"

There is some kind and courtly sprite
That o'er the realm of Fancy reigns,
Throws sunshine on the mask of night,
And smiles at slumber's powerless chains.

'Tis told, and I believe the tale,

At this soft hour the sprite was there,
And spread with fairer flow'rs the vale,
And fill'd with sweeter sounds the air."

The miraculous bower is most fanci

fully embellished:

"Yet it was wrought in simple show;

Nor Indian mine nor orient shores

Had lent their glories here to glow,

Or yielded here their shining stores.

"All round a poplar's trembling arms

The wild-rose wound its damask flow'r;

The woodbine lent its spicy charms,

That loves to weave the lover's bow'r.

"The ash, that courts the mountain-air, In all its painted blooms array'd; The wilding's blossom, blushing fair,

Combin'd to form the flow'ry shade.

"With thyme, that loves the brown hill's breast; The cowslip's sweet reclining head;

The violet, of sky-woven vest,

Was all the fairy ground bespread."

At a time and in a place thus auspicious to love, the vision of Nithisdale, with "hunter's spear and warrior's bow," is presented to the fancy of the sleeping Ellen; when the poet interrupts his narrative by an appeal to the experience of his reader; of whom he asks, whether he, too, has not been led by the

sprite of dreams over embroidered lawns

and flowery valleys; and adds,

"Hast thou not some fair object seen,

And, when the fleeting form was past,
Still on thy mem'ry found its mien,
And felt the fond idea last?"

This is preparatory to the subsequent interview between Nithisdale and Ellen, whose heart is thus prepossessed in favour of him who is the ruler of her destiny. She finds him sleeping; he awakes while she gazes on him, and, subdued by the eloquence with which passion inspires her youthful lover, she is irretrievably captivated. The meet

ing being observed by the jealous Earl Barnard, who has fixed his affections rather on the wealth than the charms of Moray's heiress, it leads to the assassination of the lover; who, pierced with arrows, sleeps for ever beneath the poplar against which he leaned to meditate on his mistress; who has parted from him; but returning with joyful impatience, and seeing Nithisdale, supposes him asleep, approaches with gentle step, and, discovering the truth, faints upon the ground beside him

"Her pillow swells not deep with down,

For her no balms their sweets exhale;

Her limbs are on the pale turf thrown,
Press'd by her lovely cheek as pale.

On that fair cheek, that flowing hair,
The broom its yellow leaf hath shed;
And the chill mountain's early air

Blows wildly o'er that beauteous head."

After long endurance of sufferings and sorrow, and having given birth to Owen in the solitude of a shepherd's hut, where her son is brought up, and his mother's jewels, "all unmeet for her," delivered with him to the peasant who is his protector, Ellen reaches her father's castle; and finally, by his command, marries the lord of Lothian, igno