A moment snuff’d the tainted gale,
A moment listened to the cry,
That thicken’d as the chase drew nigh;
Then, as the foremost foes appeared,
With one brave bound the copse he clear’d
And, stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.”
And yet some stupid people will ask if Scott was a poet! Even Landseer never painted anything finer or truer to the life than that word-painting of Scott’s. Every one admits that Homer was a poet: well, then, search the Iliad, point out anything better, or anything, entre nous, quite as good, and when you have found it, please let us know, and we promise to reperuse the passage, with every attention and care, in the original of Homer himself, as well as in the translations of Pope, Cowper, and Blackie; and if you are right and we are wrong, we shall not hesitate to confess it, and humbly cry peccavi. Meantime we shall continue steadfast in our belief that Scott is a poet, and not only a poet, but a poet of the highest order; more “Homeric,” too, than any other poet you can name, either of the present or past century; and that Mr. Gladstone has had the good sense and penetration to discover this, and the courage to avow it, is one, and not the least, of many things which make us have a liking for that distinguished statesman and scholar.
A lady, to whom we are indebted for numberless obligations of a like nature, has sent us a copy of an old Gaelic lullaby or baby-song, the composition of which must clearly be referred to the days when cattle-lifting forays and spuilzies of every description were in high fashion and favour with the gentlemen of the north—
“When tooming faulds, or sweeping of a glen,