Sardanapalus, A. 4.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Even the most simple and unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless them!) an instinctive sharpness of perception in love matters, which sometimes goes the length of observing partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to detect such as pass actually under their observation.—­Waverley.

          Her accents stole
    On the dark visions of their soul,
    And bade their mournful musings fly,
    Like mist before the zephyr’s sigh.

      Rokeby, Canto 4.

She sung with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she uttered, that might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musical talent.  Her natural good sense taught her, that if, as we are assured, “music must be married to immortal verse,” they are very often divorced by the performer in a most shameful manner.  It was perhaps owing to this sensibility to poetry, and combining its expression with those of the musical notes, that her singing gave more pleasure to all the unlearned in music, and even to many of the learned, than could have been communicated by a much finer voice and more brilliant execution, unguided by the same delicacy of feeling.—­Waverley.

Like every beautiful woman, she was conscious of her own power, and pleased with its effects....  But as she possessed excellent sense, she gave accidental circumstances, full weight in appreciating the feeling she aroused.—­Waverley.

    There was a soft and pensive grace,
    A cast of thought upon her face,
    That suited well the forehead high,
    The eye-lash dark, and downcast eye;
    The mild expression spoke a mind
    In duty firm, composed, resign’d.

      Rokeby, Canto 4.

    The rose, with faint and feeble streak
    So slightly tinged the maiden’s cheek,
    That you had said her hue was pale;
    But if she faced the summer-gale,
    Or spoke, or sung, or quicker moved,
    Or heard the praise of those she loved,
    Or when of interest was express’d
    Aught that waked feeling in her breast,
    That mantling blood in ready play
    Rivall’d the blush of rising day.

      Rokeby, Canto 4.

     What woman knows not her own road to victory?—­The Talisman.

She had been beautiful, and was stately and majestic in her appearance.  Endowed by nature with strong powers and violent passions, experience had taught her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other.  She was a severe and strict observer of the external forms, at least, of devotion; her hospitality was splendid, even to ostentation; her address and manners were grave, dignified, and severely regulated by the rules of etiquette....  And yet, with