h whose own "stuff" he was but
imperfectly acquainted, to which Lord Byron rejoins, that (alluding to
Lord Byron being a minor) he would have said a much cleverer and severer
thing had he quoted Dr Johnson's sarcasm, that "many men, many women,
and many _children_ could write as well as Ossian."

We venture, in fine, to predict that dear to every Scottish heart shall
for ever remain these beautiful fragments of Celtic verse--verse, we
scruple not to say, containing in the Combat of Fingal with the Spirit
of Loda, and in the Address to the Sun--two of the loftiest strains of
poetic genius, vieing with, surpassing "all Greek, all Roman fame." And
in spite of Brougham's sneer, and Johnson's criticisms, and the more
insolent attacks of Macaulay, Scotchmen both Highland and Lowland will
continue to hear in the monotony of the strain, the voice of the
tempest, and the roar of the mountain torrent, in its abruptness they
will see the beetling crag and the shaggy summit of the bleak Highland
hill, in its obscurity and loud and tumid sounds, they will recognize
the hollows of the deep glens and the mists which shroud the cataracts,
in its happier and nobler measures, they will welcome notes of poetry
worthy of the murmur of their lochs and the waving of their solemn
forests, and never will they see Ben-Nevis looking down over his clouds
or Loch Lomond basking amidst her sunny braes, or in grim Glencoe listen
to the Cona singing her lonely and everlasting dirge beneath Ossian's
Cave, which gashes the breast of the cliff above it, without remembering
the glorious Shade from whose evanishing lips Macpherson has extracted
the wild music of his mountain song.

GEO. GILFILLAN.

* * * * *

ALASTAIR BUIDHE MACIAMHAIR, the Gairloch Bard, always wore a "_Cota
Gearr_" of home-spun cloth, which received only a slight dip of
indigo--the colour being between a pale blue and a dirty white. As he
was wading the river Achtercairn, going to a sister's wedding, William
Ross, the bard, accosted him on the other side, and addressing him said,

'S ann than aoibheal air bard an Rugha
'Sa phiuthar a dol a phosadh
B-fhearr dhuit fuireach aig a bhaile
Mo nach d' rinn thu malairt cota.

To which _Alastair Buidhe_ immediately replied--

Hud a dhuine! tha'n cota co'lach rium fhein
Tha e min 'us tha e blath
'S air cho mor 's