glantine,
Autumn, the golden vine,
Dear Northern Star!"

Hawthorn for May, eglantine for June, and in autumn a little tass of
the golden vine for our Northern Star. I am sure no one will grudge the
Princess these simple enjoyments, and of the produce of the last-named
pleasing plant, I wonder how many bumpers were drunk to her health
on the happy day of her bridal? As for the Laureate's verses, I would
respectfully liken his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on
"a windy headland." His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure,
which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it: and four times in the
midnight he shouts mightily, "Alexandra!" and the Pontic pine is whirled
into the ocean and Enceladus goes home.

Whose muse, whose cornemuse, sounds with such plaintive sweetness from
Arthur's Seat, while Edinburgh and Musselburgh lie rapt in delight,
and the mermaids come flapping up to Leith shore to hear the exquisite
music? Sweeter piper Edina knows not than Aytoun, the Bard of the
Cavaliers, who has given in his frank adhesion to the reigning dynasty.
When a most beautiful, celebrated and unfortunate princess whose memory
the Professor loves--when Mary, wife of Francis the Second, King of
France, and by her own right proclaimed Queen of Scotland and England
(poor soul!), entered Paris with her young bridegroom, good Peter
Ronsard wrote of her--

"Toi qui as veu l'excellence de celle
Qui rend le ciel de l'Escosse envieux,
Dy hardiment, contentez vous mes yeux,
Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle."*

* Quoted in Mignet's "Life of Mary."

"Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle." Here is an Alexandrine written
three hundred years ago, as simple as bon jour. Professor Aytoun is more
ornate. After elegantly complimenting the spring, and a description of
her Royal Highness's well-known ancestors the "Berserkers," he bursts
forth--

"The Rose of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride!
O loveliest Rose! our paragon and pride--
Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear--
What homage shall we pay
To one who has no peer?
What can the bard or wildered minstrel say
More than the peasant who on bended knee
Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee?
Words are not fair, if that they would express
Is fairer still; so lovers in dismay
Stand all abashed before that loveliness
They worship most, but find