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 LI B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 

 
 THE CONFESSIONS ; 
 
 OF 1 
 
 ] 
 
 i 
 
 SIR HENRY LONGUEVILLE.
 
 THE CONFESSIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR HENRY LONGUEVILLE. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 IN f WO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 Printed hy James Ballantyne and Co. ; 
 
 rOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 1 
 
 LONDON. \ 
 
 1814. 1 
 
 ] 
 
 \
 
 
 "-^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 — " Shall we say that God hath joined error, 
 fraud, unfitness, wrath, contention, perpetual lone- 
 liness, perpetual discord ? Whatever lust, or wine, 
 rs^ or witchery, threat or enticement, avarice or ambi- 
 tion, hath joined together, faithful or unfaithful, 
 christian with anti-christian, hate with hate, or hate 
 with love— ^hall we say this is God's joining ?" 
 
 Milton, Tetrac. 
 
 — " But unfitness and contrariety frustrate and 
 nullify for ever, unless it be a rare chance, all the 
 good and peace of wedded conversation, and leave 
 nothing between them enjoyable, but a prone and 
 savage necessity, not worth the name of marriage, 
 unaccompanied with love." 
 
 Id, Colast
 
 CONFESSIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR HENRY LONGUEVILLK 
 
 FRAGMENT I. 
 
 Matilda Arundel to Isabella 
 
 WOODEFORDE. 
 
 At the conclusion of my last letter I 
 promised that my next would commence 
 with the relation of an extraordinary oc- 
 currence. I know not whether I ought 
 to relate it, for fear you should think that 
 I am too liable to be interested by an 
 
 VOL. I. A
 
 event, probably not deserving of much 
 notice. Yet certainly you will allow it 
 to be singular, and not unworthy to be 
 recorded. As such, I own it has affected 
 me. Nor need I blush to confess, that I 
 am interested in the fate of an unknown 
 and mysterious stranger. 
 
 In this remote neighbourhood every 
 occurrence is seized on with avidity, to 
 beguile the tedium of minds whose inter- 
 nal resources are weak. A few minutes 
 ago, I heard one of oar talkative visitors 
 giving an account of the inadman who 
 had come to reside at Wythorpe manor- 
 house. But I shall not repeat the foolish 
 calumnies that are already in circulation. , 
 How soon has the envenomed tongue of
 
 slander attacked the character of an un- 
 known, and perhaps amiable individual ! 
 
 You know my brother is a physiogno- 
 mist. Not long ago he happened to ob- 
 serve the arrival of a stranger in this vil- 
 lage, by whose appearance he could not 
 help being deeply interested and prepos- 
 feessed. It was on one of those sweet au- 
 tumnal days before this dreary weather 
 made its appearance, on whose serene 
 aspect remembrance delights to dwell. 
 Departing autumn had already diffused 
 her richest colours over our extensive 
 woods, — colours rendered doubly inte- 
 resting, because they were so soon to fade 
 away j and the yellow gleams rested on 
 the variegated canopy of the forest.
 
 You know my passion for this most 
 enchanting of all seasons. The skies 
 were invested with that sweet serenity and 
 mildness of aspect peculiar to autumn, 
 and the waters reflected the clear azure 
 unruffled as in a mirror, for hardly a ze- 
 phyr disturbed their tranquillity. The 
 woods were silent, save when the cheer- 
 ing voice of the red-breast bade the wan- 
 derer's heart rejoice, or the solitary cry 
 of the falcon sounded from the cliffs, or 
 the woodman's stroke was heard from 
 the beautiful copsewood which covers the 
 mountain H ■ . 
 
 Tlie whole scene was such as might 
 have given rise to Mr Southey's delight- 
 ful remark.
 
 ffe-The influences 
 
 Of that sweet autumn day made every sense 
 
 Alive to every impulse ;" 
 
 and could any impulse arise but that of 
 heartfelt gratitude to the Giver of all 
 good, and participation in the general 
 tranquillity and joy ? 
 
 A pedestrian stranger arrived in the 
 village, whose appearance seemed to an- 
 swer this question, not in the negative, 
 but the affirmative. All eyes were turn- 
 ed on him, for his looks were' sufficiently 
 uncommon to excite very reasonable cu- 
 riosity J but there were not then a great 
 many observers.
 
 His whole countenance was haggard, 
 and betrayed exhaustion, from fatigue of 
 body and anxiety of mind. It was evi- 
 dent, however, that the contrast which 
 the stranger's looks afforded to the tran- 
 quil scenery around him, did not arise 
 from insensibility, but from the effects of 
 a deep-rooted sorrow. Notwithstanding 
 its depressing influence, a judicious ob- 
 server could not meet the glance of this 
 wanderer's eye, without marking the in- 
 ternal workings of a great spirit,— with- 
 out discovering the unequivocal fire of 
 genius. At intervals he turned, seem- 
 ingly insensible to the enquiring gaze of 
 those who were present, to cast glances 
 full of soul on the blue waters that shone 
 through the pale gossamery haze at a
 
 distance, and on the magic gleams that 
 rested on the wooded and rocky cliffs 
 over his head. His complexion was dark, 
 his features regular and elegant j but he 
 possessed that appearance of high rank 
 and refinement, which, when once tho- 
 roughly acquired, is not easily lost under 
 a temporary disguise. 
 
 Such was the account which my bro- 
 ther gave on returning from his walk. 
 He was laughed and lectured out of his 
 prepossessions, till at last we fairly ceased 
 to comment or meditate on the story. 
 
 You too will laugh at them, Isabella. 
 You will, laugh at my romantic folly, as 
 you term it, in repeating such a fanciful
 
 detail. But let those only who have lived 
 as I have done, — who have never expe- 
 rienced the luxury of knowing that there 
 existed a soul whose feelings were re* 
 sponsive to mine, attempt to imagine with 
 what a thrill of interest I heard this ac- 
 count. 
 
 You will perhaps say, that I am not 
 without sympathy ; for Edward is as ex- 
 travagant as myself ! Alas ! how are you 
 deceived ! Edward is amiable indeed, and 
 is not naturally destitute of sensibility ; 
 but his feelings are toe much fettered by 
 his literary researches, — his disposition 
 is too much chilled by the philosophy of 
 the ancients, to permit him to think as I 
 do. I am on this account the more di$«
 
 9 
 
 posed to believe that the stranger is in- 
 deed possessed of wonderful talents and 
 fascinations, otherwise Edward*s attention 
 would not have been excited. 
 
 Three days ago, at the time when our 
 serene weather first began to take its de- 
 parture, I wandered out alone, for my 
 brother was busily engaged in the library. 
 Dark and louring clouds came from the 
 south, and settled on the mountains, im- 
 parting browner hues to the distant heath, 
 and frowning in awful gloom over the 
 fading woods. Yet the air was mild and 
 soothing. The red-breast carolled on the 
 trees, on whose dank leaves rested the 
 heavy dew-drops, and the fallen foliage 
 sent up a perfume grateful to the unvi- 
 
 A 2
 
 10 
 
 tiated sense of those, to whom Nature in 
 all her changes is interesting. I went, 
 regardless of the threatening sky, and 
 carried with me a book in which I was 
 interested ; but my thoughts insensibly 
 wandered to the subject which had been 
 discussed a few days before. I chose that 
 road to the lake by which I was least 
 likely to meet with passengers, and occa- 
 sionally renewed my attempts to read. 
 Slowly, and lost in thought, I pursued 
 my way through the forest by a narrow 
 and winding path, frequently crossed by 
 matted roots, which rose above the sur- 
 face, and obstructed by trees lately felled 
 by the woodman. 
 
 My book was the first edition of Thorn-
 
 11 
 
 son's Winter, in which he has so exqui- 
 sitely touched on the charms of departing 
 autumn. What rapture do I not feel, 
 as, from the inspired pages of his poetry, 
 I turn to the living breathing commentary 
 which exists around me ! 
 
 I had passed through the tangled copse- 
 wood ; and the foot-path, which affords 
 the nearest, as well as most retired ap- 
 proach to the lake, now joined a carriage- 
 road, which wound closely round the 
 margin of the water, whose bosom, re- 
 flecting the dark clouds which overspread 
 the sky, was agitated, into large waves by 
 a strong breeze which now began to blow 
 from the south-west. From the high 
 and rocky mountains, covered with wild-
 
 15 
 
 wood, which everywhere surround this 
 extensive and beautiful lake, the breeze 
 had already driven the heavy vapours ; 
 but the frowning skies imparted gloom 
 and melancholy to their caverned recesses 
 and shadowy forests. The chafed waters 
 came dashing to the shore in large waves,N 
 and I looked around with awful impres- 
 sions on the majestic scenery. With a 
 fearful interest, which I could not repress, 
 I beheld advancing a figure in a dark- 
 coloured dress, which, even at the first 
 glance, I could not doubt to be that of 
 the stranger. He was moving along a 
 part of the road which is washed by the 
 waters of the lake, and is partially de* 
 fended from them by a rugged barrier of 
 large and fiat pieces of rock, placed edge«
 
 15 
 
 wise along the shore. Beneath this bar- 
 rier, the water, in consequence of its re- 
 straint, has become very deep, and was 
 now beating with violence against the 
 rocks. 
 
 It was with grief and alarm that I be- 
 held the looks and gestures of the stran- 
 ger, which were now far more wild, un- 
 settled, and melancholy, than my brother 
 described them. My first impressions, 
 notwithstanding the elegance of his per- 
 son, were, that he must be an outrageous 
 maniac, broken loose from his keepers j 
 on which idea I was about to return home 
 suddenly j but as he approached, and I 
 ventured for an instant to look on him, 
 I could not perceive any traces of fury in
 
 14 
 
 his countenance. It had the wildness of 
 sorrow, not that of positive insanity. 
 
 I now, however, saw with increasing 
 terror, that, unconscious of being obser- 
 ved, he frequently stopped, and looked 
 wildly on the deep water, on which the 
 breezes strewed the yellow leaves of the 
 forest, instantly to be swallowed up in 
 the gulph. I could not help recollecting 
 the well-known lines of T. Warton : — 
 
 *< Full oft, unknowing and unknown, 
 He wore his endless woes alone, 
 
 Amid the autumnal wood ; 
 Oft was he wont, in moody fit. 
 Abrupt the social board to quit. 
 
 And gaze with eager glance upon the tumbling 
 flood.
 
 15 
 
 Unavoidably alarmed, I walked quick- 
 ly on, hoping to divert his attention, 
 should he in reality make a desperate at- 
 tempt on his own life. He held a book 
 in his hand, from which, when I first des- 
 cried him at a distance, he had been tear- 
 ing out the leaves and strewing them on 
 the ground in unconscious agony. I 
 could not suffer my sight to rest on him. 
 I saw, however, that his sallow cheeks 
 wore the mournful impressions of corro- 
 ding care and incessant thought ; yet his 
 countenance was elegant, and his eyes, 
 large and dark, gave evidence, by their 
 wild and fiery energy, to the deep and 
 powerful emotions of the spirit within. 
 He seemed so much absorbed in the work- 
 ings of his own fancy, that he had^ in a
 
 16 
 
 great measure, lost the habit of attending 
 to any external objects, save the grand 
 scenery of nature. I know not how I 
 was able to make so many observations y 
 for, as we met on the road, I trembled so 
 much, and so deadly a chill came over 
 my frame, that I lost all distinct ideas, 
 and could not remove- my eyes from the 
 ground. After he had really past, I 
 breathed more freely, and walked with 
 rapidity 5 till, disconcerted by a few drops 
 of rain which now began to fall, and fa- 
 tigued by the rude bufFetting of a strong 
 southern breeze, I turned hastily home- 
 ward. In repassing the spot where the stran- 
 ger had first appeared, my attention was 
 attracted by some of the scattered leaves 
 which he had torn from his book. I pick-
 
 17 
 
 ed up one, and found it to be a fragment 
 of Mr Scott's admirable " Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel." This occurrence added to my 
 favourable opinion of the mysterious un- 
 known. That celebrated poet had pro- 
 bably been the delight of his happier days ; 
 and now this volume, his favourite com- 
 panion, had been destroyed in the bitter- 
 ness of his soul, with the same sort of pas- 
 sionate resolution which Mr Hay ley has so 
 well described in his character of Chat- 
 terton : — 
 
 « Tears from his harp the vain detested wires. 
 And in the phrenzy of despair expires,^' 
 
 I now walked, or rather ran quickly, 
 to escape the rain ; and when I arrived 
 within a few yards of the village, I had
 
 IS 
 
 the satisfaction to observe the stranger 
 walking in a regular, though somewhat 
 hurried pace* To my surprise, however, 
 when he arrived at the entrance of the vil- 
 lage, he suddenly turned from the road, as 
 if acquainted with the bye-paths of the 
 neighbourhood ; and taking a course, 
 which I knew led to a deserted mansion- 
 house on a wooded eminence, about half 
 a mile distant from any other habitation, 
 disappeared.
 
 19 
 
 FRAGMENT 11. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 October, 1810. 
 My brother has become acquainted 
 with the stranger! — At first, he says, 
 Fitzalbyn was wrapt in an impenetrable 
 veil of mystery. His words were evi- 
 dently the farthest possible from the ut- 
 terance of real feelings. But from cir- 
 cumstances that attended the rencontre, 
 of which I have not now time to detail the 
 particulars) he has at last obtained in 
 some degree his confidence. Even my 
 uncle, who laughed at Edward's prepos-
 
 20 
 
 session, now takes more interest than 
 could be expected from his disposition in 
 our new acquaintance. 
 
 At first, as I have already said, Fitz- 
 albyn seemed resolutely wrapt up in an 
 impenetrable veil. He was like a man 
 whu, having been disappointed in his ex- 
 pectations from friendship and from love, 
 is resolved never to permit himself the 
 utterance of real sentiment or emotion, 
 lest it should be received with indiffer- 
 ence or affected sympathy. 
 
 But, at last, when this barrier was re- 
 moved, when he began to perceive that 
 Edward was not actuated by principles of 
 vmfeeling and idle curiosity, and that his
 
 mind was fraught, not with affectation 
 and deceit, but with disinterested virtue, 
 his eye began to glisten with animation ; 
 his tone of voice was altered ; and his re- 
 marks were at once so original, so ele- 
 vated, so marked by concentration of 
 thought and brilliance of illustration, that 
 my brother boldly talks of him as an ex- 
 ample of the most illustrious talents and 
 virtue, and exults openly in his own pow- 
 ers of physiognomical discovery. 
 
 You are aware that our family is an- 
 cient — that it takes its rise in Britain from 
 the period of the Norman conquest, and 
 boasts the names of several statesmen and 
 warriors. You are aware also that this 
 circumstance, joined to Edward's love of
 
 22 
 
 literature, has induced him to bestow 
 much attention on our early writers. 
 From conversing on the beautiful scenery 
 in our vicinity, they were led to mention 
 its antiquities, and were thus brought to 
 converse on English history, and the poets 
 and chroniclers of Albion's elder day. 
 
 Edward expresses the most perfect 
 astonishment at the stranger's learning 
 and genius. He himself is deeply read, 
 and is not one of those cold-hearted stu- 
 dents who contemplate these subjects 
 without emotion. While they talked of 
 past ages, Edward timidly brought for- 
 ward some of his own ideas gleaned from 
 the works of Chaucer, of our early ro- 
 mancers, and from his favourite, Lord
 
 Berners. The stranger talked with the 
 keenness of actual participation on the 
 deeds of Prince Arthur and his knights ; 
 on the splendid atchievements of English 
 heroes in Palestine ; but the richest hues 
 of his fancy were employed in recalling 
 from the grave and decorating the mag- 
 nanimous defenders of Scotland, — a Wal- 
 lace and a Bruce. The stranger's name 
 is said to be Fitzalbyn,
 
 24 
 
 FRAGMENT III. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 Do you recollect, Isabella, our having 
 ence visited together the deserted manor- 
 house of Wythorpe i This has been ta* 
 ken by the stranger as a temporary resi- 
 dence for a short time. He is evidently 
 a man of rank and fortune. But my bro- 
 ther has not obtained any correct infor- 
 mation respecting his family, and believes 
 the name of Fitzalbyn to be assumed. 
 
 I believe vire did not obtain admission 
 s
 
 25 
 
 either to the gardens or house at Wy- 
 thorpe. You chose to be alarmed by 
 the appearance of two large old mastiff- 
 dogs. We only walked round it and ad- 
 mired its venerable trees, and the beauty 
 of the surrounding scenery. The garden 
 and the mansion-house itself are very sin- 
 gular. The latter is a perfect example 
 of that strange taste for artificial orna- 
 ment which is seldom found at an ancient 
 baronial edifice. 
 
 A parlour, which is the favourite apart- 
 ment of the stranger, has been made, by 
 the inhabitants of modern times, to open 
 into this garden. Here he delights, day 
 after day, to watch the gradual changes 
 of nature, while the south winds shower 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 26 
 
 the foliage of the neighbouring trees 
 around him, and waft them into his apart- 
 ment. There he remains often for whole 
 days in a state of reverie ; from which it 
 almost appears as if he would never 
 awake, unless my brother (generally at a 
 late hour of the day, for his own literary 
 pursuits engross his mornings) did not 
 disturb him. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, he is seen to hurry 
 abruptly along the walks with strange im- 
 petuosity, which alarms the old gardener 
 or domestics. Edward says, that from 
 the scraps of paper which are strewed 
 around the room, he is certain that Fitz- 
 albyn is a poet. But there is evidently 
 some secret undivulged grief which is
 
 27 
 
 undermining his constitution, and mars 
 every attempt either at social or literary 
 enjoyment. 
 
 My brother says he is resolved to men- 
 tion the acquisition he has made of so in- 
 teresting an acquaintance, to our friend 
 
 Mr H , who is himself an author, 
 
 and who, he thinks, might have power to 
 draw the stranger from brooding over his 
 own griefs, by engaging him in some pur- 
 suits of consequence. 
 
 In the mean while, Edward takes great 
 delight in supplying him with books, and 
 he selects especially such as I have read. 
 You know my propensity to draw lines 
 with red ink, and write remarks on what-
 
 ever interests my feelings ; and these re- 
 marks, Edward says, always rivet the at- 
 tention of Fitzalbyn. I dare not tell you, 
 Isabella, the delight with which this in- 
 formation inspires me. 
 
