SPELL.

Off went "Cockie" with the notice in one hand and his bell in the other. The lecturer and his chum, Bob,. remained at a convenient point of observation. Upon stopping at the first street corner “Cockie” gave his bell the usual loud, preparatory rings, whereupon the doors of the houses within range of his voice were opened and attentive listeners stood on the thresholds.

This is what "Cockie" cried in a shrill, discordant voice:

"Tak' notice that Mr. Simpson frae Gretengreen wull preach Christ i' the Toon Hall on Sunday nicht at sax o'clock. Admission free to a'."

This was too much for Jim and Bob to endure, and they immediately determined that "Cockie" must be restrained from making further announcements. This was no easy matter. "Cockie" proved obdurate and could not be persuaded to yield until he received another sixpence. He was asked for the loan of his bell, but nothing could induce him to part with it. However, Bob and Jim managed to get a bell without much difficulty, and Bob went through the town and cried the lecture in a manner that made the inhabitants express a wish to have the new crier as "Cockie's" permanent successor.

The lecture was well attended and the collection exceeded expectations, one temperance enthusiast having put no less than a pound note in the plate.

The lecture was well received, and at the close one of those present seemed to voice the general opinion of the audience when he warmly shook hands with the lecturer and said: "Ye just did as well as Gough himsel'."

Somewhere in the North (all marvels of this kind are said in the South Highlands to have occurred in the North) a tailor was working in the house of an old woman, who knew the forbidden arts, but at the time was short of kitchen for dinner. She took a creel, sat in it, and having muttered some mystic words, disappeared through a hole in the roof that formed the chimney. In a while she came back with the creel full of herring. The tailor kept the spell in remembrance, and the first day he got the old woman out of the way, sat in the creel, and repeated it. He does not seem, however, to have learned the words quite correctly, for the creel, instead of making for the hole in the roof, rose straight up and hit his head violently against the rafters. It then floated along against the roof, as if in search of an outlet. It bumped his head a second time against the rafters. and he roared out, "Where, in the curse of God, are you going now?" Instantly at the name of the Deity, the creel fell down, and the tailor dislocated his hips. (chaidh e as a ghobhal). He never again dabbled in the dark science. From "Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," by John Gregorson Campbell.

He knows how I am longing

Some weary soul to win, And so He bids me go and speak The loving word for Him; He bids me tell His wondrous love,

And why He came to die, And so we work together, My Lord and I.

All the qualities that go to make a great poet were combined in William Dunbar. He was singularly gifted by nature, educated in the universities, the companion of kings and queens, his mind. broadened by a vast and varied experience with the world, warm hearted and clear headed, he was altogether an admirable character, the delight of all who had the pleasure of his companionship, the joy and ornament of the Scottish Court in the days of James IV, the special favorite of Queen Margaret, an accomplished and courtly ambassador, a thorough man of the world and yet a Scot all over.

As a poet he possessed a wonderful variety of gifts, his genius embracing all the excellencies of many masters. He had all the liquid melody of Spenser with the shrewd, homely wit of Chaucer. Some of his verses have all the piety of Cowper. In satire he is the equal of Burns, and in the particular quality of self-portraiture Burns and Dunbar are marvelously alike. Not only are the men. and women of his time brought before us transfigured by the magic genius of the poet into living realities, but the constantly recurring revelation of his own. unique personality interests and attracts the reader of his rich and melodious

verse.

William Dunbar is supposed to have been born about the year 1460. The first mention of his name is among the Bachelors of Arts in St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, in the registers of the

University, in 177. Two years later his name again occurs when he had taken his degree of Master of Arts. He entered the Order of St. Francis, and in the habit of a friar preached in many towns both in Scotland and England and also crossed to France, where he was some time occupied in instructing the inhabitants of Picardy.

This mode of life was not pleasing to him. He confesses that he had recourse to many a pious fraud, from whose guilt. no holy water could cleanse him. Indeed, the life of a friar was not at all suited to his disposition. He was of a joyous disposition, fond of sport, which is the effloresence of perfect health and an untroubled mind. About the end of the century we find that he had installed himself into the good graces of James IV at Edinburgh. The Stewarts were quick to appreciate literary excellence and Dunbar was pensioned in 1501, first receiving £10 a year and latterly augmented to £80. This does not seem much in our day, but the purchasing power of money was perhaps ten times greater then than it is now, and doubtless the sum was sufficient to meet the few wants of the poet priest.

On the marriage of James IV to Margaret of England, Dunbar, who had gone to London to aid in completing the negotiations in regard to the royal marriage, celebrated that event, so auspicious to the happiness of both countries, in a fine poem entitled, "The Thistle and the Rose," in which he emblematized the junction and amity of the two portions of

gifted are often compelled to exhibit that phase of their character which is the most readily appreciated by those around them. Shakespeare made a clown of himself in London for thirty shillings a week. Other great poets have made fools of themselves for nothing. Doubtless Dunbar danced for his dinner.

The poet never seemed to know how rich he was. A favorite at court, a pensioner, had he been a politician he would have grown rich. As it was the poor poet tells the king that his aspirations were in reality very humble.

"Great graith I never hope to gather,
But ae kirk scantly roofed wi' heather;
For I of little would be fain;
Which to consider is a pain.'

Like Burns, he dwells pensively on the ill division of the world's goods, how some have too much, without meriting even little, while others merit all and have nothing. Dunbar says:

"I know nought how the kirk is guided,
But benefices are richt ill divided,
Some men hae seven and I have nane
Which to consider is a pain."

