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Scarce from her lips the word had rush'd,
When deep the conscious maiden blush'd;
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 cords 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 do not hesitate to name as a third, John Græme, of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, whose heoric death, in the arms of victory, may be allowed to cancel the memory of his cruelty to the non-conformists, during the reigns of Charles II. and James II.

1 I am not prepared to show that Saint Modan was a performer on the harp. It was, however, no unsaintly accomplishment;

Can thus its master's fate foretell,

Then welcome be the minstrel's knell!

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; Gaudent 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 look 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, backbiting 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 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. D. 438.

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,1

Were exiled from their native heaven.

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

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"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 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

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;

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, 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 toward the Earl of Angus, his kin and friends, they concluded all, and thought it best that he should be summoned to underlay 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 underlay 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."

One short, one final strain shall flow,
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,—whose memory scarce conveys

"For me,

An image of more splendid days,

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