 From hints that have been dropped by 
 the stranger, Edward believes that he has 
 been unfortunate in his attachments. How 
 base, how void of soul must have been 
 the individual, who could cause affliction 
 to such a being ! — I could — but, alas ! 
 Isabella, you will say that I rave ; and, 
 in truth, a strange cloudiness has spread 
 itself over my mind. I know not the na- 
 ture of my own feelings. I only know
 
 29 
 
 that I am unhappy; — that every day, 
 every hour, adds to my distraction.
 
 so 
 
 FRAGMENT IV. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 'November IQth, 1810. 
 After a severe tempest, we have an 
 interval of mild weather ; and though 
 most of the trees have lost their foliage, 
 our oak woods continue to possess all the 
 pensive beauties of decay. The dank dark 
 heaps, by which bur forest walks are fill- 
 ed, impregnate the calm air with a lan- 
 guid, but not unpleasing, odour. Some- 
 times, when the west winds blow, and 
 partial gleams rest on the fields and distant 
 copse, I seem for a moment to view the
 
 31 
 
 delightful scenery of spring ; and the ling» 
 ering tints of autumn on the trees re- 
 semble in some measure the hue of the 
 vernal buds before the young leaves have 
 fully expanded. In one moment how 
 many pleasing images are thus conjured 
 up in the mind ! — Yes ! there has been a 
 time when I met the cheering aspect of 
 spring with a mind unclouded and at rest, 
 and feelings attuned in unison with the 
 scenery of Nature. That time has been. 
 I fear it never will return. 
 
 Our oak woods now seem to me in 
 their greatest beauty ; at least their ap- 
 pearance is soothing to my present me- 
 lancholy. This morning I met the stran- 
 ger. As usual, he observed me not. He
 
 32 
 
 seemed lost in thought ; but his counte- 
 nance was illuminated as he gazed on the 
 beauties of the scenery. I am certain his 
 glance bespeaks a soul of fire refined 
 above that of any other mortal, — a soul 
 equalled perhaps by that of an Ariosto or 
 a Shakspeare ! But once^ since our first 
 meeting on the banks of the lake, have 
 I dared to meet that glance, and scarcely 
 then. Since that period its impression 
 has been indelible. It is never absent 
 from my sight. In solitude or in society, 
 in the dark hour of midnight or the bright- 
 er glow of noonday, it is alike present. — 
 But once have I heard the rich tones of 
 his voice \ yet even now they vibrate 
 through my frame. My breath fails, as 
 it did when I first heard them.
 
 S3 
 
 This dreadful tale ! it haunts me like 
 the curse of an evil genius ; yet I know it 
 must be a calumny. There is a sufficien- 
 cy of malignant envy apparent in the con- 
 duct of those who are most assiduous in 
 spreading the reports^ to sanction this de- 
 cision. 
 
 I am doomed to receive every moment 
 additional causes for inquietude, as if those 
 already experienced had not been suffi- 
 cient to ruin my peace. You know my 
 dislike (this may seem an uncharitable 
 feeling — it* is involuntary,) to our neigh- 
 bours the F s. They are wealthy 5 
 
 they are accomplished : but there is com- 
 bined with their fashionable accomplish- 
 ments,, a degree of levity which I cannot 
 B 2
 
 34 
 
 approve. Miss L— — , the most dash- 
 ing girl in this family, is said to have gain- 
 ed the affections of the stranger. Why 
 should this not be ? — She sings 5 she plays 
 with inimitable brilliance of execution ; 
 she reads also : yet long before I heard 
 of this interesting stranger, I had learned 
 to dislike her society. If the report is 
 founded on truth, I believe I must alter 
 my opinion of Fitzalbyn's character. — 
 No !-^my judgment of him must be un- 
 alterable ! 
 
 That such a being — so gifted with sen- 
 sibility and genius, should have any real 
 pleasure in the society of one who is
 
 35 
 
 wholly destitute of both, — with whom he 
 can have no sympathy !— It appears to me 
 in every point of view impossible !
 
 36 
 
 FRAGMENT V. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 November, 1810. 
 I HAVE been watching the rise of a 
 wintry sun. I used to meet his first rays 
 with gladness and joy of heart. Those 
 rays were not brighter than the brilliant 
 and responsive images which played on 
 my fancy. Would that it were so again ! 
 I am oppressed by a melancholy, for which 
 I cannot account. To me, the fair face of 
 Nature has " become a universal blank."* 
 Woods, mountains, valli^y and rivers! 
 where are your wonted charms to sooth 
 
 * Cowper.
 
 S7 
 
 a wounded spirit? Leaf-strown paths, 
 through which I yet love to wander ! where 
 are those odours which once awoke my 
 feelings to ecstacy ? — The same charms 
 perhaps exist ; but on my heart they have 
 ceased to have their wonted influence. I 
 have said, that this melancholy is unac- 
 countable. I believe it is not wholly so 5 
 for I have lately been doomed to spend a 
 day in the society of the F * *= * s. Oh 
 the horror of being imprisoned for a day 
 and an evening with those with whom I 
 never had a feeling in unison ! whose ob- 
 trusive manners render their folly the 
 more disgusting ! to whom the mild se- 
 renity of an autumnal noon, or the wild 
 grandeur of a tempest, are alike insipid 
 and uninteresting ! The consequences of
 
 as 
 
 such a shock cannot easily be conquered. 
 Dark clouds are yet resting on my fancy. 
 Yet, since I began to write, they seem in 
 some measure to disperse ; for the image 
 of my friend cannot be revived without 
 pleasure. It gleams like a sun-beam 
 through the tempest. Yes! I will yet 
 have a day devoted to chearfulness j for 
 my time shall be employed in conversing 
 with her whose imagination has so often 
 enchanted me by its beautiful creations ; 
 whose judgment has so often recalled me 
 from melancholy wanderings. 
 
 But you have always had some one to 
 sympathise with you. You have never
 
 S9 
 
 known the horror of that desolation of 
 the heart, under which I have been doom- 
 ed perpetually to suffer. Sometimes I 
 eagerly give up my whole attention to 
 painting, and endeavour to become ab- 
 sorbed in that pursuit — but, alas! it is 
 impossible ! The cares which embitter 
 my existence return, and all is lassitude, 
 and almost despondency. 
 
 If I have any pleasure, it is in those 
 magic reveries when hope revels, in a 
 thousand visionary enjoyments. Then 
 I imagine that I am not indeed in soli- 
 tude ; that there is a heart which, though 
 it beats not for me ^ yet is alive to the 
 same pleasures which I experience ; — but, 
 alas ! this is all idle dreaming and delu-
 
 40 
 
 sion. The mind of Fitzalbyn, noble and 
 elevated, constantly employed on lofty 
 themes, surely cannot reasonably be sup- 
 posed to have feelings in unison with 
 mine.
 
 41 
 
 FRAGMENT VL 
 
 The same to the same* 
 
 I HAVE again beheld the stranger !— 
 While I write this, my heart beats, and 
 my breath fails, as it did at our first 
 meeting. Whence proceeds this emo- 
 tion ? To me for ever is denied the 
 power of soothing his secret sorrows, — 
 of assuaging the grief that seems to prey 
 on his mind. By me that happiness must 
 ever be unattainable. Why should I 
 dwell on his image ? Why not rather by 
 active occupation banish it for ever from 
 my thoughts ? And there are times in
 
 42 
 
 which a kind of obscure gloom over- 
 shadows my mind, in which there is no 
 distinct idea. At these times perhaps I 
 suffer least. But, alas ! it is a state 
 little to be envied. Isabella, you have 
 never experienced this. You have never 
 known what it is to frame illusions beau- 
 tiful as the morning cloud, — ^visions such 
 as poets only know ! — You cannot, there- 
 fore, have experienced the bitter and 
 wasting anguish of the contrast, when all 
 that was once so smiling and so gay is 
 filled only by imagery of grief and deso- 
 lation !
 
 43 
 
 The following are mere broken scraps, in which 
 scarcely any order or connection can be tran- 
 ced, 
 
 November, 1810. 
 
 The west wind blew : its warm breath 
 " has power to cure all sadness but des- 
 pair." Yet my feelings are not soothed j 
 my spirits are not exhilarated. Am I 
 then the victim of Despair ? Am I be- 
 come insensible to Nature's beauty ? 
 
 Oh the horror of knowing that all the 
 charms of Nature (once so exhilarating, 
 so inspiring,) are open before me, — that 
 the same sources of innocent and inde-
 
 44 
 
 pendent enjoyment are within my grasp, — 
 yet that I have no longer the power to 
 profit by them ! ^ 
 
 Oh there are woes which prey on the 
 mind and frame like the secret canker in 
 the flower !— In vain the sun sheds his 
 warm beams, and the fostering breezes 
 blow, — ^its leaves turn pale and wither 
 and decay. 
 
 There are charms in the season of win- 
 ter which are peculiarly delightful. When 
 for a short interval the breeze becomes 
 mild, and the sun sheds, as in autumn, 
 his partial gleams j or when, after a frosty
 
 45 
 
 night, the winds are hushed, and the sun 
 sheds on the lingering mists his unclouded 
 splendour, and every rural sound comes 
 full and distinct on the ear ; — the deso- 
 lation of Nature, though melancholy, is 
 soothing. 
 
 The following Sonnet ought to have been insert- 
 ed earlier, as it is dated in October, 
 
 Most melancholy Autumn ! in thy sway 
 Loved fellowship in woe I seem to meet ; 
 The brown, dank leaves are strew'd beneath my feet; 
 Thick hangs the heavy dew on weeping spray. 
 And the high cliffs are veiPd in vapours grey ! 
 Down sinks the yellow leaf on waters dark, 
 Soon swallow* d by the reckless stream ; and hark !
 
 46 
 
 How deeply silent this autumnal day I 
 Not sooner in the grove the leaves decay, 
 
 Than in my heart each rapturous feeling dies : 
 Not swifter on the stream they float away, 
 
 Than each wild vision of the poet flies : 
 Not darker fall around the sleeping clouds, 
 Than the deep gloom that now my fancy shrouds. 
 
 November 27tJi, 1810. 
 I have been out gazing on the moon. 
 White clouds were floating between us 
 and her orb, that in some degree obscured 
 her light. Yet the scene was exquisitely 
 pleasing. Little or no wind disturbed 
 the placid serenity. Not a withered rem- 
 nant of the foliage was heard to rustle on 
 the beech or oak, not yet forsaken by the
 
 47 
 
 lingering leaves : there was but just suffi- 
 cient to move the white clouds through 
 which the moon appeared majestically 
 sailing. The little wind that was per- 
 ceptible came from the west — soft and 
 balmy. 
 
 I have returned from my walk. I have 
 opened my window. The white clouds 
 that lately obscured the moon have rolled 
 away in a large mass to the south, and 
 left her orb in unclouded serenity. How 
 deeply still and tranquil this winter, or 
 rather autumnal night ! for it has all the 
 characteristics of the latter. The damp 
 leaves have impregnated the air with mild
 
 48 
 
 and not unpleasant odour. The silence 
 is only broken by the deep murmur of 
 the river " bursting on the ocean's bed." 
 
 November 28tli' 
 The breezes are still mild. The moon 
 again shines in wonted serenity. But my 
 feelings are altered. I can no longer 
 partake in the tranquil pleasures that 
 surround me. Oh how dreadful ! to 
 meet the soft gale of evening without en- 
 joyment, — to view my blazing hearth 
 without comfort, — my books without a 
 wish to read them ! — I look out from my 
 casement. The cool breeze again plays 
 on my bosom. All without is chearful
 
 49 
 
 and serene j— but within^ I look in vaia 
 for responsive emotions. All there is 
 darkness and inquietude. 
 
 I know that the scenes in which I once 
 took such delight are open before me— 
 the self-same scenes of which I used to 
 say, 
 
 " I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 
 You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace." 
 
 But their charms exist no longer for me 
 in their pure and unalloyed state. I feel 
 incessantly an anxiety which I strive m 
 vain to repress. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 30 
 
 I believe I could bear my fate without 
 repining, if it were not for the conduct 
 of those around me. You know my 
 aunt's unhappy temper ; her repugnance to 
 every thing that is dearest to my heart, — 
 to every thing connected with literature 
 or mental cultivation. I really believe 
 she is never pleased, but when her harsh- 
 ness has succeeded in conquering both 
 my spirits and temper, and in rendering 
 me miserable. She is never pleased when 
 any one is employed near her in en- 
 joyments of which she cannot partake. 
 When I burst into tears at her violence, 
 she seems pleased, I see a grim satisfac- 
 tion smoothing her brow. But, when I 
 refuse to listen to her reproaches, and 
 continue seemingly interested in the pur-
 
 31 
 
 suit of my employment, whether reading, 
 writing, or painting, her violence and 
 persecution become incessant and insup. 
 portable. 
 
 Snvo^'^«°" i
 
 CONFESSIONS 
 
 or 
 
 SIR HENRY LONGUEVILLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 What transport to retrace our early plays, 
 Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied. 
 The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze 
 Of the wild brooks ! Thomson, 
 
 Arm * **'waite, October ^ 1810. 
 
 It is midnight. Sleep visits not my 
 wearied eyes. But my woes have not 
 yet wholly triumphed. They have not
 
 54 
 
 taken from me the perception of Nature's 
 beauty. From my casement I breathe the 
 mild and chill odour of the fallen foliage. 
 I watch the moon's fair lamp sailing in 
 wonted grandeur, in wonted serenity, 
 through the wide unrufHed azure. I 
 trace the dark line of the woods and the 
 mountains. Alas ! these are not the well- 
 known woods in which every tree was 
 consecrated by some fond association of 
 the past. The wandering streams that 
 now glitter in the moonlight valley, are 
 not the friends of my youth ! Yet the 
 scene has revived the feelings of " early 
 time." 
 
 The deep stillness and solitude of 
 night, — its obscurity and my want of
 
 55 
 
 books, — naturally lead the mind to seek 
 employment within Itself, in the mere pro- 
 ductions of the memory and the fancy. 
 Those powers are busy ; and the sudden 
 thought has occurred, that I may perhaps 
 enliven and improve my solitary hours, 
 by committing to paper the history of my 
 past life. It must be written without ef- 
 fort, in detached fragments, as the floating 
 images shall accidentally present them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is perhaps needless to observe, that 
 few remarks are more unfounded than 
 that the lives of literary men cannot af- 
 ford materials for biography. Ought 
 battles, and shipwrecks, and hair-breadth 
 escapes, " by sea and land," to prove
 
 36 
 
 more interesting, than an accurate picture 
 of the internal operations of the mind ? — 
 a correct delineation of its progress, — of 
 the formation of powers, and opinions, 
 and guiding principles ? For such a me- 
 morial of an Ariosto, a Shakspeare, or a 
 Milton, what would we not give ? 
 
 To die, without leaving a trace of those 
 visions in which I so much delighted to 
 indulge, — to expire like the withered leaf, 
 which is swallowed up by the dark flood 
 of autumn, " unwept, unhonoured," — if 
 this idea could be borne, I should not at- 
 tempt to employ my feeble and trembling 
 hand in tracing these lines. But the flame 
 that was once kindled cannot wholly be 
 extinguished. When the mind is not
 
 51 
 
 incessantly employed in struggles after 
 some interesting object, I am agonized 
 by an accusing and restless conscience. 
 If in my disordered intellect any one 
 principle ever kept its unconquered do- 
 minion, the love of fame is that principle. 
 I will endeavour to revive the faint and 
 scattered traces of those internal work- 
 ings of the mind, — of forms once adorn- 
 ed with all the brilliant hues of the 
 western clouds on a summer's eve, — of 
 landscapes gay with " promised scenes *' 
 at a " far distance." I will endeavour to 
 revive the faint and scattered traces ; — 
 but, alas ! how are they broken and dis- 
 persed ! How shall I have strength to 
 bear with my reflections on what migbt 
 have ^^^;2,— reflections that, more than 
 C 2
 
 58 
 
 all others, haunt my path by day, and 
 strew the midnight couch with thorns ! 
 
 I was born in the county of Argyll, in 
 Scotland. Descended from a race of il- 
 lustrious ancestors, celebrated in High- 
 land tradition, my father, Sir Arthur 
 Longueville, unlike most modern proprie- 
 tors of large fortune, was attached to re- 
 tirement atfd to his own country. He was 
 in his religion a Catholic ; possessed a cul- 
 tivated mind ; and in his youth had resided 
 much in France and in Italy. I have often 
 heard, but do not clearly remember, the 
 circumstances by which my family, though 
 unquestionably attached to the cause of 
 the Pretender, had yet preserved their 
 estates amid the general wreck in 1 745.
 
 59 
 
 It would be tedious to conjecture and 
 to detail the reasons by which my father 
 was induced to rear an only son in the 
 country, instead of sending him, like 
 other young men of birth and fortune, 
 early into the world. I spent the whole 
 period of adolescence in constant retire- 
 ment,— almost in complete solitude j— but 
 it was a solitude fitted not to contract, 
 but to expand and ameliorate the souL 
 
 Ye boundless plains, covered with pur- 
 ple heath ! Ye mountains of grey rock, 
 overspread with wild wood waving its 
 verdant ringlets in the breeze ! Ye wide 
 lakes, fretted by wooded islands, and fan- 
 tastic fragments broken from the moun- 
 tain summit ! Methinks I once more feel
 
 60 
 
 the wind wafting inspiration from your 
 magic realm ! 
 
 I have already said that I am descended 
 from a race of illustrious ancestors. My 
 sorrows have not so far overpowered ray 
 youthful enthusiasm, that I can describe 
 without a feeling of past enjoyment the 
 raptures experienced in meditating on the 
 deeds of old, amid the very scenes of 
 those exploits. I lived in that country, 
 where innumerable legends and wild su- 
 perstitions are handed from generation 
 to generation, — in that remote district, 
 where the progress of cultivation has not 
 yet done away the remains either of the 
 warlike or the pastoral life,— where every 
 moss-covered cairn, every mouldering
 
 61 
 
 ruin, almost every withered tree or shag- 
 gy clifF within the range of the shepherd, 
 recalls some marvellous narrative of de- 
 parted heroes, for which he delights to 
 meet with an attentive listener. Such a 
 listener was I ; and the tales, narrated in 
 the rude language of a peasant, borrow- 
 ed ornaments, which polished eloquence 
 could not have afforded in any ordinary 
 scene, from the magnificent objects around 
 us, gilded, as it might happen, by the 
 tranquil gleams of an autumnal noon, or 
 the magic hues of a summer's eve. 
 
