if the auld cummer guesses near the truth, de'il though she be-for there is nae standing in flesh, as godly Zechariah Farley said, when he admonished Kate Paisley for numerous backslidings; and I remember weel, sinner that I am, ance on a time-I mean in the days of my youth-I was sorely beset wi' a rosie lass in a tempt ing nook o' Dargavelwood.'-' I tell ye what, hinnie, interrupted Madge Mackittrick, dinna shaw thae younkers the way to lay the dog in the deer's den-nor lick the sweet cream frae your ain lips, while ye forbid ithers the road to the kirn-nor gape, nor glower, nor quote wise men's saws to me-nor gospel adages, nor reliques of morality-anent this apparition, hinnie, ye may have heard that the house of Morison is no like ony other house. The holiest grave and the best sained burial garment can nae mair keep one of them, than the fleshy hand can haud unbounded thought. All that ever bore the name of Morison, hind and lady, have come back frae the grave to trouble the earth-sae close the door, hinnies, and steek the window, and draw my auld mantle beneath the lum; and since Janet Morison seems to have swooned awa, maybe to a better warld, I sall tell ye, as weel as this choking cough will let me, a curious tale anent the curse that clings to the name of Morison-a tale o' auld standing-for we have need o' something to slay the eerieness o' this hour o' dule and pine.' With an alacrity quickened by fear and by curiosity, I closed the door and the window, and fastened Madge's tattered mantle beneath the aperture through which the smoke ascended. John Macmuckle unclasped his Bible, and with an eye intent on the tenth chapter of Nehemiah called among Scottish schoolboys the "kittle tenth"-and with both ears open, and anxious for the promised tale, he abided the event: His daughter sat down on the bedside with moistened cheeks, and now and then throwing a stolen glance at one against whose company the beldame had given such pointed warning: Francie Mackittrick stood with a cup of brandy, with which he seemed anxious to bathe his hurt forehead; but the dry craving spirit in his throat stopped it at his lips: Madge, placing her bundles of dried herbs around her, drew herself up to an important stature, looking all about and above as if fearful of spiritual interruption: while I occupied the space between the two groups, like a personification of twilight which connects the powers of light and darkness. 'I'll tell ye, hinnies,' said Madge Mackittrickin a year o' gude that has flown frae my memory-but many generations afore either windy Saturday or mirk Monday-when the lords o' Morison were bold and powerful, and their ladies wore mair riches on their grass green jupes than wad buy me a baron's land, there was a great cry raised by the ancient Kirk of Rome against the Saracens, and sic like idolaters, who defiled Judea, and drave a sair nick in the traffic for saints' marrowless banes and chips of the holy sepulchre-sae awa sailed some o' our bravest barons, and awa sailed the young lord o' Mo rison wi' some bauld billies at his back, and coost anchor in some heathen bay, where they had mair sair fighting than sound sleep-sae few came back, and amang the few was Ronald Morison, then in his sax and twentieth summer-for nae man that belted on a brand could withstand the dour dints o' the doughty Morison. He came back as the tale rings, and as the silly rhyme says: 'Lord Morison came to Solway bay, And her black eyes sparkled aneath her white hood- "Thrice welcome, fair lady, to fair Scotland;" But to every word that Lord Morison spoke, Ae raven did scream and another did croak, And the sailors did shudder, and e'en the fair flood Moaned 'mid its deep waters, and reddened like blood." It's a fool sang, howsever, ye see, hinnies, continued Madge, with an evident reluctance at being obliged to have recourse to an art she despised to relate her tale- It's a fool sang, and no worth remembering; and had it been ought wholesome and good, I might have aiblins forgot it-besides, hinnies, I never heard it sung but ance, and that was on the lonely mountain-top, seven miles frae a' baptized Ings-for it was nae that safe to sing it within a mile of a Morison. For ye maun ken, that the man who made it-the mair gowk he to sing about rapes in a house where a man had been hanged-had for his muse's meed, I think they called it, a braw dagger wi'a hilt o' massy gowd; and if ye wad ken what the sheath was made o', hinnies, e'en spier at the poet's twa bosom-banes, for straight in atween them the weapon was lodged-sae ye may think he was a bauld billie that dared sing it. Sir Walter Kirkpatrick, for only whistling the tune, was shared amang a' the corbies o' Carmichael. Aweel, ye see, the ballad gangs on wi' the converse o' the ravens-the talk o' ravens maun be about gore and carrion, ye ken; but yet for all that, the ravens that haunted the hall o' the Morison's were of no common brood, that I can avouch for-sae less, the idle sang lies. But ere the fair lady leaped on the green land, And my beak, that for forty