behaved and sober, in ordinary times, we cheerfully grant; but a man must shut his eyes, and put cotton into his ears, who intends to walk the streets of a great manufacturing town, even by day-and if by night, he had better leave both his eyes and ears at home -without seeing and hearing the din and disorder of a wide-spread and profligate dissipation. Ennui itself the plague it seems of unwashed artificers-although it possibly may make those who suffer under it, fly for relief to newspapers and the cheaper sort of periodical works -will far more frequently, we should opine, drive them to the gin-shop, or worse places-or to the druggists' shops-for we have heard that there are vulgar opium-eaters. But banishing Ennui to fashionable or genteel life-our Rhapsodist is a dreamer among men indeed, if he seriously believes that in old-settled countries, mechanics do not too often, and in miserable numbers-get drunk. His creed looks like the crotchet of some hare-brained rural sentimentalist, poetizing about towns, and not like an opinion adopted from reflection, observation, experience, and reason, by the Professor of Political Economy in the University of London. Our Rhapsodist says by " cultivating, that is, stimulating-the mental powers." With what an air of grand simplicity he lets his dogmata drop from his lips, or trickle from his pen! You may stimulate a mechanic's or a peasant's mental powers by such reading as shall poison or kill his soul. You may stimulate them so as to impel him to burn stacks and break machinery-and thus elevate him to the gallows. Nor do we know any other kind of reading more likely to do so than that of " a large supply of newspapers, and the cheaper kinds of periodical works"-for they are not all like the tracts circulated by the Society for Useful and Entertaining Knowledge-and many of them are as inflammatory-as stimulative, as if edited by Swing." Strong spirits stimulate-but they destroy-and cheap gin, bad as it is for soul and body, for the corporeal and for the mental powers, is not more so than the cheap paper-poison of the incendiary Press. "Cultivating, that is, stimulating!" and this is the secret-of Education for the People! To know what is the real character and condition either of the town or country population of this kingdom, we must look a little deeper into both than our Rhapsodist, and not content ourselves with such a very superficial survey. The condition of rural labourers is certainly more steadfast than that of manufacturing workmen; and therefore whatever good and useful qualities of mind, or habits of conduct, are naturally formed and fostered by such influences, will and must belong to the one rather than to the other. Such qualities and habits are of vast importance to the virtue and happiness of human beings; and therein the rural population certainly have the advantage. It is a blessing belonging to their condition, and breathing its influence over their whole life. Nor does it at all disprove the truth of this, that bad governments have it in their power to break in upon and disturb, and even, indeed, reverse this law. To such thwarting and counteracting causes all modes and conditions of life are alike subject; but we have spoken of what would happen, were the agency of natural laws notgrievously nullified or worse, by the ignorance and folly of pretended science. Finally, will our Rhapsodist doubt or deny, that in large towns and cities vice has its haunts and its strongholds? There is comparative innocence in the country. The human heart, indeed, is the same in a crowded lane and in a lonely valley; and it often remains the same-nay, the virtue of self-denial, and of "holding fast its integrity," and of turning away in stern disdain of pollution, is often witnessed-oftener it triumphs unwitnessed-in the corruption of a great city, than in the untainted air of rural life. Such conquests are great, and "verily they shall have their reward." But on the whole, is there not a lower tone of morality-more laxity of manners among the inhabitants of cities-high as well as low-but of the low alone we now speak-than among country people? A greater license in all things is allowed-one family is not such a check upon an 316 Winter Rhapsody. By Christopher North. Fytte IV. other-that moral inquisition, which conscience herself establishes in the country, cannot be in cities-evil deeds can be concealed there, or lost in the crowd-and there is the infector and the contagion of the Plague of Evil. Gentle and judicious reader! to the side of which Rhapsodist dost thou incline? But let us away like a Flamingo to other scenes over the trackless snow. What do you mean by original genius? By that fine line in the Pleasures of Hope "To muse on Nature with a poet's eye?" [Feb. and rocking, and tossing of old trees, "Red comes the river down, and loud and The angry spirit of the water shrieks, terrible-as, gathering his streams like a chieftain his clan-ere long he will sweep shieling, and hut, and hamlet to the sea, undermining rocks, cutting mounds asunder, and blowing up bridges that explode into the air with a roar like that of cannon. You sometimes think you hear thunder, though you know that cannot be-but sublimer than thunder is the nameless noise so like that of agonized life-that eddies far and wide around-high and huge above fear all the while being at the bottom of your heart-an objectless, dim, dreary, undefinable fear, whose troubled presence-if any mortal feeling be so-is indeed sublime. Your imagination is troubled, and dreams of death, but of no single corpse, of no single grave. Nor fear you for yourself, for the Hut in which you enjoy the storm, is safer than the canopied cliff-calm of the eagle's nest; but your spirit is convulsed from all its deepest and darkest foundations, as if by a soul-quake, and all that lay hidden there of the wild and wonderful, the pitiful and the strange, the terrible and pathetic, is now upturned in dim confusion, and imagination working among the secret treasures of the heart, creates out of them moods kindred and congenial with the hurricane, intensify. ing the madness of the heaven and the earth, till that which sees, and that which is seen, that which hears, and that which is heard, undergo alternate mutual transfiguration; and the blind Roaring Day-at once substance, shadow, and soul-is felt to be one with ourselves, and the blended whole, either the Live-Dead, or the Dead-Alive! We are in a Highland Hut-if we called it a Shieling, we did so merely because we love the sound of the word Shieling, and the image it at once brings to eye and ear-the rustling of leaves on a summer sil "List'ning the doors an' winnocks rattle, Beneath a scaur ! Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, What comes o' thee? Ev'n you on murdering errands toil'd, My heart forgets, Sore on you beats." van bower, by simple art slightly And thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, changed from the form of the growth of nature, or the waving of fern on the turf-roof and turf-walls, all covered with wild-flowers and mosses, and moulded by one single season into a knoll-like beauty, beside its guardian birch-tree, insupportable to all evil spirits, but with its silvery stem and drooping tresses, dear to the Silent People that won in the land of peace. Truly this is not the sweet Shieling-season, when, far away from all other human dwellings, on the dip of some great moun tain, quite at the head of a day'sjourney-long glen, the young herdsman, haply all alone, without one single being with him that has the use of speech, liveth for months retired far from kirk and crossLuath his sole companion-his sole care the pasturing flocks-and when their bleat is silent, the sole sounds he hears the croak of the raven on the cliff, or bark of the eagle in the sky! O sweet, solitary lot of lover! Haply in some oasis in the wilderness, some steadfast gleam of emerald light amid the hyacinthine-hue of the heather, that young herdsman hath pitched his tent, by one Good Spirit haunted morning, noon, and night, through all those sunny, moonlight, starry months, the Orphan-girl, whom years ago her dying father gave into his armsthe old blind soldier-knowing that the boy would shield her innocence -when every blood-relation had been buried-now Orphan-girl no more, but sitting-growing therelike a lily at the Shieling porch, or singing sweeter than any bird-the happiest of all living things-her own dark-haired Ronald's Bride. We are in a Highland Hut among a Highland Snow-storm-and all at once the dreams of fancy and imagination fade, and "The still sad music of humanity" is heard by the heart amidst the roar of the merciless hurricane. We re member the words of Burns-the peerless Peasant-and simple as they are, with what profound pathos are they charged! Burns is our Lowland bard-but poetry is poetry all over the world, when streamed from the life-blood of the human heart. So sang the Genius of inspired humanity in his tree-sheltered" auld clay-biggin," in one of the vales of Coila, where gently swell the "banks and braes o' bonny Doon;" and now our heart responds the strain, high up among the Celtic cliffs, central among a sea of mountains lurking hidden in a snow-storm that enshrouds the daylight. Aye-the one single door of this Hut-the one single "winnock," does" rattle" by fits-as the blast smites it, in spite of the white mound drifted hill-high all round the almost buried dwelling. Dim through the peat-reek cower the figures in tartan-fear has hushed the cry of the infant in the swinging cradle-and all the other imps are mute. But the household is thinner than usual at the meal-hour; and feet that loved to follow the reddeer along the bent, now fearless of pitfalls, have been, since the first lower of morning light, traversing the tempest. The shepherds, who sit all day long, when summer hues are shining, and summer flowerets blow, almost idle in their plaids, beneath the shadow of some rock watching their flocks feeding above, around, and below, now expose their bold breasts to all the perils of the pastoral life. This is our Arcadiaa realm of wrath-woe-danger, and death. Here are bred the men whose blood-when the bagpipe blew "Brought from the dust the sound of liberty," while the Invincible standard was lowered before the heroes of the Old Black Watch, and victory out of the very heart of defeat arose on "that thrice-repeated cry" that quails all foes that madly rush against the banners of Albyn. The storm "That keeps the raven quiet in her nest," and has frozen in his eyry the eagle's wing, driven the deer to the comb beneath the cliffs, and all night imprisoned the wild-cat in his cell, hand in hand, as is their wont when crossing a stream or flood, bands of Highlanders now face in its strongholds, all over the ranges of mountains, come it from the wrathful inland or the more wrathful sea. "They think upon the ourie cattle and man's reason goes to the help of brute instinct of them "whose life is hidden with God!" How passing sweet is that second stanza, heard like a low hymn amidst the noise of the tempest! Let our hearts recite it-even once more! "Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, That, in the merry months o' spring, Delighted me to hear thee sing, What comes o' thee? hand, and bush, tree, and tower are again all a-twitter with the survivors of some gentler clime! The poet's heart, humanized to utmost tenderness by the beauty of its own merciful thoughts, extends its forgetfulness-that is, its forgiveness-to all the poor beasts of prey. That, say we, is true Christian poetry, and then expressed in what powerful words! "Ev'n you on murdering errands toil'd, Lone from your savage homes exiled!" Each syllable tells-each stroke of the poet-painter's pencil depicts the life and sufferings of the poor beast of prey! And then, feeling that at such an hour all life is subject to one lot, how profound the pathos reflected back upon our own selves and our mortal condition, by these few simplest words "My heart forgets, While pitiless the tempest wild Sore on you beats!" They go