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and of Dives! but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were halfway. Come, a handsome sacrifice! See how light he makes of it! Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy.

Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who parted this life on Wednesday evening, dying, as he had lived, without much trouble. He boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and sentiments he belied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in life he found himself invested with ample revenues, which, with that noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate and bring to nothing for there is something revolting in the idea of a king holding a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus furnished by the very act of disfurnishment; getting rid of the cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings)

"To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,

Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise,"

he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, "borrowing and to borrow!"

In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of the inhabitants under contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated: but having had the honor of accompanying my friend divers times, in his perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; feeders of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends, (as he was pleased to express himself,) to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be "stocked with so fair a herd." With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that "money kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away, (for he was an excellent toss-pot;) some he gave away, the rest he threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him-as boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious-into ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, inscrutable cavities of the earth; or he would bury it (where he would never see it again) by a river's side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no interest-but out away from him it must go peremp

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torily, as Hagar's offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies became necessary, the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency. For Bigod had an undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick, jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched with gray, (cana fides.) He anticipated no excuse, and found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorizing reader, who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue, (your bastard borrower,) who, by his mumping visnomy, tells you that he expects nothing better; and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal.!

When I think of this man: his fiery glow of heart; his swell of feeling; how magnificent, how ideal he was; how great at the midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into the society of lenders, and little men.

[graphic]

The following is a portion of a letter to Coleridge, in which he most beautifully pours forth his feelings of

FILIAL AFFECTION.

I am wedded, Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father. Oh, my friend! I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, which among them should I choose? Not those "merrier days," not the "pleasant days of hope," not "those wanderings with a fair-haired maid," which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a mother's fondness for her schoolboy. What would I give to call her back to earth for one day, on my knees to ask her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which, from time to time, have given her gentle spirit pain! And the day, my friend, I trust, will come; there will be "time enough" for kind offices of love, if "Heaven's eternal year" Hereafter her meek spirit shall not reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings! and let no man think himself released from the kind "charities" of relationship: these shall give him peace at the last: these are the best foundation for every species of benevolence. I rejoice to hear, by certain channels, that you, my friend, are reconciled with all your relations. 'Tis the most and natural species of love, and we have all the associated

be ours.

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JAMES HOGG, 1772-1835.

JAMES HOGG, known under the appellation of "the Ettrick Shepherd," was descended from a family of shepherds, and born on the 25th of January, 1772. At the early age of seven he became a cowherd, and was afterward raised to the more dignified post of shepherd. During his progress in these callings he suffered many hardships, which he humorously describes in his published autobiography; but like many other great men, he owed the nursing of the talent which God had given him to his mother, who saw his genius, and fed it by singing and repeating to him in his childhood many of the old ballads of Scotland. When eighteen years of age he entered the service of a Mr. Laidlaw, in the capacity of a shepherd, with whom he lived nine years, and by whom he was treated with the kindness of a parent. This gentleman possessed many valuable books, which Hogg, who had but recently learned to read, almost literally devoured in the delight he felt in the exercise of this new acquisition. His first literary effort was in song-writing, and in 1801 he published a small volume of poems, and afterward, encouraged by Sir Walter Scott, while still in the capacity of a shepherd, he published another volume of songs and poems under the title of "The Mountain Bard." With the money he received for this, and for "An Essay on Sheep," which gained a premium from the Highland Society, he entered into farming speculations, and in three years found himself penniless. Not being able to find employment in his early occupation at his native place, he went to Edinburgh, determined, as he says, "to force himself into notice as a literary character." At first he was unsuccessful, but on the appearance of "The Queen's Wake," in 1813, he at once established his reputation as a true poet. This "legendary poem" is composed of a series of tales and lyric legends, supposed to be sung before Mary, Queen of Scots, by the native bards of Scotland assembled at a royal "Wake" (or night-meeting) at the palace of Holyrood, in order that the fair queen might prove

"The wondrous powers of Scottish song."

"The design was excellent, and the execution so varied and masterly, that Hogg was at once placed among the first of living poets. The different productions of the native minstrels are strung together by a thread of narrative so gracefully written in many parts, that the reader is surprised equally at the delicacy and genius of the author." At the conclusion of the poem, Hogg thus adverts with feeling to the advice once given him, to abstain from the worship of poetry, by

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The land was charm'd to list his lays;
It knew the harp of ancient days.
The border chiefs that long had been
In sepulchres unhearsed and green,

1 Ettrick is a small place in the county of Selkirk, about forty miles south of Edinburgh, and near the head waters of the river Ettrick, which flows into the Tweed. The principal branch of this stream is the Yarrow, which Hogg often mentions in his poetry.

