Upon a borrowing day when sleet Made twinters and hog-wedders bleet, And quake with cauld; behind a ruck Met honest Toop and snaking Buck; Frae chin to tail clad with thick hair, He bad defiance to thin air; But trusty Toop his fleece had riven, When he amang the birns was driven : Half naked the brave leader stood, He look'd compos'd, unmov'd his mood. When thus the Goat, that had tint a' His credit baith with great and sma', Shunn'd by them as a pest, wad fain New friendship with this worthy gain. Ram, say, shall I give you a part Of mine? I'll do 't with all my heart, 'Tis yet a lang cauld month to Beltan, And ye've a very ragged kelt on; Accept, I pray, what I can spare, To clout your doublet with my hair. No, says the Ram, tho' my coat 's torn, Yet ken, thou worthless, that I scorn To be oblig'd at any price To sic as you, whose friendship's vice; I'd have less favour frae the best, Boons frae the generous make ane smile, Christ's Kirk on the Green. sheep of certain ages rick sneaking burnt heathstalks lost 3rd May coat (From Canto iii.) A complete edition of Ramsay's poems, with a biography by George Chalmers, was published in 1800, and has been often reprinted. A selection by Mr Logie Robertson was issued in 1887. The Tea-table Miscellany and the Evergreen have been reprinted more than once. There is a short biography of Ramsay by Mr Oliphant Smeaton (1896), and an admirable essay in Professor Masson's Edinburgh Sketches (1892). WILLIAM WALLACE. William Meston (1688–1745), who aspired to write the Scottish Hudibras, was the son of an Aberdeenshire blacksmith, and, after an education at Marischal College, became one of the regents there through the influence of the noble family of Keith. Following his patrons, however, in the rebellion of 1715, he lost his office, and had to go for a while into hiding, and during the rest of his life he earned a precarious subsistence as schoolmaster and tutor in various places in the north of Scotland, under the protection of several Jacobite families. His Knight of the Kirk (1723) shows a close and even servile imitation of the plot and metre of Butler. Sir John Presbyter takes the place of the English Puritan knight, and that of Ralph is filled by a squire who evidently represents the Wild Westland Whigs. The poem had a certain vogue among Scottish Jacobites, and it would seem that about five or six editions of it appeared within forty years. But it shows no trace of original genius, and the almost entire lack of action in its pages makes it very tedious reading even in its fragmentary state. Meston's collected verses, which were printed at Edinburgh in 1767, and reprinted at Aberdeen in 1802, include also a series of short stories in verse entitled Mother Grim's Tales. Robert Crawford (c. 1695-1733), author of 'Tweedside' and 'The Bush aboon Traquair,' was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. He assisted Allan Ramsay in his Tea-table Miscellany, and, according to information obtained by Burns, was drowned in coming from France in May 1733. His two lyrics, admired by Burns and Allan Cunningham, now strike one as oddly conventional; though there is only one word of unmistakable Scotch in the two songs, we place him here with the vernacular and local poets. The Bush aboon Traquair. My vows and sighs, like silent air, That day she smiled and made me glad, I thought myself the luckiest lad, I tried to soothe my amorous flame, If more there passed, I'm not to blame- Yet now she scornful flees the plain, If e'er we meet she shews disdain, Ye rural powers, who hear my strains, Why thus should Peggy grieve me? O make her partner in my pains, Then let her smiles relieve me : If not, my love will turn despair, My passion no more tender; I'll leave the Bush aboon Traquair— To lonely wilds I'll wander. Tweedside. What beauties does Flora disclose! How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed! Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those, Both nature and fancy exceed. No daisy, nor sweet blushing rose, Not all the gay flowers of the field, Not Tweed, gliding gently through those, Such beauty and pleasure does yield. The warblers are heard in the grove, The linnet, the lark, and the thrush; The blackbird, and sweet cooing dove, Let us see how the primroses spring; And love while the feathered folk sing. 'Tis she does the virgins excel; No beauty with her may compare; She's fairest where thousands are fair. Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray? Oh, tell me at morn where they feed? Shall I seek them on sweet-winding Tay? Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed? Alexander Ross (1699-1784), from 1732 schoolmaster at Lochlee in Forfarshire, when nearly seventy years of age, in 1768, published at Aberdeen, by the advice of Dr Beattie, a volume entitled Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess, a Pastoral Tale in the Scottish Dialect, to which are added a few Songs by the Author. Some of his songs-as 'Woo'd, and Married, and a', 'The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow'-are still popular in Scotland. Being chiefly written in the Buchan dialect—which differs in words and in pronunciation from the west-country Scotch of Burns— Ross's pastoral is little known even in Scotland. Beattie took a warm interest in the 'goodhumoured, social, happy old man'-who was independent on £20 a year-and to promote the sale of his volume, he addressed a letter and a poetical epistle in praise of it in Aberdeenshire Scotch to the Aberdeen Journal. Woo'd, and Married, and a'. And have neither blankets nor sheets; Woo'd, and married, and a', That