A NEW HIGHLAND STORY.* To produce surprise is the differentia

of all true poetic genius, and those of our readers who are familiar with the previous works of Mr. Walter Smith will be prepared to learn that in Kildrostan this element is strongly in presence. The author has betaken himself to fresh fields and pastures new, and we are only employing the language of sobriety when we say that the self-oblivion of creative activity has seldom been more conspicuously indicated than in this remarkable poem. Mr. Walter Smith writes not only for his age, but of his age. He is essentially a realistic painter of the thoughts, the assertions and denials, the wants, the sorrows, the sins, and the virtues, too, of the latter half of the nineteenth century. And while there is a certain unmistakable idiosyncrasy in all his writings, there is no monotony or lazy repetition either in his subjects or in his individual portraits. The Minister, for instance, in Kildrostan, is nowise akin to Behan, or the Rev. Elphinstone Bell, in Hilda. Ina, of the present poem, is an altogether distinct creation from Hilda; and Tremain, a Modern Poet, a kind of intellectual mollusc, wholly lacking moral vertebrre, belongs to a stage of evolution widely sundered from that which Clerk Maxwell had attained amidst "the broken Gods." .

Kilclrostan is called a dramatic poem. But why should it not have been designated a drama pure and simple ? No doubt, while in the poem there is one incident sensational enough—we mean the tragic end of Doris, which is represented to us in lines of thrilling energy—Kildrostan is not exactly a play to put on the stage. There is too much of high-thinking, and too little of conflicting claims and aims, mustering their forces with swift but sure subtlety and sedulousness for a final decisive combat, for this fine result of Mr. Walter Smith's Horce Svbsecivee ever to become popular as an acted performance. But if by Drama we mean—and most people do mean—the twofold creation of a fresh set of circumstances and of fresh characters, --that is, of a platform with various surroundings on which a pair or two of individual personages shall gradually, by speech or act, make self-revelation of their inmost existence,— then we have no hesitation in affirming that the work before us is a drama. Kildrostan is nothing, if not a dramatic exhibition of character ; and, as it seems to us, the self- portraiture of Dr. Lorne, of Doris, of Tremain, of Sir Diarmid, of Ina, and, we ought to add, of Morag, the faithful Celtic nurse and family friend, is too artistically wrought out for almost any reader, on first perusal of the poem, to dis- cover the subtle touches by which the effect in each case has been accomplished.

But thestory itself is one of varied and sustained interest. For, first of all, there is a secret which is duly kept until the fitting hour for its divulgence arrives. In the second place, Mr. Walter Smith has succeeded in weaving into the same drama, without transgreseing the Horatian canon touching unity and simplicity, the elements both of a comcedia, which means the triumph of Man over circumstance, and of a tragcedia, which means the triumph of circumstance, or of fatal disposition, over Man. But in the third place, our author, no longer content with portraitures—and how life-like

• Ittildrostan: a Dramatic Poem. By Walter C. Swift. Glea:ow : James Maclohose and Sm. 1884.

they all are—of suburbanity, with its combined characteristics of money, scandal, and church-going, or of men and women in almost all conceivable phases of human speculation, phases of scepticism, agnosticism, ritualism, stubborn orthodoxy, self- complacent latitudinarianism, or fervid universalism, has in this noble poem entered the lists—prophet, in this respect, no less than poet—as the vindicator of the claims of the Highland Crofters. Drama as it is, and containing especially such a finished impersonation of remorseless will, and blind, passionate hate as that of the heiress of whom Mrs. Slit, the Island post-

mistress, says :—" That Doris with her mouth that iss always smiling, and her eyes that never do," Kildrostan comes in opportunely, at this present time, as a potent accompaniment

to the report of the Crofters' Commissioners.

As we are anxious that our readers should peruse the volume for themselves, we will not forestall their interest in its pages by an outline of its contents, nor encroach on the author's claim to be allowed to let his story creep into the imagina- tion of his countrymen by its own intrinsic attractiveness. At the same time, we believe that we shall not be transgressing the lines which we have just indicated if we express the conviction that when, at the close of the poem, a certain lover and his lass are discovered at Ravenna, and "seal there forever now, the love of long ago," the opinion of all competent critics will be,— How well the author has accomplished his task.

