a man whom he had so deeply injured, and conscious as he must have been that the truth was known to many; but if he did so, it appears still more strange that Argyle should not have given him cause to repent his base dissimulation. It is however unquestionably true that Maclean received no injury at that time from Argyle, his son, or any other; and it is equally certain that he was soon thereafter married to a 'daughter of Campbell, of Auchnanbreck, then the second family of that name, in power and splendour. own life to the law to avenge his sis- Fie, John, for shame! ye're sair to blame, To steal so wily to his bed And prick him in his blanket. Had ye sae thick been wi' auld Nick Ye might return into your den, Argyle was chancellor of Scotland and justiciary of the Isles; and if Maclean had attempted to put his daughter to death without due cause, it was his duty as a parent, a magistrate, and a judge, to have brought him to trial, nor is it likely that he would have escaped condign punishment. This, however, was not done; but Maclean was afterwards murdered in his bed in Edinburgh, in the eightyninth year of his age, by the son of Argyle, denominated John of Lorne in the "Family Legend." It seems therefore reasonable to infer, that the conduct of Maclean to his Lady, harsh as it was, must have been considered *The history of this abduction of the heiress of justifiable in him as a feudal baron. Cawdor was narrated in a former Number of these Traditions, in the story of Morilla Calder. John would never have forfeited his This John was the first Campbell of Calder, and the last lines allude to the extraordinary manner in which he obtained possession of that heiress and her estate.* This marriage is not mentioned in any printed account we have seen of the Argyle family, and the Lady is now denominated Helen. (Blackwood's Edin. Mag.) OH! sweet 'tis to wander beside the hush'd wave, And Echo repeats, from the depths of her cave, But sweeter the hour,when the star hides its gleam, And the world and its woes are as still as a dream; And sweet 'tis to sit, where the vintage festoon, my Then, comes to my window the sound of thy lute, (Blackwood's Mag.) COUNTRY CHURCH-YARDS. MANY are the idle tourists who have babbled of country churchyards-many are the able pens which have been employed on the same subjects. One in particular, in the delightful olio of the "Sketch-book" has traced a picture so true to nature, so beautifully simple and pathetic, that succeeding essayists might well despair of success in attempting similar descriptions, were not the theme, in fact, inexhaustible, a source of endless variety, a volume of instructive records, whereof those marked with least incident are yet replete with interest for that human being who stands alone amongst the quiet graves, musing on the mystery of his own existence, and on the past and present state of those poor relics of mortality which every where surround him, mouldering beneath his feet-mingling with the common soil-feeding the rank church yard vegetation-once sentient like himself with vigorous life, subject to all the tumultuous passions that agi, tate his own heart, pregnant with a thousand busy schemes, elevated and depressed by alternate hopes and fears -liable, in a word, to all the pains, the pleasures, and the ills, that flesh is heir to." The leisurely traveller arriving at a country inn, with the intention of tarrying a day, an hour, or a yet shorter period, in the town or village, generally finds time to saunter towards the church, and even to loiter about the surrounding graves, as if his nature (solitary in the midst of the living crowd) claimed affinity, and sought communion, with the populous dust beneath his feet. Such, at least, are the feelings with which I have often lingered in the church-yard of a strange place, and about the church itself—to which, indeed, in all places, and in all countries, the heart of the Christian pilgrim feels itself attracted as towards his very home, for there at least, though alone amongst strange people, he is no stranger: It is his father's house. I am not sure that I heartily ap prove the custom, rare in this country, but frequent in many others—of planting flowers and flowering shrubs about the graves. I am quite sure that I hate all the sentimental mummery with which the far-famed burying-place of the Pere Elysée is garnished out. It is faithfully in keeping with Parisian taste, and perfectly in unison with French feeling; but I should wonder at the profound sympathy with which numbers of my own countrymen expatiate on that pleasure-ground of Death, if it were still possible to feel surprise at any instance of degenerate taste and perverted feeling in our travelled islanders-if it were not, too, the vulgarest thing in the world to wonder at any thing. The custom, so general in Switzerland, and so common in our own principality of Wales, of strewing flowers over the graves of departed friends, either on the anniversaries of their deaths, or on other memorable days is touching and beautiful. Those frail blossoms scattered over the green sod, in