* * * * *
ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN.
[As Sir Walter Scott's new work has not reached us in time to enable us
to fill in the outline of the story in our present Number, we give a few
sketchy extracts, or portraits,--such as will increase the interest for
the appearance of the Narrative.
There are some admirable specimens of Swiss scenery, which have the
effect of sublime painting: witness the following attempt of two
travellers, father and son, who with their guide, are bewildered in the
mountains by a sudden storm. The younger attempts to scale a broken path
on the side of the precipice:]
Thus estimating the extent of his danger by the measure of sound sense
and reality, and supported by some degree of practice in such exercise,
the brave youth went forward on his awful journey, step by step, winning
his way with a caution, and fortitude, and presence of mind, which alone
could have saved him from instant destruction. At length he gained a
point where a projecting rock formed the angle of the precipice, so far
as it had been visible to him from the platform. This, therefore, was
the critical point of his undertaking; but it was also the most perilous
part of it. The rock projected more than six feet forward over the
torrent, which he heard raging at the depth of a hundred yards beneath,
with a noise like subterranean thunder.
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