VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF JAMES THOMSON, THE AUTHOR OF THE SEASONS.

Southland Times, Issue 878, 8 January 1868, Page 3

VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF JAMES THOMSON, THE AUTHOR OF THE SEASONS.

BY JOHN G-. SMITH. (From the " Border Review and Roxburgh Magazine.") {Continued from our last.) It was the month of July— that glorious month, when all nature is robed in her most gorgeous apparel, when the birds sing their sweetest carols, when the flowers display their most brilliant blossoms, and when the sun looks down from his bright blue canopy on the enchantment of the scene with his most, resplendent smiles — It was the month of j July — a t least to the great world without. In the back court into which the window of my sanctum looked, July had not yet deigned to smile. True, two tiny geraniums, in ornamental pots, had been placed there by some gentle, flower-loving fingers, and out of gratitude for the "tender care bestowed," they ventured to stretch forth their little sickly leaflets, and even went so far as to show some inclination to display an embryo flower bud on the top of their tiny yellow stems. Erorn my elevated seat in that little dingy office at number seven Throwton-street, forgetting the old oaken desk, the ledger with its numerous rank and file of figures, the dangling bunches of acccounts, receipts, and invoices, I often turned my weary and burning vision to the two little verdant patches in the back court with almost as much interest and delight a 8 a traveller through the arid sands of the Sahara experiences when his eye rests on the refreshing hue of the tall green palms, and the luxuriant verdure of the desert oasis. I have always been, and though almost a sexagenarian, am still an ardent admirer of nature in all her varied aspects, and where, I would ask, are these so faithfully and beautifully mirrored as in the Seasons, the immortal Seasons of Thomson. I have often laid aside the massive ledger, with its array of columns, and have shut my wearied eyes on all tLe paraphernalia of a little dingy office, into which a genuine ray of light was never known to enter, and revelled with all the glorious aspirations of poetry, and yet of truth, amid the scenes which Thomson's master hand spreads out like a vast panorama before the human mind. I had just perused Howitt's article on the birthplace of Thomson, and my soul was filled with indignation when I found that there not one authentic fact could be obtained, and that not even the vestige of a tradition lingered concerning him whose name had shed a halo of bright enduring fame around the " bonny braes of Eden." My August holidays were at hand, and I resolved to do homage at the shrine of genius, and cull (not on a Sunday morning, certainly) what information I could obtain regarding a poet so universally and justly admired, even at the risk of echoing the exclamation of Sir "Walter Scott, when he made an excursion to the Buck Cleugh, "I went to hear that nothing was to be heard." But, my most patient reader, I am delighted that I both heard and saw something which may arrest your interest, and which may correct some errors into which even those who are most conversant with the life of the bard have inadvertently fallen. In the sequel I shall confine myself to a plain narration of my visit, and to a statement of the information, however meagre, which it was my good fortune to obtain. I will not even attempt a description of that lovely August morning, when the sun shed his most joyous beams not only over the external creation, but into the very hearts of the band of tourists, who, like myself, with portmanteau in hand, stood eagerly waiting for the advent of the "iron monster," who was to convey us, at least for a time, far from the toils and turmoils of every day life. Are not all my experiences and adventures written in this book, and which I promise shall not be opened until I arrive in safety at the point from which a view of the small but interesting village of Edram is first obtained, and that is at no great distance from it. The tourist who approaches it from Kelso, when it first bursts on his eye through the rows of stately trees which border the roadside, must be struck with the quiet rural beauty of the scene. In the foreground a verdant go wanspangled meadow through which a streamlet winds its devious way, " singing to itself." Beyond, and almost on its banks, stands the village, terminated on the west by its church, a plain unadorned erection, surrounded by- many a mossgray stone which tells that there the "rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and on the east by a modern bridge of three arches, which has taken the place of the weatherworn erection which Blair mentions in his often quoted and well known description of the simple elements of the scene. Between these two points stretches the modern village of Edram, though in the days of the poet it extended considerably both to the east and west of them, and was much more irregular in the arrangement of its " cottage homes." In the border raids of the Earl of Hertford it is styled Long Ednim, and in common with many of the hamlets and villages in the South of Scotland suffered from the vengeful ire of that ruthless invader. But this is digressing, and, like the bard, I hate digression as the worst of sinning." i

If two hogsheads make a pipe, how many will make a cigar? . n A smiling countenance is " The Happy Mien. Modesty is like a sober flower— it takes no more than its dew. The grain that is up earliest— Sun-ryes. " Making the moßt of ic."— Finding a bung and getting a barrel made for it. A young man who was crossed in love attempted suicide recently by taking a dose of yeast powder. He immediately rose above his troubles. If a spoonful of yeast will raise two pounds oi flour, how much will it take to raise funds enough to buy another bag? _ You may safely mind other people s business, They will be sure to mind yours. It has been observed that in the northern countries the cold invariably proceeds to extremities. ' . , » - An elderly maiden, who had suffered some disappointment, thus defines the human race :— Man, a conglomerate mass of hair, tobaccc smoke, confusion, conceit, and boots. Woman the waiter, perforce, on the aforesaid animal. When is an infant like a cannibal : — When il eats its " pap." The Gbeatest Asa. — Two young princes, the sons of Archduke Charles of Austria, had a warm debate in presence of no less a person than that of the august emperor himself. Greatlj excited, one said to the other, "You are the greatest ass in Venice !" Highly offended at a quarrel in his presence, the emperor interrupted them, saying, with indignation, " Come, come, young gentlemen, you forget that I am present. A Mexican Stobt. — An extraordinary storj comes from Mexico relative to flour. It appears that an old miller in that locality had a verj beautiful young wife, of whom he was jealous it the extreme, and took out his soulagement _ ol that feeling in thwacking the lovely young being. There was a certain cook who came to the mil] from the hotel to buy flour, and, hearing the distress of the lovely one first, and seeing her second, became of course, dreadfully in love. Some one told the miller. All the town began to talk oi the fact, and to laugh at the flowery one. One day the cook and the lovely young wife suddenly disappeared, and merrily laughed the Mexicans at the miller's misfortune— nothing was talked oi but the scandal of elopement of the miller's wife and the cook. The miller scowled vengefullv upon all the town, and so time passed by ; nothing more was heard of the cook and the miller'e wife by any one. Two years after the millei pleased to die and to inform the world in a paper which was left to be opened after his death and to be published in town, that the cook and his (the miller's) wife had, by his planning, eloped into an oven two years since and been baked'; that he would have got rid of them elsewise but for the jeering of the public ; therefore he had ground them up in a large mass of corn, which the townspeople were pleased to compliment him for, as being exceedingly rich and nutritious, and he only hopes that they will enjoy the reminiscence as much as he did the remainder of his life that he was spared, whenveer he looked upon a townsman.