ページの画像
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

her father; she has swallowed instead of poison, a narcotic potion, which gives her lover time to come to her deliverance. Her lover, who believes her dead, is in the act of addressing an affecting farewell to her in her coffin, when she revives. The moment of revival is felicitously described by Mr. Hogg. I may also quote his imaginative voyage by sea of a Fifeshire witch; but of quoting there would be no reasonable limits. I apprehend that I have said enough to shew that he prefers marvellous subjects and susperstitious traditions to all others. The Ettrick Shepherd is not precisely a Bucolic poet; at least, if he were familiar with Virgil, he would be inclined to admire him most in his description of the prodigies announcing the death of Cæsar, his account of the metamorphoses of Proteus, and Orpheus's descent into hell. Even in the purely descriptive portion of his poems, the Ettrick Shepherd is frequently induced to modify by foreign allusion, the artlessness of a landscape. He has an obvious tendency towards the orientalism of Thomas Moore; had he studied Thomson and Cowper, he would have imitated the first in his pomp of imagery and diction.

An English poet, who is just dead, and whom the muse first discovered in the shop of an artizan, Robert Bloomfield,-has been more remarkable perhaps as a shoemaker, than a poet. Many passages, however, of his pastorals display the true poet in the unartificial style. He depicts with tolerable success a flock of sheep,

a young shepherd, the humble details of the farm, &c.; but his genius remains concentered within a narrow circle; his fancy creeps along the ground, and rarely rises to a new idea. It is not sufficient for a painter to be exact in his sketch: vivacity of colouring also enters into the proper details of the painting. There exists a descriptive poetry, which only speaks to the senses, if I may so express myself; this is often the character of that of Bloomfield: there exists another, which associates with the delineation of a landscape or of a country life, emotions of the heart; this is the style more of contemplative than descriptive poets. To this latter class may be assigned the works of another plebeian poet, named John Clare, who has lately become the rival of Bloomfield in England. The true source of our love for the country exists in an association of ideas. The periwinkle is not the sweetest of flowers; but it recalls to mind the image of Madame Warens; it excites our enthusiasm more than the rose, and we exclaim with transport, "there is the periwinkle!"

LETTER XC.

TO M. CASSIMER DELAVIGNE.

I COULD not return to Edinburgh without deviating from my road, in order to pass a few hours at Roslyn, situated at seven miles distance from the capital. It is fashionable to make at least one excursion there annually during the summer months, in order to eat strawberries, and admire the Saxo-Gothic chapel, where the Saint-Clairs repose in their armour, instead of coffins. During life, they inhabited the old castle, now in decay; an edifice less durable than the sepulchre, where their corpses are still, according to report, entire, and astonish by their gigantic height. The enumeration of their titles, says Walter Scott, would take away the breath of a herald; among others, they were princes of the Orcades, Dukes of Oldenburgh, Lord Admirals of the Scotch seas, grand justiciaries of the kingdom, wardens of the border, Earls of Caithness, titularies of more than fifty baronies, &c. Founded by William Saint-Clair in 1446, the chapel is remarkable on the outside for spiral pinnacles, united by spring arches, and on the inside, for its elegant columns, all differently sculptured, of which the spiral column of the apprentice principally attracts the attention of visitors.

* The architect had travelled over Europe to find a model for the pillar, which remained to be constructed. In his absence, his appren

The valley of Roslyn is worthy of the chapel; it is as it were an oasis, circumscribed by a framework of rocks, with scarped angles. They have been shaken, and violently torn by some commotion of nature, and seem to menace the visitor with the sudden fall of fragments feebly bound together by the branches of trees, the foliage of which conceals a part of their numerous fissures.

By following the course of the Esk, I arrived, botanizing as I went, at Hawthornden. The grassy carpet I trod was agreeably variegated with violets, primroses, the periwinkle, and that pretty flower, the Easter daisy, which inspired Burns with so pathetic a meditation. I gathered some wild strawberries, and those berries of the Arbutus, called by us raisins d'ours, but more especially the vaccinium of Virgil, which I have so often found under the popular name of Mauret or Petavin on the banks of the Rhone. The Valley of Hawthornden is celebrated in Scotland as the asylum where the poet Drummond of Hawthornden lived in seclusion, and played the part of a hospitable host to Shakspeare's rival, Ben Jonson. This reminiscence brings me back to Edinburgh, into the company of Sir W. Scott and that of Mr. Crabbe, his guest.

tice executed it, and on his return the master killed his pupil out of jealousy. The same story is told of the beautiful window of Melrose.

M M. Bouton and Daguerre have just exhibited their picture of Roslyn. A Scotchman might fancy, on seeing it, that they had carried the chapel itself to Paris.

It would seem as if my two days of absence had operated great changes in the Athens of Scotland. The positive announcement of the approaching departure of the king has been received. The only question now is about receiving him and being received by him: 200,000 strangers have already tripled the population. Glasgow, Aberdeen, Perth, Dundee have arrived; that is to say, the provosts, baillies, magistrates, and other principal magistrates of those cities which are somewhat humbled by the preference awarded to Edinburgh over them. Nor is it the tradesmen only, belonging to the Highland Society, who strut about in the Celtic costume; but the chiefs themselves, with their tails,* have descended from the mountains, and groupes of these children of the wilderness are standing astonished before the shops, or public buildings of the New Town. They are known by the particular colours of the bars of their plaids for Campbells, who wear besides a branch of myrtle in their cap, or for Drummonds, who adorn theirs with holly. The chiefs alone add to this vegetable cockade (I hope they will pardon me the expression) two eagle's feathers, which compose an elegant plume. I went yesterday to pay my respects to a whig, who had but recently expressed a most disloyal distaste for George IV.: "The king," said he, "is undoubtedly the first gentleman of the kingdom. He is represented as

* The Tail of a chief consists of the officers of his establishment, his henchman, or secretary-squire, the piper or bagpipe player, &c. &c.

« 前へ次へ »