And eat thy fruit, protected with thy sons;
Though stronger far and holier is the tie
By which are knit my heart-strings to thy love;
Thou gav'st me, yet an infant unbaptised,
Immortal wealth, the seeds of better life.

Thou goddess! by the softening sun beloved, Rejoicest, he with unfulfilled desire

Delights not only on thy face to dwell

In amorous smile the live-long summer's day,
But, looking back from the Atlantic brine,
Eyes thy glad slumbers with reflected beam,
And glitters o'er thy head the clear night long.

Neglect not thou the sea, that yields thee salt, Salt, origin of tastes, with which we eat The well-fed ox, and bread by labour earned. Thence too the coal its nitrous spirit draws— Coal such as dug from firry Elphingston, Or Winton's level land that smiles with wheat, Brings back bright ore, reward of industry, Or such as in Montrose, fair harboured town, They burn; or in Alectum, lofty domed, And dims, Edina, thy aspiring brow. No other fuel claimeth Glasgow blue, Watery Linlithgow's royal seat, or Perth, Whose evening bells the roving Highlander Hears sweet, though far descending Stenton hill, Nor Fife, well-peopled in her sea-towns tiled. Such also we in high Devana burn, Glancing on marble hearth, the oily jet Crackling full fast makes mild the bitter air

With sulphured steam, and thaws with grateful warmth
The frozen pilgrim, while the glowing grate

Doubles the heat, and gay the enlivened hall
Laughs wide, illumined with the pleasing gleam.

Ere since of old the haughty thanes of Ross-
So to the simple swain tradition tells-
Were wont with clans and ready vassals thronged
To wake the bounding stag or guilty wolf,
There oft is heard at midnight, or at noon,
Beginning faint, but rising still more loud
And nearer, voice of hunters and of hounds
And horns hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen.
Forthwith the hubbub multiplies, the gale
Labours with wilder shrieks and rifer din
Of hot pursuit-the broken cry of deer
Mangled by throttling dogs, the shouts of men,
And hoofs thick beating on the hollow hill.
Sudden the grazing heifer in the vale

Starts at the noise, and both the herdsman's ears
Tingle with inward dread. Aghast he eyes
The mountain's height and all the ridges round;
Yet not one trace of living wight discerns,
Nor knows, o'erawed and trembling as he stands,
To what or whom he owes his idle fear-
To ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend;
But wonders, and no end of wondering finds.
Albania dear, attend! behold I seek
Thy angel night and day with eager feet
On peopled coast and western mountain lone,
In city paved and well-aired village thatched,

From end to end of Scotland many-mined.
Oft too I dare the deep, though winter storms
Rage fierce, and round me mad Corbrecho roar,
Wafted with love to see Columba's isles.

There view I winged Skye, and Lewes long, Resort of whales; and Wyste where herrings swarm; And talk, at once delighted and appalled,

By the pale moon, with utmost Hirta's seers,
Of beckoning ghosts and shadowy men that bode
Sure death. Nor there doth Jura's double hill
Escape my sight; nor Mull, though bald and bare;
Nor Ilay, where erewhile Macdonalds reigned.
Thee too, Lismore! I hail St. Moloch's shrine;
Inchgall, first conquered by the brand of Scots;
And, filled with awe of ancient saints and kings,
I kiss, O Icolmkill! thy hallowed mould.

Thus, Caledonia, many-hilled! to thee,
End and beginning of my ardent song,
I tune the Druid's lyre, to thee devote
This lay, and love not music but for thee.

ALEXANDER ROSS.

1699-1784.

The immediate successor and indeed imitator of Allan Ramsay as the writer of a Scottish pastoral was the teacher of a remote parish school among the Grampians. Son of an Aberdeenshire farmer, Alexander Ross was born at Kincardine O'Neil, on April 13, 1699. After taking his degree at Marischal College in 1718, he acted for a time, like many Scottish students, as a tutor. Afterwards he became schoolmaster successively at Aboyne and Laurencekirk, settling finally at the remote Lochlea in Forfarshire. There he remained, reared a large family on scanty means, and wrote the various poetical pieces by which he is remembered. In 1766 he carried the manuscript of his pastoral, "Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess," to Aberdeen. Beattie, the author of The Minstrel, at that time a professor there, took an interest in the rustic poet, helped his work to publication, and secured it a hearing. The piece proved successful, and brought its author no small local fame, with the, to him, not inconsiderable sum of £20. To the present day "Helenore" remains popular in the north, but in spite of its frequent touches of nature and the stamp of truth about its characters, its many incongruities destroy its effect as a work of art. The poem is written in the Buchan dialect, and possesses some interest on that account; but the reader is startled to find a Helenore and a Rosalind (in this case the hero's name) among the peasantry of Scotland, and still more so to come upon these high-sounding titles contracted with easy familiarity into "Nory" and "Lindy." The pastoral, however, has not been without an influence upon the work of later poets, and Burns has acknowledged that Scota, the muse to whom Ross addresses his invocation, afforded the suggestion for his own Coila.

It is by his songs, however, that Ross is most widely known. "Wooed and married and a'," "The Rock and the wee pickle tow," "The Bridal o't," "What ails the lasses at me?" and "To the begging we will go !" are rich in typical Scots humour,

I spoiled.

and full of spirit, while their homely sense, and the distinct individual tang which they possess, ensure them a place in every collection.

Ross died at Lochlea at a green old age in 1784. A life of him by his grandson, the Rev. Alexander Thomson, minister of Lentrathen, was prefixed to the fifth edition of his poems, published at Dundee in 1812; and to a more recent edition, published at Glasgow in 1868, a further memoir was written by Dr. John Longmuir. The poet at his death left some eight small volumes of verse and prose which still remain unprinted.

WOOED AND MARRIED AND A'.*

WOOED and married and a',
Married and wooed and a';
The dandilly' toast of the parish

Is wooed and married and a'.
The wooers will now ride thinner,

And by, when they wonted to ca';
'Tis needless to speer for the lassie

That's wooed and married and a'.

* By a curious carelessness, another song with this title was substituted for this in the Brechin edition of Ross's poems. Following that mistake, Stenhouse, in his notes to Johnson's Museum, while attributing the Brechin version to Ross, stated that the longer piece was the work of Mrs. Scott of Dunbarton. It is possible that Ross was also the author of the substituted Brechin version; it was a habit of his to write curtailments of his songs for popular purposes. For this reason the Brechin version is also appended here. But the nine-stanza copy first given is the copy of the first two editions of Ross's poems, and must necessarily be his work. Still another song with the same title and on the same theme was written by Joanna Baillie, and is included among her poetical works.