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ing his wife at the door, he says, "Ye'll mak' a drap tea till's, gude wife." Tea was then a considerable rarity, and looked upon in the light of a luxury. "Ou ay," says his wife, "but what's ado wi' ye the nicht?" "Eh, 'oman, the milly's doin' fine; she has cleared hersel' already and something forbye." The next night he was looking rather disconsolate. On his wife inquiring if again he was to have tea, "Na," says he, 66 'we'll ha'e nae mair o' that stuff. That stupid blockhead Jock, in balancing the books, added in the Anno Domini along wi' the pounds!"

After his victory John sets about returning to Arnha'. He loses himself in the dark beside the North Esk and is met by a water-kelpie. The unearthly monster finding herself beaten, and enraged by listening to John's bragging of his illustrious exploits, and of this his last and greatest, calls in a legion of witches and warlocks, before whom John's spirit quails. These are accompanied by the ghosts of those John had slain in his encounters, and when he is put on his trial before Satan as judge, they give evidence against him. Just then

"Aurora peep'd athwart the gloom,
The grey cock clapp'd his wings and crew,
And helter skelter, swift off flew
The deil and a' the infernal crew."

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"Say, what is worse than black despair,
'Tis that sick hope too weak for flying,
That plays at fast and loose with care,
And wastes a weary life in dying.

"Though promise be a welcome guest,
Yet it may be too late a comer,
'Tis but a cuckoo voice at best

The joy of spring, scarce heard in summer. "Then now consent this very hour,

Let the kind word of peace be spoken;
Like dew upon a wither'd flower,

Is comfort to the heart that's broken.
"The heart, whose will is from above,
May yet its mortal taint discover;
For time which cannot alter love,
Hath power to kill the hapless lover."

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WE often read and hear of the romance of real life, but we rarely find it satisfactory. The particular case may prove, or go to prove, that truth is stranger than

And John returns to tell his wonderful ad- fiction; but that, so far as it is just, carventures to one of the

"Five sweet flowers,

As ever blush'd in bridal bowers." The poem is full of grotesque imagery and fun, through which there runs a strain of pathos. The Scotch is capital, and as forcible and descriptive as the most enthusiastic admirer of the language could wish. Of his other poems we may mention The Murdent Mynstrell, which contains some pretty lines:

"Her haire was faire, her eyne were blue, And the dimples o' luve play'd roun' her sweet mou',

Ane angell from God mocht ha'e kist that sweet face,

And returnit to heaven all pure from the em

brace.' ""

The Dream contains some very effective passages, and is throughout highly poetic, reminding us in some points of Ossian. Kitty Pert, of whom it is said "she liket zneeshin and liked it zcented," is full of spirit, and is worth study from the peculiar nature of the dialect, then common among the fishing population of Montrose, and very unlike the surrounding Scotch. The following lines were found after his death,

ries with it only a remote value, and no one was ever yet persuaded by it into taking a newspaper or a blue-book for a novel ocation somewhere. The romance of real or a poem. We feel that there is an equivlife proves to be, after all, no romance. "Enoch Arden" may be founded on fact, and so may "Sylvia's Lovers;" but, when Arden in real life" (only the other day, we read in our newspaper of an "Enoch we saw a paragraph headed "A Batch of Enoch Ardens"), we find we do not derive from the case the same kind of satisfaction that we get from the poem. "Sylvia's Lovers" may have had an original in fact for Mrs. Gaskell to draw from; but though that original, if you had known it, might have arrested your own attention as it did Mrs. Gaskell's, it would never have given you the peculiar impression that her story produces.

