Society in Scotland, as Aytoun saw it in his youth, and for many passages which are, in fact autobiographical. About this time Aytoun's health began to fail, and his spirits had sustained a shock, from which he never wholly recovered, in the death (15th April, 1859) of his wife, the youngest daughter of Prof. Wilson [q.v.] (Christopher North), whom he had married in April, 1849, and to whom he was devotedly attached. He sought relief in hard work, but life had thenceforth lost much of its zest for him. Being childless, its loneliness became intolerable, and in December 1863 he married again. But by this time his constitution was seriously shaken, and on the 4th August, 1865, he died at Blackhills, near Elgin, whither he had gone in the hope of recruiting his health. Aytoun's life had been, upon the whole, a happy one. He was of a genial, kindly disposition, full of playfulness, and of original and cultured humour, warmly esteemed by his friends, and constant in his attachments to them. Nature and education fitted him for a man of letters, and he took delight in the very varied literary labours by which his free and facile pen enriched the pages of "Blackwood's Magazine," and added a few books to literature of permanent interest. His published works are :—I. Poland, Homer, and other Poems"; Edinburgh, 1832. 2. 66 The Life and Times of Richard the First"; London, 1840. 3. "Lays of the Cavaliers"; Edinburgh, 1848, 29th edition 1883. 4. "Bon Gaultier's Ballads"; (jointly with Theodore Martin) 1855, 13th edition 1877. 5. "Bothwell"; London, 1856. 6. "Firmilian"; 1854. 7. "Poems and Ballads of Goethe"; (jointly with Theodore Martin), London, 1858. 8. "Ballads of Scotland"; 2 vols. London, 1858, 4th edition 1870. 9. 66 Nuptial Ode to the Princess Alexandra "; London, 1863. 10. "Norman Sinclair "; 3 vols. London, 1861.

To Britain.

HALT! shoulder arms! recover! as you were!
Right wheel! eyes left! Attention! Stand at ease!
O Britain! O my country! words like these
Have made thy name a terror and a fear
To all the nations. Witness Ebro's banks,
Assaye, Toulouse, Nivelle, and Waterloo,
Where the grim despot muttered Sauve qui peut?
And Ney fled darkling-silence in the ranks;
Inspired by these, amidst the iron crash
Of armies, in the centre of his troop
The soldier stands-unmovable, not rash-
Until the forces of the foeman droop;

Then knocks the Frenchman to eternal smash,*

Pounding them into mummy. Shoulder, hoop!

This sentiment is now happily eradicated from the English mind, and the two great peoples cultivate the most friendly relations.-ED.

At length the news ran through the land-
The Prince had come again!
That night the fiery cross was sped

O'er mountain and through glen;
And our old Baron rose in might
Like a lion from his den,
And rode away across the hills
To Charlie and his men,

With the valiant Scottish cavaliers,
All of the olden time!

He was the first that bent the knee

When the standard waved abroad,
He was the first that charged the foe
On Preston's bloody sod;
And ever in the van of fight,

The foremost still he trod,
Until on bleak Culloden's heath
He gave his soul to God,

Like a good old Scottish cavalier
All of the olden time!

Oh! never shall we know again
A heart so stout and true-
The olden times have passed away,
And weary are the new;

The fair white rose has faded

From the garden where it grew,

And no fond tears, save those of heaven, The glorious bed bedew,

Of the last old Scottish cavalier,

All of the olden time!

Extract from Bothwell.

THE tear was in Queen Mary's eye,
As forth she held her hand.
"Then is the time of parting nigh!
For Bothwell, my command

Is that you go and save a life
That else were lost in useless strife.
Farewell! We shall not meet again;
But I have passed such years of pain-
So many partings have I known,
That this poor heart has callous grown.
Farewell! If anything there be

That moves you when you think on me,
Believe that you are quite forgiven
By one who bids you pray to Heaven!
No soul alive so innocent

But needs must beg at Mercy's door

PROF. WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN.

Farewell!" She passed from out the tent.
O God-I never saw her more!
Was it a dream? or did I hear
A yell of scorn assail my ear,
As frantic from the host I rode ?
The very charger I bestrode
Rebelled in wrath against the rein,
And strove to bear me back again!
Lost, Lost! I cared not where I went--
Lost, Lost! And none were there,
Save those who sought in banishment
A refuge from despair.

How fared the rest? I do not know,
For I was maddened with my woe.
But I remember when we sailed
From out that dreary Forth,
And in the dull of morning hailed
The headlands of the North:
The hills of Caithness wrapped in rain,
The reach of Stroma's isle,

The Pentland where the furious main
Roars white for many a mile-
Until we steered by Shapinsay,
And moored our bark in Kirkwall Bay.
Yet not in Orkney would they brook
The presence of their banished Duke.
The castle gates were shut and barred;
Up rose in arms the burgher guard;
No refuge there we found.
But that I durst not tarry long,

I would have ta'en that castle strong,
And razed it to the ground!

North, ever north! We sailed by night,
And yet the sky was red with light,
And purple rolled the deep.

When morning came, we saw the tide
Break thundering on the rugged side
Of Sumburgh's awful steep;
And, weary of the wave, at last
In Bressay Sound our anchor cast.
O faithless were the waves and wind!
Still the avenger sped behind.
No rock so rude, no isle so lone,
That I might claim it as my own.
A price was set upon my head;
Hunted from place to place I fled;
Till chased across the open seas,
I met the surly Dane.

These were his gifts and welcome-these
A dungeon and a chain!

39

LADY GRIZEL

GRIZEL BAILLIE.

1665-1746.

BY THE REV. A. B. GROSART, LL.D. F.S.A.

LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE, poetess, was the eldest daughter of Sir Patrick Hume (or Home), afterwards first earl of Marchmont, and was born at Redbraes Castle, Berwickshire, on the 25th of December, 1665. So early as her twelfth year she gave proof of a singularly mature character; for when she had not yet entered her teens, she was entrusted by her father with a perilous duty. Her father was the bosom friend of the illustrious patriot, Robert Baillie of Jerviswood; and the latter being imprisoned, Sir Patrick Hume was specially anxious to communicate with him by letter. He dared not himself attempt to gain admission; but he employed the services of his daughter, ‘little Grizel.' To her the all-important letter was handed over with the charge to deliver it personally, and to bring back as much intelligence from the state prisoner as possible. She contrived to deliver the letter and carry back grateful and useful messages from her father's friend. In the performance of this task she had to consult with the prisoner's own son, George Baillie of Jerviswood, who fell in love with her, and married her some years later, on September 17th, 1692.

The same womanly heroism and self-possession were shown by young Grizel on behalf of her own father. As the trial of Robert Baillie of Jerviswood-described in the contemporary broad-sheets and elsewhere-attests, Sir Patrick Hume boldly went to the court and, wherever he could, interfered in defence of his great friend, sometimes blunting with rare skill the edge of manufactured 'false witness,' to the rage of the prosecutors. He was equally with Baillie a suspected man; and, the troopers having taken possession of his house, Redbraes Castle, he had to hide in the vaults of the neighbouring Polwarth parish kirk. Thither at midnight, his brave little daughter was wont to carry her father's food, contriving at the dinner-table to drop into her lap as much of victuals as she well could.

On the death, by hanging, of Baillie of Jerviswood, the Hume family fled to Holland. They settled at Utrecht, Sir Patrick passing as a Dr. Wallace. In the Memoirs' of Lady Murray of Stanhope, Lady Grizel's daughter, delightful glimpses are obtained of the bright though straitened life in Holland. Grizel was the manager of the humble establishment, and she used to tell in her old age that those years in Holland were about the happiest of all their lives.