The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

228 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
(ffqpter tlpt Artfid4.
Life ebbs from such old age, unmarked and silent,
As the slow neap-tide leaves yon stranded galley.Late she rocked merrily at the least impulse
That wind or wave could give; but now her keel
Is settling on the sand, her mast has ta'en
An angle with the sky, from which it shifts not.
Each wave receding shakes her less and less,
Till, bedded on the strand, she shall remain
Useless as motionless.
OLD PLAY.
As the Antiquary lifted the latch of the hut, he was surprised to hear the
shrill tremulous voice of Elspeth chanting forth an old ballad in a wild and
doleful recitative.
"The herring loves the merry moonlight,
The mackerel loves tile wind,
But the oyster loves the dredging sang,
For they come of a gentle kind."
A diligent collector of these legendary scraps of ancient poetry, his foot refused to cross the threshold when his ear was thus arrested, and his hand
instinctively took pencil and memorandum-book. From time to time the old
woman spoke as if to the children-" 0 ay, hinnies, whisht! whisht! and
I'll begin a bonnier ane than that -
" Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle, "The cronach's cried on Bennachie,
And listen, great and sma', And doun the Don and a',
And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl And hieland and lawland may mournfu' be
That fought on the red Harlaw. For the sair field of H-arlaw.I dinna mind the neist verse weel -my memory's failed, and there's unco
thoughts come ower me-God keep us frae temptation!"
Here her voice sunk in indistinct muttering.
"It's a historical ballad," said Oldbuck, eagerly, "a genuine and undoubted fragment of minstrelsy! Percy would admire its simplicity-Ritson
could not impugn its authenticity."
"Ay, but it's a sad thing," said Ochiltree, "to see human nature sae
far owertaen as to be skirling at auld sangs on the back of a loss like hers."
"Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary-" she has gotten the thread of the
story again.-And as he spoke, she sung"They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,'I'They hae bridled a hundred black,
With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
Arid a good knight upon his back.""Chafron!" exclaimed the Antiquary-" equivalent, perhaps, to ch7everon;
-the word's worth a dollar," —and down it went in his red book.
" They hadna ridden a mile, a mile, "The great Earl in his stirrups stood
A mile, but barely ten, That Highland host to see:
When Donald came branking down the brae, Now here a knight that's stout and good
Wi' twenty thousand men. May prove a jeopardie:
"Their tartans they were waving wide, "' What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay,
Their glaives were glancing clear, That rides beside my reyne,
Their pibrochs rung frae side to side, Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day,
Would deafen ye to hear. And I were Roland Cheyne?
"' To turn the rein were sin and shame,
To fight were wondrous peril,
What would ye do nows Roland Cheyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl'P
Ye maun ken, hinnies, that this Roland Cheyne, for as poor and auld as I
sit in the chimney-neuk, was my forbear, and an awfu' man he was that day
in the fight, but specially after the Earl had fa'en, for he blamed himsell for
the counsel he gave, to fight before Mar came up wi' Mearns, and Aberdeen,
and Angus."