We'll lodge in some village on Tweed, And love while the feathered folk sing. How does my love pass the long day? While happily she lies asleep? Should Tweed's murmurs lull her to rest, 'Tis she does the virgins excel; No beauty with her may compare ; She's fairest where thousands are fair. SIR GILBERT ELLIOT, of an ancient and honorable family, was father of the first Earl of Minto, and was distinguished as a speaker in parliament. In 1763, he was made treasurer of the navy, and afterwards keeper of the signet in Scotland. In such honorable offices he was occupied until his death, which occurred in 1777. Elliot, according to Tytler, had been taught the German flute in France, and was the first to introduce that instrument into Scotland. He was the author of the following beautiful 'pastoral song,' and a number of others, though, according to Sir Walter Scott, not of equal merit :— AMYNTA. My sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep hook, Through regions remote in vain do I rove, Alas 'tis too late at thy fate to repine; ROBERT FERGUSSON, the poet of Scottish city-life, was born in Edinburgh, on the seventeenth of October, 1751. He was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he passed his time from the thirteenth to the seventeenth year of his age, after which he became a copying clerk in a lawyer's office. In this mechanical and irksome duty his days were spent, while his evenings were devoted to the tavern, where, over 'caller oysters,' with ale and whisky, the choice spirits of Edinburgh used to assemble. His conversational powers were of a very superior order, and he could adapt them at will to humor, pathos, or sarcasm, as the occasion might require. He was well educated, had a fund of youthful gayety, and sang Scottish songs with taste and elegance. To these qualifications he soon added the reputation of a poet, and for the last two years of his life he was a constant contributor to Ruddiman's 'Weekly Magazine,' a popular periodical established in Edinburgh, in 1768. In 1773, Fergusson collected and published his poems in one volume, and that the book was well received by the public is evident from the fame and popularity of its author. His dissipations, however, increased with his years; and his tavern life and boon companions soon hastened him to a premature and painful death. His reason first gave way; and his widowed mother being unable to maintain him at home, he was sent to an asylum for the insane. The religious impressions of his youth returned, at times, to overwhelm him with dread, but his gentle and affectionate nature was easily soothed by the attentions of his relatives and friends. His recovery was anticipated, but after about two months' confinement, he died in his cell, on the sixteenth of October, 1774, one day before he had reached the twentythird year of his age. His remains were interred in the Canongate churchyard, where they lay unnoticed, till Burns, twelve years afterwards, erected a simple stone to mark the poet's grave. A happy talent for portraying the peculiarities of local manners, a nice perception of the ludicrous, a vein of original comic humor, and language at once copious and expressive, form Fergusson's chief merits as a poet. His best pieces are The King's Birthday, The Sitting of the Session, Leith Races, Guid Braid Claith, and the Address to the Tron Kirk Bell. His Farmer's Ingle suggested 'The Cotter's Saturday Night' of Burns, though the latter added passion, sentiment, and patriotism to the subject. Indeed Burns is represented to have had an excessive admiration for the writings of Fergusson, and even to have preferred them to those of Ramsay. This opinion must, however, be attributed to the partial admiration of youthful associations. From Auld Reekie we take the following extract: A SUNDAY IN EDINBURGH. On Sunday, here, an altered scene And fain wad gar ilk neibour think To Castlehill or public way, Where they nae other purpose mean, Or should some cankered biting shower Without a patriot to regret Our palace and our ancient state. Lecture the Fortieth. WILLIAM COWPER-THOMAS MOSS-WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE-JAMES BEATTIEJAMES MACPHERSON-MICHAEL BRUCE-JOHN LOGAN-ROBERT BURNS. (OWPER, to whom our attention is next to be directed, was, according to Southey, 'the most popular poet of his generation, and the best of English letter writers.' In contemplating his literary merits, the mind very naturally reverts to Thomson; for between these two poets there are stronger marks of affinity than between any others in the language. They are both emphatically descriptive poets, and in description lay the strength of each. Cowper, it is true, had not the genius of Thomson, but then he had much more taste; and while his range is neither so wide nor so lofty, as far as it extends, it is peculiarly his own. He could not paint the plague, or the snow storm, or the earthquake as Thomson has done; but place him by the banks of the Ouse, or see him taking his 'winter walk at noon,' or accompany him in his rambles through his flower garden, and where is the author to be found who can compare with him for a moment? The pictures of domestic life, too, which he has painted, are so inimitable, that it is hard to say whether his sketches of external nature or of indoor life, are the best. He does not attempt the same variety of scene that Thomson did; but in what he does attempt, he always succeeds. The grander features of nature, such as mountains and cataracts, frowning rocks, and wide-spreading seas, were, perhaps, beyond his grasp; but the meadow and the hay-field, the gurgling rill, and the flower-crowned porch, he places before our eyes in verisimilitude. Sometimes, too, he takes a flight beyond his ordinary stretch; and his personification of winter, commencing with the line— Oh Winter! ruler of the inverted year! is powerful, and even sublime. Cowper's minor poems are full of beauties, and of beauties of the most varied kind. Some of his hymns are remarkable for deep piety and touching pathos; and for fervor of feeling, his lines On his Mother's Picture are absolutely unrivalled. His Review of Schools, and his piece entitled Con |