EVAN'S ELEGY.

Mackay was benighted on a deer-stalking expedition, near a wild hut
or shealing, at the head of Loch Eriboll. Here he found its only
inmate a poor asthmatic old man, stretched on his pallet,
apparently at the point of death. As he sat by his bed-side, he
"crooned," so as to be audible, it seems, to the patient, the
following elegiac ditty, in which, it will be observed, he alludes
to the death, then recent, of Pelham, an eminent statesman of
George the Second's reign. As he was finishing his ditty, the old
man's feelings were moved in a way which will be found in the
appended note. This is one of Sir Walter Scott's extracts in the
_Quarterly_, and is now attempted in the measure of the original.

How often, Death! art waking
The imploring cry of Nature!
When she sees her phalanx breaking,
As thou'dst have all--grim feature!
Since Autumn's leaves to brownness,
Of deeper shade were tending,
We saw thy step, from palaces,
To Evan's nook descending.
Oh, long, long thine agony!
A nameless length its tide;
Since breathless thou hast panted here,
And not a friend beside.
Thine errors what, I judge not;
What righteous deeds undone;
But if remains a se'ennight,
Redeem it, dying one!

Oh, marked we, Death! thy teachings true,
What dust of time would blind?
Such thy impartiality
To our highest, lowest kind.
Thy look is upwards, downwards shot,
Determined none to miss;
It rose to Pelham's princely bower,
It sinks to shed like this!
Oh, long, long, &c.!
So great thy victims, that the noble
Stand humbled by the bier;
So poor, it shames the poorest
To grace them with a tear.
Between the minister of state
And him that grovels there,
Should one remain uncounselled,
Is there one whom dool shall spare?
Oh, long, long, &c.!
The hail that strews the battle-field
Not louder sounds its call,
Than the falling thousands round us
Are voicing words to all.
Hearken! least of all the nameless;
Evan's hour is going fast;
Hearken! greatest of earth's great ones--
Princely Pelham's hour is past.
Oh, long, long, &c.!
Friends of my heart! in the twain we see
A type of life's declining;
'Tis like the lantern's