Chapter I: WAS told yesterday by one with wise

Solemn aspect, and wrinkles 'bout his eyes,
That poetry is an idle trade, alack!
He had a good black coat upon his back,
And deemed himself respectable,--he said, too,
That he who verses writes will never do
Well in the world, that his character is gone,
And he himself no better than a drone.
So having said he walked away well pleased;--
Now that's a man, I say, whose mind's diseased.
Has he in summer ever watched a rose
Burst into blossoming, and as it grows
More and more beautiful, sweeten all the air
With its rich perfume,--poetry was there.

A sunbeam thrown across
The clouds, that makes them glow
With light ineffable
To eyes from earth below;
A small wave of the sea
When the vast ocean waits
The coming of the storm,
That slightly agitates
Its surface passing,--as
When of danger near
First made aware, the roused
Lion, though not in fear
Looks up, the watchfire then
Kindling in his eye,
His mane scarcely as yet
Moved, nor erected high
His head, but his proud glance
Circling keen, rapid, stern,--
There poetry is seen
By one that can discern.
A priest of Nature's own,
One she herself ordains,
The poet walks in brightness,
And still new blessings gains.
The sky above hath in it
More beauty to his sight,
Than to the world it shines
In its canopy of light.

The flowers his kindred are
That grow in fields remote;
They waken in his heart
The pure wellsprings of thought:
They speak to him alone
With low and whispering voice,
Like gentle maiden to
The lover of her choice.

And none but he can tell
What is it that they say,
For a most sweet communion
Is their's to cheer his way.
The ocean in its vastness,
He loves, too, as he sees
It driven by the tempest,
Or slumbering in the breeze.
It brings into his vision
The coming of that day,
When Time within Eternity
Shall merge itself away.

The forest trees antique
Are his familiar friends,
With the spirit of the woods
His own for ever blends:
And voices of the past,
With fancies of old times,
Do their murmurings recall
Which he fondly puts in rhymes.

Echoes of distant lands
Beyond the western sea,
Or in the burning east,
Where'er they chance to be,
Are brought to him at night
And cheer his spirit then,
When sleep forsakes the eyes
Of care-worn worldly men.
And ever for his kind
Doth his spirit warmly yearn,
And his verses speak of things
Which only he can learn.

The human heart, and all
Its feelings, hopes and fears,
All that it fondly loves,
All that it blindly fears,
Its sympathies, affections,
Its duties and desires,
All that its doubts foreshadow,
All that its pride inspires,

Its sorrows and its faintings,
Its buoyancy and glee,
Its passions and its promptings,
Its truth and constancy;
He knows, and can depicture,
For of the human mind
He is the chosen minister,
The prophet of his kind.

Such, yea and more, the poet is,
Had he had a choice
Of destinies, if in his fate
Had been heard his voice;
It might have been so that he had
Been a worldling born,
And looked solemn like his scorners,
And had gravely worn
A black coat too, of fashion's cut,
And smoothed trim his beard,
And shook his head wisely, and been
Sententious, and feared
The world's opinion, and condemned
Poetry as idle,
But in his vocation he can
Ne'er his feelings bridle.
His thoughts are in a stronger hand
Than his own, his mind
Has thinks passing in it still, that
Cannot be confined:
Like the birds flying as they list
Through the summer air,
Or the clouds driven by the breeze
Floating everywhere.

LIGHT AND SHADOW.

SHINE down, fair sun, on vale and hill,
And light each height and hollow;--
No shade rests in the air, but still
On earth the shadows follow.

Grow green, old trees, where'er you may
Your festival be keeping;--
On branch and stem, on leaf and spray,
Decay is slowly creeping.

Bloom bright, fair flowers, in wild or mead,
Around you all perfuming;--
The blight that mingles with each seed,
The blossom is consuming.

Grow well, sweet fruit, on garden walls,
Or in hot-houses hasting;--
The sooner ripe, the sooner falls
Corruption with its wasting.

Flow on, calm river, still flow on
With ever constant motion;--
Soon shalt thou mingle, all unknown,
Forgotten in the Ocean.

Play up, sweet music, to the ear,
A merry note of gladness;--
The chords that lively stricken cheer,
Give also tones of sadness.

Shine bright, young Summer, o'er the earth,
And fill the land with laughter;--
Soon Autumn comes to mar thy mirth,
And winter follows after.