 Thus was my mind, at an early age, 
 moulded into that frame in which there 
 exists an inseparable connection between 
 the intellectual and material world j — a
 
 62 
 
 characteristic indeed produced at first by 
 the perusal of English poetry, and only 
 strengthened afterwards by the legendary 
 stores of my countrymen ;— -but of this 
 at another time. One of my favourite 
 objects, in this narrative, will be to prove, 
 that on such a connection, and on the 
 sublimer passions to which it gives birth, 
 are formed the purest, most elevated, and 
 independent enjoyments. But, alas! there 
 are too many readers who could not 
 easily be convinced that such pleasures 
 have ever actually existed ! 
 
 Land of my fathers ! It is amid your soli- 
 tudes, where, to every one that has a heart 
 to feel, or an understanding to relish, the 
 wild fictions of human genius, unfettered
 
 63 
 
 by rules, uscramped by the formalities of 
 artificial society, are presented enjoyments 
 that can be met with in no other region. 
 Mid your remote wildness yet linger the 
 traces of the most sublime species of ro- 
 mance ! On your plains are to be found 
 those fields of battle, where " the tide of 
 invasion was rolled back," and where the 
 ashes of those heroes repose who have 
 died in defence of their country ! Amid 
 your majestic scenery, amid your inspi- 
 ring breezes, was fostered the most ex- 
 alted and deep-rooted patriotism 5 — that 
 scorn of oppression, that contempt of dif- 
 ficulties and danger, which might afford 
 the salutary lesson, that virtue, when as- 
 sailed by misfortune, ought only to come 
 forth more pure from the searching fire.
 
 64 
 
 to shine with improved lustre, like the 
 sun emerging through tempestuous clouds. 
 Alas ! I myself have not given any such 
 example of firmness and fortitude. Un- 
 der the first blow, I shrank and shudder- 
 ed. Repeated wounds have wholly over- 
 whelmed me. But there are cares which 
 more effectually destroy the mental pow- 
 ers, than the oppressions of a warlike ad- 
 versary—an open and declared foe. When 
 the bitter anguish of disappointed hope, 
 the anguish of remorse and domestic mi- 
 sery, assail at one time ; — when that ima- 
 gination, which used to elevate and to 
 sooth, now uses all her influence to dark- 
 en, to depress, and to distract; — when 
 those, from whom we hoped to derive 
 comfort and consolation, present only the
 
 65 
 
 depravity of vice, and the cruelty of a 
 cold heart to our agonized minds, then it 
 is that the man is indeed lost under his 
 misfortunes ! — I write not to those who 
 have never known the influence of Imagi- 
 nation 5 who cannot grasp an idea of her 
 powers. To such I need not attempt to 
 describe the state of her victim, when all 
 the glowing tints and delightful visions of 
 happier hours are changed, by the influ- 
 ence of affliction, into appalling spectres 
 and imagery of horror. Let the cold- 
 hearted think and preach as they will, 
 there are minds that can admit of no mid- 
 dle state of enjoyment ; that must be ei- 
 ther illuminated with the brightest rays 
 of enthusiasm and hope, or haunted by
 
 66 
 
 the most frightful goblins, and shadowed 
 by the most impenetrable gloom. 
 
 How beautiful is the well-known obser- 
 vation of Goldsmith, on the patriotism of 
 the Swiss peasantry ! 
 
 [ <* Thus every good his native wilda impart 
 ^ Imprints the patriot passion on his heart ; 
 And even those ills that round his mansion rise 
 Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies ; 
 Dear is that shed to vi^hich his soul conforms ; 
 And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms. 
 And, as a child, when scaring sounds molest. 
 Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
 So the loud whirlwind and the torrent's roar 
 But bind him to his native mountains more." 
 
 • Succeeding writers, as well as Gold-
 
 67 
 
 smith himself, have amused themselves in 
 pointing out reasons for this attachment. 
 Various causes, no doubt, concur to pro- 
 dude the same end. But; if patriotism be 
 justly considered one of the noblest feel- 
 ings in the human heart, may we not at- 
 tribute its peculiar strength in the inhabi- 
 tants of mountainous countries, to the 
 powerful influence of the grand scenery of 
 Nature, which invigorates the mind, as 
 the mountain breezes invigorate the body, 
 and rouses it to every elevated principle 
 and nobler emotion ? Should this be the 
 case, what wonder that, to a mind so sub- 
 limed, every other region should appear 
 almost cQFMltpmptible, compared to those 
 nurses of pleasing and exalted thought,— 
 the woods, rocks, mountains, and lakes
 
 68 
 
 of its natal clime ! — The warm and fertile 
 valleys, the vineyards and gardens and 
 cottages, whose walls are covered with 
 fruits and hung with flowers, in France 
 and Italy, where the warm breezes waft a 
 thousand blended odours, and the glow- 
 ing skies are resplendent with indescriba- 
 ble tints of glory, too often have a tenden- 
 cy to enervate the mind. In France, at 
 least, those comforts have seldom given 
 rise to such patriotism as that of a Scot- 
 tish Highlander, and never have inspired 
 *' thoughts that breathe, and words that 
 burn,'* like those of a Thomson, a Burns, 
 a Scott, or a Campbell. 
 
 My youth was not devoid of grief ; but 
 
 It was illuminated by gleams of exquisite
 
 69 
 
 pleasure, and the reign of the latter pre- 
 dominated, I was not one of the cold- 
 hearted, who live by rule, who are never 
 vanquished by misery, and never elevated 
 by rapture. If I had even then felt the 
 transient attacks of despondency, I could 
 the next hour gather more ecstasy of en- 
 joyment in one solitary walk, when the 
 gleams of morning played in shifting hues 
 of light and shade over the landscape, 
 than an ordinary mortal could meet in 
 the whole progress of a long life. — To 
 watch 
 
 ** The * vernal' clouds that pass 
 With varying shadow o'er the grass, 
 And imitate on field and furrow 
 Life's chequered scene of joy and sorrow,^
 
 70 
 
 was unspeakable transport; to breathe 
 the perfume of the faded leaves in au* 
 tumn, to hear their rustling voice, and to 
 sooth myself with hopes, after I had 
 learned to arrest my visions in poetic num- 
 bers, that " I should not all die," afford- 
 ed the balm of Elysium to my feelings. 
 
 Yet I began very early to feel myself 
 as if alone in the world ; and to an inci- 
 dent which occurred in my early life, may 
 be- attributed much of my subsequent un- 
 happiness. On the provocation arising 
 from some childish dispute with my fa- 
 ther, in which I had been harshly treat- 
 ed, I rushed out into/ the woods, threw 
 myself headlong from a precipice into 
 the lake beneath, from whence I was on-
 
 71 
 
 iy rescued by the providential interference 
 of a shepherd. This adventure was fol- 
 lowed by a long and severe fit of illness. 
 The vital organs sustained a shock, from 
 which they never afterwards recovered. 
 For a long time my brain was affected, 
 and my whole frame was debilitated to the 
 last degree. 
 
 It would, as I have already said, be te- 
 dious to conjecture my father's reasons 
 for not sending me abroad at an early 
 age, like other young men of rank. Suf- 
 fice it to observe, he thought proper that 
 my education should be private. I re- 
 member the time (it was about my ninth 
 year) that the preceptor, to whose assist- 
 ance my father looked forward, arrived 
 
 2
 
 7^ 
 
 from the continent. I was in many re* 
 spects fortunate in this tutor. He was 
 originally a Scotchman, but had passed 
 nearly all his life in France. He had im- 
 bibed the good qualities of the French na- 
 tion, without their vices. He brought 
 with him a certain share of Parisian ele- 
 gance 5 for, in consequence of his literary 
 acquirements and conversational powers, 
 he had been accustomed in France to the 
 best society. — ^I have said, that I was in 
 many respects fortunate in my tutor. He 
 certainly possessed many good qualities 5 
 but my best ideas were not derived from 
 him. I gradually began to glean them 
 frrm an admirable library, which filled a 
 large room in my paternal mansion, and 
 which my father, who was fond of books.
 
 73 
 
 had collected at great expence. It con- 
 tained an invaluable store of black letter 
 chronicles, besides much old English poe- 
 try, with a large collection of novels and 
 romances. Insensibly I became under the 
 dominion of a passion for literature. Per- 
 haps the foundation of this disposition 
 was laid by the influence of solitude, and 
 still more of an excessive delicacy and ir- 
 ritability of frame, which made me shrink 
 with disgust from ordinary amusements. 
 By degrees my passion for reading increa- 
 sed so far, as to produce the utmost hor- 
 ror at any interruption which withdrew 
 me from my enjoyments. By degrees, 
 too, I became self-sufficient and proud. 
 It seemed to me as if I moved in a world 
 of my own j as if I had discovered a se- 
 
 VOL, I. D
 
 74 
 
 cret treasure, which was reserved for me 
 alone, and of which the immediate bene- 
 fit could not be communicated to another, 
 I felt a degree of exultation and secret 
 rapture, as if I had entered a magnificent 
 territory, a paradise of flowers and trees 
 and fountains, peopled by celestial spirits, 
 and had been told to close the gates, for 
 that no ordinary being should enter. 
 
 Those who have plunged into the more 
 active pursuits of life, who are surround- 
 ed by the bustle and tumult of cities, or 
 whose sensibilities have been destroyed by 
 too early and too constant commerce with 
 the world, cannot participate in my feel- 
 ings. They never know what it is to read 
 an author in the manner that I did ! —
 
 75 
 
 They read mechanically. They coldly 
 approve of beauties that seem to them at 
 best only tolerable ; — they malignantly 
 blazon forth his faults. Indeed the lat- 
 ter, by affording room to expectorate their 
 spleen, often seem to such readers the more 
 acceptable of the two. I knew not what 
 it was to read books in this fashion. I did 
 not reason on what I read. I only felt in 
 unison with the author ; and if mj judge* 
 ment was not always correct, my feelings 
 were ever most keen and most susceptible. 
 
 To my passion for literature I soon 
 added an exclusive and enthusiastic par- 
 tiality to rural solitude. I well remem. 
 ber the time at which this last feature 
 in my character was produced. It was at
 
 76 
 
 the approach of summer, in my fifteenth 
 year, that one morning, continuing my 
 usual employments in the library, I hap- 
 pened to meet with three small volumes 
 elegantly bound, which in a moment of 
 languor attracted me, more from the neat- 
 ness of their external appearance, than 
 from the knowledge of their intrinsic 
 worth. On opening the volumes, I was 
 pleased to find that two of them consist- 
 ed of the poetical works of Milton, and 
 the third was a collection of poems pub- 
 lished at Edinburgh in 17^9, containing 
 some of the earlier and best productions 
 of T. Warton. 
 
 I immediately began to peruse his de- 
 lightful " Ode on the Approach of Sum-
 
 mer,** in that volume ; and afterwards, 
 invited by the similarity of his manner to 
 some of the juvenile productions of Mil- 
 ton, read with avidity the " Allegro" and 
 " Penseroso," and afterwards the " Lyci- 
 das'* and « Comus/' 
 
 Let not those who have never perused 
 these or similar poems in the freedom of 
 rural retirement, " in the quiet and se- 
 clusion of the scenes which gave them 
 birth ;" where every object formed a li- 
 ving comment on the' words of the au- 
 thor, attempt either to approve or to cen- 
 sure the raptures with which I was imme- 
 . diately overwhelmed, and as it were borne 
 away into new and unexplored regions of 
 delight.
 
 78 
 
 I had never before, strange as it may ap- 
 pear, discovered the inexhaustible charms 
 which are to be found in the scenery of 
 Nature. I had lived among fields and 
 woods, without experiencing the peculiar 
 influences which are to be derived from 
 the heavens and earth, and the pheno- 
 mena of the atmosphere. I was now 
 awakened from my trance. A gleam of 
 celestial inspiration had dawned on my 
 intellect. My former visions seemed to 
 shrink into insignificance, as if " blasted 
 by excess of light." I devoured the re- 
 mainder of Milton's poetry, including the 
 " Paradise Lost.'^ These three volumes 
 were my constant companions. One or 
 other was always in my pocket, ready to 
 be had recourse to in my woodland ram-
 
 19 
 
 bles. I lay on the brink of the precipice, 
 and, amid the loud dashing of the moun- 
 tain cataract, soothed my perturbed feel- 
 ings by the exercise alternately of reading 
 and reciting. I say my perturbed feel- 
 ings ; for my delight was almost too in- 
 tense. 
 
 My favourite poems were, the Morn- 
 ing Hymn in " Paradise Lost j" the " Ode 
 on the Approach of Summer," by T, 
 Warton ; and, above all, the " Lycidas" 
 of Milton. My favourite time for read- 
 ing and reciting this last poem was in 
 the twilight of a summer's eve, when the 
 yellow light of evening fell on the pages, 
 and rested on the wooded cliffs of a neigh- 
 bouring mountain, and the soft dews of
 
 80 
 
 night hung on the wide-extended copse- 
 wood around me, I never could recite 
 this divine poem without bursting into 
 tears of rapture. Even now I feel a faint 
 glow of reviving enthusiasm, as I recol- 
 lect the lines that became the favourites 
 of my boyish fancy : — 
 
 " Return, Sicilian muse. 
 
 And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
 Their bells and florets of a thousand hues. 
 Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
 Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, 
 On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks. 
 Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes. 
 That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
 Bring the rath primrose, that forsaken dies ; 
 The tufted crowtoe, and pale jessamine ; 
 The white pink, and the pansy freakt with jet ; 
 The glowing violet ;
 
 81 
 
 The musk rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 
 With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head, 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears. 
 Bid amaranthus all his beauties shed. 
 And daffodillies fill their cups with tears. 
 To strow the laureat herse where Lycid lies. 
 For so to interpose a little ease. 
 Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. 
 
 Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more ! 
 For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead. 
 Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. 
 So sinks the day star in the ocean bed. 
 And yet anon repairs his drooping head. 
 And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 
 Flamej in the forehead of the morning sky 5 
 So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. 
 Through the dear might of Him that walked the 
 waves.
 
 82 
 
 Where other flowers, and other streams along, 
 With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 
 And hears the inexpressive nuptial song 
 In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. . 
 There entertain him all the saints above. 
 In solemn troops and sweet societies. 
 That sing, and singing in their glory move. 
 And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes." 
 
 I write not for those who can read 
 these verses without one corresponding 
 emotion. Yet how few readers have I 
 had the happiness to meet in the course 
 of my life who can join in my admiration 
 of this poem ! The " Paradise Lost/* is 
 in great measure beyond the reach of 
 censure. Pretenders to judgment must 
 abstain from indulging their malevolence 
 against a poem, the fame of which is so
 
 83 
 
 incontrovertibly established : But how 
 often has it been my fortune to hear the 
 " Lycidas'* of Milton condemned, as un- 
 worthy of notice, by those who affected 
 to relish and to comprehend the " Para- 
 dise Lost !'* 
 
 But thus it must ever be, when the rule 
 so inimitably expressed by a well-known 
 critic is not attended to. " There is a 
 sort of poetry, no doubt, as there is a sort 
 of flowers, which can bear the broad sun 
 and the ruffling winds of the world ; which 
 thrive under the hands and eyes of un- 
 discriminating multitudes, and please as 
 much in hot and crowded saloons, as in 
 their own sheltered repositories : but the 
 finer and the purer sorts blossom only in
 
 84 
 
 the shade, and give out their sweets but 
 to those who seek them in the quiet and 
 seclusion oj" the scenes which gave them 
 birth. There are torrents and cascades, 
 which attract the admiration of tittering 
 parties, and of which even the busy must 
 turn aside to catch a transient glance ; 
 but the haunted stream steals through a 
 still and a solitary landscape, and its beau- 
 ties are never revealed but to him who 
 strays in calm contemplation by its course, 
 and follows its wanderings with undis- 
 tracted and unimpatient admiration/'* 
 
 What is it that, from the earliest ages, 
 has formed the " vital charm'' of all poe- 
 try ? Certainly, as it has been maintained, 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, No. 27.
 
 85 
 
 with his usual eloquence, by Sir Egerton 
 Brydges, in the Censura Literaria^ those 
 descriptions of the scenery of Nature, — 
 of the vicissitudes of the seasons, the sun 
 and the moon, the tempest and the calm, 
 which continue to awaken responsive feel- 
 ings in every heart whose sensibilities have 
 not been destroyed by the baneful influ- 
 ence of artificial society. But to those 
 who have never lived within the sphere 
 of simple enjoyments, the most exquisite 
 poetry must ever prove the most insipid. 
 Even in rural seclusion, how much is the 
 worth of descriptive poems enhanced by 
 reading them at those particular seasons 
 of the year to which they refer ! How 
 often have I grieved to observe the sickly 
 and undisguised disgust, or faint and un-
 
 86 
 
 willing praise, with which the gilded vo- 
 lumes, containing the divine strains of a 
 Milton or a Thomson, are sometimes pe* 
 rused in a comer of the " saloon,*' or 
 ornamented boudoir, in the city ! 
 
 The verses of Warton relate to scenery 
 devoid of the poetic grandeur of the Scot- 
 tish Highlands. The Cherwell and the 
 Avon, dear as they must ever be to every 
 cultivated mind, have less intrinsic claim 
 to the notice of the bard, than the haunt- 
 ed Cona^ and the torrent that furrows the 
 stupendous rocks of Ben-Cruachan. But 
 it was one of my singularities, although 
 acquainted with the Celtic language, and 
 surrounded by Highland bards and seers, 
 to have my first poetic feelings awakened
 
 87 
 
 by English poetry, and delineations of 
 English landscape. — The following de- 
 scription 6f evening was my favourite 
 passage in T. Warton : 
 
 « Oft when thy season, sweetest queen, 
 
 Has dressed the groves in livery green 5 
 
 When, in each fair and fertile field. 
 
