Chapter XXXV: Introduction: TO (24)

James Telfer, an ingenious prose writer and respectable poet, was born about the commencement of the century, near the source of the river Jed, in the parish of Southdean, and county of Roxburgh. Passionate in his admiration of Hogg's "Queen's Wake," he early essayed imitations of some of the more remarkable portions of that poem. In 1824 he published at Jedburgh a volume of "Border Ballads and Miscellaneous Poems," which he inscribed to the Bard of Ettrick. "Barbara Gray," an interesting prose tale, appeared from his pen in 1835, printed at Newcastle. A collected edition of his best productions in prose and verse was published at London in 1852, with the title of "Tales and Sketches." He has long been a contributor to the provincial journals.

Some of Mr Telfer's ballads are respectable specimens of this class of compositions; and his tales in prose are written with much vigour, the narrative of "Barbara Gray" being especially interesting. For many years he has taught an adventure school at Saughtree, Liddisdale; and with emoluments not much beyond twenty pounds a-year, he has contrived to support a family. He has long maintained a literary correspondence with his ingenious friend, Mr Robert White of Newcastle; and his letters, some of which we have seen, abound with curious and interesting speculations.

OH, WILL YE WALK THE WOOD WI' ME?[36]

"Oh, will ye walk the wood wi' me?
Oh, will ye walk the green?
Or will ye sit within mine arms,
My ain kind Jean?"

"It 's I 'll not walk the wood wi' thee,
Nor yet will I the green;
And as for sitting in your arms,
It 's what I dinna mean."

"Oh! slighted love is ill to thole,
And weel may I compleen;
But since that better mayna be,
I e'en maun thol 't for Jean."

"Gang up to May o' Mistycleugh,
Ye saw her late yestreen;
Ye'll find in her a lightsome love
Ye winna find in Jean."

"Wi' bonny May o' Mistycleugh
I carena to be seen;
Her lightsome love I'd freely gie
For half a blink frae Jean."

"Gang down to Madge o' Miryfaulds,
I ken for her ye green;
Wi' her ye 'll get a purse o' gowd--
Ye 'll naething get wi' Jean."

"For doity Madge o' Miryfaulds
I dinna care a preen;
The purse o' gowd I weel could want,
If I could hae my Jean."

"Oh, yes! I 'll walk the wood wi' thee;
Oh, yes! I 'll walk the green;
But first ye 'll meet me at the kirk,
And mak' me aye your Jean."

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Portions of the first and second verses of this song are fragments of an older ditty.--_Note by the Author._

I MAUN GAE OVER THE SEA.

"Sweet summer now is by,
And cauld winter is nigh,
The wan leaves they fa' frae the tree;
The hills are white wi' snaw,
And the frosty winds blaw,
And I maun gie over the sea, Mary,
And I maun gie over the sea.

"But winter will gang by,
And summer come wi' joy,
And Nature again will be free;
And wooers you will find,
And mair ye 'll never mind
The laddie that 's over the sea, Mary,
The laddie that 's over the sea."

"Oh, Willie, since it 's sae,
My heart is very wae
To leave a' my friends and countrie;
But wi' thee I will gang,
Though the way it be lang,
And wi' thee I 'll cross the saut sea, Willie,
And wi' thee I 'll cross the saut sea."

"The way is vera far,
And terrible is war,
And great are the hardships to dree;
And if I should be slain,
Or a prisoner ta'en,
My jewel, what would come o' thee, Mary?
My jewel, what would come o' thee?

"Sae at hame ye maun bide,
And should it sae betide
That a bride to another ye be,
For ane that lo'ed ye dear
Ye 'll whiles drap a tear;
I 'll aften do the same for thee, Mary,
I 'll aften do the same for thee."

The rowan tear down fell,
Her bosom wasna well,
For she sabbit most wofullie;
"Oure the yirth I wad gang,
And never count it lang,
But I fear ye carena for me, Willie,
But I fear ye carena for me."

Nae langer could he thole,
She tore his vera soul,
He dighted her bonnie blue e'e;
"Oh, what was it you said,
Oh my ain loving maid?
I 'll never love a woman but thee, Mary,
I 'll never love a woman but thee!"

The fae is forced to yield,
And freedom has the field;
"Away I will ne'er gang frae thee;
Only death shall us part,
Keep sic thoughts frae my heart,
But never shall part us the sea, Mary,
But never shall part us the sea."

METRICAL TRANSLATIONS

FROM

The Modern Gaelic Minstrelsy.

EVAN MACLACHLAN.

One of the most learned of the modern Gaelic song-writers, Evan Maclachlan, was born in 1775, in a small hut called Torracaltuin, in the district of Lochaber. After struggling with many difficulties in obtaining the means of education, he qualified himself for the duties of an itinerating tutor. In this capacity it was his good fortune to live in the families of the substantial tenantry of the district, two of whom, the farmers at Clunes and Glen Pean, were led to evince an especial interest in his welfare. The localities of those early patrons he has celebrated in his poetry. Another patron, the Chief of Glengarry, supplied funds to enable him to proceed to the university, and he was fortunate in gaining, by competition, a bursary or exhibition at King's College, Aberdeen. For a Greek ode, on the generation of light, he gained the prize granted for competition to the King's College by the celebrated Dr Claudius Buchanan. Having held, during a period of years, the office of librarian in King's College, he was in 1819 elected master of the grammar school of Old Aberdeen. His death took place on the 29th March 1822. To the preparation of a Gaelic dictionary he devoted the most important part of his life. Subsequent to his decease, the work was published in two quarto volumes, by the Highland Society, under the editorial care of Dr Mackay, formerly of Dunoon. The chief amusement of Maclachlan's leisure hours was executing translations of Homer into Gaelic. His translation of the third book of the Iliad has been printed. Of his powers as a Gaelic poet, an estimate may be formed from the following specimens in English verse.

A MELODY OF LOVE.

