so much energy, that every one instinctively gave way to me; it was indeed so; the figures were written in a gigantic hand, and displayed in the window; the ink was not yet dry; I was the enviable possessor of thirty thousand pounds!" "And did your hour of happiness then begin?" him of my poverty, and the illness of Oc-| wife informed me, with evident sorrow, tavia; he was not devoid of feeling; he in- that the price of bread had again risen. stantly replied to my letter. He had just, Alas! alas! that a creature, formed to dazhe said, been foolish enough to exhaust his zle all eyes and win all hearts, sing scienpurse in the purchase of a lottery-ticket; tific canzonets, and discuss poetry and phihe inclosed me the ticket, which I might losophy, should be reduced to the doleful nedispose of for a sum equal to about half cessity of knowing or caring that the quarthe amount owing to me, and the remain- tern loaf costs a halfpenny more one week der he promised speedily to remit to me. than another! After our sorry repast, I preThe moment I became the possessor of pared to take a walk. I had just got ready this lottery-ticket, the thought struck me the draft of a will for a client who resided in that perhaps a rich mine of gold lay within Spring Gardens, and I was to attend, by apit. I could not persuade myself to dispose pointment, to submit it to his inspection. of it, nor did I mention its existence to Oc- In my way I passed down Cornhill; a crowd tavia: I was fearful that her cool and was collected at Bish's door. 'News has steady judgment would disapprove of my just come from Guildhall,' exclaimed one conduct in relinquishing my bird in the of them to a friend who had not been able hand' for the two who were not even in to get near the window, 'that the thirty the bush,' but only fluttering in the regions thousand has been drawn-the number is of imagination: the lottery was to begin twelve hundred!' I pressed forward with drawing in a week; my suspense could not endure long. I locked the ticket safe. ly in my secretaire, and the number was securely impressed upon my memory: we had no scientific Polish Majors at that time, to give us an artificial memory for getting up puzzling combinations of figures; but the combination in question was not at all puzzling, the number was twelve hundred: Not immediately; eminent dramatists and I repeated it over and over to myself, have declared, that when the theatre rang as if it were some cabalistic incantation with plaudits at their genius, their sensawhich was to conduct me to ease and af- tions were those rather of nerveousness fluence. A week passed; it was the first and faintness than of triumph and exday of the lottery-drawing, and it was a ultation; and one of them defined his feelparticularly untoward day at home, 'every ing as that of 'coming near enough to thing went wrong.' I dare say all family Fame to clutch it!' Now I suddenly men will enter into the meaning of that came near enough to Fortune to clutch phrase! My poor Octavia was more than her, and at first I seemed to droop and usually feeble, languid, and hectic; and tremble at the close approximation. I immediately after breakfast our maid of all- did not, as you may suppose it likely I work, (for in those days we did not employ should do, call a coach, drive home, and the refined term of general servant,') gave communicate my success to my wife and warning, allured by the better wages and family; I felt dizzy with excess of joy. I more abundantly supplied table proffered could not for the world have shared it at to her by a thriving tradesman's wife in the that moment with any one; I knew that neighborhood. Now, Dorothy was not the ticket was in perfect safety, and I rewithout faults, but we had reason to think solved to delay my return till my spirits that those faults were fewer than generally were calmed down to a tolerable degree of fall to the share of over-tasked under-paid sobriety. I disengaged myself from the maids of all-work; besides, she had lived crowd, made no sign' to indicate that I with us five years; we knew her faults and was the happy owner of the paraded thirty recommendations, and lacked courage to thousand, and I bent my steps to my oriinvestigate those of a stranger. The two ginal destination, Spring Gardens, walking elder children were also in a singularly ir-lightly and gaily through places which everyritable state of temper on that unfortunate morning, and the baby, who usually slept all day, and cried all night, seemed resolved to depart from its usual routine, and to cry through all the twenty-four hours. The refractory maid of all-work sent us up a peculiarly ill-cooked dinner; and my poor day people would call Cheapside, St. Paul's Church-yard, and Ludgate Hill, but which to me appeared to be select portions of the most delightful districts of fairy-land. How can I describe to you the ecstatic thoughts in which I revelled, the dazzling visions I conjured up, the phantoms of future bliss which hovered round me? My beloved charity. This is well,' I thought; it is Octavia was to enjoy an exquisite marine fit that when I receive such unexpected villa at Hastings till her health was restor- bounties myself, I should think of the need ed, and afterwards a tasteful boudoir, a new of others: I will become a life-subscriber, grand pianoforte, a set of pearls from Ham- not only to this charity, but to many let's, (then the fashionable jeweller,) and others; nor will I permit public liberality a beautiful little phaeton, drawn by two to supersede private benevolence; my ear cream-colored ponies. I was immediately shall be open to the complaints of honest to procure au efficient nursery-staff, and poverty, and my hand ready to relieve