ance (begun also at Dalkeith) with one whose abilities and accomplishments not less qualified her to estimate him, and who still survives to lament the only event that could have interrupted their cordial confidence the Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the celebrated John Earl of Bute. These ladies, who were sisters in mind, feeling, and affection, he visited among scenes the noblest and most interesting that all Scotland can show - alike famous in history and romance; and he was not unwilling to make Bothwell and Blantyre the subject of another ballad. His purpose was never completed. I think, however, the reader will not complain of my introducing the fragment which I have found among his papers.

"When fruitful Clydesdale's apple-bowers

Are mellowing in the noon;

When sighs round Pembroke's ruin'd towers

The sultry breath of June;

"When Clyde, despite his sheltering wood,
Must leave his channel dry;
And vainly o'er the limpid flood
The angler guides his fly;

"If chance by Bothwell's lovely braes
A wanderer thou hast been,

Or hid thee from the summer's blaze

In Blantyre's bowers of green,

"Full where the copsewood opens wild
Thy pilgrim step hath staid,

Where Bothwell's towers in ruin piled
O'erlook the verdant glade;

"And many a tale of love and fear
Hath mingled with the scene-

Of Bothwell's banks that bloom'd so dear
And Bothwell's bonny Jean.

"O, if with rugged minstrel lays
Unsated be thy ear,

And thou of deeds of other days
Another tale wilt hear,

"Then all beneath the spreading beech
Flung careless on the lea,

The Gothic muse the tale shall teach
Of Bothwell's sisters three.

"Wight Wallace stood on Deckmont head, He blew his bugle round,

Till the wild bull in Cadyow wood
Has started at the sound.

"St George's cross, o'er Bothwell hung,
Was waving far and wide,
And from the lofty turret flung

Its crimson blaze on Clyde;

"And rising at the bugle blast

That marked the Scottish foe,

Old England's yeomen muster'd fast,
And bent the Norman bow.

"Tall in the midst Sir Aylmer rose,
Proud Pembroke's Earl was he-
While".

One morning, during his visit to Bothwell, was spent on an excursion to the ruins of Craignethan Castle, the seat, in former days, of the great Evandale branch of the house of Hamilton, but now the property of Lord Douglas; and the poet expressed such rapture with the scenery, that his hosts urged him to accept, for his lifetime, the use of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the ancient walls. This offer was not at once declined; but circumstances occurred before the end of the year, which rendered it impossible for him to establish his summer residence in Lanarkshire. The castle of Craignethan is the original of his "Tillietudlem."*

Another imperfect ballad, in which he had meant to blend together two legends familiar to every reader of Scottish history and romance, has been found in the same portfolio, and the handwriting proves it to be of the same early date. Though long and very

*The name Tillietudlem was no doubt taken from that of the ravine under the old castle of Lanark-which town is near Craignethan. This ravine is called Gillytudlem.

unfinished, it contains so many touches of his best manner that I cannot withhold

Through the cloudy night the snow gleamed white,

Which sunbeam ne'er could quell.

"Yon cavern dark is rough and rude,

And cold its jaws of snow;

But more rough and rude are the men of blood,

That hunt my life below;

"Yon spell-bound den, as the aged tell,

Was hewn by demon's hands;

But I had lourd melle with the fiends of hell, Than with Clavers and his band."

He heard the deep-mouthed bloodhound bark,
He heard the horses neigh,

He plunged him in the cavern dark,
And downward sped his way.

Now faintly down the winding path
Came the cry of the faulting hound,
And the muttered oath of baulked wrath
Was lost in hollow sound.

He threw him on the flinted floor,
And held his breath for fear;

He rose and bitter cursed his foes,
As the sounds died on his ear.

"O bare thine arm, thou battling Lord,
For Scotland's wandering band;
Dash from the oppressor's grasp the sword,
And sweep him from the land!

"Forget not thou thy people's groans

From dark Dunnotter's tower,
Mix'd with the seafowl's shrilly moans,
And ocean's bursting roar!

"O in fell Clavers' hour of pride,

Even in his mightiest day,

As bold he strides through conquest's tide,

O stretch him on the clay!

*Lourd; i. e. liefer-rather.