Burn high, fair hope, within the breast,
By pleasant things attended;--
Misdoubt and fear do still molest
Our life, till it is ended.

Fill slow, oh! Time, the rounded cup
Of numbered hours that's set us;
Soon shall our days be gathered up,
And even our own forget us.

Then shine, fair sun, on vale and hill,
On tower and town and meadow;--
'Tis Heaven that sends the brightness still,
Earth only gives the shadow.

THE EARLY DEAD.

_On my youngest Daughter, died 20th March 1845, aged twenty-one
months._

SHE rests within her little grave,
A bud of promise too soon taken,
And wanting the sweet smile she gave,
We deem ourselves as if forsaken.

Life wore for her no luring guise,
She tasted time, and found it dreary,
Calmly she closed her gentle eyes,
As one that falls asleep aweary:

Like to a star whose little ray
Is quenched ev'n when 'tis brightly shining;
Or as a flower that fades away
While yet its bloom tells nought of pining.

And when her latest sigh was spent,
And fled her spirit to its Giver,
We felt as with it also went
A lapsed part of our heart for ever.

Oh! twice before we knew the blight
Upon the heart that deeply falleth,
When death for ever from the sight,
Of our own life a portion calleth:

But though it has the power to slay,
Still is this consolation given,
It cannot take the hope away
That we shall meet again in heaven.

There is a place of rest above,
A home for children there provided,
To which away from earth, in love
Their guileless spirits still are guided.

And when our hearts with sorrow sink
And our weak eyes are sore with weeping,
'Twill soothe and cheer us still to think
That they sweet watch are o'er us keeping.

And in the dark and lonely night,
When sleep our eyelids have forsaken,
We'll see again the faces bright
Of our three babes so early taken.

A DIRGE.

MOURN for the untimely dead!
Early blossoms quickly shed!
Soon taken to their long long rest,
Now there waves
The green grass thickly o'er their breast,
On their graves.

Neither care nor sorrow now
Leaves its trace upon their brow,
Nor can pain them more molest,
For there waves
The green grass thickly o'er their breast,
On their graves.

Little flowers their heads begem,
But they cannot look at them,
For death's cold hand their eyes have prest,
And there waves
The green grass thickly o'er their breast
On their graves.

Winds sigh through the shadowing trees,
Summer brings the hum of bees;
But no sounds can their ears invest,
Where there waves
The green grass thickly o'er their breast
On their graves.

Still they lie in their low beds,
To sleep till the last morn sheds
Its light upon their place of rest:
Now there waves
The green grass thickly o'er their breast
On their graves.

A BENEDICTION.

GOD bless thee! is my fervent prayer,
At morn and eve, from day to day,
Ev'n as thou tend'st, with anxious care,
Thy children dear with love alway.

God keep thee ever in His grace,
And still new mercies on thee shower,
Ev'n as thou fold'st in thy embrace
Thine infants tender every hour.

God love thee, with the love he shows
Still to his own, in earth and heaven,
Ev'n as thou lov'st, with true love, those
Who to thy keeping have been given.

God guide thee still through all thy days,
And let no evil on thee light,
Ev'n as thou guid'st and guard'st the ways,
Of thy dear offspring day and night.

God comfort thee in all thy grief,
And ever thy sure Hope remain,
Ev'n as thou comfort'st with relief
Thy little ones in woe and pain.

God cherish thee throughout thy life,
In weal and woe thy guardian be,
Ev'n as a mother and a wife
Thou still hast cherished them and me.

HEALTH.

OH! what a thing is health to lose,
And what a prize to gain,
Most valued when the spirit woos
Its coming back again.

After long days and restless nights,
Reclined on weary bed,
How sweet when first its blessing lights
Upon the aching head.

Its coming turns the life, as doth
The ocean with its tide,
Or as the spring renews the growth
Of what Earth's stores provide.

Power, fame, and with them cherished gold,
That form man's constant aim,
All would be gladly overtold
Its halcyon bliss to claim.

It passes life and death between,
From heaven's own portals borne,
Like the sweet under-light scarce seen
That parts the night from morn.

An emblem of the peace that springs,
To chase away all strife,
An earnest of the grace, that brings
Life to the inner life.

THE GAME OF LIFE.

