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□LOVE AND LITERATURE;
BEING
THE REMINISCENCES, LITERARY OPINIONS, AND
FUGITIVE PIECES
OF
A POET IN HUMBLE LIFE.
BY ROBERT STORY,
author of “songs and lyrical poems,” “the outlaw,
A DRAMA,” &C.
LONDON;
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1 842X
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V ^ri#i0Ni
J. & R. AKED, PRINTERS, LOW-STREET, KEIGHLEY
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ONE THOUSAND
INDIVIDUALS OF BOTH SEXES AND OF ALL RANKS AND PARTIES
WHO, BY PATRONISING
THIS WORK,
HAVE EVINCED THEIR APPROVAL OF
ITS AUTHOR,
IT IS, BY HIM,
GRATEFULLY AND RESPECTFULLY
INSCRIBED..









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CONTENTS.
Provincial Poets, 			Page. 	 9
Young Love, 			
A Relic of Minstrelsy,			 23
Young Love and Minstrelsy,			 30
The day is gane, 					 38
Fairies, 			39
Fitz-Harcla, 		•		 41
Old Balads					 56
Beaumont Side, 				 62
Love of Native Scenes, 				 64
My own hills, 					 71
•j j To the Northern Breeze, 				 72
4 Hoseden, 				 73
First Attempts at Poetry, ....			 75
Andrew Scott and Burns, 				 ib.
Imitations of Burns, 				 83
Elspie Campbell, 				 84
Epistle to Stobbie, 				 87
		
Love and Poetry, 				 91
The Maid of Tweed,				 97
Love on the Harvest Field				 99
Song, 				 101
Harvest in Craven,			.... 104
Harvest Home,				 109
Though Winter’s chill breezes, ....			 116
a nnpp-1 nvpfl form 		 . . ,			 ib.
Story of Mary Lee, 				 118 •
English Poets. Pope, 				 127
		..... 133I
VIII.	CONTENTS.
Page.
Love.	Anna, .............................. 134
Anna’s	Grave, .............................. 141
Song, ............................................ 142
The Poets.	Ossian, ........................... 144
----------Thompson, .............................. 152
----------Leyden,................................. 157
----------Sir Walter Scott, ...................... 167
----------Byron, ................................. 174
’Tis said that	stars have fallen, ................ 177
The Poets.	Moore, Wordsworth, and Southey, . 180
Love.	Mary,.............................. 192
Bright	was the eye, .............................. 193
Hushed the world, ................................ 194
I love her, ...................................... 195
Wedded Love, ..................................... 197
In May’s expansive ether, ........................ 199
The Return of Spring.............................. 201
An Englishman’s Wife, ............................ 203
There’s nane like my ain Wife, ................... 205
Wedded Love, ..................................... 207
My dear, if cold, ................................ 208
The Union Workhouse,............................   210
0	faded leaf, ...................................  212
Song, ..........................................   213
She shall not die, ............................... 214
Tributes to the Departed, .........................216
1	saw her in the violet time, .................... 217
Lament,........................................... 219
Where, loved one, is thy dwelling now, ........... 221
Mary,............................................. 223
Catching a Fish, ................................. 224
Poetical Dreams, ................................  232
Ode to Spring, ................................... 238
Poetry. Odes...................................... 243
To the Departing Winter, ......................... 244
Rain ! Rain ! .................................... 550
I blame thee not, World!	  256
Conclusion,....................................... 259
INTRODUCTION.
PROVINCIAL POETS.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares—
The Poets!
Wordsworth.
The genius of the present age is practical,
calculating, mercenary—money-getting its in-
spiration and its object. It has deserted the
world of the imagination and the heart, for
the more profitable study of the mechanical
powers. It seeks not to blend the useful with
the ornamental ; with it, the ornamental is
nothing, the useful everything. It discovers
no charm in the beautiful and sublime in
nature, except in so far as they can be made
subservient to its ends. The mountain is
embowelled, the forest felled, to find materials
for its gigantic exertions ; the river is drawn
from its native channel, for the purpose of
BPROVINCIAL POETS.
turning its machinery. It lifts no admiring
eye to the clouds or the stars ; it dwells not
upon the landscape, however diversified with
colours, or illumined with sunshine. It be-
holds nothing to startle in the lightning; it
hears nothing to awe in the thunder. Every-
thing is prosaic, and the globe itself a mere
convenience for its mills and its laboratories !
But amid the general devotion to Mammon,
there still are found some worshippers of a
purer divinity—minds whose influence inces-
santly and insensibly mingles with, and exalts,
the worldly spirit of. the time. I allude to
the Poets of the Provinces ; in which term
I include all those who occupy certain circles,
be they of greater or smaller dimensions;
but who have not yet achieved a national
fame. Of these there are many grades, and
some of them so low as hardly to deserve,
it may be thought, the name of poets at all.
But such is not my view. I cannot, it is
true, think very highly of a man whose utmost
ambition it is, to dress in doggrel verse some
topic of village scandal ; but he is worthy
of notice as the first link of a chain which
terminates in the highest human intellect, or
rather which does not terminate there, butPROVINCIAL POETS.
is thence continued upwards to the loftiest
angellic intelligence, and which may thus be
said to “ link heaven and earth.” He is worthy
of notice, too, inasmuch as he pleases minds
that could not be pleased with anything
superior then, and is useful to prepare them
for the relish of it when it shall fall in their
way. He, a had poet if you will, is never-
theless a pioneer for a better ; as this, in his
turn, becomes a pioneer for the best. Such,
at least, is the view I take of it, and it leads
me to excuse, if not to treat with a degree
of consideration, the poorest attempt at rhyme
or song.
Advancing higher in the scale, we come to
poets who arrest our attention by the powers
they exhibit, and the effects they produce.
We see a Whittle cheering, by his local
lyrics, the firesides of the Northumbrian pea-
santry ; an Anderson giving, in his unrivalled
ballads, a perfect reflex of the manners, cus-
toms, and feelings of the cottagers of Cum-
berland ; and a Scott—not Sir Walter, but
plain Andrew—delighting, by his homely but
truthful songs, the simple-hearted rustics of
the Border. To come nearer home, we have
a Nicholson in Airedale, a Fawcett and a12
PROVINCIAL POETS.
Dibb in the vale of Wharf; each of whom has
done something to stir the public mind, and
by so much to abstract it from s.oulless pursuits.
If any one feels inclined to sneer at the
limited reputation acquired by these indivi-
duals, he would do well to reflect, that the
greatest poets of past or present times, were,
originally, provincial poets. They pleased a
neighbourhood, before they electrified a nation.
Burns himself was, for a long time, the poet
of Ayrshire, then of Scotland, and now—of
the world! Accordingly we find, almost every
year, some one or other emerging from the
mist of his locality, stepping into the sun-
shine, and taking his place among the ac-
knowledged masters of song.
Whether the individual, the Poet in hum-
ble life, whose reminiscences and opinions
have been so freely drawn upon in the following
pages, deserves to be known beyond the circle
he now fills, will be for the reader, not me, to
determine. It is, probably, the first instance
in literary history, of a man laying himself
so completely open, and that voluntarily ; for
it is scarcely necessary for me to say that I
have full permission to make public his “sayings
and doings ; ” and it may gratify a j>hiloso-PROVINCIAL POETS.
13
pbical student to trace the progress of a poetical
mind, from the first dawnings of its genius,
through the studies and frolics of boyhood,
the pursuits and pleasures of youth, to the
time when it may be said to have acquired all
the force of which it is capable. It only
remains for me to state how it happened that
I became possessed of the materials which
the reader will find arranged in the follow-
ing chapters.
I had business—it were useless to say of
what nature—in the Northern Counties, and
towards night-fall I arrived at a village, which,
for certain reasons, shall be nameless. It is
situated in the very centre of a district re-
markable for its romantic beaut}', and celebrated
on account of the natural curiosities it con-
tains. A bridge, rather elegant for the place,
and somewhat large for the stream it bestrides,
connects the two parts of the village, which
would otherwise be separated by the river.
On the south side of the river stands the
church, the square and tall steeple of which
is seen above the trees that surround the quiet
burial-ground. Along the north side, the
principal part of the village extends—some
of the cottages with clean white-washed fronts,14
PROVINCIAL POETS.
some covered with ivy or other evergreens,
and some, again, festooned with flowering
shrubs. A branch of the Queen’s highway
passes through this part, and thus, while it
detracts something from the seclusion one
expects to find in a village, is the means of
making its charms more widely known, because
more frequently enjoyed by the passing traveller.
If my imaginary traveller comes from the
south-east, almost the first object he sees
is a good house directly fronting him, and
upon which he may read, in large gilt let-
ters—The Swan Inn—a name destined, it is
firmly believed, to immortality, from the high
associations which will henceforth be con-
nected therewith, and from the manner, it
may be modestly hinted, in which the writer
shall be found to have discharged his task.
Be this as it may, I arrived at the Swan, as
I have stated, about night-fall ; and having
delivered my horse into the care of the ostler,
I was shown into a large room with a blazing
fire by the landlord himself, a smart, active,
intelligent-looking personage, whose age might
be between thirty and forty, but nearer the
former than the latter number. After partaking
of the refreshments I had ordered, and whichPROVINCIAL POETS.
15
were brought to me by a little, modest, red-
cheeked girl, 1 sent again for the landlord,
and asked him to join me over a pint of
wine; with which arrangement he, nothing
loath, immediately complied. I found, from
his conversation, that he and his wife—a woman
of a comely person, by the bye—had been over
most of the continent, in the service of a
neighbouring family, and that he had done
the honours of the Swan not more than six
years. The noise of children at play in the
room above us, indicated that the command-
ment, “ Increase and multiply,” had not been
neglected by the worthy couple. We were
startled in the middle of a conversation on Italy
and the Alps, by a full chorus of laughter
from an adjoining room. -“You seem to have
a jovial party,” said I. “ Yes, sir,” replied
mine host; “ there is an adjourned vestry-
meeting, and Mr.------------, the poet, has just
been reciting ‘ The Parish Wine.’ ”	“ What!
does he reside here ? ” 1 asked. “ He does,”
returned the landlord; “ should you like to
see him ?” ‘‘Above all things,” I answered.
The next minute I was introduced to the
Poet, whom, without further preamble, I shall
now introduce to the reader.CHAPTER I.
YOUNG LOVE.
When we were bairnies on yon brae,
An’ youth was blinkin’ bonnie, O,
How we wad daff the lee-lang day !
Our joys were sweet and mony, O.
Then I wad chase thee o’er the lea,
And roun’ about the thorny tree,
Or pu’ the wild-flowers a’ for thee—
My only jo and dearie, 0 !
Gall.
I AM an enthusiast myself, and Mr.------------------- and
I were soon deep in poetry and poets. The
name of Campbell was mentioned in connexion
with his delightful “ Gertrude of Wyoming,”
and the remark of the Edinburgh Review
was noticed, on the impropriety of Mr. Camp-
bell having separated his lovers at the early
age of twelve years, when, according to theYOUNG LOVE.
17
critic, no attachment meriting the name of
love, could have been formed between them.
“All humbug ! ” exclaimed the poet. “ What
is love ? Is it not a feeling born of admiration
of something you think lovely in the object
of it, accompanied by a wish to make that
object happy ? If you admit the correctness
of this hasty definition, and if you will hear
me, I shall convince you that love—love of
the purest kind—has existence in the human
breast long before the time of
“ H igh imaging and thought of fire,”
as Rogers denominates the delightful period
of our teens.
“ When I was about ten years old, I lived
with my parents at Heaton, a village on the
banks of the Till. There was in that place a
little girl, whose Christian name was Jessy.
Her image is at this moment as bright on my
mind as the exquisite original was then to
my eye, though I never saw her after my
twelfth year. She was all that our Scotts,
our Byrons, or our Moores, have ever imagined
of the loveliness of childhood. I singled her
out from her companions—my little heart
became attached to her. In all our infantile18
YOUNG LOVE.
sports I contrived to have her for a partner.
Whether we gathered cowslips in the glen,
or chased butterflies by the river side, or
played at “ boggle about the stacks,'’ beneath
the bright moon of autumn—whatever we did,
and wherever we went, Jessy and I were
always together. A sort of game which we
used to call Questions and, Commands, was a
great favourite with me. I shall never forget
the sensation that thrilled through every
nerve of my body, when, with trembling ex-
ultation, I obeyed the order which authorised
me to snatch a kiss from her little vermilion
lip ! You smile at the warmth of my expres-
sion, but I assure you it does bare justice
to the sensation. I cannot so well vouch for
the regard she had to me, but I had reason
to believe it was equally strong, and equally
tender; and it might have been equally per-
manent, but for a rather ludicrous incident,
the relation of which you must make an effort
to excuse.
“ There was a horse-pond at a little distance
from my father’s cottage, and we had a washing-
tub, which 1 fancied might be a very good
substitute for a boat to carry me on its surface.
With a broomstick for a paddle, I launchedYOUNG LOVE.
19
my uncouth bark on the watery element,
while all the children of the village stood
watching my performance. I was still in
shallow water, and within half a yard of the
shore—my weight still keeping my vessel
aground—when my project appeared so feasible
to the bystanders, that I was assailed with
petitions from both sexes for admittance. As
confident as any of them in the practicability
of my scheme, and thinking that a companion
might be of use in assisting me to balance,
I very readily assented; but was perplexed
how to choose among so great a number of
candidates. At last 1 saw something in the
look of my little favourite, which I interpre-
ted into a wish to share in the glory of my
experiment; and getting as near the edge as
possible, I asked her to step in, which she
accomplished with the grace and celerity of
a fairy. We had no sooner got into a depth
of water sufficient to float us, than our boat
began to rock with unmanageable violence,
to the alarm and confusion of ourselves, and
the amusement of the spectators, who burst
into a full chorus of laughter. I still per-
severed, however, maintaining the ecpiipoise
tolerably well, when my foot unluckily slip-20
YOUNG LOVE.
ping, I fell back on the edge of the tub,
which threw the balance so much, and with
so sudden a jerk, in my favour, that my partner
was precipitated against me, and in one mo-
ment more we were both plunged into the
water! Though the pond was not in any
part above two feet deep, we got a complete
drenching, i can truly say, however, that
I felt infinitely more chagrined on her account
than my own. I supported her to the side,
whence she set off, dripping and crying, but
more terrified than hurt, to her parents. I
never could conceive myself greatly to blame
in this affair; yet I lost my	by it.
She had been so laughed at, and vexed, and
my conduct had been represented to her in
so bad a light, that when we next met to
play in the stack-garth, she refused to be
tahen by me; and I recollect my feelings on
the occasion were as bitter, as they could
have been ten years afterwards, if one of
my full-grown favourites had refused me her
hand in the dance.”
The poet here paused, when I seized the
opportunity to say that he had produced only
one instance of	'premature , if I
might use the phrase; and that a greaterYOUNG LOVE.
21
proportion of the kindly clay of human nature
in his composition, or a more delicate arrange-
ment of his nervous system, might have
rendered him an exception, in this respect,
to the rest of the species.
“ I suppose you do not mean that as a
compliment,” replied he; “ and therefore I
may save myself the trouble of meeting it
with a bow. It is an objection which I fore-
saw you would make, but to which my answer
is here. I was so far from being the only
lover in the village, that almost every boy
besides was my rival. I could tire you with
recitals of competitions, quarrels, and battles,
that occurred nearly every day amongst us,
and all that we might appear to advantage in
the eyes of our respective favourites. In short,
love—for I must employ the term for want of a
better—was the prevailing passion ; and as I
never heard that there was any peculiar excite-
ment to it in the air of that neighbourhood,
I must suppose it is human nature, i con-
clude, then, that as in mimicry of mature
age the girl dresses her doll, and the boy
bestrides his hobby-horse, so, in imitation
of the season of courtship—or what is allowed
to be such—these lovers in miniature have
coo
mr <*•»
YOUNG LOVE.
their intrigues, their meetings, and their rival-
ries ; while I establish the further inference
that Campbell was perfectly right, and his
reviewer decidedly wrong.” And what do
you make of the exceptions ? said I. “ Why,”
he answered, with quickness, “ when they grow
up, I would make them butchers, executioners,
or—critics.” I intimated that I thought the
remark a very fair thrust at his auditor.
“ It may be so,” replied he, with a smile,
<£ but who drew the dagger ?”CHAPTER II.
A RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroll’d light as lark at morn.
A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begg’d his bread from door to door ;
And tun’d, to please a peasant’s ear.
The harp, a king had lov’d to hear.
Sir Walter Scott.
“ I was undoubtedly born to song,” resumed
my new friend, after a pause. “At least my
first frolic was connected with minstrelsy.
I became a Minstrel'sBoy in the very year
of the washing-tub.” I begged he would ex-
plain. “ I need not give you a history of
the minstrels of old,” he said; “ Sir Walter
Scott has done all that to my hand—how they
were favoured guests in hall and castle ; how,24
A RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
attended by a boy, they rode through the
land on prancing palfreys, and were every-
where welcomed and admired; and how at
length they sunk into neglect and disrepute,
previously to their entire extinction. But there
is, or there was when I was a boy, a custom
on the Scottish Border, which 1 cannot help
regarding as a relic of the days of minstrelsy.
There, every musician, whether a performer
on the violin, the Highland bagpipe, or the
Northumberland small pipes, makes an annual
tour, during seed-time, among the farmers
and gentry, from whom he collects corn or
cash, sometimes to a considerable amount,
for which the only return offered or expected
is—music. At the village of Crookham lived,
in my boyish days, a lame man, whose real
name was George Johnston, but who was
better known as Doddy the Fiddler. He was
one of those who profited by this custom, and
as he wanted a boy to look after his horse
during the peregrination, he cast his eye
upon my little self as a likely fellow for his
purpose.”
“ You went,” said I, u in the capacity of
a fiddler’s------” I hesitated.
“ Of a fiddler's callant, if you will have it,”A RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
25
he broke in;	“ ancl that word has banished
all the romance from the situation. Mark
the illusions of poetry—the impostures of ge-
nius ! There is a charm in the phrase of
c The Minstrel’s Boy ; ’ a ‘ Fiddler’s Gallant ’
is prose, and worse. But to proceed :
“ Perhaps there is no situation so mean
as to want candidates, or in the attainment
of which there is not some difficulty to remove.
Among the ragged boys of the neighbour-
hood, I had many formidable competitors for
the honour of attending Doddy ; and, on the
other hand, my parents, divided in opinion on
the respectability of the office, held nightly
bickerings about the propriety of allowing
me to accept it. My father was a character
of that kind, which has, or had, many repre-
sentatives in Northumberland. A very slave
in what he considered his duty to his em-
ployer, he was yet as proud as if he had
had no master to serve. He, a labouring man,
looked on his labour as the price that he
paid for being independent, and esteemed
h at independence most dignified, which
was the result of honest exertion. My poor
father ! he was long remembered as honest
Robin, an epithet as noble as it was nobly
c 226	A RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
4 _
merited. The idea that a son of his should
become the attendant of an itinerant musi-
cian—for my father had never heard of the min-
strels !—must, you will see, have been exceed-
ingly disagreeable to such a man. But my
mother’s mind was, in some points, very
differently constituted. Like him, she was
anxious that I should attain the qualifications
of a scholar—I attended a school then—but she
wished to superadd many others of which my
father never dreamed, and among these was that
of being able to perform on the violin. How
she conceived that I could acquire this ability
by merely witnessing the execution of Doddy, I
do not know; but her arguments in favour of
the notion, if they did not convince, at least
silenced my father. His verbal consent, indeed,
was never obtained, and I believe never would
have been ; but 1 determined to give the casting
vote myself. Accordingly having set off one
morning, apparently for school, I deposited
my satchel underneath a hedge, and bent my
way to Crookham, where I was installed in my
situation.
“I was but just in time. An old bay horse,
which appeared much fitter for the kennel than
the road, had already been brought out, andA RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
27
overlaid with sunks (an apology for a saddle)
and with sacks to receive the contributions of
the Scottish farmers, was patiently waiting for a
living addition to his burden. Everything be-
ing ready for our departure, Doddy was pro-
ceeding to buckle the fiddle-case on my back,
when a voice from a closed bed solicited our
attention. In an instant the leaf was thrust
aside, and the dishevelled hair and grimy face of
an old woman were dimly seen in the gloom of
the apartment. There was a wild expression of
sorrow on the countenance, and, when she spoke,
in her tone, which startled and affected me. c A
Dod! ’ she exclaimed, ‘my puir Dod, wer ye
gaun to leave yere auld mother, the mother that
bore you, Dod, as if she had been a stranger
and au outcast? I’m auld and frail, my bairn !
Three weeks is a lang time—ye’ll be a’ that
time away, Dod—tak’ care o’ robbers, Dod—
ye’ll be a’ that time away, and I may never see
you again ! I may be i’ th’ cauld kirk-yard when
ye come back, Dod! But, ma man ! ye ken
what ’ll cheer yere auld mother’s heart. Just
play me a single spring afore ye gang, Dod.
I’ll think on’t a’ the time ye’re away, Dod—it
’ll be meat and drink to me, Dod. Ye Was aye
guid to me, and ye ken the blessing o’ heaven is28
A RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
on them that are guid to their parents. Ye’ll
no deny my request, Dod—just a single tune.’
The good-natured musician took out his violin.
The old woman put herself in a sitting posture,
and laying her withered cheek against the edge
of the bed-door, appeared to listen intently to
the tones which her son began to draw from the
instrument. 41 manna play lang, mother,’ said
Doddy. 4 The sun’s been lang up, and I maun
be at Lordinglaw the night. What’s yere
choice, mother?’ 4A Dod, ye ken my choice
weel eneugh—but I’m owr auld and owr near
my doom to talk about sic things. Sae ye may
just gie me Tweed-side, and ane or twae mair
that used to mak’ me loup sae blithely when I
was a yauld lass—lang afore ye war born, Dod
—lang afore I kenned yere faither, honest Jamie
Johnston.’ As he waked the popular jig, the
old woman seemed to become animated by a
new spirit. She beat time with her hand upon
the side of the bed, and kept exclaiming at in-
tervals : 4 That’s it, Dod !—Play fast, Dod !—
Play fast, my clever bairn! ’—Then forgetting
in her ecstacy the prudence which had swayed
her in the choice of an air, she called on him to
play tunes that it were hardly moral to mention.
44 The musician stopped. 41 see ye’re angry,A RELIC OF MINSTRELSY.
29
Dod ; but A man ! dinna gloom atyere mother.’
' i wadna wus to gloom at ye,’ said Doddy,4 but
I dinna like to hear you talk sae. The young
may die, but the auld must die, mother ! ’	4 Ye
say truly,’ she replied in a serious tone, 4 and
I’ll get better thoughts, Dod. Sae put up your
fiddle, and gie 3Tour auld mother a kiss, and God
’ll bless you, my son ! ’ I think there was a
tear in the eye of the affectionate musician. I
am sure his voice faltered, as, seizing her
withered hand, and imprinting a kiss on her
almost colourless lips, he bade her farewell.
44 The fiddle-case was now buckled on my
back in earnest. Doddy climbed on 4 the out-
side of his horse,’ as Butler expresses it, and I
was soon mounted behind him. In this state
we commenced our travels.”CHAPTER III.
YOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
A’ without was wild and dreary,
A’ within was warm and cheery.
Tannahill.
“ As we rode along, Doddy explained to me the
object of his rounds, and the extent of the ser-
vices I was expected to perform. It was a
custom, and a laudable one too, he assured me,
with every farmer in the Merse or in Roxburgh-
shire to give a cap of grain, or sixpence, to such
of his profession as chanced (so he worded it)
to call at his place during seed-time. The only
return expected for this benevolence was a few
tunes played to the domestics, if the occupier
was of the genteeler class, or, if of the contrary,
to the household promiscuously. And I was
particularly requested to observe the total wantYOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
31
of affinity between his independent calling; and
that of	begging, a word which I had unluckily
made use of, He asked for nothing, he said,
and paid for what he got, as did any travelling
gentleman! My services were easily summed up.
I was enjoined, in the first place, to look after
the horse ; in the second, to look after myself;
never to refuse meat when set before me, or
half-pence when they were offered. And he
would bet all the hair of his fiddle-stick, he said,
that I should get such a flesh-coat on my back,
as would make my mother dance a jig-step to
see me again.
“ To me, who had never been above five miles
from my father’s cottage, the novelties that the
way exhibited were many and delightful. But
when we reached the high grounds—what a
view ! To the south arose the Cheviots, in
proud and frowning majesty ; in the east the eye
caught a glimpse of the blue expanse of the
German Ocean ; and on the north, the richly-
cultivated Merse, with all its fields and green-
woods, lay like a beautifully coloured map—
saved from the character of mere lifeless beauty,
however, by innumerable gentlemen’s seats and
farm houses, by the brown rugged fells of
Lammermoor, and by the yet more defined out-32
YOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
lines of Dunse Law, and two or three other
hills that mingled like bluish clouds with the
horizon. At most of the houses Doddy assured
me we should call, and my heart throbbed with
anticipated pleasure.
“ About night-fall—and a rough night it was
—we arrived at Lordinglaw. Having disen-
cumbered me of the fiddle-case, Doddy limped
away to the farm house, leaving me to find a
stall and provender for the horse. As I was
proceeding to this business, I was accosted by
a forward-looking little girl, whom I had seen
for some time observing me rather narrowly.
‘My faither says ait strae is guid eneugh for
fiddlers’ horses,’ she said; but ye’re a bonnie
laddie, and gin you’ll gang wi’ me, I’ll get
ye a pickle hay to mix it wi’; and my faither
’ill ken naething about it ? ’ With all my heart,
Jessy, said I ; for there was something in her
appearance that reminded me of my first love,
and the name unwittingly escaped my lips.
‘How ken ye that they ca’ me Jessy ? ’ returned
the girl; ‘ for I guess ye was never here afore,
and 1 ken by the burr in yere throat that ye’re
frae the English side. But losli ! ye’re a bon-
nie laddie,’ she continued, coming nearer and
looking into my face; 4 ye’re a dael prettierYOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
33
than little Jock Stenhouse; and what do they,
ca’ you} ’ I told her my name, and her roguish
countenance took an expression of pity as she
went on: f Aweel, ye’re far owr bonnie to be
a fiddler’s callant! ’ I was not insensible to
this compliment, and not disinclined to ac-
quiesce in the truth of her observation; but
after assuring her that my attendance on Doddy
was in consequence of a frolic, not of neces-
sity, I added with considerable effrontery that
my father was a steward. ‘ A steward ! what’s
that?’ What’s that! said I, with all the im-
portance I could muster—why, my father is
head of the village except one, and that is the
grand farmer himself. ‘ O, you’ll mean a
Grieve,’ said the girl with a laugh, £ and if he
be as puir as my faither’s grieve, Harry Sten-
house, he’ll be blithe o’ the situation for ye !’
I was not to be damped by even this sally.
I assured her my father was immensely rich,
and that he intended very shortly to commence
farmer himself, ‘ Weel,’ she said, ‘ it may a’
be as you say, but let us get the horse some-
thing to fend wi’, and then ye sa’ll gang wi’
me into the ha’, and line your stamach wi’ a
guid bickerfu’ o’ sweens.’ I was as much
puzzled with sweens as she had been with
D31
YOUNG LOYE AND MINSTRELSY.
steward, but made no inquiry, as I was so
soon to have an opportunity of ascertaining
their qualities myself. We then heaped the
crib of the old hack to his own satisfaction,
and repaired to the farmer’s hall of Lordinglaw.
“ A long deal table, delicately scoured, and
furnished with the kind of supper mentioned
by my little conductress, bestrode the kitchen
floor. Two capacious dishes, placed at the
proper distance from the centre, were filled
with rich milk, each of them having a small
wooden divider, which veered about on the
surface, like a boat at anchor in the midst of
a lake. Around this table were arranged mas-
ter and mistress, servant lads and servant
lasses, and two or three strangers (including
Doddy) whom hospitality had made guests for
the night. Every one was accommodated with
a portion of the sweens served up in a wooden
vessel, denominated a bicker and no sooner
had the good man of Lordinglaw finished the
grace, than it was seen that poorness of appe-
tite, and inexpertness at managing the spoon,
were by no means attributes of the party. In
a few minutes the sound indicating the progress
of mastication, was exchanged for the hollow
rattle which announced the collision of woodYOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
35
with wood ; and the little boats, to recur to my
simile, were fairly aground at the bottom of
their respective dishes.
“ The party then adjourned to the fireside,
and the call for music became general. The
dance commenced in all its glee.
They reeled, they set—’twas bliss the while—
Eye glanced to eye, and smile met smile !
They reeled, they set, to favourite air
Of Miss M’Cleod, or Colder Fair.
I pass over my own pleasures and triumphs—
how merrily I danced with Jessy, and how
completely I threw into shade the pretensions
of little Jock Steuhouse.
“Next day at noon we reached a village on
the Tweed, a little to the east of Lessudden.
I found here such a medley of characters as I
have never had the fortune to meet since. I
have already intimated that Doddy was not the
only one of his class to profit by the charitable
custom of the Border, and accident now brought
us into contact with several of his musical
brethren. In this place, as in a focus, from
different directions and at the same time, were
collected the illustrious sons—not of song, but
of horse hair and cat-gut. Their appearance36
YOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
would have formed a subject for Wilkie. Here
was blind Robbie of Coldstream, mounted be-
hind his boy on a horse, one of whose legs
seemed to be a superfluous appendage, as he
very seldom touched the ground with it. Here
was Jock of Jedburgh, or, as he was called,
Jethert Jock, astride on an ass, which a rag-
ged youngster led by the halter. Here was
Jamie of Wooler, swearing that he “ never
the like on’t before,” and feeling round with his
sightless eyeballs, yet with so decided an expres-
sion of cheerful good nature on his round puffed-
up visage, that no one ever thought of pitying
his infirmity. Here were Selkirk Sandy and
Dunse Tam; and last, but surely not least,
here was Doddy of Crookham. So heavy a
tax as our number threatened to levy on the
farmer’s hospitality, might well have excused
him for a considerable infringement on its
duties; but that tax he cheerfully paid. We
were all taken into the kitchen, and regaled
with pease-broth, which Doddy and I swallowed
rather than supped, as it was his interest to be
first at the next place.
“ In this manner, for about a month, we
travelled through the counties of Roxburgh,
Selkirk, and Berwick. Much of the sceneryYOUNG LOYE AND MINSTRELSY.
37
we visited was fertile in romantic interest, to
which, however, my master and I were equally
callous. Being’ little more than a child,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,
the smoke of a farmer’s chimney which an-
nounced a good Scotch dinner of haggis, or of
potatoes and bacon, was infinitely preferable,
in my estimation, to Eildon Hills, Minto
Craggs, or Ruberslaw, however majestically
or fantastically they had wrapped their sum-
mits in the clouds. Some years afterwards, I
renewed my acquaintance with these scenes,
through the medium of ballads and descriptive
verses; but their latest and best halo is due to
a writer whose genius breathed an air of en-
chantment over every place he described. Since
I became acquainted with the works of Scott,
I have paid a personal visit to many of the
places therein commemorated, when I certainly
found myself on classic ground, and surrounded
by the beings of his own elegant creation ; yet,
although it was thus invested with an additional
charm, I do not know whether the recollection
of my boyish rambles through the same scenery,
did not overbalance the interest derived from
a later and more refined origin.38
YOUNG LOVE AND MINSTRELSY.
