the mischief and misfortune is, that all are not so. Often has envy too substantial grounds on which to calumniate! Too often has malignant pride a favourable opportunity of exposing the foibles of genius to ridicule, and its weaknesses to assault, and its crimes to abhorrence; till the sun of intellectual grandeur is obscured by the clouds of moral depravity, and the darkness becomes more apparent, from succeeding to meridian sunshine.

Poetry is above every other department of general literature-inviting, and fair, and fascinating to the youthful mind; which, accordingly, decks out the poet in all the splendid trappings of intellectual grandeur, and all the chastened graces of moral worth. He is the Hesper among the stars in the hemisphere of Imagination; but he proves himself, too often, to be only the Pallas in the planetary system of Understanding. The reader, however, is dazzled and bewildered; he examines the diamond more narrowly, and discovers that it is only charcoal; and he is as chagrined and horrorstruck at the discovery, as was the unfortunate Zelica, when she expected to behold the radiance of the divine countenance; and, turning, beheld the unveiled face of the prophet in all the hideousness of unnatural deformity.

After being imbued with the sentiments that seemed to lift us above ourselves, and link us with superior orders of intelligence, and made us proud in the elevation of our common nature, we are brought down to the level of social life, and called upon to sympathize with human infirmity. It is on

this account, that those writers, who have passed their days in seclusion, and withdrawn themselves from the bustle of the world to the more immediate contemplation of nature, and the endearing circle of selected friendship, have retained some portion of the exalted estimation, which the reader has formed of them, from the perusal of their works. Nor is it to be doubted, that our opinions are frequently much influenced on this head; for, we are naturally anxious to learn something of the fate of a being to whom we are indebted for so much gratification, and to whose sentiments we bow with submissive admiration. We crave, and inquire, and feel anxious, and uneasy, till this sensation is gratified; and yet we are, in nine cases out of ten, disappointed when it is so.

Some portion of our reverence for the ancients is unquestionably owing to the oblivion in which the events of their private lives are shrouded. They are visible to us only "at their pride of place;" as they descend, the clouds intervene, and hide them from our view. They are familiar to us as poets, and historians, and philosophers; not as subjects and citizens, parents and husbands. Could we see Virgil, and Cicero, and Livy, in the ordinary affairs of their lives, in their quotidian operations, as Dr Johnson would have termed it, we would probably be necessitated to come to the humiliating conclusion, that the ancients were something like ourselves, and that mankind have been pretty much alike in all ages. Alas! for the doctrine of human perfection. D. M.

1.

6.

"As the Cameronian elder descended from the cottage mound of the ancient house of Morison, into the romantic valley of Ae, the mirth of the mourn ers, restrained by his presence, waxed louder and louder, and made the rocky stream-banks ring far and wide. At every peal of this reckless merriment he extended his stride, and replied with a groan, which, like a subdued chorus or response, kept time with the augmenting din of the lyke wake. Following silently along the sinuous and southward course of the stream, we at last emerged from the woody domains of the Morisons; and the moon, large and glowing from a starry sky, revealed on valley and hill-side, where the reap-hook had been busy among the ripened corn. Late as the hour was, we sometimes observed a hoary farmer, or one of his ancient domestics, walking solitary, but with a pleased and protracted step, looking at the long rows of yellow stooks, and the beautiful and sinuous outline of the half shornfield, with the sickles ready whet, lying at the root of the grain they were prepared to reap. A man, conversant with human thought, might have observed a kind of anxious cal

culation in the farmer's face, as he surveyed the past and coming labours of the sickle, and settled to a certainty by his looks, the ripeness of the grain which he submitted in the ear to the test of his teeth. Nor was the harvest evening without its own peculiar music, the reapers horn was heard far and wide, summoning, at intervals, the harvest-labourers to supper; the song, pathetic, or humorous, or both, thrown from maiden or bandsman's lips, into the wide theatre of Glenæ vale, was heard on all sides, and came to the ear of the listener in its own native and original melody. The bondmaiden might be seen with her snooded locks, and her snow-white boddice, arising from the river or the rivulet banks, where she had been listening perchance to deep-breathed vows, or idling an hour all under the light of the moon, like the merry maiden in the old ballad. Besides all this, there was an under-music of a more deep and solemn cast, the melody of a psalm, or the hush and suppressed voice of prayer poured out in the secret place, and casually rising to the ear, as the supplicant forgot, in the fervour of meditation, that he had any other

