Youth suffers but for a season; the bowed but unbroken spirit resumes its elasticity; the future, unknown and beautiful, wins the present to itself, … - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Lone upon a mountain, the pine-trees wailing round him,
Lone upon a mountain the Grecian youth is laid ;
Sleep, mystic sleep, for many a year has bound him,
Yet his beauty, like a statue's pale and fair, is undecay'd.
When will he awaken ?

Sir Walter Scott was the Luther of literature. He reformed and he regenerated. To say that he founded a new school is not saying the whole truth ; for there is something narrow in the idea of a school, and his influence has been universal. Indeed, there is no such thing as a school in literature ; each great writer is his own original, and "none but himself can be his parallel." We hear of the school of Dryden and of Pope, but where and what are their imitators ? Parnassus is the very reverse of Mont Blanc. There the summit is gained by treading closely in the steps of the guides ; but in the first, the height is only to be reached by a pathway of our own. The influence of a genius like Scott's is shown by the fresh and new spirit he pours into literature.

I own it gave my picturesque fancies at first a shock, to hear of a steam-boat on Loch Katrine ; but I was wrong. Nothing could be a more decisive proof of the increased communication between England and Scotland — and communication is the regal road to improvement of every kind.