.

And here and there a venerable tree

In foliaged beauty-of these elements,

And only these, the simple scene was formed.

III.

In soft poetic vision, brightly dim,
Oft had I dreamed of Ednam, of the spot
Where to the light of life the infant eye
Of Thomson opened, where his infant ear
First heard the birds, and where his infant feet
Oft chased the butterfly from bloom to bloom;
Until the syllables-a talisman-

Brought to my heart a realm of deep delight,
A true Elysian picture, steeped in hues
Of pastoral loveliness-whose atmosphere

Was such as wizard wand has charmed around
The hold of Indolence, where every sight

And every sound to a luxurious calm

Smoothed down the ever-swelling waves of thought ;And oft, while o'er the Bard's harmonious page, Nature's reflected picture, I have hung

Enchanted, wandering thoughts have crossed my mind
Of his lone boyhood-'mid the mazy wood,

Or by the rippling brook, or on the hill,
At dewy daybreak-and the eager thirst

With which his opening spirit must have drank
The shows of earth and heaven, till I have wished,
Yea rather longed with an impassioned warmth,
That on his birth-place I might gaze, and tread,

If only for one short and passing hour,
The pathways which, a century agone,

He must have trod-scenes by his pencil sketched,
And by the presence hallowed evermore,

Of him who sang the Seasons as they roll,
With all a Hesiod's truth, a Homer's power,
And the pure feeling of Simonides.

IV.

Now Ednam lay before me-there it lay-
No more phantasmagorial; but the thought
Of Thomson vanished, nor would coalesce
And mingle with the landscape, as the dawn
Melts in the day, or as the cloud-fed stream
Melts in the sea, to be once more exhaled
In vapours, and become again a cloud.
For why? Let deep psychologists explain-
For me a spell was broken: this I know,
And nothing more besides, that this was not
My Poet's birth-place-earth etherealised
And spirit-hued-the creature of my dreams,
By fancy limn'd; but quite an alien scene,
Fair in itself—if separate from him—
Fair in itself, and only for itself
Seeking our praises or regard. The clue
Of old associations was destroyed-

A leaf from Pleasure's volume was torn out-
And, as the fairy frost-work leaves the grass,
While burns the absorbing red ray of the morn,

A tract of mental Eden was laid waste,
Never to blossom more!

Alone I stood,

By that sweet hamlet lonely and serene,
Gazing around me in the glowing light
Of noon, while overhead the rapturous lark
Soared as it sung, less and less visible,
Till but a voice 'mid heaven's engulfing blue.
No scene could philosophic life desire

More tranquil for its evening; nor could love,
Freed from ambition, for enjoyment seek
A holier haunt of sequestration calm.

Yet though the tones and smiles of Nature bade
The heart rejoice, a shadow overspread
My musings for a fairy-land of thought
Had melted in the light of common day.
A moment's truth had disenchanted years
Of cherished vision: Ednam, which before
Spoke to my spirit as a spell, was now
The index to a code of other thoughts;
And turning on my heel-a poorer man
Than morning looked on me-I sighed to think
How oft our joys depend on ignorance!

NOTES

TO POEMS SUGGESTED

BY CELEBRATED SCOTTISH LOCALITIES.

1.

All about thee wears a gloom

Of something sterner than the tomb.-P. 162.

THE ruins of the Tower of Ercildoune, once the abode and property of the famous True Thomas, the poet and soothsayer, are still to be seen at a little distance from the village of the same name in Lauderdale, pleasantly situated on the eastern bank of the Leader, which, in pronunciation, has been corrupted into Earlstoun. About the ruins themselves there is nothing peculiar or remarkable, save their authenticated antiquity, and the renown shed upon them as the relics of "Learmonth's high and ancient hall." Part of the walls, and nearly the whole of the subterranean vaults, yet remain. A stone in the wall of the church of Earlstoun still bears the inscription

"Auld Rhymer's race
Lies in this place."

He must have died previous to 1299; for in that year his son resigned the property of his deceased father to the Trinity House of Soltra, as a document testifying this circumstance is preserved in the Advocates' Library. On a beautiful morning in September, "long, long ago," when I was yet ignorant that any part of the ruins were in existence, they were pointed out to me, and, I need not add, awakened a thousand stirring associations connected with the legends, the superstitions, and

the history of the medieval ages-when nature brought forth "Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire," and social life seemed entirely devoted to "Ladye love, and war, renown, and knightly worth."

2.

Thee, 'tis said, dire forms molest,

That cannot die, or will not rest.—P. 163.

The ruins of the magician's tower are still regarded with a superstitious dread by the neighbouring peasantry; and to hint a doubt to such of their being haunted by "forms that come not from earth or Heaven," would imply the hardihood and daring scepticism of the Sadducee. No doubt, this awe has greatly added to the desolation and solitude of the place; for the imputed prophecy of Thomas regarding the destruction of his house and home has been literally verified

"The hare sall kittle on my hearth-stane,

And there will never be a Laird Learmonth again.”

In reference to this topic, Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to the Border Minstrelsy, tells a good story. "The veneration," he says, "paid to his dwelling-place, even attached itself in some degree to a person who, within the memory of man, chose to set up his residence in the ruins of Learmonth's Tower. The name of this man was Murray, a kind of herbalist, who, by dint of some knowledge of simples, the possession of a musical clock, an electrical machine, and a stuffed alligator, added to a supposed communication with Thomas the Rhymer, lived for many years in very good credit as a wizard."

3.

Of Tristrem brave, and fair Isolde.-P. 163.

Although the matter has been made one of dispute, there seems little reason to doubt that Thomas the Rhymer was really and truly the author of Sir Tristrem-a romance which obtained almost universal popularity in its own day, and which was paraphrased, or rather imitated, by the minstrels of Normandy and Bretagne. The principal opponent of this conclusion is the able antiquary, Mr Price, who, in his edition of Warton's History of English Poetry, has appended some elaborate remarks to the first volume, with the purpose of proving