One reason is that you are too close to the footlights; you can discern that the Rosalind is not so young as she ought to be for the part, and that Orlando is weak in the knees. Poetic unity is not maintained; and it is not our weakness, but our strength-not our love of illusion, but our love of truth - which compels us

to desire that it should be, and to feel that donald was examined as a witness upon if that is wanting, something is wrong. A the claim of her son. She was sixty-four great deal more might be said upon that years of age, and was treated with great and other topics, and perhaps we may indulgence. She was not tied down to the find occasion for saying it when other in- ordinary rules of evidence, but allowed to stances of "the romance of real life" ramble and expatiate just as she pleased: come to be introduced. But one point and indeed it would probably have been demands to be noticed at once. There is found impossible to get much out of her no romance possible where the actors are if she had been strictly dealt with upon the mean, and the emotions of the story on ordinary principles for conducting an exa low level. Humble in estate the actors amination-in-chief. She shall tell the story may be, but they must not be cads. The of the courtship in her own words. There emotions may play around the commonest were apparently many obstacles to begin interests of the human heart, but they with: must not be in themselves poor and paltry. Nor must they even be in too close juxtaposition with what is both or either. Nothing could, to us at least, make romance out of the Tichborne story, for instance. The mean odour of what is proper to the cad is too strong for the sensibilities to which Romance appeals. Thus, we need something more than surprising incident. The human figures must be, or seem, worthy of the god who ties the knot or who cuts it, and we must not have a thunderstorm presented to us as that which spoils the beer, or makes Mrs. Cook pull her apron over her eyes.

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He proposed to my aunt. He did not propose to me. He had once named the subject to me, and I refused all sorts of things of the kind, and at length he made the proposal to my aunt." Then she is asked the question, " He was in love with your ladyship, I suppose?"

It

66 The world said so. I suppose it was so. was an unlucky marriage for him, poor man. Then there was another person who had a large property, and he thought that not marrying the lady that he was wished to marry (and certainly he was not wished to marry me), he should avoid by a secret marriage a painful position to himself and this fortune going away from him; We have long been of opinion that the and that by keeping my marriage a secret, it should never interfere with that arrangement of greater part of the real romance of actual his uncle's. That was given to me as the oblife goes unnoticed. This implies no dis-ject, and I had no right, and I had no reason, regard of the genius of Mr. Charles Reade; to doubt the word of the most honourable man for Mr. Reade cannot have his eyes I have ever known. I loved him. He had once everywhere, and do everything. But we named the subject to me and I had refused him. believe the best part of the poetry and I refused all sorts of things of the kind, and at humour which lurk in blue books, news-length he made the proposal to my aunt; dear papers, and such places, gets overlooked. me, men in love are very foolish." Nobody seems to find out the magic flowergarden, which is romance; while one discovers the enormous gooseberry, in which there is no romance at all, though there may be much that is remarkable.

every

We are not now about to wander in any magic flower-garden, but only to say that there is some real romance to be found in a book which is virtually a blue book, in connection with the greatest viking of modern times-Lord Dundonald, to whom they are, we believe, erecting a monument in Chili. The romance will speak for itself, and shall tell its own story. On other occasions, though we shall often go to blue-books real or virtual for our facts, we shall not tie ourselves down to them, and we beg the reader to accept the title as representative rather than logically

all-inclusive.

"Lord Dundonald had been very ill, and his life had been despaired of, and they sent his servant, Richard Carter, to me, to tell me he was dying, and also Captain Nathaniel Cochrane came to say how very ill he was, and to ask if I would walk in front of the house in the square, that I might let him see me; which I did, and he was lifted up to the window of his bedroom, looking like a corpse. My heart was softened to see that great man, the hero of a hundred fights. I cannot bear to be sitting here to vindicate the honour of such a man. It is too much not to speak and tell my feelings; it would be impossible. He was a glorions man. He was incapable of deception such as is imputed to him by the world, I know. I dare not say by his son, but Such an imputation upon still it is his son. such a man! Such a god of a man! - a man who could have ruled the world upon the sea! That I, his wife, should sit here to vindicate the honour of such a man as that! O God have mercy upon me, and upon us! It is too much; I cannot stand it! That honoured name!

