SHEPHERD. Storm-lover NORTH. Glorying in the storm, and enamoured of the tempest SHEPHERD. Yet is happy to sink down frae heaven, and fauld up his magnificent wings at the edge o' his eyry, fond o' the twa unfledged cannibals sleepin' wi' fu' stammachs there, cozy in the middle o' a mighty nest, twenty feet in circumference, and covering the haill platform o' the tap o' the cliff, aye, as fond, sir, though I alloo a hantle fiercer, as ony cushy-doo on her slight and slender "procreant cradle,"-you can see through't, ye ken, sir, frae below, and discern whether she has eggs or young anes,-in the green gloom o' some auld pine central in the forest. NORTH. Yes, James, all great poets are great talkers SHEPHERD. Tiresome aften to a degree-though sometimes, I grant to Mr Muir, that they are a sulky set, and as gruffly and grimly silent as if they had the toothache, or something the matter wi' their inside. Far be it frae me to deny, that " men o' the higher order o' genius" are aften disagreeable deevils. They maun aften be a sair fash to their wives and their weans-and calm as the poet's cottage looks, upon the hill or in the dell, mony a rippet is there, sir, beyond the power o' the imagination o' ony mere proser to conceive. Oh, aye, sir! mony a fearfu' rippet, in which, whether appellant or respondent, defender or pursuer, the 'man o' the higher order o' genius" wishes, wi' tears in the red een o' him, no that his wife and weans were a' dead and buried-for nae provocation in their power can drive the distrackit fallow to that-but that he himsell had never been kittled, or, if kittled, instead o' hae'n been laid in the cradle by Apollo, and tended on by the Musesnine nurses, and nae less-which o' them wat and which o' them dry it's no easy for me at this distance o' time to remember-he had been soockled like ither honest men's bairns, at the breast o' his nain mither, had shewn nae precocious genius in his leading strings,-but, blessed lot! had died booby o' the lowest form, and been buried amang the sabs o' a' that ever saw him, a wee senseless sumph, as stupid as a piggie, yet as happy as a lamb! Hee! hee! hee! James! NORTH. SHEPHERD. But what then? NORTH. Yes, James, what then? SHEPHERD. Eh? NORTH. Hem ! SHEPHERD. Aye, clear your throttle. You've gotten a vile crinklin' cough, sir,—a short, kirk-yard cough, sir-a wheezy host, sir-an asthmatic NORTH. Poo! It has teased me a little for these last fifty years SHEPHERD. What? Hae ye carried a spale-box o' lozenges since the aughty? Recover your wund, sir-while I chant a stave. KING WILLIE. O, Willie was a wanton wag, The blithest lad that e'er I saw; VOL. XXIX. NO. CLXXV. B An' was nae Willie weel worth goud? He fought the foremost o' them a'. Wha has nae heard o' Willie's fame, An aye be welcome back again. Though now he wears the British crown- I've ae advice to gie my King, An' that I'll gie wi' right gude-will, An' Royal Willie's worth I'll sing As lang as I hae breath to draw. NORTH. Spirited. Who is Adie Laidlaw? SHEPHERD. Queen Adelaide-a familiar title o' endearment the Queen enjoys in the Forest. NORTH. But what say you to the last stanza-now, James ? Wait a while-sir. SHEPHERD. NORTH. I am delighted to hear that Mr Blackwood is about to publish a volume of your inimitable Songs. 'Twill be universally popular, my dear Jamesand must be followed up by a second in spring. The wing of your lyrical muse never flags, whether she skim the gowans or brush the clouds. The shade of Burns himself might say to the Shepherd, "Then gie's your haund, my trusty feer," for, of all the song-writers of Scotland, you two are the best-though Allan Cunninghame treads close upon your heels-and often is privileged to form a trio-such a trio of peasant bards as may challenge the whole world. SHEPHERD. Your haun, sir. I cou'd amaist greet. NORTH. But it is the "cultivation and exercise of the imaginative faculty," quoth Mr Moore," that, more than any thing else, tends to wean the man of genius from actual life, and by substituting the sensibilities of the imagination for those of the heart, to render, at last, the medium through which he feels, no less unreal than that through which he thinks. Those images of ideal good and beauty that surround him in his musings, soon accustom him to consider all that is beneath this high standard unworthy of his care; till, at length, the heart becoming chilled, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them." Such