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Thomas Pringle.* We doubt whether curiosity has induced many of our readers to glance over the pages of the only two numbers of the first literary journal published in this Colony. To those who have done so, it must appear unspeakably odd that this mild and innocent periodical could ever have been condemned as an incendiary publication," that its editors could have been officially informed by His Majesty's Fiscal that several articles had “ given high offence to the Government,”—and that every effort was made by the ruling powers to crush and ruin the “inveterate radicals " and "sowers of sedition," who had had the boldness to contribute to its pages Nor is our amazement lessened when we turn to the columns of the first Cape newspaper which appeared about the same time, was edited by the same men and shared the same fate. It seems impossible that the very sober, sedate, and respectable articles which were published in the South African Journal and the South African Commercial Aavertiser in 1824, could have given offence to the most thin skinned official. But we know that it was so; that the editors were compelled to discontinue the Journal after the second number, unless they would pledge themselves that no passages “obnoxious or offensive to Government," such as had already been inserted, should appear for the future ; that the printing press at which the Advertiser was printed was sealed by order of the Governor, and the printer banished from the Colony.

And this happened but sixty years ago. Living in our midst are men who well remember the excitement caused by the audacity of the two young Scotchmen who had dared to place themselves in opposition to the all powerful ruler of the Colony, What a transition from those days! What Governor would now dream of denouncing as dangerous to the public safety printed quotations from the writings of De Lolme or Blackstone, ---or the appearance of impartial reports of the proceedings in a court of justice? Yet this was the head and

front of their offending! How was it that a people could endure the absolute power then vested in a single individual to banish from the country, and to inflict irretrievable ruin upon any freeborn British subject without the pretence of a trial or the opportunity either of explanation or justification? Yet sich was thought to be the unquestioned power of a Governor of the Cape Colony in those days—and so far distant were the colonists then from the mother country, that it seemed worse than useless to appeal.

Rightly to appreciate the work of Thomas Pringle and his friend John Fairbairn, we should realize to ourselves what was the state of the Cape when they commenced their labours. What were the abuses they laboured to remove, what the powers against which they had to contend. Pringle's name is inseparately connected with that of his friend in the earlier struggie for the freedom of the press. It was left to the latter some years after to strike the final blow, but the first fierce fight was fought by the two friends standing side by side, and almost alone.

Mr. Noble has done a service to his fellow colonists in putting forth a new edition of Pringle's poetical works, and prefacing them with an excellent, though brief, memoir of the author. He has performed his work well, and the handsome volume before us is orie which ought to receive a hearty welcome.

We propose in this article to give a short summary of Pringle's life and of his most imporant work in the colony, supplemeriting Mr. Noble's narrative by the insertion of certain details which we trust will not prove uninteresting.

Born in 1789, at Blaikland, near Kelso, the son of a farmer, educated at the Grammar School at Kelso, Prir:gle completed his college course at the Edinburgh University. Lame from his infancy, and thus prevented from joining with his comrades in their rougher sports and amusements, his earlier years were spent in Teviotdale, among the scenes of border song and story, which his romantic mind treasured up and brooded over. At college he was fortunate in making the acquaintance and gaining the friendship of one who could fully sympathize with his hopes and aspirations - a lad whose earnest, enthusiastic nature was to him a congenial one, Robert Story, afterwards minister of Rosneath. Story says of Pringle that “ when at college, he was of studious habits, and attended diligently to the duties of his different classes ; and although he did not make a brilliant figure, his appearance was already respectable, when examined by the Professor. He did not, however, although studious, extend, as he might have done, his classical knowledge. His readings during the hours not engaged in the preparation of the lessons of the day, consisted chiefly in the belles lettres of his mother tongue. He was much more conversent with English poetry and criticism at the time than students of his standing generally are.”

