near to him that day, for in the same hour was placed in my hands the original manuscript of his _Journal_, and I saw, in his handwriting, the last words that ever fell from his pen. That _Journal_ is in two quarto volumes. One of them is filled with writing; the other half filled; and the lines in both are of a fine, small character, crowded closely together. Toward the last the writing manifests only too well the growing infirmity of the broken Minstrel,--the forecast of the hallowed deathbed of Abbotsford and the venerable and glorious tomb of Dryburgh. These are his last words: "We slept reasonably, but on the next morning"--and so the _Journal_ abruptly ends. I can in no way express the emotion with which I looked upon those feebly scrawled syllables,--the last effort of the nerveless hand that once had been strong enough to thrill the heart of all the world. The _Journal_ has been lovingly and carefully edited by David Douglas, whose fine taste and great gentleness of nature, together with his ample knowledge of Scottish literature and society, eminently qualify him for the performance of this sacred duty; and the world will possess this treasure and feel the charm of its beauty and pathos,--which is the charm of a great nature expressed in its perfect simplicity; but the spell that is cast upon the heart and the imagination by a prospect of the actual handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, in the last words that he wrote, cannot be conveyed in print. [Illustration: _The Maiden._]