Great as Dr Thomson's popularity was-and few men in his sphere of life ever rose so high in popular favour-he was not exposed to the woe denounced against those "of whom all men speak well." He had his detractors and enemies, who waited for his halting, and were prepared to magnify and blazon his faults. Of him it may be said, as of another Christian patriot, no man ever loved or hated him moderately. This was the inevitable consequence of his great talents, and the rough contests in which he was involved. His generous spirit raised him above envy and every jealous feeling, but it made him less tolerant of those who displayed these mean vices. When convinced of the justice of a cause, and satisfied of its magnitude, he threw his whole soul into it, summoned all his powers to its defence, and assailed its adversaries, not only with strong arguments, but with sharp, pointed, and poignant sarcasm; but unless he perceived insincerity, malignity, or perverseness, his own feelings were too acute and too just to permit him gratuitously to wound those of others. That his zeal was always reined by prudence, that his ardour of mind never hurried him to a precipitate conclusion, or led him to magnify the subject in debate,-that his mind was never warped by party feeling,-and that he never indulged the love of victory, or sought to humble a teazing or pragmatic adversary, are positions which his true friends will not maintain. But his ablest opponents will admit, that in all the great questions in which he distinguished himself, he acted conscientiously; that he was an open, manly, and honourable adversary; and that, though he was sometimes intemperate, he was never disingenuous. Dr Thomson was by constitution a reformer; he felt a strong sympathy with those great men who, in a former age, won renown, by assailing the hydra of error, and of civil and religious tyranny, and his character partook of theirs. In particular, he bore no inconsiderable resemblance to Luther, both in excellencies and defects; his leonine nobleness and potency, his masculine eloquence, his facetiousness and pleasantry, the fondness which he shewed for the fascinating charms of music, and the irritability and vehemence which he occasionally exhibited, to which some will add, the necessity which this imposed on him to make retractions, which, while they threw a partial shade over his fame, taught his admirers the needful lesson, that he was a man subject to like passions and infirmities with others. But the fact is, though hitherto known to few, and the time is now come for revealing it, that some of those effusions which were most objectionable, and exposed him to the greatestobloquy, were neither composed by Dr Thomson, nor seen by him until they were published to the world; and that, in one instance, which has been the cause of the most unsparing abuse, he paid the expenses of a prosecution, and submitted to make a public apology, for an offence of which he was innocent as the child unborn, rather than give up the name of the friend who was morally responsible for the deed ;-an example of generous self-devotion which has few parallels. To his other talents, Dr Thomson added a singular capacity for business, which not only qualified him for taking an active part in Church Courts, but rendered him highly useful to those public cha. rities of which the clergy of Edinburgh are officially managers, and to the different voluntary societies with which he was connected. This caused unceasing demands on his time and exertions, which, joined to his other labours, were sufficient to wear out the most robust constitution, and he at last sunk under their weight. In private life, Dr Thomson was every thing that is amiable and engaging. He was mild, and gentle, and cheerful;-deeply tender and acutely sensitive in his strongest affections; most faithful and true in his attachments of friendship-kind-hearted and indulgent to all with whom he had intercourse. In him the lion and the lamb may be said to have met together. But it was around his own family hearth, and in the circle of his intimate acquaintances, that Dr Thomson was delightful. It was equally natural in him to play with a child, and to enter the lists with a practised polemic. He could be gay without levity, and grave without moroseness. His frank and bland manners, the equable flow of his cheerfulness and good humour, and the information which he possessed on almost every subject, made his company to be courted by persons of all classes. He could mix with men of the world without compromising his principles, or lowering his character as a minister of the gospel; and his presence was enough to repress any thing which had the semblance of irreligion. His firmness to principle, when he thought principle involved, whatever of the appearance of severity it may have presented to those who saw him only as a public character, had no taint of harshness in his private life; and, unbending as he certainly was in principle, he never failed to receive with kindness what was addressed to his reason in the spirit of friendship. It may indeed be said with truth, that, great as were his public merits, and deplorable the public loss in his death, to those who had