audience save that above. On all this gazed and meditated the Cameronian maiden and me; but on nothing to the right nor to the left, in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, looked the Cameronian elder himself, but with portentous strides, and a fixed forward and homeward look, he hastened on. Nor did he heed that his plaid, escaping at one end from the skewer which fastened it to his shoulder, flowed far on the sward behind him. At length we reached a small upland stream, which, fringed with a profusion of hazel, glimmered here and there to the moon-gliding from one thicket athwart a patch of greensward to lose itself in another, and all the while lifting up a voice, rivalling in depth and melody the music of mightier brooks. A path, which kept astride apart from the stream, winded along its margin, following all its fairy and fantastic loops, carried us on a visible ascent from the yellow and fertile holms to the moorland hill, where the heather, the ling, the rushes, and the rocks, opposed an effectual barrier to cultivation. An irregular and interrupted fence, or rather bordering, of hazel and wild plum, thickly fringed with bracken, separated the arable from the waste, and sometimes a round and grassy hillock reared its head in the centre of the boundry, forming a kind of debateable land betwixt barrenness and culti vation, and partaking of the nature of moor and lea. On the summits as Iwell as the sides of these were seen innumerable flocks reposing-their fleeces steeped in dew, and shining in the slaunt light of the moon. In the very middle of this domain, seating himself where the toil of the agriculturist ceases, and the labours of the shepherd commence, our opulent Cameronian farmer had established himself and built his dwelling-representing, in his own person, the two primitive classes of mankind-the pastoral and rural the shepherd and the husbandman. We had now entered upon the extensive farm of John Macmukle, called in ancient times the land of Lillycross, but renamed by the grandfather of the present possessor; who, reposing here from the peril and blood-shed of the persecution, called his farm Crumocomfort;' but, like many other attempts to change established designations, this latter name was only partially acknowledged; for

while hundreds recognised the Cameronian elder as the gudeman o' Crumocomfort, many of the old peasants, and all the young men of the district, hailed his beauteous daughter by the pastoral title of the bonny lass of Lillycross. It happened unfortunately too for the success of the new name, that the old one submitted more gracefully to the bondage of verse; and while Lillycross melted willingly into melody, Crumocomfort resisted all intercourse with the muse, and was delivered over, as utterly intractable, to the charitable society of prose. This wavering and unsettled state of patrimonial designation was frequently lamented by the Cameronian, and he in some measure considered this contest for superiority between the ancient and modern name, as typical of the struggle between his own diminishing sect and the established church. Travelling mendicants, and fortune-tellers, and gypsies, and even once a troop of wandering actors, obtained the indulgence of his barn and his hopitality, by soliciting his kindness as gudeman of Crumocomfort; but their reception was churlish, and their abode brief, if they mentioned the name of Lillycross.

"The upland brook and its companion footpath had now fairly introduced us to the domains of the Cameronian; and we had not proceeded far, till a melody-not wholly the melody of living streams, came sounding down the current, lending a livelier and fuller tone to the deep note of the brook.

