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I afraid.

2 get over it at all.

But thus, puir thing, to lose her life,
Aneath a bloody villain's knife;
I'm really fley't1 that our gudewife
Will never win aboon't ava’2.

O! a' ye bards benorth Kinghorn,
Call your muses up and mourn
Our ewie wi' the crookit horn,

Stown frae's, and fell't, and a'!

JOHN HOME.

1724-1808.

The author of "Douglas" remains famous for several reasons. He was the successor of Blair, the author of The Grave, as minister of the parish of Athelstaneford, and it was he who, on the bowling-green at Moffat, "discovered" Macpherson, and so brought about the translation and publication of "Ossian." But his chief claim to remembrance lies in the fact that his was the first decided voice of the Romantic movement in British poetry. He may also be said to have been the founder of modern melodrama. It was he who brought about the return to emotion for effect upon the stage, as Ramsay and Thomson brought about the return to emotion for effect in other fields of poetry.

A native of Leith, Home first attracted notice by an adventure of his student days. Along with a few companions he had gone out from Edinburgh to watch the battle of Falkirk, and on the issue of that fight the party was captured by the Jacobites and confined in the castle of Doune. From an upper chamber of the castle, still pointed out, they escaped by tying their bedclothes together, and sliding at great hazard from the window to the ground.

The poet was not long settled at Athelstaneford when his dramatic genius asserted itself. Since Sir David Lyndsay's time the drama had been silent in Scotland. One reason which has been assigned for this is that Scotland had ceased to be a separate country before the theatre reached its full birth; and after that birth the stern spirit of Calvinism forbade an audience, even if there had been a poet who could write plays. Allan Ramsay was all but ruined by the attempt to establish a theatre in Edinburgh; and the prospect before a minister of the kirk who should so far forget himself as to have anything to do with the stage, was at that time anything but reassuring. Undeterred by his knowledge of this fact, Home produced a tragedy entitled Agis," and travelled in person to London to offer it to Garrick. The piece was not accepted, and a subsequent journey south in 1755 with the tragedy of "Douglas" had no better result. Home then tried the Edinburgh stage, and there his play met with immediate and enthusiastic success.

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While his play gained Home fame, however, it lost him his living; for its most immediate result was to raise a hornet's nest which drove him from the kirk, and involved in severe censure several clerical friends broad-minded enough to countenance him. More fortunate, however, than many another object of persecution, he was now independent of his cavillers. In June, 1757, he removed to London, and there, countenanced by the Bute administration, from which he received a pension, he staged in succession his plays of "Agis" and "The Siege of Aquileia." The year 1762 saw him back in Scotland, where he produced three further plays-"The Fatal Discovery,' Alonzo," and "Alfred." Of these the last-named was put upon the boards in 1778, and marked the close of its author's dramatic career. In that year Home had a fall from his horse, and received injury to his head which made further stage-writing impossible. He continued, nevertheless, to be a well-known figure in Edinburgh literary society, and was able to write a "History of the Rebellion of 1745." At his villa, near Edinburgh, Sir Walter Scott in his young days was a frequent guest. The best account of the author of "Douglas" in these latter years is perhaps that given in an article by Scott in the Quarterly Review in 1827.

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Home died in 1808. Seventeen years later his complete works were published with a "life" by Henry Mackenzie. None of his plays is destitute of fine passages. Of them all, the 'Siege of Aquileia," has by some critics been considered the best, containing truer sentiment than the others, and less play to the gallery. But " Douglas" is the only one remembered. Scott's criticism of Home's works, in his diary, runs-"Good blank verse, and stately sentiment, but something lukewarmish, excepting Douglas,' which is certainly a masterpiece. Even that does not stand the closet: its merits are for the stage."

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The tragedy of "Douglas" is founded on the well-known ballad of "Gil Morice," printed first in Percy's Reliques, in 1765. According to tradition, the scene of the ballad was the ancient forest of Dundaff, on the water of Carron, in Stirlingshire. (For the ballad, and particulars regarding it, see Scottish Ballad Poetry, p. 107, Abbotsford Series.)

DOUGLAS.

[Lady Randolph, heiress of Sir Malcolm of Balarmo, had in her youth secretly married Douglas, a son of the enemy of her house. Her husband, after three weeks' wedlock, was slain in battle, and her child, sent away for concealment, is supposed to have been lost with his nurse in crossing the water of Carron. The lady, rescued later from the arms of an unknown ravisher by Lord Randolph, has been induced to bestow on her rescuer her hand and estates. She afterwards discovers her would-be ravisher in the person of Glenalvon, Lord Randolph's heir; but out of consideration for her husband she conceals the fact. Glenalvon presently sets an ambush to assassinate Lord Randolph; but the attack is frustrated by the bravery of a shepherd youth. This youth, Norval, is privately discovered by Lady Randolph to be her own long-lost son.]

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A Court. Flourish of Trumpets.

Enter LORD RANDOLPH, attended.

Ran. Summon an hundred hörse by break of day, To wait our pleasure at the castle gate.

Enter LADY RANDOLPH.

Lady. Alas, my lord! I've heard unwelcome news; The Danes are landed.

Ran. Ay, no inroad this

Of the Northumbrian, bent to take the spoil;

No sportive war, no tournament essay

Of some young knight resolved to break a spear

And stain with hostile blood his maiden arms.

The Danes are landed; we must beat them back, Or live the slaves of Denmark.

Lady. Dreadful times!

Ran. The fenceless villages are all forsaken; The trembling mothers and their children lodged In wall-girt towers and castles; whilst the men Retire indignant. Yet, like broken waves, They but retire more awful to return.

Lady. Immense, as fame reports, the Danish host! Ran. Were it as numerous as loud fame reports, An army knit like ours would pierce it through. Brothers, that shrink not from each other's side, And fond companions, fill our warlike files; For his dear offspring, and the wife he loves, The husband, and the fearless father arm : In vulgar breast heroic ardour burns,

And the poor peasant mates his daring lord.

Lady. Men's minds are tempered, like their swords,

for war;

Lovers of dangers, on destruction's brink

They joy to rear erect their daring forms.

Hence early graves; hence the lone widow's life,

And the sad mother's grief-embittered age.

Where is our gallant guest?

Ran. Down in the vale

I left him managing a fiery steed,

Whose stubbornness had foiled the strength and skill

Of every rider.

But behold he comes,

In earnest conversation with Glenalvon.

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