the happiness to live with him in habits of intimacy, the deepest and the bitterest feeling still is, in the separation from a man who possessed so many of the finest and most amiable sensibilities of the human heart. The loss of such a man, and at such a time, is incalculable. His example and spirit had a wholesome and refreshing, an exhilarating and elevating, influence on the society in which he moved; and even the agitation which he produced when he was in his stormy moods, was salutary, like the hurricane, (his own favourite image, and the last which he employed in public,) purifying the moral atmosphere, and freeing it from the selfishness, and duplicity, and time-serving, with which it was overcharged. Dr Thomson was born in June 1778, and was ordained in the year 1802. He has left a widow and seven children, of whom five are daughters. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL'S WORK, CANONGATE. IT is a fact well known to those versed in the annals of illustrious British families, that, after the death of Mary Queen of Scots, there was still another accomplished young lady, who was an only child, and so nearly related to both the English and Scottish crowns that Elizabeth became restlessly jealous of her, and consulted with the timid James by what means the young lady might be prevented from having a legitimate offspring. James, entering keenly into the same feelings, urged Elizabeth to claim her as a royal ward, and then, having her under her own eye, she might readily find means, on some plausible pretence or other, to prevent her from marrying. Elizabeth acquiesced, and forthwith sent a message to that effect. The young lady, little knowing with whom she had to do, would willingly have gone to the court of her cousin, the English queen; but neither her mother, stepfather, nor guardian, would permit it. And though the answer they return ed to the Queen was humble and subservient, there was one intimation in it which cut Elizabeth to the heart, and prompted her to the most consummate means of revenge: it was, that the young lady was placed by her father's will under noble guardians in Scotland, who would not suffer the sole owner of two earldoms, and the presumptive heir of two crowns, to be removed from un der their charge. This roused the VOL. XXIX. NO. CLXXIX, jealousy of the old vixen into perfect delirium, and from that moment she resolved on having the young lady cut off privately. These being known and established facts, the following story will easily be traced by a few to the real actors and sufferers; but, at the same time, I judge it incumbent on me to change the designation of the family and of the castle in some degree, that the existing relatives, numerous and noble, may not be apparent to every reader. Shortly after this message, there came into Scotland, by King James's permission, a party of Englishmen, with a stud of fine horses for sale. They lingered in the vicinity of Acremoor castle (as we shall denominate it) for a good while, shewing their fine horses here and there; and one of them, on pretence of exhibiting a fine Spanish jennet to the young lady, got admittance to the castle, and had several conversations with the mother and daughter, both together and separately. At the same period, there came to a farm-house on the Acremoor estate, late one evening, a singular old woman, who pretended to be subject to fits, to be able to tell fortunes, and predict future events. Her demeanour and language had a tint of mystical sublimity about them, which interested the simple folks greatly; and they kept her telling fortunes and prophesying great part of the 2 P night. Among other things, after a grand fit, she exclaimed, "Ah! is it so? Is it so? How came I to this place to-night to be the herald of treachery and misfortune! The topmost bough of the noble tree must be lopped off, and the parent stem fall in the dust! Woe is me! The noble and beautiful! The noble and beautiful! Curses on the head of the insatiable wretch!" And with such ravings she continued, till suddenly she disappeared. There lived in the castle a very pretty girl, named Lucy Lumsdaine. She was the young lady's foster-sister, her chief waiting-maid and confidant, and there subsisted a strong attachment between them. That very night, about midnight, or, as some alleged, considerably after it, Lucy raised such an alarm in the castle as roused the terrified sleepers with a vengeance. She ran from one room to another, screaming out Murder! and after the menials were aroused and assembled together, the poor girl was so dreadfully affected that she could scarce make herself intelligible. But then she had such a story to deliver! She heard some strange sounds in the castle, and could not sleep, but durst not for her life leave her chamber in the darkness. She kept constantly listening at her keyhole, or looking from her lattice. She at one time heard her young lady sobbing, as she thought, till her heart was like to burst; and then the door of the catacomb beside the dungeon open and shut; then heavy steps moving stealthily to and fro; and finally, long after, she saw a man leap out at a window on the groundfloor, and take the dead body of her young mistress on