ist,
Ye hard it not at Cockilby's feist.[72]

[Footnote 70: Apparently some lines are here omitted.]

[Footnote 71: This seems to allude to the old romance of _Orfeo and
Heurodis_, from which the reader will find some extracts, Vol. II.
The wife of _Orpheus_ is here called _Elpha_, probably from her having
been extracted by the elves, or fairies.]

[Footnote 72: Alluding to a strange unintelligible poem in the
Bannatyne MSS., called _Cockelby's sow_.]

APPENDIX, No. VI.

SUPPLEMENTAL STANZAS TO COLLINS'S ODE ON
THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS.

BY

WILLIAM ERSKINE, ESQ.
ADVOCATE.

* * * * *

The editor embraces this opportunity of presenting the reader with
the following stanzas, intended to commemorate some striking Scottish
superstitions, omitted by Collins in his ode upon that subject; and
which, if the editor can judge with impartiality of the production
of a valued friend, will be found worthy of the sublime original.
The reader must observe, that these verses form a continuation of
the address, by Collins, to the author of _Douglas_, exhorting him to
celebrate the traditions of Scotland. They were first published in the
_Edinburgh Magazine_, for April, 1788.

* * * * *
Thy muse may tell, how, when at evening's close,
To meet her love beneath the twilight shade,
O'er many a broom-clad brae and heathy glade,
In merry mood the village maiden goes;
There, on a streamlet's margin as she lies,
Chaunting some carol till her swain appears,
With visage deadly pale, in pensive guise,
Beneath a wither'd fir his form he rears![73]
Shrieking and sad, she bends her irie flight,
When, mid dire heaths, where flits the taper blue,
The whilst the moon sheds dim a sickly light,
The airy funeral meets her blasted view!
When, trembling, weak, she gains her cottage low,
Where magpies scatter notes of presage wide,
Some one shall tell, while tears in torrents flow,
That, just when twilight dimm'd the green hill's side,
Far in his lonely sheil her hapless shepherd died.

[Footnote 73: The _wraith_, or spectral appearance, of a person
shortly to die, is a firm article in the creed of Scottish
superstition. Nor is it unknown in our sister kingdom. See the story
of the beautiful lady Diana Rich.--_Aubrey's Miscellanies_, p, 89.]

Let these sad strains to lighter sounds give place!
Bid thy brisk viol warble me