 Beauty begins her bower to build ; 
 
 While Evening, veii'd in shadows brown, 
 
 Puts her matron mantle on, 
 
 And mists in spreading steams convey 
 
 More fresh the fumes of new-shorn hay ; 
 
 Then, Goddess ! guide my pilgrim feet 
 
 Contemplation hoar to meet. 
 
 As slow he winds, in museful mood, 
 
 Near the rush'd marge of Cher well's flood ; 
 
 Or o'er old Avon's magic edge. 
 
 Where Shakspeare cull'd the spiky sedge. 
 
 All playful yet^in years unripe. 
 
 To frame, a shrill and simple pipe.
 
 88 
 
 There, through the dusk but dimly seen^ 
 Sweet evening objects intervene. 
 His wattled cotes the shepherd plants, 
 Beneath her elm the milk-maid chaunts ; 
 The woodman, speeding homei awhile 
 Rests him at a shady stile. 
 Nor wants there fragrance to dispense 
 Refreshment o'er my soothed sense ; 
 Nor tangled woodbine's balmy bloom, 
 Nor grass besprent to breathe perfume j 
 Nor lurking wild thyme's spicy sweet,- 
 To bathe in dew my roving feet. 
 Nor wants there note of Philomel, 
 Nor sound of distant tinkling bell ^ 
 Nor lowings faint of herds remote. 
 Nor mastiff's bark from bosom'd cot. 
 Rustle the breezes lightly borne 
 0'er deep-embattled ears of corn. 
 Round ancient elm, with humming noise, 
 Full loud the chaffer swarms rejoice. 
 Meantime, a thousand dyes invest 
 The ruby chambers of the west,
 
 89 
 
 That all aslant the village tower 
 A mild reflected radiance pour : 
 While with the level streaming rays 
 Far seen its arched windows blaze ; 
 And the tall grove's green top is dight 
 In russet tints and gleams of light ; ' 
 So that the gay scene by degrees 
 Bathes my blithe heart in ecstasies ; 
 And Fancy to my. ravish'd sight 
 Pourtrays her kindred visions bright. 
 At length the parting light subdues 
 My softened soul to calmer views. 
 And fainter shapes of pensive joy, 
 As twilight dawns, my mind employ ; 
 Till from the path I fondly stray 
 In musings wrapt, nor heed the way ; 
 Wandering through the landscape still, 
 Till Melancholy has her fill ; 
 And on each moss-wove border damp 
 The glow-worm hangs her fairy lamp.*'
 
 90 
 
 How delightful, as I repeated these 
 lines a thousand times to the woods and 
 caverns, to meet in" reality every image 
 and every charm which they described ! 
 My temples were fanned by the western 
 " breezes that rustled over the deep-em- 
 battled corn." My path was illuminated 
 with lingering light from the " ruby cham- 
 bers of the west." The *^ mild radiance" 
 fell on the mouldering " towers" of Kil- 
 churn or DunstafFnage, and illuminated 
 the grey rocks and purple heath of the 
 mountain summit, after every object be- 
 neath was veiled in obscurity. My feel- 
 ings were so keen, and my raptures so 
 intense, that I despised sleep, and fre- 
 quently continued to wander, regardless^ 
 of the midnight hour, till I again beheld
 
 n 
 
 the morning dawn, and repeated with 
 ecstacy those inimitable lines of Milton, 
 beginning, 
 
 " These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
 Almighty ! thine this universal frame,'* &«. 
 
 On the eastern sky, I beheld the ruddy 
 blush of morning, while, in the south, the 
 moon appeared not yet wholly deprived 
 of her pale splendour, with the last soli- 
 tary star her companion. With what 
 ecstacy I then repeated, 
 
 « Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, 
 
 If better thou belong not to the dawn, 
 
 Sure pledge of day ! that crown'st the smiling 
 
 morn 
 With thy bright circlet, praise Him in thy sphere. 
 While day arises, that sweet hour of prime !'*
 
 92 
 
 When I looked round on the scenery 
 of the morning, how often have I kneel- 
 ed and wept as I pronounced, 
 
 " Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise 
 From hill or steaming lake, dusky or grey, 
 Till the sun paints your fleecy skirts with gold, 
 In honour to the world's great Author, rise ; 
 Whether to deck with clouds the uncolour'd sky, 
 Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers, 
 Rising or falling, still advance his praise V 
 
 Or as I met the morning gale, and look- 
 ed up to the pine-clad summits of the 
 mountain, 
 
 " His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow. 
 Breathe soft or loud, and wave your tops, ye pines, 
 With every plant, in sign of worship, wave !*'
 
 ^3 
 
 Thus did I become irrecoverably a votary 
 of Nature and the Muse. But I had other 
 raptures awaiting me. These were but 
 my first gleams of inspiration. 
 
 At this period, the verses which I wrote 
 were feeble, and without originality. I 
 endeavoured chiefly to imitate the poetry 
 of Warton and of Collins ; but without 
 success in either. At this moment I re- 
 member a few short fragments, which 
 are perhaps all that remain in existence of 
 my verses at that period, for I thought 
 not of preserving my productions.
 
 ff4f 
 
 TWILIGHT. 
 
 1. 
 
 Now shuts the bell of cuckoo flower, 
 While softly fall the fragrant dews ; 
 
 And sweetly, from his leafy bower, 
 The merle * his vesper song renews. 
 
 Fair Twilight and her silvery star 
 Rest on the northern hills afar. 
 And the hues that tinge that evening sky 
 Wake in my heart strange ecstacy. 
 
 2. 
 
 How dear to me this tranquil hour ! 
 How sweet the breath of closing flower ! 
 Whe;i heavenly tones are heard ascending, 
 Oft with the mountain breezes blending. 
 And oft unnumbered trains arise 
 Of forms unseen by common eyes ! 
 * * * 
 
 * The blackbird.
 
 S5 
 
 My poetic attempts never displayed any 
 rariety of ideas. They were almost al- 
 ways written at the same hour of even- 
 ing, and merely satisfied my desire of ar- 
 resting in some measure my feelings of 
 admiration and delight. Thus the same 
 sensations are again expressed in the fol- 
 lowing stanzas : 
 
 s. 
 
 Oh come, ye beckoning trains, tkat love 
 
 To hover in the gale of even ; 
 That oft, amid the dusky grove, 
 
 To me unearthly joy have given ! 
 
 4. 
 
 And come, ye mystic trains, that float 
 
 Along the river's winding way,. 
 Or mingling with the woodlark*s note. 
 
 With rapture hail the parting ray !
 
 9^ 
 
 5. 
 
 Ye nameless shapes, that oft are seen 
 To sail along the frowning steep, 
 
 Through which, at solemn Ijour serene, 
 The winds with hollow murmur sweep I 
 
 6. 
 
 —By these inspired, oh let me stray- 
 Through the dark forest's deepest gloom. 
 
 Where the wild tints of dying day 
 Even now the trembling leaves illume. 
 
 7. 
 Environ'd thus with shadowy bliss, 
 
 Be mine a wild-flower wreath to wind : 
 The " mind " the poet's « kingdom is," 
 
 A " kingdom" wide and unconfined. 
 
 But enough of these infantine dreams 
 of poetry. I was destined ere long to ac- 
 10
 
 97 
 
 quire new ideas, and new principles of 
 thought and action. — It was not till I had 
 in great measure forsaken the works of 
 modern English poets, and addicted my- 
 self to the lofty and peculiar poetry of the 
 Highlanders, that I acquired any portion 
 of what little strength and originality of 
 character I may since have discovered. To 
 this, I added a passion that daily increa- 
 sed for the works of the earlier English 
 authors, with which I have already hinted 
 that the family library was stored. But 
 indeed it was not till a distant era, when 
 I read some of the first productions of 
 Scott, the " Glenfinlas'' and " Eve of St 
 John," that I became inspired with the 
 enthusiastic and unquenchable desire of 
 becoming myself a poet, and of acquiring 
 
 VOL, I. E
 
 9S 
 
 ilterary glory. At the very early period, 
 however, already described, there was in- 
 sensibly formed within my mind an in- 
 separable connection between the intel- 
 lectual and material world ; a perpetual 
 association of all my ideas and actions, 
 with some aspect of the sky, and some 
 favourite track of mountain scenery. I 
 could not then pause to look narrowly 
 into my own mind, nor was I skilled 
 enough to comprehend its peculiar situa- 
 tion. To those deeply-rooted associations, 
 however, to those indissoluble ties which 
 arose within me, are unquestionably ow- 
 ing the most prominent features of my 
 subsequent character. To this moment, 
 their influence is as perceptible and pre- 
 dominant as ever.
 
 99 
 
 It was not merely the modern poetry 
 of my own choke that I perused in my 
 rambles through the woods. I carried 
 thither many of the Greek and Roman 
 classics, that were prescribed to me by 
 my tutor ; and I now feel, that, while I 
 can no longer recall the beauties of those 
 authors, which I perused only in his pre- 
 sence, those which were my associates in 
 the fields and groves, and which I used to 
 read aloud to the dashing water-fall, are 
 vividly imprinted on my remembrance. 
 But this turn of mind has been followed by 
 consequences more important and more 
 singular, I know that it has been the 
 origin of my future woes and disappoint- 
 ments. All my ideas were derived from, 
 and associated with, the features of the
 
 100 
 
 sublime sceneiy around me. This, with 
 the assistance of novels, romances, and 
 poetry, led me to form a false and too 
 flattering estimate of human life. All the 
 blissful visions, which poets impute to the 
 period of youth and innocence, were by 
 me ;realized. Even now I cannot with- 
 out emotion reflect on the unmixed hap- 
 piness which I then enjoyed. Notwith- 
 standing my passion for retirement, I can- 
 not, when talking of a country life, use 
 the words of Cowper : 
 
 " I never framed a wish, nor formed a plan 
 That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss. 
 But here I laid the scene ;" 
 
 for, having been told that it was most 
 commendable to follow some profession.
 
 101 
 
 I conquered in. idea every obstacle, and 
 established my abode in cities, amid the 
 " hum of men,'* with as little difficulty as 
 I had before entered the court of the fairy 
 queen, or quaffed ale along with warriors 
 in the hall of Odin. The pictures that I 
 drew of future employment and distinction 
 were illuminated by a " sort of purple 
 light." Every obstacle to success ; every 
 cause for apprehension, disappointment, 
 and disgust, were concealed from obser- 
 vation ; for indeed of such obstacles I had 
 not framed even a distant idea. As my 
 mind gradually obtained some degree of 
 vigour ; and, more particularly, as soon 
 as I became addicted to the perusal of 
 black-letter chronicles, and the study of 
 Gaelic poetry and legend, I delighted to
 
 102 
 
 conquer in Imagination those evils of life 
 with which books had made me acquaint- 
 ed. They fled before my invincible prow- 
 ess, like the morning mist from the sun- 
 beams. I had yet to learn, that the most 
 depressing evils which await a feeling and 
 unsophisticated mind, on its first inter- 
 course with the world, far less frequently 
 arise from the blows of adversity, and the 
 vicissitudes of fortune, than from certain 
 undefined sensations of disappointment 
 and disgust, which in the rude intercourse 
 of ordinary society must ever assail an in- 
 dividual who lives under the influence of 
 that mimosa sensibility, produced by se- 
 clusion and a poetic imagination. I knew 
 not that, though surrounded by multi- 
 tudes, I should feel myself in solitude,—
 
 103 
 
 but in a solitude where no longer moun- 
 tains, forests, and rivers, or songs of birds, 
 or calmness and peace, awoke imagery 
 of rapture,— where I felt myself indeed 
 alone, because I met not with one conge- 
 nial mind, and was agonized by disap- 
 pointment, and overpowered by disgust, 
 at the folly and wickedness that seemed 
 every where to surround me. I had yet 
 to learn in how little estimation the dig- 
 nity of the literary character is held by 
 those who act their parts in the great 
 world, and are busied in the pursuits of 
 ordinary ambition. — In thus alluding to 
 the influence acquired over my mind by 
 the scenery of Nature, I cannot help ap- 
 plying to myself the words of the poet j
 
 104 
 
 " Though absent long, 
 Those forms of beauty have not been to me 
 As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : 
 But oft, in lonely rooms, amid the din 
 Of towns and cities, I have owed to tliem# 
 In hours of weariness, sensations sweet. 
 Felt in the blood, and felt along the hearty 
 And passing even into my purer mind 
 With tranquil restoration. 
 
 ♦« If this 
 
 Be but a vain belief, yet oh how oft, 
 
 In darkness, and amid the many shapes 
 
 Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir 
 
 Unprofitable, and the fever of the world. 
 
 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart 5 
 
 How. oft in spirit have I turn'd to thee. 
 
 Oh sylvan Wye ! thou wanderer through the woods. 
 
 How often has my spirit turn'd to thee !" 
 
 JVordstvorih.
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Oh there's nothing half so sweet in life 
 As love's young dream ! 
 
 Moore, 
 
 It was in the month of April, in my 
 seventeenth year, that my father proposed 
 to carry me through England, and after- 
 wards to take . advantage of the recent 
 peace with France, for it was in the year 
 1802, to exhibit to me the wonders of the 
 continent. This was a memorable era in 
 my life. Notwithstanding all my juvenile 
 anticipations of pleasure from such an ex- 
 cursion, I deeply regretted to leave home. 
 Those who have never lived amid moun- 
 
 E 2,
 
 106 
 
 tains and forests, cannot form an idea of 
 the beauties of the month of April. There 
 is a diversity, a perpetual variety in the 
 scenery of this month, which were pecu- 
 liarly delightful to one of my disposition. 
 
 <* See, in the rear of the warm sunny shower. 
 The visionary boy from shelter fly ! ** 
 
 I had now become identified with the 
 hero of Beattie's inimitable poem. But I 
 knew not the magic of that enchanter, 
 who was afterwards to become my idol, 
 and whose verses, applied to this month, 
 are so beautiful, that they cannot be too 
 often repeated : 
 
 « Like April morning clouds, that pass 
 With varying shadow oVr the grass.
 
 107 
 
 And imitate on field and furrow 
 
 Life*s chequerM scene of joy and sorrow." 
 
 But I had now derived associations suf- 
 ficient from the poetry of Thomson and 
 Brydges, and Beattie and Burns, to love 
 the rainbow and the shower, the floating 
 cloud that rode on the wind, and to watch 
 with enthusiastic rapture the new-born 
 glories of the fragrant woods and enamel- 
 led vales. 
 
 Oh there were dark glens, in which 
 the haunted streams murmured through 
 moss-grown trunks of fantastic oaks, into 
 which the shepherd feared to enter ; for 
 they were the abodes of the Daoine Shich 
 and the Ourisk, In those glens I had my
 
 103 
 
 hours of secret and unutterable enjoy- 
 ment. There bloomed already the snow- 
 white anemone, the saxefrage, and the 
 cuckoo-flower. I thought on the spring 
 tides that were past, — never to return. 
 Oh how I envied the shepherd and his 
 flock, and the grey-haired piper and the 
 visionary bard, that were not to accom- 
 pany us ! — But such details are trite, and 
 such feelings are, in a greater or less 
 degree, common to every young person 
 leaving home for the first time. 
 
 After I had entered my father's car- 
 riage, I sighed to think that I could no 
 longer enjoy the mountains and woods 
 and rivers. I was carried through them 
 on the rough road of a rude and unculti-
 
 109 
 
 vated country. I saw the light and sha- 
 dow varying on the hills, and the partial 
 gleams dancing on the waves of Loch Ow, 
 as we passed through the cavernous and 
 gloomy approach to that magnificent lake^ 
 I leaned out of the carriage, and caught 
 the cool breeze that swept over the sur- 
 face of the water, and sighed heavily to 
 think that my freedom was gone — that I 
 had no longer the power of wandering, 
 " free as the mountain wind," over the 
 heath and through the forest. A settled 
 gloom gradually usurped the place of all 
 my fairy visions. Travelling, even to the 
 rich, is seldom pleasant in Scotland. To 
 me it was insufferable. Under the influ- 
 ence of the most frightful melancholy, I 
 arrived at Edinburgh. Here the scenes
 
 were changed. For once my expectations 
 were exceeded. The charms of that city 
 are peculiar. It has the romantic wild- 
 ness of uncuhivated Nature, blended with 
 magnificent buildings and the elegance of 
 polished life. 
 
 We remained two days at Edinburgh, 
 during which my gloom was in great mea- 
 sure overcome. We visited the theatre, 
 where Mrs Siddons played Lady Macbeth. 
 This astonishing exhibition operated on 
 my feelings with the most oppressive 
 vehemence. I was again in a world of 
 enchantment ; but how different from that 
 which I had quitted ! It is to be observed, 
 that we travelled only in search of amuse- 
 ment. It was impossible for me to escape
 
 Ill 
 
 the gloomy impressions of the journey. 
 But now these were forgotten ; and the 
 disgusting reahtiesof life, which have since 
 had such an influence, were sedulously 
 concealed from view. We had not any 
 thing to do with the grievances of a city 
 life ; with the wickedness, the folly, and 
 the coarseness of ordinary society. We 
 were in search of pleasing impressions, 
 and now began to experience them. 
 
 My father felt with the nonchalance of 
 one who had been accustomed to varieties 
 of life. He could no longer experience 
 surprise and astonishment. He moved 
 calmly through the sphere that had been 
 familiar to him. 
 
 We set off from Edinburgh with spirit-
 
 112 
 
 ed horses. Our retinue was large. We- 
 had two carriages, and now travelled with 
 ease and rapidity. 
 
 ** My old remembrances fled from me wholly." 
 
 Travelling in England is not an evil. 
 I could not but participate in those sensa- 
 tions of pleasure, which every one expe- 
 riences in rapidity of motion, through a 
 civilized and beautiful country, where all 
 is activity, chearfulness, and prosperity. 
 The perpetual change of objects, and the 
 novelty of all, struck forcibly on my 
 fancy. My delight was great. Our mode, 
 in which I was to " see the world,*' was 
 exactly that which was best suited to pro- 
 duce false and exaggerated views of life 5
 
 113 
 
 and without affording opportunity for the 
 study of characters and manners, or in- 
 deed for reality of any kind, should only 
 serve to produce a tumultuous and confu- 
 sed and harassing sense of pleasure, not 
 unmingled with regret ; and afterwards, as 
 in due time it appeared, to add fuel to the 
 flame of a powerful imagination, which 
 represented the world as a paradise of un- 
 mixed delight, and filled with objects for 
 perpetual admiration. 
 