WATCHING the game of life as daily played,
One marvels at the blunders that are made;
Few trust to chance alone to gain their aim,
But with the means they use 'tis just the same.
Low cunning some employ, and call it skill,
Or substitute for Reason headstrong Will;
And when they win the prize for which they strive,
To their own genius they the credit give;
But when they lose, the blame on fate is thrown;
They never think the fault may be their own.
Others who boast that cunning they disdain,
Affect by Pride their purposes to gain;
High-reaching objects do their minds devise,
By which they blind their own and neighbours' eyes;
Aiming at lofty things, they highly rate
Their own designings, but they find too late
That for success mere unassisted Pride
Does not all necessary means provide;
So thinking surely to promote their aim,
And win the stake of their ambition's game,
But not particular as to how 'tis played,
They call, Pride's contrast, meanness to their aid:
Yet ev'n though Fortune should their hopes attend,
It does not change the matter in the end;
Meanness and Pride may climb the highest hill,
But Pride and meanness they continue still.

Since Life's a game where all their part must play,
Reason and Truth should in it have the sway,
Or wanting these, as is too oft the case,
Folly and Passion will usurp their place.

When this weak body dwindles into dust,
And man becomes the nothing that he must,
How puny then will to the soul appear
All that man toils and struggles for when here!
Bound to the narrow aims and views of Earth,
At death his spirit finds that all is dearth
That to this world relates, and well that he
Makes Time provide still for Eternity.

CONSUMPTION.

LIKE monumental Patience, see Decay
Watching the sand-glass slowly wear away,
While Death at hand, amid her waning powers,
Counts, as a monk his beads, her numbered hours.
Upon her brow, o'er which the tresses wave,
The cold dew gathers, dankly, of the grave,
And in her pale mild eyes a lustre shines,
As if her spirit, as she wastes, refines;
While ever and anon her sunken cheek,
Life's fading beauties delicately streak;
As the departing sun from ocean's brinks
Sheds out its glories brightly ere it sinks!

CHANGE.

GRIEF and change and sure decay
All on earth are doomed to know,
What the Past's memorials say
Must the Present undergo.

Time but shifts his glass about,
And the sands their aims adjust,
In Creation's bounds throughout
All that is returns to dust.

On the bud and on the flower,
On the child and man grown grey,
Change is passing every hour,
Death has set his snare to slay.

And the feelings when they glow
With a taste of joy intense,
Soon a tinge of sadness know,
Dimming quickly all the sense.

Vainly do we strive to keep
Such scant solace as we feel,
Blight unseen on all doth creep,
Pleasures hidden stings conceal.

Weary soon become the things
That at first make glad our way,
And To-morrow never brings
The same joy we knew To-day.

Toil exhausts, and strong Desire
Wasteth both the heart and head
With its strugglings, as the fire
Fastest burns the more 'tis fed.

Life is all a chequered score,
Death and Time direct the chess,
One hath not a triumph more,
Nor the other one the less.

Thus amid Mutation's range,
Man, impatient of relief,
Learns himself to long for change,
Even though bringing with it grief.

VIRTUE.

HE was a sage old man who said,
While in the public way he stood,
Virtue is best of all, because
Without it there is nothing good.

He was no stoic who thus spoke
A word so practical and true,
Nor sophist that would grandly say
What he would ne'er attempt to do:

But one of those wise heathen men
Who Reason followed as a guide,
And by it he was learned a truth
So humbling to mere human pride.

Yet even to him, with all the lore
Philosophy amassed of old,
Was the full meaning all unknown
Of what unaided Reason told.

A wiser man than he hath said,
By God's own spirit taught the same,
That wisdom is the chiefest thing
Deserving of man's fervent aim.

Wisdom and virtue both are one,
And only are attained aright
In their whole fulness and intent,
When sought in Revelation's light.

By it the sage old heathen's word
In all its breadth is understood;
Wisdom is best of all, he said,
Without it there is nothing good. (11)

VAIN HOPES.

VAIN is his labour who begins to sow,
Ere he has well prepared the soil below;
And vainer still his aim who hopes to win
To Heaven, before repenting of his sin.

Weak is his wish who looks for full crops grown,
Who has prepared his land and no seed sown;
But weaker still his hopes who thinks to win
To Heaven, with mere repentance of his sin.

