of Junius, or the true character of the king's grandmother Mary Stuart. Charles was, however, certainly among the most elegant English | writers of his time, and a friend to the fine arts, which he greatly encouraged in the early part of his reign. MAJESTY IN MISERY.1 Great Monarch of the World! from whose arm springs The potency and power of kings, Nature and law, by thy divine decree (The only root of righteous loyalty), With this dim diadem invested me: With it the sacred sceptre, purple robe, Thy holy union, and the royal globe; Yet I am levelled with the life of Job. The fiercest furies that do daily tread Tyranny bears the title of taxation, Revenge and robbery are reformation, Oppression gains the name of sequestration. Great Britain's heir is forced into France, Whilst on his father's head his foes advance: Poor child! he weeps out his inheritance. With my own power my majesty they wound, In the king's name the king himself's uncrown'd; So doth the dust destroy the diamond. My life they prize at such a slender rate, Augment my patience, nullifie my hate, ON A QUIET CONSCIENCE. Close thine eyes, and sleep secure; Thy soul is safe, thy body sure: He that guards thee, he that keeps, Never slumbers, never sleeps. A quiet conscience in the breast Has only peace, has only rest: The music and the mirth of kings Are out of tune unless she sings. Then close thine eyes in peace, and sleep secure No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest so sure! FRANCIS SEMPILL. BORN 1605- DIED 1680. (?) The SEMPILLS or SEMPLES of Beltrees, among the earliest and most successful cultivators of Scottish song, were small landowners or lairds in Renfrewshire. Sir James Sempill wrote 1 The entire poem consists of twenty four verses of very unequal merit. Archbishop Trench says: "I have dealt somewhat boldly with this poem, of its twenty "The Packman and the Priest," a satire in which the absurdities of Popery are exposed. He was a favourite with James VI., by whom he was knighted. Robert, the son and suc four triplets omitting all but ten these ten seeming to me to constitute a fine poem, which the twenty-four fail to do." We prefer the eleven as given above.-ED. cessor of Sir James, had the merit of first and broad glee of the latter being equalled by using a form of stanza in the well-known the admirable naïveté and grace of the former. "Elegy on Habbie Simpson, the Piper of Kil- Speaking of one of these songs the critic whom barchan," which Allan Ramsay and Robert we have quoted remarks: "The freedom with Burns adopted and rendered popular. The which some of the characters are drawn has "Sempill Ballates," a series of historical poli- gone far to exclude the song (The Blythesome tical and satirical Scottish poems attributed Bridal') from company which calls itself polto him, have been recently republished in ished. I quarrel not with matters of tasteEdinburgh. Francis, the son of Robert, and but taste is a whimsical thing. Ladies of all the last of the rhyming lairds, was born at ranks will gaze by the dozen and hour on the Beltrees early in the seventeenth century, unattired grace and proportion of the old probably about the year 1605. He was a statues, and feel them o'er like the wondering warm adherent of the Stuarts, and wrote miller in Ramsay's exquisite tale, lest glamour several panegyrics on James II. while Duke had beguiled their een; but the colour will of York and Albany, and on the birth of his come to their cheeks, and the fans to their children. He was also the author of a piece faces, at some over-warm words in our old minof considerable merit, entitled "The Banish-strels; whatever is classical is pure." ment of Poverty;" but it is as the reputed author of several admirable songs that he is chiefly indebted for the honourable place accorded to him among the song-writers of Scotland. Of his personal history nothing is known, not even the date of his death, which is believed to have occurred about the year 1680. 'Maggie Lauder" was a favourite song in the American camp during revolutionary days, and was often sung to the commander-in-chief by stout old Putnam. An old chronicler says: "This afternoon the provincial congress of New York gave an elegant entertainment to General Washington and his suite, the general Allan Cunningham says: "Tradition of late and staff officers, and the commanding officer has provided authors for some of our favourite of the different regiments in or near the city. songs; and since authentic history declines to Many patriotic toasts were offered and drank chronicle those who furnish matter for present with the greatest pleasure and decency. After and future mirth, I can see no harm in accept the toasts little Phil of the Guard was brought ing the aid of traditionary remembrance. On in to sing H. 's new campaign song, and such authority, aided by the less doubtful tes- was joined by all the under officers, who seemed timony of family papers, Francis Semple of much animated by the accompanying of Clute's Beltrees has obtained the reputation of writing drum-sticks and Aaron's fife. Our good Genthree popular songs, The Blythesome Bridal,' eral Putnam got sick and went to his quarters 'Maggie Lauder,' and 'She rose and loot me in.' before dinner was over, and we missed him a I have heard the tradition, but I have not seen marvel, as there is not a chap in the camp the family manuscripts; and though I am not who can lead him in the Maggie Lauder' obliged to believe what I cannot with certainty song." The hero of this beautiful song was contradict, yet I have no right to discredit Robert Simpsonne, alias "Rob the Ranter," what honest men have seriously asserted; the who was also celebrated by Robert Sempill as story has been for years before the world, and "Habbie Simpson, the Piper of Kilbarchan." if any be sceptical they are also silent. Semple A grandson of the poet Francis deserves to is of itself a worthy name. I am glad tradition be incidentally mentioned as a remarkable has taken its part; besides, we owe much instance of longevity. He died in 1789 at the poetic pleasure to the ancestors of Francis, age of 103. He was the first in the nominawho wrote, like their descendant, with great