 Our mode of travelling also increased, 
 to an almost incredible degree, that ro. 
 mantic turn of mind which induced me to 
 consider myself born only for the most 
 splendid achievements and elevated plea- 
 sures, — a self-sufficiency and fantastic
 
 114 
 
 pride, which are almost inevitably acqui- 
 red by every youthful recluse, and are 
 not easily banished even by intercourse 
 with the world. But our journey afford- 
 ed not any opportunity for such inter- 
 course. I was alter et idem, I had lost 
 in our tumultuous progress my former 
 feelings ; but I still continued to move in 
 a world of my own, and unrestrained 
 imagination revelled in a thousand chi- 
 meras. By the time we approached Lon- 
 don, 1 fancied myself an experienced tra- 
 veller, — almost a hero, — for having roll- 
 ed through a long track of fine country, 
 in a luxurious equipage, drawn by four 
 horses. Such were the childish dreams 
 of a young man, whose experience was 
 almost infantine*
 
 115 
 
 Whoever should expect from me a de- 
 lineation of the scenes through which I 
 passed, or even of my own emotions and 
 ideas during our travels, would be disap- 
 pointed. The first has been frequently 
 done by other tourists. I am not writing 
 a book of travels, but a few hurried and 
 imperfect sketches of my own mind. Du- 
 ring my residence at London and at Paris, 
 my faculties were too much disordered, 
 and my enjoyments too tumultuous, to 
 leave any distinct and permanent impres^ 
 sion. The time allotted for our travels 
 was too short to enable one of my age 
 and temperament to form any fixed asso- 
 ciations, and principles of action, in place 
 of those which I had lost. The perpetual 
 changes harassed and distracted my per-
 
 116 
 
 ceptions ; and my character, as yet devoid 
 of stability and decision, changed rapidly 
 from one extreme to another, as dliFerent 
 amusements and objects presented them- 
 selves. 
 
 By one of those strange inconsistencies, 
 the cause of which cannot be easily assign- 
 ed, I, who loved the Highlands of Scot- 
 land beyond all other countries in the 
 world, was yet much enchanted with 
 France ; and while all the wonders of 
 Paris courted my admiration, I was yet 
 most pleased with the recollection of the 
 vine-covered cottages, and the perpetual 
 chearfulness of its rural inhabitants. I 
 remember once, owing to an accident 
 which befell our travelling equipage, we
 
 117 
 
 entered for a short time the residence of 
 a retired villager. For many months af- 
 terwards, the charms of his habitation, 
 the elegance of our repast, and the cour- 
 tesy of our host, whose countenance I yet 
 behold as he presented his snuff-box to 
 my father, and yet more the beauty of 
 his daughter, were constantly recurring 
 to my remembrance. 
 
 Harassed by cares, and debilitated as I 
 now am, I have yet a remembrance suffi- 
 ciently clear of my delight at our return- 
 ing once more to Argyleshire in the end 
 of autumn. I yet remember the sweet 
 stillness of the mountain air, and the odour
 
 118 
 
 of the fading leaves In the forest, as our 
 carriage slowly advanced along the hol- 
 low and echoing road that wound under 
 impending precipices, when we approach- 
 ed once more the beloved shores of Loch 
 Ow. I remember with what ecstacy I 
 hailed its waters gleaming through the 
 haze , of autumn; with what exquisite 
 emotions I greeted its wooded isles and 
 mouldering ruins, the region of supersti- 
 tion, poetry, and enchantment. Oh there 
 is no patriotism like that of the High- 
 lander ! Admiration the most passionate 
 of the deeds and glory of his ancestors ; 
 devotion the most ardent to poetry, music, 
 and superstition ; the charms of inex- 
 haustible legend, where varied stores have 
 been preserved unimpaired from the most 
 1
 
 119 
 
 distant ages, — these are the foundation 
 of his national enthusiasm ; and when 
 these are inseparably combined and asso- 
 ciated in the mind with the rocks and 
 ruins and lakes, — with the breezes of his 
 native mountain, and the roar of its ca- 
 taracts, — how fervent is his affection ! 
 
 I remember with what joy I heard again 
 the solitary cry of the falcon from the 
 remote summit of the cliff, and saw the 
 partial gleams of magic light peculiar to 
 autumn resting on the caverned recesses 
 and wooded steeps of BenCruachan. Then 
 mine eye traced them as they fell on dis- 
 tant portions of the beautiful lake, and 
 illuminated afar its opposite shores ; and, 
 above all, how delightful to watch these
 
 120 
 
 enchanting rays shedding their tranquil 
 glories on the hoary ruins of Kilchurn, 
 and on the rocks and wild copsewood of 
 the numerous islands ! But the variegated 
 hues of the tangled thickets, — their sooth- 
 ing yet melancholy odour, — ^who shall de- 
 scribe them to those who never felt their 
 exquisite influence ! and to those who 
 have known them, many words are super- 
 fluous. How brightly glowing the hues 
 of the hazel, stretching forth its fantastic 
 arms from every broken precipice ; ming- 
 ling with the birch, now almost deprived 
 of its leaves, and with the yellow leaves 
 of the oak, that remain till December, 
 and the red foliage of the beech, that de- 
 fies the keenest frost and strongest gale ; 
 mingling too with the glossy fruits of va-
 
 121 
 
 rious hues profusely planted by the hand 
 of Nature, and with the lingering flowers 
 of summer, the spiry hyperlcum and ne- 
 ver-fading heath-bell ! When we ap- 
 proached once more the centre of my 
 father's domain, — when I beheld the well- 
 known scenes, where every object revived 
 the most enchanting associations, — when 
 I heard the red-breast sing on the well- 
 known trees, and saw the wild deer sport- 
 ing on the wooded waste and the sun- 
 beams resting on my favourite cavern, 
 and heard the well-known roar of the 
 water-fall, at once all my long-lost visions 
 revived, and, bursting into tears, I was 
 overwhelmed by a tide of uncontrollable 
 rapture — too exquisite to last. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 122 
 
 The pomp of feudal times had not al- 
 together deserted my father's mansion. 
 Our domestics crowded into the court to 
 receive us. My father retired for a few 
 minutes with his old and confidential stew- 
 ard, who had desired a conference. After 
 running for an instant into the library, 
 only to cast a glance on the scene of my 
 former hours of study and enjoyment, I 
 betook myself to the summit of a neigh- 
 bouring rock, from which I gazed on the 
 distant expanse of ocean, and hailed from 
 afar the venerable walls of Dunstaffnage 
 Castle, whitened by the sun -beams, now 
 streaming almost level with the horizon. 
 
 My tutor had, to my regret, been left 
 at Paris. He told my father, that, by
 
 123 
 
 means of my own attachment to litera- 
 ture, my progress would be insured with- 
 out his attendance ; and, having formed 
 engagements at Paris which he seemed 
 unwilling to break, my father had acqui- 
 esced, with the promise, however, of a 
 visit from him within a year. I was thus 
 in great measure left to the management 
 of my own time and pursuits, which led 
 to various extravagancies. 
 
 Of the next three months there are 
 not many traces now left on my remem- 
 brance. Autumn was soon past j and 
 winter happened that year to commence 
 very early. I loved winter. I well re- 
 member, on her dark and louring days, 
 to have pursued my forest rambles with
 
 ?24 
 
 more than ordinary earnestness. The fa- 
 ding verdure, the grey and watery sky, 
 the gloomy heath, and the lake, whose 
 waters reflected the darkness of the sky, 
 were dear to me. Of the many singular 
 caverns which are found in the moun- 
 tains of Argyleshire, there was one which 
 had long before become my favourite 
 retreat. A flight of steps, if steps they 
 might be called, which could only be as- 
 cended by grasping the hazel, the dwarf- 
 birch, and the fern, led to a small and 
 concealed entrance of the cave, known 
 only to myself and one or two shepherds. 
 In winter, by a singular operation of Na- 
 ture, the great entrance, which appeared 
 in the front of the clift', and which, to an 
 ordinary observer, seemed the only one,
 
 125 
 
 was frequently rendered impassable alike 
 to the foot of man, and that of the wildest 
 mountain quadruped, by a cataract of stu- 
 pendous height and uncontrollable fury, 
 to the roar of whose waters I delighted 
 to listen. Every cave, every lake, every 
 stream, almost every withered tree in the 
 Scottish Highlands, is connected, in the 
 minds of the natives, with some legendajry 
 tale. This was known simply as King 
 Robert's Cave, as it had afforded to him 
 a shelter before the battle of Ben C.rua- 
 chan and the taking of DunstafFnage. 
 Frequently I meditated on the character 
 and splendid achievements of that hero ; 
 but more frequently remained lost in re- 
 verie,— a state in which ideas pass dimly 
 and indistinctly over the mind, producing
 
 126 
 
 exquisite enjoyment, but vanishing almost 
 as soon as they arise, without leaving a 
 trace behind^ 
 
 My father's health had not been im- 
 proved, but rather impaired, by our rapid 
 tour; and his illness cast a gloom over 
 the pleasures of the winter. The return 
 of spring renovated his health and my 
 lofty hopes. A new era in my life was 
 about to commence, — a transitory era of 
 enchantment, which all the influence of 
 succeeding misfortunes cannot force me 
 to contemplate with coldness. 
 
 In describing our return, I ought to 
 have mentioned a cuxumstance which 
 made a strong impression on my fancy.
 
 327 
 
 There was a beautiful spot on the shores 
 of Loch Ow, distinguished by the ruins 
 of a small monastic building ; and as it 
 was easy of access by a winding path, my 
 father, though it was not included in his 
 own property, had often visited it, and 
 pointed it out tp me as an enchanting si- 
 tuation for a sheal or hunting seat. On 
 our passing this favourite spot on our re- 
 turn, we were much surprised to see a 
 beautiful modern building reared, as if 
 by enchantment, and in which the moul- 
 dering arches of the monastery had, with 
 the best characteristics of modern taste, 
 been preserved and incorporated with the 
 new structure, which was Gothic, and in- 
 tended to be a representation of what the 
 .monastery had been in its original state.
 
 12S 
 
 Such an attempt had excited no little won- 
 der and applause in our neighbourhood. 
 The scientific skill of the workmen had, 
 in the short space of one season, produced 
 a magical effect. Already were the inte- 
 rior decorations in forwardness. Large 
 fires had been employed to dry the walls j 
 and now the painted glass for the case- 
 ments, and ornaments of the apartments 
 had arrived, and were to be arranged 
 during the winter. 
 
 With a fancy always ready to be ex- 
 cited by every thing new and splendid, 
 especially by what flattered my love of 
 antiquity and all my favourite opinions, I 
 soon pictured to myself a character of the 
 most magical fascination for the inhabi-
 
 129 
 
 tant of such a mansion ; and in a short 
 tfme believed, that here must be realized 
 all that I had read or dreamed of the 
 painted bowers of romance, the temples 
 and grottos of Elysian gardens. When I 
 was told that the author of these wonder- 
 ful changes was a young and beautiful 
 female of high rank, I immediately drew 
 a portrait, illuminated with all the bright^ 
 est hues that gild the visions of the poet 
 *^ on summer eve by haunted stream.'* 
 
 As the spring advanced, these thoughts 
 acquired new force and colouring. The 
 neighbourhood were in stupid amazement 
 at the accounts which were circulated of 
 the singular decorations of this abode, 
 and the still more wonderful f(iscinatiou& * 
 f2
 
 ISO 
 
 ©f its owner, who was expected to visit 
 the Priory on the following summer. In- 
 creased by reading, my passion for poetry 
 now acquired a full ascendancy. My 
 friend, the French priest, was no longer 
 present to interrupt that course of read- 
 ing which I had chosen for myself. Black- 
 letter chronicles and romances, with all 
 the English poetry and novels that I could 
 discover, were my favourites. About thi& 
 time, when I began to awaken from my 
 state of comparative lethargy, I wrote 
 many verses. The following poor frag- 
 ment is all I can at present call to mind : 
 * * # 
 
 X*ike the pale maniac, on whose wilder'd brain 
 The light of joy and reason breaks anew, 
 
 Who hears affection's voice, and breathes again 
 Spring's balmy gale, wafted the forest through^
 
 131 
 
 Each flovver beloved in youth I fondly greet ; 
 
 Drink the fresh spirit of the yellow broom ; 
 The hoary hawthorn's rising fragrance meet. 
 
 And watch the gleams of morn the groves illume, 
 
 —Here shall I tread again the flowery maze, 
 And eager hail the wonders of romance ; 
 
 Perchance, ere yet the twilight of my days, 
 On me the Muse may cast a favouring glance, 
 
 I would not like those early blossoms fade. 
 That now, alas I on yonder bough expire ; 
 
 Or like the daffodils, recline the head, 
 Nor leave one living record of the lyre. 
 
 My imagination was now perpetually 
 fed by the reports circulated through the 
 country, of the splendid ornaments of the 
 Priory Cottage, and the wonderful cha- 
 racter of her who was to reside in it*
 
 132 
 
 Curiosity is not the prevailing character, 
 istic of Highlanders ; yet there were some 
 individuals who circulated the news of 
 the arrival of almost every picture, and 
 attempted to describe the scenery of each 
 apartment j — I may well say attempted to 
 describe, — for no one understood what he 
 talked of. Nor could I boast of the skill 
 of a connoiseur ; but my fancy, on those 
 meagre and bungling outlines, formed pic- 
 tures of the most exquisite beauty. At 
 first, the vision that I had framed of the 
 mighty enchantress of these magic decora- 
 tions, though beautiful, was, inaccurately 
 defined 5 and while I strove to detain it, 
 it melted from my gaze like the morning 
 cloud. By degrees, however, it became 
 distinct and vivid. My walks were no
 
 133 
 
 longer lonely. I had wished for some 
 one to participate with me the raptures I 
 enjoyed. My object was attained. I fled 
 to the woods and rivers to meet a com- 
 panion, who shared with me their beauty 
 and their rapturous influence. Amid the 
 fading glow of twilight, when the white 
 vapours rose from the kke, and huiig on 
 the forest, from whose foliage distilled the 
 rich balmy fragrance of summer eve, her 
 form was exquisitely lovely. Her voice 
 was sweeter than the notes of the black- 
 bird and woodlark. I wandered all night 
 through beneath the high cliffs, on which, 
 even at midnight hour, rested the lingering 
 tints of twilight, listening to her tones as 
 they floated on the perfumed gales, and 
 watching the purple light of morn as it 
 7
 
 134r 
 
 reddened the grey summit of the cliff, I 
 became an enthusiastic .lover. 
 
 It was on a fine summer evening, in tfee 
 *month of June, that I had gone to con- 
 template the twilight on the banks of 
 Loch Ow, White vapours already rolled 
 on the lake, through which were seen the 
 fantastic shapes of the wooded and rocky 
 !sS&ds, by that medium rendered more- 
 wild and gigantic. The balmy influence 
 of a thousand blended odours, distilled 
 •firpm the mountain flowers, and from the 
 
 Q^ndlees forests of weeping birch, (which 
 ^ery where covered those islands and the 
 
 eighbouring mountains, dipping their
 
 IBS 
 
 long ringlets into the water, and waving 
 -with every zephyr,) was exquisitely de- 
 lightful. On every side, the thrush and 
 blackbird vied in waking the song of ec- 
 stacy. On the venerable ruins of Kil- 
 churn, overhung by rocks, had descended 
 the dark shadows of night; but in the 
 western skies yet lingered hues of unutter- 
 able glory. The mountain summits, gay 
 with the purple heath-bell, shone with 
 a double red ; and through a break in the 
 cliffs streamed a long line of purple light, 
 gradually softening into amber on the 
 wide waters of the lake. The scenery ^hd 
 the season were such as are described in 
 the following stanza ;— and if there lives 
 a reader who can peruse that stanza with 
 apathy, defend me from his society ! and 
 
 ■^'
 
 136 
 
 may he have wisdom enough to shut my 
 book, and throw it, if he pleases, into the 
 fire ! His disapprobation will be welcome* 
 
 " Harp of the North, farewell ! The hills grow dark. 
 
 On purple peaks a deeper shade descending ; 
 In twilight copse the glow«worm lights her spark* ; 
 
 The deer, half seen, are to the covert wending. 
 Resume. thy wizard elm, the fountain lending, 
 
 And the wild breeze? thy wilder minstrelsy-— 
 Thy numbers sweet with Nature's vespers blending, 
 
 With distant echoes from the fold and lea, 
 The herd boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing 
 bee." 
 
 While I watched this lovely scene, a 
 voice sweeter than those of the woodland 
 songsters was heard, like the effect of en- 
 chantment, from the grey and dusky ruins.
 
 137 
 
 The music was such as I had never be- 
 fore heard, except once, when, during 
 our travels, we attended an opera in Lon- 
 don ; and not even then did I hear any 
 thing equal to this. Here it seemed the 
 thrilling complaints of an exquisite soul 
 fraught with sensibility, pouring forth 
 tones of the most melancholy sweetness. 
 Entranced, breathless I listened, not da- 
 ring to move till the strain had ceased. 
 It was past, and the last mournful vibra- 
 tion of an accompanying harp had die4 in 
 the gale, when I rushed forward to the 
 ruins to investigate the cause of this phe- 
 nomenon ; for I had little doubt that the 
 music was unearthly. Lik^ the shepherd 
 in Milton, I said,
 
 138 
 
 *< Can any mortal creature of earth's mould 
 Breathe such enchanting, divine ravishment ?" 
 
