d, and I now shudder at the violence of his most
irritable and ungovernable mind. Who is it that says, 'Men have died,
and worms have eaten them, but not for LOVE'? I hope sincerely it may
be verified on this occasion."

Scott had, however, in all likelihood, digested his agony during the
solitary ride in the Highlands to which Miss Cranstoun's last letter
alludes.

Talking of this story with Lord Kinnedder, I once asked him whether
Scott never made it the subject of verses at the period. His own
confession, that, even during the time when he had laid aside the
habit of versification, he did sometimes commit "a sonnet on a
mistress's eyebrow," had not then appeared. Lord Kinnedder answered,
"Oh yes, he made many little stanzas about the lady, and he sometimes
showed them to Cranstoun, Clerk, and myself--but we really thought
them in general very poor. Two things of the kind, however, have been
preserved--and one of them was done just after the conclusion of the
business." He then took down a volume of the English Minstrelsy, and
pointed out to me some lines On a Violet, which had not at that time
been included in Scott's collected works. Lord Kinnedder read them
over in his usual impressive, though not quite unaffected, manner, and
said, "I remember well, that when I first saw {p.224} these, I told
him they were his best, but he had touched them up afterwards."

"The violet in her greenwood bower,
Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle,
May boast itself the fairest flower
In glen or copse or forest dingle.

"Though fair her gems of azure hue
Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining,
I've seen an eye of lovelier blue
More sweet through watery lustre shining.

"The summer sun that dew shall dry,
Ere yet the sun be past its morrow,
Nor longer in my false love's eye
Remained the tear of parting sorrow!"

In turning over a volume of MS. papers, I have found a copy of verses,
which, from the hand, Scott had evidently written down within the last
ten years of his life. They are headed "To Time--by a Lady;" but
certain _initials_ on the back satisfy me that the authoress was no
other than the object of his first passion.[127] I think I must be
pardoned for transcribing the lines which had dwelt so long on his
memory--leaving it to the reader's fancy to picture the mood of mind
in which the fi