issued in 1824, with a Life of Dunbar, by David Laing. One of his pleasantest poems, The Merle (Blackbird) and the Nightingale, is a dialogue between these two birds, the Merle advocating a joyous life spent in the service of earthly love, while the Nightingale avers that the only worthy love is that which is given solely to God. They debate the matter through a dozen stanzas, when the Merle avows himself convinced by the representations of the Nightingale:

THE MERLE AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

Then said the Merle: mine error I confess;
This frustir love is all but vanity:

Blind ignorance me gave sic hardiness,
To argue so again' the verity;

Wherefore I counsel every man that he
With love not in the feindis net be tone,

But love the love that did for his love die:

All love is lost but upon God alone.

Then sang they both with voices loud and clear;
The Merle sang: Man, love God that has thee wrought,
The Nightingale sang: Man, love the Lord most dear,
That thee and all this world made of nought.

The Merle said: Love him that thy love has sought
Fro' heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone.
The Nightingale sang: And with his dead thee bought:
All love is lost but upon Him alone.

Then flew thir birdis o'er the boughis sheen,

Singing of love amang the leavis small

Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein,

Both sleeping, waking, in rest and in travail;

Me to recomfort most it does avail,

Again for love, when love I can find none,
To think how sung this Merle and Nightingale :
All love is lost but upon God alone.

The Dance consists of ten stanzas. Mahoun (that is, Mahomet, a kind of incarnation of the Evil One) summons his principal servitors to make an entertainment before him. The Seven Deadly Sins make their appearance, and each of them recites a verse satirizing the vices of the times:

THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS.

III.

Lets see, quoth he, now wha begins:
With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins
Begoud to leap at anis.

And first of all in Dance was Pride,
With hair wyld back, and bonnet on side,
Like to make vaistie wanis ;
And round about him, as a wheel,
Hang all in rumples to the heel

His kethat for the nanis:

Mony proud trumpour with him trippit
Through scalding fire, aye as they skippit
The girned with hideous granis.

IV.

Then ire came in with sturt and strife;
His hand was aye upon his knife,

He brandished like a beir:
Boasters, braggars, and bargainers,
After him passit in two pairs,

All boden in feir of weir;

In jacks, and scryppis, and bonnets of steel,
Their legs were chainit to the heel,

Frawart was their affeir:

Some upon other with brands beft,

Some jaggit others to the heft,

With knives that sharp could shear.

V.

Next in the Dance followit Envy,
Filled full of feud and felony.

Hid malice and despite :

For privy hatred that traitor tremlit;
Him followit mony freik dissemlit,
With fenyeit wordis quhyte :
And flatterers into men's faces;
And backbiters in secret places,
To lie that had delight;
And rownaris of false lesings,
Alace! that courts of noble kings
Of them can never be quit.

VI.

Next him in Dance came Covetyce,
Root of all evil, and ground of vice,
That never could be content:
Catives, wretches, and ockeraris,
Hudpikes, hoarders, gatheraris,
All with that warlock went:
Out of their throats they shot on other
Het, molten gold, me thocht, a futher,
As fire-flaucht maist fervent;
Aye as they toomit them of shot,
Fiends filled them new up to the throat
With gold of all kind prent.

VII.

Syne Sweirness, at the second bidding,
Came lik a sow out of a midding,
Full sleepy was his grunyie:
Mony swear bombard belly huddroum,
Mony slut, daw, and sleepy duddroun,
Him servit aye with sonnyie ;
He drew them furth intill a chain,
And Belial with a bridle rein

Ever lashed them on the lunyie :
In Daunce they were so slaw of feet,
They gave them in the fire a heat,
And made them quicker of cunyie.

VIII.

Then Lechery, that laithly corpse,
Came berand like ane baggit horse,

17

And Idleness did him lead;
There was with him ane ugly sort,
And mony stinking foul tramort,
That had in sin been dead:

When they were enterit in the Dance,
They were full strance of countenance,
Like torches burning red.

IX.

Then the foul monster, Gluttony,
Of wame insatiable and greedy,
To Dance he did him dress:
Him followit mony foul drunkart,
With can and collop, cup and quart,
In surfit and excess;

Full mony a waistless wally-drag,
With wames unwieldable, did furth wag,
In creesh that did incress:

Drink! aye they cried, with mony a gaip,
The fiends gave them het lead to laip,
Their leveray was na less.

THE TRUE LIFE.

Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind
The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow;
To God be humble, to thy friend be kind,
And with thy neighbor gladly lend and borrow;
His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow;
Be blythe in hearte for my aventure,

For oft with wise men it has been said aforow
Without Gladness availes no Treasure.

Make thee gude cheer of it that God thee sends,
For warld's wrak but welfare nought avails;
Nae gude is thine save only that thou spends,
Remanant all thou bruikes but with bails:
Seek to solace when sadness thee assails;
In dolour lang thy life may not endure,
Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sails;
Without Gladness availes no Treasure.

DUNCAN, HENRY, a Scottish clergyman and the originator of savings banks, born near Dumfries, in 1774; died in 1846. In 1810 he instituted at Ruthwell a parish savings' bank, the success of which led to the establishment of other banks of the same character. He also discovered in 1828 the footprints of animals on layers of clay between the sandstone beds in a quarry in Dumfriesshire. He was the author of The Cottage Fireside and The Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons (1836–37).

BLESSINGS OF THE DEW.

The beneficial effects of dew, in reviving and refreshing the entire landscape, have already been adverted to. How frequently do we observe the aspect of the fields and woods improved by the dew of a single night. In the summer season, especially, when the solar heat is most intense, and when the luxuriant vegetation requires a constant and copious supply of moisture, an abundant formation of dew often seasonably refreshes the thirsty herbs, and saves them from the parching drought. In Eastern countries like Judea, where the summer is fervid and long continued, and the evaporation excessive, dew is both more needed, and formed in much greater abundance, than in our more temperate climate. There it may be said to interpose between the vegetable world and the scorching influence of a powerful and unclouded sun— to be the hope and joy of the husbandman, the theme of his earnest prayer and heartfelt gratitude. Accordingly, the sacred writers speak of it as the choicest of blessings wherewith a land can be blessed; while the want of it is with them almost synonymous with a curse. Moses, (19)

VOL. IX.-2