Tala and the Lyne,
And Mahon wi' its mountain rills,
An' Etterick, whose waters twine
Wi' Yarrow frae the forest hills;
An' Gala, too, and Teviot bright,
An' mony a stream o' playfu' speed,
Their kindred valleys a' unite
Amang the braes o' bonnie Tweed!

So, Master, may you sing against each other, you two good old anglers,
like Peter and Corydon, that sang in your golden age.

X. To M. Chapelain.

Monsieur,--You were a popular writer, and an honourable, over-educated,
upright gentleman. Of the latter character you can never be deprived,
and I doubt not it stands you in better stead where you are, than the
laurels which flourished so gaily, and faded so soon.

Laurel is green for a season, and Love is fair for a day,
But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel out-lives not May.

I know not if Mr. Swinburne is correct in his botany, but _your_ laurel
certainly outlived not May, nor can we hope that you dwell where Orpheus
and where Homer are. Some other crown, some other Paradise, we cannot
doubt it, awaited _un si bon homme_. But the moral excellence that even
Boileau admitted, _ladfoi, l'honneur, la probiite,_ do not in Parnassus
avail the popular poet, and some luckless Musset or Theophile, Regnier
or Villars attains a kind of immortality denied to the man of many
contemporary editions, and of a great commercial success.

If ever, for the confusion of Horace, any Poet was Made, you, Sir,
should have been that fortunately manufactured article. You were, in
matters of the Muses, the child of many prayers. Never, since Adam's
day, have any parents but yours prayed for a poet-child. Then Destiny,
that mocks the desires of men in general, and fathers in particular,
heard the appeal, and presented M. Chapelain and Jeanne Corbiere his
wife with the future author of 'La Pucelle.' Oh futile hopes of men, _O
pectora caeca!_ All was done that education could do for a genius which,
among other qualities, 'especially lacked fire and imagination,' and an
ear for verse--sad defects these in a child of the Muses. Your training
in all the mechanics and metaphysics of criticism might have made you
exclaim, like Rasselas, 'Enough! Thou hast convinced me that no human
being can ever be a Poet.' Unhappily, you succeeded in convincing
Cardinal Richelieu that to be a Poet was well within your powers, you
received a pension of one thousand crowns, and were made Captain of
the Cardinal's minstrels, as M