devoted his leisure to study while weaving, he made a successful teacher, and in 1816 removed to Paisley in the same capacity. Here he became involved in the political agitations of the time; and being disgusted at the aspect of affairs at home, emigrated to the United States, where at first he taught a school. Having studied at Princeton College, he was elected minister of the Presbyterian Church of Salem; and in 1835, was appointed to the chair of Ecclesiastical History in a theological seminary. We have no further trace of him. O'ER THE MIST-SHROUDED CLIFFS. O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs of the gray mountain straying, Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave; THOMAS LYLE. 1792-1859. "KELVIN GROVE" and the air to which it is sung harmonize so well, that the latter is now known by the title of the song-the old words to which it was sung having entirely faded from popular remembrance. Thomas Lyle, the writer of the lyric,—beautiful apart from the air, was a native of Paisley, and studied at Glasgow University. He practised as a surgeon in Glasgow for some time, and afterwards at Airth, in Stirlingshire, where he remained till 1853. "Kelvin Grove" first appeared in The Harp of Renfrewshire, where it was attributed to John Sim, but Mr Lyle's claim to its authorship was admitted by Motherwell, the editor of that collection. Lyle was a collector of old national airs and songs, and published, in 1827, a volume of Ancient Ballads and Songs, chiefly from Tradition and Manuscript, and to this he contributed some songs of his own composition. It also contains "Miscellaneous Poems by Sir William Mure, Knight of Rowallan.” In 1853 he returned to Glasgow, and here he died in 1859. Thousands and tens of thousands reel about, With joyous uproar blustering along ; Elbows push boringly on sides with pain, Wives hustling come on wives, and men dash hard on men. There lacks no sport: tumblers in wondrous pranks, High staged, display their limbs'agility; And now a section of his face appears, And diving, now he ducks clean down o'er head and ears. Anon uprises, with blithe bagpipe's sound, A town of tents, with blankets roofèd And now, they, mountant from the A thousand stakes are rooted in the scaffold's planks, Kick with their whirling heels the clouds on high, And now, shanks ground; A thousand hammers clank and clatter thick; like cat, upon their dexterous A thousand fiddles squeak and squeal it yare; They light, and of new monsters cheat A thousand stormy drones out-gasp in the sky; Whilst motley Merry-Andrew, with his jokes, Wide through the incorp'rate mob the bursting laugh provokes. Others upon the green, in open air, Enact the best of Davie Lindsay's plays; While ballad-singing women do not spare Their throats to give good utt'rance to their lays; And many a leather-lung'd co-chanting pair Of wood-legg'd sailors, children's laugh and gaze, Lift to the courts of Jove their voices loud, Y-hymning their mishaps, to please the heedless crowd. groans their air. And such a turbulence of general mirth Looks, wond'ring what may be the He rests his eye on shores of Fortha's And smirks, as knowing well the And bids his gods and goddesses look To mark the rage of joy that maddens From Cellardyke to wind-swept Pitten weem, And from Balhouffie to Kilrennymill, Meanwhile the sun, fatigued (as well he Vaulted with blankets, crofts and meadows may) With shining on a night till seven o'clock, Beams on each chimney-head a farewell ray, Illuming into golden shaft its smoke ; And now in sea, far west from Oronsay, Is dipp'd his chariot-wheel's refulgent spoke, seem, So many tents the grassy spaces fill; Meantime the Moon, yet leaning on the stream, With fluid silver bathes the welkin chill, That now earth's ball, upon the side of night, Swims in an argent sea of beautiful moon light. Some shake the pelting dice upon the Round through the vast circumference of broad backgammon. Others, of travell'd elegance, polite, With mingling music Maggie's house surround, And serenade her all the live-long night With song and lyre, and flute's enchanting sound, Chiming and hymning into fond delight The heavy night air that o'ershades the ground; While she, right pensive, in her chamber nook, sky, Scarce can the eye one speck of cloud behold, Save in the East some fleeces bright of dye, That hem the rim of heav'n with woolly gold, Whereon are happy angels wont to lie Lolling, in amaranthine flow'rs enroll'd, That they may spy the precious light of God, Flung from the blessed East o'er the fair Earth abroad. Sits pond'ring on th' advice of little The fair Earth laughs through all her Tommy Puck. boundless range, The heaths and upland muirs, and fallows, The awfuest and the dourest carl change Their barren brown into a ruddy gleam, And, on ten thousand dew-bent leaves and sprays, Twinkle ten thousand suns, and fling their petty rays. Up from their nests and fields of tender And hail the genial light, and cheer'ly sing; Echo the gladsome hills and valleys round, As all the bells of Fife ring loud and swell the sound. For when the first up-sloping ray was flung On Anster steeple's swallow-harb'ring top, Its bell, and all the bells around were rung Sonorous, jangling loud without a stop; For toilingly each bitter beadle swung, Ev'n till he smok'd with sweat, his greasy rope, That on the outside o' this warl' E'er wallop'd bane or leg. When he was born, on that same day, He was like other weans, perfay, Nae langer than a ladle; And when the big-baned babe did see To flinders, in his anger. Ere he was spain'd, what beef, what bane, He was a babe o' thretty stane, And bigger than his mither; When he'd seen thretty years or sae, Than meikle Samuel's shouther; And almost broke his bell-wheel, ush'ring When through the streets o' Tangiers JAMES HIS LOP. 1798-1827. teaching. In 1827, he again went to sea as a teacher, in the Tweed man-ofwar, and while cruizing off the Cape de Verd Islands, he died of fever, caught while sleeping at night in the open air, with a pleasure party, on the island of St Jago, in December 1827. "The Cameronian's Dream," his only piece that still lives, is remarkable for the purity of its style, and the clear imaginative beauty and completeness of its conception. While pervaded by the spirit of the subject, and full of the heightened by a skilful use of the poetical incidents of the scenery, yet it is so moderate in tone that it might enlist the sympathies of a cavalier. JAMES HISLOP, the author of the "Cameronian's Dream," was born in July 1798, in the parish of Kirkconnel, in Dumfriesshire. So humble were the circumstances of his parents that until his thirteenth year, when he was sent for a twelvemonth to school, he taught himself to read, with the assistance of his grandfather, a country weaver, while he was employed as a cow-herd. In his fourteenth year he became a shepherd in the neighbourhood of Airsmoss, the scene of the death of Richard Cameron, in 1680, and here he culti-stirring associations of the locality, vated his mind by study so as to be a a fair classical scholar. He not only drank at the spring of knowledge him- | self, but he opened an evening class, in which he taught his rustic associates. In 1819, he tried teaching in Greenock, but, like Jean Adam, found it an uncongenial soil, and he removed to Edin. burgh, having in 1821 contributed to the Edinburgh Magazine "The Cameronian's Dream." Through Lord Jeffrey, he obtained the appointment of schoolmaster on board the Doris man-of-war, with which he started for South America. At the end of the cruise he published his observations in the Edinburgh Magazine. In 1825, he went to London, where he made the acquaintance of Allan Cunningham, Edward Irving, and Joanna Baillie, and tried to report for the press; but finding the work unsuitable, gave it up, and resumed THE CAMERONIAN'S DREAM. In a dream of the night I was wafted away, To the muirland of mist where the martyrs lay; Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen, Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green. 'Twas a dream of those ages of darkness and blood, When the minister's home was the moun tain and wood; When in Wellwood's dark valley the standard of Zion, All bloody and torn 'mong the heather was lying. |