1 handful unthrashed. 2 mayhap. 3 plenty. 4 hold. We'll gi'e the sheep a rip1 o' corn The day, and aiblins2 gin the morn "And Jock and Tam, ye'll yoke and thrash, For troth, I dinna think we'll fash To yoke a plough the day. As Bruxy says, 'Gin ye had heal', "And Pate, as soon's ye get your pottage, Ye'll look gin there be ony stoppage About the Litster's burn. The horse are gaen daft for water; "And are ye hearin', Geordy Lithy? "The smith 'll ken the mark himsel'— And mak' it right and tight. And tell him I'll be o'er the morn, Gin ilka thing had right." Now a' thing's settled for the time, Wi' a' his girnels1 fu'; But what comes o' the cottar folk, But just frae hand to mou'? For they 'at ha'e a gueed peat-stack, Wi' a brown bickerfu' to graff 4, To gar baith cauld and care had aff, I granaries. 2 heap, clothe. 3 difficulty. 4 bury. ALEXANDER WILSON. 1766-1813. More famous though he certainly is in other fields, the great American ornithologist is also a claimant for a place of honour among the poets of his native country. Born at Paisley, the son of a small distiller, and himself a weaver by trade, Wilson appears, from the first, to have had more taste for nature than for sedentary labour. For a time he became a pedlar, and along with his chapman's wares he hawked copies of the first volume of his poetry, published in 1789. In 1792 appeared anonymously his most famous piece, "Watty and Meg," a narrative poem which, for its humour and realistic truth, has with justice been likened to a picture by Teniers or Ostade. 66 Shortly after this publication Wilson became involved in the disputes of the weaving trade in Paisley, and for some poetic satires, held to be libellous, which he wrote upon certain sweating" masters of the craft, he suffered a short imprisonment in Paisley jail, and was compelled to burn the production with his own hands at the town's cross. Dispirited by this experience he determined to emigrate; and by dint of severe toil and stint-living on so little as a shilling a week, he saved enough in four months to carry him to the United States. Throughout the voyage he slept on deck, and on arrival had to borrow a small sum to reach Philadelphia. Afterwards, however, as weaver, pedlar, copperplate printer, and schoolmaster, he procured a better subsistence, and was finally engaged as sub-editor of Rees' Cyclopædia. While a schoolmaster he had become intimately acquainted with Bartram, the American naturalist, and, developing at the same time a singular aptitude in the preservation and drawing of birds, he undertook long pedestrian rambles to increase his collections. During one excursion he descended the Ohio in a skiff, alone, for over 600 miles. After completing eight volumes of his great American Ornithology, worn out by his extraordinary efforts, he was attacked by dysentery and died. His work, however, with additions by later hands, especially those of Charles Lucien Bonaparte, remains the standard on its subject; the plates, which, owing to the primitive condition of art in the United States at the time, he engraved and coloured with his own hands, would themselves furnish an enduring monument to his name. Collected editions of Wilson's poems were published at Paisley in 1816 and at Belfast in 1845, but the most complete is that by the Rev. A. B. Grosart, published at Paisley in 1876. 66 Watty and Meg," from the popularity of its subject-the reform of a scolding wife by a threat of leaving her-has generally been placed first among Wilson's compositions. Notwithstanding its high merits, however, of vividness and realism, it is handicapped heavily by the four-lined trochaic measure in which it is written, and it does not appear unjust to say that it contains nothing which might not have been as well expressed in prose. The best qualities of Wilson's genius--the graphic touches by which whole scenes of the peasant life in Scotland are brought vividly before the eye, and a happiness of epithet which gives the freshness of individuality to his work— are to be found, with a higher quality of art, in his slightly longer piece, "The Laurel Disputed. THE LAUREL DISPUTED. Delivered in the Pantheon, at Edinburgh, on Thursday, April 14, 1791, on the question-" Whether have the exertions of Allan Ramsay or Robert Fergusson done more honour to Scottish Poetry?" BEFORE ye a' ha'e done, I'd humbly crave Wha's seen richt mony changes i' the warl', But is sae blate', down here he durstna come, I bashful Lest, as he said, his fears might ding2 him dumb; 2 drive. 3 keen. He gi'ed me this lang scroll; 'tis e'en right brown; 1 week. 2 young fowls. 3 bought. 4 gossip. 5 talks. 6 scream. 7 iron baking 9 comrade. ro promised. 11 lump. 12 fool. 13 last year. 14 presently. Last ouk our Elspa, wi' some creels o' eggs, Gaed down to Embrugh; caft3 a new bane kaim, 6 'Mang ither ferlies whilk my kimmer9 saw, I gat my staff, pat on my bonnet braid, And best blue breeks, that war but fernyear13 made; And thir auld spentacles to help my een; In days whan Dryden sang ilk bonnie morn, |