266 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



I trust, however, that I shall yet have an opportunity of 

 convincing him that, though only an indifferent poet, I 

 am more than a tolerable philosopher/ 



It was remotely and but for a moment that Hugh 

 Miller and Thomas Pringle came into relation with 

 each other, and yet it is impossible to pass on without 

 saying a word of one whose poems justify Miller's fine 

 and appropriate eulogy, and whose life merited eulogy 

 more enthusiastic still. Scotland, among her many 

 noble sons, has hardly sent into the world a nobler than 

 the high-souled, brilliant Pringle. As a poet he had 

 much reputation in his day, and some of his pieces are 

 not likely soon to drop into oblivion. Coleridge declared 

 that his stanzas, entitled Afar in the Desert, are to be 

 classed ' among the two or three most perfect lyric poems 

 in our language.' His Lion and Giraffe seems to be 

 the original from which Freiligrath paraphrased his 

 universally-known Lions Ride. Nay, if one could trust 

 his ear, and the general impression conveyed by the 

 poems, it might be suggested that the ring of Pringle's 

 Lion Hunt was in the head of a greater than Ereiligrath 

 when he wrote How they brought the Good News from 

 Ghent to Aix. Browning's poem is far and away the 

 greater of the two, but its picturesque vividness and 

 manner of poetic touch recall to my mind at least the 

 earlier strain : 



' Mount mount for the hunting with musket and spear ! 

 Call our friends to the field for the Lion is near ! 

 Call Arend and Ekhard and Groepe to the spoor ; 

 Call Miiller and Coetzer and Lucas Van Vuur. 



' Side up Eildon-Cleugh, and hlow loudly the bugle : 

 Call Slinger and Allic and Dikkop and Dugal ; 

 And George with the elephant-gun on his shoulder 

 In a perilous pinch none is better or bolder.' 