The poem opens with a solemn scene,—the burial of a Highland minister on the wild West shore, whose body is borne to its last resting-place in "the dim abbey pile, where once the Caldees toiled, and prayed, and died ;" and we should have been glad, if our space had allowed us, to quote one or two passages, not only from the lines which, as if keep- ing time with the strokes of the muffled oars, describe the funeral procession, but from the prose talk of the fisherwomen assembled on the occasion. And, speaking of the latter, we would add here, that we have seldom met with a better rendering of the way in which the West Highland Celt does his thought into English than in the pages of Mr. Walter Smith, as the following sample, for which we must find room, will evidence,—the speakers being Mrs. Slit, the postmistress, and Morag, the nurse :—

"Mits. SLIT: Yes, she [Miss Ina] is a kind lady, and thinks of every- one. Alisthair iss better now, and will soon be at the fishing again. —MoaAc : And how iss the fishing and the whiskey ?—MRS. SLIT: Not more than usual, Morag, but always too much of the whiskey, whatever.—Moami Yea! They will be like Donald Levach, who was drowned in a ditch, and his last words would be= You are changing the drink, and there's too much water in it, Jenny, a great deal too much water'" But, leaving these last words to make their own impression, and reluctantly omitting even reference:to-many of the intervening

pages, we will call the reader's: attention to "a Sacrament" among the hills, in the account of which our author reveals much self-restraint, much pathos, and fine pictorial power. Of this "Great Feast." the last which was ever to be held in Glenaradale, the faithful Morag says that she will bring an account to Miss Ina. All the country was to be there, and half the godly ministers of Ross and Skye, including among the latter Black Eachan, of Lochbroom, who is known far and wide as the " Searcher ;" Lachlan of the Lews, "The Trumpet of the Gael ;" and Neil of Raasay, with the pleasant voice, "as if he played sweetly -upon an instru- ment." For this is to be an Eviction Communion, a solemn farewell to Glenaradale, seeing that all the country is ringing with the tidings :—

" That Doris has evicted all

The people from their homes, which even now Are empty, bare, and roofless. She would crowd them Upon the strip of shore, already thronged With fishers, and they mean to go away.

They have been used to delve and handle sheep And cattle, and they have no skill with boats ; • And now they are just waiting for to-morrow, Housed on the beach, or in the birken wood, With breaking hearts, before they leave the land."

The sympathies- of Ina with the sufferers were too deep to allow her to absent herself from such a gathering, and she is found among the multitude that crowds the• brae, beneath which, on a swelling mound, at the month of a mountain bay, sit four ministers, rapt as if on holy ground, and,— " There now a table is seemly spread With homely linen, but clean and *bite,

And a chalice and platter of wheaten bread, And the Book that giveth the blind their sight."

But the "factor," too, is on the hill-side. He has come to note and report the sayings and doings at the "Holy Fair ;" and with him are dogs and hireling gillies and the poet Tremolo, "with heathendom on his lips," but curious to witness "the Christian superstition," where, as he had heard, "the thing is still living."

And here we must let Tremain, the modern poet of the flesh, speak for himself. His creed seems to be that pleasure is pleasant, that joy without fatigue is the ideal of existence; that all fruits, forbidden or not, which come in one's way with a promise of delight, are to be freely pariaken of; and that High Ark ignoring the factitious scruples of the conscience, itself a mere creation of the Church which has consecrated grief, instead of gladness, should simply abandon itself to the glorification of the miscellaneous impulses of which the human consciousness is the subject, —always, however, with the solemn proviso that these shall have no affinity with "small moralities and shop-keeping ethics"

"The kind of woman, bred of Christian Cult,

Whom you call womanly, to me is watery, A ghost, a mist that chills you with its touch, How changed from the grand creature Nature made, For joy and music and the giddy dance, And glorious passion. There's a story of Pelagia, leader of the mimes at Antioch On the Orontes ; how she came one day Up from the silvern baths with her fair troop Of girls all glowing with the flush of life, And bounding with light mirth and lures of love, And as she came arrayed in purple skirt Of. Tyrian, golden bracelets on her wrists, And tinkling anklets, and the flash of gems Upon her bosom, on her brow of flowers,— Lo ! then an Anchorite, dried up and baked, With dirt of some dim cave where he had burrowed With bats and owls, looked wistfully on her, And craftily assailed her with regrets

That she brought not her beauty and her joy—

Another Magdalene !—to serve his Lord : Wherewith being touched, she turns a penitent, And comes next day, and lays aside her robes Of splendour, and her bright and joyous ways So winsome, and in squalid garb arrayed Of sackcloth, visits graves and lazar-houses, Pale as a lily—a shadow called a saint.

