"The primin' fell out when she first refused, sir, and you forgot to put in another."

"And ye gouck, could'nt you tell me that before?" said the wrathful gauger, as he recovered his arms for another attempt. This time, however, he was successful, for his volley levelled the cock leader and two of his family, while the remainder took flight.

"I dare say, friend bare-legs, you do not often see such shots as that in these quarters?"

"'Deed, sir, I'll no say I do," returned the other with a look and manner somewhat equivocal.

"In sooth, I suppose no one hereabouts knows anything of grouse shooting; but for myself, as I have already said, give me but the birds within tolerable reach, and I am sure to hit them."

"Na doot, sir, especially if ye always make it a fashion to shoot them sittin'."

"And have ye any hereabouts that can shoot them any other gait, callant?"

"May be, sir, the young laird, and the minister's son, and the major, and

"Weel, sir, and pray how does the young laird find out the game ↑ Has he any pointers ? "

"Pinters, sir, what's that?" enquired his companion, affecting ignorance.

"You fool, and do you not know what a pointer is! Precious country I am come to, and perhaps to lay my bones in-not to know what pointer is !"

"And d'ye ken, sir, what a bochan is?"

"Not I, friend bare-legs, nor do I care."

"My name, sir, is Eachainn, and you see there'll be some things that folks who are very clever don't know. A bochan, sir, is what you call in Beurla a hobgoblin."

"I see your drift, man, I see your drift, and care not what a bochan or a fiddlestick means; but a pointer is a dog of right Spanish breed, which has such instinct that he smells out the birds without seeing them, so that when he has got one in a covey within reach of his nose, he holds up his leg, and stands stock still, until his master comes up and bleezes away at them."

"Sitting, sir?" asked Eachainn, with a roguish look.

"Aye, man, sitting or standing, 'tis all the same."

"You'll may be be wanting such dogs in the low country, but they'll no be wanted in the Highlands. Here, sir," continued he, remembering the hoax about Luno and gunmaking, "Here, sir, the people can smell the game as good as your dogs."

"What's that ye say, man? D'ye think of clishmaclavering me with any of your big Hielan' lees?"

"Would you like me to smell out some muir-hens for you, sir?" "You smell out game! smell out your grandmother! D'ye think to deceive me with such havers ? "

"Do you s'pose you could hit the poor craters, sittin' to, if I had'nt smelt them out for you, sir?"

“Faith, friend, you're no blate-smell out indeed! and pray, callant, can you smell out any more of them?"

"I begin to think it's no a very thankful job."

"And do you often amuse yourself with nosing it in this way over these vile moors, through which I am so heartily tired of trudging."

"Whenever the laird, sir, goes out after the muir-hens, I go with him to smell them out."

"Weel man, convince me of the bare fact-smell out another covey, and then I'll no gainsay your gift."

The guide, shrugging up his shoulders and scratching his head, affecting to make some difficulty, said the wind had gone down, and that the scent was dull. The sly rascal, however, having an exceedingly acute ear, continued walking over bog and heather with long strides, until at length, at a considerable distance, and a little to one side of the track, he thought he heard the "ca-ca" of a bird. He then turned to his companion and said, "If I'll be smelling out a prasgan for ye sir, will you let me have a shoot at them?"

"Give you a shot! weel but that passes a'. I dinna ken what you might make with a claymore, as ye ca' a braidsword; but a gun is another sort of thing altogether. What! Donald, could you hit a peatstack, man?"

"My name's Eachainn, sir; and as to shooting a peatstack, I don't know, but if ye like I'll try."

"Weel Donald, or Eachainn, or whatever your name is, I don't care if I indulge you, so there's the gun-but mind, when you aim, you turn the barrel away, and the stock to yourself. Now you may bleeze awa' at any thing but me and the pony. The guide, having by this time a shrewd guess where the birds were to be found, went on several paces cautiously, and pretending to scent something. At length he made a stand, cocking up one leg, while he beckoned to the stranger, who was some little distance in the rear, to dismount and come up.

