across the hills from Ashestiel to Newark one day in his declining years: 'Oh, man, I had many a grand gallop among these braes when I was thinking of Marmion, but a trotting canny pony must serve me now.' His friend, Mr. Skene, however, informs me, that many of the more energetic descriptions, and particularly that of the battle of Flodden, were struck out while he was in quarters again with his cavalry, in the autumn of 1807. In the intervals of drilling,' he says, 'Scott used to delight in walking his powerful black steed up and down by himself upon the Portobello sands, within the beating of the surge; and now and then you would see him plunge in his spurs and go off as if at the charge, with the spray dashing about him.' As we rode back to Musselburgh, he often came and placed himself beside me to repeat the verses that he had been composing during these pauses of our exercise."

We should be glad to follow the biographer through his account of the production of 'Marmion,' and to present some of the numerous criticisms which were received from the various personal friends of the author. Our space, however, will not permit. The popularity of the poem may be estimated from the fact, that more than fifty thousand copies of the work were subsequently sold in Great Britain alone. Scott's personal appearance, at this period, is thus described by Miss Seward: "'On Friday last,' she says, 'the poetically great Walter Scott came 'like a sunbeam to my dwelling.' This proudest boast of the Caledonian muse is tall, and rather robust than slender, but lame in the same manner as Mr. Hayley, and in a greater measure. Neither the contour of his face, nor yet his features, are elegant; his complexion healthy, and somewhat fair, without bloom. We find the singularity of brown hair and eye-lashes, with flaxen eyebrows, and a countenance open, ingenuous, and benevolent. When seriously conversing, or earnestly attentive, though his eyes are rather of a lightish gray, deep thought is on their lids; he contracts his brow, and the rays of genius gleam aslant from the orbs beneath them. An upper lip too long prevents his mouth from being decidedly handsome; but the sweetest emanations of temper and heart play about it, when he talks cheerfully, or smiles; and in company, he is much oftener gay than contemplative. His conversation an overflowing fountain of brilliant wit, apposite allusion, and playful archness - while on serious themes it is nervous and eloquent; the accent decidedly Scotch, yet by no means broad. On the whole, no expectation is disappointed which his poetry must excite in all who feel the power and graces of human inspiration."

We pass the details of his extraordinary literary labors and successes, to present two or three extracts, which serve to show us the man. A friend of the biographer's thus compares Scott and Jeffrey, whom he met at a dinner-party in Edinburgh:

"There were,' he says, only a few people besides the two lions- and assuredly I have seldom passed a more agreeable day. A thousand subjects of literature, antiquities, and manners were started; and much was I struck, as you may well suppose, by the extent, correctness, discrimination, and accuracy of Jeffrey's information; equally so with his taste, acuteness, and wit in dissecting every book, author, and story that came in our way. Nothing could surpass the variety of his knowledge, but the easy rapidity of his manner of producing it. He was then in his meridian. Scott delighted to draw him out, delighted also to talk himself, and displayed, I think, even a larger range of anecdote and illustration; remembering every thing, whether true or false, that was characteristic or impressive; every thing that was good, or lovely, or lively. It struck me that there was this great difference: Jeffrey, for the most part, entertained us, when books were under discussion, with the detection of faults, blunders, absurdities, or plagiarisms. Scott took up the matter where he left it, recalled some compensating beauty or excellence for which no credit had been allowed, and by the recitation, perhaps, of one fine stanza, set the poor victim on his legs again."

Here is a picture of his fine feeling of domestic attachment:

"Mr. and Mrs. Morritt reached Edinburgh soon after this letter was written. Scott showed them the lions of the town and its vicinity, exactly as if he had nothing else to attend to but their gratification; and Mr. Morritt recollects with particular pleasure one long day spent in rambling along the Esk by Roslin and Hawthornden,

'Where Johnson sat in Drummond's social shade,'

down to the old haunts of Lasswade."