“Yes! my friend,” it was thus the poet
concluded, “ I have often been happy; happy
for a minute—for an hour—-perhaps for a day ;
but I have never been happy for a month to-
gether since I was a fiddler's callant ”
The day is gane when I could keep
Step wi’ the lave by the Ha’ house fire;
The day is gane when I could sleep
Sound as a tap in barn or byre.
I’m altered noo in mind and mood;
In loftier things I seek my joy;
I’ve gotten a name wad mak’ some proud ;—
But the Minstrel’s no the Minstrels Boy !
I hate the warl’s heartless mass,
Vile, dirty dross their end and aim ;
Yet I—if I erect wad pass—
Maun steep my soul in filth like them.
For time brought luve, and luve brought care,
And care brings meikle o’ annoy :
I’d gie some coin to wear ance mair
The lightsome heart o’ the Minstrel's Boy !CHAPTER IV.
FAIRIES.
True Thomas lay on Huntley bank,
A ferlie he spied wi’ his e’e ;
He was aware o’ the Queen of the Fairies
Come riding down by Eildon Tree.
Old Ballad.
I
“My excursion with Doddy was not profitless
—in a poetical point of view. At the firesides
of the farmers, I learned, from the servant men
and maidens, their legends of ghosts and of
fairies, which touched my imagination with
ideas of the c wild and wonderful’—the ele-
ments of poetry. 1 heard fairy tales without
I
end. Now, the fairies, as described by the
Border peasantry, were very different beings
from those you meet with in Shakspeare and
other English j^oets, which are,	, mere
creatures of imagination; which can hide them-40
FAIRIES.
selves in the folds of a rose, or couch in the
bottom of a cowslip. The Border fairies were
diminutive, certainly, as compared with men
and women, being no bigger than children of
three to seven years old; but they were not
deficient in strength, since they frequently car-
ried off human beings, and compelled them to
live with and serve them. They seemed to be
the link between mortals and the spiritual world
—incapable of death, yet liable to some of the
sorrows and wants of humanity. They could
neither be termed good nor evil, but were, like
ourselves, a mixture of both. They were sus-
ceptible of anger, and their resentment was
to be dreaded ; but they were also sensible to
kindness, and would repay their benefactors
with interest. They sometimes condescended to
borrow of the villagers, such articles as these
would be likely to possess—oatmeal, milk, but
especially sweet butter. Those housewives
who had craft or kindness enough to oblige
them by lending, never found reason to regret,
it, as prosperity invariably followed the con-
nexion. Hence they were called the guid
neebors’—sometimes in fear, for as they were
invisible except they chose to reveal themselves,
they might be present and take note of the wayFAIRIES.
41
in which they were spoken of—but often in
good will, in consideration of benefits received or
expected. Their garb, when seen of men, was
always green, a suitable colour for beings that
love the summer dell, and the greenwood glade
by moonlight. I have often heard of persons
who had witnessed their revels, unobserved;
but I have never seen one that would stand a
cross-examination on the subject. In truth
the belief in fairies is all but extinct. They
live—and will live—in the dreams of poets,
but they have passed away from the world of
reality.
“ Several years ago, I took the liberty to
transfer the Scottish Fairies to the dales of
Craven, in a legend entitled
and, as you take an interest in such things, I
will read it to you.”
He produced a manuscript, and read the fol-
FITZ-HARCLA.
A CRAVEN LEGEND.
There was a time when Craven saw,
From fair St. Ives to Outershaw,
One forest stretch o’er hill and vale,42
FITZ-HARCLA.
Unlimited by fence or pale,
Where free by dell and greenwood glade,
The deer of stout De Clifford strayed.
From peasant’s bolt or outlaw’s spear,
That lord to save his forest deer,
Had many a ranger tried and bold
In Lodges scattered o’er the wold.
Of these blithe guardians of the game
Lived one—Fitz-Harcla was his name.
The Wharf in fury and in foam,
Impetuous, passed his silvan home.
For length of wind, and length oflimb,
No ranger trod the wild like him.
No boar so fierce in Barden dell,
But young Fitz-Harcla’s spear could quell;
There lived not man beneath the sun
Fitz-Harcla’s sword would seek to shun.
On to the mark he kept in view
His cross-bow’s bolt unerring flew ;
His arrow, fledged with gray goose wing,
The eagle from the cloud could bring,
Or, at a hundred paces’ stand,
Divide the hazel’s slender wand.
In brief, ’twas said the feats so long
Preserved in Sherwood’s tale and song,
And long unrivalled, shrunk at length
Before Fitz-Harcla’s skill and strength.
The sun was set. The tints of eve
The western sky began to leave.FITZ-HARCLA.
Like thread of silver, faint and far,
The new Moon hung1 beside her star.
Of hawthorn-blossoms, bursting round,
Of wild flowers, viewless on the ground,
The soft gale breathed. Fitz-Harcla stood
Delighted ’mid the fresh green wood.
He stood—no maiden had a part
In the young Ranger’s simple heart;
The evening star ’twas his to spy
Without a dream of Beauty’s eye ;
The flowers might blossom—scent nor streak
Told him of Beauty’s breath or cheek;
And yet that night in loitering mood
Amid the grove Fitz-Harcla stood!
A deeper and a deeper shade
Fell round him. Wondering why he stayed
He called his dog, and hastened on;
But not ten paces had he gone,
When a tall rock, abrupt and gray,
Arose and barred his further way.
Fitz-Harcla paused—no spot of ground
To him was strange for leagues around,
And well he weened no day had e’er
Looked on the rock ascending here ;
Yet here it was ! immense—and dim—
And thrown betwixt his path and him !
While yet he wondered, from the rock
Sounds of the dance and music broke—
Music so soft, so sweet as ne’er44
FITZ-HARCLA.
Before had charmed Fitz-Harcla’s ear !
And then, too, with mirthful din,
A beam of light—shot from within—
Showed to Fitz-Harcla, half-entranced,
The elfin forms of those that danced !
—The youth to many a fairy tale
Had listened in his native dale
With doubt, if not with scorn ; but here
Fitz-Harcla saw, and saw with fear;
For the ‘ good neighbours,’ well he knew,
Though often kind, malignant too.
He crossed himself, and tried to say
An Ave Mary as he may;
Then peeped, ’twixt joy and fear, to see
The fairies at their revelry.
Wide—lofty—long—the cavern seemed,
But there no lamp nor taper gleamed;
Along the sides, and overhead,
Brilliants, as thick as dew-drops, shed
A rich and tender light, as though
Ten thousand glow-worms lent their glow !
In that undazzling light serene
Were tiny knights and ladies seen,
Arrayed in garb of forest green,
Who, fast as gnats in sunshine glance,
Blended the ever-varying dance !
As gazed Fitz-Harcla curiously
The minstrels ceased their minstrelsy.
The dancers at the sign divide,F1TZ-HARCLA.
45
Disposed in ranks on every side,
Leaving all clear the space between—
And the young Ranger’s eye hath seen
A pair upon a natural dais
Of turf and flowers assume their place;
The one a knight, with gems and gold
Glittering upon his mantle s fold,
And one a lady young and fair,
With what seemed jewels in her hair,
And o’er whose shoulders, freshly wreathed,
Garlands of wild-flowers bloomed and breathed !
Fitz-Harcla gazed, admiring, till
He saw set forth by fairy skill
What served for table, raised between
The rows, and all of turf so green ;
Which soon was decked by nimble hands
With cups—like shells from Ocean’s sands;
When now one rose, and wildly rung
The echoing cavern as she sung:
SONG.
We have been at the sea, where the billows foamed free,
To gather the pearls for our hall;
Their love-lighted lamps, from hawthorns and
swamps,
The glowworms have brought at our call.
The bee we have spoiled—her stinging we foiled—
Of the very best hoard to-day ;
E46
FITZ-HARCLA.
And the milk from the dam that she meant for the
lamb,
We have drained and brought it away.
But noble and great, with honours and state,
That man shall suddenly be,
Whose dairy unsealed the butter shall yield
That pleases our fair Ladye.
And yellow as gold, or the king-cup’s fold,
And sweet as the dews of May,
The butter must be to please our Ladye
In the eve of her Bridal day !
“To Burnsall go ! ” Fitz-Harcla cried,
“And from my Dairy be supplied/’
He spoke forgetful, and a space
His heart beat quick, when all the place
Echoed as from a thousand lips—
“Thanks, mortal, thanks! In dark eclipse
No more shall rest thy merit! Be
A son of immortality !
Rich in thy life, and in thy death
Encircled with affection’s breath,
And borne to distant times along
By warm tradition, and by song !
—Mortal, approach, and let this token
Confirm the promise we have spoken ;
Withdraw, and all that we have said
Shall turn to curses on thy head ! ”
Forward the bold Fitz-Harcla went,FITZ-HARCLA.
47
Mach marvelling' no impediment
Of rock opposed his step. He took
The proffered cup, though tremour shook
His outstretched hand and pallid lip—
St. Mary ! will Fitz-Harcla sip ?
He sipped, rash youth ! and saw no more,
But sank upon the cavern floor.
Morn with her warm and rosy beam
Awakened him as from a dream.
The birds sang sweet, the freshening breeze
Opened the flowers and stirred the trees.
Amazed he rose. The rock immense,
The cavern’s wild magnificence,
Were vanished all; and sunbeams played
Upon a vacant forest glade !
He called his dog—it came not nigh;
He wound his horn with summons high;
Then, thoughtful, through the lonely strath
He slowly traced his homeward path.
His simple mind bewildered all,
He strove the vision to recall:
The rock—the cave—the light—the song—
O	o
The charmed cup—the fairy throng
Came o’er his mind in rich confusion ;
It could not be !—’twas all delusion !
Some fairy tale, in memory kept,
Had formed the picture while he slept.
He came to this conclusion wise
Just as his cottage met his eyes—
Its woodbined casement glancing bright,48
FITZ-HARCLA.
Its azure smoke ascending light,
Its opening door from which a train
Of dogs their welcome barked amain,
All blithe—save one, whose drooping plight
Betrayed the recreant of the night.
Long since Fitz-Harcla’s sire had been
Interred in Burnsall’s churchyard green.
His mother, mistress of the dome,
Industrious, ruled the Ranger’s home;
And much alarm the good old dame
Had suffered till Fitz-Harcla came.
Yet her enquiries led him not
To mention of the fairy grot—
Fie told of being, and he smiled,
Oerta’en by sleep in forest wild;
And how he slept till morning broke,
And hungry as a greyhound woke.
The matron then produced her cheer—
A pasty, like a peel, of deer;
Of rich and unskimmed milk a bowl;
A mighty cheese supports the whole.
“Butter, and then,”—the Ranger cried,
“ Butter—St. Mark ! ” the dame replied,
“ The pantry, though so stored last night,
Of butter now is empty quite!
Thieves ! thieves! ”—then dread denouncings
ran,
And hearty was the housewife’s ban.
—Much mused Fitz-Harcla now, yet noughtFITZ-HARCLA.
49
Allowed to ’scape of what he thought.
’Twas plain his ’venture, though it seem
So wild, had been no idle dream.
He had beheld the fairy throng,
Tasted their cheer, and heard their song!
Where might it end P—Hopes new and bright
Danced in Fitz-Harcla’s mental sight.
When Spring’s green buds to leaves had
grown,
And wild-briar roses all were blown,
On couch of heath, with thoughtful mind,
One night Fitz-Harcla lay reclined.
The moon looked in with calmest beam;
And, but for Wharf’s resounding stream,
Upon Fitz-Harcla’s ear arose
No sound to break the still repose.
—At once was dimmed the moonshine’s*fall.
£ '
At once a voice was heard to call:
Fitz-Harcla rise, and come away !
The cause forbids a moment’s stay—
A precious life’s in jeopardy—
Fitz-Harcla rise, and follow me ! ”
Upsprung the youth. With hurried hand
He seized, and buckled on his brand,
His quiver fixed, and round him threw
H is mighty bow of trusty yew,—
Then followed, with his swiftest stride,
The flying footsteps of his guide,
Who, as they crossed the dewy plain,
Sung, sweetly wild, the sequent strain :50
FITZ-HARCLA.
SONG.
’Tis lovely ! for on high
A thin mist veils the sky,
And gives richness to the mild yellow moon;
And the gentle light of day
Seems scarcely gone away,
But mingles with the summer night’s noon !
’Tis lovely! for the wood
Throws its shadows on the flood,
And the flood lies so calm and so pure—
In its depth it seems to show
Yet a sweeter world below,
More delicately bright or obscure!
Away—away—away !
There is night and there is day,
And villains veil their crimes from the one ;
But guilt that shuns the light,
Will do its deed by night—
Away, happy youth, hasten on!
Such was the strain his leader sung,
Fitz-Harcla knew the fairy’s tongue.
\
They paused where trees a shadow made
A shriek was heard from neighbouring shade;
And soon Fitz Harcla’s eye could mark,
Beneath a pine-tree broad and dark.FITZ-HARCLA.
51
A lady struggling in the gripe
Of ruffians— “Mortal! fate is ripe,”
Exclaimed the fairy. “Bend thy bow,
And lay the shameless villains low;
And if no meed thy effort crown,
Twill be because thou art a—clown.
This chance thy kindness gains from me ;
Farewell—the rest depends on thee.”
His trusty bow Fitz-Harcla drew,
The whizzing dart unwavering flew ;
One ruffian fell, the other fled—
But one more arrow, vengeful, sped !
A stifled groan, a shiver more,
And life and agony are o’er!
Fitz-Harcla ran and raised the maid
Extended in the pine-tree’s shade.
He waked her from a death-like swoon,
Then stood astonished—for the moon
Showed him, with life’s returning glow,
The eye of light, the neck of snow,
The lovely brow, the sunny hair
Of bold De Clifford’s daughter fair!
—Oft had he seen her with his lord,
By thronging knights almost adored,
On palfrey light with silver bells
Urge the gay chace in Craven’s dells;
Himself the while, amid such stir,
Not all unmarked of them and her.
His archer skill, his bearing bold,
By all that saw them were extolled;52
FITZ-HARCLA.
And she has said he walked the earth
With the free step of lofty birth.
Glad was, I ween, the lady fair
To waken in the Ranger’s care.
With voice more mellow than the tone
Of redbreast in the woods alone,
She thanked him for her life, or yet
More dear, her honour; spoke of debt
Immense, which far as favours may,
Her sire would, she was sure, repay.
Fitz-Harcla said what any one
So placed, so feeling, might have done,
But with a grace unknown to all
Save those who move in courtly hall—
Such is th’ effect of fairy charm !
The lady took his proffered arm,
And as they traced the moonlight wold,
Her ’venture to her saviour told.
“The wretch your timely arrow sent
Unshrived, alas ! to punishment,
Of high and noble lineage came,
And bore, himself, a noble name.
But what is name, or fame—if vice
Deprives the jewel of its price P
This worthless heart to win he strove,
And felt, or feigned, the warmth of love.
Fitz-Harcla, hear my soul avow
I hated him I pity now !
Piqued by my scorn, this evening heFITZ-HARCLA.
53
Stole on my walk’s green privacy,
Seized both my hands with sudden clasp—
Stifled my shriek with rudest grasp—
And bore me through the forest shades;
That other wretch—his menial—aids.
Some angel sent thee, sure, in time
To mar the meditated crime ! ”
Such was her tale. Romances light
Have made, to us, the story trite;
But to Fitz-Harcla it was new,
And strange, and villanous, and true—
And as he walked, emotions high
Now flushed his brow, now dewed his eye !
’Tis whispered, too—though scarce I dare
My credit in the tale declare—
That while they towards his cottage stepped,
And while by turns he chafed and wept,
The lady, by his feeling swayed,
The secret of her soul betrayed.
It might be so. In days of old
The language of the heart was told. .
I only know a modem dame
Would pause—before she did the same.
I may not linger in my lay
To track them as they wend their way.
’Twere meeter here to tell of all
That happ’d in Skipton’s castle-hall,
Where mourned with lamentation wild
De Clifford for his vanished child ;FITZ-HARGLA.
How horsemen thence were hurried forth
To east, to west, to south, to north,
And all returning as they went
Increased the clamour and lament.
’Twere better still, had I the power,
To paint the joy at matin hour,
When, leaning on Fitz-Harcla’s arm,
Returned the maid devoid of harm ;
When bold De Clifford heard her tell
The ’venture o’er as it befell—
Heard her most eloquent justice do
To young Fitz-Harcla’s courage true—
And vowed, by every saint above,
To guerdon well the deed of love.
Fitz-Harcla’s to the greenwood gone
To sigh by cliff and stream alone.
The lady, in her father’s bower,
Sighs, too, or weeps away the hour.
Her cheek is pale; her eyes of blue
Have lost the glance they lately threw;
Her harp is seldom touched; her lute
Is now at eve in turret mute.
De Clifford sees a shadow dim
The fairest light that shines for him !
—The young were summoned to his hall,
Tried were the banquet and the ball;
But nought, beyond the moment, e’er
Her heart’s despondence seemed to cheer.
At length the truth, by all discerned
Or guessed, the startled father learned—FITZ-HARCLA.
55
“ Blows the wind thence ?” De Clifford cried,
“ My daughter be my Ranger’s bride ?
Where then were that pure blood sent down
From many a Chief of high renown ?
Sullied by that of peasants ?—No !
But gaining thence a healthier flow.
Courage and Worth th’ ennoblers are,
Not the vain ribbon, string, or star.
For once at least, though sneer the proud,
A Peasant’s worth shall be allowed;
For once shall Rank his hosts remove,
And leave the field to concpiering Love ! ”
Brightly the summer sunbeams fell
On Skipton’s tower and fair chapelle,
When, blushing, to the altar’s side,
Fitz-Harcla led his lovely bride.
—All o’er the path they walked upon
Were fresh and dewy flowers bestrown ;
But, to the wonder of the train,
The hands that strewed unseen remain ;
Though still, as on the Bridal passed,
Now blooms descended thick and fast!
None but Fitz-Harcla knew what fair
And friendly hands were busy there—
A happy omen thence he drew,
Which many a brilliant year proved true.CHAPTER V.
OLD BALLADS.
The songs to savage virtue dear.
That ■\von of yore the public ear.
Warton.
) observed that I thought the tale of Fitz-
Harcla rather long for so slight a subject. “It
may be so,” replied the Poet, “ but I was trained
in a school where length at any rate was no ob-
jection. I have listened, of a winter’s evening,
for hours together, to the singing of Chevy
Chase, Gill Morice, and other ballads of si-
milar length and character, not only without
weariness, but with exquisite delight. These
are indeed spirit-stirring productions, and it
induces regret, which Burns felt and expressed,OLD BALLADS.
57
to consider that the authors are entirely, un-
known. How can we,
“ The dwindled sons of little men,”
hope that our names shall live in after ages,
when such giants of the past have perished?
It is a sickening thought to young poets. For
myself, 1 am inclined to say, with Pope,
“ What’s Fame ? A fancied life in others’ breath ;
A thing beyond us, e’en before our death ;
and therefore not worth the seeking ” I should
be sorry if that was any thing but a passing
whim, I said; because the desire of fame is
the only spur that makes Pegasus gallop, and
were it really extinct in your breast, adieu to any
more beart-felt songs. “ Well, have it your own
way,” he answered. “ I pass on to my subject.
Among the pleasures of my boyhood I reckon
the ballads of the renowned outlaw, Robin
Hood; and I read them with pleasure still,
for they are charming compositions. I don’t
allude to the vulgar, and evidently modern
ballads, connected with his name, but the
metrical Romance—for a Romance it is, and of
a high order too—which occupies four Fittes
in Ritson’s collection. The characters are of
F53
OLD BALLADS.
pure English growth ; the diction is the very
English of the Midland counties yet spoken;
and the oaths they use are mostly the oaths of
the English yeomanry still. The picture of
Robin himself is exquisite. There he stands,
arrayed in Kendal green, with his good bow
or quarter-staff in his hand, ready for any
encounter—fearing no face—and always a hero.
Glad to dupe a Bishop or to plunder a Sheriff,
he wras alive to every generous impulse, and
would right the oppressed, or befriend the poor,
even at the risk of his life. Then his chivalrous
respect for the fair sex—
‘He never hurt woman in his life,
Nor man in woman's company.’
What a beautiful trait! No wonder that the
English have ever been fond of these song's.
I am convinced that Shakspeare himself must
have read and admired them. The forest of
‘ Arden ’ smacks of c merry Sherwood.’
u If I were writing,instead of talking, it
might be considered bad taste to make the
transition f am about to make, from Old Bal-
lads to the Divine Songs of Dr. Watts; but
the transition occurred in the fact, and why
should it not do so in the reminiscence r TheOLD BALLADS.
59
bright and obvious beauties of these Songs
came over my young heart, like the soft gale
of spring, when flowers are abroad in the land.
They have a sweet simplicity, by which they
adapt themselves to the juvenile capacity, at the
same time that they possess an elegance, and
in some instances, even a sublimity, in which
the critical fastidiousness of a riper age finds
little to blame, and much to admire. In what
other author, for example, do we see poetry
and religion more happily blended, than in this
stanza ?
‘There’s not a plant or flower below,
But makes thy glories known;
And clouds arise, and tempests blow,
By order from thy throne! ’
The dullest ear must perceive the music of these
lines, and the coldest heart be sensible of the
beautiful piety they inculcate. It were need-
less to multiply instances from writings so
well known; but I cannot help mentioning the
small piece beginning—£ How fair is the rose,’
as being the favourite of every young person,
and distinguished by its sweet and impressive
morality. When a shepherd boy on the moun-
tains, Watts was my solace and my joy. Wrap-60
OLD BALLADS.
ped in my little plaid, attended by my faithful
Gowdie—whose shaggy coat, lank body, and
honest, affectionate phiz, I have now in my
mind’s eye, though he has been dust these
thirty years and more—I have often walked
along the green hill tops, on a clear spring
dawn, when the vale of Beaumont lay dim in
vapour, and the sky was still bespangled with
stars. Well and deeply do I remember, how
pure and brilliant appeared the fairest of these
gems of heaven in the front of the east, when
beheld through the eye of Dr. Watts :
‘ I know his glory from afar,
I know the bright, the Morning Star! *
thus exalting beauty into holiness, by making
it an image or emblem of the Deity himself!
What luxury of feeling! How devout and
ardent were my aspirations ! I was happy, al-
most too happy; yet I felt that I should at
some future time be still happier—when I
should dwell above that blue sky, and when
the bright star I contemplated, should form
but one of the innumerable ornaments of my
pathway !
“ The Scotch metrical version of the Psalms
of David (I speak it with reverence) dividedOLD BALLADS.
61
my veneration with the Hymns of Dr. Watts.
I hacl a pocket edition of it, which 1 seldom
went to the hills without carrying with me, and
which I read in the loneliest places—my heart
burning with the devotion inspired by the
( sweet singer of Israel.’ Well acquainted with
all the wonders related in the first books of the
Bible, I was charmed, transported, by the rapid,
concentrated account of them sketched by the
masterly hand of the royal poet. The uncon-
sumed bush burned before me—the successive
jdagues that visited Egypt were present in all
their horror and blood—I saw the Red Sea di-
vide and ‘ stand on an heap,’ while the favoured
race ‘ passed through on dry ground ’—i saw the
leading cloud darken before them, the ‘ flame
of fire’ by night crimson the sand of the desert
—and I heard the Law from Mount Sinai
‘Mid thunder dint, and flashing levin,
And shadows, clouds, and darkness, given ! ’
1 was already a poet in heart and imagination,
and the scenery amid which I experienced
these raptures—for they were little less—is still
hallowed in my recollection.” 1 asked the
name of the locality. “ Did I not mention
Beaumont ? ” said he, with enthusiasm. “ I62
BEAUMONT SIDE.
was on the hills of Lanton and Hoseden, with
the Beaumont winding beneath me. I was in
the scenery of Beaumont Side! ” I had seen
verses of his with that title, which I requested
him to repeat. It was a grateful task to the bard.
BEAUMONT SIDE.
Sweet Beaumont Side ! The banks of Aire
Before that flash of memory fade—
And Lanton Hills are towering there,
With Newton’s vale beneath them laid!
There wave the very rock-sprung trees
My curious youth with wonder eyed ;
And there the long broom scents the breeze—
The yellow broom of Beaumont Side !
On these hill tops, at break of day,
My feet have brushed the pearly dew,
And I have marked the dawn-star’s ray
Lost in the orient’s kindling blue ;
Then turned to see each neighbouring height,
In morning’s rosy splendours dyed,
While mists ascending, calm and white,
Disclosed the banks of Beaumont Side!
No passion then—and unpursued
The phantom hopes of love and fame;
My breast, with piety imbued,
Admitted—knew—no other flame.\
BEAUMONT SIDE.	63
Amid yon broom, my Bible dear,
And David’s harp my joy and pride,
I felt as angels hovered near,
Was half in Heaven on Beaumont Side!
But shadows dim the sunniest hill,
And dark thoughts o’er my spirit sped ;
For yonder lay the churchyard still,
With all its time-collected dead.
And O ! to me it seemed so sad
For ages in the grave to ’bide,
No breeze to blow, no sun to glad !—
My tears fell fast on Beaumont Side.
“ Why weep, fond boy P ’• a kind voice said,
<( ’Tis but the shell that wastes in earth ”—
I dashed away the tear just shed,
And knew me of immortal birth!
—I ask not Glory’s cup to drain,
I ask not Wealth’s unebbing tide;
O for the Innocence again
My young heart knew on Beaumont Side !CHAPTER VI
LOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.-
\
Scenes of my youth, to faithful memory dear,
Still fondly cherished with the sacred tear !
Leyden.
“ Be aumont Side is one of the sunniest spots
in my recollection,” resumed the Poet, when
he had finished the recitation. a With, per-
haps, the single exception of Roddam, it is
the place on which my fancy most loves to
linger. But I shall tire you?” Not at all,
said I, proceed. “Then you shall take a walk
with me on Beaumont Side, for I can go there
in a moment!—I shall merely endeavour to
entertain you with a few recollections connected
with the objects which may be presented to us
—recollections which, after all, may be moreLOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.
65
interesting to myself than to you, but which
nevertheless may be worth your attention.
“ Observe that bridge, whose single arch
spans the Beaumont. I once looked on that
bridge as a miracle of architecture, and the
stream it spans as a very considerable river.
Now, the river has sunk into a mere burn or
beck, and the bridge is rude, small, and paltry.
It is called, if I remember rightly, Langholm
Bridge. I have spent entire days—nay, weeks
about it, running along its battlements, shout-
ing beneath its mouldy, echoing arch, or
making mimic streams in the channel of the
Beaumont, and calling them by the names of
Tweed, Till, and Glen. Let us go down this
plain, following the windings of the stream.
We are now in Thorningt Haugh. ou
see that herd of cattle, and here is the herd-boy.
He is clad in a tattered jacket, his trowsers
are out at the knees; and as for stockings and
shoes—why he would not be encumbered with
them for a week’s wages ! No, he has to be
here, there, and everywhere. He has often to
cross the Beaumont—on his own errands, to
be sure; but what of that? and he will tell
you that he cou'd na be fashed to be always
stripping shoes and stockings to wade. Besides66
LOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.
he is cooler and lighter without them. He is
just now making himself a cap of rushes. Ob-
serve what a grand knot there is at the top ;
m
and now he has got it on, with what an air he
wears it! He has a rush sword, too. Depend
upon it he is dreaming of battles ! See how
the buttercups fall before him !	‘ If these were
French now,’ he thinks, 4 what havock I should
make ! ’ His little dog, with a ring of white
round his neck, and his tail curled conceitedly
upon his back, seems as happy as his master.
These, now, are two real friends. The boy
would rather that any body behaved ill to him-
self, than that his dog should receive an injury ;
and the dog, on the other hand, loves him with
unaffected love, executes his orders with cheer-
fulness, and receives his reward with gratitude.
It would be a treat to see them at dinner, for
they dine together. The boy sits him down on
a flowery bank; the dog, a little below him
on the slope, eyes every mouthful with a kind
of cunning glance, and jumps up or aside to
catch the morsels that are every now and then
flung towards him. The bottle of morning’s
milk, creamed at the top, is now finished. A
drowsiness comes over him. He throws himself
back on the sward, and watches the lark thatLOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.
67
carols above him, till be can watch it no longer.
He is asleep, and his dog would sleep too, but
for the flies which he keeps snapping at. O
to be a herd-boy again!”—You have been a
herd-boy then? said 1. “Hush!” exclaimed
the Poet, “ you break the spell—you invade my
abstraction. But I was a herd-boy, and on
this very haugh too. Those were days—how
innocent! how happy ! What am I now ?—
Do you see that little hill on the south side of
the Beaumont? It is called	Thorny
Knowe. It is .sadly changed. Then it was
entirely covered with briars, thorns ( both the
common and the sloe), and broom in scattered
tufts. What a variety and a profusion of bloom
did the spring awaken there ! And when the
bloom departed, and the fruits came, what a
feast! The hip, and the haw, and even the
e sulky sloe,’ as Hogg terms it, were delicious.
Many a thorn have 1 got into my naked feet,
in gathering those fruits. But how much
sharper the thorns which surround, and mingle
with, the pleasures of this world! These pierce
the heart, and rankle there for years. O to be
a herd-boy again !—Mark that deep pool in
the stream. That is the very spot where I first
practised swimming. I began at the lower end,68
LOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.
or outlet, of the pool, and kept crossing the
stream, and as my confidence increased, getting
more and more into deep water—when, lo ! as
I got nearly to the centre of the pool, down I
plumped ! I suppose my eyes must have been
open at full stare—looking on the world for
the last time—for I remember seeing the water
flashing above me. However, up I came, and
by swimming, dog-wise, at last reached the
bank in a fright, which for some time cured
me of swimming. I could almost find in my
heart to bathe here again. But no—let us
watch the trouts as they come up the stream.
H ow pure and undisturbed is the water! See
how they sail up—a perfect fleet of trout !
Look at their leader—he weighs five pounds if
he weighs an ounce. What gills ! what fins !
But he has got his eye upon us, and—swith ! —
off he darts like an arrow ! What a happy life
a trout must lead ! But the worst thing is we
know so little of their habits. Have they con-
nexions, relationships, among' themselves ? Are
they ever in love ? Do they woo their cold
nymphs beneath the jutting stone, or the over-
hanging bank ? Are they capable of under-
standing one another ? How odd—to think of
the patriarch of the stream gathering his sonsLOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.	69
together, and giving them directions how to
distinguish their food from the various imita-
tions of it used by man for their destruction !—
The Beaumont here has taken a fancy to divide
its waters into.two streams—or the waters have
agreed to make an amicable separation—not
for a long space ; they meet again about fifty
yards below, and mix their waves with a deeper
murmur of joy. Their partial separation has
formed an island which, from the shrubs with
which it is covered, has obtained the name of
the	Willow Island. On this bank it was that
my old father and I sat one Sabbath afternoon.