The first stanza of this song was the composition of a
lady. Maclachlan completed the composition in Gaelic,
and afterwards produced the following version of the
whole in English.

Not the swan on the lake, or the foam on the shore,
Can compare with the charms of the maid I adore:
Not so white is the new milk that flows o'er the pail,
Or the snow that is shower'd from the boughs of the vale.

As the cloud's yellow wreath on the mountain's high brow,
The locks of my fair one redundantly flow;
Her cheeks have the tint that the roses display
When they glitter with dew on the morning of May.

As the planet of Venus that gleams o'er the grove,
Her blue rolling eyes are the symbols of love:
Her pearl-circled bosom diffuses bright rays,
Like the moon when the stars are bedimm'd with her blaze.

The mavis and lark, when they welcome the dawn,
Make a chorus of joy to resound through the lawn:
But the mavis is tuneless, the lark strives in vain,
When my beautiful charmer renews her sweet strain.

When summer bespangles the landscape with flowers,
While the thrush and the cuckoo sing soft from the bowers,
Through the wood-shaded windings with Bella I 'll rove,
And feast unrestrained on the smiles of my love.

THE MAVIS OF THE CLAN.

These verses are allegorical. In the character of a
song-bird the bard relates the circumstances of his
nativity, the simple habits of his progenitors, and his
own rural tastes and recreations from infancy, giving
the first place to the delights of melody. He proceeds
to give an account of his flight to a strange but
hospitable region, where he continued to sing his songs
among the birds, the flocks, the streams, and
cultivated fields of the land of his sojourn. This
piece is founded upon a common usage of the Gaelic
bards, several of whom assume the allegorical character
of the "Mavis" of their own clan. Thus we have the
Mavis of Clan-ranald by Mac-Vaistir-Allister--of
Macdonald (of Sleat) by Mac Codrum--of Macleod, and
many others.

Clan Lachlan's tuneful mavis, I sing on the branches early,
And such my love of song, I sleep but half the night-tide rarely;
No raven I, of greedy maw, no kite of bloody beak,
No bird of devastating claw, but a woodland songster meek.
I love the apple's infant bloom; my ancestry have fared
For ages on the nourishment the orchard hath prepared:
Their hey-day was the summer, their joy the summer's dawn,
And their dancing-floor it was the green leaf's velvet lawn;
Their song was the carol that defiance bade to care,
And their breath of life it was the summer's balmiest air.

When first my morn of life was born, the Pean's[37] silver stream
Glanced in my eye, and then there lent my view their kinder gleam,
The flowers that fringed its side, where, by the fragrant breezes lull'd,
As in a cradle-bed I lay, and all my woes were still'd.
But changes will come over us, and now a stranger I
Among the glades of Cluaran[38] must imp my wings and fly;
Yet gratitude forbid complaint, although in foreign grove,
Since welcome to my haunt I come, and there in freedom rove.

By every song-bird charm'd, my ear is fed the livelong day,
Now from the hollow's deepest dell, now from the top-most spray,
The comrades of my lay, they tune their wild notes for my pleasure,
And I, can I refrain to swell their diapason's measure?
With its own clusters loaded, with its rich foliage dress'd,
Each bough is hanging down, and each shapely stem depress'd,
While nestle there inhabitants, a feather'd tuneful choir,
That in the strife of song breathe forth a flame of minstrel fire.
O happy tribe of choristers! no interruption mars
The concert of your harmony, nor ever harshly jars
A string of all your harping, nor of your voices trill
Notes that are weak for tameness, that are for sharpness shrill.

The sun is on his flushing march, his golden hair abroad,
It seems as on the mountain's side of beams a furnace glow'd,
Now melts the honey from all flowers, and now a dew o'erspreads
(A dew of fragrant blessedness) all the grasses of the meads.
Nor least in my remembrance is my country's flowering heather,
Whose russet crest, nor cold, nor sun, nor sweep of gale may wither;
Dear to my eye the symbol wild, that loves like me the side
Of my own Highland mountains that I climb in love and pride.

Dear tribes of nature! co-mates ye of nature's wandering son--
I hail the lambs that on the floor of milky pastures run,
I hail the mother flocks, that, wrapp'd in their mantle of the fleece,
Defy the landward tempest's roar, and defy the seaward breeze.
The streams they drink are waters of the ever-gushing well,
Those streams, oh, how they wind around the swellings of the dell!
The flowers they browze are mantles spread o'er pastures wide and far,
As mantle o'er the firmament the stars, each flower a star!
I will not name each sister beam, but clustering there I see
The beauty of the purple-bell, the daisy of the lea.

Of every hue I mark them, the many-spotted kine,
The dun, the brindled, and the dark, and blends the bright its shine;
And, 'mid the Highlands rude, I see the frequent furrows swell,
With the barley and the corn that Scotland loves so well.

* * * * *

And now I close my clannish lay with blessings on the shade
That bids the mavis sing her song, well nurtured, undismay'd;
The shade where bloom and cresses, and the ear-honey'd heather,
Are smiling fair, and dwelling in their brotherhood together;
For the sun is setting largely, and blinks my eye its ken;
'T is time to loose the strings, I ween, and close my wild-wood strain.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] The stream that flows through Glen Pean.

[38] The Gaelic name of Clunes, where the bard was entertained for many years of his tutor life.

THE THREE BARDS OF COWAL.[39]

JOHN BROWN.