tion of justices of the peace for Scotland in ease and freedom; and why should not the 1708, being the year after the union, and was mantle descend?" There are few more famous at the date of his decease undoubtedly the Scottish songs than "Fy, let us a' to the oldest judicial functionary of that or any other Bridal" and "Maggie Lauder," the humour | rank in the British Empire. THE BLYTHSOME BRIDAL. Fy, let us a' to the bridal, For there will be lilting there; For Jock's to be married to Maggie, The lass wi' the gowden hair. And there will be Sawney the sutor, With thumbless Katy's goodman; And there will be sow-libber Patie, That wins in the how of the hill; Wha in with black Bessie did mool, With snivelling Lilly, and Tibby, The lass that stands aft on the stool. And Madge that was buckled to Steenie, And there will be Judan Maclaurie, And blinkin' daft Barbara Macleg, The lad that was skipper himsel. Will feast in the heart of the ha' On sybows and rifarts and carlings, That are baith sodden and raw. And there will be fadges and brochan, With fouth of good gabbocks of skate, Powsowdy, and drammock, and crowdy, And there will be lapper'd milk kebbocks, Scrapt haddocks, wilks, dulse and tangle, And a mill of good snishing to prie; When weary with eating and drinking, We'll rise up and dance till we die. Then fy, let us a' to the bridal, For there will be lilting there; For Jock's to be married to Maggie, The lass wi' the gowden hair. SHE ROSE AND LOOT ME IN. The night her silent sable wore, And gloomy were the skies, Of glittering stars appeared no more Than those in Nelly's eyes; When to her father's gate I came, Where I had often been, And begged my fair, my lovely dame, To rise and let me in. Fast locked within my close embrace, With look and accents all divine She did my warmth reprove,- O then beyond expressing, I knew no greater blessing, Full soon soon I returned again Oh, slowly, slowly came she down, And aye she mourn'd the fatal hour But who could cruelly deceive, I lov'd her so, I could not leave And now she thanks the happy hour MAGGIE LAUDER. Wha wadnae be in love Wi' bonnie Maggie Lauder! And speir'd what was't they ca'd her: Maggie! quoth he; now by my bags, Sit down by me, my bonnie bird, Men call me Rab the Ranter: Have heard of Rab the Ranter- Weel hae you played your part! quoth Meg; I've lived in Fife, baith maid an wife, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. BORN 1612- DIED 1650. Among the great soldiers of the seventeenth | trose. He was the only son of John, fourth century, the celebrated Marquis of Montrose-earl, and Margaret Ruthven, daughter of the a hero whom Cardinal de Retz deemed worthy of the pages of Plutarch, being inspired by all the ideas and sentiments which animated the classic personages whom that writer has commemorated is certainly entitled to a place among the minor poets of Scotland. It may be truly said that he possessed an elegant genius spoke eloquently, and wrote with a graceful and perspicuous turn of expression. James Graham, THE GREAT MARQUIS, was born in the month of September, 1612, it is believed at the family estate of Auld Mon Earl of Gowrie. The future hero succeeded to and spent three years on the Continent, return- | and sympathy of his enemies. On the Restoraing to Scotland in 1633, with the reputation of being the most accomplished nobleman of his time. It were foreign to our purpose to follow the brilliant career of the chivalric soldier, or to describe the noble magnanimity and Christian spirit displayed by the Highland hero in the hour of defeat and disaster. In the year 1650 he was captured by the Parliamentary forces, and conducted to Edinburgh. There he was received as a condemned traitor, and subjected to the most barbarous indignities. The night before his execution he wrote the well-known and beautiful lines: "Let them bestow on every airt a limb, Montrose was executed at the Scottish capital, May 21, 1650, and in accordance with the barbarous sentence the legs and arms were cut off, and sent as trophies to the four principal cities of Scotland, while his head was affixed to a spike at the top of the Tolbooth, Edinburgh. The Great Marquis met his sad fate, and the many insults and indignities heaped upon him before his execution, with a calm and Christian spirit, with such dignity and fortitude as to excite even the admiration There is a coincidence worthy of notice between these lines and those written by Sir Walter Raleigh, when about to submit himself like Montrose to a judicial murder: "Even such is time; who takes in trust But from that earth, that grave and dust. tion the remains of the greatest of the Grahams were carefully collected, and interred with imposing solemnities within the precincts of St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, and the sentence of forfeiture which parliament had passed was reversed by Charles II., thus restoring Lord Graham to his father's dignities and possessions. One of Scotland's sweetest singers has celebrated in the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers the death of the faithful royalist and gallant knight, and also that of his renowned grandson 'Bonny Dundee;" and his biographer Mark Napier concludes his memoir of the Great Marquis with these lines:"From yon grim tower, where long, in ghastly state, His head proclaim'd how holiness can hate; From gory pinnacles, where blench'd and riven, Ten years his sever'd limbs insulted Heaven; From the vile hole, by malice dug, beneath The felon's gibbet, on the blasted heath, Redeem'd to hallow'd ground, too long denied, Here let the martyr's mangled bones abide. His country blush'd, and clos'd the cloister'd tomb, But rais'd no record of the hero's doom; Blush'd, but forbore to mark a nation's shame With sculptur'd memories of the murder'd Graham; The warrior's couch, 'mid pious pageants spread, But left the stone unletter'd at his head: Vain the dark aisle! the silent tablet vain! Still to his country cleaves the curse of Cain,— Still cries his blood, from out the very dust Of Scotland's sinful soil,- Remember me they must.' But, though the shame must Scotland bear through time, Ye bastard priesthood, answer for the crime! |