The Dead. Of them, who wrapt in earth are cold, Why else the o'ergrown paths of time, Why seeks he with unwearied toil, Through Death's dim walks to urge his way, Reclaim his long asserted spoil, And lead Oblivion into day? 'Tis nature prompts by toil or fear, Unmoved to range through Death's domain; The tender parent loves to hear Her children's story told again! Eternal Providence. Light of the world, Immortal Mind; Though thou this transient being gave, And still this poor contracted span, Through error's maze, through folly's night, Affliction flies, and Hope returns; O may I still thy favour prove ! [A Farewell Hymn to the Valley of Irwan.] Farewell the fields of Irwan's vale, My infant years where Fancy led, And soothed me with the western gale, Her wild dreams waving round my head, While the blithe blackbird told his tale. Farewell the fields of Irwan's vale! The primrose on the valley's side, The green thyme on the mountain's head, The wanton rose, the daisy pied, The wilding's blossom blushing red; No longer I their sweets inhale. Farewell the fields of Irwan's vale! How oft, within yon vacant shade, Has evening closed my careless eye! Yet still, within yon vacant grove, SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. Few votaries of the muses have had the resolution to abandon their early worship, or to cast off the Dalilahs of the imagination,' when embarked on more gainful callings. An example of this, however, is afforded by the case of SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE (born in London in 1723, died 1780), who, having made choice of the law for his profession, and entered himself a student of the Middle Temple, took formal leave of poetry in a copy of natural and pleasing verses, published in Dodsley's Miscellany. Blackstone rose to rank and fame as a lawyer, wrote a series of masterly commentaries on the laws of England, was knighted, and died a judge in the court of common pleas. From some critical notes | on Shakspeare by Sir William, published by Stevens, it would appear that, though he had forsaken his muse, he still (like Charles Lamb, when he had given up the use of the 'great plant,' tobacco) 'loved to live in the suburbs of her graces.' The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse. How blest my days, my thoughts how free, Then all was joyous, all was young, In frighted streets their orgies hold; DR THOMAS PERCY. DR THOMAS PERCY, afterwards bishop of Dromore, in 1765 published his Reliques of English Poetry, in which several excellent old songs and ballads were revived, and a selection made of the best lyrical pieces scattered through the works of modern authors. The learning and ability with which Percy executed his task, and the sterling value of his materials, recommended his volumes to public favour. They found their way into the hands of poets and poetical readers, and awakened a love of nature, simplicity, and true passion, in contradistinction to that coldly-correct and sentimental style which pervaded part of our literature. The influence of Percy's collection was general and extensive. It is evident in many contemporary authors. It gave the first impulse to the genius of Sir Walter Scott; and it may be seen in the writings of Coleridge and Wordsworth. A fresh fountain of poetry was opened up-a spring of sweet, tender, and heroic thoughts and imaginations, which could never be again turned back into the artificial channels in which the genius of poesy had been too long and too closely confined. Percy was himself a poet. His ballad, O, Nanny, wilt Thou Gang wi' Me,' the Hermit of Warkworth,' and other detached pieces, evince both taste and talent. We subjoin a cento, The Friar of Orders Gray,' which Percy says he compiled from fragments of ancient ballads, to which he added supplemental stanzas to connect them together. The greater part, however, is his own. The life of Dr Percy presents little for remark. He was born at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, in 1728, and, after his education at Oxford, entered the church, in which he was successively chaplain to the king, dean of Carlisle, and bishop of Dromore: the Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease, O, Nanny, wilt Thou Gang wi' Me. O, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me, Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town? Can silent glens have charms for thee, The lowly cot and russet gown? Nae langer drest in silken sheen, Nae langer decked wi' jewels rare, Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair! O, Nanny, when thou'rt far awa, Wilt thou not cast a look behind? Say, canst thou face the flaky snaw, Nor shrink before the winter wind? O can that soft and gentle mien Severest hardships learn to bear, Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? O Nanny, canst thou love so true, Through perils keen wi' me to gae? Or, when thy swain mishap shall rue, To share with him the pang of wae? Say, should disease or pain befall, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Nor, wishful, those gay scenes recall, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath? Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh, And cheer with smiles the bed of death? And wilt thou o'er his much-loved clay Strew flowers, and drop the tender tear? Nor then regret those scenes so gay, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? The Friar of Orders Gray. It was a friar of orders gray And he met with a lady fair, 'Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar! I pray thee tell to me, If ever at yon holy shrine My true love thou didst sce. 'And how should I know your true love From many another one?' 'Oh! by his cockle hat and staff, And by his sandal shoon: But chiefly by his face and mien, That were so fair to view, His flaxen locks that sweetly curled, 'O lady, he is dead and gone! Within these holy cloisters long Here bore him barefaced on his bier 'And art thou dead, thou gentle youth- 'O weep not, lady, weep not so, Some ghostly comfort seek: Let not vain sorrow rive thy heart, 6 Nor tears bedew thy cheek.' 