One of the bards of Cowal is believed to have been born in the parish of Inverchaolain about 1750; his family name was Brun or Broun, as distinguished from the Lowland Brown, which he assumed. He first appeared as a poet by the publication, at Perth, in 1786, of a small volume of Gaelic poetry, dedicated to the Duke of Montrose. The subsequent portion of his career seems to have been chiefly occupied in genealogical researches. In 1792 he completed, in two large sheets, his "Historical and Genealogical Tree of the Royal Family of Scotland;" of which the second edition bears the date 1811. This was followed by similar genealogical trees of the illustrious family of Graham, of the noble house of Elphinstone, and other families. In these productions he uniformly styles himself, "Genealogist to his R. H. the Prince of Wales, for Scotland." Brown died at Edinburgh in the beginning of the year 1821. He had formed a respectable connexion by marriage, under circumstances which he has commemorated in the annexed specimen of his poetry, but his latter years were somewhat clouded by misfortune. He is remembered as a solicitor for subscriptions to his genealogical publications.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Cowal is that portion of Argyllshire bordering the Frith of Clyde, and extending inland to the margin of Lochfine.

THE SISTERS OF DUNOLLY.

The poet had paid his addresses to one of the sisters,
but without the consent of her relatives, who
ultimately induced her to wed another. After a lapse of
time the bard transferred his affection to another
daughter of the same distinguished family, and being
successful, was compensated for his former trials.

The sundown had mantled Ben Nevis with night,
And the stars were attired in the glory of light,
And the hope of the lover was shining as day,
When Dunolly's fair daughter was sprited away.

Away she has gone at the touch of the helm,
And the shadows of darkness her lover o'erwhelm--
But, would that his strength as his purpose was true,
At Dunolly, Culloden were battled anew!

Yes! did they give courtesy, did they give time,
The kindred of Cowal would meet at the prime,
And the _Brunach_[40] would joy, in the succour they gave,
To win him a bride, or to win him a grave.

My lost one! I'm not like the laggard thou'st found,
Whose puissance scarce carries the sword he has bound;
In the flush of my health and my penniless youth,
I could well have rewarded thine honour and truth.

Five years they have pass'd, and the Brunach has shaken
The burden of woe that his spirit was breaking;
A sister is salving a sister's annoy,
And the eyes of the Brunach are treasured with joy.

A bride worth the princesses England is rearing,
Comes forth from Dunolly, a star reappearing;
If my heart in Dunolly was garner'd before,
In Dunolly, my pride and my pleasure is more.

The lowly, the gentle, the graceful, the mild
That in friendship or charity never beguiled,
She is mine--to Dunduala[41] that traces her stem,
As for kings to be proud of, 'tis prouder for them,
Though Donald[42] the gracious be head of her line,
And "our exiled and dear"[43] in her pedigree shine.

Then hearken, ye men of the country I love!
Despair not, unsmooth though the course of your love,
Ere ye yield to your sorrow or die in your folly,
May ye find, like the Brunach, another Dunolly.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Brunach--The Brown, viz., the poet himself.

[41] The Macdougalls of Dunolly claim descent from the Scoto-Irish kings who reigned in Dunstaffnage.

[42] Supposed to be the first of our Christian kings.

[43] Prince Charles Edward.

CHARLES STEWART, D.D.

The Rev. Dr Stewart was born at Appin, Argyllshire, in 1751. His mother was a daughter of Edmonstone of Cambuswallace, the representative of an old and distinguished family in the counties of Perth and Stirling; and his father was brother of Stewart of Invernachoil, who was actively engaged in the cause of Prince Charles Edward, and has been distinguished in the romance of Waverley as the Baron of Bradwardine. This daring Argyllshire chief, whom Scott represents as being fed in the cave by "Davie Gellatly," was actually tended in such a place of concealment by his own daughter, a child about ten years old.

On receiving license, Dr Stewart soon attained popularity as a preacher. In 1779, being in his twenty-eighth year, he was ordained to the pastoral charge of the parish of Strachur, Argyllshire. He died in the manse of Strachur on the 24th of May 1826, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, and the forty-seventh of his ministry. A tombstone was erected to his memory in the parochial burying-ground, by the members of the kirk-session. Possessed of superior talents, a vast fund of humour, and a delightful store of traditional information, he was much cherished by a wide circle of admiring friends. Faithful in the discharge of the public duties of his office, he was distinguished among his parishioners for his private amenities and acts of benevolence. He was the author only of one song, but this has attained much favour among the Gael.

LUINEAG--A LOVE CAROL.

No homeward scene near me,
No comrade to cheer me,
I cling to my dearie,
And sigh till I marry.
Sing ever O, and ra-ill O,
Ra-ill O,
Sing ever O, and ra-ill O,
Was ever a May like my fairy?

My youth with the stranger,[44]
Next on mountains a ranger,
I pass'd--but no change, here,
Will sever from Mary.

What ringlets discover
Their gloss thy brows over--
Forget thee! thy lover,
Ah, first shall they bury.

Thy aspect of kindness,
Thy graces they bind us,
And, like Feili,[45] remind us
Of a heaven undreary.

Than the treasures of Spain
I would toil more to gain
Thy love--but my pain,
Ah, 'tis cruel, my Mary!

When the shell is o'erflowing,
And its dew-drops are glowing,
No, never, thy snow on
A slander shall tarry.

When viols are playing,
And dancers are Maying,
My eyes may be straying,
But my soul is with Mary.

That white hand of thine
Might I take into mine,
Could I ever repine,
Or from tenderness vary?

No, never! no, never!
My troth on 't for ever,
Lip to lip, I 'd deliver
My being to Mary.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Invernahyle removed with his family to Edinburgh, and became very intimate with the father of Sir Walter Scott. He seems to have made a great impression on the future poet.

[45] Festivals, saint-days.

ANGUS FLETCHER.

Angus Fletcher was born at Coirinti, a wild and romantic spot on the west bank of Loch Eck, in June 1776. His education was chiefly conducted at the parish school of Kilmodan, Glendaruel. From Glendaruel he went to Bute, in 1791, where he was variously employed till May 1804, when he was elected schoolmaster of Dunoon, his native parish. His death took place at Dunoon in 1852. The first of the two following songs was contributed anonymously to the _Weekly Journal_ newspaper, whence it was transferred by Turner into his Gaelic collection. It soon became popular in the Highlands, and the authorship came to be assigned to different individuals. Fletcher afterwards announced himself as the author, and completely established his claim. He was the author of various metrical compositions both in Gaelic and English.