Three hundred years afterward Burns echoes this statement. The Ayrshire plowman says:

"It's hardly in a body's power
To keep at times frae being sour
To see how things are shared
How best o' chields are aft in want
While coofs in countless thousands rant
An' kenna how to ware 't."

The two greatest of Scottish poets meet each other often in their saddest and merriest veins.

"The Friars of Berwick," an exquisitely humorous poem, and "The Twa Marriet

Women and the Widow" are admirable works of their kind and in point of humor mixed with a harmless satire embodying a vast and varied knowledge of human nature are equal to the best of the Canterbury Tales, and in their own peculiar sphere of depicting some of the less admirable traits of human nature generally and Scottish character particularly they are not surpassed by any poet of any age.

Perhaps the poem displaying the highest powers of Dunbar is one entitled, "The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins," which presents pictures equally expressive perhaps with any that have been delineated by Milton.

Dunbar had the good fortune, rare in that age, of seeing much of his best verse in print. In 1508, among the very first books issued by the Scottish press was a collection of Dunbar's best poems. A complete collection of his works was not published till 1834. In this admirable collection, published by David Laing, the resemblance between Dunbar and Burns is strangely intensified. In epigrams, in short epitaphs and little glimpses of Scottish life and character Dunbar has all the freshness of coloring that characterized the later master of Scottish poetry. A mind plastic and impressionable seemed ever ready to reflect in vocal utterance lyrically expressed whatever came before him. On seeing a black woman in Edinburgh he weaves a string of verses. which show how rare a sight a colored person must have been there at that time. This is a sample stanza:

"When she walks forth in her apparel, She shineth like a big tar barrel,

When she was born there was eclipse, The Night had triumphed in her quarrel, The lady with the muckle lips.'

Three years after the poet had had his pension raised to £80 came the fatal battle of Flodden and the death of James IV. Dunbar's dancing days were done. We never hear of him again. Doubtless the poet's pension was continued, and possibly the Queen Regent may have given the poet some post or place to his liking. She did not wear widow's weeds very long. She married the young Earl of Angus a few months after Flodden, but there is no word of Dunbar writing a bridal hymn or dancing in the queen's chamber. There is no account of his death or place of burial. A new king arose who knew not Dunbar the Makkir, the "darling of the Scottish Muses," the first really great poet of Scotland, the one greatly gifted man in whose works we have a perfect vision of the passing panorama of Scottish life and character in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

A SENSITIVE MAN.

"Ah! good morning," said a wellknown gentleman, addressing a man whom he met in the street.

"How are you, Colonel?"

"Look here," the first speaker, after a short pause, continued, "every day I discover additional evidences of the fact that you do not like me. Why is it?"

"Do you mean why you discover the evidences or why I do not like you?" "Why you do not like me, of course." "Well, in the first place, you are such an outrageous liar." "Yes."

"And, in the second place, it has been proved that you are a thief."

"Well," said the Colonel, "I merely wanted to know, and it strikes me that your reasons are very good. I am a senthat any one dislikes me without a cause. sitive man, and it nettles me to think I am glad to have you express yourself so clearly."

With this determination came a new impulse which sent him rapidly backward through the forest. Faster and faster he hurried, leaping nimbly over obstructions which so thickly beset the way, dragging his unwilling horse after him. An hour passed in this headlong and terror-stricken movement; it grew quite dark, and there appeared no sign of the "hog's back." As his hope of reaching his destination dwindled and grew faint, the agony of his mind caused him to set at naught all feeling of fatigue, and drove him forward hour after hour. To what purpose? That chance might direct his footsteps aright and bring him to some haven of shelter at last. But no opening could be discerned anywhere in the intense darkness. Every part of the dreary forest seemed the twin-sister of every other part, and the horrible uniform labyrinth seemed endless.

Re

Finally he came to a dead halt. flection, however, brought no comfort, but the contrary. He began to picture the anxiety of his friends at home over his non-arrival. The tempest and darkness, coupled with his absence, would also have their dire effect upon them. Then he thought of the agonies of mind his mother would suffer. She would, of course, surmise that some accident had occurred to him, and the thought would inflict its torture. He remembered now, with a pang, that in his letter to his mother he had jestingly used the words. that he would be home either in the flesh or in the spirit by a certain time. That

time was already past. And Bessie? What would she suffer? Poor, poor Bessie! Thus his dear home beckoned to him across the deary miles of wilderness, and added to his present miseries.

now.

Ronald, of course, knew something of woodcraft; but his knowledge, however comprehensive, would avail him nothing He had not the faintest idea how far it was to his destination, or in which direction it lay. Every step he had taken for hours might, for aught he could tell, have borne him farther and farther from the clearings. He half suspected that he had been wandering around in a vast circle. While his strength lasted, however, he determined to keep moving.

Who can measure the mental agony endured by this stripling, as, hour after hour, during the lonely night-watches, he staggered blindly on through the storm? In the thick darkness he collided with trees, stumbled over stumps and . logs, was caught in the thickets, and was buffeted hither and thither by the icy blasts. It was a marvel that human endurance could last so long. But the end was not far off. He came at last to an unusually large prostrate tree trunk, which lay directly in his road. Stumbling over this as best he could, he then attempted to induce his horse to leap the obstruction. After much persuasion it suddenly consented. -all too suddenly, as it proved. Before he could move out of the way the horse had leaped directly upon him, forcing him with cruel violence against