On ilka howm the sward was mawn, And fragrance winged alang the lea, And saftly slade the hours awa', The warld's drumlie gloom to cheer. Ye powers wha row this yirthen ba', And our gudeman ca's hame the yowes, That owre the muir meandering rows; And sing the streams, the straths, and howes, And when auld Scotland's heathy hills, Lucy's Flittin'. [By William Laidlaw.] [William Laidlaw is son of the Ettrick Shepherd's master at Blackhouse. All who have read Lockhart's Life of Scott, know how closely Mr Laidlaw was connected with the illustrious baronet of Abbotsford. He was his companion in some of his early wanderings, his friend and land-steward in advanced years, his amanuensis in the composition of some of his novels, and he was one of the few who watched over his last sad and painful moments. Lucy's Flittin' is deservedly popular for its unaffected tenderness and simplicity. In printing the song, Hogg added the last four lines to complete the story."] 'Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk-tree was fa'in, Then what gars me wish ony better to be? Wi' the rest o' my claes I hae rowed up the ribbon, The lamb likes the gowan wi' dew when its droukit; The Brownie of Blednoch. [By William Nicholson.] Wi' a dreary, dreary hum. His face did glow like the glow o' the west, I trow the bauldest stood aback, Wi' a gape an' a glower till their lugs did crack, O! had ye seen the bairns' fright, As they stared at this wild and unyirthly wight; The black dog growling cowered his tail, At the sight o' Aiken-drum. His matted head on his breast did rest, Roun' his hairy form there was naething seen On his wauchie arms three claws did meet, But he drew a score, himsel' did sain, But the canny auld wife cam till her breath, But it feared na Aiken-drum. 'His presence protect us!' quoth the auld gudeman; 'What wad ye, whare won ye, by sea or by lan'? I conjure ye-speak-by the beuk in my han'!' What a grane ga'e Aiken-drum! 'I lived in a lan' where we saw nae sky, I dwalt in a spot where a burn rins na by; I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune, If ye'll keep puir Aiken-drum. I'll loup the linn when ye canna wade, I'se tame't,' quoth Aiken-drum. To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell, I'se seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark; But a cogfu' o' brose 'tween the light an' dark Quoth the wylie auld wife, The thing speaks weel; But the wenches skirled, 'He's no be here! "Puir clipmalabors! ye hae little wit; Roun' a' that side what wark was dune By the streamer's gleam, or the glance o' the moon; On Blednoch banks, an' on crystal Cree, But a new-made wife, fu' o' frippish freaks, Let the learned decide when they convene, He was heard by a herd gaun by the Thrieve, Awa, ye wrangling sceptic tribe, Though the Brownie o' Blednoch' lang be gane, Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum. E'en now, light loons that jibe an' sneer At the Glashnoch mill hae swat wi' fear, An' guidly folks hae gotten a fright, Song. [By Joseph Train.] [Mr Train will be memorable in our literary history for the assistance he rendered to Sir Walter Scott in the contribution of some of the stories on which the Waverley novels were founded. He entered life as a private soldier, and rose by merit to be a supervisor of excise, from which situation be has now retired on a superannuation allowance.] Wi' drums and pipes the clachan rang, I bickered down the mountain side. To do the auld thing o'er again. Wha fight your battles far awa'. The auld thing weel done o'er again. In battle I ne'er met wi' ane Discharges a' my toil and pain, The Cameronian's Dream. [By James Hislop.] [James Hislop was born of humble parents in the parish of Kirkconnel, in the neighbourhood of Sanquhar, near the source of the Nith, in July 1798. He was employed as a shepherd-boøy in the vicinity of Airsmoss, where, at the gravestone of a party of slain covenanters, he composed the following striking poem. He afterwards became a teacher, and his poetical effusions having attracted the favourable notice of Lord Jeffrey, and other eminent literary characters, he was, through their infuence, appointed schoolmaster, first on board the Doris, and subsequently the Tweed man-of-war. He died on the 4th Decem ber 1827 from fever caught by seeping one night in the open air upon the island of St Jago. His compositions display an elegant rather than a vigorous imagination, much chasteness of thought, and a pure but ardent love of nature.] In a dream of the night I was wafted away, To the muirland of mist where the martyrs lay; Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen, Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green. 'Twas a dream of those ages of darkness and blood, When the minister's home was the mountain and wood; When in Wellwood's dark valley the standard of Zion, All bloody and torn 'mong the heather was lying. 'Twas morning; and summer's young sun from the east Lay in loving repose on the green mountain's breast; On Wardlaw and Cairntable the clear shining dew, Glistened there 'mong the heath bells and mountain flowers blue. 508 L เ And far up in heaven near the white sunny cloud, And in Glenmuir's wild solitude, lengthened and deep, The fresh meadow blooms hung in beauty and redness; Who drank from the scenery of beauty but sorrow, classes. The increased competition in business has also made our nation of shopkeepers' a busier and harder-working race than their forefathers; and the diffusion of cheap literature may have further tended tainment for the masses at home at a cheaper rate to thin the theatres, as furnishing intellectual enterappear to have had considerable influence in this matthan dramatic performances. The London managers ter. They lavish enormous sums on scenic decoration and particular actors, and aim rather at filling their houses by some ephemeral and dazzling display, than by the liberal encouragement of native talent and genius. To improve, or rather re-establish the acted drama, a periodical writer suggests that there should be a classification of theatres in the metropolis, as in Paris, where each theatre has its distinct species of the drama, and performs it well. We believe,' he Concealed 'mong the mist where the heathfowl was endeavour of managers to succeed by commixing says, that the evil is mainly occasioned by the vain crying, morrow. 