Blackwood's Magazine

dreary desert. All the sufferers of England, and of Scotland too, have lifted up their voices against this ancient remnant of the Scottish covenant, and all the backslidings of the numerous sectaries of the north have been fairly wrought into a kind of tapestry picture, and hung over the honoured grave of Richard Cameron. All this, which would have provoked the patience, and obtained the anathemas of other churches, failed to discompose the meekness and the sedate serenity of the mountaineers; they read, and they smiled at Meston, and with the unrivalled novelist they are charmed and enchanted; they would sooner part with the splendour of the victory of Drumclog, or the name of Alexander Peden, than pass the Torwood curse on the legend of Old Mortality.

It has been my particular good for tune, in the early part of a life protracted beyond the customary span, to live in friendship and familiarity with many of the most respectable of the congregation, and sundry of their most popular preachers. A frequent visitor of their preachings, I have hearkened with delight and edification to the poetical and prophetic eloquence of their discourses. A guest at their hearths and their tables, I have proved the cheerful and open hospitality of their nature; and have held converse and fellowship with almost all the burning and the shining lights that have distinguished the present house of Cameron. I have made their character my study, and their pursuits my chief business, and collected many curious sayings, and songs, and adventures, which belong to this simple and unassuming race. In accomplishing all this, I have certainly redeemed from oblivion many matters of doubtful virtue and of dubious beauty, and I have sometimes surmised, that the ballads and the traditions to which I listened, partook strongly of the character of the narrator, and perhaps owed some of their embellishments to his kindred spirit. Of this, perhaps, I am not the safest judge. And I would willingly think, that however much some of the ballads may be modified and modernized in their oral passage from the period of the persecution, that something of the ancient spirit still remains to hallow them-that the ore is the same, though the stamp is VOL. VII.

different. I have also, with the usual sagacity of an editor, hazarded sundry emendations, and even ventured to supply some lines where the treacherous memory of the reciter left the sense imperfect. If these remain undiscovered, I shall feel rewarded. Certainly the most wondrous part of the Cameronian character is the poetical warmth and spirit which everywhere abounds in their sermons and their sayings: and, though profane minstrelsy was wisely accounted as an abomination, yet poetry, conceived and composed in the overflowing and passionate style of their compositions, has been long privately cherished among the most enlightened of the flock. But I by no means claim rank for the Cameronian bards, with those who lent their unstinted strength to the strings. Their glimpses of poetical inspiration cannot equal the fuller day of those who gloried in the immortal intercourse with the muse. Of my converse with the Cameronian worthies of the last and the present age, I would willingly render some account; but the pen which, in my hand, is a cold and frozen medium of communication, would abate the particular vigour and beauty of the original, and I shall prefer rather to introduce some of their poetical remains to the curiosity of the reader. Many years have elapsed since my collection was made, and many of the enthusiastic and delightful people who contributed to it, are sleeping in the silent church-yard. I have to regret, too, an occurrence which the wisdom of man cannot repair-the death of my respected relative, Marion Moorhead, relict of Peter Morison, in Dumfriesshire, with whom have perished sundry Cameronian songs, of the mixed nature of love, religion, and politics. To the faithfulness of her retentive memory I committed them-in her remembrance they were as safe as words written on brass or ivory; and it was a matter to me of no ordinary pleasure to hear her recount the titles of my treasures.But the beautiful Cameronian dame who influenced my youth is numbered with inanimate things-and though her remembrance and her beauty are continued by her daughters, my glorious Cameronian lyrics have perished with their author. All that remains in my memory is the following verse. 3 Q

"A bloody hand and a bloody brand
I loose on thee, thou false Scotland!
A cruel heart and unsparing sword
I loose on thee for rejecting the Word!
Thy cup of iniquity's filled to the brim
The fires for thee blaze hot and grim-
Nor all the virtue that sleeps in the grave
Can false and faithless Scotland save!"

I shall now proceed with the more perfect productions of the Cameronian muse, and leave them to win their way to the affections of the reader.

Should this specimen of the poetry of the Cameronians be acceptable, and, above all, if it be really poetry, and not the empty music of its bells, some more may be forthcoming-unless, peradventure, it is unseemly for the grave and the staid to sanction idle minstrelsy, and connect the honoured names of the martyred dead with measured quantities of sounding words, which have passed muster among critics for current poetry. C.

BALLAD I.

On Mark Wilson, slain in Irongray.

I WANDERED forth when all men lay sleeping,
And I heard a sweet voice wailing and weeping,
The voice of a babe, and the wail of women,
And ever there came a faint low screaming;
And after the screaming, a low, low moaning,
All adown by the burn-bank, in the green loaning.
I went, and by the moonlight, I found

A beauteous dame weeping low on the ground.

