"Happy my tenants breaking on my hand; } Unstock'd my pastures, and untill'd my land; Sugar and rum a drug, and mice and moths The sole consumers of my good broadcloths-Happy-Why, cursed war and racking tax Have left us scarcely raiment to our backs.""In that case, signior, I may take my leave; I came to ask a favour-but I grieve”— "Favour?" said John, and eyed the Sultaun hard, "It's my belief you come to break the yard!But, stay, you look like some poor foreign sinner,Take that to buy yourself a shirt and dinner."With that he chuck'd a guinea at his head; But, with due dignity, the Sultaun said, "Permit me, sir, your bounty to decline; A shirt indeed I seek, but none of thine. Signior, I kiss your hands, so fare you well.”— "Kiss and be d-d," quoth John," and go to hell!" XVII. Next door to John there dwelt his sister Peg, And teeth, of yore, on slender provocation, XVIII. The Sultaun enter'd, and he made his leg, XIX. Then up got Peg, and round the house 'gan scuttle In search of goods her customer to nail, Until the Sultaun strain'd his princely throttle, ken? Besides, just think upon this by-gane year, Grain wadna pay the yoking of the pleugh.""What say you to the present ?"-" Meal's sae dear, To mak' their brose my bairns have scarce aneugh.""The devil take the shirt," said Solimaun, "I think my quest will end as it began.Farewell, ma'am; nay, no ceremony, I beg""Ye'll no be for the linen then?" said Peg. XX. Now, for the land of verdant Erin, For a long space had John, with words of thunder, ΧΧΙ The Sultaun saw him on a holiday, Dealt forth a bonus of imputed merit, XXII. Shilela their plan was wellnigh after baulking, They seized, and they floor'd, and they stripp'd him- Up-bubboo! Paddy had not- -a shirt to his back!!! And the King, disappointed, with sorrow and shame, Went back to Serendib as sad as he came. Mr. Kemble's Farewell Address,1 ON TAKING LEAVE OF THE EDINBURGH STAGE. 1817 As the worn war-horse, at the trumpet's sound, Can scarce sustain to think our parting near; Why should we part, while still some powers remain, age. But all too soon the transient gleam is past, "Is this the man who once could please our sires?" Here, then, adieu! while yet some well-graced parts In anxious hope, how oft return'd with fame! And I have felt, and you have fann'd the flame! O favour'd Land! renown'd for arts and arms, What fervent benedictions now were thine! Is-Friends and Patrons, hail, and FARE YOU WELL. Lines, WRITTEN FOR MISS SMITH. 1817. WHEN the lone pilgrim views afar 1 These lines first appeared, April 5, 1817, in a weekly sheet, called the "Sale Room," conducted and published by Messrs. Ballantyne and Co., at Edinburgh. In a note prefixed, Mr. James Ballantyne says, "The character fixed upon, with happy propriety, for Kemble's closing scene, was Macbeth, in which he took his final leave of Scotland on the evening of Saturday, the 29th March, 1817. He had laboured under a severe cold for a few days before, but on this memorable night the physical annoyance yielded to the energy of his mind. He was,' he said, in the green-room, immediately before the curtain rose, determined to leave behind him the most perfect specimen of his art which he had ever shown,' and his success was complete. At the moment of the tyrant's death the curtain fell by the universal acclamation of the audience. The applauses were vehement and prolonged; they ceased-were resumed-rose again - were reiterated -and again were hushed. In a few minutes the curtain ascended, and Mr. Kemble came forward in the dress of Macbeth, (the audience by a consentaneous movement rising to receive him,) to deliver his farewell.". "Mr. Kemble delivered these lines with exquisite beauty, and with an effect that was evidenced by the tears and sobs of many of the audience. His own emotions were very conspicuous. When his farewell was closed, he lingered long on the stage, as if unable to retire. The house again stood up, and cheered him with the waving of hats and long shouts of applause. At length, he finally retired, and, in so far as regards Scotland, the curtain dropped upon his professional life for ever." 2 These lines were first printed in "The Forget-Me-Not, for 1834." They were written for recitation by the distinguished actress, Miss Smith, now Mrs. Bartley, on the night of her benefit at the Edinburgh Theatre, in 1817; but reached her too late for her purpose. In a letter which inclosed them, the poet intimated that they were written on the morning of the day on which they were sent that he thought the idea better than the execution, and forwarded them with the hope of their adding perhaps "a little sait to the bill." No longer dare he think his toil We too, who ply the Thespian art, And conquering eyes and dauntless hearts ;-1 