'Twas the few faithful ones who with Cameron were lying, For the horsemen of Earlshall around them were hovering, every species of entertainment-huddling together tragedy, comedy, farce, melo-drama, and spectacle— And their bridle reins rung through the thin misty the dramatic public to their respective houses. Imand striving, by alternate exhibitions, to draw all covering. Their faces grew pale, and their swords were unsheathed, But the vengeance that darkened their brow was unbreathed; With eyes turned to heaven in calm resignation, Yet the souls of the righteous were calm and unclouded, The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming, The heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling, When in Wellwood's dark muirlands the mighty were falling. When the righteous had fallen, and the combat was ended, A chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended; A seraph unfolded its doors bright and shining, Have mounted the chariots and steeds of salvation. Glide swiftly, bright spirits! the prize is before ye, A crown never fading, a kingdom of glory! DRAMATISTS. Dramatic literature no longer occupies the prominent place it held in former periods of our history. Various causes have been assigned for this decline s, the great size of the theatres, the monopoly of the ty, large London houses, the love of spectacle or scenic display which has usurped the place of the legitimate drama, and the late dinner hours now prevalent among the higher and even the middle perfect-very imperfect companies for each species are engaged; and as, in consequence of the general imperfection, they are forced to rely on individual excellence, individual performers become of inordinate importance, and the most exorbitant salaries are given to procure them. These individuals are thus placed in a false position, and indulge themselves in all sorts of mannerisms and absurdities. The public is not unreasonably dissatisfied with imperfect companies and bad performances; the managers wonder at their ruin; and critics become elegiacal over the mournful decline of the drama! Not in this way can a theatre flourish; since, if one species of performance proves attractive, the others are at a discount, and their companies become useless burdens; if none of them prove attractive, then the loss ends in ruin.'* Too many instances of this have occurred within the last twenty years. Whenever a play of real excellence has been brought forward, the public has shown no insensibility to its merits; but so many circumstances are requisite to its successful representation-so expensive are the companies, and so capricious the favourite actors-that men of talent are averse to hazard a competition. The true dramatic talent is also a rare gift. Some of the most eminent poets have failed in attempting to portray actual life and passion in interesting situations on the stage; and as Fielding and Smollett proved unsuccessful in comedy (though the former wrote a number of pieces), so Byron and Scott were found wanting in the qualities requisite for the tragic drama. It is evident,' says Campbell, that Melpomene demands on the stage something, and a good deal more, than even poetical talent, rare as that is. She requires a potent and peculiar faculty for the invention of incident adapted to theatric effect; a faculty which may often exist in those who have been bred to the stage, but which, generally speaking, has seldom been shown by any poets who were not professional players. There are exceptions to the remark, but there are not many. If Shakspeare had not been a player, he would not have been the dramatist that he is.' Dryden, Addison, and Congreve, are conspicuous exceptions to this rule; also Goldsmith in comedy, and, in our own day, Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer in the romantic drama. The Colmans, Sheridan, Morton, and Reynolds, never, we believe, wore the sock or buskin; but they were either managers, or closely connected with the theatre. *Edinburgh Review for 1843. In the first year of this period, ROBERT JEPHSON (1736-1803) produced his tragedy of The Count of Narbonne, copied from Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and it was highly attractive on the stage. In 1785 Jephson brought out another tragedy, The Duke of Braganza, which was equally successful. He wrote three other tragedies, some farces, and operas; but the whole are now utterly neglected. Jephson was no great dramatic writer; but a poetical critic has recorded to his honour, that, at a time when the native genius of tragedy seemed to be extinct, he came boldly forward as a tragic poet, and certainly with a spark of talent; for if he has not the full flame of genius, he has at least its scintillating light.' The dramatist was an Irishman by birth, a captain in the army, and afterwards a member of the Irish House of Commons. The stage was aroused from a state of insipidity or degeneracy by the introduction of plays from the German, which, amidst much false and exaggerated