The beauteous dame was sobbing and weeping,
And at her breast lay a sweet babe sleeping,
And by her side was a fair-haired child,
With dark eyes flushed with weeping, and wild
And troubled he held by his mother, and spake,
"Oh mither, when will my father awake;"
And there lay a man smitten low to the ground,
The blood gushing forth from a bosom wound.

And by his side lay a broken sword,

And by his side lay the open'd Word;"

His palms were spread, and his head was bare,
His knees were bent-he had knelt in prayer ;

But brief was his prayer, for the flowers where he knelt
Had risen all wet, with his life's blood spilt ;-
And the smoke of powder smelled fresh around:
And a steed's hoof prints were in the ground.

She saw me, but she heeded me not;

As a flower she sat that had grown on the spot;
But ever she knelt o'er the murdered man,
And sobbed afresh, and the loosed tears ran-
Even low as she knelt, there came a rush
Like a fiery wind, over river and bush,
And amid the wind and in lightning speed,
A bright RIDER came, on a brighter steed-

"Woe! woe! woe!" he called, and there came
To his hand, as he spake, a sword of flame ;-

He smote the air, and he smote the ground,
Warm blood, as a rivulet, leapt up from the wound,
Shriek followed on shriek, loud, fearful, and fast,
And filled all the track where this dread one passed ;
And tumult and terrible outcry there came,

As a sacked city yields when it stoops to the flame;
And a shrill low voice came running abroad,
"Come, mortal man, come, and be judged by God."
And the dead man turned unto heaven his face,
Stretched his hands, and smiled in the light of grace.

BALLAD II.

The voice lifted up against Chapels and Churches.

AND will ye forsake the balmy, free air,
The fresh face of heaven, so golden and fair,
The mountain glen, and the silver brook,
And nature's free bountith and open book,
To sit and worship our God with a groan,
Hemmed in with dead timber and shapen stone?
Away-away-for it never can be,

The green earth and heaven's blue vault for me.

Woe! woe! to the time when to the heath-bell
The seed of the Covenant sing their farewell,
And leave the mount written with martyr story,
The sun beaming bright in his bridegroom glory;

And leave the green birks, and the lang flowering broom,
The breath of the woodland steeped rich in perfume;
And barter our life's sweetest flower for the bran,
The glory of God for the folly of man.

BALLAD III.

The Cameronians rejoice in the Discomfiture of the Godless at Drumclog.

ARISE, ye slain saints, from the moor and the flood,
Arise and rejoice in your garments of blood;
Mark Wilson, awaken, with harp and sweet strain,
Thou Bard of the light whom stern Bonshaw has slain;
Rejoice where ye sleep, 'neath your covering of flowers,
The scarf of brown heath and the shade of green bowers;
Gather round, lo! and number your foes as they lie,
With their face to the earth and their back to the sky.

This morning they came with their brass trumpets braying,
Their gold pennons flaunting, their war horses neighing;
They came and they found us-the brand and the spear
Soon emptied their saddles and sobered their cheer;
They came and they sounded-their trumpet and drum
Now give a mute silence, their shouters are dumb;
The chariot is smote, and the charioteer sleeping,
And death his dark watch o'er their captains is keeping.

Oh! who wrought this wonder?-men ask me-this work
Is not of man's hand for the covenant kirk;

Few-few-were the saints 'neath their banners arraying,
Weak, hungry, and faint, nor grown mighty in slaying-

better at home-for this is not a town for any creditable young woman like you to live in by herself, and I am wearying to be back, though its hard to say when the doctor will get his counts settlet. I wish you, howsomever, to mind the patches for the bed

SIR,

cover that I was going to patch, for a licht afternoon seam, as the murning for the king will no be so general with you, and the spring fashons will be coming on to help my gathering-so no more at present from your friend and well-wisher,

DANIEL O'ROURKE, AN EPIC POEM.

(Private.)

JANET PRINgle.

July 25, 1820. THE accompanying verses were written by a friend of mine, who asks me to introduce him to you. He is willing to submit them entirely to your judg ment; and I shall not attempt to bias it by any observations on their merits or demerits. I shall only remark, that he has five cantos of this length, either written or planned-I do not know which-a length fixed on to accommodate each portion to two or three pages in your Magazine. The story is very droll and fanciful, and tells admirably in prose. It is, I believe, original. Í have not time to give the outlines of it, but the names of his cantos (if that can be any guide to you) are, 1st, Paddy Blake. 2d, The Mountain Daisy. 3d, The Eagle Flight. 4th, The Moon. 5th, The Pail of Water.

Whether you accept or reject this communication, write to me about it speedily. I shall not conceal it from you, that I wish my friend were well received by you, as he is a very witty, and what is a great deal better, a very worthy fellow. This, I believe, is his first transgression in the way of rhyme.

