Specimens with Memoirs of the Less known British Poets, Vol. 3 by George Gilfillan

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'To Mr JAMES MACPHERSON.

'I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me
I shall do the best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself, the law
shall do for me. I hope I shall not be deterred from detecting what I
think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian.

'What would you have me to retract? I thought your book an imposture. I
think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to
the public, which I dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities,
since your Homer, are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals
inclines me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you
shall prove. You may print this if you will.

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

Nothing daunted by this, and a hundred other similar rebuffs; Macpherson,
like Mallett before him, but with twenty times his abilities, pursued
his peculiar course. He was appointed agent for the Nabob of Arcot,
and became M.P. for Carnelford. In this way he speedily accumulated a
handsome fortune, and in 1789, while still a youngish man, he retired to
his native parish, where he bought the estate of Raitts, and founded a
splendid villa, called Belleville, where, in ease and affluence, he spent
his remaining days. Surviving Johnson, his ablest opponent, by twelve
years, he died on the 17th of February 1796, in the full view of Ossian's
country. One of his daughters became his heir, and another was the first
wife of Sir David Brewster. Macpherson in his will ordered that his body
should be buried in Westminster Abbey, and left a sum of money to erect a
monument to him near Belleville. He lies, accordingly, in Poets' Corner,
and a marble obelisk to his memory may be seen near Kingussie, in the
centre of some trees.

There is nothing new that is true, or true that is new, to be said about
the questions connected with Ossian's Poems. That Macpherson is the sole
author is a theory now as generally abandoned as the other, which held
that he was simply a free translator of the old bard. To the real
fragments of Ossian, which he found in the Highlands, he acted very much
as he did to the ancient property of Raitts, in his own native parish.
This he purchased in its crude state, and beautified into a mountain
paradise. He changed, however, its name into Belleville, and it had been
better if he had behaved in a similar way with the poems, and published
them as, with some little groundwork from another, the veritable writings
of James Macpherson, Esq. The ablest opponent of his living reputation
was, as we said, Johnson; and the ablest enemy of his posthumous fame has
been Macaulay. We are at a loss to understand _his_ animosity to the
author of Ossian. Were the Macphersons and Macaulays ever at feud, and
did the historian lose his great-great-grandmother in some onslaught made
on the Hebrides by the progenitors of the pseudo-Ossian? Macpherson as
a man we respect not, and we are persuaded that the greater part of
Ossian's Poems can be traced no further than his teeming brain. Nor are
we careful to defend his poetry from the common charges of monotony,
affectation, and fustian. But we deem Macaulay grossly unjust in his
treatment of Macpherson's genius and its results, and can fortify our
judgment by that of Sir Walter Scott and Professor Wilson, two men as far
superior to the historian in knowledge of the Highlands and of Highland
song, and in genuine poetic taste, as they were confessedly in original
imagination. The former says, 'Macpherson was certainly a man of high
talents, and his poetic powers are honourable to his country.' Wilson, in
an admirable paper in _Blackwood_ for November 1839, while admitting many
faults in Ossian, eloquently proclaims the presence in his strains of
much of the purest, most pathetic, and most sublime poetry, instancing
the 'Address to the Sun' as equal to anything in Homer or Milton. Both
these great writers have paid Macpherson a higher compliment still,--they
have imitated him, and the speeches of Allan Macaulay (a far greater
genius than his namesake), Ranald MacEagh, and Elspeth MacTavish, in the
'Waverley Novels,' and such, articles by Christopher North as 'Cottages,'
'Hints for the Holidays,' and a 'Glance at Selby's Ornithology,' are all
coloured by familiarity and fellow-feeling with Ossian's style. Best of
all, the Highlanders as a nation have accepted Ossian as their bard; he
is as much the poet of Morven as Burns of Coila, and it is as hopeless to
dislodge the one from the Highland as the other from the Lowland heart.
The true way to learn to appreciate Ossian's poetry is not to hurry, as
Macaulay seems to have done, in a steamer from Glasgow to Oban, and
thence to Ballachulish, and thence through Glencoe, (mistaking a fine
lake for a 'sullen pool' on his way, and ignoring altogether its peculiar
features of grandeur,) and thence to Inverness or Edinburgh; but it is to
live for years--as Macpherson did while writing Ossian, and Wilson also
did to some extent--under the shadow of the mountains,--to wander through
lonely moors amidst drenching mists and rains,--to hold trysts with
thunder-storms on the summit of savage hills,--to bathe after nightfall
in dreary tarns,--to lie over the ledge and dip one's fingers in the
spray of cataracts,--to plough a solitary path into the heart of forests,
and to sleep and dream for hours amidst their sunless glades,--to meet
on twilight hills the apparition of the winter moon rising over snowy
wastes,--to descend by her ghastly light precipices where the eagles
are sleeping,--and, returning home, to be haunted by night-visions of
mightier mountains, wilder desolations, and giddier descents;--experience
somewhat like this is necessary to form a true 'Child of the Mist,' and
to give the full capacity for sharing in or appreciating the shadowy,
solitary, pensive, and magnificent spirit which tabernacles in Ossian's
poetry.

