t and vehement in the
children of the North as in the Swiss mountaineers; wheresoever they
wander from it, their hearts yearn towards the fatherland--

"Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of their sires"--

with the same cherished and enduring affection which excites in the
_Rans des Vaches_ so overpowering a sympathy. And the pastoral is
perhaps even more replete with the poetical elements than the "stern and
wild." It is amid such scenes as the Doon, the Tweed, the Teviot, the
Ettrick, the Gala, and the Nith adorn, that the jaded senses are prone
to seek recreation, and the spirit, tired with work or worn with cares,
flees rejoicingly from the world to the repose of its first breathing
and time-sweetened, boyish delights. Thus we find young Bennoch, amid
the clatter of the great city, turning to the quiet of his native valley
to sing the charms of the Nith, where he

"Had paidlet i' the burn,
And pu'd the gowans fine."

It was in the _Dumfries Courier_ that his first poetic essay found its
way to print. That journal was then edited by the veteran M'Diarmid,
himself an honour to the literature of Scotland, and no mean judge of
its poetry. A cheer from such a quarter was worth the winning, and our
aspirant fairly won it, by the five stanzas of which the following is
the last:--

"The flowers may fade upon your banks,
The breckan on the brae,
But, oh! the love I ha'e for thee
Shall never pass away.
Though age may wrinkle this smooth brow,
And youth be like a dream,
Still, still my voice to heaven shall rise
For blessings on your stream!"

But banks and braes, and straths and streams, and woods and waves,
though very dear to memory, merely come up to the painted beauties of
descriptive verse. They must be warmed through

"The dearest theme
That ever waked the poet's dream,"

and love must fill the vision, before the soul can soar above the
delicious but inanimate charms of earth, into the glowing region of
human feeling and passion.

"In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And man below, and saints above:
For love is heaven, and heaven is love!"

Nor was this essential inspiration wanting in the breast