THE CLACHAN OF GLENDARUEL.

Thy wily eyes, my darling,
Thy graces bright, my jewel,
Have grieved me since our parting
At the kirk of Glendaruel.

'Twas to the Kirkton wending
Bright eyes encounter'd duty,
And mavis' notes were blending
With the rosy cheeks of beauty.

Oh, jimpsome is her shapely waist,
Her arms, her instep queenly;
And her sweet parting lips are graced
With rows of ivory inly.

When busy tongues are railing,
Lown is her word unsaucy,
And with modest grace unfailing
She trips it o'er the causey.

Should royalty prefer me,
Preferment none I crave,
But to live a shepherd near thee,
On the howes of Corrichnaive.

Would fortune crown my wishes--
The shealing of the hill,
With my darling, and the rushes
To couch on, were my will.

I hear, but not instruction,
Though faithful lips are pleading--
I read thy eyes' perfection,
On their dew of mildness feeding.

My hand is swiftly scrolling,
In the courts of reverend men;[46]
But, ah! my restless soul in
Is triumphing my Jean.

I fear, I fear their frowning--
But though they chased me over
Where Holland's flats[47] are drowning,
I 'll live and die thy lover.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] The poet waxes professional. He was session-clerk and clerk-depute of presbytery.

[47] The war was raging in Holland, under the command of the Duke of York. The bard threatens to exchange the pen for the sword.

THE LASSIE OF THE GLEN.

Versified from the Gaelic Original by the Author.

Beneath a hill 'mang birken bushes,
By a burnie's dimplit linn,
I told my love with artless blushes
To the lassie o' the glen.

Oh! the birken bank sae grassy,
Hey! the burnie's dimplit linn;
Dear to me 's the bonnie lassie
Living in yon rashy glen!

Lanely Ruail! thy stream sae glassy
Shall be aye my fav'rite theme,
For on thy banks my Highland lassie
First confess'd a mutual flame.

What bliss to sit, and nane to fash us,
In some sweet wee bow'ry den!
Or fondly stray amang the rashes,
Wi' the lassie o' the glen!

And though I wander now unhappy,
Far frae scenes we haunted then,
I'll ne'er forget the bank sae grassy,
Nor the lassie o' the glen.

GLOSSARY.

_Aboon_, above.

_Aumry_, a store-place.

_Baum_, balm.

_Beuk_, book.

_Bicker_, a drinking vessel.

_Burnie_, a small stream.

_Caller_, cool.

_Cled_, clad.

_Clud_, cloud.

_Couthy_, frank.

_Daffin'_, merry-making.

_Dighted_, wiped.

_Doit_, a small coin.

_Doitet_, dotard.

_Douf_, sad.

_Dree_, endure.

_Dwine_, dwindle.

_Fauld_, fold.

_Fleechit_, cajoled.

_Fykes_, troubles, anxieties.

_Gaed_, went.

_Gar_, compel.

_Gate_, way.

_Glour_, look earnestly.

_Grannie_, grandmother.

_Grat_, wept.

_Grit_, great.

_Haill_, whole.

_Haud_, hold, keep.

_Heuk_, reaping-hook.

_Hie_, high.

_Hinny_, honey.

_Hizzie_, _Hussy_, a thoughtless girl.

_Ken_, know.

_Knows_, knolls, hillocks.

_Laith_, loth.

_Lift_, firmament.

_Lowin'_, burning.

_Minnie_, mother.

_Parochin'_, parish.

_Pu'_, pull.

_Roos'd_, praised.

_Sabbit_, sobbed.

_Scour_, search.

_Slee_, sly.

_Speerin'_, inquiring.

_Swiggit_, swallowed.

_Syne_, then.

_Thole_, endure.

_Toom_, empty.

_Troth_, truth, vow.

_Trow_, believe.

_Tyne_, lose.

_Unco_, uncommon.

_Wag_, shake.

_Waur_, worse.

_Ween_, guess.

_Yirth_, earth.

_Yowes_, ewes.

END OF VOL. IV.

BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

THE

MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL;

BY

CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D. F.S.A. SCOT.

VOL. V.

Alexd^{r}. Maclagan.

EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO THE QUEEN.]

* * * * *

F. Bennoch.]

* * * * *

THE

MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL;

OR,

THE SONGS OF SCOTLAND OF THE PAST HALF CENTURY.

WITH

Memoirs of the Poets,

AND

SKETCHES AND SPECIMENS IN ENGLISH VERSE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

BY

CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D., F.S.A. SCOT.

IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL V.

EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO HER MAJESTY.

MDCCCLVII.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL'S WORK.

TO

ALEXANDER BAILLIE COCHRANE,

ESQ. OF LAMINGTON.

SIR,

I inscribe to you the present volume of "THE MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL," not to express approval of your political sentiments, nor to court your patronage as a man of rank. Political science has occupied only a limited share of my attention, and I have hitherto conducted my peculiar studies without the favour of the great. My dedication is prompted on these twofold grounds:--Bearing in your veins the blood of Scotland's Illustrious Defender, you were one of the first of your order to join in the proposal of rearing a National Monument to his memory; and while some doubted the expediency of the course, and others stood aside fearing a failure, you did not hesitate boldly to come forward as a public advocate of the enterprise. Yourself a man of letters, you were among the foremost who took an interest in the establishment of the Scottish Literary Institute, of which you are now the President--a society having for its main object the relief, in circumstances of virtuous indigence, of those men of genius and learning who have contributed by the pen to perpetuate among our countrymen that spirit of intelligence and love of freedom which, by his sword, Sir William Wallace first taught Scotsmen how to vindicate and maintain.

I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your very obedient, humble servant,
CHARLES ROGERS.

_STIRLING, June 1857._

SCOTTISH LYRICS AND SCOTTISH LIFE.

