Soon Campbell rose, renown’d for arts and arms, Free in the senate—bold in battle-field; Now awed with Roman fire and personal charms; Now freedom’s champion—now his sovereign’s shield; His country’s thunders early taught to wield, Witness Ramillies, Oudenarde, Ghent, and Lisle. Tournay, Minorca, to his prowess yield; While spake the master-spirits of the Isle, And Pope and Thomson strove to laud the Young Argyle!

NOTES TO YOUNG ARGYLE; or, STANZAS TO LETHINGTON

Stanza ii. page 314.

_I love to view thy turrets towering grey, Which braved the fiery blast of feudal times, And still unbroke their lofty front display._

The following verses, addressed to Lethington, which are so descriptive of an ancient chateau of that period, were copied from the Maitland MS. (preserved at Cambridge,) by Mr Pinkerton, and published in his collection of Ancient Scottish Poems. The poem appears to have been written by an “unknawin makar,” who, in gratitude for the “treitting and gud cheir” which he met with at Lethington, could “nae mair silence hauld, but put furth his mynd to rehers the joy” which he found in the castle. We shall confine ourselves to the descriptive parts, as being most interesting to posterity, leaving out the introductory similes respecting Virgil’s Mantua and Catullus’s Verone.

IN PRAYSE OF LETHINGTOUN.

To speik of thee, O Lethingtoun! Quhilk standis fair on Tyne; Quhais worthie praysis and renown Transcendis my ingyne. Thou merits Homer and Virgil, Thy worschip till advance, And put thy name, digne and nobill, In dew rememberance.

Thy tour and fortres lairge and lang, Thy nychhours dois excell; And for thy wallis, thik and strang, Thou justly beirs the bell. Thy groundis deip, and toppis hie Uprising in the air; Thy vaultis plesand ar to sie, Thay ar so greit and fair.

Thy work to luik on is delyite, So clein, so sound, so evin; Thy alryne[21] is a marvall greit, Upreiching to the hevin. O quhat plesour is to be thair, As Phœbus dois upryise, To sie the wood and feildis fair, Quhilk round about thee lyis!

* * * * *

Greit was the work to houke the ground, And thy foundatioun cast; Bot greater it was thee to found, And end thee at the last. I merveill that he did not feir, Quha rasit thee on hicht, That na foundatioun sould thee beir Bot thou sould sink for wecht.

* * * * *

Bot the to plenisch and fulfill, And mak thy worke compleit, Quhoso it richt considder will, Wes worke of no les spreit. Thy beddis soft, and tapeis fair, Thy treitting and gud cheir; Gif I the treuth wald now declair, I wait thow hes no peir.

* * * * *

Thy arbour and thy orchard grene, I cannot pass it by, A thing maist semelie to be sene Under thy wall dois ly; Maist plesand place to mak repair, Thairin to sit or gang; Thy knottis; and thy alleis fair, Quhilk are bayth braid and lang.

Thy buttis, biggit neir thame by, Sa suire, but sone or wind, Maist plesand place of archerie That e’er I yit could find. Thow hes a thousand plesoures ma, That my toung cannot tell, O happie war he that micht ay Bot troubill in thee dwell!

And happie art thou, sic a place, That few thy mak are sene; Bot yit mair happie far that race To quhome thou dois pertene. Quha dois not knaw the Maitland bluid, The best in all this land; In quhilk sumtyme the honour stuid And worship of Scotland?

Stanza viii. page 317.

_While, through the copsewood, Coalston’s turrets gleam, And still remind us of her Margaret’s ominous dream._

The Enchanted Pear of Coalston, which was considered a sufficient dowry for a lady, was the gift, it is supposed, of Hugh Gifford, the magician of Yester. “The heiress of his family,” says Sharpe, “married Sir William Hay of Locharret, ancestor of John, third Lord Hay of Yester, whose daughter Jean became the wife of Mr. Brown of Coalston. This lady’s dowry consisted of a single pear, probably enchanted by her ancestor, which her father declared to be invaluable; assuring the Laird of Coalston, that while the pear was preserved in the family, it would certainly continue to flourish. This palladium is still carefully treasured up; but there is a mark on one side, made by the eager teeth of a lady of Coalston, who, while breeding, longed for the forbidden fruit, and was permitted to take one bite by her too-indulgent husband; in consequence, some of the best farms on the estate very speedily came to market. Crawford, the peerage-writer, thus mentions the superstition in his MS. account of the Browns of Coalston:—‘They had a pear in their family, which they esteemed yer palladium; it’s reported, that Betty Mackenzie, when she married George Brown of Colstoun, the first night she came to the house of Colstoun, dreamed that she had eat the pear, which her father-in-law looked on as a bad omen, and expressed great fears that she should be an instrument in the destruction of the house of Colstoun.’”—See _Sharpe’s Prefatory Notice to Law’s Memoriallis_, p. 14. Notwithstanding these predictions, the house of Coalston still flourishes in the female line, in the person of Lady Dalhousie.

Stanza xii. page 319.

_With Charles fair Lennox might have shared the throne; For o’er his heart she held despotic sway._

_Frances Teresa_, Duchess of Lennox, was daughter to the Hon. Walter Stuart, M.D., son of Walter, first Lord Blantyre. This lady was of exquisite beauty, which, if justly represented in a puncheon made by Rottiere, engraver of the Mint, exhibits the finest face that perhaps ever appeared.—_Mem. Gramont_, vol. i. p. 272. Charles II. was desperately enamoured of her, and it was said there was a design on foot to get him divorced from the queen, that he might marry this lady;—but to his great indignation, _and to her honour_, she espoused Charles, sixth Duke of Richmond and Lennox. Bishop Burnet says, the king disgraced Lord Clarendon for not preventing this marriage. Charles’s romantic regard is evident from his ordering a coinage, as mentioned above, whereon her portrait was represented as Britannia on the reverse.—See _Fenton’s Notes to Waller_. There is a portrait of this celebrated beauty in the Memoires de Gramont, and in Pinkerton’s Iconographia Scotica; as also a fine full-length painting in Lethington-house. The latter likewise contains, among many other fine family-likenesses, excellent portraits of Queen Mary, the Marquis of Montrose, Lord Belhaven, and the Admirable Crichton.

THE MURDER OF SIR JAMES STANFIELD. =In Two Fits.=

——Blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augurs, and understood relations, have By maggot pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth The secret’st man of blood. SHAKSPEARE.

Sir James Stanfield, the subject of the following ballad, held the rank of Colonel in the parliamentary army. After Cromwell’s victory at Dunbar, he came to Scotland, and established a woollen manufactory at Newmills (now Amisfield,) in the neighbourhood of Haddington, under the immediate patronage of the protectorate. At the Restoration, Parliament granted certain immunities and privileges to Colonel Stanfield, on whom Charles II. conferred the honour of knighthood.—_Sir G. B. Hepburn’s View Agri._ His prospects were, however, soon blasted; for, in 1687, he was found murdered, as was supposed, by his eldest son Philip, whom he had disinherited for his debauchery. This unfortunate person was tried, condemned, and executed for the murder 24th February 1688.—_Fountainhall’s Dec._