"When we approached that village,' says the memorandum with which Mr. Morritt favors me, 'Scott, who had laid hold of my arm, turned along the road in a direction not leading to the place where the carriage was to meet us. After walking some

minutes towards Edinburgh, I suggested that we were losing the scenery of the Esk, and, besides, had Dalkeith Palace yet to see. 'Yes,' said he, and I have been bringing you where there is little enough to be seen-only that Scotch cottage' (one by the road side, with a small garth); but, though not worth looking at, I could not pass it. It was our first country-house when newly married, and many a contrivance we had to make it comfortable. I made a dining-table for it with my own hands. Look at those two miserable willow-trees on either side the gate into the enclosure: they are tied together at the top to be an arch, and a cross made of two sticks over them is not yet decayed. To be sure it is not much of a lion to show a stranger; but I wanted to see it again myself, for I assure you that after I had constructed it, mamma (Mrs. Scott) and I both of us thought it so fine, we turned out to see it by moonlight, and walked backwards from it to the door, in admiration of our own magnificence and its picturesque effect. I did want to see if it was still there so now we will look after the barouche, and make the best of our way to Dalkeith.' Such were the natural feelings that endeared the Author of Marmion and the Lay to those who saw him in his happier hours of social pleasure.''

A brief paragraph or two, descriptive of Scott's feelings when he first called the now classic grounds of Abbottsford his own, must close our quotations for the present:

"As my lease of this place is out, I have bought, for about 4000 pounds, a property in the neighborhood, extending along the banks of the river Tweed for about half a mile. It is very bleak at present, having little to recommend it but the vicinity of the river; but as the ground is well adapted by nature to grow wood, and is considerably various in form and appearance, I have no doubt that by judicious plantations it may be rendered a very pleasant spot; and it is at present my great amusement to plan the various lines which may be necessary for that purpose. The farm comprehends about a hundred acres, of which I shall keep fifty in pasture and tillage, and plant all the rest, which will be a very valuable little possession in a few years, as wood bears a high price among us. I intend building a small cottage for my summer abode, being obliged by law, as well as induced by inclination, to make this country my residence for some months every year. This is the greatest incident which has lately taken place in our domestic concerns; and I assure you we are not a little proud of being greeted as laird and lady of Abbotsford. We will give a grand gala when we take possession of it, and as we are very clannish in this corner, all the Scots in the country, from the duke to the peasant, shall dance on the green to the bagpipes, and drink whiskey-punch." "The same week he says to Joanna Bailie: My dreams about my cottage go on; of about a hundred acres I have manfully resolved to plant from sixty to seventy; as to my scale of dwelling, why, you shall see my plan when I have adjusted it. My present intention is to have only two spare bed-rooms, with dressing-rooms, each of which will, on a pinch, have a couch-bed; but I cannot relinquish my Border principle of accommodating all the cousins and duniwastles, who will rather sleep on chairs, and on the floor, and in the hay-loft, than be absent when folks are gathered together; and truly I used to think Ashestiel was very much like the tent of Paribanou, in the Arabian Nights, that suited alike all numbers of company equally; ten people fill it at any time, and I remember its lodging thirty-two without any complaint."

Speaking of a species of his visitors at this time-'the go-about folks, who generally pay their score one way or other' he says:

"I never heard of a stranger that utterly baffled all efforts to engage him in conversation, excepting one whom an acquaintance of mine met in a stage-coach. My friend, who piqued himself on his talents for conversation, assailed this tortoise on all hands, but in vain, and at length descended to expostulation. I have talked to you, my friend, on all the ordinary subjects-literature, farming, merchandise-gaming, game-laws, horse-races suits at law-politics, and swindling, and blasphemy, and philosophy; is there any one subject that you will favor me by opening upon? The wight writhed his countenance into a grin: Sir,' said he, can you say any thing clever about bendleather?" There, I own, I should have been as much nonplussed as my acquaintance; but upon any less abstruse subject, I think, in general, something may be made of a stranger, worthy of his clean sheets, and beef-steak, and glass of port."

We shall resume our notice of these admirable Memoirs, as they appear in the successive parts' of the American edition. 'Part Four' is in course of publication,

and will soon be issued.

EDITORS' TABLE.

'SISTE 'VIATOR!-But a little while ago, we published in these pages a brief tribute to the memory of a gifted and distinguished female contributor to the poetical department of this Magazine; and it now becomes our painful duty to record the recent demise of another child of song, with whom our readers have not unfrequently held pleasant communion. We gather from a letter before us, from an attentive literary friend, now in Massachusetts, that J. HUNTINGTON BRIGHT, ESQ. died recently at Manchester, (Miss.,) at the early age of thirty-three. He was the only son of JONATHAN BRIGHT, ESQ., of Salem, (Mass.) Early in life he came to this city, where he resided until the death of his parents, when he removed to Albany, and subsequently to Norfolk, (Va.,) where he married. Last autumn he sailed for New-Orleans; and, soon after his arrival, was induced to ascend the Mississippi, to take part in an important mercantile interest at Manchester, a new town, hewn but recently from the forest. Here, undue exposure to the night air brought on the fever of the country; and in this cheerless frontier region, away from his kindred and friends, after an illness of a few hours, he yielded up his gentle spirit. There is an irrepressible melancholy in the thought, that one so open to all the tender influences of affection, should breathe his last far from the endearments of home, and lay his bones among strangers. Yet, to adopt a stanza of a charming fragment written by him for the KNICKERBOCKER:

