• These stanzas were first published in the second edition of Hours o Idleness.

†These stanzas were written soon after the appearance of a severa critique, in a northern review, on a new publication of the British Anacreon.

Who reads false quantities in Sele,*
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle;
Deprived of many a wholesome meal,

In barbarous Latin † doom'd to wrangle:

Renouncing every pleasing page

From authors of historic use; Preferring to the letter'd sage

The square of the hypothenuse.

Still, harmless are these occupations,

That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations,

Which bring together the imprudent:

Whose daring revels shock the sight,
When vice and infamy combine,
When drunkenness and dice invite,
As every sense is steep'd in wine.

Not so the methodistic crew,

Who plans of reformation lay; In humble attitude they sue,

And for the sins of others pray:

Forgetting that their pride of spirit,

Their exultation in their trial, Detracts most largely from the merit Of all their boasted self-denial.

'Tis morn from these I turn my sight:
What scene is this which meets the eye?
A numerous crowd, array'd in white,§
Across the green in numbers fly.

Loud rings in air the chapel bell;

'Tis hush'd:-what sounds are these I hear? The organ's soft, celestial swell

Rolls deeply on the list'ning ear.

To this is join'd the sacred song,

The royal minstrel's hallow'd strain; Though he who hears the music long, Will never wish to hear again.

Our choir would scarcely be excused,
Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused

To such a set of croaking sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended,

Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended,

In furious mood he would have tore 'em.

The luckless Israelites, when taken,
By some inhuman tyrant's order,
Were asked to sing, by joy forsaken,
On Babylonian river's border.

• Sele's publication on Greek metres displays considerable talent and ingenuity, but, as might be expected in so difficult a work, is not remarkable for

accuracy.

CANDOUR compels me, BECHER! to commend
The verse which blends the censor with the friend.
Your strong, yet just, reproof extorts applause
From me, the heedless and imprudent ‡ cause.
For this wild error which pervades my strain,

I sue for pardon,-must I sue in vain ?
The wise sometimes from Wisdom's ways depart;
Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart?
Precepts of prudence curb, but can't control,
The fierce emotions of the flowing soul.
When love's delirium haunts the glowing mind,
Limping Decorum lingers far behind:

Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace,
Outstript and vanquish'd in the mental chase.
The young, the old, have worn the chains of love:"
Let those they ne'er confined my lay reprove:
Let those whose souls contemn the pleasing power
Their censures on the hapless victim shower.
Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song,
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng,
Whose labor'd lines in chilling numbers flow,
To paint a pang the author ne'er can know!
The artless Helicon I boast in youth;-
My lyre, the heart; my muse, the simple truth.
Far be't from me the "virgin's mind" to "taint:"
Seduction's dread is here no slight restraint.
The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile,
Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile,
Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer,
Firm in her virtue's strength, yet not severe-
She whom a conscious grace shall thus refine,
Will ne'er be "tainted" by a strain of mine.

In the private volume, "Sele's publication on Greek metres is not remark-But for the nymph whose premature desires

able for its accuracy."

Torment the bosom with unholy fires,

• If I scribble longer. In the private volume, If I write much longer. These lines were printed in the private volume, and in the first edition

of Hours of Idleness, but afterwards omitted.

Imprudent. In the private volume, unworthy.

§ Wild. Private volume, sole.

No net to snare her willing heart is spread;
She would have fallen, though she ne'er had read.
For me,
I fain would please the chosen few,
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true,
Will spare
the childish verse, and not destroy
The light effusions of a heedless boy.
I seek not glory from the senseless crowd;
Of fancied laurels I shall ne'er be proud;
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize,
The sneers or censures I alike despise.

November 26, 1806.

Still were you happy in death's earthy slumber,
You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar ;*
The pibrocht resounds to the piper's loud number,
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.

Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
Years must elapse ere I tread you again;
Nature of verdure and flow'rs has bereft you,

Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain.
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic
To one who has roved on the mountains afar.
Oh, for the crags that are wild and majestic!
The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr

LACHIN Y. GAIR.*

Lachin y. Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch na Garr, towers proudly preeminent in the Northern Highlands, near Invercauld. One of our modern tourists mentions it as the highest mountain, perhaps, in Great Britain. Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most sublime and picturesque among our "Caledonian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Near Lachin y. Gair ! spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to the following stanzas.

• First published in Hours of Idleness.

This word is erroneously pronounced plad; the proper pronunciation (according to the Scotch) is known by the orthography.

II allude here to my maternal ancestors "the Gordons," many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, better hown by the name of the Pretender. This branch was nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, to the Stuarts. George, the second earl of Huntley, married the Princess Annabella Stuart, daughter of James the First of Scotland. By ber he left four sons: the third, Sir William Gordon, I have the honor to claim as one of my progenitors.

Whether any perished in the battle of Culloden, I am not certain; but, a many fell in the Insurrection, I have used the name of the principal action, pars pro toto."

TO ROMANCE.I

PARENT of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,

But leave thy realms for those of Truth.

And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll,
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;
When virgins seem no longer vain,

And even woman's smiles are true.

And must we own thee but a name,

And from thy hall of clouds descend?
Nor find a sylph in every dame,

A Pylades in every friend?
But leave at once thy realms of air

To mingling bands of fairy elves?
Confess that woman's false as fair,

And friends have feeling for-themselves?

With shame I own I've felt thy sway;
Repentant, now thy reign is o'er:
No more thy precepts I obey,

No more on fancied pinions soar.
Fond fool to love a sparkling eye,

And think that eye to truth was dear;
To trust a passing wanton's sigh,
And melt beneath a wanton's tear.

Romance! disgusted with deceit,
Far from thy motley court I fly,
Where Affectation holds her seat,
And sickly Sensibility;

A tract of the Highlands so called. There is also a Castle of Braemar. ↑ The bagpipe.

1 First published in the Hours of Idleness.

It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades was the companion of Orestes, and a partner in one of those friendships which, with those of Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Euryalus, Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to posterity as remarkable instances of attachments, which in all proba bility never existed beyond the imagination of the poet, or the page of ar historian or modern novelist.