and the eighteenth, thrilled with peculiar ecstasy through my soul. The cotter, in the 'Saturday Night,' is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotion, and exhortations; yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us were 'at service out among the farmers roun'.' Instead of our depositing our sair-won penny-fee' with our parents, my father laboured hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home, thereby having an opportunity of watching the progress of our young minds, and forming in them early habits of piety and virtue and from this motive alone did he engage in farming, the source of all his difficulties and distresses."

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure :
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short but simple annals of the poor."-Gray.

My loved, my honour'd, much-respected friend !
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end :

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:

To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways:
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween!
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ;1
The short ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose;
The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And, weary, o'er the moor his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher through
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinking bonnily,

His clean hearthstane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, among the farmers roun':
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A canny errand to a neibor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her ee,
Comes hame, perhaps to show a braw new gown,
Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:1
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed, fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view.

The mother wi' her needle and her shears,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the newThe father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's and their mistress's command
The younkers a' are warnèd to obey;

And mind their labours wi' an eydent3 hand,
And ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play:
'And oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway!

And mind your duty, duly, morn and night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,

Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"

But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door.
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame

Sparkle in Jenny's ee, and flush her cheek;
Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;

Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;

A strappin' youth; he taks the mother's eye;
Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate and lathefu',6 scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.'

O happy love!-where love like this is found!—
O heart-felt raptures !-bliss beyond compare !
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare—
"If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale,

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale."

1 Inquires.

4 D'ally.

2 Strange things. 3 Diligent.

5 Bashful.

6 Hesitating.
7 Other people.

Is there in human form, that bears a heart,
A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth,
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild!

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food:
The soupe' their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan3 snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,

4

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell,
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid:
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
Ilow 'twas a towmond" auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride;
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets' wearing thin and bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship GOD!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise;

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps "Dundee's" wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name;
Or noble "Elgin" beets9 the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ear no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of GOD on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny:

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How HE, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
How His first followers and servants sped,

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand:

And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days:

There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art,
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole:
But, haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;

And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their several way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request
That HE, who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of GOD;"
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind.
What is a lordling's pomp?-a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent
* Pope's "Windsor Forest."

For, oh the yellow treasure's taen
By witching skill;

And dawtit1 twal-pint hawkie's gaen
As yell's the bill."

Thence mystic knots mak great abuse
On young guidmen, fond, keen, and crouse;
When the best wark-lume i' the house,
By cantrip wit,

Is instant made no worth a louse,

Just at the bit.

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
And float the jinglin' icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
By your direction;

And 'nighted travellers are allured
To their destruction.

And aft your moss-traversing spunkies*
Decoy the wight that late and drunk is:
The bleezin', curst, mischievous monkeys
Delude his eyes,

Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
Ne'er mair to rise.

When mason's mystic word and grip
In storms and tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!

The youngest brother ye wad whip
Aff straught to hell!

Lang syne, in Eden's bonny yard,
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd,

And all the soul of love they shared,
The raptured hour,

Sweet on the fragrant flowery sward,

In shady bower,+

A dancin', sweet, young, handsome quean,
Wi' guileless heart.

Literally, withdrawing a bolt for a dishonest purpose-here the poet appears to mean that he got into paradise on a false pretence.