where I am sitting-smiling on me as one belonging to their own order, though placed by Providence-august Master of these august Ceremonies a little loftier in the range of seats in a half-moon circling the horizon, and crowded to overflowing with the whole human race. Shepherd. A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man!

North. I beg your pardon-but I did not hear you, James-will you repeat that again?

Shepherd. Na. I makes a pint o' never sayin' the same thing twice owre for ony man-except a deaf ane-and only to him gin he uses a lug-trumpet.

North. Then looking right and left, James, I behold an immense multitude sitting, seemingly on the same altitude with myself-somewhat more richly robed than our brethren beneath-till, lifting up my eyes, lo! the Magnates, and Potentates, and Princes, and Kings of all the shadowy worlds of mind, magnificently arrayed, and belonging rather to the heavens than to the earth!

Shepherd. A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! (Aside.) I micht din thae words intil his lug fifty times without his catchin' their meanin'-for when the auld doited body begins haverin' about himsell, he's deaf to a' things else in the creawtion.

North. Monuments! Some men have been so glorious, James, that to build up something in stone to perpetuate that glory, seems of all futile attempts the most futile, and either to betray a sinful distrust of their immortality, or a wretched ignorance of the

"Power divine of sacred memories,"

which will reign on earth, in eternal youth, ages and ages and ages after the elements have dissolved the brass or marble, on which were vainly engraven the consecrated and undying names!

Shepherd. A noble sentiment, beau

North. A monument to Newton! a monument to Shakspeare! Look up to heaven-look into the Human Heart. Till the planets and the passions-the affections and the fixed stars are extinguished their names cannot die.

Shepherd, (starting up.) A moniment to Sir William Wallace! a moniment to William Tell! Look at the mountains of Scotland and Switzerland-listen to their cataracts-look to the light on the foreheads-listen to the music on the lips of the free—

"Kings of the Desert, men whose stately tread

Brings from the dust the sound of Liberty!"

North. A noble sentiment, James, beautifully expressed! Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man !

Shepherd. What! you've been sookin' in my flattery a' the time, ye auld sinner-and noo turn intil a banter on mysell the compliment I paid you frae the verra bottom o' my heart? You're a queer deevil. Hoo hae ye stood the weather this season, sir?

North. Weather! it never deserved the name of weather, James, even during that muddy and mizzly misnonier-Summer; while the Autumn

Shepherd. Weel, do ye ken, sir, that I never saw, in a' my born days, what I cou'd wi' a safe conscience, hae ca'd-bad weather? The warst has aye had some redeemin' quality about it that enabled me to thole it without yawmerin'. Though we may na be able to see, we can aye think o' the clear blue lift. Weather, sir, aiblins no to speak very scientifically in the way o' meteorological observation-but rather in a poetical, that is, religious spirit-may be defined, I jalouse, "the expression o' the fluctuations and modifications o' feeling in the heart o' the heevens, made audible, and visible, and tangible on their face and bosom." That's weather.

North. Something very beautiful might be written about weather -climate.

Shepherd. But no by you-by me. Oh! heavens and earth! O God and man! what I-a shepherd-hae felt in a spring shower! The dry warld a' at ance made dewy-dewy-dewy as the licht in the Angel o' Mercy's een, beheld by contrite sinner in a midnight dream!

· North. James, your paw.

Shepherd. A saft, fresh, silent change has been wrocht a' ower the ootward creation-and a congenial change-as saft, as fresh, as silent, has likewise been wrocht within your ain heart. Music is maist harmonious-but not mair harmonious nor licht; for licht wears a coat o' many colours-and lo! yonder is the web from which it was cut— hung aloft in the skies.

North. There spake at once the Ettrick Shepherd and the Tailor of Yarrow-Ford!