BY JAMES DODDS.

Judging from a comparison of extant remains, and other means of information now available, it may be doubted whether any country has equalled Scotland in the number of its lyrics. By the term _lyrics_, I mean specifically poetical compositions, meant and suitable to be sung, with the musical measures to which they have been wedded. I include under the term, both the compositions themselves, and their music. The Scottish ballads are numerous, the Scottish songs all but numberless, and the Scottish tunes an inexhaustible fountain of melody.

"And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute."

Look at the vast collections of them which have been published, and the additions which are ever making, either from some newly-discovered manuscript, or from oral tradition in some out-of-the-way part of the country. The numbers, too, which have been preserved, seem to be exceeded by the numbers that have unfortunately been lost. Who has not in his ears the hum of many lyrics heard by him in his childhood--from mother, or nurse, or some old crooning dame at the fireside--which are to be found in no collection, and which are now to himself but like a distant, unformed sound? All our collectors, whilst smiling in triumph over the pearls which they have brought up and borne to the shore, lament the multitude of precious things irrecoverably buried in the depths of oblivion. Where, for instance, amid the similar wreck which has befallen so many others, are now the ancient words pouring forth the dirge over the "Flowers of the Forest," or those describing the tragic horrors on the "Braes of Yarrow," or those celebrating the wondrous attractions of the "Braw Lads o' Gala Water"? We have but the two first lines--the touching key-note of a lover's grief, in an old song, which has been most tamely rendered in Ramsay's version--these two lines being--

"Alas! that I came o'er the moor,
And left my love behind me."

Only one verse has floated down of an old song, which breathes the very soul of a lover's restless longings:--

"Aye wakin', O!
Wakin' aye an' eerie;
Sleep I canna get
For thinkin' on my dearie;
Aye wakin', O!"

Does it not at once pique and disappoint the fancy, that these two graceful verses are all that remain of a song, where, doubtless, they were once but two fair blossoms in a large and variegated posy:--

"Within my garden gay
The rose and lily grew;
But the pride of my garden is wither'd away,
And it 's a' grown o'er wi' rue.

"Farewell, ye fading flowers!
And farewell, bonnie Jean!
But the flower that is now trodden under foot,
In time it may bloom again."

Nay--passing from the tender to the grotesque--would it not have been agreeable to hear something more than two lines from the lips of a lover so stout-hearted, yet so ardent, in his own rough, blunt way, as he who has thus commenced his song:--

"I wish my love were in a mire,
That I might pull her out again;"

or to know something more of the details of that extraordinary parish, of which one surviving verse draws the following sombre picture:--

"Oh! what a parish!--eh! what a parish!
Oh! what a parish is that o' Dunkel':
They 've hang'd the minister, droon'd the precentor;
They 've pu'd doon the steeple, and drunk the kirk-bell."

The Scottish lyrics, lying all about, thus countless and scattered--

"Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallambrosa"--

are not like those which mark and adorn the literature of many other countries, the euphonisms of a meretricious court, or the rhymed musings of philosophers, or conceits from Pagan mythology, or the glancing epigrams of men of wit and of the world, or mere hunting choruses and Bacchanalian catches of a rude squirearchy. They are the ballads, songs, and tunes of the people. In their own language, but that language glittering from the hidden well of poesy--in ideas which they at once recognise as their own, because photographed from nature--these lyrics embody the loves and thoughts of the people, the themes on which they delight to dwell, even their passions and prejudices; and vibrate in their memories, quickening the pulses of life, knitting them to the Old Land, and shedding a poetic glow over all the commonplaces of existence and occupation. It is the faithful popular memory, more than anything else, which has been the ark to save the ancient lyrics of Scotland. Not only so, but there is reason to believe that our national lyrics have, generally speaking, been creations of the men, and sometimes of the women, of the people. They are the people's, by the title of origin, no less than by the feeling of sympathy.

This, of course, is clear, as regards the great masters of the lyre who have appeared within the period of known authorship--Ramsay, Burns, Tannahill, Hogg, and Cunningham. The authors of the older lyrics--I mean both compositions and tunes--are, with few exceptions, absolutely unknown; but were there room here for discussion, it might be shewn that all the probabilities lead up, principally, to the ancient order of Minstrels, who from very early times were nearly as much organised and privileged and honoured in Scotland, as ever were the troubadours in Provence and Italy. Ellis, in the Introduction to his "Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances," alluding to Scott's publication of "Sir Tristrem," remarks--"He has shewn, by a reference to ancient charters, that the Scottish minstrels of this early period enjoyed all the privileges and distinctions possessed by the Norman trouveurs, whom they nearly rivalled in the arts of narration, and over whom they possessed one manifest advantage, in their familiar acquaintance with the usual scenes of chivalry." These minstrels, like the majority of poetic singers, were no doubt sons of the people--bold, aspiring, and genius-lit--bursting strong from their mother earth, with all her sap and force and fruitfulness about them. Amongst the last of the professed minstrels was one Burn, who wonned on the Borders as late as the commencement of the eighteenth century, and who, in his pleasant, chirping ditty of "Leader Haughs and Yarrow," takes to himself this very title of _Minstrel_.

"But Minstrel Burn cannot assuage
His grief while life endureth,
To see the changes of this age,
That fleeting time procureth.
For many a place stands in hard case,
Where blythe folk kenn'd nae sorrow,
With Homes that dwelt on Leader-side,
And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."

Of this minstrel Burn there is a quaint little personal reminiscence. An aged person at Earlstoun many years ago related, that there used to be a portrait of the minstrel in Thirlestane Castle, near Lauder, "representing him as a douce old man, _leading a cow by a straw-rope_." The master of the "gay science" gradually slipping down from the clouds, and settling quietly and doucely on the plain hard ground of ordinary life and business! Let all pale-faced and sharp-chinned youths, who are spasmodic poets, or who are in danger of becoming such, keep steadily before them the picture of minstrel Burn, "leading a cow by a straw-rope"--and go and do likewise.

