Yon evening sky’s empurpled dye
Seems dearer to thy gaze
Than wealth or fame’s enrapt’ring name,
Or beauty’s ’witching blaze.
Go, mingle in the busy throng
That tread th’ imperial mart;
There listen to a sweeter song
Than ever thrill’d thy heart.
The treasures of a thousand lands
Shall pour their wealth before thee;
Friends proffer thee their eager hands
And envious fools adore thee.
Ay—I will seek that busy throng,
And turn, with aching breast,
From scenes of tort’ring care and wrong—
To solitude and rest!
February 21, 1827.
Amicus.
WAVERLEY.
It is a curious, yet well authenticated fact, that the novel of “Waverley”—the first, and perhaps the best, of the prose writing of sir Walter Scott—remained for more than ten years unpublished. So far back as 1805, the late talented Mr. John Ballantyne announced “Waverley” as a work preparing for publication, but the announce excited so little attention, that the design was laid aside for reasons which every reader will guess. In those days of peace and innocence, the spirit of literary speculation had scarcely begun to dawn in Scotland; the public taste ran chiefly on poetry; and even if gifted men had arisen capable of treading in the footsteps of Fielding, but with a name and reputation unestablished, they must have gone to London to find a publisher. The “magician” himself, with all his powers, appears to have been by no means over sanguine as to the ultimate success of a tale, which has made millions laugh, and as many weep; and in autumn he had very nearly delivered a portion of the MSS. to a party of sportsmen who visited him in the country, and were complaining of a perfect famine of wadding.[98]