tional poet, than one belonging to the history of that country whose youth is renewed in his stirring lines.
Never did any one age produce two minds so essentially opposed as those of Byron and Scott. Byron idealised and expressed that bitter spirit of discontent which has at the present moment taken a more material and tangible form. He is the incarnation of November. From time immemorial it has been an Englishman's privilege to grumble, and Byron gave picturesque language to the universal feeling. He embodied in his heroes what is peculiarly our insular character—its shyness, its sensitiveness, and its tendency to morbid despondency. Scott, on the contrary, took the more commercial and fighting side of the character; he embodied its enterprise and resistance. The difference is strongly shown in the delineation of their two most marked heroes—"Lara" and "Marmion." Both are men, brave, unscrupulous, and accustomed to action; but Lara turns disgusted from a world which to him has neither an illusion nor a pleasure. "Marmion," on the contrary, desires to pursue his career of worldly advancement: he looks forward to increased riches and power, and indulges in no misanthropic misgivings as to the worth of the acquisition when once gained. Both are attended by a Page—that favourite creation of the olden dramatists; Byron's is little more
