X.

I like thy Landlord’s Tales!—­I like that Idol
Of love and Lammermoor—­the blue-eyed maid
That led to church the mounted cavalcade,
And then pull’d up with such a bloody bridal! 
Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches—­
I like the family (not silver) branches
That hold the tapers
To light the serious legend of Montrose.—­
I like M’Aulay’s second-sighted vapors,
As if he could not walk or talk alone,
Without the devil—­or the Great Unknown,—­
Dalgetty is the dearest of Ducrows!

XI.

I like St. Leonard’s Lily—­drench’d with dew! 
I like thy Vision of the Covenanters,
That bloody-minded Grahame shot and slew. 
      I like the battle lost and won;
      The hurly-burlys bravely done,
The warlike gallop and the warlike canters! 
I like that girded chieftain of the ranters,
Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple,
            With one eye on his sword,
            And one upon the Word,—­
How he would cram the Caledonian Chapel! 
I like stern Claverhouse, though he cloth dapple
  His raven steed with blood of many a corse—­
I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels
  Her texts of scripture on a trotting horse—­
She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels!

XII.

I like thy Kenilworth—­but I’m not going
  To take a Retrospective Re-Review
Of all thy dainty novels—­merely showing
  The old familiar faces of a few,
              The question to renew,
How thou canst leave such deeds without a name,
Forego the unclaim’d Dividends of fame,
Forego the smiles of literary houris—­
Mid-Lothian’s trump, and Fife’s shrill note of praise,
       And all the Carse of Gowrie’s,
When thou might’st have thy statue in Cromarty—­
  Or see thy image on Italian trays,
Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparte,
  Be painted by the Titian of R.A’s,
Or vie in signboards with the Royal Guelph! 
  P’rhaps have thy bust set cheek by jowl with Homer’s,
P’rhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself
  To other Englands with Australian roamers—­
    Mayhap, in Literary Owhyhee
    Displace the native wooden gods, or be
The china-Lar of a Canadian shelf!

XIII.

  It is not modesty that bids thee hide—­
She never wastes her blushes out of sight: 
          It is not to invite
  The world’s decision, for thy fame is tried,—­
  And thy fair deeds are scatter’d far and wide,
Even royal heads are with thy readers reckon’d,—­
  From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars
          In crimson collars,
And learned serjeants in the Forty-Second! 
Whither by land or sea art thou not beckon’d? 
Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth,
Defying distance and its dim control;
  Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckon’d worth
A brace of Miltons for capacious soul—­
  Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north,
And set above ten Shakspeares near the pole!