1810.

(Concluded from our last.) ON first taking possession of my farm, I was invited by all my neighbours around to visit at their houses, which I did; and in return for their kindness invited them all to my house on one day; gave them as good a dinner as was any where given by a farmer in those days; and, as the French brandy was then only eighteenpence per Scots pint, gave them as much as they would drink-sung songs-played some of my loudest tunes, and we parted glorious! This was the beginning of a great deal of misery and disappointment to me in future. I invited them no more; but they having once heard the melody of my voice, the sweet strains of my violin, and above all tasted my delicious French brandy, there was not a day passed, on which I did not receive the honour of a visit from some of them. I have a middling good head, Mr Spy, as you must have by this time. discovered, but it was always over-ruled by too warm, and too kind a heart for though I was often beyond measure chagrined at being taken from my business, yet I could not for my life be uncivil to the fellows. I even sometimes resisted going home to my own house with them, but I am one of those people whom nobody stands in awe of. I was constantly overcome. One wanted just to hear the Sow's tail to Geordie; he would not

NUMB. IV.

bid me play another tune. Another saw that I was working too hard that day, and came over to get a crack with me, and a single tumbler of brandy and water. It had no end. I was sick of them, yet I drank on; sung, and played upon the fiddle with increasing rapidity—the servants joined in the same laxity and mirth; left the door half open, and danced to my music in the kitchen. I saw my folly as usual, but could not remedy it.

I had however still kept up some dignity in my family, till one night coming home from Kelso market very late, and considerably drunk, my housekeeper was sitting up for me-all the rest were quiet-she was amazingly beautiful in my eyes that night, and though it was winter, she was dressed in a white wrapper and single petticoat; while her dark hair hung in nice artful curls over her brow and ruddy cheeks. To make a long tale short; as the night was so long, and so cold, I persuaded her to take a share of my bed until it was day, much against her inclination. The next morning after a man has been drinking hard, when the heat is still in his blood, though the fumes of the liquor have evaporated from his brain, and left him to a quiet consultation with his own heart, is the time above all others when he is most apt to feel every sensation in the keenest manner. At least this was ever the case

with me; and on the morning immediately following this adventure, when I got a little time to reflect, I did not at all approve of what I had done: but as the poor girl seemed even still more sorry for her imprudence, I was obliged to treat it lightly, though these were far from being my real sentiments of the matter. I was glad however to deface a little the simple but affecting picture, which she drew of its probable consequences, and to cheer her heart by putting the best face I could upon a bad job. After this I found I was no more master of my own house this woman assumed a familiarity, and importance, which were quite unsufferable. I could not reasonably blame her, for I had voluntarily brought myself down to a level with her. could not even reprove vice, nor perform any religious duty in her presence, I was so abash'd at being known to be acting a double part. I am astonished at the fact, that so many men actually live on the same terms of intimacy with their servants constantly, for to me it appeared the most aukward and intolerable of any life I ever led; for the girl was like my neighbour farmers with regard to my brandy. It seems my bed had been better than her own, for after having spent one night in it, she was never either to teach the road back again, nor yet to press to it.

I

What could I do? I had begun the mischief myself. I knew I was acting wrong, yet I just did that wrong, and repented most heartily each succeeding day. That person is in a dangerous situation who begins to parley with vice. His hand is indeed on a lion's mane. Our connection was soon suspected by

all the servants, and of course my family became a loose, immoral one; and I had the mortification of sometimes over-hearing the most coarse jests broke upon her, with regard to me, which she did not in the least resent, nor did she appear to take them at all amiss. All these things grieved me, and made me by degrees a most miserable creature; for as usual, I saw and lamented my folly, yet could not get quit of it.

My neighbours ftill continued to plague me with their fulsome visits, praised my tunes and songs, and drank my brandy. My housekeeper grew nearly double her natural thickness about the waist; her parents were wroth with her, and would not suffer her to enter their door, as she had hired with me against their inclinations, and contrary to their advice. I could not turn her out to the insults of an injurious world, though I never loved her; yet to see her about my house in that state, with a prospect of all that was to follow, conjoined with other things to drive me to desperation; and as the war was then raging in America, I determined to go there in person, and help some of the people to fight with their neighboursI cared not which party, provided I got to a place where I should never see nor hear more of my drunken neighbours, profligate servants, lame horses, and unfathomable housekeeper.

I acquainted my brother with my resolution; and notwithstanding his warmest remonstrances, I persisted in it; and he was obliged to take the farm, to prevent my giving it to some other person, though it lay at too great a distance to be of any use to him. So, putting what

little money I had into my pocket, I turned my back upon my native home,, and my face towards America ; and rode westward without asking the way to`any place. My heart was as heavy as it could well be; and whenever my mind turned upon my aged parents, whom it was not likely I should ever again see in this world, and of all their tenderness to me, I could not help shedding tears, while I deprecated my own imprudence, yet never once thought of returning. I knew 'nothing of the situation of any country in the universe, not even of my own. I had never seen any mountains, save the dun ridges of Lammermuir, and the pale fells of Cheviot supporting the southern verge of our hoizon; and whenever my imagination attempted to wander beyond these, I found it in a chaos. My fancy being, however, extremely susceptible of impressions, I cannot describe to you my astonishment at some of the scenes which presented themselves to my view, during this my sullen and solitary ride. I kept by the side of the river Tweed, until it parted into two streams which seemed nearly of the same magnitude. I followed that to the left, and before I had advanced many miles, it again parted into equal halfs; I now followed the right hand stream, as it appeared to have the best road along its banks and to be the straightest line for America. I knew not the name of this river, nor did I ever enquire it of any one, but I was enchanted with its pastoral beauties. On its lower banks it is adorned with wood of various kinds, both natural and planted; but at last, emerging from these, I found myself surrounded by high mountains of

a beautiful deep green; covered with bleating flocks to the very summits, and watered by a thousand little rivulets, pure as the most transparant crystal. At its source I came to an extensive lake, shaped somewhat like a crescent or long bow, where the scene became more wild and sombre yet still preserved much of its former softness.