was woo'd, and married, and a'? Out spake the bride's father, As he cam in frae the pleugh: 'Oh, haud your tongue, my dochter, And ye 'se get gear eneugh; And our braw bawsint yaud, What wad ye be at, ye jaud?' wiped mare with a white forehead jade 'Poor Willie wad ne'er hae ta'en ye, I'se ne'er tak ane i' my life.' Out spake the bride's sister, As she cam in frae the byre: 'O gin I were but married, It's a' that I desire; But we poor folk maun live single, I dinna care what I should want, John Skinner (1721-1807), by his 'Tullochgorum' and other songs, helped to inspire Burns, and in his life as in his verses sought to further kindliness and good-will among men. Born at Birse in Aberdeenshire, the son of a Presbyterian schoolmaster, he was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and, turning Episcopalian, from 1742 officiated as Episcopal minister of Longside near Peterhead. After the troubled period of the rebellion of 1745, when the Episcopal clergy of Scotland laboured under the charge of disaffection, Skinner was in 1753 imprisoned six months for preaching to more than four persons! He was a faithful pastor and a diligent student, setting little store by his verse-writing gifts. All his life he had a hard struggle with poverty; in venerable age he died in the house of his son, the Bishop of Aberdeen, having realised his wish of 'seeing once more his children's grandchildren, and peace upon Israel.' His son edited the theological works (with Life, 3 vols. 1809); the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland (2 vols. 1788) begins with the conversion of Scotland, and is an authority for the history of the 'suffering and Episcopal remnant.' There is also a most interesting life of him by Walker (1883). Skinner wrote a poem on football in imitation of Chrystis Kirk, which latter he did into Latin. He wrote Latin versions of some of the psalms, and several Latin poems, humorous and other. 'The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn' combines playful humour and tenderness; Burns's 'Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie' has much in common with it. Burns said (too complimentarily, writing to Skinner himself) ""Tullochgorum" was the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw.' In Skinner's day 'Tullochgorum' was no song, but the name of a Highland reel tune, called after a holding of the Grants on Speyside. THE REIGNS OF GEORGES. HE accession of the Hano history; the outward events it brought in its trainthe Jacobite risings at home and the foreign complications-did not so deeply affect the life of the nation as is suggested by the disproportionate space their records occupy in the national annals. But under the first George, who did not know any English, and the second, who to the end of his life spoke it as a foreigner, notable changes and signs of greater change manifested themselves in our literature. towards the end of the seventeenth century, we verian dynasty made no found the new leaven working; Grongar Hill is largely a poem of nature, but has not wholly thrown off the old fetters. And in virtue of his principal poem, The Fleece, Dyer must still be ranked with the didactics; though, he is obviously happier when exulting over his Welsh mountains than in blessing English sheep-walks and their industries. Young and Blair are far removed from Pope in temper as in versification; but the Night Thoughts and the Grave, both printed in the period under review, belong clearly to the didactic category. In James Thomson, born in the very last months of the seventeenth century, literary historians have agreed to see the first whole-hearted prophet of the new movement; direct and heartfelt descriptions of natural scenery form the warp and woof of his fine spun web (see above at page 11). Yet the Seasons was being read while Pope's pre-eminency was undisputed, and before the Essay on Man was written. In Shenstone, along with much old artificiality, the new spirit is also stirring. Gray and Collins combine with zeal for a classical perfection of form, a freedom and variety of verse and rhythm, a simplicity and spontaneity of thought and feeling, that point forward to the poetry of romanticism. Mallet's William and Margaret prepares the way for the work of Warton and Percy on the relics of the romantic past. The significance of Fielding's novels, and their modernness of spirit in contrast to Richardson, have been dealt with by Mr Dobson at pages 7 and 340 of this volume. The rude realism of Fielding and Smollett is also an aspect of the naturalistic movement, and is reflected in the art of Hogarth. Akenside, Thomson's younger contemporary, is even more didactic and pseudo-philosophical than many of his spiritual ancestors; and Dr Samuel Johnson, the dominant personality in his age, the most characteristic representative of eighteenth-century England, in his poetry holds almost wholly of the past. The Great Cham of letters was too ponderous a figure to be easily swayed by new movements or the Most important is what is known as the return to nature, the revival of interest in the poetry of natural description: the gradual transition from the poetry of formal culture, of critical disquisition, of philosophical reflection, to the poetry of emotion, of spontaneous joy in life and passion and beauty. At no time had men or poets been wholly obtuse to the glories of nature-of sea and sky, mountain and river, winter storms and summer sunsets. But somehow in poetry and literature the expression of these emotions was obscured by much moralising and reflecting on them, and so making them, as it were, a