to help the "ourie cattle" and the "silly sheep;" but who knows that they are not sent on an errand of higher mercy, by Him whose ear has not been shut to the prayer almost frozen on the lips of them about to perish! A Tale of Truth and Tears, long forgotten, comes across heart-long forgotten, though on the eve of that day on which the deliverance happened, so passionately did we all regard it, that we felt that interference providential-as if we had indeed seen the hand of God our Whar wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, stretched down through the mist and An' close thy ee?" The whole earth is in a moment green again-trees whisper-streamfets murmur-and the "merry month o' Spring" is musical through all her groves. But "A change comes o'er the spirit of our dream," and in a moment we know that almost all those sweet-singers are now dead-or that they "Cower the chittering wing," never more to flutter through the woodlands, and "close the ee" whose wild brightness, now dim, shall never more be re-illumined with love, when the Season of Nests is at snow from heaven! We all said that it would never all our lives long desert our memory. But all of us forgot it-and now, while the tempest howls, it seems again but of yester day! One family lived in Glen-Creran, and another in Glenco-the families of two brothers-seldom visiting each other on working-days, for their sheep mingled not on the hill; seldom meeting even on Sabbaths, for theirs was not the same parish-kirk; and seldom coming together on rural festivals or holidays, for in the Highlands now these are not so frequent as of yore; yet all these sweet seldoms, taken together, to loving hearts made a happy many, and thus, though each family passed its life in its own home felt wilderness, there were many invisible threads stretched out through the intermediate air, connecting the two dwellings together-even as the dew-gemmed gossamer keeps floating from one tree to another, each with its own secret nest. And nestlike both dwellings were. That in Glenco, built beneath a treeless but highheathered rock-lown in all storms -with greensward and garden on a slope down to that rivulet, the clearest of the clear, (oh! once wofully redden'd!) and growing-so it seems in the mosses of its own roof, and the huge stones that overshadow it -out of, and belonging to, the solid earth. That in Glencreran, more conspicuous, on a knoll among the pastoral meadows, midway between mountain and mountain, so that the grove which shelters it, except when the sun is shining in his meridiantower, is darkened by both their shadows, and dark, indeed, even in the sunshine, for 'tis a low but wide. armed grove of old oaklike pines. A little farther down, and Glencreran is truly a silvan scene" indeed; but this dwelling is the highest up of all, the first you descend upon, near the foot of that wild hanging staircase now between you and Glen-Etive, and, except this old oaklike grove of pines, there is not a tree, and hardly a bush, on bank or brae, pasture or hay-field, though these are kept, by many a rill, there mingling themselves into one stream, in a perpetual green lustre that seemeth "unborrowed from the sun," and to be as native to the grass as its light is to the glow-worm. Such are the two Huts-for they are huts and no more-and you may see them still, if you know how to discover the beautiful sights of nature from descriptions treasured in your heart-and if the spirit of change, now nowhere at rest on the earth, not even in its most solitary places, have not swept violently from the scenes they beautified, the humble but hereditary dwellings that ought to be allowed, in the fulness of the quiet time, to relapse back into the bosom of nature, through insensible and unperceived decay. These Huts belonged to brothers -and each had an only child-a son and a daughter-born on the same day and now blooming on the verge VOL. XXIX, NO. CLXXVII, of youth. A year ago, and they were but mere children-but what won drous growth of spirit and of the spirit's frame does nature, at that season of life, often present before our eyes, so that we almost see the very change going on between morn and morn, and feel that these objects of our affection are daily brought closer to ourselves, by their partaking daily more and more in all our most sacred thoughts, in our cares and in our duties, and in knowledge of the sorrows as well as the joys of our common lot. Thus had these cousins grown up before their parents' eyes, Flora Macdonald -a name hallowed of yore-the fairest, and Hamish, the brightest of all the living flowers in Glencreran and Glenco. It was now their sixteenth birth-day-and never had a winter sun smiled more serenely over a hush of snow. Flora, it had been agreed on, was to pass that day in Glencreran, and Hamish to meet her among the mountains, that he might bring her down the many precipitous passes to his parents' Hut. It was the middle of February, and the snow had lain for weeks with all its drifts unchanged, so calm had been the weather, and so continued the frost. At the same hour, known by horologe on the cliff touched by the finger of dawn, the happy creatures left each their own glen, and mile after mile of the smooth surface glided away past their feet, almost as the quiet water glides by the little boat that, in favouring breezes, walks merrily along the sea. soon they met at the trysting-place -a bank of birch-trees, beneath a cliff that takes its name from the Eagles. And On their meeting, seemed not the whole wilderness to their souls and senses suddenly inspired with beauty and with joy? Insects unheard by them before hummed and glittered in the air-from tree-roots, where the snow was thin, little flowers, or herbs flowerlike, now for the first time were seen looking out as if alive-the trees themselves seemed budding as if it were already spring —and rare as, in that rocky region, are the birds of song, a faint trill for a moment touched their ear, and the flutter of a wing, telling them that somewhere near there was prepara X |