The two following parodies of this poem occur in The University Snowdrop, an Edinburgh College Magazine. These and the interesting explanatory notes which accompany them have been kindly furnished by Mr. James Gordon, F.S.A., Scotland.

The winter of 1837-8 was very severe, and there was a heavy fall of snow in Edinburgh. On the 10th January some snowballing took place in front of the College, in which the students took part. The warfare between the students and the townspeople was renewed on the 11th, and became more serious. Several shop windows were broken, the shops were closed, and the street traffic suspended. students, believing that the constables took the side of the mob against them, appeared on the 12th armed with sticks, to defend themselves against the constables batons. Then

The

a regular riot took place, sticks and batons being freely used, and matters became so serious that the magistrates found it necessary to send to the Castle for a detachment of soldiers of the 79th Highlanders, which arrived and drew up across the College quadrangle, and peace was restored. Five students who had been most active in the fray were tried by the Sheriff and were acquitted. The trial lasted three days. Among the witnesses for the prosecution were the Lord Provost, some Bailies, and the heads of the police force. The students were defended by Patrick Robertson, in a most amusing speech. He was made a Lord of Session, and wrote some volumes of poetry, now unsaleable, if ever they did sell. Lockhart wrote an epitaph for him :

"Here lies that peerless paper lord, Lord Peter, Who broke the laws of gods and men' and metre." A report of the trial was published, which was followed by "The University Snowdrop, an appendix to the Great Trial, containing a selection of squibs, old and new, descriptive of the wars of the quadrangle and the consequences thereof. With magnificent embellishments." Edinburgh, 1838. The "embellishments and ink portraits of the are pen principal parties concerned in the riot, drawn by Edward

Out the youth of Alna poured

To anticipate the scene

And the balls the faster showered

O'er the deadly space between :

"We'll be licked!' bellowed Fond," that s the fact."
So around his band he looks,
"Now go, B20, Snooks,
And summon Bailie Crooks
With the Act."

The Act was read in vain-
And the havoc did not slack,
Till Crooks had fled again

To the Council chambers back,

And that there was a riot he would vouch:

Then came the soldiers all,

With their captains stout and tail,

And sixty rounds of ball

In their pouch.

Out spake the Major then,

And he trembled as he spoke-
"We are brothers-we are men-

By the Lord, my nose is broke !
Are your cartridges, my men, duly rammed;
Our patience you will tire
Peace is all we require,

Then yield, or we shall fire!"
"You be d-

d!"

So down the stairs they dashed,

Spreading terror far and wide;

Right and left the crabsticks smash'd;

Yells were heard on every side.

"Hit 'em hard," was the cry-when each man

With an adamantine whack,

Made their empty noddles crack,

Now, ye Charlies, pay them back!!
If ye can !!!

Again, again, again,

And the havoc did not slack,

Till to cut their sticks. they deign,

And within the gates fly back.

Stones and dirt along the streets, slowly boom;

And the Charlies' bruised and pale,

With the mob behind their tail,

Our environs to assail,

Did presume.

With joy ye students shout,

At the tidings of your might,

How ye made the claret spout!

How the scoundrels mauled took flight!

Until midst their howling and uproar,

The Lobsters in were led,

And the Riot Act was read,
While the Provost popp'd his head
Through the door.

Brave hearts! turn out's the word;

Though you've leathered the police,
Yet a baton's not a sword,
So leave the field in peace.

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THE BURNING OF THE PLAY-HOUSE.

(Improved from Campbell.)

[Covent Garden Theatre was destroyed by fire on March 5. 1856, during a masked ball conducted by Anderson, the self-styled "Wizard of the North."]

Of the Wizard of the North

Sing the Tuesday's night renown,
When he let the gas break forth
And burn the play-house down.

And illuminated London brightly shown,
While a masquerading band,

Almost too drunk to stand,

But all holding hand in hand,
Revelled on.

Down went Covent Garden then,

Vain was the engine's wave,

Vainly the gallant men

Struggled the wealth to save

The clock twice saved away indeed they bring,

But the Muse's ancient seat

Is a ruin most complete ;

Ashes, where song's élite
Used to sing.

And London's blame was chief
For the stupid heads of those
Who have doubtless come to grief
Through the Wizard's vulgar shows.
A play-house is intended for a play;
If you let it for a night

To a Quack, you but invite

A fate that serves you right,

(After Thomas Campbell's Last Man-also after the Official Report that there are one hundred and fifty seven fewer Four-wheeled Cabs in London now than last year.)

