Gay, volatile, ingenious, quick to learn,
And prompt to exhibit all that he possessed
Or could perform; a zealous actor, hired
Into the troop of mirth, a soldier-sworn
Into the lists of giddy enterprise-
Such was he; yet, as if within his frame
Two several souls alternately had lodged,
Two sets of manners could the youth put on ;
And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird
That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage,
Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still
As the mute swan that floats adown the stream,
Or, on the waters of the unruffled lake,
Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf,
That flutters on the bough, more light than he;
And not a flower, that droops in the green shade,
More winningly reserved! If ye inquire
How such consummate elegance was bred
Amid these wilds; a composition framed
Of qualities so adverse-to diffuse,
Where'er he moved, diversified delight;
A simple answer may suffice, even this,-
'Twas Nature's will; who sometimes undertakes,
For the reproof of human vanity,
Art to outstrip in her peculiar walk.
Hence, for this favourite lavishly endowed
With personal gifts, and bright instinctive wit,
While both, embellishing each other, stood
Yet further recommended by the charm
Of fine demeanour, and by dance and song,
And skill in letters, every fancy shaped
Fair expectations; nor, when to the world's
Capacious field forth went the adventurer, there
Were he and his attainments overlooked,
Or scantily rewarded; but all hopes,
Cherished for him, he suffered to depart,
Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimicked land
Before the sailor's eye; or diamond drops
That sparkling decked the morning grass; or aught That was attractive-and hath ceased to be!
-Yet when this prodigal returned, the rites
Of joyful greeting were on him bestowed,
Who, by humiliation undeterred,
Sought for his weariness a place of rest
Within his father's gates. Whence came he?
In tattered garb, from hovels where abides
Necessity, the stationary host
Of vagrant poverty; from rifted barns,
Where no one dwells but the wide-staring owl
And the owl's prey; none permanently house,
But many harbour; from these haunts, to which
He had descended from the proud saloon,
He came, the ghost of beauty and of health,
The wreck of gaiety! But soon revived
In strength, in power refitted, he renewed
His suit to fortune; and she smiled again
Upon a fickle ingrate. Thrice he rose,
Thrice sank as willingly. For he, whose nerves
Were used to thrill with pleasure, while his voice
Softly accompanied the tuneful harp,
By the nice finger of fair ladies touched,
In glittering halls, was able to derive
Not less enjoyment from an abject choice.
Who happier for the moment? who more blithe
Than this fallen spirit? in those dreary holds
His talents lending to exalt the freaks
Of merry-making beggars,-now, provoked
To laughter multiplied in louder peals
By his malicious wit; then, all enchained
With mute astonishment, themselves to see
In their own arts outdone, their fame eclipsed,
As by the very presence of the fiend
Who dictates and inspires illusive feats,
For knavish purposes! The city, too
(With shame I speak it), to her guilty bowers
Allured him, sunk so low in self-respect
As there to linger, there to eat his bread,
Hired minstrel of voluptuous blandishment;
Charming the air with skill of hand or voice,
Listen who would, be wrought upon who might,
Sincerely wretched hearts, or falsely gay.
Truths I record to many known, for such
The not unfrequent tenor of his boast,
In ears that relished the report; but all
Was from his parents happily concealed;
Who saw enough for blame and pitying love.
They also were permitted to receive
His last, repentant breath; and closed his eyes,
No more to open on that irksome world
Where he had long existed in the state
Of a young fowl beneath one mother hatched,
Though from another sprung of different kind,
Where he had lived, and could not cease to live,
Distracted in propensity; content
With neither element of good or ill,
And yet in both rejoicing; man unblest;
Of contradictions infinite the slave,
Till his deliverance, when mercy made him
One with himself, and one with those who sleep."
""Tis strange," observed the Solitary, "strange
It seems, and scarcely less than pitiful,
That in a land where charity provides
For all who can no longer feed themselves,
A man like this should choose to bring his shame
To the parental door; and with his sighs
Infect the air which he had freely breathed
In happy infancy. He could not pine,
Whene'er rejected, howsoe'er forlorn,
Through lack of converse; no, he must have found
Abundant exercise for thought and speech
In his dividual being, self-reviewed,
Self-catechised, self-punished. Some there are
Who, drawing near their final home, and much
And daily longing that the same were reached,
Would rather shun than seek the fellowship
Of kindred mould. Such haply here are laid!"