I sent you some mystification about Jeffrey a few days ago. I hope it helped you to fill a page or two. As I am on the subject of contributions, I can tell you that I could procure some dozen of followers here to send you articles, but they are almost all rhymsters, and I see you are too well supplied with that commodity. I believe there is not a single person here, who ever thinks of writing a serious, or a critical, or a literary prose article, and our ways are quite localized. They amuse themselves with pasquinading their neighbours in various little publications, quite unintelligible, out of the precincts of A similar system seems to prevail likewise at Cork. The gentleman who wrote Dowden's speech for you has just written a narrative of his madness, which he intends to print. It really is equal to Swift in wit, and just as libellous. I visit Cork pretty often on business, and endeavour to turn the good people to better things, but it will not do. You are quite popular there. I remain, dear Sir, your's, &c. R. T. S.

MR EDITOR,

I SPENT the spring of this year in sailing about the south-western coast of Ireland, and I do not think I ever passed a pleasanter time in all my life. From the mouth of the Blackwater to that of the Kenmure, there is not a port, creek, or landing-place, at which I have not an acquaintance, and my boat's company were as gay fellows as ever reefed a sail or feathered an oar. I am sure, if I had time or inclination to write a detail of my adventures, I could fill three octavos as large as Peter's Letters, not indeed like that worthy Welch physician, with accounts of literary people, but with pleasant histories of all sorts of sport by land and sea. The coast abounds with situations delightful equally to the poet and the smuggler-with romantic beauties that enchant the soul, and nooks obscure that defy the gauger. In which capacity I visited them it imports little to you.

In the course of my cruize I stopped at Glangariffe, a place abounding with the picturesque. I know every man about it from Squire Sim White, down to the round dozens of Sullivans that fill up the ranks of the population. It is a solitary spot, yet it has its amusements as well as other places. I slept one night at the little alehouse, and before I went to bed discussed a pig or two of punch with some of the natives and my own party. We had a great deal of varied

conversation-intellectual, convivial, theological, political, musical, poetical, and antiquarian. The Reverend Father M'Carthy (called familiarly in Glangariffe, Buzzhure, a corruption of Bonjour, which is his usual salutation) was of the party, and contributed of course to the demolition of the potables and the merriment of the conversation. From him I heard various stories of that part of the world, and many minute antiquarian or genealogical facts, of which he is the great living depositary. Among the rest he told us the romantic story of Daniel O'Rourke, which took such a hold on my imagination that I could not rest easy in my bed, as the saying is, until I had versified it; and finding the ottava rima the most fashionable and easily composed style of versification, I instantly adopted it for the story. I send you the first canto by the hands of my friend Mr Clutterbuck, a partner in the house of Clutterbuck & Co. mentioned by Mr Crabbe in his Tales of the Hall, a very quiet, civil, and well-behaved young gentleman. I hope you will find my "adventurous song" as full of "gleams of fancy" as Benjamin the Waggoner, a poem of which, in spite of all malicious criticism, I am very fond. I expect to see my first canto in your next Magazine; the rest shall be forwarded in due course.-I remain, Sir, your humble Servant, FAGARTY O'FOGARTY. Blarney, July 21, 1820.

DANIEL O'ROURKE,

An Epic Poem, in Six Cantos.

BY FAGARTY O'FOGARTY, ESQ. OF BLARNEY.

CANTO I.

PATRICK BLAKE.

I TRUST, O gentle reader, you'll excuse
A rhyming novice, if he dare rehearse
The promptings of a sad, a sorry muse,
As sorrow is the subject of his verse;
And that your readership will not abuse
A style allowed to be both sweet and terse,
Nor if in anger will resentment fire on
A metre now immortalized by Byron.

II.

Although some gentlemen decry Don Juan,*
And shun him as a most indecent fellow,
I still believe that of our poems, few, one

Will find in harmony so rich and mellow;
Heavens! how unlike the riff-raff cockney crew,

Jeff praised in his Review-the blue and yellow,t
Give me the poet who can fire your soul,

To drain your eye-lid or to drain your bowl.

And such art thou, Don Juan, Corsair, Childe,
Whichever title please thy godlike soul,
Thou who can'st call up stormy passions, wild
As the bleak winds, which howl around the pole,

Or the warm tear upon the cheek, as mild

As when light zephyrs o'er sweet violets roll,

And can at times induce us to be friskey,

Like our kind sweethearts, or our native whiskey.

• Among the rest Blackwood's Magazine.-Yet I am confident it is not for its poetry, its imagery, its fancy, or its feeling, but for principles which none can excuse, and which few will be found to extenuate.

+ The Edinburgh Review.

"Yet mark one caution, e'er thy next review

Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue."-BYRON.

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Blackwood's Magazine, 第 7 卷