The latter accordingly did so, and there were the birds sure enough. The stranger, whose less practised eye and ear were not aware of the trick, now not doubting the truth of the Highlander's gift, uttered his admiration in whispers, "Weel, but yon's quite extraordinar'; all real birds too, and no glamour; I doot its nae canny,"

The Gael, not being such a desperate pot hunter as his comrade, gave a "Hurrah!" which raised the birds at once, then taking a good aim, brought down two, and wounded one or two more, which flew quacking

away.

The Highlander, anxious to secure the wounded birds, went bounding in the direction in which they had flown. As he hastily stepped forward he did not perceive that a viper was directly in his path, and before he was aware of its being near him, the reptile had bitten his bare foot. Striking it off with the point of the barrel, he uttered not a word, but giving one glance round, as if looking for something, he took to his heels with a swiftness not unworthy of Luno himself.

(To be Continu d.)

OUR OWN LYRICAL POETRY.

BY THE REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.

THE subject of this paper is very wide, but on its first portion I shall be brief. Litanies or song prayers were first introduced in the fifth century in the Greek Church and transferred afterwards to the Romish. They are said to have originated in the following circumstances :-An earthquake, says the legend, having driven the people into the fields, a boy was suddenly taken up into the air in their presence, but was again let down unhurt, and the people crying "Carie Eleusa" (Lord have mercy). He related that he had heard the songs of the angels-" Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us"—and this gave rise to litanies or supplications as the word means. Being inserted into prayer-books they gradually blossomed so to speak into poetry. Indeed, some will have it that a few of the Hebrew Psalms, such as the 136th

Praise God, for he is kind,
His mercies last for aye,

were just litanies. Some of the litanies in the Roman Catholic service are very beautiful, such as that beginning

Stabat Mater Delovosa

Tureta crucem lachrymora
Oam pendchat Filius,

which may be thus Englished

Stood the mother dolorous,

Near the cross in tears,
While the cruel tree beside

Her dear firstborn bears.

But the most remarkable one is that entitled "Dies Irae." There are various versions of this, but one of the best known is that of Earl Roscommon, and it I may quote as a quaint and curious rendering

That day of wrath, that dreadful day,

Shall the whole world in ashes lay,

As David and the Sibyls say.

What horror will invade the mind

When the strict Judge, who would be kind,

Shall have few venial faults to, find.

The last, loud trumpet's wondrous sound

Shall through the rending tombs rebound,
And wake the nations under ground.
Nature and death shall with surprise
Behold the pale offender rise.

And view the Judge with conscious eyes.
Then shall, with universal dread,
The sacred, mystic book be read,
To try the living and the dead.
The Judge ascends his awful throne,
He makes each secret sin be known,
And all with shame confess their own,
O then what interest shall I make
To save my last important stake,
When the most just have come to quake.

Thou mighty formidable King,
Thou mercy's unexhausted spring,
Some comfortable pity bring.
Forget not what my ransom cost,
Nor let my dear bought soul be lost
In storms of guilty terror tost.
Prostrate my contrite heart I rend,
My God, my Father, and my Friend,

Do not fotsake me in the end!

Well may they curse their Second Breath,
Who rose to a reviving death,
Thou great Creator of mankind,
Let guilty man compassion find.

To those ages too belongs the groundwork of Ossian's poems, who, although he has been turned by Macpherson into an epic poet, was in reality nothing but a singer of songs and odes distinguished by their successful delineation of the passions, picturesque expressions, bold and beautiful images, and comparisons, their deep pathos and melancholy tone. Thus beautifully does Hazlitt speak of him-"Ossian's was feeling, and a name that can never be destroyed in the minds of his readers. As Homer is the first vigour and lustihood, Ossian is the decay and old age of the world. He lives only in the recollection and regret of the past. There is one impression which he convoys more entirely than all other poets, namely, the sense of privation, the loss of all things-of friends, of good name, of country; he is even without God in the world. He converses with the spirits of the departed, with the motionless and silent clouds. The cold moonlight sheds its faint lustre on his head. The fox peeps out of the ruined tower, the thistle waves its head to the wandering gale, and the strings of his harp seem as the hand of age as the tale of other times passes over them, to sigh and rustle like the dry reeds in the winter's wind. The feeling of cheerless desolation, of the loss of the pith and sap of existence, of the annihilation of the substance, and the clinging to the shadow of all things as in a mock embrace, is here perfect. If it were indeed possible to show that this writer was nothing, it would only be another instance of mutability, another blank made, another void left in the heart, another confirmation of that feeling which makes him so often complain. Roll on ye dark brown years, ye bring no joy on your wings to Ossian.""

