This abstraction was occasioned by the accents of her native music, which, mellowed by distance, were conveyed to her delighted ear, and seemed to her preferable to all the scientific melodies of the south. The above sentiment, imparted to Mary Stuart by Mr. Hogg, is one of perfect delicacy. Alas! he will soon have to apprise us that Rizzio composes a part of the retinue at Holyrood. The Duke of Argyle, informed of the subject of the queen's emotion, boasts of the Highland music as far superior to that which she has just heard. As soon as Mary has established her court at Holyrood, a proclamation announces, that during the following Christmas, the queen invites to a solemn wake, all the minstrels and harpers of the kingdom. This wake is to last three successive nights, and a richly ornamented harp is destined for the victor. Mr. Hogg then depicts the character, and records the song of each of the competitors. Rizzio is among the number; but Gardyne, a son of the native bards, obtains the prize. This plot supplies the Ettrick Shepherd with an opportunity of exhibiting the facility with which he adapts himself to all kinds of styles,-a facility so great, that he has since published, under the title of The Mirror of the Poets, a collection of poems attributed by him to Byron, Scott, Campbell, Southey, Crabbe, Wordsworth, &c., whose peculiar genius he has often imitated so dexterously, as to constitute a complete deception. As to the Queen's Wake, the critics have generally preferred to the successful piece in the competition,

that of the thirteenth competitor, entitled, Kilmeny. It is one of those marvellous subjects in which Mr. Hogg excels, and which have earned him the title of Laureat of Fairy Land. Burns, when he treated of some supernatural history, always introduced some comic, and even grotesque, imagery. The fact is, he did not believe; but Hogg writes with the enthusiasm of faith. Nothing can be more simply pleasing than the poem of Kilmeny.

Kilmeny is a young girl, replete with innocence and beauty, who has disappeared, and been carried away by fairies. The portrait which Mr. Hogg draws, invests her with all the grace and candour of the Girl at the Well, designed by Westall, and engraved by C. Heath. She returns mysteriously, and the art of the poet consists in persuading us in some degree of the fact of her sojourn in Fairy Land, by the animated description he gives of her person, and the surprise, combined with respect, which her return and aspect inspire.

"Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been? Lang hae we sought baith holt and den;

By linn, by ford, and green-wood tree,

Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
Where gat you that joup o' the lily scheen?
That bonny snook of the birk sae green?
And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?

"Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face;
As still was her look, and as still was her ee,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless' sea.

For Kilmeny had been she knew not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew,
But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,
And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,
When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,
And a land where sin had never been;

A land of love and a land of light,
Withouten sun, or moon, or night:
Where the river swa'd a living stream,
And the light a pure celestial beam:
The land of vision it would seem,
A still, an everlasting dream."

After describing the bower where Kilmeny was sleeping, before she awaked in the kingdom of enchantment, the poet represents her as charmed by mysterious hymns. She awakes on a silken couch, resplendent with the colours of the rainbow, and around her are flying winged beings of celestial beauty, who are smiling and conversing about her. One of them apprises the rest that Kilmeny has been conveyed to these enchanted regions, in order to shew that a virgin as pure as Kilmeny partook of the nature of celestial spirits.

She is loaded with caresses, and receives a kind of consecration, as a pledge of her immortality. The future is revealed to her; and she is permitted to return to earth occasionally, when she experiences a desire of re-assuring her friends on the subject of her condition. This reminiscence of the place of her birth is highly affecting in the midst of the enjoyments with which she is intoxicated. The same idea, in a subject nearly similar

has been expressed with still greater pathos by one of the Lake poets, now a professor of philosophy at Edinburgh, Mr. John Wilson. (Lay of Fairy Land.)

Kilmeny returns among her companions; but she leads the life of a fairy, or an angel, protected from passions and vain desires, always worthy of the celestial country to which she belongs, and whither she is destined to return at the end of seven years, in order to be united with the choir of celestial spirits. The whole of this vision is got up with great effect; but it may be readily conceived that so simple a plot stands in need of the charms of verse, in order to excite interest; Mr. Hogg has discovered and employed the secret of Thomas Moore's harmony, in depicting and supplying language to his Kilmeny.

There is something more solemn in the ballad of Mackinnon, which introduces us to the pompous wonders of the cave of Staffa. It comprises the history of an Abbot of Iona, who has introduced a mistress into the cloister under the disguise of a novice. The younger monks of his community live in scandalous familiarity with the nuns of a neighbouring monastery; while the elder ones scandalized at their conduct, tremble, lest heaven should punish the whole fraternity for the violation of the monastic regulations. In fact an apparition of St. Columba orders the prior to go on a pilgrimage, with his young monks, to Staffa, in order to offer certain oblations to the invisible spirit of the ocean; and the super

stitious abbot obeys this order, although in
contradiction to the creed both of Columba
and himself. He embarks, and in reply to
his invocation, a mermaid denounces, in harmo-
nious song, that the billows demand him as
their prey.
The prior and his retinue hurry
from the spot, overwhelmed with melancholy
forebodings. They perceive at the helm of the
vessel an old man, whose aspect appears to them
supernatural.

They enquire his business and his name; whence he comes and where he goes: but he preserves a gloomy silence, turns his face towards the sea and weeps. One monk addresses him in friendly terms; another mocks him; but the abbot turns pale, overwhelmed with terror; for he imagines that he has seen the man before. At length the vessel quits the fatal shore. The old man then raising his eyes to heaven, exclaims, "the hour is come. The monks perceive, on the top of Ben More, an apparition with a girdle of azure lightning, and a luminous helmet. It is the herald of the storm; and he exclaims " Prepare the way for the Abbot of Iona." A tempest rises, and the vessel is engulphed in the waves, &c.

This mysterious old man, whom the poet does not name, leaves a striking impression on the imagination. The poem often recalls to mind the energy of Byron, combined with the fantastic mysticism of Coleridge.

The ballad of Mary Scott also deserves quoting. Mary is another Juliet, condemned to death by

1