"'And it seem'd more than all before
E'er given to mortal man,
The radiance came, and with it bore
The angel of the dawn.
"'For ever since Eve her love-bower would weave,
As the first of all her line,
No one on earth had had more of worth
Than the lovely Lanazine.
"'And if Fortune's frown would o'er him come down,
Less marvel it may be,
Since he woo'd all while to make his own
A lovelier far than she.'
* * * * *
"Notwithstanding the ever-living solicitude and sad suffering constituting the keen and trying experience of many years, as arising in consequence of this attachment and untoward circumstances, it has brought more than a sufficient compensation; and were it possible, and the choice given, I would assuredly follow the same course, and suffer it all over again, rather than be without 'that treasure of departed sorrow' that is even now at my right hand as I write these lines.
"'The Christian Politician'[4] was published during the time of my indisposition. This work I had written at leisure hours, with the hopes of its being beneficial to the people placed under my care, by giving them a general and connected view of the principles and philosophical bearing of the Christian religion. In exhorting them privately, I discovered that many of them understood that religion better in itself, than they appeared to comprehend the manner in which it stood in connexion with the surrounding circumstances of this life. In other words, they were acquainted with doctrines and principles whose application and use, whether in regard to thought, or feeling, or daily practice, they did not so clearly recognise. To remedy this state of things, I wrote 'The Christian Politician' in a style as simple as the subjects treated of in it would well admit of, giving it a conversational cast, instead of systematic arrangement, that it might be the less forbidding to those for whom it was principally intended. Being published, however, at the time when, through my indisposition, I could take no interest in it, it was sent forth in a somewhat more costly shape than rightly suited the original design; and although extensively introduced and well received, it was in society of a higher order than that which it was its object chiefly to benefit.
"My latest publication is a volume of 'Poems and Songs,'[5] published by Messrs Sutherland and Knox of Edinburgh. 'The Cottagers of Glendale,' the 'Lay of Life,' and some others of the compositions in this volume, were written during the period of my convalescence; the songs are, for the greater part, the production of 'the days of other years.' Many of the latter had been already sung in every district of the kingdom, but had been much corrupted in the course of oral transmission. These wanderers of the hill-harp are now secured in a permanent form."
To this autobiographical sketch it remains to be added, that Mr Riddell is possessed of nearly all the qualities of a great master of the Scottish lyre. He has viewed the national character where it is to be seen in its most unsophisticated aspects, and in circumstances the most favourable to its development. He has lived, too, among scenes the best calculated to foster the poetic temperament. "He has got," wrote Professor Wilson, "a poet's education: he has lived the greater part of his days amidst pastoral scenes, and tended sheep among the green and beautiful solitudes of nature." Sufficiently imaginative, he does not, like his minstrel predecessor the Ettrick Shepherd, soar into the regions of the supernatural, or roam among the scenes of the viewless world. He sings of the mountain wilds and picturesque valleys of Caledonia, and of the simple joys and habits of rural or pastoral life. His style is essentially lyrical, and his songs are altogether true to nature. Several of his songs, such as "Scotland Yet," "The Wild Glen sae Green," "The Land of Gallant Hearts," and "The Crook and Plaid," will find admirers while Scottish lyric poetry is read or sung.
In 1855, Mr Riddell executed a translation of the Gospel of Matthew into the Scottish language by command of Prince Lucien Bonaparte, a performance of which only a limited number of copies have been printed under the Prince's auspices. At present, he is engaged in preparing a romance connected with Border history.