Never, at least, can we forget how, in our boyhood, while feeling, but
quite unable to express, the emotions which were suggested by the bold
shapes of mountains resting against the stars, mirrored from below in
lakes and wild torrents, and quaking sometimes in concert with the
quaking couch of the half-slumbering earthquake, the poems of Ossian
served to give our thoughts an expression which they could not otherwise
have found--how they at once strengthened and consolidated enthusiasm,
and are now regarded with feelings which, wreathed around earliest
memories and the strongest fibres of the heart, no criticism can ever
weaken or destroy.

OSSIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN.

I feel the sun, O Malvina!--leave me to my rest. Perhaps
they may come to my dreams; I think I hear a feeble voice!
The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave of
Carthon: I feel it warm around.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my
fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light?
Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide
themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the
western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a
companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the
mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and
grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven, but thou
art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy
course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder
rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from
the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou
lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more; whether
thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou
tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps,
like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou
shalt sleep in thy clouds careless of the voice of the
morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth!
Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of
the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist
is on the hills: the blast of the north is on the plain; the
traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

DESOLATION OF BALCLUTHA.

I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate.
The fire had resounded in the halls; and the voice of the
people is heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed
from its place by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook
there its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. The
fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the wall
waved round its head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina;
silence is in the house of her fathers. Raise the song of
mourning, O bards! over the land of strangers. They have but
fallen before us: for one day we must fall. Why dost thou
build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from
thy towers to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the
desert comes; it howls in thy empty court, and whistles
round thy half-worn shield. And let the blast of the desert
come! we shall be renowned in our day! The mark of my arm
shall be in battle; my name in the song of bards. Raise the
song, send round the shell: let joy be heard in my hall.
When thou, sun of heaven, shalt fail! if thou shalt fail,
thou mighty light! if thy brightness is but for a season,
like Fingal, our fame shall survive thy beams. Such was the
song of Fingal in the day of his joy.

FINGAL AND THE SPIRIT OF LODA.

Night came down on the sea; Roma's bay received the ship. A
rock bends along the coast with all its echoing wood. On the
top is the circle of Loda, the mossy stone of power! A
narrow plain spreads beneath, covered with grass and aged
trees, which the midnight winds, in their wrath, had torn
from the shaggy rock. The blue course of a stream is there!
the lonely blast of ocean pursues the thistle's beard. The
flame of three oaks arose: the feast is spread around: but
the soul of the king is sad, for Carric-thura's chief
distressed.

The wan, cold moon, rose in the east; sleep descended on the
youths! Their blue helmets glitter to the beam; the fading
fire decays. But sleep did not rest on the king: he rose in
the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill, to
behold the flame of Sarno's tower.

The flame was dim and distant, the moon hid her red face in
the east. A blast came from the mountain, on its wings was
the spirit of Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and
shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like flames in his
dark face; his voice is like distant thunder. Fingal
advanced his spear in night, and raised his voice on high.

Son of night, retire: call thy winds, and fly! Why dost thou
come to my presence, with thy shadowy arms? Do I fear thy
gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of
clouds: feeble is that meteor, thy sword! The blast rolls
them together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my
presence, son of night! Call thy winds, and fly!

Dost thou force me from my place? replied the hollow voice.
The people bend before me. I turn the battle in the field of
the brave. I look on the nations, and they vanish: my
nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the
winds: the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is
calm, above the clouds; the fields of my rest are pleasant.