eventually, my daughters were to be edu- them.' My client was too much occupied cated by an all-accomplished governess, with the study of his will to perceive any and my son to be sent for tuition to a clerical thing unusual in my manner; he returned friend, who took a limited number of pupils the draft to me, begged that it might be on terms of unlimited expense: my dinners formally executed, and I took my departwere to make Dr. Kitchener jealous; my ure. My thoughts in returning were just library was to be filled by the best authors, the same as they had been in going, and and my cellars stocked with the best literally dwelt upon wines; my house was to be at the west end of the town, and I was to have a sweet little cottage at Richmond." "And did you think you could do all that with thirty thousand pounds, sir?" Gold, gold, nothing but gold.' These golden reveries, however, were not so low and sordid in my case as in that of many persons, because I may safely say that I valued the goods of wealth for others more than for myself, and my satisfaction developed itself in feelings of unutterable kindliness and complacency towards the whole of the human race. "Yes, indeed I did, my dear madam, and much more also. I had never had any but a very small income to manage, and having discovered that even that poor pittance could procure for myself and family the 'meat, clothes, and fire,' which Pope declares to be all that riches can give to us, "A brother lawyer passed me in his neat I naturally enough fell into the error of chariot-I no longer looked on him with concluding that incalculable and intermin- envy. 'Poor fellow!' I thought, he is able enjoyments and luxuries were to be obliged to work hard for his comforts; I procured by a handsome fortune. I reach- shall immediately relinquish my profession, ed Spring Gardens in this delightful state I will recommend him to two or three of of mind and spirits, feeling that my happi- my best clients.' I greeted several comness was glowing in my cheeks, and laugh- mon acquaintances with the most earnest ing out at my eyes; and the very footman warmth, inquiring after the health of their who opened my client's door looked at me wives and children as if my existence dewith astonishment, as if he had seen some pended upon a favorable reply. I could strange transformation in me. And had I not have been more universally cordial had not undergone a transformation? I was no I intended standing for the county! A longer the spirit-broken, pressed down, stripling met me whom I had deservedly poor man; the wand of Harlequin, that sent to Coventry for his extreme imperticonverts a hut into a palace, had never nence to me; he seemed undecided whether wrought a more wonderful metamorphosis to bow or not; I settled his scruples by a than had taken place in my situation; past friendly recognition, and a warm shake of drudgery, future misgivings, were no longer the hand; he seemed gratified, and no in existence; a brilliant perspective of hap- doubt eulogized my forgiving temper— piness for me and mine stretched itself be- alas! if my ticket had not been drawn a fore me in clear and shining radiance. My prize, I should have encountered him with client entered, and looked over the draft a bent brow, and a scornful curve of the of the will; he suggested a few alterations; lip! All whom I had previously disliked he had seven thousand pounds to leave and disapproved had a share in my kindly to his wife and family. I inwardly pitied feelings. My wife's sisters had repeatedly him for having so small a sum for their provision; how short a time ago should I have thought it a large one! A book, having the appearance of a pamphlet, lay on the table before me; I mechanically opened it, and found that it contained the list of subscribers to a celebrated public VOL. III. No. IV. 36 wounded and displeased me, but I now resolved to give them turquoise necklaces, and invite them to carpet-dances; even Dorothy became an innoxious maid of allwork to me-she had been quite right in wishing to remove herself-she would not have been a fitting member of our new es tablishment. I next met an old gentleman, a distant relation. "How happy you seem,' he said. "How happy I am,' I replied. 'I may say with Hamlet, Seem! I know not seems!'' 666 Well, this is as it should be,' replied the old gentleman, gazing on me with admiration. Your spirits are not hurt by a slender income, nay, I dare say you are far happier than if you had a large one-riches, as the poet says, are-' "But I was in no mood to listen to what any poet said in depreciation of riches, and, pleading haste, I passed rapidly on, enjoying the thick-coming tide of pleasant fancies, which as yet I felt disinclined to share with mortal being. Again I reached Cornhill. I looked at my watch; exactly an hour had elapsed since I was last there; a crowd was still around the windows of Bish, and again I pressed through it, wishing to feast my eyes a second time on the announcement of my triumph, just as the miser gazes, again and again, on the bank note with whose value he is already thoroughly acquainted. Amazement! horror! Was I under the influence of witchcraft now, or had I been the sport of its spell an hour ago? The number of the fortunate ticket was clearly 1210! I rushed into the shop, and in hoarse tremulous accents inquired into the meaning of the change. "It was quite a mistake, sir,' replied the man behind the counter, in provoking. ly cool and courteous accents; it was sent off to us from Guildhall in a great hurry, and the person who wrote it down made it 1200, instead of 1210; but we rectified the mistake the moment we received the proper information.' "Is number 1200 drawn?' I gaspingly ejaculated. "Yes, sir, and it is a blank.' "And so ness!" ended my hour of happi "And what did you do?