FOUR million souls without a Fly!
Shall we then realise

Our lack of common comforts, born
From lack of enterprise?

I saw a vision in my sleep

That caused me from my bed to leap,

And skip around the room;

I saw the Final Growler go

Unhonoured, hideous, mean and slow,

To its appointed doom!

The gas-lamps had a sickly glare,
And not a heart did bleed
As passed that bony hulk along.
Drawn by its bony steed;

The Hansom Cabmen winked and leered,
The very Crossing-Sweeper jeered,
The street-boys raised a yell:
And bliss o'er troubled spirits slid
To see that Four-wheeled Monster bid
To fares a long farewell!

Yet, martyr-like, the Driver sat ;
He knew the end was near
Of over-charge and under-pay,
And did not shed a tear;
Saying-Too long I have delayed;
My Cab is old, my Horse decayed,
'Tis mercy bids me bolt ;
For fifty years of mortal breath,
We've jolted Passengers to death,
And shall no longer jolt.

Upon the myriad men

Who've blown me up, and knocked me down,
And had me up' again.

Those frowsy cushions bring not back

Nor stretch four souls upon the rack
By Nature made for twain !

Oh, let this cramped roof-tree go,
Also thy dirty straw below,
Thou Vehicle of Pain!

"Even I am weary now of playing
My customary pranks;

Rank idiocy it was to place

Such Cabs upon the ranks !
How came it, else, that London's sons
To stable-owning Goths and Huns

For aid in vain did cry,
While every Gent, and every Cad,
In Aberdeen and Glasgow had

His reputable Fly?

"Go, Kings of Cabland, and reflect
On London's awful waste
By not a single Four-wheeled Cab

From Kew to Greenwich graced !
Go, tell the world how you beheld
A Jehu, bowed with shame and eld,
Guiding his Growler mean,-
The general universe defy,
To match for sheer obliquity,
That ramshackle machine!

Punch, September, 1885.

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THE MASSACRE OF GLENHO.

THROUGH deep Glenho the owlet flits,
That valley weird and lone;
The chieftain's aged widow sits
Beside the bare hearth stone.

Beside the bare and blighted hearth

Whose fires, now quenched and black,
Had seen five gallant sons go forth,
And never one come back.

'Tis silent all! but hark-a cry
And ghastly clamours wake
The midnight glen. Then rose proudly
That ancient dame, and spake-

"What mingled sounds of woe and wail
"Up Mortham's valley spread?
"What shrieks upon the gusty gale
"Come pealing overhead?

"I hear the pibroch's piercing swell,
"The banshee's scream I hear,
"And hark! again that stifled yell-
"The boderglas is near!!

THE LAWN TENNIS MATCH. THE summer day proved all too short, But light forbade the pleasant sport, And silent lay the tennis court,

Where time had flown so rapidly.

But morning saw another sight,
When, after slumbers soft and light,

The girls, once more, rushed forth to fight
Upon the level greenery.

On either side the net they stand,
Each with her tennis bat in hand,
The fairest maidens in the land,

Opposed in bloodless rivalry!
Then "faults" no longer were forgiven,
Then o'er the net their balls were driven,
And like the deadly bolts of Heaven,
The "serves" in their velocity!

But faster yet the balls shall fly
Beneath the cloudless summer sky,
And still more frequent be the cry

Of "Deuce" that sounds so naughtily! 'Tis noon, but still resounds the blow, Though scorching hours may come and go, Those maidens, fleeter than the roe,

Are ever darting rapidly!

The combat deepens, Grace will win,
In Jersey, fitting like her skin,
Just give the ball a subtle spin,

And snatch from Maud the victory!

A few games more, and Grace has won!

66

'Ho! Claret Cup! we both are done!'

And from the fury of the sun

THE PLEASURES OF HOPE. AT Summer eve, when Heav'n's aërial bow Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky? Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near? 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

THOMAS CAMPBELL,

CAMPBELL, UNDONE AND outdone.
WHEN oftentimes the young aerial beau
Spans on bright arch the glittering wheels below,
Why to yon upland turns the 'cycling eye,
Whose misty outline mingles with the sky?
Why do those tracts of soberer tint appear

More meet than all the landscape shining near?
'Tis distance sends enchantment to his view,

And lures the mounted with its azure hue.