Dwell in thy pleasant fields, said the king; let Comhal's
son be forgot. Do my steps ascend, from my hills, into thy
peaceful plains? Do I meet thee, with a spear, on thy cloud,
spirit of dismal Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why
shake thine airy spear? Thou frownest in vain: I never fled
from the mighty in war. And shall the sons of the wind
frighten the king of Morven? No: he knows the weakness of
their arms!

Fly to thy land, replied the form: receive the wind, and
fly! The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of
the storm is mine. The king of Sora is my son, he bends at
the storm of my power. His battle is around Carric-thura;
and he will prevail! Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel
my flaming wrath!

He lifted high his shadowy spear! He bent forward his
dreadful height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword; the
blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of the steel
winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into
air, like a column of smoke, which the staff of the boy
disturbs, as it rises from the half-extinguished furnace.

The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he
rose on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound, the waves
heard it on the deep. They stopped in their course with
fear: the friends of Fingal started at once, and took their
heavy spears. They missed the king; they rose in rage; all
their arms resound!

ADDRESS TO THE MOON.

Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face
is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars
attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in
thy presence, O moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides.
Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The
stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their
sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course,
when the darkness of thy countenance grows? hast thou thy
hall, like Ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of grief?
have thy sisters fallen from heaven? are they who rejoiced
with thee at night no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair
light! and thou dost often retire to mourn. But thou thyself
shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The
stars will then lift their heads: they, who were ashamed in
thy presence, will rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy
brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud,
O wind! that the daughter of night may look forth! that the
shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white
waves in light.

FINGAL'S SPIRIT-HOME.

His friends sit around the king, on mist! They hear the
songs of Ullin: he strikes the half-viewless harp. He raises
the feeble voice. The lesser heroes, with a thousand
meteors, light the airy hall. Malvina rises in the midst; a
blush is on her cheek. She beholds the unknown faces of her
fathers. She turns aside her humid eyes. 'Art thou come so
soon?' said Fingal, 'daughter of generous Toscar. Sadness
dwells in the halls of Lutha. My aged son is sad! I hear the
breeze of Cona, that was wont to lift thy heavy locks. It
comes to the hall, but thou art not there. Its voice is
mournful among the arms of thy fathers! Go, with thy
rustling wing, O breeze! sigh on Malvina's tomb. It rises
yonder beneath the rock, at the blue stream of Lutha. The
maids are departed to their place. Thou alone, O breeze,
mournest there!'

THE CAVE.

1 The wind is up, the field is bare,
Some hermit lead me to his cell,
Where Contemplation, lonely fair,
With blessed content has chose to dwell.

2 Behold! it opens to my sight,
Dark in the rock, beside the flood;
Dry fern around obstructs the light;
The winds above it move the wood.

3 Reflected in the lake, I see
The downward mountains and the skies,
The flying bird, the waving tree,
The goats that on the hill arise.

4 The gray-cloaked herd[1] drives on the cow;
The slow-paced fowler walks the heath;
A freckled pointer scours the brow;
A musing shepherd stands beneath.

5 Curved o'er the ruin of an oak,
The woodman lifts his axe on high;
The hills re-echo to the stroke;
I see--I see the shivers fly!

6 Some rural maid, with apron full,
Brings fuel to the homely flame;
I see the smoky columns roll,
And, through the chinky hut, the beam.

7 Beside a stone o'ergrown with moss,
Two well-met hunters talk at ease;
Three panting dogs beside repose;
One bleeding deer is stretched on grass.

8 A lake at distance spreads to sight,
Skirted with shady forests round;
In midst, an island's rocky height
Sustains a ruin, once renowned.

9 One tree bends o'er the naked walls;
Two broad-winged eagles hover nigh;
By intervals a fragment falls,
As blows the blast along the sky.

10 The rough-spun hinds the pinnace guide
With labouring oars along the flood;
An angler, bending o'er the tide,
Hangs from the boat the insidious wood.

11 Beside the flood, beneath the rocks,
On grassy bank, two lovers lean;
Bend on each other amorous looks,
And seem to laugh and kiss between.

12 The wind is rustling in the oak;
They seem to hear the tread of feet;
They start, they rise, look round the rock;
Again they smile, again they meet.