Pringle's delight in looking at nature was intense. He returned to the country with delight, and reluctantly left it for the succeeding term. To the country again returning, he made many a pilgrimage to classical spots in Teviotdale, and here his poetical fancies first took form. A few years later, when desirous of obtaining the assistance of Story in the establishment of a periodical, he writes to his friend that he had taken it upon him to entrust one of the poems which the latter had placed in his hands to the Ettrick Shepherd.

“Upon giving him this,” continues Pringle, “ I read to him some passages addressed to you long since, upon a tour through Teviotdale and Ettrick Forest, which he strongly pressed me to print, and Aa:tered me so well, that I have set to and finished them ; and the said poem, yet without a name, extends to no less than sixteen pages."*

The poem here alluded to by Pringle is the one he afterwards published under the title of the « Autumnal Excursion," It is dedicated to “R.S.,” and commemorates one of these Border Excursions which the two friends had made together in their younger days. It first appeared in the “ Poetic Mirror” in 1816. It was meant, we are told by Mr. Leitch Ritchie in his life of Pringle, “as an imitation of the strains of the Wizard of the North :- the said Wizard (in whose hands it was placed for revision), declaring that he wished the original notes had always been as fine as the ccho."

This poem was republished along with others in a collection which he entitled “ Ephemerides,” in 1828.

The poem opens thus :

“Dear Story, while the southern breeze

Floats, fragrant, from the upland leas,
Whispering of Autumn's mellow spoils,
And jovial sports, and grateful toils, –
Awakening in the softened breast,
Regrets and wishes long supprest,-
O, come with me, once more to hail
The scented heath, and sheafy vale,
The hills and streams of Teviotdale.
—'Tis but a parting pilgrimage,
To save from Time's destroying rage,
And changeful Fortune's withering blast
The pictured relics of the Past.
Then come, dear comrade, welcome still
In every change of good or ill ;
Whom young affection's wishes claim,
And friendship ever finds the same;
Awake with all thy flow of mind,
With fancy bright and feelings kind,
And tune with me the rambling lay,

To cheer us on our mountain way.” The following lines will give the reader a fair idea of this early poem :

But chief, when summer Twilight mild
Drew her dim curtain o'er the wild,
I loved heside that ruin grey
To watch the dying gleam of day.
And though, perchance, with secret dread,
I heard the bat Ait round my head,
While winds that waved the long lank grass
With sound unearthly seemed to pass,
Yet with a pleasing horror fell
Upon my heart the thrilling spell ;
For all that met the ear or eye
Breathed such serene tranquillity,
I deemed nought cvil might intrude
Within the saintly solitude.

-Still vivid memory can recall
The figure of each shattered wall ;
The aged trees, all hoar with moss,
Low-bending o'er the circling fosse ;
The rushing of the mountain food ;
The ring-doves cooing in the wood ;
The rooks that o'er the turrets sail ;
The lonely curlew's distant wail ;
The flocks that high on Hounam rest ;
The glories of the glowing west.

And, tinged with that departing sun, To Fancy's eye ariscs dun Lone Blaiklaw, on whose trenchéd brow, Yet unprofaned by ruthless plough, The shaggy gorse and brown heath wave O’er many a nameless warrior's grave. -Yon ridge, of yore, which wide and far Gleam'd like the wakeful Eye of War, And ost, with warning flame and smoke, Ten thousand spears to battle woke, Now down each subject glen descries Blue wreaths from quiet hamlets rise, To where, soft-fading on the eye, Tweed's cultured banks in beauty lie, Wide waving with a flood of grain, From Eildon to the eastern main. - Oft from yon height I loved to mark, Soon as the morning roused the lark, And woodlands raised their raptured hymn, That land of glory spreading dim; While slowly up the awakening dale The mists withdrew their fleecy veil, And tower, and wood, and winding stream, Were brightening in the orient beam.

-Yet where the westward shadows fell, My eye with fonder gaze would dwell ; Though wild the view, and brown and bare, Nor castled halls, nor hamlets fair, Nor range of sheltering woods, were there