Blood shall flow freely, but it shall be gore
Of herds and flocks, and venison and poultry,
Join'd to the brave heart's-blood of John-a-Barley-
corn!
Old Play.

(2.)-CHAP. IV.

No, sir,-I will not pledge-I'm one of those
Who think good wine needs neither bush nor preface
To make it welcome. If you doubt my word,
Fill the quart-cup, and see if I will choke on't.

Or, like the light dance which the wild-breeze

weaves

Amidst the faded race of fallen leaves;
Which now its breath bears down, now tosses
high,

Beats to the earth, or wafts to middle sky.
Such, and so varied, the precarious play
Of fate with man, frail tenant of a day!

Old Play.

(3.)-CHAP. VI.

Necessity-thou best of peacemakers,
As well as surest prompter of invention-

This is some creature of the elements Most like your sea-gull. He can wheel and whistle His screaming song, e'en when the storm is loudestTake for his sheeted couch the restless foam Of the wild wave-crest-slumber in the calm, And dally with the storm. Yet 'tis a gull, An arrant gull, with all this.

I fear the devil worst when gown and cassock, Or, in the lack of them, old Calvin's cloak, Conceals his cloven hoof.

"Tis the black ban-dog of our jail-Pray look on him, But at a wary distance-rouse him notHe bays not till he worries.

(14.)-CHAP. XXXVIII.

"Speak not of niceness, when there's chance of

wreck,"

The captain said, as ladies writhed their neck

To see the dying dolphin flap the deck:

"If we go down, on us these gentry sup;

We dine upon them, if we haul them up.
Wise men applaud us when we eat the eaters,
As the devil laughs when keen folks cheat the cheat
ers."
The Sea Voyage.

Contentions fierce,

Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.

He came amongst them like a new-raised spirit, To speak of dreadful judgments that impend, And of the wrath to come.

Or brawlers with their swords-I'll trust to thee,
For I ask only from thee words, not deeds.
The Devil hath met his Match.

Nearest of blood should still be next in love;
And when I see these happy children playing,
While William gathers flowers for Ellen's ringlets
And Ellen dresses flies for William's angle,

I scarce can think, that in advancing life,
Coldness, unkindness, interest, or suspicion,
Will e'er divide that unity so sacred,
Which Nature bound at birth.

Oh! you would be a vestal maid, I warrant,

The bride of Heaven-Come-we may shake your

purpose:

For here I bring in hand a jolly suitor
Hath ta'en degrees in the seven sciences
That ladies love best-He is young and noble,
Handsome and valiant, gay and rich, and liberal.
The Nun.

It comes-
s-it wrings me in my parting hour,
The long-hid crime-the well-disguised guilt.
Bring me some holy priest to lay the spectre!
Old Play.

(7.)-CHAP. XXXV.

Sedet post equitem atra curu

Still though the headlong cavalier,
O'er rough and smooth, in wild career,
Seems racing with the wind;
His sad companion-ghastly pale,
And darksome as a widow's veil,
CARE-keeps her seat behind.

(8.)-CHAP. XXXVIII.

What sheeted ghost is wandering through the

storm?

For never did a maid of middle earth
Choose such a time or spot to vent her sorrows.
Old Play.

Here come we to our close-for that which follows

Is but the tale of dull, unvaried misery.

Steep crags and headlong lins may court the pencil

Like sudden haps, dark plots, and strange adven

tures;

But who would paint the dull and fog-wrapt moor, Old Play.

In its long tract of sterile desolation?

Correct and sagacious, then came my Lord Hailes, And weigh'd every letter in critical scales,

The stout Gothic yeditur, next on the roll,
With his beard like a brush and as black as a coal;
And honest Greysteel that was true to the core,
Lent their hearts and their hands each to one volume
One volume more, &c.

more.

VIII.

Since by these single champions what wonders were done,

What may not be achieved by our Thirty and One? Law, Gospel, and Commerce, we count in our corps, And the Trade and the Press join for one volume more One volume more, &c.

IX.

Ancient libels and contraband books, I assure ye, We'll print as secure from Exchequer or Jury; Then hear your Committee and let them count o'er The Chiels they intend in their three volumes more. Three volumes more, &c.

X.

They'll produce you King Jamie, the sapient and Sext,

hor,

And castrated Banny in one volume more.

One volume more, my friends, one volume more;
We'll restore Banny's manhood in one volume

more.

Oro tome miscellaneous they'll add to your store,
Resolving next year to print four volumes more.

Four volumes more, my friends, four volumes

more;

Pay down your subscriptions for four volumes

more.

V.

John Pinkerton next, and I'm truly concern'd
I can't call that worthy so candid as learn'd;
He rail'd at the plaid and blasphemed the claymore,
And set Scots by the ears in his one volume more.

One volume more, my friends, one volume more,
Celt and Goth shall be pleased with one volume

more.

VI.

As bitter as gall, and as sharp as a razor, And feeding on herbs as a Nebuchadnezzar

This club was instituted in the year 1822, for the publica tion or reprint of rare and curious works connected with the It consisted, at first, of

history and antiquities of Scotland.

a very few members,-gradually extended to one hundred, at which number it has now made a final pause. They as sume the name of the Bannatyne Club from George Bannatyne, of whom little is known beyond that prodigious effort which produced his present honours, and is, perhaps, one of the most singular instances of its kind which the literature of any country exhibits. His labours as an amanuensis were undertaken during the time of pestilence, in 1568. The dread of infection had induced him to retire into solitude, and un. der such circumstances he had the energy to form and exc

1 Sir Walter Scott was the first President of the Club, and wrote these verses for the anniversary dinner of March, 1823. -See Life, vol. vii., p. 137.

