'What's gowd to me?-I've walth o' lan';
Bestow on ane o' worth your han';'
He thought to pay what he was awn
Wi' Jenny's bawbee.

A' spruce frae ban'boxes and tubs,
A Thing cam neist-but life has rubs-
Foul were the roads, and fou the dubs,
Ah! waes me!

A' clatty, squintin' through a glass, He girned, 'I' faith a bonny lass!' He thought to win, wi' front o' brass, Jenny's bawbee.

She bade the laird gang comb his wig,
The sodger no to strut sae big,
The lawyer no to be a prig,

The fool cried: "Tehee,

'I kent that I could never fail !'

She preened the dish-clout till his tail, And cooled him wi' a water-pail,

And kept her bawbee.

Good-Night, and Joy be wo ye a'.

[This song is supposed to proceed from the mouth of an aged chieftain.]

Good-night, and joy be wi' ye a';

Your harmless mirth has charmed my heart;
May life's fell blasts out owre ye blaw!

In sorrow may ye never part!
My spirit lives, but strength is gone;

The mountain-fires now blaze in vain :
Remember, sons, the deeds I've done,

And in your deeds I'll live again!

When on yon muir our gallant clan

Frae boasting foes their banners tore, Wha shewed himself a better man,

Or fiercer waved the red claymore? But when in peace-then mark me thereWhen through the glen the wanderer came, I gave him of our lordly fare,

I gave him here a welcome hame.

The auld will speak, the young maun hear;
Be cantie, but be good and leal;
Your ain ills aye hae heart to bear,
Anither's aye hae heart to feel.
So, ere I set, I'll see you shine,

I'll see you triumph ere I fa';

My parting breath shall boast you mineGood-night, and joy be wi' you a'.

[The High Street of Edinburgh.] [From Edinburgh, or the Ancient Royalty.] Tier upon tier I see the mansions rise, Whose azure summits mingle with the skies ;* There, from the earth the labouring porters bear The elements of fire and water high in air; There, as you scale the steps with toilsome tread, The dripping barrel madifies your head; Thence, as adown the giddy round you wheel, A rising porter greets you with his creel!

*Sir Alexander seems to have remembered the fourth line in Campbell's Pleasures of Hope:

Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky. But Campbell used to confess that he stole his line from Telford's forgotten poem on Eskdale :

Here lofty hills in varied prospect rise, Whose airy summits mingle with the skies.

Here, in these chambers, ever dull and dark,
The lady gay received her gayer spark,
Who, clad in silken coat, with cautious tread,
Trembled at opening casements overhead;
But when in safety at her porch he trod,
He seized the ring, and rasped the twisted rod.
No idlers then, I trow, were seen to meet,
Linked, six a-row, six hours in Princes Street;
But, one by one, they panted up the hill,
And picked their steps with most uncommon skill;
Then, at the Cross, each joined the motley mob-
How are ye, Tam? and how's a' wi' ye, Bob?'
Next to a neighbouring tavern all retired,
And draughts of wine their various thoughts inspired.
O'er draughts of wine the beau would moan his love;
O'er draughts of wine the cit his bargain drove;
O'er draughts of wine the writer penned the will;
And legal wisdom counselled o'er a gill.

Yes, mark the street, for youth the great resort,
Its spacious width the theatre of sport.
There, midst the crowd, the jingling hoop is driven;
Full many a leg is hit, and curse is given.

There, on the pavement, mystic forms are chalked,
Defaced, renewed, delayed-but never balked ;
There romping Miss the rounded slate may drop,
And kick it out with persevering hop.
There, in the dirty current of the strand,
Boys drop the rival corks with ready hand,
And, wading through the puddle with slow pace,
Watch in solicitude the doubtful race!
And there, an active band, with frequent boast,
Vault in succession o'er each wooden post.
Or a bold stripling, noted for his might,
Heads the array, and rules the mimic fight.
From hand and sling now fly the whizzing stones,
Unheeded broken heads and broken bones.
The rival hosts in close engagement mix,
Drive and are driven by the dint of sticks.
The bicker rages, till some mother's fears
Ring a sad story in a bailie's ears.

Her prayer is heard; the order quick is sped,
And, from that corps which hapless Porteous led,
A brave detachment, probably of two,
Rush, like two kites, upon the warlike crew,
Who, struggling, like the fabled frogs and mice,
Are pounced upon, and carried in a trice.
But, mark that motley group, in various garb-
There vice begins to form her rankling barb;
The germ of gambling sprouts in pitch-and-toss,
And brawl, successive, tells disputed loss.
From hand to hand the whirling halfpence pass,
And, every copper gone, they fly to brass.
Those polished rounds which decorate the coat,
And brilliant shine upon some youth of note,
Offspring of Birmingham's creative art,
Now from the faithful button-holes depart.
To sudden twitch the rending stitches yield,
And Enterprise again essays the field.
So, when a few fleet years of his short span
Have ripened this dire passion in the man,
When thousand after thousand takes its flight
In the short circuit of one wretched night,
Next shall the honours of the forest fall,
And ruin desolate the chieftain's hall;
Hill after hill some cunning clerk shall gain;
Then in a mendicant behold a thane!