'Yet it matters not much, when the bloom is fled,

And the light is gone from the lustrous eye,

And the sensitive heart is cold and dead,

Where the mouldering ashes are left to lie:

It matters not much, if the soaring mind,

Like the flower's perfume, is exhaled to heaven,
That its earthly shroud should be cast behind,

To decay, wherever a place is given.'

Mr. BRIGHT, under the signature of 'VIATOR,' has contributed many gems of pure feeling, imbued with the true spirit of poetry, to the fugitive literature of the day. The 'Albany Argus' gave to the world many of his choicest effusions, previous to his appearance before our readers. Of his later efforts, it is unnecessary to speak. They will recommend themselves to every affectionate and sympathetic heart, not less by the graces of composition, than the spirit which pervades them. When the depressing influences which have so seriously affected the book-market shall cease to be operative, we hope to see a volume of poetry collated from the literary remains of Mr. Bright; and we cannot doubt that it will be well received by the public at large, as it will certainly be most acceptable to his numerous friends and admirers.

We are confident that Mr. BRIGHT was capable of even higher and more sustained flights than characterize any of the fine productions which he has given to the public. There was promise of varied endowments, too, of which we had scarcely deemed him possessed. Parts of the 'Vision of Death,' published in these pages, would have done no discredit to our best poets. The reader will recall its wild, German-like air, from the opening stanzas:

VOL. X.

'The moon rode high in the Autumn sky,
The stars waned cold and dim,

While hoarsely the mighty Oregon
Pealed his eternal hymn;

And the prairie-grass bent its seedy heads
Far over the river's brim.

34

An impulse I might not defy,

Constrained my footsteps there;

When through the gloom a red eye burned
With a fixed and steady glare,

And a huge misshapen form of mist
Loom'd in the midnight air.'

Upon what tender filaments the fabric of existence hangs! Death, an unseen spectre, walked by the far-travelling poet's side; and when he deemed the journey of life but just begun, Siste Viator! rang in his dying ear. Well did Sir Thomas Browne exclaim, 'Our life is indeed but short, a very dream; and while we look about, eternity is at hand!'

Mr. BRIGHT has left an amiable and accomplished wife, with two pledges of an affectionate union. May the blessing of the widow and the fatherless be theirs, in full fruition! and may consolation in bereavement be found in the reflection, that, to use the beautiful language of the dear departed,

Though his bowed head be with Death's blossoms decked,
Warm in the smile of GoD his spirit walks erect.'

THE DEBUT OF MISS HILDRETH.

And smooth success be strew'd before thy feet.' ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Ar the close of the late summer season, at the Park Theatre, a young lady from • Massachusetts, of about the age of eighteen years, made her 'first appearance on any stage,' as the play-bills phrase it, in the character of 'The Wife of Mantua.'

We learn from authentic sources, that this was by no means the ordinary case of a stage-struck-heroine, gratifying a long-indulged desire to dash upon the boards, with the fond anticipation of achieving immortal renown at a stroke. Nor was it necessity which drove the débutante to the choice of a profession, in which every department is so full of toil, and often of unrequited labor and suffering. Of good family, and having an excellent education, she was early smitten with the love of poetry, especially that of the better and the elder bards; and contracted a habit of reading aloud, which developed, gradually, the talent of expressive and forcible recitation, to a degree which astonished and deeply interested her friends. This talent, strengthened with her increasing knowledge of books and its exercise, led her to think of the histrionic profession as one congenial with her feelings, and enabling her to give such utterance to her appreciations of her favorite poets, as would gratify her own ambition, and that of her friends for her. But of the stage she knew literally nothing, even when this idea found a place in her imagination. She had seen only two or three plays performed, and had gleaned no lessons in the art from any fields but those of her own mind and fancy; and from these, we are happy to predict, she will yet reap an abundant harvest of success and

renown.

