For of his clan, in hall and bower,

Young Malcolm Græme was held the flower.

VII.

The Minstrel waked his harp-three times
Arose the well-known martial chimes,
And thrice their high heroic pride
In melancholy murmurs died.

"Vainly thou bid'st, O noble maid,"

Clasping his wither'd hands, he said,

"Vainly thou bid'st me wake the strain,
Though all unwont to bid in vain.

Alas! than mine a mightier hand

Has tuned my harp, my strings has spann'd!

I touch the chords of joy, but low

And mournful answer notes of woe;

And the proud march, which victors tread,
Sinks in the wailing for the dead.

O well for me, if mine alone

That dirge's deep prophetic tone!

If, as my tuneful fathers said,

This harp, which erst Saint Modan sway'd, '

I am not prepared to show that Saint Modan was a performer on the harp. It was, however, no unsaintly accomplishment; for Saint Dunstan certainly did play upon that instrument, which retaining, as was natural, a portion of the sanctity attached to its master's character, announced future events by its spontaneous sound. "But labouring once in these mechanic arts for a devout matrone that had sett him on work, his violl, that hung by him on the wall, of its own accord, without anie man's helpe, distinctly sounded this anthime: Gaudeant in cœlis animæ sanctorum qui Christi vestigia sunt secuti; et quia pro eius amore sanguinem suum fuderunt, ideo cum Christo gaudent æternum. Whereat all the companie being much astonished, turned their eyes from beholding him working, to looke on that strange accident.--- Not long after, manie of the court that hitherunto had borne a kind of fayned friendship towards him, began now greatly to envie at his progresse and rising in goodnes, using manie crooked, backbitting meanes to diffame his vertues with the black maskes of hypocrisie. And the better to authorize their calumnie, they brought in this that happened in the violl, affirming it to have been done by art magick. What more? this wicked rumour encreased dayly, till the king and others of the nobilitie taking hould thereof, Dunstan grew odious in their sight. Therefore he resolued to leaue the court, and goe to Elphegus, surnamed the Bauld, then bishop of Winchester, who was his cozen. Which his enemies understanding, they layd wayt for him in the way, and hauing throwne him off his horse, beate him, and dragged him in the durt in the most miserable manner, meaning to have slaine him, had not a companie of mastiue 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 againe 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. 410. Tome I. p. 438.

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

-[ 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. Unballow'd man, that scorn'st the sacred rede, Ilark, how the testimony of my truth

Can thus its master's fate foretell,
Then welcome be the minstrel's knell!

VIII.

"But ah! dear lady, thus it sigh'd
The eve thy sainted mother died;

And such the sounds which, while I strove
To wake a lay of war or love,

Came marring all the festal mirth,

Appalling me who gave them birth,
And, disobedient to my call,

Wail'd loud through Bothwell's banner'd hall,

Ere Douglasses, to ruin driven, *

Were exiled from their native heaven.-
Oh! if yet worse mishap and woe,
My master's house must undergo,
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,

Sounds beavenly music with an angel's hand,

To testify Dunstan's integrity,

And prove thy active boast of no effect."

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 valour of the Douglasses, and their allies, gave them the victory in every 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, thir 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, 1 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 toward the Earl of Angus, his kin and friends, they concluded ail. 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 o 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 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."

.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 honour'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
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 '
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:

[MS.-"No blither dew-drop cheers the rose."]

3

"Loveliest and best! thou little know'st
The rank, the honours, thou hast lost!
O might I live to see thee grace,

I

In Scotland's court, thy birth-right place,
To see my favourite's step advance,
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!"-

XI.

1

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

3

Worth splendid chair and canopy;
Nor would my footsteps spring more gay
In courtly dance than blithe 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 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; 4
I saw, when back the dirk he drew,
Courtiers give place before the stride
Of the undaunted homicide; 5

And since, though outlaw'd, hath his hand
Full sternly kept his mountain land.

[This couplet is not in the MS.]

'The well-known cognizance of the Douglas family.

[MS." This mossy rock, my friend, to me

[See Appendix, Note C.]

5

Is worth gay chair and canopy."]

[MS." Courtiers give place with heartless stride

of the retiring homicide."]

Who else dared give-ah! woe the day,
That I such hated truth should say—
The Douglas, like a stricken deer,
Disown'd by every noble peer,'
Even the rude refuge we have here?
Alas, this wild marauding Chief
Alone might hazard our relief,
And, now thy maiden charms expand,
Looks for his guerdon in thy hand;
Full soon may dispensation sought,
To back his suit, from Rome be brought.
Then, though an exile on the hill,
Thy father, as the Douglas, still
Be held in reverence and fear;

I

And though to Roderick thou'rt so dear,
That thou mightst guide with silken thread,
Slave of thy will, this chieftain dread;
Yet, O loved maid, thy mirth refrain !
Thy hand is on a lion's mane.”

XIII.

"Minstrel," the maid replied, and high
Her father's soul glanced from her eye,
"My debts to Roderick's house I know :
All that a mother could bestow,
To Lady Margaret's care I owe,
Since first an orphan in the wild
She sorrow'd o'er her sister's child;
To her brave chieftain son, from ire
Of Scotland's king who shrouds my sire,
A deeper, holier debt is owed;
And, could I pay it with my blood,
Allan! Sir Roderick should command
My blood, my life,-but not my hand.

[MS.-"Who else dared own the kindred claim

That bound him to thy mother's name?

Who else dared give," etc.]

The exiled state of this powerful race is not exaggerated in this and subsequent passages. The hatred of James against the race of Douglas was so inveterate, that numerous as their allies were, and disregarded as the regal authority had usually been in similar cases, their nearest friends, even in the most remote parts of Scotland, durst not entertain them, unless under the strictest and closest disguise. James Douglas, son of the banished Earl of Angus, afterwards well known by the title of Earl of Morton, lurked, during the exile of his family, in the north of Scotland, under the assumed name of James Innes, otherwise James the Grieve, (i. e. Reve or Bailiff.) "And as he bore the name," says Godscroft, "so did he also execute the office of a grieve or overseer of the lands and rents, the corn and cattle of him with whom he lived." From the habits of frugality and observation, which he acquired in his humble situation, the historian traces that intimate acquaintance with popular character, which enabled him to rise so high in the state, and that honourable economy by which he repaired and established the shattered estates of Angus and Morton.-History of the House of Douglas, Edinburgh, 4743, vol. ii. p. 160.