Yet sure on Caledonian plain To give the applause she dare not ask; The westland wind is hush and still, The lake lies sleeping at my feet. Yet not the landscape to mine eye Bears those bright hues that once it bore; Though evening, with her richest dye, Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore. With listless look along the plain, I see Tweed's silver current glide, And coldly mark the holy fane Of Melrose rise in ruin'd pride. The quiet lake, the balmy air, The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree,Are they still such as once they were? Or is the dreary change in me? Alas, the warp'd and broken board, How can it bear the painter's dye! The harp of strain'd and tuneless chord, How to the minstrel's skill reply! To aching eyes each landscape lowers, To feverish pulse each gale blows chill; And Araby's or Eden's bowers Were barren as this moorland hill. The Sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill. 1817. The Monks of Bangor's March. ["SCOTT's enjoyment of his new territories was, however, interrupted by various returns of his cramp, and the depression of spirit which always attended, in his case, the use of opium, the only medicine that seemed to have power over the disease. It was while strugg ling with such languor, on one lovely evening of this autumn, that he composed the following beautiful verses. They mark the very spot of their birth,— namely, the then naked height overhanging the northern side of the Cauldshiels Loch, from which Melrose Abbey to the eastward, and the hills of Ettrick and Yarrow to the west, are now visible over a wide range of rich woodland,-all the work of the poet's hand."-Life, vol. v., p. 237.] AIR-" Rimhin aluin 'stu mo run.” The air, composed by the Editor of Albyn's Anthology. The words written for Mr. George Thomson's Scottish Melodies, [1822.] THE sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill, In Ettrick's vale, is sinking sweet; 1 "O favour'd land! renown'd for arts and arms, For manly talent, and for female charms." Lines written for Mr. J. Kemble. 1817. ETHELFRID or OLFRID, King of Northumberland, having besieged Chester in 613, and BROCKMAEL, a British Prince, advancing to relieve it, the religious of the neighbouring Monastery of Bangor marched in procession, to pray for the success of their countrymen. But the British being totally defeated, the heathen victor put the monks to the sword, and destroyed their monastery. The tune to which these verses are adapted is called the Monks' March, and is supposed to have been played at their ill-omened procession. WHEN the heathen trumpet's clang O miserere, Domine! "Nathaniel Gow told me that he got the air from an old gentleman, a Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield, (he thinks, whe had it from a friend in the Western Isles, as an old Highland air."-GEORGE THOMSON. "Poitiers, by the way, is always spelled with an s, and I know no reason why orthography should give From Greenock, where Clyde to the Ocean is sweep- place to rhyme."" ing From Largs, where the Scotch gave the Northmen a drilling From Ardrossan, whose harbour cost many a shilling From Old Cumnock, where beds are as hard as a plank, sir From a chop and green pease, and a chicken in Sanquhar, "Raise my faint head, my squires,” he said, "And let the casement be display'd, That I may see once more The splendour of the setting sun "Garonne and sun is a bad rhyme. Why, Frank, This eve, please the Fates, at Drumlanrig we anchor. you do not even understand the beggarly trade you W. S. have chosen."" 1 William of Malmsbury says, that in his time the extent of the ruins of the monastery bore ample witness to the desolation occasioned by the massacre; tot semiruti parietes ecclesiarum, tot anfractus porticum, tanta turba ruderum quantum vix alibi cernas." "The library at Osbaldistone Hall was a gloomy room," &c. (2.)-CHAP. XIII. Dire was his thought, who first in poison steep'd (3.)-CHAP. XXII. Look round thee, young Astolpho: Here's the place Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in,— Rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease. Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench, Doth Hope's fair torch expire; and at the snuff, Ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild, and wayward, The desperate revelries of wild despair. Kindling their hell-born cressets, light to deeds That the poor captive would have died ere practised, Till bondage sunk his soul to his condition. The Prison, Scene iii. Act i. (3.)-MOTTOES. (1.)-CHAP. X. IN the wide pile, by others heeded not, (7.)-CHAP. XXXVI. Farewell to the land where the clouds love to rest, Like the shroud of the dead on the mountain's cold breast; To the cataract's roar where the eagles reply, |