2 In accordance with his own regimen, Mr. Ritson published a volume entitled, "A: Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral Duty. 1802."

of Pinkerton, Ritson, and Herd, &c. in the Introductory Remarks on Popular Poetry, ante, p. 537, et seq.

4 James Sibbald, editor of Scottish Poetry, &c. "The Yeditur," was the name given him by the late Lord Eldin, then Mr. John Clerk, advocate. The description of him here is very accurate.

5 David Herd, editor of Songs and Historical Ballads. 2 vois. He was called Greysteel by his intimates, from having

ente the plan of saving the literature of the whole nation; and, undisturbed by the general mourning for the dead, and general fears of the living, to devote himself to the task of collecting and recording the triumphs of human genius in the poetry of his age and country;-thus, amid the wreck of all that was mortal, employing himself in preserving the lays by which immortality is at once given to others, and obtained for the writer himself. He informs us of some of the numerous

difficulties he had to contend with in this self-imposed task.

The volume containing his labours, deposited in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh, is no less than eight hundred pages in length, and very neatly and closely written, contaming nearly all the ancient poetry of Scotland now known to exist

This Caledonian association, which boasts several names of distinction, both from rank and talent, has assumed rather a

broader foundation than the parent society, the Roxburghe Club in London. which, in its plan, being restricted to the reprinting of single tracts. each executed at the expense of an individual member, it follows as almost a necessary consequence, that no volume of considerable size has emanated from it, and its range has been thus far limited in point of utility. The Bannatyne, holding the same system with respect to the ordinary species of club reprints, levies, moreover, a fund among its members of about L.500 a-year, expressly to be applied for the editing and printing of works of acknowledged importance, and likely to be attended with expense beyond the reasonable bounds of an individual's contribution. In this way either a member of the Club, or a competent person under its patronage, superintends a particular volume, or set of volumes. Upon these occasions, a very moderate number of copies are thrown off for general sale; and those belonging to the Club are only distinguished from the others by being printed on the paper, and ornamented with the decorations, peculiar to the Society. In this way several useful and eminently valuable works have recently been given to the public for the first time, or at least with a degree of accuracy and authenticity which they had never before attained. Abridged from the Quarterly Review-ART. Pil

cairn's Ancient Criminal Trials. February, 1831.

To 3. C. Lockhart, Esq.

ON THE COMPOSITION OF MAIDA'S EPITAPH.

1824.

"Maida Marmorea dormis sub imagine Maida!
Ad januam domini sit tibi terra levis."

See Life of Scott, vol. vii., pp. 275-281.

"DEAR JOIN,-I some time ago wrote to inform his
Fat worship of jaces, misprinted for dormis;
But that several Southrons assured me the januam
Was a twitch to both ears of Ass Priscian's cranium.

1 There is an excellent story (but too long for quotation) in the Memoire of the Somervilles (vol. i. p. 240) about an old Lord of that family, who, when he wished preparations to be made for high feasting at his Castle of Cowthally, used to send on a billet inscribed with this laconic phrase, "Spcates and raxes," i. c. spits and ranges. Upon one occasion, Lady Somerville (being newly married, and not yet skilled in her husoand's hieroglyphics) read the mandates as spears and jacks, and sent

You, perhaps, may observe that one Lione! Berguer, In defence of our blunder appears a stout arguer: But at length I have settled, I hope, all these clatters,

By a rout in the papers-fine place for such matters. I have, therefore, to make it for once my command, sir,

That my gudeson shall leave the whole thing in my hand, sir,

And by no means accomplish what James says you threaten,

Some banter in Blackwood to claim your dog-Latin.
I have various reasons of weight, on my word, sir,
For pronouncing a step of this sort were absurd, sir.-
Firstly, erudite sir, 'twas against your advising
I adopted the lines this monstrosity lies in ;
For you modestly hinted my English translation
Would become better far such a dignified station.
Second-how, in God's name, would my bacon be
saved,

By not having writ what I clearly engraved?
On the contrary, I, on the whole, think it better
To be whipped as the thief, than his lousy resetter.
Thirdly-don't you perceive that I don't care a boddle
Although fifty false metres were flung at my noddle,
For my back is as broad and as hard as Benlomon's,
And I treat as I please both the Greeks and the Ro
mans;

Whereas the said heathens might rather look serious
At a kick on their drum from the scribe of Valerius.
And, fourthly and lastly-it is my good pleasure
To remain the sole source of that murderous measure.
So stet pro ratione voluntas-be tractile,

Invade not, I say, my own dear little dactyl;
If you do, you'll occasion a breach in our intercourse:
To-morrow will see me in town for the winter-course,
But not at your door, at the usual hour, sir,
My own pye-house daughter's good prog to devour, sir.
Ergo-peace!-on your duty, your squeamishness
throttle,

And we'll soothe Priscian's spleen with a canny third bottle.

A fig for ail dactyls, a fig for all spondees,
A fig for all dunces and dominie Grundys;

A fig for dry thrapples, south, north, east, and west, sir,

Speates and raxes' ere five for a famishing guest, sir; And as Fatsman and I have some topics for haver,

he'll

Be invited, I hope, to meet me and Dame Peveril, Upon whom, to say nothing of Oury and Anne, you Dog shall be deemed if you fasten your Janua.

forth 200 armed horsemen, whose appearance on the moors greatly alarmed Lord Somerville and his guest, who happened to be no less a person than King James III.-See SCOTT'S Miscellaneous Prose, vol. xxii. p. 312.

2 Fatsman was one of Mr. James Ballantyne's many aliases. Another (to which Constable mostly adhered) was Mr. "Basketfill"-an allusion to the celebrated printer Basker

ville.