Adieu, lovely Summer! I see thee declining, I sigh, for thy exit is near; Thy once glowing beauties by Autumn are pining, Who now presses hard on thy rear. The late blowing flowers now thy pale cheek adorning, Droop sick as they nod on the lea; The groves, too, are silent, no minstrel of morning Shrill warbles his song from the tree. Aurora peeps silent, and sighs a lorn widow, No warbler to lend her a lay, No more the shrill lark quits the dew-spangled meadow, As wont for to welcome the day. Sage Autumn sits sad now on hill, dale, and valley, Each landscape how pensive its mien! They languish, they languish! I see them fade daily, And losing their liv'ry of green. O Virtue, come waft me on thy silken pinions, To where purer streamlets still flow, Where summer, unceasing, pervades thy dominions, Nor stormy bleak wint'ry winds blow. SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. Sir Walter Scott, the most chivalrous of Scottish poets, and the most illustrious of British novelists, was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August 1771. His father, Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet, was descended from a younger branch of the baronial house of the Scotts of Harden, of which Lord Polwarth is the present representative. On his mother's side his progenitors were likewise highly respectable: his maternal grandfather, Dr John Rutherford, was Professor of the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh, and his mother's brother, Dr Daniel Rutherford, an eminent chemist, afterwards occupied the chair of Botany. His mother was a person of a vigorous and cultivated mind. Of a family of twelve children, born to his parents, six of whom survived infancy, Walter only evinced the possession of the uncommon attribute of genius. He was born a healthy child, but soon after became exposed to serious peril by being some time tended by a consumptive nurse. When scarcely two years old he was seized with an illness which deprived him of the proper use of his right limb, a loss which continued during his life. With the view of retrieving his strength, he was sent to reside with his paternal grandfather, Robert Scott, who rented the farm of Sandyknowe, in the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, in Roxburghshire. Shortly after his arrival at Sandyknowe, he narrowly escaped destruction through the frantic desperation of a maniac attendant; but he had afterwards to congratulate himself on being enabled to form an early acquaintance with rural scenes. No advantage accruing to his lameness, he was, in his fourth year, removed to Bath, where he remained twelve months, without experiencing benefit from the mineral waters. During the three following years he chiefly resided at Sandyknowe. In his eighth year he returned to Edinburgh, with his mind largely stored with border legends, chiefly derived from the recitations of his grandmother, a