sentiment, appealed to the stronger sympathies of our nature, and drew crowded audiences to the theatres. One of the first of these was The Stranger, said to be translated by Benjamin Thompson; but the greater part of it, as it was acted, was the production of Sheridan. It is a drama of domestic life, not very moral or beneficial in its tendencies (for it is calculated to palliate our detestation of adultery), yet abounding in scenes of tenderness and surprise, well adapted to produce effect on the stage. The principal characters were acted by Kemble and Mrs Siddons, and when it was brought out in the season of 1797-8, it was received with immense applause. In 1799 Sheridan adapted another of Kotzebue's plays, Pizarro, which experienced still greater success. In the former drama the German author had violated the proprieties of our moral code, by making an injured husband take back his guilty though penitent wife; and in Pizarro he has invested a fallen female with tenderness, compassion, and heroism. The obtrusion of such a character as a prominent figure in the scene was at least indelicate; but, in the hands of Mrs Siddons, the taint was scarcely perceived, and Sheridan had softened down the most objectionable parts. The play was produced with all the aids of splendid scenery, music, and fine acting, and these, together with its displays of generous and heroic feeling on the part of Rolla, and of parental affection in Alonzo and Cora, were calculated to lead captive a general audience. Its subject was also new, and peculiarly fortunate. It brought the adventures of the most romantic kingdom of Christendom (Spain) into picturesque combination with the simplicity and superstitions of the transatlantic world; and gave the imagination a new and fresh empire of paganism, with its temples, and rites, and altars, without the stale associations of pedantry. Some of the sentiments and descriptions in Pizarro are said to have originally formed part of Sheridan's famous speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings! They are often inflated and bombastic, and full of rhetorical glitter. Thus Rollo soliloquises in Alonzo's dungeon: O holy Nature! thou dost never plead in vain. There is not of our earth a creature, bearing form and life, human or savage, native of the forest wild or giddy air, around whose parent bosom thou hast not a cord entwined of power to tie them to their offspring's claims, and at thy will to draw them back to thee. On iron pinions borne the blood-stained vulture cleaves the storm, yet is the plumage closest to her heart soft as the cygnet's down; and o'er her unshelled brood the murmuring ring-dove sits not more gently.' Or the speech of Rolla to the Peruvian army at the consecration of the banners:-My brave associates! partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No! you have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would de lude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule. We, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and a power which they hate. We serve a monarch whom we love-a God whom we adore! Where'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress; where'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship. They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error. Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They offer us their protection; yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them! They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain answer this: the throne we honour is the people's choice; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy; the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hopes of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them, too, we seek no change, and least of all such change as they would bring us' Animated apostrophes like these, rolled from the lips of Kemble, and applied, in those days of war, to British valour and patriotism arrayed against France, could hardly fail of an enthusiastic reception. A third drama by Kotzebue was some years afterwards adapted for the English stage by Mrs Inchbald, and performed under the title f Lovers' Vows. "The grand moral of the play is to set forth the miserable consequences which arise from the neglect, and to enforce the watchful care of illegitimate offspring; and surely as the pulpit has not had eloquence to eradicate the crime of seduction, the stage may be allowed a humble endeavour to prevent its most fatal effects.' Lovers' Vows also became a popular acting play, for stage effect was carefully studied, and the scenes and situations skilfully arranged. While filling the theatres, Kotzebue's plays were generally condenined by the critics. They cannot be said to have produced any permanent bad effect on our national morals, but they presented many false and pernicious pictures to the mind. There is an affectation,' as Scott remarks, ‘of attributing noble and virtuous sentiments to the persons least qualified by habit or education to entertain them; and of describing the higher and better educated classes as uniformly deficient in those feelings of liberality, generosity, and honour, which may be considered as proper to their situation in life. This contrast may be true in particular instances, and being used sparingly, might afford a good moral lesson; but in spite of truth and probability, it has been assumed, upon all occasions, by those authors as the groundwork of a sort of intellectual Jacobinism.' Scott himself, it will be recollected, was fascinated by the German drama, and translated a play of Goethe. The excesses of Kotzebue were happily ridiculed by Canning and Ellis in their amusing satire, The Rovers. At