Where to find the puny swarm;
And with artificial fly,
Best to lure the victim's eye,
Till, emerging from the brook,
Brisk it bites the barbed hook;
Struggling in the unequal strife,
With its death, disguised as life,
Till it breathless beats the shore
Ne'er to cleave the current more!
Peace! creation's gloomy queen,
Darkest Night, invests the scene!
Silence, Evening's handmaid mild,
Leaves her home amid the wild,
Tripping soft with dewy feet,
Summer's flowery carpet sweet,
Morpheus--drowsy power--to meet.
Ruler of the midnight hour,
In thy plenitude of power,
From this burthen'd bosom throw
Half its leaden load of woe.
Since thy envied art supplies
What reality denies,
Let thy cheerless suppliant see
Dreams of bliss inspired by thee--
Let before his wond'ring eyes
Fancy's brightest visions rise--
Long lost happiness restore,
None can need thy bounty more.
PETER BUCHAN.
The indefatigable collector of the elder national minstrelsy, Peter
Buchan, was born in Peterhead in the year 1790. Of a somewhat
distinguished descent, he was on the father's side remotely connected
with the noble house of Buchan, and his mother was a lineal descendant
of the Irvines of Drum, an old powerful family in Aberdeenshire. Though
he was disposed to follow a seafaring life, and had obtained a
commission in the Navy, he abandoned his early intentions at the urgent
solicitation of his parents, and thereafter employed himself as a
copperplate engraver, and was the inventor of an ingenious revolving
press for copperplate printing. At Edinburgh and Stirling, he afterwards
qualified himself for the business of a letterpress printer, and in 1816
opened a printing-office in his native town. In 1819, he compiled the
"Annals of Peterhead," a duodecimo volume, which he printed at a press
of his own contrivance. His next publication appeared shortly after,
under the title, "An Historical Account of the Ancient and Noble Family
of Keith, Earls-Marischal of Scotland."
After a period of residence in London, where he held for some time a
remunerative situation, Buchan returned to his native town. In the
metropolis, he had been painfully impressed by the harsh treatment
frequently inflicted on the inferior animals, and as a corrective for
the evil, he published at Peterhead, in 1824, a treatise, dedicated to
his son, in whic
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