the Border Ballad, first published in Scott's Minstrelsy; and one of the most lively of Sir Richard's own poems, his "Complaint against the Border Robbers," also finds a place in that collection.

He was the son of William Maitland of Lethington, by Martha, daughter of George Lord Seaton, and was born in 1496. He was educated at St Andrews, but completed his studies for the bar in France. His first service was under King James V., and after that monarch's death he became Lord Privy Seal, during the regency of the Queen Dowager. In 1554, he was appointed an extraordinary Lord of Session; and in 1561, an ordinary Lord, notwithstanding his having lost the use of his eyesight. In 1567, he resigned the office of Lord Privy Seal in favour of his second son, but he retained his seat on the bench till 1584. The King's letter anent his resignation, in his 88th year, bears testimony to the faithful discharge of his important public duties in the service of his "grandsire, goodsire, gooddame, mother, and himself." Sir Richard died in 1586, in his ninetieth year. His eldest son was William Maitland, Queen Mary's famous secretary, who possessed more than his father's talents, but less than his father's virtues.

Maitland's claim upon the gratitude of posterity is as a collector of the poems of his predecessors and contemporaries, rather than as a contributor to the volume of Scottish literature. His collection consists of two manuscript volumes, one of which is in the handwriting of his daughter Mary, who is herself the writer of zome verses preserved in it.

These two volumes are now preserved in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge; and a third, containing most of his own poems, was presented to the Edinburgh College Library by William Drummond of Hawthornden. Selections from his collections were first published by Pinkerton in 1786.

The specimen of Maitland's poetry quoted, is on a subject which has been treated by his contemporary Lindsay with much more force and liveliness, but with much less nicety, both in thought and expression.

Of George Bannatyne's personal history almost nothing is known. Some verses in his famous collection are by himself; but his skill as a poet was not great, and would hardly have sufficed to give his name a place among the ancient singers, but for the fortunate inspiration that impelled him to devote three months of enforced abstention from his ordinary pursuits to the collection and preservation of the fast fleeting effusions of the early Muse of his country. His manuscript, which is the most valuable literary legacy that has been preserved to us, is a folio volume of eight hundred pages, and is stated by himself, in rhyme, to have been

"Written in tyme of pest, When we frae labour was compeld to rest, Into the three last monthes of this year, From our Redeemar's birth, to knaw it heir Ane thousand is, fyve hundreth, thre scoir, awcht."

In reference to the sources of his information, and the arrangement of his matter, he writes :

"Ye reverend redaris, thir workis revolving right,

Gif ye get crymes, correct thame to your micht,
And curss na clark that cunningly them wrait,
But blame me baldly brocht this buik to licht
In tenderest tyme when knawledge was nocht
bricht:

But lait begun to lerne and till translait
My copies awld, mankit, and mutilait,
Quhais trewth as standis yit haif I, sympill
wicht,

Tryd furth, thairfoir excuse sum pairt my stait.

Now ye haif heir ilk buik sa provydit,
That in fyve pairtis it is dewly devydit:
The first concernis Godis gloir and ouir
saluation,

The nixt are morale, grave and als besyd it Grund on gud counsale; the third I will nocht hyd it,

Ar blyith and glaid, made for our consollation; The ferd of luve and thair richt reformation; The fyift are tailis and storeis weill discryit :Reid as ye pleiss, I neid no mair narration."

After having survived the chances of accident and change for nearly a century and a-half, it found its way into the hands of Allan Ramsay, to whom it was lent by the Honourable William Carmichael, brother-german to the Earl of Hyndford. Allan had the taste and sagacity to see somewhat of the value of the treasure that had been entrusted to him, and used it as the chief source of his collection called "The Evergreen," published in 1724. It is easy, from our present conceptions of the duties and obligations of an editor of antiquarian lore, to condemn Ramsay's dealings with the contents of the Bannatyne Manuscript; but we are apt to overlook the dormant state of literary opinion in his day, and that he was himself the first to stimulate into life the present spirit of appreciation of our ancient poetry. We believe that "honest Allan," as he has been called,

instead of having any misgivings in regard to his dealings with the MS., felt that he rather deserved credit for what he did; and those who allow for the disadvantages under which he laboured, will not blame him for his incompetence as an editor, which was his misfortune, not his fault. In 1770, the manuscript was again drawn upon by Lord Hailes, who, with greater accuracy than Ramsay, published a volume of selections from it. In 1772, it was presented by the Earl of Hyndford to the Advocate's Library, Edinburgh, and forms one of its chief treasures. It is now, for the first time, in process of being printed in its entirety.

natural, or otherwise than salutary in its ultimate effects. A fallow time was necessary, but several concurrent causes rendered it more prolonged than such seasons of recuperation usually are. In the meantime, it may not be uninstructive to note how she served her new mistress, Devotion.

Hume was the second son of Patrick Hume of Polwarth, and was born about 1560. He was educated at St Andrews, but, according to the custom of the times, completed his studies in law, to which profession he was destined, in France.

A short trial of advocate probation, which he describes in a poetical epistle to his friend Dr Moncreiff, the King's physician, and of which some features may be recognised as still existing, gives us his own reasons for quitting the bar.

"Three years, or near that space,

I haunted maist our highest pleading place,
And senate, where great causes reasoned were:
My breast was bruised with leaning on the bar,
My buttons brist, I partly spitted blood,
My gown was trailed and trampled where I
stood,

Mine ears were deaved with maissar's cries and din,

Whilk procutors and parties called in:
I daily learned but could not pleased be;
I saw sic things as pity was to see."

Tired of the law courts, he next tried the King's court, where his brother, Montgomery's rival, appears to have been in favour; but he did not find this a more congenial sphere than the

other :

"Some officers we see of naughty brain,
Meer ignorant, proud, vicious, and vain,
Of learning, wit, and virtue all denude.
Maist blockish men, rash, riotous, and rude;

And flattering fellows oft are mair regarded;
A lying slave will rather be rewarded,
Nor they that does with reason's rule confer
Their kind of life and actions, lest they err;
Nor men discrete, wise, virtuous, and modest,
Of gallant spreit, brave, true, and worthy trust,
Whilk far from hame civility has seen,
And by their manners show where they have
been,

Whilk have the word of God before their eyes,
And weel can serve, but cannot princes please,
For some with reason will not pleased be
But that whilk with their humour does agree."

It may be doubted if the Church, as an ecclesiastical organization, has been guided less by motives and influences at variance with its ideal, than any other human institution; yet there is no other institution which presents to certain minds such congenial spheres for the quiet indulgence of that morbid sensitiveness which shrinks from the rude conflicts of secular life. Such appears to have been the influence under which Hume chose the Church as his last resource, and nowhere in Scotland could he be placed in a spot more suited to his disposition than the church of Logie, in Clackmannanshire, to which he was appointed in 1598.

In 1599, he published his "Hymnes, or Sacred Songs, wherein the right use of Poesie may be espied." These he dedicated to Lady Culross, the authoress of "Ane Golden Dream." He died in 1609.

We select the "Day Estivall, or Summer's Day," as his most poetical piece. It shows a very pleasing and correct observance of nature, but wants the spirit and imagination, without which, descriptive poetry is a mere inventory of natural objects and pheno mena, without relief or perspective