Such a prospect was new to me, and raised in my breast agreeable emotions; but nothing that I saw struck me so much, as the ruins of a church, and burying ground, in a lonely wild, surrounded by purple heath, and no habitation of man being within view, save one or two little solitary cots at a distance. The burying ground was surrounded by a ruinous stone wall, and covered "with green swair'd gay, and flowers that strangers seem'd, amid the heathery wild;" while the only monumental decorations that appeared, were a few rough stones set on end, while a rich enamel of mountain daises bloomed over the dust of these "rude forefathers of the hamlet."

A little way farther on, I came to an old man lying by the side of a rivulet, wrapped in a grey plaid, of which colour his whole raiment consisted, saving a blue bonnet on his head, shaped like a miller's scoop. He had three colleys attending him, which were extremely clamorous as I approached. The figure and features of the man, with the natural impression of the scene, struck me so much, that I remember him as well as if I had seen him yesterday. I asked him the name of the lake; he said it was St. Mary's lough, did I never hear of St. Mary's lough? I said I thought I had heard the name: how was the old kirk.

called? &

an' acquaintance laid sin' I remember.' The explanation which he gave me of the origin of the name was so singular, that I will try to give it in his own words. Lang syne, when the foks were a' Papishes, they keepit a portrige or a graven image of the Virgin Mary, i' that chapel; and they pretendit that it cou'd baith wurk miracles and pardon fo'ks sins. Lord help them, I wonder how ever they cou'd think sic a thing! Atweel it cou'd do nae mair at that than I cou'd do. But the Papish priests about Mewros made a great deal o' siller wi't, and land baith; for fok cam fer and ner wi' offrins to St Mary o' the Loughs, as they ca'd her; an' than they ca'd the lough the Lough o' St Mary. But efter there was ane o' the priests shot for witchery, it fell out o' repute, and fell into the curates hands, till King William chas'd them a' away; an' now it's joost gane as ye see't. They bury a vast o' fo'k in't, and it's a gude stell for my sheep in a cauld night.'

Farther on, I entered a deep narrow glen, where the hills threatened to close above me, and leave me two or three hundred fathoms deep in the bowels of the earth. Here, in one moment, and all unexpected, I was presented with a view of one of the most stupendous waterfalls in the universe, which greatly pleased as well as astonished me. But I have lastly met with a description of: these very scenes, in a modern poem, which is so true, and drawn in such a masterly stile, that though I never saw them again, I can never to this day read it but my flesh creeps with delight; you

"OFT in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone St Mary's silent lake;
Thou knowst it well,-nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand
Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, b.ight and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour:
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing concealed might lie;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,
Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell ;
There's nothing left to fancy's guess,
You see that all is loneliness:
And silence aids- though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,
Yet still beneath this hallowed soil,]
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passions's strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,
Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton longed to spend his age.

'Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top, decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died,
On the broad lake and mountain's side,
To say,
"Thus pleasures ade away;
Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, aud grey ;"-
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruined tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower :
And when that mountain-sound I heard
Which bids us be for storm prepared,-
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings,-
'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That Wizard Priests, whose bones are thrust
From company of holy dust;

On which no sun-bea:n ever shines-
(So superstition's creed divines,)

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore ;
And mark the wild swans mount the gale,
Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,
And ever stoop again, to lave
Their bosoms on the surging wave:
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire,
And light my lamp, and trim my fire:
There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,
And, in the bittern's distant shrick,
I heard unearthly voices speak,
And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range,
To frame him fitting shape and strange,.
Till from the task my brow I cleared,
And smiled to think that I had feared.

But chief, 'twere sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune's strife,)
Something most matchless good, and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice;

And deem each hour, to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease,
Such peaceful solitude displease:

He loves to drown his bosom's jar
Amid the elemental war:

And my black Palmer's choice had been
Some ruder and more savage scene,

Like that which frowns round dark Lochskene,
There eagles scream from isle to shore;
Down all the rocks the torrents roar ;
O'er the black waves incessant driven,
Dark mists infe&t the summer heaven;
Through the rude barriers of the lake,
Away its hurrying waters break,
Faster and whiter dash and curl,.
Till down yon dark. abyss they hurl.
Rises the fog-smoke white as snow,
Thunders the viewless stream below,
Diving, as if condemned to lave
Some demon's subterranean cave,
Who, prisoned by enchanter's spell,
Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell..
And well that Palmer's form and mein
Had suited with the stormy scene,
Just on the edge, straining his ken
To view the bottom of the den,
Where, deep deep down, and far within,.
Toils with the rocks the roaring linn;
Then, issuing forth one foamy wave,
And wheeling round the Giant's Grave,
White as the snowy charger's tail,
Drives down the pass of Moffatdale."

SCOTT.

The mountain scenery, in this strath of Moffat-dale, is remarkable for its gran. deur and sublimity; and the village where I lodged a night, is a beautiful rural situation.. The next night, being the third from my leaving home, I stayed at the town of Dumfries, and the very next day, sold my horse, and enlisted into a regiment of infantry then lying in America. I did not suffer myself to reflect, for my conduct at that time was not calculated, on a retrospection, to afford much consolation. I had left my home for, I could scarcely tell what; but it was in search of that which I could not here find: and though my prospects