The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? The evening of piled-up clouds is a striking characteristic of the Who has described the fantastic forms of such a sky with the fidelity of Shakspere ? season. Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish : A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion, A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon 't, that nod unto the world, And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen these signs; Eros. Ay, my lord. Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought, As water is in water. Coleridge looks upon "Cloudland" with a happier spirit than that of the fallen Antony. O! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low, And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. This, too, is the season of sea-storms. Our readers will be glad to make acquaintance with one of the most remarkable of our old quaint poets, who describes with a force which can only be the result of actual experience. VOL. III. The south and west winds join'd, and as they blew, Who, when the storm rag`d most, did wake thee then, All offices of death, except to kill. But when I wak'd, I saw that I saw not; I and the sun, which should teach me, had forgot Knew how to hear, there's none knows what to say. Compar'd to these storms, death is but a qualm, Since all forms uniform deformity Doth cover; so that we, except God say Another Fiat, shall have no more day: So violent, yet long these furies be, That though thine absence sterve me, I wish not thee.-DONNE. Clouds and storms pass away, and with them the thick-coming. fancies that are held to be so prevalent in our changeable climate. An old poet has hallowed this sentiment by the feeling of devotion : The misty clouds that fall sometime, And overcast the skies, Are like to troubles of our time, Which do but dim our eyes. So are sad fancies put to flight When God doth guide by grace.-G. GASCOIGNE. 210.-THE SCOTTISH BORDERERS. SCOTT. [THE extract which we give from the most popular author of his time is neither from his poetical nor his prose romances. Those works are in the hands of every reader; and we exclude them from the plan of this selection, for the same reason that we exclude scenes from Shakspere. The following account is from the original introduction to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' and was written in 1802. That work was the first publication of Scott which developed the nature of his tastes and acquirements. It was the germ, at once, of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' and of Waverley.' The life of Scott is not to be told in a brief notice like this. He was born on the 15th of August, 1771; and died on the 21st of September, 1832. His |