But as trees and flowers can only grow and come to perfection in soils by nature appropriate to them, so it is manifest that all this rich and fertile growth of lyrics, of minstrelsy and music, could only spring up amongst a people most impressionable and joyous. I speak of the Lowland population, and especially of the Borderers, with whose habits, manners and customs, alone I am personally acquainted; and the lingering traces of whose old forms of life--so gay, kindly, and suggestive--I saw some thirty years ago, just before they sank under the mammonism, commonplace, critical apery, and cold material self-seeking, which have hitherto been the plague of the present generation. We have become more practical and knowing than our forefathers, but not so wise. We are now a "fast people;" but we miss the true goal of life--that is, _sober happiness_. Fast to smattering; fast to outward, isolated show; fast to bankruptcy; fast to suicide; fast to some finalé of enormous and dreadful infamy. Bah! rather the plain, honest, homely life of our grandfathers--

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life,
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

Or rather (for every age has its own type, and old forms of life cannot be stereotyped and reproduced), let us have a philosophic and Christian combination of modern adventure and "gold-digging" with old-fashioned balance of mind, and neighbourliness, and open-heartedness, and thankful enjoyment.

Our Scottish race have been--yes, and notwithstanding modern changes, still are--a joyous people--a people full of what I shall term _a lyric joyousness_. I say they still are--as may be found any day up the Ettricks, and Yarrows, and Galas--up any of our Border glens and dales. The Borderers continue to merit the tribute paid to them in the odd but expressive lines of Wordsworth:--

"The _pleasant men of Tiviotdale_,
Fast by the river Tweed."

From time immemorial they have been enthusiastic lovers of song and music, and have been thoroughly imbued with their influences. Bishop Leslie, a contemporary of the state of manners which he describes, has recorded of them, upwards of two centuries ago--"That they take extreme delight in their music, and in their ballads, which are composed amongst themselves, celebrating the deeds of their ancestors, or the valour and success of their predatory expeditions;" which latter, it must be remembered, were esteemed, in those days, not only not criminal, but just, honourable, and heroic. What a gush of mirth overflows in king James' poem of "Peebles to the Play," descriptive of the Beltane or May-day festival, four hundred years ago! at Peebles, a charming pastoral town in the upper district of the vale of the Tweed:--

"At Beltane, when ilk body bouns
To Peebles to the play,
To hear the singin' and the soun's,
The solace, sooth to say.
By firth and forest forth they wound,
They graithit them full gay:
God wot what they would do that stound,
For it was their feast-day,
They said,
Of Peebles to the play!

* * * * *

"Hop, Calye, and Cardronow
Gatherit out thick-fald,
With, _Hey and How and Rumbelow!_
The young folk were full bald.
The bagpipe blew, and they out threw
Out of the towns untald:
Lord! sic ane shout was them amang,
When they were owre the wald,
There west
Of Peebles to the play!"

Thirty years ago, the same joyousness prevailed in a thousand forms--in hospitality, in festivity, in merry customs, in an exquisite social sense, in the culture of the humorous and the imaginative, in impressibility to every touch of noble and useful enthusiasm. It would be easy to dilate upon the causes which seem to have produced this choice joyous spirit in so unexpected a region as the far, bleak North: but that would be a lengthened subject; and we must content ourselves at present with the fact. And, instead of branching out into general vague illustrations of what I mean by this lyric joyousness, I shall _localise_ it, and embody the meaning in a sketch, light and imperfect it must be, of a real place and a real life--such as mine own eyes witnessed when a boy--and in the fond resuscitation of which, amidst the usual struggles and anxieties allotted to middle age, memory and feeling now find one of their most soothing exercises.

Let me transport the reader in imagination to the Vale of the Tweed, that classic region--the Arcadia of Scotland, the haunt of the Muses, the theme of so many a song, the scene of so many a romantic legend. And there, where that most crystalline of rivers has attained the fulness of its beauty and splendour--just before it meets and mingles in gentle union with its scarce less beauteous sister, "sweet Teviot"--on one of those finely swelling eminences which everywhere crown its banks, rise the battlements of Fleurs Castle, which has long been the seat of the Roxburghe family. It is a peerless situation; the great princely mansion, ever gleaming on the eye of the traveller, at whatever point he may be, in the wide surrounding landscape. It comes boldly out from the very heart of an almost endless wood--old, wild, and luxuriant; having no forester but nature--spreading right, left, and behind, away and away, till lost in the far horizon. Down a short space in front, a green undulating haugh between, roll the waters of the Tweed, with a bright clear radiance to which the brightest burnished silver is but as dimness and dross. On its opposite bank is a green huge mound--all that now remains of the mighty old Roxburgh Castle, aforetime the military key of Scotland, and within whose once towering precincts oft assembled the royalty, and chivalry, and beauty of both kingdoms. At a little distance to the east of Fleurs, the neat quaint abbey-town of Kelso, with its magnificent bridge, nestles amid greenery, close to the river. And afar to the south, the eye, tired at last with so vast a prospect, and with such richness and variety of scenery, rests itself on the cloud-capt range of the Cheviots, in amplitude and grandeur not unmeet to sentinel the two ancient and famous lands.

Upwards of thirty years ago, the ducal coronet of Roxburghe was worn by a nobleman who was then known, and is still remembered on Tweedside, as the "Good Duke James." The history of his life, were there any one now to tell it correctly, would be replete with interest. I cannot pretend to authentic knowledge of it; but I know the outline as I heard it when a child--as it used to be recited, like a minstrel's tale, by the gray-haired cottager sitting at his door of a summer evening, or by some faithful old servant of the castle, on a winter's night, over his flagon of ale, at the rousing hall-fire. And from all I have ever learned since, I judge that these country stories in the main were accurate.