 There was a boat fastened to a tree. 
 I cut the cord, and rowed myself to the 
 •small island of Kilchurn. When I enter- 
 red the Gothic arch of the outer gate- 
 way, all was hushed, and I hasted on 
 through the mouldering apartments, but 
 .found no one. As I looked through a 
 Joop-hole in the opposite side of the build- 
 ing, I caught a transient glance of a figure 
 floating amid the groves, along a sort of 
 4^ra!Qe, on tfee ^rocky shore of the lake^ 
 :Snd I then knew the music had been in 
 ^uch a manner reverberated from the 
 cliffs, that it had only appeared to proceed
 
 1S9 
 
 from the ruins, but had in reality arisen 
 from the main land. I returned instant, 
 ly ; lodged the boat on a bank of sand ; 
 and when I ascended the terrace, I was 
 met by a form of the most exquisite grace 
 and loveliness, followed by another female 
 bearing a harp. At once I was struck by 
 the conviction that this was Lady L j 
 
 and as the glow of evening, that yet linger- 
 ed on the scenes, revealed her illuminated 
 countenance, which the painter might have 
 copied as a model of beauty, beheld for an 
 instant the fire that glittered in her eye, 
 and the seraphic smile that played on her 
 lips. I felt that all my anticipations were 
 realized, my wildest visions converted into 
 reality. — She was gone, — but the balmy 
 air had gained, new fragrance from her
 
 V 
 
 S 
 
 140 
 
 presence j — the scenes were illuminated 
 with new light ; — I gazed on a " new 
 heaven and a new earth/* I threw my- 
 self on the ground^ and burst into a pas- 
 sion of tears. 
 
 To my inexpressible grief and mortifi- 
 cation, I soon after heard that Lady L 
 
 had left the Priory, and set out on a tour 
 to the English lakes. It was understood 
 that she had found the plan and decora- 
 tions of her new residence insufficient, and 
 had given ordersforfarther improvements.
 
 141 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Oh, Nature ! how in every charm supreme I 
 Whose votaries Feast on raptures ever new I 
 
 Beattk. 
 
 In the month of July a new turn was 
 given to my pursuits, by the perusal 
 of Walter Scott's " Minstrelsy of the 
 Scottish Border," just then published. 
 With what exquisite pleasure I contem- 
 plated this production, let those only at- 
 tempt to conceive who have felt in their 
 fullest extent the powers of genuine poe- 
 try. How many hours of rapture have I 
 spent in merely gazing on the frontispiece
 
 14« 
 
 of the first volume, which I compared 
 with the towers of Ealchurn, Dunstaff- 
 nage, and more especially with an old 
 ruin in our neighbourhood, still wilder, 
 if possible, than either of these, while I 
 recalled the exquisite beauty of the poe- 
 try. The " Eve of St John" rendered 
 me a votary of the most gloomy supersti- 
 tion. I was horror-struck ; yet the witch- 
 ery of poetic spells obliged me to peruse 
 the ballad over and over again, till every 
 line was indelibly fixed in the memory. 
 But what words can describe my ecstacy 
 on the perusal of " Glenfinlas !" A new 
 train of thoughts, a new species of pur- 
 suit, now invited my attention, and roused 
 my whole faculties. I woke as from a 
 dream. I had lived in the land of song,
 
 143 
 
 in the region of enchantment, and yet 
 had not cultivated its legendary treasures, 
 and the inestimable remains of its poetry. 
 
 New splendours seemed to invest every 
 object. The features of every scene as- 
 sumed new and more interesting forms. 
 Few persons are aware of the inexhaust- 
 ible stores of amusement and information 
 to be derived from the legendary tales of 
 the Highlanders and the remnants of their 
 poetry. I resolved to devote myself to 
 this pursuit, and I spent the remainder of 
 summer in the most delightful paroxysm 
 of poetic enthusiasm. I did not, how- 
 ever, lose my fondness for old English 
 literature ; and finding, from one of the 
 narratives with which I was supplied by
 
 144 
 
 a venerable bard, that an old ruin in our 
 vicinity had been built by a lady, when 
 her husband, one of my ancestors, was 
 engaged in the Crusades, with what ec- 
 stacy did I peruse every chronicle and 
 romance relating to the period of those 
 achievements, attaching myself chiefly to 
 the character of the immortal Richard, 
 on whose adventures I meditated for whole 
 days, shaded from the heat of the sun by 
 the mouldering walls of the ruin ! 
 
 The summer season in the Highland 
 vallies is always very sultry ; so that I 
 was precluded for some time from making 
 long excursions. But on the arrival of 
 autumn, when the mild chearfulness of 
 all Nature awoke new energies, and gave
 
 145 
 
 strength to passion, I resolved that I would 
 visit the scenery described in the ballad 
 of « Glenfinlas/' 
 
 In no country can the beauties of that 
 most enchanting of all seasons be con- 
 templated to such advantage as in the 
 Highlands of Scotland. The canopy of 
 her boundless forests, variegated with ten 
 thousand hues, and extended over the 
 rocky sides of the mountain and island, 
 presents the most exquisite charms to the 
 painter and poet. There is something 
 inexpressibly awful added to the deep 
 stillness peculiar to the season by the 
 majestic grandeur of rocks and precipices, 
 from whose aerial summits, inaccessible 
 to the foot of man, is heard the solitary 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 146 
 
 voice of the falcon ; the recollection of 
 whose note never fails to recall scenery 
 of the most desolate grandeur. No earth- 
 ly intruder can here interrupt the free- 
 dom of solitary contemplation. The poet 
 is left alone with God and Nature ; and 
 while from the summit of the cliff he 
 surveys the wide expanse of the low- 
 lands, the lakes glittering in the sun, 
 the " hamlets grey, and dim-discovered 
 spires," the meandering streams glancing 
 through the dark coverts of the forest, 
 he feels, in all its purity and force, the 
 truth of the sentiment, that in such a 
 country mere existence is ecstacy j and 
 that he who possesses the means of pre- 
 serving life and health, has little else to 
 wish for.
 
 147 
 
 *< I care not, Fortune, what you me deny : 
 
 You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace ; 
 You cannot shut the windows of the sky. 
 
 Through which Aurora shews her brightening 
 face ; 
 You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
 
 The woods and lawns by living streams at eve. 
 Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
 
 And I their toys to the great children leave ; 
 Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, nought can me bereave." 
 
 Animated by these sentiments,, inspired 
 by the magic influence of autumn, and 
 the new ideas gleaned from the poetry of 
 Scojt, I absented myself a week from my 
 native forests, to visit the track of scenery 
 described in " Glenfinlas,'* and which 
 has since been celebrated in the " Lady 
 of the Lake/'
 
 148 
 
 Passing through Strathfilian, I paused 
 for some time on the romantic shores of 
 Loch Dochart, admiring the lake and its 
 mouldering fortress. The magnificence 
 and variety of Loch Erne excited keen 
 emotions ; — ^but to one who has been ac- 
 customed to the matchless and awful en- 
 chantments of Loch Ow, almost all other 
 scenery becomes tame in comparison. 
 
 Having quitted Loch Erne head before 
 day-break, I proceeded to Loch Lubn^ig. 
 When I came within sight of the lake, 
 the white mists of morning were yet ling- 
 ering on its waters, and were rolled in 
 beautiful wreaths round the rocky sum-
 
 149 
 
 mit of Ben Ledi. The redbreast alone 
 broke the deep stillness, as he carolled 
 blithely on the boughs of the weeping 
 birch his matin song, — and his notes 
 awoke in my breast long-lost feelings of 
 unutterable joy ; for I thought on the 
 sunny days when I first learned to love 
 the beauties of autumn. Sometimes, in- 
 deed, the scream of the bittern and the 
 falcon deepened the solemnity of the still- 
 ness, and added by their contrast to the 
 sweetness of the redbreast's song. 
 
 As I advanced, the red light of morn- 
 ing began to gleam through the white 
 fogs that rolled through Strath-Ire j and 
 as 1 reached the chapel of St Bride, the 
 brightening tints shone on the rocky ca-
 
 150 
 
 verns and lofty peaks of Ben Ledi ; and, 
 looking back, I saw them redden the 
 stupendous forehead of Craigna-coheilg, 
 The still air of an autumnal morn was im. 
 pregnated v/ith the most exquisite odours 
 from the birch trees, that " waved and 
 wept^' on the round hill above the cha- 
 pel, of which celebrated sanctuary only 
 the walls now remain. A few cottages, 
 beautifully situated, attracted my atten- 
 tion, and, having walked the whole length 
 of Loch Lubnaig, which is nearly five 
 miles, I entered one of them as soon as 
 the smoke from the chimney apprized me 
 that the family were awake. I was for- 
 tunate in my choice of the cottage ; for 
 it was the residence of a bard.
 
 151 
 
 Impatient to proceed, I left the old 
 man's cottage, and entered the Pass of 
 Lennle. The tranquil glories of an au- 
 tumnal sun now shed their most inspiring 
 influence over the scenes. I was not one 
 of the cold-hearted, who can meet such 
 an influence without emotion, who can 
 waste the autumn day, which ought to 
 be sacred to heavenly contemplation, in 
 the trivial and unfeeling pursuits of the 
 sportsman. As I met one or two indivi- 
 duals of this class, I remembered some 
 lines that I had written in my first years 
 of poetic enjoyment.
 
 152 
 
 There are who view the rising morn 
 ■ With purple ray the hills adorn ; 
 There are who mark the glow of heaveoj,. 
 And all the enchanting gleams of even ; 
 And yet, alas ! no transport meet, 
 No rapture in the scenery sweet. 
 But thou * hast taught me to descry 
 In every path new ecstacy ; 
 There seenis a visionary light 
 Thrown on each object of my sights 
 In every summer breath that blows, 
 The tide of inspiration flows ; 
 The flocks and waving pastures fair, 
 That wanton in the vernal air ; 
 The village spire but dimly seen. 
 With many a shadowy grove between 5, 
 The trembling tints of dying day. 
 That on^ie river's bosom play ; 
 
 * Addressed " to the- Muse/*
 
 155 
 
 The mists of night, that slowly sail 
 Through the damp wood and lowly vale ;- 
 All wake for me enchantments new^. 
 That meet no other mortal's view. 
 
 But all remembrances, and indeed all 
 distinct ideas of every kind, were lost in 
 rapture as I reached the middle of the 
 pass, where stupendous cliffs covered with 
 wood almost closed together. 
 
 Till, as shut out from all the world 
 By rocks in wild disorder hurPd, 
 The chasm's rough jaws at length appear 
 Like an impregnable barrier. 
 
 As I heard the roar of the cataract, 
 and saw the white spray glittering in the 
 G 2
 
 154 
 
 sun, and traced the windings of the river 
 as it rolled on through the Moor of 
 Bochastle, and was seen at a distance of 
 even thirty miles gleaming in the distant 
 landscape, through which the eye de- 
 lighted to wander, and marked afar the 
 embattled rocks of Stirling, and theMoun- 
 tain Dunmyat dwindled to an inconsider- 
 able eminence, my rapture became un- 
 governable and oppressive, I had all 
 my life lived in the midst of magnificent 
 scenery ; yet it seemed as if now for the 
 first time I had become truly awake to 
 poetic impulse. I determined to curb my 
 impatience to visit Glenfinlas and Loch 
 Katrine, and to husband the pleasures 
 that were before me. I therefore spent 
 the whole day in the Pass of Lennie.
 
 I descended to the bed of the river, and 
 looked up at the cataract. Lost in a de- 
 lirium of pleasure, I took no note of time. 
 I plucked autumnal flowers from the clefts 
 of the rock, and wove them into garlands. 
 I ascended the caverns and glens in the 
 front of Ben Ledi. I would have even at- 
 tempted to reach the summit ; but I fear- 
 ed lest an exhaustion of bodily strength 
 should deprive me of the mental energy 
 I so much wished to cherish. When the 
 glories of the sun, now approaching the 
 horizon, warned me that the day was near 
 a close, I proceeded on my way to Callan- 
 der, which I did not reach till sunset.
 
 156 
 
 The beauty of the next morning being 
 most inviting, I resolved to visit the Bridge 
 of Bracklynn ; and at an early hour, be- 
 fore the white vapours had dispersed, I 
 ascended the Craig of Callander. And 
 here what a scene awaited me ! How ex- 
 quisitely beautiful to see the varied land- 
 scape emerge through the mists of night, 
 in all the " dewy brilliance" of an autum- 
 nal morn, — when frosts yet hang on the 
 grass and on the yellow fading leaves^ 
 and the air has all the cool, tempered sere- 
 nity that imparts its coolness to the fevered 
 brow, and its serenity to an agitated mind ! 
 Even at this moment, though I write in 
 a state of extreme depression and weak- 
 ness, the scene is vividly recalled to me.
 
 157 
 
 *< It was the dawn of an autumn day I 
 The sun was struggling with frost-fog grey, 
 That like a silvery crape was spread 
 Round Glaramara*s distant head." * 
 
 What ecstacy to trace the meanderings 
 of the Teith through the plain of Bochas- 
 tle, — through the ornamented grounds 
 of the Camp, — through the pine-tree fo- 
 rests of Cambusmore ! — to follow its sil- 
 very current, glittering in the sun*s daz- 
 zling sheen, till it washes the venerable 
 and romantic walls of Doune Castle, and 
 afar to mark the towered ramparts of 
 Stirling, which reminded me of the first 
 view I had enjoyed of Edinburgh the pre- 
 ceding year. " Oh for the voice and fire 
 
 * Vision of Triermain.— See the Edinburgh An- 
 nual Register for 1809.
 
 16S 
 
 of seraphim,'^ to preserve and impart the 
 influence of such a scene ! How forcibly 
 It reminded me of Beattie's exquisite pic- 
 tures, drawn, as I have since understood, 
 from the summit of a bleak hill in Kin- 
 cardineshire ! * 
 
 * But to a true poet, fine scenery is not essen- 
 tial to excite the fire of his genius. Walter Scott 
 has observed of himself, 
 
 <* Though no broad river swept along 
 To claim perchance heroic song ; 
 Though sigh'd no groves in summer gale 
 To prompt of love a softer tale ; 
 Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed 
 Claim'd homage from a shepherd's reed ; 
 Yet was poetic impulse given 
 By the green earth and clear blue heavenJ' 
 
 And in the last melancholy letter which winds up 
 that painfully affecting tragedy, Hayley's *' Life
 
 159 
 
 *' And oft the craggy clifF he loved to climb, 
 
 When all in mist the world below was lost ; 
 What dreadful pleasure there to stand sublime. 
 
 Like shipwreckM mariner on desart coast, 
 And view the enormous waste of vapours tost 
 
 In billows lengthening to the horizon round. 
 Now scoopM in gulphs, in mountains now emboss'd. 
 
 And hear the voice of mirth and joy rebound. 
 Flocks, herds, and water-falls, along the hoar pro- 
 found!'' 
 
 As I advanced, every step brought me 
 into the presence of new charms, and 
 awoke new ecstacy. I resigned myself to 
 
 of Cowper," the poet observes, — " The country 
 that you have had in prospect has always been ad- 
 mired for its beauties ; but the wretch who can de- 
 rive no gratification from a view of Nature, even 
 under the disadvantages of her most ordinary dress, 
 will have no eye to admire her in any.*'
 
 160 
 
 delirium, and followed the foot-path thatr 
 led across the heath, till the roar of the 
 cataract made me look round, expecting 
 to behold the streams that produced it : 
 butthey were yet invisible 5 and I had to 
 proceed for half a mile further, during, 
 which the sounds grew gradually louder, 
 and raised my imagination to the highest 
 pitch, ere I entered the deep and rugged 
 ravine. I had seen many cataracts more 
 worthy of admiration in Argyleshire ; but 
 this did not prevent me from now feeling 
 a degree of delight which I never before 
 experienced. 
 
 I remember, after crossing the bridge, ^ 
 my attention was attracted by what I little 
 expected to meet in such a solitude, at
 
 161 
 
 this early hour, — a human figure. It was 
 that of a young man, reclming on a wild 
 promontory of the wooded cliff. His vi- 
 sage was agitated and forbidding ; his 
 whole appearance squalid and unpleasing. 
 He seemed labouring under the keenest 
 emotions, and cast wild looks on the 
 scenery. Perceiving my approach, he 
 started up, as if disgusted by the sight of 
 a human being, and instantly disappear- 
 ed. Following the path, I perceived, on 
 the part^^ of the bank which he had just 
 quitted, a paper, containing the following 
 lines, written with a pencil, and scarcely 
 legible:. 
 
 « There was a time, when I have thought 
 I could not meet thy tempered rar,.
 
 162 
 
 Fair autumn ! but, each care forgot, 
 The gleams of joy would round me play. 
 
 There was a time, when every leaf 
 That trembled on the rustling bough, 
 
 Could chase the fleeting form of grief, 
 And bid enchantments rise,— but noiv. 
 
 Behold me in these woods astray. 
 While all the glow of morning skies 
 
 Is gleaming on my lonely way, 
 That through majestic scenery lies ; 
 
 With fever'd pulse, and tortured bri^in, 
 Wearied and slow the path pursue, 
 
 Where, gleaming on each grove and plain, 
 Autumnal glories meet the view ; 
 
 And where, in Nature's genuine pride, 
 Lakes dance, and foaming cataracts roar, 
 
 And the high mountain's rocky side 
 Is seen with moss and lichens hoar t
 
 163 
 
 Oh, Nature ! lovely as thou art, 
 
 In " all thy varying shews and forms,'* 
 
 To me those scenes cannot impart 
 
 The kindling gleam of joy that warmi 
 
 Mine inmost heart, whene'er I view 
 
 The shades where fled my youthful hours, 
 
 And where, the peaceful woodlands through, 
 North Esk his glittering current pours. 
 
 Then fled the days of infancy ; 
 
 And every object calls to mind 
 The days when it was ecstacy 
 
 The heath-bell into wreaths to bind. 
 
 Full many a visionary sight 
 
 Has charm'd my summer hours away ; 
 And heavenly tones, at dead of night, 
 
 Have raised on high the choral lay ! 
 
 Those days have fled j their dreams are o'er* 
 Or lost in wild disorder lie,
 
 Like the fair-n leaves that drive before 
 The tempest of a wintry sky.'* 
 
 On returning to Callander, I found 
 myself so much fatigued by the morning's 
 excursion, that I determined not to pro- 
 ceed immediately to Loch Katrine. I wan- 
 dered, therefore, through the beautiful 
 environs of the village, visiting the Roman 
 Gamp and the Minister's Manse. To the 
 latter, I had a letter of recommendation 
 from my father, of which, however, I did 
 not avail myself. As the sun again ver- 
 ged to the horizon, inspired by the loveli- 
 ness of the weather, I ascended once more 
 the hills above Callander, that I might 
 enjoy the prospect at the corner of the
 
 16.5 
 
 larch wood, mentioned m Dr Grahame's 
 " Sketches descriptive of Scenery in 
 Perthshire," and watch the light of an 
 evening sun gleaming on the wide lake of 
 Vennachar. The white haze, peculiar to 
 the atmosphere in autumn, added to the 
 glories of the scene. I remained for a 
 long time lost in admiration, and antici- 
 pating the pleasures that invited me in 
 my progress along its shores the follow- 
 ing day. 
 
