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"Then wake (for well thou can'st) that wondrous | How starts the nurse, when for her lovely child, lay, She sees at dawn a gaping idiot stare! How, while around the thoughtless matrons O snatch the innocent from demons wild,

sleep,

Soft o'er the floor the treacherous fairies creep,
And bear the smiling infant far away:

which he thought might be acceptable to the family, to whose Bervice he had devoted himself. But, although, like Milton's

And save the parents fond from fell despair!
In a deep cave the trusty menials wait,
When from their hilly dens at midnight's hour,
Forth rush the airy elves in mimic state,

And o'er the moonlight heath with swiftness

scour:

lubber fierd, he loves to stretch himself by the fire, he does Ir. glittering arms the little horsemen shine;

not drudge from the hope of recompense. On the contrary, so delicate is his attachment, that the offer of reward, but particularly of food, infallibly occasions his disappearance for

ever.1

-how the drudging goblin sweats,

To earn the cream-bowl, duly set!
When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had thrashed the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend
And stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks on the fire his airy strength:
And, crop-full out of door he flings,
E'er the first cock his matin rings.'

L'Allegro.

'When the menials in a Scottish family protracted their vigils around the kitchen fire, Brownie, weary of being excluded from the midnight hearth, sometimes appeared at the door, seemed to watch their departure, and thus admonished them-"Gang a' to your beds, sir, and dinna put out the wee grieshoch (embers,"")

Last, on a milk-white steed, with targe of gold, A fay of might appears, whose arms entwine The lost-lamented child! the Shepherds bold* The unconscious infant tear from his unhallowed hold."

*For an account of the Fairy superstition, see the Introduction to the "Tale of Tamlane," in that elegant work called | Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. ii. p. 174. Second Edition.

wanted. Having put the horse into the stable where it was afterwards found in a woful plight, he proceeded to the room of the servant, whose duty he had discharged; and finding him just in the act of drawing on his boots, he administered to him a most merciless drubbing with his own horse-whip Such an important service excited the gratitude of the laird; who, understanding that Brownie had been heard to express a wish to have a green coat, ordered a vestment of that colour to be made, and left in his haunts. Brownie took away the green coat, but never was seen more. We may suppose, that tired of his domestic drudgery, he went in his new livery to join the fairies.

"The last Brownie, known in Ettrick forest, resided in Bods beck, a wild and solitary spot, where he exercised his func tions undisturbed, till the scrupulous devotion of an old lady induced her to hire him away, as it was termed, by placing in his haunt a porringer of milk and a piece of money. After receiving this hint to depart, he was heard the whole night to howl and cry, "Farewell to bonny Bodsbeck!" which he was compelled to abandon for ever.'

↑ It is told of a Brownie, who haunted a border family now extinct, that the lady having fallen unexpectedly in labour, and the servant who was ordered to ride to Jedburgh for the sage femme showing no great alertness in setting out, the familiar spirit slipt on the great-coat of the lingering domestic, rode to the town on the laird's best horse, and returned with the midwife en croupe. During the short space of his absence, the Tweed, which they must necessarily ford, rose to a dangerous height. Brownie, who transported his charge with all the rapidity of the ghostly lover of Lenora, was not to be stopped by this obstacle. He plunged in with the terrified It seems no improbable conjecture, that the Brownie is a Jad lady, and anded her in safety where her services were legitimate descendant of the Lar Familiaris of the ancien

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