He was not by birth a _Ker_--the family name of the house of Roxburghe--descended of the awful "Habbie Ker" in Queen Mary's troublous time, the Taille-Bois of the Borders, the Ogre-Baron of tradition, whose name is still whispered by the peasant with a kind of _eeriness_, as if he might start from his old den at Cessford, and pounce upon the rash speaker. Duke James was an Innes of the "north countrie;" Banff or Cromarty. He was some eight years of age in the dismal '45. Though his father was Hanoverian, the "Butcher" Cumberland shewed him but little favour in the course of his merciless ravages after Culloden. A troop of dragoons lived at free quarters on his estate; and one of them, in mere wanton cruelty, fired at the boy when standing at his father's door, and the ball grazed his face. Seventy years afterwards, when he was duke, the Ettrick Shepherd happened to dine at Fleurs. He was then collecting his "Jacobite Relics," and the Duke asked him what was his latest ballad? The Shepherd answered, it was a version of "Highland Laddie." He sang it. On coming to the verse,

"Ken ye the news I hae to tell,
Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie,
Cumberland's awa' to hell,
Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie!"

the Duke burst into one of his ringing laughs--the fine, deep _Ho, ho!_ that would drown all our effeminate modern gigglings, the sound of which lingers amongst the memories of my boyhood. "He well deserves it--he well deserves it--the wretch! Ho, ho!"--and he shouted with laughter, and threw himself into all the rough unceremonious humour of the ballad, finishing off by relating his own dire experience of the doings of Cumberland and his dragoons in the north. It seems he entered into the army, and served in the American war. After retiring, I believe he took up his residence in England--Devonshire, I think; his name at this time was Sir James Norcliffe Innes. During the once-belauded "good old times" of George III. he distinguished himself by holding and manfully avowing opinions which were then branded as Jacobinism; and he was an intimate friend, and I have heard an active supporter of the virtuous and patriotic Major Cartwright. About the beginning of the present century, the direct line of the Roxburghe Kers having failed, a competition arose amongst a host of claimants, for the estate and honours of that ancient House. After a most protracted and severe litigation, which forms one of the _Causés Celebrés_ in the law-books of Scotland, Sir James Norcliffe Innes was preferred. When approaching fourscore, he was installed Duke of Roxburghe, and put on a coronet at an age, long before which most part of mankind have put on their shrouds. He put it on--ay, and for many years wore it stout and stark--nobly, loftily, sweetly--with a dignity, simplicity, large-heartedness, and munificence, the remembrance of which somehow always brings to my mind that majestic line of Shakspeare, containing, after all, only a name and title, yet sounding as the embodiment of whatever is great and heroic in human character--

"Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster!"

I see him before me, as he lives in the recollections of childhood--as he lives and seems to speak in Raeburn's inimitable portrait at Fleurs. What a perfect mould of man! scarce one mark of old age in that face--no sign of weakness or decay in that frame, which has weathered eighty winters. He was over the middle size; straight, firm, strong built, and compact, with the air of native lordliness and command. His countenance was peculiarly beautiful, full and rounded as if young; fresh-coloured; and beaming with health, spirit, and vivacity. Its almost womanly sweetness was chastened and redeemed by the massiveness of the head, the deep penetrating eye, and an aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old _Dux_--the Duke of Chivalry--the foremost leader and commander of the people. But instead of chained mail and helmet, he was to be seen every day walking about amongst his people in hoddin-gray coat, nankeen breeches, white vest, and rumpled white hat--plain, easy, manly, and unaffected in all things.

Beyond the honour of an occasional pinch of the ears, or that kind, homely greeting which in passing he bestowed on all of us, young and old, I did not and could not know him personally. But, from those who did, I have always heard the highest estimate of his character, intellectually and morally. He possessed extensive information; but rather that of a man who had moved much about, and observed much, than from book-lore. His understanding was of the most masculine order--in all his views and judgments, distinguished by clearness, decision, and energy. But his great mental characteristic seems to have been _wisdom_--that fine, just inward sense of things, which, like poetry, is born in a man, not acquired--the result, generally, as in his case, of an innate power, combined with large, varied, and calming experience. Like most men of this stamp, he had both a keen sense of the humorous, and a racy talent for it; abounded in sententious, remarkable sayings; and had a dash of playfulness and eccentricity which gave a zest to his many solid excellences. The physician who attended his deathbed, often expressed regret that he had not kept a memorandum of his many striking observations during the short period of his illness. His character, morally, may be summed up in its two polar qualities--justice the most austere, generosity the most tender and boundless. Interwoven through his whole dispositions and actions was a strong, vehement temperament, which infused into all he said and did a vivid intensity, which would sometimes degenerate into sallies of passion, but which, upon the whole, raised and exalted his character to the true heroic dimensions. His factor, a respectable Edinburgh burgess, a gunsmith by trade, whom he had selected for no aptitude but from the freak of the name (Innes), could not always appreciate his schemes of improvement on the estate, which really were not based on economic considerations, but were meant to afford large means of employment to the people. In consequence, the duke, though he respected him greatly, would sometimes be ruffled, and blurt out a harsh thing at his expense. Walking with him one day in the fields, he was explaining with the most animated eloquence, where he intended to make some drains. "But," interrupted the burgess-factor, only thinking of the balance-sheet, "you will spend a great deal of money." "Yes," retorted the old nobleman, with ineffable contempt; "you have guessed my object: I _will_ spend a great deal of money." Then, turning quick on his heel, "You know more about the barrel of an old gun than about drains." After one of those sallies, the factor, who resided a few miles from Fleurs, and had swallowed and forgotten the bitter dose, was preparing, about twelve o'clock at night, to go to bed, when there was a sharp, sudden ring at the door-bell. It was a messenger from the duke, with a letter, in which he stated, that, in reflecting on the incidents of the day before retiring to rest, he felt remorse for the taunt which he had uttered; that it was the ebullition of the moment, but cruel and unkind; and that he could not sleep until he had received forgiveness. It may be conceived in what ardent terms the factor replied, and with what redoubled attachment he regarded and served such a master! This was no exceptional blink of goodness. It was only a specimen of his habit of justice, even against himself--of his magnanimity and generous candour--changeless as the sun.