JAMES HOGG.

JAMES HOGG, generally known by his poetical name of 'The Ettrick Shepherd,' was perhaps the most creative and imaginative of the uneducated poets. His fancy had a wide range, picturing in its flights scenes of wild aërial magnificence and beauty. His taste was very defective, though he had done

much to repair his early want of instruction. His occupation of a shepherd, among solitary hills and glens, must have been favourable to his poetical enthusiasm. He was not, like Burns, thrown into society when young, and forced to combat with

James Hogg.

on the 9th of December 1770. When a mere child he was put out to service, acting first as a cow-herd, until capable of taking care of a flock of sheep. He had in all but little schooling, though he was too prone to represent himself as an uninstructed prodigy of nature. When twenty years of age he entered the service of Mr Laidlaw, Blackhouse. He was then an eager reader of poetry and romances, and he subscribed to a circulating library in Peebles, the miscellaneous contents of which he perused with the utmost avidity. He was a remarkably fine-looking young man, with a profusion of light-brown hair, which he wore coiled up under his hat or blue bonnet, the envy of all the country maidens. An attack of illness, however, brought on by over-exertion on a hot summer day, completely altered his countenance, and changed the very form of his features. His first literary effort was in song-writing, and in 1801 he published a small volume of pieces. He was introduced to Sir Walter Scott by his master's son, Mr William Laidlaw, and assisted in the collection of old ballads for the Border Minstrelsy. He soon imitated the style of these ancient strains with great felicity, and published in 1807 another volume of songs and poems, under the title of The Mountain Bard. He embarked in sheep-farming, and took a journey to the island of Harris on a speculation of this kind; but all he had saved as a shepherd, or by his publication, was lost in these attempts. He then repaired to Edinburgh, and endeavoured to subsist by his pen. A collection of songs, The Forest Minstrel (1810), was his first effort: his second was a periodical called The Spy; but it was not till the publication of The Queen's Wake, in 1813, that the shepherd established his reputation as an author. This 'legendary poem' consists of a collection of tales and ballads supposed to be sung to Mary Queen of Scots by the native bards of Scotland assembled at a royal wake at Holyrood, in order that the fair queen might prove

misfortune. His destiny was unvaried, until he had arrived at a period when the bent of his genius was fixed for life. Without society during the day, his evening hours were spent in listening to ancient legends and ballads, of which his mother, like Burns's, was a great reciter. This nursery of imagination he has himself beautifully described:

O list the mystic lore sublime

Of fairy tales of ancient time!
I learned them in the lonely glen,
The last abodes of living men,
Where never stranger came our way
By summer night, or winter day;
Where neighbouring hind or cot was none-
Our converse was with heaven alone-
With voices through the cloud that sung,
And brooding storms that round us hung.
O lady, judge, if judge ye may,
How stern and ample was the sway
Of themes like these when darkness fell,
And gray-haired sires the tales would tell!
When doors were barred, and eldern dame
Plied at her task beside the flame
That through the smoke and gloom alone
On dim and umbered faces shone-
The bleat of mountain-goat on high,
That from the cliff came quavering by;
The echoing rock, the rushing flood,
The cataract's swell, the moaning wood;
The undefined and mingled hum-
Voice of the desert never dumb!
All these have left within this heart
A feeling tongue can ne'er impart;
A wildered and unearthly flame,

A something that's without a name.

The wondrous powers of Scottish song.

The design was excellent, and the execution so varied and masterly, that Hogg was at once placed among the first of our native poets. The different productions of the native minstrels are strung together by a thread of narrative so gracefully written in many parts, that the reader is surprised equally at the delicacy and the genius of the author. At the conclusion of the poem, Hogg alludes to his illustrious friend Scott, and adverts with some feeling to an advice which Sir Walter had once given him, to abstain from his worship of poetry.

Hogg was descended from a family of shepherds, and born in the vale of Ettrick, Selkirkshire. According to the parish register, he was baptised

The land was charmed to list his lays;
It knew the harp of ancient days.
The border chiefs that long had been
In sepulchres unhearsed and green,
Passed from their mouldy vaults away
In armour red and stern array,
And by their moonlight halls were seen
In visor, helm, and habergeon.
Even fairies sought our land again
So powerful was the magic strain.

