This faded form! this pallid hue! This blood my veins is clotting in! My years are many-they were few When first I entered at the U -niversity of Gottingen-niversity of Gottingen. There first for thee my passion grew, Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen! Thou wast the daughter of my Tu-tor, Law Professor at the U-niversity of Gottingen-niversity of Gottingen. Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu, -niversity of Gottingen- [During the last stanza, Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison, and finally so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the music continuing to play.] James Hogg. One of the best lyric poets of Scotland, Hogg (17701835), often called the "Ettrick Shepherd," was born in a cottage at Ettrick Hall, and was the son of a shepherd. His mother had good humor and a rich store of song. He had little education, but showed great aptitude in imitating the old strains which he got from his mother. He had withal a taste for music. In 1801 he published a small volume of poems, and in 1807 another. He helped Scott in collecting old ballads for the "Border Minstrelsy." It was not till 1813 that he established his reputation by "The Queen's Wake," largely made up of Scottish songs and short romantic ballads. Among them that of "Bonny Kilmeny" is one of the most charming and poetical of fairy tales. Hogg wrote several novels. His worldly schemes were seldom successful, and he failed as a sheep-farmer. He had a passion for field sports. He was generous, kind-hearted, and charitable far beyond his means, and his death was deeply mourned in the vale of Ettrick, where he had lived on seventy acres of moorland, presented to him by the Duchess of Buccleuch. He breathed his last with the calmness and freedom from pain that he might have experienced in falling asleep in his gray plaid on the hillside. Hogg's prose is very unequal. He had no skill in arranging incidents or delineating character. He is often coarse and extravagant; yet some of his stories have much of the literal truth and happy, minute painting of Defoc. BONNY KILMENY. FROM "THE QUEEN'S WAKE." Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen; And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame. When many a day had come and fled, Late, late in a gloamin', when all was still, Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace, A land of love, and a land of light, In yon green-wood there is a waik, And in that waik there is a wene, And in that wene there is a maike, That neither has flesh, nor blood, nor bane; And down in yon green-wood he walks his lane. In that green wene, Kilmeny lay, She wakened on a couch of the silk sae slim, "Lang have I journeyed the world wide," As spotless as the morning snaw. Full twenty years she has lived as free As the spirits that sojourn in this countrye. I have brought her away frae the snares of men, That sin or death she may never ken." They clasped her waist and her hands sae fair; Commissioned to watch fair womankind, For it's they who nurice the immortal mind. By lily bower and silken bed The viewless tears have o'er them shed; We have seen! we have seen! but the time must come, "Oh, would the fairest of mortal kind "Ob, bonny Kilmeny! free frae stain, If ever you seek the world again,— That world of sin, of sorrow and fear,Oh, tell of the joys that are waiting here; And tell of the joys you shall shortly see; Of the times that are now, and the times that shall be." They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away, And she walked in the light of a sunless day; The sky was a dome of crystal bright, JAMES HOGG. But lang, lang after baith night and day, They bore her away, she wist not how, But so swift they wained her through the light, Appeared like those o'er which they flew, They bore her to a mountain green, And they seated her high on a purple sward, She saw a sun on a summer sky, And that land had glens and mountains gray; For there they were seen on their downward plain A thousand times and a thousand again; In winding lake and placid firth- Kilmeny sighed, and seemed to grieve, 279. For she found her heart to that land did cleave; She saw a lady sit on a throne, The fairest that ever the sun shone on! A lion licked her hand of milk, And she held him in a leash of silk, And a leifu' maiden stood at her knee, With a silver wand and melting e'eHer sovereign shield, till Love stole in, And poisoned all the fount within. Then a gruff, untoward bedesman came, And she saw the red blood fall like rain. Then the gruff, grim carle girnéd amain, And he baited the lion to deeds of weir, Till the cities and towers were wrapped in a blaze, And the thunder it roared o'er the lands and the seas. The widows they wailed, and the red blood ran, With a mooted wing and waeful mien, But lang may she cower in her bloody nest, To play wi' the norland lion's might. But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw, And the string of his harp wad cease to play. Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away, Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, With distant music, soft and deep, When seven lang years had come and fled; For there was no pride nor passion there; Her seymar was the lily flower, And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; To suck the flowers, and drink the spring. Oh, then the glen was all in motion: And murmured, and looked with anxious pain When a month and day had come and gane, It wasua her hame, and she couldna remain ; 1 "Kilmeny alone places our shepherd among the undying ones," says Professor Wilson, in Blackwood's Magazine. "From 'Kilmeny' alone," says Lord Jeffrey, "no doubt can be entertained that Hogg is a poet in the highest acceptation of the name." "Kilmeny' has been the theme of universal admiration, and deservedly so, for it is pure poetry," says D. M. Moir. "It cannot be matched in the whole compass of British song,' says Allan Cunningham. JAMES HOGG.-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 281 THE SKYLARK. Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness, Blessed is thy dwelling-place Oh, to abide in the desert with thee! Wild is thy lay and loud Far in the downy cloud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. Where, on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing, away! Then, when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather blooms, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Emblem of happiness, Blessed is thy dwelling-placeOh, to abide in the desert with thee! WHEN MAGGY GANGS AWAY. Oh, what will a' the lads do When Maggy gangs away? Oh, what will a' the lads do When Maggy gangs away ? There's no a heart in a' the glen That disna dread the day: Oh, what will a' the lads do ? When Maggy gangs away Young Jock has ta'en the bill for't- Poor Harry's ta'en the bed for't, The young laird o' the Lang-Shaw Has drunk her health in wine; The priest has said-in confidenceThe lassie was divine, And that is mair in maiden's praise The wailing in our green glen That day will quaver high; "Twill draw the redbreast frae the wood, The laverock frae the sky; The fairies frae their beds o' dew Will rise an' join the lay: An' hey! what a day will be When Maggy gangs away! William Wordsworth. Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born at Cockermouth, England, April 7th, 1770. His father was law-agent to Sir James Lowther, afterward Lord Lonsdale. His mother died when he was eight years of age; his father, when he was thirteen. He went to St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1787, and took his Bachelor's degree there in 1791. On leaving the University he travelled abroad, and was in France when Louis XVI. was dethroned. At that time he was a strong republican, and sympathized with the revolutionary party. He soon changed his views. His friends wished him to enter the Church; but a bequest of £900 from Raisley Calvert, a young friend, who urged him to become a poet, led him to devote himself thenceforth to literary pursuits. The circumstance was commemorated by Wordsworth in a noble sonnet. In 1793 he put forth a modest volume of descriptive verse; and in 1798 appeared "Lyrical Ballads," containing twenty-three pieces, the first being "The Ancient Mariner," by his friend Coleridge, and the rest poems by Wordsworth. Joseph Cottle, bookseller of Bristol, gave thirty guineas for the copyright; he printed five hundred copies, but the venture was financially a failure, and he got rid of the edition at a loss. The attempt of Wordsworth to substitute the simple language of rustic life for the tumid diction of the sentimental school was assailed with bitter ridicule by the critics of the day. The Edinburgh Review condemned his innovations. He had to educate his public. After a tour in Germany, Wordsworth settled, with his sister, at Grasmere. The payment to them of £3600 from a debt due their father had placed them above want. In 1802 the poet was married to his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, the lady who became the subject of the well-known lines, beginning, "She was a phantom of delight." In 1808 he removed to Allan Bank, and in 1813 to Rydal Mount, both places lying in sight of the beautiful lakes; whence the name of the "Lake School of Poetry" was given to the style represented by himself, Coleridge, and Southey. Holding the views he did-that poetry should be true to nature, and represent real, and not exaggerated, feelings-Wordsworth purposely selected simple subjects, and treated them with a simplicity which drew |