and counsel from that ear, to which all might be safely confided. But in her present lethargic state, what would my attendance have availed? — and Anne has promised close and constant intelligence. I must dine with James Ballantyne to-day en famille. I cannot help it; but would rather be at home and alone. However, I can go out too. I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness which struggles to invade me.

'Edinburgh,— Mrs. Brown's lodgings, North St. David Street - May 12. I passed a pleasant day with kind J. B., which was a great relief from the black dog, which would have worried me at home. He was quite alone.

'Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with Touchstone, "When I was at home I was in a better place; I must, when there is occasion, draw to my own Baillie Nicol Jarvie's consolation "One cannot carry the comforts of the Saut-Market about with one." Were I at ease in mind, I think the body is very well cared for. Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy,—a clergyman, and, despite his name, said to be a quiet one.'

May 14. — A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who are shining so brightly on these dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were looking as bright on the banks of the Tweed; but look where you will, Sir Sun, you look upon sorrow and suffering. - Hogg was here yesterday, in danger, from having obtained an accommodation of 100/. from James Ballantyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I am unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged to borrow myself.' 'May 15. - Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at Abbotsford.'

'Abbotsford, May 16. She died at nine in the morning, after being very ill for two days — easy at last. I arrived here late last night. Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics, which returned on my arrival. Her broken accents were like those of a child, the language as well as the tones broken, but in the most gentle voice of submis

sion. "Poor mamma never return again - gone forever- a better place." Then, when she came to herself, she spoke with sense, freedom and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. It would have been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger - what was it then to the father and the husband? For myself, I scarce know how I feel; sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, sometimes as weak as the water that breaks on it. I am as alert at thinking and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast what this place now is, with what it has been not long since, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family - all but poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer of my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk-down my sense of the calami

tous apprehensions which break the heart that must bear them alone. - Even her foibles were of service to me, by giving me things to think of beyond my weary self-reflections.

'I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not my Charlotte - my thirty-years' companion. There is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic but that yellow mask, with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression? I will not look on it again. Anne thinks her little changed, because the latest idea she had formed of her mother is as she appeared under circumstances of extreme pain. Mine go back to a period of comparative ease. If I write long in this way, I shall write-down my resolution, which I should rather write-up, if I could.'

'May 18.-* * Cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth must have her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not the bride of my youth, the mother of my children, that will be laid among the ruins of Dryburgh, which we have so often visited in gaiety and pastime. No, no.'

'May 22. *

* Well, I am not apt to shrink from that which is my duty, merely because it is painful; but I wish this funeral-day over. A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be doing and talking.'

'May 26.- * * Were an enemy coming upon my house, would I not do my best to fight, although oppressed in spirits; and shall a similar despondency prevent me from mental exertion? It shall not, by Heaven!'

'Edinburgh, May 30.- Returned to town last night with Charles. This morning resume ordinary habits of rising early, working in the morning, and attending the Court. * * * I finished correcting the proofs for the Quarterly; it is but a flimsy article, but then the circumstances were most untoward. This has been a melancholy day—most melancholy. I am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. I do not know what other folks feel, but with me the hysterical passion that impels tears is a terrible violence—a sort of throttling sensation then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte can actually be dead.'1

This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other scenes, in that Seventh Volume, must come, which will have no beauty, but be tragical only. It is better that we are to end here.

And so the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott

1 Vol. vi. pp. 297-307.

is with us no more. A possession from him does remain ; widely scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said of him, When he departed, he took a Man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and goodness, when we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it; - ploughed deep with labour and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell.

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.1

[1838.]

THE Lady Rahel, or Rachel, surnamed Levin in her maiden days, who died some five years ago as Madam Varnhagen von Ense, seems to be still memorable and notable, or to have become more than ever so, among our German friends. The widower, long known in Berlin and Germany for an intelligent and estimable man, has here published successively, as author, or as editor and annotator, so many Volumes, Nine in all, about her, about himself, and the things that occupied and environed them. Nine Volumes, properly, of German Memoirs; of letters, of miscellanies, biographical and autobiographical; which we have read not without zeal and diligence, and in part with great pleasure. It seems to us that such of our readers as take interest in things German, ought to be apprised of this Publication; and withal that there are in it enough of things European and universal to furnish-out a few pages for readers not specially of that class.

One may hope, Germany is no longer to any person that

1 LONDON AND WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. 62.-1. Rahel. Ein Buch des Andenkens für ihre Freunde (Rahel. A Book of Memorial for her Friends). 3 vols. Berlin, 1834.

2. Gallerie von Bildnissen aus Rahel's Umgang und Briefwechsel (Gallery of Portraits from Rahel's Circle of Society and Correspondence). Edited by K. A. Varnhagen von Ense. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1836.

3. Denkwürdigkeiten und vermischte Schriften (Memoirs and Miscellaneous Writings). By K. A. Varnhagen von Ense. 4 vols. Mannheim, 1837 - 38.

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vacant land, of gray vapour and chimeras, which it was to most Englishmen, not many years ago. One may hope that, as readers of German have increased a hundredfold, some partial intelligence of Germany, some interest in things German, may have increased in a proportionably higher ratio. At all events, Memoirs of men, German or other, will find listeners among men. Sure enough, Berlin city, on the sandy banks of the Spree, is a living city, even as London is, on the muddy banks of Thames. Daily, with every rising of the blessed heavenly light, Berlin sends up the smoke of a hundred-thousand kindled hearths, the fret and stir of five-hundred-thousand new-awakened human souls ; — marking or defacing with such smoke-cloud, material or spiritual, the serene of our common all-embracing Heaven. One Heaven, the same for all, embraces that smoke-cloud too, adopts it, absorbs it, like the rest. Are there not dinnerparties, æsthetic teas;' scandal-mongeries, changes of ministry, police-cases, literary gazettes? The clack of tongues, the sound of hammers, mounts up in that corner of the Planet too, for certain centuries of Time. Berlin has its royalties and diplomacies, its traffickings, travailings; literatures, sculptures, cultivated heads, male and female; and boasts itself to be the intellectual capital of Germany.' Nine Volumes of Memoirs out of Berlin will surely contain something for us.

Samuel Johnson, or perhaps another, used to say, there was no man on the streets whose biography he would not like to be acquainted with. No rudest mortal walking there who has not seen and known experimentally something, which, could he tell it, the wisest would hear willingly from him! Nay, after all that can be said and celebrated about poetry, eloquence and the higher forms of composition and utterance; is not the primary use of speech itself this same, to utter memoirs, that is, memorable experiences to our fellow-creatures? A fact is a fact; man is forever the brother That thou, O my brother, impart to me truly how

of man.