THIS was another distinguished writer of songs, whose productions are known, and deservedly admired, among all classes. Thomas Haynes Bayly was born in 1797. As he was connected by relationship with several noble families, and had the prospect of a considerable inheritance, besides the fortune he received with his wife, he commenced life under the happiest auspices, and took his natural place in fashionable and elevated society. But unforeseen calamities swept away all his sources of independence, and he was reduced from a state of affluence, to toil as an author, for a scanty and precarious subsistence. In this condition, he wrote those extensive collections of beautiful Songs which are to be heard in every assembly, from the palace to that of the humblest tavern; and of many who were hanging with rapture over his tender and elegant compositions, it might have been justly said, in the language of a still more talented writer of song "Ah, little they think who delight in his strains, Mr. Bayly was also the writer of two or three Novels, and about thirty or forty pieces for the Stage, of which some of the latter were attended with great success, although their author, from want of habits of economy, derived no permanent benefit from their popularity. He died on the 22d of April, 1839. WHY COMES HE NOT? Why comes he not?-why comes he not? My boy and I have watch'd the path Together all the day. I'm jealous of the eager child, I fain would be alone, That his first coming may be seen By no eye save my own. -'tis he-I hear his steed, He comes Ah, would he were in sight! I might already have beheld The form of him I love. He darts like lightning from the trees, Again I hear those words of love, I envy not the dame whose lord She never knew the boundless joy HARK! HARK! I HEAR A DISTANT DRUM. Hark! hark! I hear a distant drum;- We view the pomp of war alone, Its gloom is gone: And sweet to-night their dreams will be But yon fair girl, in mute despair, Her Edward comes not,-where is he? IT IS NOT ON THE BATTLE FIELD. It is not on the battle field It is not on a broken shield I'd breathe my latest sigh: And though a soldier knows not how I ask no laurel for my brow, It is not that I scorn the wreath It is not that I fear the death A soldier proudly dares: When slaughter'd comrades round me lie, I'd be the last to yield; But yet I would not wish to die When faint and bleeding in the fray, To this sweet vale again; For like the wounded weary dove I fain would reach my own dear Love, HE CAME AT MORN. He came at morn to the lady's bower- At mid-day, with her page she went He knelt to her with words most sweet, At night, in robes both rich and rare, THIS, the most popular, prolific, and successful, of modern authors, was born at Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. He was educated, during boyhood, at the High School of that city, but without giving any indication of those great powers which afterwards astonished the literary world. In consequence of an attack of ill health, by which he was necessarily precluded from study, he read for amusement every history, tale, and romance, that fell in his way-by which circumstance the whole tenour of his future intellectual career was decided. The law, to which he was brought up as a profession, lost its charms, and a chapter of Froissart or Amadis de Gaul had more attractions in his eyes than the Pandects of Justinian. From his multifarious reading, his mind was stored with an immense mass of fact and fiction, which he had a strong memory to retain, and a glowing imagination to vivify. Thus qualified to become either the novelist or the poet, it is probable that accident alone decided him as to which of these departments should have the honour of his first choice. The decision was for poetry, and his first attempt was in the subsidiary capacity of translator, by publishing his versions of Leonore, and other German poems, in 1796. The effort was unsuccessful, but he was too conscious of his own latent powers to be discouraged. He persevered, and translated Goethe's Tragedy of Goetz of Berlichingen, which was equally unsuccessful. Several original pieces, which he published about the same period, however, in Lewis's Tales of Wonder, attracted more favourable notice. He now resolved to break loose from his trammels, and travel in an independent path of his own. In 1805, therefore, appeared his first great original work, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the sensation which it produced upon the public mind was truly electric. Men were astonished to see the times of old border feuds and wars recited once more in the style of the ancient ballads, but combined with all the energy of the ancient and the graces of modern poetry-it was something wholly new, and undreamt of, in the world of literature. Scott had now discovered where his strength lay, and he was not slow to use it. In 1808, The Lay was followed by Marmion, a poem of a loftier character than the former, in which he endeavoured, and with success, to improve his style and versification. His next poem was The Lady of the Lake, incontestably the best, as it was the most popular, of all his poetical productions. In 1811, he published Don Roderick, which with a few brilliant exceptions is a heavy and unreadable production, and was but coldly received by the public. As he had been so successful in the descriptions of Highland scenery in his Lady of the Lake, he resolved to attempt the same experiment with that of England, and accordingly, in 1813, he made a poetical foray across the border, and produced Rokeby but his muse, that had been so vigorous and lively upon her native soil, seemed to sicken amidst the soberness of the southern landscape, and Rokeby was proclaimed by the public a decided failure. It was grievous to be thus dethroned, after he had reigned in the regions of poetry without a rival, and he tried to retrieve his reputation by a Scottish subject, and a popular hero; but The Lord of the Isles, which was published in 1814, failed to charm, although Bruce and Bannockburn were summoned to the rescue. Besides, a whole host of imitators had started up, whose rhymes grated upon the public ear, so that there was a universal cry for something new-and a poet had already appeared by whom the mightiest of his contemporaries were soon to be overthrown. Scott saw, that as a poet he had ceased to captivate the multitude, and he wisely retired from the field, without hazarding a competition with the author of Childe Harold and The Corsair. At this point, however, when the history of a poet commonly terminates, he was to astonish the public with an unexpected transformation. The Northern Minstrel, like his own Sir Thomas of Ercildon, suddenly became the Northern Wizard, and that series of wonderful works, commonly called The Waverley Novels, arrested the attention, not of one country, but of the whole civilized world, and procured for him a reputa tion compared with which all that he had hitherto acquired was of trivial value. After a life of labour, such as few literary men have undergone, Sir Walter Scott died on the 21st of September, 1832. If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruin'd central tower; When buttress and buttress alternately When silver edges the imagery, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; When distant Tweed is heard to rave, And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave; Then go-but go alone the while- Now slow and faint he led the way, |