He had taken that leisure hour to come from
Reedsford to see me. He talked to me about
my duty to my employer—cautioned me against
negligence—told me that in being careless in
performing my duty I was offending God, as
well as injuring man. ‘My boy,’ he said, ‘you
know that there is a God. You see his wrorks
around you. These hills were brought forth
at his word.	The Beaumont first flowed at
his command. He made all these flowers to
gladden our eyes, and herbs for the use of men.
He gives us everything here ; and if we will
obey his laws, he will make us happy for ever
hereafter! ’ How did my little heart burn
G70
LOVE OF NATIVE SCENES.
within me, as he talked to me oil this bank, and
opened to me the Scriptures! My poor father
—but he is no longer poor. He has long ago
entered into the presence of his Saviour.
‘My boast is not that I derive my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth ;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise—
The Son of Parents passed into the skies ! ’ ”
The recitation of these fine lines of Cowper
aroused him from the species of reverv into
which he had thrown himself; and I was not
displeased, for it grew somewhat prosy. But
the deep love he evinced for his native scenes,
appeared to be a strong feature in his character.
On my remarking it to him, “ I sometimes
blame myself,” he replied* “ for that weakness ;
but I cannot get quit of it. An absence of
more than twenty years has rather strengthened
it than otherwise. It is certainly very strange,
that after having spent nearly the half, and
without doubt the more important half—the
most active, the most useful, the least undistin-
guished half—of my life in this place, it should
still seem to me as if it was not own village ;
—as if I had only just arrived in it; and that
Roddam, Cheviot, Tweedside, Beaumont SideMY OWN HILLS.
71
—in fact the whole of North Northumberland—
should still be considered my home ! But so it
is, and I can neither help nor account for it.
“ 1 have often expressed this feeling in my
songs. One you may have seen, the other
was never in print.” He then recited the fol-
lowing :—
MY OWN HILLS.
These are not my own hills,
Fair though their verdure be ;
Distant far my own hills,
That used to look so kind on me!
These may have their rock and cairn,
Their blooming heath and waving fern ;
But O ! they stand so strange and stern,
And never seem like friends to me !
“ Where, pr’ythee, rise thine own hills ?
In France, or brighter Italy P
What fruit is on thine own hills
That we must deem so fair to see ?
Grows, in summer’s constant shine,
The orange there, or purpling vine ?
Does myrtle with the rose entwine
On mountains so beloved by thee ? ”
All bleak along my own hills
The heather waves, the braken free ;72
TO THE NORTHERN BREEZE.
The fruit upon my own hills
Is scarlet hip and blaeberry !
And yet I would not those exchange,
Mid gay Italian scenes to range—
No, vine-clad hills would look as strange.
As stern and lone as these to me !
In boyhood on my own hills
I plucked the flower, and chased the bee ;
In youth upon my own hills
I wooed my loves by rock and tree ;
'Tis thence my love—to tears—they claim ;
And let who will the weakness blame,
But when in sleep I dream of them,
I would not wake aught else to see !
TO THE NORTHERN BREEZE.
Northern Breeze! that lov’st to hover
In this vale of constant green,
Tell me, hast thou sported over
Roddam’s every dearer scene P
Hast thou swept the Cheviot mountains,
Rich with all their wild perfume ?
Curled the pure and sprightly fountains,
Gushing through their bordering bloom ?
Hast thou sighed where forest shadows
O’er the path of lovers fell,HOSEDEN.
73
When the hour of gloaming lecl us—
Lovers—to the silent dell ?
—Fondest of illusive fancies !
Yet what truth like it can please ?
Impotent were necromancy’s,
To thy spell, sweet Northern Breeze !
“ Before I quit this subject, I may as well
give you another piece, which owes its existence
to the same source of inspiration :—-
HOSEDEN.
Pours the spring its earliest green
Upon Hoseden still ?
Are the milk-white hawthorns seen
Upon Hoseden still ?
Does the tall and grove-like broom
With its moist and yellow bloom,
Shed a glory and perfume
Upon Hoseden still P
Rests the light and downy cloud
Upon Hoseden still ?
Is the sky-lark’s carol loud
Upon Hoseden still ?
Is the curlew seldom dumb ?
And the wild bees, do they come,
As of old, to sip and hum
Upon Hoseden still ?
G 274
HOSEDEN.
Sits the happy shepherd boy
Upon Hoseden still,
Singing blithe his song of joy
Upon Hoseden still P
While far beneath his eyes
The blue stream of Beaumont lies,
And her liquid murmurs rise
Upon Hoseden still.
Ah ! the summer sheds delight
Upon Hoseden still;
And I walk—in dreams by night—
Upon Hoseden still;
When, awaking ’mid my joy,
I but meet the world’s annoy;
And wish I were a hoy
Upon Hoseden still! ”
CHAPTER VII.
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
Andrew Scott and Burns.
Ah ! who may tell, save they who such have borne,
The toils a Peasant Boy must bear and scorn,
Ere he can conquer circumstance, and reach
Proprieties of style, and charms of speech ?
The child of rank patrician learns, by ear,
A language elegant, correct, and clear;
Books, when his subsequent regard they claim,
Speak in a tongue familiar, and the same;
And rules of writing but their sanction add
To perfect modes of speech—he knows no bad.
But when to him of rustic parents bred,
The young aspirant of the straw-roofed shed,
Whose dialect the scanty store unfolds
The poor man’s poor vocabulary holds—
To him when Learning deigns to spread her page,
She speaks the language of the world’s first age;
Her words are strange, her illustrations dim,
Her definitions—undefined to him !76
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
Through dictionaries huge and grammars dry,
He pores with aching brain, and weary eye,
And heart that would despair—did not the Power
That animates us on from hour to hour,
Point with fair finger to the severing cloud,
The dawn’s pure azure, and the rising proud
Of the bright sun—Success !
“These are my own lines,” said the Poet;
“ and they describe with perfect precision the
difficulties I had to encounter in my first at-
tempts at English verse. I say	, be-
cause Scotch, or at least the mongrel Scotch
spoken on the southern side of the Border,
was my native dialect, and I could write it
with ease. But when I became ambitious of
expressing myself in English, my toils com-
menced. I thought in Scotch, and had there-
fore to	translate, as it were, my thoughts from
that dialect. This, after a world of labour, I
succeeded in accomplishing, by looking in an
English Dictionary for the synonymes of the
words that had presented themselves. It was
learning, in fact, a new language. But it was
long before I got quit—if indeed I have yet
got quit—of the Scottish dialect. It hovered
round me during composition, and insinuated
itself, in spite of me, where it was least suitable.
The first two volumes of verse that came in myFIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
77
way, and which for a time supplanted Watts
and the Old Ballads, were not likely to forward
my English studies. On the contrary, they
endeared the Scottish dialect still more to mv
%J
heart.
“ I was still but in my fifteenth year when
the poetical works of a labouring man of the
village of Bowden, near Melross, attracted my
attention. This was Andrew Scott, a name
which has never, so far as 1 know, been men-
tioned in any literary journal ; and yet, if my
memory deceives me not, he has written many
pieces by no means destitute of humour and
originality. His song of £ Simon and Janet’
was for many years popular on the Border.
His £ St. Boswell’s Fair,’ and his ‘ Kemp on
the Harvest Field,’ with many others not now
in my recollection, used to set the cottage fire-
side ‘in a roar’; and his imaginary dialogues
between two of the Eildon Hills, and between
the Auld and New Kirks of Melross—though
obviously imitations of the ‘ Briggs o’ Ayr’ by
Burns—have disputed with the ‘ Lay of the
Last Minstrel’ itself, the occupation of the
mind of at least one pilgrim to that classic
scenery. I wish I could justify to you, by a
few quotations, the opinion I have expressed78
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
of the Poet of Bowden ; but I have not seen
his book these twenty-five years, and I dare
not trust my memory with any but a very short
extract. Honest Andrew is comparing Ramsay
and Burns, and he says—I think with consi-
derable force and neatness—
‘The Gentle Shepherd proved to Allan
A lucky dint t’ exert his talen’,
Else the wild fire o’ Burns’s lays
Had blighted sail* his crown o’ bays :
But, wrapt secure in Shepherd’s plaid,
His name immortal trips the sade! ’
While scribbling copies of Andrew Scott—
with some sly self-intimations between that I
was almost as great a genius as himself—the
works of a poet, absolute, undisputed, and im-
mortal, engaged my delight and admiration.
This was Burns !
“ Excelling equally in the pathetic and the hu-
morous; possessing descriptive powers which
some have not hesitated to place with those
of Shakspeare himself; now lashing the vice
and superstition of his time with all the keen-
ness of wit and all the bitterness of satire, and
now singing of love and of beauty in numbers
which have justly ranked him with the first ofFIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
79
amatory poets ; it was no wonder that the merits
of the Ayrshire Bard should be instantly and
generally appreciated. The fame of the un-
fortunate Fergusson, in his life-time, was scarce-
ly known beyond the precincts of the northern
capital; that even of Ramsay had but partially
penetrated the country south of the Tweed;
but the genius of their mighty successor com-
manded a wider field. In spite of the disadvan-
tages of his station, and of the language he
wrote in, he made the world the theatre of his
triumphs. From the palace to the “cot, every
breast responded to the chords he awakened.
The peasant stared to find his own thoughts
and feelings expressed by a brother peasant.
The learned praised, and the noble flattered
him ; his brows were encircled with the laurel
wreath ; but here terminated the homage. He
was left to poverty—almost to want, and his
fine independent spirit wTas broken. He fell,
in truth, the victim of inexpiable neglect;
while they whose duty it was to have patro-
nised, basely represented him as the victim of
his own irregularities ! ”
He spoke this with unusual warmth, and I
expressed my concurrence in every word he
uttered. He went on :—80
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
“Yet it might admit of debate whether the
misfortunes of this poet have not enhanced the
interest we take in his productions. We sym-
pathise with his plaintive moods the more
readily, perhaps, and the more sincerely, because
we know the sorrows he sings to have been
more serious than ‘poetic pains,’ and to have
had a deeper source than sentimental trickery.
Nor might it be refining too much to assert,
that his livelier pieces gain something from
the force of contrast, just as a bright patch
of mountain greensward—already distinguished
from the surrounding heath—will look yet
brighter in a flash of evanescent sunshine.
His death, too, which happened in the very
flower of his age, while his mind was yet in
all its vigour, may have contributed to produce
the same effect. We image to ourselves ad-
ditional triumphs which he might have achieved
but for his premature dissolution; without ad-
mitting for a moment the possibility of his
future efforts falling short of his preceding
ones. Yet a supposition of this kind might be
entertained without at all detracting from his
great and original powers. He had projected
an English drama, a species of writing the
most difficult of any, and which his previousFIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
81
habits of composition must have rendered a
task of peculiar difficulty to him. Verily, his
Pegasus must have learned a very different
pace,—or rather he must have exchanged his
Northern shelty for an English war-horse;
and it becomes a question whether he could
have managed him with the same ease, or sat
him with the same gracefulness.
u The writings of Burns I made my constant
study, I was fortunate enough to see Currie’s
edition of them ; and the detail of his life and
character, as therein exhibited, endeared the
man to my heart, and exalted even the poet
to my imagination. Beauties were displayed
to me in the latter, which the immaturity of
my judgment had overlooked ; and a hundred
good qualities in the former, of which I had
previously been ignorant. Hour after hour
I used to pore over his life, his letters, and
bis poetry, and most devoutly did I breathe
the wish that I might be like him in everything !
With a vanity not unnatural at that period
of life, I looked forward to a time when, after
my death, some skilful and tender hand should
carefully collect my own scattered performances ;
I figured to myself some young aspirer to
poetic fame turning over my pages with feelings
H82
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT POETRY.
similar to those which accompanied my peru-
sal of Burns ; and with a high sense of the
value of such feelings—which a mind so con-
stituted, will know how to excuse or to sym-
pathise with—I considered the silent worship
of this imagined devotee, as a thing that would
be worth having lived, written, and died for!
£ Give me the fame of Burns,’ I exclaimed, ‘and
welcome—thrice welcome all the storms that
crushed, prematurely, the blossoms of his
genius!’ ”CHAPTER VIII.
/
IMITATIONS OF BURNS.
While wild bees’ hum and wild birds’ sang
Delight my ear by turns,
I rashly thraw my hand alang
The fire-toned harp o’ Burns.
(i I wrote thousands of verses meant to be imi-
tative of Burns,” continued the Bard; but they
were nearly all destroyed as soon as written—
being all, even in my own estimation, failures.
Indeed, had I been his equal in genius, it would
still have been impossible for me to have ap-
proached the Scottish poet on his own ground ;
because I was not a Scotchman. A general
knowledge of the vulgar language of Scotland,
as of any other dialect, may undoubtedly be ac-
quired south of the Border; but every phrase,
and almost every word, has shades of meaning,84
ELSPIE CAMPBELL.
which are imperceptible to any but a native;
and yet it is on such minutiae that the charm of
composition frequently depends. It was impos-
sible, therefore, that I could imitate Burns with
success, even though my taste had been pre-
viously rectified by the purest models. But
this was far from being the case; and the con-
sequence was, that the most exceptionable verses
of the poet excited, in common with his finest,
my applause and my emulation.
“ A few of my Scottish imitations I shall pro-
bably introduce to you, as illustrative of certain
points in my narrative. At present, hear this.
It was founded on the story, which I had some-
where read, of a servant woman, named Elspith
Campbell, whose fidelity to her former mistress,
when reduced to poverty, seemed well worthy of
commemoration : —
ELSPIE CAMPBELL.
* Weel, weel, my frien’s, gin toasts ye ask,
Pour out the rosy wine ;
An’ it shall be my pleasing task
To gie you ane o’ mine.
Frae name to name in classic page
My fancy sha’na ramble;
Twa simple words my heart engage—
I gie you Elspie Campbell! *ELSPIE CAMPBELL.
85
A tittering gaed alang the board
The humble name to hear;
• An’ ‘ Wha is Elspie P ’ was the word
Repeated far and near.
‘Nae daughter o’ a knight or earl,
For whom proud youths might scramble;
A beggar—certes not a girl—
Is faithfu’ Elspie Campbell.’
Wi’ that, of laughter uncontrolled,
A burst rang thro’ the room—
‘Why toast,’ they cried, ‘ a beggar auld?
Why not a hag wi’ broom ? ’
* First hear/ the speaker said, ‘ her tale :
Begirt wi’ bent an’ bramble,
The cottage stands in Hieland dale
Whar wons poor Elspie Campbell.
‘Whan young, she was a servant girl:
To her did not belang
The lips o’ rose, the teeth o’ pearl,
That grace the poet’s sang;
But eident care, baith late an’ soon,
And wishes pure and humble,
And piety—a’ else aboon—
Belanged to Elspie Campbell.
‘ Kind was her Leddy, kind and guid,
The heir o’ bower and ha’,
Till cam misfortune like a flood,
And reft her o’ them a’.
H 286
ELSPIE CAMPBELL,
And Elspie in her little cot
Begirt wi’ bent and bramble,
Soon learnt her Leddy’s altered lot,
An’ wae was Elspie Campbell.
‘ O Leddy, honoured, kind, an’ dear,
Your age is fifty-three;
I’m younger by a hail lang year,
An’ bred to labour free.
My hands shall win you bread; my love
An’ kindness shall be ample;
O Leddy come ! my kindness prove! ’—
Said generous Elspie Campbell.
‘The Leddy bides in Elspie’s cot,
An’ Elspie’s hands are strang;
To sooth her former mistress’ lot
She toils the simmer lang.
An’ aye, at e’en, wi’ smiling face
She comes through bent and bramble,
Her earnings in her lap to place—
The noble Elspie Campbell.
‘ In howe o’ winter whan without
There is na mail* to win,
She turns the birring wheel about,
Or plies the shears within ;
While by the gentle dame ’ill sit,
Whase means were ance sae ample;
An’ Elspie is her servant yet—
The faithfu’ Elspie Campbell !EPISTLE TO STOBBIE.	87
‘ Whan, spite o' a’, her store fa’s scant,
She gangs through snaw or rain,
And begs that for her Leddxfs want
She wadna for her ain !
Such Elspie is. To bra’er dame
The fancy eith may ramble;
But I am proud to toast the name
O’ matchless Elspie Campbell.’
Throbb’d ilka heart to hear the tale,
And watered ilka e’e ;
And guinea glisked by crown-piece pale
Ere sank that mood sae hie,
For those poor inmates o’ the cot
Begirt wi’ bent an’ bramble ;
And ne’er was, through that night, forgot
The name o’ Elspie Campbell.
That is a touching instance of grateful at-
tachment, said I; but I do not consider the
lines an imitation of Burns. “ Nor were they
intended to be so,” replied the Poet, “ but an
attempt to render a Scottish anecdote in Scottish
verse. Perhaps, however, you may consider
what I am about to recite as coming nearer
to his style :—
EPISTLE TO STOBBIE.
While Roddam Ha’, in a’ its pride,
Looks owre its greenwood waving wide,88
EPISTLE TO STOBBIE.
An’ orchard blooming bonny ;
While gay laburnam, sonsy chiel’,
Hings owre the cot ye ken sae weel
Her yellow blossoms mony;
While wild bees’ hum, an’ wild birds’ sang
Delight my ear by turns,
I rashly thraw my hand alang
The fire-toned harp o’ Burns !
Then spare noo frae care noo
A minute’s time or twa,
To hear noo how clear noo
Yere bardie’s notes ’ill fa’.
I see’t the clearest noo, I think,
That woman aye, at times a drink,
Are maistly a’ our bliss ;
Still on and on, in stoure or damp,
The rest is just a pack-horse tramp,
Compared wi’ that or this.
What’s a’ the poet’s talk o’ bloom
In wood or garden fair ?
They’re ilk a scentless place o’ gloom,
Gin beauty be na there!
That rainbow whase stain-glow
Can gild the darkest clu’d !
That sunbeam whase blithe gleam
Gies light to vale and wood !
Gif proof ye want, its ready for ye—
Owre ready, faith, and that’s nae story !
Thae scenes are dowier noo,EPISTLE TO STOBBIE.
89
Than whan ilk field was bleak an’ bare,
An’ ilka tree in winter’s air
Held out a naked bough.
For	she is gane, whase ee’s keen dart
Inflicted bliss or woe ;
And she is gane, whase kindly heart
Owned feeling’s warmest glow !
Forlorn, noo, her scorn noo
Pd thole to hae her back;
’Twad cheer me, ’twad rear me,
To hear her neebor crack !
For drink—on this the numbers trill
Of sweet, but hapless Tannahill :
“ Whan owre life’s vale sae foggie
Hang poortith cauld and sair disdain,
The sun that brightens up the scene,
Is Friendship’s social coggie.’’
And, Stobbie, we hae felt its power
To raise the saul to glee;
And we hae felt how dull the hour
That brang nae drap to prie.
Yet waefu’, or gleefu’,
Whiche’er we chanced to meet,
Still kindly, still friendly,
Our hearts did ever beat!
But by ilk Power presiding high
Owre Music, Mirth, and Poesy !
If fate keep you and me,
Care’s misty vapours dark an’ dank90
EPISTLE TO STOBBIE.
Shall get a blaiv on Whitsun-bank, *
Will send them yont the sea !
My Stobbie there, our Bolam there,
And your ain poet too—
For merrier three the mountain Fair
In vain ye’d seek it thro’.
Our lasses in glasses
Enraptured will we drink,
Till glorious—victorious—
Like verra gods we think !
* Whitsun-bank, or Weetwood, fair is held upon the top of a
considerable hill in the vicinity of Wooler, Northumberland, on
the Tuesday in Whitsun week—hence its former appellation.
iCHAPTER IX.
LOVE AND POETRY.
The poet’s life is love— it is his food,
His being, and the house where he doth dwell;
’Twas this that rolled like fire in Tasso’s blood—
That made sweet Petrarch that he sung so well—
That like the horn of song tuned Byron’s gorgeous shell.
J. W. Ord.
Pardon me, said I, but there is a freedom of
expression, and an apparent facility of rhyming’,
in the latter piece, that seem inconsistent with
the difficulties you lately described yourself
as encountering. “ I can give you the reason
for that,” replied he. “ The verses were the
production of a later period, when my mind
—or perhaps I should rather say my	—
had received an impulse before which difficulties
vanish, like mists at sun-rise! The season92
LOVE AND POETRY.
of passion had commenced; I had felt the
might of Woman’s beauty; I had loved, and
Love became my teacher in words and in song.
His was found to be a sweet vocabulary, and I
had it by heart before my seventeenth year!
“It were useless to dwell on the loves of a
youth. I had many favourites—I could give
you their names yet, but it means not. They
are all married, and f, and faded, and
going down the hill of life, though once so
blooming and light-hearted !	, however, I
must not pass over, because my affection for
her was sufficiently strong to last half a year,
and to produce, in that space of time, a drama
of two acts.
“ The only thing in the shape of a drama
that I had seen was c The Gentle Shepherd ’ of
Allan Ramsay. But just before my becoming
acquainted with Margaret—for so I shall
call her—I had met with the tragedy of
f Douglas; ’ and I conceived the notion of
celebrating the new object of my affection in
blank verse, and, to cut a higher swell, in
English.
“ Margaret was the daughter of a gentleman’s
porter, a man respectable enough for his sphere;
and who was intrusted with some power andLOYE AND POETRY.
93
some privileges, as overlooker, in his master’s
absence, of the estate, and occupier of the man-
sion and gardens. It was while she resided
in that splendid villa that this vision of perfec-
tion burst upon my eye, and she was instantly
invested with the attributes of a heroine of
romance. I saw her daily walking in the woods
—sitting in the arbour—or standing in the
columned portico of the hall; and she seemed
to me the fitting goddess of the beautiful locality.
There was something of adoration in the feeling
with which I regarded her; and that feeling
lost none of its force by an introduction to her,
which, long and feverishly desired, was at
length effected.
At this time she must have been about twenty-
five years of age, while I was at least eight
years younger; but no stranger would have sus-
pected her of being more than eighteen. Her
slender but symmetrical figure—the airy light-
ness of her motions—the elastic step which
scarcely produced an echo—all would have
been referred to that buoyant age; while the
girlish expression of sweetness on her small
and regular features would have confirmed the
idea. Well, my passion lost nothing of its ro-
mance by intercourse—if intercourse it could
i94
LOVE AND POETRY.
be called, where the talk was all on the side of
the lady, and where my wooing was confined
to rapturous expressions of assent to whatever
she advanced. But in secret I was busily
employed. The persons of my drama were,
the lady of my heart, or rather of my imagi-
nation, her father, mother, sister, and your
humble servant. Her father, the porter, 1 ele-
vated to the peerage, exalting of course his wife
and daughters to a participation of his rank ;
while I myself—though of rather dubious pre-
tensions at first—was discovered, towards the
end of the plot, to be the son and heir of some
defunct nobleman, and declared worthy of pos-
sessing the Honourable Lady Margaret!
<c I left the neighbourhood ere the first act
was quite finished, the fragment of which she
read and applauded ; though little guessing,
I believe, that she herself was at once the muse
and the subject. The piece cost me nearly
half a year’s labour ; and, when finished, I sent
it to her, accompanied by a letter containing a
full exposition of each character’s original, and
informing her, for the first time, of my devoted
and undying attachment. Now all this was
done in the simplicity of a heart, really over-
flowing with the affection which my repre-LOVE AND POETRY.
95
sentative in the play professed and exhibited.
But alas ! in a far different light did it appear
to them whom it had been intended to gratify.
It was regarded as a satire on the whole
family! It must be confessed there were
things in the piece but too favourable to ah
opinion of this kind. Independently of the
rank, title, and fortune I had gratuitously con-
ferred, I had represented her sister—who was
a very homely girl—as a paragon of beauty,
or inferior only to the heroine of the drama ;
and in a quarrel with me, before my respec-
tability was established, I had made His Lord-
ship run for a sword with the intention of
dispatching me; which was naturally construed
into a personal reflection, as the house he occu-
pied really contained many a sword and rusty
rapier, which had belonged to its martial own-
ers in former days.— I bus, with the best in-
tentions in the world, I was denounced as a
satirist; aud thus, with the most ardent ambition
to appear amiable in her eyes, I lost for ever
the esteem of my goddess !
“Of the play, such as it was, I kept no copy,
and I have no doubt it fell a sacrifice to its
supposed demerits—a catastrophe at which
you, I am sure, have reason to rejoice, since96
LOVE AND POETRY.
it spares you the infliction of listening to any
part of it.”
It would seem, from your account, said I,
that you imitated every poet you read ?	“ Pre-
cisely so,” was the reply. cc Every poet must at
first be an imitator. I am aware of the maxim
that a Poet is horn—not made ; but I know
also that something is requisite besides original
genius. The celestial flame may burn within;
but it will burn in vain, and will ultimately
perish, unless a medium is found through which
it may dart its irradiations. That medium is
the language of our country’s approved bards.
To these the aspirant must devote his studious
hours, and consecrate his meditative haunts.
Perceiving that every great poet has peculiari-
ties in turn of mind, choice of subject, or man-
ner of treating it, which distinguish him from
his compeers, he must endeavour, by imitation,
to make every one’s style his own. He must
throw his hand over every string of the many-
toned lyre of British poetry, until he elicits the
notes to which his heart utters the readiest and
most congenial response. The time spent in
trials of this kind, may be called the appren-
ticeship which every poet must serve to his art,
before he ean presume to claim, with well-THE MAID OF TWEED.
97
grounded confidence, the distinction it confers.
—I had devoted a pretty long term to the study
of Scottish song; I now turned my attention
to the strains of England. The transition was
as if I had left a region wild and mountainous,
frequently darkened by storms, but often illu-
mined by grand bursts of sunshine, where the
hills, though seemingly sterile, bore much deli-
cious bloom, and where even the rock smiled
with appropriate garlands—for a country less
wild, but more pleasing, made up of meadows
bright with spring-flowers, of greenwoods vocal
with birds, and of gardens rich with blossoms !
“ But before I proceed to the English poets,
I will recite you the only lines I remember,
connected with the heroine of my juvenile
drama:—
THE MAID OF TWEED.
Blithe I left yon southern river,
Every glen and painted mead,
Joyous—thinking ne’er to sever—
Sought the lovely maid of Tweed.
Purest flames of love were burning;
Hope proclaimed the hour returning,
When pleasure should succeed to mourning,
As I sought the maid of Tweed !98
THE MAID OF TWEED.
Light the clouds of Eve reposing
Varied scarce the sky’s soft blue;
And the sun, his bright eye closing,
O’er the land his last beams threw.
High appeared the fair-one’s towers,
Green I saw her warbling bowers,
Where had often flown the hours
As I sung the maid of Tweed.
Still the lofty oak-tree flourished
Where I’d carved our names before;
These—how oft the thought was cherished
Sadly pleased, she might explore.
All in vain !—Though love’s still burning,
And hope would tell of bliss returning,
Pleasure must give place to mourning—
False the lovely maid of Tweed!
Yet the haunts where we have wandered,
To my breast are fondly dear;
Where my brightest years I squandered,
Let me mourn my fate severe!
By the Tweed’s translucent river
Pour my song of sorrow ever,
Till from my bosom death shall sever
The image of the maid of Tweed !CHAPTER X.
LOVE ON THE HARVEST FIELD.
Soon as the morning trembles o’er the sky,
And, unperceived, unfolds the spreading day,
Before the ripened fields the reapers stand
In fair array; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate,
By nameless gentle offices, her toil.
Thompson.
“ I mentioned the e Gentle Shepherd and by
the way, how true to nature is Allan Ramsay !
I question if there is a Peggy in the whole
range of Shakspeare’s heroines. So modest,
so artless, so loving, and so lovely—I defy the
coldest hearted stripling to read that pastoral
drama, without being enamoured of her, and
envying Patie his conquest. I mention the100 LOVE ON THE HARVEST FIELD.
Peggy of honest Allan to say and to affirm—
in opposition to certain calumniators of country
manners—that there are many Peggys in rural
life. I have myself been intimate with more
than one, who wanted only a Ramsay to per-
petuate, not to embellish, their charms and
their virtues. She who is in my mind’s eye
just now was one of these.
“ In my sixteenth year, on the death of my
father, I became a village schoolmaster; an
employment which I hated at first, which I have
detested ever since, and which I shall continue
to execrate to the last day of my existence. I
could give you many reasons for this, but I
shall pass them over at present; and shall con-
tent myself with saying that I was as much
delighted as any of my pupils, when Harvest
arrived to give me a month’s relief from the
dull monotony of the school. I flew to the
reaping-field with the rapture of a captive
escaping from prison! Though the work was
toil—toil, with very little interruption, from six
in the morning till six in the evening—there
was a life, a gaiety, connected with it, which
made me prefer it to teaching. I hated soli-
tude—my mind there preyed upon itself; but
in the harvest-field, placed beside the lass ISONG.
101
loved, with bustle and mirth ringing around
me, my mind had other employment, and I
was happy.
In the fields of Roddam, I met with my
Peggy. She was then ‘ in all the bloom of
seventeen,’ and a bonny lass she was ! She
resided at Calder, one of the farms of the Rod-
dam estate, and I endeavoured to celebrate her
charms under the soubriquet of the 4 Flower of
Calder.’ A great deal of my published poetry
was inspired by her; but l shall not bore you
with that. The lines I am about to recite were
never printed.
SONG.
FOE TWO VOICES,
See ! the solemn rising Moon
Wins her glorious way, lassie ; •
Ilka clu’d that sails aboon
Drinks her silver ray, lassie.
O how fair she walks in glory!
But, like thee, she’s transitory—
Thou nae mair dost smile on *****
Light and love decay, lassie !
Aince I thought your heart was true,
Aince you were my a’ laddie ;102
SONG.
Did I hide my love frae you P
What did then befa’, laddie ?
Soon the heart you said was glowing,
Grew like winds frae Heddon blowing,
Whan the wintry sky is snowing—
Fancy has nae law, laddie !
Langleeford is near at hand,
Cheviot lads are bra’, lassie;
Plaids are saft, I understand—
Shepherds kind and a’, lassie.
Whan a herd, wi’ hieland pladie,
Vowed to be your faithfu’ laddie,
You disdained my passion steady—
Fancy has nae law, lassie !
Ilka piece o’ fell revenge,
You deserved it a’, laddie ;
But my heart did never change—
Rage provoked it a’, laddie.
But my fause and fickle lover,
Go, and Beauty’s haunts discover;
Go, and be an endless rover—
Peggy laughs at a’, laddie !
Never, never shall my heart
Own another’s sway, lassie!
Could I frae thee ever part ?
O! ’twere death to say, lassie.
Then, my love, at last relenting,
Crown my bliss by sweet consenting;LOVE ON THE HARVEST FIELD.
103
Be yon our Bridal Moon that's glenting,
And we’ll tak’ the way, lassie !
Is at last my ain lad true P
Jeer ye not ava’, laddie ?
By yon Moon in cl’udless blue !
Ye’re my choice o’er a’, laddie.
Tak’ my hand—wi’ true devotion
Your’s my bosom’s fluttering motion—
And wi’ you through land and ocean
Peggy’s lot shall fa’, laddie !
