so accordant with the divine spirit of Christianity, should have found for the writings of Grahame many admirers, is not to be wondered at. His popularity, however, must, for many reasons, be in a great measure confined to the country of his birth-for he was as strictly a national poet as Robert Burns; his pictures of life and manners, his landscapes, his thoughts, habits, and peculiarities-nay, even his prejudices, are all Scottish. Although most of his after-life was spent in a more southern region, he could not forget his native land; and she must not forget one who could thus express himself regarding her

"And must I leave,
Dear land, thy broomy braes, thy dales,
Each haunted by its wizard stream, o'erhung
With all the varied charms of bush and tree;
And must I leave the friends of youthful years,
And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp
Of foreign friendships in a foreign land,
And learn to love the music of strange tongues?
Yes! I may love the music of strange tongues,
And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp
Of foreign friendships in a foreign land;

But to my parched mouth's-roof cleave this tongue,
My fancy fade into the yellow leaf,

And this oft-pausing heart forget to throb,

If, Scotland! thee and thine it e'er forget."

Passing over an anonymous juvenile volume, which he afterwards repudiated, but which is strongly marked with his peculiar beauties and defects, the earliest earnest composition of Grahame was a tragedy entitled "Mary Stuart," a subject naturally attractive to a young Scottish poet. But his genius was utterly undramatic; and, although it possesses some fine passages, it failed in commanding attention. "The Sabbath " appeared several years afterwards; and, being the best, is deservedly the most popular of all his works. After two summers

appeared "The Birds of Scotland," in which, conjoined with the main theme, we have most engaging developments and revelations of the poet's own tastes, feelings, opinions, and enjoyments; episodes which, in fact, form the true charm of Grahame's writings. Among its more striking passages are the description of the shipwrecked Sailor-boy; of the Cuckoo and its nest; his denunciation of the callous spirit that would sweep away from the landscape the dwellings of the poor; his lament for the rural groups shut up in the city garrets; and his horror at the miseries entailed on the young by the manufacturing system—a theme in which he anticipates Wordsworth.

In "The British Georgics," the last and most ambitious of Grahame's productions, we have disappointment, less from the falling off in power, than from the unhappy selection of subject. Didactic themes are doubtful ones for verse; because, in verse, ornament is essential to truth; and we are apt to find the garnishing much more palatable than the dish itself. As to farming, especially -a practical art-we doubt not that the Greek husbandman would prefer his neighbour's experience to Hesiod's rules; and, among the Romans, Cato the Censor was more likely to be an authority than Virgil the poet. At all events, we know that the British agriculturist neglects James Grahame's "Georgics" for Henry Stephens' "Book of the Farm." The really useful lessons attempted to be conveyed in the various sections are almost necessarily and hopelessly prosaic; but many of the illustrative details are fine as poetry; and the painting of external nature, and of the seasons-legitimate themes for the muse-are full of effect and truthful beauty.

The following picture of the fearful persecutions and steadfast faith of the Covenanters, is in James Grahame's very best manner :

"With them each day was holy; but that morn

On which the angel said 'See where the Lord

EXTRACT-THE COVENANTERS.

Was laid,' joyous arose; to die that day

Was bliss. Long ere the dawn by devious ways,

O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes they sought The upland moors where rivers, there but brooks,

Dispart to different seas.

Fast by such brooks
A little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat

With greensward gay, and flowers that strangers seem
Amid the heathery wild, that all around
Fatigues the eye in solitudes like these
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foiled
A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws :
There, leaning on his spear, (one of the array
Whose gleam, in former days, had scathed the rose
On England's banner, and had powerless struck
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host,)
The lyart veteran heard the word of God
By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured
In gentle stream: then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise; the wheeling plover ceased
Her plaint; the solitary place was glad,
And on the distant cairn the watcher's ear
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
But years more gloomy followed; and no more
The assembled people dared, in face of day,
To worship God, or even at the dead

Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce,
And thunder-peals compelled the men of blood
To couch within their dens; then dauntlessly
The scattered few would meet, in some deep dell
By rocks o'ercanopied, to hear the voice,
Their faithful pastor's voice; he by the gleam
Of sheeted lightning oped the sacred book,
And words of comfort spake over their souls
His accents soothing came-as to her young
The heathfowl's plumes, when, at the close of eve,
She gathers in, mournful, her brood dispersed
By murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast,
They, cherished, cower amid the purple blooms."