In the year 1861, the case of the Dun- that name for ages and for ages, that has ruug donald peerage was before the House of the world with his deeds! — the hero of a hunLords, and the old Dowager Lady Dun-dred fights! I have followed the fortunes of

"When I arrived at the Queensberry Arms, he was very joyous; I suppose men in love are. He said, 'It is all right; it is all right,' and he seated himself at the table in the room; he sate himself down as any gentleman might, and he wrote away, and wrote something, and then he said, 'I want Dick;' he used to call his servant Dick."

that great man. I have stood upon the battle-i But do all Scotchmen " deck; I have seen the men fall; I have raised fingers in that way" when they are snap their them. I have fired a gun to save the life of a pleased? man for the honour of my husband, and would do it again. He was a glory to the nation in which he was born, and there is not a member of the family of Lord Dundonald that need not be proud of belonging to such a man as he was." In that lifting of the sick man up to the window, we can hardly help discerning a little of a lover's artifice, but we like the man none the less for it. He did not consciously aim at "startling effects: " but he could not help them. In reading Lady Dundonald's references to his "honour and the like, we must, of course, bear in mind the well-known story of the stockjobbing charges made against him, his trial and conviction before the fiery Ellenborough, and his subsequent acquittal before the greater tribunal of his country, followed as it was by a restoration to all his

honours.

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"After the paper was signed, and the servants gone away, he began to dance the Sailor's Hornhipe, a very unusual thing for him, and he put up his hands in that sort of way, and said, Now you are mine, Mouse, mine forever.' I said, I do not know, I have had no parson here, and no church. Is this the way you marry in Scotland?'Oh yes,' he said, 'you and then he said, I have no time to spare; I are mine, sure enough; you cannot get away; have no time to lose, for I must be back on the 10th to my uncle's marriage; he is going to be married, and he will be married on the 11th, or Lord Brougham may be pardoned for the 12th, I have not a moment's time to lose, some things, but there was one for which and therefore I must leave you as fast as I can. some of us will never forgive him-his I have given all my instructions to Dick, and he Act for abolishing Gretna Green mar-will bring you back as soon as he can.' He riages. It was a great shame; but Lady Dundonald appears to have been very much worried by the sequel of her elopement; and there is something truly and deeply comic in her feeling so puzzled to know why she should be married so many times. When Dundonald persuades her to go off to Gretna Green with him she has a nice time of it, travelling all day and all night, with four horses, and all that. She

says: :

"I was very worn, and we went rolling on; and I slept, and so did he. At one part of the road-1 know it was not Gretna Green, but some little distance after Gretna Green - he

said, 'Well, thank God we are all right;' he
used to call me a sort of pet name of his own,
and he said, 'It is all right, Mouse: we are all
right now.
Moxham, mind you get a comfort-
able room for Lady Cochrane at the Queens-
berry Arms. We shall soon be there,' and he
said nothing more."

Hamlet advised his mother not to let the
king call her "his mouse," but there was
no reason why Lady Dundonald should
object to the name.

"I did not know why it was all right. He Baid, 'Mouse, we are over the border.' He said, Here we are over the border, now, and nothing but God can separate us.' I think he said at the same time, You are mine now, and you are mine for ever;' and he snapped his fingers in that way, as Scotchmen do when they are pleased."

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kissed me; he did not go in my room, and he
went off as he came. I never saw him again
until the 12th or the 13th, when we met in Bry-
anston Street, Portman Square."
There are points here upon which no com-
such as gentle hearts will make for them-
ment is necessary or permissible, except
selves. But there is unconscious humour
in the lady's remark that it was
unusual thing" for Dundonald to dance
the Sailor's Hornpipe. How often did he
do it?

SO.

I

66

a very

"I retired to my room; I was very glad to do I wanted very much to have had a bath there; I was very tired. The old lady lighted went up into the bedroom. I asked her if I me upstairs; she seemed a cross old thing, and might have a bath, and she said, 'No, you cannot have a bath; there are no baths at the Queensberry Arms.' I said, Can you give me She said, No; you cannot

some soft water!'
have any soft water.'

