Full well I mind the morn, when wrapt in thought,

Slow jogging on his sleek and favourite
Grey,

At our town end, his road Dunfillan sought,

And 1, a barefoot younker, show'd the way.

We cross'd the brook that leaves Glengowan wood,

In purling pride, to ramble on the lea; And oft his gallant riding geer I view'd, And marvell'd who the stranger man could be.

We climb'd the hill where the delighted eye Unwearied roves, on Nith's romantic vale;

Whose meadows green, and cultur'd fields outvie

The richest sylvan scene of fairy tale.

Bright from his woody haunt, the river fair, In liquid wreathes of glittering silver roll'd, Laving his pebbled shores with bosom bare,

Through pasture grounds, and fields of waving gold.

The homes of affluence, and rural ease; The smoaking hamlets freely scatter'd round;

The distant spires of graceful gay Dumfrics,

Lifting her loyal head from classic ground.

The Solway, plow'd by many a busy keel, Lashing his craggy sides with foamy

weary way;

And dwelling on the lands their sires of old

Wrung from the spoiler's grasp, in bloody fray *.

He saw her daughters dear, by brook and burn,

On busy harvest field and bloomy lawn, Fair as the new-woke sun, on May day morn,

Combing his ringlets on the early dawn. He saw her ruddy sons, a hardy race,

Tenant and cottar, artizan and hind, All blithely busied in their proper place, Of goodly growth, and comely of their kind.

And he beheld, with looks of lively joy, What lifteth up the goodman's heart to

find,

Religion shedding round, benignantly, The light of life on high and humble

mind.

Charm'd with the fair, the fascinating

scene,

Dunfillan's homely hall the stranger rear'd,

And garden gay and smiling woodland green,

Around his happy dwelling-place ap

pear'd.

Full of the good resolve, the wise design, Each earthly joy with grateful hand to

seize,

Let moderation all his aims confine,
And end his life in philosophic ease.
Soon was the open-hearted stranger
known,

From tongue to tongue his name was

lauded round, And soon to all the dale familiar grown, At Brakenfell an open door he found. Dun fillan Hall! I often tread thy floor, When wakeful Memory takes her favourite round

The Douglases, Maxwells, Kirkpatricks, Fergusons, and Riddels, all lineal dscendants of the Brucean Heroes, are prominent characters in Nithsdale, and many of them still retain the possessions of their brave forefathers.

in order that they may all appear, hale and healthy, in their proper place.

The man of sorrow, whom mental distress hath sunk in the Slough of Despond, and the child of misfortune, whom weakness persuadeth to seek for temporary solace at the tavern, would do well to follow my example, and call upon the mind to become its own physician. Nothing more is requisite, than the ideal presence of a few well-beloved objects whom remembrance esteems; and pitiful indeed is he who possesseth not a single recollection worthy of being paraphrased. It is my daily practice, and I care not who knows it, to sweeten the goblets of bitterness that fall to my share, with the remembrance of past enjoyment, from sunrise even until sun-set.

And when the weary hours, in rosied air, Flap their broad dusky wings, and speed away,

Leaving the mind loose from the yoke of care,

At large in Fancy's wilderness to stray: Then wakes my soul-then passeth in review

Each boyish pastime and endearing

scene;

Again the foot-ball freely I pursue,

And strip for Scotland on Balachan

green;

Glide down the giddy dance on trysting night,

Blithen with comic tale the jocund
hearth,

Or, haply, wing my drear ideal flight,
Far from the dwelling-place of social

mirth;

And by the wild, the vent'rous Muse enticed,

Lightly on consecrated ground I tread;

Alluding to the well-known game of England and Scotland, so much in vogue amongst our Nithsdale younkers.

VOL. XII.

Wake in their graves the men whose love I priz'd,

Shake their cold hands, and commune with the dead.

In this state of mental absorption, am I now enjoying a convivial hour with men and women, long since gathered to their fathers. I hear my favourite song, Gude night and joy be wi ye a', sweetly lilted, I see the countenances of my friends powerfully operated upon by the singer's melody, and my heart feels its influhour was come. ence; but they seem as though their

Why from the ring so hastily arise, And upward lift, my friends, your beaming eyes?

The embers on the hearth are glowing still,

The lamp of heaven is lingering on the

hill.

Nor wakes the lark, her matin song to sing,

Nor hath the warning heath-cock flapt his wing;

Yet on my sight your fading forms decay, Like shapeless shadows ye dissolve away,

And leave me sad of heart, and lonesome here,

A solitary shade in desart drear, To brood o'er scenes enjoy'd, and pass'd away,

And mourn for you, whose love woke with my natal day.

Fain would mine ear uncloy'd attention lend,

A little longer, to their minstrelsie, And cheerfully my willing heart attend, To what, like sea-maid's song, delight

eth me.

