberal intelligence. Overwhelmed by the conviction of this afflicting truth, men moved away without parting salutation, singly, slowly, and silently. The day began to stoop down into twilight; and we, too, after giving a last parting survey to the spot where now repose the remains of our Scottish Shakspeare, a spot lovely enough to induce his sainted spirit to haunt and sanctify its shades, hastily tore ourselves away.

DIRGE

TO THE MEMORY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

TONES, as when seas are stirred,

Have thrilled the hearts of men :

A whisper, and a word

Of death, and they who heard
Smile not again!

From land to land it went,

And o'er the nations rushed The piercing call-"Lament ! The Voice is hushed!"

Swift as death's angel rode,

Passed on the cheerless tale: "Twas heard-and eyes o'erflowed; "Twas told-and lips that glowed,

Trembling, grew pale.

Glad faces lost their glee,

Stern voices quivered;
The child beside his father's knee
Looked up and shivered!
Was this some warrior's knoll?
Some empire's purple lord's?
No! 'twas a mighty soul,
Whose sceptre was a scroll

Of deathless words!
The world of thought and song,

The glorious shades of yore-
He ruled a gorgeous throng,
And rules-no more!

Each age, and kind, and mood,
His spirit realm embraced;
King, peasant, learned, or rude,
The city's toiling brood,

The lonely waste,

O'er all of human birth,

His veil of magic cast:

Of that bright glamour, Earth
Hath seen the last!

Within yon castle-halls

His hounds are whimpering low :
By the dim cloister's walls,
Dim figures, wreathed in palls,

Float to and fro.

From the hill's waving bloom
Flit mourners airy;

And midst the woodland gloom,
Wail elf and fairy.

From lake and battle-plain,

Grey minster, dell, and wold,
The spirits of his reign
Attend his funeral train,

All mute and cold:
While viewless things, that rise
On cloud or tempest-surge,
Sing for his obsequies

A faint low dirge.

Late summer's golden eves

A hope and welcome gave;
Now autumn, with red leaves,
Ere winter comes and grieves,
Bestrews his grave.

Fade, waving forests, fade!

In vain your branches play;
For he who loved their shade
Is borne away!

Mourn we departed might?

Mourn we a star gone dim?
For those to whom his light
Gave joy, and power, and sight,
Mourn :
: not for him!
Constant, and warm as love,

While here, his gold lamp shone;
Now, to bright heavens above,

The star is gone.

All that Earth's pride and praise

Could yield, the Minstrel knew;
Crowned with far-shining rays,
Honoured, and great of days,
Homeward he drew;
Still from his gifted lips

Bright flowed the stream,
Till came the pale eclipse
Across life's dream.

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"NEEDS must whom the devil drives." Those who have sold themselves to the anti-social principle, will, like men in the delirium of a fever, grow more frantic as they grow weaker, and exasperate their sufferings, and accelerate their fate, by their own mad struggles. The sugar planters will rush on their fate. The mother country has warned them-has laid upon them the strong but friendly hand of maternal discipline; but they kick against her, and roar and squall with the vehemence of spiteful brats, more loudly at every attempt made to sooth and pacify them. They are like a drunken crew on board a perishing vessel; hiccuping, bawling obscene songs, and blaspheming in the teeth of the howling storm; stopping their fingers in their ears when addressed by the few sober men among them; hugging the anchors and swearing, "G-d b-t them! we will sink together in spite of these canting water-drinkers!" Their doom has been fixed by their own insane acts it is now too late to save them. They have refused to withdraw their sacrilegious gripe from the throats of their fellow beings, whom God has made after his own image, and endowed with reason as well as themselves. They will not even relax a little that infamous system of bondage, abhorrent alike to the divine spirit of Christianity, and the dictates of humanity. They will not themselves take measures to attain what those who object to the instant emancipation of the slaves characterize as the safe and gradual abolition of slavery, as has been done in the new republics of South America; nor will they allow others to do it for them. Witness the persecution of the missionaries in Jamaica!-witness the refusal of the petty tyrants of the Mauritius to allow Mr Jeremie to land! The slaves have now, under God, but one source of aid to look to, and that is their own right hands; and who can blame them, if, in despair of that relief from bondage which they have long expected from the humanity of the British nation, they shall rise, and tell their masters, "We also are men; and we shall be slaves no longer." They have been taunted and goaded to insurrection,-they have been denied the attainment of freedom in a peaceable and equitable manner; and, were their colour white instead of black, where is the Briton who would not say that the slaves owe it to themselves and their children to vindicate their liberty as they best

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