are the ipsissima verba of Mr Moore, James. SHEPHERD. I'm nae great reader o' byeucks, sir, as you weel ken, and, I believe, dinna disapprove, yet mony's the time and aft that I've lauched to peruse that apothegm. NORTH. If not a "wise saw," perhaps 'tis a "modern instance." SHEPHERD. Mr North, if Mr Muir was sittin' on that empty chair there, wi' the laddie kissin' the lassie embroidered on the inside o' the back o't-Patie and Roger, I jaloose-I would just say till him, wi' a pleesant vice, and kind een, and a lauch about my mouth,-Mister Muir, you're under a great mistak. Nae man o' a high order o' mind, either thinks or feels through "an unreal medium." But I'll tell you, sir, what he does he thinks and feels through a fine medium. He breathes the pure air o' the mountain-tap-and he sees through the clear air a' the dwallins o' man-and richt through their roofs intil their hearths and their hearts. Did Burns feel and think through an unreal medium, Mister Muir, when, "In glory and in joy, Following his plough upon the mountain-side," his soul saw the Cottar's Saturday Night, and in words gave the vision imperishable life? James NORTH. "You are attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired." SHEPHERD. Na, na-'tis but the glow o' the fire on ma face. Yet ma heart's a' on a low-for as sure as God is in heaven, and that he has gi'en us his word on earth, that Picture is a Picture of the Truth, and Burns, in drawing it, saw, felt, and thocht through that real medium, in which alone all that is fairest, loveliest, brichtest, best in creation, is made apparent to the eyes o' genius, or permanent in its immortal works. NORTH. Ca' ye that pitchin' your talk on a laigh key? 'Tis at the tap o' the gawmut. SHEPHERD. Hoo can you, Mister Muir, sit there and tell me that men o' a high order o' mind sune get sae enamoured o' the eemages o' ideal good and beauty, that they consider all that is beneath that standard unworthy o' their care? Let me come owre and sit beside you for a few minutes. There, dinna be feared-I'm no a grain angry—and I'm sittin', you see, my dear sir, wi' my airm owre the back o' your chair. NORTH. Don't press so close upon Mr Moore, James SHEPHERD. Mister Muir's makin' nae complents, sir.-It is "men o' a laigh order o' genius," ma freen, that is subject to sic degeneracy and adulteration. A puny, sickly sensibility there is, which is averse frae all the realities of life; and Byron or somebody else spoke well when he said that Sterne preferred whining owre a dead ass to relieving a living mother! But wha was Sterne? As shallow a sentimentalist as ever grat-or rather tried to greet. O, sir! but it's a degrawdin' sicht to humanity, yon-to see the shufflin' sinner tryin' to bring the tears intill his een, by rubbin' the lids wi' the pint o' his pen, or wi' the feathers on the shank, and when it a' winna do, takin' refuge in a blank, sae, or hidin' his head amang a set o' asterisks, sae ****; or boltin' aff the printed page a'thegither, and disappearin' in ae black blotch! NORTH. Sterne had genius, James. SHEPHERD. No ae grain, sir. NORTH. Some-not a little SHEPHERD. Weel, weel-be it sae-a' that I mean to aver, is, that had he been "o' the first order o' minds," he would not hae preferred whining owre a dead ass to relieving a living mother; but if news had been suddenly brocht to him that his mother was ill, he wad hae hired a livin' horse, and aff to her house like a flash o' lichtning, flingin' himsell oot o' the saiddle to the danger o' his neck, up stairs to her bedside, and doon upon his knees, beseeching God for her recovery, and willing to die for her sake, so that she who gave him birth micht yet live, nor be taken from the licht of day and buried amang the tombs ! NORTH. Don't press, my dear James, so heavily on Mr Moore's shoulder. SHEPHERD. Mister Muir's makin' nae complents.