During the just, benignant sway of the "good Duke James," perhaps Fleurs was the happiest place of all Scotland to live in;--not a happier could be in the wide world. To have been born and brought up there, and in one's childhood to have had such a taste of the "golden age," I have always esteemed the sweetest privilege of life. No one can become utterly sour, no one can lose faith and hope in humanity, who was nurtured on the milk and honey of Fleurs, under "good Duke James." Poetry and enthusiasm must spring eternal in his breast. This is no illusion from the fancies of boyhood. Ask the old peasant of Tweedside--a mature, hardy man then--and he will tell, with a glow on his cheek, and a tear, due to remembrance, in his eye, "Ah! the Fleurs was a braw place under auld Duke Jemmy!" Nature, industry, peace, mirth, love, a kindred soul between duke and people, seemed to breathe in every gale there, and sing in the matins and vespers of every bird. There the _lyric joyousness_, characteristic of the Scottish people when allowed freely to develop, expanded itself to the utmost of its power and fervour. Fleurs was like the "Ida Vale" of Spenser:--

"In Ida vale, (who knows not Ida vale?)
When harmless Troy yet felt not Grecian spite,
An hundred shepherds wonn'd; and in the dale,
While their fair flocks the three-leaved pastures bite,
The shepherd boys, with hundred sportings light,
Gave wings unto the time's too speedy haste."

In our old, picturesque Saxon form of speech, the husband was the "_bread-winner_." Duke James was emphatically the "_bread-giver_." To furnish employment, to diffuse comfort and happiness amongst the employed, was the all-absorbing object of his life. Anything that would have ministered to his own luxury and glorification was but little heeded. There might be pleasure-grounds more ornamental than his, walks more trim, conservatories more gaudily replenished with exotics, chambers more resplendent with costly furniture and pictures by the great masters, equipage more gay and dashing--in all that belonged to the _personnel_, he was plain and moderate; but where was there ever such planting of forests, or cutting of timber, or building of this and the other structure--all kinds of heavy works, employing hundreds of hands? On many of the high labour-festivals which signalised the calendar at Fleurs, upwards of _three hundred people_, all earning their livelihood under his patriarchal sway, would dine together in the court, and dance together on the velvet lawn in front of his castle. At six o'clock on a mild summer evening, what a spectacle, to see Fleurs gate thrown wide open, and troop after troop of labourers _debouche_!--not worn-out, fagged, and sullen, but marching with alacrity and cheerfulness--the younger lilting a merry song, the older and more careful carrying home fagots of wood, gathered at their resting hours, to supply the fire for their cheap evening meal. And all had some story to tell of the _Duke_!--some little trait of kindness, or some of those drolleries in which he would occasionally indulge, but ever without loss of dignity. He used to walk for hours together beside my grandfather whilst holding the plough--a wise and holy man, an Abraham amongst the people--and converse with him as brother with brother, especially on the incidents of his own life, and on matters of religion. On his coming forward, my grandfather would take off his hat; but the duke would stop him, and say, "Keep on your hat, James. It 's all very well to teach the young fellows manners, but there 's no ceremony between you and me; we are equals--two plain old men." His servants, of whatever degree, dined together in the common hall; but some of the more aspiring "ambitioned" (as the Yankees say) a separate table. One of them, who was supposed to be rather a favourite, was deputed to break the project to the duke, and obtain his consent at some propitious moment. Thinking he had him one day in a most accommodating temper, he cautiously hinted the scheme, and gradually waxed bolder, and disclosed all particulars, as the duke seemed to listen with tacit approval. "Well, well," answered the duke, carelessly, "all my servants are alike to me. You may dine at one table, or at twenty, if you can so arrange it. But whatever the number"--here his voice rose ominously, and his eye flashed with anger--"you, sirrah, shall dine at the lowest!" The great question of the "tables" was crushed. Sometimes--after the fashion of Haroun al Raschid, though not in disguise--he would steal down quietly and unperceived, through the out-of-the-way holes and corners of the immense castle, to see with his own eyes what the inhabitants of the remoter regions were about. Some dry joke, or some act of benevolence, according to circumstances, was sure to be the result. As he was one day poking through the passages, he suddenly encountered an enormously big, fat servant-woman, engaged in cleaning a stair. She was steaming with perspiration. Eyeing her curiously for a moment, "Ho, ho!" he cried (his usual introductory exclamation), "do _you_ bake the bread?" The woman, staring in astonishment, and, fortunately for her own self-complacency, not understanding the point of the strange question, replied, "No, your grace, that is not my department; I am in the laundry, and my business is"--"Oh, never mind," said the duke, with the look of one greatly relieved, "I am perfectly satisfied so you don't bake the bread." A decayed gentleman, who had found harbourage at Fleurs, was staying rather longer than convenient. It was in the depth of winter, and the ground was covered with snow. The duke, who was an early riser in all seasons, had been out for his morning walk; and on his return proceeded to the gentleman's room, who was still in bed. "You lazy lie-a-bed!" exclaimed the duke, "there 's a snow-ball for you--and there 's another--and there 's another," and suiting the action to the word, he discharged into the bed upon him a shower of white-looking balls; but they happened to be, not snow-balls, but pound-notes squeezed into the shape--report said, twenty in number. The gentleman took the practical but benevolent hint, and departed, carrying with him the snow-balls, not melted. In his more serious mood, he, one Sabbath, met a girl returning from church, and inquired what church she had been attending. He then walked with her a long time, discoursing upon the slight shades of difference amongst the various religious denominations, and concluded, "I shall not see it, but I believe that, in course of time, there will be only one sheepfold under the one Shepherd."