background for philosophical and more or less artificial-looking elucubrations. The more Nature in the abstract was praised and invoked and personified in poetry and prose, the less room was left for taking concrete things and facts close to the heart. The difference was not so much in what men felt, or in the way they felt, as in the things they were moved to put into words and to utter in song, and what other people cared to have them say. Human nature remained fundamentally the same, but sought and found a new way of expressing itself, or at least of expressing itself more fully. Occasional utterances that reveal the new temper may be traced sporadically even in the writers at the end of the seventeenth century, but become more frequent and more marked early in the eighteenth. In Dyer, born 320 The Reigns of the German-Born Georges mysterious currents of the Zeitgeist; it was his to represent for all time the outstanding characteristics of the eternal and immutable Englishman, not without a full share of insular prejudices and limitations. Fully half of Johnson's literary career was over with the reign of George II. His influence and Goldsmith's example produced a temporary reaction towards old principles in poetry. A very noteworthy feature of this early Georgian period is the way in which, while a vernacular Scottish revival was in progress at home, Scotsmen came to the front in English literature, and in poetry, novel writing, philosophic speculation, political and economic thought, and even literary criticism, disputed the pre-eminency with the Southrons on their own ground. Burnet had secured a prominent place as a historian ere he died, just at the close of Anne's reign; and Arbuthnot, who lived till 1735, was the first Scotsman who associated on a footing of perfect equality with the foremost wits in London society. But James Thomson was the first Scotsman to be ranked by Englishmen amongst great English poets. Not merely in England but on the Continent, Hume and Robertson were accepted as great writers and representative English historians. Adam Smith was laying the foundations of a new science, though it was under George III. that the Wealth of Nations appeared. Even Mallet's romantic ballad was a sign of the times; and Macpherson was collecting or inventing the Ossianic poems which had so strange a place in the movement of the century. Smollett had done much of his best work and even been hailed as a rival to Fielding; and Boswell, though not yet the prince of biographers, was writing for the magazines. Lord Kames had ventured to lay down the laws of literature even to Englishmen, and had written the Elements of Criticism, which became a standard work at the beginning of the next reign. And Hugh Blair had begun at Edinburgh those Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres which moved George III., at the beginning of his reign, to endow a chair of rhetoric for the elegant (rather than eloquent) preacher whose sermons were to be the pious king's favourite reading. Several of these authors attained to their highest fame well on in the second half of the century, but they were all already active or conspicuous under the earlier Georges. And their joint achievement would have been a rich legacy to any country or period. Border raids were over and done: in English literature there was henceforward to be a Scottish occupation in force. As the eighteenth century progressed, English authors addressed themselves less exclusively to the gentry and the London coteries, and kept more steadily in view the 'general reader.' And before the middle of the century, English literature was becoming a power on the Continent. Voltaire's memorable visit to England took place in 1726-29; Rousseau's not till 1766. The Spectator's influence was telling everywhere, and through the Abbé Prévost's translations of Richardson, the English novel was introduced to the French world under the best auspices. Young's Night Thoughts struck a chord throughout educated Europe, and in a German translation (1760–71) made its mark on multitudes who knew no English. Thomson, too, soon found a foreign following. Other notes of the period are dealt with in Mr Dobson's essay on the eighteenth century at the beginning of this volume. James James Thomson was born at Ednam, near Kelso in Roxburgh, on the 11th of September 1700. His father, then minister of the parish of Ednam, soon removed to Southdean, a retired parish among the lower slopes of the Cheviots; and there the young poet spent his boyish years. The gift of poesy came early, and some lines written at the age of fourteen show how soon his characteristic manner was formed. In his eighteenth year Thomson was sent to Edinburgh College to study for the Church; but after the death of his father he went to London (1725) to push his fortune. His college friend, Mallet, got him a post as tutor to the son of Lord Binning, and being shown some of his descriptions Thomson. of Winter, advised him to connect them into one regular poem. Winter was published in March 1726, the poet receiving only three guineas for the copyright. A second and a third edition appeared the same year. Summer appeared in 1727. In 1728 he issued proposals for publishing, by subscription, the Four Seasons; the number of subscribers, at a guinea a copy, was 387; Pope to whom Thomson had been introduced by Mallet) took three copies. Autumn completed the work, which appeared in 1730. He wrote a poem on the death of Newton, and Britannia (1729), a tirade against Spain and in praise of the Prince of Wales. The tragedy of Sophonisba was produced in 1729; |