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30

CANNING-FRERE-GIFFORD.

In reference to the nationality of Grahame's first and best poem, "The Sabbath," Professor Wilson has beautifully observed, that—

"How still the morning of the hallow'd day!'

is a line that could have been uttered only by a holy Scottish heart. For we alone know what is indeed Sabbath silence-an earnest of everlasting rest. To our hearts, the very 'birds of Scotland' sing holily on that day. A sacred smile is on the dewy flowers. The lilies look whiter in their loveliness: the blush-rose reddens in the sun with a diviner dye; and with a more celestial scent the hoary hawthorn sweetens the wilderness."

Grahame died in 1811, in his forty-ninth year, and his dirge was sung in fitting strains by his youthful friend and admirer, the future author of "The Isle of Palms" and "The City of the Plague."

We have mentioned that what Canning and Frere did for the Darwinians in "The Loves of the Triangles," and for the rabid Germanic school in "The Rovers," "The University of Gottingen," and "The Needy KnifeGrinder," Gifford did for the Litchfield coterie and the Della Cruscans, in "The Mæviad and Bæviad," and with a greater spice of savagery. All three were poets, and, as such, might have left enviable reputations; but Canning became orator and politician, and, by his transcendent talents, attained to the first rank. Frere took to diplomacy, in which he showed himself an adept-enlivening his leisure by those exquisite translations from the Spanish, which extorted the enthusiastic admiration of Scott; and by that extravaganza of the Pulci and Casti school, Whistlecraft's "Prospectus of a National Poem," which was the forerunner of the more pungent " Beppo" and "Don Juan" of Byron, and "The Mad Banker" of William Wastle. Gifford, who had less of wit and humour, but whose genius was more forcible and austere, took to editing and reviewing. He was alike able and

erudite, severe, cynical, and uncompromising; but he possessed, strange to say, a vein of pathos; and his "Verses to Anna," and "On a Tuft of Early Violets," are remarkable not only for their graceful delicacy of sentiment, but for something at least akin to genuine tenderness.

Nearly about the time when this able and remarkable trio were demolishing the gimcrack edifices of those fustian-artificers, who played their fantastic tricks before the reading public with such self-complacency, a simple child of nature-worth them all thrice-told-was dragged from his shoemaking garret upon the stage, under the auspices of Mr Capel Loft. This was Robert Bloomfield, at that time thirty-two years of age; and whose modest manuscript had previously been submitted to and shunned by several booksellers. "The Farmer's Boy" had in its descriptions and sentiments the freshness of nature and the impress of truth. It was evident that the landscapes were "taken on the spot," and that the reflections flowed from the heart. The poem soon acquired, as it deserved, a wide-spread popularity, and secured for its author a niche in the shrine of his country's literature. His other principal productions were, "Rural Tales," "The Banks of the Wye," "Wild-flowers," "News from the Farm," "Hazlewood Hall, a Drama," and "May-day with the Muses,"-each of which has some peculiar and distinctive excellencies, but all of the kind which first attracted attention to "The Farmer's Boy."

Beyond any example, save that of Clare, Bloomfield seemed to be a poet almost by intuition; for in point of taste, melody, and accuracy, his early verses, composed without almost a glimpse of education, were never excelled by his after efforts. While a ragged boy, seated on the green bank beneath the wild rose-bush, watching the rooks in the cornfield, the young enthusiast had

"Looked on nature with a poet's eye;"

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