To till the land and lay it out for seeds,
And yet none sown, will bring forth nought but weeds;
And wanting grace to fill, the void within
Breeds, with self-merit, all presumptuous sin.

Fruitless his skill who would a vessel steer
Without a rudder to direct and veer;
More fruitless still his aim who seeks to win
To Heaven, when wanting prayer for light within.

Hopeless his task who seeks to safely go,
Without a chart the dangerous rocks to show;
More hopeless still his aim, who seeks to win
To Heaven, when wanting faith to lead him in.

THE VALLEY OF LIFE.

IN the still midnight hour I sat alone
Within my chamber, sunk in reverie,
No sound disturbed my musings, all was hushed
In silence and in sleep, the light near done,
A dim uncertain flickering threw around.
The waning fire was but a heap of ashes,
While there and there a feeble red remained,
That now and then threw out a fitful gleam.
Something like slumber fell upon my eyes,
And a dream passed o'er my spirit stealthily,
As, in the early grey of morn, the mists,
Gathered in masses, up the hill-sides creep,
Ere they dissolve before the sun away.
Remembrance cannot all its features tell,
Though vivid and particular they seemed
When that dread vision on my senses came,
And I could trace the shadowy details,
As one might mark a phantom army march
O'er its last field of battle, ere it passed,
Into obscurity,--could note it then,--
But afterwards cannot recall the place,
Order and rank, of each brigade and file.

Methought I stood upon a bare hill-top,
And overlooked a vast and fertile plain
Peopled with many multitudes,--there met
Men of all tribes and nations that the globe
Holds in its wide extent, of every kind,
The Mongol, the Malayan, and the Negro,
The red American and Caucasian fair.
Among them Evil strode ubiquitous,
And threw its shadow wheresoe'er it came.
Its Jackal, lewd Temptation, went before,
With angel face and soft alluring eyes,
While close behind Guilt, Anguish, Care, and Pain
Followed incessantly, and left on all
Their mark impressed as with hot iron seared.
As then I looked upon the scene below,
Meseemed that wheresoe'er Temptation came,
And she came everywhere,--no spot escaped,--
That many, most indeed of these vast crowds,
Themselves threw madly in her way, and sought
To win her smiles, nor deemed them poisonous;
And once within her meshes, few had will
To fly them, or to manfully resist,
As a strong man confronts his enemy,
And strives to overthrow him where they meet;--
And she the while assumed all shapes and moods
That suited were to their intents and aims,
For, with a penetrating eye precise,
Intuitively still their minds she knew,
Tendencies and dispositions, and wore,--
As snares in readiness she had for all,--
The very guise adapted for their lure,
But carefully concealed the stings they bore.

Disease and sorrow on her victims fell,
Too late they felt the curse that is entailed
On all who to the Tempter yield, and thus
Become an early prey to Evil, whose
Inheritance is misery and woe.

And I beheld some 'mongst the various crowds
Who stood aloof from her, and would not be
Entangled with her witcheries or wiles.
These with a resolute will refused to come
Within her reach, and so escaped the first
Of Evil's followers, Guilt, though more or less,
They had their share of what the others left
Behind,--Care, Pain, and Anguish,--for the doom
Pronounced on Man was on them, but they knew
That these, to all who hold out to the end,
With a pure conscience and unspotted mind,
To their endurance will be tempered still,
And, in due season, turn to lasting good,
Which to their spirits consolation brought.

The valley watered was with goodly rivers,
Upon the banks of which were many met.
Prudence was one, and on its grassy sides
Sat some who, calculating every chance,
A deaf ear to Temptation, when she came,
Turned, unseduced from their proprieties.
Repentance was another, near it lay
Those who Remorse felt and a wounded spirit,
Seeking relief from agonising thought
And racking self-reproach. Beyond these two
Was Perseverance, where returning health
Was found by all who there due time remained.
And farther still, with borders ever green,
And fresh flowers ever springing, ever new,
Were two sweet rills, Virtue and Faith their names,
Where peace of mind was known and purity:
And those who sought their banks,--they were not few,
Though, midst the mighty myriads around,
They seemed but small in number and select,--
Remained unshaken in their constancy,
Resisting all enticements of the Tempter,
And gladly following the path of duty,
Which brought to them a sure and high reward.
On these, whate'er their griefs and trials were,
And they had many, to refine their souls,
And make them nobler after victory,
Enduring hope and perfect peace abode.
But whereso'er I looked besides, was seen
The power of Ill, shedding on all who bore
The fated impress of humanity,
Torment and fear, and bitter agony,
And pain intolerable,--At the sight
My spirit shrank, and, starting, I awoke!