 Of all seasons of the year, the best for 
 making long excursions certainly is that 
 of autumn J for then the weather, that 
 has once commenced fine, generally con- 
 tinues so^for many weeks. Thus it hap- 
 pened in the present instance j and next 
 1
 
 166 
 
 morning, ordering my horses, I proceed- 
 ed through the forest of Collehallan, on 
 my way to Glenfinlas and Loch Katrine. 
 I remembered that I was advancing to 
 the land of enchantment which had given 
 birth to Scott's inestimable ballad ; and 
 though I had left, if possible, yet grander 
 ' and more varied scenery in my native ter- 
 ritory, yet the associations derived from 
 genuine poetry rendered this still more 
 interesting than the haunts of my youth. 
 The season described by Mr Scott is that 
 of summer ; but as I rode through the 
 forest, and breathed the fresh odour of 
 the fading leaves, and saw the dews of 
 night yet resting on herb and flower, I 
 was irresistibly led to repeat the beautiful 
 stanza^—
 
 167 
 
 *< Soft fell the night, the sky was cahn. 
 When three successive days had flown ; 
 
 And summer mist in dewy balm 
 
 Sttep'd heathy bank and mossy stone." 
 
 Thus it happens that, to a poetic imagi-i 
 nation, a single idea, or the most simple 
 object, awakens a train of imagery. The 
 dew of an autumnal morn led me to the 
 contemplation of a moon-light landscape 
 in a summer eve. 
 
 But all remembrances were lost in 
 kindling rapture, when, emerging from 
 the wood, and approaching the ford of 
 Coileantogle, the glories of Loch Venna* 
 char burst on my view. In the prospect 
 now there was little or no wood; but 
 over the country was spread luxuriant
 
 168 
 
 heath, from whose lingering flowers were 
 exhaled sweet odours. The lake slept 
 beneath the tranquil light of autumn. 
 Not a breeze waved the mountaiii fern, 
 that extended its " fingery leaves'* from 
 the clefts of the grey rock. The revelry 
 of the reaper at this early hour had not 
 begun, and not a voice interrupted the 
 stillness. Calm and pure, the mountain 
 air refreshed my burning temples. I 
 
 thought of Lady L . I thought how 
 
 much she would have admired such a 
 scene ; and that probably she now en- 
 joyed the sweet influence of autumn amid 
 the English lakes. New raptures await- 
 ed me as I arrived at the beginning of 
 the boundless forest that extends over all 
 these regions of enchantment, so exqui-
 
 169 
 
 sitely described in the " Lady of the 
 Lake.'* I came within sight of Loch 
 Achray. I have always loved that lake. 
 It is small ; but there are ideas of pasto- 
 ral simplicity and comfort and retirement 
 more inseparably connected with it than 
 with the grandeur of Loch Katrine. But 
 indeed, what can be more sublimely grand 
 than the environs of Achray ? The light 
 of the morning sun rested on the grey 
 caverns and wooded ravines of the stu- 
 pendous Ben Venue, and revealed the 
 wild forms of the Trosachs on the oppo- 
 site side of the lake. 
 
 Meeting a reaper going forth with his 
 sickle on his shoulder, I found that I had 
 inadvertently crossed the bridge of Turk, 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 170 
 
 and passed by the entrance into Glenfin- 
 las. I therefore returned ; for I had re- 
 solved to husband my stock of pleasure, 
 and visit by degrees the rest of the sce- 
 nery. 
 
 I entered Glenfinlas. The serenity of 
 autumn reigned over the stupendous cliffs 
 and the mountain streams. I was again 
 fortunate in the cottage at which I sought 
 for an asylum. I sent my horses on to 
 Ardcean-a-crochan, on the shores of Ach- 
 ray. I was now amid the haunted scenes 
 described by Scott, and I resigned myself 
 to rapture. My host was a bard, and 
 had endless tales of superstition and war- 
 fare to narrate. Of my feelings and em- 
 ployment during the first day of my re-
 
 171 
 
 sidence here, perhaps the following lines, 
 though very kiadequate, may give a better 
 idea than I couid do in prose : 
 
 1. 
 
 That restless fire was in my breast 
 
 Which haunts my path in solitude, 
 Up the grey mountain's side I prest 
 To seek the cavern's shelter rude ; 
 I twined the heath-bell's lingering flowers ; 
 The light which cheers my lonely hours 
 Was glowing mid the autumnal wood, 
 And charm'd the path of solitude, 
 
 2. 
 
 The mountain air was calm and pure. 
 No sound was through the forest borne. 
 
 Save from afar, on Lowland moor, 
 When rose the voice of hound and horn.
 
 172- 
 
 Through scenes remote and wild I gtray'd, 
 O'er rocky steep and haunted glade ; 
 And when the autumnal .day was done, 
 I rested on a mossy stone. 
 
 3, 
 
 Through broken cliffs and woods afar 
 
 Was seen the twilight's radiance brighC ; 
 And, dear to lovers' eyes, the star 
 
 Of Eve disclosed her silvery light. 
 It was a sad and soothing scene ; 
 A train of cherish'd thoughts serene, 
 Offspring of Fancy, sweetly stole 
 With magic influence on my soul. 
 
 4. 
 
 No murmur broke the rising dream 
 That floated on my ravish'd sight, 
 
 Save when the roar of mountain stream 
 X-oaded the balmy breeze of night 5
 
 173 
 
 Or when the leaves, that yet exhale 
 A dying fragrance in the gale, 
 Borne by the zephyr from on high, 
 Fell rustling on my closed eye. 
 
 5. 
 
 Methought tliat while I gazed on high, 
 
 And vvatch'd declining tints afar, 
 A form seem'd issuing from the sky 
 
 More bright than Eve's refulgent star. 
 I traced its flight o*er Ben Venue ; — 
 More near the glorious vision drew, 
 Till, beaming through the tangled wood. 
 That heavenly shape before me stood. 
 
 6. 
 
 The seraph bore a female form ; 
 
 Light robes of tartan round her flew j
 
 174 
 
 An airy harp hung on her arm, 
 
 Intwined with flowers of various hue, 
 A dazzling glory round her ^hone ; 
 She pointed to the mountains lone, 
 Where grey Glenfinlas lies o'erhung 
 By rocks in wild disorder flung. 
 
 1. 
 <* These are the realms," she said, ^< where long 
 
 Have Ij with guardian care, surveyed 
 The scenes that once awoke the song 
 
 Of bards divine that hither strayM ; 
 The Genius of that land am I, 
 "Where every pine-clad steep on high, 
 Each lonely sheal or ruin grey, 
 Or even the trembhng of a spray. 
 Recalls the marvellous deeds of yore, 
 And legends of mysterious lore.
 
 175 
 8. 
 
 " There is not in yon valley wide 
 A clifF that hoary lichens bind j 
 Scarce in the wild a spot descried, 
 
 With which a tale is not entwined, 
 That might with lofty strains inspire 
 Each master of the heavenly lyre, 
 And still unfading bloom display, 
 Till woods and rocks themselves decay. 
 
 9. 
 
 " There, mid the shaggy solitude, 
 
 The voice of a diviner age 
 Exalts the soul to holy mood, 
 
 Or v/akes to sympathetic rage. 
 Those martial strains are heard again. 
 That ne*er to battle call'd in vain. 
 And ghosts of former heroes glide. 
 Grim beckoning from the mountain side.
 
 176 
 
 10. 
 
 " But soon the withering grasp of Time, 
 Who moves with silent, viewless flight, 
 
 Shall doom those beauteous themes sublime 
 Unsung to never-ending night. 
 
 Their glories, like the leaves which novr 
 
 Chill frosts are stealing from the bough, 
 
 Unaided by the poet's lyre. 
 
 In dark oblivion shall expire. 
 
 11. 
 
 <' O seize their beauties ere they die, 
 
 Wliile yet the pastoral life remains ; 
 My willing aid shall still be nigh. 
 
 To prompt for thee the impassion'd strains 
 Even yet the hoary seer can tell 
 The fortunes strange that here befell 
 Full many a mighty chief of old 
 In legendary fame inrolPd : 
 O listen, ere their charms are fled, 
 And mix'd for ever with the dead !"
 
 Ill 
 
 12. 
 
 I woke ; the lovely dream was gone ; 
 
 Yet on the balmy gale of even 
 Celestial melodies were thrown, 
 
 And now retreating rose to Heaven. 
 Each object in the woodland range 
 By moonlight seem'd more wild and strange : 
 The lengthening vale below was lost 
 In shadowy mist and dazzling frost ; 
 The silvery beams with glittering play 
 Danced on the waves of Loch Achray ; 
 And as I hail'd the charms of night. 
 Mine inward gleams were passing bright^ 
 
 After the era of enchantment comes 
 that of reality. 
 
 H 2
 
 178 
 
 The following winter brought with it 
 the time when I was to reside in Edin- 
 burgh, for the sake of qualifying myself 
 for the profession of law. jyiy father had 
 conceived the highest opinion of my ta- 
 lents f and though an ample fortune ren- 
 dered a profession unnecessary, yet as no 
 opportunity then offered of obtaining a 
 seat in Parliament, even though I had 
 been of age, it was judged advantageous 
 that I should devote part of my time to 
 the study of jurisprudence, in Scotland.— 
 I shall not dwell on my affliction at leaving 
 my retirement a second time. It had now 
 become dearer to me than ever j and I 
 reflected with bitter regret on my own 
 conduct, for not having set a higher va- 
 lue on my past hours, which were now
 
 179 
 
 gone for ever. But, on the other hand, 
 I entertained the fascinating hopes of dis- 
 tinction and splendour and happiness at 
 Edinburgh. I remembered my former 
 raptures at the sight of Mrs Siddons ; and 
 I remembered also, that Edinburgh was 
 now the residence of Lady L • 
 
 The night before leaving home, I went 
 to take leave of the Priory Cottage. It 
 was on the second of November. Silence 
 reigned through the woods. The sky 
 was dark, watery, aad louring. A chill 
 wind occasionally swept over the rustling 
 leaves. All was still and disconsolate 
 in the Priory ; — ^no light, — no sound of 
 airy harp ! — I returned mournfully home- 
 ward.
 
 180 
 
 The visions of future enjoyment in a 
 city life, from which at times 1 derived 
 consolation, were soon to be obscured and 
 overthrown. — Let those to whom the pic- 
 ture which I am about to paint appears 
 overcharged, remember, that to a sensibi- 
 lity the most excessive, I added the most 
 infantine inexperience. I knew not that 
 the only mode by which a man of genius 
 and feeling can safely steer his course 
 through the world, is by means of an ac- 
 quired insensibility to the characters and 
 scenes that surround him. I must here 
 repeat, that I believed human life to con- 
 tain little else than a continuation of the 
 rapture and enchantment which I had 
 enjoyed in solitude. I expected to meet 
 with sympathy, if not in all, at least in
 
 181 
 
 many individuals. I expected to find sen- 
 sibility and taste, as well as learning and 
 industry, attending each professor of the 
 university, and each individual at the ban 
 I expected — but it is needless to detail the 
 absurd wanderings of my fancy. After 
 such golden visions had fled like the morn- 
 ing cloud, let me not be censured for de- 
 scribing my disappointment as so exces- 
 sive that it amounted to despair. 
 
 Sometimes I recollected, that one, whose 
 hopes had aspired to immortality, ought 
 to regard only with contempt or pity the 
 characters and pursuits of those who la- 
 boured only for mean and sensual and 
 temporary gratifications. At such mo- 
 ments, the earnestness and self-suiBciency
 
 182 
 
 of the special pleader, or the frivolous va« 
 nity of the mere man of fashion, appeared 
 both disgusting and ridiculous. But it 
 was not till some years after that I disco- 
 vered the practicability of becoming insen- 
 sible to the feelings by which I was then 
 overwhelmed. No longer vainly expect- 
 ing to have his happiness increased in so- 
 ciety, the man devoted to noble and ele- 
 vated pursuits, after his first disappoint- 
 ment loses its dominion, becomes gradu- 
 ally superior to the influence of meaner 
 considerations. Wrapt up in his own en- 
 joyments, — in the consciousness of his own 
 elevation, — ^protected as if by an invinci- 
 ble talisman, he smiles to think that the 
 tumultuous coarseness of the bar,— all the 
 folly and debasing passions of fashionable
 
 18S 
 
 life,— all the malignity and grossness of 
 the vulgar, cannot divert his mind from 
 the objects of his secret attachment, for 
 which alone he lives, and which have ele- 
 vated his mind far above each ignoble 
 feeling, and above the weakness of being 
 disturbed and interrupted by ordinary 
 causes. — But it is time to particularize 
 the events of my new career.
 
 184 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I ARRIVED at Edinburgh in a still and 
 gloomy evening of November, I had 
 left the country with a mind filled with 
 visions of delight, such as few imagina- 
 tions ever have had the power to frame. 
 
 At first, much of my former illusions 
 was preserved. The dense fogs, which 
 rendered every object gigantic, expanded 
 to sublimity the grand features of this 
 romantic city. The fashionable season had 
 commenced, and the town was thronged 
 with the gay and idle, as well as with the
 
 185 
 
 grave and busy. But when I formerly 
 visited Edinburgh, it was under the in- 
 fluence of vernal cheerfulness. Now there 
 was an increasing murkiness in the atmos- 
 phere which did not please me. It rain- 
 ed as I entered St Andrew's Square ; and 
 the gloom, notwithstanding the glare of 
 carriages and lamps, was perceptible and 
 oppressive. ^ 
 
 Some cards of invitation for the day of 
 my arrival were presented to me at my 
 hotel ; but I thought of the serious pur- 
 poses for which I came, and resolved to 
 shut myself up in my apartments for the 
 first evening, and employ myself in un- 
 packing and arranging my favourite books 
 and legal authors which had preceded me
 
 186 
 
 on the journey. I rightly thought that 
 before entering into dissipation, it would 
 be necessary to bestow some attention on 
 more important pursuits, that I might at 
 least put my affairs into a proper train. 
 
 Having promised that I would at all 
 events go through the forms of a course 
 of legal study, next morning I purcha- 
 sed a ticket of the professor of civil 
 law. I never had any intention of attend- 
 ing his lectures above three or four days ; 
 but even this proved more than my tem- 
 per would endure. I remember the se- 
 cond day of my penance, when I tried to 
 open the door of the lecturer's apartments, 
 my disgust increased so far, that 1 was 
 seized with a cold shuddering, and obli-
 
 187 
 
 ged to desist. I repeated my attempts on 
 the lock three times with no better suc- 
 cess, till a fellow student approaching 
 with boisterous impetuosity, shame and 
 despair gave me resolution, and I entered. 
 The following hour, however, proved so 
 insupportable, that I resolved never again 
 to be subjected to a public lecture on law. 
 Such was the commencement of my pro- 
 fessional progress. 
 
 A visit to the Court of Session, the 
 scene of my future honours, was not at- 
 tended with better success. I heard noise, 
 and tumult, and coarseness. I breathed 
 a pestilential air. I looked in vain for a 
 countenance on which could be discover- 
 ed a trace of sensibility. The scene was
 
 188 
 
 more than I could bear ; and my agony 
 of disappointment deprived me of health 
 and of sleep. 
 
 Such readers as may be disposed to 
 censure my confessions as evincing a de- 
 gree of morbid sensibility which can 
 scarcely have ever existed in reality, and 
 which, to their judgments, appears the con- 
 sequence of mere imagination, without any 
 foundation in nature and truth, ought to 
 be reminded that I was not like other men. 
 My constitution had received, in early 
 life, a shock from which it never had re- 
 covered. Besides, let it be remembered 
 that the universe perhaps could scarcely 
 furnish another instance of an education
 
 189 
 
 conducted till the age of twenty, in such 
 perfect solitude as I had experienced ! 
 
 The following evening, wearied of my 
 books and of myself, I resolved to accept 
 one of the invitations I had received. I 
 went to an evening party, anticipating en- 
 joyment, and here I flattered myself I 
 might depend on finding my expectations 
 realized ; — but when were realities ever 
 found to equal the creations of poetic 
 imagination and of hope ? I found, in- 
 deed, splendour and beauty, and high 
 rank. I mingled with the trains of ora- 
 tors and statesmen, and titled beauties ; 
 but I was miserably disappointed. I shall 
 not attempt fully to describe what my ex- 
 pectations had been 5 suffice it to say, that
 
 190 
 
 I hoped to find a scene in unison with 
 feelings, which probably never existed 
 in any mind or frame but my own. I 
 hoped to meet sympathy, with emotions 
 such as those to whose society I was intro- 
 duced had never felt. Were I to detail all 
 that my imagination had fondly pictured 
 to itself in solitude, of the charms of po- 
 lite society, it might indeed be deemed 
 the idle dream of a maniac. I am not wri- 
 ting a satire. I shall neither draw cha- 
 racters nor paint the realities which were 
 presented to me instead of the enchant- 
 ments which I had previously drawn, 
 and adorned with all the brightest colour- 
 ing of fancy. 
 
 Fevered with disappointment, after an
 
 191 
 
 hour's penance, I returned to my hotel. 
 The agitation which I underwent produ- 
 ced a violent fit of illness. I denied my- 
 self to all visitors. My servants answered 
 for me all cards of invitation in the nega- 
 tive. I did not see the light of the sun 
 for many days. My physician at length 
 compelled me to walk out ; but a giddi- 
 ness made me totter, and 1 soon returned. 
 My servant, however, considering me as 
 sufficiently convalescent to receive the vi- 
 sits of my friends, admitted a young man, 
 a distant relation of my family, who had 
 come to Edinburgh with views similar to 
 mine, but with a character and feelings 
 widely different. Besides, being of age, 
 and already in possession of a large for- 
 tune, he lived in the most expensive ele-
 
 192 
 
 gance. Wearied of myself and of the 
 world, disgusted with every thing, I yield- 
 ed to his importunity, and agreed to dine 
 at his house. 
 
