THE SCOTT CENTENARY. 343 



undergone no less radical changes. Monarchies have become republics and 

 republics empires. Philosophers and poets have triumphed in the intellectual 

 arena; while soldiers have rivalled them in deeds on which the fate of nations 

 hung. Patriots have recalled the acts of Wallace and Tell by like self-sacrificing 

 heroism; and statesmen have been found equal to the perils of Europe's darkest 

 hour. Yet among all who bore a part in this memorable century, Burns alone 

 has yet challenged that recognition which with like cordiality we now accord to 

 Scott. 



It is well that Time's irrevocable flight should thus be associated with the 

 noblest among those who have passed away. A hundred years ago, this birth - 

 day which now, by acclamation of the civilized world, 



" In golden letters sliould be set 

 Among the high tides in the calendar," 



had its interests limited to one little family circle in the College "Wynd of old 

 Edinburgh ; as in some unheeded cradle now, perchance, lies the poet or 

 the hero of the ne'w century. Civic reform has swept away, not the 

 house alone, but the antique wj-nd, from among the romantic sites of Scott's own 

 romantic town ; and the pilgrim has to seek his fitter memorial where the Tweed 

 murmurs past Dryburgh's ruined aisle. He has gone to join the great immortals ; 

 but the world is richer by the Romancer's tale, and better for the Minstrel's lay. 

 It is the fittest place to associate with the memory of him, who in an age of 

 revolt against the effete relics of a worn-out feudalism, recalled it to a wise 

 reverence for all that is noble and heroic in the past. It is a worthy shrine for 

 Scotland's romantic poet, where, in his own native soil, and by the stream he 

 loved so well, he is laid to rest under the ruined abbey, with the ashes of his 

 sires, and the last of his line. 



" Call it not vain : they do not err 



Who say that when the poet dies 

 Mute Nature mourns her worshipper. 



And celebrates his obsequies ; 

 Who say, — tall cliff and cavern lone 

 For the departed bard make moan ; 

 That mountains weep in crystal riil ; 

 That ilowers in tears of balm distil ; 

 And rivers teach their rushing wave 

 To murmur dirges round his grave." 



'So the minstrel himself sang while life and hope were young ; and when all its 

 brightest visions had long faded into the light of common day, his final wish wa3 

 gratified when the gentle ripple of the Tweed was alone audible as he breathed 

 his last. To him, the idea — to which the Scot had yielded, under the schooling 

 ' of stern necessity, in all ages — of emigration to such a land as this in which we 

 - now recall his name and fame, involved all that is most tragic in an enforced 

 ■ exile : and he gives expresson to it in words wonderfully suggestive to us now.. 

 As Fitz Eustace responds to Marmion's call for some lay to beguile the time, the 



• poet exclaims : — 



" Such have I heard in Scottish land 

 Rise from the busy harvest band. 

 When faUstiefore the mountaineer 

 On lowland plain the ripen'd ear. 



