broad backgammon.

Others, of travell'd elegance, polite,

With mingling music Maggie's house surround,

And serenade her all the live-long night With song and lyre, and flute's enchanting sound,

Chiming and hymning into fond delight The heavy night air that o'ershades the ground;

While she, right pensive, in her chambernook,

sky,

Scarce can the eye one speck of cloud behold,

Save in the East some fleeces bright of

dye,

That hem the rim of heav'n with woolly gold,

Whereon are happy angels wont to lie

Lolling, in amaranthine flow'rs enroll'd, That they may spy the precious light of God,

Flung from the blessed East o'er the fair Earth abroad.

Tommy Puck.

boundless range,

Mount to the heaven's blue key-stone flickering;

They turn their plume-soft bosoms to the morn,

And hail the genial light, and cheer'ly sing;

Echo the gladsome hills and valleys round, As all the bells of Fife ring loud and swell the sound.

For when the first up-sloping ray was flung

On Anster steeple's swallow-harb'ring top, Its bell, and all the bells around were rung

Sonorous, jangling loud without a stop; For toilingly each bitter beadle swung,

Ev'n till he smok'd with sweat, his greasy rope,

That on the outside o' this warl'

E'er wallop'd bane or leg.

When he was born, on that same day,
He was like other weans, perfay,
Nae langer than a ladle ;

But in three days he shot so lang,
That out wi's feet and head he dang,
Baith end-boords o' his cradle.

And when the big-baned babe did see
How that his cradle, short and wee,
Could haud him in nae langer,
His passion took a tirrivee-
He grippit it, and garr'd it flee

To flinders, in his anger.

Ere he was spain'd, what beef, what bane,
He was a babe o' thretty stane,

And bigger than his mither;
Whan he for's parritch grat at morn,
Men never heard syn they were born
A yowl sae fu' o' drither.

When he'd seen thretty years or sae,
Far meikler was his little tae

Than meikle Samuel's shouther;
When he down on a stool did lean,
The stool was in an instant gane,
And brizz'd clean down to pouther.

tankling din.

Houses and kirks did tremmle;

O' his coat-tail the vera wap

Rais'd whirlwinds wi' its flichterin' flap,

And garr'd auld lum-heads tummle.

Had ye been ten mile out o' town,
Ye might hae seen his head aboon

The highest houses towrin'.

Ilk awfu' tramp he gave the ground, Garr'd aik-trees shake their heads a' round And lions rin hame cowerin'.

To shaw his pow'r unto the people, Ance in his arms he took the steeple,

Kiss'd it, and ca'd it brither; Syne from its bottom up it wrung, And in the air three times it swung,

Spire, bell, and a' thegither!

And when he'd swung it merrily,
Again upon its bottom he

Did clap it down sae clever; Except a sma' crack half-way round, The steeple stood upon its found,

As stout and straucht as ever!

Ae king's birth-day, when he was fu', Twa Tangier chaps began to pu'

His tails; when, on a sudden, Ane by the richt leg up he grippit, The tither by the neck he snippit,

And sent them skyward scuddin'.

On earth they ne'er again cam down ;
Ane in a tan-pit i' the moon

Fell plump, and breath'd his last ;
The tither ane was jammit ticht
'Tween twa stars o' the Pleiads bricht,
Whare yet he's sticking fast.

Ae day, when he stood near the sea,
A fleet o' Tyrian ships in glee

Was sailing gawcy by--
He gript ae frigate by the mast,
And frae the deep wi' powstie vast
He rais'd her in the sky :

And then the great ship up he tumml'dHer mast was down, her hulk upwhumml'd,

Her keel high i' the lift;

Captain and cargo down cam rummlin', Marines, and men, and meat, cam tummlin'

Down frae her decks like drift.

ALTHOUGH the changes taking place in domestic relations are unfavourable to the growth of the sentiments consecrated in 'Lucy's Flittin,' while human nature remains what it is, the pathos of that simple ballad will not fail to impress it.

Its author, William Laidlaw, was born at Blackhouse, in Yarrow, in November 1780. The Ettrick Shepherd was in the employment of his father, James Laidlaw, and the poets were fast friends. Hogg, who was ten years his senior, fostered Laidlaw's, poetic aspirations. In 1801, Scott, when collecting for The Minstrelsy, was directed by

| Leyden to Laidlaw, and Laidlaw introduced Hogg to Scott. Laidlaw was a more sagacious man than Hogg; yet in farming, his fortune was not much better, and he had to give up the lease of his second farm, at Liberton, and accept the situation of Steward to Sir Walter, at Abbotsford. Here he resided at Kaeside Cottage, as Scott's trusted friend and factor, till the master's misfortunes necessitated their separation for some time. He returned again as Scott's amanuensis, and remained with him till his death. Shortly after that event, Laidlaw became factor to Mrs Stewart Mackenzie of Seaforth,

She cam' there afore the bloom cam' on the pea;

ye weel, Lucy!"

It made me I neither could speak, hear,

nor see:

Sure that was the thing brocht the tear to her e'e.

She gaed by the stable where Jamie was stannin';

Richt sair was his kind heart her flittin' to see;

Fare ye weel, Lucy! quo' Jamie, and ran in ;

The gatherin' tears trickled fast frae his e'e.

As down the burn-side she gaed slow wi' the flittin',

Fare ye weel, Lucy! was ilka bird's sang; She heard the craw sayin't, high on the tree sittin',

And robin was chirpin't the brown leaves amang.

Oh, what is't that pits my puir heart in a flutter? (12)

"

weel, Lucy! Yet that I will mind till the day that I dee.

The lamb likes the gowan wi' dew when it's droukit;

The hare likes the brake and the braird on the lea;

But Lucy likes Jamie,-she turn'd and she lookit,

She thocht the dear place she wad never mair see.

Ah, weel may young Jamie gang dowie and cheerless!

And weel may he greet on the bank o' the burn!

For bonnie sweet Lucy, sae gentle and peerless,

Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return !!

The last four lines were added by Hogg, and though they complete the stanza they do not improve the story. 3 A