as fair as hearts, who is with us in daylight and in dreams, usually takes a "local habitation and a name" from some secret hope;—it is pleasant to think that another as dark as spades is exceedingly "vexed in his mind" on our account; while self-love confirms the warning, to be on our guard against some envious woman as fair as diamonds.
But the most dignified shape that prophecy has taken in modern times is, unquestionably, the second sight. It takes its seeming from the wild country which gave it birth, where the grey mists clothing forest and mountain, so often delude the eye with unreal shapes. Without positive insanity, we know how the imagination may be worked upon to hold each strange tale devoutly true; and could a person once be sufficiently excited to believe that he possessed such a power, it would not long want confirmation strong as holy writ. Could such a gift be given, what a dreadful one to the possessor. To look on the face of youth, and see in it the writing of death, the shroud up to the throat; to stand beside your chosen friend, and watch the grave yawning at his feet!—better, a thousand times better, our brief span of knowledge, which knoweth little even of the present, than thus to look on a future whose sorrows are more than we can bear. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. The Legend of Montrose is not one of Scott's best narratives. Anderson, as the gallant and accom-