Shepherd. The Rainbow! Is she not the Lady o' Licht, the Queen o' Colour, the Princess of Prisms, the Heiress Apparent o' Air, and her Royal Highness of Heaven? O Thou! who bendest beauty like a bridge across the valley-on which imagination's eye may ken celestial shapes moving to and fro alang the braided battlements-Sun-begotten, Cloud-born Angel! Emblem, sign, and symbol of mercy and of peace! Storm-seeker and storm-subduer! Pathway-so sacred Superstition sings-between Heaven and Earth? Alike beautiful is thy coming and thy going-and no soul so savage as not for a while to saften, as thy Apparition comes gradually breathing and blushing out of the sky! Immortal art thou in thy evanescence! The sole light, either in heaven or on earth, of which the soul may not sicken when overcome with the

HOGG ON THE WEATHER.

163

agonies of grief or guilt! O that on my death-bed I may behold a Rainbow!

North. Nay, James, the jug is empty; and at that moment, with the sudden jerk of your arm, expecting a heavier load on the way to your mouth, you had nearly given yourself a bloody nose. Be more cautious in future-but replenish.

Shepherd. In a single instant, a' the earth is green as emerald, and covered wi' a glorious glitter o' its ain, sic as never shone-or cou'd shine, over the bricht but barren sea. A's joy: the knowes, the banks, the braes, the lawns, the hedges, the woods, the single trees, the saughs, the heather, the broom, the bit bushes, the whins, the fern, the gerss, the flowers, the weeds-sic as dockens, nettles, aye, the verra hemlock —are a' harmless and a' happy! They seem a' embued wi' a sort o' strange, serene spirit o' life, and nought in a' creawtion seems-dead! North. Life-embued by a poet's soul !

Shepherd. Then look at the animal creturs. Isna that a bonny bit beastie, cavin' its large-e'ed gracefu' head in the air, frae the elastic turf liftin' up and lettin' down again its lang thin legs sae elegantly, its tail a' the while a perfeck streamer-in many a winding ring it gallops round its dam-and then, half frolicsome half afraid, returns rapidly to her side, and keeps gazing on the stranger. Some day or ither that bit silly foal wull be wunning a king's plate or a gold cup; for you see the Arab bluid in his fine fetlocks, and erelong that neck, like his sire's, will be clothed with thunder.

North. You must ride him yourself, James, next year at Musselburgh.

Shepherd. Fling your crutch, sir, intil a rose-bush, till a' the blossoms flee intil separate leaves, and a' the leaves gang careerin' in air out-ower the lea, and that would be an eemage o' the sudden flicht o' a heap o' snaw-white lambs, a' broken up in a moment as they lay amang the sunshine, and scattered far and wide o'er the greenswardsune to be regathered on the Starting-Knoll; but the wull na haud, for rose-leaves ance dissipated die like love-kisses lavished in dreams.

eemage

North. Rose-leaves and rose-lips-lambs and lasses—and love-kisses lavished in dreams! And all these images suggested in a shepherd's recollection of a Spring-Shower! Prevailing pastoral Poet, complete thy picture.

Shepherd. See how the trooties are loupin' in the pools-for a shower o' insects hae come winnowing their way on the wings o' the western wind, frae the weel-watered wavings o' Elibank's whisperin' woods.

North. No such imitative melodies in Homer! The sentence is like a sugh.

Shepherd Twas na fawte o' mine, sir, for ma mouth got fou o

double-u's-and I had to whiff and whustle them oot. But hush and list, sir-list and hosh! For that finest, faintest, amaist evanescent music-merry, or mournful, just as ye may be disposed to think and feel it but now it is merry-dear me! it's clean gane-there— there it is hear again-like the dying tone o' the sma'est chord o' the harp o' an angel happy in the heart o' the highest heavens-and what may it be-since our ears are too dull to hear seraphic string or strain-but the hymn, to us amaist hushed by the altitude—although still poorin' and poorin' out like a torrent-o' the lyrical Laverock, wha, at the first patterin' o' the spring-shower upon the braird about his nest, had shot, wi' short, fast-repeated soarings, a-singing up the sky, as if in the delirium o' his delicht he wou'd hae forsaken the earth for ever-but wha, noo that he has reached at last the pinnacle o' his aerial ambition, wull sune be heard descendin', as if he were naething but a sang -and then seem a musical speck in the sky-till again ring a' the lower regions wi' his still loud, but far tenderer strains-for soarin' he pours, but sinkin' he breathes his voice, till it ceases suddenly in a flutter and a murmur owre the head o' his brooding mate-lifted lovingly up wi' its large saft een to welcome her lover-husband to their blessed nest!

