, and promoting an attempt made by a
portion of his comrades to resist lawful authority while the regiment
was stationed at Perth, King, though wholly innocent of the charge,
fearing the vengeance of the adjutant, who was hostile to him, contrived
to effect his escape. By a circuitous route, so as to elude the
vigilance of parties sent to apprehend him, he reached the district of
Galloway, where he obtained employment as a shepherd and agricultural
labourer. He subsequently wrought as a weaver at Crieff till 1815, when,
on his regiment being disembodied, he was honourably acquitted from the
charge preferred against him, and granted his discharge. He now settled
as a muslin-weaver, first at Glasgow, and afterwards at Paisley and
Charleston. He died at Charleston, near Paisley, on the 27th September
1849, in his seventy-third year.

Of vigorous intellect, lively fancy, and a keen appreciation of the
humorous, King was much esteemed among persons of a rank superior to his
own. His mind was of a fine devotional cast, and his poetical
compositions are distinguished by earnestness of expression and
sentiment.

THE LAKE IS AT REST.

The lake is at rest, love,
The sun's on its breast, love,
How bright is its water, how pleasant to see;
Its verdant banks shewing
The richest flowers blowing,
A picture of bliss and an emblem of thee!

Then, O fairest maiden!
When earth is array'd in
The beauties of heaven o'er mountain and lea,
Let me still delight in
The glories that brighten,
For they are, dear Anna, sweet emblems of thee.

But, Anna, why redden?
I would not, fair maiden,
My tongue could pronounce what might tend to betray;
The traitor, the demon,
That could deceive woman,
His soul's all unfit for the glories of day.

Believe me then, fairest,
To me thou art dearest;
And though I in raptures view lake, stream, and tree,
With flower blooming mountains,
And crystalline fountains,
I view them, fair maid, but as emblems of thee.

LIFE'S LIKE THE DEW.

AIR--_"Scott's Boat Song."_

No sound was heard o'er the broom-cover'd valley,
Save the lone stream o'er the rock as it fell,
Warm were the sunbeams, and glancing so gaily,
That gold seem'd to dazzle along the flower'd vale.
At length from the hill I heard,
Plaintively wild, a bard,
Yet ple