their morning freshness, but for a little space retain their balmy odours, and their glowing tints, till the sun goes down, and the breeze of evening sighs over them, and the dews of night fall on their pale beauty, and the withered and fading wreath becomes a yet more appropriate tribute to the si lent dust beneath. But rose-trees, in full bloom, and tall staring lilies, and flaunting lilacs, and pert spriggish spirafrutexes, are, methinks, ill in harmony with that holiness of perfect repose, which should pervade the last resting-place of mortality. Even in our own unsentimental England, I have seen two or three of these flower-pot graves. One in particular, I remember, had been planned and planted by a young disconsolate 'widow to the memory of her deceased partner. The tomb itself was a common square erection of freestone, covered over with a slab of black marble, on which, under the name, age, &c., of the defunct, was engraven an elaborate epitaph, ommemorating his many virtues, and pathetically intimating that, at no dis- inscribed thy gentle name. And those tant period, the vacant space remain- fragile memorials! were there none to ing on the same marble would receive tend them for thy sake!" Such was the name of "his inconsolable Euge- my sentimental apostrophe; and the nia." The tomb was hedged about by unwonted impulse so far incited me, a basket-work of honeysuckles. A Per- that I actually pelted away the sheep sian lilac drooped over its foot, and at from that last resting-place of faithful the head, (substituted for the elegant love, and reared against its side the cypress, coy denizen of our ungenial trailing branches of the neglected lilac. clime,) a young poplar perked up its Well satisfied with myself for the perpyramidical form. Divers other shrubs formance of this pious act, I turned and flowering plants completed the from the spot in a mood of calm plea ring-fence, plentifully interspersed sing melancholy, that, by degrees, with "the fragrant weed, the French- (while I yet lingered about the churchman's darling," whose perfume, when yard,) resolved itself into a train of I visited the spot, was wafted over the poetic reverie, and I was already far whole churchyard. It was then the full advanced in a sort of elegiac tribute to flush of summer. The garden had been the memory of that fair being, whose planted but a month; but the lady had tender nature had sunk under the tended, and propped, and watered stroke "that reft her mutual heart," those gay strangers with her own deli- when the horrid interruption of a loud cate hands, ever more in the dusk of shrill whistle started me from my evening returning to her tender task, poetic vision, cruelly disarranging my so that they had taken their removal beautiful combination of high-wrought, 'kindly, and grew and flourished as tender, pathetic feelings, which were carelessly round that cold marble, and flowing naturally into verse, as from in that field of graves, as they had done the very fount of Helicon. Lifting my heretofore in their own sheltered nursery. eyes toward the vulgar cause of this A year afterwards-a year almost to vulgar disturbance, the cow-boy, (for a day-I stood once more on that it was he "who whistled as he went, same spot, in the same month-"the for want of thought") nodded to me leafy month of June." But-it was his rustic apology for a bow, and passed leafless there. The young poplar still on towards the very tomb I had just stood sentinel in its former station, quitted, near which his milky charge, but dry, withered, and sticky, like an the old brindled cow, still munched old broom at the mast-head of a vessel on, avaricious of the last mouthful. If on sail. The parson's cow, and his half the clown's obstreperous mirth had score fatting wethers, had violated the before broken in on my mood of inspisacred enclosure, and trodden down its ration, its last delicate glow was utterly flowery basket-work into the very soil. dispelled by the uncouth vociferation, The plants and shrubs were nibbled and rude expletives, with which he down to miserable stumps, and from proceeded to dislodge the persevering the sole survivor, the poor struggling animal from her rich pasture-ground. lilac, a fat old waddling ewe had just Insensible alike to his remonstrances, cropped the last sickly flower-branch, his threats, or his tender persuasionsand stood staring at me with a pathetic to his "Whoy! whoy! old girl! vacancy of countenance, the half- Whoy, Blossom! whoy, my lady!