Not less pleased are we with the delightful book of Highland Minstrelsy from the pen of Mrs David Ogilvy, and so characteristically illustrated by our friend R. R. M'Ian, which now claims our attention. We are glad to find, in one young writer at least, a return to a better and a simpler style than that which has been lately prevalent—a strong national feeling not warped or perverted by prejudice, and a true veneration for all that is great and glorious in the past. These poems are, as the authoress informs us in her preface, intended to bear upon "the traditions, the sentiments, and the customs of a romantic people"—they are rather sketches of the Highlanders, than illustrations drawn from history—they are well conceived, and clearly and delicately executed.
Indeed, notwithstanding the mighty harvest which Sir Walter Scott has reaped, there is a wide field still open to those who comprehend the national character. It is, however, one into which no stranger may hope to enter with the slightest prospect of success. A more lamentable failure than that committed by Mr Serjeant Talfourd in his attempt to found a tragedy upon the woful massacre of Glencoe—a grosser jumble of nonsense about ancestry and chieftainship—was, we verily believe, never yet perpetrated. At the distance of six years, we can vividly remember the tingling of our fingers for the pen when we first detected the Serjeant upon his northern poaching expedition; nor assuredly should he have escaped without exposure, had not the memory of Ion been still fresh, and many graceful services to literature pled strongly within us in his behalf. But our authoress, if not born, has been bred in the heart of the mountains—she knows, we are sure, every rood of great Strath-Tay from Balloch to the roaring Tummel—she has seen the deep pass of Killiecrankie alike in sunshine and storm, and sweet must have been the walks of her childhood in the silent woods of Tullymet. It is among such scenes as these—in the midst of a brave, honest and an affectionate people—that she has received her earliest poetical impulse, and gratefully has she repaid that inspiration with the present tribute of her muse.
We hardly know to which of her ballads we should give precedence. Our favourite—it may be from association, or from the working of Jacobite sympathies of which we never shall be ashamed—is the first in order, and accordingly we give it without comment:—
"The Exile at Culloden.
"There was tempest on the waters, there was darkness on the earth,
When a single Danish schooner struggled up the Moray Firth.
Looming large, the Ross-shire mountains frown'd unfriendly on its track,
Shriek'd the wind along their gorges, like a sufferer on the rack;
And the utmost deeps were shaken by the stunning thunder-peal;—
'Twas a sturdy hand, I trow ye, that was needed at the wheel.
"Though the billows flew about them, till the mast was hid in spray,
Though the timbers strain'd beneath them, still they bore upon their way,
Till they reach'd a fisher-village where the vessel they could moor—
Every head was on its pillow when they landed on the shore;
And a man of noble presence bade the crew "Wait here for me.
I will come back in the morning, when the sun has left the sea."
"He was yet in manly vigour, though his lips were ashen white,
On his brow were early furrows, in his eyes a clouded light;
Firm his step withal and hasty, through the blinding mist so sure,
That he found himself by dawning on a wide and lonesome muir,
Mark'd by dykes and undulations, barren both of house and wood,
And he knew the purple ridges—'twas Culloden where he stood.
"He had known it well aforetime—not, as now, so drear and quiet;
When astir with battle's horror,—reeling with destruction's riot;
Now so peacefully unconscious that the orphan'd and exiled
Was unmann'd to see its calmness, weeping weakly as a child;
And a thought arose of madness, and his hand was on his sword—
But he crush'd the coward impulse, and he spake the bitter word;—
"'I am here, O sons of Scotland—ye who perish'd for your king!
In the misty wreaths before me I can see your tartans swing—
I can hear your slogan, comrades, who to Saxon never knelt;
Oh! that I had died among ye, with the fortunes of the Celt!
"'There he rode, our princely warrior, and his features wore the same
Pallid cast of deep foreboding as the First one of his name;
Ay, as gloomy as his sunset, though no Scot his life betray'd;
Better plunge in bloody glory, than go down in shame and shade.