-There's ma sell, sirs-I sha'na pretend to say whether I'm a man o' the higher order o' genius or no; but NORTH. Yes, James, you are; for you wrote Kilmeny. SHEPHERD. But if I haena ten thousand times the quantity o' genius that ever Sterne had, may this be the last jug, sirs, that ever we three drink thegither— NORTH. Shades of my Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim! SHEPHERD. Fantastic phantoms! NORTH. Why, James, your voice trembles with emotion. You are not the man, my boy, to whine over a dead ass; but you are the man, my boy, to be pensive over the very fear, however unfounded, of an empty jug-so I may replenish? SHEPHERD. Do sae. I am surrounded in my musings-to use your ain words, Mister Muir-wi' eemages o' ideal good and beauty; and, at times, when lyin' on the greensward in the heart o' the Forest, a sweet strange perplexity has it been to the Shepherd, sirs, to determine within the consciousness o' his ain sowle, whether the bonny cretures that seemed to come to him in solitude, were cretures o' this earth or no-and if o' this earth, then whether they were all but Fancy's phantoms, or beings that had their abiding-place in heaven, and cam o' their ain accord; or were sent to wave peace into my wearied spirit frae the white motions o' their arms celestial in their whiteness as the blue lights of love and pity, that bathed in ineffable beautifulness the steadfast expression of their angelic eyes! My dear James ! NORTH. SHEPHERD. But did these visitations accustom me, sir,-I'm speakin' to you, Mister Muir, to consider a' else unworthy o' ma care? Na, na, na. I appeal to you, Mr North, for you hae seen me and the auld man thegither there, gin I didna return back to my ain hut, anxious as ever aboot my father, wha used then to sit warmin' himsell at the bit ingle, stricken in years, though far frae frail yet, and aften glowerin' at me wi' that gash kind o' face that somehoo or ither in verra auld folk carries ane's thochts at ance to their coffin and their grave-as anxious about him as if the breathins o' genie had never visited the Shepherd on the hill, and I had been only a mere common ordinar prose-hash o'a chiel, whase heichest explite in leeteratur had been a rejected agricultural report to the Kelso Mail, on the fly in turnips, or the smut in wheat. NORTH. You tended the old man most filially, James, till the last sugh SHEPHERD. Nor did I forget ma mither either, sir; though, thank God, she never needed but sma' assistance frae me, for " poortith cauld" was never her lot, sir, though the necessaries o' life were a' she ever had, and as for its luxu ries-gin you except a dish o' strang tea, and noo and then a whiff o' bacca -for she was nae regular smoker-she had a speerit abune them a', sir; and had the deevil tempted her even in a dream, when sometimes ane's sowle seems to lose its nature, wi' the shadows o' a' the eatables and drinkables that his wild warleckry cou'd hae conjured up, hoo she wou'd hae strauchtened hersell up to her haill hicht, and, wi' a smile far prooder and sterner than his ain froon, hae sent Satan and a' his visionary viands awa' back to the regions o' everlasting dolour and despair. Ou aye, sae I was. But my imagination, sir, a' at ance wafted me awa' intil the laneliest spat amang a' the hills whare my childhood played-and amang the broom-bushes and the breckens there, I was beginnin', when you reca'd me by that rap on the table, to sink awa' back again intil the dream o' dreams! The dream o' dreams? NORTH. SHEPHERD. Aye, sir-The dream, sir, in which I saw Kilmeny! For though I wrott doon the poem on the sclate in the prime o' manhood, anither being than mysell did in verity compose or creawte it, sir, ae day when I was lying a' by mysell in that laneliest spat, wi' but twa-three sheep aside me, ae linty and nae mair; but oh! how sweetly the glad cretur sang! and after that some other cretur nor me had composed or creawted it, she keepit whisper, whisperin' the words far within my ears, till memory learned them a' off by heart as easy as the names o' christian creturs that we meet wi' on Sabbaths at the kirk; and frae that genie-haunted hour, known now through a' braid Scotland is the Ettrick Shepherd Britain and America-- NORTH. SHEPHERD. But for many obscure years a nameless man, or kent but by the name o' Jamie amang my simple compeers, I carried bonny Kilmeny for ever in the arms o' my heart, kissin' her shut een whan she sleepit, and her lips as cawm as the lips o' death, but as sweet as them o' an undying angel! NORTH. And such was the origin of the finest Pastoral Lyric in our tongue! SHEPHERD. Sic indeed, sir, was its origin. For my sowle, ye see, sir, had fa'n into a kind o' inspired dwawm-and the Green Leddy o' the Forest, naé less than the Fairy Queen hersell, had stown out frae the land o' peace on my slumber; and she it was that stooped down, and wi' her ain lily-haun shedding frae my forehead the yellow hair, left a kiss upon my temples, just |