And when the precious hours of leisure came, Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets With a keen eye, and overflowing heart: So genius triumphed over seeming wrong, And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love From the most gentle creature nursed in fields That she can cover, left not his exposed To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven. From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart Those simple lines flowed with an earnest wish, Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve Fitly to guard the precious dust of him Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is missed; Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain : Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend, Which words less free presumed not even to touch) 'Wonderful' hath been That, round his trunk and branches, might have clung Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee Her love (What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here ?) Was as the love of mothers; and when years, Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called The long-protected to assume the part Of a protector, the first filial tie Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight, Remained imperishably interwoven With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world, Did they together testify of time And season's difference-a double tree With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they-such thro' life they might have been In union, in partition only such; Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High; Yet, thro' all visitations and all trials, Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow. But turn we rather, let my spirit turn O gift divine of quiet sequestration! Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds To the blest world where parting is unknown. 1835. H VOL. V. XVI. EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH OF JAMES HOGG. [THESE verses were written extempore, immediately after reading a notice of the Ettrick Shepherd's death, in the Newcastle paper, to the Editor of which I sent a copy for publication. The persons lamented in these verses were all either of my friends or acquaintance. In Lockhart's life of Sir Walter Scott, an account is given of my first meeting with him in 1803. How the Ettrick Shepherd and I became known to each other has already been mentioned in these notes. He was undoubtedly a man of original genius, but of coarse manners and low and offensive opinions. Of Coleridge and Lamb I need not speak here. Crabbe I have met in London at Mr. Rogers's, but more frequently and favourably at Mr. Hoare's upon Hampstead Heath. Every spring he used to pay that family a visit of some length, and was upon terms of intimate friendship with Mrs. Hoare, and still more with her daughter-in-law, who has a large collection of his letters addressed to herself. After the Poet's decease, application was made to her to give up these letters to his biographer, that they, or at least part of them, might be given to the public. She hesitated to comply, and asked my opinion on the subject. "By no means," was my answer, grounded not upon any objection there might be to publishing a selection from these letters, but from an aversion I have always felt to meet idle curiosity by calling back the recently departed to become the object of trivial and familiar gossip. Crabbe obviously for the most part preferred the company of women to that of men, for this among other reasons, that he did not like to be put upon the stretch in general conversation: accordingly in miscellaneous society his talk was so much below what might have been expected from a man so deservedly celebrated, that to me it seemed trifling. It must upon other occasions have been of a different character, as I found in our rambles together on Hampstead Heath, and not so much from a readiness to communicate his knowledge of life and manners as of natural history in all its branches. His |