13 But see! the gray mist from the lake
Ascends upon the shady hills;
Dark storms the murmuring forests shake,
Rain beats around a hundred rills.

14 To Damon's homely hut I fly;
I see it smoking on the plain;
When storms are past and fair the sky,
I'll often seek my cave again.

[1] 'Herd': neat-herd.

WILLIAM MASON.

This gentleman is now nearly forgotten, except as the friend, biographer,
and literary executor of Gray. He was born in 1725, and died in 1797.
His tragedies, 'Elfrida' and 'Caractacus,' are spirited declamations
in dramatic form, not dramas. His odes have the turgidity without the
grandeur of Gray's. His 'English Garden' is too long and too formal. His
Life of Gray was an admirable innovation on the form of biography then
prevalent, interspersing, as it does, journals and letters with mere
narrative. Mason was a royal chaplain, held the living of Ashton, and
was precentor of York Cathedral. We quote the best of his minor poems.

EPITAPH ON MRS MASON,
IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL.

1 Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:
Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave:
To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care
Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave,
And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line?
Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?
Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine:
Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.

2 Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;
Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;
And if so fair, from vanity as free;
As firm in friendship, and as fond in love;
Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,
('Twas even to thee,) yet the dread path once trod,
Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'

AN HEROIC EPISTLE TO SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS, KNIGHT,
COMPTROLLER-GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S WORKS, ETC.

