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Tho' warm the throbbins at his heart, For through his veins there flow'd the blood

O' auld Sir Reginald the gude

That blood that rous'd the soul and might O' Scotland's Hero, Wallace wight.

In sooth he was a Baron bauld,
For toolyies tough in days o' auld,
A lion in the battle fray,

In deadly feud, a deadly fae.
But now, a venerable Lord,

He mirthfu' cheer'd the festive board
Wi' merry tale and hamely jest,
Or whiles he rear'd his warlike crest
As if prepar'd the brunt to meet,
And then recounted mony a feat
O' open strife and artfu' wile ;
Thus wad he listless hours beguile-
While a' around, his sinewy race,
Gaz'd, dumb wi' rapture, in his face.
Crack follow'd crack, the cap gaed roun',
That mony a cankerin thought cou'd
drown,

Whan sudden at the yett a guest

Gae hame, for ance, in a hail hide,
Time was, that Kerse wad blithe ha'
ridden

Out oure yon hills at sic a biddin':
Fu' little value I, or mine,

Ten score o' Kennedys and swine;
Had wither'd Kerse a limb to wag-
But let the bauld Barganey brag.-
The Kennedys wi' a' their power,
Frae Cassillis to Ardstincher Tower,
May rise and flock like screechin craws,
Frae heights and hows, frae hames and
ha's,

And hither come wi' blawin crack,
They'll bear anither story back.
Kerse is, alas! nae mair the man
That in the onset led the van,
But he has sons to shield his name,
Heirs o' his valour and his fame,
And if on Lammas-day they fail,
Curse him wha lives to tell the tale.
Let your proud Baron croosely craw
On his ain midden, days but twa,
But on the third, by this grey heid,
He'll aiblins thank his geldin's speed.
This, in defiance, Crawford says-

Admittance claim'd-Quoth Kerse, "the Gi'e the chield room, lads-slip your

best

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The glintin' sun had ting'd the saughs,
Frae Girvan banks and Carrick side
Down pour'd the Kennedys in pride,
And frae Kyle-Stewart and King's-Kyle
The Crawfords march'd in rank and file,
(If our forefathers own'd of yore,
Sic term o' military lore),
Let them march on-a Rhymer I
Shall hae nae finger in the pye,
It's time enough for us to glowr
On battle-fields whan a' is oure,
And draw our sketches o' ilk action,

Safe amang heaps o' putrifaction.
But troth a' battles are alike;

Some chields are stricken and some strike,

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Amang the broom bushes by Stanley THE BRAES O' BALQUHITHER.

green shaw !

The wild flowers o' simmer were spread a'

sae bonnie,

The mavis sang sweet frae the green birken tree;

Let us go, lassie, go,

To the braes o' Balquhither,
Where the blae-berries grow

'Mang the bonny Highland heather;

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BONNIE WOOD OF CRAIGIE- Gar'd a' bodies talk o' Rab Roryson's

LEA.

Thou bonnie wood of Craigie-lea, Thou bonnie wood of Craigie-lea, Near thee I pass'd life's early day,

And won my Mary's heart in thee.

The broom, the brier, the birken bush,
Bloom bonnie o'er thy flowery lea,

An' a' the sweets that ane can wish
Frae nature's hand are strew'd on thee.
Thou bonnie wood, &c.

bonnet.

This bonnet, that theekit his wonderfu head,

Was his shelter in winter, in summer his shade;

And at kirk, or at market, or bridals, I

ween,

A braw gawcier bonnet there never was

seen.

Wi' a round rosy tap, like a muckle blackboyd,

O' sottish loons ye're the pink and pearl, Dare ye say, goose, I ever liked to tak' a pink, and pearl,

Ill-far'd, doited ne'er-do-weel.

Hech, gudewife! ye're a flytin' body, flytin' body;

Will ye ha'e waeth ; but, guid be praised,

the wit's a-wantin'.

The puttin' cow should be aye a doddy, aye a doddy,

Mak' na sic an awesome reel.