Blest be his generous heart for aye!
He told me where the relic lay;
Pointed my way with ready will
Afar on Ettrick's wildest hill;
Watched my first notes with curious eye,
And wondered at my minstrelsy:
He little weened a parent's tongue
Such strains had o'er my cradle sung.
But when to native feelings true,
I struck upon a chord was new;

When by myself I 'gan to play,
He tried to wile my harp away.
Just when her notes began with skill,
To sound beneath the southern hill,
And twine around my bosom's core,
How could we part for evermore?
'Twas kindness all-I cannot blame-
For bootless is the minstrel flame:

But sure a bard might well have known
Another's feelings by his own!

Scott was grieved at this allusion to his friendly counsel, as it was given at a time when no one dreamed of the shepherd possessing the powers that he displayed in The Queen's Wake. Various works now proceeded from his pen-Mador of the Moor, a poem in the Spenserian stanza; The Pilgrims of the Sun, in blank verse; The Hunting of Badlewe, The Poetic Mirror, Queen Hynde, Dramatic Tales, &c. Also several novels, as Winter Evening Tales, The Brownie of Bodsbeck, The Three Perils of Man, The Three Perils of Woman, The Confessions of a Sinner, &c. Hogg's prose is very unequal. He had no skill in arranging incidents or delineating character. He is often coarse and extravagant; yet some of his stories have much of the literal truth and happy minute painting of De Foe. The worldly schemes of the shepherd were seldom successful. Though he had failed as a sheep-farmer, he ventured again, and took a large farm, Mount Benger, from the Duke of Buccleuch. Here he also was unsuccessful; and his sole support, for the latter years of his life, was the remuneration afforded by his literary labours. He lived in a cottage which he had built at Altrive, on a piece of moorland-seventy acres-presented to him by the Duchess of Buccleuch. His love of angling and field-sports amounted to a passion, and when he could no longer fish or hunt, he declared his belief that his death was near. In the autumn of 1835 he was attacked with a dropsical complaint; and on the 21st of November of that year, after some days of insensibility, he breathed his last as calmly, and with as little pain, as he ever fell asleep in his gray plaid on the hillside. His death was deeply mourned in the vale of Ettrick, for all rejoiced in his fame; and, notwithstanding his personal foibles, the shepherd was generous, kind-hearted, and charitable far beyond his means.

In the activity and versatility of his powers, Hogg resembled Allan Ramsay more than he did Burns. Neither of them had the strength of passion or the grasp of intellect peculiar to Burns; but, on the other hand, their style was more discursive, playful, and fanciful. Burns seldom projects himself, as it were, out of his own feelings and situation, whereas both Ramsay and Hogg are happiest when they soar into the world of fancy or the scenes of antiquity. The Ettrick Shepherd abandoned himself entirely to the genius of old romance and legendary story. He loved, like Spenser, to luxuriate in fairy visions, and to picture scenes of supernatural splendour and beauty, where

The emerald fields are of dazzling glow,
And the flowers of everlasting blow.

His Kilmeny is one of the finest fairy tales that ever was conceived by poet or painter; and passages in the Pilgrims of the Sun have the same abstract remote beauty and lofty imagination. Burns would have scrupled to commit himself to these aërial phantoms. His visions were more material, and linked to the joys and sorrows of actual existence. Akin to this peculiar feature in Hogg's poetry is the spirit of most of his songs-a wild lyrical flow

of fancy, that is sometimes inexpressibly sweet and musical. He wanted art to construct a fable, and taste to give due effect to his imagery and conceptions; but there are few poets who impress us so much with the idea of direct inspiration, and that poetry is indeed an art 'unteachable and untaught.'

Bonny Kilmeny.

[From The Queen's Wake.]

Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira's men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
It was only to hear the yorlin sing,
And pu' the cress-flower round the spring;
The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye,
And the nut that hang frae the hazel-tree;
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But lang may her minny look o'er the wa',
And lang may she seek i' the greenwood shaw;
Lang the laird of Duneira blame,
And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame!
When many a day had come and fled,
When grief grew calm, and hope was dead,
When mass for Kilmeny's soul had been sung,
When the beadsman had prayed, and the dead-bell rung,
Late, late in a gloamin, when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin' hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek o' the cot hung over the plain
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle lowed with an eiry leme,
Late, late in the gloamin, Kilmeny came hame!
'Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang hae we sought baith holt and dean;
By linn, by ford, and greenwood tree,
Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
Where gat ye that joup o' the lily sheen?
That bonny snood of the birk sae green?
And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?'

Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face;
As still was her look, and as still was her e'e,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
For Kilmeny had been she knew not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew,
But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,
And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,
When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,
And a land where sin had never been.

In yon greenwood there is a waik, And in that waik there is a wene,

...