Happy moment ! Lo, the Moon
Brighter shines to see’s, lassie—
Brighter shines on Cheviot’s croon,
And Calder’s greenwood trees, lassie!
Come, my love—nae mair o’scorning ;
Come my love—nae mair o’mourning ;
Yonder Moon, our flight adorning,
Lights to extacies, lassie ! ”
The lines seem ominous of matrimony, said
I, but what do you mean by a flight? “ O, I
ought to have explained that,” replied the poet.
“ You must know that there are, or were, very
few marriages celebrated in the church, where
I was brought up. The peasantry have a
Gretna Green in Coldstream or at Lamberton
Toll Bar, to which they can repair in the
night, get the noose tied, and return home104
HARVEST IN CRAVEN.
before morning—avoiding, by this means, the
publication of banns, the delay consequent
thereon, and the obstruction which a consider-
ate parent might find it right to interpose.
There was something of romance in the custom,
that made it a favourite with me. But my
nymph would not go. uPrudence was her ower-
word aye; ” and though I felt with Burns,
‘ O wha can prudence think upon,
Wi’ sic a lassie by him ?
O wha can prudence think upon,
And sae in love as I am P ’
I could not inspire her with the same sentiment,
nor drive her from the excellent maxim, that
4 When poverty comes in at the door, love flies
out at the window.’ She was willing to wait
for better days ; but by waiting she lost her
chance for I soon found another, her equal in
beauty, and her superior in that self-devoted-
ness which will risk all for the man of her heart.
“ Yet it could have been no common passion,
the recollection of which inspired these lines
nearly twenty years afterwards:—
HARVEST IN CRAVEN.
The few corn-fields that Craven sees,
Like patches on her landscape green,HARVEST IN CRAVEN.
105
Wave yellow now in sun and breeze,
Inviting out the sickle keen.
But who the sickle bears afield P
I see no fair and youthful band,
The peaceful weapon prompt to wield,
And clear—with mirth—the waving land.
A single reaper—(past belief!)
Plies awkwardly his lonely toil;
He makes the band, he binds the sheaf,
And rears the shock—without a smile!
Yet e’en this sight of single field
And single reaper, brings to me
A mood to which I like to yield—
A dream of Roddam fields and thee!
On RoddanPs harvest-land, who now
Bid the hot day unheeded fly ?
Is there a maiden fair as thou ?
Is there a lover fond as I ?
Dost recollect—when, side by side,
’Twas ours to lead the jovial band—
With what delight, and heart-felt pride,
I saw thee grace my dexter hand !
Dost recollect—’mid sickles’jar—
How rang, at jests, the laughter-chorus ?
K106
HARVEST IN CRAVEN.
Our line, the while, extending far,
And driving half a field before us !
Dost recollect, at resting-time,
Announced by Roddam’s village clock,
(Methinks e’en now I hear the chime !)
The squeeze beside the yellow shock ?
Dost recollect, when evening came,
The dance got up with ready glee ?
How active grew each wearied frame !
How lightly then I danced with thee !
Dost recollect—when half asleep
Thy mother and thy grumbling sire—
The pleasant watch we used to keep
For hours beside the smothered fire ?
When e’en the fair moon’s radiance pure,
That trembled through the window blue,
Along the cottage furniture
Too strong alight—for lovers—threw ?
But where art thou ? and where am I ?
And Roddam’s corn-fields, where are they ?
Ah ! where the days when thou w'ertnigh,
The rainbow of my darkest day P
For fair thou wert; though ne’er, perchance,
So fair as my young fancy drew thee;—HARVEST IN CRAVEN.
I see, e’en yet, the roguish glance
That linked my captive heart unto thee!
And when I think of thee, I scarce
Can think of thee as differing aught
From her who once inspired my verse—
Though in myself a change is wrought.
The reaper’s part that once I bore
Untired, I could not bear again ;
And did thy sire make fast the door,
I could not enter at the fane !
The toilsome day would slowly pass ;
Reflection nought could bring but woe;
And for the evening dance, alas !
One Scottish reel would make me blow.
Suppose us met in Roddam field—
I verging towards my fortieth year,
And thou not far behind—to wield,
As once we did, the sickle clear;
We could not choose but laugh—or weep ;
The last would be our first employment,
To feel emotions—long asleep—
Re-wakening but to past enjoyment!
Is that the hand I loved to grasp !
Thine cannot be that cheek so wan !
107108
HARVEST IN CRAVEN.
Nor thine that waist! I used to clasp
A waist that my two hands could span !
A1 as ! the truth we might, have known,
But would not, flashes on us now—
That youth must fly ; for it flown,
And ceased to love have I and thou !
On Roddam fields another race
The part we took of old, have ta’en ;
They toil—or toy—in each dear place
That ne’er shall meet our glance again !
Thus when a boy on Beaumont Side,
(A scene that is not strange to thee)
I saw the heath-bloom in its pride
Bend to the kiss of mountain bee :
And bees and blooms, no doubt, are rife
By Beaumont still ; but never—never—
Shall those I saw in early life
Be seen again by that sweet river !
—Well; time does but to us award
The fate by millions felt before ;
And I am Roddam’s youthful bard,
Thou	Colder’s fairest flower no more !CHAPTER XI.
HARVEST HOME.
His strings the blithe musician swept;
Quick o’er the floor, the dancers stepped.
—Arranged was there no modish line,
Where each must wait his turn to shine,
With simpered smile and formal bow ;
No polished manners smoothed the brow;
No measured step by master taught,—
With nature’s grace, and light as thought,
From end to end, from side to side,
Were skip, and boimd, and shuffle plied.
Harvest.
What does the Poet’s wife think of that ad-
dress to an old sweetheart ? I asked. “ What a
sensible woman will think,” was his answer.
“ She knows that
‘ I court others in verse, but I love her in prose;
And they have my whimsies, but she has my heart.’
Neither can she complain of being neglected110
HARVEST HOME.
*
in my songs, as I shall shew you by and by.
But in the mean time allow me to introduce
you to another favourite of mine.
Jeanie was the daughter of a peasant, who
resided on the banks of the Breamish—a moun-
tain stream that, before it has run many miles,
merges its waters and its name in that of the
Till. When I first saw her, she could not be
more than sixteen. Her person was some-
thing below the middle size, but of the most
sylph-like proportions ; her features were small;
her eyes dark and brilliant; and her cheek had
the healthy tinge which is almost peculiar to rus-
tic beauty. She was about this time attached to
a friend of mine, who, in return, loved her with
sincere affection ; but before their mutual regard
became productive of more solemn engage-
ments, his business led him to a distance from
her, where statelier forms and more refined
manners, made him forget his early and artless
love. But she bloomed lovely as ever, notwith-
standing ; she was still the ‘ bonniest lass on
Breamish water; ’ and had suitors from low-
land and mountain.
' S was a suitor of hers, and I must confess,
was at this time an unsuccessful one. I fretted
deeply, not long, about the repulse. I soughtHARVEST HOME.
Ill
and found solace in the company of others. But
my narrative shall not quit Jeanie, till the time
—when I quitted her for ever !
“It was the season of harvest. Jeanie,
now in about her twentieth year, made one of
/
a numerous band of reapers, of whom she was
the life and the love. She had the honour of
carrying1 the first ridge—of leading the field, as
it is called—and no one thought of disputing her
right to that post of eminence, or of disturbing
her in the possession. But her partners were
not equally beloved or respected—the honour
was grudged to them—and a hot kemp was the
consequence. I should tell you that a hemp
means a struggle, or contest, among a band of
reapers for victory—a trial of strength, endur-
ance, and skill, between those who want to keep
and those who want to win, the leadership.
The day was excessively sultry ; there was not
a cloud to streak the horizon—to throw a sha-
dow on Cheviot; nor a breeze to curl the
Breamish, or to wave the corn-fields of Reveley.
If you have not seen, you cannot imagine, how
the strife of harvest is carried on ; rather than
yield, I have seen the women faint in the fur-
row ! On the present occasion, determination
was on all hands equally firm, and exertion112	HARVEST HOME.
strained to the utmost. Jennie was first over
the headland, and hastening to a rill (perhaps
not over pure) she drank—O that fatal draught!
From that moment she bade adieu to health,
and all its attendant pleasures. She was car-
ried from the field; she fell into a fever, from
which, however, she recovered; and it was
hoped that her youth and constitution would
eventually triumph over the lingering remains
of disease.
“ It was about this period of dubious hope,
that I went to the harvest home of Reveley, which
was held according to custom, in a barn or
hay-loft. The suspended tapers threw their
radiance over a gay assemblage of village girls,
arrayed in their best white gowns, and decked
out with a profusion of ribbons. And Jeanie
was there too—not adorned like the rest, but
in a clean work-day dress; and she looked !—
I bad often met her in such a scene, when she
moved through the dance with health on her
cheek and mirth in her eye, and with a grace
that might have drawn admiration in a more
polished assembly. I had seen her thus; but
never, I thought, had she appeared so lovely
as now. Her illness had refined her com-
plexion, without diminishing (perhaps it hadHARVEST HOME.
113
heightened) its bloom; ancl the sparkle of her
eye, if it was less mirthful, was not less interest-
ing. I had not been told that she must inevita-
bly die, and that soon; and if 1 had, my inex-
perience would have led me to dispute the
dogma. Having conducted two or three girls
to the dance from Calder, I was, by all the laws
of honour and custom, engaged to them for the
night; but neither they, nor the dance itself,
had now any attraction for me. Jeanie was
there, with none to notice her—there was a
charm in the very desertedness of her situation
—and 1 joined her side.
“ Our conversation naturally turned to the
time when I had paid my addresses to her. 4 i
have sometimes thought,’ said the sweet and
sensible girl, in her own homely dialect,—‘ I
have often thought that I did wrang in gieing
ye sae rash a nay-say ; but after a’, I didna
expect ye to be sae soon disheartned.’ 1 assure
you Jeanie, said 3, nothing ever troubled me so
much as did that repulse. I thought you hated,
or at least disliked me; and it was well for me,
thinking as I did, that pride came to my as-
sistance ; otherwise—I added with a smile—I
might have taken a trip into some whirlpool
of the Breamish. ‘Na, na,’ replied the maiden,114
HARVEST HOME.
‘ye waclna been sae daft; but I thought sae
at the time, and I have thought sae mair ner
ever sin’ my illness sobered me a little, that ye
wad mak’ a guid husband. For though ye’re
a wild blade, there’s that in yere e’e ’at says—
I dinna ken what; ye manna laugh at me, but
there’s something in it that ane wad like always
to live in the light o’. ’ Then live in its light,
Jeanie! 1 exclaimed with warmth, live in
its light! It cannot shine on a fairer flower ;
and here it shall shine, I swear by--- ‘Hush,
hush! ’ interrupted the girl, ‘ there’s Peggy
Richison looking o’er the left shouther at you ;
and here’s Jeanie Eadington lending a lang ear
at my right hand; sae, make nae mair vows
ner ye can keep—nane that may interfere wi’
their claims upon you.’ Then altering her
voice till it had lost every vestige of mirth, she
proceeded: ‘But I am talking verra fulish—in
a way verra unbeseeming my situation. A lad !
they say there’s nae chance for my recovery—
and that it’s a’ ower wi’ me. Jenny Tate ad-
vises me to mak’ my peace with God, and to
think nae mair about this vain and transient
existence.’ Old wives’ dreams, Jeanie, I said ;
you have the appearance of anything rather than
dying. You must live to bless me, Jeanie !HARVEST HOME.
115
Not that I would have you neglect your devo-
tions. Be prepared to die, but endeavour also
to live,—by keeping up your spirits, and banish-
ing melancholy reflections. Live for my sake,
Jeanie, I repeated, and I will never forsake
you!—I have hitherto given you her own
words, but her reply to this appeal, I should
attempt in vain, unless I could join to it
the tone and the look with which it was ac-
companied. It was inexpressibly touching
and tender—she seemed for the moment to
have forgot the deadly nature of her disorder
—and her reply was accordingly all approv-
al and encouragement.	O sir, if ever I
spent an hour of unalloyed rapture, that hour
was one !
“ The prospect of happiness which this inter-
view spread before me, was soon to be enveloped
in irremoveable darkness. In a few weeks after-
wards, she took to her bed, whence she never
more arose. She was borne to her grave amid
the agonizing groans of her relatives, the tears
of her acquaintance, and the sympathy of a
whole neighbourhood; while a simple wreath
of my own was woven and hung upon her
hearse. It was a poor tribute, but it was from
the heart. Here it is :—116
WINTER’S CHILL BREEZES.
THOUGH WINTER’S CHILL BREEZES.
Though winter’s chill breezes have blighted each
flower,
And nature is sad in the gloom of the hour,
The blithe smile of summer o’er mountain and
plain,
To garden and grove will bring beauty again.
But the Rose that has fallen by Breamish’s side,
In the glow of its tints, and the height of its pride,
What dew shall refreshen ? what sunbeam restore P
Tis vanished from earth, and shall grace it no more !
The clouds that envelope the sun in mid course,
That sun yet will vanquish, and shine in his force ;
As dark on my soul are the sorrow-clouds met,
But the sun that should chase them, for ever hath
set !
Farewell! I must mourn thee, a bright vision gone,
Of beauty that bloomed, and of virtue that shone ;
For, though fair among angels, ’tis thine to adore,
Tis mine----to behold and to clasp thee, no more!
“ I produced something less unworthy of
her,” added the Poet, “ more than ten years
afterwards. She was one of the ‘Dead’ that
‘ stood by my couch.’
A once-loved form stood next and last,
A lovely vision, pure—and still—HARVEST HOME.
117
Whose living charms had all surpassed
That bloom by Beaumont or by Till.
She seemed no lovelier than of old ;
But then there was & fixedness
Of beauty on her cheek, that told
It never could be more—or less !
And she joined in the solemn admonition :—
Death is at hand—the throwing down
Of barriers which the soul confine—
When the pure heart shall gain a crown :
Why not that heavenly crown be thine P
By prayer, by prayer, unfile thy heart,
And join us in eternity—
For O ! retain this truth, thou art,
And never canst thou cease to be ! ”
LCHAPTER XII.
STORY OF MARY LEE.
The course of true love never does run smooth.
Shakspeare.
The ridges on the Roddam farms,” resumed
the Poet, “ were not always what is called
twosome—that is, so narrow as to be conveni-
ently shorn by two persons only. They were
quite as often so broad as to require three ; and
when that was the case, Peggy and I had ano-
ther reaper sent to our assistance. A young
woman named Isabel, or Bella, as she was
commonly called, was at one time our partner.
Engrossed as I was with my attentions to
Peggy, there was something about this girl
that compelled me to notice her. She seldom
spoke unless she was spoken to • she was per-MARY LEE.
119
petually at work, without seeming to care
whether we dicl our share or not; she worked,
whatever was going oil—heeding neither mirth
nor talk ; yet she was not sullen, but would
smile when joked, and—down again to her
work. Her story was a sad one. I put it into
verse many years after, under the name of
MARY LEE.
Yes ! the red earth, the pebbles washed with rain,
Which marked the spot where Sorrow wept in vain,
Are hidden now. The turf, once piled so high
That recent death was obvious to the eye,
So much hath sunk into the bordering green,
You scarce can tell that here a grave has been.
The stranger’s foot might spurn it, nor could know
The relics of a Sister sleep below !
See! the bright butterfly, on gorgeous wing,
Holds its gay revel ’mid the beams of Spring;
The wild bee, to his daily task addressed,
From blade to floweret flits, and will not rest.
And these are now the blithest sounds that come,
That thoughtless flutter, and that busy hum—
And these are now the blithest sights we see
About the dwelling-place of Mary Lee !
Poor Mary Lee! I knew her when the light
Of sixteen summers in her eye laughed bright;120
MARY LEE.
Anti then, no fairer face than hers was seen,
No lighter footstep on the village green.
Favourite of all, whate’er she did was best,
Hers was the sweetest song, the merriest jest.
Whether they rescued, while the cold winds blow,
( For such things are ! ) the turnip from the snow;
Or turned the hay-swathe; or, in jovial band,
Reaped the full harvest from the waving land;
The foremost still in labour, as in glee,
The soul of all their mirth was Mary Lee !
Soon as the hawthorn whitens into flower,
There wheels the Blackbird, and there finds a bower
Soon as the girl to woman-beauty springs,
There hovers Love, and there he rests his wings!
And Mary’s heart, with kindliest feelings fraught,
Was early sued for, and was early caught.
Love made her not less happy, and it bore
No charm away by others prized before;
Nay, she had sweetness which, before, amid
The foliage of wild recklessness was hid ;
But, at Love’s touch, ’twas scattered round her now
On all she spoke with—as that hawthorn bough,
Shook by the songster, sheds upon the gale
Its hoarded breath in perfume o’er the vale !
Apprenticed when a boy, the favoured youth
Who proffered love for love, and truth for truth,
Had yet three years to serve, ere he with pride
Could make, in prudence, Mary Lee his bride.
But these departed—need I tell you how ?MARY LEE.
121
Why, still the tale was told, and vowed the vow,
Th’ embrace repeated, and the long1, long kiss
Which made them friends when aught had passed
amiss.
The Moon had never, from her pathway blue,
Smiled on a purer pair !—But why pursue
The common tale, or why their bliss proclaim,
Whose love is holy, and deserves the name P
These years departed and his Freedom Foy
Bade the wide vale participate his joy;
And all who saw but deemed it prelude gay
To fairer pageant, and a happier day.
When, from some cause or none—some trifle—grew
A coldness ’twixt the lovers erst so true;
And ere the flame which still possessed each heart
Could bid the chill, surrounding damp depart,
And seek again its fellow—light to light—
Making the glow of passion doubly bright,
Fate, like a cloud, its searchless volume bore
Between them—and the meteors met no more !
With him a moment stays my artless tale :
He left his Mary, left his native vale;
And joined bad men, from whom he learned to prove
The wildering mazes of illicit love.
He prospered like all others in that course—
Had momentary joy, and long remorse,
And wished at times to burst th’ inglorious chain
For Mary’s smile and innocence again.
Ah ! this was but a transitory gleam
Where all was darkening!—A delirious dream
L 2122
MARY LEE.
Of fancied wrong and fancied scorn from her
Whom in his heart he could not but prefer,
Inspired the thought that vengeance were a draught
Well worth the quaffing—and he madly quaffed !
A giddy girl, th’ acquaintance of a night,
Received the troth which Haste should never plight:
But scarce the vow was said, the pageant o'er,
When the spell broke, and he must dream no more !
He raised his mental eye, and far above
The rock’s high summit walked his early love,
The wonted smile yet brightening o’er her brow—
Thence he had fall’n, and all was misery now!
Meanwhile, in various guise, the tidings passed,
Nor did they reach poor Mary’s ear the last.
The common eye observed not that they brought
An added pang to those his absence wrought;
But they who viewed her nearer, saw with pain
The strife which Love and wounded Pride maintain.
They marked the secret tear, the smothered moan,
Th’ unwonted musings which she held alone,—
The all, in brief, that strikes observant eyes,
When life’s best charm with Hope, the Angel, flies!
’Twas a sweet night. The summer-breeze, abroad,
Just waved the Old Oak’s shadow on the road;
For the fair Moon in glory rolled above—
O ! ’twas a night for love, and hearts that love !
Poor Mary sat—her ’customed labours o’er—
And eyed the moonshine stream athwart the floor;
While Memory a heightening radiance castMARY LEE.
12 3
On the too brilliant picture of the past.
“ How oft,” she thought, “at such a time have I
Been blest—beyond all bliss beneath the sky !
At such a time the tap that spoke him here,
Has come like sweetest music to my ear;
And I have turned, and seen his manly form
Distinctly stand in moonshine or in storm ! ”
She raised her eyes, wet with the sick heart’s dew—
Her lover at the casement stood in view !
With step delirious from her seat she sprung,
And the next moment round his neck she clung,
And “ O my love ! ” the maid began to say,
“H ow long from me hath been thy weary stay!
The rest have had their lovers—I alone
Had none to speak with at the fold or loan.
0	! I have watched for thee—along the path,
Thy wonted foot-way through the lonely strath,
Till tree and bush, in twilight vapours seen,
Have ta’en thy figure—e’en thy step and mien !
Nay, I have met thee, when it darker frowned,
Thine arms extended as to clasp me round ;
Twas'but a phantom of the heated brain!
1	shuddering turned, and, hurrying home again,
There stretched me on my couch—O, not to sleep !
But till the stars grew dim, to wake and weep ;
And then to dream of horrors—rivals gay
And bridal splendours—till the blush of day !
For it was whispered to me—but I knew
The dreadful rumour never could be true—
That thou wert now a guilty thing, and lost124
MARY LEE.
To every virtue once thy noble boast;
That thou hadst”—“ O my Mary, name it not!
Be what is said, and what is done, forgot.
The world has other climes, where thou mayst be
Blest in thy Charles, and I in Mary Lee/’
“ There spoke my love, as he was wont to do
Ere envious tongues described his heart untrue!
The bells shall ring, and bid the joyous gale
Waft the blithe tidings round and round the vale—
While I, in robes of shining whiteness dressed,
An emblem of the bright love in my breast,
Joining thy proud step proudly, by thy side
Shall move along, thy day-acknowledged bride !
How will they look to see it, they who spread
The baseless falsehood that my Charles was wed !
But what of other climes, love P Didst thou speak
Of other climes, as things that we must seek ? .
Never, as yet, have opened to my view
The secrets hid behind yon mountains blue;
But the most distant and most desert spot
Shall be my choice, if there is cast thy lot:.
One thing premised—our Village Church has heard
My parents’ prayers and mine to heaven preferred;
Its spire’s rough tones, to mountain and to dell,
Have rung their bridal peal, and funeral knell;
And their poor Orphan must not leave the place
With dubious stigma, or with sure disgrace!—
But	still my senses dream ! My love, my life,
Asks not my company but as his—Wife ? ”
She raised her face, as if from his to seekMARY LEE.
125
Th’ assurance which his lip forbore to speak ;
But he had turned his head, and gazed on high
Where thousand brilliants gemmed the azure sky,
And Mary felt that, agonised with grief,
His whole frame quivered like the aspen leaf.
Abrupt he spoke : “ The truth must be avowed,
Though Heaven’s red ire should flash without a
o
cloud ! ”
He paused, as if to see the lightning glare,
But all was calm, and still, and lambent there.
“ ’Tis vain! it flashed not o’er my impious vow—
It slumbered then—and will not waken now.
Then, though thy curse should blast me where I stand,
I am another’s—not in heart—but
Not sooner, had the fate-winged lightning broke,
Of whose quick agency he wildly spoke,
Could the poor maid have sunk before him—pale
As blasted rose-leaf that bestrews the gale !
Her lover’s cry of sudden horror brought
The startled inmates of the peaceful cot,
Who found him bent above the seeming dead,
To which he mutely pointed them—and fled.
The youth is gone—but whither, none can say.
On sick-bed long the hapless Mary lay.
Her health returned, such health as lent her frame
A languid strength ; but never more there came
To her that buoyancy of heart and soul,
Those playful moods that wont to spurn control.
True, she at times would laugh, at times would smile,
At times would sing the songs she loved erewhile ;126
MARY LEE.
But all was done, as if the mind no part
Took in the general business of*the heart!
She smiled, but none knew why ; she laughed aloud,
But the loud laugh, mistimed, alarmed the crowd ;
And when she sung, however blithe the strain,
A sense of horror thrilled the listening train !
She stood, the victim of an inward strife
Destructive of her reason or her life.
Weeks glided on. At length a billet—planned
By a sick heart, and in a trembling hand—
Was laid before her. Thus its tenor ran :
“ My Mary ! I am now a dying man,
Whom the green turf will wrap, before this sheet,
Charged with my love, thy virtuous eye can meet.
We meet no more on earth; but—were it given
To Guilt thus much to hope—we shall in heaven.
The stroke which frees me from each mortal chain,
Leaves thee to deem me all thine own again;
Again thy mind may, blameless, think on me,
Whose latest thought shall dwell on Mary Lee ! ”
—A postscript, added by a stranger, told
The writer’s hand was stiff, his heart was cold.
Mary perused it; but no tear—no sigh—
Rose from her breast, or trickled from her eye.
Astonished gazers saw her eye assume
Celestial light, her cheek celestial bloom;
And breathing thus of Seraph-charms, she cried,
“ O, I am happy now! ” and, smiling, died.CHAPTER XIII.

ENGLISH POETS. POPE.
—He can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six.
Swift.
I recalled him to the poets. c Pope was
among the first English poets that I met with,”
said he. “ The smooth flow of his numbers,
the beauty of his images, and the sustained
grace of his diction, had, contrasted with my
former models, a thousand delightful attrac-
tions His satire possessed a poignancy I had
never seen surpassed, and a polish I had never
seen approximated. Plis descriptions of exter-
nal nature—though I have since learned to
estimate them at a lower rate—recommended
themselves to me at the time in the alluring dress128
ENGLISH POETS.
of novelty—their tameness, their conceit, and
their common-place, equally lost in the brilliance
of the versification. But it was his translation
of Homer that wound my admiration to its
height. There he was still Pope, indeed, but
Pope superior to himself. He seemed to rise
with his original, to identify himself with the
Bard of Greece; and the ‘tale of Troy divine,’
according to the best judges, came from his
hands, divested, certainly, of its Homeric sim-
plicity, but with no diminution of its dignity or
grandeur. The heathen mythology which, with
all its absurdities and immoralities, has some-
thing extremely fascinating to the imagination,
experienced no degradation from the elegant
mind of Pope. His Jupiter displays his attri-
butes, and asserts his sovereignty, in a manner
worthy of the god—impressing us, in fact, with
ideas of his power which approach very near
to our juster notions of Deity.
“ Do you recollect the speech to the assem-
bled gods, in which he forbids them to inter-
meddle with the Greeks and Trojans? I think
i can give it you from memory:—
‘ Celestial states, immortal gods, give ear;
Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear !POPE.
129
What god but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield,
Back to his native skies he shall be driven,
Gashed with dishonest wounds—the scorn of hea-
ven !
Or, from our sacred hill with fury thrown,
Deep in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan,
With burning chains fixed to the brazen floors,
And locked by hell’s inexorable doors,—
As far beneath th’ infernal centre hurled,
As from that centre to th’ etherial world.
Let all who tempt me dread those dire abodes,
And know th’ Almighty is the God of gods!
******
Let down our golden, everlasting chain,
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth,
and main ;
Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth,
To drag, by this, the Thunderer down to earth;
Ye strive in vain ! If I but stretch this hand,
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land !
I fix the chain to great Olympus’ height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight!
For such I reign, unbounded and above,
And such are men and gods compared with Jove !
Th’ Almighty spoke; nor durst the powers
reply;
A sacred horror silenced all the sky ! ’
“ I have insinuated that my opinion of Pope’s
M130
POPE.
descriptive powers is not so high as formerly;
but I must not be understood by this as denying
them to be very considerable, and still less as
coinciding* with those who refuse him the name
of a poet.
‘Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung;
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
E’en he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays.
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;
Life’s idle business, at one gasp, he o’er,
The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more ! ’
“ The writer of these lines not a poet ! ” said
the bard. “ The thing is absurd ! The -whole
controversy is puerile! Pope has not the sub-
limity of Milton, the variety of Shakspeare, or
the energy even of Dry den ; but he leaves at
an immeasurable distance Waller, Cowley,
Sbenstone, and a whole host of others, whom
we class, and justly class, with the poets of
Britain. Is he not then a poet ?—But at the
time I speak of, this controversy had not been
agitated, or it had not reached my solitude ;
and 1 held the undisturbed opinion that the
translator of Homer was one of the greatest
poets that ever lived. I projected an epic poem.POPE.
131
The narrative which Josephus has given of the
life and actions of Moses, previous to his be-
coming the Jewish leader, had inflamed my
imagination; and I chose those apocryphal
exploits for my subject. I remember only
two lines of the commencement, but these are
enough : —
‘The deeds of Moses in the well-fought fields,
Where crashed the helmets, and where rung the
shields,
I sing ; &c.’
This was the mountain in labour—and the
mouse most assuredly would have made its ap-
pearance ; but the project was soon abandoned
for less ambitious themes. I composed pas-
torals, delightfully free from everything con-
nected with real life or rural manners ; and
wrote descriptions that were descriptive of
nothing. My mountains, vales, and streams,
passed, indeed, in rapid succession before the
eye ; but that very rapidity made it impossible
to catch a distinct image of any one of them.
My flowers were the common ornaments of
common poetry—they bloomed in my landscape,
without lending beauty to sentiment, or point
to morality. My versification, founded on that
of Pope, was not deficient either in rytbrn or132
POPE.
I
rhyme; but its uniformity at length palled on
my own ear ; and I longed to set the example
of a freer or less measured style of composition.
I was not aware that that example had been
already set; I knew not that Cowper had
written and Shenstone sung; or, to come to
later names, 1 was ignorant that a new race of
bards had arisen, and were charming the world
with a wilder and a bolder minstrelsy. At the
very time when I was lamenting the lack of
poets ill the nineteenth century, and almost
fancying that I should myself be the oasis in the
desert—Wordsworth had produced his ‘Lyrical
Ballads,’ R ogers his ‘Pleasures of Memory,’
and Campbell his ‘Pleasures of Hope;’ the
strains of Scott were still in all their freshness ;
Byron had just wrapped himself in the mantle
of ‘ Childe Harold;’ Moore had displayed—or
was displaying—the riches of oriental imagery ;
and Southey, by tale upon tale, each more bril-
liant than the last, was continuing a climax that
was to terminate in ‘ Roderick ! ’—It might be
poetically said, that the gales of Britain were
alive with harmony ; but the sound was turned
aside by the mountains that sheltered my cot-
tage ; and it rolled away into distance—unheard
and unenjoyed!EPITAPH.
133
*c I shall not recite you any of my imitations
of Pope ; unless you should consider this as
one. It is an epitaph on my father, and I give
it you in the hope that you may think it worth
preservation.
EPITAPH.
Here lie the ruins of a Man, whose name
Is reverenced yet by voice of rustic fame.
Of blameless life; to honour firmly true,
Athough the word, perchance, he hardly knew;
For all mankind he felt the friendly glow,
And, save in Fortune, never saw his foe !
Here lie the ruins—but the spirit, where ?
The brunt of rudest blasts that nobly bare;
That often, struggling with the gathered storm,
Broke through the severing clouds with brightest form,
Or calmly smiled, superior to its woe,
At the wild mingling of the glooms below ?
Where, but in bliss P with Him be honoured here,
Enjoying Heaven’s interminable year—
A summer year, where tempests never roar,
Where Fortune frowns, and Troubles vex, no more!CHAPTER XIV.
LOVE. ANNA.
Farewell, be happy, first of maids!
And—if the boon’s my due—
O sometimes think of Roddam’s shades,
And him that loved so true !
For me—within my bosom’s core
Thine image long shall be ;
And oft Poetic Fancy pour
Her sweetest song to thee !
