credited sometimes to William Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad, It is not known when the song first appeared; it was sung and sold on the streets of Edinburgh in 1771 or 1772. JANE ELLIOT (1727-1805) and MRS. ALICIA RUTHERFORD COCKBURN (1713?-1798) produced no work of special value, except these songs. Both poems are commonly regarded as laments for the losses at the battle of Flodden Field, but Mrs. Cockburn's was really written on the occasion of a local financial disaster in Selkirkshire. The name of ROBERT FERGUSSON (1750-1774) is the most important. in Scotch poetry, between Ramsay's and Burns's. He is related to both these men in a way; but he goes beyond Ramsay in wit and keenness and satirical power, and falls below Burns in tenderness and pathos and real poetry. But he has, in common with them, something of the same ability to speak from the very centre of Scotch life, and the same zeal for national poetry. His life was too short to allow him to accomplish much too short, probably, even to show the full maturity and variety of his powers. The greater part of his life was spent in Edinburgh. He has been called the "laureate of auld Reekie," because his poems deal so largely with Edinburgh life. He is chiefly a social poet; he is at his best in the poems that represent people in their social relations. Keen enjoyment of life whether of city street and city follies, or of shepherd life is one of the chief elements in his work. But his life ended sadly, in an insane asylum. A large part of his work was published in Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine. The Ruddimans also printed, in 1773, a collection of his poems, the only one that appeared during Fergusson's life. Burns admired Fergusson almost extravagantly, imitated him in several poems, and lamented passionately the tragedy of his early death. Burns himself looked out Fergusson's grave in the Canongate churchyard, and erected a stone upon it. - The text of these Scots poems is not vouched for except in the case of Fergusson's, which are from the collection edited by Robert Ford. (Paisley, 1905.) The glossary is taken from various sources, the chief one being Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. A ae, one. ava, at all. GLOSSARY B bailie, a magistrate. baith, both. bandsters, binders of sheaves. bang, beat, overcome. bannock, bread, baked in a cake, generally made of barley-meal. bauk, cross-beam of a house. bauld, bold. bear the gree, win the victory. bicker, a wooden dish to hold liquor. bien, prosperous. bigonet, linen cap. birk, birch-tree. bogle, or bogle about the stacks, a play of children or young people, in which one hunts several around the stacks claith, cloth. cod, pillow. cou'ter, coulter. cracks, chat, easy conversation. D daffing, foolishness, merriment. divot, a flat piece of turf used for of corn in a barn-yard.- Jamie-dowf, mournful, dull. son. dowie, worn with grief or fatigue. bowie, dish, small cask open at downa, cannot. chimney. fell, very. chimley cheeks, sides of the fient, fiend, devil. fit, foot. English Poetry BY W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D. Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford Cloth, 8vo, $3.25 net per volume VOLUME I. The Middle Ages — Influence of the Roman Empire - The Encyclopædic Education of the Church The Feudal System. VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation Influence of the Court and the Universities. VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century — Decadent Influence of the Feudal Monarchy — Growth of the National Genius. VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama Influence of the Court and the People. VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth Century - Effects of the Classical Renaissance - Its Zenith and Decline - The Early Romantic Renaissance. "It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great value and signal importance to the history of English Literature." - Pall Mall Gazette. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York |