Canto II.

— 6—

in the Highlands. The sword of Ellen's father, which even Fitz-James is unable to wield, serves to remind us of the enormous strength of those formidable warriors and to prepare us at the same time for meeting its owner in the second Canto. Fitz-James's beautifully described dream(st. 33.) is a natural consequence of the excitement and various events of the day.

The next morning, when the visitor leaves the island at the break of day, Ellen is much pleased with his attention towards her but too modest to show it in his presence. She dare not make him a parting sign before he has almost faded from her view.— We are rather displeased at noticing the deep impression the stranger has made upon her, but are immediately reconciled, when we see how severely she chides herself for it. She accuses herself of vainness and selfishness; she reproaches herself for having looked with so much interest upon any man but her Malcolm, to whom all the affection of her heart belongs. We see, the poet wisely has not painted his heroine as a supernaturally moral being without any mixture of wrong. Notwithstanding her goodness and faithfulness she partakes of human imperfections. Wrong feelings will sometimes rise in the purest heart; bad thoughts will come into the noblest mind, but they cannot take hold of it; and so it is with Ellen. She repulses them as soon as they rise, because they are incompatible with her noble nature.

In the following stanzas Ellen shows a great ripeness of judgment and a comparatively great indepedence of superstition, whereas the minstrel is represented as a rather foolish old man. He pretends to be unable to play a merry tune on his harp because some supernatural power makes it play a mournful melody, which, says he, forebôdes woe. She objects with superior discernment that, as he knows such a great many melodies by heart, some of them will naturally sometimes come so impressively to his memory that he imagines to hear them played.— As to the minstrel's apprehensions of new woe to the Douglases, she declares her father and herself to be out of the reach of fortune's frowns and on that occassion makes two really sublime comparisons. Her dearly beloved father she compares with an oak and his lost"lordship, lands and state“ with its leaves. As the powerful stem of the oak continues its vigorous life though it be stripped of its leaves, so Douglas continues to be happy as long as he enjoys liberty, though stripped of the above advantages.— For herself she draws a more modest, yet, in its delicacy and simplicity, a still more beautiful comparison from nature. Having picked a blue hare-bell from the ground she continues thus:—

„This little flower, that loves the lea- It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose

May well my simple emblem be; That in the king's own garden grows.“(st. 9.) Nothing can be nobler than these thoughts; nothing more beautiful than the harmonious words by which they are expressed. The foolish old man, instead of simply approving of such superior sentiments, laments and presents to her imagination a picture of the lost grandeur of her house(st. 10.). But Ellen's resignation is not easily shaken. The following lines show that her firm philosophy is stronger than his tactless temptation:—

„Fair dreams are those..... 1 Yet is this mossy rock to me

Worth splendid chair and canopy.“(st. 11.) Riches, rank, and their much desired pleasures are gone, but fair Ellen knows a world of still greater and in reality purer enjoyments. The mountains, the lake, the forest, the flower, nay all nature is to her a source of sublime joy. She combines the simplicity of an innocent child with the practical philosophy of a sage.

The subsequent conversation about the addresses Sir Roderick, a friend of her father's, pays to Ellen in spite of Malcolm, gives quite unintentionally an energetic portrait of that fierce chieftain. The minstrel's apprehensions that the stranger(viz. F.-James) may have been some"courtly spy,“ and that Roderick's jealousy of Malcolm may lead to troubles, fill us at once with interest and apprehension for the future.

In a most exquisite and energetic description of the approach of four boats(st. 16. 17.) Roderick is introduced. There first appear four specks in the horizon on the lake, but gradually we distinguish Roderick's banner floating at the masts of four barges, manned and armed with spears and axes; the regular cadence of the oars, and a martial boat- song next are heard, and at length the chieftain himself appears. Ellen reluctantly bids him weleome but is rescued from this awkward situation by the sound of her father's