North. My dear James, you have illustrated your definition of weather by an exquisite example

Shepherd. But I'm no half dune yet

North. For the present, if you please, James.

Shepherd. But I dinna please—and I insist on being alloo'd to feenish my Spring-Shower.

North. Well, if it must be so, first tell me what you meant by averring that there is no such thing in nature as bad weather. I am rather disposed to believe that-whatever may have been the case once-now there is no such thing as good. Why, James, you might as well seek to prove by a definition that there is no such thing in nature as an ugly woman.

Shepherd. Neither there is, sir. There are different degrees o' beauty, Mr. North, frae the face that ootshines that o' an angel's een in a dream-doon--doon--doon-ever sae mony hunder thoosan' degrees doon, till you meet that o' the tinkler-randy, whose looks gar you ratherly incline to the ither side o' the road-but nae ugliness. Sometimes I've kent myself likely to fa' intil a sair mistak—na, a sair fricht-by stumblin' a' at ance on a lassie gåen far doon in the degrees, and wha did seem at first sight unco fearsome-but then, sir, the mistak arose frae the suddenness, and frae considerin' the face o' her by its ain individual sell, and no as ane o' many on the mysterious scale o' beauty. But then a man o' ony powers o' memory and reflection, and ony experience among the better half o' creation, soon corrects that error; and fin's, afore he has walked hardly a mile alang

side the hizzie, that she's verra weel-faured, and has an expression, mair especially about the een and mouth—

North. James! James!

Shepherd. The truth is, Mr. North, that you and the likes o' you, that hae been cavied a' your days in toons, like pootry, hae seldom seen ony real weather-and ken but the twa distinctions o' wat and dry Then, the instaut it begins to drap, up wi' the umbrella-and then vanishes the sky. Why, that's aften the verra best time to feel and understaun' the blessed union o' earth and heaven, when the beauty is indeed sae beauteous, that in the perfect joy o' the heart that beats within you, ye lauch in an atheist's face, and hae nae mair doubt o' the immortality o' the sowle, than o' the mountain-tap that, far up above the vapours, is waiting in its majestic serenity for the reappearance o' the Sun, seen brichtenin' and brichtenin' himsell during the shower, though behind a cloud that every moment seems mair and mair composed o' the radiance, till it has melted quite away,—and then, there indeed is the sun, rejoicing like a giant to run a race

North. A race against time, James, which will terminate in a dead heat on the Last Day.

Shepherd. Time will be beat to a stand-still.

North. And the Sun at the Judge's stand swerve from the course into chaos.

Shepherd. That's queer tauk-though no withouten a wild dash o' the shooblime. But how do you account, sir, for the number o' mad dowgs this summer? And what's your belief about the Heedrofoby?

North. I have for many years, James, myself, laboured under a confirmed hydrophobia

Shepherd. Tuts, nae nonsense- -I want to hear you speak seriously

on canine madness.

North. Dogs, James, are subject to some strange and severe disease which is popularly called madness; and the question is, can they inoculate the human body with that disease by their bite? Perhaps they can-and I confess I should not much like to try the experiment. But an acute writer in the Westminster Review has declared his conviction, that the disease called hydrophobia in the dog has nothing to do with the disease of the same name in the human species-and I am strongly disposed to agree with him

Shepherd. What? Believe in a pairodowgs o' that outrageous

natur'?

North. Yes, James, to use his own words, that the madness of the biter has no effect on the madness of the bitten, and that a man who has been bitten by a dog in perfect health, is just as likely to have all the symptoms of the hydrophobia as if he had been bitten by a mad dog.