AFTER-THOUGHT.

MAN values many things far more
Than their own worth told o'er and o'er,
Computed at its highest score.

He counts his gold with anxious care,
As his whole heart's desire were there,
And hoards up treasures for his heir.

He gives his labour, time, and health,
To add still something to his wealth,
And life enjoys as if by stealth.

When pleasure's mood his thoughts employ,
He plays with every passing joy,
Just as a child does with its toy.

He does not to reflexion call
What after reckoning may befall,
For how he has possessed them all.

In the lapse onward of his years,
Ere age or grief his spirit sears,
He keeps no note of hopes or fears.

Nor does he estimate his days,
That each its after-mead conveys,
Whether for censure or for praise,

As they deserve especially,
Each day it is his lot to see,
As bearing on futurity.

At night he tells up all his gains,
The more he gets the more he strains,
Or at his losses he complains.

And then, as one who does his best,
He folds his arms upon his breast,
And with contentment takes his rest.

Thus daily should he estimate
His bygone hours, and calculate
Their good or ill upon his fate;

That when his days all vanished have,
They may no bitter reckoning crave,--
There's no renewal in the grave.

NOTES.

NOTES.

NOTE 1, PAGE 55.

"_The Alpine Horn._"

Reichard, a German writer, affirms that when the sun sets, the shepherd who dwells on the highest part of the Alps, calls through his horn, "Praise God the Lord!" and the other shepherds, hearing the sound, hasten out of their huts and repeat it. This continues for some time, and the name of the Lord is thus re-echoed from mountain to valley. When the sound ceases, all kneel down on the mountain, and their prayers ascend together to the throne of grace. The shepherd from the summit of the mountain then proclaims "Good night!" which is instantly repeated by the rest. They then retire to their homes.

NOTE 2, PAGE 69.

"_But come not near the hollyhock._"

The flower of the hollyhock contains a species of poison, which is fatal to bees, and round its nectaries and petals several of these insects are frequently found lying insensible.

NOTE 3, PAGE 85.

_Loch Awe._

A lake in Argyleshire. My earliest years were spent in its neighbourhood; but I have not been there since I was a mere boy.

"Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wandered,
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains long perished my memory pondered,
As daily I strode through the pine-covered glade."

BYRON.

According to the Guide Books, Loch Awe and its vicinity, more perhaps than any other district in the Highlands, abound with memorials of former ages. The lake is thirty miles in extent, and of the average breadth of one, although in some places it does not exceed half a mile. It is surrounded by mountains finely wooded, and like many of the Scottish lakes, its surface is studded over with small islands, beautifully tufted with trees, and some of them large enough to admit of being pastured. Upon the island of Innis-Hail are the remains of a convent; and on a rocky promontory at the eastern extremity of the lake stand the magnificent ruins of Kilchurn Castle. This structure, which still exhibits the vestiges of a castellated square tower, was built in 1440, by Sir John Campbell, (second son of Argyle,) Knight of Rhodes, and ancestor of the Breadalbane family, and in later times it became, from the extensive view it commanded of the lake, the favourite residence of the chiefs of the family. In 1745 it was garrisoned by the king's troops, in order to defend the pass into the Highlands, and secure the tranquillity of the country. Emerging from the ocean, and rising on the north-east bank of Loch Awe, soars Ben Cruachan, the largest mountain in Argyleshire. Its perpendicular height is 3,390 feet above the level of the sea, and its circumference at the base is upwards of twenty miles. On the south, the ascent is gentle nearly to the summit, where it rises abrupt, and divides into two points, each having the form of a sugar-loaf. Before the storm, "the spirit of the mountain shrieks" from Ben Cruachan, Ben Doran, and some other Highland mountains. When Burke made his tour in Scotland, he declared that Loch Awe was the most picturesque lake he had ever seen. It was in a narrow pass in the vicinity of this lake that King Robert Bruce defeated the Macdougals of Lorn, in 1308. In Loch Awe are found salmon, trout, eels, and other fresh water fish. The lake discharges itself by the river Awe into Loch Etive at Bunawe Ferry.