Having taken some lessons in 'stage business' of one of the most accomplished actresses on the Park boards, and recited some passages, as a specimen of her powers, in the presence of the manager, she was permitted a trial, and chose the night of Mr. Chippendale's Benefit for her début. She had never seen the character she was to appear in performed, and never fully rehearsed the part, until the very day she came out : and even then, it was hastily rehearsed, and with reference less to the language than the positions, attitudes, etc., of the different characters. Thus, and thus only prepared, she came before a crowded house, to make her first attempt.

Her fine figure, expressive face, and tasteful attire, joined with her modest mien, and graceful, dignified carriage, struck the audience very favorably, and she was received with cheering applause. Soon, to these recommendations she added a clear, distinct

and well-modulated voice the first articulations of which, though low and somewhat timidly tremulous, proved the signal for a repetition of the plaudits of the audience. As the play proceeded, she gained more confidence, though still somewhat constrained, es was quite obvious, by the novelty of her situation, and soon began to give abundant evidence of her right to claim still higher praise, in the fine appreciation of the character she was personating, and in the truth to nature which marked her readings.

Miss Hildreth's performance of Marianna was of course purely an original one. She had been no play-goer, had seen no acting of any consequence, and had never witnessed the representation of 'The Wife.' Her faults were only those which the judicious advice of experienced friends, added to careful study, and a close but not servile observation of good models, will be found fully adequate to remove. These are simply, ignorance of stage-business, and of the magic art of by-play, a knowledge of which comes slowly, with the gradual growth of confidence, and that experience of the stage which a long acquaintance with it gives, and which enables the histrion to think not of the audience, but of the character he is personating. In her perfect understanding of the language set down for her, in the appropriateness of her gesticulation, attitudes, and articulation, while actually reading her own part, she evinced the possession of all the primary and fundamental materials of an actress of the first order; and she has only to work them judiciously, to convince the world, ere long, that ours has not been an erroneous estimate of her abilities.

A contemporary critic has objected to Miss Hildreth's performance of 'Marianna,' that she stood with her arms by her side until her cue was given, when, he concedes, she went through the part allotted to her creditably. This objection, it will be seen, refers to her 'by-play.' We have already touched on this point; and in support of the criticism, would instance the interview of 'Marianna' with St. Pierre, when they discourse of their own native Switzerland. There was none of that exquisite aside-play, (so to speak,) representing the enthusiastic interest which the Swiss girl is supposed to feel in the eloquent descant of her countryman upon its beauties; a feature which gives such a fascinating charm to the personation of the character by Ellen Tree. And was this to be expected, under the circumstances? The whole scene was new to the young débutante. Like ourselves, she too was a looker-on, during that beautiful apostrophe, (never better uttered than then, by Charles Mason,) and in short, was interested, as we were, in all the progress of 'the swelling act;' seemingly forgetting that she was to act while he was acting, and listening even as we were listening, until her cue was given'; and then, wherein did she fail?

Certainly, not in the modest yet firm narration of her love-prompted journey from her mountain-home to Mantua, nor in the trial scene before the usurping duke, when, to save herself from brutal violation, she awes the assembled court by threatening 'the slightest motion of her little hand,' as it held the poisoned vial to her lips. Nor in the scenes with her confessor, when she so indignantly spurns the imputation of disloyalty to her lord, and creeps, child-like, to crave accustomed kindness from her ghostly friend, whose mind has been poisoned by a villain's arts against her; nor in the interview with St. Pierre, while she is giving utterance to the heart-felt joy which fills her bosom upon meeting with her countryman; nor, lastly, in the camp scene, where she so nobly refuses to go back to the trusting bosom of her lord, until he had proved that trust wellfounded. We might give more particular citations of natural and striking points in her performance of all these scenes, but we forbear. Certainly, we repeat, in none of these was there aught that looked like failure, so far as her reading and action were concerned; and in this opinion we are confirmed by the concurrent testimony of many of the most distinguished members of the profession, who witnessed the début.

/ With great confidence, then, do we predict a brilliant career for this young lady, in the profession she has adopted, if she be only true to herself, and uses aright the talents she possesses. Careful study, observation, experience, and 'careful study,' after all, and with all the rest, will realize the fondest hopes of her friends, and the proudest of her own most ambitious anticipations.

J. F. 0.