his back in a sack, and retreat with hasty steps towards the churchyard. She saw one arm and the head outside the sack, and the beautiful long hair hanging down; and she was convinced and certain that her young lady was ravished and murdered by an English horsejockey. The ladies were both amissing. They had never been in their beds, and what to do the terrified inmates knew not; but, in the plenitude of their wisdom, they judged it best to proceed in a body to the churchyard, and seize the murderer before he got the body buried, and wreak ample vengeance on him. When they arrived at the burial-ground, there was nobody there, nor any thing uncommon to be seen, save an open grave newly made, into which not one of them dared to look, pretending that they knew for whom it was made. They then returned home contented after this great exertion. Indeed, what could they do, as no trace of the ladies was heard of? There was little cognizance taken of such matters in that reign; but on this occasion there was none. King James, perhaps, either knew of or suspected the plot, and kept quiet; and the only person who made a great outcry about it was poor Lucy, who tried all that she could to rouse the vassals to enquiry and revenge; and so far prevailed, that proclamation was made at the pier of Leith and the cross of Edinburgh, and rewards offered for the apprehension of those who had carried the ladies off, and kept them in concealment. Murder was not mentioned, as a thing not to be suspected. But behold, in a few days, Lucy also disappeared, the great mover of all this; and her sweetheart, Alexander Graham, and her only brother Lowry, with many other relations among the peasantry, were left quite inconsolable, and knew not what course to take. They had resolved to take vengeance in their own hands, could they have discovered whither to have directed it; but the plot had been laid beyond their depth. The old witch-wife about this time returned, and having obtained universal confidence from her prophetic ravings about the topmost bough being lopped off, and the parent stem, and the noble and the beautiful, &c. &c. So, at the farmer's request, she was placed by David Dallas, the steward on the estate, in a little furnished cottage, a sort of winter restingplace for the noble family, near a lin in the depth of the wood; and there she lived, feared and admired, and seldom approached, unless perchance by a young girl who wished to consult her about a doubtful sweetheart. After sundry consultations, however, between Alexander Graham, Lucy's betrothed sweetheart, and Lowry Lumsdaine, her only brother, it was resolved that the latter should go and consult the sibyl concerning the fate of Lucy. One evening, near the sun-setting, Lowry, taking a present of a deer's-ham below his plaid, went fearfully and rapidly away to the cot in the lin. That his courage might not eventually fail him, he whistled one while and sung another, "Turn the blue bonnet wha can;" but in spite of all he could do, heavy qualms of conscience sometimes came over him, and he would say to himself, "'Od, after a', gin I thought it was the deil or ony o' his awgents that she dealt wi', shame fa' me gin I wadna turn again yet!" Lowry, however, reached the brink of the bank opposite the cottage, and peeping through the brambles, beheld this strange being sitting in a little green arbour beside the cottage, dressed in an antique and fantastic mode, and, as it appeared to him, employed in plucking leaves and flowers in pieces. She sometimes cast her eyes up to heaven, and then wiped them, as if she had been weeping. "Alas! poor creature!" said Lowry to himself, "wha kens what she may hae suffered i' this wicked warld! She may hae lost an only daughter or an only son, as I hae dune an only sister, and her losses may hae injured her reason. Aye, I hae little doubt, now when I see her, but that has been the case; an' that's the way how she sees intil hidden mysteries an' events. For it is weel kend that when God bereaves o' ae sense, he always supplies another, and that aften of a deeper and mair incomprehensible nature. I'll venture down the brae, and hear what she says. -How's a' wi' ye, auld lucky o' the lin?-Gude-e'en t'ye. What's this you are studying sae seriously the night ?" "I'm studying whether a she-fox or a wild-boar is the more preferable game, and whether it would be greater glory to run down the one with my noble blood-hounds, or wile the other into a gin. Do you take me, Mr Lumsdaine ?" "Lord sauf us! she kens my name even, an' that without ever seeing me afore. I thought aye that we twa might be auld acquaintances, lucky, an' see what I hae brought ye in a present. It will be ill for making you dry, but ye're no far frae the burn here." "You have been a simple, goodnatured fool all your life, Lowry; I can perceive that, though I never saw your face before. But I take no gifts or rewards. Leave your venison, for it is what I much wanted, and here are two merks for it. Do as I bid you, else you will rue it." "Aih! gudeness, d'ye say sae? Gie me a haud o' the siller then. It will sune turn into sklait-stanes at ony rate; sae it will make sma' odds to ony o' us. But, gude forgie us, lucky, what war ye saying about hunting? Ye may hunt lang ere ye start a wild-boar here, or a she-fox either, as I wad trow; sae an ye wad tell me ony thing, it maunna be in parables." "Aye, but there's a she-fox that sees us when we dinna see her, and whose cruel eye can pick out the top chickens of the covey, and yet they cannot all suffice her insatiable thirsting after blood. She reminds me of the old song, to which I request your attention. It will tell you much : 1. "The boar he would a-wooing go, To a mistress of command, And he's gone away to the lady fox, And proffer'd her his hand. 