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"She had had a great wash-up. It was a very old sort of dialect that she spoke; it was very odd Scotch. I had never heard Scotch before, and it was very broad Scotch, and extremely difficult to understand. She said they had no soft water. I said, What kind of a place do you call this?' I was but young, you know, and perhaps a little pert, and I said, 'What kind of place do you call this, where you have no soft water for people, nor a bath?' She said, It is the Queensberry Arms, at Annan.''

Some relatives of the lady insisted upon

the marriage being repeated in the which carries us back to almost antediluSouth: vian things:

66

They were old-fashioned, excellent people, and they wished to have this marriage made in England; and it was made, and I was married by licence by the Rev. Thomas Knox, of Tunbridge Town. He was the chaplain of my cousin, Mr. Simpson, and held the living of Shipbourne from his giving." She goes on

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"When he was released from the King's Bench Prison he went abroad, and I went with him. When he got out of the King's Bench he went away. I took him down to Dover, and we crossed from Dover to Boulogne in an open boat, because my husband had been so ill and so distressed at things which, God knows, he never merited, that I said, Come away, come out;' and I got him to come down to Dover, and went across with him, because we could not stay. I could not bear him to remain. We went across in an open boat, a boat called the Tom Paine.' I remember that boat; I remember being on the deck of that vessel with my husband, who was distracted and wretched. I remember sleeping the whole night upon the open deck of that boat. We went over to Boulogne."

And here the narrative, considered Then follow these questions and an- from the romantic point of view, suffers an

swers:

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“I was married the third time when he came home from Brazil; I was married again."

“Where was your ladyship married the third time?"

"I was married the third time in Edinburgh; I was so tired of being married." "According to the forms of the Scotch Church?"

"Yes; then I was asked in church, and domiciled. In short, I was bothered all to pieces with the marrying; I was asked in church. I was married at Mr. Strachan, the lawyer's, and married by Parson Ritchie; there was no marriage at all, he just joined the hands, Parson Ritchie did, and said something or other, and • God bless you,' and that was the marriage in Scotland. It was not a bit more like a marriage than the Annan marriage. I was asked on the banns and domiciliated and everything. There was no end of marrying me. . . . I was so tired of being married... I was bothered to pieces with the marrying."

interruption. But Dundonald's career is more to our immediate purpose, we find was nearly all of it interesting; and, what that, very late in life, the element of poetry, so far as it existed in the emotions of the persons concerned, was as well defined as ever. Here are a few more touches, the first from the Lady's_evidence, and others from letters of Lord Dundonald's appended to it :

"My husband was a Scotchman, and proud of being a Scotchman; he would not have given up that birth of his for a crown in heaven. He gloried in being a Scotchman; he said it was the pride of his life, and he used after his dinner, when he was drinking his wine, and so on, to bring in something about Scotland, his dear Scotland, the days of his youth- the happy days with his grandmother. It is a sad case; such sad reminiscences; such a noble man! . .'

Now for a natural passage or two from the letters:

"Lizzie and Arthur are quite well, and desire their love. Adieu, dear Cochrane. Your ever affectionate Father, DUNDONALD.

"P.S. Martin had double keys for the cellar, and has stolen half the wine!"

Who can tell what is in the minds of "To-morrow we are going to Lord Durham's, half the reading girls in England when where the Princess Victoria and the Duchess of they come to that line of "In Memoriam," | Kent are to be, together with all the great folks

"Her sweet I will has made ye one," what strange mystical force they put into any ceremony that takes the name of a marriage? Lady Dundonald thought that once was enough:—“I was tired of being married."

of the surrounding districts. You need not write to me, for I shall be with you before I could get a letter. You had, however, better do so to your dear mama, who is truly anxious about your future destiny and welfare. She is now getting greatly better; indeed, I may say almost well."