We now approach the poetry of the ballad, and we find ourselves beside the familiar themes of the Minstrel and Minstrelsy, and must regret that we have not as much scope as we have matter, as much time as we have inclination, for treating it fully and lovingly. Minstrelsy seems to have sprung up in Provence, a southern district in France, and the Provencal poetry is among the most famous in the history of literature. In Normandy, too, there was minstrelsy, but although it excelled the Provencal in power of imagination, it was inferior in tenderness, in grace, and in adaptation to music. Song, however, had meanwhile arisen in great force in Scandinavia, and was in matter superior to that of the South, although inferior in music, which is peculiarly the child of sunny climes. But the genius of the North travelled southward, and in France met and married the splendid melody of Italy, and produced between them the perfect form of our early minstrelsy.

What meaning and magic we connect with the words, "Ballad Poetry." Ballads, as Fletcher said long ago, have been the real laws of a country. They have prevailed in every rank of society, mingled, like currents of air, with men's loves, hatreds, enthusiasms, patriot-passions from the mouth of the minstrel himself to that of the ploughman in the field, the maid by the well, singing perchance as in that exquisite scene in Guy Mannering—

Are here the links of Forth, she said,

Or are they crooks of Dee,
Or the bonnie woods of Warroch-head,
That I sae fain wad see?

the reaper among the yellow sheaves; the herdsman in the noontide solitude of the hill, or in the snow-buried shieling; the child in the nursery or in her solitude, how strange and holy while wandering to school amid woods and wildernesses; and the soldier resting after the fatigue of a day of blood or returning to his mountain home when the wars are over, to the music of one of its own forgotten songs. And who remembers not the husbandman in "Don Quixote" who, as he goes forth to to his morning labour, is singing the ancient ballad of Ronces Valles? And add still more, as an illustration of the power and the charm of ballad poetry, not only that Homer, the earliest and all but the greatest of poets, was a ballad maker, and not only that Shakspere condescended to borrow songs, and plots, and hints from old English ballads, but that many of the modern productions-such as the most of Scott's verses, Coleridge's "Christobel and Rime of the Anciente Marinere," Wordsworth's "Lyrical Ballads," Southey's "Old Woman of Berkeley," Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," and many more-are imitations in style, or in spirit, or in all three, of these, wild, simple, early immortal strains.

In Percy's Reliques, which I had the privilege of editing a good many years ago, in Nichol's Poets, you will find a number of admirable specimens of the old ballad such as the ancient ballad of Chevy Chase that was said to stir the blood like the sound of a trumpet, and a whole set of ballads alluded to in Shakspere, such as King Cophetua and the beggar maid, Gernutus, the Jew of Venice, King Lear and his three daughters; also, a little copy of verses, entitled "Take these lips away." Emerson, by the way, in his "Nature" quotes these lines as quite Shaksperean; and so they are, but they are certainly not Shakspere's

Take, oh, take these lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes the break of day-
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again

Seals of love, but sealed in vain.

There are many others, specially the "Nut Brown Maid," which was afterwards modernized by Prior in his " Henry and Emma;" the "Hardyknut," too long to quote, but a ballad which, we are told, when Scott repeated it to Lord Byron, a person at a distance in the room wondered what dreadful news he had been telling him, he looked so much agitated. Perhaps, however, you will read it with disappointment,