'You're welcome here, Lord Bruin,' she says, You're welcome here to me; But ere I lie into your den, You must grant me favours three.' 2. "Yes-favours three I will grant to thee, Be these whate'er they may, For there is not a beast in the fair forest Then bid me bring the red deer's heart, 3. "O no, O no,' said the lady fox, These are no gifts for me; But there are three birds in fair Scotland, All sitting on one tree; And I must have the heart of one, And the heads of the other two, And then I will go, for well or woe. To be a bride to you.' 4. "Now woe be to that vile she-fox, The worst of this world's breed, For the bonny, bonny birds were reaved away, And doom'd by her to bleed; And she tied the boar up by the neck, And he hung till he was dead." As she sung these verses with wild vehemence, Lowry looked on and listened with mingled terror and admiration, trying to make something out of them relating to the subject nearest his heart; but he could not, although convinced that they bore some allusion to the subject. "I am convinced, lucky, that ye hae a swatch o' a' things, past, present, an' to come," said he; " for ye hae foretold some wonderfu' things already. But I can mak naething o' sic wild rants as this, an' unless ye speak to me in plain, braid Scots, I'll never be a bawbee's worth the wiser." "Because, Lowry, that head of yours is as opaque as a millstone. Kneel down there, and I'll throw a little glamour over you, which will make you see a thousand things which are invisible to you now." Na, na, lucky! Nane o' your cantrips wi' me. I'm as feared for you as ye war a judge o' death an' life afore me. I just came to ask you a few rational questions. Will you answer them ?" Perhaps I may, when I get a rational being to converse with. But did it ever strike that goblet head of yours, that it formed any part or portion of the frame of such a being?" "But then, lucky, I hae nature at my heart, an' that should be respectit by the maist gifted body that exists. Now, as I am fully convinced that ye hae a kind o' dim view of a' that's gaun on aneath the heaven-as for ony farrer, that's rather a dirdum -we maunna say ought about that But aince for a', can ye tell me ought about my dear sister Lucy?" Alas, poor fellow! There, indeed, my feelings correspond with yours. Can it be that the rudest part of the creation is the most affectionate? Yes, yes, it must be so. From the shaggy polar bear to the queen upon the throne, there is one uniform and regular gradation of natural affection. In that most intense and delightful quality of the human heart, the lowest are the highest, and the highest the lowest; and hence forth will I rather ensconce myself among nature's garbage than snuffle the hateful atmosphere of heartless indifference and corruption. Why Idid it behove poor Lucy to suffer with her betters? Her rank glittered not in the fox's eye. But the day of retribution may come, and the turtle-dove return to her mate. There is small hope, but there is hope; such a villain can never sit secure. Mark what I say, hind— When the griffin shall gape from the top of Goat-Fell, And the falcon and eagle o'er Scorbeck shall yell, When the dead shall arise, and be seen by the river, And the gift, with disdain, be return'd to the giver, Then you shall meet Lucy more lovely than ever.' Now leave me, good hind, leave me; for a hand will come and lead me in, which it is not meet you should see. But ponder on what I have told you." Lowry was not slow in obeying the injunction, not knowing what might appear to lead her in; and as he trudged homeward, he conversed thus with himself:-"She's a terrible auld wife that! an' has something about her far aboon the common run o' women, wha are for the maist part great gouks, for as bonny an' as glib-tongued as they are. But here is an auld grim wrinkled lucky, wha, forby good sense an' right feeling, has a tint o' sublimity about her that's perfectly grand. May they no as weel be good spirits as evil anes that she converses wi'? If ane could but trow that, what a venerable creature she wad be! She bids me ponder on her rhymes, but I can make naething o' them. That last ane refers to something they ca' coats wi' arms that the gentles hae, an' sounded like a thing where there was some hope, save ae bit o't, when the dead shall arise.' When she came to that, oho! that's rather a dirdum, thinks I, and lost hope, and I'm now fairly convinced that my young lady an' sister are baith murdered; for I dreamed ae night that the spirit o' my dead mother came to me an' tauld me, that they were baith murdered by this new lord, and sunk wi' sackfu's o' stanes in the Acremoor Loch. |