-drop down in a swoon?" "No; I certainly dropped down from the regions of imagination on the rough shingles of reality, and might have said with Apollo in Kane O'Hara's Midas, 'A pretty dacent tumble!' but I considered that we cannot be said to lose what we have never had, and, above all, that no invectives or repinings could restore to me the beautiful phantasmagoria which had vanished from my mind's eye.' I walked home, my glances bestowed on the ground, and my sweet fancies' replaced by bitter ones." "And then you disclosed all that had passed to your wife, I suppose ?" "By no means; I resolved not to disclose it to a creature. Octavia, I felt, would sympathize with me too much, and the rest of the world too little. I could not brook the idea that my fleeting dream of happiness should be related by some officious quizzer to a laughing circle, prefaced with the observation, 'Have you heard of the terrible blunder our poor friend fell into the other day?' I entered the house calm and dejected, and found all its inhabitants much as I had left them, except that Dorothy's brow was a shade more sulky, the voices of the children were pitched in a somewhat higher key, and poor Octavia was mending for me an already thrice-mended pair of gloves. O! how like Abou Hassan I felt, when he awakened in his own home after his short experience of the grandeur and magnificence of regal power!" "How sad! how mortifying! How very much I pity you!" To "Do not waste your pity upon me, fair lady; I believe you would have had much more reason to pity me, had I really become the possessor of these thirty thousand pounds. In my hour of happiness, I only thought of the enjoyments of riches; Ï should soon have been made to fee lits troubles, anxieties and responsibilities. I then knew nothing of the management of money; I should have attempted to make my thirty thousand pounds do the work of a sum of four times its magnitude, and should probably, in a small way, have run the career of Mr. Burton Danvers, the hero of your favorite story in Sayings and Doings.' return, however, to my narrative-My evening at home was not so melancholy as you may surmise: about ten o'clock, a sharp ring was heard at the door; for a moment I was wild enough to imagine that my number, after all, had proved to be the right one, and that the lottery office had sent a special messenger to inform me of it. But I quickly reflected that they could have no clew to my name and residence, as the ticket had been purchased by another person. The messenger, however, was a welcome one. The young man who had sent me the lottery ticket in part of his account, was not yet so hardened in the ways of the world as to feel quite easy in squandering in revelry and luxury the money which was really and painfully wanted by those to whom he lawfully owed it. He had been touched by my representation of my wife's illness, had raised the SCOTT, OF THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD, SIR From Tait's Magazine, Yet remaining twenty pounds due to me, and | RANDOM REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER now forwarded it to my house. O! with what playful contempt should I have beheld it, had I regarded it in the light of a drop of water coming to mix with the boundless ocean of thirty thousand pounds! Perhaps THE value of reminiscences of eminent I should even have tossed it, as a valedictory men must be in proportion to the opinion gift, to speed the parting' Dorothy; but entertained of the writer's powers and opnow it was received with real rapture and portunities of observation, and of his good gratitude. The next day I took Octavia faith as an accurate reporter and chronicler. and our children to Hastings-not to an The reminiscences we have to present to 'exquisite marine villa,' but to an obscure our readers, connected with Scott and lodging, from which the sea was distinctly" The Sheperd," bear intrinsic evidence of visible to an extremely clear-sighted per- their genuineness in every sentence. son, who did not mind running a little risk we deem it the most satisfactory, and also of falling out of an upper window in the at- the most simple and direct mode of protempt to feast their eyes upon it; but, cedure, to permit Sir Walter Scott himself thanks to Providence, Octavia returned to introduce the individual who here recalls home in two months, restored to health, his sayings and doings; and who, without and I was enabled to give my undivided being blind to his weaknesses, appears to thoughts and time to the duties of my pro- cherish his memory with the most devoted fession. A difficult cause was to be tried and grateful respect. To few individuals respecting the rightful heirship to an es- could Sir Walter Scott have appeared untate the person who claimed it was der an aspect more uniformly kind and bethought to do so on inadequate grounds. nignant than he must have done to Mr. He put his cause into my hands, he re- Morrison. Their acquaintance commenced quested me to examine and compare sun- in 1803-an early period of Scott's brilliant dry papers and documents; it was evident career; and eighteen years afterwards, we to me, after perusing them, that others of find him thus cautiously and characteristicmore importance were in existence. Ially describing the author of the subjoined urged him to a diligent search; it was attended with success, and the cause was gained. His gratitude was unbounded, and he forced upon me a remuneration for my assistance, far beyond my expectations; but I drew a more solid advantage from the trial; my name became known; I was sought out by new clients; business poured in upon me, and profit