The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

HAROLD THE DAUNTLESS.

129

From county-ball, or race occurring rare,
While all her friends around their vestments gay
prepare.
Ennui!-or, as our mothers call'd thee, Spleen!
To thee we owe full many a rare device;Thine is the sheaf of painted cards, I ween,
The rolling billiard-ball, the rattling dice,
The turning-lathe for framing gimcrack nice;
The amateur's blotch'd pallet thou mayst claim,
Retort, and air-pump, threatening frogs and mice,
(Murders disguised by philosophic name,)
And much of trifling grave, and much of buxom
game.
Then of the books, to catch thy drowsy glance
Compiled, what bard the catalogue may quote!
Plays, poems, novels, never read but once;But not of such the tale fair Edgeworth wrote,
That bears thy name, and is thine antidote;
And not of such the strain my Thomson sung,
Delicious dreams inspiring by his note,
What time to Indolence his harp he strung;Oh! might my lay be rank'd that happier list
among! 1
1 [The dry humour, and sort of half Spenserian cast of
these, as well as all the other introductory stanzas in the
poem, we think excellent, and scarcely outdone by any thing
of the kind we know of; and there are few parts, taken separately, that have not something attractive to the lover of
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