But, lo! the curtain falls, and Fancy's dreams

Depart, like sailing vapour from my

view,

And fading fast the phantom scenery seems,

Swimming like mist upon the mountain's brow.

Gone are the dwellers of the hollow tombs,

Fled are the living men afar from me, And haply holding, in their joyous homes, Heart-cheering converse in reality.

Pure be their mirth, and chaste their revelry,

Fair as the heaving snow on beauty's breast,

Each blithsome evening of festivity, Though of the mental cheer my soul will never taste!

M

The heart alive to symphony have I, The soul that sought thy loveliness to ken,

When first thou smiled on me, a ruddy boy,

Strolling about the solitary glen ;

Chasing the grasshopper from blade to blade,

Feasting on berries wild, the briars among;

How strangely are our feelings affected by trivial circumstances! When I read this passage an hour ago, the setting sun shone bright

glade,

And listening to the throstle's vesper song.

curled by a gentle-stirring breeze,— that field was gay with the bustle of the reapers, and a vessel was

hand of thine,

Pillow my head, and hush me to repose, And with a fondling Seraph smile benign, Mine eyes in slumbers sound serenely

close.

Far on the moor the lamp of heaven glows,

And cairn, and cleugh, and reedy lake illumes,

And every haunt the wary heath-cock knows,

Ere he alights amongst the purple blooms;

And cowers his lonely head beneath his shining plumes.

SPIRITUALITIES—A REVERIE.

I AM sitting at my window, in the twilight of an autumn evening. There is not a whisper among the leaves of those tall poplars in the field beneath. The moon has just risen, broad and red, through those thick vapours, which have succeeded the sultriness of the day. Her light comes glimmering and feeble into my little study, and falls upon my table, showing a mountain of books, papers, and writing-materials-and a vellum-bound Plutarch, open at the Life of Marcus Brutus. It is at that passage where he describes, with a solemn simplicity, that strange visitation which disturbed the patriot, first on the frontiers of Asia, and afterwards at Philippi. "One night, after he had passed out of Asia, he was very late, all alone, in his tent, with a dim light burning by him

with her white sails glittering in the sun. I read it with a half contemptuous smile, and wondered that the great mind of Brutus should have thus yielded to the visions of a heated imagination. But now alone, in this solemn stillness, under this faint and tremulous light, I feel less confidently sceptical. A half-lurking belief begins to creep into my mind. I recall the tales of all ages and nations, the consent of the ignorant and enlightened, the wicked and the good; and feel that I cannot now smile with such confidence at this singular story. Is it possible, then, that the mere absence or presence of light can effect so important a change? and shall I say that Reason rules the day, but resigns her sceptre, at night, to the imagination? Shall I not rather consider this influence as the effect of a feeling implanted in us by nature, which we stifle or overcome, in the bustle and business of the day, but which re-asserts its empire in the solitude of night, like the increasing radiance of yonder stars, hidden by light, but discovered by darkness? If, in natural theology, the existence of a God is rendered strongly probable, merely by the concurring belief of all ages, shall I reject all arguments, from a similar belief in the question of spiritual existences? Universal effects must have a cause as universal. The opinion cannot be repugnant to our notions of the soul, since it has suggested itself, at the same time, to those

who had no communication with each other. It cannot have been altogether unsupported by fact, because a mere speculative opinion, without some appeal to experience, must soon have been forgotten. Above all, it must indeed be deeply rooted, since all the exposures and refutations of special narratives have never been able to eradicate it from our minds. When the Jew Abraham, in Bocaccio, proceeded to Rome, in spite of the remonstrances of his friend Giannotto, who had been labouring to effect his conversion, his Christian instructor abandoned all hope of success, being aware of the scenes of vice and immorality which the conduct of the Catholic priesthood would offer to his view. But, to his agreeable surprise, the Jew, on his return, remarked, with great justice, that all these scenes had only confirmed him the more in his intention: for a religion, which, in spite of the notorious wickedness of the highest of its professors, could yet go on and prosper, like the Christian, must indeed be founded on a rock, and supported by Divine Power. An opinion, therefore, which, in spite of the ridiculous absurdities with which it has been overlaid, can still produce such powerful effects-a feeling which we confess by our fears, even while denying it with our lips-must indeed be firmly rooted, and shows the visible impress of Nature herself. "Est enim hæc non scripta sed nata lex, quam non didicimus, accepimus, legimus, verum ex naturâ ipsâ arripuimus, hausimus, expressimus." In fact, the very frequency of such attempts at imposture is, in itself, a virtual acknowledgment of the strength and universality of this belief; for no one could venture to found a scheme for deceiving another, on principles repugnant to the notions of the person deceived, or to touch so tender a string as that of spiritual visitations, if he were not secure of finding an answering chord in the bosoms of mankind.

