A youth of remarkable promise, William Brown Clark Riddell, was the youngest son of Mr Henry Scott Riddell.[12] He was born at Flexhouse, near Hawick, Roxburghshire, on the 16th December 1835. In his seventh year he was admitted a pupil in John Watson's Institution, Edinburgh, where he remained till 1850, when, procuring a bursary from the governors of Heriot's Hospital, he entered the University of Edinburgh. During three sessions he prosecuted his studies with extraordinary ardour and success. On the commencement of a fourth session he was seized with an illness which completely prostrated his physical, and occasionally enfeebled his mental, energies. After a period of suffering, patiently borne, he died in his father's cottage, Teviothead, on the 20th July 1856, in his twenty-first year.
Of an intellect singularly precocious, William Riddell, so early as the age of seven, composed in correct and interesting prose, and produced in his eighth year some vigorous poetry. With a highly retentive memory he retained the results of an extended course of reading, begun almost in childhood. Conversant with general history, he was familiar with the various systems of philosophy. To an accurate knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics, he added a correct acquaintance with many of the modern languages. He found consolation on his deathbed, by perusing the Scriptures in the original tongues. He died in fervent hope, and with Christian resignation.
LAMENT OF WALLACE.[13]
No more by thy margin, dark Carron,
Shall Wallace in solitude, wander,
When tranquil the moon shines afar on
Thy heart-stirring wildness and grandeur.
For lost are to me
Thy beauties for ever,
Since fallen in thee
Lie the faithful and free,
To waken, ah, never!
And I, thus defeated, must suffer
My country's reproach; yet, forsaken,
A home to me nature may offer
Among her green forests of braken.
But home who can find
For heart-rending sorrow?
The wound who can bind
When thus pierced is the mind
By fate's ruthless arrow?
'Tis death that alone ever frees us
Of woes too profound to be spoken,
And nought but the grave ever eases
The pangs of a heart that is broken.
Then, oh! that my blood
In Carron's dark water
Had mix'd with the flood
Of the warriors' shed
'Mid torrents of slaughter.
For woe to the day when desponding
I read in thine aspect the story
Of those that were slain when defending
Their homes and their mountains of glory.
And curst be the guile
Of treacherous knavery
That throws o'er our isle
In its tyranny vile
The mantle of slavery.
OH! WHAT IS IN THIS FLAUNTING TOWN?[14]
Oh! what is in this flaunting town
That pleasure can impart,
When native hills and native glens
Are imaged on the heart,
And fancy hears the ceaseless roar
Of cataracts sublime,
Where I have paused and ponder'd o'er
The awful works of time?
What, what is all the city din?
What all the bustling crowd
That throngs these ways from morn to night
Array'd in trappings proud?
While fancy's eye still sees the scenes
Around my mountain home,
Oh! what 's to me yon turret high.
And what yon splendid dome?
Ah! what except a mockery vain
Of nature free as fair,
That dazzles rather than delights
The eye that meets its glare?
Then bear me to the heathy hills
Where I so loved to stray,
There let me rove with footsteps free
And sing the rural lay.