—I munched consecrated blossom dang- say, come up, do; come up, ye plaling from her sacrilegious jaws. "And guey baste!" Blossom continued to is it even so?" I half articulated, with munch and ruminate with the most a sudden thrill of irrepressible emo- imperturbable calmness-backing and tion. "Poor widowed mourner! lovely sideling, away, however, as her purEugenia! Art thou already re-united suer made nearer advances, and ever to the object of thy faithful affection? and anon looking up at him with most And so lately! Not yet on that await-provoking assurance, as if to calculate ing space of the cold marble have they how many tufts she might venture to 39 ATHENEUM VOL. 1. new series. pull before he got fairly in reach of her. And so, retrograding and manoeuvring, she at last intrenched herself behind the identical tombstone beside which I had stood so late in solemn contemplation. Here-the cowboy's patience being completely exhausted-with the intention of switching old Blossom from her last stronghold, he caught up, and began tearing from the earth, that one long straggling stem of lilac which I had endeavoured to replace in somewhat of its former position. "Hold! hold!" I cried, springing forward with the vehement gesture of impassioned feeling" Have you no respect for the ashes of the dead? Dare you thus violate with sacrilegious hands the last sad sanctuary of faithful love?" The boy stood like one petrified, stared at me for a moment, with a look of indescribable perplexity, then screwing up one corner of his mouth almost into contact with the corresponding corner of one crinkled-up eye at the same time shoving up his old ragged hat, and scratching his curly pate; and having, as I suppose, by the help of that operation, construed my vehement address into the language of inquiry, he set himself very methodically about satisfying my curiosity on every point wherever he conceived it possible I might have interrogated him-taking his cue, with some ingenuity from the one word of my oration, which was familiar to his ear- -"Dead! Ees, Squoire been dead twelve months last Whitsuntide; and thick be his'n moniment, an' madam was married last week to our measter, and thick be our cow-" Oh, Reader! Is it to be wondered at, that, since that adventure, I have never been disposed to look with an un-glistening, and even cynical eye, on those same flower-pot graves? Nay, that, at sight of them, I feel an extraordinary degree of hard-heartedness stealing over me? I cannot quit the subject without offering a word or two of wellmeant advice to all disconsolate survivors-widows more especially--as to the expediency or non expediency of indulging this flowery grief. Possibly, were I to obey the dictates of my own tastes and feelings, I should say, "Be content with a simple record-perhaps a scriptural sentence, on a plain headstone. Suffer not the inscription to become defaced and illegible, nor rank weeds to wave over it; and smooth be the turf of the green hillock! But if- to use a French phrase-Il faut affichér ses regrets→ if there must be effect, sentimentalities, prettinesses, urns, flowers-not only a few scattered blossoms, but a regular planted border, like the garnish of a plateau;-then, let me beseech you, fair inconsolables! be cautious in your proceedings-Temper with discreet foresight (if that be possible,) the first agonizing burst of sensibility-Take the counsels of sage experience-Temporise with the as yet unascertained nature of your own feelings-Proclaim not those vegetable vows of eternal fidelity-Refrain, at least from the trowel and the spade-Dig not-plant not-For one year only-for the first year, at least-For one year only, beseech you sow annuals. I (Eclectic Review.) THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER'S FRIEND, AND CLIMBING-BOY'S ALBUM. ARRANGED BY JAMES MONTGOMERY. WE willingly lend our utmost aid to promote, through the medium of this interesting and affecting collection of documents,the cause which Mr.Montgomery has done himself so much honour by taking up with all his energy. The second part consists of pieces in prose and verse, furnished for the Climbing Boy's Album.' As the attraction of the volume will greatly depend on this part of the work, we subjoin a list of the contributors: James Montgomery, Bernard Barton, Henry Neele, Allan Cunningham, P.M.James, J. Bowring, J.H.Wiffen, John Holland, Ann Gilbert, Mrs. Hofland, J. Cobbin, W. L. Bowles, &c. The following lines would have formed no appropriate introduction to the work. 'THE CLIMBING BOY'S ALBUM. 'Gentle reader! if to thee In this age of Albums, we *Beauty's Albums may present Here a cheek's vermilion dye, There the lustre of an eye ; Here a cottage in a grove, And the graver's mimic skill Fathers! unto you we speak ; Mothers! your support we seek ; Britons holding freedom dear, Abject slavery greets you here; Home-bred slavery-dire disgrace! Borne by childhood's helpless race; Friendless outcasts of our laws, Having none to plead their cause, Save the people, struggling few Who solicit aid from you. " 'Christians! of each sect and name, Bernard Barton. We know not how to characterize the song given from Blake's "Songs of Innocence." It is wild and strange like the singing of a "maid in Bedlam in the spring;" but it is the madness of genius. THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER. 'When my mother died, I was very young, And my Father sold me, while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry, Weep! weep! weep! So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. 'There's little Tom Toddy, who cried when his head, That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said, "Hush, Tom, never mind it, for when your head's |