The king of Scots that sindle bruik'd The war that lukit lyke play, Drew his braid sword and brake his bow, Sen bows seimt but delay. Quoth noble Rothsay, "Myne I'll keip, "Haste up, my merry men," cry'd the king, As he rade on before. The king of Norse he socht to find, With him to mense the feucht; But on his forehead there did licht A sharp unsonsie shaft; As he his hand put up to find The wound, an arrow kene, O waefou chance! there pinn'd his hand In midst betwene his een. "Revenge! revenge!" cried Rothsay's heir, "Your mail-coat sall nocht byde The strength and sharpness of my dart," Then sent it through his syde. Another arrow weil he mark'd, It persit his neck in twa; His hands then quat the silver reins, "Sair bleids my liege! sair, sair he bleids!" Again with micht he drew, And gesture dreid, his sturdy bow; Wae to the knicht he ettled at; Lament now quene Elgreid; Hie dames too wail your darling's fall, "Take aff, take aff his costly jupe, (Of gold weil was it twyn'd, Knit like the fowler's net, throuch quhilk His steily harnes shynd.) "Take, Norse, that gift frae me, and bid Proud Norse, with giant body tall, "Though Britons tremble at his name, That brag his stout heart couldna byde, It lent him youthfou micht: "I'm Hardyknute. This day," he cry'd, "To Scotland's king I hecht "To lay thee law as horse's hufe, My word I mean to keep." Syne with the first strake eir he strak He garr'd his body bleid. Norse ene lyke gray gosehauk's staird wyld, Then gaif his head a blow sae fell, Full sune he rais'd his bent body; Norse ferliet too as sair as he, To see his stately luke; Quhair, lyke a fyre to hether set, He spur'd his steid throw thickest ranks, Quha stude unmuvit at his approach, "That schort brown shaft, sae meanly trim'd, "Aft Britons blude has dim'd its shyne, This poynt cut short their vaunt;" Syne pierc'd the boisteris bairded cheik, Nae tyme he tuke to taunt. Schort quhyle he in his sadill swang; Swith on the harden'd clay he fell, Richt far was heard the thud, But Thomas luikt not as he lay All waltering in his blude. With cairles gesture, mind unmuvit, Quhen winner ay the same. Nor yit his heart dame's dimpelit cheik In thrawis of death, with wallowit cheik, Neir to return to native land; Nae mair with blythsom sounds To boist the glories of the day, And schaw their shyning wounds. On Norway's coast the widowit dame Ceise, Emma, ceise to hope in vain, There on a lie, quhair stands a cross Let Scots, quhyle Scots, praise Hardyknute, Ay how he faucht, aft how he spaird, Full loud and chill blew westlin' wind, His towir that us'd with torch's bleise Seim'd now as black as mourning weid; "Thair's nae licht in my lady's bowir, "Quhat bodes it? Robert, Thomas, say!" "As fast I've sped owre Scotland's faes"- Sair schamit to mynd ocht but his dame, Black feir he felt, but quhat to feir, SIR JOHN CLERK, second baronet of Penny- | was joint author, in 1726, with Baron Scrope cuik, for nearly half a century one of the barons of the exchequer in Scotland, was born in 1680, and succeeded his father in his title and estates in 1722. He was one of the commissioners for the union, and was recognized as one of the most accomplished men of his time. For twenty years he carried on a correspondence with Roger Gale, the English antiquarian, which appears in Nichol's Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, and contributed scientific papers to various learned societies. He of the Historical View of the Forms and Powers of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland, which was printed at the expense of the barons of exchequer at Edinburgh in 1820, in a large quarto volume. To Sir John are ascribed some amatory lines sent with a flute to Susanna Kennedy, whom he courted unsuccessfully. On attempting to blow the instrument it would not sound, and on uncovering it, the young lady, afterwards Countess of Eglinton, found the following: "Harmonious pipe, how I envye thy bliss, When press'd to Sylphia's lips with gentle kiss! Those melting notes, which soothe my soul to love. To court the charming Sylphia for me; Tell all I feel-you cannot tell too much- Take thou the care to tune her heart to mine." It was to this lady that Allan Ramsay, in 1726, dedicated his "Gentle Shepherd." The baronet was one of Ramsay's warmest friends, who "admired his genius and knew his worth." During the poet's latter years much of his time was spent at Pennycuik House, and at his death its master erected at his beautiful family seat an obelisk to Ramsay's memory. Sir John by his second wife had seven sons and six daughters. One of the former was the author of the well-known work on Naval Tactics, and father of the eccentric Lord Eldin, one of Scotland's most eminent lawyers. Sir John died at Pennycuik, October 4, 1755. His extremely humorous and popular song of "The Miller" first appeared in the second volume of Yair's Charmer, published at Edinburgh four years before Sir John's death; and since that date it has been included in almost all collections of Scottish song. The first verse belongs to an older and an anonymous hand. Merry may the maid be That marries the miller, For foul day and fair day He's aye bringing till her; Has aye a penny in his purse For dinner and for supper; THE MILLER. And