'O do not, do not, holy friar, My sorrow now reprove; And now, alas! for thy sad loss 'Weep no more, lady, weep no more; Thy sorrow is in vain : And will he never come again- Ah, no! he is dead, and laid in his grave, His cheek was redder than the rose- 'Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more, Hadst thou been fond, he had been false, And left thee sad and heavy; 'Now say not so, thou holy friar, I pray thee say not so; My love he had the truest heart O he was ever true! And art thou dead, thou much-loved youth? And didst thou die for me? Then farewell home; for evermore A pilgrim I will be. But first upon my true love's grave My weary limbs I'll lay, And thrice I'll kiss the green grass turf That wraps his breathless clay.' 'Yet stay, fair lady, rest a while Beneath this cloister wall; The cold wind through the hawthorn blows, And drizzly rain doth fall.' 'O stay me not, thou holy friar, No drizzly rain that falls on me, 'Yet stay, fair lady, turn again, Here, forced by grief and hopeless love, These holy weeds I sought; And here, amid these lonely walls, To end my days I thought. But haply, for my year of grace 'Now farewell grief, and welcome joy JAMES MACPHERSON. The translator of Ossian stands in rather a dubious light with posterity, and seems to have been willing that his contemporaries should be no James Macpherson. better informed. With the Celtic Homer, however, the name of Macpherson is inseparably connected. They stand, as liberty does with reason, Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being. Time and a better taste have abated the pleasure with which these productions were once read; but poems which engrossed so much attention, which were translated into many different languages, which were hailed with delight by Gray, by David Hume, John Home, and other eminent persons, and which formed the favourite reading of Napoleon, cannot be considered as unworthy of notice. JAMES MACPHERSON was born at Kingussie, a village in Inverness-shire, on the road northwards from Perth, in 1738. He was intended for the church, and received the necessary education at Aberdeen. At the age of twenty, he published a heroic poem, in six cantos, entitled The Highlander, which at once proved his ambition and his incapacity. It is a miserable production. For a short time Macpherson taught the school of Ruthven, near his native place, whence he was glad to remove as tutor in the family of Mr Graham of Balgowan. While attending his pupil (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) at the spa of Moffat, he became acquainted with Mr John Home, the author of 'Douglas,' to whom he showed what he represented as the translations of some fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry, which he said were still floating in the Highlands. He stated that it was one of the favourite amuse ments of his countrymen to listen to the tales and compositions of their ancient bards, and he described these fragments as full of pathos and poetical imagery. Under the patronage of Mr Home's friends-Blair, Carlyle, and Fergusson-Macpherson published a small volume of sixty pages, entitled Fragments of Ancient Poetry; translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language. The publication attracted universal attention, and a subscription was made to enable Macpherson to make a tour in the Highlands to collect other pieces. His journey proved to be highly successful. In 1762 he presented the world with Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, in Six Books; and in 1763 Temora, another epic poem, in eight books. The sale of these works was immense. The possibility that, in the third or fourth century, among the wild remote mountains of Scotland, there existed a people exhibiting all the high and chivalrous feelings of refined valour, generosity, magnanimity, and virtue, was eminently calculated to excite astonishment; while the idea of the poems being handed down by tradition through so many centuries among rude, savage, and barbarous tribes, was no less astounding. Many doubted -others disbelieved-but a still greater number 'indulged the pleasing supposition that Fingal fought and Ossian sung.' Macpherson realised £1200, it is said, by these productions. In 1764 the poet accompanied Governor Johnston to Pensacola as his secretary, but quarrelling with his patron, he returned, and fixed his residence in London. He became one of the literary supporters of the administration, published some historical works, and was a copious pamphleteer. In 1773 he published a translation of the Iliad in the same style of poetical prose as Ossian, which was a complete failure, unless as a source of ridicule and personal opprobrium to the translator. He was more successful as a politician. A pamphlet of his in defence of the taxation of America, and another on the opposition in parliament in 1779, were much applauded. He attempted (as we have seen from his manuscripts) to combat the Letters of Junius, writing under the signatures of 'Musæus,' Scævola,' &c. He was appointed agent for the Nabob of Arcot, and obtained a seat in parliament as representative for the borough of Camelford. It does not appear, however, that, with all his ambition and political zeal, Macpherson ever attempted to speak in the House of Commons. In 1789 the poet, having realised a handsome fortune, purchased the property of Raitts, in his native parish, and having changed its name to the more euphonious and sounding one of Belleville, he built upon it a splendid residence, designed by the Adelphi Adams, in the style of an Italian villa, in which he hoped to spend an old age of ease and dignity. He died at Belleville on the 17th of February 1796, leaving a handsome fortune, which is still enjoyed by his family. His eldest daughter, Miss Macpherson, is at present (1842) proprietrix of the estate, and another daughter of the poet is the wife of the distinguished natural philosopher, Sir David Brewster. The eagerness of Macpherson for the admiration of his fellowcreatures was seen by some of the bequests of his will. He ordered that his body should be interred in Westminster Abbey, and that a sum of £300 