of the hill of
winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela!
come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert,
come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is
silent around.'"

The readers of the eighteenth century did not stay to consider whether
the foregoing was, or was not, a genuine antique: it suited their taste
admirably. Rousseau had brought sentimentalism into favour; the "return
to nature" was a kind of creed with the French philosophers: these
facts aided greatly in causing the epidemic of Ossianism that overran
Europe.

I should not like to be condemned to read nothing but Ossian for a year.
The short staccato sentences, the difficulty of getting hold of anything
definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and
feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is
too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle
tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson
without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or refreshing
kind, _e.g._:--

"Thou art with the years that are gone; thou fadest on my soul."

"Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days?"

"Her steps were like the music of songs; she saw the youth and
loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul."

"Why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house,
and no bard shall raise his fame."

"When shall it be morn in the grave to bid the slumberer wake?"

"Mixed with the murmur of waters rose the voice of aged men, who
called the forms of night to aid them in the war."

"Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills."

AT THE FOOT O' BENNACHIE.

I have on several occasions, during the last year or two, visited that
part of Aberdeenshire which is immediately under the glorious ridge of
Bennachie. Like all lovers of ballad lore, I know by heart the poem of
the little wee man who had such prowess, and who invited the poet to go
with him to his green bower. After seeing magnificent examples of
dancing, the poet found himself lying in the mist at the foot of
Bennachie:--

"Out went the lichts, on cam' the mist,
Leddies nor mannie mair could I see;
I turned aboot, and gave a look,
I was just at the foot o' Bennachie."

The exquisite little ballad from which I quote is calculated to raise
expectations of