CHAP, x.] CHARACTER OF THE FISHER-FOLK. 471 



As will be inferred from these details, the fisher-folk, as a 

 body, are not literary or intellectual. They have few books, 

 and many of them never look at a newspaper. It is not sur- 

 prising, therefore, that only one author has arisen among the 

 fisher-people Thomas Mathers, fisherman, St. Monance, Fife- 

 shire. We have had many poets from the mechanic class, and 

 even the colliers from the deep caverns of the earth have begun 

 to sing. Mathers' volume is entitled, Musings in Verse by Sea 

 and Shore. The following lines will at once explain the author's 

 ambition and exhibit his style : 



" I crave not the harp o' a Burns sae strong, 



Nor the lyre o' a sweet Taunahill ; 

 For those are the poets unrivalled in song, 

 Can melt every heart, and inspire every tongue, 



Frae the prince to the peasant, at will. 



" To weep wi' the wretched, the hapless to niourn, 



To glow wi' the guid and the brave ; 

 To cheer the lone pilgrim, faint and forlorn, 

 Wi' breathin's that kindle and language that burn, 



Is the wealth and the world I would crave." 



The British fisher-people as a class are very sober and in- 

 dustrious, and they are becoming more intelligent, and, it is 

 to be presumed, less superstitious. The children in the fish- 

 ing villages are being educated ; and in time, when they grow 

 to man's and woman's estate, they will no doubt influence the 

 fisheries for the better. Many of the seniors are now teetotal, 

 and while at the herring-fishing prefer tea to whisky. The 

 homes of some of the fisher-folks, on the Berwickshire and 

 Northumberland coasts, are clean and tidy, and the proprie- 

 tors seem to be in possession of a great abundance of good 

 cheer. 



It is, no doubt, considered by some to be an easy way to 

 wealth to prosecute the herring or white fisheries, and secure 

 a harvest grown on a farm where there is no rent payable, the 