From Lyra Bicyclica, by Joseph G. Dalton. (Hodges and Co., Boston, 1885.)

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Amongst the various other imitations of Campbell's style the following are noteworthy :

In "Rival Rhymes in honour of Burns," by Samuel Lover (London, 1859), is a long poem entitled "A Spirit Lay from Hades," imitating "The Battle of the Baltic," it commences thus:

Or Scotia and the North

A loving son would sing,

And to laud surpassing worth

Would wake the silent string,

Untouch'd since it sank to the tomb;

But bardic fires still burn

In the ashes of the urn,

And glimmering back return

Through the gloom.

For BURNS this spirit lay

Is wafted to the earth, In honour of the day

That gave the poet birth.

*

"Rejected Odes," edited by Humphrey Hedgehog, Esq., published by J. Johnston, London, 1813, a dreary little book, which was, no doubt, brought into existence in consequence of the success of "The Rejected Addresses," contains poems which are supposed to bear some resemblance to those of Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and others. Specimen the Ninth is devoted to the description of the sorrows of Ireland, written after the style of Campbell's Exile of Erin.

In "The Maclise Portrait Gallery" (Chatto and Windus) there is an excellent portrait of Campbell, who, comfortably seated in an arm chair, is enjoying a long pipe and a glass of whisky toddy :"THERE'S Tom Campbell in person, the poet of Hope, Brimful of good liquor, as gay as the Pope; His shirt collar's open, his wig is awry, There's his stock on the ground, there s a cock in his eye. Half gone his last tumbler-clean gone his last joke, And his pipe, like his college, is ending in smoke. What he's saying who knows, but perhaps it may be Something tender and soft of a bouncing ladye.'

W. MAGINN.

Born January 25, 1759.

Died July 21, 1796.

HE date of the birth of Burns has been variously given as January 25 and January 29, the former date is probably correct judging from the lines: "Our monarch's hindmost year but ane. Was five and twenty days begun, 'Twas then a blast o' Janwar win' Blew hansel in our Robin."

It is now generally adopted, and the celebration of the Centenary of Burns's birth was certainly held at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, on January 25, 1859.

Of all the Poems written by Burns no one is so grand, or so generally popular as Bruce's address to his troops, which Burns is said to have composed as he rode home through a heavy storm. He sent the following draft of it to his friend Mr. George Thomson, in September, 1793, suggesting that the poem might be set to the old Scotch air HEY TUTTIE TAITTIE.

Now's the day, and now's the hour,
See the front o' battle lower :
See approach proud Edward's power-
Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor-knave?

Wha can fill a cowards grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Free-man stand, or Free-man fa',
Let him follow me?

By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low !
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!

Let us DO or DIE!

Mr. Thompson, in acknowledging the Poem, remarked:

"Your heroic ode is to me the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish language. I happened to dine yester

day with a party of your friends to whom I read it. They were all charmed with it, entreated me to find out a suitable air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally devoid of interest or grandeur as 'Hey tuttie taittie.'

I have been running over the whole hundred airs, of which I lately sent you the list; and I think Lewie Gordon is most happily adapted to your ode; at least with a very short variation of the fourth line, which I shall presently submit to you. There is in Lewie Gordon' more of the grand than the plaintive, particularly when it is sung with a degree of spirit which your words would oblige the singer to give it. I would have no scruple about substituting your ode in the room of 'Lewie Gordon,' which has neither the interest, the grandeur, nor the poetry that characterize your verses. Now the variation I have to suggest on the last line of each verse, the only line too short for the air, is as follows :Verse 1st, Or to glorious victoric. 2nd,

Chains-chains and slaverie.

3rd, Let him, let him turn and flee.

4th, Let him bravely follow me.

5th, But they shall, they shall be free. 6th,

Let us, let us do, or die!

If you connect each line with its own verse, I do not think you will find that either the sentiment or the expression loses any of its energy."

Acting upon these suggestions Burns altered his Poem to suit the music, but in simplicity and grandeur the first version was far superior to the second.

BANNOCKBURN.

Robert Bruce's address to his Army.

SCOTS, wha hae wi' Wallace bled:

Scots, wham Bruce has often led;
Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to glorious victory!

Now's the day and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour:

See approach proud Edward's power-
Edward! chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?

Traitor coward turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or Freeman fa', Caledonia on wi' me!

By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins.
But they shall be-shall be free!