gin she please, a good fat cheese, When Jamie first did woo me, I speir'd what was his calling; Fair maid, says he, O come and see, Ye're welcome to my dwalling: Though I was shy, yet I cou'd spy The truth of what he told me, And that his house was warm and couth, And room in it to hold me. Behind the door a bag of meal, And in the kist was plenty Of good hard cakes his mither bakes, And bannocks were na scanty; A good fat sow, a sleeky cow Good signs are these, my mither says, For foul day and fair day He's aye bringing till her; For meal and malt she does na want, In winter when the wind and rain With nut-brown ale he lilts his tale, ALLAN RAMSAY. BORN 1686-DIED 1757 ALLAN RAMSAY, the restorer of Scottish by the father's side from the Ramsays of Dalpoetry, was born Oct. 15, 1686, in the village of Leadhills, Lanarkshire. He was descended housie, a genealogy of which he speaks in one of his pieces with conscious pride: "Dalhousie, of an auld descent My chief, my stoupe, and ornament!" "Gae spread my fame, And fix me an immortal name; they were composed, in which shape they found a ready sale, the citizens being in the habit His father, John Ramsay, was superintendent of sending their children with a penny for of Lord Hopetoun's mines at Leadhills; and 'Allan Ramsay's last piece." In 1720 he his mother, Alice Bowers, was the daughter opened a subscription for a collection of his of a gentleman of Derbyshire, who had been poems in a quarto volume, and the liberal invited to Leadhills to assist by his skill in manner in which it was immediately filled up the introduction of some improvements in the by "all who were either eminent or fair in art of mining. Allan, while yet an infant, Scotland" affords a striking proof of the esteem lost his father, who died at the early age of in which the whilom wig-maker was now held. twenty-five. His mother soon after married The volume, which cleared him 400 guineas, a Mr. Crichton, a small landholder in Lanark closed with an address by the author to his shire. He was sent to the village school, book after the manner of Horace, in which he where he acquired learning enough, as he tells thus boldly speaks of his hopes:us, to read Horace "faintly in the original." In the year 1700 he lost his mother, and his step-father was not long in discovering that he was old enough to take care of himself. He took Allan to Edinburgh, and apprenticed him to a wig-maker, an occupation which most of his biographers are very anxious to distinguish from a barber. The vocation of a "skull-thacker," as Ramsay humorously calls it, would appear not to have been so uncongenial as his biographers would have us believe, as it is certain that he did not abandon it when his apprenticeship ceased, but followed it for many years after. In the parish registers he is called a wig-maker down to 1716. Four years previous to this he married Christian Ross, a writer's daughter, with whom he lived most happily for a period of thirty years. Ages to come shall thee revive, Shall have their notes on notes on thee; In 1724 the poet published the first volume of the Tea-table Miscellany, a collection of songs Scottish and English, which was speedily followed by a second; a third volume appeared in 1727, and a fourth after another interval. This publication acquired him more profit than lasting fame, passing through no less than twelve editions in a few years. This was followed by "The Evergreen : being a Collection of Scots Poems, wrote by the Ingenious before 1600," in two volumes. This work did him even less credit as an editor than the Teatable Miscellany had done. Lord Hailes says with truth that he took great liberty with The earliest of his poems which can now be traced is an epistle addressed in 1712" To the Most Happy Members of the Easy Club," a convivial society, of which in 1715 he was appointed poet-laureate; but it was soon after, the originals, omitting some stanzas and addbroken up by the Rebellion. In 1716 Ramsay ing others; modernizing at the same time published an edition of James I.'s poem of the versification, and varying the ancient Christ's Kirk on the Green," with a second manner of spelling. Ramsay availed himself canto by himself, to which, two years after, of the opportunity of concealment afforded by he added a third. The wit, fancy, and perfect this publication to give expression in a poem mastery of the Scottish language which his, of pretended antiquity, and with a feigned additions to the king's poem displayed, greatly | signature, to those Jacobite feelings which extended his reputation as a poet. Abandon- prudence led him to conceal. It was called ing his original occupation, he entered upon The Vision," and said to be "compylit in the more congenial business of bookselling. Latin be a most lernit clerk in tyme of our His first shop was "at the sign of the Mercury, hairship and opression, anno 1300, and transopposite to Niddry's Wynd," Edinburgh. Here latit in 1524." The pretended subject was the he appears to have represented the threefold "history of the Scots sufferings by the character of author, editor, and bookseller. unworthy condescension of Baliol to Edward I. His poems were printed on single sheets as of England till they recovered their indepen |