Ye're a sow, auld man,
Ye got fou, auld man ;
Fye shame, auld man,

To your wame, auld man :
Pinch'd I win wi' spinnin tow,
A plack to cleid your back and pow.
It's a lie, gudewife,

It's your tea, gudewife;
Na, na, gudewife,

Ye spend a', gudewife.

Dinna fa' on me pell-mell,

Ye like a drap fu' weel yersel.

Ye's rue, auld gowk, yer jest and frolic, jest and frolic.

drappy?

An 'twerena just to cure the cholic, cure the cholic,

Deil a drap wad weet my mou'.

Troth, gudewife, an' ye wadna swither,

wadna swither,

Soon-soon to tak' a cholic, when it brings a drap o' cappy;

But twascore years we ha'e fought thegither, fought thegither, Time it is to gree, I trow.

I'm wrang, auld John,
Ower lang, auld John,
For nought, guid John,

We ha'e fought, guid John;

Let's help to bear ilk ither's weight,
We're far ower feekless now to fecht.
Ye're richt, guid Kate;

The nicht, guid Kate,
Our cup, guid Kate,

We'll sup, guid Kate; Thegither frae this hour we'll draw, And toom the stoup atween us twa.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

1777-1844.

SINCE the death of Pope, no poet displayed greater mastery over the poetic lyre than Thomas Campbell. With several other resemblances to Pope, he may be said, like him, to have lisped in numbers. But with those resemblances they had greater dissimilarities. Campbell had none of Pope's wit or satiric pointedness, and Pope had little of Campbell's loftiness of sentiment, and

noble eloquence which rouses the soul to moral scorn, as much by the power of sympathy as by the force of dialectic skill. Pope may have been the more accomplished artist, but Campbell was the more natural genius. Pope excited greater admiration, and filled a larger space on the poetic canvas, but Campbell breathes a diviner influence, inspires with purer sentiments, and

JOHN LEYDEN.

1775-1811.

LEYDEN'S fame is greater than his | Lettres in the University, but did not

poetic remains, or any other literary achievement that he has left behind him would sustain ; but so long as the recollection of his enthusiastic ardour for learning, and his romantic encounters with the difficulties which he overcame in its pursuit, preserve their interest for the readers of literary biography, his name shall retain a brighter halo than his mere poetic merits confer,

Leyden was the son of a shepherd in the village of Denholm, in Roxburghshire, and was born there in September 1775. His conspicuous talents at school led to his being sent to Edinburgh University, at the age of fifteen, with the view of qualifying him for the ministry of the Church of Scotland; but his linguistic and literary tastes do not appear to have facilitated his obtaining a charge, although he was licensed as a probationer in 1798. After completing his course, he obtained the situation of tutor to the sons of Mr Campbell of Fairfield, and accompanied them to the University of St Andrew's, where he continued his oriental and other studies with unabated zeal, and in 1799 published a treatise on the Discoveries and Settlement of the Europeans in Western Africa.

Having failed, in 1800, to obtain an appointment in the Church, his literary friends in Edinburgh, who were many and influential, tried to obtain for him the chair of Rhetoric and Belles

succeed. Yet no disappointment could damp his literary zeal, and he continued his studies, and his writing for the Edinburgh Magazine, Lewis's Tales of Wonder, and Scott's Minstrelsy of the Border, until the situation of a surgeon was obtained for him in India. Like Goldsmith, he abandoned all thought of the Church, and in the course of six months qualified to pass as a doctor, in which capacity he proceeded to India in 1803, after writing his Scenes of Infancy-those loved scenes of his youth, which he was never again to visit. He was not long in Madras when his health began to give way, and he in consequence proceeded to Prince of Wales Island. While there he visited Sumatra and the Malay peninsula, where he made, investigations into the history, literature, and ethnology of the inhabitants. These he embodied in a dissertation, which he laid before the Asiastic Society of Calcutta. He left Prince of Wales Island to fill the chair of Hindostani in the College of Bengal, which he soon relinquished for the more lucrative appointments of a judge and commissioner of the Court of Bequests, and assay master of the mint. Notwithstanding these multifarious duties, he devoted all his spare time to his oriental studies.

In 1811, he accompanied the British expedition against Java; and with that

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