lang days in the blast We thank thee, fair lord, after penance and fast, Lord Ronald grew grim as the sea-wave waxed dark, They weep and they sweat dews of water and blood. Another shaft swift from his steel engine pass'd, Still the blood-ravens croaked on the top of the mastAnd the mariners moaned; for the bright crooked levin, Dropt as quick on the bay as the rain drops from heaven. And horsed on the waters huge tumbling and dark, Rode forms grim and fearful, who welcomed the bark! While the ravens croaked louder "Fair woman, fond woman Oh evil's thine hour o'er the wild ocean roaming; But touch not the shore, thou crowned Saracen's daughter, For the green sod's more faithless and fatal than water, And sair sair we lang to light down with a croak, 'Twixt the paps o' thy bosom to revel and howk."And against the dark heaven their wings with a shriek, They stretched and evanished-blood left every cheek, And the fierce tempest ceased-and the red levin wild Was quenched-the sea smoothed its huge curls and smiled. And the fair bay of Nithsdale and Queensberry proud Rejoiced and came forth with the sun from the cloud. Aweel, ye see, hinnies, I never thought I would have remembered half o' the liesome looking lines o' the auld ballad. Ye maun ken, howsever, that the sang, silly though it be, tells something like truth anent the ravens o' the house o' Morrison; it is said in an auld saye, "Whan the ravens forhov the Morisons' ha', The Morisons' back sall be dung to the wa"," But I canna say whether the rest o' the ballad be fiction or truth, or aib lins a mixture o' baith-the things that nae man wad credit on oath, are 'It was a sweet morn when, with shout and with bound, And all the green valley romantic Ae laves Seemed measured for men, and then dug into graves. And still lady Geraldine gazed from her bower, Yet nought could behold, though they heard coming nigh Of fair maids and matrons, and shepherds who cast From her stance on the tower, with a stamp and a frown, "Lo! there comes Lord Ronald, and see, by his side So the green ground gapes for her-and sorrow and pain That stern look which deals but with doom and the grave; Full seven years after, o'er greenwood and bower, And pure river, dame Mabel looked forth from her tower, And there came an old man-bald, bent, at his side Hung a script, she called him in laughter and pride, 66 Now welcome, thou old man, what seekest thou-a grave, The footsteps of men from the threshold of sin; A cross at his feet, and his trembling hand felt As the bright een and white bosom of princesses fair- ADVICE TO JULIA. THERE is nothing, unless we be much mistaken, which will hereafter be acknowledged as forming a more remarkable feature in the literary history of our time, than the sudden and unexpected revival which has lately taken place in certain lighter branches of poetry, which, cultivated with great success in what is called our Augustan age, had ever since been almost as much neglected as the deeper secrets of our true Augustan age had been, until they were called again into life and being by the great band of MASTERS, our contemporaries. We need not say any thing of the splendid merits of Mr Frere, whose Whistlecrafts set an example that has been followed by so many writers of distinguished and various talent-and whose genius of invention would have received greater justice of homage at the hands of the public, but for the satirical and political condiments by which his imitators have not scrupled to render their productions more immediately piquant than those of their master-although we have many doubts whether any one of them has ever equalled him in the more lasting excellencies of easy wit -sparkling fancy-and delicate versification. He, however, and all his school, are decidedly pupils of the old A LETTER IN RHYME.* Italian mirthmakers;-and in the midst of our admiration for the cleverness— liveliness-and brilliancy of their verses, we have no difficulty in confessing that we cannot help missing frequently, and regretting occasionally, a certain nameless classical grace which has not always disdained to be wedded with the native sportiveness of English Iambics. Moore, too, has distinguished himself very much of late by his comical and satirical verses-but he is as decidedly inferior to Frere in ease and elegance, as he is to Lord Byron in every essential of poetry and feeling. Tom Moore is a smart but not a genteel quizzer-and if he does not surpass Lord Byron in immorality, his immorality is certainly by far the more disgusting of the two, by reason of its perpetually theatrical and affected grimaces. The one is a saucy insolent libertine of fashion, who says improper things, with the air of one that (absurdly enough, to be sure), thinks himself entitled to say what he pleases. The other more resembles the Græculus Esuriens of certain ancient satirists-the half-professional joker, whose chief ambition is to be the very thing," but who, touched through and through with the intolerable stain, still betrays on the floor of the saloon London. Murray. 1820. |