Nor is there any thing in this belief more revolting to the reason than the feelings. No one can believe the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, without admitting the possibility of spiritual appearances; and the

probability of such occurrences is

a matter that must be decided according to evidence. There may, indeed, be some who hold that no evidence issufficient to establish_a fact of this kind. This is merely an application of Hume's ingenious argument against miracles. The question, like any other, is susceptible of human testimony, with this qualification only, that the evidence is to be received with a degree of caution proportioned to the extraordinary nature of the fact which forms the subject of investigation. Every reasonable deduction must be made for the fallacy of the senses, the over-excitement of the imagination, or the deceit of the narrator. Hume's test of the truth of miraculous narratives, which Paley considers as a fair statement of the question, may here be safely applied. We must weigh and balance the two probabilities-whether it is more likely that the circumstances related have really happened, or that the narrator has been himself deceived, or, from interested motives, is deceiving us, and then decide according to the preponderance of the one or the other. I admit, however, that there may be a presumption, from internal evidence, against the truth of such a story, too strong to be overruled by testimony. We cannot believe that in any case such occurrences should take place, without the immediate permission of the Deity; nor can we conceive, without impugning the noblest of his attributes, that they should be so permitted, without an adequate end or purpose-still less, that that end should be one of mere wantonness or malice. Relations of this kind are the offspring merely of human folly and credulity, and bear the same relation to truth, as polytheism to true religion, being absurd and unnecessary multiplications of a principle in itself genuine and divine. All those tales, therefore, of spirits, hostile to man,-who delight in wantonly terrifying and tormenting those under their influence,which the superstitious fancy of man has created in all ages and countries, are at once swept away by this consideration. Instead of swaying the judgment with the strength of reality, they must now be content to exercise

a faint and precarious influence over the imagination; and Reason teaches us to rejoice at their fate, though Poetry still laments over their tomb. Puck is now but an empty name. Gloriana wields a powerless sceptre. The gentle fairies have fled their green knolls. Oberon and Titania have ceased their moonlight revels. The Brownie no longer haunts his hereditary castles. No longer can the Lubber-fiend drain his creambowl, or stretch his hairy length before the cottage fire. Never again shall the woods echo to the hoofs of the spectre Horseman. All those visions "of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire," with which credulity had peopled the dark cave, the gloomy forest, or the ruined hall, now bear in themselves their own refutation; and we only wonder that mankind should have ministered so liberally to their own uneasiness, in thus turning to shape, and giving to these "airy nothings" of the brain "a local habitation and a name." But thus it has ever been. Like the Israelites of old, they frame the idol, and then worship the golden calf which they have set up.

Tales such as these oppose the fundamental principle upon which alone the reality of spiritual appearances is rendered probable; that is, the effecting some useful and important end; and, therefore, however strongly corroborated, they can never produce conviction. Thus, when Sully informs me that a frightful spectre haunted the forest of Fontainbleau, and that it had been more than once seen by the King and his whole suite in hunting; and when I find this testimony corroborated by most of the cotemporary historians and annalistst, I admit the circumstance to be inexplicable; but I cannot bring myself to the belief of its reality. Thus, too, when a German tells me, that, on certain nights in the year, an infernal troop sally out from the ruinous castle of Rodenstein, and gallop to a neighbouring ruin; though I have the strongest concurring testimonies to the fact of its

• Memoirs, Vol. II. B. 10.

having happened so late as the Battle of Waterloo, I can no more believe the story, than I do the exploits of a similar personage in Bocaccio's novel of Nastagio, or in Bürger's Ballads of Lenore and the Wild Huntsman.

It is certain, too, that many deductions from the aggregate of spiritual appearances, must be made on account of the influence of the imagination, especially when the mind is agitated by fear, anxiety, or any violent passion. The power of imagination, in such circumstances, is indeed wonderful; and where the probability of the occurrence rests on the testimony of a single individual, if there is any reason to suppose his mind influenced by such causes, we are warranted to conclude, according to Hume's rule, that the probability of his being deceived is greater than that of the circumstance having happened, and to reject his evidence accordingly. Thus, that terrible spectre which shook the mind of the Sicilian Dion, seems to have been but the coinage of his brain. Wearied out by the repeated insults and treachery of Heraclides, his wonted clemency forsook him, and he sullied his fame, by allowing him to be assassinated. From that moment he never knew peace. His conscience, torn by remorse, conjured up a spectre, which, in the shape of a tall and frightful female figure, appeared to him every night, and seemed to sweep the apartment with violence; and his diseased fancy connected the sudden death of his son, which happened soon after, with this apparition. We know but little of the laws which regulate our associations, nor can we trace any natural connection between the murder of Heraclides, and this peculiar creation of Dion's fancy; but in the circumstances of the case, we cannot, I think, hesitate in attributing the whole to the weakness of a mind agitated by remorse. But the mind is still more liable to be deceived by erroneous impressions on the senses, than by its own creations; and to the frequency of such fallacies, a still larger proportion of such tales is to be ascribed. The following incident, which I think is not gene

naire.

Plutarch in Vit. Dion.