Without my sweet companion can I live?
Without thy lovely smile,

The dear reward of every virtuous toil,

What pleasures now can pall'd ambition give? Ev'n the delightful sense of well-earn'd praise, Unshar'd by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.

For my distracted mind
What succour can I find?

On whom for consolation shall I call?
Support me, every friend;

Your kind assistance lend,

To bear the weight of this oppressive woe.
Alas! each friend of mine,

My dear departed love, so much was thine,
That none has any comfort to bestow.
My books, the best relief

In every other grief,

Are now with your idea sadden'd all :

Each favourite author we together read

My tortur'd memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead.

We were the happiest pair of human kind;
The rolling year its varying course perform❜d,
And back return'd again;

Another and another smiling came,

And saw our happiness unchang'd remain :

Still in her golden chain

Harmonious concord did our wishes bind:
Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.
O fatal, fatal stroke,

That all this pleasing fabric love had rais'd
Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton vice with envy gaz'd,
And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd,
With soothing hope, for many a future day,
In one sad moment broke !—

Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay;
Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign,
Or against his supreme decree
With impious grief complain,

That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade; Was his most righteous will-and be that will obey'd.

ROBERT FERGUSSON.
BORN 1750.-DIED 1774.

THIS unfortunate young man, who died in a madhouse at the age of twenty-four, left some pieces of considerable humour and originality in the Scottish dialect. Burns, who took the hint of his Cotter's Saturday Night from Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle, seems to have esteemed him with an exaggerated partiality, which can only be accounted for by his having perused him in his youth. On his first visit. to Edinburgh, Burns traced out the grave of Fergusson,

VOL. V.

R

and placed a monument over it at his own expense, inscribed with verses of appropriate feeling.

Fergusson was born at Edinburgh, where his father held the office of accountant to the British Linenhall. He was educated partly at the high-school of Edinburgh, and partly at the grammar-school of Dundee, after which a bursary, or exhibition, was obtained for him at the university of St. Andrew's, where he soon distinguished himself as a youth of promising genius. His eccentricity was, unfortunately, of equal growth with his talents; and on one occasion, having taken part in an affray among the students, that broke out at the distribution of the prizes, he was selected as one of the leaders, and expelled from college; but was received back again upon promises of future good behaviour. On leaving college he found himself destitute, by the death of his father, and after a fruitless attempt to obtain support from an uncle at Aberdeen, he returned on foot to his mother's house at Edinburgh, half dead with the fatigue of the journey, which brought on an illness that had nearly proved fatal to his delicate frame. On his recovery he was received as a clerk in the commissary clerk's office, where he did not continue long, but exchanged it for the same situation in the office of the sheriff clerk, and there he remained as long as his health and habits admitted of any application to business. Had he possessed ordinary prudence he might have lived by the drudgery of copying papers; but the appearance of some of his

poems having gained him a flattering notice, he was drawn into dissipated company, and became a wit, a songster, a mimic, and a free liver; and finally, after fits of penitence and religious despondency, went mad. When committed to the receptacle of the insane, a consciousness of his dreadful fate seemed to come over him. At the moment of his entrance; he uttered a wild cry of despair, which was reechoed by a shout from all the inmates of the dismal mansion, and left an impression of inexpressible horror on the friends who had the task of attending him. His mother, being in extreme poverty, had no other mode of disposing of him. A remittance, which she received a few days after, from a more fortunate son, who was abroad, would have enabled her to support the expense of affording him attendance in her own house; but the aid did not arrive till the poor maniac had expired.

THE FARMER'S INGLE.

Et multo imprimis hilarans convivia Baccho,
Ante focum, si frigus erit.

VIRG. BUC.

WHAN gloamin grey out owre the welkin keeks';
Whan Batie ca's his owsen2 to the byre;
Whan Thrasher John, sair dung, his barn-door
steeks*,

An' lusty lasses at the dightin' tire;

1 Peeps. Oxen.—3 Fatigued.—4 Shuts.-5 Cleansing.

What bangs' fu' leal the e'enin's coming cauld,

An' gars snaw-tappit Winter freeze in vain; Gars' dowie mortals look baith blithe an' bauld, Nor fley'd' wi' a' the poortith o' the plain; Begin, my Muse! and chaunt in hamely strain.

Frae the big stack, weel winnow't on the hill,

5

Wi' divots theekit frae the weet an' drift;
Sods, peats, and heathery turfs the chimley fill,
An' gar their thickening smeek salute the lift.
The gudeman, new come hame, is blithe to find,
Whan he out owre the hallan flings his een,
That ilka turn is handled to his mind;

That a' his housie looks sae cosh an' clean;
For cleanly house loes he, though e'er sae mean.

Weel kens the gudewife, that the pleughs require
A heartsome meltith, an' refreshin' synd 10
O' nappy liquor, owre a bleezin' fire:

Sair wark an' poortith downa11 weel be join'd.
Wi' butter'd bannocks now the girdle 12 reeks;

I' the far nook the bowie 1s briskly reams;
The readied kail 14 stands by the chimley cheeks,

An' haud the riggin' het wi' welcome streams,
Whilk than the daintiest kitchen 15 nicer seems.

What bangs fu' leal-what shuts out most comfortably.Makes.-3 Frightened.-4 Thatched with turf.-5 Chimney.Smoke.-7 The inner wall of a cottage. · 8 Comfortable.— 9 Meal. 10 Drink.-" Should not.-12 A flat iron for toasting cakes.13 Beer-barrel.-14 Broth with greens.-15 Kitchen here means what is eat with bread; there is no English word for it; obsonium is the Latin.