And in that wene there is a maike
That neither hath flesh, blood, nor bane;
And down in yon greenwood he walks his lane!
In that green wene Kilmeny lay,

Her bosom happed wi' the flowrets gay;
But the air was soft, and the silence deep,
And bonny Kilmeny fell sound asleep;
She kend nae mair, nor opened her e'e,
Till waked by the hymns of a far countrye,
She wakened on a couch of the silk sae slim,
All striped wi' the bars of the rainbow's rim;
And lovely beings round were rife,
Who erst had travelled mortal life.
They clasped her waist and her hands sae fair,
They kissed her cheek, and they kamed her hair,
And round came many a blooming fere,
Saying: 'Bonny Kilmeny, ye're welcome here!'

*

They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away, And she walked in the light of a sunless day; The sky was a dome of crystal bright, The fountain of vision, and fountain of light; The emerald fields were of dazzling glow, And the flowers of everlasting blow. Then deep in the stream her body they laid, That her youth and beauty never might fade; And they smiled on heaven when they saw her lie In the stream of life that wandered by; And she heard a song, she heard it sung, She kend not where, but sae sweetly it rung, It fell on her ear like a dream of the morn. 'O! blest be the day Kilmeny was born! Now shall the land of the spirits see, Now shall it ken what a woman may be! The sun that shines on the world sae bright, A borrowed gleid frae the fountain of light; And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun, Like a gowden bow, or a beamless sun, Shall wear away, and be seen nae mair, And the angels shall miss them travelling the air. But lang, lang after baith night and day, When the sun and the world have elyed away; When the sinner has gane to his waesome doom, Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!'

Then Kilmeny begged again to see

The friends she had left in her own countrye,
To tell of the place where she had been,

And the glories that lay in the land unseen. . . . .
With distant music, soft and deep,

They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep;

And when she awakened, she lay her lane,
All happed with flowers in the greenwood wene.
When seven lang years had come and fled,
When grief was calm and hope was dead,
When scarce was remembered Kilmeny's name,
Late, late in a gloamin Kilmeny came hame!
And oh, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her e'e;
Such beauty bard may never declare,

For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maiden's een,
In that mild face could never be seen.
Her seymar was the lily flower,

And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
And her voice like the distant melodye,
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped afar frae the haunts of men,
Her holy hymns unheard to sing,

To suck the flowers and drink the spring,
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hill were cheered;
The wolf played blithely round the field,
The lordly bison lowed and kneeled,
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at eve the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung,
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,

Oh, then the glen was all in motion;
The wild beasts of the forest came,

Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame,
And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,
And murmured, and looked with anxious pain
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;

The corby left her houf in the rock;

The black-bird alang wi' the eagle flew;

The hind came tripping o'er the dew;

The wolf and the kid their raike began,
And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran;

The hawk and the hern attour them hung,
And the merl and the mavis forhooyed their young;
And all in a peaceful ring were hurled :

It was like an eve in a sinless world!
When a month and a day had come and gane,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wene,
There laid her down on the leaves so green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen!

To the Comet of 1811.

How lovely is this wildered scene,
As twilight from her vaults so blue
Steals soft o'er Yarrow's mountains green.
To sleep embalmed in midnight dew!

All hail, ye hills, whose towering height, Like shadows, scoops the yielding sky! And thou, mysterious guest of night,

Dread traveller of immensity!

Stranger of heaven! I bid thee hail!
Shred from the pall of glory riven,
That flashest in celestial gale,

Broad pennon of the King of Heaven!

Art thou the flag of woe and death,

From angel's ensign-staff unfurled? Art thou the standard of his wrath Waved o'er a sordid sinful world?

No, from that pure pellucid beam,

That erst o'er plains of Bethlehem shone,* No latent evil we can deem,

Bright herald of the eternal throne !

Whate'er portends thy front of fire,

Thy streaming locks so lovely pale-Or peace to man, or judgments dire,

Stranger of heaven, I bid thee hail !

Where hast thou roamed these thousand years î
Why sought these polar paths again,

From wilderness of glowing spheres,
To fling thy vesture o'er the wain?

And when thou scal'st the Milky-way,

And vanishest from human view, A thousand worlds shall hail thy ray Through wilds of yon empyreal blue!

O! on thy rapid prow to glide!

To sail the boundless skies with thee, And plough the twinkling stars aside, Like foam-bells on a tranquil sea!

To brush the embers from the sun,
The icicles from off the pole;
Then far to other systems run,

Where other moons and planets roll!

Stranger of heaven! O let thine eye

Smile on a rapt enthusiast's dream; Eccentric as thy course on high,

And airy as thine ambient beam!

And long, long may thy silver ray
Our northern arch at eve adorn;
Then, wheeling to the east away,

Light the gray portals of the morn!

It was reckoned by many that this was the same comet which appeared at the birth of our Saviour.-Hogg.