“ After the death of Jeanie,” continued the poet,
i( my amours were still prosecuted among the
cottages of the peasantry. For the purpose of
extending the sphere of my acquaintance, and—
as I then thought—of my pleasure, I attended
every merry-making for ten miles round. As a
dancer, I enjoyed considerable celebrity, being
allowed to be second only to an active IrishmanANNA.
135
of the name of M’Craw, who, in consequence,
often rivalled me in the affections of the girls;
though it was generally admitted that I excelled
him in the grace, if not in the nimbleness, of my
movements. I never left one of these scenes
without bearing away in triumph some one or
other leading beauty of the place; and every
achievement of this kind became the opening of
a new course of adventure. The fair one thus
obtained was to be revisited, and the night
agreed upon betwixt us when the visit was to be
made. In this way I had an appointment to
fulfil for almost every night in the week.—You
must not imagine that there was anything like
libertinism in all this. I had never been more
innocent than at that period, and the girls I
visited were, without one exception, pui'e. It
was nothing but the effervescence of a youthful
mind spending itself in frolics natural to it, and
sanctioned also by custom, and confirmed by
habit. Yet, in the general stream of my levities
was mingled a current of loftier feeling, which
often spread its tinge over the whole surface.
This had its source in the poetic temperament.
Under the influence of the Muse, 1 have fre-
quently lingered in my path, even when that
path led to one of my chief favourites, to observe136
ANNA.
the moon lending her silver to the stream—her
light to the distant turrets—or her setting so-
' lemnity to the western hills !	1 was once what
is called pitchered, as I stood behind a hedge
on a summer night, watching a beautiful exhi-
bition of the Aurora Borealis, and treasuring
up in my mind the most prominent varieties of
its ever-changing appearance, that they might
figure in similes, amid the glimmer of steel or
the flash of musketry, in some future battle-
piece. The pitchering, by the way, was some-
what irregular; for there was no female on my
side of the hedge, nor was I aware that there
was one on the other side, until she was pointed
out to me by the unwelcome intruders on my
privacy. It was indeed e my own true love,’,
who, on seeing me there before her, had stolen
softly to the place of meeting, where she heard
me, as she afterwards termed it, ‘ ravin ’ like a
fule about shades, streamers, and lights.*
“ This little anecdote may lead you to infer
that there was one drawback on my gratification.
However beautiful my sweethearts might be—
and in this respect I will back the Bondagers
of Northumberland against all the women of
the world—they were not educated. The great
idols whom I worshipped in secret, were asANNA.
137
utter strangers to them as if they had never ex-
isted. I began, therefore, to wish for a lover
who should have a touch of the sentimental, and
be able to talk with me about poets and poetry.
My wish was, in some degree, gratified by the
arrival at Roddam of a lovely girl from Shrop-
shire—a lady’s maid, named Anna. I see you
smile at the idea of a lady’s maid being con-
sidered as so very superior to a village girl ;
but you must recollect
‘ I was bred in a Cot; ’
and besides, my uew favourite was very superior
to those of her class that I have since seen.
“Anna was about twenty-two years of age.
Were 1 to tell you that her figure was tall and
graceful, her eyes blue, her complexion fair, and
her ringlets auburn, I should still have conveyed
an idea far unequal to that with which the
original would have impressed you. These she
possessed in common, perhaps, with hundreds
of her sex; her mind was the quality which dis-
tinguished her from every other.
‘ This gave the lip, the cheek, the eye,
Expression rich, or soft, or high,
Each tone its weight, each motion grace,
To all a power—denied a place138
ANNA.
In living' piece of soulless earth,
Whate’er its mould, its rank, its birth ! ’
I do assure you that 1 have sat at the respectful
distance of three yards from her, and gazed as
on a being above humanity. The very air with
which she was surrounded, seemed to form a
sort of halo about her, as if brightened by the
effulgence of her loveliness—like the vapourless
atmosphere of May, when its native azure is
slightly silvered by the moon ! From this en-
chanted circle—which my own fancy had drawn
—she looked and spoke with the manner which
we attribute to angelic natures. In noticing
me, she seemed to condescend ; I was flattered,
but I durst not hope ; and my love assumed the
character of adoration !
<c In her praise 1 composed song upon song ;
and here opened a new source of gratification.
She was able to appreciate my verses; she
pointed out their beauties and defects; showed
me how such and such a passage might have
been improved ; and playfully told me I was
not deep enough in love to be an amatory bard.
At an early period of our acquaintance, she gave
me to understand that her heart was already
engaged—that her lover was away in lovely
Salop—and that I must not think of anythingANNA.
139
beyond friendship. But she said this in a tone
so soft, and with a look so soothing, that instead
of dissipating my aerial castles, it seemed to give
them a foundation something better than the rain-
bow. In a word, before the month’s end, I
began to be vain and base enough to imagine
that I should be able to detach her affections
from the distant, and perhaps worthy object, to
whom they were indissolubly bound."
“ But the time of her departure drew on, and
I had made no perceptible progress. We took
a walk in Roddam Dell for the last time. The
night was most beautiful. The moon rode in
majesty. Our path was over-arched by lofty
trees, the shadows of which formed a sort of
wavy net-work along the ground. Betwixt
their massy trunks the eye might penetrate into
the recesses of the grove, and mark where
streams of moonshine had here and there found
way, and striking fantastic root and crooked
branch, exhibited light and shade in perfection,
communicating to the scene an air of solemnity !
But my opportunity was too precious to be
spent in contemplating appearances of this kind ;
I felt that on that hour my happiness itself de-
pended ; and 1 may venture to say that 1 was
eloquent in proportion to the interest I conceived140
ANNA.
myself to have at stake. I spoke of immeasur-
able, everlasting love, and made a formal pro-
posal of marriage. 4 I have already told you,’
she said, 4 that I am bound by a promise which
I dare not, and will not, violate. You have
read the Sorrows of Werter ? It is a bad book
—that is, its tendency is bad—it palliates, if it
does not advocate, suicide. But I mention it
because I feel myself in a predicament not un-
like that of Charlotte. Why do you stare ? I do
not suppose you will be so silly as to act the
part of Werter ; neither am I a Charlotte. But
I have an Albert, a good man, and one who .is
as much entitled to my fidelity as if I had sworn
it to him at the altar. He is indeed a good
young man, and will, I am confident, make the
best of husbands—perhaps a better one ( excuse
me ) than you would ; and yet ’—she hesitated
—4 and yet I almost wish the promise unsaid !
Forgive—take no notice of the weakness—I fear
I shall long think of you as Werter ! ’
44 The tone of emotion with which she con-
cluded, emboldened me to make another effort.
I attempted to show her that between the mar-
riage vow itself, and the mere promise of
marriage, there was no similitude whatever; and
to superadd the further sophistry, that vows ofANNA’S GRAVE.
141
constancy should never be held binding, after
experience has taught us that their infraction
will conduce to our happiness. Her firm mind
resented the baseness of this reasoning; and she
threatened me with her displeasure, and even
with her contempt, if I persisted to urge it. 1
was forced to submit. We parted and I saw her
no more.
“ Her departure crushed my hopes; but she
left an impression on my heart deep and enduring
—the deeper, perhaps, from the utter hopeless-
ness of my attachment, and the more enduring,
it may be, from the fate of the lovely girl herself,
who, in less than two years after, sunk into an
early and a virgin grave !
“Many pieces in my first publication were
inspired by my love for Anna. I shall only
trouble you with two, written after her death.
ANNA’S GRAVE.
O leave me here alone with woe,
And go, my friends, as joys invite,
Where Beauty smiles, and goblets flow ;
Fit scenes for those whose hearts are light.
Another voice than that of glee
There breathes—through distance long and
drear—.
N142
SONG.
From Anna’s lowly grave to me,
And it hath all my soul and ear!
Afar in Salop’s vale she sleeps—
There winds of winter wildly blow ;
The cold drift circles there, and heaps
A breast once purer than the snow !
All life and sprightliness, she threw
A tint of Eden o’er these bowers;
And almost Eden’s bliss I knew
When her bright presence winged the hours.
Our moonlight walks by lawn and vale—
The soothing words she, parting, spoke—
Away ! I must not tell a tale
My heart can feel, but words would mock.
Then go, my friends, where hearts rejoice,
And leave me to my musings here—
From Anna’s grave there breathes a voice,
And it hath all my soul and ear !
SONG.
O to rest beside thee, Anna !
O to rest beside thee, Anna !
Calm beneath the grass and flowers
From love’s pure eye that hide thee, Anna!SONG.
143
No more thy light heart leaps to glee,
Love’s sacred thrillings leave it, Anna;
But all the ills that menace me,
O, none of these can grieve it, Anna!
O to rest &c.
In vain to thee the summer blooms,
And azure skies bend o’er thee, Anna;
But then, misfortune’s deepening glooms
Are never hung before thee, Anna !
O to rest &c.
My song would thus embalm thy name,
And thou—thou canst not hear it, Anna!
But gathering hisses blast my fame,
And I survive to bear it, Anna !
O to rest &c.
CHAPTER XV.
THE POETS. OSSIAN.
-------Highland sang,
Was made lang syne—Lord kens how lang.
Burns.
Being desirous of recalling1 him a little from
the detail of his love-affairs to that of his poeti-
cal studies, I reminded him that he had left off
with Pope, and that he had expressed himself
ignorant, at the period reverted to, of the exist-
ence of a new race of poets. He immediately
took up the thread of his narrative.
“ Though I could boast of no acquaintance
with the living masters of the lyre, I was rich
in the poetic treasures of ‘ other years.’ This
phrase will lead your imagination to the bard
from whom it is appropriated—the HighlandOSSIAN.
145
Ossian ; and the very name of the son of Fin-
gal will breathe to you of high and impassioned
poetry. I met with Ossian when my enthusiasm
for Pope was at its zenith, and when, in conse-
quence, I was most disinclined to relish
in prose. Poetry in prose ! the thing appeared
an absurdity—a contradiction in terms and in
fact. Prose in verse I could have interpreted
as prosaic thoughts clothed in harmonious
numbers ; but verse iu prose—grand flashes of
mind without versification—was irreconcileable
with all my previous ideas of poetry! I tried a
passage or two, fancied it very much in the style
of the Song of Solomon, and soon desisted, its
pretentions to antiquity, however, having excited
my curiosity, I turned to the critical remarks
of Blair, and to the antiquarian researches of
Macpherson. The latter taught me to look
upon Ossian and his dramatis person® as ob-
jects seen through the mist of centuries; the
former compared him even with my favourite
B omer. It then occurred to me that my dis-
taste for what it seemed was so admirable, might
probably be owing to ignorance; and of this l
was soon convinced by a thorough perusal of
the poems.
“ The character of the people that Ossian146
OSSIAN.
describes, their manners, their habits, but above
all, their superstitions, are essentially poetic.
Wild barbarians, considered in reference to the
arts of polished life—civilized men, when esti-
mated by the warmth of their friendship, the
delicacy of their love, and the generosity that
dignified their enmity;—such were the heroes
whom ? was now led to contemplate. But man
was not the only novelty to which Ossian intro-
duced me. The scenery and the superstition
were equally new, and equally imposing. The
sons of Morven roamed among hills towering in
bleakness and sublimity—among wilds of inter-
minable heath—and by lakes glittering in lone-
liness. Their belief peopled with spirits the
cloud, the storm, and the sunbeam. Unlike
those nations where their counterparts would
seem most likely to be found, their imagination
formed no distant and
‘ Happier island in the watery waste,’
to which their forefathers had passed, and to
which themselves were to journey. The Celtic
paradise was in t[ie clouds. There the chiefs
and warriors from their c airy halls,’ looked on
the fields of their battles, or enjoyed, in the pur-
suit of visionary deer, the sport that had delight-OSSIAN.
147
ed them on Cona. The young hero who had
been forgot in the songs of the bards, shrieked
—disconsolate—around the spot where he had
fallen; but when be ( received his fame,’ his
face brightened with joy as he c departed in the
rustling blast; ’ and if it appeared afterwards, it
was as i a beam of light betwixt the rocks of
Cromla’ or as ‘a pillar of mist on the plain
when the sun shines on it from the west.’ As
Woman was considered the loveliest object on
earth, so she retained her pre-eminence in that
shadowy state of existence. The maid became
c a spirit of the hill’—she ‘ walked in sunbeams
at noon’—or if her lover survived, she came a
moonbeam to the window of his rest,’ that ‘ his
dreams might be of joy.’—Such was the region
that Ossian opened to me, with all the vividness
of reality.
" That his poetry should become my daily
study and my nightly dream, was a consequence
to be expected ; but it is somewhat singular that
1 never thought of imitation in this case. Of
Johnson’s assertion that it was of easy compo-
sition, I knew the reverse to be true ; at least
I knew that many had attempted it, and all,
without exception, had failed. The accomplish-
ed Miss Smith has been, perhaps, the most148
OSSIAN.
successful imitator of Ossian’s style; yet even
she has caught his extraneous ornaments, rather
than his simple sublimity.—Though I had sense
enough not to follow in the train of his avowed
copyists, my compositions were now deeply
coloured with the unconscious transfusion of
his ideas. I say unconscious, because in many
instances the plagiarism was so. For example,
in a poem written about the time when my
Ossianic fever was at its height, these lines
occur :—
The lady’s cheek was softly pale,
Like wdld-rose in her native vale;
Her hair was raven, and her eyes
/
Had the fine blue of summer skies ;
While whiter seemed her breast to be
Than foam upon the moonlight sea,
Or winter’s most unsullied wreath
Smoothed o’er by winds on Cheviot’s heath !
“In these lines I knew that I was versifying
Ossian. My next extract was an unconscious
plagiarism :—
As when before the western gale
Departing clouds the skies unveil,
And leave amid the blue serene
The summer sun rejoicing sheen—
So Duncan’s magic song bade fly
Sorrow and gloom from Swarland’s eye.OSSIAN.
149
“ Substitute moon for sun in the above simile,
and you have Ossian’s beautiful illustration :
4 The face of Swaran brightened like the full
moon of heaven; when the clouds vanish away,
and leave her, calm and broad, in the midst of
the sky.’
u Yet, to say the truth, resemblances of this
nature are, among poets, absolutely inevitable.
Acquired ideas are so blended in a poetic brain
with original conceptions, that it is in many in-
stances difficult, in some impossible, to discri-
minate between the impulses of mind and the
suggestions of memory. Besides, with writers on
similar subjects, there must ever be coincidences
of thought, and these naturally beget coinci-
dences of expression. I will venture to say,
that any poet who should be accused of plagiar-
ism, and should see the parallel passages ex-
hibited in juxta-position, would feel as much
surprise to observe resemblances he had never
dreamt of, as the malignant critic who should
expose them, would feel pleasure in doing so.
The truth is, our writings take a tinge—some-
times it may be a slight one—from every work
that gives us pleasure in the perusal. The most
original geniuses are not exempt from this law
or habit of the mind ; and hence it is, that every150
OSS1AN.
great poet gives a tone to contemporary or suc-
ceeding literature. If proof were wanted that
Ossian is a great poet, it would be found in the
fact that he has influenced all the best poetry of
the present day.—Like Homer, he stands alone
in the desert of time, without a rival, and with-
out a predecessor; and with him will he continue
to divide the homage of admiring ages ! ”
Then you believe in the authenticity of the
poems of Ossian? I said. “ That is a question,”
replied he, “that I am not qualified to discuss.
I have spoken of him as the ancient Celtic bard
who lived with the people he describes. To
look upon him in this light, is certainly to me
the more agreeable alternative. Yet if I
give up the idea thatc Fingal fought and Ossian
sung’—if I must believe that James Macpherson
is the true term for Ossian—why, then I say that
the prejudice which exists agaiust the modern
should instantly be dissipated; and that he
should be acknowledged to have been—what in
this view he unquestionably was—one of the
greatest poets that ever lived. If to delineate
existing manners faithfully and eloquently, me-
rits the plaudits of criticism, that man cannot
deserve less honourable treatment, whose fancy
imagined a state of society, and whose geniusOSSIAN.
151
stamped the illusion with the impress of truth
and reality.
u After all, the poetry of Ossian is not of a
species on which the mind can long1 dwell. It
has a melancholy cast, that is agreeable only in
certain moods. His imagery is at times sweet
and beautiful; but its general character is dark,
gloomy, and repulsive. His 4 spirits of the hill’
are radiant creations; but they are the straggling
sunbeams of a landscape perpetually clouded.
The measured prose of his style is the best that
could have been chosen—for whenever verse
has been tried, the charm has evaporated; yet
the uniformity of its cadences soon becomes
tiresome to the ear. But these are faults which
the kindly spirit of youth never thought of de-
tecting ; and I have enough of that spirit re-
maining, not to part with an old friend in a
fastidious humour. I have, since then, held
communion with other, perhaps loftier, minds;
but I still take up the volumes of Ossian with a
portion of my early enthusiasm.”CHAPTER XVI.
THE POETS. THOMPSON.
So long, sweet poet of the year,
Shall bloom the wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that Thompson was her son.
Burns,
u My next favourite was a poet of a very dif-
ferent character. He delighted to paint Nature
as she is—beautiful amidst her grandeur, and
grand amidst her beauty. He 4 skimmed the
gay spring’—lingered on the birth of flowers,
the loves of birds, and the happiness of the hu-
man race. He ‘ rose on eagle pinions through
the summer blaze’—and a world, cheerful with
the sounds of 4 happy labour,’ unfolded itself
beneath his eye. He ‘ swept o’er autumn withTHOMPSON.
153
the shadowy gale’—and not a fading grace
escaped his notice. And ‘ rolled in the doubling
storm ’ of winter, he soared among its clouds
and its vapours with the unflagging strength of
the tempest. I need not say that I allude to
Thompson ; for to whom could this descrip-
tion be applicable, but to the tender, the elegant,
the sublime poet of the c Seasons ? ’
“ When I became familiar with the works of
Thompson, 1 had attained to the eighteenth
year of my age. My taste had been gradually,
though imperceptibly, improving. Superfluous
branch after branch had been lopped away, and
the tree began to give something like a promise
of future strength and gracefulness, I could
now distinguish the natural from the extra-
vagant in composition. I had begun to look
round on the world, and to examine my own
heart; and I was no longer satisfied with giv-
ing a new dress to the thoughts and feelings of
others. I watched the clouds and the stars—
observed the streams and the woods—ransacked
the garden and the wild—for untried similes,
and new illustrations. In a word, I had begun
to feel my own strength—I was determined to
he independent of all but my oWn resources—
and the perusal of Thompson at once confirmed
o154
THOMPSON.
my resolutions, and stimulated my efforts. My
reading having lain principally among poets,
my information was, of course, but scanty. I
had a general knowledge of most subjects, but
an intimate and solid acquaintance with very few.
The philosophic Muse of the ( Seasons’ taught
me to look not only on the surface of things, but
beneath it. She taught me that
‘The flowery leaf
Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure
Within its winding citadel, the stone
Holds multitudes. But chief the forest boughs,
That dance unnumbered to the playful breeze,
The downy orchard, and the melting pulp
Of mellow fruit, the nameless nations feed
Of evanescent insects.’
By such minute developments I was prompted
to the study of natural history, which opened to
me a fresh fountain of ideas The description
of the rainbow and the comet turned my atten-
tion to the sciences of optics and astronomy.
The various powerful pictures of foreign regions
excited a desire for more extended information
respecting them; and thus I was induced to
read geographical details, and to devour the ac-
counts of travellers. I was led to the history
of my own country by the brief, but animatedTHOMPSON.
155
sketches of her kings, her statesmen, and her
warriors. In short, for almost all I know, I am
indebted, directly or indirectly, to the ‘ Seasons ’
of Thompson. But my chief obligation remains
yet to be stated.
“By reading certain authors, whom, however,
it is not necessary to specify, my first religious
impressions had been almost entirely effaced.
Burns has emphatically said, ‘ An irreligious
poet is a monster.’ A bright imagination, re-
fined feelings, a warm heart—these are all re-
quisites in the poetic character. That all these
should co-exist in the same individual, and yet
that individual be defective in the noblest of all
feelings—devotion to his God, is an anomaly
that would appear almost too monstrous for
belief, were we not possessed of many evidences
of its possibility. Had Thompson’s design
been, professedly, to inculcate religious senti-
ments, his efforts, with me, would have been
unavailing; for I was impenetrably steeled
against argument. But he caught me through
the medium of the feelings. He exhibited in
succession the beauties and wonders of creation;
and then, unexpectedly but naturally, broke out
into pious ejaculations that struck at once to
my heart. The passage in ‘Spring’ beginning156
THOMPSON.
‘ Hail, Source of Being, universal Soul! ’
and that in 6 Summer,’ where, after singing of
the sun, he exclaims,
f How shall I then attempt to sing of Him P ’
are but two of numerous instances of his power
in this way. These, with the crowning Hymn
on the Seasons—in itself one of the finest poems
in our language—exerted an influence on my
heart which 1 feel at this moment. I do not
mean to ascribe miracles to Thompson. Years,
and sufferings, and blessings, certainly deepened
his salutary impressions ; yet it was by him that
the change was originated—and it is a change
which has doubled every pleasure. When I
contemplate the appearances of nature, I have
the same intense feeling of beauty or magnifi-
cence as before; but I have also something
better. My thoughts are raised thence to Him
from whom everything proceeds. Not a sun-
gleam passes over the landscape—not a flower
blooms in the dew-drop—not a cloud reflects
the tints of the morning—without reminding me
of the invisible Source both of beauty and
goodness!”CHAPTER XVII:
THE POETS. LEYDEN.
Scenes sung by him who sings no more!
His bright and brief career is o’er,
And mute his tuneful strains;
Quenched is his lamp of varied lore,
That loved the light of song to pour;
A distant and a deadly shore
Has Leyden’s cold remains!
Sir Walter Scott.
“ The first intimation that a new race of poets
had arisen, and had wrought an important
change in our national poetry, was given me by
one who was himself of their number, and whose
writings were an exemplification of the change.
This was Leyden, with whose beautiful poem,
entitled 4 Scenes of Infancy,’ I now became ac-
quainted. It is written in the heroic couplet;
but it reminded me less of the measured march of158
LEYDEN.
Pope, than of the sweet simplicity of Goldsmith.
In its character both descriptive and legendary,
I was in one place pleased with graceful deline-
ations of landscape; and in another, with true
and vivid pictures of prevailing or extinct su-
perstition.
“ One of our periodical publications says of
the writer in question, Leyden was a poet
because his friends Scott and Campbell were
poets’—implying that he wrote verses from a
principle of emulation, and not from a self-
originating impulse. But this is a gratuitous
assumption, equally rash and unsupported. His
ballads have as much originality, and, speaking
generally, as much beauty as those of Scott.
His heroic couplet (to parody an expression of
Dr. Johnson’s) is no more the heroic couplet of
Campbell or of any other poet, than the rhymes
of Scott are the rhymes of Moore. His ac-
count of the Spectre Ship and his Invocation of
the Nightingale, his Address to his Shadow and
his legend respecting the Flower of Yarrow,
might be adduced as alternate instances of strong
and graceful conceptions—and conceptions, too,
which cannot, I think, be traced to any preced-
ing poet. Who but a genuine bard could have
thus spoken of Spring ?LEYDEN.
159
* Soft as she treads the dewy vale,
She listens oft in silence deep,
To hear her favourite primrose pale
Awaking from its winter sleep! *
Or who, except one who had been accustomed
to look into nature for himself, could have given
us this delicate idea of the moon, when she
‘Sleeps on her mid-way cloud of softest blue ? ’
“ We may sometimes be assisted in forming a
proper estimate of a poet, by comparing him
with others who have written on similar sub-
jects. This is a criterion to which an admirer
of Leyden may have recourse, without any
alarm for the result. I try him, however, by a
confessedly high standard, when I compare him
with Southey, which nevertheless I shall in one
instance do. The passage of the laureate, which
I here press into my service, is from * Madoc,’
and describes an Indian custom :—
%
‘The hoamen in their council-hall are met
To hold the Feast of Souls ; seat above seat
Ranged round the circling theatre they sit.
No light but from the central fire, whose smoke,
Slow passing through the over aperture,
Excludes the day and fills the conic roof,
And hangs above them like a cloud. Around,160
LEYDEN.
The ghastly bodies of their chiefs are hung,
Shrivelled and parched by heat; the humble dead
Lie on the floor—white bones exposed to view,
On deer or elk skin laid, or softer fur,
Or web, the work of many a mournful hour;
The loathlier forms of fresh mortality
Swathed, and in decent tenderness concealed.
Beside each body pious gifts are laid,
Mantle and belt, and feathery coronal,
The bow he used in war, his drinking shell,
His arrows for the chace.	*	*	*
*	*	*	* Husbands and wives,
Parents and children, there in death they lie;
The widowed, and the parent, and the child,
Look on in silence.*
“ I wish not to detract from the merit of this
solemn picture ; yet, fine as it is, I shall now
produce a passage from Leyden, on the same
subject, that will not suffer from the compa-
rison :—
----‘ When by Erie’s lake the Indians red
Display the dismal Banquet of the Dead,
While streams descend in foam, and tempests rave,
They call their fathers from the funeral cave,
In that green mount where virgins go to weep
Around the lonely tree of tears and sleep.
Silent they troop, a melancholy throng,
And bear the ancient fleshless shapes along.LEYDEN.
161
The 'painted tomahawks,embroivned	rust,
And belts of wampum, from the sacred dust,
The	bow unbent, the tall unfu spear,
Mysterious symbols ! from the grave they rear.
With solemn dance and song, the feast they place,
To greet the mighty fathers of their race;
Their robes of fur the warrior youths expand,
And silent sit, the dead on either hand.’
“ So far the descriptions bear that sort of re-
semblance to each other which was to be
expected, and so far they are descriptions of
pure and unrelieved horror. But when Leyden
adds, as he does immediately, that the living
‘ Eye with fixed gaze the ghastly forms, that own
No earthly name, and live in worlds unknown,
he becomes decidedly superior to the author of
(Madoc.’ He brings down a stream of light
from the invisible world—from the land of souls
—which invests his dismal group with an awful
sublimity !
“ One of the most touching similes of modern
poetry is to be found in Leyden. It is this :—
-----* sad as he who dies in early spring,
When flowers begin to bloom, and larks to sing,
When nature’s joy a moment warms his heart,
And makes it doubly hard with life to part.’-----162
LEYDEN.
These lines are endeared to me by one tender
recollection, to which I cannot help giving
expression. Previously to my acquaintance
with this poet, 1 had been ill of a fever, which
detained me in bed upwards of six weeks.
About the expiration of this term, and while my
recovery was still despaired of, my friends car-
ried me from my couch, and placed me in a
chair, propping me up with pillows. Spring
was just commencing, and as I gazed languidly
through the window, a tuft—a single tuft—of
green grass caught my eye. The living fresh-
ness of that young and springing verdure entered
into my very heart! To call the sensation
pleasure, would be faint and vapid—it was
rapture ! Sick, feeble, and despondent, I had
been resigned to die; but at this sight, from
which I knew that a spirit of life was abroad,
an ardent wish for existence revived within me;
and I wept at the thought of leaving, in youth,
this bright and beautiful world !—I was there-
fore prepared to feel the pathos of Leydeli’s
comparison.
<e Such are a few of the beauties scattered
with no sparing hand through the poetry of the
bard of Teviotdale; to point out his faults were
an easier, but less agreeable employment. OthersLEYDEN.
163
may take the gravelly road of criticism ; I pre-
fer, for my walk, the primrose path of individual
recollections.
44 I was born, as you already know, in a part
of England which abounds in memorials of
the martial days of our forefathers—a land of
heroic, and by consequence, of poetic associa-
tions—the land of Cheviot and 4 Chevy Chase,’
of Homildon and Flodden Field—the land of
the Fenwicks, the Greys, and the Percys ! The
mouldering ruins of towers or castles are to be
met with in almost every considerable village.
Scarcely an eminence but exhibits traces of
encampments; scarcely a plain but tradition,
history, or song, has marked out as the scene of
some sanguinary conflict. The unpeered majes-
ty of Cheviot, towering, as a poet may be al-
lowed to say, supreme above a hundred hills,
had been familiar to my eyes from childhood.
The ballad of 4 Chevy Chace,’ I have before
told you, was among my earliest favourites. On
the hill of Homildon I had spent hours which I
shall never forget. The Field of Flodden had
witnessed many of my juvenile frolics—frolics
not the less heartily persisted in because they
were held above the dust of the brave. When
the author of 4 Marmion ’ visited the memorable164
LEYDEN.
Field—to which his genius was about to lend a
fresh and ever-living interest—he may have seen
me, a 4 shepherd boy,’ plaiting 4 the water flag
and rush;’ and I may have unconsciously con-
tributed a pleasing passage to an immortal ro-
mance. Thus familiar, from infancy, with
objects calculated to strike a thinking heart or
a lively imagination, it yet had never occurred
to me that anything could be done in poetry
from such sources of inspiration. The very
circumstance of their being familiar, might and
did deprive them of their power to occasion
------‘ the keener rush of blood
That throbs through bard in bard-like mood.’
The mountains that arose on every hand were
to me Alpine wonders ; but they seldom carried
my fancy back to a time when every far-seen
summit was a telegraph—when beacon caught
from beacon the tidings of a Scottish inroad.
Flodden Field was an eminence sloping grace-
fully from the plain, and .partly covered with
a flourishing plantation ; it had furnished my
verses with a few images of tenderness and beau-
ty, from the freshness of its foliage and the
music of its birds; but I never penetrated be-
neath the surface,'at least for poetical purposes.LEYDEN.
165
I never thought of re-animating the warriors
whose dust there mingled with congenial earth,
and engaging them once more in hostile affray.
I saw not
------‘ dashing broad and far
The broken billows of the war,
And plumed crests of chieftains brave
Floating like foam upon the wave,’--
Or, if such a vision flashed across my brain, it
was but to leave a feeling of thankfulness that I
had fallen on days when—if the sword was not
sheathed—-yet the din, the havoc, and the blood
of battle were far removed from the vales of
England. But Leyden led me into a new, and
deeply fascinating track. Fie taught me to lift
the veil which time and cultivation had spread
over my native scenes, and to regard with vene-
ration the mouldering relics of bygone ages.
With as much devotion as ever impelled a mus-
sulraan to the shrine of his prophet at Mecca, I
visited places that were hallowed by tradition or
legend. I passed a day among the ruins of
Norham Castle, with no company but the bat
or the owl, whose startled flappings only served
to deepen the solitude of walls which had re-
echoed ‘ the tramp and clang’ of armed warriors,
p166
LEYDEN.
and of vaults which had witnessed, probably,
many a deed of violence. I visited Wark, the
renowned village of my birth, so peaceful now,
so martial of old ! I worshipped at e Bamboro,’
in 1 King Ida’s castle,’ and in the cave of 1 Spi-
nilstone Hugh,’ where was performed that won-
derful enchantment commemorated in the metri-
cal legend of Duncan Frasier. I perambulated
the Field of Flodden, and I did so now in much
loftier moods. I had bright visions of heroic
tales and encountering armies, of blazing bea-
cons and Border feuds ! But I was soon to see
all my plans eclipsed by the last and greatest of
the Minstrels—Sir Walter Scott.”CHAPTER XVIII.