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HOGG.

Pass'd from their mouldy vaults away
In armor red and stern array,
And by their moonlight halls were seen
In visor, helm, and habergeon.
Even fairies sought our land again,
So powerful was the magic strain.
Blest be his generous heart for aye!
He told me where the relic lay;
Pointed my way with ready will
Afar on Ettrick's wildest hill;
Watch'd my first notes with curious eye,
And wonder'd at my minstrelsy:
He little ween'd a parent's tongue
Such strains had o'er my cradle sung.
But when to native feelings true,
I struck upon a chord was new;
When by myself I 'gan to play,
He tried to wile my harp away.
Just when her notes began with skill
To sound beneath the southern hill,
And twine around my bosom's core,
How could we part for evermore?
'Twas kindness all-I cannot blame-
For bootless is the minstrel flame:

But sure a bard might well have known
Another's feelings by his own!

"Poetic Mirror;" After this, Hogg published various works-" Mador of the Moor," a poem in the Spenserian stanza; "Pilgrims of the Sun," in blank verse; "Queen Hynde;" "Dramatic Tales:" also several novels, as "Winter Evening Tales;" "Brownie of Bodsbeck;" "The Three Perils of Man;" "The Three Perils of Woman;" "Jacobite Relics of Scotland," &c. He also wrote much for various periodicals, and has the reputation of being one of the founders of "Blackwood's Magazine." He lived in the latter years of his life in a cottage which he had built at Altrive, supporting himself chiefly by his pen; and died on the 21st of November, 1835.

Of the seventeen songs of the "Queen's Wake," the most beautiful and imaginative is "Kilmeny," founded upon the well-known tradition of the power of the fairies to carry mortals into their country. "Kilmeny," a pure and beautiful maiden, is thus spirited away into fairy land, where she sees various visions, in which are depicted the fortunes of Queen Mary and her successors till the revolution of 1688, and the war of the French Revolution is foreshadowed. The following describes

KILMENY'S RETURN FROM FAIRY LAND.

Then Kilmeny begg'd again to see

The friends she had left in her own countrye,
To tell of the place where she had been,
And the glories that lay in the land unseen.
With distant music, soft and deep,

And when she awaken'd, she lay her lane,'
All happ'd' with flowers in the greenwood wane."
When seven lang years had come and fled,
When grief was calm and hope was dead,
When scarce was remember'd Kilmeny's name,
Late, late in the gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!
And oh, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her ee;
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maiden's een

In that mild face could never be seen.

Her seymar' was the lily flower,

And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
And her voice like the distant melodye,
That floats along the twilight sea.

But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keep'd afar frae the haunts of men,
Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appear'd,
The wild beasts of the hill were cheer'd;
The wolf play'd blithely round the field,
The lordly bison low'd and kneel'd,
The dun deer woo'd with manner bland,
And cower'd aneath her lily hand.
And when at eve the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung,
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,

Oh, then the glen was all in motion;

The wild beasts of the forest came,

Broke from their bughts and faulds' the tame,
And gov'd' around, charm'd and amazed;
Even the dull cattle croon'd' and gazed,
And murmur'd, and look'd with anxious pain
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;
The corby left her houf" in the rock;
The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew;
The hind came tripping o'er the dew;
The wolf and the kid their raike began,

And the tod," and the lamb, and the leveret ran;

The hawk and the hern attour2 them hung,

And the merl and the mavis forhooy'd" their young;
And all in a peaceful ring were hurl'd:

It was like an eve in a sinless world!

When a month and a day had come and gane,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wane,

There laid her down on the leaves so green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen! .

Her lane," herself alone.-2 "Happ'd," covered.-3" Wane," habitation, place of rest.— "Gloamin," twilight.-Seymar," resemblance.-"Raike," range.-"Bughts and faulds." enclosures and folds.-Gov'd," moved about inquiringly.-Croon'd," emitted a murmuring sound.-10 Houf," haunt.-" "Tod," fox.-12 Attour," about, around.13" Merl," &c., the blackbird and thrush forsook.

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