as slavish as the other is niggard. Nature gave Lucy Bertram the lovely face and the sweet disposition, but fortune surrounded her with difficulties and sorrows. From her cradle, whose companion was the coffin of her mother, her young life must have been one of anxiety and of struggle. Her natural good sense would soon show the embarrassments which were daily thickening around her ruined father, while she must see the fruitlessness of her own efforts to retrieve or assist. From the time that she could think at all her thoughts must have been sad and careful ones ; and what strength, yet sweetness of character, they gradually developed! A quick perception of propriety is the chief characteristic of her mind, while warm, but timid affection, is that of her heart. I know no circumstances so melancholy as those of a decayed family: the very fact of having known better days only aggravates the privations of the present—and pride inflicts—
"Tortures the poor alone can know,
The proud alone can feel."
Scott has skilfully surrounded the falling house of Ellangowan with every possible circumstance that could excite interest in its fortunes. There is the long descent, coupled with stirring traditions of love and war; and call it prejudice or fantasy, the pride of birth has a hold on our respect, linked