also, in due proportion. I have been a prosperous man, and my private property now amounts to a larger sum than my supposititious lottery prize, while I have a lucrative profession which occupies my time satisfactorily, and I hope usefully, and adds to my power of relieving the necessities of others, as well as of bestowing the goods of education and fortune on my family. All is for the best. I have enjoyed but once an hour of overHe is a very worthy, as well as a very clever whelming happiness, but I have enjoyed many years of true and calm content. Iman; and was much distinguished in his profession as a civil engineer, surveyor, &c., until he have won my way to fortune step by step, was unlucky enough to lay it aside for the purand truly grateful do I feel that I have won pose of taking a farm. I should add that this was it by the assistance of Coke and Black-done with the highly laudable purpose of keepstone, rather than by that of Bish and Can-ing a roof over his father's head, and maintainter, even although to their unconscious agency I owe the delightful delusion of 'The Happiest Hour of my Life !'" Reminiscences, in whose prosperity he at all times took no ordinary interest. Mr. Morrison's name does not, we believe, once occur in Mr. Lockhart's Memoirs of Scott; but this is an oblivion which he shares with many other of Sir Walter's early friends; and it is one of small consequence, save that it renders this explanation necessary:— MR. WALTER SCOTT TO MR. ROSCOE OF LIVERPool. DEAR SIR,-I should not have presumed to give the bearer an introduction to you on my own sole authority; but as he carries a letter from General Dirom of Mount Annan, and as I sincerely interest myself in his fortunes, I take the liberty of strengthening (if I may use the phrase) the General's recommendation, and, at the same time, of explaining a circumstance or two which may have some influence on Mr. Morrison's destiny. ing the old man in his paternal farm. At the expiry of the lease, however, Mr. Morrison found himself a loser to such an amount that he did not think it prudent to renew the bargain, and attempted to enter upon his former profession. But being, I think, rather impatient on finding that employment did not occur quite so readily as formerly, he gave way to a natural turn for | Or watching in rapture, unbounded and high, painting, and it is as an artist that he visits Liv- The bright maiden-glance of a sweet rolling eye? erpool. I own, though no judge of the art, I-Or say, has his deep hyperbolical smile, think he has mistaken his talents; for, though With a flow of fine words, and deep phrases the he sketches remarkably well in outline, especial-The gentry of Wales to astonishment driven, while, ly our mountain scenery, and although he was At a mind so unbounded by Earth or by Heaven? bred to the art, yet so long an interval has pass-Whate'er he is doing, where'er he may roam, ed, that I should doubt his ever acquiring a facility in coloring. However, he is to try his chance. But he would fain hope something would occur in a city where science is so much in request, to engage him more profitably to himself, and more usefully to others, in the way of his orignial profession as an engineer, in which he is really excellent. I should be sincerely glad, however, that he throve in some way or other, as he is a most excellent person in disposition and private conduct, an enthusiast in literature, and a shrewd entertaining companion in society. I could not think of his carrying a letter to you without your being fully acquainted of the merits he possesses besides the painting, of which I do not think well at present; though, perhaps, he may improve. I am, Sir, with very great respect, your most obedient servant. WALTER SCOTT. O bear him good news from his sweet native home; And tell him his friends in Edina that stay That the one still is basking in Fortune's bright smile, The other 's despised, though admired all the while; And from listless inaction, if nothing can save, He may sink, without fail, in despair to the grave; "Like the bubble on the fountain, like the foam on The Bard of the Mountain is gone and for ever." the river, O tell me, dear Morrison, fairly and free, Say what must I do to be gifted like thee! Is genius with poverty ever combined Without perseverance or firmness of mind? Or would affluence load her bold pinion of fire, And crush her in*- of sense to expire? EDINBURGH, 1st June, 1821. If so, let me suffer and wrestle my way; But give me my friend and my song while I stay: In Liverpool, Mr. Morrison, as will after-With a heart unaffectedly kind and sincere, wards be seen, met with the kindest recep. To the lass that I love, and the friend I revere ; tion from Mr. Roscoe, who returned him Though thou, as that friend, hast been rather unseemly, Sir Walter Scott's introductory letter, as a document of more value to himself than to any one else. Before coming to the Reminiscences, and in order to throw a little more light upon the character of their writer, and his connexion with the distinguished individuals from whom they derive their interest, we copy from the original MS. of the Ettrick Shepherd, the following rhymed epistle and epitaph, addressed to Mr. Morrison while he was engaged on some piece of professional business with Mr. Telford in North Wales. EDINBURGH, July 18, 1810. green, A wanderer from Scotia, unstable and gay, Then say, gentle breeze, ere for ever you fly Say where my few lines or inquiries shall find A SHEPHERD, dear Jock, will for ever esteem In the above epistle the following epitaph was enclosed : EPITAPH ON MR. JOHN MORRISON, LAND-SURVEYOR. Here lies, in the hope of a blest resurrection, For a generouser heart, or a noddle more clear, |