THE POETS. SIR WALTER SCOTT.
--------The Ariosto of the N orth
Sang ladye-love, and war, romance, and knightly worth.
Byron.
“ The 4 Lay of the last Minstrel,’ as it was the
first lengthened effort of its author, so it was the
first work of his that I perused. I had been
sated with the uniformity of the heroic couplet;
but here was a poem, with some dignity from
its action and characters, which set at defiance
all established precedents. Here was a Pegasus
that, forsaking the smooth and beaten track that
had been trodden so long, scampered over hill168
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
and dale, all the world wondering at his thou-
sand freaks and his thousand graces. I knew
that this poem had obtained praise from critics
of all sects and of all parties, and a circulation
almost unparalleled in the annals of polite liter-
ature ; yet I read it at the time with little plea-
sure. It struck me that the writer, in breaking
away from the shackles of excessive refinement,
had run to the other extreme of uncontrolled
barbarism. The description of Melrose Abbey
as seen by moonlight—the solemn opening of
the Wizard’s tomb, whence the sepulchral lamp
flashed on the cowl of the monk and the plume
of the warrior—would, 1 fancied, have told bet-
ter in better language. I was not sorry to see
discarded the rules by which the Pope school
was governed ; but the ‘Lay’ was, in its ver-
sification, absolutely without rule; it was built
on no principle ; it was harsh, puerile, and
fantastic. Still, there were passages of great
power and beauty, which indicated the hand of
a Proteus, who, though he adopted the style
of ‘ Harpers rude,’ was equally a master of
legitimate rhyme. To say that I wished to
see his versification strictly regular, were to
contradict much of what I have advanced;
but of two extremes I wanted the medium.SIR WALTER SCOTT.
169
and I found it in the other volumes of the same
prolific author.
u I shall not enter into any analysis of these
delightful works; but as il have given you my
first impressions from a perusal of the 4 Lay,’
something akin to which will probably have
been the first impressions of readers in general,
—I will state what I conceive to have been the
4
cause in my own case, and perhaps in that of
others, of some misconception with regard to
Sir Walter Scott’s poetry.—It has been tried
by standards which its very nature disavows,
and with which it had been a defect in it to have
harmonised. It has been measured by the epic
scale, and praised for agreement, or abused
for disagreement therewith, the critic never
seeming to notice a distinction, of which the
author himself had so often reminded the world.
Sir Walter Scott is professedly not a poet, but
a Minstrel. The representative of that once-
honoured class of bards, whose strains of chivalry
and love, sung to the harp, enlivened the ban-
quets of the great in days of yore—he strikes his
lyre not for ‘ the reading public,’ but for 4 lords
and knights and ladies gay.’ He never addres-
ses his reader, but his	and that au-
dience is always supposed to be made up of170
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
the high-born and the proud. His constant
appeal is
‘ Expect not, noble dames and lords,
That I should tell/ &c.
or
‘ Here pause we, gentles, for a space,
And if our tale hath won your grace,
Grant us brief patience, and again
We will resume the minstrel
In the light of minstrel strains, then, his poetry
ought ever to be viewed; and bearing this in
mind, all its peculiarities will be easily ac-
counted for.
“He has been charged with lowering the
dignity of his poetry by pages of flat and in-
sipid narrative; by this means showing himself
unequal to Moore, who is always sparkling, and
to By ron, who, in his serious pieces, is always
energetic. It does not appear to have struck
the originators of this charge, that for the un-
flagging spirit of their writings these poets are
indebted chiefly, if not altogether, to the frag-
ment style which they employ—a style which,
by leaving minor details to the reader’s imagina-
tion, deals only in the prominent and the impas-
sioned. But whatever may be its excellencies.SIR WALTER SCOTT.
171
this is plainly not the style an ancient minstrel
can be supposed to have adopted. His lays must
have been so framed, as to be readily compre-
hended by a gay audience ; and to effect this,
the connecting links of the narrative must have
been distinctly seen.—It is therefore a merit in
Sir Walter Scott to possess, as it would be a
defect to want, this characteristic inequality.
“ His talent for description has been generally
acknowledged ; yet some have asserted that he
is a mere landscape painter—that he can make
a delightful sketch or picture—but nothing
more. He cannot, as it were, blend his feelings
with the scene—he cannot become a part of it,
like Byron, or draw from flowers, winds, waters,
and mountains, the deep moralities of Words-
worth. But, putting aside the question of
er—the absence of which no one has a right to
assume—it is manifest that descriptions of
this nature could never with propriety have been
admitted into the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.
In the songs of the minstrels, descriptions of
scenery could only have been of secondary
importance. They may have been employed to
give a picture-like air to the feats commemo-
rated, or to relieve the hearers' attention ; but
never, most assuredly, as a vehicle of morality.172
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
The moral of their songs was possibly very
little attended to; it would naturally emanate
from strong contrasts of virtue and vice, mean-
ness and magnanimity; in no other way, at any
rate, would an ancient minstrel enforce it.—If
Sir Walter Scott’s descriptions of external na-
ture, therefore, have truth and spirit—and who
will deny it ?—they have all that they ought to
have in consistency with his assumed character.
“ I do not know that any particular objection
has ever been made to his versification. There
is generally a sweetness about it which makes
even its extravagances agreeable. But were
this not the case, its license might be trium-
phantly defended on the same ground—on the
fact, namely, that it is meant to be imitative of
models which were marked with irregularities
r
still wilder.
“I believe that no one ever read the poetry
of Sir Walter Scott, without feeling persuaded
that he could compose such with the greatest
facility. The apparent, and, in truth, the real
rapidity with which it has flowed from the mind
of the Minstrel, and the dashing impetuosity of
its general course—by communicating to the
least poetical reader a degree of sympathetic
agitation—impose on him the flattering assump-SIR WALTER SCOTT.
173
tion I have alluded to. But notwithstanding
the number of imitations which have thus been
called forth, we do not possess one that is even
endurable. The lyre of Scott yields its grandest
music only in the hands of its proper master.
I, too, was deluded into imitation. I projected,
and in part executed, Tales of the Border;
described ladies and knights and harpers ; and
imagined battles characterised by horrors far
exceeding those of Flodden Field. But 1 soon
discovered that I was proceeding in a career
which must terminate in disappointment. I
foresaw that my poetry—though it might have
been admired had Sir Walter Scott never ex-
isted— must eventually be looked upon as a
clever imitation, and I myself as a person of
some taste, but of no original genius. Con-
siderations of this kind had the effect of cooling
my imitative ardour. I adandoned my plans—
left unfinished my lays—and turned to themes
into which his ideas were less likely to insinuate
themselves. But my progress was again inter-
rupted, and my attention engrossed, by poetry of
a widely different description. This was the
poetry of Lord Byron.”CHAPTER XIX.
THE POETS. BYRON.
He was a star of wildest and most marked
Effulgence; and his fall hath left a blank,
A lonely and a mournful blank, which none,
N o, none shall ever fill again !
“ The first two Cantos of 4 Childe Harold,’
written on subjects with which I was compara-
tively unacquainted, were read by me with little
interest. The great political drama, which
concentrated upon it the anxious eyes of all
Europe, had been partly performed ere I was
of age to note its progress ; and I looked on its
closing scenes, therefore, splendid as they were,
with the vacant astonishment of one who, igno-
rant of the play, comes into a theatre at the
end of the fourth act. The throne and sceptre
of Napoleon passed from my gaze like a pageant
of the stage, and I jmrceived the importance of
the catastrophe by its effects on others, ratherBYRON.
175
than from emotions excited in myself. Lord
Byron’s sneers at the Convention of Cintfa,
with his allusions to battles then recent, were
consequently thrown away upon me; though I
could not be insensible to the splendour of his
writing. I knew enough of ancient Greece, too,
and of her present degradation, to enable me to
enjoy his grand apostrophe to Athens, and to
feel with him in his indignant lament over the
self-abasement of her sons. But on the whole,
I was incapable, from ignorance, of entering
into the full spirit of his descriptions; and 1
gladly forsook ‘ Childe Harold,’ in favour of
the smaller poems that accompanied it. These,
as they seemed to come from the heart of the
noble poet, either found, or waked, a ready echo
in mine. Accordingly I read them, till they be-
came a part of myself, and lent a portion of their
pathos to my own attempts. I recollect only
one passage that I did not sympathize with :—
‘Count o’er the joys tliy hours have seen;
Count o’er thy days from anguish free;
And know, whatever thou hast been,
Tis something better to be.'
The world was still too beautiful—my heart was
still too light—Hope still showed, in far and
fairy-like perspective, too many scene# of enjoy-176
BYRON.
ment—to prevent my coincidence with the mor-
bid sentiment!
<c Among the first objections made to the poems
of Lord Byron, was their obscurity. But it was
soon perceived that this was distinct from the ob-
scurity which proceeds from sterility or confusion
of ideas. It was not the obscurity of one who
£ Means not, but blunders round about a meaning.’
It was that of a poet original and uncommon in
his conceptions, and by a natural consequence,
original and uncommon in his language. His
poetry was found to be like an Indian stream,
whose bed is impervious to the eye, not from the
impurity of its water, but from the greatness of
its depth ; and the diving mind could always
find gold at the bottom.
“ Still, the poetry of Byron, with all the en-
ergy and all the genius it displays, was never
poetry after my own heart. If I entered on one
of his tales, indeed, it was impossible for me to
give up the perusal till the music of the final
line had rung in my ear; but I felt as if
pelledrather than allured, to proceed. I was
dragged onwards by the invisible chain ^of an
invisible sorcerer, as it were, through gloomy
labyrinths, and amid horrible objects, without
I4
’TIS SAID THAT &C.	177
the power to pause, or to return. The writings
of most other English poets have, from frequent
readings, become to me like ‘household words;’
but to his I seldom recur, because I do not like
to have my feelings tortured on the rack for
hours together. What I could not reflect on
with delight, it was not natural that I should
attempt to imitate. My imitations were confined
to the smaller poems already mentioned; nor
have they since extended to his more genial
productions. There cannot be a second 6 Don
Juan,’ or a second ‘ Childe Harold.’ ”
’TIS SAID THAT STARS HAVE FALLEN.
’Tis said that stars have fallen, yet have left
No tell-tale blank i’th’ blue sky—stars remote,
Whose light till then had never reached the eye,
Filling the gap to vision. But not so
Hast thou descended from the heaven of song—
Thou wast a star of wildest and most marked
Effulgence, and thy fall hath left a blank,
A lonely and a mournful blank, which none—
No—none shall ever fill again !
O Byron !
How much of admiration and of hope,
Of worship deep from hearts thy strains have touched,
Of grief from those who watched thy wanderings
And wept them—hath been centred in thy name !
Q178
’TIS SAID THAT
E’en in thy boyhood’s efforts might be traced
The embryo-giant. This the critic saw not,
And struck and stung thee—in his turn to writhe
Within thy mighty grasp. With what a strength
Of ray, that lightened through the gloomy clouds
Which formed his palace, rose th’ unsetting sun
Of thine own Harold’s glories ! How our hearts
Thrilled at thy young Giaour’s wild and broken tale !
How bled they o’er the melancholy fates
Of the two lovers of Abydos—one
Mixing his life-blood with the dashing wave,
One dying in her terror’s agony!
There was no pause to wondering—as to flash
Succeeds a brighter flash, when summer storms
Robe the dim mountains with sublimity,
So song magnificent gave place to song
Still more magnificent,—until the eye,
Dazzled with splendour, scarcely deigned to look
On mightiest of contemporary bards,
Whose laurels seemed to wither, as if scorched
By the fierce lightning! and the critic fly-swarm
Joined in a vile-breath’d humming of applause;
For they had marked thy soaring flight, and felt
They now could batten on thy fame.
Alas!
Twas then that, loathing their rank praise, or wrung
In heart to find domestic bliss a dream,
Thy pen was dipped in bitterness; and scorn,
Licentiousness, and ribaldry combined
To dim —no, not thy genius !—for e’en there
It shone pre-eminent, and half redeemedSTARS HAVE FALLEN.
179
The sullied page; but to disgrace thy name,
Thy morals, and thy heart! Thousands who made
Part of that world thy strains profess to hate,
Have felt an inward and a silent pang
To think thou wert thine own worst enemy !
At length it came, the hour retributive,
When, goaded by th’ accumulated wrongs
Of centuries, the long-sunk Greek assumed
His ancient spirit, and in battle-field
Met his oppressor. WTho among the first
Flew to his aid, and cheered his heart from fight
Of dubious or disastrous issue ? Who
But Thou! the warm and ceaseless advocate
Of Greeks and their high cause. And what a field
There opened to thy genius! ’Twas our hope
That thou wouldst win their battles, free their clime
Of beauty from the ruthless Turk, and then
Bid thy unrivalled Lyre resound the strain
Of Greece’s Independence---------
All is o’er!
That lyre is shivered, and the hand that waked
Its harmony is nerveless !
Loftier harps—
Aye, loftier far than mine—shall ring thy dirge,
And I may blush to see my poor attempt
Look poorer still in the comparison :
Yet hath it soothed me, and thy vital name
May save when less honoured lays have perished !CHAPTER XX:
THE POETS. MOORE, WORDSWORTH,
AND SOUTHEY.
Here’s a health to thee, Tom Moore !
Byron.
Of Thomas Moore, as a poet, I had often
heard ; a few of his delightful songs had strayed
to my cottage; but I was now to see 4 Lalla
Rookh,’ at present, as it probably ever will be,
his greatest work. In description he reminded
me of Scott; in portraiture of character he
came near to Byron ; but over all he threw a
richness of imagery, to which these poets have
no pretension. To this love of ornament,
which forms the distinguishing feature of his
poetry, is owing much of its beauty, as well asMOORE, WORDSWORTH, &C.
181
many of its faults. His similes are in general
not only apposite, but drawn from objects on
which the fancy loves to linger; but their very
number, and above all, their occurrence where
the sense would be evident without them, and
where they are only glittering appendages, give
an appearance of labour and art which defeats
their purpose. His conceits, too, and his epi-
grammatic points, exhibit this appearance still
more glaringly ; and if they were not overba-
lanced by passages of deep and unaffected pathos,
would impress us less with the idea of a poet
singing as nature inspires, than with that of a
gentleman of taste and learning, devoid of poetic
furor, giving expression to thoughts and images
elaborately collected and combined. There is a
lyrical piece in the ‘Veiled Prophet’ which, I
think, exemplifies both the natural and artificial
style of Moore :—
‘There’s a bower of roses by Bendemeer’s stream,
And the nightingale sings round it all the day long;
In the time of my childhood ’twas like a sweet dream
To sit in the roses and hear that bird’s song.
That bower and its music I never forget,
But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year,
I think—is the nightingale singing there yet P
Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer ?’182
MOORE, WORDSWORTH,
Now are not these simple and affecting lines ?
‘Most musical, most melancholy ! ’
But the second stanza degenerates into conceit:
* No, the roses still withered that hung o’er the wave,
But some blossoms were gathered while freshly
they shone,
And a dew was distilled from their flowers that gave
All the fragrance of summer, when summer was
gone.
Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,
An essence that breathes of it many a year;
Thus bright to my soul, as ’twas then to my eyes,
Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bende-
meer! ’ ”
I remarked that I thought the ‘ conceit’ an ex-
tremely beautiful one. “Far be it from me,”
exclaimed the bard, “ to say one word in depre-
ciation of the Minstrel of green Erin ! of him
who has done more to win the hearts of English-
men to the side of the people of his native land
than any living man ! His is a Lyre of witchery,
whose notes 1 should be proud to imitate! But I
have got a fancy that I am in the critic’s chair,
and that makes me, like other critics, somewhat
oracular. Otherwise, where is the microscopic
eye, or the unerring hand, to trace the line that
separates conceit from nature ? Where shall weAND SOUTHEY.
183
find 4 a bard of nature’s making,’ if not in our
unrivalled dramatist ? And yet, whose volumes
are more profuse in conceits than the volumes of
Shakspeare ?—I think 4 Paradise and the Peri ’
one of the most delightful compositions that ever
poetry gave birth to. The 4 Fire Worshippers’
is of a loftier character, and is indeed quite By-
ronic in conception and style. But why enume-
rate ? I give you the health of Moore ! ”
When I had seconded his toast, I asked him
his opinion of Wordsworth.
44 My opinion of Wordsworth,” said he, 44 is
formed chiefly from a deep and intimate acquaint-
ance with the 4 Excursion,’ a poem which does
equal honour to his genius and his heart. This
is not the indiscriminate praise of a eulogist;
it is the inference which his poetry compels
me to draw. There are in the poem I have
mentioned, a hundred passages that for elo-
quence aud sublimity will bear comparison with
any passage of any poet, ancient or modern;
and hundreds of others made up of feelings that
equally indicate a heart of the greatest possible
goodness. His love of nature and mankind is
too intense for affectation ; it is real, and warm,
and holy, and forms the very stamina of his song.
Thompson looked on nature with the eye of a184
MOORE, WORDSWORTH,
philosopher; Cowper tinged it with the gloom
of his own constitutional melancholy; Words-
worth contemplates it with the rapture of poetry,
heightened and hallowed by the rapture of reli-
gion ! Do you recollect these lines ?
‘ O then what soul was his, when on the tops
Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked—
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean’s liquid mass, beneath him lay
In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched,
And in their silent faces did he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank
The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.’
“ This is one of the many passages that em-
boss the ‘ Excursion.’ That it does not all
consist of such passages was to be expected,
and perhaps desired, in so long a poem ; but its
tamest and most tedious paragraphs (for such it
has) are besprinkled with thoughts and phrases
of the purest beauty. Thus, a voice is said toAND SOUTHEY.
185
be c the very sound of happy thoughts.’ The
butterfly 4 soars from earth’s bright flowers into
the dewy clouds.’ A taper twinkling at mid-
night in a valley, is like 4 a sullen star dimly
reflected in a lonely pool.’ The swan amid the
lake 4anchors her placid beauty.’ On the ap-
proach of night, 4 the flowers are lost in the
dark hedges.’—It would be an endless task to
specify all such minute ornaments. I shall only
add the touching description of a child, whose
mother is fast dying of a broken heart in conse-
quence of being deserted by its father and her
husband:—
f Her infant babe
Had from its mother caught the trick of grief,
And sighed among its playthings.’
A circumstance so deeply pathetic was perhaps
never employed to heighten a picture of utter
misery.
44 This poem, which is mostly dramatic, has
been admirably characterised by Coleridge as
exhibiting a species of mental ventriloquism.
We have the Wanderer, the Solitary, and the
Pastor introduced to us, each uttering sentiments
on the subject discussed; but notwithstanding
this, we never lose sight of the poet himself.186
MOORE, WORDSWORTH,
It is always Wordsworth—it can be no other
than Wordsworth—who describes, narrates, or
declaims ; the others are mere automata, speak-
ing, or rather seeming to speak, as the inspired
ventriloquist pulls the wire. Nothing ludicrous
is meant by this illustration, nor anything con-
demnatory of this want of variety in his charac-
ters. Individualization holds not, in didactic
compositions, the same rank that it sustains in
tragic or heroic poetry; though, after all, the
dramatis personae of the ‘ Excursion ’ are kept
sufficiently distinct by their history and opinions,
if not by their language and sentiments. Their
colloquies are always interesting, often sublime ;
and no thinking person can listen to them with-
out feeling that he is in communion with minds
of the very loftiest order.
“ Southey, ‘he of the laureate wreath,’ has
been alluded to with deference in the course of
my strictures, a tribute which his genius alone
commanded; for I opened his works, for the
first time, with a prejudice anything but in his
favour. I had read the various criticisms in the
Edinburgh Review on several of his earlier
poems, criticisms not more severe than unjust,
and I took up ‘ Thalaba ’ with an assurance
that I should find ample room for merriment.AND SOUTHEY.
187
But I was quickly undeceived; for though the
versification was not at all to my taste, and
though the incidents were extravagant in the
highest degree, the careless strength of a gigan-
tic mind, and the fire of genuine inspiration
pervaded the whole performance. The same
epithets, I think, might be applied to the ( Curse
of Kehama.* His 4 Joan of Arc’ I have not
seen ; but his 6Madoc ’ I have read, and shall,
I hope, again. It has one passage which I am
sorry I cannot repeat to you. I allude to that
where a Welsh Minstrel is discovered by an
Indian asleep at the foot of a rock. The Indian
approaches, and raises his hatchet or his club
with the purpose of despatching him, when a
wandering breeze of the morning sweeps over
the harp. To the simple-minded savage the
sound seems to be the warning of the sleeper’s
guardian spirit, and he turns away astonished,
without taking the vengeance he meditated!
This I conceive to be one of the most beautiful
incidents to be met with in modern poetry.
‘ Wordsworth is said to have pronounced, in
private conversation, that Southey is the great-
est poet that has appeared since the time of
Milton. I am not prepared to go thus far ; but
I think it will be admitted by all—it has been188
MOORE, WORDSWORTH,
avowed by Moore—that he has written the very
best poem that has been published since ‘ Para-
dise Lost.’ I allude to ‘ Roderick,’ which is
distinguished by the native, unpretending dig-
nity of its spirit, by the flow and freedom of its
blank verse, and by the classic chasteness and
simplicity of its narrative. It is perhaps no
inconsiderable proof of its harmonious relation
of parts, that scarcely a single extract could be
made from it which would not suffer by the
disjunction, or which would give anything like
an idea of the magnificent whole. But if you
have read it, you will recall with pleasure—I
might use a word of holier emphasis—many
scenes and situations of overpowering pathos.
You will think of the Royal Goth, in the garb
of a hermit, among the ruins of Aurea—of the
same penitent j>ersonage when he is listening
to the confessions of the woman he had disho-
noured—of his interview with Count Julian at
the well—of his behaviour in the dying moments
of the same Count—and, finally, of his heroism
in the last animating battle which frees his
beloved Spain from her Moorish invaders. No
one, you will own, can rise from the perusal of
‘ Roderick,’ without feeling his patriotism in-
creased, and his heart made better.”
1AND SOUTHEY.
189
Pray, said I, have you ever seen any of the
poets of whose works you speak with so much
enthusiasm ? You lived long in the neighbour-
hood, as it were, of Sir Walter Scott; and you
have resided for many years at no great distance
from the Lake Poets. Did curiositv, if not a
higher motive, ever prompt you to visit them ?
c< Visit them ! ” exclaimed he, “ do you suppose
me capable of such presumption ? I durst no
more have intruded into the presence of Sir
Walter Scott, than I durst have undertaken a
voyage to America in my mother’s washing-
tub ! Southey, however, I saw by accident,
in the year 1833 ; an event which 1 find thus
detailed in certain memoranda of mine :
c July 17th.
Mounted the coach at Ambleside about 10
o’clock in the forenoon, and passed through
scenes of the wildest and most rugged descrip-
tion, to Keswick. Enquired for the house of
Mr. Southey. Was informed that he seldom
appeared out of the house, and was accessible
only to nobility and gentry. Had the conse-
quently unexpected gratification of seeing Mr.
R190
MOORE, WORDSWORTH, &C.
Southey himself leaving his house with a book
in his hand. Wondered what kind of book a
man like Southey would condescend to read.
Waited at a gate through which he passed.
Marked with reverence the 4 hooked nose ’ of
Byron. I was gazing on Southey ! I saw
the head whence had issued 4 Roderick the last
of the Goths,’ and I thought of the battle-cry—
44Roderick the Goth! Roderick and Victory!
Spain and Vengeance ! ”
( Returned towards Ambleside, admiring as they
came again in succession, the rugged forms of
the mountains, and the beauty of the lakes—
particularly Grasmere. Got a glimpse of the
top of Wordsworth’s house ! of the fields where
he muses ! and of the neat little chapel in which
he worships the Giver of his mighty Intellect!
9 o’clock, evening.
Heard that Wordsworth was in Scotland.
Walked towards his bouse. Reached the gate.
All was silent and deserted. Placed my hand on
the iron fastener of the gate, and was pleased toMOORE, WORDSWORTH, &C.
191
feel assured that I touched what Wordsworth
had touched, and stood where.Wordsworth had
stood! ’
; You have now had my sincere and un-
borrowed opinion,” added my poetical friend,
“ of every poet I have read, whose writings I
conceive to have formed, or influencedy my taste.
I shall only request your attention to my last
love affair, and then —-----CHAPTER XXI.
LOVE. MARY.
I have a passion for tlie name of Mary.
Byron.
“ I have given yon my Epistle to Stobbie,”
resumed the poet, after re-charging our glasses
for ------ I had best say nothing about the
number of times ; “ but I omitted to tell you
that he was a teacher of sacred, and eke of
profane music and song. He had an excellent
voice, and taste sufficient to please bis critic.
He was a good-hearted and social being. Most
of my songs were composed to airs which he
was in the habit of singing. I liked him much ;
but he was the first to teach me that a meeting
without whiskey is deficient in one ingredient of
sociability. Let me not blame poor Stobbie,BRIGHT WAS THE EYE.
193
though ! my carousals with him seldom deserved
the name of drinking. Indeed I may state now,
once for all, that intemperance was not one of
my	Roddam vices. I have often seen a bottle
of Geordie Black’s mountain , which was
not altogether a stranger to the mountain
stream, make a party of seven or eight of us
(not including Stobbie) dance the whole night
long.
“ About the time that Stobbie came to Rod-
dam, there lived at the Hall a stately and bloom-
ing young woman, named Mary, whose heart I,
as usual, attempted to win, but upon which I
was unable to make the slightest impression. I
of course vented my sorrows in song:—
BRIGHT WAS THE EYE.
Bright was the eye that beamed on me,
But O ! its glance was killing—
Like moonshine on a winter sea,
Its loveliness was chilling !
And never did so sweet a tongue
So harsh a sentence carry ;
My hopes are crushed, my heart is wrung
For Roddam’s lovely Mary !
In vain I prized her charms beyond
Proud Valour’s richest capture;194
HUSHED THE WORLD.
In vain my fancy, young and fond,
Had dreams of nought but rapture;
In vain, in truth of heart, I swore
Its pulse no more should vary ;
My truth is scorned, my heart is sore
For Roddam’s lovely Mary !
Ye mountains, rich with purple heath,
That heard my earliest numbers;
Ye briery glens, that fragrance breathe,
Whose music seldom slumbers ;
Less torn my bosom now will be
To leave your charms so fairy,
Since feelingless and cold to me
Is Roddam’s lovely Mary!
“ To these words Stobbie lent the charm of
his voice, but they produced no effect. I wan-
dered about the Hall at nights, hapjDy if I could
catch a sight of her shadow on the window as
she retired to rest!
HUSHED THE WORLD.
Hushed the world in slumber stilly,
Rime is glistening on the lea,
Midnight’s moon is lighting, chilly,
Roddam’s every tower and tree.
By each cherished hope deserted—
Hopeless—still I think on thee;I LOYE HER.
195
Round thy dwelling, broken-hearted,
Wander—for ’tis sweet to me !
Angels ! by her pillow hovering,
Sing —to Mary sing of me !
Say the wintry sky’s my covering,
Say my bed’s the wintry lea!
Say, though breezes coldly swelling
Craze the naked, frozen tree,
Still—to wander round her dwelling
Sweeter is than sleep to me !
“ Mary had enemies of her own sex who tried
to depreciate her in my esteem ; but this would
not do with me. I repelled their insinuations with
more of plainness, than of lyrical propriety :—
I LOVE HER.
Talk on ! each fault in Mary blame
That hate can think, or envy frame ;
Lessen her beauty, taint her fame—
Whate’er you say, I’ll love her !
I look but on her cheek and eye—
They give your base remarks the lie;
How pure the glance ! how fine the dye !
By all that’s fair, I love her!
Arouse my pride : she spurns my prayer
For one—perchance less worth her care ;
Her presence melts that pride to air,
I see her—and I love her !196
1 LOYE HER.
Describe her weak and unrefined :
She comes—her tones the soul can bind
Her eye is eloquence and mind !
By all that’s grand, I love her!
Depress me with the thought that she
Must ne’er my heaven of rapture be :
Blest be her heart, I say, and !
Repulsed and scorned, I love her!
And while her form—a sunbeam bright
To Memory’s eye shall lend its light,
By levelled Hope’s eternal blight!
By all my woes ! I’ll love her ! ”/
CHAPTER XXII.
WEDDED LOVE.
------Discreet, though young;
Love in the heart, hut seldom on the tongue;
Romantic, hut not conscious of romance;
Rating as Heaven her mate’s approving glance ;
With just enough of taste to know my rhyme
Worthy of any hard of any time;—
Such were my choice, if yet my hand were free,
And what my Ellen is, my choice should be!
s
“ Your self-imposed task of listening,” said the
bard, “is nearly finished. I have now given
you the history of my amours, and I leave you
to draw your own inference from it. If you are
ignorant of the manners and customs of the
Northumbrian peasantry, you will fancy, from
the detail, that 1 had much levity, if not licenti-
ousness ; whereas I am not aware that I had
more than my neighbours of either. You will
have remarked, too, that in every case I was198
WEDDED LOVE.
really in love, or at least imagined that I was ;
and that consequently my amours might have
been fewer, if 1 had been more fortunate. But,
as you have seen, there was always something
in each case, to prevent the consummation of my
wishes.—I have now to introduce you to my
last and truest love—to her who has long been
the soother of my despondent moods, and the
bri ghtener of my happy ones !
“ Ellen, now Mrs. ----------, was, when I
first saw her, about twenty years of age, and
equalled, if not excelled, in beauty, all my pre-
vious favourites; and I say this with a perfect
recollection of the terms I have employed in
describing them. But her personal charms,
though they first attracted my attention to her,
were not the cause of fixing it. It was her
modesty, her simplicity, her want of pretention,
conjoined with a native sense of propriety that
kept her in her own sphere—not seeking to rise
above, nor willing to sink below it; it was her
virgin fame—upon which a breath was never
blown; it was her love of myself—evinced I
cannot tell how, but by a hundred gentle looks
and expressions of which she was not hesrelf
conscious------it was all these that won my
heart; it is all these that have kept it!IN MAY’S EXPANSIVE ETHER.
199
“ I wrote several sonsrs on Ellen before mar-
riage, of which 1 shall give you one :—
IN MAY’S EXPANSIVE ETHER.
In May’s expansive ether
Floats many a downy cloud—
Some white and pure as silver,
Some yellow as the gowd.
I carena for the gorgeous sight,
Though fair as sight may be;
My bonnie, winsome lassie
Is the dearest sight to me !
All yellow as the cloudlet
My love’s bright locks are laid ;
And whiter than its silver
The neck and brow they shade.
The heart that beats within her breast
Is now nae langer free—
My bonnie, winsome lassie
Has bestowed her heart on me!
On yonder bank a blossom
Is mirrored in the lake—
The next wild breeze that sw'eeps it
The shadowy charm will break.
But what wild breeze shall e’er efface
The impress here of thee ?
My bonnie, winsome lassie,
Thou art wealth and fame to me! ”‘200
WEDDED LOYE.
I suppose I must now bid adieu to love songs,
said I, when the Poet had finished the recitation
of these stanzas. The goal being won, there
would consequently be an end to exertion.
“You are mistaken,” replied he. “Exertion,
earnest exertion, was then only commenced.
