Since disappointment galls within,
And subjugates the soul to spleen,
Most schemes, as money snares, I hate,
And bite not at projector's bait.
Sufficient wrecks appear each day,

And yet fresh fools are cast away.
Ere well the bubbled can turn round,
Their painted vessel runs a-ground;
Or in deep seas it oversets

By a fierce hurricane of debts;
Or helm-directors in one trip,
Freight first embezzled, sink the ship.
When Fancy tries her limning skill
To draw and colour at her will,
And raise and round the figures well,
And show her talent to excel,

I guard my heart, lest it should woo
Unreal beauties Fancy drew,

And, disappointed, feel despair

At loss of things that never were.

'The Scottish muse had,' in the language of Chambers, 'been silent for nearly a century, excepting when it found brief expression in some stray song of broad humor or simple pathos, chanted by the population of the hills and dales. The genius of the country was, however, at length revived in all its force and nationality, by Allan Ramsay, whose very name is now an impersonation of Scottish scenery and manners. The religious austerity of the Covenanters still hung over the country, and damped the efforts of poets and dramatists; but a freer spirit found its way into the towns, as trade and commerce increased. The higher classes were in the habit of visiting London, though the journey was still performed with much labor; and the writings of Pope and Swift were circulated, to a very considerable extent, over the North.'

ALLAN RAMSAY was born in the village of Leadhills, Lanarkshire, in 1686. His father held the situation of manager of Lord Hopeton's mines; and when Allan became a poet, he boasted that he was of the 'auld descent' of the Dalhousie family, and also collaterally 'sprung from a Douglass loin.' His father died while the poet was in his infancy, but his mother, an English lady, put him to the village school, where he acquired learning enough to enable him to read Horace 'faintly in the original.' When in the fifteenth year of his age, he was put apprentice to a wig-maker, in Edinburgh -a light employment, suited to his slender frame and boyish smartness, but

not very congenial to his literary taste. His first poem was written in the twenty-sixth year of his age; and was in the form of an address to the 'Easy Club,' a convivial society of young men, of which Allan was admitted a member, and became their poet laureate. He soon after wrote several light pieces which were extremely popular.

In 1712 Ramsay greatly extended his reputation by writing a continuation to King James's 'Christ's Kirk on the Green.' This work was executed with such genuine humor and fancy, and evinced such a mastery of the Scottish language, that nothing so rich had appeared since the strains of Dunbar and Lindsay. He now left off wig-making, and opened a bookseller's shop. He also became an editor, and published The Tea Table Miscellany and The Evergreen. The former was a collection of songs, some of which were his own; and the latter was a collection of Scottish poems written before 1600. He was not well qualified for editing works of this kind, being deficient in both knowledge and taste. In 1725 Ramsay published his celebrated pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd. This work was received with universal approbation, and was republished both in London and Dublin. He now opened a larger shop, and established a circulating library, the first known in Scotland. From this time Ramsay relinquished poetry, devoted himself carefully to his business, and eventually acquired a handsome independence. His death occurred on the seventh of January, 1758, and was occasioned by a scurvy of the gums-a disease that had long affected him. Ramsay's poetical works are both numerous and various; but his reputation rests almost exclusively on 'The Gentle Shepherd.' This is really a very remarkable production. It possesses that air of primitive simplicity and seclusion which seem indispensable in compositions of this class, and its landscapes are filled with life-like beings, who interest us from their character, their situation, and their circumstances. It is, in the opinion of Blair, the finest pastoral drama ever written. Of this important poem our space limits us to the following brief extract:

RUSTIC COURTSHIP.

Hear how I served my lass I love as well
As ye do Jenny, and with heart as leal.
Last morning I was gay and early out,
Upon a dike I leaned, glowering about,
I saw my Meg come linkin' o'er the lee,
I saw my Meg, but Meggy saw na me;

For yet the sun was wading through the mist,

And she was close upon me e'er she wist;

Her coats were keltit, and did sweetly shaw

Her straight bare legs that whiter were than snaw.

Her cockernony snooded up for 'sleek,

Her haffet locks hang waving on her cheek;

Her cheeks sae ruddy, and her e'en sae clear;
And oh her mouth 's like ony hinny pear.
Neat, neat she was, in bustine waistcoat clean,
As she came skiffiing o'er the dewy green.

Blithsome I cried, 'My bonny Meg, come here.
I ferly wherefore ye're so soon asteer?

But I can guess, ye're gaun to gather dew.'
She scoused away, and said, 'What's that to you?'
'Then fare-ye-weel, Meg dorts, and e'en's ye like,'
I careless cried, and lap in o'er the dike.
I trow when that she saw, within a crack,
She came with a right thieveless errand back.
Misca'd me first; then bade me hound my dog,
To wear up three waff ewes strayed on the bog.
I leugh; and sae did she; then with great haste
I clasped my arms about her neck and waist;
About her yielding waist, and took a fouth
Of sweetest kisses frae her glowing mouth,
While hard and fast I held her in my grips,
My very soul came louping to my lips.
Sair, sair she flet wi' me 'tween ilka smack,
But weel I kend she meant nae as she spak.
Den Roger, when your Jo puts on her gloom,
Do you sae too, and never fash your thumb.
Seem to forsake her, soon she'll change her mood;
Gae woo anither, and she'll gang clean wud.

9

Lecture the Twenty-Seventh.

DRAMATIC LITERATURE.

SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE THOMAS SHADWELL WILLIAM WYCHERLEY
APHRA BEHN-JOHN CROWNE-THOMAS OTWAY-NATHANIEL LEE-THOMAS

MRS.

SOUTHERNE-NICHOLAS ROWE.

MMEDIATELY after the Restoration, Sir William Davenant, whom we have already noticed as a miscellaneous poet, revived the English drama, and imparted to its representation a degree of splendor that it had not hitherto known. He also introduced upon the stage some very important improvements, among which were female performers, the use of movable scenery, and appropriate decorations. Females had performed on the stage previous to the Restoration, and considerable splendor and variety of scenery had been exhibited in the court masques and revels; but the public had been familiar with neither, and they now, therefore, formed a great attraction. These powerful auxiliaries were not, however, brought in to enhance the effect of the good old dramas of the age of Elizabeth and James the First, and to add grace and splendor to the creations of Shakspeare and Jonson, but were lavished on the flimsy rhyming and heroic plays which had long been fashionable in France, and a taste for which had been brought over to England by Charles the Second, on his return from the continent. They exhibited little truth of coloring or natural passion, but dealt exclusively with personages in high life and of transcendent virtue or ambition; with fierce combats and splendid processions; with superhuman love and beauty; and with extended dialogues formed alternately of metaphysical subtlety and the most extravagant and bombastic expression. The heroic plays were all written in rhyme, and, according to Dryden, 'in the richest and most ornate kind of verse, and the farthest removed from ordinary colloquial diction.'

The comedies of the same period were constructed after the model of the Spanish stage, and adapted to the taste of the king, exhibiting a variety of complicated intrigues, successful disguises, and shifting scenes and adventures. The old native English virtues of sincerity, conjugal fidelity, pru