346 HORSE PORTRAITURE. 



a people, their superiors in bravery, to the union with 

 England, her knowledge was far beyond that of the books. 

 Of things that happened subsequently to the incorporation 

 of the two countries, she would take no note, as, according 

 to her idea, 



" The English, for once, by guile won the day," 



and to join in friendship with their auld allies was a 

 stretch of philosophical forbearance beyond the tenets in- 

 culcated in her mind. The framers of the American Con- 

 stitution, when they added the clause that the chief officer 

 of this country should be a native, were aware of the ties 

 that never can be broken, which binds a man to his father- 

 land ; and though I left the bleak hills of Scotland when a 

 boy, and a quarter of a century has elapsed since then, I 

 would not renounce the place of my nativity, to be at the 

 head of this powerful government. This is, no doubt, non- 

 sense; as the renunciation would not aid me in climbing 

 one step towards that high position, though the remem- 

 brance of the heathery hills, the holms studded with 

 gowans, and the sparkling burns, will always be a war- 

 rant for my loyalty. 



. Peggy* 8 great forte, however, was poetry, and her audi- 

 tory of " toddlin bairns" was never cloyed by a surfeit, 

 though her repertoire of ballads, love songs, and merry 

 chants was as extensive as her legendary lore. She could 

 not often be coaxed to " wed the words of music," but 

 when she did, the simple grace with which she sung the 

 old Scotch tunes is remembered yet, sounding like the 

 voices I have heard in the woods at midnight spirit- 

 voices murmuring chimes of another land. The feeling 

 with which she rendered the pathetic ones, like Cumnor 

 Hall, or the lamentations of some of the exiled adherents 

 of the house of Stuart, I have never heard equaled, and 