The effect of marriage upon me was perfectly
magical. It wrought an instantaneous change
in my feelings and views. From being the
mere child of impulse, I became studious and
industrious. Taken from a village school at
fifteen to superintend one myself, I could have
had little acquired knowledge; and, engrossed
as I was by love and song, I augmented my
stock in a very trifling degree. But when I had
to provide for the welfare and happiness of one
beloved being, I felt that the season of play was
over. I felt that I must descend, for a time at
least, from the poetry to the prose of life—inas-
much as the latter is the web—the stuff—the
thing to be used and worn, of which the former
is only the flower and the decoration. Accord-
ingly, I made myself master of such branches of
learning as were requisite in the situation which
Fate, much against my will, had assigned to me.
I even invaded the dominions of classical litera-
ture, but with a force inadequate to their con-THE RETURN OF SPRING.
201
quest. The corner, however, that I did secure,
has amply repaid the time and the labour ex-
pended on it. In consequence of this application
to the	usef ul, the ornamental was for a while laid
aside—to be resumed, afterwards, with greater
vigour, and improved taste. The improvement
you will admit, when I tell you that the best of
the pieces I have recited to you, and certainly
the best of my published poems, have all been
produced under the calm influence of Wedded
Love—under the kind sway of Ellen ; or in
the quaint words of Cowley, of
(Heleonora, first o’ the name,
Whom God grant long to reign !
“ The first I shall give you is
THE RETURN OF SPRING.
c Again the sweetest season wakes,
Again the bud is on the tree—
A sight, my Ellen, which it makes
Me pleased and sad at once, to see.
‘I feel the joy which Nature feels,
As in my youth’s departed prime;
I feel—what every shrub reveals—
The tender beauty of the time.
s202
THE RETURN OP SPRING.
‘ But ah ! to think—while Nature keeps
All unimpaired her mighty power,
Clothing as richly plains and steeps
As in the earth’s primeval hour—
‘ To think that I, if natural length
Of years withhold me from the urn,
With feebler pulse and waning strength,
Must hail each future spring’s return !
‘To think that, laid at last in clay,
No more for me shall earth be clad
In all the young spring’s fresh array—
My spirit sinks, and I am sad !
Prompt was my Ellen’s kind reply
To check the low, despondent strain :
‘ Nay, for a smile exchange that sigh/
She said, ‘ and triumph, not complain !
‘ Spring-flowers are types of human bliss,
So beautiful—so frail their forms;
Nor do we name our woes amiss—
The blight of frosts, the crush of storms.
‘Our spring-time flies with smile and song,
Swift as the sun-gleam o’er the lea ;
But O ! what words may tell the long,
Dark, winter-time of
‘From life?s long blast ’twere very sweet
To feel, with every spring that blows,AN ENGLISHMAN’S WIFE.
203
We draw more near the calm retreat
In which the weary find repose :
‘ But shall we stoop from Paynim founts
To draw the solace Paynims drew P
No, no ! the Christian’s spirit mounts,
And soars above yon vault of blue—
‘There sees, in aserener clime,
A fairer spring evolve its bloom,
Untarnished by one touch of time—
Unsaddened by a single tomb !—
‘ Where happy souls—their troubles o’er,
Their weariness and worldly strife—
Bathe in the streams for evermore,
Whose every swell is bliss and life!
4
‘ Now, love, exult to think with me,—
Each spring but sees us nearer rise
To that Land of Felicity
Its beauty faintly typifies ! ’
“ The next has been presented to a Queen,
a lady who has 4 won golden opinions’ from
all classes and all parties in this country. Yet
the picture was taken at home.
AN ENGLISHMAN’S WIFE.
The merry bells ring, and the merry boys shout,
The matrons are gazing from window and door;204
AN ENGLISHMAN’S WIFE.
For a blithe wedding train the Old Church hath
poured out,
And the green lane is crowded behind and before.
A fair Village Maiden hath promised to-day,
_i
To love and to cherish her Chosen through life;
And she walks by his side in her bridal array,
To be from this moment an Englishman’s Wife.
And O! if he knows it, a treasure he gains
To which all the gems of Golconda are dim,
A counsellor kind who, in pleasures or pains,
Will think for his welfare, exist but for him !
His children to train f in the way they should go,’
To ward from his dwelling the entrance of strife,
To sooth him in anger, to solace in woe,
Is the duty—the boast—of an Englishman’s Wife!
Scarce heeded the light of a long sunny day,
We love, when the sky is o’erclouded, to mark
A sun-burst on hill or on shaded vale play—
A type of her love when his atmosphere’s dark !
Her smile, in success which unheeded may beam,
Will shine like that sun-burst when sorrows are rife,
Ay, pour round his death-bed itself a bright gleam!—
For true to the last is an Englishman’s Wife.
it is so in the Cottage; and who can forget
How deeply ’twas so in the Palace of late,
When, by the sad couch of her dying lord set,
Queen Adelaide’s watchfulness sweetened his
fate ?THERE’S NANE LIKE, &C.
205
Unwearied and sleepless—her task to fulfil,
She sat and she soothed the last tremours of life ;
And her love for our William endears to us still
That Model revered of an Englishman’s Wife!
<e At the time these lines were written, England
was governed by a Virgin Queen ; but Vic-
toria is now a Wife and a Mother, and,
like her predecessor, e a model revered of an
Englishman’s Wife.’ And O !
For Her—should a menace of battle be heard—
How rapid our gathering would be
On the land of our love, on the waters that gird
The magnificent land of the free!
New Nelsons would rise, and again on the ocean
Be all that the former have been ;
And new Wellingtons guard, with heroic devotion,
The throne of our true British Queen !
u But I must not allow my loyalty to draw me from
the subject I have now in hand—and at heart.
THERE’S NANE LIKE MY AIN WIFE.
Yon lass ye see sae lightly trip,
She has, nae doubt, a rosy lip,
And ye might, maybe, like to sip
Its hineyed dews yere lane, lad;
But she isna like my ain wife,
My ain, ain, ain wife,206
THERE’S NANE LIKE, &C.
There’s nane like my ain wife—
I’ll say’t and say’t again, lad !
Yon lassie has a bright blue e’e,
Wi’ glance sae pawky and sae slee,
And ye might, maybe, like to see
Its love-blinks a’ yere ain, lad;
But she isna like, &c.
A rosier lip, a pawkier e’e
Its mine to prize, and mine to prie,
And O ! a heart that’s a’ for me,
For me, and me alane, lad !
There’s nane like, &c.
When blasts o’ cauld misfortune blaw,
And puirtith’s showers around me fa’,
Her bonnie smile gleams thro’ them a’,
Like sunshine in the rain, lad !
There’s nane like, &c.
And then wi’ buds she’s decked my bovver,
As bonnie as the mither-flower,
And, placed wi’ them, its past my power
To say how proud and fain, lad,
I feel beside my ain wife,
My ain, ain, ain wife,
There’s nane like my ain wife—
I’ll say’t and say’t again, lad ! ”CHAPTER XXIII.
WEDDED LOVE.
------------------A light,
Shining within, when all without is night!
Rogers.
“ Ten thousand blessings on poetry! ” exclaimed
the bard. “ Setting aside the reputation arising
from the successful cultivation of it, the secret
influence of its spirit on the spirit of the indi-
vidual accustomed to experience it, is in very
deed a fountain of joy, perpetually springing up
in the Arabian desert of existence! It has
soothed my soul when nothing else could. It
has been a light, when clouds of evil were
gathering around, and threatening to close
above us:—208
MY DEAR, IF COLD.
MY DEAR, IF COLD.
My dear, if cold the world have grown,
If those that smiled have turned away,
And if the light our p hath known,
Shall never gild our future day—
What then P We will not therefore droop,
But bear the change as best we can :
Cheer thou thy little rosy group,
I’ll suffer as becomes a Man !
The term of human life is brief,
The point is how to pass it well:
Small matters both are joy and grief,
Soon ended in the ‘ narrow cell.’
But if we ne’er to baseness stoop,
We dignify the little span :
Then cheer, my love, thy rosy group,
I’ll suffer as becomes a Man !
Yon heartless wretch whose god is gold,
The veriest slave of woman born,
In hate we will not deign to hold—
We’ll hardly condescend to—scorn!
Beneath his shade let others droop,
We reck not if he bless or ban !—
Cheer thou thy little rosy group,
I’ll suffer as becomes a Man!
Life does not terminate with breath,
Nor fame and infamy with life;WEDDED LOVE.
209
There’s execration after death,
And tears and glory too, my Wife!
O ! who would fawn, or cringe, or stoop,
For aught that He may do or plan ?—
No, no ! Cheer thou thy rosy group,
I’ll suffer as becomes a Man ! ’’
There is ‘more than meets the ear’ in these
lines, I remarked. They indicate anguish of
mind, into the cause of which I shall not en-
quire ; but I would not be the ‘ heartless wretch ’
alluded to
‘ For all the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.’
“ Anguish of mind was certainly the inspira-
tion,” replied the bard; “but it passed away
the moment it found expression in verse. Such
is the value of poetry ! With respect to the
individual, I shall say nothing. He labours in
liis vocation, and I in mine. He may be able
to crush—I have power to sting and the
poison will remain in the wound, when the
energy that darted and infused it shall have
gone forever ! ”
He spoke this with a bitterness which he had
not before exhibited; but his mood soon soften-
ed, and he went on: “ It is awful, too,” said
he, “ for a man upon whose life and well-being210
THE UNION WORKHOUSE.
hang the lives and well-being of seven or eight
helpless children, to reflect that he may possibly
fall a sacrifice to his sense of right, or to the
9
hatred of a baffled partizan. It was looking at
the not improbability of so gloomy a result that
inspired, some years ago,
THE UNION WORKHOUSE.
They’ve built a House on yonder slope
Huge, grim, and prison-like, and dull!
With grated walls that shut out Hope,
And cells, of wretched paupers full.
And they, if we for help should call,
Will thither take, and lodge us thus ;
But Ellen, no ! Their prison wall,
I swear it, was not built for us !
We’ve lived together fourteen years;
Three boys and four sweet girls are ours;
Our life hath had its hopes and fears,
Its autumn blights, its summer flowers;
But ever with determined front,
And heart that scorned in ill to bow,
Have we sustained misfortune’s brunt;
We never quailed—nor will we now !
Our eldest hope—our Sally—she
Who steals from e’en her play to books,
O God! in yon Bastile to see
The sweetness of her modest looks !THE UNION WORKHOUSE.
211
And Esty, who hath little mind
For books when there is time to play,
Her little heart would burst, to find
The same dull prison every day !
His father’s picture, too, my Bob,
My double both in head and heart—
And Bill, whom it were sin to rob
Of his red cheek and emulous part—
And Fanny with her craftiness—
And Jack that screams so very low—
Shall they put on their prison-dress P
My dear—my dear—they shall not go !
They shall not go—to pine apart,
Forgetting kindredship and home;
To lose each impulse of the heart
That binds us wheresoe’er we roam !
And we, whom God and Love made one,
Whom Man and Law would disunite,
We will not, Famine’s death to shun,
Sleep there, or wake, a single night!
Still is their act—in something—mild:
Though I no more must share your rest,
They would permit your infant child
To—tug at an exhausted breast!
And Jack would cease, poor boy! to scream—
Awed by some keeper’s rod and threat;
While, sunk in cribs, the rest would dream
Of days—too well remembered yet!212
O FADED LEAF*
Away ! On England’s soil we stand;
Our means have, erst, supplied the poor ;
We have claims on our father-land;—
No, no—that right is ours no more !
But we will die a Beggar’s death,
Rather than pass their hated wall!
On some free hill breathe out our breath—
One nameless grave receiving all!
c< Despair itself dictated
O FADED LEAF!
O faded leaf! O faded heart!
The summer hue of both is gone !
The storms of fate may do their part,
The storms of winter ravage on !
The heart—the leaf—have felt the worst
No further blight can either know;
And—all unfeared—shall o’er them burst
The future wind, the future woe!
Unlike the leaf in June’s caress !
Unlike the heart when sorrow-free!—
But yet there springs from hopelessness
A stern, defying energy;
For—the worst known, and scorned the worst'—
The man hath nought to fear below,
And asks not—recks not—ivhen shall burst
The future wind, the future woe !
“ Something of the like feeling breathes in aSONG.
213
Song which I wrote about the same time, and
addressed to my friend Hudson, a gentleman
f Whose sole piece of weakness is, ever to be
Too fond of my verse, and yet fonder of me/
SONG.
Dear Hudson, a winter of time has gone by
Since last we were seated together ;
But my soul never shrunk for the scowl of the sky,
And it still bids defiance to weather 1
But why should I hint at my griefs, ’mid the light
That from wine and true friendship we borrow ?
We wont have a word but of pleasure to-night—
We can talk of our troubles to-morrow.
What’s the want men so shun, or the wealth they so
crave,
That a care about either should bind us ?
A good name is the thing, which, surviving the grave,
Will leave its long perfume behind us.
One hour—be futurity gloomy or bright—
This hour shall be sacred from sorrow !
We wont have a word but of pleasure to-night—
We can talk of our troubles to-morrow.
“ This gentleman is a friend—a warm and a
zealous one; but I had a friend', warmer and
more zealous, if that were possible, than him-
self, in Her who was his life’s Rose—but of
T214
SHE SHALL NOT DIE.
whom nothing now remains, save the c sweet
remembrance’ of her goodness. What I am
about to recite is not an elegy, but rather an
apology for one. Had I felt less, I might
have written better.
SHE SHALL NOT DIE.
“ She shall not die, as thousands die,
To be forgot ere long ;
The Poet’s friend shall claim a sigh
While lives the Poet’s song ! ”
Such was my inward thought or vow
When o’er my hour of mirth
The news had flashed, that cold was now
The kindest heart on earth.
Then winter wrapped the land in snow,
The summer decks it now;
But unawaked one note of woe,
And unfulfilled my vow.
And ah ! unless the Poet could
Take all of sweet and fair
That summer sheds by vale and wood,
And all the music there—
Could take from flowers their freshest hues,
Their sweetest notes from birds,SHE SHALL NOT DIE.
215
And by some magic skill transfuse
The whole into his words—
How should he hope, in phrases meet,
His tribute to prefer P
Or how reflect the virtues sweet
That lived and bloomed in Her ?
Vain effort! She who sleeps below,
Must sleep unsung as now—
Still unawaked one note of woe,
And unfulfilled the vow;
Save for these rhymes which, unreproved,
May this proud boast prolong—
He had a friend too much beloved,
Too DEEPLY MOURNED, FOR SONG ! ”CHAPTER XXIV.
TRIBUTES TO THE DEPARTED.
Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed :
Beloved till life can charm no more,
And mourned till Pity’s self be dead.
Collins.
“ I cannot write when I would,” resumed the
Poet. “ The Muse is capricious in her visits
and favours. I have sometimes long periods of
gloom, into which the light of song will all at
once break, like an unexpected sun-gleam in a
day of clouds ! But the light must	—it
cannot be commanded—from its source. Of
this truth the last lines I repeated to you are an
instance. I have, however, been considered
rather happy in some of my attempts at Elegy.1 SAW HER IN THE, &C.
217
“ All the world knows the delightful Boz ;
but all the world does not know that Boz is
married to the eldest daughter of George
Hogarth, Esq. the friend of Sir Walter Scott,
and the popular author of a 4 History of Music.’
To the latter gentleman I bad the honour of an
introduction in London, some years ago, when
I met at his hospitable board Boz—who had
not then achieved the fame that he has since
done—his lady, and her sister, a beautiful and
light-hearted girl. Mrs. Hogarth, by the way,
is a daughter of the George Thompson of Edin-
burgh, well known from his connexion with
Burns ; and 1 had the high treat of hearing
her sing, in the true Scottish taste, many of
that poet’s best songs. But this is paren-
thetical. In the year following my visit, the
fine young woman I have mentioned, went to
the theatre with her brother-in-law—went in
good health and spirits—and before morning
was a corpse	!
I SAW HER IN THE VIOLET TIME.
I saw her in the violet time,
When bees are on the wing,
And then she stood in maiden prime—
The fairest flower of spring !218
TRIBUTES TO THE DEPARTED.
Her glances, as the falcon’s bright,
Had archness in their play ;
Her motion and her heart were light
As linnet’s on the spray !
’Tis come again, the violet time,
When flits the mountain bee;
And others stand in maiden prime,
But where—O ! where is She P
Alas! the linnet now may sing
Beside her early tomb !
Alas! the fairest flower of spring
Hath perished in its bloom !
But no, but no ! That maiden now,
Immortal and serene,
Wears glory on her noble brow
That ‘eye hath never seen ! ’
That flower, too soft for this world’s air,
Transplanted in its prime,
Blooms now where it is always fair,
And always violet time !
“1 have several times revisited Roddam since
i first left it. During' my last visit, I found Mr.
Roddam at the Hall, who received me with
much civility, and introduced me to his lady.
She was one of those ( forms ’ described by
Moore, as being1LAMENT.
219
--------‘ Too lovely to remain,
Creatures of light we never see again !
and she died in child-birth a few months after-
wards.
LAMENT.
Though almost twenty years have passed
Since I in Roddam “ loved and sung ”—
Though fame attends the lyre at last
That first amid her woodlands rung—
My heart and soul are still the same;
No scene of hers can I forget;
In spite of distance, time, and fame,
My sweetest thoughts are Roddam’s yet !
Where winds a glen and purls a rill,
To her my fancy back they take ;
Where frowns a crag and towers a hill,
I love them for old Cheviot’s sake!
The birds I hear, the flowers I see,
Have charms that not to them belong—
These speak of Rcddam’s bloom to me,
And those of Roddam’s woodland song !
Alas, alas, for Roddam now !
Alas for Roddam’s lord the most!
Of shadowy brake and sunny brow
The brightest, dearest charm is lost!
Low is the Lady of the Hall,
Whom I beheld so lately there,220	• TRIBUTES TO THE DEPARTED.
The loveliest and the best of all
That ever graced the scenery fair !
I gazed, and thought---for poets build
Most gorgeous castles on the cloud,
And with the rays of Fancy gild
Triumphal arch and turret proud—
I thought how she, with kind regard,
Might give old hopes again to bloom,
Might patronise her House’s Bard :
She sleeps within her House’s Tomb !
Green o’er that tomb already grow
The laurels due to valiant deed ;*
A gentler wreath we mingle now
As Beauty’s and as Virtue’s meed.
We bring each bloom from Roddam Dell
That scents its depth, or gems its verge,
And bid the Lyre of Roddam swell
To ring the Flower of Roddam’s dirge !
“ I shall only add two pieces more in this sadly-
pleasing department of verse. They are elegies
on two fair pupils of mine:—
* The late Admiral Roddam, though he had not the for time
to be in any general engagement with the enemies of his
coimtry, distinguished himself, in many single actions, by great
personal bravery. He died about the year 1808, leaving his
estate, which he had greatly improved and beautified, to its
present possessor—who will now, it its hoped, excuse the
publication of the above tribute.WHERE, LOVED ONE ! &C.
221
WHERE, LOVED ONE ! IS THY DWEL-
LING NOW.
Where, loved One ! is thy dwelling now ?
In scenes where thou wert wont to be,
Thy laughing eye, thy open brow,
Thy sylph-like form no more we see.
There’s grief around thy father’s hearth
Which time shall scarcely change to mirth !
There’s weeping in thy father’s hall—
Its chambers, which so lately rung
To thy light step or lively call,
Seem dark as if with sable hung;.
Too well their gloom declares that thou
Hast left thy father's dwelling now !
When last I looked upon thy face,
Thy fair cheek wore a pallid hue;
Yet kept thine eye its wonted grace,
free thy dark hair flew.
I little thought whose breath had passed
Across thy features like a blast--
I little thought that Death had blown
E’en then his sickening breath for thee !
I little thought thy glance and tone
Then spoke and beamed their last for me !
My parting word unthinking fell—
I dreamt not of a last farewell!
And wildly222
WHERE, LOVED ONE ! &C.
But the same Moon whose crescent beam
Beheld thee in accustomed bloom,
Was seen to pour her waning stream
Of dewy radiance round thy tomb :
0	loveliest and loved One, thou
Hast found a darksome dwelling now !
1	went to where thy grave was scooped—
There children, seeming half to grieve,
Stood round, in gazing clusters grouped ;
I saw it, and could scarce believe
So dark and damp a cell could be
For aught so light and gay as thee !
Yet so it was. I saw thee lowered,
And heard upon thy coffin-lid
With heavy sound the dull earth showered,
Till dust by dust was heaped and hid ;
And looks I marked whose anguish said
Life’s highest charm with thee was dead !
Then fled our frailest and our last
Illusion—that in which we think,
While ours the dust whence life has passed,
There still is one unshivered link :
That the grave broke ; and all of thee
Hath faded to a memory !
There was a time when “ in thy mirth ”
Thou archly “ bad’st me write on thee;MARY.
223
And now, lost flower of fairest birth,
“ I write—what thou shalt never see ! ’
Alas, how sad a song hath paid
Request scarce thought, and lightly made !
But shall my song have mournful close P
O ! not for thee our tears should fall;
Thou art where Spring eternal blows—
Thou art where God is all in all !
Thine claim our grief; but, loved One ! thou
Hast found a glorious dwelling now !
MARY.
In spring, alas ! poor Mary dies,
Ere many springs have found her;
An early-blighted flower she lies,
When all is blooming round her!
Yet Consolation gilds the tear
With which her fate we ponder—
Who never caused a sorrow here,
And ne’er will meet one yonder! ”
%
CHAPTER XXV.
CATCHING A FISH!
Ye fishes, here I stand in state,
My Kendal rod I swerve it,
And if ye seize my plashing bait,
By conscience, ye’ll deserve it!
By way of drawing him from the melancholy
vein in which his fancy had been for some time
labouring, and suspecting that I had nearly ex-
hausted his ante-matrimonial reminiscences, I
asked him if there was any particular amusement
or recreation in which he delighted. He an-
swered my question by another. “ Are you a
fly-fisber?” said he. “Are you a skilful one ?
Your modesty will not, perhaps, allow you to
answer in the affirmative, and your conscious-
ness of ability may forbid you to respond nega-CATCHING A FISH.
225
lively. I shall therefore assume it as a fact
that you are expert in the art. But you were
not always so. No one, I presume, is born a
fisher any more than an orator or a—poet I was
about to say; but this, if you had repeated it,
would have roused the resentment of my irrita-
ble tribe, each of whom fancies himself to have
come into the world with the ineffaceable impress
of genius on his soul. What I mean, however,
is—that no one is born making verses, deliver-
ing speeches, calculating eclipses, or—catching
fish ! This being admitted, you must remember
by what various and slow degrees you acquired
your present skill—you must remember with
what nervousness you saw, or fancied you saw,
a rise—how you trembled through your whole
frame when a trout actually seized your fly—■
and with what a bitter curse you saw it get
away from you, in consequence of your very
eagerness to have it on terra Jirma! Recol-
lecting all this, you are the very man to listen—
indeed you have proved yourself a patient
listener—to my ‘prattle’ which I shall try not
to make ‘ tedious.’
“ I began to fish in 1820 or 21. I like to be
particular in dates. It gives importance to a
subject. It marks the different aeras in a man’s
u226
CATCHING A FISH.
]ife ; and where a great man is concerned (but
9 don’t insist much upon this), that is an affair
of moment. Well, I began, and began with the
flv, or rather what were meant to be imitations
of it. I attempted to dress a March-brown.
It was a huge thing, almost the size of a beetle,
and made a splash on the water, to give, as it
were, the trouts notice of its coming; and left
a track behind it like that in the wake of a
steamer. O, it was a rare specimen of imitative
skill! Well, I fished, and fished with such
success as was to be expected from such appa-
ratus, I stood like a man rather challenging than
alluring the fish to rise. I dared them, as it
were, to bite—thinking, at the same time, that
they would be great fools, or little fools as the
case might be, if they did ! Yes, ignorant as I
was of the art, I expected no success with my
March-brown ; but I had on two others, made
by a friend, which were likely enough to be
successful, had they been properly thrown, or
unaccompanied by the aforesaid monster. But
will you believe it ? I actually caught a trout,
and caught it with the monster too ; and a trout,
moreover, of no despicable dimensions. It was
not indeed the size of Butcher Phillips’ pike,
which he swore weighed seven pounds a quar-CATCHING A FISH.
227
ter, but a fine fish notwithstanding. It was
lying in the shadow of a huge stone in the
middle of the stream. I threw my line above
the stone, and let the flies float round it, when
my monster of a fly was seized, and instantly
the deceived fool of a trout was darting here
and there in the stream. I allowed him little
time tO'play, however. My tackle was strong—
my impatience was stronger, and I pulled him
out by main force.
“ Elated with this success, I bewail to think
myself a fisher indeed. I had a new set of flies
manufactured, and lashed the streams next day
with great confidence and great expectation.
But several accidents combined to damp my
ardour. My hooks were catching everything
but fish. Now a buttercup was seized, and now
a thorn. Take what care I might, I could
never get past a tree—my line being frequently
entangled among the branches in such a manner,
as to render it nearly impossible to disengage it.
To crown my disasters, as I was practising
throwing on with grace and effect, my line
cracked like a coachman’s whip, and the gut
with every fly disappeared, i wound up the
remainder of the line, and set off* on my return
home—water-beat, as it is called, for J had228
CATCHING A FISH.
never seen a fish. And now began my greatest
calamities. I was not much chagrined about
the loss of my flies, nor, personally, about my
want of success ; but having to come through a
considerable part of the village before I could
reach my house, I was sure to be tortured with
enquiries. I would have given the price of a
whole suit for Jack the Giant Killer’s coat of
darkness. But as this was not to be obtained,
I was forced to face the villagers with what
cheer I could muster. The first I met was a
grocer, with a long pipe in his mouth, pacing
along the pavement in front of his shop. 4 Weel,
maister, what luck ? ’ O a great many ,
said I ; but the devils would not take hold—and
passed on with a quick step. 4 How mich for
your fish—no pound, no pay ? ’ cried the But-
cher Phillips already mentioned. O, they can-
not be bought, answered 1, with apparent sang-
froid, but real vexation. 4 What have they
taken to-day ? ’ asked a brother-angler whom I
met next, and who I knew would not let me pass
so easily as the others. By--------, said I, they
have taken all mine, and fairly told him a lie;
representing that my toj) fly had been seized by
a large trout, who had run off with the whole
set. At last i got within my own door, where aCATCHING A FISH.
229
Well, have you got any ? ’ from my wife, and a
hurried negative in reply, concluded my misery.
“ Had it been always thus with me, I think I
should soon have dropped fishing. But one
day I went out—it was after a few days of
sultry weather, and the sky was threatening rain.
I had been told that fish never rise in rain; but
that day’s experience proved to me that the rule
had its exceptions. The rain in a little time
came freely, and the trouts rose in grand style.
No art was required. I could not throw on
without a rise. I caught several pounds in less
than an hour. Having no pannier, I was oblig-
ed to cram them into my pockets, which I did
till I could cram no more. I then left the stream
with reluctance ; and reaching the village, walk-
ed through it with deliberate step, and a face
inviting enquiry. Where the devil, said 1 in-
ternally, is the butcher with his—no pound, no
pay ? How finely I could have taken him in !
—Where is the grocer, with his long pipe, and
his—Weel, maister, what luck? Not a soul of
the usual saunterers was to be seen; and I was
forced to content myself with the congratulations
of my wife, who was greatly pleased with my
success ; though she had to set about getting me
dry stockings, shirt, singlet, &c., young Bob230
CATCHING A FISH.
roaring lustily all the time. Ellen, said I to her
exultingly, it will never do for me to keep spoil-
ing my pockets with such loads of fish—pol-
luting them with their abominable smell. I’ll
have a pannier!—And a pannier I got, which
cost me four shillings and sixpence, and which
has never since had above three trouts in it at
the same time ! In fact from that moment,
Fortune deserted me. I caught sometimes one,
sometimes two, but never above three, in a day’s
fishing; so that it came to be a saying among
my acquaintance, ‘ Three at a time, the Poet’s
luck.’ Even my wife took up the saying, much
to my annoyance. ‘ What time may I expect
you home with your three fish ? ’ she would say,
with a provoking emphasis on the numeral. I
began to feel sore a ithese taunts, but determined
to persevere till I should be acknowledged a
first-rate fly-fisher—with what success you shall
hear.
“ I went out one afternoon in May. The
sky was a little clouded, and a gentle breeze
curled the stream. With rod and flies in fine
order, I stood on the verdant bank of the river,
and commenced operations. Three prime trouts
were made captive by my first throw. The old
number, by Cocker! I exclaimed. But judgeCATCHING A FISH.
231
my astonishment, when again, and again, I had
the same success! I was transported with de-
light. In an unaccountably short time I filled
my pannier, which grew so heavy that I was
forced to disencumber my shoulders of its
weight. My success continued. On the other
side of the stream grew a large thorn that over-
hung the water, which formed there a pool of
some depth, and was considered a favourite
haunt for trout. I contrived to insinuate my
flies to the most likely part of the pool, and
hooked such a fish as is not often seen ! It was
nearly the size of the pike before commemorated.
To get him out was the labour ! I crossed the
stream, breast high, to prevent him from getting
under the banks, or among the roots of the thorn.
At last I reduced him to a state of inactivity and
sullenness, and drew him unresistingly to the
shore. Now was the critical moment when I
was to lose or secure him ! With great caution
I put my hand under him and threw him on
the bank. But the bank was sloped, and he
was fast regaining the river, when I seized
him--------
eMy dear,’ said my wife, 4 you must be
dreaming.’ And dreaming I was to a certainty!
I never fished more.”CHAPTER XXVI.
POETICAL DREAMS.
I come, I come! ye have called for me long,
I come o’er the mountains with light and song!
Hemans.
“ Come, come, said I, you shall not impose the
latter incident upon me as a fact. I believe it to
be merely an invention after the manner of Hogg’s
tale of ‘ John Gray o’ Middleholm.’ “ O ho,”
cried he, laughing, “you begin to be critical.
Perhaps you may form a similar opinion of the
relation I am about to give of another dream
of mine, which occurred many years ago, but
which I wrote down shortly after its taking
place,” He read from a manuscript
THE QUEEN OF THE NORTH.
I yesterday climbed a high hill in the vicinity
of my residence. The toil being somewhat tooPOETICAL DREAMS.
233
much for me, who am unaccustomed to great
exertion, 1 felt considerably fatigued with the
ascent, and had no sooner seated myself on a
moss-grown rock at the summit, than I insensi-
bly dropped asleep.
During my slumber, my ear was agreeably
saluted with the music of birds and the murmur
of rills ; and on a sudden, a female of the most
enchanting sweetness and beauty stood before
me. H er dress was a light green, with a scarf
of sky blue gracefully thrown over her shoul-
ders, which floated in easy curves beneath her
delicately slender waist; while her hair, like
“ threads of gold,” partly fell in beautiful ring-
lets over her snowy temples, and partly was
wreathed on her head in the shape of a royal
crown—engemmed with jewels and braided with
flowers. These set off, or rather were set off
by, a countenance of so heavenly expression, as
to put description at defiance. To speak of the
soft rose-tints of her cheek, the melting richness
of her lip, or the blue tenderness of her eye,
would be to describe a mere mortal; whereas she
was evidently of a superior nature. The hues
of her cheek were too pure for those of earth ;
and her eye, in spite of a certain archness in its
x
glance, had the radiance of immortality !234
POETICAL DREAMS.