We were far from the reach of the lyke-wake din; and it was evident as we walked on, that this was of a less offensive kind; for sometimes the deep tone of the pipe rose audibly above all meaner sounds; and Mary Macmukle, in a whisper, said, she heard the din of a dance, and the merry sound of maiden's voices. At this moment the Cameronian hushed us by the motion of his hand, and unbonneting, and with slow and sedate steps proceeded towards a steep bank, over which the rivulet leapt, and came singing to our feet, smoothing its waters, which were divided by a broken rock or two, into one united stream. At the foot of this bank I observed a figure kneeling; and the moon, as it slaunted on the silver hairs of a very old man, shone full on a tombstone upon which he rested his forehead, where he continu

ed to pour out, in a deep and mournful voice, his supplication-heedless, or perhaps unconscious, of our approach. The footpath conducted us close by the grave-the Cameronian bowed as he passed, and his daughter and me paid equal respect to his devotion. The voice of the peasant waxed warmer, and I distinguished the following expressions, which came to my ear in a harmony rivalling the richest music. -Lo! hath not the destroyer fallen, and have I not watched my flocks among the foundation stones of his dwelling, and over his perished name hath not all thy servants sang and shouted for joy? But alas! can this deep voice reach the grave, and bid it yield to my reverence and my love the fair forms of four sweet daughters? Happy wert thou, Malachy Macmoran, when the persecutor's sword smote thy bosom, even on the spot where now I kneel; for blood of thine still lived on the earth, and forms that called thee father lived to see the God above take ample vengeance for thy blood.But alas! alas! what have I done that the curse of childlessness should cling to me that I should depart wasted and in the fulness of years, and the grave the good will dig for me will never open again for one that owns the blood of the Macmoran's.'As he uttered this, he wept and sobbed aloud, and threw himself on the grave of his ancestor, who had been murdered on this spot beside his wife and children. This touching sight perhaps prevented the Cameronian from being sensible to the augmenting music and mirth which came from the mansion of Lillycross; but as the sound of the old man's lamentation died away, the schismatic sound of pipe and dance became more distinct, and the elder emitted one suppressed groan after another at the rise and fall of the merriment. These groans however were rather uttered as a protest than as decided disapprobation; and a person conversant in the way which a strict man accommodates his scruples to the customs and manners of his less rigid neighbours, would discover that John considered he had done his duty and registered his unavailing opposition, and that he was now at liberty to be a grave observer of the sports of the Philistines, and even allow his body to share in the pastime, having secured his spirit from sinful partici

pation and compliance. All at once the footpath parted with the stream, and after conducting us through a roan of stunted oak and hazel, placed us on a little swelling knoll, and the whole household establishment of the Cameronian appeared beside us glittering in the moonlight, and throwing from window and door long and broad lines of radiance, which flashed on woodland and hillock, and sparkled in the silver current of the Ae. Nor were sounds wanting to give life and joy to this festal light. The abounding notes of the Highland pipe, softened by the sweeter note of the Lowland fiddle, and made softer still by the wild and melting tone of the harp, an unusual instrument in the peasant mirth of Scotland-predominated over the rustic accompaniments of clapped hands, the shout, and the laugh, and the female shriek, as they submitted, halfresisting and half-willing, to the clamorous kiss at the close of the dance. This ungovernable revelry certainly far overflowed the limited bounds allowed for mirth in John Macmukle's mansion, and caused him to make a full halt on the top of the hillock. • Oh ancient walls,' ejaculated the Cameronian,

that have held within your humble limits that favoured professor, Alexander Peden.-Oh hallan and hearth, that have been honoured with the presence of that body's nourisher and soul's weel-wisher Richard Cameron, from whom our humble people are denominated. Oh resting-place and lang-settle, where, for a season, reposed, when the church was faint and in travail as a woman with child, that pious and comely damsel, Grace Cherrytrees, escaped from the peril of her father's house, accompanied by that gifted youth, douce David Dick. And finally, oh ye habitation where the choice of my youth and the joys of mine old age, Marion Morehead brought forth three fair sons, and ae sweet daughter. House of Crumocomfort didst thou ever send before, from thy sedate door, a din and a diversion so unhallowed as this? Waes me, but the mirth be fearful and offensive; and a winter o' psalm singing, and a spring of repentance and humility, winna give my poor home back the chaste and sober character it hath lost. Oh, but these men of Moab from the mountains-these men with bonnet and plume be riotous and lewd; and