Oh, slowly, slowly came she down,

And stood and gazed on me:
Her lovely eyes with tears ran o'er,
Repenting her rash sin-
And aye she mourn'd the fatal hour
She rose and loot me in.

But who could cruelly deceive,
Or from such beauty part?
I lov'd her so, I could not leave
The charmer of my heart:
We wedded, and I thought me blest
Such loveliness to win;

And now she thanks the happy hour
She rose and loot me in.

MAGGIE LAUDER.

Wha wadnae be in love

Wi' bonnie Maggie Lauder!

A piper met her gaun to Fife,

And speir'd what was't they ca'd her:
Right scornfully thus answered she,
Begone, you hallan-shaker:
Jog on your gate, you blether-skate,
My name is Maggie Lauder.

Maggie! quoth he; now by my bags,
I'm fidgin fain to see thee!

Sit down by me, my bonnie bird,

In troth I winna steer thee;
For I'm a piper to my trade,

Men call me Rab the Ranter:
The lasses loup as they were daft,
When I blaw up my chanter.
Piper, quo' Meg, have you your bags,
And is your drone in order?
If you be Rab, I've heard of you,-
Live you upon the Border?
The lasses a', baith far and near,

Have heard of Rab the Ranter-
I'll shake my foot wi' right good will,
If you'll blaw up your chanter.
Then to his bags he flew wi' speed,
About the drone he twisted;
Meg up and walloped o'er the green,
For brawlie could she frisk it:
Weel done! quoth he. Play up, quo' she.
Weel bobbed! quoth Rab the Ranter;
'Tis worth my while to play, indeed,
When I get sic a dancer!

Weel hae you played your part! quoth Meg:
Your cheeks are like the crimson-
There's nane in Scotland plays sae weel,
Since we lost Habbie Simpson.
I've lived in Fife, baith maid an wife,
These ten years and a quarter;
Gin ye should come to Anster Fair,
Spier ye for Maggie Lauder.

THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.

BORN 1612 DIED 1650.

He was the only son of John, fourth earl, and Margaret Ruthven, daughter of the Earl of Gowrie. The future hero succeeded to his paternal estates and honours soon after Charles I. ascended the throne. During his minority he was under the guardianship of Lord Napier, who had married his sister, and who continued through life one of his warmest friends and supporters. He was educated at the University of St. Andrews, where he won reputation as a classical scholar and a poet. Montrose married Madeline Carnegie, daughter of the Earl of Southesk, by whom he had two sons. On the death of his wife he went abroad,

Among the great soldiers of the seventeenth | trose. century, the celebrated Marquis of Montrose a hero whom Cardinal de Retz deemed worthy of the pages of Plutarch, being inspired by all the ideas and sentiments which animated the classic personages whom that writer has commemorated-is certainly entitled to a place among the minor poets of Scotland. It may be truly said that he possessed an elegant genius spoke eloquently, and wrote with a graceful and perspicuous turn of expression. James Graham, THE GREAT MARQUIS, was born in the month of September, 1612, it is believed at the family estate of Auld Mon

and spent three years on the Continent, return- | and sympathy of his enemies. On the Restoraing to Scotland in 1633, with the reputation tion the remains of the greatest of the Grahams of being the most accomplished nobleman of were carefully collected, and interred with his time. imposing solemnities within the precincts of St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, and the sen tence of forfeiture which parliament had passed was reversed by Charles II., thus restoring Lord Graham to his father's dignities and pos sessions. One of Scotland's sweetest singers has celebrated in the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers the death of the faithful royalist and gallant knight, and also that of his renowned grandson 'Bonny Dundee ;" and his biographer Mark Napier concludes his memoir of the Great Marquis with these lines:

It were foreign to our purpose to follow the brilliant career of the chivalric soldier, or to describe the noble magnanimity and Christian spirit displayed by the Highland hero in the hour of defeat and disaster. In the year 1650 he was captured by the Parliamentary forces, and conducted to Edinburgh. There he was received as a condemned traitor, and subjected to the most barbarous indignities. The night before his execution he wrote the well-known and beautiful lines:

"Let them bestow on every airt a limb,
Then open all my veins, that I may swim
To thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake,——
Then place my parboil'd head upon a stake,
Scatter my ashes-strew them in the air. -
Lord! since thou knowest where all these atoms are,
I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust,
And confident thou'lt raise me with the just." 1

Montrose was executed at the Scottish capital, May 21, 1650, and in accordance with the barbarous sentence the legs and arms were cut off, and sent as trophies to the four principal cities of Scotland, while his head was affixed to a spike at the top of the Tolbooth, Edinburgh. The Great Marquis met his sad fate, and the many insults and indignities heaped upon him before his execution, with a calm and Christian spirit, with such dignity and fortitude as to excite even the admiration

There is a coincidence worthy of notice between these lines and those written by Sir Walter Raleigh, when about to submit himself like Montrose to a judicial murder:

"Even such is time; who takes in trust
Our joys, our youth, and all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;

But from that earth, that grave and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust."-ED.

"From yon grim tower, where long, in ghastly state,
His head proclaim'd how holiness can hate;
From gory pinnacles, where blench'd and riven,
Ten years his sever'd limbs insulted Heaven;
From the vile hole, by malice dug, beneath
The felon's gibbet, on the blasted heath,
Redeem'd to hallow'd ground, too long denied,
Here let the martyr's mangled bones abide.

His country blush'd, and clos'd the cloister'd tomb,
But rais'd no record of the hero's doom;
Blush'd, but forbore to mark a nation's shame
With sculptur'd memories of the murder'd Graham;
The warrior's couch, 'mid pious pageants spread,
But left the stone unletter'd at his head:
Vain the dark aisle! the silent tablet vain!
Still to his country cleaves the curse of Cain,-
Still cries his blood, from out the very dust
Of Scotland's sinful soil,- Remember me they must'
But, though the shame must Scotland bear through
time,

Ye bastard priesthood, answer for the crime!
Preachers, not pastors, redolent of blood.

Who cried, 'Sweet Jesu,' in your murderous mood,—
Self-seeking Christ-caressing-canting crew,
That from the Book of Life death-warrants drew,
Obscur'd the fount of truth, and left the trace
Of gory fingers on the page of grace:
This was thy horrid handiwork, though still
Sublime he soar'd above your savage will,
Rous'd his great soul to glorify its flight,
And foil'd the adder of his foeman's spite:-
This was thy horrid handiwork, the while
He of the craven heart, the false Argyle,
Sent for our sins, his country's sorest rod,
Still doom'd his victims in the name of God,
Denounc'd true Christians as the Saviour's foes,
And gorg'd his ravens with the GREAT MONTROSE."