to a girl, whom he has so often heard described as good and beautiful, that he knows beforehand he is certain to fall in love with her. What is the landscape he travels through as he walks with his friend towards her home?

All the land in flowery squares

Beneath a broad and equal blowing wind,
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
Drew downward; but all else of Heaven was pure
Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge,
And May with me from head to heel. And now
As though 'twere yesterday: as though it were
The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound
(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these)
Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze,
And where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood
Leaning his horns into the neighbour's field,
And lowing to his fellows. From the woods
Came voices of the well-contented doves.
The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,
But shook his song together as he neared
His happy home, the ground. To left and right
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm;
The red-cap whistled; and the nightingale
Sang loud, as though he were the bird of day.

This is a beautiful preparation for the most charming of Tennyson's shorter poems-"The Gardener's Daughter." So the key-note to many of Burns' ballads is struck at once by a vivid portraiture of the scenery where his cha

racters are placed. In one of the finest of them -destroyed, however, as has been already mentioned, by his anxiety to retain the foolish old burden of a well-known air-he does little more than describe the external objects by which he is surrounded, but extracts from each of them a sentiment in accordance with the state of his feelings. Omit the chorus, and the remainder rises into the dignity of a serious poem.

Again rejoicing nature sees

Her robe assume its vernal hues,
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep'd in morning dews.

And maun I still on Menie doat,

And bear the scorn that's in her e'e? For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk, An' it winna let a body be.

In vain to me the cowslips blaw,
In vain to me the vi'lets spring;
In vain to me, in glen or shaw,
The mavis and the lintwhite sing.

The merry ploughboy cheers his team,
Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks;
But life to me's a weary dream,

A dream of ane that never wauks.

The wanton coot the water skims,
Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,
The stately swan majestic swims,
And every thing is blest but I.

The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,
And owre the moorland whistles shrill;
Wi' wild, unequal, wand'ring step,
I meet him on the dewy hill.

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark,
Blythe waukens by the daisy's side,
And mounts and sings on flittering wings,
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.

Come, Winter, with thine angry howl,
And raging bend the naked tree :
Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,
When nature all is sad like me!

And maun I still on Menie doat,

And bear the scorn that's in her e'e? For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk, An' it winna let a body be.

In the same way, what a landscape of wintry desolation is presented to us in the opening stanzas of "My Nannie, O!" But in this instance, the spirit in which it is viewed impresses it with a character of content and happiness very different from the melancholy of the last picture, which consisted only of the happy aspects of nature-the blackbird's song and the bloom of the cowslip. In both the beauty of the picture consists in contrast. To the farmlabourer the setting of the wintry sun, however dreary the darkness it produces, is the signal not only of release from toil, but of the begin

ning of his journey over heath and hill to visit his sweetheart.

There were certain nights on which, with the consent of the elders, the young people of the neighbourhood, even though previously unknown to each other, were allowed to meet. In the pastoral districts of Clydesdale and Nithsdale that custom continues still. Perhaps it arises in those thinly-peopled regions from the absence of any town or village where acquaintance could naturally be formed. There are lonely farmhouses, many miles away from the nearest habitation, with the cart-roads impassable in the bad weather, and the daily labour at other seasons. requiring the undivided attention of all the household. In situations such as these the young lad or lass would grow up in a state of savage isolation, unless. it were for the custom now alluded to, by which an adventurous swain might traverse the mountain, and by tapping on the window procure an interview with any curious maiden who might be inclined to respond to the summons. She would put on her snood, and go out into the night to see who the visitor was. He would probably begin, after the manner of young Norval, by telling her his name, and where he fed his flock. If the impression was mutually agreeable, the visit would be repeated, till in the course of time he would be invited in,

and introduced to the family circle. By this simple and well-understood arrangement, the solitude of the shieling among the hills, or farmhouse in the valley, was compensated for. .There was no master of the ceremonies, to be sure, to make the formal introduction; the tap on the window-pane supplied the place of that very polite official, and an acquaintance sprang up between the boy and girl, not the less pleasant perhaps, that it was entirely of their own making. The hero of the little ballad now to be quoted seems to have got over the first difficulty. His Nannie has given him several meetings, and at the trysted hour expects the well-known signal. No wonder he is in a rapture of delight at the last blink of the expiring sun. The twelve or fourteen miles of rugged way will soon be got over, and he will forget the storm and journey at the first "whisper in the porch."

Behind yon hills where Lugar flows,
'Mang moors an' mosses many, O,
The wintry sun the day has clos'd,
And I'll awa to Nannie, O.

The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill;
The night's baith mirk and rainy, O;
But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal,
An' owre the hills to Nannie, O.