length, after a run of unexampled success, these plays ceased to attract attention, though one or two are still occasionally performed. With all their absurdities, we cannot but believe that they exercised an inspiring influence on the rising genius of that age. They dealt with passions, not with manners, and awoke the higher feelings and sensibilities of our nature. Good plays were also mingled with the bad: if Kotzebue was acted, Goëthe and Schiller were studied. The Wallenstein was translated by Coleridge, and the influence of the German drama was felt by most of the young poets. single tragedies; and she would have invented more stirring incidents to justify the passion of her characters, and to give them that air of fatality which, though peculiarly predominant in the Greek drama, will also be found, to a certain extent, in all successful tragedies. Instead of this, she contrives to make all the passions of her main characters proceed from the wilful natures of the beings themselves. Their feelings are not precipitated by circumstances, like a stream down a declivity, that leaps from rock to rock; but, for want of incident, they seem often like water on a level, without a propelling impulse.'* The design of Miss Baillie in restricting her dramas each to the elucidation of one passion, appears certainly to have been an unnecessary and unwise restraint, as tending to circumscribe the business of the piece, and exclude the interest arising from varied emotions and conflicting passions. It cannot be said to have been successful in her own case, and it has never been copied by any other author. Sir Walter Scott has eulogised Basil's love and Montfort's hate' as something like a revival of the inspired strain of Shakspeare. The tragedies of Count Basil and De Montfort are among the best of Miss Baillie's plays; but they are more like the works of Shirley, or the serious parts of Massinger, than the glorious dramas of Shakspeare, so full of life, of in One of those who imbibed a taste for the marvellous and the romantic from this source was MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, whose drama, The Castle Spectre, was produced in 1797, and was performed about sixty successive nights. It is full of supernatural horrors, deadly revenge, and assassination, with touches of poetical feeling, and some wellmanaged scenes. In the same year Lewis adapted a tragedy from Schiller, entitled The Minister; and this was followed by a succession of dramatic pieces -Rolla, a tragedy, 1799; The East Indian, a comedy, 1800; Adelmorn, or the Outlaw, a drama, 1801; Rugantio, a melo-drama, 1805; Adelgitha, a play, 1806; Venoni, a drama, 1809; One o' Clock, or the Knight and Wood Demon, 1811; Timour the Tartar, a melo-drama, 1812; and Rich and Poor, a comic opera, 1812. The Castle Spectre is still occasionally performed; but the diffusion of a more sound and healthy taste in literature has banished the other dramas of Lewis equally from the stage and the press. To the present generation they are unknown.cident, and imagery. Miss Baillie's style is smooth They were fit companions for the ogres, giants, and Blue-beards of the nursery tales, and they have shared the same oblivion. JOANNA BAILLIE. The most important addition to the written drama at this time was the first volume of JOANNA BAILLIE's plays on the passions, published in 1798 under the title of A Series of Plays: in which it is attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind, each Passion being the subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy. To the volume was prefixed a long and interesting introductory discourse, in which the authoress discusses the subject of the drama in all its bearings, and asserts the supremacy of simple nature over all decoration and refinement. 'Let one simple trait of the human heart, one expression of passion, genuine and true to nature, be introduced, and it will stand forth alone in the boldness of reality. whilst the false and unnatural around it fades away upon every side, like the rising exhalations of the morning.' This theory (which anticipated the dissertations and most of the poetry of Wordsworth) the accomplished dramatist illustrated in her plays, the merits of which were instantly recognised, and a second edition called for in a few months. Miss Baillie was then in the thirty-fourth year of her age. In 1802 she published a second volume, and in 1812 a third. In the interval she had produced a volume of miscellaneous dramas (1804), and The Family Legend (1810), a tragedy founded on a Highland tradition, and brought out with success at the Edinburgh theatre. In 1836 this authoress published three more volumes of plays, her career as a dramatic writer thus extending over the long period of thirtyeight years. Only one of her dramas has ever been performed on the stage: De Montfort was brought out by Kemble shortly after its appearance, and was acted eleven nights. It was again introduced in 1821, to exhibit the talents of Kean in the character of De Montfort; but this actor remarked that, though a fine poem, it would never be an acting play. The author who mentions this circumstance, remarks:If Joanna Baillie had known the stage practically, she would never have attached the importance which she does to the development of single passions in 6 and regular, and her plots are both original and [Scene from De Montfort.] Miss [De Montfort explains to his sister Jane his hatred of Rezen velt, which at last hurries him into the crime of murder. The De Mon. No more, my sister, urge me not again; Jane. What! must I, like a distant humble friend, De Mon. Ah, Jane, forbear! I cannot e'en to thee. *Campbell's Life of Mrs Siddons. |