"Remember the ice-house, to fill which every In what comes next, there is one touch exertion must be made. Mama loves nice things, -the name of the boat, Tom Paine-and ice is a great comfort in hot weather.”

And once more:

one. He rushed at his goal, flinging him"Dear mama is getting much better, and is self headlong into the race; and it is true able to take long walks, which will soon re-es-ceeds in bringing down the conditions of he did not succeed - what man ever suctablish her health completely."

a heavenly life either to May Fair or BethIt would be an affront, both to good nal Green? - but he did his best, with feeling and good literary taste, to make lavish expenditure of all that he had and rhetorical capital out of things which so was, and has left us his bright but broken completely as these tell their own story. essay at existence for our instruction and But in some cases, especially those to be reproof-a thing which few of us can imgathered from newspapers, comment, crit-itate, which is indeed an interruption of icism, and minute speculation will be required to make the latent romance visible, or sufficiently clear. And yet the stories are more startling and more pathetic than this of Lord and Lady Dundonald.

A. HUNTER.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
EDWARD DENISON.

AN exceptional life is generally a short one; when men live long, not only do they

the peaceful monotony which makes life possible, but which yet stimulates the listlessness of that practicable quiet as nothing else could do half so well.

The book in which this brief life is epitomized we cannot say even recorded, for much that goes to make up the attraction of a sympathetic record is left outis neither eloquent nor very wise. It is a basket of fragments; and even the fragments contain a great many crudities, opinion. We can see but dimly, through of immature reflection and hasty scraps the veil of a phraseology which has become tame down out of those ardours and encommon to a class, the individual features thusiasms which lead to everything that is of the man. No attempt has been made, strange, eccentric, and Quixotic, but the indeed, to convey these individual features routine of existence pulls them softly down to us. His friends have judged, perhaps from their pedestals, takes the glory out wisely, that the life which had little more of the ideals they have cherished, and than promise to make it interesting to reconciles them to the ordinary course of mankind, did not require nor call for fuller the world. The young man who is per- exposition. A hope, an earnest endeavour, fectly content with the arrangements of a warm and vigorous impulse-this is society round him, who has no desire to what we find in the book. The young overturn anything or mend anything, is a hero was the son of the Bishop of Salissafe man, likely to live all his days out, bury, and thus only nephew of the late and provident of comfort in the long level Speaker; he was educated at Eton and which he sees before him. Many, it is Oxford: and he lived, as we have said, true, who have been enthusiastic in their about thirty years; travelled much, worked youth, calm down with the touch of years, much, fell ill and died; the briefest unand become content with everything as eventful history-just enough to make soon as they themselves are established in happy and to break the hearts of some comfort; but it is the young generally few individuals, to move more lightly a who make those beautiful, impossible at larger sympathetic circle, but not to affect tempts for the good of their fellow-men, at the world. Yet there is something to which we wonder and admire, with a half- touch the world in the brief record. shame of our own egotism which prevents Among his travels Edward Denison made us from following their example, and a one which few men of his class and genhalf-pride in our superior wisdom which erations have made. He went not to the keeps us from trying it. Such an excep- Himalayas, or the Caucasus, or the Mattertional existence was that of Edward Den-horn, but to the East End of London; ison. He lived but thirty years in this and finding there a mass of his fellowworld; and therefore nature, prescient of creatures as hopeless as savages, and less the near ending, felt no necessity upon her happy, with no man caring for their souls, to "stay," but let him run his course, as but only giving such a spasmodic regard a runner in a short race is justified in do- to their bodies as injured body and soul ing, with an expenditure of force which would be impossible were the effort a long and lived among them in modest silence, together this young gentleman went making no commotion, organizing no Society, but doing what one true man could do to mend matters, and qualifying

Letters and other Writings of the late Edward Denison, M.P. for Newark; edited by Sir Baldwin Leighton, Bart. London: Bentley & Son.

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