And, disobedient to my call,

Wail'd loud through Bothwell's banner'd hall,
Ere Douglasses, to ruin driven,1

Were exiled from their native heaven.

Oh! if yet worse mishap and woe,

My master's house must undergo,

dogges, that came unlookt uppon them, defended and redeemed him from their crueltie. When with sorrow he was ashamed to see dogges more humane than they. And giuing thankes to Almightie God, he sensibly again perceiued that the tunes of his violl had giuen him a warning of future accidents."- Flower of the Lives of the most renowned Saincts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by the R. FATHER HIEROME PORTER. Doway, 1632, 4to, tome i. p. 438.

The same supernatural circumstance is alluded to by the anonymous author of "Grim, the Collier of Croydon."

66

-[Dunstan's harp sounds on the wall.]

"Forest. Hark, hark, my lords, the holy abbot's harp

Sounds by itself so hanging on the wall!

"Dunstan. Unhallow'd man, that scorn'st the sacred rede, Hark, how the testimony of my truth

Sounds heavenly music with an angel's hand,

To testify Dunstan's integrity,

And prove thy active boast of no effect."

1 The downfall of the Douglasses of the house of Angus, during the reign of James V., is the event alluded to in the text. The Earl of Angus, it will be remembered, had married the queen dowager, and availed himself of the right which he thus acquired, as well as of his extensive power, to retain the king in a sort of tutelage, which approached very near to captivity. Several open attempts were made to rescue James from this thraldom, with which he was well known to be deeply disgusted; but the valor of the Douglasses, and their allies, gave them the victory in every

Or aught but weal to Ellen fair,
Brood in these accents of despair,
No future bard, sad Harp! shall fling
Triumph or rapture from thy string;

One short, one final strain shall flow,

conflict. At length, the king, while residing at Falkland, contrived to escape by night out of his own court and palace, and rode full speed to Stirling Castle, where the governor, who was of the opposite faction, joyfully received him. Being thus at liberty, James speedily summoned around him such peers as he knew to be most inimical to the domination of Angus, and laid his complaint before them, says Pitscottie, "with great lamentations; showing to them how he was holden in subjection, their years bygone, by the Earl of Angus, and his kin and friends, who oppressed the whole country, and spoiled it, under the pretence of justice and his authority; and had slain many of his lieges, kinsmen, and friends, because they would have had it mended at their hands, and put him at liberty, as he ought to have been at the counsel of his whole lords, and not have been subjected and corrected with no particular men, by the rest of his nobles: Therefore, said he, I desire my lords, that I may be satisfied of the said earl, his kin, and friends; for I avow, that Scotland shall not hold us both, while [i.e. till] I be revenged on

him and his.

"The Lords hearing the king's complaint and lamentation, and also the great rage, fury, and malice, that he bore towards the Earl of Angus, his kin and friends, they concluded all, and thought it best that he should be summoned to underly the law: if he found no caution, nor yet compear himself, that he should be put to the horn, with all his kin and friends, so many as were contained in the letters. And farther, the lords ordained, by advice of his majesty, that his brother and friends should be summoned to find caution to

Fraught with unutterable woe,
Then shiver'd shall thy fragments lie,
Thy master cast him down and die!"

IX.

Soothing she answer'd him, “Assuage,
Mine honor'd friend, the fears of age;
All melodies to thee are known,

That harp has rung, or pipe has blown,
In Lowland vale or Highland glen,

From Tweed to Spey — what marvel, then,

At times, unbidden notes should rise,
Confusedly bound in memory's ties,
Entangling, as they rush along,

The war-march with the funeral song?-
Small ground is now for boding fear;
Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.
My sire, in native virtue great,
Resigning lordship, lands, and state,
Not then to fortune more resign'd,
Than yonder oak might give the wind;
The graceful foliage storms may reave,
The noble stem they cannot grieve.

For me," she stoop'd, and, looking round,
Pluck'd a blue hare-bell from the ground,-
"For me, whose memory scarce conveys

underly the law within a certain day, or else be put to the horn. But the earl appeared not, nor none for him: and so he was put to the horn, with all his kin and friends: so many as were contained in the summons, that compeared not, were banished, and holden traitors to the king.”

An image of more splendid days,
This little flower, that loves the lea,
May well my simple emblem be;

It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose,1
That in the king's own garden grows;
And when I place it in my hair,
Allan, a bard is bound to swear

He ne'er saw coronet so fair."
Then playfully the chaplet wild

She wreath'd in her dark locks, and smiled.

X.

Her smile, her speech, with winning sway Wiled the old harper's mood away.

With such a look as hermits throw,

When angels stoop to soothe their woe,
He gazed, till fond regret and pride
Thrill'd to a tear, then thus replied:
"Loveliest and best! thou little know'st
The rank, the honors, thou hast lost!
O might I live to see thee grace,
In Scotland's court, thy birth-right place,
To see my favorite's step advance,2
The lightest in the courtly dance,
The cause of every gallant's sigh,
And leading star of every eye,
And theme of every minstrel's art,
The Lady of the Bleeding Heart!".

1 MS.- - No blither dew-drop cheers the rose.

2 This couplet is not in the MS.

8 The well-known cognizance of the Douglass family.

XI.

"Fair dreams are these," the maiden cried,
(Light was her accent, yet she sigh'd ;)
"Yet is this mossy rock to me

Worth splendid chair and canopy; 1
Nor would my footsteps spring more gay
In courtly dance than blythe strathspey,
Nor half so pleased mine ear incline
To royal minstrel's lay as thine.
And then for suitors proud and high,
To bend before my conquering eye,
Thou flattering bard! thyself wilt say,
That grim Sir Roderick owns its sway.
The Saxon's scourge, Clan-Alpine's pride,
The terror of Loch Lomond's side,
Would, at my suit, thou know'st delay
A Lennox foray — for a day.”—

XII.

The ancient bard his glee repress'd:
"Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest!
For who, through all this western wild,
Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled!
In Holy-Rood a knight he slew; 2

I saw, when back the dirk he drew,
Courtiers give place before the stride

1 MS. This mossy rock, my friend, to me Is worth gay chair and canopy.

2 See Appendix, Note C.