reviews praising Hazlitt's description
of the Battle of the Pyramid's, to turn to the account of Scott. I
need not say which was best: Scott's was like the sounding of a
trumpet. The present cheap and truly elegant edition of the works of
the author of "Waverley" has, with its deservedly unrivalled sale,
relieved the poet from his difficulties, and the cloud which hung so
long over the towers of Abbotsford has given place to sunshine.

Of Abbotsford itself, the best description ever given, at least the
briefest, was "A Romance in stone and lime." It would require a volume
to describe all the curiosities, ancient and modern, living and dead,
which are here gathered together;--I say living, because a menagerie
might be formed out of birds and beasts, sent as presents from distant
lands. A friend told me he was at Abbotsford one evening, when a
servant announced, "A present from"--I forget what chieftain in the
North.--"Bring it in," said the poet. The sound of strange feet were
soon heard, and in came two beautiful Shetland ponies, with long manes
and uncut tails, and so small that they might have been sent to
Elfland, to the Queen of the Fairies herself. One poor Scotsman, to
show his gratitude for some kindness Scott, as sheriff, had shown him,
sent two kangaroos from New Holland; and Washington Irving lately told
me, that some Spaniard or other, having caught two young wild
Andalusian boars, consulted him how he might have them sent to the
author of "The Vision of Don Roderick."

This distinguished poet and novelist is now some sixty years
old--hale, fresh, and vigorous, with his imagination as bright, and
his conceptions as clear and graphic, as ever. I have now before me a
dozen or fifteen volumes of his poetry, including his latest--"Halidon
Hill"--one of the most heroically-touching poems of modern times--and
somewhere about eighty volumes of his prose: his letters, were they
collected, would amount to fifty volumes more. Some authors, though
not in this land, have been even more prolific; but their progeny were
ill-formed at their birth, and could never walk alone; whereas the
mental offspring of our illustrious countryman came healthy and
vigorous into the world, and promise long to continue. To vary the
metaphor--the tree of some other men's fancy bears fruit at the rate
of a pint of apples to a peck of crabs; whereas the tree of the great
magician bears the sweetest fruit--large and red-cheeked--fair to look