Knight of the Polar Star! by fortune placed
To shine the Cynosure of British taste;
Whose orb collects in one refulgent view
The scattered glories of Chinese virtu;
And spreads their lustre in so broad a blaze,
That kings themselves are dazzled while they gaze:
Oh, let the Muse attend thy march sublime,
And, with thy prose, caparison her rhyme;
Teach her, like thee, to gild her splendid song,
With scenes of Yven-Ming, and sayings of Li-Tsong;
Like thee to scorn dame Nature's simple fence;
Leap each ha-ha of truth and common sense;
And proudly rising in her bold career,
Demand attention from the gracious ear
Of him, whom we and all the world admit,
Patron supreme of science, taste, and wit.
Does envy doubt? Witness, ye chosen train,
Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign;
Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares,
Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.
Let David Hume, from the remotest north,
In see-saw sceptic scruples hint his worth;
David, who there supinely deigns to lie
The fattest hog of Epicurus' sty;
Though drunk with Gallic wine, and Gallic praise,
David shall bless Old England's halcyon days;
The mighty Home, bemired in prose so long,
Again shall stalk upon the stilts of song:
While bold Mac-Ossian, wont in ghosts to deal,
Bids candid Smollett from his coffin steal;
Bids Mallock quit his sweet Elysian rest,
Sunk in his St John's philosophic breast,
And, like old Orpheus, make some strong effort
To come from Hell, and warble Truth at Court.
There was a time, 'in Esher's peaceful grove,
When Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love,'
That Pope beheld them with auspicious smile,
And owned that beauty blest their mutual toil.
Mistaken bard! could such a pair design
Scenes fit to live in thy immortal line?
Hadst thou been born in this enlightened day,
Felt, as we feel, taste's oriental ray,
Thy satire sure had given them both a stab,
Called Kent a driveller, and the nymph a drab.
For what is Nature? Ring her changes round,
Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground;
Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter,
The tedious chime is still ground, plants, and water.
So, when some John his dull invention racks,
To rival Boodle's dinners, or Almack's;
Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes,
Three roasted geese, three buttered apple-pies.
Come, then, prolific Art, and with thee bring
The charms that rise from thy exhaustless spring;
To Richmond come, for see, untutored Browne
Destroys those wonders which were once thy own.
Lo, from his melon-ground the peasant slave
Has rudely rushed, and levelled Merlin's cave;
Knocked down the waxen wizard, seized his wand,
Transformed to lawn what late was fairy-land;
And marred, with impious hand, each sweet design
Of Stephen Duck, and good Queen Caroline.
Haste, bid yon livelong terrace re-ascend,
Replace each vista, straighten every bend;
Shut out the Thames; shall that ignoble thing
Approach the presence of great Ocean's king?
No! let barbaric glories feast his eyes,
August pagodas round his palace rise,
And finished Richmond open to his view,
'A work to wonder at, perhaps a Kew.'
Nor rest we here, but, at our magic call,
Monkeys shall climb our trees, and lizards crawl;
Huge dogs of Tibet bark in yonder grove,
Here parrots prate, there cats make cruel love;
In some fair island will we turn to grass
(With the queen's leave) her elephant and ass.
Giants from Africa shall guard the glades,
Where hiss our snakes, where sport our Tartar maids;
Or, wanting these, from Charlotte Hayes we bring
Damsels, alike adroit to sport and sting.
Now to our lawns of dalliance and delight,
Join we the groves of horror and affright;
This to achieve no foreign aids we try,--
Thy gibbets, Bagshot! shall our wants supply;
Hounslow, whose heath sublimer terror fills,
Shall with her gibbets lend her powder-mills.
Here, too, O king of vengeance, in thy fane,
Tremendous Wilkes shall rattle his gold chain;
And round that fane, on many a Tyburn tree,
Hang fragments dire of Newgate-history;
On this shall Holland's dying speech be read,
Here Bute's confession, and his wooden head:
While all the minor plunderers of the age,
(Too numerous far for this contracted page,)
The Rigbys, Calcrafts, Dysons, Bradshaws there,
In straw-stuffed effigy, shall kick the air.
But say, ye powers, who come when fancy calls,
Where shall our mimic London rear her walls?
That eastern feature, Art must next produce,
Though not for present yet for future use,
Our sons some slave of greatness may behold,
Cast in the genuine Asiatic mould:
Who of three realms shall condescend to know
No more than he can spy from Windsor's brow;
For him, that blessing of a better time,
The Muse shall deal a while in brick and lime;
Surpass the bold [Greek: ADELPHI] in design,
And o'er the Thames fling one stupendous line
Of marble arches, in a bridge, that cuts
From Richmond Ferry slant to Brentford Butts.
Brentford with London's charms will we adorn;
Brentford, the bishopric of Parson Horne.
There, at one glance, the royal eye shall meet
Each varied beauty of St James's Street;
Stout Talbot there shall ply with hackney chair,
And patriot Betty fix her fruit-shop there.
Like distant thunder, now the coach of state
Rolls o'er the bridge, that groans beneath its weight.
The court hath crossed the stream; the sports begin;
Now Noel preaches of rebellion's sin:
And as the powers of his strong pathos rise,
Lo, brazen tears fall from Sir Fletcher's eyes.
While skulking round the pews, that babe of grace,
Who ne'er before at sermon showed his face,
See Jemmy Twitcher shambles; stop! stop thief!
He's stolen the Earl of Denbigh's handkerchief,
Let Barrington arrest him in mock fury,
And Mansfield hang the knave without a jury.
But hark, the voice of battle shouts from far,
The Jews and Maccaronis are at war:
The Jews prevail, and, thundering from the stocks,
They seize, they bind, they circumcise Charles Fox.
Fair Schwellenbergen smiles the sport to see,
And all the maids of honour cry 'Te! He!'
Be these the rural pastimes that attend
Great Brunswick's leisure: these shall best unbend
His royal mind, whene'er from state withdrawn,
He treads the velvet of his Richmond lawn;
These shall prolong his Asiatic dream,
Though Europe's balance trembles on its beam.
And thou, Sir William! while thy plastic hand
Creates each wonder which thy bard has planned,
While, as thy art commands, obsequious rise
Whate'er can please, or frighten, or surprise,
Oh, let that bard his knight's protection claim,
And share, like faithful Sancho, Quixote's fame.

JOHN LOWE.

The author of 'Mary's Dream' was born in 1750, at Kenmore, Galloway, and
was the son of a gardener. He became a student of divinity, and acted
as tutor in the family of a Mr McGhie of Airds. A daughter of Mr McGhie
was attached to a gentleman named Miller, a surgeon at sea, and on the
occasion of his death Lowe wrote his beautiful 'Mary's Dream,' the
exquisite simplicity and music of the first stanza of which has often
been admired. Lowe was betrothed to a sister of 'Mary,' but having
emigrated to America, he married another, fell into dissipated habits,
and died in a miserable plight at Fredericksburgh in 1798. He wrote many
other pieces, but none equal to 'Mary's Dream.'

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