“ I perceive you are surprised to see me,”
were the first words of my lovely visitant. I. am
indeed, most divine lady! I replied. “ Divine ! ”
she echoed with a face of raillery ; but I certain-
ly deserve that epithet better than many to whom
you have applied it.” Do you know anything
of me? I asked. “ I have known you—I have
visited you—for upwards of thirty years,” she
answered. I could not suppress a laugh, for
her age did not appear to be more than eighteen.
“ You may laugh as you will,” she continued ;
“ I assure you I speak the truth. I visited you
several times at a certain village near to the
Cheviots, and always found you at one employ-
ment.” A proof of steadiness, no doubt, said
I; but pray what might that employment be ?
“ Wandering about in the greenwood,” she an-
swered, “ pretending- to be greatly enchanted by
the beauties of nature, but in reality enchanted
by the charms of the young maidens—writing
love-songs and talking nonsense—exalting into
goddesses or nymphs the hoydens of the neigh-
bourhood—and reciting your strains to those
who had neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear.”
In faith, you have hit it! said I; but pray how
came it to pass that your lovely face and form
were never visible to me ? I am sure, had IPOETICAL DREAMS.
235
seen you at that period, I should have possessed
or died for you. “ Be less presuming in your
speech,” she said ; “ for know that you talk to
a King’s Daughter—I am the Queen of the
North ! ” l was a little piqued by her manner,
and said—What, art thou the Genius of the city
of Edinburgh ?	“ Thou art always thinking of
poetry, personification, and nonsense,” she re-
plied ; “ I tell thee I am in reality what I have
stated myself to be. My father, after many
solicitations on my part, has just consented to
withdraw himself to a distant corner of his ex-
tensive dominions, and to delegate to me the
supreme authority over a great portion of the
world. The old gentleman is a person of some-
what antiquated notions, particularly on affairs
touching the management of his kingdom. He
is never satisfied, unless every thing lies pros-
trate before him. He considers his power the
grander and the more secure, as his inflictions are
more severe and unremitting. In brief, he is a
tyrant.” Permit me to observe, said I, that
your Majesty speaks of your royal parent with
little courtesy. “ Permit me to observe,” she
replied, tartly, “ that you are an ignoramus !
Do you think that we etherial beings are bound
by the same ties of relationship and blood which236
POETICAL DREAMS.
you mortals consider of so much importance ?
I am of a disposition diametrically opposite to
that of my father, though, in my way, I am
equally positive and determined. He adheres
inflexibly to the oppressive maxims he has go-
verned by so long ; I as inflexibly persist in
repairing the ravages of his oppression. I am
a Radical Reformer.” If you, interrupted I,
were to advocate that cause in the houses of
parliament, you would do more for it than all the
Hunts and all the Cartwrights that ever existed.
The bishops would smile upon your suit, and
Lord Eldon himself would feel, for the first time,
inclined to regret the knowledge that must ever
prevent him from granting it. “ I am not a Ra-
dical in the sense you mean,” she replied ; “ I
leave state affairs to wiser heads. But do you
understand Latin ? ” You need not have asked
that question, said I, after the manner in which
you have seen me pass my youth. Latin and
courtship ne concrescunt—that word is the ex-
tent of my latinity. “ Yet you know, I dare
say,” she resumed, “ that the word radical comes
from the Latin radix, a root; and in this sense
I may truly be called a Radical Reformer. My
reforms all begin literally at the root, and pro-
ceeding thence, beautify the whole surface. MyPOETICAL DREAMS.
237
father rules with a rod of iron—myself with a
flower-enwreathed sceptre. He withers man-
kind with his frown—I enchant them with my
smile. In the severity of his reign, industry
droops—love is chilled—even genius feels his
faculties cramped, and his flame extinguished.
I introduce a more genial existence. My acces-
sion to the throne has already given a throb of
undefined rapture to the hearts of thousands.
Youth and beauty throng the verdant paths by
wood and river—age experiences at his breast
a renovated glow like the joy of other years—
even sickness feels an earnest within that the
grave will not yet open, and that more days
are yet to come. Nor am I welcomed by human
hearts alone—even inanimate nature looks gay.
The streams rush through the vale with a voice
of joy—the hills lift their green heads to the
sky, blending their hues with it as if they, too,
were etherial!—the woods put forth their leaves,
and resound with notes innumerable ”
She here turned as if about to depart. Stay,
fair Nymph ! I exclaimed, whither art thou go-
ing ? “Far to the North,” she replied. “The
deserts of Siberia await my steps—the streams
of Lapland call to me for freedom—the moun-
tain-islands of Fero shall lose a portion of the
x238
ODE TO SPRING.
snow they have been accumulating for ages !
Adieu! ”—Yet, O ! yet tell me thy name ! cried
1 eagerly. I would wear it in my heart—I
would hoard it there as a jewel in memory of thy
loveliness!—“Fool?” she retorted, “not to
know me, who have supplied the only tolerable
thoughts thou ever wovest into verse. But if
thou wouldst have an answer to thy question,
rise	and look around! ”
1 did so, and the motion awoke me. The val-
ley lay green beneath—the bleating of sheep and
of young lambs ascended the hill—the bees hum-
med among the flowers round about me. My
question was answered. The capricious being
with whom I had been conversing was—Spring.
ODE TO SPRING.
I.
Hail, Winter’s beauteous Daughter, hail!
Who comest, ever kind and good,
To clothe anew the hill, the vale,
Stripped in thy Sire's unsparing mood ;
Comest—in robe of gayest green
Light floating round thy virgin form,
A scarf’s thin folds descending sheen
Blue as thy heaven without a storm ;ODE TO SPRING.
239
While through thy turban’s slender screen,
With all the rainbow’s colours glowing,
Appear thy locks of yellow hair,
And earliest roses, clustering fair,
In softened hues of beauty showing !
Attend—till on this altar low
Of freshest greensward, I have heaped
Each floweret which thou giv’st to blow,
And Morning’s richest dews have steeped ;
And I will tune my Lyre, and sing,
As best I can, thy praise, sweet Spring!
II.
Thou wavest thy enchanted wand,
And sullen storms desert the land.
Where’er thy laughing blue eyes glance,
The wood’s young leaves in breezes dance;
The azure stream its current leads
Through primrosed glens and daisied meads;
Proudly against the sky’s blue breast
The mountain rears its freshened crest;
The young corn waves; the garden blooms;
The orchard yields its rich perfumes;
While, bursting blithe on hill and lea,
Ten thousand warblers sing to thee !
III.
Such praises thou hast often met,
And turnest thy impatient eye240
ODE TO SPRING.
To where the dark blast lingers yet
Along the North’s inclement sky.
Ay, thither will thy steps be bent,
And many a landscape stretching there
Waits but the hues thy smiles have blent
On the soft banks of streamy Aire—
Waits but the same external dress
To show the same wild loveliness.
Then by the pleasures and the charms
That thou wilt wake, yet deign to hear !
For O! the thought my bosom warms—
Thou go st my native scenes to cheer;
And flowers will bloom in Roddam Dell,
And new heath wave on Cheviot fell,
And kingcups yellow Breamish’ side,
And daises dip in Till their pride,
And Beaumont hold a mirror sheen
To his bloomy banks and mountains green,
And the gush of the Glen be blithe as ever,
Till she loses her mirth in a calmer river !
IV.
Alas ! alas! thy hand may fling
On those dear scenes the tints of yore;
The	past again thou canst not bring,
The loves and friendships now no more !
Thou mayst adorn the lowly grave
Where what was'Beauty once, reposes;
But canst thou from corruption save
The lineaments that grave encloses ?ODE TO SPRING.
241
Or bid my love, in living bloom,
Burst forth—an angel—from its gloom ?
Thy smile may pierce where sits the friend
Whom virtue, genius, taught to glow';
The mental veil it cannot rend
That shrouds his brilliant spirit now !
O! miglitst thou mix his dreary dream
With one refulgent, cheering gleam,
Drawn from those happy hours
When hope was young, and when, with thee,
Our step was light on hill and lea,
While fancy, love, and poesy
Bestrewed our way with flowers !
-----The tear that gems thy lovely cheek,
The sighs that from thy bosom break,
Thine impotence too surely tell
To quicken Beauty’s dust, or cheer the Maniac’s
cell!
y.
Still, Winter’s beauteous Daughter, hail!
For there’s a freshness in thy gale,
A softness in thy sky,
A verdure in thy landscape gay,
A tint in every sunny ray,
More grateful to mine eye
And to my sense, than aught that charms
When Summer glows, or Autumn warms.
Yes ! sweetest of the Seasons, while
The freshest scenes are thine,242
ODE TO SPRING.
There’s promise in thy lovely smile
Of many a month of shine.
Summer’s high verdure withers down
To Autumn’s bleak and sober brown;
And Autumn’s richest tints decay
In Winter’s cold, ungenial sway;
But no forebodings chill the thought
Of him who welcomes thee—
Thy sweet approach with bliss is fraught,
And tells of bliss to be—
Displays ’twixt thee and Winter’s gloom
One long, long vista of still-changing bloom !
----Such are thy charms, and while my heart
Can feel the glow those charms impart,
An altar, yearly heaped by me
With choicest flowers, shall rise to thee;
And I will tune my Lyre, and sing,
As best I can, thy charms, sweet Spring! ”CHAPTER XXVII.
POETRY. ODES.
Ob dare, in high, heroic odes
To tread on stars, and talk with gods.
Anon.
There may be something not unpleasing in
that Ode to Spring, I said; but it is evidently
a juvenile effort, which I ought to have heard
long ago. te You are critical again,” he replied,
smiling, “ but you are correct. The ode, per-
haps the most difficult species of poetry, is yet
among the first that a young poet attempts. I
never had any pretensions, however, to imitate
the odes of Gray or Collins, which, to say the
truth, I never much admired. I know little,I
244 TO THE DEPARTED WINTER.
and care less, about strophes and	;
indeed I don’t know at this moment, without
consulting Hiley, the difference between a dac-
tyle and a spondee. Critics have said that my
versification is musical—if it be so, I am in-
debted to my ear, and to that alone. And now
as I have given you an Ode to Spring, you
must have its companion—an Ode
TO THE DEPARTING WINTER.
I.
When Autumn’s latest golden tinge
Had vanished from the forest’s fringe—
When the last daisy left- the dell—
The last heath-bloom forsook the fell—
’Twas with a rising heart, an eye
That proudly glanced along the sky,
That, Winter! pausing on the lea,
I gave a welcome wild to thee!
For ever since my boyish hours,
Though fond of Summer and her flowers,
A stern delight my breast hath known
To hear thy tempests sweeping on—
Till mountain, vale, and forest hoar,
One robe of dazzling whiteness wore,
Spreading beneath thy clear blue sky,
A cold, cold world of purity !TO THE DEPARTED WINTER.
245
I hailed thy fancy-shadowed Form
As Monarch of the Northern Storm,
Whose everlasting throne is placed
Afar in Greenland’s snowy waste,
Where the red streamers of her sky
Thy torch-light and thy sun supply !
I hailed thee Conqueror of might,
Invader fierce of others’ right,
Before whose eye, of meteor ray,
The blander seasons shrunk away ;
Then, as the rush of fancy came,
I scorned to use a hackneyed name,
But changed the figure, and aloud
Apostrophised the passing cloud—
‘ Magician, hail! Magician, hail!
Thou rider of the northern gale !
From fields of ice, in arctic seas,
Ne’er thawed by sun or summer breeze—
From Lapland mountains, o’er whose snow
The wizard-lighted beacons glow—
And from the cloud-supporting piles
Of scattered Fero’s mountain-isles—
Magician, hail! Magician, hail!
Thine airy arm and rod unveil,
And be the wonders summoned here
That character the Polar Year ! ’
I spoke—nor was th’ empassioned call
Unanswered from thy cloudy hall.
Thine airy arm appeared—the wand246 TO THE DEPARTED WINTER.
Gleamed thrice, like lightning, in thy hand ;
And then I turned, and noted well
Each change that marked the changing spell
III.
First in the brisk night-gale came frost,
By hail or snow-shower unattended ;
And the fine ether, star-embossed,
Grew “ purely, spiritually ” splendid.
The western Moon a moment blended
Her silvery lustre with the scene,
Then deep to other skies descended—
Leaving more solemn the serene
And shaded world. The Morn arose,
And saw the change thy spell had made—
On bush and tree the dew-drops froze—
The ecldies of the river stayed—
And every shrub and blade of grass
That wont to weep in cataract-spray,
Shrined in that spray—as if in glass—
And glittering in the brilliant ray!
A beauteous, but a fragile thing,
Destroyed e’en by the breeze’s wing—
Yet not more open to the storm
Than joys we feel, or hopes we form!
IV.
The spell was changed. In air sublime
Floated a heavy veil of rime,TO THE DEPARTED WINTER.
Through which the sun at noon
Sent down a red and dusky light—
Revealing such a scene to sight
As leaves not memory soon !
’Twas not the daisy’s clustering flowers
That whitened all the lea;
’Twas not the garb of summer hours'
That mantled every tree;
’Twas not the flush which spring bestows
That feathered then the hawthorn-rows,
And brushwood scattered free;—
In hoar-frost all stood grandly round,
Without a breath, without a sound,
And gilt by that red dusky gleam!—
*****
V.
The spell was changed. The wild winds blew
The rattling hail-showers fiercely flew ;
Then, as it breathed a calmer blast,
Circled the snow-flakes thick and fast.
That transient calm wfas but a cheat—
Again the wild winds roared and beat,
And all the storm, in tumult driven,
Concealed from vision earth and heaven !
-S-Happy the man whom that dread hour
Found sheltered well from drift and shower !
’Twas his, beside the fire’s bright blaze,
To talk with them of ancient days,
The mighty Dead ! and his to pore248
TO THE DEPARTED WINTER.
On them who match the minds of yore,
The mighty Living! Or perchance,
’Twas his, with all of youth’s romance,
To seize the Lyre, nor quite in vain
Awake an emulative strain !
VI.
The spell was changed. Storm-cleared, the sky
Its blue, bright concave swelled ;
The southern sun, advancing nigh,
Along a curve more wide and high,
His march of glory held !
The deep snow, wrapping hill and vale,
His warmth a moment felt,
A moment—for the freezing gale
Seized all the warmth could melt,
Which, crystallised, like topaz gleamed
When evening’s golden lustre beamed—
Like diamond, when in moonshine bright
It sparkled through the cloudless night;
And sweet it was, by either glow,
To see those sparkles in the snow !
—Thou sneerer! is thy object fame,
A warrior’s praise, a stateman’s name ?
Dost sigh for wreaths by Byron got,
Or for the minstrel-crown of Scott ?
Or placed in humble life the while,
Wouldst thou have woman s constant smile P
Or dost thou long thy griefs to rest,
Thy secrets, in some friendly breast ?TO THE DEPARTED WINTER.
249
Ah ! turn with me, and wisdom know,—
Admire the sparkles in the snoiv !
VII.
Magician of the Frozen Zone,
Thy last and feeblest spell is on !
The softened hours are on the wing,
The softened hours that herald Spring!
Yon new moon that, with feeble light,
Gleams on a landscape patched with white,
Enlarges fast her silver ray
To cheer thy northward flight away!
—Then fly ! nor for an instant deign
To mar a soft, unmanly reign !
Away ! But ever, while my blood
Circles a warm and buoyant flood—
Still, with a rising heart, an eye
That proudly glances o’er thy sky,
Winter! I’ll pause on hill or lea,
And give a welcome wild to thee ! ”
YCHAPTER XXVIII.
RAIN! RAIN!
I had a dream which was not all a dream.
Byron.
UA cry of wretchedness struck my ear. I
hurried from my house to learn the reason of
*
this new calamity; though sights the most heart-
rending had of late been too common to excite
much wonder. I found, to my surprise, the
street deserted, and all the inhabitants of a
populous village collected together on a neigh-
bouring eminence, whence, it was evident, the
cry must have proceeded. They formed a group
the most wretched imaginable. Men, women,
and children, covered with rags and squalid
with hunger, stood or sat the mere spectres of
their former selves. They were huddled together
VRAIN ! RAIN !
251
without regard to rank or station. Misery, like
the grave, had levelled all distinctions.—On en-
quiry, I found the cry had been occasioned by
what at any other time would have scarcely
drawn a moment’s attention. It was a mere
speck in the western sky, which the villagers
had thus shrilly welcomed, in .the hope that it
might be the herald or the bearer of—rain !
There had not been a drop for upwards of four
months. The spring had come in as usual with
grass and flowers ; but scarcely had the tender
blade begun to shoot into verdure, and the bud
into beauty, when burning days and dewless
nights shrivelled them like the blast of autumn.
Instead of green fields, there were enclosures of
withered grass—brown as the stubble after har-
vest. Instead of mountains covered with fresh
heath, their surface was cracked and ploughed—
as with a thunderbolt—by the intense heat. And
instead of woods rustling with leaves and alive
with harmony, the trees stood bare and silent as
in December. The rivers had gradually shrunk
between their banks, and now nothing but moist
sand or glittering channel marked where their
courses had been. Even the cool and pure
springs which had bubbled up since the crea-
tion, grateful to the thirsty palate, ceased to252
RAIN ! RAIN !
afford supply.—Corn had been sown, but it was
scorched as it sprung- up. The granaries were
exhausted, and no bread was found in the land.
Whole flocks and herds had died of hunger, or
were slaughtered and devoured without prepa-
ration by the famished people. Nor had famine
been unattended by its usual companion—dis-
ease. Thick and fast the people died. Funeral
processions daily darkened the lanes leading from
the neighbouring hamlets, but without the usual
accompaniments of tears and lamentations—the
dead being considered the more fortunate.—Still,
it was thought there might yet be a hope of
safety for the survivors, if it would please the
Almighty to send rain. But for upwards of
three months a single cloud had not been ob-
served in the sky, where the summer sun, fierce
and lone, performed his daily course—dazzling
and scorching—without shade and without miti-
gation. The little cloud which at last appeared,
was therefore regarded as a phenomenon preg-
nant with hope to the world ; and the villagers
watched its ascent into the air with indescribable
anxiety. It was a painfully-interesting sight to
remark the various attitudes, looks, and gestures,
with which the different persons of the group
contemplated the appearance. One stretchedRAIN ! RAIN !
253
out his hands as if he would clutch the distant
and inaccessible vapour, and drag from its womb
the moist treasure that it seemed to promise.
Another held up his open mouth and parched
lips, as if to catch the drops he expected to de-
scend. A third fell on his knees, and clasping
his hands, audibly and fervently prayed to the
God of Nature. Others welcomed it with ma-
niac-like gestures, hysteric laughs, and snatches
of hymns or songs. One old man with grey
locks, and feeble with age and deprivation, I
observed leaning on a staff, and regarding the
object with a look of imbecile anxiety ; till it
rose decidedly above the horizon, and sailed di-
rectly towards the crowd—its broad, black mass
darkening the landscape as it approached. At
this moment a slight breeze was felt, and a few
drops fell among the people. 4 Thank God! ’ ex-
claimed the old man,4 Rain ! blessed Rain ! ’ and
falling down instantly expired—the throb of gra-
titude being too much for his exhausted frame.
Not an eye, save mine, was turned to his situation.
All were engrossed by the cloud, which now ex-
panded its huge folds exactly above them, and
wrapped them in its cool, refreshing shadow.
It seemed impossible that the air should long
support so dense a body; and deep, deep, was254
rain! rain!
the hush of expectation among the crowd, while
the scarcely moving mass hovered darkly on
high. But the cloud, as if sent only to mock
them with fallacious hope, slowly sailed away ;
the air became clear as before ; and the burning
sun sent down its rays with redoubled power.
All followed its departure with a look of unut-
terable despair ; when suddenly, as it hung over
the valley lying beneath where we stood, a flash
of lightning burst from its sides, which was in-
stantly followed by a peal of thunder that shook
the hills like an earthquake. 4 Rain ! Rain ! ’
was shouted by a hundred voices at once, and
the whole multitude rushed to the valley with
unequal speed, but equal ardour. I supposed
that I had been left alone with the corpse of the
old man, but on looking round I perceived a
venerable figure, who I could have sworn was
the same old man reanimated, leaning on his
staff, and gazing, as before, on the thunder-
cloud ! Seeing me near him, he thus addressed
me:	‘ Young man, hear and tremble ! If thou
hast a sin unrepented of, to thy knees and seek
forgiveness ! Brief is the time that thou, and I,
and all human beings, have now to live ! In
yonder cloud, as in a pavilion, rides the Angel
of Destruction, and yonder lightnings of hisRAIN ! RAIN !
255
shall not cease till—time shall be no more ! ’
He paused an instant, and then bade me turn
my eyes towards the east I did so ; and ima-
gine my consternation to behold immense clouds
of smoke ascending from behind the hills, with
ruddy flames flashing up among them at inter-
vals ! In a few minutes, a line of fire stretching
from north to south in the form of a semicircle,
was awfully visible, and appeared to be rapidly
embracing the whole prosj>ect. I saw it catch
from valley to hill, and from hill to valley ; heath,
grass, and trees, alike withered by the drought,
at once supplying it with fuel, and accelerating
its speed. In the mean time, the cloud had dis-
appeared, and I could see the numbers whom it
had allured, flying from this new and tremendous
visitation. But of these the majority were inca-
pable of much exertion ; and I saw them, with
horror, overtaken by the devouring element;
while their swifter or more vigorous companions
only eluded the same fate a few minutes longer.
One after another, I witnessed the whole drop
and perish in the flames, and considered my own
destruction as inevitable. I turned to the old
man for advice and consolation ; but he had left
me unperceived. I was then about to fly; but
from every point of the heavens were flames256 I BLAME THEE NOT, WORLD !
rushing. I stood—the centre of a burning
world—the last of the race of Adam ! I raised
my eyes towards Heaven, as my last and only
refuge. All was black as night. Clouds of
smoke were about me—the encircling flames
flashed in my face—I fell down scorched and
suffocated!
Thank God ! it was but a Dream.”
Inspired by the dog-days of a hot summer, I
should think, said I. “ You are right,” he re-
plied. “ It was inspired by the summer of 1826,
when all the Churches prayed for rain in July.
“I shall impose on your good nature no long-
er,” concluded the poet. “but it just occurs to me
that I may have at times spoken a little too highly
of myself; and if so, I beg you will accept these
lines—the last I shall recite—as coming pretty
near the estimate which, in cool and unexcited
moments, I make of my poetical ability:—
I BLAME THEE NOT, WORLD !
I.
I blame thee not, World ! that thy judgments refuse
me
The laureate wreath I have coveted long;257
I BLAME THEE NOT, WORLD !
I have rather to thank the kind hearts that excuse
me
The times I have teased them with efforts in song.
The vision that lured me of Glory’s effulgence
Hath passed—like the bow from the cloud of the
shower;
I find, after years of self-cheating indulgence,
That the ivish to be great I mistook for the
power.
Then adieu to the hope, to my bosom so pleasing,
Of being remembered and talked of when gone;
And adieu to the hope, more ambitious, of seizing
The mind of far ages, and moulding its tone !
II.
*
Adieu to those fond aspirations, but never—
While breath is within me—farewell to the Muse ;
It were easier to turn from its channel yon river,
Than me from the course that she taught me to
choose.
I must still feel the changes of sky and of season,
Be alive, like the birds, to each impulse they
bring1;
O J	<
And, h eard or not heard by the children of reason,
Must at times, like those wild birds, full-heartedly
sing !
But adieu to the hope, to my bosom so pleasing,
Of being remembered and talked of when gone;
And adieu to the hope, more ambitious, of seizing
The mind of far ages, and moulding its tone !258
I BLAME THEE NOT, WORLD !
III.
Perchance with myself lies the blame of bereave-
ment
Of the long-cherished dream of celebrity won :
Like the birds I have lived, and no worthy achieve-
ment,
They say, without care—without labour—is done.
Hence in song, as in life, I too nearly resemble
The light-hearted lyrists that sing in the glen,
Whose note, though it may bid the young bosom
tremble,
Wants the bold trumpet-tone that electrifies men.
Then adieu to the hope, to my bosom so pleasing,
Of being remembered and talked of when gone;
And adieu to the hope, more ambitious, of seizing
The mind of far ages, and moulding its tone ! ”CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCLUSION.
To all and each a fair good night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!
Sir Walter Scott.
I might perhaps have continued the conversa-
tional style to the end of the volume, if a friend
of mine, privileged to peruse my manuscripts
and proofs, had not represented to me that the
sagacity of my readers would be sure to pene-
trate the deception which, as he avers, I have
been attempting ; that they would persist in be-
lieving—in spite of all assertions to the contrary
—that the hero of my work, Poet in Hum-
ble Life, is nothing but an Imaginary Being ;
and that instead of conversing with	—which,
were this hypothesis correct, would indeed be an260
CONCLUSION.
impossibility—I have been talking to myself—
or to my shadow—or, more ludicrous still, that
my shadow has been talking to me
There are surely very slight, if any, grounds
for this supposition. A few verses which had
been previously published in my name, and
which are re-published here because illustrative
of the speaker’s narrative, can, I should think,
have little weight against the preceding array of
literary reminiscence and remark. But even were
the supposition correct, I am certain that my
readers have good nature enough to allow that I
may have had sufficient reason for so proceeding.
They will conclude that I may have wished to
avoid the charge of vanity, which might be fairly
urged against any one who presumes to obtrude
his opinions, and, it may be, his trivial recollec-
tions, in his own person on the public. Or,
what would be equally true, they may infer that
I have had little choice in the matter ; the pres-
sing Necessity which compelled me to u make
a book,” compelling me to seize such materials
as I had by me, and leaving me a very brief pe-
riod of time in which to compare their value, or
determine their arrangement.
To those who saw the statement which, in
some instances, accompanied the prospectus of theCONCLUSION,.
261
present work, any further reference to that Ne-
cessity would be snperflnous. To the others—the
vast majority of my subscribing hundreds—who
never saw it, 1 shall not now communicate even
its substance. In truth it did me very little
service. It might stir the zeal of a few who
know the person described, hut the sphere in
which he is known, is in reality a very limited
one—much more so than that of the humble
individual whom he seeks to crush. And this
reminds me of a duty to which I have great
pleasure in now addressing myself.
Until I left home—until 1 left Yorkshire—
until I went into dis riots and among people I
had never seen before—I had not the slightest
idea of the feeling in my favour which my
attempts in song have created. Though 1 ap-
pealed to a party, and that party, I need hardly
say, the Conservative—my reception by men of
all parties lias been enthusiastic. From the
proudest title in the peerage, to the humblest
name among the peasantry, 1 have met with
ready supporters. Members of the senate and
the bar—merchants and manufacturers—lords
of the soil and labourers- meet and mingle on
the long roll of mv friends. My brother an-
thors—if I may venture 1 > claim fraternity with
z262
CONCLUSION.
them—have come nobly forward. I have a
Prince who has already “ received his fame,”
and a Collinson who very soon will have ;
together with a score of others whose esteem
I enjoy and reciprocate, but who might shrink
from praises which, as I know them to be de-
served, I should rejoice to bestow.—I am afraid
that vanity may be supj30sed to have dictated
the detail thus hastily given; but I can assure
the reader that Gratitude, and not vanity,
is my present inspirer. It would be vanity to
ascribe the kindness that has been shown and
the support that has been accorded to me, to
any merit I possess, or to any thing I have
written ; but it would be worse than vanity—it
would be ingratitude—not to acknowledge the
kindness and the support, or to search for their
cause in any source but the warm hearts and
generous feelings of my countrymen, roused into
activity by what they believe to be talent.
I say advisedly, by what they believe to be
talent; because I know—my canvass has prov-
ed—that I occupy a position in the public
Heart, to which my ability gives me no claim,
and for which I find it difficult to account. It
is a position, however, that enables me to smile
at the petty malice which has only served toCONCLUSION.
263
show me where my friends are. What care I
for the effect of one Evil Planet and its satellites,
when a thousand stars are beaming their “ sweet
influences” upon me? Would I exchange my
name and my nature—the power I am admitted
to possess—and the honours spontaneously paid
me—for a name and a nature that no man loves,
for a power derived from acres, and for honours
conferred, in its dying agonies, by the most con-
temptible Ministry that England ever saw ? I
trow not!
But in proportion as I value the good opinion
of my countrymen, and the position in which
their partiality has placed me, I tremble for the
reception of the present work. In extenuation
of its many faults and inconsistencies, I can only
plead—what have been already glanced at—the
necessity for its early appearance, and the conse-
quent want of time for judicious selection and
arrangement. I trust, however, that if my reader
likes the poems and songs, he will not be dis-
pleased to be made acquainted with the little
events in which they originated ; or if he is fond
of the great Masters of the Lyre, that he will read,
with some interest, remarks on their writings
which, whatever be their value, have been feel-
ingly made, and are free from the technicalities264
CONCLUSION,
of criticism. Perhaps, too, having traced the
Poet (so he ventures to call himself, because he
has been so called by thousands) from his birth
in a cottage, through his youth among cottagers
—spent in thoughtless levity—to his present still
humble station ; having seen that he is all but
self-taught, and has been but little studious; he
may be led to treat with tenderness his manifold
defects as a writer. And finally, should he, like
my friend, really entertain the conviction that
the preceding conversations are purely imagin-
ary; should he believe that I have been in truth
talking to myself; I still hope that he will not
draw what I confess would then be the natural
inference, that I have been beside myself; or at
any rate, that he will do me the justice to admit,
that whatever I may have been in the introduc-
tion and through the body of the work, f am
now, at its conclusion, myself again—and
his very humble and obliged servant.
J. & R. AKED, PRINTERS, LOW-STREET, KEIGHLEY.ERRATA.
Few misprints have been discovered but what the reader will
easily correct for himself. The following, however, seem to re-
quire notice:—
Page 9, second line from the bottom, for exertions read erections.
-----55, fifth line from the bottom, for Now blooms read New blooms,
----- 110, for that of the Till, read those, &c.
----- 183, fifth line from the bottom, erase equally.WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE OUTLAW; A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS.
Price in Cloth Boards, 5s. 6d.
“The author speaks very modestly of his work, and in his mo-
desty may be found a test of its merit. * * * Its incidents are
interesting, its sentiments poetical and pleasing, and its language
and versification well selected and harmonious.”
Gentleman’s Magazine.
LONDON:
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SHORTLY WILL BE PUBLISHED
WITH MANY NEW PIECES,
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“ SONGS AND LYRICAL POEMS.”
“ We long had reason to be proud that Mr. Story’s beautiful
song, The Isles are Awake, first appeared in the columns of the
Standard. We exult no less in introducing to public notice the
following verses (A curse was upon us ) from the same hand,
every way worthy of their gifted author. It is surely an auspi-
cious sign that everywhere we find talents of the first order em-
barked in the good cause.”
London Standard.