should be laid out in erecting a monument to his memory in some conspicuous situation at Belleville. Both injunctions were duly fulfilled: the body was interred in Poets' Corner, and a marble obelisk, containing a medallion portrait of the poet, may be seen gleaming amidst a clump of trees by the road-side near Kingussie. The fierce controversy which raged for some time as to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian, the incredulity of Johnson, and the obstinate silence of Macpherson, are circumstances well known. There seems to be no doubt that a great body of traditional poetry was floating over the Highlands, which Macpherson collected and wrought up into regular poems. It would seem also that Gaelic manuscripts were in existence, which he received from different families to aid in his translation. How much of the published work is ancient, and how much fabricated, cannot now be ascertained. The Highland Society instituted a regular inquiry into the subject; and in their report, the committee state that they 'have not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems published.' Detached passages, the names of characters and places, with some of the wild imagery characteristic of the country, and of the attributes of Celtic imagination, undoubtedly existed. The ancient tribes of the Celts had their regular bards, even down to a comparatively late period. A people like the natives of the Highlands, leading an idle inactive life, and doomed from their climate to a severe protracted winter, were also well adapted to transmit from one generation to another the fragments of ancient song which had beguiled their infancy and youth, and which flattered their love of their ancestors. No person, however, now believes that Macpherson found entire epic poems in the Highlands. The origin materials were probably as scanty as those on which Shakspeare founded the marvellous superstructures of his genius; and he himself has not scrupled to state (in the preface to his last edition of Ossian) that a translator who cannot equal his original is incapable of expressing its beauties.' Sir James Mackintosh has suggested, as a supposition countenanced by many circumstances, that, after enjoying the pleasure of duping so many critics, Macpherson intended one day to claim the poems as his own. If he had such a design, considerable obstacles to its execution arose around him. He was loaded with so much praise, that he seemed bound in honour to his admirers not to desert them. The support of his own country appeared to render adherence to those poems, which Scotland inconsiderately sanctioned, a sort of national obligation. Exasperated, on the other hand, by the perhaps unduly vehement, and sometimes very coarse attacks made on him, he was unwilling to surrender to such opponents. He involved himself at last so deeply, as to leave him no decent retreat.' A somewhat sudden and premature death closed the scene on Macpherson; nor is there among the papers which he left behind him a single line that throws any light upon the controversy. Mr Wordsworth has condemned the imagery of Ossian as spurious. In nature everything is distinct, yet nothing defined into absolute independent singleness. In Macpherson's work it is exactly the reverse; everything (that is not stolen) is in this manner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadenedyet nothing distinct. It will always be so when words are substituted for things.' Part of this censure may perhaps be owing to the style and diction of Macpherson, which have a broken abrupt appearance and sound. The imagery is drawn from the natural appearances of a rude mountainous country. The grass of the rock, the flower of the heath, the thistle with its beard, are (as Blair observes) the chief ornaments of his landscapes. The desert, with all its woods and deer, was enough for Fingal. We suspect it is the sameness-the perpetual recurrence of the same images-which fatigues the reader, and gives a misty confusion to the objects and incidents of the poem. That there is some- | thing poetical and striking in Ossian-a wild solitary magnificence, pathos, and tenderness-is undeniable. The Desolation of Balclutha, and the lamentations in the Song of Selma, are conceived with true feeling and poetical power. The battles of the car-borne heroes are, we confess, much less to our taste, and seem stilted and unnatural. They are like the Quixotic encounters of knightly romance, and want the air of remote antiquity, of dim and solitary grandeur, and of shadowy superstitious fear, which shrouds the wild heaths, lakes, and mountains of Ossian. [Ossian's Address to the Sun.] I feel the sun, O Malvina! leave me to my rest. Perhaps they may come to my dreams; I think I hear a feeble voice! The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave of Carthon: I feel it warm around. O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven, but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps like me for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills: the blast of the north is on the plain; the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.. [Fingal's Airy Hall.] His friends sit around the king, on mist! They hear the songs of Ullin: he strikes the half-viewless harp. He raises the feeble voice. The lesser heroes, with a thousand meteors, light the airy hall. Malvina rises in the midst; a blush is on her cheek. She beholds the unknown faces of her fathers. She turns aside her humid eyes. 'Art thou come so soon?" said Fingal, daughter of generous Toscar. Sadness dwells in the halls of Lutha. My aged son is sad! I hear the breeze of Cona, that was wont to lift thy heavy locks. It comes to the hall, but thou art not there. Its voice is mournful among the arms of thy fathers! Go, with thy rustling wing, oh breeze! sigh on Malvina's tomb. It rises yonder beneath the rock, at the blue stream of Lutha. The maids are departed to their place. Thou alone, oh breeze, mournest there!' [Address to the Moon.] Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy bluc course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of |
