"Hail, kindred glooms! congenial horrors, hail!"
The genius of HOME was national--and so, too, was the subject of his justly famous Tragedy of "Douglas." He had studied the old Ballads; their simplicities were sweet to him as wallflowers on ruins. On the story of Gill Morice, who was an Earl's son, he founded the Tragedy, which surely no Scottish eyes ever witnessed without tears. Are not these most Scottish lines?--
"Ye woods and wilds, whose melancholy gloom Accords with my soul's sadness!"
"Red came the river down, and loud and oft The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd!"
The Scottish Tragedian in an evil hour crossed the Tweed, riding on horseback all the way to London. His genius got Anglified, took a consumption, and perished in the prime of life. But nearly half a century afterwards, on seeing the Siddons in _Lady Randolph_, and hearing her low, deep, wild, woe-begone voice exclaim, "My beautiful! my brave!" "the aged harper's soul awoke," and his dim eyes were again lighted up for a moment with the fires of genius--say rather for a moment bedewed with the tears of sensibility re-awakened from decay and dotage.
The genius of Beattie was national, and so was the subject of his charming song--"The Minstrel." For what is its design? He tells us, to trace the progress of a poetical genius born in a rude age, from the first dawning of reason and fancy, till that period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a Scottish Minstrel; that is, as an itinerant poet and musician--a character which, according to the notions of our forefathers, was not only respectable, but sacred.
"There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell, A shepherd swain, a man of low degree; Whose sires perchance in Fairyland might dwell, Sicilian groves and vales of Arcady; But he, I ween, was of the North Countrie; A nation famed for song and beauty's charms; Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free; Patient of toil, serene amid alarms; Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.
The shepherd swain, of whom I mention made, On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock; The sickle, scythe, or plough he never sway'd: An honest heart was almost all his stock; His drink the living waters from the rock; The milky dams supplied his board, and lent Their kindly fleece to baffle winter's shock; And he, though oft with dust and sweat besprent, Did guide and guard their wanderings, wheresoe'er they went."