M ALEXANDER HUME. 177 Oh! Years Hae Come. OH! years hae come, an' years hae gane, My father's name, my father's lot, On the hills o' Caledonia. O' our great ha' there's lefe nae stane— The Ti'ot's banks are bare and high, The wee birds sing no frae the tree, On the hills o' Caledonia. But friends can live, though cold they lie, An' howsoever changed the scene, MRS. JOHN HUNTER. 1742-1821. 'BY EDITH M. BRIGGS, LL.A. M.B.F.A. AUTHOR OF "POEMS," ETC. ANNIE HUNTER, née Holme, was the eldest daughter of Robert Holme, of Greenlaw, Berwickshire, surgeon of Burgoyne's Regiment of Light Horse, and afterwards physician in Savoy. She was born at Hull in 1742, her father having then a practice in that town. The earliest proof she gave of her poetic gift was the song commencing:"Adieu, ye streams that softly glide." This was composed in her twentythird year, and appeared in the Lark—an Edinburgh periodical—in 1765. In July 1771, Miss Holme was married to John Hunter, the celebrated anatomist and surgeon. During his lifetime their house, in London, was a favourite resort of the chief litterateurs of the age, by whom the intellectual talents and brilliant conversational powers of Mrs. Hunter were highly appreciated. She was possessed of considerable musical ability, and was gifted with personal beauty, and amiability of disposition. On the death of her husband in 1793, she retired from society, but continued to reside in London. During these closing years of her life, she resumed the versifying habits of her girlhood, and published in 1802, a collection of her poems, inscribed to her son, John Banks Hunter. She died in London, January 7th, 1821, after a lingering illness. My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair. My mother bids me bind my hair Tie up my sleeves with ribbons rare, And lace my bodice blue. "For why," she cries, "sit still and weep, While others dance and play?" Alas! I scarce can go or creep, While Lubin is away. 'Tis sad to think the days are gone, I sit upon this mossy stone, And sigh when none can hear. And while I spin my flaxen thread, The village seems asleep or dead, MRS. JOHN HUNTER. The Flowers of the Forest. ADIEU! ye streams that smoothly glide, And ever mourn my faithful swain. For me he searched the banks around; My love, the pride of swains, was drown'd. Oh, Tuneful Voice! I Still Deplore OH, tuneful voice! I still deplore In echo's cave I long to dwell, And still would hear the sad farewell, When we were doom'd to part. Bright eyes! O that the task were mine, The Season Comes When First We Met. THE season comes when first we met, But you return no more; Why cannot I the days forget, Which time can ne'er restore ? O! days too sweet, too bright to last, The fleeting shadows of delight, In memory I trace; In fancy stop their rapid flight And all the past replace; But, ah! I wake to endless woes, 179 M 2 JAMES THE FIRST. 1394-1437. BY THE REV. J. W. KAYE, LL.D. THE story of the life of JAMES I. is soon told; it is one of the saddest and most romantic records in the archives of kings, and is an apt illustration of the saying, that "truth is stranger than fiction." He was the son of Robert III., and born in 1394, when Scotland was in a state of lawless confusion, when might was right, and the power of the Barons was almost beyond the control of regal government. His elder brother the Duke of Rothsay, under a vile pretence, had been shut up in Falkland Castle and left to die, a victim of the cruelty and treachery of his uncle the Duke of Albany. To save his son James, the King sent him under care of the Earl of Orkney to the court of France, for the French kings were allies of the Scots. The vessel in which the young Prince was sent was captured by the English, and contrary to the treaty which had been made between the two kingdoms, Henry IV. kept the royal youth a prisoner; James being at that time little more than ten years old. The news of his son's capture so affected King Robert III. that he died shortly afterwards; and the Duke of Albany attained the Regency he was conspiring to gain. Henry IV. was at war with France, and from political motives detained the youthful king, moving him from the Tower of London to Nottingham Castle, and from Nottingham to Windsor, intending both to prevent his escape and to hold the Scots from aiding France. Albany used all means and threats to induce Henry to keep James a prisoner. Perhaps to make some atonement for the detention, Henry gave James tutors of most distinguished ability and thus bestowed upon him an education worthy of his rank. Yet in his Scottish home he had been the pupil of the learned Wardlaw, Archbishop of St. Andrews. We are bound, however, to confess that no efforts were spared no arts, elegances, or accomplishments were withheld, that could mature the mind of James to fit him to take his place as a scholar and a statesman, or to rank as a gentle and kingly knight, among his compeers. In 1420 when a regiment of Scots had joined the French against Henry V., he led the captive James from Windsor to the battle-field in France in hopes that the Scots would not fight against their own king. The English army proved victorious, and James after a short stay, was led back to Windsor Castle. Soon after this, one bright May morning, he saw from his window a lady of noble bearing walking in the garden before him; and as these visits were repeated he was attracted by the beauty of her form and the sweetness of her countenance, and fell deeply in love. The lady was Jane Beaufort, daughter of John, Duke of Somerset, grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, and niece of Henry IV. James had long been a student of the writings of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, and had often written poems for amusement; but now he wrote for love; and in The King's Quhair (the quire or book) he tells the story of his love for the Lady Jane. It is a beautiful love-song, rich in the ornaments and allegorical devices of that day; the dialect is English, although the spelling is quaint Scotch; but the seven-lined stanza is used after the manner of Chaucer, which from this circumstance has been called the Rime Royal. This poem places James I. high in the rank of poets of the first half of the 15th century, and it is the best specimen of court poetry between Chaucer and Spenser. Stopford Brooke says: In six cantos, sweeter, tenderer, and purer than any verse till we come to Spenser he describes the beginning of his love to its happy end." In 1422 after nearly nineteen years' imprisonment he was released, married Lady Jane, and after a short time took his bride to Scotland. There he tried to reform abuses, and introduce just laws, but the barbarous barons bore ill the restraints he put upon their almost savage license. Although the people loved him with fond devotion, conspiracy after conspiracy was formed by the nobles, and time after time they were put down with just punishments. But in the end his was the common fate of all those whose lives are in advance of their age-he died for his country, a martyr for justice, equity, and uprightness; as in later years were Henry IV. of France, and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. James and his Queen had retired to the the Carthusian Monastery which he had founded at Perth, and while there in supposed security he was betrayed by his kinsman and chamberlain, Robert Stuart; when a band of outlaws headed by Sir Robert Graham came down upon him and murdered him in the dead of night. The traitor Stuart had taken away the bars, and with her own arm the Queen's maid Catherine Douglas again barred the bed-chamber; but the conspirators broke her arm and left her for dead; the Queen also was wounded, while the Earl of March was slain defending his sovereign. Thus died James I. of Scotland, in the forty-fourth year of his age, a great man, a patriot king, and a true poet. The story of the murder has been told in all its vivid reality, describing the noble bravery of the Queen and "Catherine Barlass," by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his remarkable ballad "The King's Tragedy." The whole life of James I., the princely poet, was itself a dramatic poem, full of romance, noble endurance, loving tenderness, and kingly greatness, upborne by the martyr-spirit, even to the end, the tragedy of his death. The minor poems attributed to James are "Christ's Kirk on the Green," and "Peebles to the Play," both descriptive of the manners and customs of the Scottish peasantry; and written with a natural and quaint humour which was only fully developed in Burns; but some attribute them to James V. |