NOTE 4, PAGE 87.

_The Wolf._

Wolves were once the scourge of England, and are still numerous in many parts of France. The Poem is founded on an incident which occurred some years ago in Picardy--the details of which were similar, with the exception that the peasant shot his mother instead of his sweetheart, in mistake for the wolf of which he was in pursuit. The last of these ferocious animals seen in the neighbourhood of Guisne was shot by a woman named Louise Vernette, nearly fifty years ago. During a severe winter, when the whole country was covered with snow, a she-wolf, urged to desperation by hunger, had entered her cottage at an early hour of the morning, and carried off her infant, as it lay in the cradle. The mother, on returning from the labours of the field, with frantic lamentations searched the neighbourhood for her child. During her wanderings she encountered a peasant, breathless from a long and unavailing pursuit of the savage beast, which he had seen entering a wood about three leagues distant with the child in its jaws. The whole village immediately renewed the chase; the mother, arming herself with a gun, was, as might have been expected, the most indefatigable, and, penetrating into the recesses of the forest, encountered the monster, which she shot dead. No traces of the miserable infant were ever discovered.

NOTE 5, PAGE 105.

_Mount Horeb._

Mount Sinai stands about 120 miles south from Jerusalem, and nearly 260 eastward from Grand Cairo in Egypt. The mountain is of no great extent, but extremely high, and has two tops; the western of which is called Horeb, and the eastern, which is about a third higher, Sinai. There are several springs and fruit-trees on Horeb, but nothing except rainwater on the top of Sinai. The ascent of both is very steep, and can only be effected by steps, now much effaced, which the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, caused to be cut in the marble rock. At the foot of Mount Sinai, on the north, and near to the ascent of Mount Horeb, there was a monastery dedicated to Saint Catherine, but now in ruins, not far distant from which there stands a fountain of very clear water, formed like a bow or arch. A little above which is to be seen the Cave where Elijah rested when God spoke unto him, 1 Kings xix. From the top of Sinai, God proclaimed his law to the Hebrews amid devouring flames of fire, Exod. xxiv. The Rock Rephidim, which seems to have been a clift fallen off from the side of Sinai, and lies like a large loose stone in the midst of the valley, gives name to that part of the desert nearest the mountain. There are twelve openings in it, whence, on being struck by Moses, the waters gushed out for the supply of the Israelites, during the forty years they tarried in the desert, Exod. xvii.

NOTE 6, PAGE 116.

_Dryburgh Abbey._

The ruins of Dryburgh Abbey are surpassingly interesting, from their antiquity, history, picturesque appearance, and more than all, from the GREAT MINSTREL being buried there. The grave of Sir Walter Scott is in St. Mary's Aisle of the Abbey Church of Dryburgh, which is in the form of a cross, and the Poet lies in the left transept of the Cross, part of which is still standing, and close to where the high altar formerly stood. This transept is divided into three burial-places; that of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, in right of his grandmother, Lady Haliburton's family; that of James Erskine, Esq. of Shieldhall and Melrose; and that of James G. Haig, Esq. of the ancient family of Bemersyde. These, with the tomb-house of the Earl of Buchan, in St. Moden's Chapel, and that of James Anderson, Esq. of Gledswood, form, I believe, the only cemeteries in Dryburgh. These venerable ruins stand on a romantic peninsula, formed by one of the great windings of the Tweed, commonly called the crescent of that river, in the south-west nook of Berwickshire, where the river divides that county from Roxburghshire. The land rises in a sloping bank from the margin of the Tweed to the top of Dryburgh Hill, about 800 feet high, on which stands the colossal statue of _Wallace_, erected by the late revered Earl of Buchan. The trees in the neighbourhood of Dryburgh have a very luxuriant appearance, and some of them are rather remarkable. There are many vestiges of old oaks to be found, and the ash and the yew have grown to a surprising height and circumference; and there is still, in the cemetery of the Abbey, a yew-tree of uncommon beauty, which is upwards of ten feet in circumference, at six feet from the ground. In the grounds opposite the mansion house of Dryburgh, there are also some fine trees, particularly a noble cedar, which has been much admired. Many interesting remains of antiquity have been dug up in Dryburgh Abbey and places adjacent.

