peal to every judge of Gaelic and of poetry, whether I have not rendered the spirit of this curious fragment of antiquity.

"The changes which time and culture have effected on manners, are best traced in popular songs; more particularly the Gaelic fragments, in which the transitions from the life of a hunter to that of a herdsman, and from that to the more laborious and stationary pursuits of agriculture, are strongly marked.

"Anciently, the hunter was admired as a person of manly courage, who, in the pursuit of a livelihood, exerted the virtues of patience and fortitude, and followed Nature into her most sublime retirements. Herdsmen were then accounted the sons of little men,-sordid, inferior beings, who preferred ease and safety to noble daring, and boundless variety, and were considered to be as much below the hunter, as the cattle

they tended were inferior in grace and agility to the deer which the others pursued..

"Interest, however, reversed such opinions: In process of time, the maidensboasted of the numerous herds of their lovers, and viewed the huntsman as a poor, wandering adventurer.

"About this time, the song here translated seems to have been composed.. The enamoured nymph, willing to think Colin as rich as others, talks in an obscure and figurative manner of the cattle of Colin, (chro Challin), and pursues the metaphor through many playful allusions to the deer, roes, fawns, &c. and their manner of sporting and feeding,.. in a stile too minute for translation.. In the end, however, it appears, that the boasted cattle of Colin were no other than those wild commoners of nature, and his sole profession that of hunting.

"I have endeavoured to preserve the tender simplicity of the original, and to

render almost literally the fond repetition of endearing epithets.

"The love-songs of those days were the breathings of real passion: Nobody thought of that most absurd of all things, -a fictitious love-song."

"It is silly, sooth,

"And dallies with the innocence of love,
"Like the old age."

My Colin, lov'd Colin, my Colin, my dear,

Who wont the wild mountains to trace without fear
Oh! where are thy flocks, that so swiftly rebound,
And fly o'er the heath, without touching the ground?

So dappled, so varied, so beauteous their hue;

So agile, so graceful, so charming to view;

O'er all the wide forest, there's nought, can compeer
With the light bounding flocks of my Colin, my dear.”

My Colin, dear Colin, my Colin, my love,

Oh !, where are thy herds, that so loftily move?

With branches so stately, their proud heads are crowned; With their motion, so rapid, the woods all resound.

Where the birch trees hang weeping o'er fountains so clear, At noon-day they're sleeping round Colin, my dear;

Oh! Colin, sweet Colin, my Colin, my joy,

Must those flocks and those herds all thy moments employ?

To yon waterfall's dashing I tune my sad strain,

And gather these violets for Colin in vain ;

At sun-set he said he would meet with me here,
Then where can he linger, my Colin, my dear?

Oh! Colin, my darling, my pleasure, my pride,
While the flocks of rich shepherds are grazing so wide,
Regardless I view them, unheeded the swains,

Whose herds scatter'd round me, adorn the green plains.

Their offers I hear, and their plenty I see;

But what are their wealth and, their offers to me?

While the light bounding roes, and the wild mountain-deer, Are the cattle of Colin, my hunter, my dear.

LETTERS, &c...

LETTER I...

DEAR MADAM,

ACCEPT of a very unpolished and very literal translation of the "Song of the "Owl;" popularly so called, from its being addressed to the sage and solitary bird of nigħt, whom a particular circumstance had, in the hour of inspiration, associated with the equally forlorn and solitary hunter. Poet, perhaps, we might stile him: But this swan-like dirge being all that remains of his composition, it may be supposed to be merely the pic-.