 The love of simple enjoyment — ^the au- 
 tumnal feelings — the remembrance of the 
 heath and the lake, of the mountain and 
 the muse, that I had brought with me 
 from the country, were lost. They were 
 already overwhelmed by disappointment, 
 by the sickness of the heart, and the fe- 
 ver of the world. They were gone ! I 
 grasped in vain at their dim and distant 
 remains ! They faded, I thought for even 
 My bosom swelled with anguish, and I 
 burst into tears.
 
 193 
 
 I rushed into dissipation to forget my- 
 self. I met a large party at dinner. I had 
 come without anticipating pleasure. I only 
 wished to escape from my own thoughts. 
 I was weary of solitude and gloom and 
 misery. The lights and the glare and 
 glitter and liveliness of the scene by which 
 I was surrounded, exhilarated my spirits. 
 That evening the play was patronised by 
 the Duchess of . It was neces- 
 sary, therefore, to be seen there. I went 
 in the intoxication of the moment. 
 
 My sight wandered round the theatre, 
 till at length it was fixed on a box nearly 
 opposite. I could not be mistaken. Ha- 
 
 VOL. K 1
 
 194 
 
 ving once beheld that form before, it was 
 impossible not to remember it. When I 
 had last beheld Lady L , her ange- 
 lic countenance was illuminated by the 
 glow of twilight in a summer's eve. Now, 
 alas ! what a change ! Amid the glare of 
 artificial light, and the dull tumult of ar- 
 tificial society, I recognised her. No ! 
 I could not be mistaken. That form and 
 countenance had never departed from my 
 heart. 
 
 But oh, the delirious agony of those 
 moments ! — Before, when I beheld that 
 angelic form, that enchanting smile, it 
 was with a mind filled with rapturous* vi-
 
 195 
 
 slons such as few imaginations ever "were 
 sufficiently powerful to frame. Oh that 
 the feelings of that period would return ! 
 —Oh days of innocence and bliss, too 
 lightly prized, how had your divine in- 
 fluence faded away ! How did the sweet 
 remembrances contrast the bitterness of 
 my present emotions ! 
 
 As I was leaving the house a tumult 
 arose, owing to a party of rioters, some 
 of whom had suddenly quarrelled in the 
 
 lobby. Lady L was leaving her 
 
 box. For a moment she seemed deserted 
 by her party. From a sudden impulse I 
 started forward. I almost hoped that
 
 196 
 
 my figure and my name might not be un- 
 known to her. I was not mistaken. She 
 looked for an instant on my countenance, 
 and accepted the arm which I offered as 
 far as the outer door, thanked me, step- 
 ped into her carriage, and some of her 
 party now reappearing, I withdrew. Be- 
 fore the carriage drove off, I heard her 
 say to the footman, " The Duchess of 
 
 .'s.** 
 
 I still felt her touch — I still beheld her 
 smile of acquiescence. I stood between 
 the pillars of the entrance, till forced to 
 leave it by the pressure of the crowd. A 
 sudden thought struck me. I knew that 
 I had a card of invitation for that evening 
 for the party which Lady L ■ was
 
 197 
 
 going to attend. I ran into my hotel, 
 dressed, and in ten minutes was in the 
 midst of the most brilliant assembly that 
 had been that winter seen at Edinburgh* 
 
 I did not, at my first entrance, behold 
 
 Lady L . My eyes wandered round 
 
 the apartment in search of her. At length 
 her beautiful form flashed on my sight. 
 She was approaching the spot where I 
 stood. At this moment a universal move- 
 ment and gaze of those who stood oppo- 
 site to the door, marked the entrance of 
 some persons of distinction j and I heard 
 the name of Mr S. announced. 
 
 In the presence of the man to whom I 
 owed so many of my happiest hours, a
 
 198 
 
 tremor of delight and exultation pervaded 
 my frame, as, with all that brilliance and 
 fascination of manner by which the " Last 
 Minstrel'* is distinguished in society, I 
 saw him approach Lady L , and be- 
 gin gaily to converse with her. At that 
 
 moment the Duchess of— ^ desired 
 
 Mr S. to look at the decorations of the 
 
 next room. Lady L accompanied 
 
 them. The apartment was fitted up to 
 represent the interior of Melrose Abbey. 
 This admirable author was then engaged 
 in writing the " Lay of the Last Mins- 
 trel;" and the Duchess of- had 
 
 heard the beginning of the second canto 
 recited a few nights before. She wished, 
 she said, to hear it again, and had ordered 
 suitable scenery to be prepared. Mr S,
 
 199 
 
 begged to be excused. He turn^ to La- 
 dy L 5 and withdrawing a curtain 
 
 at one end of the Gothic aisle, disclosed 
 a harp, at which, after some hesitation and 
 interruption, 1 beheld her lovely form 
 bending over the instrument. 
 
 The first tones that vibrated from the 
 harp reminded me of " early time." They 
 were the same that I had listened to on 
 the wild shores of Loch Ow ; and they 
 had indeed never departed from my re- 
 membrance. Even amid all the distress 
 of my first disappointments after arriving 
 in Edinburgh, they were sometimes heard 
 soothing the anguish of my nightly fever, 
 and my dreams of misery. I knew them 
 again, I sighed to think what a contrast
 
 200 
 
 the glare of lamps, and the heat and tu- 
 mult of a crowded assembly, afforded to 
 the mild glow of twilight, and the tran- 
 quillity and cool fragrance of the forest. 
 
 " What,** said Lady L— — — , address- 
 ing herself to Mr S., " shall I sing ?'*— 
 '' Sing,*' replied he, " the ballad compo- 
 sed by poor insane R . Its absurdity 
 
 is amusing ; and your performance would 
 give effect to any composition, however 
 contemptible.'* — Mr S. then, with mock 
 solemnity, read the title of the poem,—
 
 201 
 
 A BALLAD, 
 
 Sheuoing hoiv a noble Baron had xjoon the lone of a 
 beautiful and virtuous young Maiden of loiuly 
 estate; how he forsook her to marry another 
 Lady for her high birth and fortune ; and the 
 tragical ends of all three tjoithinjlve months after 
 the marriage, 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 High, feast was in the hall : * 
 
 There was gaming and glee ; 
 The minstrels deftly played. 
 
 And sung merrily. 
 
 * I know not whether I shall be thought excusable in 
 printing verses so infantine as these. They are indeed 
 truly infantine ; but with what propriety this epithet is 
 believed to convey the prevailing character of Mr Words- 
 worth, let those decide who have read with attention the 
 preface to the fourth edition of the *' Lyrical Ballads." 
 
 I 2
 
 202 
 
 They sung of mighty deeds 
 That befell in Arthur's days | 
 
 And woke to King Richarde 
 The lofty song of praise. 
 
 There were Ladies in hall. 
 That smiled right fair to see ; 
 
 In cloth of gold and pall. 
 They daunced merrilie. 
 
 But the doughty Barons carped 
 As they sat o*er the wine, 
 
 Of battles lost and won 
 In holy Palestine. 
 
 They carped of hawk and hound, 
 And of steeds fleet and strong ; 
 While the goblet moved round. 
 And they heard the merry sound 
 Of minstrel, harp, and song*
 
 20S 
 
 They heard the merry sotind, 
 But recked not the words ;, 
 Such inward joy they found. 
 As they carped of hawk and hound^' 
 Of tournaments renown'd,— 
 And the temper of swords. 
 
 'Twas Saint Mary's eve, 
 And the twilight was fair j 
 
 The gales forgot to breathe ; 
 Right fragrant was the air. 
 
 Fair Edith sat alone 
 By the hawthorn tree ; 
 
 Right grievous was her moau, 
 Like one in miseric. 
 
 She loved the Baron bold 
 That was feasting so gay :
 
 204 
 
 But her fainting heart grew cold. 
 When the merry news were told, 
 'Twas his nuptial day ! 
 
 The vesper bells begun 
 
 Through the calm air to ring ; 
 For the holy rites were done. 
 
 And the priest's blessing. 
 
 It was the marriage day 
 Of the Baron bold and gay 
 
 With fair Geraldine of the Lake : 
 For her lineage high, 
 And her laughing black eye, 
 A lowlie maiden shy 
 
 What Baron would not forsake ?- 
 
 Right pleasantly the bell 
 
 Through the calm air did ring ; 
 Fair Edith heard full well 
 Its merry changes swell. 
 
 As she sat weeping.
 
 205 
 
 She heeded not the sounds— 
 For her heart beat so fast, 
 
 That she deem'd each rebound 
 It gave would be the last ! 
 
 She reck'd not the ray- 
 That the twilight cast ; 
 
 For, at length, as she lay, 
 
 Her senses quite away 
 
 From the sweet maiden pass'd. 
 
 — 'Tis the midnight chime ! — 
 No reckoning of time 
 
 Kept the Barons blithe in hall 
 But the Lady withdrew. 
 And her maidens too, 
 
 And doffed her broiderM pall.
 
 206 
 
 By fits through the tower 
 
 The merry roar was heard ; 
 But abroad, in woodland bower, 
 Right soothing was that hour, 
 For not a leaf was stirr'd. 
 
 The Lady stood alone,. 
 
 And to breathe the cool air 
 To the casement she has gone, 
 
 Where the moonhght shoae fair. 
 
 On the fresh dews of night 
 Fell the moonbeam cold 5 
 
 And the leaves shone bright. 
 Full pleasant to behold, 
 
 A« when angels in heaven 
 Lull the blest to repos«j 
 
 To the night air givea 
 Sweet music arose!
 
 207 
 
 ** It is not in hall 
 
 That the soft measures swell j 
 No minstrel of all 
 
 Knows his art so well !'* 
 
 The Lady called then ; 
 
 She stamped with her feet ; 
 She bade her maidens tell 
 ' Who sung so passing sweet. 
 
 «« Though the strains are sweet» 
 Yet minstrelsy, I trow. 
 
 So wild and full of grief 
 Was never heard till now." 
 
 " Oh, 'tis a maid forlorn 
 In the moonlight grove, 
 
 That has sat down to mourn 
 Her fortunes in love."
 
 208 
 
 When the Baron so gay 
 Was leaving the hall, 
 
 He heard the plaintive lay- 
 On the night breeze fall^ 
 
 Pale grew his visage then. 
 His merriment had fled ; 
 And so sad seemM the strain. 
 That he turn'd him again, 
 And a deeper draught did drain 
 Ere he sought his bridal bed. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 'TwAS a mild autumn day. 
 Through the banners grey 
 Of «* frost-fog** rose the morn 5 
 On the fohage bright 
 Hung the dews of night
 
 209 
 
 Amid the woods forlorn. 
 The Baron so gay 
 "With his men are away 
 To the forest that day, 
 
 With hound and horse and horn. 
 
 Oh sweet were the sounds 
 
 As the merry train passMi 
 And loud the response 
 
 That the mountains cast. 
 When the bridles rang clear 
 In the forest drear,* 
 And the soft breeze of mora 
 Sweird the distant horn ! 
 
 * " It was a pleasure but to hear 
 The bridles ringing sharp and clear 
 Amid the forest green."— 2?o«^.
 
 210 
 
 The Lady lias gone 
 
 To the woodlands alone 
 To hear that cheering note : 
 
 To breathe the perfume 
 
 Of the fading bloom 
 The deep grove she has sought ; 
 
 On each drooping spray 
 
 Sat the red-breast gay, 
 And strained his merry throat. 
 
 Oh fair was the scene 
 
 In the shades serene 
 When the yellow gleams around 
 
 To the Lady's view 
 
 Shew*d the copsewood*s hue, 
 And the dank leaves on the ground ! 
 
 In the lonely smile 
 
 Of Nature awhile , 
 
 The Lady had joyaunce found ;. 
 
 But the self-same tone
 
 211 
 
 Of the Maiden's moan," 
 That ere now she had known, 
 Once more began to sound 1] 
 
 Yet, alas for the Maid, 
 
 For her voice was decay*d ; 
 *Tis the same, but not so strong. : 
 
 <* 'Tis fainter now 
 
 Than it was, I trow, 
 When she woke her midnight song ! 
 
 Ah me ! she is wild !— » 
 
 Come hither, my child. 
 
 And in accents mild 
 To a friend unfold thy wrong 4 
 
 If so pale is thy look. 
 
 Like the leaves in the brook, 
 Thy life will not be long." 
 
 She had twined for her head 
 A garland red
 
 212 
 
 Of the heath-bell's lingering flowers % 
 
 But her cheeks were pale, 
 
 Like the leaves in the vale, 
 Which the breeze sends down in shower 4^ 
 
 " Bless thee, Lady fair I 
 
 Look, the trees are bare ! 
 Hark I the cold breeze rends tlie bowers I 
 
 Yet I have known 
 
 When the sunbeam shone 
 Warm on this frozen heart. 
 
 Thou wilt not believe. 
 
 Thou wilt think I deceive. 
 
 When I tell thee the woods. 
 
 That are now so sad. 
 
 Once were cover'd with buds. 
 
 And with garlands were hung I 
 See there I how the leaves depart ! 
 
 They are drooping now ! 
 
 They are dead, I trow I 
 
 And I— poor I am mad/*
 
 21S 
 
 God help thee ! thought the Lady then. 
 As her mansion proud she sought agen. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 'TwAS a winter night in December drear, 
 Not a star was seen the gloom to cheer ; 
 Fast pour*d the rain ; on the woodlands brown 
 The shades of the blackening sky fell down. 
 
 The Lady with grief in her chamber viewM 
 The gathering darkness on lake and wood. 
 Sore sigh'd she in her bower forlorn, — 
 " Would to Heaven I heard the Baron's horn !" 
 
 The Baron had gone to Glenfinlas grey 
 With his train to drive the deer that day. 
 Not a man had return'd : — On the Lady fair 
 Sore pressed the gathering load of care.
 
 214 
 
 « To the western tower, my maidens, repair ; 
 For the voice of ^e Baron's horn watch there j 
 Whilst I alone in my chamber tarry, 
 And pray for aid to sweet St Mary." 
 
 The Lady was left in her chamber lone 5 
 She was aware of a lowly moan, 
 That on the silent gloom was' thrown.— 
 She was aware of a paley light ; — 
 She was aware of a form in white ; — 
 And the Lady shudder'd with affright. 
 
 A paley light on the form was flung, 
 And the charnel damps on its visage hung. 
 The Lady in haste her bosom cross'd,— 
 For she was aware of the Maiden's Ghost ! 
 
 The Lady fell in a deadly swounde ; 
 
 But her menials raised her from the ground :— 
 
 «< Sad tidings, alas ! we bring to thee ! 
 
 On the rocks are kindhng bale fires three :
 
 215 
 
 No friendly token met our ear ; 
 
 But the horns of the foe are sounding near I'* 
 
 The Lady has left her painted bower j 
 She has gone to the western tower :— 
 A minute there had scarcely flown. 
 Ere she was aware of a heavy groan ! 
 
 The Lady markM the Baron*s form 
 Come wading dimly through the storm : 
 He pointed to his bosom bare, 
 And a deadly gash was bleeding there : 
 To the distant wood he pointed then, 
 And melted from her dizzy ken. 
 
 To the distant wood the Lady flew ; 
 AH comfort from her heart withdrew, 
 And her senses fast were fleeting too. 
 In her path arose a paley light. 
 That led her tottering steps aright.
 
 216 
 
 The stag-hound woke a dismal yell ; 
 He watch'd the spot where his master fell. 
 The corpse-light danced amid the dark, 
 And the Baron's form was stiff and stark. 
 
 The Lady pierced the tangled brake,— 
 *< Listen ! 'tis I ! sweet love, awake !'* 
 She laid her on the bloody green ; 
 She raised his head and wiped his e'en : 
 But when she saw that life was gone, 
 The Lady woke a dreary moan. 
 
 The mountain stream was swoll'n with rain, 
 Through the lonely wood it dash'd amain. 
 To the rocky brink the Lady fled — 
 In the roaring stream she made her bed,— 
 And the waves roll'd darkly o'er her head.
 
 217 
 
 The strain had ceased, but its tones con- 
 tinued to float on my fancy. The assem- 
 bly was over ; I was in the open street ; 
 but I was no longer the same person ! — 
 Though it was winter, the western breeze 
 was awake -, but its balmy breath had no 
 power to revive the wonted trains of 
 thought. I wooed its influence, and 
 mournfully attempted a self-examination. 
 What was the nature of my indescribable 
 feelings, so different from all that I had 
 known, — so captivating and yet so pain- 
 ful ? But it was in vain j I could follow 
 out no one idea with clearness and accu- 
 racy. My mind was a chaos of conflict- 
 ing elements. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 218 
 
 I could not bear the idea of confine- 
 ment and restraint in my own chamber. 
 I wandered on insensibly, without know- 
 ing whither I went. I heard the tones 
 of distant music. I stood breathless and 
 listened. No ! I could not be mistaken. 
 I advanced — the tones became more au- 
 dible. I looked round — I found myself 
 in Charlotte Square. Here, I knew, was 
 
 the residence of Lady L . These 
 
 were the well-known tones of ber harp 
 and ber voice. I watched every low and 
 plaintive note (for the strain was slow 
 and mournful) with indescribable ecstacy. 
 As I looked round on the quiet and so- 
 lemn scene, and beheld the moon sailing 
 in majestic serenity over the venerable
 
 219 
 
 towers of the castle, while all below 
 seemed buried in the profoundest stillness 
 and slumber, I indulged in the delicious 
 fancy that there existed a certain conge- 
 niality of soul between myself and Lady 
 L , that, when all other beings seem- 
 ed lost in insensibility and oblivion, we 
 alone were awake, each enjoying plea- 
 sures as pure and innocent as they are 
 captivating and exalted. 
 
 After such emotions, was it possible I 
 could sleep ? The night passed away — 
 I scarcely know how it past — and morn- 
 ing found me a prey to the same restless- 
 ness and fever. Oh what internal con- 
 flicts then preyed upon my soul! How
 
 220 
 
 did the recollections agonize me of the 
 independent and tranquillizing joys that I 
 had known in solitude ! 
 
 KND OF VOLUME FlitST. 
 
 Edinburgh : 
 
 Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.
 
 ** . ' -v 
 
 llpliilllll 
 
 3 0112 045854590 
 
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