However it be, in that road, by quiet streams and through green pastures, thou didst walk all thine almost century of years, and we, who stray into thy path out of the highway of life, we seem to hold thy hand, and listen to thy cheerful voice. If our sport be worse, may our content be equal, and our praise, therefore, none the less. Father, if Master Stoddard, the great fisher of Tweedside, be with thee, greet him for me, and thank him for those songs of his, and perchance he will troll thee a catch of our dear River. Tweed! winding and wild! where the heart is unbound, They know not, they dream not, who linger around, How the saddened will smile, and the wasted rewin From thee—the bliss withered within. Or perhaps thou wilt better love, The lanesome Tala and the Lyne, And Manor wi’ its mountain rills, An’ Etterick, whose waters twine Wi’ Yarrow frae the forest hills; An’ Gala, too, and Teviot bright, An’ mony a stream o’ playfu’ speed, Their kindred valleys a’ unite Amang the braes o’ bonnie Tweed! So, Master, may you sing against each other, you two good old anglers, like Peter and Corydon, that sang in your golden age. X. _To M. Chapelain_. MONSIEUR,—You were a popular poet, and an honourable, over-educated, upright gentleman. Of the latter character you can never be deprived, and I doubt not it stands you in better stead where you are, than the laurels which flourished so gaily, and faded so soon. Laurel is green for a season, and Love is fair for a day, But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May. I know not if Mr. Swinburne is correct in his botany, but _your_ laurel certainly outlived not May, nor can we hope that you dwell where Orpheus and where Homer are. Some other crown, some other Paradise, we cannot doubt it, awaited _un si bon homme_. But the moral excellence that even Boileau admitted, _la foi, l’honneur, la probité_, do not in Parnassus avail the popular poet, and some luckless Glatigny or Théophile, Regnier or Gilbert, attains a kind of immortality denied to the man of many contemporary editions, and of a great commercial success.