"Yes," said the Priest, "the genius of our hills-
Who seems, by these stupendous barriers cast
Round his domain, desirous not alone
To keep his own, but also to exclude
All other progeny-doth sometimes lure,
Even by this studied depth of privacy,
The unhappy alien hoping to obtain
Concealment, or seduced by wish to find,
In place from outward molestation free,
Helps to eternal ease. Of many such
Could I discourse; but as their stay was brief,
So their departure only left behind
Fancies, and loose conjectures. Other trace
Survives, for worthy mention, of a pair
Who, from the pressure of their several fates,
Meeting as strangers, in a petty town,
Whose blue roofs ornament a distant reach
Of this far-winding vale, remained as friends
True to their choice; and gave their bones in trust
To this loved cemetery, here to lodge
With unescutcheoned privacy interred
Far from the family vault. A chieftain one
By right of birth; within whose spotless breast
The fire of ancient Caledonia burned:
He, with the foremost whose impatience hailed
The Stuart, landing to resume, by force
Of arms, the crown which bigotry had lost,
Aroused his clan; and, fighting at their head,
With his brave sword endeavoured to prevent
Culloden's fatal overthrow. Escaped
From that disastrous rout, to foreign shores
He fled; and when the lenient hand of time
Those troubles had appeased, he sought and gained,
For his obscured condition, an obscure
Retreat, within this nook of English ground.
"The other, born in Britain's southern tract,
Had fixed his milder loyalty, and placed
His gentler sentiments of love and hate
There, where they placed them who in conscience prized
The new succession, as a line of kings
Whose oath had virtue to protect the laud
Against the dire assaults of papacy
Aud arbitrary rule. But launch thy bark
On the distempered flood of public life,
And cause for most rare triumph will be thine,
If, spite of keenest eye and steadiest hand,
The stream, that bears thee forward, prove not, soon
Or late, a perilous master. He, who oft,
Under the battlements and stately trees
That round his mansion cast a sober gloom,
Had moralized on this, and other truths
Of kindred import, pleased and satisfied,
Was forced to vent his wisdom with a sigh
Heaved from the heart in fortune's bitterness,
When he had crushed a plentiful estate
By ruinous contest, to obtain a seat
In Britain's senate. Fruitless was th' attempt;
And while the uproar of that desperate strife
Continued yet to vibrate on his ear,
The vanquished Whig, beneath a borrowed name
(For the mere sound and echo of his own
Haunted him with sensations of disgust
Which he was glad to lose), slunk from the world
To the deep shade of these untravelled wilds;
In which the Scottish laird had long possessed
An undisturbed abode. Here, then, they met,
Two doughty champions; flaming Jacobite
And sullen Hanoverian! You might think
That losses and vexations less severe
Than those which they had severally sustained,
Would have inclined each to abate his zeal
For his ungrateful cause; no,-I have heard
My reverend father tell that, 'mid the calm
Of that small town encountering thus, they filled,
Daily, its bowling-green with harmless strife;
Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church,
And vexed the market-place. But in the breasts
Of these opponents gradually was wrought,
With little change of general sentiment,
Such change towards each other, that their days
By choice were spent in constant fellowship;
And if, at times, they fretted with the yoke,
Those very bickerings made them love it more.
"A favourite boundary to their lengthened walks
This church-yard was. And, whether they had come
Treading their path in sympathy, and linked
In social converse, or by some short space
Discreetly parted to preserve the peace,
One spirit seldom failed to extend its sway
Over both minds, when they awhile had marked
The visible quiet of this holy ground,
And breathed its soothing air-the spirit of hope
And saintly magnanimity-that, spurning
The field of selfish difference and dispute,
And every care which transitory things,
Earth, and the kingdoms of the earth create,
Doth, by a rapture of forgetfulness,
Preclude forgiveness, from the praise debarred
Which else the Christian virtue might have claimed.
There live who yet remember here to have seen
Their courtly figures, seated on the stump
Of an old yew, their favourite resting-place.
But, as the remnant of the long-lived tree
Was disappearing by a swift decay,
They, with joint care, determined to erect,
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