What think you, now, of such a work as that To pleasure heaven with ? While the old gods lived A woman was the glory of our glad And fruitful earth. But now yoa make of her—"

This Pagan rhapsody is interrupted by the chief, Sir Diarmid, who says:— " I prithee, peace, man.

. . ... ...

What if your leader of the mimes bad been A chaste, pure maiden daughter of a home Where mother-love enfolded her in customs As sweet as lavender, and that she met Some gay apostle of the flesh, and as His penitent became—what you have known ?

The world is bad enough, and false enough, Without such gloss to prove its darkness light.

The devil is up to that, and does not need That you should make fine clothes for him to wear When he goes masking. Let this stuff alone ; Or weave it into verses if you will, For fools to read, although I used to think That poetry should stir the best in us, And give fit utterance also to our best

In rhythmic music."

Of all the " functions " at which we have ever "assisted," by far the most impressive has been that of a Scottish com- munion, amid such surroundings as are described for us in Kildrostan. We say so, though the scathing words of Robert Burns are haunting us as we write ; and we can only express our regret that the exigencies of the situation—especially the startling episode in which "the factor" figures so conspicuously —prevented Mr. Walter Smith from giving us further details of what "the Sacrament" in the open has furnished to the eyes, to the ears, and to the hearts—we cannot doubt—of thousands of his countrymen.

But instead of sermon, or Communion-table exhortation, we have the following address, delivered "in the tent" by the

minister :— " My friends, this is a day of solemn sadness

With us, for we shall ne'er all meet again Here, where our fathers met these hundred years, Remembering the love of Him who came, In power of sorrow, to redeem front sorrow, And sin which is its fountain. It is not That sere and withered leaves shall drop in autumn, That always will be ; nor that tender buds, Frost-bitten die untimely in their spring ; Nor that the hale and well may also fall, Heft by the stormy winds,—all that may be, To any people, and at any time, To-morrow only knows what it shall bring. But human law, defying the divine, Which gave the land for man to dwell thereon, And to replenish and subdue its wildness, Straining the rights of those who own the soil, By writs and deeds, wherein they give it over Who had no property in it to give, has torn up by the roots a band of you, Loyal and dutiful and fearing God As any in the land, and here no more Shall we together sing our psalm of praise, Or break the bread, or drink the cup of blessing. Therefore is this a solemn day with us, Touched with the sadness of their leave-taking, And with regretful memories."

Such utterances, however, must not be listened to in silence by the factor, who, in a rash moment, exclaims :—

"Take care, Sir ; You're on the verge of treasonable speech Against the law."

This rude disturbance of the sanctities of public worship was followed by behaviour and speech on the part of the factor, which at last roused the wrath of "the men ;" but meanwhile the minister only replies, and our readers will at once recognise the pathos and appropriateness of his language :—

" We do not break the law. Even when it breaks the hearts that it should bind Closer to home and country. Neither would I Pear Mara-water now into the cup

Heaven sweetened with the wood of His dear Cross Who loved as. Men may wreok your happy homes, But God is building better mansions for you ; They make a desert—He a paradise.

They drive you over sea ; but Ho will bring you Where there is no more sea. And we should take The losses and the crosses of our life As hooks to fasten us to that better world."

We have no such salient single poems in Kildrostaa as are found in Hilda or Raban, bat the lines in which "the chorus" describes the sail of Ina and Aforag to the scene of the communion are very fine ; and "Kenneth's Song," which is set to the key of " Lochaber no more," and which, indeed, reads like a translation from the Gaelic, penetrated as it is by the plaint and pathos peculiar to the Highland Celt, combined with a kind of " hodden grey" prosaic realism, not leas character- istic, would have touched the heart of Alexander Ewing, and will evoke the sympathy of all lovers of the men of Argyle and the Isles. With the following stanzas from this song our article on Kildrostaa may appropriately take end :— " There is no fire of the crackling boughs

On the hearths of oar fathers, There is no lowing of brown-eyed cows On the green meadows, Nor do the maidens whisper vows In the still gloaming, Glenaradale.

No father here but would give a son For the old country, And his mother the sword would have girded on To fight her battles ; Many's the battle that has been won By the brave tartans, Glenaradale !

Bat the big-horned stag and his hinds, we know,

In the high comes, And the salmon that swirls the pool below Where the stream rushes, Are more than the hearts of men, and so We leave tby green valley, Glenaradale."