Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 2A. and C. Black, 1882 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance admire amusement ancient answer appears Ashestiel ballads Ballantyne beautiful believe booksellers Border Border Ballads Buccleuch Cadyow called Castle Charlotte circumstances copy cottage course Dalkeith Dear delighted doubt Dryden Duke of Buccleuch Edinburgh Edinburgh Review edition English Erskine Ettrick Forest favour feelings genius George Ellis give Goetz hand happy Heber Highland honour hope horse interest James Hogg John Leyden kind knight labour Lady Lasswade Last Minstrel letter Lewis Leyden Liddesdale literary London Lord Melville Mabinogion manners Minstrelsy Miss Seward Moorhall never original Ossian perhaps person pleasure poem poet poetical poetry present printed reader regret Ritson romance says scene Scotland Scottish Scottish Border seems Selkirkshire Sir Tristrem specimens story Sunninghill suppose taste tell thing third volume Thomas tion Troop verses Walter Scott whole William William Dundas William Laidlaw wish Wordsworth writes Yarrow
Popular passages
Page 70 - Mackintosh, whether anything could be done to fix Leyden's situation, and what sort of interest would be most likely to succeed, his friends here might unite every exertion in his favour Direct Castle Street, as usual ; my new house being in the same street with my old dwelling.
Page 54 - Scarba's isle, whose tortured shore Still rings to Corrievreken's roar, And lonely Colonsay; — Scenes sung by him who sings no more ! His bright and brief career is o'er, And mute his tuneful strains ; Quench'd is his lamp of varied lore, That loved the light of song to pour ; A distant and a deadly shore Has LEYDEN'S cold remains ! XII.
Page 109 - The poet answers (January 30, 1803) — " The idea of a map pleases me much, but there are two strong objections to its being prefixed to this edition. First, we shall be out in a month, within which time it would be difficult, I apprehend, for Mr Arrowsmith, labouring under the disadvantages which I am about to mention, to complete the map. Secondly, you are to know that I am an utter stranger to geometry, surveying, and all such inflammatory branches of study, as Mrs Malaprop calls them. My education...
Page 166 - ... house did not observe with perfect equanimity the novel usage to which her chintz was exposed. The Shepherd, however, remarked nothing of all this — dined heartily and drank freely, and, by jest, anecdote, and song, afforded plentiful merriment to the more civilized part of the company. As the liquor operated, his familiarity increased and strengthened ; from " Mr. Scott," he advanced to " Sherra," and thence to " Scott," " Walter," and " Wattie," until at supper he fairly convulsed the whole...
Page 206 - In the first week of January 1805, " The Lay" was published ; and its success at once decided that literature should form the main business of Scott's life.
Page 75 - Mightiest of all the beasts of chase, That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The mountain bull comes thundering on. Fierce, on the hunter's quiver'd band, He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow, Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand. And tosses high his mane of snow.
Page 158 - with that frank cordiality which, under whatever circumstances I after; wards met him, always marked his manners ; and, indeed, I found him then in every respect — except, perhaps, that his animal spirits were somewhat higher — precisely the same man that you knew him in later life ; the same lively, entertaining conversation, full of anecdote, and averse from disquisition ; the same unaffected modesty about himself; the same cheerful and benevolent and hopeful views of man and the world.
Page 266 - ... at gallop, streamed at full stretch from his shoulders, and kept flapping in the other's face, who, having more than enough to do in preserving his own equilibrium, could not think of attempting at any time to control the pace of his steed, and had no relief but fuming and pesting at the sacre manteau, in language happily unintelligible to its wearer.
Page 325 - tis no laughing matter; little by little, whatever your wishes may be, you will destroy and undermine, until nothing of what makes Scotland Scotland shall remain.
Page 223 - Chancellor asked me about you and your then situation, and after I had answered him, Mr. Pitt observed, — ' he can't remain as he is,' and desired me to ' look to it.' He then repeated some lines from the Lay describing the old harper's embarrassment when asked to play, and said, — ' This is a sort of thing which I might have expected in painting, but could never have fancied capable of being given in poetry.