NOTE 7, PAGE 140.

_Sonnets on Danby's Picture._

Mr Danby could scarcely have chosen a better subject for the display of his great powers than that of the Deluge. In this highly effective and beautiful work of art, an Angel of light is introduced, weeping over the lifeless bodies of a giant and a female, who, floating above the swelling waters on a hastily constructed raft, were crushed to death by a fallen tree. This part of the scene is evidently illustrative of that passage in Scripture which refers to the "Sons of God," who "saw that the daughters of men were fair, and they took them wives of all whom they chose." The "Sons of God," according to the best commentators, were a race of men favoured by God, but who generally incurred his displeasure, and perished with mankind in general.

NOTE 8, PAGE 157.

"_Calmly the martyr Guthrie met his fate._"

Mr James Guthrie, minister of Stirling, was executed at Edinburgh, on the 1st of June 1661, for his adherence to the Covenant. In his dying speech, he solemnly declared,--"I take God to record upon my soul, I would not exchange this scaffold with the palace or the mitre of the greatest prelate in Britain."

NOTE 9, PAGE 167.

_The Eagle's Nest._

The incident here versified is founded on fact, although I have taken the liberty slightly to alter the details,--to change the scene, as it were, of the heroine's birth-place,--and to give her a name of my own choosing. The case is thus narrated by Dr Rush of Philadelphia, in his "Lectures on the Utility of a Knowledge of the Mind to a Physician," lect. xi.:--

"During the time I passed at a country school, at Cecil county, in Maryland," says that eminent medical philosopher, "I often went, on a holiday, with my schoolmates, to see an eagle's nest, upon the summit of a dead tree in the neighbourhood of the school, during the time of the incubation of that bird. The daughter of the farmer in whose field the tree stood, and with whom I became acquainted, married, and settled in this place about forty years ago. In our occasional interviews, we now and then spoke of the innocent pursuits and rural pleasures of our youth, and, among other things, of the eagle's nest in her father's field. A few years ago I was called to visit this woman, when she was in the lowest stage of a typhus fever. Upon entering her room, I caught her eye, and, with a cheerful tone of voice, said only--'The eagle's nest!' She seized my hand, without being able to speak, and discovered strong emotions of pleasure in her countenance, probably from a sudden association of all her early domestic connexions and enjoyments with the words I had uttered. From that time she began to recover. She is now living, and seldom fails, when we meet, to salute me with the echo of--'The eagle's nest!'"

NOTE 10, PAGE 193.

"_Our history records, 'with sorrow and with shame.'_"

Marshal Ney was shot in violation of a solemn capitulation--the Convention of Paris;--by the twelfth article of which an amnesty was granted to all persons in the capital, whatever might be their opinions, their offices, or their conduct. Marshal Davoust, who had concluded the Convention, explained it in favour of Ney,--and so will impartial history. The Duke of Wellington, however, on being appealed to by the unfortunate Ney, during the trial returned the cold and lawyer-like answer,--"That the Convention was merely a military convention, and did not, and could not, promise pardon for political offences, on the part of the French government." And so Ney, the most heroic of all the marshals of the French Revolution, was most foully murdered in the garden of the Luxembourg, to satisfy a point of mere military etiquette! Like the Dacian captive of old,--

"Butchered to make a Roman holiday."

That the Duke of Wellington did not at once strongly remonstrate against the illegality of the act was unfortunate for his own fame. It required but the saving of Ney's life to have made him the greatest man of his time. That the act was illegal is acknowledged by the ablest jurisconsults of Europe. Well might Ney himself exclaim, when he found that his death was resolved upon:--"I am accused against the faith of treaties, and they will not let me justify myself. I appeal to Europe and to posterity!"

NOTE 11, PAGE 241.

"_He was a sage old man who said._"

A sophist, wishing to perplex Thales, who was one of the seven wise men of Greece, asked him many difficult questions; to all of which the sage replied without the least hesitation. To one of those questions,--which was the following,--"What is the best of all things?" Thales gave this response: "Virtue; because without it there is nothing good." Such is the conviction of mere unassisted and stumbling reason, the voice of nature, and the unequivocal and direct assertion of a heathen philosopher.--_Preface to Piety and Intellect Relatively Estimated, by Dr Henry Edwards._--An excellent work.